#x.bio

BIOGRAPHY.

TW: Death, Alcoholism

Well. This sure-as-shit wasn’t how he pictured life in his late 40’s - licking the boots of people who were still in diapers when he was at his prime. It’s embarrassing and humiliating, but Christ alive if it’s not the best option he has right now. Which, really, must say a lot about his fucking choices.

Murph grew up in a trailer park on the southside of a no-name town an hour or so outside Nashville city limits. His Momma smoked and his Daddy drank - just like everyone else’s - and he spent most of his time picking fights he couldn’t win and drinking warm, stale beer in the small patch of woods between the park and the interstate. When he was fifteen, his Momma passed from complications brought on by her COPD and two weeks later his Daddy was in the wind. 

Murph was gone not long after. He hitched from Tennessee to Kentucky to Indy, up the East coast and back down again. For a piece-of-shit who never finished high school, he usually did alright for himself working odd jobs - bouncing, bartending, fixing cars and anything else that might break. Only problem was - he could never actually keep any of those jobs. Try as he might, he’d either get too drunk or too ornery, or the call of those double-yellow lines would come calling.

Drifting was fine. He’d seen shit most people could only dream of - the Grand Canyon at dawn, the Mojave Desert under a blanket of stars, mist covering the Smoky Mountains after a long, hard rain. Drifting was fine, until he started getting old.

Somehow, being cramped up sleeping in his 1997 Chevy Tahoe in his late 30’s wasn’t so thrilling, anymore. Waking up to a new place every morning and bedding down in a different deserted parking lot every night started to feel desperate in a way he couldn’t explain. So at 37, he picked a spot on a map, drove to it, parked his SUV, and then found a spot to park his ass. Permanently.

And for awhile, Paxton, AZ was great - perfectly fucking ordinary. He got himself a shitbox apartment and a job at the local diesel mechanics. He ate Chinese takeout and slept in a real bed and it was… fine. It was all fine, for almost ten years, until his old bad habits came knocking. 

In 3 months, binge-drinking, apathy, and self-destruction took him from gainfully employed and moderately well-adjusted (all things considered) to destitute, unhoused, and on his last dime. Black listed from most spots in town due to his bad behavior and quickly running out of options, Murph took a gamble on the last place that might take him - the fucking Cowboy Mafia. 

Now here is, painfully sober, shoveling shit, scrubbing dishes, and falling off of horses more often than not. Bottom of the proverbial fucking totem pole. He’s worn out and run-through at the end of every day, and while he often fantasizes about running off and hitting the open road again, something (beyond being chased down by psychotic cowboys and offed in his sleep) keeps him around. 

PLOT ARC.

Murph isn’t used to being at the bottom. He isn’t used to authority, to structure, to rules. Hell, he spent most of his life making things up as he went along, running with the wind and reveling in freedom. Now, he chafes under the structure of ranch life - under the title of ‘Finger.’ Sure, it’s money in his pocket (meager as it is) and a place to crash, but he hasn’t made up his mind if it’s worth it to stay - even if he knows the consequences that come with leaving.