Number 3...

There is a poem called "The Highwayman" by a fellow named Alfred Noyes, a narrative in point of fact.  I met the poem courtesy of Loreena McKinnet's most excellent song of the same name.  It's a bit of a sad story, really.  You see, the highwayman loved Bess, the innkeepers beautiful daughter, and in a midnight conversation at her window he confides to her he's after a major prize that night.  He tells her if the pursuit is hot to look for him the following night, I'm supposing (it doesn't really say in the poem) with the intent that they should elope and take his newly won treasure with them.  But... he is overheard by the ostler ( had to look that one up, the ostler was the stable hand) who also loves Bess, a hopeless love, bitter jealousy, and he betrays the highwayman.  A troop of King George's redcoats arrive, and set Bess to be the bait in their trap.  They bind her standing in front of her window, several are in the room with her waiting the chance to shoot the highwayman.  In point of fact, they lean a spare musket against the girl, wedge it under her breast where the muzzle points at her head!  But Bess loves the highwayman something dear, through the long hours of waiting she works, and in the end she manages to get one finger on the trigger of the spare musket.  Yes, when she sees the highwayman on the road she fires the musket, sacrifices her life to give him warning.  He flees, escapes the trap, but the following day when the full tale reaches his ears he is stricken mad with grief and guilt and charges back to be promptly gunned down in the road.  Not such a happy ending, in point of fact the poem speaks to how when the moon and the wind reprise that fateful night you can still hear the highwayman on the road, can still see Bess at her window. 

So much is in the poem, but somehow I don't think the story is full told.  Somehow I don't think Bess stays at that window, no, I don't.  I think Bess walks the night from time to time in anger, such anger that not only can she manifest at will she can manipulate the world of the living as well.  I'll leave it to you my reader to fill in the details of who she hunts, I'll leave it to you to speculate on how a spirit came by a long slide Colt .45, to guess if she can actually wield the weapon.  I will say I'd not like to be a soldier among the redcoats should she appear!  Certainly not one who misuses the innocent. 

These days when supernatural fantasies are such a large part of our entertainments the full story of Bess might make a fine vehicle for a young and beautiful actress with raven hair and the ability to portray such anger, a fine platform to tell of the injustices worked in the name of justice.  I think there is a great deal more of Bess' story to be told.

Why is this post titled Number 3?  Because when these thoughts were filling my head I was sitting in my favorite greasy spoon diner drawing, and it was a number 3 pencil I had in my hand as the illustration for the continued story of Bess began to take shape.  In point of fact, I worked the entire image in #3.  Not such a good choice, #3 is to hard, to gray, doesn't scan in worth a hoot.  Not nearly enough contrast. 

I was thinking of Bess, and drawing, and listening to a girl in the next booth wearing ZTA sorority colors telling her girl friend all about her drinking problems, and all the boys she'd fucked just for sport, and how she made it a habit of using and misusing the one boy she wouldn't bed, the one she used for comfort and companionship for years while body slamming his feelings time and time again, the one who'd just told her he'd had enough.  No my dear, despite your protests to the contrary the boy had it right, you are an alcoholic little slut, not because you like to sample three different cocks a week just for bragging rights, but because you do so totally without honor, taking delight in mistreating someone's feelings for you by making sure he knew names and dates and details.  You and the ostler are cut from the same cloth.  You don't want to meet Bess either, she might just slap the living shit out of you. God forgive me the thought, but I wanted to, right there in that diner I wanted to bend her over the back of that booth and slap her bare and well used ass until her wails went from outrage to pain, and then say "now that I have your full and undivided attention let me explain a few things..."  I'm sure it would have been a brand new experience for her.  There are creatures walking the earth in mortal form as vile as anything found in the legends, that much is for sure.  Of course I didn't, didn't say a word, just hoped a thought at the boy: grow a set of balls lad, this one isn't worth your time.  Use her for an example of what you don't want in your life.  That's what I plan to do with my memories of her.