He was on That Sheeeit (2026)

I shot up suddenly in bed to the sharp sound of tires skittering over loose gravel. Brake lights gleaned in through the blinds and I looked at my phone to see what time it was, 6:30 AM. Was it Heath stopping by again to grab another miscellaneous item, a lawn chair, a cooler full of rain water from God knows how long ago, maybe a few beers, perhaps, or frozen chicken wings from the shed?

I had no clue, but I wrestled out of my sleeping bag and rolled on out of bed, moseying on over through the kitchen, intrigued, worried, and really confused.

My bare feet touched the cool linoleum floor as I searched for my slippers. I peeked on out through the blinds to see what all the commotion was about. It wasn’t Heath. A white Ford sat idling just inches away from my Corolla with the tailgate down. Heath didn’t own a white Ford. The only times I had seen him stop by here he was driving a side-by-side or a red Raptor wielding at least one beer in his hand.

Subtle footsteps tapped the concrete in a slow hustle like a power-walking mom roaming the streets of suburbia on a Sunday. The rhythm filled my ears, back-and-forth, thud, slow hustle, thud thud, slow hustle. I almost had a beat going on in my head, thinking about the Sink, Toilet skit from Theo Von. The grisly man was obscured through the shadows and I couldn't get a good look at him. Who was this? What was this creature? Is someone stealing firewood?

I grabbed my keys and walked on over to the front door looking out through the glazing towards the lake shrouded in deep fog.

I saw a grisly man with a thick beard and smiling grin walking with a stack of firewood in his arms toward his truck like Groucho Marx. It was an odd walk to say the least, eccentric, but I had listened to plenty of Heath's stories from the Low Boy Diaries, chronicling the life of a Redneck on his drunken escapades. So I knew the type of clowns and characters he associated with and this seemed pretty normal.

When he turned around, I swore he put his hands up like he was about to get arrested and in a loud whisper I heard, 'Don't shoot!'"

I laughed and cracked open the door, stepping out onto the front step. The air felt thick with a blanket of moisture kissing my face.

"Hey man, what's up?"

"Gotta grab wood...everytime I walked by I was sayin', 'Don't shoot! Don’t shoot!'"

"Haha...yeah, I know. I heard you, that's why I came out. Figured you knew Heath and weren’t some random dude crazy enough to steal wood at 6:30 in the morning."

"Nah...well...I am crazy though."

I shrugged it off and let him go about his work. He must have grabbed like a quarter of a cord of firewood and stacked it nicely in his truck-bed. The guy was on a mission. His energy seemed far too ambitious and energetic for this early in the morning, but then again, I'm not a morning person, at all. Like ever. I need caffeine to life and like ten minutes to just sit in my car and blast music before I throw my earplugs in and get ready for another long day of working on the house.

So I started the car and let her warm up while I packed a lunch and grabbed my bag for work. When I walked back outside, he was gone.

Most of the day I was coasting on autopilot cleaning the job site and prepping the main room for installing that shitty LVP flooring that is both a pain in the ass and hideous looking.

My phone rang around 2 PM. The 864 area code popped up and I answered it, knowing it was Heath, whose number I had been too lazy to save because we weren't really friends, and I didn't really pay him rent either, I had been paying Ron each month.

"Hey, was my guy here this mornin'?"

"Yeah he was here." I chuckled.

"Like Six Thurty this mornin'?

"Yeah, pretty much."

"What in the fuck...hahaha. I never told him to go there."

"Well, he was here grabbing wood in the dark."

"Wood?"

"Yeah, fillin' his truck up with firewood. Kept sayin', 'Don't shoot!' I just let him do his thing, man...figured no one was crazy enough to steal wood that early in the morning when someone was obviously home with clear, 'No Trespassing' signs everywhere."

"He was on that shit, wah-int he?"

"I dunno man. He kept throwin' his hands up and sayin', "don’t shoot" when he walked by the door...so yeah, probably was on that shit."

"Don't shoot? Yeah he was on that shit. Sorry bout that. I had no idea til he told me."

"It's all good."

"Well, I'll holler at ya."

And that shit is meth, in case you're wondering. Redbull didn’t cut it and the man needed more than just wings.