My name is Michael Blackwood Barringer, but everyone calls me Stone. The story around the origins of my nickname isn't particularly creative or unique. The way I heard it, it was simply because I was a very big kid. Heavy as a rock to carry. Hard as a boulder to move. Therefore, I was given the nickname Stone.

The name stuck with me through my younger years in elementary school and into adulthood, not just because of my size, but because no one could really read my emotions.

Kids called me Stone, because they didn't dare call me anything else. They were mostly frightened of me and rightly so. I was tall and muscular for my age and often used it to my advantage. Starting fights. Breaking up fights.

There were also a couple of teachers who used the nickname as well. They would often say that I was unreadable or unapproachable, because I wore a "stoned face" throughout the day. I think that even one or two of them wanted to get me tested at one point for a personality disorder.

I'm sure that if I had been a cute little girl, with ringlets, and a big grin across my face all the time, those same teachers would have discovered that I wasn't some damaged or flawed kid, but that actually I was pretty intelligent for my age. Smart but bored. Unfortunately, most of my mediocre teachers couldn't get past the fact that I was bigger than them, stronger than them, and quieter than most. They didn't realize I had a brain, and I'm not even sure how much they would have cared even if they had known. I don't bring out the nurturing instinct in people. I bring out the urge to fight or take flight.

For the five years that I served as a prisoner in the New York State penal system, I was also known as Stone or inmate 745924. I served my time quietly and without any real serious issues. Sure, there were definitely times when I had to prove that I was the wrong one to fuck with, but unlike the many prison television shows and movies depicting horrible daily violence such as murder and rape, jail was actually pretty damn boring.

Day in and day out, it was the same routine for mostly every man there. Everyone who isn't serving life in prison, just wants to serve their time quietly so that they can make parole. I was no different. I served my predictable and ritualistic sentence one month, one week, and one day at a time. Biding my time. And that time has finally come.

I was released this morning after serving five of my seven year prison sentence with an early probation under specific conditions. When felons like me are released under a court agreement, someone has to vouch for them. They need to vouch that I won't leave the state in which I committed the crime (New York). Vouch that I'll meet with my assigned probation officer regularly. And vouch that I won't be a menace to the community and actually become a productive member of society.

Because I was an exemplary prisoner, and have no real home to call my own in New York, the court was willing to grant me a parole transfer to another state and place me under the supervision of the one person I needed to put a roof over my head and that's Nate Carson.

Nate isn't my family by blood. Actually, I don't know if I have any blood relatives to speak of. Never cared to find out. If they don't give a damn about me, why should I give a rat's ass about them? Nate Carson was the best friend of my adoptive father, Jack. They were very close. Served over twenty-two years as rangers in the army together.

When I was just a kid, and Jack and I still lived in Pennsylvania, we spent a lot of time over at Nate's house. Sometimes we'd have Chinese takeout together, while they taught me how to play poker. Other times we'd watch a ballgame, while I eagerly listened to many of their old army tales. And then a few times it was obvious that we were over there, so that they could make me babysit while they grabbed a couple of brews at the local pub. That's how I first met Nate's only daughter.

While it wasn't my idea of a good time at that age, I actually didn't mind watching the soft-spoken little bookworm for a couple of hours while the two of them caught up. It made Jack happy, and if anyone deserved some moments of happiness, it was Jack.

He'd had a hard as nails life, which was one of the reasons why he seemed to be so drawn to me. I'd had one too. Both of his parents were addicts and he was raised by his grandmother and welfare. After she passed, he enrolled in the army looking for somewhere to belong. For someone to give a damn about him. That's what he said he found during his time in the armed forces. A family.

I think because of all of that, Jack wanted to save me too, and in many ways, he did. I was the little boy in the foster home that no one wanted to adopt. I was too quiet. Too big. Too old. Too much of a wildcard. When I finally moved in with him, I was also too much of a pain in the ass. I acted out. I pushed him. I tested my boundaries. It was all because I didn't trust that Jack could love me. I didn't think I was worthy of it. If my own parents threw me away, then what would this surly old army ranger want with me.

But he did want me. Probably the only person that ever did or ever would. So, in my eyes, Jack was a saint. A saint who left this earth too soon. I still to this day don't know how to really deal with the fact that he's gone. I don't think anyone can teach you how to move on from the biggest loss of your life. You just have to try. In any and all of the ways that you can, because the alternative is to just lay down and die.

And I sure as shit ain't dying.

So here I am.

Headed south toward Philadelphia, on the New Jersey Turnpike, in Nate's Chevy pickup. Calculating how long it will take me to figure out if he has money and if he does where it is, before I can get the fuck out of Dodge for good.

I feel an emotion that is so foreign to me when I look over at Nate. Guilt. Like a small pebble stuck in my throat. Probably because he looks so happy.

He thinks he's doing his old friend Jack a favor by taking in his son. He thinks I'm getting my shit together. He thinks I'm a good kid that's just been dealt a terrible hand in life. And while it's accurate that I have been dealt a fucked up hand...the real truth is that I'm just plain ole' fucked up.

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