Terry's World
Enter a place where friendship trumps social norms and ingrained prejudice. Tom, Frank, Jerry, and Joe suddenly find themselves struggling to come to terms with the loss of their friend. The odds have been against these men from the very beginning.
Faced with the truth that their lifestyle hangs over their heads every day, they are forced to come to terms with who they are, what they do, and where they are likely to end up if they continue along the same path.
Theirs is a tale of reckless abandon—sex, drugs, and nowhere to go. Redemption becomes the mission, but fate may have other ideas. They learn just how difficult it can be to climb your way out of a pit without a ladder.
There is a lesson they will learn as they confront their own realities.
Sometimes help comes disguised as a man in a black suit.
Sometimes God breaks the rules.
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Clearwater Beach, Florida
Saturday, 8 July, 7:30 PM
Another sun-drenched day comes to an end on Clearwater Beach. The sun begins its nightly transit into the sea, lighting up the western horizon in a blaze of orange and pink.
A hundred yards away, two Pinellas County sheriff’s deputies watch from their Kawasaki four-wheelers.
“Looks like drugs again.” The smaller deputy kills his engine.
“Yup.” The stocky one hollers over the sound of his still-running ride. “Think you’ve seen enough?”
“Nah. Give it a few more minutes.”
Nearby, a group of children shout with joy while their parents relax with local blueberry wine. Terry remains oblivious to it all—pacing, sweating, watching. For the last year, these sunsets have been his escape, a fleeting way to chase the feeling of being alive—what he remembers from his summers before meth.
Then, the LSD kicks in.
The rhythm of the waves takes on a new life. In his mind, rainbow-colored faeries chase the children across the shoreline. Something bounces off his forehead.
“Was that a horsefly… or Pegasus?” He laughs, loud and unrestrained, as a school of rainbow-colored flying fish pours across the beach.
The Approach
A hundred yards out, the stocky deputy shakes his head. “Alright, I’ve seen enough, dammit.”
He thinks of his own seventeen-year-old son. The deputies dismount—out of shape, weighed down by their gear, already sweating through their uniform blouses. They saunter toward Terry. They think they have plenty of time.
Suddenly, Terry’s core begins to cook. His mind betrays him.
Ever since his mother coaxed him into his first hit of Ice, he’s lived on the edge of a dull knife. He’s overheating. Fast. Too fast. It’s ninety degrees, and the thick Florida humidity keeps his sweat from cooling him. In the distance, he sees the heavy figures of the law approaching. To his warping brain, they look like Laurel and Hardy walking straight into a trap.
Hey, what are you guys doing here?
“Hey—stop!” Terry’s voice cracks as he points a trembling finger, trying to save the strange men who are walking toward him. “Quicksand! Be careful! Stop! Oh no.”
Terry laughs as the illusions sink without a trace. But his body can’t hold his mind’s attention anymore.
The Limit
He’s moving. He looks down at the place where his feet should be, but they’re not there.
“Where are you taking me?” His last words come as a whisper no one can hear.
His brain has exceeded its thermal limit. His face slams into the warm sand before he even knows he’s falling. A final kaleidoscope floods his mind as his cells choke on the heat.
Terry takes his last breath just as the real deputies finally step up to his body.
Laurel says to Hardy, “Damn. What a shame. He’s too young. I think we’re about to ruin a family’s weekend.”
“You never know,” Hardy says, looking down. “Sometimes the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.”
It happens fast like that sometimes.