I was laying in bed, staring at the ceiling in deep thought like every other morning, when I stumbled across a couple of memories. These memories found their place within the existing story and brought the entire scenario down an alternate timeline. This angering event will forever live rent-free inside my head for the rest of my days.

It’s an unsolved mystery worthy of prime time television: a newly retired man lands his childhood dream job. I was working for the Six Flags and Texas Railroad and training to be a fireman on the oldest operating steam locomotive in the entire state of Texas. I was honored and living inside my own personal heaven. Then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone.

Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this one. There is an “x” at the far top-right of the screen that will remove this “redundant” story from view, and you can go about your merry way on the internet American superhighway. That’s a highway that looks cool on Google maps, but it’s riddled with potholes and death around every corner.

I received a phone call on the day before my final test and terminated. An anonymous person made a Tik Tok video about one of my books. They claimed it contained pedophilia, and that it was unsafe for me to be working around children. I personally have five children and eight grandchildren. I’d never been so insulted in all my life. The book in question is with a tradition publisher and sold everywhere. Not quite sure how pedophilia managed to exist within a publicly traded work of old-west fiction, but my mystery groupie must’ve looked within and recognized something within themselves, pulling the brakes.

I did what I normally did. I turned to the internet, made a scene, and more than likely shot myself in the foot. Regardless, it was the most wrong thing that’d ever wronged me. The video and account were erased upon my termination but, after all this time, I believe it was an inside job.

There’s been a lot of villains since this whole thing started: ex-wives, ex-girlfriends, ex-friends, ex-colleagues; I have a lot of ex’s. This morning, however, something clicked that hadn’t before.

I remember when the treatment via my coworkers “shifted”. Being on the spectrum, I have a tendency to overshare with those I believe are my friends. What I always fail to recognize is, at a job, no one is anyone’s friend and everyone is trying to get a leg up at all times. The corporate ladder is littered with blood stains from unlucky souls who were flung to their deaths by “friends”.

I was walking down the tracks with my boss one day toward the end of my employment, looking for things that might possibly damage our old-lady aka the train or one of the guests on its multiple rotations around the park. I casually mentioned that my therapist suggested I was high on the spectrum and it’d been overlooked since my birth. She used the word Autism repeatedly. In hindsight, fifty years worth of life suddenly made sense.

When I told him of my most recent conundrum (of many) he quickly shut me down and instructed me to never say anything out loud about being Autistic ever again. He feared it would be the end of me at Six Flags Over Texas. I didn’t understand why.

Six Flags has low sensory areas for guests, hires the oddest among society (some wouldn’t even qualify as a Walmart door-greeter), and are HUGE supporters of the LGBTQ+ community. Most of the guys working on the railroad, because of our ages, may have been the most heterosexual employees in the entire park! What I’m saying is, Six Flags was more tolerant than any other employer I’ve had in life. That’s why I found it odd when the trouble began.

You see, there were certain people who were always just a little too curious about my personal life, and I believe they were the ones responsible for my termination. It was so sloppy and juvenile, I can’t help but think it was an inside job by those closest to me; those who continued to have dinner at my own table after I was gone or pretended to be gob-smacked by this most shocking of solutions.

Let me put it in perspective for those in the dark: The logic behind this place gave me a supervisor who wasn’t even old enough to be in the train’s cab with any of us. My outgoing personality, quick wit, and talents made me a guest favorite to the point I’d had more positive compliments than any other employee in the entire park for the last quarter in which I worked. Three days later, my teenage boss stumbled through my termination call.

No matter how many times I’ve been told this, or even told myself this, do everything you can to keep your personal life personal. It’s too late for me. I’ve been an author now for almost twenty years, and my social media presence has run from murderous to butterflies. It has caused me issues with every single job I’ve had since I first signed up for a Myspace account.

I fail to remember, even though I co-hosted an entire podcast season about Brandon Woodruff (I won’t recap; find The American Justice Podcast and listen to it) that others can’t live that Bruce Wayne/Batman fine line like a horror author in modern society. This event is going to haunt me until I die and, yes, it has caused me to have the darkest of thoughts at least once a day for years now. Other than the first personal death I ever experienced, I can’t think of any other scenario that saddens me more.

I just wish someone had the balls to come clean about the whole thing. Cancel-culture will get people killed in the upcoming lawless apocalypse. I know, because I plan on being the one doing the killing. My sadistic yet cool mask is on back order.

Preach truths, toke jokes, and shoplift Amazon. Life is like the X-Files; trust no one. Especially when it comes to your dreams.

Added after the initial post: I guess what disappoints me most is that this should’ve been a call to arms for the indie author community. Don’t get me wrong, I received a ton of support from some very awesome authors, but none of those supporters were “The Gatekeepers”. Instead, some of those spread rumors that I made the whole thing up.

More books are banned daily. Artists are being cancelled left and right by the highest ranking official in the country as though the Constitution itself were physically aflame and he had nothing better to do than read Twitter on the Presidential Pooper. I guess it was difficult to see my tiny red flag waving in a sea of mirrors. I just wish we could’ve made something of it. Screw the train; maybe I just wanted “change”?

But, change is hard…

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Looking for a new read? Try this one. It’s the one that got me fired. There’s even an audiobook on Amazon!