ANOTHER TALL TALE
Our Haunted House
(c)Copyrighted Franchot Lewis 1997
Now-a-days you don't hear of so many haunted houses. Today's houses,
made of brick, that have good electric lighting, storm windows, gas
furnaces, central heating and no chimneys, aren't places where ghosts
prefer to haunt. When I was a little girl every town had a haunted
house, some had two, and in the old neighborhoods, there were at least
three.
In the years 1923 to 1925 I lived in a haunted house. It was a large,
old frame building where no family lived in for long. The house was owned
by Mr. Sam Flowers, a cotton planter, who owned houses in several towns
in the two counties where he had his farming business. People said that
a murder took place in the house years ago. My parents, like the folks
who were Mr. Flowers tenants before us, mocked people who were
superstitious and who believed in ghosts. My mother was a lady who wasn't
afraid of anybody. She smoked cigarettes, even out in the street, at a
time when women weren't suppose to smoke. This outraged my grandmother
and my grandmother's friends, and it shocked some of my mother's friends.
My mother thought nothing of shocking them. And she answered my grandmother's
demonstrations, calls to social sanity and order, with, "Well mother, you pinch snuff!"
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Another Tall Tale
Monday, December 29, 2008
Hell is what we make it.
(c) Copyright 1993, by Franchot Lewis
The old man rubbed his neck above the shoulder, allowing
five seconds to pass, a break in his concentration, to ease
the strain on his eyes.
"Good book?" another man asked. "Would you mind if I sat
here?" This man looked a few years younger. He began to sit
before the old man made the jerky motion, giving a nod of the
head. The man asked, "What are you reading?" He looked to
see. The old man held the book flat to his lap, and placed his
eyes back on the book pages. The man said, "It must be good?"
The old man said nothing. He kept reading. The man asked, "This
is the red line train?"
"Yeah," the old man mumbled.
The man smiled. "By the way, my name is E.M."
E.M. stared, kept his eyes still, waited for the old man
to reply. The old man's eyes dribbled like a ball passing an
intruder. Then, the eye balls returned, bouncing back and
dropping onto the old man's lap, and onto the book. The younger
man continued to wait. The wait took a full minute for the
reply finally to come.
"I take it that you're a tourist?" the old man said.
"Nah."
"You make sounds like a tourist."
"I do?"
"This is my time to read and -"
E.M. smiled. "Before job and home?"
The old man mumbled aloud his thoughts. "This won't be
easy. Why won't he sit somewhere else? Bother somebody else?"
"What are you reading?"
The old man was about to curse. He stopped, took a pause.
He rubbed a pained bump that suddenly came to the surface of
his neck. He mumbled aloud, "This isn't going to work."
E.M. stretched, squinted, as if straining to see
through weak eyes. He looked at the book in the old man's lap
and skimmed the top paragraph. "What kind of book are you
reading? By a new author? I have never read him before?"
The old man closed the book and held it between his legs.
E.M. saw the title and exclaimed, "Subway reading,
nothing to cause alarm or shame."
The old man turned the book to its flip side, the side
without the title, and put it in his coat.
"Don't hide it on my account. Now days, everybody reads
horrible books."
The old man had a film of sweat on his lower lip. He wiped
the sweat off with his hands. In a moment, the sweat passed
from his hands onto the back of the book. He gripped the
book as he spoke. "What game are you playing? For a long
time, I have taken this train and I have yet to meet one
more disrespectful ..."
"Sir?"
"What do you want? Money? Are you a beggar?"
"Sir, me?" The slightly younger man stared into the old
man's eyes. "Do I look like I'm begging in these clothes?"
The old man's eye balls started dribbling again.
"Sir," the younger man opened his wallet, called for the
old man's attention. "Sir." He showed him the wallet's contents:
fifty dollars, in fives, tens and ones, and two major charge
cards.
The old man looked relieved. The relief was short-lived.
The younger man by a few years reached toward the old man's
coat and with little difficulty took the book.
"You're with the insurance company?" the old man sweated
profusely. "I didn't know that they check on what you read."
The younger man looked serious. "What have you done?"
The old man protested, "I know you check on people, but
this is too much."
"What do you do?"
"You're not an insurance investigator?"
The younger man shook his head. The old man grabbed back
the book. "You are gay?"
"Sh- no!" The younger looking man snarled, then stopped,
grinned and spoke calmly. "Nah. No. Just want to talk to pass
the time. We're seat mates."
"We're nothing. "
"All right. We'll soon pass your stop anyway, and go on
together."
"Leave me alone, before I pop you."
The younger man put his face up to the old man's and
frowned. He moved another inch closer and the old man moved
exactly an inch back, red-faced, his cheeks the color of
fear. The younger man kept still as he stared, and took
his measure of the old man. The old man's eyes went back to
the book.
The younger man said, "You can't pop me. Your gun's too
short."
"My fists -"
"Mustn't. You'll catch what I have."
"What is it with you?"
"Something that comes with being a man, a 100-proof man."
"What are you saying? I'm a man, 100-proof," the old man
was angry.
"Who said so?"
"I do!"
"You and the ladies, goddamn it?"
"Sh-"
The younger man grinned. "If your balls are all right,
you have nothing to worry about?"
"I'm not worried about you," the old man said.
"But you keep thinking, I'm going to do something?"
The old man raised his voice in anger. "I don't think,
you had better try," he said.
The younger man smiled. "Take it easy."
The old man stared straight into slightly younger man's
face. "You take it easy." The younger man grinned. It looked
obviously that the old man was bluffing. He held in his breath,
to make his body look leaner, his face meaner, and himself,
younger, stronger.
The young man smiled. "Take it that you use your sprout
for more than to make water? You use it to please the
ladies? You've made a few babies at your age, huh?"
"It's no good talking to you." The old man stood. "Will
you let me by?"
"This is not your stop."
"Do you think it will do any good?"
"What?"
"I'm changing seats."
"Of course it will. Running makes some people feel
better. Track and field stars, not cowards."
The old man walked half the length of the train car to
the front. He sat down and opened the book and commenced to
read. The younger man could see that the old man had lost
interest in the book. Now and then, the old man would look
up and around, and then back, to see if the younger man would
follow. The younger man called to the old man, told him that
he would not follow, but after the old man finally stopped
reading all together, the younger man changed seats too,
taking the seat next to the old man.
"About how long do you think it is going to be before we
exchanged blows?" he asked.
"What do you want?"
"About how long will it be before you sock me and I
sock you?"
"You aren't going to sock me."
"Oh, yes, I am."
"What's the matter with you? Are you a nut?"
"I've had men say that to me, a thousand, two thousand."
"Did you hear what I said? If you put your hands on me,
I'll kill you."
"A hundred, two hundred have said that."
"There are people on this car. I'll call for the engineer."
"Operator. Subway operator. Yellow. Old, yellow sissy,
asked me if I was a fag, sh- ! Don't call for help, fight
like a man, with your fists and not with your mouth, with
your guts and not with words."
"You'll be arrested."
"People don't give a doodle if two old cussers fight. We
both look like we have a hundred and fifty years between us.
We would look silly. It would give them something to talk
about."
"You would look silly with your jaw broken."
"Old men fighting look silly, like their heads' broken."
"Get away from me."
"- Oh, yes, they do. When I was a young man in France, I
watched to dutifully record for posterity the conflict
between two old men fighting over who did the most against
the Germans back in '70."
"Huh?"
"Don't interrupt me, I'm telling you something
important."
"You're crazy," The old man shouted. The slightly younger
looking man grinned and continued, "One old boy told the other
that his contribution wasn't enough. That old boy couldn't live
with that. They had forty-four years of anger to get out. You
can't live with that kind of anger. That's been nearly eighty
years now."
"What?" the old man interrupted again, shouted, "This
train doesn't go to the nut house. You're have to take the
green-line and an A-bus."
The younger looking man spoke sternly. "Old man, how long
have you been waiting for a good fight? I mean a rumble?"
The old man stood. His face, white now. The slightly
younger man placed an intense gaze on him, from head to foot,
as if closely examining him. Then, the younger man said,
calmly and slowly. "Since five thirty this morning when the
subway opened, I've been waiting all day, itching for a fight.
I've waited all through the morning rush hour. It's nearly
eleven, a good time to knock somebody's block off."
"Excuse me."
"Changing seats again?"
"Will you let me pass?"
"You, poor scaredy cat. Scared when the big bad hound dog
comes to fight. Why don't you jump off the train, and lay down
in front of the tracks?"
"Sh-t."
"Talk to me, babe?"
"I'm going to kick you if you don't let me by."
"Oh, you're a man? How many babies did you have? Boys did
you make? Sons? A man makes sons."
The old man raised his right foot. The slightly younger
looking man didn't move. The old man stepped across the
younger looking man's legs. Suddenly, the younger man grabbed
the old man, held him tight, and whispered in his ear. "I had
three sons who made male babies of their own, my sons are
men. I made men and they've made men."
The old man struggled, "Get off me!"
The slightly younger looking man continued whispering in
to the old man's ear. "Finally, when the son last had left me,
I was very sad."
"Help!" the old man called to the people on the train.
People stopped and looked, but no one moved to help him.
The slightly younger man kept whispering in the old man's ear.
"But the next day, I was in the tub scrubbing my ass, and I saw
my balls."
"Get off me." The old man continued the vain struggle.
The slightly younger looking man continued to whisper,
"They looked quiet, were very quiet, but they hadn't died
in their sack. They were there. Those magnificent creative,
man-making things -"
The old man screeched, "Let go of me or I'll kill you!"
The slightly younger looking man didn't pause, continued
to whisper: "- and every thing else was easy, and of no
importance. That was so long ago."
He stopped and released the old man. The old man
shouted, "You are crazy?"
The slightly younger looking man shook his head, "Nah."
The old man balled up his fists. "Why am I talking
to you?"
"Because you box with shadows. Your life is over. Your
sons are gone."
"I'm going to get you."
"Every wife you had left you. Your work is through.
There is no one left for you to fight."
"The next thing I'm going do before I get to my stop is
punch you one."
"C'mon, there's time. This train's doesn't stop."
"It does! It does. I have a stop where I get off. I
have things to do."
The slightly younger looking man grinned, "That's what
they all say."
{END}
(c) Copyright 1993 by Franchot Lewis. All Rights Reserved.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Man is insignificant.
(c) Copyright 1992 by Franchot Lewis
"We are insignificant. God is irreverent."
--K.
Now, I shall tell you of my dinner alone with the
famous writer, novelist, and adventurer, K.
He is a tall blond one. He is always attached to a
communication device that constantly sends and receives
messages to and from the universal communications net. He
remains in touch with his various interests. As he sat at my
table a box on his lap buzzed and beeped and rang and chimed
and constantly demanded his attention. He begged me to excuse
the interruptions as he took and sent messages. I would have
been annoyed by any other guest who kept allowing a squawking
box to interrupt our dinner. K. is different. If you can get
him to sit still for a millisecond the quality of that moment
of his conversation is worth the inconvenience. K. has the
ability to get one to think, and to do more than think, to
get one to participate in life, to get off ones duff and live.
K. is one of the biggest brains and do-ers in the galaxy and
is probably worth two or three million interruptions.
I see that most of you are familiar with K. from his
many books and guest appearances on the nightly galaxy view
tele-wide screens. So, perhaps you think I am a long
suffering, short little one in a shadow, a friendly cuss,
always in search of a good conversation, who likes K. and
plays dumb to his animal behavior? Perhaps, you think I am a
joke? I know, I should have balked at having to stand second
to a talk box during that dinner I had with him at my home.
My wife thinks I worship him as if he is a god. When K. came
to our house to prepare the meal, my wife left to visit her
friends. She does not like him. She says he teaches me bad
habits. She thinks that like most artist K. has a picture of
himself which out shines the image others have of him. In his
own eyes he is a heroic cynic who is brave and bold, and
unafraid of challenging universal conventional notions. Well,
in my eyes he is a romantic. He is a hero, too, an aging one,
who sallies forth from his artistic fortress, into the wilds.
I have known him for fifteen years, and well for five. He has
played the part of friend and guru.
K.'s face was lit. His eyes shined. He looked delighted
as he declared, "I have a treat for you: fresh meat. Killed
it myself."
I may have moaned. I tried not to show how I felt. I
think I whispered, "They don't allow that much?"
"Only if you go out of the galaxy to the hinter worlds
for it," K. replied.
"They let you bring it back?"
"Yes."
"My Uncle Zowie was forced to dispose of the fresh meat
he had smuggled in," my voice may have sounded like a whine.
The shine in K. eyes was gone, he groaned,"Was your
Uncle Zowie part of the scandal in dead meat stock?"
A soft murmur escaped my lips, "My Uncle Zowie?"
K. began to lecture. The tone of dread and disgust was
in his voice."Vermin were scavenging the outer rim of the
hinter worlds for dead meat. They sold their hauls to local
vermin distributors. Their stock was bug infested, and it
infected some of the best guts on the home planet."
"Shucks," I mumbled, summoning up memories of how my
uncle suffered last summer through stomach wrenching pain. I
remembered how he howled and the way my aunt screamed at
him for abusing himself by eating the dangerous and rotten
filth.
"Some vermin were raiding zoos and even pet farms," K
continued to state his disgust.
"I heard of them, but not my Uncle Zowie," my voice
sounded almost like a lament.
"He was not involved?" K. raised an eye brow.
I shook my head.
"Just a thought," he nodded, and the shine in his eyes
returned. "This is fresh, wild game meat," he tipped his
head up. "I shall eat nothing but the best. This is for my
gut and yours."
He opened the package of meat. It was a huge piece,
enough to feed a dozen. He laid the meat out on the kitchen
table.
I stared and spoke down into it, "Looks different--"
"Sure!" K slapped me on the back. "You can buy meat in
the store - after that pore ol' soybean has had all sorts of
new finagled designer chemicals punched into it, and its been
mangled into bits, then re-arranged to be a pithy flesh-like
pulp and made the object of endless enzymes for hours at a
time. It's textured, flavored and tenderized, but it has no
taste. Not a smidgen of taste - the chemists' concoction is
far too much of a wimpy, heartless thing for any self-
respecting diner to try to approach. It is a sorry entity
onto itself that only the tasteless are fool enough to get
near."
"Oh?" I said softly.
"You should see the lack of blood cells that inflict
the asses who eat store-brought meat," K. belabored the
point.
"Yeah," I said softer.
"Gimme wild, game meat anytime. My stomach can no longer
handle soybeans," K. grinned.
"Yes," I nodded. "But, how do you cook it?"
K. gave me the recipe, repeating it as he prepared
the meal. He said: "Wash the meat and soak it overnight in
brown ale. Ryan V ale is best. Place the meat in a large pot.
Lay upon the meat sliced onions, bell peppers, Vox seeds
and salt. Roast on low heat with the lid on in a maxi-oven
for four minutes. Add some more ale and roast for another two
minutes. Now, for the sauce. Take a deep dish. Put in two
slices of the roasted game meat, a thin layer of Roguer's
mixture, a pinch of Toning celery, and pour in enough meat
stock to cover the meat. Place for fifteen milliseconds in
the maxi-oven to boil down the liquid. Remove the dish, let
it cool, then extract the juice. Return the dish to the maxi-
oven for another fifteen milliseconds. The meat stock should
now be a dark brown coating on the bottom of the dish. Scrap
this coating into chunks of bits. Pour clear Von soup into
the dish and stir until the brown bits are dissolved. Place
the dish in the maxi-oven at low heat for a few milliseconds
until it comes to a boil. Skim the soup of all undissolved
bits. Add parsley stems, dried Raffia leaves, cracked
peppers and brown onions. Let the dish simmer in the maxi-
oven for three milli-seconds. Let cool, then strain it
through an Yuan cheese cloth. Serve and enjoy."
The meal had been prepared. We were eating. K began to
tell a story. K is known as one who likes to tell stories.
Some of his yarns are rather long. He is known to make each
interesting by adding humor, or by telling them while serving
an exceptional cask of ale, or an extraordinarily unusual
slab of meat.
"On Guff are found the worst detention centers. I was
detained in one of them for twenty four hours in an air tight
cell with just enough air for one docile one, and I was given
the warning that the air was sufficient if one behaved, and
if one did not, one would suffocate and die."
"Oh," I shrieked, a scrap of meat was stuck between my
teeth.
"The air was bad, thin and it smelled," K. chatted on.
I took hold of my knife, my weapon of dissection, and
grunting, pried the meat splinter loose from my teeth, as K.
continued to narrate his adventure: "I laid on the bunk and
waited until the grinning, sadistic guards released me."
K. treated the meat as if each piece was a chewy morsel.
Using a knife and fork, he nipped little bits of meat at a
time loose from the slab and nimbly popped them into his
mouth. The meat snapped at me. I snipped at it with my knife,
sliced and speared it. The meat crackled back, fighting in my
mouth, attacking my jaws and leaving my gums irritatingly
tingling with pain. I had too spit it out.
"Does it smart?" K interrupted his tale.
"No," I lied.
"It is not sweet, confectionery, candy meat," K.
cracked. " It stings, unlike the lush, charming, juicy,
tender, luxurious crap that comes in those luscious looking
store-brought packages, the nicely nice stuff that will
shorten ones life."
I tried again. After several minutes I had been able only
to get down a few meat crumbs. My stomach was grumbling with
hunger. A great gaseous blob came bellowing up from my belly,
a cry, a yell, a roar, demanding that I feed. I scolded myself
and swore I would not allow this tough meat to break me. I
cut into it and shoved a large piece in my mouth. It pinched
me, but I was determined to tame it. My teeth would be like
scissors and presses. The meat was strong. It held fast, as
my teeth closed against it to squash, grind, pulverize it. I
mashed my teeth together, squeezing my jaws--
"You should relax," K. suggested. "You are dinning, not
fighting."
"Ugh?" I uttered with my mouth closed and filled.
"The meat is resilient," K. spoke in a low voice.
"Enjoy the challenge of eating real food. Ones who grow
sinew bones, powerful bodies, robust constitutions, the
hardy ones, the immovable males, feast on real meat. It will
make you solid."
My jaw muscles worked themselves into an awful state of
painful rigidness. Stiff pieces of the meat were stuck in my
aching gums, but I would be firm, and tough enough like K. I
closed my eyes and worked my jaws, harder, up and down. I
ignore the sharp pain the hard and fast chewing of the meat
had brought to my jaws. I would devour the food, consume its
essence, chew it to its core, annihilate its gristle. K.
now nodded approval of my ferocious effort and continued his
tale. After three minutes more, I finally had the gunk of
meat into manageable shreds and on their way down toward my
hungry stomach.
"I was aboard the maiden voyage of the Dasas II, the
first ship into hyper space," K. began to recount another
chapter of his well-known adventures.
"I know."
I attacked the meat slab again and took a larger portion
on my knife. K. indicated approval, and continued the tale.
"The additional speed at the time was not worth the
inconvenience."
"The Dasas was a pioneer ship," I mumbled behind a full
and chewing mouth.
K. replied, "Was very cramped, not very clean, very sour.
The ship's captain was a bore. He leaned a bit too much to
exaggeration. I quote him : I am authorized to tell you that
this the most important trip of your lives is the most
important trip in history."
"Wasn't it?" I asked, my voice muffled through food.
K. put a sour look on his face and answered sharply, as
if his wit had curdled at the thought of my question. His
acetic tongue wagged, "Of his life, maybe, but not of mine.
And, who can speak for history?" K. sighed, instantly no hint
of the tart look remained.
He was well into an amusing description of what life was
like for him when he was an eighteen year old conscript in
the army of the Canting warlord Mucks II. I had been
laughing along with his comic mimic of his drill sergeant,
when I shook and cursed as a glob of the meat scrap got
caught in my throat.
He stopped the tale, transfixed an intense gaze upon
me, who was squirming with embarrassment while coughing and
spitting to keep from choking on the chunky glob of meat
scrap that for the horrendous moment was unmovable in my
throat.
"What did you say?" he demanded to know.
I said nothing, just coughed violently, in a tremendous
effort to expel the glob caught in my throat.
"I am a collector of expletives. I know tens of
thousands cuss words from thousands of worlds." K. eyes bore
into mine, as he talked, all but ignoring my loud coughing
and barking, as I tried to force out, to even barf up the
meat chunk. K. questioned me about the cuss word I had
shouted at the moment the chunk got stuck in my throat.
"I rather avoid domestic cuss words altogether," he
said, "and refer to the exotic ones I acquire during my
travels. You chose to use the word, 'Senna'. I've never
heard it used that way. I suppose it is a fine word choice if
you are referring to an object that is the mother of a minor
irritation, but a major cause of pain merits a much grander
epitaph. I use often a word that I picked up from the natives
during a Terran hunting excursion. The word, Hell."
My eyes had become red. I was in deep distress, snot
was running down my nose, and I was hacking loudly, trying to
expectorate the irritant from my throat. I whimpered,
"Aren't you going to help me?"
K. rose from the table, walked behind me and whopped the
flat side of his open hand against my neck. Out of my mouth
came spittle and the gunk and a sudden wail of pain. "That
hurts!" I complained.
"Are you choking?" he retorted.
"Hell," I replied.
He laughed. "Novice diners on good meat always choke
at first," his eyes twinkled.
"Why didn't you warn me?" I pouted.
"Would you have listened? A one of adventure like
yourself?"
"I am not a one of adventure."
"Not yet? Right?"
I pointed out to him that in my book, I was very
religious. I had faith. I believed everything. Tell me any
thing and I will trust you.
His eyes twinkled again. "Really?"
"I believed what I am told, I listen."
"There is much of my younger self in you," he grinned.
Next, he turned the word, belief, around on his tongue, and
he took off gossiping about his beliefs during his childhood.
He concluded this recollection by saying, "My parents always
observed the holy high holidays. They were conventionally,
moderately orthodox. During the most important religious
holidays my whole family went to the temple dressed in our
best clothes. Going to pray was an important social occasion--"
"You're not an atheist now?" I asked.
He shook his head, "Never."
"That's good," I nodded mine.
He added, "Naturally, my childhood beliefs did not add
up. I could see that religious celebration was more important
as a social event, and that the sacred meaning of religion
had been lost. For example, we pray in an ancient tongue
that few understand. We learned our prayers by rote and
constant recital. I have prayed without understanding a
single word, or having to-"
He said that he doesn't go the temple, although society
throws a fit, and levies the heavy no-going-to-temple tax on
him, but that won't force him to pray publicly.
"I think I am as religious as anybody," he affirmed my
faith in him, " but I can't take praying in public at the
temple, repeating words that mean nothing. I seek answers
as to the meaning of life, and other ways to be in
communion with the Creator."
"Good, good," I all but applauded him. I told him that
his spiritual search sounded like a similar experience of
mine. I told him I had read his book on spirituality,
including the banned one.
"Smart Ass?" he grinned. "Thought I knew everything
when I wrote that one."
"Who hasn't thought that?" I asked.
He answered, "In all seriousness, personally, I believe
The Creator is in each of us, and all of us are of The
Creator."
I began to squirm again in my seat with my mouth open,
but this time my eyes danced around in my head like a school
child's. My voice sputtered out in quick ejaculations. "Would
you mind a new, novice on your spiritual sojourns to Kyats?"
I leaned forward, pressing him eagerly for an answer.
"You?" his eye brows lifted up an inch.
"Yes," my head bobbed up and down like an excited young
male one asking a favorite uncle for a favor.
"You're a quiet one, more likely suitable for a day trip
to Joaquin than a safari," K had a serious look on his face.
"I-" I sighed.
He spoke critically."I've placed you in the quiet portion
of my mind." I groaned signaling my disappointment. Then, he
smiled, "One who might occasionally slip out to watch the
exotic females of Ra sna V." I returned the smile. He
finished the comment, "A gentle one who never makes
trouble."
"Making trouble, how can --" I pressed him further.
"The authorities think that no-gooders like me who seek
the fulfillment of life are trouble makers."
"How can the spiritual hunts for food and the
fulfillment of life cause trouble?"
He threw his hands up in the air and shook his head.
"I have asked that of the authorities!" he exclaimed.
"I don't make trouble," I said. "I have a phobia for
pain."
"Brother, welcome aboard!" he shouted. "I shall take
you on."
"Good." I was happy. I leaped a bit from my seat. I was
so happy.
"Our first stop will be to sign in with the brotherhood
of the hunt on Margo ta's Place on the Reis Sphere. If you
prefer the quiet section of the clan --"
"No, adventure."
"I should explain: there is no quiet section, only a
quieter section. Just a few brothers belong. The quiet ones,
the high adventurers, the true gamblers, the big game
hunters."
"They're quiet?"
"And serious. In the other sections are the loudmouths,
the braggarts, the drunks and the hot shots. The ones there
for the show."
"The quiet section are for the ones in the know?"
"Exactly."
"What about the inner sanctum on Raffia VII?"
"Raffia was the entrance point for new recruits when it
was secluded. Now, it is semi-secluded, the front door to
every want-a-be."
"I see."
"The truly-ares and will-be-es have left."
"You are going to take me on a get-together for the hunt?
And on to a real hunt?"
"Forget what you think, I shall show you the right
way," said K. "You have heard of the get-togethers for the
hunt? The get-together has become some strange kind of game,
where all sorts of ones mingle freely. You're in dangerous
territory at one of them."
"Uh?"
"Raffia is where fools mingle freely with correct
behavior cops."
"Cops?"
"Rocked heads, the strident nannies who have arrested
minds, the stick and foils of the authorities. Raffia is a
little thick, but if it suits you, go ahead and go. One of
the rocked heads will approach you and take you for all you
have in a minute: your time and your freedom."
"Oh, I didn't know," I moaned.
"Don't feel bad. I never knew what went on at a get-
together either until I crashed at a few, so I am not
surprised by your ignorance."
"Gee."
"Don't worry, good old Uncle K will get you to a hunt.
With a little trusting magic I shall get you thinking like a
hunter."
The meal was finished. The dishes were cleared from the
table. We went into the den to finish off the cask of ale.
"You have mumbled something along those lines," K. said.
"Huh?" I shook my head.
"Of course, much planning must go into a successful
hunt. What you have in mind is some sort of combination, party
and hunt, I think. I never know what you are actually
thinking."
"Me?"
"It's difficult to figure out ones thoughts. They must
come out in the statements one makes." He tensed, "Now, you
are thinking about what?"
"The hunt I want to go on," I insisted I was a serious
candidate for the hunt. He frowned. I grinned to try to roll
back the frown from his face. "K., you use to say you could
read my mind?"
"Not accurately. Everybody is different, nobody is the
same. I actually do not know what anyone is going to do until
they do it."
"Do you think you will take me on a hunt like the one
you wrote about in your last book?"
"It depends on where we go and who comes along."
"Who should we take?"
"Make a list and see who will be free at the time."
"Let me see," I started to consider a list.
"Shush," he said abruptly. "I just had a thought that
you might be serious."
"Yes?"
"Then, why do you want to take a mob?"
"Huh?"
"The hunt is a spiritual search; that what you hunt for
is not the prey, the object of the hunt is self. One hunts
to discover ones self."
"I'm sorry," I mumbled.
"If you are serious I shall take you with me to Terra."
"Terra?" I asked. He glared. I mumbled, "I mean,
Terra -- I will have to take a week off from work."
"What?" he asked in a low, quiet voice. He sighed. "If
we were arranging a quick get-together, I would answer: why
not make it a closer destination? Terra is on the farthest
rim of the outer spiral. A trip there wouldn't be cheap in
time or credits. Just from thinking of a list of those whom I
think might be interested in coming, I believe they could not
afford such a long journey. I would suggest that we consult a
chart of the hinter worlds, and find something closer. My
guess would be the northern sector, or maybe even closer
north than that."
I mumbled, "If you prefer Terra."
He replied, his voice thick with the syrup of sarcasm,
"You don't think that's a good idea?"
"Life is short," I said. "One must live now."
"Yes," he answered.
"Blasted, let's go Terra then."
He smiled, relaxed. "I have just come from there," he
said, "I had a nice time."
"Just nice?"
"You read my books?"
"Yes, nice."
"I bagged a cellar full of good meat," he smiled. "We
had some tonight."
"It was nice," I said, and remembering what K. had
written on the ritual that is the hunt, I quoted him. "The
hunt is for finding ourselves, meeting the challenge of the
hardships of hunting in the wilds, and it is a hunt for
food."
His smile broaden.
"You brought back the best meat of the hunt," I said.
He nodded, "The very best."
I nodded.
He began to tell me his secret of hunting. "To get good
meat," he said. "You must chase it, and you have to let the
meat know you are chasing it. The secret of good meat has
something to do with the natives' glandular system. When they
get frighten and run their glands secrete adrenalin--"
"Huh?"
"Adrenalin, it's some thing found in them; and the more
adrenalin in the meat, the tougher, chewer and the better
the the meat is for the masculine appetite."
"I see, " I said.
"That slab we had tonight came from one of two natives
of Terra, two no more than fifteen of their years. Good
tough, young males. I chased that meat for two miles through
a field, over a gully, and when the pair had crossed the
gully, I let them think they were free. I pulled back. Their
adrenal glands must have been pumping. I saw them pant for
breath. Then, I came on them again--zip. I was right on them.
Suddenly, I was right on them and they were horrified. I
yelled, screamed at them. Shoo! They ran. I didn't let them
both get too far. I shot one of them, stunned him. He went
down, screaming. The other native glanced back, saw that his
companion was down and panicked. I pulled back and waited.
The native went back for his fallen companion and began to
try to carry him. I waited, knowing that the meat was getting
better as they were pumping more and more adrenalin. Ah, God.
Hmmm."
"Great," I said.
He sighed, "Yes."
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Everyone Needs A Mom
A GOOD MOTHER, MOTHER GOODE
Maggie Goode and her little grandson rode out of Anacostia Maggie stared at them. They stared back. At first the pregnant As she waited for the train to stop and the door to open, the Her friend asked, "Why?" "The pain. I knew it hurt before I had my first, but I never "It hurts," her friend said. "I know," she laughed, "my baby girl almost killed me, I "Yeah?" "Did yours hurt too?" "Yes, they all do, but when it's over, the pain goes and you "Yes?" Maggie shook her head, said to herself, "The hurt never stops; The train stopped, there was a wait before the doors opened. "Come on, girl friend," her friend said. "It all works by The two girls left. Mist was dripping behind Maggie's eye "Grandmom?" "I'm sorry." "My arm's all right," he said. She nodded. He looked away, at the tunnel lights passing by **** "Christ ... Christ! We're in Hell. We're broiling. Yes, Maggie stared at a balding head, a man who still sometimes Maggie's husband was sixty three but acted forty, or thirty, "Because? He's a thief, he steals; robs from his own mama's "No, that's in the past; Thatch says -" "Don't tell me what that sucker says, I know -" "He's our son, your son, mine." "We've had to put him out, you know? Three times, four times "He's stopped." "When?" "You have to give him a chance to redeem himself." "Still another chance?" "He's our son." "So he comes to you on his knees, begging, crying, 'Mama, "Edward!" "Don't holler, woman." "He's been to the treatment program." "Again? I talked to him yesterday on the street. I am not "He promised." "The last time you left him here by himself, he sold our CD "He's our son." "We've got to be firm about this, strong. It is for his good "Damn, that tough love, Hell. I'm not going to keep him "Maggie -" "He's coming to visit today -" "Aw -" "He's coming." "Look, if he steals anything, you are going to have to replace Thatch came and Edward stayed home from work and followed him "Yeah, " Edward said. "Be sure to call first before you come; Maggie thumbed her nose at Edward. Thatch said, softly, with A week later, Thatch was arrested; the charge, trafficking in "That couldn't be Thatch?" she cried. Edward groaned, "It's him, the sucker." The next day Maggie went to visit Thatch's wife, Ava. "Gee, I'm just getting it," Ava said. "Thatch won't be coming "Things should have been different ..." Maggie wept and "Thatch could be a louse ... " "Didn't you try to help him too?" "Yes. He wasn't a louse all the time, only a short while. "Here, take this." "Gee, Thatch never would take anything from you or ask." "It's for Little Eddie." "I've always told Thatch that he has the darnedest attitude." A week passed, another visit at Ava's -- "Yes ... Come on in. The day goes so fast. Maybe I'm pregnant "I don't know what you mean?" "Oh, I should tell you about his idea of romance? Some time I'll That night in bed Maggie's husband woke, heard Maggie sobbing. "Quit, leave me alone," Maggie kept sobbing. "Can't. I'm worrying if I don't do something, I'll drown, I'm "Shut up!" "No." "I'm not thinking about Thatch, it's Little Eddie, you fool." "What's wrong with little Eddie?" "That girl, I want to choke her." "Ava?" "Have you ever talked to her? I have? For hours and hours. "Maggie -" "She brings the worst out of me, the worst thoughts, my darkest "Maggie -" "She's on that stuff; she's neglecting Little Eddie. She's "Maggie, you've gave her money?" "I could kill her." "You gave her money, no?" "For her bills. Her bills and her bills. The same bills over "Why don't you ask her to let you watch Little Eddie for a "I did." "And?" "And no!" Ava said. "Never! Little Eddie is my baby. He is The next morning came - before the morning, the dawn, and In front of the apartment building where her grandson lived, He did not know where his mother was. Maggie had, had that Maggie washed her grandson. She couldn't find any clean clothes She cleaned the apartment and waited for her son's wife to "You ought to be in a cage, your arms tied to the rafters and "You're tripping?" "I should report you." "Me? That's a laugh. What for?" "You know mighty well what for? Leaving a child alone, "I guess that's right. I'm just as bad as your jailbird son." Laughter, mocking laughter - Maggie heard a herd of heifers, Maggie asked her grandson, "Do you want to go to grandmom's Five days. FIVE DAYS passed - and thumping on Maggie's front "Where is Little Eddie?" Maggie had let her in, but wouldn't let her pass the hall. "Where have you been for five days? Where did you sleep last "I want my son." Maggie smiled and sighed: "I'm pretty tired of you, dear. I'm "I've always wanted to tell you off, Mrs. Church Woman, Perfect "I try to be a good mother." "I hate you." "Why? Because you don't try to be a good mother?" "If you try to keep Little Eddie, I'm going to whack you." "It's come to threats of violence? You'll take the fall for "You know, you can not take somebody else's child, you can "Exiting, eh?" Maggie's son's wife's legs made a wobbly move, she balanced, Maggie's mouth went dry, and she stumbled over her tongue "Who's going to pay your son's damn bills? Me? I don't have "I won't give you a cent to pay the same bills over and over "Shit, you not going to take my baby, you old bitch, you old "Get out of my house!" POW! It was afternoon when Maggie awoke. She sprang up and rushed "Edward!" In the kitchen on the bulletin board she found his note: Gone "Ten minutes?" She put a pot on the stove to make tea. Before She shook her head. Edward smiled, "Don't get into cat fights "Never in my life." "Got the tea ready?" "Ava -" "Let the cops handle her. She was lit up with drugs. She came "After that?" **** "This is where we get off, isn't it?" "Yes, dear," Maggie took her grandson's hand and they left
on the Green Line, they were on their way down town to shop, and
were seated opposite two young girls, ladies, who were just
out of their teenage years, wearing T-shirts and jeans. The
T-shirts advertised a rap group, the Wasted, Wretched, Dreadful
Dead, and the girls defied you to think they were talking about
anything less important than a music video until the bigger one
cheerfully explained to the slender one why she was pregnant again.
It didn't have anything to do with anything, just that it was
something that people like them did.
"That baby's going to stare at you if he learned what idiocy
you're up to?"
The pregnant girl's head bobbed, agreeing entirely. She said,
she has been trying without any success to make herself believe
that the child she was bearing was part of some great plan. "The
fact is," she said, "Mark wants a son." Mark was her live-in boy
friend. She sighed, "Starting out with two kids is -" She
stopped, frowned - "This won't be another girl."
girl looked puzzled. The puzzlement quickly turned to defiance.
The other girl, with a sweep of the eyes, mumbled towards Maggie,
"What's wrong with her?" Maggie considered moving her grandson
to another seat. There was one far back in the car. If she moved,
she would have to stand. She glanced at her grandson, to see if
he was listening to the young women. He was looking out the
window, into the dark tunnel, at the flashing green lights passing
by. Fifteen seconds passed and the train began to come into a
station. The women stood and walked towards the door as though
they planned to alight at the station. Maggie relaxed, the women
were about to leave.
pregnant girl leaned against a rail and sighed a bit wearily, "I
never thought I would get pregnant again?"
thought that it would hurt like it did."
screamed, hollered, nuts. I hope this one won't hurt like that,
I'm going to tell that girl when she grows to some size: girl,
you almost killed me, you had your mama crying, girl, screaming
like the pain wasn't going to ever stop."
forget about it like it never hurt at all."
God made mothers to cry."
When the door did opened the pregnant girl said, "I was beginning
to wonder if they'd were going to let us off this darn train,
that driver better go back into training."
computers."
glasses. Her grandson glanced up, "Grandmom?" Maggie was silent;
her grandson waited for about a second, looking at his grandmother;
then the train was starting up, a few more seconds, and it was
weaving through the tunnels, making noises, going heavy on the
track, passed the Navy Yard, on its way downtown, through the gray
light of the tunnel under the Capitol's streets. Suddenly, Maggie
squeezed her grandson's arm, hard, and he gaped, mouth opened
wide, eyes in a stare, sore arm, and she cried, softly, "Sorry,
Baby." She let go, "Eddie?"
the window.
broiling."
courted her after a yard of years, her fellah with a humor that
was sometimes ill, but never meant anyone any harm, her husband.
He had just stood guard outside the bathroom door like it was an
official building that required a pass for entry. The occupant
of the bathroom was Maggie's and his only son, Thatch, the
father of their grandson, Eddie.
sometimes. But, when their son, Thatch, last came for a visit,
Maggie's husband acted ancient, and Maggie's husband didn't want
the son in the house.
pocket book, robs me."
already?"
let me back in, you've gotta let me come back home for a visit,
to talk to you,' is that how he put it?"
going to let him in the house. I walked pass him and sniffed. He
had a distinct odor and it was not a faint smell. The scent was
strong enough to leave a whole street full of junkies lit."
player and our VCR, and he would have taken the tv but a floor
model is too heavy for him to carry, thank goodness that boy
doesn't do any heavy lifting."
too."
locked out."
it. If he takes anything of mine, you are going to have to pay me
back. I'm going to be here while he's here, I don't want him here
when I'm not here."
around the house, from room to room, standing guard while Thatch
was in the bathroom. As Thatch was leaving Maggie told him, "I'm
leaving a light on in the window. I'm going to leave it there like
a lantern hung on a post."
give us a six-month notice."
a smoothness that seemed to have been practiced for a century, "I
understand where Dad is coming from; Jesus loves him, and I love
him too."
narcotics. The first Maggie heard of the arrest was when Edward
saw it in a newspaper and showed her the article.
home for a darn while. I'm so glad you've come. We've been having
it real, dirt ball bad. No money. Talking to you is what I've
always wanted, but Thatch has been so independent, didn't want to
ask for help. Too proud to ask his people, you know? He was odd.
Sometimes we had nothing, not enough to give to Little Eddie, and
Thatch would, you know?"
continued to cry, softly.
Pretty soon it would dawn on him that he had a child depending on
him, and he would get a job, a piece of a job, like he did last
summer that lasted all summer long. People aren't hiring now, you
know? I would get a piece of a job, myself, anything to bring
money in, and pay somebody to take care of Little Eddie while I
worked."
again or something. I get so sleepy, and then I'm not your normal
housekeeper. Thatch always said that. He thought you kept the best
house in the world, was a saint, too, in too many ways. Forgive me,
but I would always get so grouchy when Thatch would talk about the
way I keep house. But you aren't interested in hearing about how I
spent my day, you've come to see Little Eddie. I'm not a very
interesting person. Who wants to listen to me, right? Eddie's in
his room sleeping like a dog. He had been barking all day, like I
was not here but a million miles away, now he's tired himself out
and have gone to sleep. Uh? I fed him. What? The refrigerator? What
are you doing? Okay, I was about to go shopping. Things cost.
Money doesn't go so far. What? I feel like telling you about
myself. Yeah? You don't know me. Or do you? What did Thatch tell
you?"
tell you, maybe? Maybe I will how he was not really a nice person
at all, but just a wild man out of his mind half the time, who
pretended to like his wife and himself. I tried to understand him
and got knocked up side the head for my efforts. He could get mean,
frightfully. I was scared of him, sometimes. Wait! Listen! Hear
me. What it is, is that you're still in denial about his meanness?
Thatch got that stuff up in him, he smoked that shit and drank
Hennesey, and he acted like a beast up from a tree, not like that
nice son that you knowed and owned."
"Crying again?"
already being soaked. May I turn on the light so we can talk, yes?
No? We'll talk in the dark. You can't see this, but my sleeve is
wet clear through. This arm I keep near you is water drenched.
But I don't mind getting wet. All I mind is being drowned. I'd
like for us to talk. I wish we could back the car up outside D.C.
Jail, tie a line to the bars and the car and ugh! Let the boy
escape. It's a good healthy feeling to want this. But I'm afraid
it can't be done."
You were right about her. When you first laid eyes on her, you
asked what Thatch ever saw in her. Breasts, degenerated sex, you
said, she was a hussy. I said, give the kids a chance."
thoughts."
taking the money I give her for him and is not using it on food,
but that stuff. "
and over again."
while?"
all I have. I don't want to live without him. He is mine."
before the dawn, Maggie was up. From her street of houses on a
hilltop, silence. It was too early for her middle class neighbors,
even the birds on the roofs were asleep. Maggie stopped, pondered,
before she broke the silence by starting up her still sleeping
husband's town car. The car seemed to turn over slowly, and once
going, move slower. The drive seemed to be longer. A drizzle
began; the windshield's slap-happy wiper sprung into action;
Maggie winced at its unhappy echo.
Maggie parked. The drizzle had lifted. The morning light looked
still-born, too many choking clouds lingered. She grabbed the
sacks of food and cleaning tools, and locked the car. She climbed
three flights of stairs, quickly, she stepped with a fair spring.
She knocked on the apartment door, called her son's wife's name,
demanded to be let in. The door opened - her grandson, demanding
a hug and breakfast, and getting picked up. And lifted? Quickly,
he was in the arms of his amazed, angry, stuttering grandmother who
toted him about the apartment's front room and yelled about his
clothing, a long dirty shirt that looked more like a smock than
sleep wear for a little boy.
feeling of danger and dread. It had awaken her, made her fill the
car with stuff and run, in the still night time, to see her grandson.
Perhaps, it was seeing the boy in a smock that decided it for
Maggie: Her son's wife had to be made to give up the boy.
for him, so she dressed him in his least dirtiest clothes. She
served him the cold cereal from the kitchen cupboard, and then
remembered the food she had brought and cooked crisp bacon and
eggs which she did not serve him, he had fallen to sleep.
return, and prepared things to say.
you whipped."
sneaking out to show your tail off to some scum in all your naked,
slutty glory."
their hoofs hitting hard against her forehead. The light of a
brightening morning woke her. Her grandson, a lively boy, was
awake romping, stumping on the floor. The sun had crept out, her
son's wife had not return.
house?"
door, and a dusty woman, with waggled steps, waddled into the house
and stood.
The woman, her son's wife eyeballed Maggie, peering out the corner
of her eyes, "I'm warning you, I won't leave without Little
Eddie."
night? In a hay-stack? There are clump balls in your hair."
going to keep my grandson. You haven't an idea in that hay-stack
head of yours to raise him -"
Mama."
I'll never let you take Little Eddie."
borrow him, but not keep him."
then dug down into her jacket and found a slip of paper. "Bills,
your son left Little Eddie and me with nothing but his bills.
These bills have to be paid."
until she found one Christian word to say, then found another
and another. "I ought to slap you, " she said. "I gave you money
and you just threw it away, messed it all up. I've been giving
you money, and you mess it up on drugs. You won't get another
penny from me."
any money."
again. You have put drugs before your child and yourself. My
grandchild is staying here, you can get your junkie ass out of
my house."
dried-up bitch."
from her bedroom towards the room that had been her son's and now
she meant to be her grandson's. Little Eddie was asleep, curled
in a sweet little heap, his brown eyes closed, his resting face in
repose against a fluffy pillow as he was taking his afternoon nap.
He looked so peaceful and safe. She remembered Ava, and was very
angry with herself for letting that, "that!", junkie sucker punch
her on the jaw. She knew that she must have gone right out cold.
But where was Ava? And who had put her to bed? And given Little
Eddie his nap? Edward. Who else? When Ava came to the house, Edward
was upstairs.
to get stuff for you, be right back. PS: Ava's in jail; and you
shouldn't be reading this. Doctor, says you need to stay in bed,
you'll be alright, but you need rest. I'll be back in ten
minutes.
the water boiled Edward returned with a bag from the pharmacy.
"Maggie, go back to bed."
with younger women."
here demanding money and assaulted you. She'll get eighteen months
to three years."
For only a moment more did Maggie hate Ava, for the train was
slowing down. It was pulling into a downtown station, and her
grandson with his smooth politeness, smiled, "We get off here
grandmom?" His eyes shown with light and it was unbearable to
hate. His face has features that were half Ava's, and half her
Thatch's. Maggie would have wept, but her grandson's eyes were
staring at her so deeply, and he was desiring so much to get off
the train, that he stood, took her arm and pulled. "Dear,"
she said, "Go easy on Grandmom's arm."
the train. She took him and brought him all new things at stores
where there were so many wonderful things for little boys.
{END}
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Rolling Snake Eyes
Swaggering through!
(c) Copyrighted 2007, All Rights Reserved
At seventeen I graduated high school and lived at home until I was nineteen. Life was easy and simple. I had fun. Things were cool.
I took a job now and then, to pay for the beer and to stake myself at poker. I handed out papers for two local Republican candidates. The Democrats wanted volunteers. The Republicans paid. Mom and dad were scandalized when they knew. Mom found a flyer in my room. How it got there? I'd written chicks phone numbers on it. Handing out flyers was a way to meet chicks. You're smiling, showing the charm. Chicks didn't read the darn flyers. Most didn't see the flyers. They saw a pleasant, cool young male with a cheerful demeanor.
Mom didn't break down in tears, but she looked embarrassed, like I had farted in church, at her favorite old aunt's funeral. She said, "Son, what is this?"
I said, "From work, mom."
"Work? You are working for them? Honey, Republicans are haters! They hate poor people and immigrants!"
"Uh oh. Not really, Mom. They don't. They hate people who won't vote for them." I grinned. "That's seventy percent of the people, according to the latest poll. Mom, Republicans aren't bigots; they're political."
There was no telling mom. She got hysterical, "Not my son is working for Republicans!"
Mom was making something big out of something that was very small, but it could have gotten a lot bigger, if I hadn't stopped and remembered to ask myself: What would Frank do?
The job was for a week, had a couple of days left. I said, "Well okay, mom. I won't work for them anymore."
She gave me a big smile, a big hug and money.
I went to work for this Chinese Restaurant. Chinese people generally hire only Chinese. The boss, Mr. Lee, liked the way I handed out flyers. I think he voted Republican. He hired me to hand-out flyers for him.
First rule: Daughter off-limits.
Second rule: Niece off-limits.
Third rule: Girls who work at the restaurant off-limits.
I asked Mr. Lee, "What about female customers?"
He smiled. "Boys need to play."
Mr. Lee was a businessman. He was a father, an uncle, an educator, taught political science at the University. I brought him customers, lots of young lady customers. Mr. Lee's food was good and cheap. Getting him customers wasn't that hard. But, Mr. Lee paid cheap, and that was no good. All the noodles I wanted, but very little cheese. I worked a week for him, right up until I saw my "weak" paycheck. I didn't have to ask what would Frank do?
Miss Double D, was a rather large lady. I wouldn't call her fat, but she was large, named for her bra size. She hired me at the dollar store. My nice smile and my good looks got me hired without needing to fill out a completed application form. What I did in the store? I swept, cleaned, dusted, and restocked the shelves, ran errands for my supervisor, provided a view, something she liked looking, staring, at kook-eyed. I caught her staring when I had my back turned, was bent over picking something up. She was an older woman, between boyfriends --I learned, from overhearing her and one of her girlfriends, whom came into the store. Miss Double D was twelve years older, a little too old to interest me as a chick. I was a kid, and what did I know. She was the supervisor. I couldn't see myself telling her to take off her dress.
Well, the work wasn't hard, nothing that I couldn't do. My supervisor was easy. She didn't try to touch me. She just stared. I would have worked at the dollar store for more than a week, if not for the two screwed-up robbers.
I half knew one of the robbers. I'd been in a poker game where he lost. I didn't know his name. I pretended amnesia. He didn't. I told him, "Dude, I just work here. The store's money isn't my money. You have a gun. I am furniture."
If his buddy hadn't talked about Miss Double D's tits. Talked and talked about them, and taunted her, while he pointed a gun in her face, I would have remained furniture.
"Tits, put all of the money in that bag, and while you are doing it, wiggle a little, and show me some jiggle." Just for the heck of it, he touch her left tit.
That was uncalled for! Was intolerable. Was he a thief or a pervert? I glanced at his buddy. My eye told him to control that clown. Neither of the them wanted to hear what I said. I was running a mop and a broom in a dollar store. They were big time robbers. The one I half knew got a butt face on, like a bully in jail lock-up, and told me he would put a dress on me, if I didn't shut up. What was he? A pervert too? Had he lost so badly at cards? What was this? Megalomania, because he had a gun on me? Had he gone crazy? Right now it didn't matter what his problem was. His slur could not be overlooked.
I heard my brother's voice. I heard more. I heard screaming. Two robbers screaming.
Young men act. Adults think -- of insurance costs, liability, law suits. Miss Double D told me that I was a hero. Mr. Big Boss man, the store owner, told me that I was fired.
Miss Double D called him, told him of the robbery attempt. He ran to the store. Drove, I am sure. He came in wearing just a pair of red running shorts, t-shirt and tennis shoes. Asked if the money was safe, asked if any employee was injured, asked what exactly happened, and Miss Double D did her best to re-assure him that everything was alright now. I had begun with the clean-up, straightening up merchandise knocked to the floor during the confrontation with the robbers. I caught the way he looked at me, felt his growing anger, and I would have totally ignored him, but he yelled out, "Hey dumb ass, I am talking to you!" He told me that I had put the store into jeopardy, by going loco on two armed robbers.
I am a lover, not a fighter. so I won't describe the details. The robbers needed hospitalization. The store owner did not. But one thing: Crystal cool, I did swagger over to him, did ask, "Who are you calling a dumb ass?" I didn't want to give the impression that I planned to go loco with him, so I grinned. "You have my address, mail my paycheck." I think Frank might have approved.
Mom was horrified that I'd been exposed to such danger. "They pointed guns at you!" She was pleased to hear that I wouldn't be working anymore at that dollar store.
Dad asked how had I disarmed the robbers. The police asked that too. Miss Double D told what she remembered. An entire version of the incident was caught on tape by the store's surveillance cameras.
The detective Sergeant took me aside, said, "You're too young to have been in the service. You should join. The marines could use you."
Well, I am not here to get spooky. Let's get back to Mom.
I kept money in my pocket and a chick in my ride. I didn't have a job. I had mom. I really lucked out to have her. My day began at about ten o'clock. I got up, went in the kitchen, where mom always had breakfast waiting. I spent the first part of my day watching Mom do things around the house, and watching her work on her at home business. I sat back in a kitchen chair and I watched mom. That was cool with mom. My parents sent me to community college. Me going to CC was like repeating high school, that wasn't cool, and mom saw that CC was really bumming me out, and she said, "Son --."
My mom had lost one son and she didn't want to lose another.
By the time the afternoon rolled around, she had enough of me. She smiled, and said something like, "Son, what are you doing hanging around your mama all day? Go out side and get some air." She gave me money. I went upstairs and changed. I had clothes. I dressed in style. The allowances from mom were generous. She had lost her baby. I was the only son she had to turn to, and -- well, I looked good in the mirror, projected an aura. I spoke to that handsome face, said, "I see why the chicks adore you."
I got in my car and went hunting for chicks, if I was between chicks. If I had a current steady, that chick and I went riding. I stayed out of the house, drinking, a few times, but not often like a fish, dancing, sometimes just rubbing against a good looking chick, having cool fun, until midnight, sometimes past midnight, until I was tired and worn out, from drinking with my buds. The chicks never left me looking haggard. Mom and dad often saw me come-in, and never commented on my appearance. I went to bed, got up at ten the next day, and started the whole routine over again, and probably would have continued with this lite life until I was thirty. but for Mr. Turdle.
Yes, his name was TURDle, like in crap. Thinking on it now, I remember, the day he came banging on the door, it was raining. I hadn't gone out that afternoon. He looked very threatening. To make things worse, I looked guilty. Mom let him in.
Mr. Turdle was the father of a gal whom I only slightly knew. I hardly remember her face now at all. I can't recall if she had a nice ass. Is that chauvinistic? Absolutely. Do I take chicks seriously? Never. Once you've had one naked -- you have crossed that line. Thrill them and be free of them. Anything else is silly.
Turdle accused me of getting his daughter pregnant. Damn! He got so belligerent, He talked loud into mom's face. I thought that his attitude might require a macho display. I said, "No!" I was about to say a lot more: How dare he accuse me! His daughter had forty boyfriends! I could name them! I glanced at mom. When she got mad, she was good at throwing furniture. I considered punching out some of Turdle's teeth. I wanted mom to get ready to back me up, at least with a little parental nod of approval, but judging the look on her face, no matter what I did or what else I said, I could see would not have helped. My future wasn't looking good. Mom frowned like there was a thumb in her heart, mine, Her nose cringed up, like her son was soaked in skunk scent.
Forty minutes passed. Forty long minutes, Mister Turdle sat in the living-room. I stood in a corner like a little punished child. Finally, I heard my dad's car. Mom called him. Mr. Turdle wanted one thousand dollars. Turdle explained to mom, "Your boy's share to help my girl out of this mess."
Mr Turdle had ordered plane tickets, booked a hotel and space in a clinic to take care of the problem, total cost two thousand dollars.
Dad came into the living-room. Mr. Turdle stood. Dad put out his hand, the hand of a man who read books and who ran a successful business. "My name is ---, yours?"
Turdle was slow in responding. He had the hands of a man who drove a truck. He held his hands together, like he was holding back. His hands were connected to massive arms, that were connected to a thick chest, that was connected to a short neck, which was connected to a head that looked hard and very thick. He had come into the house pissing. He was very pissed, but he held himself when faced with mom. He had stopped pissing, announced he would wait for the male parent. The moment dad entered the house, Turdle was ready to pour. Dad is well over six feet, still keeps his hair short in a Marine cut, and still is built like he is only a few years from the corp. I watched, waiting for dad to take Turdle down.
"Turdle!" Turdle finally spoke. He wasn't going to try to take the floor off, and make an opening to hell.
Dad's business was selling people stuff. He knew how, with a look and a tone of voice, to stroke targets, particularly, tight ass ones, until they gave. "Well, first names, I'm ---."
Turdle mumbled his first name. He shook dad's hands. Dad cut me a sour glance. This wasn't cool. I knew I might dread the next few years. I decided to make myself scare. I headed for an exit. Dad barked, "Stay here and sit down."
"I've got to take a leak, can't do it here, dad." I went upstairs. I heard Dad and Turdle talk. Six minutes and dad capitulated.
Turdle was a working, nine-to-five, blue-collar stiff neck, and dad was an eight in the morning to whenever, entrepreneur. Both worked for a living, not for beer and poker stakes. Both were fathers who expected their off-springs and every one else to conform to certain conventional expectations. They were two totally uncool guys.
After dad wrote the check. He walked Turdle to the door. Five minutes, he and Turdle were still in the foyer chatting, babbling, about why kids today kept coming up short. They sounded like two depressed frat brothers. I thought they were going to give each other a big hug. I nearly ran down stairs screaming.
I mumbled, "Great Scott! What would Frank do?"
Turdle left. Mom and dad held a meeting. They discussed the whole matter, and my entire life. Dad's decision -- But before I tell you that, know this: I was not one to convincingly play the sycophant, and never liked keeping my feelings to myself, though I often did. My sack cloth was getting too old to wear. I often wore it. Dad saw all of the holes, but he hadn't seem to care, -- and although I loved / still love/ my parents, like them, I knew that I was not so emotional or otherwise dependent that I couldn't walk out of their door.
Dad was so excited to finally tell me off, that he could hardly get his tone set. He began bellowing, then soften, some, not enough. No chance could I run around him. Mom sat still, like a wooden block. Mom was wearing a poker stare, I knew so well, and learned. It was just a blank look. Effective. She used it to say, "Your dad and I are of one mind." I use it when I play cards --gambling with the boys. Pouting and puppy-eyed looks weren't going to wear well, so I put a sock on that approach.
"Son, you have three choices: Get a job and start paying rent. Enrolled in an accredited college and start working on your future. Get your ass out of my house. Dad didn't put the last option that way. He has class. He quotes long dead philosophers.
He said, "Life is only for a few years, son. But what are you doing, just visiting? At the end of your life, what is going to be your story? Where are you headed? The sad truth is you have no clue, no prospects."
I told you, dad spoke funny. Mom just sat there. But now, she showed some emotion. She looked at me funny. For all the love they were showing, I might as well had hit the freaking road. Hitched-hiked across the country in the automobiles of strangers. What did they want? I didn't set out every day to live the perfect life of a saint, make myself into a pope. The idea is to get through each day without sweating, Sweating isn't cool, and it stinks, ruins your clothes and your prospect with chicks. I hang out with my bros -- the guys. I seek and find fun with chicks. I have a great time. We got to make fun and enjoy life, period. That is what Frank would have said.
I said, "Dad, how can you say this to me? First of all, that Mr. Turdle has no proof! He is going to destroy the evidence! It is my word, you son's word, against his gal, who can't keep herself from getting into a mess."
Dad said, "That is not the issue."
"What is dad? Are you mad at me because you paid out a thousand dollars, you shouldn't have paid?"
Dad said, "That is not the problem."
I said, "I will pay you back, dad."
Dad said, "Why don't you just go to school, get a four-year degree. I'll get you a job in my company."
"Why can't I work there without a degree?"
"I have outside investors."
"A slacker son would be embarrassing, right?"
Mom said, "You are not a slacker."
How was I going to get into a degree program, in an accredited four year college? I barely got out of high school. Got into CC because of open admission, and I didn't fit in, and was constantly hounded by the instructors, because my work was slow in coming. I couldn't keep up with the rest of the class. Okay!
Mom! When God blessed sons he gave them good moms. Mom's home business was mail order marketing. One of the companies she marketed sold guides to getting into the college of your choice. And how to get into any college. Anyhow! I got into a college, accredited too, in the state of Wyoming. I won't embarrass myself by mentioning the name of the school. Suffice to say, the only cool thing about that school was ---. Nothing! The chicks were cold, the weather was either too hot or too cold. The professors, the administrators were --. Well, I didn't, still don't, expect to find coolness among the professional educating crowd. But no kidding, I got a degree.
To be continued.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
A Tall Tale, part 3
letters from the future by dune loring
Have you ever gotten the feeling that everybody has been abducted by aliens and replaced, except you? I have.
The School. I waltzed up to the front door at school, and I thought the WWF had taken over, and wrestlers were working the high school as security guards who were ready to punch you out. I stopped a minute, pinched myself, to see if I was at home asleep. No such luck. The guards were checking for weapons and attitudes. I was gun-less, knife-less, but I still had a buzz and an attitude. A big, ugly, redneck guard shouted, "New rules!"
"Huh?" I spoke. I burped too, gas, beer.
"New rules in dress!" the wrestler-looking, fat boy growled. "Don't look different! Don't look weird!"
Of course, I am summarizing what he said. The quotes are for the benefit of literary reading types who like to see things in quotes.
Overnight the school had imposed a new dress code: No hats, no caps for boys or girls. No trench coats. Nothing black. Bright colors too bright were out too. No red and purple. Nothing disruptive. No jewelry. Kids with pierce ears and noses were told not to draw attention to themselves. Those with tattoos were told to cover them up with long sleeves and closed collars. The guard sent kids home for "being dressed funny."
"You're dressed funny, boy, get!"
One kid, Jacob Ely, federal judge Malcolm Ely's son, was told to take off "that Jewish cap!"
When Jacob objected, the guard screamed, "I told you, you are dressed funny! Go home and change!"
Luckily for the school board, just as the fat guard was about to arrest and handcuff Jacob for not leaving fast enough, the principal, Mr. Price, came running forth, yelling --
"His cap is okay!"
"Okay?" asked the guard.
"Yes!"
"Okay ..."the guard mumbled.
Mr. Price went back to do what ever it was that he did. The school only black kid, Rufus Jones, was stopped. Rufus had a gold front tooth. The guard growled at Rufus. "What did I tell you about jewelry, boy? Show no gold, no brass or tin either."
"My tooth?"
"Take it out or you don't come in."
"I can't take out my tooth!"
"Why not? Is it a gang sign?"
"No!"
"Do you sell drugs, boy?"
"No!"
"You fit the drug selling profile. What are you doing here anyhow?"
"I go to this school."
"You won't sell no drugs here. While I'm here."
"I don't sell drugs!"
"Do you use drugs?"
"No!"
"If I were colored, I might be tempted to use drugs." The guard sneered. "But I wouldn't!"
Rufus yelled, "I'm going to report you!"
"Report me? Because I won't let you sell drugs here?"
Rufus took a deep sigh. "I have a book report that is due."
"You are not coming in here looking like that," the guard said.
"I have a make-up test to take."
"Boy, I don't want to hear your problems. I have a job to do."
Rufus put his hands in his mouth and yanked out his gold tooth. The guard smiled. Rufus kept quiet. The guard spoke. "Put that tooth away, boy."
Rufus put the gold tooth in his shirt pocket.
The guard nodded. "Now you don't look like a gang banger."
"Yes, sir."
"You look like you belong someplace."
"Yes, sir."
"Boy, now you're acting white."
Rufus gulped.
The guard continued, "Just remember that when you're inside to keep acting white."
Rufus went into the school. Then my turn with the guard came. He stared at me. I grinned. I belched again, beer gas. That morning I rinsed with mouth wash. I'd been chewing gun. I swallowed it just as my turn came.
The guard sneered, "Who you trying to fool, boy?"
I grinned. He could tell that I was not quite there yet. I was still hungover, a little bit, back at the one hundred and one yard line. He could see how blurry my baby-blues were and that they weren't quite there yet either. This guy I was certain had been where I was, many times.
He said, almost like a big sloppy brother, "C'mon inside, boy. I hope you learn something."
I grinned again and waltzed pass him.
After kids began disappearing into the Internet, the entire world turned upside down. First, there were so many guards at the school, carrying shotguns, operating metal detectors, patting kids down and doing body searches, and with an attitude that said: kids, we rather that you stay out, drop out, than come in here. The guards at the door told kids: "No guns, no knives, no stick pins --girls, no bobby pins. Nothing sharp." I expected to be issued a pencil with rubber on both ends. And why not? Who needed a pencil? Not to write! I mean, if a kid wrote something, he ran the risk of getting jacked up by the guards, the teachers, the principal, and the guidance counselor, and being forced to defend himself and prove that what he wrote was in no way a threat or incorrect. And a kid certainly didn't need a pencil to do math!
The "A" Students, the college bound crowd, caught hell. All the kids with A's in math got hassled by the school. That didn't bother me. I never in my whole life aced a single math exam. All the kids into computer science were carefully watched. All the smart kids were ordered into counseling. I wasn't a computer nerd; I wasn't a smart kid, so what happened to them, didn't involve me. All the kids at school had to be careful, as to what they said, and they had to dress correctly. Kids could not look like or speak like an odd ball. Kids had to look "correctness," use the "speak correctness," be the "correct correctness," or else --counseling, suspension or expulsion, maybe a trip to the sheriff's office and to youth detention, and be held on suspicion. None of this involved me. As I mentioned last week, my dad, quoted Martin Niemoeller. Martin Niemoeller wasn't me. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop, too, were my philosophical heroes. Only Joey Bishop was still alive, and he was old. But their ideas were young and alive.
I was a kid. I was a little kid when Sammy Davis and Dean Martin died. Peter Lawford went a few years before them. When Frank Sinatra died, I was fifteen. I was grown, really. I knew myself. When Frank died, he was all over the tv, larger than life. The whole world fell over itself explaining Frank and his attitude towards life. Until then, I hadn't thought too much about him. He was retired. His music wasn't mine. I discovered him when he died. I learned that his music was cool, and he and his pals were cool dudes. Frank's main idea was that the key to life is coolness, being cool, maintaining one's cool, that sweating over things is for suckers who suck, that the hip dude looks out for himself, and by doing this enjoys his life. To be cool, all a dude needs are a smile, a drink and a chick.
My beef was with what happened to my girl. She changed completely. She had nice legs, so I put up with her. The girl never had been political. She had wanted what I wanted, to kick it back in my ride, sip a cold Bud and get a little busy with each other. But now, she wanted to protest, picket, spend time doing things that were a waste of what? Energy! We had the duty of making our sweet young years fun and happy, and cool
. My girl joined a protest group, a group of people with too much time on their hands, and helped picketed the subdivision's multiplex movie theater. She got me to picket too. How? Because of her nice legs.
I carried the biggest sign --showing off, showing her, and hoping that afterwards, I could carry her off somewhere. Her mom was on that picket line too. Her dad, who up until then never had a nice word to say to me, said: "Good to see you here, son." So, you see, I had to carry that sign with enthusiasm and devotion to the cause. The cause? My girl, her mom and dad and the fifty other people picketing were against violent flicks. My girl's parents made speeches on the picket line. Her dad said, "Hollywood and the movie industry, and this theater are all equally responsible for the violence manifested in the youth of today. Movies, like the ones shown in this theater, about kids who spend their entire lives on the Internet, are responsible for our kids disappearing into the Internet! Hollywood puts violent and wrong ideas in our children's heads, brainwash, change them, alter their minds in bad ways." My girl's mom spoke after him. She said that violent and Internet theme movies were responsible for the disappearance of three local boys.
Well, I lost a brother to the Internet. I knew movies and Hollywood weren't to blame. I was not for censorship. I knew / know censorship is bad, right? But, I was for my girl, my chick. When she started yelling that violent and Internet theme movies ought to be banned, well, I wasn't going to let her yell louder than me. Her parents were present, and it was a chance for them to see how grown-up thinking I was. I could think and yell just like them.
Was I doing anything wrong, really? Censoring --even boycotting-- is strong stuff. But wait a minute. I wasn't picketing or yelling in a crowd calling for the censoring of Socrates. Hollywood stood for nothing but making moolah. I saw that at that year's Academy Awards show. The show was about the celebration of the making of money. At the show the year before, Titanic, a flick that made a ton of money, walked off with the goose. Titanic was a chicks flick, and a guy's too. I mean, I got about all the way up my chick's leg. There was nothing on the screen that held my interest, and she was swooning over that guy in the flick, forgot completely about me and what my hand was doing. My conscious restrained me.
Hollywood is a billionaires' show, a rich people's performance spectacle. My dad, after he saw that year's awards show, said: Hollywood is nothing. I quote my dad, "Hollywood used to get two things right: the Holocaust and the blacklist. But now -- an Italian guy makes a comedy about the Holocaust. A comedy! -- Ha! Ha! He! He! Jumpy, jumpy! --wins two awards! And the academy gives a honorary award to a dirty waterfront rat, who ratted out writers, and who supported the black list! Hollywood has surrendered its soul."
Dad did not complain, did not quote Martin Niemoeller, when he learned, later, that I was a picketer.
It seems that in time the fantastic chick you dig, the lovely honey you want to squeeze, develops a little of the Mussolini trait. She becomes pretentious, pompous. She issues orders, you know, decrees. She comes up with a grand scheme to bend you to her will. She becomes almost as meddlesome as a mom. But you know the deal. The babe is so comic. Well, this is so normal. You don't pay her any mind. But my honey became obnoxious. The comedy became a tragedy. I liked, still do, greasy cheese burgers and french fries. Most of our dates began with a stop at a burger and fries joint. I knew things were going wrong that evening she stayed in the car while I went inside to get the food. I brought her favorite burger and mine, and a jumbo size fries for us to share. I returned to the car, my arms full of bags of food, my face lit with a grin. She sat glum. She'd been glum all week. A couple of times I'd asked her why and regretted it. Her glumness wasn't my fault. I was good to her. I marched on a picket line for her!
Two evenings before the burger incident, while we sat on her front porch, I tried to get her to smile. "Why don't you smile like you use to?" I asked.
"Current events," she muttered.
"Huh?" I was bewildered.
"The news sucks," she said.
"So what?" I grinned. "The news always sucks."
I wanted to rub her legs. She wanted to have a deep conversation about how to fix the problems of the world. I misquoted Bogart. At the time, I didn't know I had. I thought: what would Frank do in a situation like this? I opened my mouth and out came Bogart. "The problems of the world don't amount to a hill of beans when personal happiness is at stake," I said. I thought I was being profound. She stared and started drilling me.
"What? What do you mean by that? Explain!"
Because I wanted to avoid a fight, my sweet honey's stares made me sweat. I smiled. She looked as though she was about to pounce on me. She gave me a look that I had only seen in my dad's stare, when I was younger and he thought I could benefit from him trying to play Socrates. My dad went at me with questions. No enlightenment, only mental entanglement, the kind that if one is not smart enough to shut the crap out, leaves a person's mind tight like a nut, in a twisted knot. Dad tangled me into a bag of his frustrations. My girl was no Socrates either. She just bugged me like she was trying to be. She had no answers. The news, the kids disappearing, the violence in the country, the lack of values in the media, filled her doe eyes with fog. My honey went Holden Caulfield on me. She took up the cause to right the world. Well, she asked me to join her on the sucker's quest to find "one pure soul in a dirty world," to help right the world, taking that up, is about as smart as when that guy in ancient Greece took a lantern and went out in the dark world looking for a honest man. Oh brother! Yes, the girl went daffy on me. She wanted us to go to meetings. She wanted me to start reading. She'd started listening to people who said they had the answers. The naive girl found nothing but stuff that made her glummer and glummer.
That evening with the burgers, she -- the little faun's eyes got so big and incredulous and demanded, "You are not going to put that stuff in you!" She decreed, "It is greasy and nasty and violent food. If they don't have a veggie sandwich get nothing."
"They don't. We're at a burger joint."
"Get nothing!"
"I have this. I paid for it."
"Toss it away."
"No. I paid for it."
"Don't come near me with that."
"You didn't say anything when I went in --"
"You don't listen!" she shouted.
I wanted to rub her legs. She was raising a sweat, on me, on herself. I thought again: What would Frank do?
"Ex-girlfriend," I said. "Get out of my car."
The female Holden Caulfield was happy to get out of my car. I drove home alone. My parents didn't noticed I'd come in early. I went to my room with a six-pack. Even my Bud didn't taste the same, made me think the brew was being weakened, watered down, by aliens whom wanted to fuzz the bite of the buzz.
[END]
5/17/99
"Letters From the Future by Dune Loring, "A Nation of Aliens", (c) Copyrighted
1999 by Buster T. Flatt, All Rights Reserved
A Tall Tale, part 2
letters from the future by dune loring
THE WITCH FINDER GENERALS
(c) Copyrighted 1999, All Rights Reserved
Last week I wrote of the disappearance of my brother into the Internet.
Well, after my brother disappeared, and after the missing persons bureau was notified, and after a ton of reports were filed, and after the word got out and the press learned of the sad disappearance, and of the circumstances involved, and my family was under siege by tv cameras, and became the object of vicious rumors and slander, and hysteria, after all of this, when it looked like things couldn't get worse, the witch finder generals descended upon us like the Assyrians of old, who came down like wolves upon the fold. Witch finder generals? Grief counselors! Jackals that attack in packs! Fiends out to skin a person alive! Rip off his head! Force a person to spill out all of his insides! Want to know more? Read on.
But first, let me tell you about the hysteria from people whom I knew all of my life and whom my parents had known for years. Let me start with the kids at school. Do you know I couldn't get a date? I went from being very popular with the honeys to rating a zero, becoming the nada kid. My car suddenly developed the case of four flat tires. Nobody would lend me a spare. Nobody knew how my tires got flat, either. Nobody knew a thing. Nobody would give me a lift home. I had to call mom. She told me to catch the bus.
"Mom, will you come pick me up? They won't let me on the school bus. Suddenly, I've become a threat."
"What?" she began to complain about the narrow minds of stupid people. She told me that I should have demanded a seat on the bus.
"Mom, it is sorta useless to fight them all. Ever since Billy went missing, all the kids want to stay away from me."
"That's not fair!" Mom shouted into the phone.
"I know mom, but you are coming?"
Twenty minutes later, Mom pulled up in front of the school building. She started to park. I told her don't. I jumped in the car and told her to please drive.
"No," she said. "I shall have a few choice words with your principal."
"Mom, he's probably gone. Most of the teachers are gone."
There were only a few people milling around. When mom got out of the car, they all began to look at us. They were all obviously concerned about mom's presence. After all, she was the mom whose lonely, introverted son had been lost to the Internet, had disappeared into cyberspace, was physically gone, the son was a left-hander and a heavy downloader. He once used so much time on the school's computers that he crashed them. The principal, the president of the parents-teachers association, and the superintendent of schools had all addressed the school assembly and had warned the kids of the Internet, and of heavy downloading, and of moms and dads who weren't there enough for their own children to protect them from the temptations of cyberspace. The kids were told they had to help protect themselves.
Well, mom tuned-out the kids' stares and went marching "left, right, left" into the school building and towards the principal. "Keep your chin up and follow me," she said. Mom thought she was handling the tragedy of Billy's disappearance into the Internet pretty well, and that she could handle a few hostile stares.
As mom led the way, I noticed how mom-like she looked for a mom in the house, but for a mom coming to school to speak to the principal, well, she wasn't dressed correctly. In her defense, she came racing to school at my urging, because I was being picked-on. She hadn't expected my phone call. She dropped what she was doing and came to help her first born son. Well, she was wearing sweats, not a dress. She didn't have on make-up. Her hair was pushed into one of dad's baseball caps, and what you could see of it looked like a mess. Well, to the kids' minds, she looked just like a neglectful mom who would lose one of her children to the Internet.
I was glad the football coach didn't come running to the door to stop her by planting his big bulk in the doorway. Mom met no real resistance until she got to the principal office. I have a theory about high school teachers which the passing of time, getting older and learning more haven't changed. I believe that all college graduates are given a test and the less able among the graduates are offered jobs as high school teachers, and those who rank at the bottom of the less able, the least able, are made high school principals.
Mr. Price, the high school principal, was a little man right down to his very soul. He wasn't short by height, just short where it counted. I am no brain, myself, I didn't slight him for his limited abilities, where I took offense --and the word is offense-- was with his lack of common sense. When mom entered his office, he nearly had a fit of paranoia. Really. Mom didn't help by scowling when she reminded him whose mom she was, though he didn't need reminding.
"I can't believe what is happening to my son. You know my children?"
"Yes," Mr. Price replied testily.
"My children have gone to schools in this city since kindergarten. They are good kids, never in trouble. My youngest was straight honor roll; my oldest boy excels in sports. My children have won recognition in this school."
Mom went on, said a few more things, then Mr. Price took his turn to speak.
"Well, we had an assembly this morning, and we had a moment of silence for your boy, Billy."
The way he mentioned Billy, the tone of voice he used, didn't go over well with mom. He might as well dropped a bomb on her because she cracked. Though mom had come storming into the Principal's office, dressed to do battle, she wasn't fit to fight a flea. She was a see-through-person, not made of the indifferent material it takes to back into a corner a cockroach like Mr. Price, and to stomp on him. Mr. Price was astute enough to see this. I mean, it takes no smarts to see the obvious. And mom revealed herself, she couldn't help it. Mom could conceal nothing, not even the stress pimple on her neck. She erupted in tears. She boo-hooed so hard, she even scared me. And I have loads of the indifferent material that it takes to fend off attacks from the cockroaches of the world.
Mr. Price took this condescending attitude, asked mom if she considered counseling. Mom didn't answer him. She allowed me to escort her back to the car. I drove us home. Mom cried too hard to drive.
The neighbors were worse than the frightened people at school. We went from being the most popular family in the neighborhood to being the scum of the earth. The next door neighbor, a long-time family friend, a parent too, verbally attacked mom for "losing" Billy. Anyway, things kept getting worse, until came the plague of fat locust, the doctors of grief, and things got so bad that they went beyond worse.
The moment I first laid eyes on this fat woman in the green skirt and blouse, I knew she was going to be bad news. First she was too candy jolly, jolly in a candy way, a hollow jolly. Her face smiled, said, "ho, ho, hi, hi,", but her eyes were all cold business, said, "the meter is ticking, be worthy of my time or get out of my way." And she had a tape recorder. It wasn't on, as far I could tell. The red light wasn't blinking. She had it in a bag strapped around her waist, like it was a weapon of some kind. I thought of being rude. You know, telling her to carry her fat butt someplace else. Mom was in the house and mom wouldn't have liked it if I'd slammed the door in a stranger's face.
Well, the woman put her foot in the door, like she was Willie Loman or something, trying to sell something that nobody needed. I guess she thought I wouldn't dare slam the door on her foot. She didn't know me. If mom wasn't on the pill bottle, put there by my brother's disappearance, I would have showed that candy, smiling fatty.
"You must be Jerry! Hello, I'm Dr. Penny Krautmiller, the sheriff department sent me. Are your parents home?"
Before I could answer no, Mom appeared, right from nowhere, it seemed. In fact, mom had been listening. She nudged me aside, offered the stranger a chair and a cup of coffee. She suggested that I should have a cup too. Well, I was suitably stinking drunk, but standing. I got drunk more often, though my parents never noticed. They were worrying about Billy, and I was drinking more alone, because the kids from school wouldn't drink with me, or have anything to do with me. To them, it was like brother, like brother. -- Like I was going get grabbed by the Internet. They didn't bother to ask me if I knew how to log on.
Minutes passed. The fat woman was seated in the best chair in the living room. Dad and mom were on the sofa. I stood post, my back leaning on the mantel. The stranger repeated her name. Mom asked if she had any news of my brother Billy.
"Sorry, no news of your Billy," the woman said.
"Why are you here?" dad asked.
The stranger took a large yellow envelope from her black bag, opened it by untwisting its clamps. She removed a sheet of white legal size paper, held it as if it held magic. And what magic the paper held!
"This is my charge," the stranger said, as though the paper gave her power and a rush. She extended her arm out. The paper moved in the air, as she held it firmly in her hand. A scent rose from the paper and rushed my parents noses and mine. The paper smelled like the air in the middle of a mob of kids on a hot night, at the gate of a rock concert, where there are too many kids and not enough seats, and a ton of bogus tickets. A suffocating stench!
"What is that?" dad asked.
The stranger smiled. "I am a doctor."
I got ready, steadied myself on my feet. I just knew it was only a matter of time. Dad would have enough of this stranger and kick her out. Her smile now resemble that of a local tv reporter who had dogged us for a week.
"My fees are covered by the state victims fund," the stranger said. "A few years ago, the state, through the local sheriffs and police departments, started a program to assist victims of crime and their families, to cope with tragedy. Coping is a journey filled with dangers. In fact, I, myself, am a survivor of a violent crime, and ..." The stranger continued in this vein for a good while. I guess dad listened as long as he did because the stranger said she had come from the sheriff's department.
Finally, dad interrupted. "What does this have to do with my son?"
The stranger looked surprised by the question. She cleared her throat. "Your son has disappeared. He was obsessed with the Internet." She lifted her hand, as if the answer to dad's question and the need for her presence and services were totally obvious. She answered Dad with, "Tell me, how does that make you feel?"
Dad was angry. "Who are you?"
"Dr. Penny Krautmiller, MD, Ph.D., MBA."
Dad was ready to throw the woman doctor out. I walked to the door and opened it. But Mom was only close to tossing the stranger out. Mom didn't want to do anything to tick off the sheriff department. She was afraid that if she made them mad, they wouldn't look hard enough for Billy. The doctor smiled and began speaking in a tone so earnest that I had to laugh.
"You must let it out. You must purge yourself of your grief. You must have a clear mind. Don't keep the anger inside, express your feelings." She pitched sh--!
"Mom, I want to kick the doctor out of the door," I announced.
The doctor acted insulted. Then she raised her chin ridiculously high. "Mr. and Mrs. ....., and Jerry, you are resisting. This is not healthy, not to yourselves, not to the community."
Dad glared. I grinned. Mom looked glum. The doctor targeted mom.
"Tell me how did you feel when you learned you've lost your son?"
"I haven't lost my son, he's missing," replied mom.
"Do you dream about him?"
"Doctor!" mom's jaw got tight.
"Mrs. ..., I am here for you and your family."
"My son, doctor --"
"Tell me, do you feel you drove him away? Drove him to lock himself in his room? To spend so much time alone on the Internet?"
"Doctor?"
"Look, I am a doctor. I know these things. Get out of denial. Your son is gone. Face the fact. Why did he leave? What did you do? What guilt do you feel? Are you a good cook? "
Dad yelled at the doctor. "What are you saying!"
"I am posing questions. How do you feel about the questions?"
Mom took a deep breath before she said. "Doctor, my son is just missing."
The doctor shook her head. "The Internet has him. I have seen it. I know what I am talking about. A million kids, worldwide, have been taken by the Internet. The Internet steals children."
"Please!" Mom lifted her hand for the doctor to stop.
The doctor wasn't ready to stop. "You are so vulnerable. Forget stoicism. Cary Cooper is dead. Today's hero is Woody Allen. You've got to let it all out. Tell it like it is. Keep nothing back. Unburden yourselves. This is healthy."
As you can see, the doctor wasn't much of a doctor, just a thin skinned, skunk with a lot of letters at the end of her name. The latter 's' for sh-, the letter 'f' for feather head, the letter 'b", well, you know what the 'b' is for. Mom kicked her out.
Well, we thought we were done with her. Wrong! The family got harassed, even more so. Mom got harassed at the supermarket. I got it at school, shovel loads of sh--. Dad on his job. We had more reporters tapping on the window asking us to come out on the front lawn for an interview. You know: Day 3 of Billy's disappearance! How are you holding up, folks? The neighbors started to look at us funny. The doctor had the school guidance counselor called me in for an interview. Doctor Quack interviewed the check-out girls at the supermarket about mom. Dad's boss was questioned about him. The neighbors were warned to be on the look-out for any signs that we might go off. Everybody was told that my family was holding back and needed to vent our feelings, or there might be trouble.
Well, you think that was bad, things got worse.
One morning, while we were having breakfast, three black vans pulled up into our driveway, and onto our lawn. Three dozen people in suits and one uniformed deputy sheriff jumped out. They surrounded the house. The uniformed deputy sheriff knocked on the door.
"Mr. and Mrs. ...., Jerry ....will you open the door?"
Dad went to the door. "What?"
"The door!"
"What is this about?"
"This house is surrounded, will you open the door?"
"Do you have a warrant?"
"Do you want me to speak through the door?"
"Do you have a warrant?"
"We have a complaint that residing in these premises are three unrepentant, unvented, troubled individuals, who may pose a danger to society. Do you want your neighbors to hear the rest? Or will you open this door?"
"You have no warrant?"
"Don't you want your minds vented? To be healthy? To undergo the cleansing ritual?"
Mom said to dad. "Dear, our neighbors are listening."
Dad muttered, "They have no warrant."
Mom told dad to open the door. He shook his head, but started doing what she said. Before he could get the door opened all the way, the deputy and the people in the suits bogarted their way through the door, bum rushing him and the rest of the family.
"What is this?" dad demanded.
Doctor bad Penny stepped through the door. She was the last to enter. She wanted to make a dramatic entrance.
"I have returned," she said, MacArthur-like.
Dad yelled a few choice curse words. I put my hand over my ears and laughed. Dr. Penny wasn't in charge of this group. The man in charge was bald and pink-headed. He was tall and he could growl. He was so angry-looking that dad's face froze in the middle of cursing.
"We are all credentialed professionals. Grief counselors. Experts in the field of grief, " the man said. He made it clear that he could give grief as well as grief counseling. "We are a state and federal strike team of grief counselors. You are not cooperating. This is unhealthy."
Dad crossed his arms and frowned at the lead doctor. "Will you say what you have to say and leave my house?" he asked.
"Leave?" the doctor shook his head. "You are wounded. It is our duty to care for the wounded. We can no more leave you alone than can we leave on the street bleeding, a man who has been hit by a car. We are here to help. We are sworn professionals of medical science."
Dad turned to the deputy sheriff. "Where is my freedom to be secure in my own house? My freedom to speak or not to speak to these hustlers?"
The lead doctor answered, "You do not have to speak. You may just sit quietly and reflect on your grief."
"Aren't we going through enough? Our son is missing!" Mom shouted.
"Good, shout. Vent," the lead doctor smiled.
Heads nodded all around among the grief doctors.
The lead doctor continued, "Stop repressing your grief, please!"
"Get out of my house!" Mom shouted.
The grief doctors smiled, nodded. Mom was on a roll.
"Venting is good. Be open. Tell us what you feel. Talk it out. Let it out. It is good for your mind and body. Heal yourself. Don't remain psychically disabled by this loss."
"My son is missing only!"
"Please, Mrs. .., that is denial."
"Vent, mom!" I said. "Vent!" I swirled around, doing the neat foot work that I remembered seeing somebody on Jerry Springer's show do while ranting and raving at some other person whom had ticked him off. There were looks of approval on the faces of every one of the grief doctors and on the deputy sheriff's. "Vent!" I screamed. I got in the groove of the game.
Dad told me to stop shouting in the house. I inored him.
"I've seen mom cry, I've heard dad too, and me --." I choked.
I'd hit a home run. The lead doctor said, "When the grief builds up, you can't suppress it. You must bleed it out!"
Yeah! I thought. You want people to go out and get a bunch of leeches like you. I said: "I am so sad!"
"No more private sorrow! Keep nothing buried! Let it out!" The lead doctor and the other doctors said or chanted. Which doctor said what, I don't know. I was too much into my own performance to closely follow theirs. I did notice mom. When I forced a tear from my eyes, she stared at me, her mouth agape.
Mom and dad wouldn't play the game. They remained defiant, continued to demand their constitutional rights. Dad started quoting dead European dudes on his rights. Then he told the deputy sheriff and the witch doctors again to leave his house. When they refused, he started quoting this dead German guy, Martin Niemoeller. You know the famous quote: "In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade nionist ..." You know the quote. "Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up." I didn't get dad's point because he was speaking up and was getting "beat down." Maybe what he said could rally liked-minded people. Well, being nobel was dad's game. I was sixteen. All I wanted was to drink beer with my buds and to wrap my hand around my honey's legs. That was all. I wanted to do what I had to do to be accepted again by my peers. Kids know, life is a compromise. It is playing a game, paying the fool, dancing to a fool's tune, at home with your parents, at school with the teachers, and particularly with your peers. I mean, noble stuff aren't for you when you are sixteen, unless you want to windup like my brother, a nerd, an outcast, that nobody really liked, other than his kin, because you are supposed to like your kin, for real. Well, that was me at sixteen. I didn't know any better.
The grief doctors thought my parents were lacking. The grief doctors took me aside and told me I was great and deserved better parents. I was asked if I wanted foster care. The lead doctor, using his most kindly voice, said, "Jerry, you're sixteen and you can decide for yourself."
I told him. "They are the only parents I have." I sobbed. I could have asked that self-assured pompous ass for a hundred bucks and he would have gladly given it. I was a model griever.
"We won't do anything without your approval," he said.
I never told mom and dad how close they came to being declared by the state not good enough for me.
[END]
5/10/99
"Letters From the Future by Dune Loring, The Witch finder Generals", (c)
Copyrighted 1999 by Buster T. Flatt, All Rights Reserved
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