Living on Love's Branch in Letcher County 1

The Bare Facts

I met Ellis Keyes through Geoff Young. Ellis Keyes wanted to hold a Governor's debate at the Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky, and when Geoff Young couldn't do it, so he asked me to go. The day before, however, Geoff Young claimed that it was us two who had organized it all. I didn't organize any of it, but it was Geoff's way of pretending he had nothing to do with it. 

This was in early 2015, before the primary election day in May.

Here is Ellis Keyes:  

So when I went to the "debate" in Whitesburg, Kentucky, nobody had shown up. Literally nobody. None of the other candidates went, and there wasn't any people. It was just him. And me. The Appalshop was completely closed. Ellis bitched that the Appalshop was being run by "Hal Rogers' people", and that he had trouble getting access to it. Of course, none of these things were conveyed to me beforehand, but now I was stuck in Whitesburg, Kentucky, 5 hours from where I living. So instead of wasting the trip, I figured I could at least make one friend. 

Ellis Keyes is a loser. He has ran for office every time an election has come up. He is the perennial loser candidate that Gatewood got lambasted for. The biggest difference, though, between Gatewood and Ellis, is that nobody ever votes for Ellis. Keyes ran for Letcher County Jailer in 2014, and got 1 vote: his own. As a betting man, I bet he's trying to trick Louvenna Johnson into thinking that he's a somebody, even though he's a nobody loser, an absolute lowlife piece of shit. 

Well, this was before I got to know him. 

So Ellis and I are in the middle of Whitesburg together, and he was being overly nice, which should have been a red flag... hell, there were many red flags... anyways. So we're in the middle of Whitesburg, I'm 5 hours away from home, with just a small pickup truck, so I figured I could at least make one friend, and then call this trip a wasted trip, and go back home. 

Ellis wanted to go dumpster diving. Weird, I thought, but poverty makes one do strange things, even if to just survive. I didn't want to dumpster dive with him, but I was stuck in his car, so I was at his mercy. After Ellis found some random shit in a dumpster in some area of the town of Whitesburg, he drove about 25 minutes to his house, a trailer, which sits up upon the hill. Then Ellis asked if I wanted to help him do some ditch work. Having nothing else better to do, and respecting labor, I agreed. He gave me a broken short handled shovel, which was splintering, while he took the big shovel. I dug a bit, but dressed in nice clothes, I didn't get totally into it. But eventually, the ditch was cleared out, and instead of the rainwater pouring all over the road, it went into the ditch on the side of the road. Later on, when asked about it, Ellis said that him and I doing the ditch work together in the middle of nowhere was "symbolism". That could be a nice thought, if it was a teamwork effort, but Ellis Keyes isn't about equality. Ellis Keyes is an oppressor molester. It was only symbolic in the sense, that I was to be his bitch ass slave, and he was to be my master. But more on that later. 

Later on, Ellis picked up "his girlfriend", Louvenna Johnson, and her son, and all 4 of us were all riding in his tiny piece of shit car. We had a few drinks of whiskey, stood around a bonfire for about an hour, and then called it a night. I slept at the backend of his trailer, on the dirty nasty carpeted floor. Louvenna's son slept on the couch, and I guess Louvenna and Ellis slept together. 

And that's it. I hung out with Ellis for a day: watched him dig through trash in a dumpster, dug a bit of a ditch, watched a bonfire, and spent the night at Ellis's trailer. The next day, Ellis drove us all back to our spots: Louvenna and her son back to their house, and me back to my truck. Then I left, back to my home in Breckinridge County. 

And that's it. That's all I knew of Ellis. From that one day. He seemed nice, but in hindsight, it was too nice. It's like how a person would act if they were covering up their natural shittiness. While visiting Ellis at his trailer on a steep hill, he drove up onto a piece of property that he claimed was his. That's where the brush was where we had the bonfire. Ellis claimed that he didn't just own the land that was surrounding his trailer, the 40 or so acres that was deeded to him by his mother, who "killed herself", but that he owned "500 to 1,000 acres" up a different driveway. 

xXx

Not liking Breckinridge County, I decided to move. I called Ellis Keyes up, and asked him if he would sell me a small piece of his land, and let me build me a shack out in the middle of the woods. I wanted to live me a "Walden" life (a book written by Henry David Thoreau). 

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms." ~Thoreau

Ellis Keyes immediately agreed to the plan. To feel more confident about the plan, I drove out to the end of Love's Branch again, and got Ellis Keyes to sign a "pocket deed", so he wouldn't fuck me over. 

Here is that pocket deed. Here's the text of it: 

"I, Ellis Keyes, owner of Cook Keyes Land Inc. (Letcher County, Kentucky) allow Johnathan Masters to live at 1609 Love's Branch forEVER in exchange for $100. Johnathan Masters will live on a selected rock, up the driveway of 1609, on the left hand side, past the Lake. At the rock, Masters may have unrestricted access for basic survival needs, a garden, a place to park, and access to the driveway to come and go. Masters agrees to be a good steward of his individual unit, as well as the property as a whole. Both parties can seek to renegotiate this contract at any time." 

[signed by me, dated 7-11-15]

[signed by Ellis Keyes, along with his title "President" (lol), and Cook Keyes Land Inc., PO Box 1073, Whitesburg, KY 41858. (228) 326-8679]

What I first wrote was that I would be allowed to live there for 99 years, but Ellis Keyes scratched that part out, and put "forEVER". The terms were basic. "Unrestricted access for basic survival needs" was to allow me to eat, sleep, use the bathroom, etc. Having a garden would have been nice, to grow my own food, and a place to park and a driveway to come and go would be essential so I wouldn't be trapped there. Basically, I was to live on a rock, with space around me to move around. My shack would end up being 15' x 15', and the trail up to the shack was 100 feet. The space wasn't that big. But it was just enough for me to live on. It was the rock that sold me. It seemed like a nice remote spot, where I wouldn't have to deal with any people. While I love humanity, it was the people who was getting on my nerves. I don't know if it's a Kentucky thang, or an American thang, but assholes are everywhere, and I was sick of them. Living on "Pride Rock", I had to fear for the copperheads, bears, wolves, wild dogs, other snakes and critters, but they left me alone. No, the only animal that I needed to be fearful of, was human beings. And again, just like in Portland, in Louisville, Kentucky, it was the only person who I associated with, that would eventually completely fuck me over. There was also two streams/springs that flowed by Pride Rock, which was vital too, because we need water in order to live. 

Right after Ellis Keyes signed his name, and printed his name underneath his signature, he added the corporation information as an afterthought. When he wrote it, he was licking his lips, as if "he got me". He signed it nevertheless, and that made me feel more confident about the plan. He still wanted me to do some ditch work, but I said that I didn't want to, and left. Eventually, I'd sell my things from my Breckinridge County home, or get rid of them, and loaded my small white 2002 Dodge Dakota pick-up truck with all of the belongings I was going to take, and drove to Letcher County. The shocks on my truck were so bad that the bed of my truck was nearly brushing my tires. I had a Kentucky State Police officer tailgate me for about 20 minutes on the Hal Rogers expressway, which was nice and helpful. 

I enjoyed living in the woods, for the few months that I got to live there, but I mostly focused on building my shack, which I put about $1,200 into it, in order keep out of the rain, and to survive a cold winter. I spent the night on Ellis's couch a couple of times, but I stayed out in the woods all of the other nights. I stayed in a tent for about a week or two, and went to the lumber store, which was actually surprisingly close to me, in Deane, Kentucky, and would build on my house during the day, and sleep in my tent during the night. 

But after I was nearly finished with building my shack, that's when Ellis Keyes started acting insane, moreso, than just his quirky idiosyncrasies. He turned it into a matter of life and death.

 My Shack

 My Bookshelf

 Pride Rock