Ned
Ned Turpin hit the road in ‘35 and hasn’t really stopped moving since. He’s picked cotton and cut timber and bucked barley and moved rails on a train track. He prefers to sleep inside but you get by with the circumstances you’re handed. He can’t quite remember when it was that he gave up on having something, being somewhere permanent, one woman, a place he called home. That just kind of slipped away as a possibility and now he’s living along the best he can. No sense worrying. If you got no plans, they can’t go wrong. He’s done this kind of vagrant time before, you just have to ride it out, keep your mouth shut when it needs to be shut, work enough when the man has got his eye on you and coast when he doesn’t. Ned likes red beans and cold beer and a honky tonk with enough women in it to make a fool of yourself. He did some boxing when he was younger, nothing big, just pick up a few bucks being an opponent, and he always managed not to get hit too hard. Surviving is winning. Some of these young ones, got lots of pride, lots of dreams, it makes him sorry to see them. They’ll learn soon enough. You fall in the river, makes no sense to be swimming upstream. Just let it take you along till you see a good spot to climb out. And if that don’t come, well- enjoy the ride.
