Soon after I turned 11 Mark and his family moved a few cities away. I
say cities meaning clusters of houses on a rural road out to when you
could hide a body and no-one would ever know. His family moved into
the third cluster of houses about 14 miles away. It was a much nicer
and larger home with an up and down stairs. They had room for all of
their kids to have a bedroom and a place to play. When they first
moved out I went and stayed over a few nights and we explored the
area. When school started 14 miles was just to very far away for a
sixth grader to manage and we fell out of regular contact and then
lost touch all together. I would see him every couple of years but
there is nothing like having your best friend live across the street
from you and that was gone for good. When I went to visit the first
time he told me that he was designating his new house and property a
sovereign country a loophole in the united states tax codes and laws
that then allowed the and owner to not pay taxes and to disregard any
and all laws. It turned out that his information was not entirely
accurate and that it was still illegal to use fire arms and
explosives even if you were on free soil. The government also still
wanted to charge tax. They must not have known about Mark's
sovereignty doctrine and its various legal implications because he
got into some sort of legal trouble and trouble at school and had to
transfer out of the regular high school to a second chance school.
Landmark High was usually a pit stop on the road to dropping out but
Mark did quite well and was even on student council. I have run into
Mark as an adult but there is too much water under our various
bridges and there is no connection left. He did still own ninja stars
so not all is lost.
