by Nick McIntire

Created on: August 18, 2008

I have a story. It's not a happy story, and I don't think it's particularly uplifting, but it's worth telling; if nothing else than because I don't think it's fair to let a bad thing happen twice. So maybe if you read this someday, you'll do a better job with what you're given than me. Maybe not, I don't know that it matters that much any more.
Sometimes I wonder. What if things had gone differently? What if I'd lived another life? Would I have been happier? If the characters are the same, but you change the cast, what happens to the show? It has to make a difference or else why bother, right? I wonder about that sometimes.

They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and I know my daddy spent all his life in his father's shade. Hell, all of us did. Some men try to be better men than their fathers, others just try to live up to a legend. That's how it was for Daddy. And what makes it all the worse is you can't. How can a man match a story, a myth that never really happened? As long as there's a story, no one stands a chance, do they? Because fiction is much too strong when no one's watching reality. And no one in my family had for a long, long time.
Now that's not really fair, because when I say "family", I mean my daddy's people. Mama's a whole other story. If I had any hope at all, it was in Mama. You know usually they say that parents find hope in their children, but this was different. See, I'm a Hardy. Back in Odessa that used to mean something. It used to be a name people would associate with money or fancy cars. Grandma and Granddad had both for a while. But now, well, now it's more of a fading memory, still shining in the dull glow of dusk, a remnant of gilt still giving the occasional cause to sparkle. But really, people remember the story. See, when you tell somebody something enough times, they start to believe you, and that's how it was for the Hardies. I think my granddad thought that if he told himself he was smarter and better than everyone else that it might just come true. In a way, I guess it did.
Now Mama never really bought the whole story, and in the end I think that saved her. When you don't climb onto the pedestal with everyone else, there's not near so far to fall when it all starts to crumble. As for me, well, I guess I was on top with everyone else, even when the cracks started to show.
My name is Tomas Baker Hardy. There's no special reason I'm named that. There's no great general or hero from a romance novel, no movie star or

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