Thursday, April 30, 2009

The Last of Sunset (One Soldier, WWII) A Short Story


The Last of Sunset
(One Soldier, WWII)


((The End) (The Last of Sunset))


Grandfather stood in the last of sunset in the open door, his fingers holding onto the end of his pipe, and his other hand and arm wound strong and steady around a broom, it was the last months of the war, 1945.
When the message came about Frank, he just lowered the broom to its side against hanging jackets next to the screened in door. And went to sit down in a kitchen chair around the corner of the parlor, the table being against the wall, I was eight-years old then, would be nine in two months. Grandpa sat slowly down and looked at the piece of paper, his older son Wally got out of the mailbox on the porch, he had handed it to him. He already knew beforehand what it was. He didn’t speak to anyone in the house. Just looked at the characterless envelope, it had no stamp on it; didn’t need one. He waited for his son, the older one to return, to come down from his attic bedroom.
“I can’t open it. You open it please.” He said to Wally.
“Damn Italy! Damn them Germans!” And then he grabbed his father and held him, trying to hold him. And that was all.

One day there was a call to arms, a war to fight, like my grandfather did in WWI, six-thousand miles away. And he went, and Uncle Frank now twenty some years later, got that same calling. He one morning got up out of bed and had breakfast and he was gone, just like that. He went to boot camp, someplace down south, and then onto Europe, to Italy, and that was all of him.

And in the next months and years to come, he would see pictures at the cinema, and in the papers, of a war that was. Names and pictures of dead soldiers, again, and again, and again. People who loved their sons and brothers, as we all loved Frank.


((The Beginning)(One Soldier))


“I got to go to war Paw,” Frank said.
“Why? He said, hesitantly, “I just don’t see any use in it any more, our country ain’t being invaded.”
“Germany and Italy started one and now Japan hit us in Pearl Harbor, besides it’s the right thing to do.”
“My brother Wally went paw, was a POW, now he’s home, he got a Purple Heart, I need to go.”
“The good it does for anyone I’ll never know. I went to war; Wally went to war, to protect a country that doesn’t need any protecting.”
“Anyway, I’ve got to go, I’m eighteen now.”
“Of course you got to go,” my grandfather said, “those Germans—”
“Go get me a hand full of tobacco out of my bedroom,” grandpa asked Frank.

So Frank got ready. And Uncle Wally came down from the bedroom attic to give him a ride to the Minneapolis’ induction center. Mother washed and mended his cloths before he left. That night I had overheard her talking to Anne, her older sister on the telephone, she said “I want him to go, and paw I think wants him to go, but neither one of us want him to go. I just don’t understand it, and I won’t ever, and so don’t expect me to.”
Then I walked back up stairs to the attic bedrooms, and laid down still and my head fell back into a feathered pillow maw and Aunt Betty, and grandma—before she died in 1933 of pneumonia—filled this pillow with chicken feathers. And I wasn’t talking to myself, I wasn’t talking to anybody, but I heard a voice in my head, “He’s got to go, nothing you can do about it,” it said. And I said out loud, “Them Germans—”
“Shoo,” said Uncle Wally, “we can’t do anything.”
I turned over softly, and kind of heaved over toward the side, looking at the rug beside my bed, on the floor in the dark.
“Anyhow,” said Uncle Wally, “he’ll be alright.”
But I knew, even at that age, folks don’t’ go to war for the amusement of it, nor leave their family for the fun of it, but Wally wanted me to go back to sleep, he said he had to give Frank a ride in the early morning to the induction center, he had to take his oath, I guess. I turned about on my bed onto my back, I told that voice in my head to ‘Shut up,” that secret voice. And fell to sleep.

The next morning we all got up, Uncle Wally, me and Maw and grandpa, and my brother Mike, and Uncle Frank, we ate breakfast, under the dim grayness of the morning, and we all looked a bit grim, all trying to keep busy, Maw trying to put breakfast on the table for everyone and I ate. Then we all finished, and Uncle Frank packed a small suite case of cloths. Maw said, “Honest folks need clean cloths, even when they are headed on to war, and a decent breakfast.”
I brought Frank his coat and hat, it was October, 1944, and maw and grandpa still didn’t cry, somehow I expected them to, but I wanted to, they just stood in front of Frank, and didn’t move. For all she cared, the country and all that was in it, they could have it, so long as they left our family alone. We were not rich, and maw didn’t care to have her brother fight and die for the rich because she believed our blood was as good as any blood anywhere out there, and somehow the rich forgot that, and she wanted to remind them of it. Then she kissed Frank, and Grandpa hugged him, and I hugged him, and held back my tears for later.

4-30-2009 ··

Saturday, April 25, 2009

The Vanity of Ernest Hem (or, the Dead Roots Drama) Parts one and two complete

The Vanity of Ernest Hem
(Or, the Dead Roots Drama)


Three time Poet Laureate,
By Dennis L. Siluk Ed.D.

Part One
Of two parts


Chapter One


I had an impulse, when I was nineteen-years old, to become the editor and publisher of a small town weekly newspaper in Stillwater, Minnesota, it turned out to be a little more complex than I had expected. I think inside of most men they think they can be a singer, own a restaurant, or be a small town editor, and I was no different.
Formerly, when I lived in St. Paul Minnesota, I knew a good many newspaper men and women, met them through contacts when I was quite young, seventeen, eighteen and now nineteen. They all dreamed of getting away from the low tone, hustle and bustle of things in these Midwestern conservative cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and owning their own little place, running it the way they wanted to, and writing books in their spare time, or moving onto San Francisco or New York, something bigger, not like a generation before them, when now, the old folks, came to the city, and all they wanted was to own a corner ma and pa grocery store, that’s all but gone now. With change, comes new generational goals, comes new dreams, or perhaps it is just one dream for me, the dream I always wanted, to be a writer, a novelist, and in the interim, a newspaper man, and it all would start at nineteen years old for me, and it was starting.
This so called writer, a want to be writer, wanted to be a good writer, and write short stories, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, novelettes, novellas you name it, I wanted to write it, articles, essays and so forth. Just to write. I asked an author once, “What qualifies a person to be an author, or writer?” and he said, firmly, and stoutly, “He or she’s got to have a lot to say, or write about.” And I suppose now I am acquiring that.
There it is, I said it, in a nutshell, you see; a windy call to the brotherhood of ink slingers, and plot builders, and theme moulders. I am among them, few hear their calling at nineteen, but I did, I really did, not for vanity sake, yet I suppose I had a little of that who doesn’t. I mean it is one of the seven great sins I hear, but was mine any worse than anyone else’s? I’d say no; perhaps an objectionable vice, not a Christian teaching, but not in the bible per se, I had never read it, nothing to put me into the Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy,’ surely not one of the seven virtues also. I did not have the other six, if indeed Vanity is one: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, envy and pride. Woops, pride, might be the other word for vanity. But I had kindness also, and humility, a raw kind of humility. My mother once said, pride is the most serious of all the deadly sins, and the ultimate source of which all the others arise. She said it is trying to compete with God; Lucifer tried that I mean, not me. I know that is what caused his fall from heaven. Anyhow, I’m talking too much on this subject.
In my own case, I had that impulse; I really, truly felt I did. But I knew I would have to learn the trade, I think that also, my head feels numb, but I will write on: I had to make a living, and this was my main reason to try and get a job as a newspaper editor, and in the process of all these elements, I’d become a writer, because I had a lot to say, a whole lot to say and write about. And the job just kind of made itself available. Almost like genetic manipulation now that I think of it. You know what I mean, like, environmental pollution; it just seeped in, like drug trafficking—it was there, available.
And I did get the job, in the little town-ship of Stillwater, after birthday party, with its deep history dating back to the around sometime in the 17th Century; Stillwater, about twenty-five miles outside of St. Paul.
(The Narrator :) I hate to pop in at such an occasion, but I must explain something psychological, behavior change techniques to improve behavior, such as altering an individual's behaviors and reactions to stimuli through positive and negative reinforcement of adaptive behavior and/or the reduction of maladaptive behavior through punishment and/or therapy, this my dear readers can all be reversed.)

Just making a living was not really the big issue, because back then when I got the job, work was plentiful in America, and Minnesota above all, perhaps a little better off than most states.
I suppose I felt making a living needed to connect with what I wanted to become, and knowing this I spent many hours at making my living, and writing at night, and trying to go to college, after my nineteenth birthday, I quite college, at the University of Minnesota at that point and time, never heard from them again either, they never tried to contact me, and so I left them be, I had one year behind me, and the owner of the newspaper overlooked having a degree. And I figured since Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner never had degrees, why would I have to have one, I mean I was in good company. Prior to this job, I had worked as a labourer, wandering from foundry to factory, just a common employee, for the most part; I needed money only to pay for my one room apartment, and my college tuition.
The sad thing was, I lost the impulse to write after I took that job in Stillwater, unknowingly why, and my new feelings were simply to publish, drink, try to do my college studies through the mail, Mr. Scriber, the newspaper owner fixed that up for me. Some college I never heard of but it was accredited, and that also took time away from my personal writings, no time for sending out manuscripts of my short stories, and so forth and so on. Oh I did sit at my desk and write out a few stories now and then, less then, than before, and less now than ever before. What I’m trying to say is I did not have much spare time, or sleeping time, cheating my body and mind of rest, for work and socialization. Mostly work and the socialization was with elements of the newspaper. But I was young and wild and like everyone else at my age, which’s to say I was any different.
My employer was naturally unaware of what was going on, because I played the game quite well, my time management skills were good. Or if he knew, I didn’t know he knew, and he was then, or I am inclined to thing he was endearingly sympathetic, with such a fellow like me, but I was growing up. My mother and father had passed on before my 16th birthday, and I was the only child. So I had no one to really keep close contact with but a few friends.
All youth have that edge to be the unscrupulous once in a while, to do the unthinkable, like I did at the party once and drank twenty-shots of whisky, and my friend ran down in his car to Ramsey Hospital, to get my system cleaned out, I remember he had sad eyes, where prior to this he had, or we had joyful faces, or we had something like that. It was like my friends became my caretakers, instead of nurtures. And I wanted to show my appreciation, when we had the contest of who could drink more; funny the things we do to get attention.

My first book a novel, had sold very well, “Formless Darkness,” not sure where I came up with that name, it was in my head when I woke up one morning, just like that, as if someone had planted it there, as if I was under a spell, and the name imprinted onto one of my genes. And now I had money, and I bought myself a duplex, three apartments to it, rented two out to friends of Mr. Scriber, this paid for the heat and electric, although it seemed I was paying for more the electric, to keep the place cool, and the summers were longer and winters shorter. I thought of myself as settling down now, leading the simple life, I was twenty-three years old. Already had published a book, now I could consort with nature, read, and loaf about, as long the royalties kept coming in, and I held my job.
Whatever takes place in my life, I thought at this juncture, I mean with my career as an editor and novelist, I would when need be, do all I had to do to live in this simple, and independent, fashion.
During these years between nineteen and thirty, I was kept busy. It was at thirty-one, I began to pay heavily for my indiscretion, or better put, lack of direction. I was drinking too much, seeing too many lovers, they came to my door, at work, and I had so many affairs one right after the other, I had no time to call my friends, and I had not written my second book yet, had it contracted to do so in a year, the year was up, it was a year and half, six months past the due date, and I was told do or die. Meaning, for an American, grind the book out…I will leave that out for later.
Anyhow, I had to try to do what I thought was the impossible. I guess as I look back now, folks often talk about leisure, I had it at such a young age, I didn’t think it would ever fade, but it does. And to be honest with myself, it turns into laziness, and nobody likes to look at the lazy people, and I was as lazy as the day was long, lazy, lazy, and it was a sinful laziness.
My friend was writing eight to twelve hours a day, everyday, seven days a week, so the postcards said; he now changed from phone calls to postcards said he was travelling too much, all over the world, so he had to write by postcards. I was sleeping those hours away at night, and wake up at noon and partied, drank and well, if I got an hour in to write, I was doing well. Like many writers, I could not write at all like C.E. my friend. What was I doing with Greg Hamilton, my agent, who had the contract in my face every other day? I was avoiding him that is what I was doing.
I wandered through the town-let, went fishing, never did tramp around in St. Paul, or go to those night clubs I used to anymore, stayed in Stillwater. I used to visit my friend in Oakdale, Diane Horn, was going to college to become a teacher, at the time, but we only now talked over the phone; her voice changed from year to year.
My country neighbours talked too much, gossip, so I couldn’t ask for their advice, not like I used to in High School with Diane but she gave it over the phone. They were shopkeepers, farmers, restaurant owners, antique dealers.
These told gossipers, were the old idlers sitting up and down on benches along the street. They talked among themselves as if I was a millionaire; far from it. They thought I was a young man going through life not working, and even suspected me of bring a crook, connected to the mob, or mafia. But if anyone looked suspicious, it was them, not me. I kind of felt I was an open book, not closed.
The thing I suppose I liked mostly was that many of them read my book, and asked, “When’s the next one coming?” So I had forces working on all sides of me, and I asked myself, “How was I to get out of it.”

I do not know how to explain how I felt, but perhaps I can this way, it was the same feeling I had when I was nineteen years old at the party, when I drank those twenty-shot glasses of whiskey: here now, I was living in or near a fat agricultural region, one sits in the cornfields, or the carrot fields, or the wheat fields, or out in his backyard on his grass, you acquire a sense of pulling at whatever is near you, pulling it roots, grass roots, in my case, you see the root, you learn in the country, is really the organ of the plant, in this case grass roots, typically lie below you, under you, under the surface of the soil you are laying on, not always but most often, the root is part of the plant’s body, it bears no leaves grant you, nor can be seen, but it is an important internal structure, if you pull on it too hard, you will kill the plant, if you do not give it water to absorb, you will kill the plant, absorption is a main factor in its life. In a like manner, I was not being nurtured, absorbing anything. How could I write, I had nothing more to write about, as the man had said: he who wants to be a writer, must have a lot to say. I had nothing more to say; evidently I said it all at nineteen. And that is how I felt, as if all my roots were being pulled out of its soil. As if I was not being watered.


Chapter Two


As was my policy at that time in living, and running my life at the newspaper, and drinking, I can say most definitely that I have no policy at all other than amusing myself, making the world around me pay, and keeping myself busy. Maybe I only had one book in me. So I asked myself; because I couldn’t, or wouldn’t and didn’t find time for that, to write it.
You should understand, a small town newspaper is not like a big city paper, we didn’t handle any National or International sensational issues, like murders, and there was to rush for the most part, like a deadline. In general, the paper was filled with the comings and goings of the community, its inhabitants, along with: long death notices (or obituaries), marriages, High School commencements, the events at the churches, lodges, and so forth.
I did most of the work myself, the editorial work and reporting. And now at this juncture of my life, at 35-years old, I still had not written my second book. And my agent had all but forgotten me, and only on Christmas did I get a card from him. The publisher sent me one also, saying, “If you ever do write that second novel, it mush come to us, other than that, you’re a jerk,” signed, “the Publisher.” But he was very kind in that, he kept me in mind, and I liked that, in that I didn’t have to go looking for a new publisher, god forbid.
It was now a year after that last Christmas Card, I would be thirty six, come October, the matter of my drinking was brought up at a meeting, Mr. Gene Weatherbee (who lived in one of my apartments at my house), the head of the town council, spoke very emotionally of me, my condition. He said, in so many words: I hate to go home some nights, alone in that big, dark house. It would be alright, he said, if he (meaning me) could have an occasional evening of quiet. On several evenings, he said: “I came out in the hallway, and turned on the lights, Mr. Ernest Hem had invited the devils into his room and they were all dancing, there was a song they sang, but I can’t remember it.”
A counsel member said (the local judge, Judge Albemarle): “You must, Mr. Weatherbee, think rational on what you are saying, and think wisely over your words. You don’t have to injure Mr. Hem’s reputation, just make arrangements to leave.”
“The priest (Father Jose) from the local church said, in a humorous tone, “We are quite sure everyone here would be happier if you leave the house, and be gone, leave poor Mr. Hem, to his business, and see the local psychologist.”
I was of course in shock, thinking: where was I all this time, I don’t remember having parties, and this was all surprising news to me—and his tone of voice increased amazingly. I knew my dignity was at stake, yet the judge and Father Jose, and the rest of the counsel members, all became contributors on my behalf, I didn’t need to say a word, and it made me feel I suppose more indebted to the well-known group.
As you know, Minnesota is a God fearing state. And such thing like what had been said at the meeting is not taken lightly. The voices of my supporters were hot. And I had never been through one of these ordeals in my life. And I did escape this part of Mr. Gene Weatherbee’s accusations.
In the following months, the newspaper acquired 20,000 subscribers, I felt it all was going to be disastrous: too many too much, too quick, so I told Mr. Denny Scriber anyhow, the owner, and that we needed to hire some more workers, and I wanted to get onto my second novel, I had half of it written already. But he had no desire to reform the paper to my liking, and simple said, “I’ll double your pay check.”
“Fine,” I said, but I asked myself: however was I going to escape this editorial master-head. I felt naked, and nailed to the paper, and he said something weird, Mr. Scriber, “I liked your party, that Friday.”
It was all new to me, what Friday was he talking about, and as far as I know, or knew, the last party I had was on the nineteenth birthday. But I didn’t say anything, or ask for an explanation, it was perhaps a mix-wording of something. I had parties in the newspaper room; I stayed at the paper because I wanted to make a living. And he overlooked them, and I did not want to bring that up to his mind, lest he say I could not have anymore female companionship during late hours at work.


Chapter Three

As you see, I have got myself into something, first because I was young and wanted to make a living, then found I could not connect the dotes to my writing, thinking I might, by taking this job. It appeared to me, after being at it for so long, I lost the fun out of life. I don’t see anymore writers, publishers, or agents. It is or was, as if the devil gave me a gift, and was slowly cooking me alive like a frog.
I knew if I left the paper, writing stories for magazines, or pushing out enough novels to make a living, a sufficient income to live on, was a dreary life, but so was this one. I had never married, and now had begun to feel the curse of the hack writer; I needed to be alone for two months, solidly alone to write. Having already written a novel, half done with my second, now at middle age but if I left my job would I starve? It was a thought that came to mind often. I felt a needed go beyond this job but I hadn’t yet.
The first half of my book was really kind of hurried; my craft was at its low peak. It was sad, I no longer had the desire to write—that is, not like I had 13-years prior, or even work as an editor. But I felt I wanted to do something more that I was doing something but it was less, not a challenge anymore, but I didn’t know what that something more was about.
I did discover one thing, and perhaps a way out; by reading all the local newspapers and the bigger ones of course, the Minneapolis Star, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, the St. Paul Pioneer Press. I discovered many of the writers in the newspapers nowadays, were very skilful. And some became writers. And some were better than novel writers. And so I would put a chapter of my book into the paper once a week, that way I’d kill two birds with one stone. And who could make a fuss.
This was a new impulse, and I was in close contact with the community everyday of the year. What could any writer asks for. The name of my new book would be, “The Un-industrialist Town.” A funny name, it just came to me as if a bird dropped it in my ear while sleeping one night.
I agree it was a flare-up of labour and desire to get the book done, and I had hands on information, information at my fingertips now. It had been hold-up much too long; it was in a way, to be very ugly the book. In the following months, I wrote everything I heard, overheard that is, from everybody I saw, talked to. I didn’t give names, just accounts, but I didn’t need to everybody knew everybody anyhow. And the paper turned into a scandal like paper, the counsel liked it, but the town folks complained, as I expected somewhat. They had a love hate relationship with it, and with Mr. Denny Scriber.
The town’s folk had said, “Look here, we are in a lovely town, everything works here, good organizations, working women. Interesting people, and now we are getting news of all the little secrets of everybody we know.” How true that was, the book had thirty-nine chapters of it.
Mr. Denny Scriber, he even came up to me on Mondays now and said, “You should have another good party, Hem.” As if it was part of a joke. Again I figured it must be the winsome girls I was having over during my night work at the office.
I was thinking of moving to Illinois or Ohio, or San Francisco, or even Seattle, just to get away. Here was a town, twenty-five miles away from a metropolitan area, and its paper was selling nearly as many as the big city papers were. We even got big soap advertisements in the paper now, and I changed the name of my book, called it “The Shockingly Young, Old and Feeble of a Little Town” now because the last ten chapters talked about all the youth in the town, what they were doing, drinking, and all the corruption no one saw, the girls they got pregnant, the little boys on dope. This was changed during the second edition, as if it was a new book, with ten new chapters in it.
I talked about the poor, from the hills nearby; and I scorned the older ladies for having nervous debilities, and stooped shoulders, and thin legs. I was going out of my mind in this book. And in 1985, my second book was published.
The critics said it was a combination of the terrible with the magnificent. Whatever that means, believe it or not, the young girls of the town, half fell in love with me after the second book came out, and the second edition didn’t phase anyone in town, not really, their parents hated me, but the hate was short lived, and there is always the old question “Make men rise to nobility, so they can see the nobility of its towns people. And pray they don’t disclose their findings,” and in my case, I told them what I saw and felt, they had no nobility, that was the bottom line. But I liked, if not adored the admiration I was getting, stopped going to church, and Father Jose, and never chased me to get back into the any prayer studies or so forth.

Chapter Four


The town’s folks were not organized as they thought they were. And the book sold 83,000 copies, the first edition. A shrike flared up starting they called it. And I starting to sell more copies of my old book, signing books, and my old publisher, and agent, were happy as to pigs in a muddy pen.
But the town began to organize, Doctor Headman, was the new city counsel’s leader, the Mayor was my friend, and employer, Mr. Denny Scriber. Somehow it seemed those two did not get along. Don’t know if it is called a bit of characteristic stupidity, or what, they argued over every little thing, every issue, like two devils in a pie, and one wasn’t getting it share. Scriber didn’t like the town organizing, or the labour or the industry, or the factory, and he had the local psychologist—I never did get his name, the priest and the judge on his side, and I suppose he had me. But Doctor Headman was getting everybody else. He told Headman, he was going to throw him out of office.
You cannot throw a man out of town because he comes up with a new organization, or way of thinking, or gets a following. I felt we needed a more moderate, if not intelligent mayor, but I never spoke up, he was my bread and butter, sort of speaking, but I really didn’t need him anymore, somehow I just thought I did.
So here were folks now organized that never were, and under the leadership of Headman.
Scriber wrote in his paper, “All of Stillwater is apparently being organized by Doctor Headman…” Now here is the peculiar thing, he writes, “how often I go to dine at his house, and he has parties, and they dance wildly, as if devils, and not only I but the good Father Jose, and our Psychologist, and Mr. Hem’s friend and international writer, C.E. and our good judge, Albemarle, we were all guests, and saw his devil worship.”
It was all a lie of course. None of these folks, meaning, Father Jose, the Psychologist, Albemarle, protested this, C.E., said he didn’t know what he was talking about, as I didn’t know. Mr. Headman, had to lock himself in a hotel room, the towns folk wanted to lynch him. They had lynched someone years prior, the wrong man they found out.

I still didn’t know my position in life, but I was not the writer I wanted to be, and I accepted this, then I found out there was a secret meeting, among the few elite of the city, again the Psychologist, I could not name him because I had not met him yet nor did I come to know his name at this point—as you well know, but they called him Mr. Psycho, and the judge, the priest, and my boss, and several others, merchants of town, these folks all said to me, most of them that is, said to me, many just wave at me—not saying anything, there was a big meeting to be held in the back room of the newspaper, this wasn’t real news, I mean it was often held there, and everyone that came said to me: “Good party Hem.”
People keep saying that, it is turning out to be an unknown mockery almost, as if they were laughing in my face, somewhat laughing, so I sensed, when they said that.
The meeting, there was no doubt in my mind: this was in connection with Mr. Headman.
I thought my boss would let me in, but he didn’t, he never did, he locked the door behind him. There was no doubt in my mind again; harm was going to come to Mr. Headman. There was a wicked side to all these men, I sat outside and did my work as usual.
I wanted very much to go in there, I saw a few more people, town’s folks that are, escorted into the backroom, and it smelled mildew, dirt like. He never allowed me back there, although he told me it was next to the sandstone walls, old mushroom caves, Stillwater is famous for them, and so forward went the meeting.
I got the impression, Mr. Denny Scriber, my boss, had a hand in everything in town, and the longer I got to know him, the more I witnessed this, he was involved with workers from the: factories, and merchant shops, the local gas station, in classrooms, the older kids. He had girls and even his sisters, come over and go in that backroom with him, I think he was a dirty old man, delicately featured. I had more money in the bank now than I needed, near— $760,000-thousand dollars. I said at one million, I’d quite my job, I even told Mr. Scriber that, and he said, “Well, be that as it may, the games over then,” and laughed, I wrote a note to myself in my diary, here it is:

Note from Mr. Hem’s diary: -- They have built a monument in Stillwater; it is at the far end of Main Street, a statue of me. I sense they got a realization of each other. Kind of a religion, brotherhood, they said through my two books, I have brought them national fame, pride. Yet, my life seems very puzzling. Every time I want to leave Stillwater, I get this puzzled feeling, or sensation. The statue is nothing heroic but very fine. There is an inscription on it, it reads “Dead Roots Drama” and has a thin outer coating of cement. Not sure what the inscription means though.

That’s when I was standing by that monument when I noticed a familiar face, yours. One I had not seen since I was eighteen years old, you looked at me, and I at you and then a realization of each other set in:

Part Two

Cheaper Five; End Chapters


(Narrator) Mr. Ernest Hem, had met Mr. Richard Shape, the psychologist, by accident, it was not meat to be. He had died on March 1, 1965, when Hem was eighteen, on November 5, 1966; Ernest Hem was nineteen-years old. How could this be, thought Ernest now standing shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Sharpe.

“I must be in a dream,” said Ernest to Richard, “how on earth can I be seeing you when you’re dead?”
“Ernest, let me explain,” says Richard, “remember when we went to high school, and Mr. Magnusson our Earth Science teacher said: after you’ve checked everything out, and you still cannot come up with the answer, go to the unbelievable?”
Hem looks about, his world looks as it always has, says “Yes, so what.”
“If I’m dead, then you’re dead.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Why, because all you’ve known is the other world? How do you know what world you’re in?”
“Not completely, but all the people I’ve seen and talked to, they confirm I’m in reality, and you are not, you’re a vision of some sort.”
“I know all the people you’ve talk to: the judge, the priest, your employer, and even Mr. Headman, the Doctor. They are all new to Stillwater, matter of fact, Stillwater is new to old Stillwater, and you are in the New Stillwater”
“What do you mean New Stillwater?”
“We all came into your life when you took the job at the newspaper, but you died at the party, you drank twenty-shots of booze, your close friend tried to get you to the hospital, but you were dead on arrival. It is of course 1987 now, in real time, and since 1966 to this time you’ve been under a charade by others, since you had that sensation of your roots being pulled out, the drama has been being played out, twenty-one years to be exact. Here, life gets boring, come with me I’ll show you. Actually, they’ve perfected the drama, called “Dead Roots Drama” named after you, they even built a new underground stage here for you, follow me, I’ll show you, even introduce you to the actors if indeed I can.”

(Narrator; Doctor Sharp led them to a back room, out and into a big auditorium, through underground tunnels, Mr. Hem still thought he was in a dream.

“Look thorough this peep hole,” He told Mr. Hem, asking, “Who do you see?”
Sure enough he saw the judge, the priest, his employer and Mr. Headman, taking off their cloths as if they were costumes, and they all looked so ugly, with tails and long ears, and one with a pig’s face, another with an elephant trunk.
“These are a few of the demigods of hell,” Doctor Sharp said. They will be angry with me for bringing you here, but the game has outlasted everyone else’s, some twenty-one years, they actually built a town like Stillwater, and they kept you talking to them, and I was to be the unseen psychologist, until they found out I knew you, and sent me to a different section of this underworld, and I bumped into you. They numbed you now and then, like you said, roots from the other end, dead roots, and freezing them.”
“C.H., was still alive, when you asked to see him, so we could not allow this, and Diane Horn, was still alive so they could not allow you to see her either, actually both are still alive today, that is why they were unavailable, and only or out of town, or occupied, or engaged, but their voices were dubbed, over their phone, and when you called, it was Miss Harriet Faulkner who did the transfer of the pretend phone call, with a little help of the Henchman.”
“Who’s the Henchman, and who’s Faulkner?”
“Nobodies to speak of, just bored demon, like me, and don’t mention the Henchman, too loud, lest you be heard and sent to his dock on the pier for whatever duties he requires. You see hell has its hierocracy, believe it or not. These were the demons pulling at your so called roots, to have you for their drama, actually before you died, with anticipation you would die; they were strangers among strangers, like I was, but as you can see they have become demonic friends.”
“So you pulled against my roots?” asked Mr. Hem.
“Unknowing it was you of course, yes I did.”
“What were they going to have me doing next?” asked Hem.
“Kill Mr. Headman.”
“Well, how could I if he’s already dead?”
“That’s the jest of it all, you can’t, but you were still in your other mind set, and that was the whole of the game, to see how you reacted, as they acted. The meeting they were having at the newspaper was about you. Think about it, the only time you went into Saint Paul was once, and in that instance, it was a dream, yet what you purchased they somehow created for you when you woke up from your numbed intrusion, which is called in the living and physical world; hypnotism. ”
“Did they have a name for the drama?” said Mr. Hem.
“Most certainly ‘Dead Roots Drama.”’ Said Mr. Shape.

“Ernest,” said Richard Sharpe, “we might just get along better if we go by first names, tell me how it was, you know, tell me the story how it all went from your perspective, your life in a nutshell, we got lots of time here you know.

“Well… (a hesitation) I feel like I’ve already told my story, but I’ll start again:
“I had an impulse, when I was nineteen-years old, to become the editor and publisher of a small town weekly newspaper in Stillwater, Minnesota, it turned out to be a little more complex than I had expected. I think inside of most men they think they can be a singer, own a restaurant, or be a small town editor, and I was no different…”



Chapter Six

(The Appearance of the Henchman)



The Henchman of Hell, Agaliarept



The instant the Henchman of Hell appeared, the whole “Psycho Drama Section” seemed to stand still. The clamour of tongues, the laughter and noise of the crowd were for that moment arrested, and every man, woman, beast, creature, actor, devil, demon, who stood on the stage, couched, lay, stood at attention and faced the imperial Henchman, the general of several legions of hell.
Ernest Hem, of course murmured, “Are we all in trouble?”
The henchman threw a glance at Ernest and without hesitation went straight over and stood before the demonic actor Scriber, who was really Zimmer.
“Hold out your hand,” said Agaliarept, in a commanding voice.
The Henchman looked at the hand with a knitted brow, continued by saying, “I see you have used vanity to its optimum, and brought the worst out of our new comrade, although you’ve been entertained for over twenty-years in the process, which is a prize in itself. You have mastered the art of deception. Tell me how you did it, and I will consider you for a higher position?”

“In the following manner sir, said Zimmer: the treatment technique I used was a in altering his new environment, to function more fully in ours, by limiting him to a smaller town, like Stillwater, and thus, not having to produce big city skyways.
“This technique required of course one needed to apply it on in everyday life, as he knew it to be, the methods and rationales were described precisely to our actors, as need to be, so we could get the right reaction from Mr. Hem.
“I had learned myself; techniques are based largely on principles of learning spherically, and used their own styles, such as operant conditioning, and respondent conditioning, things they responded to in the physical sphere.
“There was a strong emphasis on scientific demonstration, a particular technique was reasonable for a particular behaviour change. Such as, taking his dreams, wishes, desires, and fears, working them in his dreams, and then in reality, securing them for him. We gave him what he wanted, and that was a secure job, money, fame above all, recognition. And then we could pull out all the other deadly sins, like laziness, and overeating, lust, they were already there, he just didn’t see them, they were attached genetically almost to his general make up, he had moulded them into his psyche.
“This was sir, as you know, a long, very long ordeal for all involved, and as its leader, or director of this department, I put strong emphasis on accountably with my staff, for everyone involved, even the old folks who sat along on the benches and smiled at Mr. Hem as he’d walk by. You see, once everyone was in rhythm with this program, everyone involved in this behaviour modification program, we lived, or got to live almost on the same vibration lines he did. That is what I wanted for my staff. Like a person who has a second language, moves out of his country to that country where he had to live for long period of time, thus, he things in that countries language after a while and forgets his.”
“Very well done, Zimmer,” remarked the Henchman.
“Yes,” emphatically, remarked Zimmer.
“Then leave here at once never to return, go from here while victory is fresh in your heart, you are promoted to the personal level of emissary in my legions, which is equal to a sub commander.
Stiffly but sarcastically, the henchman moved away.
“I say,” he then said to Mr. Hem, “you’re going to like the underworld with no stars, I can tell that,” then shouted “the drama is over, silence is ribald!” And it was as before, with all the vulgar sounds of hell.
“Amen,” said Zimmer.

“It all seems so impossible that such a long performance could have remained hidden under false faces,” said Ernest, to his psychologist friend, Richard (Narrator: who was really never a psychologist, he never got the chance to be, like Ernest never got the chance to be a novelist—not really, but in the pits of hell, many things can be achieved during the meantime).
Said Richard Shape, “It was done by the gods, all us damned gods down here, we all knew your high level of vanity, and it was stronger than your faith, as was your self-interest.”
Ernest looked about, “Why it’s going to be a new order of things for me I see, a new beginning, the beginning of a new order of things between one and all I suppose. I see things do change in hell, no more secrets, yet I almost regret I found out.
Suddenly a stink of air seeped into the arena, and into the hallways, and tunnels, and Ernest was swept away, like a hawk in flight, wind depressing his face, aging as a burning candle, through its winding labyrinth of tunnels and caves, and chambers, and to the docks of Hades, the pier, to meet his masters, officially.





Ernest Hem on his way through
The labyrinth of Hell…









The Characters


Main Character: Mr. Ernest Hem
(Writer, novelist, Newspaper man)
Doctor Headman
Diane Horn
(St. Paul, Teacher)
C.E., writer
The Henchman
(Agaliarept)
Mr. Richard Shape
(Psychologist)
Mr. Denny Scriber
((Owner of the weekly periodical)
(Other name, Zimmer))
Greg Hamilton
(Literary agent)
Mr. Gene Weatherbee
(Committee member, renter)
Mr. Magnusson
(High school Teacher)
Father Jose
Judge Albemarle




Note on making of the story: written the night of 4-22 into the hours of the 23rd of April, 2009 (2:21 p.m.). Cchapter 6, written in the afternoon on my patio roof, 23rd of April; written by Dennis L. Siluk, in Lima, Peru. The Vanity of Ernest Hem (or, the Dead Roots Drama) Copyright © 4-2009, By Dennis L. Siluk (7047)

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The Boy Poet from Cayuga Street (a short story)


The Boy Poet from
Cayuga Street



When Mr. Chick Evens turned nineteen-years old, he had now written twenty-one poems. He had Miss Marty Dickenson review them, and retype them for him, along with a bit of spell checking and correcting, back in the summer of 1966. She was twenty-seven years old, and Eddy Bacon, was twenty-nine years old, Marty’s old boyfriend. He was trying to sober up, put his marriage back together. Up to a few months earlier, Marty and Eddy were an item (as he’d often refer to him and Marty; or boyfriend, girlfriend), now supposedly both coming from different worlds, Marty still was drinking heavily.

“You look good today,” said Marty to Evens who had come over to her home on Dale Street to pick up his manuscript of poetry.
“Yes,” said Evens, “I am this morning, I feel great, like a poet I want to be, by the looks of the papers you have really made my poetry look clean and neat.”
“It’s just part of being a secretary, it’s what I do.” She remarked, but was taken back at his comment.
“Yes,” Evens went on “I want to be a great poet someday. I’ve always wanted to be a poet, started writing poetry at twelve-years old; by the time I was fifteen had some published in the High School Newspaper, at Washington High School. That is what I wanted to be at twelve, and now at nineteen, I want the same thing. When I’m sixty, I will still want to be a great poet; or maybe just a good poet; or maybe a good simple poet. For a moment I thought I might be, but I’m too young, and I have only twenty-one poems.
“Oh, you’ll be exactly that, a great simple poet, because when people want things bad enough they get them.”
“I’m unsure now. At twelve it appeared to be simple: at nineteen, I think it takes a lifetime?”
“I’d say you have a good start.”
“No kidding?”
“Of course you’ll be a known poet in your time.”
“No, I’m not all that sure anymore.”
“The odds are for you, that you’ll be a poet.”
“Don’t say I will just to appease me please.”
“Did you see Eddy?” she asked.
“He’s off the booze, getting back with his ex wife, I saw him driving a milk truck. He said you both were no longer an item.”
“He’s going to quite for good, wish I could, but I’m not ready.”
“Maybe you will, I’ll say a prayer for you.”
“I don’t feel like quitting, or dating, or doing much, just kind of sitting around the house seems to comfort me, smoking and drinking, smoking and drinking and going to sleep, and waking up and going to work, and starting all over again.”
“It’s a cute little green house you have here.”
“My parents left it to me, they’re deceased now. I didn’t finish the whole body of work, I did a little over half of your manuscript, I know you’ll understand, I’m just too…just can’t seem to get into it. But you’ll be a poet someday, I can feel that.”
He opened the screened in metal door, walked out of the doorway with a folder of his poems in it, folded under his arm, and armpit, tightly.
“Amigo,” she yelled at Evens through the big bay window, tapping on the window with her fingernails, “If you see Eddy, say hello to him for me will you?”
He could see her, read her lips, her body language, hear her slightly, and nodded his head, confirming a yes, he’d do so. He had a crush on her, she was pretty, thin, short dark hair, but was aging quickly, too quickly, and she was in pain, and she’d kill him with her boxed up emotions; he thought, whispered to himself, “She’d make good poetry like Plath or Saxton I bet.”


4-22-2009

Saturday, April 18, 2009

In the summer of '53 (a Minnesota, Chick Evens story)


In the summer of ‘53
(Ä Chick Evens, and Minnesota Story)



I had left the babysitter, knowing my mother would be at 4:15 p.m., hiking up Mount airy Hill, from the Valley playgrounds, near Jackson Street, she did every weekday after work, Monday through Friday (she worked at the stockyards in the slice bacon department, at Swifts Meats, in South Saint Paul), she’d catch the bus from South St. Paul, to St. Paul, get off at the corner of Jackson and Mount airy, and then up one hill she’d hike, a turn to the left, and up the second hill. We had been living all together, my brother, two years older than I, eight now, my mother and my grandfather. Mike, my brother and I, had been taken off that foster-farm for good: I never wanted to go back there again, I never wanted to see it ever, so I had to make sure she was really coming. Therefore I left our sixteen-year old babysitter, Evelyn, and ran up the block to meet her; I did this quite often, that first summer after we left the farm, back in ’53.
She’d be trekking up that hill, a little tired, a little worn, if not with a cigarette between her fingers, or between her lips, a twig, or piece of grass would be there. Her purse would be on her right shoulder, she had long straps, and big purses, kept everything under the sun in them. I once went with her purse shopping at the Emporium, one of the three biggest stores in St. Paul back then, and she bought the best and biggest purse she could find and carry, it had to be leather, good leather. Other than that, she was frugal. Once I’d see her I’d pick up a twig or piece of grass run down the hill to meet her coming up the hill, and we’d meet somewhere in the middle. I’d grab her hand, hold it tight, sometimes too tight, she’d have to say, “You’re squeezing my hand again,” and I’d stop, let go a tinge, but not much. And she’d hold my hand firmly but softly, and I’d put the stem in my mouth, like her: like to like.
“Mom?” I’d say.
“Yes.”
“You’re home!”
“Not quite yet.”
“Missed yaw!” I’d say, searching for something to talk about, not really caring to talk at all to be honest, something more practical would do, but that is what always came out: I was happy as a butterfly with new wings, almost prancing up the hill now. As if I wanted the world see me and my mother, proud so very proud.
“Where’s your brother?” she asked.
“With the babysitter, he thinks she’s cute; she’s really nice, and plays with us, maybe you can give her a tip on payday!”
“Oh does he now… (she hesitates, and smiles, then continues and says :) she is kind of cute I suppose.”
We continued to walk up the hill together her right hand in my left hand, both with our pieces of stems in our mouths. The sun going down over the edge of the city, but it’s still bright out, just a little on the faded side, slightly faded side of the day, so it got at this time, near the Mississippi. I guess I followed her like a puppy. I felt safe in her hands, that summer, with those sharp warm evenings starting to settle in, in those midsummer days in Minnesota. I felt quite sure, she’d never die.

4-18-2009




Commentary on Poetic Myth: "The Dramatist and the Myth"

Commentary on Poetic Myth:
“The dramatist and the myth”


The dramatist and the myth, in creating a myth, for my part anyways, is rejecting some features, developing others I will make into an epic or poetic myth, be it poetic prose I use or whatever form of verse, as I see the material I have, and the characters I will be using, looking at myths of course and perhaps within my own, criticizing each character, this creates an unholy passion, despair, did not Plato use this? Do you think that makers of myth don’t drag in the gods for a purpose, for a reason? Of course they do, it was a way to explain the unexplainable, the inexplicable in itself. Tragedy fills us like pasta.
Socrates even indicated: if you cannot relate an event to any cause, bring out the deities, and so I have in many of my myths, filling the gaps I call it. And so it is that a epic perhaps becomes attributed to the gods or should be, it’s better said that way than to ones own imagination.
If evil be of Satan alone and not the nature in man, to be made perfect, who then can we blame? Now we can’t blame anyone for our jealousy or hatred, the gods made me this way, or the gods made me do it, or the demon, or Satan. How about you take the blame? Oh gosh, really.

In all the stories I have worked on in this category the personification of mortal passions, exists, or can exist in the immortal we even take it them our graves beyond. And so is the story of Adam a myth, a story misunderstood? Or is the story I wrote called “Portrait of Tishpak: King of Erech” myth or fact? Or for that matter, Plato’s Atlantis? If a man errs, it is through ignorance, doubt, or wisdom. And when he struggles to share his story, of past myths, fluctuations appear. A lust to know is no longer a lust once grasped. Thus, often times its value is in the unknown, as in the terror of death, once death occurs, perhaps it turns into more of a gift of God.

Friday, April 17, 2009

A Quiet, felt Moment (a short story for old folks only!)


A Quiet, felt Moment


“It is late,” said the old man’s wife.
“Every night is late, at 11:00 p.m., midnight, 3:00 a.m., and 4:30 a.m.,” said the old man.
In the nights now, the street outside his window was noisy, and so he’d read until he got tired, waited for it to become quiet, and when he felt that moment, he’d lay down in bed, he felt the difference, falling to sleep. The neighbours, new neighbours, the store owner selling beer—unlicensed to do so—strangers, all sitting at the little corner store, outside on chairs by tables, leaning against cars, drinking beer, singing songs, making noise, to all hours of the night. But he would be woken up, always woken up, by the drunks, the car horns, and the loud music from the car radios. He would be woken up numerous times throughout the night, besides having to relieve himself; and then there was the little fat lady with five dogs next door, she had to take them out three times a night and they’d run in the park across the street, into his garden.
“Last week the old man tried to commit suicide,” said one of the two drunks sitting on the edge of the curve across the street from the old man’s house.
“Why?” asked his companion.
“He couldn’t sleep.”
“Why not?”
“No reason.”
“How do you know there wasn’t a reason? How do you know he even tried?”
The two drunks sat on the edge of the sidewalk, on the curve drinking two quart bottles of beer, looking at the old man’s house across the street, at the second story window, where he slept. There were two other drunks sleeping it off under a tree in the park, near the corner, by the bicycle shop, the lady next store to the old man’s house, brought her five dogs out of her apartment to do their duty, to relieve themselves. And they went right for the old man’s garden, where the dim arc light lit them up.
“His wife takes care of him,” said one of the drunks.
“What does it matter, if he complains about all the noise on his block, he can go back to America,” said the second drunk.
“We better move before he looks out his window, thinking we are robbers and shoots us with his revolver.”
The old man now is looking through a hole he made in his curtains.
“What is it dear?” asked his wife.
“These drunks again, from the store.”
“You’ll be tired in the morning if you stay up all night.”
“I never get to sleep anyhow until you get up it seems nowadays.”
The old man motioned with his fingers in the shape of a pistol, at the drunks, they didn’t see him, “a little more and I’ll get back into bed,” he told his wife.
“Now what are you doing?” asked his wife.
“More drunks and the lady, the crazy one next door is allowing her dogs to used our garden as a toilet again.”
“Come to bed please.”
“They think I wanted to kill myself, Angel, the day security guard told me so, how foolish, can you believe that, I wanted to kill them, not me!”
“How would they know?”
“The lady with the dogs, she gossips, makes things up, to get attention I suppose.”
“Oh…ool,” said his wife, in a fading voice.
“No fear for their soul, no respect, no blood in their face.”
“I’m tired dear, come to bed, you get all worked up over nothing.”
“They say I got plenty of money, and they wish I’d go back to America, and they think I stay up all night for no reason.”
“I suppose so, but they don’t have wives, you have.”
“A wife would be no good for drunks.”
“You can’t tell them that.”
“I know. I’m happy to be old. An old man is a scarce thing.”
“Not always, he can be a nasty thing also.”
“I wish it was quiet again.”
The old man looked at the park and the church across the street from his window, had pulled back the curtains, then he looked left, down towards the store, where there was four drunks, all drinking beers, leaning against the cars.
“When they going to finish?” remarked the old man, waiting for his wife to say something, to answer him, and he looked at the bed, she had fallen back to sleep. He then looked at the clock it was 3:00 a.m. He would lie in bed in another hour, and it would be quiet for a moment, and he’d be exhausted and fall to sleep, he knew this, “I suppose,” he said in a whisper, as if he was talking to his second self, “It’s all about getting old.”

4-17-2009 /dedicated to my neighbours in San Juan Miraflores, Lima Peru



Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The Great Toad Race of Jamaica (a short story, 1983) Flash Fiction

The Great Toad Race of Jamaica

She is a little heavy at sixty-three years old, perhaps sixty-four, brown thinned out hair, laced now with silver, a pale washed-out white color to her skin, who lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, always has lived in St. Paul. We are sitting at a table at the Americana, a beach hotel in the barroom, the Caribbean outside the doorway, an airy elegant bar, more like a large ballroom, looks as if made of a tropical design, and out of expensive wood, it reminds me a bit of¨ the old 1932 movie, “The Grand Hotel,” with Joan Crawford; what I remember of it, the plot anyhow was the film bringing together several unrelated characters into one setting, which is perhaps a hotels formula, unknowingly. She is drinking a Grasshopper, heavy flavored with mint. Myself, just a bottle of cold local beer, it is October 1983.
Ten toads, brownish colored toads run across the shinny wooden dance floor, a section by where the band will play later on in the evening; one of the toads pauses, it’s the one my mother and I, put a bet on, either it’s a lazy one, or its got some heavy substance in its belly, it’s just standing as if it is the Statue of Liberty. She comments, “Toads, such ugly creatures. They look scary. Brown with those dark spots didn’t know they could be trained to race.”
“I’d have never believed it myself, had I not seen it with my own eyes,” I remark.
During the course of this late afternoon event, she had told me how she loved to sit outside in the mornings, on the patio restaurant that had no sides, just a roof and cemented platform, with elegant dinning tables, and all such dinning utensils, she’d loved the breakfast, feeling the warm wind blow from one side to the other, from the Caribbean Sea, inland to the highway beyond the hotel, having a cup of coffee, and a cigarette. She loved it all.
“Yes, of course I believe it now.” She sips on her Grasshopper.
“I think I’ll bet again, I think mine will win this time.” I tell her.
“No, it won’t, but go ahead and try.” She tells me.
So saying, I do and she takes another sip, a longer sip of her Grasshopper, orders another one. The ceiling fans are rotating above her head. A piano is in the corner of the bar, being moved out for the evening band, there will be a show, where the entertainers will eat fire, and then band, and dance. There are about fifteen people around the toad arena, really the wooden dance floor waiting for the ring of the bell for the toads to race.
Eventually the toads are put into a straight line, still near a dozen, most of them jumpy now, greenish and brown, I think they replaced the one I bet on previously, the lazy one. The bell rings, they skitter across the floor, slipping and sliding and falling. They scatter like pigeons all about, and mine just lost again, but this time only by a hair.
Now she waves me over to her table, I’m with the fifteen others, was giving my support to my toad ‘hip hip horary!’ stuff.
“Well, did you win?” she asks. She smiles she knows the answer. She accepts this as part of gambling, a fact, and continues: “Too bad they don’t have this in Las Vegas,” and takes a drink from her Grasshopper martini looking glass, her new one, and smiles at me, as if she was on top of the world.

4-14-2009

Monday, April 13, 2009

An Afternoon at the Cafe de Flore (or, The Bum's Dog) Flash Fiction

An Afternoon at the Café de Flore
((or; The Bum’s Dog) (1998 AD))





I left our hotel on St. Germain, Boulevard, walked down to the Café de Flore; it was my first of four trips to Paris, and my third time at the cafe. I sat down at one of the outside small tables, on the brownish-red cloth seated chairs, behind me a wall of glass, an inside restaurant, ordered a coffee, hot milk on the side, no sugar, a ham and cheese sandwich on one of those long hoagie like hard breads, the same thing I had ordered two days ago while at the Café de Flore, it cost me $17.50 dollars, four-dollars for the coffee, and the rest for the ham and cheese, and whatever else they charge for. But I liked the café and service, and all the old writers from the 1920s came here, it gave me a kind of stimulus.
I turned about noticed a male waiter mopping, my waiter standing next to me, he looked familiar, another waiter was sweeping out the café, there was one man sitting to my right, it was 11:00 a.m., still morning in Paris, the outside café near empty, “Will there be anything else sir?” asked my short, stocky, waiter, short crew-cut head of hair, perhaps in his late thirty’s.
“Not at the moment,” I remarked, and he turned about to get my order.
It was April in Paris (1998), and above on the second story of the building of the café, were yellow flowers, people riding bikes, parking them, locking them with chains against traffic sights, a newsstand across the street, and a bum leaning against the building, above the sign that read, “St. Germain, Boulevard,” and next to it, in a cardboard box, with a dog in it, lean, and his fur was a dirty washed-out white, more on the mutt side of the dog race. And he’d every so often peak his head out of the top of that box to see what was going on, look at his master, the traffic, the newsstand, and passers-by, and if a policeman looked his way, he’d hide again. The bum, thin, dark skinned, burnt from the sun, of bygone years, and droopy eyes, like his dog mate, cloths just draped on him like curtains, in his mid fifties I would guess, looked about indifferent on everything in sight—a kind of a so-so look; one of God’s sparrows.
“Your order sir,” said my waiter. He put the tray down on my table, and took each item off with the most proficient of care, as not to break a thing, or spill. He put the cream by me, “Should I pour it sir?”
“No need to, I will.”
There was a loud sound, a truck horn, both the waiter and I looked; it was a block up the street, coming down our way, towards the café and the newsstand across the street.
“He shouldn’t be driving down this street,” said the waiter, “it’s forbidden, especially with outside cafés like this one, and the street, this street isn’t made for that heavy truck.”
“What do you think of that,” I said as a rhetorical question.
“I don’t know he shouldn’t be driving down this way…!” He looked concerned, black smoke leaving a thick cloud behind it.
A policeman on the corner near the newsstand pulled out a pencil as if ready to take down its plate number, and it occurred to me, he might try to stop it, he took a step off the curve. The dog heard the horn, it honked again, loud very loud, and the dog peaked its head out of the cardboard box again.
“I told that bum to get out of here yesterday, and take his dog with him, we don’t want them around here, fleas and all that kind of stuff, you know” said the waiter looking towards me for approval, “I wish the policeman would do his duty.” The waiter just stood next to me, by my side shaking his head, watching the truck come closer and closer, appearing to be ready to cover his mouth from the dark exhaust trailing behind it. Then the waiter went and asked the customer to my right, a man with a light white jacket on, talking on his cell phone, leaning his elbow on a chair, grey mixed into white hair, clean shaven, he asked him something; he was drinking wine it looked, still on that phone. Then there was a scratching and high pitched screeching, of the brakes from the truck. Then a halt, that sounded like it had moved the earth an inch, and the bum looked at his cardboard box, and his dog was gone, and he looked at the truck, and it was between two large wheels, its tail hanging out along side the back truck wheels—two wheels together, and the policeman was walking over to the driver, and the waiter, he stood there, covering his mouth, and shaking his head right and left.
The moment seemed to be frozen in time. The noise had ceased; everything at a standstill. The waiter walked to the corner, he could see well from there.
“He’s dead, like a dead duck,” said the waiter, as he approached me, “Oh, sorry,” he remarked looking at me.
“I’m all right, I can take it.” I said, adding, “You mean the dog is dead?” I confirmed.
“Like mashed potatoes,” He remarked again, “blood all over the place.”
“No fun in that is there?” I commented.
“I didn’t see the dog jump out of that box, must have done it when the bum wasn’t looking.” He said.
The policeman looked at the dead dog, back at the bum, the bum was picking up his box, and other items, and was about to make his escape, but saw several cigarette stubs on the sidewalk, picked them up, one by one, one after the other, several of them, put them in his pocket, looked toward the policeman again, and the policeman was looking at the dead dog, and then turned back to look at the bum, at the driver, then at us looking at him, and as he was about to turn back to the bum, he was gone, he had hightailed it out of there just in time.

4-10-2009

An Afternoon at the Cafe de Flore (or, The Bum's Dog) Flash Fiction

An Afternoon at the Café de Flore
((or; The Bum’s Dog) (1998 AD))





I left our hotel on St. Germain, Boulevard, walked down to the Café de Flore; it was my first of four trips to Paris, and my third time at the cafe. I sat down at one of the outside small tables, on the brownish-red cloth seated chairs, behind me a wall of glass, an inside restaurant, ordered a coffee, hot milk on the side, no sugar, a ham and cheese sandwich on one of those long hoagie like hard breads, the same thing I had ordered two days ago while at the Café de Flore, it cost me $17.50 dollars, four-dollars for the coffee, and the rest for the ham and cheese, and whatever else they charge for. But I liked the café and service, and all the old writers from the 1920s came here, it gave me a kind of stimulus.
I turned about noticed a male waiter mopping, my waiter standing next to me, he looked familiar, another waiter was sweeping out the café, there was one man sitting to my right, it was 11:00 a.m., still morning in Paris, the outside café near empty, “Will there be anything else sir?” asked my short, stocky, waiter, short crew-cut head of hair, perhaps in his late thirty’s.
“Not at the moment,” I remarked, and he turned about to get my order.
It was April in Paris (1998), and above on the second story of the building of the café, were yellow flowers, people riding bikes, parking them, locking them with chains against traffic sights, a newsstand across the street, and a bum leaning against the building, above the sign that read, “St. Germain, Boulevard,” and next to it, in a cardboard box, with a dog in it, lean, and his fur was a dirty washed-out white, more on the mutt side of the dog race. And he’d every so often peak his head out of the top of that box to see what was going on, look at his master, the traffic, the newsstand, and passers-by, and if a policeman looked his way, he’d hide again. The bum, thin, dark skinned, burnt from the sun, of bygone years, and droopy eyes, like his dog mate, cloths just draped on him like curtains, in his mid fifties I would guess, looked about indifferent on everything in sight—a kind of a so-so look; one of God’s sparrows.
“Your order sir,” said my waiter. He put the tray down on my table, and took each item off with the most proficient of care, as not to break a thing, or spill. He put the cream by me, “Should I pour it sir?”
“No need to, I will.”
There was a loud sound, a truck horn, both the waiter and I looked; it was a block up the street, coming down our way, towards the café and the newsstand across the street.
“He shouldn’t be driving down this street,” said the waiter, “it’s forbidden, especially with outside cafés like this one, and the street, this street isn’t made for that heavy truck.”
“What do you think of that,” I said as a rhetorical question.
“I don’t know he shouldn’t be driving down this way…!” He looked concerned, black smoke leaving a thick cloud behind it.
A policeman on the corner near the newsstand pulled out a pencil as if ready to take down its plate number, and it occurred to me, he might try to stop it, he took a step off the curve. The dog heard the horn, it honked again, loud very loud, and the dog peaked its head out of the cardboard box again.
“I told that bum to get out of here yesterday, and take his dog with him, we don’t want them around here, fleas and all that kind of stuff, you know” said the waiter looking towards me for approval, “I wish the policeman would do his duty.” The waiter just stood next to me, by my side shaking his head, watching the truck come closer and closer, appearing to be ready to cover his mouth from the dark exhaust trailing behind it. Then the waiter went and asked the customer to my right, a man with a light white jacket on, talking on his cell phone, leaning his elbow on a chair, grey mixed into white hair, clean shaven, he asked him something; he was drinking wine it looked, still on that phone. Then there was a scratching and high pitched screeching, of the brakes from the truck. Then a halt, that sounded like it had moved the earth an inch, and the bum looked at his cardboard box, and his dog was gone, and he looked at the truck, and it was between two large wheels, its tail hanging out along side the back truck wheels—two wheels together, and the policeman was walking over to the driver, and the waiter, he stood there, covering his mouth, and shaking his head right and left.
The moment seemed to be frozen in time. The noise had ceased; everything at a standstill. The waiter walked to the corner, he could see well from there.
“He’s dead, like a dead duck,” said the waiter, as he approached me, “Oh, sorry,” he remarked looking at me.
“I’m all right, I can take it.” I said, adding, “You mean the dog is dead?” I confirmed.
“Like mashed potatoes,” He remarked again, “blood all over the place.”
“No fun in that is there?” I commented.
“I didn’t see the dog jump out of that box, must have done it when the bum wasn’t looking.” He said.
The policeman looked at the dead dog, back at the bum, the bum was picking up his box, and other items, and was about to make his escape, but saw several cigarette stubs on the sidewalk, picked them up, one by one, one after the other, several of them, put them in his pocket, looked toward the policeman again, and the policeman was looking at the dead dog, and then turned back to look at the bum, at the driver, then at us looking at him, and as he was about to turn back to the bum, he was gone, he had hightailed it out of there just in time.

4-10-2009

Sunday, April 12, 2009

The Short Grim life of Julia Parra Tapi (& 'To Live, and Not have Lived')

About Part Two: This is the second part to the novelette "The Green Sea of the Amazon" called "The Short Grim life of Julia Parra Tapi" what you will read here is a normal occurrence along the banks of the upper Amazon, of Peru. The story is taken from actual accounts that have taken place along the swampy, and high grass areas of the Amazon...
Part Two (to 'The Green Sea of the Amazon')

Part Two

The Short Grim life of Julia Parra Tapi
(and, ‘To Live, and Not Have Lived’)



Chapter One of Two
The Short Grim life of Julia Parra Tapi

“Stay here,” said Julia Parra Tapi, to her son, Avelino. His mother was gridlocked, his face stained with tears.
“Why?” he asked, more like muttered.
“Because I say so,” said Julia. She looked angry at Avelino, as if he did not do his duty by watching his younger brother properly and now this trouble, she had been off fishing, and suddenly appeared, and Avelino was frozen in fright.
“Are you going to look for the anaconda?” Avelino cried.
“I have to now, you just stay where you are, stay back. You can see what I’m doing even better from here.”
“All right, mama.” And he said, in a whisper, “I only looked away for a moment, and he was gone.”
Julia grabbed, and pulled out a machete she had in a large bag of fishing items, she then saw the anaconda in the wet tall grass, stepped forward toward it, nodded and said, “Yes, you must die,” looking at an eighteen-foot, two-hundred pound anaconda, in the wet high grass, along the banks of the Amazon, with a bulge in it the size of a six year old boy. The serpent opened up its wide mouth, its fangs as long as her index finger, her six-year old boy was missing, and Avelino, eight, was suppose to watch him.
Then she stepped into the wet swampy like soil, the anaconda was resting in, digesting, fifty little snakes were dashing about her, her litter Julia presupposed.
She crept about, around the snake, examining it, she crept like the snake. The bulk inside the serpent, protruding like she had a long watermelon inside of her, she had just swallowed her meal; she could digest it for a week, or months. She swung her machete, getting a swing in her arm, the snake followed her movements. She brought her right hand into the air, above her head, to get all the thrust she could out of her strength, grabbed the weapon with both hands, and like a hammer she brought it down, it sliced through the back of the snake like hard butter, where the bulge was, the part that was shaped like a head. The giant snake tried to wind about, to the right, it raised itself three feet, and it was pouring out blackish blood.
“You leave me no choice,” she yelped at the creature. She looked inside the snake, saw something familiar, then with rage, she lifted up the machete again, and the litter of snakes started to surround her, went into a panic. She dropped her weapon at the upper part of the snake’s head, cut it almost all the way through, its head still attached, was held on by a thread. She saw a foot.
Then as an afterthought, Julia looked behind her, bewitched, there were eyes of a cat, a puma (a jaguar) and she started to tremble: she couldn’t run, the puma had her zeroed in—or maybe she could a voice in her head said, her second thought, complete thought, was, Avelino, she looked towards him. The new problem demanded a new plan. And she was thinking, all in a minute’s time that seemed like an hour. She felt she had opened a wrong door.
“Just leave,” her mind told her, her second self told her.
“No,” she whispered back to it.
“Why not?”
“Maybe he’s alive?”
“I see, but in a second, it will be too late! You can’t win.”
“Maybe?”
“Too late.”
The large brownish wildcat jumped, leaped out from under its covering of tall grass, leaped onto Julia brought her to the ground next to the large snake, she had glanced at Avelino as she fell, and as she fell, hit the ground, she spotted the bloody face inside the snake.
“Don’t worry,” said her second self, “he’ll stay back, he knows to get out of here.”
And then she yelled, “Go, go, go…oo Ave lin o …!”

Twenty-five yards inside the grass the big cat lay, red mouth, fangs with wet flesh on them; flies circling its yellow eyes, as they blinked, trying to focus on a moving item in the far distance.


Chapter Two of Two
To Live and Not have Lived

In the moments flash, it came to Julia, as a rush, a harsh-tasting hollowness of a rush that she was going to die, like the anaconda next to her.
“What is it,” she said to her mind, her second self.
“Nothing, nothing at all,” it remarked back, “you had better make your peace!”
“Did Avelino run?”
“I don’t know I sensed he did, or was about to. You’ll be out in a minute,” here mind said to her, finally starting to shut her eyes slowly. She was only twenty-seven years old, she had loved very little in life, other than her two boys, perhaps because the Amazon demanded much, too much and she almost let go…

Now in her mind (her second self) she saw within the clap of an eye, her two boys, the death of her husband, how when he got drunk he hit her hard, almost broke her jaw once. She hit him back behind the ear, and then smashed him with a chair. He didn’t even make love joyfully; but he gave her two kids nonetheless. He would go out in the cool night come back to bed passing out, and one day she up and left him before he awoke, and returned home to her village with her two boys.
That same day he got drunk and was attacked by those damned wildcats the pumas (or jaguars). She knew as everybody knew the puma didn’t care to be seen by humans, or anyone, normally brown in color, some black, big and fast, and they need a lot of room to hunt, and roam in. But when they got hungry, they hid, and were good at not being seen: like today.
She remembered the good times with her boys: always picking the finest places to have a picnic. She always though they never had enough time together. The world hadn’t changed much for her, only events.

And then she let go…

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Black Water & Breakfast and the Drizzle (Pre Chapers to: "The Green Sea of the Amazon") 4-2009


Pre Chapter to
“The Green Sea of the Amazon”

Black Water


At noon we were in the air, leaving the Lima, Airport for Iquitos, a Peruvian city along the shores of the Amazon. When we landed, we were quickly picked up and brought to the pier. There were a few other planes in back of us coming in. It had looked like it had just rained, as nearly as I could figure, because everything was watery, and the dock area muddy. Once on the pier, we met several of the Company’s representatives, the driver of the boat that was to take us down river and a few guests, all in all we had worked through a network of people, getting our gear ready to go on an Amazon Jungle safari of sorts (or expedition).
Now, the long Expedition boat, was loading foods and other items on board, along with twelve passengers, not all would be going as far down and deep into the jungle as we, there were a few resort type areas for tourists along the way, not many, and the farther down river you went and into the jungle, the more scarce they became.
Once in motion, heading to our destination, our propeller under the boat was spinning nosily, I could hear it, it sounded like my old 1950 Ford, as if the motor was loose on its understructure; the thing to do now was simply rest and enjoy the ride, the scenery, I told myself.
The Captain’s name of the boat was Marcelo, he was up front, doing the steering of the boat, Jose and Manuel, his assistant workers were sitting with us, one or the other would go check the back, where the gasoline was being stored, along with other items, and then he’d re check us to make sure we kept our life jackets on secure, and smiled. There was a third employee; he would be dropped off about fifty miles down river, a kitchen worker at one of the smaller lodges. The whole trip would be 125-miles down river.
For a long time it seemed no one among us said a word, I think we were in a daze and trying to normalize ourselves, if not acquaint our bodies with the new environment, physically, and mentally, and sensory, all in all, to get acclimated.
“Come on,” I said to Rosa, “say something, it is too boring, I mean the scenery is beautiful, right?”
“We have to hold on tight when we get to the two rivers emerging, two currents hit one another and that causes friction.” Said a voice, it sounded like the captain’s, it came from in front of us, so everyone grabbed onto the railings.
“Dear,” said Rosa, “don’t turn about to quickly you can fall backwards, and fall through these upper railings into the river itself.” And then she started hanging on to me, as if she was going to save me. And it is usually the other way around.
“Let me go, and hang onto the railing, like the man said,” I told her. I put her hand around the metal railing, and she griped it. Once in the Gran Sabana, under a waterfalls, I had to hang onto her, she was on a rope, and had let go to hang onto me as if I was going to slide down into the falls and be gone forever, and I had to grab her, and the rope; and once in the ocean (along side, Copacabana Beech, in Rio Janeiro) she came out to save me from a big wave, and I had to grab her, because the wave swept her up, and was about to sweep her away, I know how she can get when she panics, she’s like a pistol against a man’s head, you got to move her physically or it will be the death of both you. She means well, but becomes dangerous in the process.

Bump! Splash! Bump! Splash! We were like on a roller coaster for a moment, and then it all settled back to normality, if there is such a word in the Amazon.
Then after two long hours (of the six-hour trip), the Captain drove alongside a dock area, dropping the cook’s helper off and two guests, now there were ten of us, plus the captain, and the two assistants. He put the engine in reverse, drove it out, it got stuck in some weeds and roots, and the propeller spun, and then got snagged.
“Well,” said the Captain, “which one of you wants to go in and straighten up everything under the boat?” No one answered, and I wasn’t sure why, it looked like an easy task. But I was glad I did not volunteer, after I found out what I found out.
“Can’t we row to shore and do it there?” asked Jose.
“I don’t think so,” said the Captain, “it will take all day.”
Then the captain went back to the backside of the boat, looked down into the water, “It’s no good, a big something on there!” he shouted back.
“What do you say,” said Jose.
“We got to cut the roots off the propeller, that’s what I said.”
The clouds were shifting above us it looked like rain. The captain turned the engine back on, the rotor spun a foot, but it only tightened the roots around the propeller more so.
“It’s—dead,” said Jose, meaning the propeller. And had they tried any more, the engine would have burnt up.
“Better jump in,” said the captain.
“What about…” Jose didn’t finish his sentence, when the Captain said, “It’s your turn, let’s get to it!”
“What’s the big reason no one wants to go to work on the blade?”
“Senor,” said the captain, we are in a tributary of the Amazon, it is black water, which comes from the roots of the trees, we don’t know what is in the black water, and often there are piranhas all about. They come in hordes, and, well you know what they can do, they rip at your skin, take hunks of meat out of you, in a matter of seconds. Sometimes they nibble by you, give you a running start, and sometimes they don’t.”
“Oh,” I said, and then I heard a splash, and Jose cutting the roots like a madman off the propeller, I could hear his heavy breathing.
“Captain, I got a nibble on my leg,” Jose said, “come over here and move a stick about to frighten whatever is down there away!”
I looked at Jose, through the back opening of the boat, he looked afraid, and I would too I told myself. No money could get me in there, but I would later on swim in the Amazon, although not in black water. Along each side of the boat was a canvas top, one in the middle also, that was now open, the others coverings were over our heads to protect us against the light rain that was now starting to fall.
I watched the captain move his stick about, as Manuel was—I think, saying his prayers he’d not be asked to jump in and help Jose.
“They feel braver in a bunch,” said Manuel, “they take your whole leg off in a matter of minutes.” He commented.
I saw the Captain move back now, and Jose about to leap up, and then, suddenly, he yells, “I think so, one got the bottom of my foot, I think so, I think so…oo!” and the captain swung his long stick in the water, making splashes, hit the fish across the side of its face, no bigger than a sunfish, and it ripped a piece of skin off Jose’s heel, and then he was on board, bleeding.
“Let’s take a look;” said the captain, “I don’t think the fish got all that much.”
“Did you kill it,” asked Jose.
“If not he’ll not…never mind, how do you feel?”
“Do I get a day off with pay for this?” He asked the Captain, seriously.
And the Captain laughed, saying, “Jose, no, it’s not that bad, you don’t get a day off, lucky he was not with his clan, but I bet they are nearby. Put some iodine on it Manuel for him, then write it up as an accident incase I will have to report it, you know,” said the Captain to Manuel and Jose “he’ll be all right, just a sore foot, with a little meat gone. You’ve had worse.”

The engine started and we were back on track, back on our way down river.
“It is a fine lodge you folks are going to but we got to make one more stop along the way, drop six passengers off, and the rest of you will go to the lodge deeper into the jungle,” said Jose, meaning the one we were going to.
Ahead the river got wider and wider, at one point it was six-miles wide, it was like a giant highway, that didn’t cease. We talked some more among ourselves and the boat was going fast against time.

We made our second stop, and it looked a little less elegant than the previous resort, I figured ours would be, even less. I kind of thought: what am I doing here, but it was an adventure I had somewhat dreamed about, I mean who hasn’t thought about going down the longest and most dangerous river in the world, with all its wildlife and unknown secrets awaiting for ones arrival.
The sky was clouding up again, and it was raining slightly, and after ten minutes of rain, it somehow disappeared, we drove out of it. Then we turned down another tributary, and deeper into the Amazon green. The shores looked muddy and across the wet embankments we passed were scattered individuals fishing, kids swimming, dogs running, monkey’s playing, a few long looking black cats racing in the wild, three or four feet long. A few pink dolphins popping their heads up in the river; then we came to a dock area.
“Come one at a time,” said the captain on the dock, his hand extended for us.
It was like a little bridge out into the tributary, that lead up to the lodge, and along side the main lodge, were little huts, and wooden walkways, all leading into one another, and to the main lodge, where there was the cafeteria, lounge and small souvenir shop. The Captain introduced us to the general staff throughout the place.
Breakfast and the Drizzle


In the morning everything was wet, it had rained throughout the night. The mist of the rain was just lifting I noticed outside my window of our hut, I could see the tops of the trees, the inlet that stretched out to the mouth of the Amazon was vaguely visible. The air was fresh but soggy, heavy with water. There were giant bugs on my net that covered the net around me and my bed, bugs with thick long wings, and fat bodies, drooping bellies, long legged bugs, and small beetle like bugs, and bugs with big eyes like headlights, a few as big as sparrows. A few spiders, hairy legs, and bloody-eyed creatures, about the size of a half dollar; I hit the net, and most fell off or flew off or jumped off, I got up, then I walked out beyond the hooch. Everything was wet, the wooden sidewalks that acted as bridges throughout the compound were soaked. There was still a light drizzle, a steady drizzle, everyone was rushing to the main lodge with things covering their heads, umbrellas, newspapers, hats, and so forth.
The cafeteria seemed crowded compared to when we arrived yesterday, a few hours before dusk. In the far corner of the cafeteria, the corner that looked out towards the boats, were three natives, one playing a drum, one playing a flute, the other a guitar, all three harmonizing some song. I sat at one of the tables with Rosa, and I suppose everyone saw my tight- wound, still somewhat muscularly, pure white legs, and said: I bet he’s from the Arctic. A few older women came in, shaking water off from their umbrellas, spreading them out to dry out.
“Breakfast will be ready shortly,” said the cook.
“Jose, how’s your foot?” I yelled as he finished his breakfast with the captain of the boat, at another table.
“Fine,” he said.
“No work to-day?”
“I wish,” he said.
“Where is Manuel?” I asked.
“He’s cleaning the boat.”
“Look,” he said, “Have you met Avelino yet?”
“No.”
“He’ll be your personal guide. He picked you out himself.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“He heard you like things your way, and being with a group my present some problems, plus he likes big tips, and he thinks you got money!”
“Yes, I see, thanks for the update.”
“Avelino, come here and meet your clients!” said Jose.
“Sit down and join us,” I said to our new guide.
“I can’t now, I’m doing some paperwork, but I’ll see you after breakfast.”
I finished eating, washed up in cold water, from an outdoor fascist.
“Look,” said Rosa, “the manager gave me this note, a message from Avelino, says: ‘Meet you at 10:30 a.m., in back of he last hut, by the opening of the jungle, we’re going to a native village.” Singed: Avelino.
“Well,” I said, “if we can’t find the spot, he’ll simply have to find us.” And Rosa and I had a chuckle.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

In the Eye of the Bull (Bullfight in Seville, a short story)

In the Eye of the Bull
(Bullfight in Seville)


It was a great bullfight in Seville, Spain, in a way. Rosa and I were excited about being introduced to the young good looking matador, he must had been no older than twenty-one. A young couple was sitting about ten-feet away from us in the arena, Americans like us. The bull had gored the young matador; he had caught the blind spot with his eye when the young matador swung his cape in front of his horns, and for a second couldn’t see those long thick horns, and gored him in his armpit, throwing him clear in the air above him. Rosa looked my way caught my attention, and shrugged her shoulders to show her discontent. To my understanding there had not been a goring in a long while here, it was 1997. The second matador was called in, to replace the wounded one, while he was being taken out on a stretcher: both being about the same height, weight, built, and age. Both matadors were slack in their approach, and careless, a lack of skills it appeared, it took the second matador six times sticking the sword into the back extended hump of the bull, before it dropped to its knees, he had missed the mark every time. The bull was a young, skinny bull, weak to start out with, but he wasn’t careless, and he had courage.
Rosa and the other American woman, in her late twenties, were leaning backwards, as I and the young man leaned forward.
“Help me clean my glasses,” I asked Rosa.
“This looks too bloody for me,” she said. (The second matador was pushing in his sword for the sixth time into the bull’s upper back, but somehow as he’d leaped up, and stuck the bull coming down, the sword, dropped down four to six inches beyond its intended target.)
“At least we’re not bored, that’s the main thing.” I told Rosa.

After the bullfight, Rosa and I jumped up into the isle, before we got stuck into the slow moving lava type crowd.
If anything, it was one super high for me. At this very moment my heart was pounding like voodoo drums. As I looked behind me, all I could see were heads and shoulders up and down the isle, all heading my way.
“Where do you suppose everyone is going in such a hurry?” asked Rosa.
“No place, it’s just kind of traditional in such events to hurry up and get out of the place. It’s kind of like throwing your garbage on the floor, our under the chair, no reason to do it, they got dumpsters, but you do it anyhow, without thinking, automatically, as if the other guy is going to find some hidden treasure out in the parking lot, so you got to get there first.”
“You do have a nice way of wording things, dear.”
In front of us was a stand where an old Spaniard sat selling souvenirs.
“Here, let’s look at these things, while everyone passes us by.” I said to Rosa.
“Hello, señor and señora,” said the Spaniard, the seller, and sole proprietor.
“I say, do you have any replica bulls?” I said to the Spaniard, and Rosa added, “Habla ingles?” (Do you speak English?)
“Si Señora,” he replied.
“Sorry, I should have asked,” I said to both Rosa and the seller, then looked about for the replica bulls, and couldn’t see any.
“Oh look,” said Rosa, “the miniature matador jacket and hat.”
“How was the bullfight?” asked the Spaniard.
“Bloody, just simply bloody!” said Rosa.
“Wonderfully bloody,” I added. (The Spaniard was uncertain if to smile or frown, and therefore, gave us both a blank look.)
“It’s was a spectacle!” said Rosa “even the bulls charged the old and weak looking horses, the picadors were on. I couldn’t help but feel bad about it all.”
“Yes, it’s not the prettiest of sights, but you got to look deeper than that, below the surface at a bullfight,” I said to Rosa, hoping the Spaniard would take my side but he was only interested in selling, and remained with an indifferent face.
“Do you feel ok?” asked the seller to Rosa.
“I’ll be fine,” Rosa remarked.
“Dear,” commented Rosa, “will you buy the toy jacket and hat for me?”
“Yes, yes, of course. You weren’t bored at least at the bullfight.” I remarked, repeating, “Yes, we’ll take the hat and jacket,” looking back at the seller.
“Ah, good choice señora,” said the seller to Rosa. I kind of laughed, without laughing out loud, but I think it showed on my face. I mean, it would have been a good choice whatever item she would have picked out, he wanted to sell.
“No,” said Rosa, “who could be bored at such an event.”
“All right,” said the seller “is there anything else?”
“I thought dear I was going to vomit for a moment, when he stuck that sword…you know, umpteen times.”
“He was positively bloody from his upper back to his hoofs.”
“Oh, please be quiet about all this blood stuff, I had enough for one day! Are you turning into a sadist?”
“Maybe, but surely not a pacifist,” I said.
“Maybe you two would like handkerchiefs, with bulls on them?” asked the proprietor.
“Not really, can’t say they do a thing for me.” I stated.
“Dear, they could be cheap, wonderful gifts.”
“Yew, I suppose so. It was a spectacle was it not?” upon reflection.
“That poor old skinny horse he just dropped to his boney knees when the bull plowed into him.” Said Rosa, with a tighten face, and grimace.
“Yes indeed, it was a dreadful moment I suppose for the picador.”
“Do you want to buy the handkerchiefs? And will you be paying in dollars or pesos,” asked the seller.
“I want to go someplace and eat—yes, in dollars how much?”
“Next time Rosa; I’ll not get front row seats.”
“Dear, you are hard-shelled; I never did see the horn go into his armpit,” remarked Rosa.
“I told you at the time the matador was in an awkward position, a blind spot and the bull took advantage of it, he saw it, with his eye, I saw the bull looking at the opening, and I told you, ‘look, he’s going for it,’ and you were looking through your fingers, hoping not to see what you did see.”
“Everything, twenty-dollar sir,” said the Spaniard.
“What! For these little items, are we at the Hilton here or what?” I said to the seller.
“Be a good chap dear, just pay the man, you took up all his time, and all the customers he might have had, he lost because you and I were talking, talking, like a dozen chuckerring birds.”
“Here you go,” I gave the man a twenty-dollar bill and Rosa and I walked up to the street. A car was waiting for us to take us back to the hotel. Smoothly across the city, along the river we rode. You could see the cathedral tower from the car, attached onto the side of the church.
“This bullfight is my last one,” said Rosa as we neared our hotel.
“I don’t think so I said,” and left it at that, knowing Rosa would come no matter what, before she’d let me go alone, she married a sidekick, more than a husband.

4-4-2009 Dedicated to Rosa

Thursday, April 02, 2009

God save Us from Our Habits (a short story in Augsburg, Germany, 1970)

God save Us from Our Habits
(A short story in Augsburg, Germany, 1970)



In those—now, far-off days, the winters were different in Augsburg, Germany, than I was used to in St. Paul, Minnesota, but similar in that it was cold in Augsburg, and there was snow on the ground. It might be hard to believe, but believe it nonetheless, because it is true. This one evening it was snowing, and I was inside my guard shack, at the entrance to the Military Compound, called Reese. There was Chris’ car across the street, her 1970 Green Mustang, with the letters on the side of the car CS, for Chris Steward. It at first puzzled me, but it had German license plates on it, and it was on a public street, and we, as American soldiers in Germany, had already handed over that part of the country back to the Germans, for a long time we had jurisdiction over such matters. I walked out of my guard shack to inspect the car from the distance, knowing there was a concern of sabotage to US Military Bases, and I was part of the Military Security Force. It was just prior to Christmas, and the mess hall was having turkey and all the trimmings, and I was to get a dinner sent over to me so I was waiting impatiently. It was about 7:00 p.m. My shift ended at 8:00 p.m. I walked across the street to check out who was in the car, it was a lady, and it looked like my new girlfriend, the one I was dating for a month now.

All around us at our military compound was the city, and its old towers, and busy streets and across a highway was the US Military PX, and opposite that, a guesthouse I often prescribed to. Directly across the street from the guardhouse, were some four story buildings, and next to that was a large empty lot they had German Fests, actually they had them all over the city, all year round it seemed, and in every little town beyond the city limits. Across the street from the guardhouse, or hut, was the office, Sergeant Daily, a buck sergeant, kind of a foremen type sergeant, was packing some items in his little van and saying his goodbyes to Sergeant First Class Chamblee, he was the main man, the boss man. He was sitting giving instruction to the Corporal Hanson; I was a Private First Class (Chick Evens). Hanson stood up pushed his chair away from the wall; Hanson and I were best of friends, and Hanson was best of friends with Chamblee, no one really liked the Buck Sergeant. He had pushed his chair back to say goodbye for the evening to both Sergeants.

Corporal Hanson was tall, thin, dark-messy short hair, fat lips, sad looking eyes, hands always trembling, afraid of the boss man. Sergeant First Class Chamblee was even taller than Hanson by an inch or two, a father image, or so he tried to display, dumber than a duck with one leg, but kind and understanding. And Hanson could have been his genetic son. The Buck Sergeant, was short, thin a good looking chap, clever, and always thinking of a way how to pull the wool over your eyes. He was the only one married of us four soldiers.

Sergeant Chamblee, carried a bible in his pocket at all times, and if anything was wrong with anyone, he had the treatment for the symptoms in the bible, right there at hand, and could most often, quote what the bible said before he opened the page to man’s down fall, and the reason to one’s dilemma. I for the most part, was always happy, hoping he’d not discover my faults.
I asked him once why he carried the bible around when he had it memorized, and he simply answered: “Private First Class Evens, it is only an aid to my memory, God forbidding, I lose it, and thus far I have not, I would have the aid.”
He tried to talk the talk, if you know what I mean. And was quite sensitive about his book, and his quotes, and his diagnoses; shamefully but true, I was a yes man to him, in fear I’d end up in his hell platoon.
I once did rebuke him by saying, “Sergeant, you really don’t have the credentials to be a minister, do you?”
He told me back, it was one late evening, “Private Evens, I have done everything in my power to take you and Hanson under my wing, you are a member of my special security force, I advise to you, in the name of people you work for, to learn how not to talk to a superior, and not the way you just did, especially when you are drunk.”
As I had stepped further into the office, he smelt my breath, booze and cigarettes reeked out of me. The over-heated radiator made a lot of noise, so he didn’t here me burp, and Corporal Hanson was there and I heard him say, “Sergeant, he’s had a bad time, his girlfriend is two-timing him,” and Hanson put his hand on my shoulder.
“Well why didn’t you say that Private, now I understand,” I then looked at Hanson gave him a little smile, then the Sergeant said in a rough voice, “Gentlemen soldiers,” he said, “here is the affects of extravagance, booze, cigarettes, and women,” looking at me, and I kind of felt he said it with utmost elegance, but nonetheless to shame me.

Anyhow, this night, the green car was still there, and I was waiting for my turkey dinner, and I went to see who it was, and it was to my surprise, Chris Steward, she usually drove a Mercedes around, her other boyfriend’s car. Hanson wasn’t lying per se, Chris did have two lovers, me and a German and she often used his car, but Chris had told me about him—the other boyfriend that is—and him, about me and we agreed on the relationship, she knowing I could go to Vietnam at anytime, be taken out of the 1/36 Artillery at any moment, and be stranded with no boyfriend, god forbid.
“Listen, Chick,” said Chris, “I want to go out and get drunk tonight; I got my car back out of the shop, it was being fixed.”

At 8:15 p.m., we went out to a little guesthouse outside of the city, and guess what, we saw in backroom looking into a movie box, good old Sergeant Chamblee. It was an item you looked into, after putting a coin into its side slot, and wound up, and let it go and as it unwound, it showed you naked women, in funny positions; we have them in Minnesota also.
“Sergeant Chamblee,” I said, “what are you doing looking into that pornography box?”
He turned about slowly, looked at me as if I was a Peeping Tom; Chris was ordering us a table to sit at:
“Private Evens,” he said, “funny seeing you here, it’s expensive,” then he saw Chris coming my way, “oh, I see you made up with your gal, but let me inform you, there’s nothing wrong with me, or this. That’s the way men are supposed to be; nothing wrong at all.”
“It’s wrong,” I remarked, “It’s a sin against cleanliness.”
“No,” said the Sergeant (now Chris standing a few feet away from me.) “It’s a natural thing, and a person should be thankful, you’re much too young to understand of course. But your girlfriend is a few years older than you, I’m sure she understands, right?” he was looking at her now.
“Do what, understand what,” said Chris, and she moved to the table, playing dumb, leaving me with the sergeant.
“There is nothing wrong with looking at a woman’s body,” said the Sergeant “is there?” he asked me.
This all started off as a joke, now it was getting into theology, right and wrongs.
“I’m only looking; I’m not consummating a sinful act against a human being. When you talk so silly, I don’t care to listen to you,” said the sergeant. “Here, come and take a look for yourself,” said the sergeant.
“No,” I said, “I told you it is a sin.”
“But you were kidding, right?”
“I thought I was.”

That was about 10:00 p.m., that evening, before.
“So what happened?” I asked Hanson.
“At four o’clock this morning,” Hanson said, “I received a phone message from our friendly Buck Sergeant, that, Sergeant Chamblee had raped the woman across the hall from his apartment, her husband was out in the field, and he mutilated her with a knife, after doing terrible sexual acts.”
“No,” I said to Corporal Hanson, “it’s a joke.”
“She may die,” he said.
“Die,” I said, “it’s that bad?”
“She lost a lot of blood!”
“He was always so friendly.”
“Well, we mustn’t talk too much about it, lest we get in trouble.”
“Somehow, that was in the back of my mind when I saw him at the guesthouse and he was looking at the phonograph box.” I remarked.
“You’re too damn smart for your own good, be quiet about this. It will all settle itself, all come out in good time, we don’t need to start rumours,” said Hanson, “incidentally, and I ate your turkey dinner it arrived after you left.”


4-3-2009