This is a work of fiction.

This is the beginning of a series.

Stay tuned if you desire.

Across the great plains of the Midwest, above the land flowing with sweet tea, and below the Great North lived a boy. He was a peculiar boy but he didn’t like that word. It made him feel strange, and out of touch with his friends. His father would always say peculiar is a word people use when there is something they don’t understand that’s different. The boy would recite this to himself every morning. The boys name was Salt, and it was short for Salvatore.

He lived in a place not much different than yours. He was ten minutes from the beach, and ten minutes from the boonies. He had an eclectic lifestyle for such a boy as young as he. His age he rarely told because he didn’t like telling people; it felt too personal. He loved to skateboard with his mini board to the beach alone, and surf with this water logged board he found lodged in the rocks by the jetty. If he wasn’t by the beach surfing or munching on a grilled cheese, you could find him in the woods climbing trees and playing make believe. He was fond of wearing swimming trunks as often as he could with leather flip flops his mother fashioned for him from old ones his dad used. He would alternate between wearing t-shirts and long sleeve button ups that would always be held together by two buttons on the bottom while the rest were free at the top. He would cuff the sleeves then be off on his adventures.

It was the beginning of summer, and Salt wanted to have some walking around change. No one would hire him, and his parents wouldn’t pay him for the chores he had to do around the house. He was very solemn for a couple days meditating very hard on what to do. He was sipping on an Arnold Palmer on the front porch when a thought dashed through his mind. He grabbed the thought with such force he almost strangled it. After gently placing the thought back on the ground, he got to work. His mother had helped him build a fort in the far left of the back yard, a good hundred yards from the house. It was built like an old hunting cabin with a built in bed frame, a small porcelain sink, a toilet that you would pump, an old architects desk, a dark cherry wood table with two chairs his father made in his shop, a compact kitchen contraption with a build in hot plate, and a bookshelf full of wonderful stories.

Well, the thought that had almost escaped Salt was that he would turn his little hunting lodge into a one-bedroom hotel fully serviced by him. He bartered with his neighbor for a bucket of white paint, and a bucket of half used dark blue paint by trading him a half full bottle of Jim Beam he found on the beach. He put a couple coats of white on the outside, and used the rest of the bucket of dark blue on the inside. He swept, and cleaned what he could before setting up shop. Inside the lodge was decorated with a head of a small buck his father had shot above the bead, a large woven rug that covered a little over half of the floor space, and the walls had photos of old baseball stadiums & surfers. He would charge people $5 a night, and $25 for a week. He created a little path with stones that started at the front yard, and traveled to the front door of the cabin. He had a small sign that read room for rent. He would sit out front on his skateboard with a small red cooler filled with homemade Arnold Palmers to give to people who wanted to stay at his little nook. His parents had no clue what he intended, and assumed wrongfully he was in the middle of one of his made up adventures. It wasn’t long before someone inquired of the room, and the boy had his first customer. The young woman’s name was Martha, and she had run away.