Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/pixies-1021586/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=785742">Daniel Agrelo</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=785742">Pixabay</a>


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“Look, I need you to understand something real quick – you are going to keep thinking you have courage because you are on the other side of a computer screen, but your courage from a keyboard is going to get you in big trouble in real life. You are going to meet a man like me but just a bit less calm who is going to take everything you think you have and maybe even *you* out of this world. You are a penny ante civilian trolling hardened veterans – your life is measured out in finger strokes when you do stupid stuff like that.”

“Ooooooooh,” nine-year-old Milton Trent said while ear-hustling with his best friend nine-year-old George Ludlow on Col. H.F. Lee, George's big cousin late of Special Forces, Judge Advocate General, and maybe just a touch of Black Ops.

“See, Cousin Harry is a tenor and people keep thinking that because he isn't a basso profundo like Papa, they can call and say dumb stuff,” George said. “But it's like he says – there are some people it just doesn't pay to call and say dumb stuff to.”

“Let me explain to you how this works. You are sitting in your apartment overlooking that fifth little bend in the Roanoke River on a Dell laptop that is exactly three years, nine months, and four days old, serial number D-256JHL795. You have five bookshelves, and dead center in the middle of the third one is *Fifty Shades of Gray,* which explains why that big copy of the Bible you keep on your coffee table has dust on it. 

"You are five feet and eight inches tall, and so that middle shelf of your middle bookshelf is just above your eye level – you read from the book last night and put it right back up there for convenience, and there is a slot recessed into the side of that shelf in which you slip it when you do not want it seen and want people to think you are holy and not actually one girl lying about her age short of being in jail for inappropriate condust with a minor – at your big age of *60 years, seven months, fifteen days, nine hours and ten minutes.*

“That's right. I'm the Invisible Man standing in your apartment. You just didn't know until I told you  – but you think you are safe trolling men like me for clicks and giggles on Twitter.”

“Uh oh,” Milton said. “How is he here and there at the same time?”

“We better stop eavesdropping,” George said, “because he could also be here and there and behind us, not happy about us eavesdropping.”

“That Angel of Death stuff he does is serious!” Milton said as he and George went back over to the Trent porch. 

“Well, yeah, but he is trying to save a life today,” George said. “See, the difference between Cousin Harry and Papa is, Cousin Harry is angelic. You're going to get a warning even at some big age. Papa? Nah. Papa *is consequences* for adults, especially if Grandma and we his grandchildren are not around to see. There was this situation in the year when he was in court getting me out of foster care into his and Grandma's custody – a road rage incident in which this grown man was bullying a woman on the side of the road. That man had gotten out and had a tire iron in his hand and was acting like he was going to break that woman's window.”

“Oh, I know that man got hurt, real bad,” Milton said. “My father would have handled that after telling Mom to drive us out of sight.”

“That's exactly what happened,” George said. “Andrew found the news article this year about it – and a video. It's not pretty, it's not safe, and it's not fair –  Papa was that man's whole life of consequences, in one minute. He is probably still looking for teeth, pieces of his jaw, and some joints in the fingers holding that tire iron.”

“Wow,” Milton said. “He'll never do that again; he's too busy looking for pieces of him.”

“See, what I have come to realize is, when you don't get your life together,” George said, “one day you get up, and you never get another chance. Cousin Harry and your dad are like that last chance you get. Papa and Edwina are what you get when you miss it.”

“Yeah, Edwina,” Milton said, “and at my house right now, don't mess with either of my Stepforth grandparents, my big sister Vanna, and even my baby sister Gracie too much because she is really sweet but also can mess your life up quick. I've been on the floor tied up in a rug and dragged off to Dad after pulling her hair..”

“Look,” George said. “Robert my baby brother is five, and I've stopped picking on him – that boy will kick you in the shins and push you down and slam all the workout weight he has from working out with Papa and Cousin Harry on you while you're still trying to figure out how you are nine and getting the business from someone who is five.”

“We just gotta keep our lives together,” Milton said. “God can send those consequences any kind of way He wants – we just have to do the right thing and stay out of the way.”