Stake my future on a hell of a past
Looks like tomorrow is a coming on fast
Ain’t complaining about what I got
Seen better times but who has not.
Silvio silver and gold
Won’t buy back the beat of a heart grown cold
Silvio I gotta go
Find out something only dead men know.
Honest as the next jade rolling that stone
When I come and knockin’ don’t throw me no bone
I’m an old boll weevil looking for a home
If you don’t like it you can leave me alone.
I can snap my fingers and require the rain
From a clear blue sky and turn it off again
I can stroke your body and relieve your pain
And charm the whistle off an evening train.
Give what I got until I got no more
I take what I get until I even the score
You know I love you and further more
When it is time to go you got an open door.
I can tell your fancy I can tell your plain
You give something up for ev’rything you gain
Since ev’ry pleasure’s got an edge of pain
Pay for your ticket and don’t complain.
One of these days and it won’t be long
Going down the valley and sing my song
I will sing it loud and sing it strong
Let the echo decide if I was right or wrong.
After forty chapters, with all of that being said, the story wasn’t over, and still isn’t over, but Silvio is all fun and games. The only things true in the epilogue are (a) the company did win ‘best places to work’ shortly after I was fired, (b) Rudy picked up the check for lunch, (c) Vernon told Rudy my firing was a decision of the Leadership Council, and (d) Vernon told Summer that she was ‘totally unqualified….’
Initially, the final chapters were about the conversations between Summer and me mentioned in Cream of the Strange. “Mirror scenes” of my dialogue with Jane, Claire, The Sorceress, Penelope, Warren, etc. (you see some remains of this dialogue in the scene with Rudy at the last day’s lunch). When Summer agreed to replace Warren, I knew then how she and I would each be the other’s ‘mentor and confidant,’ just in different areas of work life. The ending was really sweet, I thought, but I cut all of it.
Summer did quit the company a few weeks after my departure, but she was persuaded by the MP to come back, and her departure was considered a leave of absence, I think. After Summer returned to the company, she never responded to my e-mails/texts again, or messages sent via Phinizy that I was hoping to get in touch with her. I didn’t try very hard to reach her, however, because I realized what had happened. Just like Harriet, I never heard from her again. Wonder why. There was nothing I could do but rewrite the ending.
A sad conclusion to an otherwise uplifting story, but I envisioned the story to begin on Day 1 and end on the final day, March 1, 2019. The end of the story couldn’t be sour, and the end of my days with the Company was inspiring to me because of the incredible kindness I received from those who found out, or I told, prior to that final day, and everything that has happened since then.
My days after the end of BPTW have been trials of many kinds, as always. The story of BPTW isn’t over, and if it’s interesting, and I can make it entertaining, I’ll write it. Because if you had to live it, you get to write it, right?
Best Places To Work! 