Our families and work things like that. Then he asked about my boyfriend. I froze. "We broke up last week. I don't really want to talk about it." I sa...d as we turned into a dark lane that was a few streets away from my house. Ray stopped smiling and frowned."He was a scumbag anyway. I always knew you could do better." Ray was always the protective friend. "If only I could find a nice guy like you" I sighed. Ray looked at me with a funny look in his eyes and we kept walking. About halfway up the. “Jefferson, can you meet with Judge Parker before he has court today? If he can get us some help with Duncan, I’ll take him myself to wherever the doctor is that can help.”“I’ll leave now, Eli. Judge Parker comes to the courthouse early to look over the cases for the day. I’ll ask him for a few minutes of his time. Eli, I’ll go with you, if Judge Parker will let me. I’m familiar with St. Louis and maybe the two of us can get Duncan some help.”“See what you can do, Jefferson. It hurts me to see. “Come on down here girls, me and my brothers want some loving and we don’t aim to wait much longer before we come up in that wagon and get some,” he taunted. It was obvious the four had been drinking, by the way they slurred their words.The woman grabbed her reins up from where she had them wrapped around the brake release and spanked the mules with the leather reins to get out of there. One of the four brothers stepped up to grab a mule by its bridle and held the nervous team still.“Come on. The clothes pins, collar,bandages and plugs were gone now. A cape hide his arm restraints.A big bowl of tiny blue perm rods was now being emptied as his two"personal" styling assistants worked together to wind what remainedof his hair. Carl was being "piggy-backed", they said. He had no idea what they were talking about, but they assuredhim that he would "just love" how tight the curl was. People stopped to look at what was happening to him. The menshowed some interest. It was.