New Writings by Dennis L. Siluk, 2007 & 2009

A Soldier’s State

2009-12-10T12:10:00.000-08:00

((November 24, 2009) (for: General Jorge Isaac V. Bardales))

An Article of Opinion by: Dr. Dennis L. Siluk

Twice the pride double the fall—having said that, why does one soldier take the path to the sinister side? Why has he unattached himself from the very country that has nurtured him? —only to be branded as a traitor, conspirator, collaborator, a spy—one who sells his character with information, to harm or damage one’s own country, and its countrymen, for the benefit of another country? It is by and large unusual, and therefore, makes his once beloved countrymen, uneasy. Pride, or self-importance, or self-interest is usually at the cornerstone (a strong self-interest being stronger than the devil himself at times), and when it is shifted to hurt one’s own country, it is a man with twice the Pride, and no country, for whom would have him, want him? In a way, he is a person who has gained some power—or feels he has, and to those with power, he becomes afraid to lose it (which is not uncommon); now this fellow, this traitor I am talking about, must let go of everything (the very thing he doesn’t want to let go of), everything he fears to lose he must let go of to heal, only then will he no longer be jealous, for inside of him envy and jealously resides—like white on rice, along with that double portion of pride.
There is such a man in the country of Peru now, today, and during his incarceration most recently, for spying and given or selling vital information to Chile, he is demanding his rights, although he’s forgotten his responsibilities (isn’t that how it goes usually). A man with no loyalties to Peru, no blood in the face; a friend of mine said, “…there are more like him, behind him. (God help the country of Peru if there is).”
In any case, with pert near a confession this man in question has nervous hands now, willing to sacrifice a country and his countrymen, but not himself—he is saying in essence, “My life is worth more than twenty-five million Peruvians” yes indeed, that is what he is saying loud and clear.
The matter of whether or not and by due process of law, he is guilty, to be convicted, he feels the law is something outside of him, his life anyhow, and declines to name his cohorts, Why? —for some reason he found loyalty, by gosh, real genuine allegiance, devotion—the kind of loyalty his country demand of him, that he could not give in the long run. It’s all about him now, the way he wanted it be, he’s important now, or at least he feel so.

This is that sort of something that bothered the Peruvian Army Soldiers that marched from La Oroya, to Huancayo that I visited the afternoon of the twenty-forth of November, 2009, whom marched all day the day before and the following morning of the twenty-forth, to the Plaza de Arms, with their General Jorge Isaac V. Bardales (General de Brigada); puzzling to the General—a man of strong beliefs, national pride, a soldier, a real soldier—puzzled I say that the traitor was guilty and trying to save himself, his neck, this man of no remorse, I think the General would have rather had been dead, hung himself like Judas Iscariot, when he sold out Jesus Christ for thirty-pieces of silver, had he done what the traitor had done.
“You see,” said the General, “…ten years ago, they would have shot him!”(So he told me.)
And I remarked, “Like when I was in Vietnam, a traitor then and there would have been shot likewise.”
Thus we had seen eye to eye, on this matter, standing shoulder to shoulder, although his shoulders were four or five inches above mine. Around him, the General stood with his brigade, and when I looked among the many faces of his troops, it appeared that they were likewise, wishing it was ten-years prior, so they could shoot the traitor—here and now—without a moments delay.
Somehow among the masses of Peru, there is that unexceptional air of indifference, some people wanting to save the spy, those who don’t understand it is important to love a country that you swore to protect its people, not sell them out for thirty-pieces of silver. Now if found guilty, he will be fed, clothed, given shelter, and given his rights, by tax paying people, the very ones he had no pity for, whom he had sold out to the highest bidder.

In Conclusion, perhaps there are no answers to this dilemma, why a person sells out his countrymen, his country, a soldier in particular being the very one we trust, have to trust in, and that is why this crime is more unbearable than ever; and perhaps on the other hand, the laws are too weak to detour such happenings…and the culprits know this, so they do what they do… knowing the worse is time spent: who’s to say?

Anyways, it’s and, and every so often a writer likes to tell it straight out, without putting in any beautiful adjectives and verbs and all that sort of tommyrot.

No: 524 (11-25-2009)

Hell Bound

2009-12-10T12:08:00.000-08:00

((A Brief and Belief) (a point of view))

Who’s going to Hell? That shouldn’t be a hard question, but nowadays it seems to be. My mother once said, “Everyone thinks they’re going to heaven, what gives them such an impression?” surely not the Bible, maybe their imaginations. This is of course an opinion, but I think this is a new way of thinking. I can’t imagine any other generation, in any other time period thinking quite like this.
We are a twisted pile of burnt up wood trying to carve our own heaven on earth, thinking however we interpret God’s word, that he will honor it on the day of our death, thus we print out a license to do as we please, and live the life of the victim to him, as we stretch out our sins to infinity—right up to the morgue. Never knowing we are dead on arrival.
So who is Hell bound? I want to just hastily cover a few names, I could be wrong in these names, but according to the highways they’ve taken in life, it curbs right into Hell. Hell is the final cemetery, not earth. Let me also point out, those not headed for Hell, could be headed for Heaven, or Paradise, there is a difference. There are other statistics on where death can lead a soul, as it has been expressed in unsacred scriptures, there are 72-deaths (but not 72-Hells). But we will deal wryly with one, Hell, the infamous infernal!
One of the biggest things is for man to face reality, not live in a state of pretense, or denial, trying to be a strategist, and talk himself out of Hell while doing what he loves to do in the name of self-interest.
God at present, in this new age, is politely ignored by man, intent on meeting Him on his earthy platform—even when God gives man all the warnings in the world, he still remains unprepared, blindly refusing to face the encroaching danger of Hell.
If you are saying “Who is he to question if we are Hell Bound, or not!” This is really not a question; you know that, it is really a paranoid statement. But I shall answer it.
Today I was laying in bed, and this title “Hell Bound!” Lit up in my head, I know this is something less than hot news, but nonetheless, it lit up, and perhaps God was reminding me there was going on at this very moment, a nuclear incineration for the mass’ of souls on earth, those dying, heading for Hell. I don’t know. The Bible stresses Hell is where the enemy wants to put you; I’m not thinking of death, but Hell, a debilitating life—eternal after death. So this is my reason for writing this brief.

Now you’re going to get mad because I’m going to give you a dose of reality, what you really already know, but desire not to be truthful. First of all, where do you think Michael Jackson, the famous singer went? When I watched all those celebrities on television when he died, they made it out to be as if he was on the right hand side of Jesus Christ Himself (or headed that way). As if he was singing his way through the pearly gates. Let’s get down to earth; Mr. Jackson might have been the King of Pop Rock or whatever, but he was not the creator and author of life and death, and Hell. One needs only watch his videos, or listen to his lyrics, and look at his lifestyle—to tell he’s Hell Bound. And although I like Elvis as an entertainer, he’s most likely in the same category (along with half of Hollywood—if often amazes me these actors and actress can lay in bed naked and then think nothing of it, call it creative acting, and think God looks the other way, it is repulsive to think so). They have an edge on earth, not in the afterlife.
These new attitudes people have adopted in the face of reality, is simply another way of living in sin with victory, angels and demons know this.

Power, how much power can we have without being morbid? This is vitally important to everyone. Power and self-interest can conquer the soul; put it in Hell (we need people in high place with power under control, not out of control). I would guess, the Vatican, Washington D.C., and the Kremlin, to mention few, are such places where the ugliness of power and self-interest swims in its own romanticized traditions, and were there is less communing with God, than there should be, and where Satan Himself, gets a good selection of cross-cultural souls Hell-bound! (Many of them from the United Nations, I’m sure.)
Our new society—American and European societies, have this new found secularization, where once it was Christianization; where faith in Jesus Christ is not really given one shilling of thought. We have in this new 21st Century, a new preoccupation—everyone goes to heaven, there is no unpardonable sin—even our new President Obama feels this way, that what was cherished in traditional Christianity, is now questionable, he is for abortion, he is for war, he is for whatever everyone else is for—that being, the non Christian communities—where do you think he’s going?
We never talk about such things, why? Perhaps it is too painful for all of us. How unfortunate, perhaps we must be like children to understand the hope in heaven and eternal life.
If you are looking at death, and looking homeward, and thinking it is Heaven, not Hell, if you are thinking what eternal family you are going to live with, literally look at the Glory of Jesus Christ. Look at the reality of Satan; he also is ignored, discarded as a myth.
I imagine, and believe many of the Muslims will also have a rude awakening, I’m sure Saddam Hussein, and his war hungry, terrorist mind is now facing that. As will be Bin Laden and his massive following; he, likened to the gay community (who have come out with the new theory: ‘God made me like this’) and whoever else chooses to deny this reality, will face the alternative—hell (along with the many Christian Cults and their leaders, of the day, to include: the Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses to mention a few).

Hell is not a popular subject nowadays, and the more education one gets the quicker it fades into oblivion. On the other hand, heaven is more popular, not sure why folks are more confident in Heaven, and not in Hell (they kind of go together, in that there is a good and a bad, a right and wrong, a God and a Devil), but I would guess they have more interest in Heaven because it appears to be more promising (here comes that self-interest again).
But let me leave you with this, Jesus spoke of Hell, saying “…darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8.12). In 1983, I had a vision of this. I cannot find the strongest of words to describe that vision, it was just a horror.
If God is a just God, then sin must be punished, it is as simple as that.

No: 545 (12-8-2009)

The Boy from the Midwest

2009-12-10T12:05:00.000-08:00

((From the book “Romancing San Francisco”; reedited, modified chapter,
Two for independent story) (summer of 1968))

Master Yamaguchi Teaches
[Buck becomes a Friend]

Part One of Two

The weather was warm, in San Francisco, in the summer of 1968, a breeze from the bay seeped through the city, and the Turtles, the Doors and the Beatles music were being played everywhere, along with “Elvis’ Comeback.” Everyone dressed like Sonny and Cher, or the Momma’s and the Papa’s it seemed everyone but me that is; inasmuch as I liked the way everyone dressed, I found myself still quite conservative—the boy from the Midwest.
The trees along many of the streets especially Dolores Avenue (where I would eventually, find an apartment in a mansion), were glossy green. I bought some bread and white spread-on cheese (Philadelphia cheese), brought it to the dojo (where I living temporarily) and put it in the refrigerator in the back room; I liked it, something new that I picked up in San Francisco. Along with a corner store that would make any kind of sandwich you wanted.
Because of the change in weather from Minnesota to San Francisco, my eating habits were also changing; I appeared to like the lighter foods that is, and less meats, more Chinese foods also. I really didn’t care for Japanese foodstuff. Some one brought in raw snake with white rice and offered it as a treat for all of us at the dojo one evening, it must have been Goesi, but that is a guess, I can’t remember for sure. Although I always seemed to have a good appetite, after a bite or two of the so called treat, I lost it for the rest of the evening. But as I was going to say, with all the walking, and now working at Lilli Ann (the dress designing outfit), and doing my Karate everyday, my appetite at times was vigorous.
It was great to walk the night away along the oceanfront with my karate friends, looking at the many fires along the Pacific Coast. The warmth of the fires shifted all the way to my sensory-senses, smelling the burnt-wood on the fires, the ocean, the mud, the greenery, all several of us, watching the flickering of the flames from the fires, the sparks ascending to the asteroid belt; the gibbous moon lighting up a long streak in the ocean, right to its shoreline, as if it had been called to attention right at that spot. I felt it was a good time to be alive. I loved the water; the sounds of the huge waves hitting the coast: the white foam splattering all about.

My days seemed endless, filled with so much, in comparison, to my conservative city in the Midwest, St. Paul, the city along Mississippi that ran all the way down to St. Louis, and onto New Orleans, right to the Gulf of Mexico.
As a kid I’d play down along its banks with my friend Mike Rosette. We were quite the team back in those days. We’d run in and out the caves along the cliffs that paralleled the banks of the Mississippi sometimes dodging the drunks asleep, snoring away the morning or as sometimes it would be, forenoon, and even some afternoons. But this was different, this was not the Mighty Mississippi, Mark Twain’s haven, as he so loved to write about, as I loved to walk beside as a kid, rather, this was the gigantic Pacific Ocean—that led into the South Pacific to Hawaii, Japan, and beyond. It was simply, hard for me to adjust to seeing so much water, instead of cornfields. It took my breath away, like standing in front of the Empire State Building looking up, or looking down the Grand Canyon. I had to run up to it just to say to touched it, and then able to say I got wet from it; as if it was sacred waters. But then anyone from Minnesota would have done the same I’m sure, or lied that they didn’t and did.
Also, along the Mississippi, you’d see rats as large as fat cats, or small dogs, here you saw white jellyfish, colored seashells, among a few other things. To everyone else it was common, to me I was spellbound. In St. Paul, they stopped allowing fires back in ’63, too many false alarms, and the fire station (s) got sick and tired of running for every little fire that. We no longer could burn our trash in the fifty-gallon drums we used: normal, after about six to nine months, grandpa would have me and my brother tip it over and empty it out into a dugout hole, and bury it. But those days were now gone; along with burning the fall leaves, I liked that also, the smell of the fall leaves never left my mind, my senses, the sparks from the leaves reminded me of this oceanfront fires, that the hippies had.
“Buck,” (Donald Buck) I said, asking, “…don’t the police do anything about these people laying about, drinking, smoking pot, having fires, sleeping the night away… and whatever?”
Buck looked at me strange, “No Chick, it’s just the times…everyone leaves everyone else alone here; or tries to. These people are just here for a short period of time, anyhow.”
We stood and looked over the little camps, the flames, listening to the oceanfront waves hit hard and soft, until we finally got tired and headed back to the dojo; it seemed it was the place everyone would eventually end up at.

Part Two of Two
The Fiend

“The Ghost of the Collingswood Dojo”

It was a Thursday evening, I had walked back to the dojo, it was going on 5:30 p.m., I had stopped at a Chinese restaurant, and ate dinner, some rice with beef and dark gravy and green peppers, it was delicious, and I had some green tea that sunk to the bottom of the tea-pot that also was excellent. Then again, back to the dojo. By the time I reached the dojo, everyone had left, it was 7:00 p.m., usually I got back early to workout, do some exercises, and katas, and Friday nights I avoided going back to the dojo because it was Black Belt night until 8:00 p.m. And I wasn’t at that stage yet. None-the-less, I entered the dojo, and sat back placidly against the sofa, the counter to my left, the archway to the gym [dojo] straight ahead of me, staring at me; as it normally did. And then at about 10:00 p.m., it happened— what everyone had told me would happen, the ghost, the fiend, made its approach that is what happened, oh yes, I met him in a cadaverous kind of way. I can’t describe it emotionally with prose, so I had to write it down after the contact, in poetic prose—kind of.
I shall call it,

“The Ghost of the Collingswood Dojo”

(Notes from my Journal) “I heard him last night, about 10:00 P.M., in the silence of the dojo. It as if he or it, were trying to get my attention. Tapping at the windows, the podium stand; Knocking over wooden chairs –as I was half-asleep, on the sofa, near the gym. Then, I found myself standing by the archway entrance, to the dojo, were I worked out, I could hear, his footsteps pass me, I even saw the wooden floor absorbing them, as if his weight was tremendous. I yelled out, ‘I’m not about leave this dojo, and I’m not afraid of you…!’
“Something told me not to challenge the spirit, and I automatically called out, ‘Lord! (meaning, Jesus Christ),’ and all the noises went silent, even the footsteps, as if waiting for some hurricane.

Note: Originally “The Ghost of the Collingswood Dojo,” was published in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, Independent Newspaper, “Insight,” @ January 6th, 1983, under the title “About 10:00 P.M. Copyright @ 2003 “Romancing San Francisco,” by Dennis L. Siluk. Dlsiluk @ 2009, “The Boy from the Midwest” (Modified chapter two for an independent story)

Victor: and the Monkey Man

2009-12-10T12:01:00.001-08:00

((Miraflores, Lima Peru, 2008) (Based on actual events))

When your with someone twenty, thirty, even forty years—work with them everyday of the week, seven days a week, fifty-weeks ever year (minus two weeks the Monkey Man vacationed, not Victory), that someone you can’t help getting to like them, you even get to love them (him or her). It’s pretty near like being married to the person—almost! You know when that person gets tired, because you are tired, and you can tell by his walking or talking. You know it, because you can feel it.
There was such a person I knew named Victor. He and the Monkey Man (Cipriano) worked in the same park (Miraflores, Kennedy Park) in Lima, Peru.
In the park Victor worked as a photographer, the only one in the park, allowed in the park that is—licensed to be there, and the Monkey man, Cipriano, with his wind-up music box, and the red and white box the monkey was stored in (until he came in the park, and was then taken out of the box, and played on top of the box all day long), he worked perhaps ten-feet to Victor’s side, had worked side by side for forty-years. The Monkey-Man would have his monkey take out a piece of paper, likened to a ticket, and it had a happy saying on it, and he’d hand it to the person holding a coin, and they’d exchange one for the other.
Victor worked by him twelve hours a day. I met Victor and Cipriano for the first time in 1999, when I first met my wife Rosa; he took our second picture together, one evening in the park. Anyhow, one day Cipriano, he just up and died, he was seventy-two years old. A small man, thin, wore a white cowboy looking hat, a blue worn out suite, little eyes; he died on a warm day in 2007.

The times I talked to Victor after that, it had seemed to me that happening took a solid big chunk of life out of him. It hurt him to talk about his old partner, but he did. He even braced himself when he did. I asked him once if he thought about Cipriano much. He said, “A day doesn’t go by when I don’t think of him.” These were hard times for Victor.
Sometimes when we walked by him, he was in a glum of a mood—not that he was to us, my wife and I, just that he seemed so from a distance, he’d always cheer up when he saw us, went over to talk to him.
Anyway, win or lose, life was different for him; eleven months after Cipriano had died, we happened to be in Lima again, we stopped—as we often did—stopped by to say hello to Victor, and he wasn’t there this time, not even his standup, camera, the old one he said was from the 1840s. I asked the nearby shoeshine man, who always worked by Victory (there were several in the park) “Where’s Victory?” He usually went to eat his lunch about 2:00 p.m., perhaps today he went early, but it was only forenoon.
The shoeshine man, hesitated, as if he was trying to figure out how to say, what he had thought he might have say someday, “He died a month ago, we were kind of thinking how to tell you when you came around.” (That was on a warm day, in 2008.)

No: 543 (12-6-2009) SA

The Bat

2009-12-10T11:57:00.000-08:00

(The Donkeyland Neighborhood,
a Chick Evens Story, summer of, 1961)

When you’re just fourteen years old, you don’t have sense enough to realize what you are doing and often tremble, get so mad you can’t think, and overreact, or at least I did. Because even now I can remember some of the things Richard Zackary and I did for instance, and in my case I didn’t think twice about it, and I wonder how any of us kids in the neighborhood (called by the police: Donkeyland), us boys in particular ever lived long enough to grow up. I remember I was just fourteen, weightlifting, had fourteen inch biceps, strong as a bull; Richard Zackary had just taken a bat I had found out from my hands; this was after (this is how I remember it anyhow) after, Richard was standing against some bushes by his house, we both went to the same High School, we were about the same height, and weight, it was a warm day. We began to talk about sharing the bat, but he wouldn’t give it back to me and I tried to grab it, pull it away from him. Richard said he’d give it to me for three-dollars, since we both spotted the bat, and I grabbed it before he could. But I said, “Let’s just share it,” of course I wanted to have it first, and so did he. Before he could say another word I hat him with my right fist alongside the upper left side of his temple, hard, I just hauled off and hit him, right through the bushes he flew, cloths, bat and all.
So we (his father and I) got him out of the bushes, and we tried to wake him up, but the blow was so solid, he was completely knocked out.
“All right,” the mother said, standing by her son, “you better go home Chick…” the father was getting extremely upset, and so I did.
I hadn’t thought about that, about leaving him, I did leave the bat, and Richard ended up in the hospital. And the father called my mother up, said, “That boy of yours is like a gorilla; keep him away from my son!”
“If that’s what we got to do, okay,” she said.
“That boy of yours is taking advantage of my boy,” said Richards’s father to my mother—meaning, I was twice as strong as he.
Well, Richard and I had more or less hung around together ever since he had moved into the neighborhood, some two-years prior, but I stayed away from him for a long time. Perhaps his father had let me off lightly, he had every reason to want to harm me but didn’t. But I didn’t think of that at the time.
Fine, I wasn’t trying to prove I was the toughest, I never thought of it that way, but it did seem to build up a little reputation for me, one I didn’t care to have, simply because other kids wanted to test me out, see if I was all that tough, I mean, one blow knocked out a boy—evidently, that was something. And I tried to explain it was just a mishap in the neighborhood, but the more I did, the more folks thought I was being modest. I mean the thing I was trying to do, was not have to fight everyone to prove I was worthy of fighting. If anything, I was more guarded now and harder to get to fight; it was like life was trying to take revenge on me for hitting Richard or the Devil was working overtime.

No: 565 (12-8-2009)

“The Cellar Apartment”

2009-12-10T11:54:00.000-08:00

((West St. Paul, the winter of 1967) (a Minnesota Chick Evens Story))

“Here!” I said “…come over here!”
Now she, Phyllis, was looking at me serious, over her shoulder. She didn’t move much, perhaps an inch, not a turn of her lower body though: just her neck and head, her eyes, her face, her hands lay to her sides standing in the middle of the cellar apartment, my bed in front of her, me in back of her, the door in back of me, her husband—my best friend, Sid, had now been dead a week, only a week—coming back from Wisconsin, drinking, everyone drunk in the car, and an accident took place.
Yes—she looked again. She never had looked at me like that before; she appeared to confront me with that look, slyly across her shoulder—with her deep dark eyes. No questioning but waiting, as rain clouds never question or wait, they just pour out rain, when they feel like it, then drift away, shed its moisture.
“Oh!” I remarked, as she watched me still standing by my bed. Watched me sadly, just a bit unsure, perhaps curious.
“But of course,” I said looking at the bed; naturally she was thinking I wanted to take her to bed. But I didn’t; not really, I just wanted to see if I could, see how far she’d go.
“No, wait,” I said. “Maybe this is wrong, for both of us!”
I wasn’t desperate, and still she just watched me, now a foot from the bed: she had some kind of bottomless tranquility, calmness inside of her, waiting on me to tell her to lie down on the bed.
“Sit down on the bed,” I said… “I didn’t mean that.”
She quickly followed up with, “I know your Sid’s friend Chick, do you want to or not!”
“I could never forgive you, or me, if we did,” I remarked.
“All right,” she commented, then I went to open the door to tell her to leave, “Good night,” I said harshly, demandingly, angry.
“Why did you bring me here in the first place?” she asked.
“I thought that is what I wanted, and you wanted,” I said.
I wanted to get angry at her because she was going to make love with me, and because she was getting a divorce with Sid before he died, and because she was collecting $5000-dollars benefit because of his death, had he died two weeks later, she’d had gotten nothing, like I felt she deserved. The Insurance policy would have run out. She was dating other guys, during her separation, and I was just mad because of all of that. I suppose I was like her, grieving, but I was displacing my anger.
“Shut the door on your way out,” I said.
“It’s cold out there,” —she walked towards me, not fast.
“I came here because I liked you, because I’m hurting just like you, maybe more!” she said with wet eyes.
“Maybe I did want to,” she came towards me closer, and then passed me, “but I don’t want to anymore, you’re very cruel!”
“Shut the door before it gets cold in here on your way out,” I told her, “don’t touch me!” I emphasized.
“All right, all right…” she commented—“a dog is more compassionate than you,” she told me. “I doubt Sid would really have minded anyhow.”
“All right,” I agreed, but felt Sid was looking down on me, from wherever he was.
“I came because you are unhappy, Sid and I were separated, ready to get a divorce—you know that!”
“Yes,” I said, and she cried and slammed the door as she left, and I could hear her shivering outside—but the tears seemed to have stopped, perhaps going to the corner, or bar not far away to call a taxi.

No: 547 (12-10-2009)

Winter Houses

2009-12-07T15:21:00.002-08:00

(A Chick Evens story out of Minnesota, based on fact, 1956)

The Icy-Mississippi

Snow is on the sidewalks, in the streets, a thin layer covering the Mississippi River, on top of four-inches of ice —the houses and buildings are all lit, fires glowing in hearths, furnaces burning, as I rush out into the cold early Saturday morning air to sell newspapers “Five Cents!” It is December, 1956 and I’m ten-years old, just turned ten-years old in October.
I see people sitting in their houses: men, women and children—as if their minds are unoccupied, its 6:00 a.m., some of the houses are covered with blotches of snow; some even appear to smile at me—with their shadowy silhouettes.
Some of the houses are completely dark, solid gray dark; I suppose the people haven’t crawled out of bed yet. In other houses I hear laughter as I walk down Jackson Street to the St. Paul, Pioneer Press Newspaper, to get my stack of papers to sell on the corner of Forth and Robert Streets. I even can see the icy-Mississippi from where I sand.
In the quiet morning cold, the houses seem to whisper to me—as if they have secrets to tell—but I’m too young to stop and listen, I’m not yet a hunter of tales. Plus, they can only tell me things I’m too young to fully understand.
I pass a dozen houses, two, then three dozen, now buildings, doors are now bursting open.
I start to yell “St. Paul Pioneer Press! …FIVE CENTS!”
Slow moving, and slow speaking people walk by. I think my business is the most interesting in town—but of course at ten-years old, who wouldn’t think so. There even seems to be a touch of romanticism in this paper business.

No: 539 (12-5-2009) SA

The Vacuum Cleaner Department

2009-12-07T15:21:00.001-08:00

((A Chick Evens Story, 1966) (out of Minnesota))

They had brought in a ‘minute-man’ into the Vacuum Cleaner Department of the factory, third floor (off Arcade Street, St. Paul, Minnesota, in the summer of 1966).
They are the efficiency experts—as most everyone knows. His job is to come into our area of work with his time-watch on, set it accordingly, ready to click it at any given moment. And then simply stand about—timing you.
Let me explain: if you can staple together with the standup (ten-foot tall) staple machine—more boxes in less time, all the better (boxes for vacuum cleaner that is)— His question is, or will be to himself: “Is Mr. Chick Evens doing all he can do?”
Consequently, a portion of Mr. Evens’ pay is based on piece-work.
Well, he stands by the staple machine clicks that watch to go, counts “one second, two seconds, three seconds—one box, two boxes…) times me. He says “Just be natural!” (He doesn’t mean that, he simply says that.)
Then when I stop to go to the toilet, he questions if it should have taken me three minutes or seven minutes? (Which it took me all of seven minutes to do what was natural. And had I had to do—a number one and number two, all in one setting, he might have had to reset his watch.) In any case, He also questions if I really should have stopped for five-minutes to help my fellow worker (perhaps thinking, it’s someone else’s job, which perhaps it is.) He says nonetheless (placing it in a different category) “You don’t get paid for gossip, you could have stapled twenty-boxes in the time you stopped to chitchat... (two minutes had elapsed).”
He now sees your face is annoyed with him, and says, “There are plenty of people out of work, god knows, so don’t get smart with me fellow!”

No: 540 (12-5-2009) SA (the second part has been left out of this story)

Sparky the Seal

2009-12-07T15:20:00.000-08:00

…and summer days at Como Park

((1956-1958) (Based on actual events))

At Como Park (St. Paul, Minnesota), in the Midway area (back in the mid to late fifties), when I was ten to twelve year old, I’d hike out to Como Park with my buddy Mike Reassert, a year or two younger than I.
There was a Ferris Wheel, and a Merry-go-Round, and stands selling things (food and such), and nearby was a free show once a day at 1.00 p.m., near a platform, that had a pool attached to it, and “Sparky the Seal,” was the main event, and he always put on a terrific and dandy show for us kids.
Most of the city kids went out there, during summer vacations; if not for the Sparky Show, to ride the giant turtle, or walk round the Zoo area and look at animals.
Mike Reassert and I were always conscious of the fair like atmosphere of the summer days at Como Park.
The lake that went beside it was about one and half miles round (circumference), and around the lake across the main street that divided it from the residential area, were nice expensive looking house, with large green lawns, and flowers and girls often sitting on their porches.
Well, as time went by, Sparky died, I think I had just become a teenager when that took place, and the following summer I saw a sign that read “Two shows, 1:00 p.m., and 3:00 p.m. by Sparky II” and I got thinking, it didn’t take long to replace Sparky No: I.
Fine, at about at nineteen years old, there about, that summer I read another sign out at Como Park, it read, “Visit Sparky’s pool,” (something on that order), and when I went to see Sparky, inside the building was it was full of seals, and it said “The Home of Sparky III” something like that, and the show was to be at 2:00 p.m.
Again I said “Fine…” thinking Sparky II had passed on. That’s when it dawned on me, we’re all so replaceable.
Well, at about fifty-years old, back in about 2001, I took my wife whom is from Peru, and there was a new Sparky doing a show, I don’t know what number he was, but it was nice that they kept the tradition up.

No: 542 (12-6-2009) SA

Machine Days

2009-12-07T15:19:00.000-08:00

((A Minnesota Story, 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s) (Based on actual events))

In my younger days, there were more factories with machines—small and large—more than the fast-food out-lets we have nowadays (drive-ins, cafés, restaurants, and alike). That’s back thirty, forty, near fifty-years or so ago (I’m sixty-two now). And behind those days—I’d expect it was even more so.
I am speaking of machinery in America, factories with machinery and foundries in Minnesota, and in particular, the City of St. Paul, where I grew up (although I’ve worked in many cities, Minneapolis, Omaha, San Francisco, Seattle, Erie, to mention a few).
I can still hear the clatter of the machines at Whirlpool where I worked for a year, back in 1966, and those at American Can (1968). I can hear the whirr and the screeching and the pounding of machinery making cast-iron molds, at the foundries ((Malibu Iron, where I worked back in 1965 and 1972) (in St. Paul, and Erie)); and the murmur and shouts of men at the stockyards (Swift’s) in South St. Paul (1967)—they used machines to kill animals, conveyer belts and so for and so on.
It was all after World War Two, and the Korean War, and just before the Vietnam War (my war to be; even in war we used machines).
The machines hum and talk like a horde of chipmunks, they roar like lions, they dance and sway on steel rafters like monkeys, high overhead, as at “Structural Steel,” where I worked for a winter season back in ’68.
Machines have legs, bodies, arms, fingers, feet; they hold onto things, they have giant hands.
They swing this way and that way, some everywhichway. They weigh tons, run madly all day long. I was once a junior machinist (back in 1971, after I returned from the War in Vietnam), that is—an apprentice—they make things, big and small: bridges, holes in parts just about anything and everything. They feed upon oil, power from water, electricity, batteries, and coal, even nuts. Back in 1972-73, I worked for a power plant in Erie.
Their wheels groan and grind, and screech, make horrid sounds to the ears. They produce smoke, darker than the hearts of men. Machines control, and similar to their makers, they wear out. I’ve had over forty-jobs, in my lifetime, the best thing about machines is: their stupid, you can tell them anything, and they say nothing. They are bleak and cold, they don’t beg for the sun or the cool breeze off the lake—how smoothly they can run, how surely. I tell you there will be a day when people will pay machines to talk to, they’re better listeners than humans (and they don’t have cheap—expensive advice to give; and their friendship is never deceiving).

No: 541 (12-6-2009) SA

Behind the Sun

2009-12-05T14:15:00.002-08:00

(Inspired by real events)(Summer of 1936)

She lived, during that summer of 1936, in a small room, on the first floor of an old mansion, near Rice Park, downtown, St. Paul, Minnesota, near the Mississippi River, a hop-skip-and-jump, away. It was July and the evening was hot. On the grass outside of the large house where she was a maid, she sat cross-legged. Sweat trickling down her back, armpits, forehead—the arclights of the city had just gone on.
People of the city were sitting on the curbs of the streets, down along the riverbank on the grass—sleeping on blankets, to cool themselves off.
Elsie Evens had just finished her evening’s work (so she thought)—; sixteen-years old, she had lived at St. Joseph’s Orphanage, since 1933, since her mother Ella had died of double-pneumonia, and her father Tony (Anton) couldn’t take care of her and her several siblings —she had been working at the Rosenberg’s since the previous winter.
She walked Eastward from the house she worked in, more into the inner city, great masses of people: men, women, children, old folks (to include, even dogs, cats) —all had left their apartments, and homes to spend the night out-of-doors, some by the river.
Here was a city of over 250,000-people all overheated, all hunting for a spot of land (some even fighting for it) to sleep in peace and quiet and get some cool breeze, behind the sun.
Out of near-darkness they flooded the streets, the houses and apartments were empty—even fashionable folks were filling the parks where once bums, tramps, and hobos (transits) normally slept.
Elsie thought, ‘If only I could get out of here… like so many of the rich could do, were doing, about to do, going to Europe and Canada, etcetera (so she had read in the papers), to escape the July heat wave.
She stumbled in the gray-darkness, from street light to street light, resting here and there wherever she found an open spot of grass, a few babies could be heard crying in the distant and sinister dark.

It was past one o’clock when she had returned back to her domicile, explained to the elder Mr. Rosenberg, the owner, and her employer, who didn’t pay her for her duties, but gave her room and board, explained to him, she had taken a long walk (to cool off)—he had handed her a list of things he waned her to do—now, said he had been trying to find her earlier. She was cool-headed about it.
You must have gone a little off your head and could not work anymore,” he remarked. And then he went out to lie in the front lawn, a blanket in hand.

No: 586 (12-4 & 5-2009) SA

Sister Death Watch

2009-12-05T14:15:00.001-08:00

(Inspired by real events)(November, 2009)

With Eugene, there always seemed to be a contest going on, life was a dispute, although, it was all a little amazing, even a tinge odd to Roland Lawton, being, as he was, a man quite observant, and particularly conscious, growing old (or older, now at sixty-two), yet still so aware (married to Piper, whom was the younger sister to Celosia). As for Eugene, he was a few years younger than his brother-in-law (Roland), large in frame and strong in body, stubborn in mind, always seeking admiration—from or to whomever, and—more often than not—moody, for simple—if not silly reasons, but reasons nonetheless; displacing annoyance on Roland— or for that matter—on any family member, during those uncommon (or out of character) moments of shifting moods, those mood, if not anger.
By and large, all the family members lived by one another.
Eugene was mentally outside, not in it—the extended family, and seemingly the obnoxious one of the family (of which his daughter, Shelley had appeared to have inherited, genetically or by social comparison, his mood swings), that is to say, or add, Eugene had a hair-trigger temper, to everyone and thing around him, even to his most regular customers at his restaurant.
As I mentioned, there seemed to be a contest with him and those around him. It concerned ways of doing things, decisions, expecting those around him to surrender.
I suppose it is like that in many families, there being one usually one person, in most every family structure (relatives, and all to be contaminated by that one person), and more so in the nuclear family for the most part, one that forms within the group this antisocial or disruptive behavior (especially while in the fall of life); to include: jealousies, concealed hatreds, silent battles with envy, all this secretly going on—with brother-in-laws, the children, the wife, brothers, fathers, as for Eugene—in all respects, all of the above pertained to him.
He had two young adult children attending college, who adored their mother, and a young boy of thirteen, who adored her likewise.
As for Eugene Jr., and Shelley, they lived within the house, within the family structure, but within their own world. And to be quite frank, they were in the process of trying to establish their own world, and it was not without a struggle from their father. The point was, that the mother having the heart that never stopped beating, was always tender for the kids. And Eugene never understood that—how it infuriated and hurt him at times, not to get that admiration, respect, awe, the kids gave to the mother—although they were of little help to lighten the load for their mother.
Sometimes Eugene went white and trembled with anger—and then at other times, red from holding it in. It didn’t matter it seemed he wanted to break his wife and children, like one would break a horse: beginning with the children, then the wife, then the relatives. Having it out with whomever, whenever, and never really wining, simply just driving a wedge between himself and the family members.
“No, Eugene. You can’t,” his wife would plead. But he had learned to swear so loud, whatever she said, wasn’t heard. Where he picked it up from, who’s to say.
Perhaps Celosia, his wife, understood how he felt, never quite putting the matter, and circumstances certainly into words, not even to her mind’s eye (her second-self, her unconscious, hence, hiding it for her, because it was too much to endure, consequently saving her from a sudden, and perchance injurious, impact). But it was one of those things that started to age her quickly, weaken her immune system, arouse in her family members a curious determination to look deeper into—or at, Eugene’s maladaptive behavior (not accepting his intentions, or understanding them for the most part, perhaps not able to be sympathetic to the his way of thinking, reckoning, it was anything but healthy). They even caught themselves saying, “Can’t he just stop!” It was really not an inquiry, but rather a statement-question at best. Someone even mentioned, in passing, “If she’s to enjoy the last years of her life, must he spoil what she is to have!”
They, all of us, thought she was dying, over and over and over—she had but one kidney. Especially the father of Celosia had some hidden resentment against her husband, being Eugene was likened to a tyrant—if let be; he was as if standing guard over her—them.
The two chidden in college drew more and more away from the father, just appeasing him so he’d not cut their tuition short, or off.

•

It was a rainy November, 2009, in the mountain city; Celosia was in her restaurant kitchen cooking. The rain was pouring down hard. Great streams of water were outside by the kitchen door. Lunch was almost ready, she ran out in the rain to the car—through the restaurant area, to get some groceries she had forgotten—the rain soaked her hair, but it felt good, it was cold against her forearms and neck, and even soaked under her cloths. She looked at Eugene; he was cleaning the tables, wiping them off, he had just priory finished moping the floor—she heard anxiety in his voiced, “We got to hurry up, before the lawyers com, and the rest of the crowd!” (He didn’t look at his sister-in-law, Piper, or Roland; they were standing by the kitchen, near a table one they usually sat at; he had given the impression they were insignificant, although they were his best customers; but it was not out of character.) There was fear in Celosia’s eyes.
“Oh, Eugene, you know you mustn’t get all worked up, we’ll be ready!” remarked his wife, faintly.
Just that was enough to set him into a dry mood, as dry as a bone, parched. The least shock or resistance could do it. It really was simply an old, very old story.
‘Why,’ thought Eugene, ‘can’t anyone understand, that such things are a hundred times worse for me—’
On that day, without answering his wife, he jumped in his car and rode off. He wanted to go hide himself, cool down before everyone came. Celosia, deduced how he felt.

Celosia and her sister Piper stood looking at each other, Roland sitting in a chair at a table. Celosia over fifty, Piper just fifty, it was getting to everyone in the family.
“What, Piper?” asked Celosia, there were astonishment and a slight annoyance in Piper’s voice?
“He’s always making you feel bad, if not accountable, or at fault, so it looks as if … anyhow!” remarked Piper—she wanted to cry but didn’t.
Celosia understood. It was at this point, an odd tense moment for them both, and then Celosia walked off into the kitchen to get ready the lunch.
Celosia, wanted to fly off somewhere, anywhere, like Peter Pan, like a child in a dreamland-dream, perhaps shake Eugene for being so impudent.
There was so much implied—perhaps she could be allowed to die, quickly, suddenly, rather than this slow death for she was always in danger of a sudden death anyhow, but she kept to her values in life, but death was not the most terrible thing to her. She tuned to the side door, went silent, watched the rain as it came pouring down, dripping into the kitchen. There were no explanations.
“Well,” Celosia said presently, “what did you want for lunch, are you eating here at the restaurant today, Piper?”
Piper spoke, “Yes,” meaning she was eating there.
There was a bond—between them two sisters. Piper was witty and could think of a lot of things to say, but they were all too risky, she had an inclination— ‘…keep hands off,’ and accordingly, there was a little inner-world created (being re-created perhaps), and in it there was a kind of—‘sister death watch.’

Afterthought

There are times when men who seriously like one another cannot endure one another. Instinctively one needs to be careful—do not get too close in knowing the truth of the other person, he may hate you for it: knowing you can describe him, to himself.
Eugene was alive when he boasted; a little intoxicated with dreams of the present, visions unaccomplished from the past. Some people such as he, are destined to make their lives hell, others who tag along, live in purgatory.
I hope this does not all seem trivial? I am trying to tell it the best I can. So this was his life, this is what I saw. Never mind my life, it is unimportant, in this story, what must become of those others involved will become in question in times yet to come.
We are just faces of people in a fleck of light; a dim shadow questioning voices, words whirled about us. We need to take some of this life out of our heads, and live a tranquil existence—it is so very short, and then the lights go out. We are more than scraggly weeds growing, and when someone thinks that is what we are to them, and then it is time to set the record straight.

No: 535 (12-2-2009) SA

The Barber and His Joke!

2009-12-05T14:12:00.001-08:00

(Inspired by real events)(Summer of 1954)

Harry the barber, had a little shop down on Jackson Street, by the open market, in St. Paul, Minnesota, back in the summer of 1954, he was giving me a haircut (as often he had in the past), I was seven years old at the time, my brother Mike, two years older than I, was standing around waiting, he had just finished his. And the old barber liked playing jokes on boys—jokes like he was going to play on me.
He told me that he’d put some shaving cream on my face. Like men do, see how I looked, how it felt. And I let him do it. Then he said abruptly, with a sneer to his voice, “You’ll now grow whiskers.” Just like him. And he laughed half-heartedly, as I looked in the mirror and at him, and at my brother. And I didn’t laugh. It made me awfully worried, and I had tears in my eyes, yet he kept on with the joke— even so. And I got angry, and jumped out of the barber’s chair.
“It’s just a joke, that’s all it was,” said my brother Mike.
And now the barber acknowledged also, that it was just a joke, and no more than that. And insisted that it wouldn’t do, what he claimed it would do, make me grow whiskers (hoping I’d get back into the chair and let him finish with the haircut). And he quickly wiped my face clean. But I wouldn’t believe one, meaning, my brother or the barber—it would seem they worked together on this, although it was the barber’s joke, and Mike just went along with it, until he saw the tears. Nonetheless, I would not get back into the barber’s chair.
Well, I didn’t grow whiskers, and I didn’t die. And then I made up my mind I’d never get my haircut from him again, and I didn’t. (And he didn’t charge full price for the haircut.)

No: 536 (12-2-2009) SA

(Commentary on the Slave Trade):

2009-12-02T12:35:00.001-08:00

The Slave trade originated in Europe, and was in essence, a holocaust in the making. A massive murder, like in due time America would do to the Indian Race, the Europeans were doing to the blacks long before. They, Europeans, were coming out of the, Middle Ages, and their new form of nationalism, turned into a spotted form of racism, thus the trade between Africa and Europe was one of convenience, technology vs. free labor. Of course slavery was not new to Europe, Feudalism was a form of Enslavement, and Europe was well acquainted with that.
And now, let us not forget the Arab slave trade, they like Europe and America would get in on this bonanza of human flesh that offered the new era so many possibilities. It would be fair to say, the Muslims violated their own faith during the time they took advantage of this new occurring bonanza (roll-over wealth); because it was all based on gain, money, self-interest, dehumanization.
Like so often peoples and countries do, have done and are doing today: the Arabs came into Africa as friends, hands out for comradeship, and peace and good will, only for the Africans to find out, they were as ruthless as the Romans had been before them.
It would seem the Portuguese and the Arab slave trade met along the golden highway, and cooperated with one another for personal gain.
Now back to Europe. Here was a Christian world, which pushed upon a civilization imprisonment for no wrongs commented, for the ships were all of that and more. And who created the documentation for these human cargos—Europe? This I suppose justified the buyer, and of course victimized the slave. People can say what they will to wipe their hands clean, but the market was there, as it was in America, South America, and with the Arabs and let us not forget, the Caribbean Islands.
I don’t know how the adaptability was, nor does anyone else for sure, but from all my learning in counseling and psychology, one would have to form a dual personality to survive, depending on prevailing conditions, if not become neurotic, or even catatonic, disassociation, and borderline schizophrenia, and perhaps many did go beyond the borderline.

The Cycle of the Chicken

2009-12-02T12:31:00.000-08:00

The Cycle of the Chicken

(A poem and a Commentary)

The Poem

A Chicken, it is born out of an eggshell
After less than a month it lives as a
fluffy ball
Eats, and eats, and eats corn and meal
until its heart’s content;
And if it survives from the dreadful
diseases of cholera and pip:
It just moves about, under the sun
half sick, and dies to its end.
Then the hen and the rooster—to its
mysterious plight, struggles to
Maturity: the hen lays more eggs,
And the cycle starts all over again
(something like us humans).

No: 2654 (12-1-2009)

Commentary: It would seem to me, chickens are not the smartest of animals on the face of God’s earth; and on the other hand, much likened to people, quite fragile. If a disease doesn’t get them, something else will, perhaps hit by a moving farm machine, or an automobile, stuck in some hole, eaten by a wildcat or alike. They do stupid things; they are simply too often led astray. The hen on the other hand is a mysterious creature, whereas the egg seems more blessed than the fluffy ball chicken, and the hen included.
I think you’re better off owning a restaurant business than a chicken farm; one reason being, the cost in incubators or worrying about the hatching process. Whereas, all one has to do in the food service business, is crack the egg and fry it, and serve it or cook the chicken and boil some noodles for chicken soup. The road is less bumpy.
My grandmother used to use the feathers from the chicken for pillows, I inherited two, and she would cling tightly to those chickens to get the feathers; that, in its self is a hideous process; nothing easy in the life of a chicken; as my mother used to say, “I can eat chicken everyday,” she liked the taste of chicken, as so many of us do. She worked at Swifts, in the Meatpacking department (beef and pork) she couldn’t stand to kill a chicken.
Well, these are the facts that make life so discouraging in the chicken cycle of life.

No: 533 (12-1-2009) SA

Three Minnesota Vignettes

2009-11-30T15:20:00.003-08:00

Three Minnesota Vignettes

I

The Landlord King
(Poetic Justice; a Minnesota Vignette, 2006)

When Dennis Harley got into the tenant-housing business, they called him ‘The Landlord King.’ He ended up having several structures around town, buildings, single houses, duplexes and so forth. Dennis Harley paid his five-employees good wages, the best ever paid about here. That may have been his mistake because folks thought he was rich and easy.
They (his employees) began setting him up, robbing him a little here, and a little there.
They figured he didn’t know it (even his daughter Zaneta, who did the cleaning of the halls and his son-in-law Mike who did light maintenance, along with John and his wife, the caretaker of one large building of Mr. Harley’s, who lived in a given free apartment, with all utilities paid, the handyman, or fixit man); but the truth of the matter is, it didn’t much bother him (or so it appeared).
It would seem—when his wife brought up the issue—it simply amused him, he’d say “You get know the people better in such cases, their character, honesty, who they really are.”
It seemed to puzzle his wife.
His wife Rosa, would catch his workers loafing, all five of them, and confronted them, which only seemed to annoy the son-in-law, and his daughter.
But Mr. Harley was cleaver and generous, he again appeared to overlook some of that.
“Well,” the three said “let’s burn his house down, kill him before he finds out, or leaves the country and takes us out of his will (for even John was in the will at one time).”
The three went whole-hog on their employer, and around 4:00 A.M., on a winter’s morn, lit a fire in the garage by Mr. Harley’s car, and ran and hid, thinking the car would explode and thus, aflame the whole house; having fired all three of them a month earlier.
The son-in-law raved and swore and declared within the neighborhood, to the neighbors he’d get what was coming to him (of course the house didn’t burn down, it was poorly lit).
Dennis Harley kept quite when all this was happening, and sold the house they lived in, and all the other property he owned, and decided to leave the country and live a quiet and comfortable life, and took all three out of his will. And he just laughed and said to his wife, “They’re all fools, spoiled fools, they could have had it all, and my son-in-law in particular, traded it all for the few cigarette butts his father gives him, after he’s done smoking, about ready to stomp on it; yes, he traded for a cigarette butt.”
So Mr. Harley and his wife were all fixed for life and the three, Mike, Zaneta, and John, sat solemnly on their rickety old rented front porch, hoping their new landlord would be half as generous, wondering where Mr. Harley vanished to.

No: 530 (11-29-2009) SA

II

Firelight!
(The old and the poor; a Minnesota Vignette, late 1950s)

He was getting old, a little round shouldered, where at one time he was solid straight. He had avoided all his good physical habits. He took life as it comes; when he was young he had been too hasty, although his balance, poise and moments were right on. Hence, he put his overcoat on, took his cane and walked outside into the gray twilight, could hear the tires of cars, soft-voices echoed from a distance, too chilled too quick to speak, muttered something to himself (“I want to kill someone today…”).
He had come out of his house to a spot along the side of the Cobblestone Street he lived next to—it was a gray twilight, he glanced up and down the street, and then he just did what he come to do. Poverty was too much for he old timer, and it had lasted too long: of course he was in debt to everyone he knew. He and his wife were at the point, eating cat food.
Oh, he seemed happy enough, but he was just tired of it all, he breathed deeply and straightened up his shoulders and said, “I want nothing more to do with man and his world.”

When his wife came looking for him her shoes had holes in them, her toes sticking out of the front, her pajamas, shredded for the most part—from endless washings, she had been sitting by her hearth. She screamed a second time for her husband, to no avail, then tiptoed to the front porch window, drew back the curtains, looking out across the porch onto the street (a premonition you might say).
That’s all she did and then she saw her husband lying dead in the street, trampled over by automobile tires.
“It’s a wonder,” she said “that he didn’t go insane.”
And just seeing him there, all alone, that must have made her heart stop beating. All that remained of the two was the firelight from the hearth, in the little house on Arch Street, in St. Paul, Minnesota (and it was a cold, cold winter).
The cane the old man had taken with him, to help him walk was broken over his thigh, the rounded top, hooked tightly around his palm and fingers, as if in a fist.
Now they both lay silent, with both their minds gone, and the city block they lived on, empty, and the fire in the hearth had died out. The old woman had fed the last of the fire (for warmth and light) with the bills and the envelopes they came in—to the hearth.

No: 527 (11-29-2009) SA

III

The Onion Lawyer!
(A Minnesota Vignette, late 1960s)

He had an onion hid in his handkerchief—and when he wanted a few cheap tears the lower while presenting his case in the courtroom, would bring the handkerchief out, and wipe his face, and eyes, and a flood of tears would let loose from those dark eyes—and the jury and judge would most often let his fellow clients off with lighter sentences, if not dismiss the case.
He would tell the jury up front—while those tears flooded his cheeks—tell them, honest men must stick together. He said he was the man, the lawyer for the poor, down and out, a man of the people for the people, and such men as he and they must stick together. Behind those tears was a cold, iron-hearted man and he’d point his finger, shaking it at the jury.
“Set him free, gentlemen!” he’d cry.
Seldom if ever, did anyone get a conviction, he rarely lost a case.
If it was up to this lawyer, no one would have been accountable for anything, among his clientele.
“The lawyer,” everyone said “should have been an actor.”
And had they reviewed his past employment, they would have found out, he was.

No: 529 (11-29-2009) SA

The Saigon Affair

2009-11-30T15:20:00.001-08:00

(1972)

Now in the spring of 1972, the streets to the prison camp were all bare and muddy; I rode to Saigon from the prison camp. We passed a truck loaded of captured Vietcong on the road, and I looked at them and the countryside there beyond. The trees were sparse and the grass was tall and it all was of a yellowish-green, to dark green-greens, with tints of brown in-between. There was wet dead grass on the road from the wide rows of tall shrubbery along the edges of the side road, and Vietnamese women were working alongside the opposite side of the road, in a nearby rice field, a few men with oxen, plowing to and fro, making ruts, as our jeep crushed stone and rock and in-between wild wet grass between each axle. It had been raining in the area for a week straight. We came into Saigon past the factories and nightclubs and then residential houses and villas on the many narrow streets. I was Lieutenant Colonel Cooper’s driver, Staff Sergeant John J. Weber.
The Colonel’s face was long and thin, droopy eyes, long arms, small shoulders, walked slowly with his hands half curled up, he took small steps when he walked; I didn’t not know him all that well. I stopped the jeep at the Officers Club on the Air Base in Saigon. I got out of the jeep I handed him his bag full of papers—and he went inside to see the one star General.
I walked down the gravel driveway looking at the club and over towards some barracks, through an alley smoking one after the other cigarettes—just trying to spend time. Then I went back to the club, went inside, found the Colonel with the General, three hours had passed, he was sitting at a table in a back room with maps and all kinds of paperwork about.
“Hello,” he said to me when he saw me. “General,” he added, “This here is Staff Sergeant Weber, my driver.”
The General looked much older than what he was; his face was dried up like a prune.
“Sergeant Weber was a Licensed Psychologist before coming into the Army, why he never became an officer is beyond me,” query the Colonel.
“I’m fine being a Sergeant,” I said. And the General said, “How is everything Sergeant?” adding, “The war is just about over, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “Colonel, do you want me to make arrangements for your quarters this evening, or are we going back?”
“What do you wish me to do General?” he asked.
“You haven’t been up here for awhile, I’d guess Colonel,” said the General, “have you?”
“No,” said the Colonel.
“I believe it,” remarked the General.
“It has been bad at the secure unit (meaning the military incarceration compound or center outside of Saigon).”
“I’ve always felt you were lucky to get that assignment, away from the ongoing fighting, and attacks—the real war.”
“I suppose I was, or am…” whispered the Colonel.
“Next year it will be worse, we’re going to making a major drawback, and the VC (Viet Cong) will attack more readily and heavily I assure you. It is too late to save the country.”
“Yes, I believe so,” stated the Colonel.
“I don’t think they’ll attack in full force since the rains have started, the Vietcong is training an Army to take over the South once we leave,” said the General.
“How is that girl named Xia doing?” asked the General, with a sly bent eye when he asked.
“All right,” commented the Colonel, not liking to have had to answer that question, especially in front of me.
“Yes,” said the General, “you stay in Saigon tonight and go back to-morrow with your Staff Sergeant. I’ll be sending somebody with you that knows you.”
“Who?” asked the Colonel?
“Xia, she wants to see her brother.”
“I’ll be glad to see her, bring her along but that’s not protocol sir?”
The General smiled. “You’re very good to say that. I’m very tired of you taking advantage of our prisoners. If she wasn’t his sister to one of your inmates, I wouldn’t bring the issue up. And don’t worry about the Sergeant, if he’s half the person you say he is, he already knows what’s going on.”
“Is it so bad?” remarked the Light Bird Colonel.
“Gerson, isn’t that his name?” asked the General, but he didn’t wait for the Colonel to answer. “Yes. It is very bad and worse. Go get cleaned up, and I’ll find you tomorrow, and don’t go looking for Xia; (The Colonel was taking liberties with Xia, in payment of allowing Gerson to have an easy life inside the military detention center) I heard about it,” said the General.
“How’s that,” asked the Colonel.
“Yes, Xia wrote me.”
“Where is she now?” asked he Colonel.
“She’s here at the base hospital. She has had a breakdown over it,” said the General.
“I don’t believe it,” said the Colonel.
“It has been very bad for her,” said the General, “and it seems silly to me Colonel to lie on a bed with one who despises you, then lay back and ask her to marry you, after you threaten to punish her brother if she doesn’t. But I suppose it’s better than nothing.”
He stood up as if to walk out of the room, “Sit back down,” said the General, “unless tomorrow you want to be a Major, and you maybe anyhow.”
“Tell me all about everything, and the Staff Sergeant here can analysis it.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” said the Colonel, “other than this affair, I’ve led a quiet life in the Army.”
“You act like a hurt man,” said the General “is there something wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” said the Colonel.
“Well, this war is killing me, slowly,” said the General, “it makes me very depressed at times, and even more so when I hear things like what you’re doing with your power and influence, and rank.”
“General,” commented the Colonel, now worried, “I simply had over stimulated human impulses, no more.”
“Oh,” said the General, then the phone rang, and the General asked me to answer it, and I did.

“What’s the matter?” asked the General (after a moment of silence) I had to take in a deep breath. “Tell me?” asked the General, as I put the phone back down on the receiver.
“Yes sir, General,” I remarked.
“That’s better Staff Sergeant, now what’s up?”
“I feel like hell sir, having to tell you.” I said.
“This war is terrible, so go ahead and tell me.”
“Come on,” said the Colonel.
“We’ll all be getting drunk to night,” I said in passing, then dragged out of my mouth, “Xia committed suicide fifteen minutes ago in the hospital.” (There was a long, a very long silence, the General put his head down, as if in prayer, the Colonel, took in a deep, very deep breath, and let it out slowly, a sigh that had a grinding sound to it. I myself wasn’t surprised, just sad.) Then finally, the General said, “I know Colonel; you’re a fine soldier—you were a fine soldier, a fine Anglo-Saxon boy I presume growing up. I know this also, that you’ll have remorse, I know. Put some cognac in your glass tonight get real drunk, you’ll be a Major tomorrow; now you get out of my sight, and take the Sergeant with you.”
The Colonel shut up. I went over to get the jeep, the Colonel was looking at his silver leafs on his shoulder. “You see how it is sergeant.” He commented.
“Oh, yes, all my life I’ve encountered such subjects, but very few like you. But I suppose we must have them also.”
He looked at the ground, “I loved her,” he remarked; he was all mixed up, I do think. He looked up at me, at the ground again. And I simply said, “You’ll get over that.”

No: 522 (11-23-2009)

Intense Curiosity

2009-11-30T15:19:00.001-08:00

(A vignette, about delicious Peruvian apartment Gossip, 2009)

The tenants, and owners, especially the women folk had started gathering in little groups and stood gossiping by the front door (fenced in with an iron gate) that blocked entrance to the hallway of the apartment building. In the beginning it was occasionally—the voices of one of the women would rise sharp and distinct above the increasing influx of other voices that seemed to hum along like a muttering rain storm throughout the hallway, especially into the first of the four floors of the apartment building and in particular to and through apartment one, where stood the iron gate, between the street and the apartment hallway itself.
The old man that lived in the apartment with his younger Peruvian wife, whom the gossip and noise didn’t seem to bother her, it did surely bother the old poet though; equally, the children that came running up and down the stairway, bouncing their robber balls as if it was a playground, leaving the gate open “for the robbers,” the old poet would say, or “they’re too lazy to close it, why don’t the parents teach them etiquette?” complained the old man, ceased at times, but would start back up again, as if etiquette learned was soon lost to old customs. And there were men folk fighting with their women folk, in which came the screaming, and a few drunken parties, echoing throughout the hallway. And then the loud music came, where he couldn’t concentrate, it came from those apartments (and even from the little grocery store across the street), to the point it towered over his watching television, or even trying to sleep and listen to his soft kind of music, it was the neighbors again, always the neighbors (noise just pure noise, invading the privacy of others, without concern, he’d grumble).
“Stop it!” The old man would yell, confronting them, telling the kids “…you’re going to break your necks if you don’t!”

His sharp little eyes saw most everything, he’d look out his side window (into the hallway), turning back his curtain, by his writing table, the old man pale with age, turned, stood up from his easy chair, walked away—feeling these were his antagonists, his American-Irish temper burning.
His wife went quietly out to investigate, always stirring and asserting herself, and asking the tenants and owners of the apartments to be more quiet, respectful—some always resentful in that—as they said ‘…it is only simply human nature to gossip,’ whenever they could. The habitual silence, or quiet, her husband demanded was a mystery to the concerning and discontented lives of the other Peruvian families in the apartment building, not all but most of them— whom the poet felt, worshiped noise, for it apparently had not affected the attitudes of those others in the building, or if it did, they didn’t say so, perhaps immune to it, or used to it, or too fearful to confront this issues. Actually the gossip in the hallway encouraged others, visitors to think the same way, and they stood now with the gate open in-between the sidewalk that lead to the street, and even gossiped longer. Why they didn’t gossip in their apartments was beyond the Poet’s grasp, it seemed more sensible, more private.

And the old poet thought about this, about this part of human nature, he called it ‘Intense Curiosity,’ something that happens at the moment, without due course of thought, or perhaps it was just pure rudeness. In any case, he now had a desire, a determination to look into this wasteful past time. He even conjured up, a theory:

“Perhaps we become like little animals of the woods, that have been robbed of motherly and fatherly love, thus, this gossip and or intense curiosity to talk, just to talk, and talk on and on and on, and for the most part, say nothing of worthy value, is a hunger to make up for lost time (likened to chattering little birds, or little squirrels chewing nuts); like being starved to near death of food, at one time in ones life, and consequently, never forgetting it, and making sure in later years, it’s there, available for the taking, in abundance akin to keeping it in a storage room, like God keeps his thunder storms. Even perhaps, an impulsive reaction, one can’t stop. ”

This old poet of a foreign tongue, still lives among them, still hears the sounds and chattering of those strange voices in the hallway, and music, in the Juan Parra del Riego housing area, in Huancayo, Peru, where merchants, clerks, lawyers, teachers, and a few well-to-do, others—occupations live, and one American, and he feels secret antagonism toward himself—not due of course to any flow in his own character.

No: 531 (11-30-2009) SA

“The Vanquished Plantations”

2009-11-30T15:18:00.000-08:00

Opening Chapters to the unpublished book:
“The Vanquished Plantations”
Part one of book one, of four books and fourteen parts

(Book One: “The Vanquished South”)
Part One: The Tobacco Kings
1650 – 1865

Chapters:

The Tobacco Kings
In a Still Heat
Shep’s Valley
Shep’s Journey
Moonlight through the Pines

“The Vanquished Plantations”

The Tobacco Kings
(Myron Shep Charles Hightower, of Virginia, 1650)

Part one of five parts to Shep’s Story

The first known Hightower, Myron Shep Charles Hightower, who came over to America in A.D., 1650, who built a brand-new plantation in Virginia, as settlements took over Indian lands, brought with him twenty-Englishmen, and bought forty-slaves along the way, to do one thing, and one thing only—some miles outside of Jamestown, and it was to create a private enterprise, backed up by rich and private financial backers, who were bankers in England—capitalists, and grow as much tobacco as possible, to sell back to the English people. After arriving, and unloading, and settling in, they started what history would not record, and hired the immigrants that came to America prior to A.D., 1640, from what was known as England’s marshes. Perhaps a hundred of them, along with the slaves and the men Myron brought with him, within three years he had an enterprise that was paying off.
Although, it was not uncommon for ten or so workers to die each year for so called medical reasons, one year, the third year burials outstripped the hiring. The main cause of death was malaria, along with whatever disease the colonists brought with them from Europe. Malaria didn’t kill their victims right away, just weakened them for months on end, and in many cases the body without its proper nutrition could not fight it off, and coupled with a weak immune system, and lack of nutrition, and no medications, the environmental elements produced a full-blown death; after several relapses.

So here we had an ongoing dilemma, sick people trying to get better, with more than enough mosquitoes, all waiting to hit the bull’s –eye— the worker. It was said, before the Marsh-Landers came to Virginia, from England (so the Indians claimed) there were no parasites, or malaria to be found—who’s to say, it didn’t matter in the long run, the disease migrated to the Carolinas where it crippled and drained large portions of Cornwallis Army.
To Myron Hightower (born 1620), it didn’t become much of an issue, he had his business, and people were replaceable. And he built a large home in upper New York (state), where he planned on retiring. And in time as years passed, late in life he married, and had a son he named: Eugene Shep Hightower (born: 1670, died 1767, whom would die at the ripe old age of 97-years old) Myron had this child at the age of 70-years old who took over the tobacco business in latter years, all seemingly immune to the malarial diseases and relapses.
In 1734, Eugene’s wife gave birth to Charles Shep Hightower, whom was simply called Shep. At which time Eugene retired in upper New York, in his brick built home and invested into a Sawmill and hence, that ended the tobacco kings.

In a Still Heat
(Indian Warfare in Upper New York, 1757)

Advance: There was a painting that shows Myron Hightower, kept high on the wall in Charles Terrence Hightower’s Plantation Mansion, in Ozark, Alabama. He was the first Hightower that came to the America, in A.D. 1650, he was born 1620, and had a son Eugene Shep Hightower, his portrait is next to Myron’s, born 1670, died 1767. And alongside that is Charles Shep Hightower born 1734 died 1800. Charles Terrence Hightower, born 1789 would die in 1869, a few years after his son would die in the Civil War. Charles had fought in the War of 1812, his picture is also there on the wall. But the picture, or portrait that is not there, is that of Captain Pip Greg Hightower, a cousin to Eugene Shep Hightower, born 1673, and this is the story of an Indian raid—less than a battle, that took place in 1757, one that wounded Pip Hightower, and killed him two weeks later. But the essence of the story is not of the Captain, it is of an old soldier named Colonel Colin Martin—for the most part; and it takes place in Upper New York State.

The Story

The old man sat there alone, his face raw from the wind and pained from life, his eyes scared and worried from a skirmish that was now taking place. His pipe fell out of his hand, smoke came out of his nostrils, and a gulp of air filled his stomach, he had inhaled from his mouth.
The old man was seated on a tree stump, in a clearing by the woods, “Listen,” he went on mumbling in English, “I don’t know what I’m doing, wish I could be fighting, and be more useful!” If only someone could take him to the fight, the skirmish—he’d do just that, fight.
He looked at the forest, its edge, knew that there was a valley, more like gorge down its five-hundred foot slope, its progression. He started yelling so much, his voice carried an echo.
For a moment the birds and a fox nearby and a hound nearby gaped at him. He knew the men were scrambling throughout the woods everywhichway to find the party of Indians that raided a homestead nearby killing all. Captain Pip Greg Hightower, and his Sergeant, Gil Brandt, along with forty-six militia men and two scouts, with muskets and blankets, had gone searching for them. “Kill them, Kill them!” were in all the hearts of the one-hundred eyes searching for the party of Indians.
As Captain Hightower’s men searched high and low, they noticed many abandoned fires, much more than the single party they were seeking after would have needed, or used.
For the old man, once a young soldier, and loving the taste of battle, the high, even the kill, born in 1673, was having his first nervous breakdown it would seem, not being able to fight. His heart was beating like a drummer’s partridge. He was too old for sough sounds, but he could hear them carried through the winds, coming from the soldiers and Indians, so there it was.
If only someone could understand the temptations of war a man carries with him who has seen much war—was the inner thoughts of the old man; if only his fellow soldiers could pick out the worry the old man had in his face for his fellow soldiers, he knew some were weak men, young men, men that had never been in conflict, in a battle, he prayed for them.

Now he could hear rapid fire coming from the gorge, down the slope, into the woods. There was a still heat in the woods, he knew such by heart, and he knew they’d be thirsty when they came out of it. He heard the shouts of the men, the stamping hoofs of horses, the treading of feet. If only he could get started, moving. But he couldn’t.
If he could make it to the edge of the hill, roll down it straight to ground level, end up at the edge of the woods, facing the gorge, he could nearly see everything, everywhichway, but the roll down the hill would be ridged and he could get stuck someplace in-between the solid top of the slope, and/or somewhere in the fluttered in-between. And it was fall with a ton of autumn leaves per square meter. And the sun and blue and squirrels would camouflage him, he’d never be found, and that was not the way he wanted to die; in battle, in a fight would be much better.
He saw a porcupine climbing up a tree; he could maybe do the same, halfway, see the fighting, but his arms were no longer as strong as they used to be.

Then it was twilight and he saw one line of marching men, rifles in one hand over their shoulders, their hats in the other hand, only sixty-eyes. When they got to the old man, they all were thirsty and fell out to drink the water he was guarding. The old man handed them cups, and he handed them rags to wipe their mouths, and sweat off their foreheads, “We got them all even two British,” said Captain Hightower to the old man who was looking up, “but I can’t figure out all those abandoned fires we saw.”
“What happened to the scouts?” question the old man.
“Killed in the undergrowth like wild boars,” said Hightower, adding, “the woods were dusty, branches slapping our hot faces, burns like an open wound with salt.”
Then Captain Hightower ordered two men to pick old man Colin Martin (retired Colonel) up and place him on a wooden platform, with poles—one man in front the other in back—and carry him back to the fortress. He had lost both his legs in a battle, several years prior.
The old man looked up, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, high overhead, nothing and in the woods nothing at all but leaves, uproariously, bursting leaves, covering everything. The woods ahead fell even deeper into a sleepy like mode— hollow, a quiet flow and a still heat, no birds, or squirrels, or wind now, instinct told the old man—looking at the heavily laden environment with leaves, noticing the leaves moving without the wind blowing, things were crawling in them, under them, human things.
“What did you say?” asked Hightower.
“Leaves talk; leave me here with a musket, and tarry to the fortress, all those abandoned fires… they’re all around us, all with us.”
The captain knew not to question the old man, he had been around, and fought more battles than any man alive he knew of. His instincts were good; he trusted them, more than he trusted a man’s thinking, or rationalization. And he was seldom wrong.

The sixty-eyes ran, never looking back, but could hear the crackling of arrows, and rattle of leaves and the old man’s heart started drumming again, as he shot one enemy in the chest. His half-body swayed suddenly against the branches and leaves piled up against a tree and went slack, like it had fell off a cliff, and his mind went into a galvanized senselessness, yelling like a wild dog at the Indians. It was the way he wished to die, in battle. His face gray and smiling and his lips moved, but his voice was lost.
An Indian stood before him (the militia now safe within the fortress). The Indian was oddly silent. He took the musket from the clutches of the old man, and could hear the old man discharge his last breath.

Shep’s Valley
(Upper New York, 1775-1786)
Part Three

In the old days, in upper New York, Charles Ship Hightower, lived in what was back then a rich and lumbering town. His family had come over to America in 1650—Shep was born 1734 (would die in Alabama in 1800). He, married Emily Hightower, grandmother to Emma, born 1755, died 1790, Charles’ mother, and Emma being Charles’ daughter. For a number of years there were plenty of logs to be cut, at which time Shep’s father owned the mill that cut the logs, and stacked them in the yard, sold them as needed, piles of lumber were carried away and many houses were built from his lumber. His son, Charles Terrence Hightower, would be born after all the Indian, and British and American conflicts were over, born 1789, a year or so after he would have moved to Alabama, from upper New York State.
He worked in the mill those prior years, with the great saws and wheels, belts and iron, operating the mill, and loading lumber. And he fought the Indians in-between. He had built himself a small cabin, which got burnt down by the Indians, one-story. Then years later there was nothing of the mill left, again the Indians did their dirty work, broken white limestone for its foundations—all crumbled to nothingness. Oh he had his neighbors come and clear the debris, his land, trying to rebuild the cabin and mill, and he had hired help, but it all seemed so fruitless, and then Shep and his wife became the hired help. His father being killed by the Indians, and his house burnt down likewise, and his mother had died prior to most of this ongoing conflict of pneumonia.

“There it is,” he’d tell his wife in later years, the mill, the cabin; he couldn’t even remember how it was what it was suppose to be. “I just can’t remember,” Shep would say in those far-off years. Perhaps didn’t want to remember, they were trying years to say the least.
“No,” Emily would say if her kids asked too many questions about those years “ask your father!” She was intent on supporting her husband no matter what, all their life they were sidekicks, so it would seem. She loved those younger days in upper New York State though. But Shep left the Valley, and they both moved down to Ozark, another member went on a little further, to New Orleans. Shep, he simply said one day to Emily, “It isn’t fun anymore here,” and he laughed, and Emily said, “I don’t know what to say,” and after that statement, she didn’t say a word, they just packed up and left; but there is an in-between to all this, prior to making it to Ozark, Alabama.

Shep’s Journey
((Atlanta) (1787-‘89))

In 1787, Shep and his wife Emily Hightower was traveling by covered wagon, from upper New York, down to Alabama, carrying just the basic needs from what was left out of Shep’s father’s belongings, and his burnt out homestead, which the Indians shattered. He and his wife suffered much under the Indians of the region, and requested no aid from anyone. He was very hungry for starting over and knew his youth was on his side, he had time to do what he needed to do, and he was going to build the most magnificent plantation in all of Alabama; although he had only a little money.
He was delighted with upper New York. It was a beautiful country, he said, just a bit too hostile for his blood, as was the previous war years. On his way through the costal states, territories, such as: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, they had gone through many towns, walked much, and seen much. Georgia he did not like. Yet they had a good time together, up to a dividing point there. It was early October, and the country was pleasant, but the Indians and the British had done some bad things. He talked about it a little in Atlanta, in spite of the war; he believed altogether in the Revolution, clearing the country of savages and the British completely. He asked in Georgia, “How is the movement going in Washington?” to a group of war veterans (which would turn out to be a mistake).
“Confusing,” a solider of the Revolution commented, “But it will get better, this is just the beginning, we won the war, but there will be more battles with the Indians. Why not settle here?” he commented.
“Why should I?” questioned Shep.
“You have everything here. It is the main spot down south here, everyone is sure of. It will be the starting point of everything down south, not Alabama.”
He said quickly his good-byes to the few and the group of revolutionists he met, to head on down to Ozark, Alabama, his father knew the banker there, a Mr. Ritt, and he would provide a loan for land, payable in ten-years. He couldn’t do any better than that. But before he got to go on his way, the revolutionists knowing—or figuring it out, that Shep didn’t do any fighting in the war, spoke to him about it.
“Why not?” asked one of the several revolutionists, “why didn’t you fight, it was a requirement!”
“No,” he said, very shyly, “I was never asked…” he did not like Georgia, and he didn’t want to offend anyone, lest a Revolutionist who fought in the war for his independence, so he said little more. He was very eager to get on his way, as was his wife likewise; he was sure he’d love Alabama now that it was autumn.
When Mr. Ritt, sent out inquires, seeking what might have happened to Mr. Shep Hightower, the last he heard was he was serving time in jail in Atlanta for draft dodging, for it was mandatory during those war years, to be in uniform, or hung, and there was no requirement that he had to be asked, it was his job to enlist voluntarily. His sentence was limited to three to six-months in jail—depending.

Moonlight through the Pines ((1788) (Jail time in Atlanta))

You know how it is there early in the morning in Atlanta, with the bums in jail still asleep against the walls of the jail cell; before even the jailers are awake to eat their breakfast, before the wagons come by with goods, go across the square, and there be still the beggars just coming awake in the square, looking for their next drink, or getting a drink out of the nearby fountain. But if you are inside the jailhouse, in one of the side cells, you stand up, there waiting for you in the not so far distance, is the moonlight through the pines. The longer you look towards it, the more it seems to crawl over to you.
“Well,” said Shep Hightower to his three other jail mates, “I sure can see it,” he told them. “But yesterday morning, I couldn’t, I wonder why?”
“It isn’t that you couldn’t” said Rum Bum Raphael “you couldn’t have seen it. That’s all that’s too it.”
The other two came over to the bared in windows in the cell and they stood there looking out into the far-off pines. “There nice looking trees but I can’t see the moon,” one of the two said. “I don’t mean to make you two feel bad… (Referring to Shep and Raphael), he told them; “I tell you true I can’t see it!”
“Afterwards, when you’re feeling better, things will change, and then you’ll see it,” said Rum Bum Raphael.
“I know it,” he replied, “I’m all for it now. But later on I’ll be…” and he went silent.
“He makes his living with the boats,” said Raphael. Yes said Pig’s-eye Peter, from the upper Mississippi, “if I lose all this time here in jail, I’ll lose my living, I hope I can get out in ten-days, drunken and disorderly conduct, that’s why they put me in here, how about you?” he asked Shep.
“I think the fellows who put me in here,” said Shep, “needed me to argue with them so they could put me in here, because the one kept on…I can’t even pay my way out.”
“All this will not last, you know,” said Pigs-eye Peter, “maybe I’ll go back up towards Pig’s Eye, that area on the Mississippi, by what they call Minnsota, and build a bar; I’m getting too old for this.”
“Listen,” said Shep. “I don’t give a hoot, who’s president of this country, or mayor of this city, I haven’t done anyone any harm, that can talk.”
“Well, you’re here for somthin’” said Pig’s-eye.
“Yes, I’m here because of someone with a long tongue,” said Shep, “I was accused of evading the draft, I wasn’t in the war!”
“Do you know what we do with them?” said Rum Bum Raphael.
“Don’t get tough with me,” Shep said. “You folks asked me. I didn’t offer it freely.”
“Shut up,” said Pig’s-eye Peter to Raphael, “you’re liquor is still in you talking.”
“So you wouldn’t,” said Raphael.
“It’s just like I told you,” answered Shep.
“But you didn’t tell us much; I don’t understand right off, I don’t mean to be nasty. I guess it’s a disappointment, too. You look like a fine man.”
Shep didn’t even answer him.
“Maybe he’s not so fine a man,” said the third man, with no name.
“What’s that? A threat?” said Shep.
“Listen,” said Pig’s-eye Peter, “Don’t everyone be so tough so early in the morning. I’m sure Shep has done his share of fighting, he’s a broad man, he just didn’t fight in the war, and he’ll tell us why when the time comes.”
“So you’re sure I’ll do as you say,” said Shep.
“No,” said Peter, “and I don’t give a damn, but I may cut your throat when you’re sleeping for being a coward or draft dodger. I am angry now,” he said. “I’d like to kill you but you’re younger and tougher, so I’ll just wait!”
“Oh, hell,” I’ll tell you. “Don’t need to threaten so much.”
“Come on, Shep.” Raphael told him. The third unnamed inmate said, “I’m very sorry for what I said, I think we all are but we still got to know.”
The three of them stood in front of him, and watched and waited for him to speak. They were all older men, in their late forties or early fifties. They all wore bad clothes; none of them wore hates, and they looked like they had not a dime to their names. They talked plenty among themselves, knew each other, and they spoke the kind of English bums with no money spoke, drunks. Peter and Raphael looked like distant cousins; Peter being a little taller than Raphael and the third inmate. All three slim, dirty thick hair. Shep figured none were as mean as they talked, but he was plenty nervous when Peter threatened him, and no one said a word.
Then they threw a Blackman into the cell with them. The one with no name cried out, “Get this nigger out of here, what the hell is the matter with you jailers,” and the two jailers were laughing fiercely, holding their stomachs. One of the three men stood behind the Blackman, the other two (not to include Shep), stood in front of him, blocking the sight of the jailers, then there was a smash, Peter had hit the Blackman in the face, while the other two started kicking him, and Peter plunged his head onto the wooden floor, nearly broke his neck. One of the jailers’ shot a bullet over their heads. “Nigger,” yelled the jailer, “get on over here,” and the jailer took him out of the cell immediately; said Shep, “Take me out of her also; I’ll bunk with the nigger! It’s safer!” And the three white men took offence to that.

“They calls me Isaiah, cuz I looks fur the hand of God in all I does,” the Blackman told Shep, while both sitting on the lower section of the iron bunk beds, in the next cell, the Blackman trying to get his head and neck back up, it had been twisted and bruised pretty bad. “Here,” said the jailer, handing the Blackman a cup of rum, to settle his pain. And he stood up, walked over to the jail bars and grabbed the rum, and drank it, and Shep took a sip out of the same cup, right in front of the other three bums in the next cell, which infuriated those men more. The beating the three men gave the Blackman didn’t make them feel one iota bad about what they had done.
“You seem awfully brave about it all, over in that cell,” said Peter to Shep.
“I was watching how brave you were, one against three,” then the Blackman looked up, saw Peter, the Blackman was taller than all of them, pert near six-foot three. He looked in pretty bad shape.
“I’ll see you when you get out of jail,” said Peter.
“Don’t talk about it,” Shep said, “you don’t scare me, I’ve beaten better men than you, it makes me sick to even think about what I’d do to you, should you want to find out what sort of day it would be, you need only stick around.”
“Well,” said Peter, “we’ll see.”
“That’s up to you.”
“What sort of day do you think it will be?” asked Raphael.
“Just about like today, as you did to this nigger!” said Shep.
“All right, as soon as that day comes, we’ll both be looking for you.”
The man with no name simply said, “That’s fine, you folks just put it down against what you think you owe each other, I’m out of it.”
Said the jailer, “Have a bottle of beer, shut you guys up for a spell,” and he handed them a quart of beer through the jail bars.

When Shep Hightower served his time in jail, and was released—having told his wife, Emily about that situation, she was fearful they’d be after him.
“Don’t worry,” Shep said, “it was all big talk by drunks, rum business. Their lives are all drinking, no money, and big talkers; they have other business to attend to, just say your goodbyes to Atlanta, and don’t worry either about those boys.” And as they rode out of Atlanta that early Saturday morning, he showed his wife the moon’s glistening light through the pines, and noticed on the grass in the park area, Peter and Raphael, both sleeping off a previous night’s drunk.

The Ozark Ritt Bank

1788-1789

Shep Hightower went into the Ozark Bank (owned by the Ritt family) and sat down at a table. He and his wife Emily noticed the bank had new panes of glass in their windows, as if the war had at one time shot it up and was now fixed up. There were a few drunks on the wooden sidewalk outside, and a few drinking standing outside of the bar across the street, and some folks eating in a nearby restaurant.
An elder man was playing dominoes sitting at a table in the bank with a younger man; said the older man to Shep, “You must be Shep Hightower, I’m Albert Ritt and this is my son John, have you eaten yet I know you’ve been on a long journey, but I’ve been expecting you?”
We’ve had some boiled cabbage and beef stew, and black bean soup last night, even had a bottle of beer. My wife and I are both still plenty full. I’d like to get down to business. This is my wife Emily.”
And thus, Albert took a liking for them both immediately.
“How do you do,” said Emily.
“You will have some coffee?” he asked Emily.
“Thank you,” said Emily. “We are quite alone here?”
“Except for me and my son,” Mr. Ritt said. “You have land about seventeen miles outside of town, four-hundred acres of it.”
“Ah,” said Shep. “I had imagined it was something bigger.”
“It can be…!” said the elder Ritt, “we can triple that, when you pay for the first four-hundred!”
“On what terms?” asked Shep?
“I see,” said Albert, “would you mind leaving us?” he said to his son, although he looked as interested as ever and smiled at Shep and Emily as he left.
“He’s noisy,” said Albert. “He doesn’t understand much business yet, only nineteen.” He motioned for his lawyer and accountant to join them at the table.
“Oh, yes,” said Albert. “Now these are the circumstances that would—that have made me consider you for a non-collateral loan. I knew you father, and my father knew your father’s father, while in the tobacco business.”
“I’m broke,” said Shep.
“I see,” said Mr. Ritt. “But do you owe any money to anyone? Can you be libeled?”
“No,” said Shep.
“Quite so,” said Albert, “that in itself is something accommodating. I know that the good business folks in England trusted their fortune with your father and grandfather, and made well by doing so, I’ll trust you likewise. Your name is as good as gold.”
“I’d leave the next two years to you, land and all, plus $2000-dollars in cash.”
“Then what?” asked Shep.
“Of course you have to start paying back the loan, with interest and the cost of the land. Buy yourself some niggers to do the work, you can get them cheap now, fifty dollars a head, seventy-five next month, and ten-years from now they’ll be worth $800-dollars a head. You see it is quite simple, just don’t betray me. I expect you all paid up in five-years, land and all, plus twelve hundred dollars interest a year, and we’ll settle on a price for the land.”
“When would I get the money?” asked Shep.
“Five-hundred when you agree and sign this paper, and the other fifteen-hundred, when you start loading up your wagon with needed supplies, and buy those niggers I told you about. You can get them here, but they’ll cost you a little more or go on down to New Orleans, they got a market place for them. You don’t need the real fit ones; they cost you more, buy the weaker ones, and feed them.”

Shep and Emily went off with the five-hundred dollars, and they both smiled at Mr. Ritt. He hid his money in his sock, and in the morning, asked the store keeper, “Where do you want us to start loading our supplies?”
“Alright,” said the storekeeper, “Mr. Ritt, said to let you charge up to $1500-dollars.”
Said Emily, as they were loading the wagon, “Shep, I think I’m pregnant, it feels like a boy. If it is, I’ll name him Charles, I like that name.” Shep immediately said, “No more lifting for you.”

A Rebirth of Shep’s Love

1789

After a while, after they settled in, built their first log cabin, bought three slaves, started to plant their first crop, he seemed to be in a circle of life, a perfect geometrical circle, with no beginning or end, with the child on its way; hence, there appeared even a to be a new and more softer love he had for his wife, as if he’d caught the early morning sun hitting a raindrop on their bedroom window, as if it had come all the way from heaven just to look upon her. And the sound of her voice appeared to change for him, as if it was Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. And he carried a letter in his pocket as he was doing the planting, as if it had kept the scent of a thousand roses on it, he’d look at it as if it was Emily herself. All in all, it was a kind of rebirth of his love for the woman he loved, and the child she carried inside of her for him.

The Old Man and his Rambler

2009-11-30T15:17:00.002-08:00

Mr. Stanley was a plump, robust and mild mannered nondescript man of sixty-seven years old, who was our neighbor when I was growing up on Cayuga Street, in St. Paul, Minnesota in the late 1950s, who had worked somewhere in the city for the railroad. He retired in 1959; I was twelve years old then. He bought himself a brand new shinny automobile, a Rambler.
I’d visit him now and then, briefly hanging my hands and head over the wired fence my grandfather had constructed between them and us. He lived with his wife Anglia, and had a son, perhaps in his late twenties back then. He always wore his old railroad cloths, clean but old—blue jean trousers, with those straps that are attached to that go over and around ones shoulders, also he wore a blue jacket—railroad style, and a variety of hats, more like caps, railroad genre.
At first I wondered why he did what he did, wearing day after day that same old clothing (although I realized he was never going to a fashion show)—he even showed me once his railroad watch, it was gold plated, I think he said he worked for railroad some thirty-seven years, said, “This is what you get after some many years, not much but better than nothing.”
I got used to seeing him in those railroad duds (as we called clothing back then), even got used to those caps of his. He always looked he same, then one day he came back up the driveway to his house, parked a new 1959 Rambler in front of his house—a light creamy brown color to it, a little chrome on the sides of the car. After that first year, summer to summer, he knew that car pretty well; he could recognize a dirty spot on it at twenty-feet, with one quick glance, and he carried a rag in his railroad trousers, to wipe clean any blemish he may spot.
There he’d be standing in his driveway, washing his car, with that blank look, with nothing to look at but the car and the sparkling glitter of the back and front bumpers, reflections of sunbeams bouncing off those chrome plated bumpers, and even a slight glitter from the side pieces of chrome attached to the car. I remember his son came by once, paid him some attention, glanced over by the fence, said a few words, and then was gone.
“How do you do, Mr. Stanley,” I’d say coming home from school—somewhat yelling from a distance, and there he’d be washing that car again. He often times didn’t say a word, I thought maybe he was mad or was preoccupied, in one of those daydreams moments old folks get, or something—perhaps even he simply didn’t hear me, deep in thought about that Rambler. If the car was in the garage, he usually was either pacing in his backyard by his garden, the one his wife attended to more than he, and if he saw me he was quite friendly—so again I say, I doubt he was being rude, he just was not attentive.
He often just walked about hurrying, or fumbled, in and out of the garage, tinkering with something sitting on an old wobbly wooden stood that looked as if it was going to collapse from his weight at any moment.
His wife bought a birdbath that year of 1959, she often looked out the kitchen window, and she tinkered with that as much as her husband washed his car. I think it was a tradeoff, but I think his toy was more expensive than hers.
He and his wife, when not washing the car, or in the garden, or tinkering with the birdbath, they sat in their kitchen looking out the window, I often could see them from my backyard. Drinking coffee most often, and a few times I saw their son—who’d stop over now and then, more than, than often. That took them away from staring at me while I was playing my backyard, or digging into my potato patch and so forth. I don’t think the son ever looked at me but once or twice, I had only seen him in those years a few time likewise, never did he say hello, and just went about his business. I did more looking at him, than he at me I suppose.

In 1960, that fall I turned thirteen-years old, in October, three months later, the old man died, Mr. Stanley, I think he was sixty-nine years old then—had a heart attack. And right after that, that Rambler of his got put away, in the garage (likened to cloths in a cloths closest full of moth balls) for a number of years. His wife couldn’t see to sell it. I had asked to buy it a few times, after I had gotten my license at sixteen-years old, but she’d simply say, with a half grin and smile, “Sorry but I can’t seem to part with it, or get myself to selling it, although heaven knows, I could use the money…” and that was that. And then one day her son came over, took the Rambler out of the garage (because I saw him do it, but he didn’t see me watching him, although I was in the middle of the backyard raking autumn leaves), and that was all that was ever seen of that Rambler, from that day forward in our neighborhood.
I had noticed he seldom stopped by, but on occasions he did, and picked up his mother for Thanksgiving dinners, I remember that because she was well dressed one Thanksgiving, and I asked her, “Where you going all dressed up, Mrs. Stanley?”
“Oh,” she said proudly, “my son is coming to pick me up for Thanksgiving Dinner,” she had come out of the house to check on the birdbath, it was chipped I recall, and there were autumn leaves in the bath. I do say she got her money’s wroth out of that birdbath. And then her son rode up in a different car, not that Rambler, and picked her up, I don’t even think he looked my way, he had that same old blank look on his face his father had when washing the car—not that he was trying to be rude or anything, he just wasn’t paying attention—that is, not concentrating on anything that wasn’t in his direct radius of a few feet, to most anything around him beyond that. And off they went.
I thought about that Rambler that day, as they pulled out of the driveway, he evidently sold it, perhaps thinking she’d never get rid of it, it was a reminder of her husband, and perchance he noticed she could no longer bear to know it was in the garage, some twenty-feet from her outside door steps. It was to my guessing, she had come to the end of her grieving period.
In any case, she up and died, leaving her property to her son, although he had not seen me since I was a teenager, if indeed he had ever noticed me at all—at any rate, I was now twenty-seven years old. He evidently could not associate me with being that young boy in the backyard so many years ago, he said to me, walking to the fence, that separated them from us, he said for the first time ever, words to me, “Are you the new owner of the house?” realizing my grandfather who had own the house had died, but not realizing my mother had bought-out her siblings, and was now the new owner, but all of us had lived together all those years, when he was coming and going and visiting and never looking anyplace but in front of his nose, never turning about, to see who was making the noise in the backyard across that wired fence, or any other place.
Well, I had been off fighting a war in Vietnam, and to Germany for a number of years, while in the Army—and I was on my way to Italy for a new assignment. “No,” I said to him, meaning I was not the new owner, “I’m just here visiting,” I remarked; he didn’t ask who I was, so I didn’t say.
“I heard the old man who owned the place had died?” He said, as if not really interested, but for some reason said what he said more out of instant than carrying to have a conversion or perhaps he wanted to know his new neighbor, because he now owned the Stanley house. He didn’t know our last name (it was 1974). I said, “That’s correct,” and then he excused himself, to finish whatever he was doing, and from what I saw he was doing was cleaning out the house as if he was going to put it up for sale, or rent it out—as usual he was busy. And that was the last I had ever seen of him.

No: 521 (11-23-2009)

President Osama’s: Pipe dreams

2009-11-30T15:17:00.001-08:00

(11-2009)

I don’t know how much time this President needs to straighten things out, but it is sure taking a long time to get started. It’s a funny thing becoming the President of the United States, those running for it will nearly say anything, and do anything to get the position, and they already have their excuses figured out, on what they’re going to say, after the fact, when they can’t do what they said they were going to do, or could do, or try to do. Something tells me, Mr. Obama will need two terms to straighten things out that is what he’s going to say—(or perhaps has said it to his billionaire backers already).
He said he needed to straighten Mr. Bush’s affairs out, trying to get into the White House, but has done little to nothing on that issue, matter-of-fact, if I look at policy making, it would seem to me, he’s following Mr. Bush’s agenda. He’s simply taking troops out of one place marching them over to the neighbors, that is, putting them next-door (from Iraq to Afghanistan)—the balance in Military Personal has not changed one iota in the Middle East.
Some people will never get the picture, no matter what you do or say, you can throw mud in their faces all day long, and knock their heads on the wall, and they’re still going to come out hooraying for an imposter —out of silly promises and advertisements, and hype. It works, just look at the beer and booze drinkers, and the smokers in America (70% drink in America), it is all bad for your health, but Americans buy the stuff like water, air; because of advertisements, and hype, and believing in another’s pipe dreams. It works, believe it or not.
As far as the dollar goes, it was better when he took office I agree he had some momentum in bringing the dollar nearer to the surface, but it is almost back down to where it was, where it started from, prior to that, so his injection is starting to have the ripple effect—reversed! (People around the world are seeing what I am seeing what Americans are not seeing). The dollar abroad is a screaming eagle indeed, one in pain.
I thought Americans were more the thinking, examining, and rational people when it came to selecting a president, or such things of that nature, but this whole past election was a farce, and now we can see the proof in the pudding, it was all based on hype and emotion. It had to be, because there is no substance there, here, now! And how we ever got the two finalists we got, was also a scam, between the two we had to elect, or perhaps three, we didn’t have much to choose from, or selection. If indeed this is the best we can find, or do, we are in big trouble.
On the other hand, we make mistakes, some big ones, let’s hope we can live with this one another four-years, and not make a second mistake thereafter—god forbid. At this juncture, the only thing I see that we’ve gotten from this administration is empty hopes, and perpetual pipe dreams. He preached deliverance; this in itself was the pipe dream.

The Short Awkward life of Mac Remora

2009-11-30T15:16:00.001-08:00

((1974…) (Europe))

Chapter One
Just Acquaintances

It was now after work hours for most of the military personnel on the Babenhausen (West German) Military Base, and Staff Sergeant Lee Erwin Wright went to the little grocery store on the base to buy some groceries, pretending not to notice Mac Remora, the manager of the small military PX, he was in a hurry.
“I’ve seen you around a lot,” said Mac, “can I help you with anything, such as pointing out where the squash is—it’s over there, over there by the potatoes (and he pointed), and other fresh vegetables (Lee had been looking about for some tomatoes and green peppers, mumbling aloud ‘where the heck are they’)”
“I see them now,” Lee Wright told him.
“I think I’ll take some of those big green peppers home with me also,” said Mac Remora, “now that I look at them, they really look big and green and hard, they’re real choice ones.”
“I suppose it’s the thing to do if you don’t want them to vanish,” Wright agreed, “I use them for spaghetti sauce.”
The young woman nearby started selecting a variety of fresh vegetables, putting them into a carry cart, lifting two of the green peppers out of the wooden basket, sweating in the hot little grocery store, trying to absorb the wind coming through the back opened door to the store, that blew through the back section, the outside of the store shaded by trees.
“I should have ordered more fresh vegetables and fruit on hot days like this,” remarked Mac to Lee.
“The bushels you have would appear to be plenty,” Lee told him, “most of the soldiers go to Darmstadt for their big shopping sprees, stocking up for a month, that is; you don’t want to spoil us customers (?)”
“Well, the distributor will bring what I want!”
“No matter what?”
“Sure,” remarked Mac.
Sergeant Lee Erwin Wright, had half an hour before he’d have to go back on duty, he had CQ (the overseer for the Company Headquarters for the evening). He had his uniform on, and he rushed to get out of the store, shaking Mac’s hand. He did not speak to him much as he prepared to pay, and leave (knowing he had to get back to his apartment, wash his face and hands, and go over to the Company Headquarters, sit the night away in an uncomfortable chair, answer phones, make the rounds of the military base, write reports, and hope he could leave the window open for the breeze without getting any insects into his CQ Room, and he didn’t want to be late).
This was the first time he and Mac spoke, to the first time they saw each other eye to eye, not just passing by. Matter-of-fact, he had seen him a few times in the Education Center as well, and he was seemingly always with a girl or a white soldier, as if they were pals.
He was an extremely handsome and well-kept Blackman; and appeared to have a decent civilian social position on the base, which he had for some five-years, making at the time far above a Sergeant’s pay.

Chapter Two
Night CQ

“He seems to be a good manager, isn’t he,” he asked Corporal Sims, who knew him better than he, now on CQ Duty, Sims being his runner incase he needed something quickly. Sims looked at him now. He looked at the Sergeant, and out the window towards the PX, as if he knew something, he had never mentioned before.
“One thing, I’ve heard, but I can’t say for sure, I don’t know for sure, he truly makes more money than that small store provides, he lives high off the hog, and his inventory is always off when the inspectors come.”
Mac was about six-foot-four inches tall, with a styled haircut, clean shaven, and with extremely sharp dark eyes with a faint impression of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, slightly noticeable when he smiled, he was thirty-two years old, Lee, twenty-seven.
“Well, here’s to the snake in the grass!” Sergeant Lee Wright said. He smiled at Corporal Sims when he said that, and not smiling, the Corporal looked curiously back at the sergeant.

Mac was very tall, slim waist, very fit, and built well, if you didn’t mind that distance end to end, he had a fast stride, stretch and reach. Regular-lipped, for a Blackman, and was considered quite desirable by German women, housewives and even female teenagers at the civilian military schools.
He dressed in the same sort of way, beyond the style of the day, and was known very publicly to be a fancy talker.
“Here’s to the snake in the grass,” said the Sergeant for the second time—in jest, “I can’t ever thank you for your information, I get the sense we will be meeting again, because something is on his mind.”
“Let’s not talk about Mr. Remora,” said the Corporal, “I’ve heard too many rumors about him.”
Sergeant Wright looked over in his office at the Corporal without smiling and now he smiled at him.
“It’s been a very strange night, and afternoon,” said the Sergeant “ought you not to put your hat on so you can go make the rounds, check out the motor pool, I’ll watch the telephones!”
“I might not put it on; it’s so hot out there!” said the Corporal.
“You might have a very hard time telling the MP’s why you’re out of uniform then, Corporal.”
“I could use a drink?” said the Corporal.
“I don’t think so, not on my shift anyhow.”
“But you drink a great deal?” remarked the Corporal to the Sergeant.
“No, not on duty I don’t.”
“But let me be radical, okay?” said the Corporal.
“Go check out the base,” said the Sergeant.
“I’d rather stay here and have a conversation,” said the Corporal.
“Don’t be thoughtless, Corporal, I need to write something to report, and if Captain Sharp comes by, and we haven’t made a round, he’s going to have our heads for dinner.”
“No trouble, I’ll just go do what I got to do, it’s a damn fine night to get drunk though.”
Sergeant Wright had seen it coming, but the Corporal made no noise, he noticed his shoulders and head were shaking as if to say: it’s going to be a long night.
“Are you upset Sergeant?” asked Sims.
“It doesn’t matter, it accounts to nothing. My nerves are like steel, just get going and do your job.”
“Yes,” said Sims, “I suppose I rate that for the rest of the night now (meaning to make his hourly rounds throughout the military base which took normally twenty-minutes).”
“Nonsense,” said the Sergeant, “you know I’ll do some rounds.”
“Forget what I said, nothing to this anyhow. I’ll not forget you sticking up for me the one night when I was drunk on duty; I won’t forget what you did for me then.”
“It wasn’t anything, nothing at all; it’s all gobbledygook anyway, just don’t get thirsty for booze tonight, all right?”
He didn’t answer; he just left the orderly room, and Headquarters, and did his rounds as the Sergeant demanded.

Chapter Three
A day and a day

So they sat there in the front of the Education Center, it was Saturday, sat there in the shade under some wide-topped umbrella looking trees, a busy road outside the gate of the military base, they sat on a stretch of grass that ran the length of the old World War Two barracks, now used as the Education Center, where they held classes from the University of Maryland. Beyond the stretch of grass, the iron fence to the base, across the highway, beyond all that, were two guesthouses, beyond that was the town-let of Babenhausen. When he saw Remora’s curiosity he put his pen and paper to the side, snapped up onto his feet. The other students turned away with their faces empty, and continued to write out their zoological papers.
“Mr. Remora,” said Lee Wright, “what you doing here?”
“Nothing; just thinking about attending the University of Maryland, I got 90-credits with Central Texas College, but Maryland will only take twenty of them, so I pert near have to start my college all over, how about you?”
“What’s that? What do you mean?”
“It’s quite complicated,” said Mac. “I suppose you got all your credits from the University?”
“So with ninety credits you still have no degree?” remarked Lee.
“Oh, yes. I can’t raise a beef, if I choose to complain they’ll not even take the twenty-credits. They prefer them to be from a university, not a community college.”
“How odd!” said the Sergeant?
“Not really so strange, not really—I just lost a lot of time and money in the education.”
Then Mac felt a slight embarrassed at telling him his situation, without him asking.
“We all get screwed, now and then, you know, one way or another.”
‘Good god,’ thought Lee, what a misuse of time and effort and money, just to start all over.
“Yes, we all take a thrashing,” agreed Lee, standing three-feet from him, both looking in each others eyes.
“I’m awfully sorry about you losing all those credits, but did you sign up for the University classes yet?”
“I just thought you’d like to know, we need not go any further with it, I mean what’s done is done, and yes I am in the process of signing up.”
“Well maybe we’ll be in some classes together?” Lee looked at him now warmly. He had not anticipated this.
“Let me know which courses you’re going to take,” said Mac “maybe we’ll go together?”
“Yes,” said Lee. “I’m taking philosophy here in Babenhausen, this next semester, and in Frankfurt Anthropology.”
“Frankfurt’s forty miles away, I’ll take the course with you, and we can drive together…” adding, “you can be quite sure on that, it’s a larger school there, and I think stricter,” said Mac.

Chapter Four
Themselves

They had unknowingly both decided at that point to break away from the norm, and not be independent, but a little more interdependent in selecting and going to university classes. They would eat together after school, find a bar and Lee would get drunk, as Mac never did, but he depended on Lee’s company, paid for his food, his meals, and drinks, even the gas, never asking for a cent, said once, “You’ll never find a better nigger than me!” And Lee assured himself he wouldn’t. At times Lee got too drunk to even talk, as Mac remained distinguished, and to those young girls around him, he was considerate, Lee was a little to the contrary. It might even have appeared to Mac’s admirers, it would be a damn sight easier for him to get rid of Lee, save his money, and not have to watch Lee drinking to kingdom-come, because this was seemingly more than a phase for him, more like a lifestyle.
“How is everything going?” Mac would ask Lee, during those drinking spells, that only stopped when he was on duty, and he’d answer, “Oh, I’m fine…” and continue drinking, and you’d think the night had gone to pot, but it didn’t phase Mac all that much. There was evidently a reason for Mac’s generosity.

Chapter Five
Black Market

“I’m sorry,” Remora said looking at Sergeant Lee Erwin Wright, looking at him in his American military uniform, his white American face, that was square and strong, and would remain that way all the way to his mid fifties, and Remora noted his wavy auburn hair for once, as he held his hat and the wind blew it all, everywhichway, his fine sparkling bluish-green eyes, only dimly dubious, a solid good nose, upper lip thin, lower lip fuller, a handsome jaw. “I’m sorry, amigo, but you must realize all those times I’ve taken you out to eat, and buy you drinks—oh don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind doing it—but I need a favor, I need for you to lend me your ration cards, for whiskey and cigarettes.” (Lee had been selling his rationed whiskey to a bar down in Munster by Dieburg, getting double its cost, but Remora had been spending twice that amount on his nightly drinking and eating after classes at the university. So what could he do, Lee thought. He was already in debt to him, and he liked Remora, and his sporty Mercedes he drove in, even borrowed it to him now and then. And here the provider was apologizing, because he couldn’t afford to continue his lavished living on him, if indeed he could not contribute something. What could he say?
“Don’t worry about the cigarettes, I got ration cards from several of my friends for that item, and I know you smoke, but I know you don’t drink whiskey, rather beer, I sure could use your card!”
Lee bolted like a rabbit, when a fox just grabs him, and gave him the card, he’d make perhaps even more than he was making, he knew every bar in town, and nightclub, and PX within fifty-miles. And for the most part, Lee Wright was thinking, what the heck you can do with a man like that, that talked so smoothly, but on the other hand was right, and generous, Lee surprised.
Lee looked at Mac with his cheerful bluish-green eyes, yet sturdy Army combat, war eyes, eyes that have seen death and destruction in Vietnam, in 1971, and Mac knew he was no coward, matter-of-fact, he knew he was or could be dangerous, even with his pleasant smile, if you didn’t notice how his eyes showed that, it was to one’s disadvantage (but Mac had heard, but not said a word on it—heard he taught a squadron at the 545th Ordnance Company, karate techniques, and played hard, so hard the squadron protested, and he stopped their training because they were as he said, “Cry babies”).
“In the morning if you like Lee, you can come with me and see how I do my black-market business, my buying. Maybe I can fix it up for you,” he said. “We’ll never get rich, but we’ll live well in the meantime.”
“Okay, in the morning if you like,” remarked Sergeant Wright. This was certainly the way to accept it, thought Mac; he could tell a thing or two about soldiers, he was one for two-years. He was all for America, even though he decided to live in West Germany, and had learned to speak German almost as well as he could speak English, and perhaps spoke more German than English. But of course, Lee couldn’t, I mean he spoke German, but could only understand, every fifth word or so, and his vocabulary was limited to perhaps one-hundred words, if that.

The morning had been as bright and warm as they come.
‘Here’s Mac,’ Lee mumbled to himself, outside of his apartment on base, in the housing area, where he lived. He walked over to his car looking refreshed and cheerful. But he wasn’t really odd, Mac thought, no, not odd, different, he knew much more than what he said, he’d not let on to what he did know either, always thinking, with that reddish completion.
“How’s Belinda,” commented Lee, Mac’s fiancée to be. He had only seen her once, a teacher that worked across the street at the American School, for the children brought over to Germany from the States by their military families. She was a pearl, he thought, a lightly black female that had—oh, much more class than Mac.
“Were getting along fine, I just don’t want to get engaged quite yet, but she’s pregnant, I just found out, so I guess I’ll have to sooner than later. Belinda was very impressive thought Lee, ‘You’re going to kill the very thing you love,’ thought Lee, because he knew Mac’s personality demanded he still get his oats out, in the wild female jungle, the one he creates and destroys. In many a night club women just flocked over him, some stripped in front of him, to get his attention. Whatever he had, it was as if it was voodoo or some black magic over these women.

As they went from PX, to PX, to German stores, and bars, Lee saw he had a network of buyers for his whiskey and cigarettes, and he’d even stop at a few apartments of soldiers, get their ration cards, he made a buddle of money this early morning, to forenoon—Sergeant Wright pondered. And he even stopped to say hello at a tennis court, to a young woman named Melody Brown (he didn’t know at the time, she was seventeen and the daughter to Sergeant Robert Brown, although she looked her age), Sergeant Brown being a sergeant that worked in one of the unites at the Babenhausen military complex. But he would later on find out much more.
Lee thought, ‘If indeed he had something going on with Melody, the Army was hard and cruel on such predatory things, and so were the soldiers with their daughters, revengeful on the predators. The girl was attractive, and he could see the young men around her were gone to pieces nervously with her, Mac approached her softened, and handled her as if he had magic.
‘They can’t know that much at her age,’ Lee thought. Lee was grateful that Mac had gone to showing him his life, but why? And why was he fooling around with a young, High School female,’ (so he concluded), he asked himself.
She came running over to his car as they were about to take off, “I’m coming with you,” she said, looking at Lee for an instant, then back to Mac.
“No, you’re not,” he said.
“Oh, yes, I am,” and she opened the back door and jumped in.
“You’re not staying for anything,” he said.
“Not for anything?” she said. Lee had felt he might have missed something in all this, but she was asking for it, and he was willing, and when she left, Mac got thinking, as she went off to cry as if he wanted to take her with him but it was for some reason too dangerous. To Lee, she seemed hell of a lovely kid, with all the woman parts, and she seemed to understand the ways of a man and woman, but didn’t she know she’d be hurt by him sooner or later? It was the damnedest thing, both playing the damnedest game.
Lee had asked to be dropped off at the NCO club (Non commissioned officers club) figuring Mac would put on another show for him tomorrow, or Monday, sooner than later, but he wanted no more today, and this would give him a time to straighten things out if they needed straightening out with Melody, because Lee’s senses told him, he was still thinking, pondering on her.
“You’re not coming, I’m going to Darmstadt,” he asked.
“No, you were really something this morning,” he said, “You wore me out.”

Chapter Six
Relieved of Position

“What now?” said Mac Remora, to the military inspector of his little Babenhausen store?
“I didn’t come out here to be boring,” said the inspector.
“Well, it hasn’t been boring around here,” said Mac.
“Oh, no, I expect not,” he said. “it’s been charming, but tomorrow is your last charming day—you’re being replaced, your inventories, and rumors and you’ve been under investigation for selling your liquor stock and rationed items to the local Germans, and making a hell of a profit,” said the inspector.
“You don’t know how I look forward to tomorrow,” said Mac.
“I suppose a robber gets tired of robbing his own stock,” the inspector remarked, “in any case, I’m glad to get rid of you!”
“Why not let up on the complaining, just a slight inspector,” said Mac.
“I expect I could,” he commented, “Since you put it so appealingly. “But you still may have to face fraud charges; we just need someone to point you out as his/her seller. Indecently we’ve had you followed.
“Oh, like a lion,” commented Mac.
Consequently, Mac Remora thought to himself: he’s going to try and prosecute ME, try and give ME a free ride right to the front door of the prison house, isn’t he? Or maybe that was just his fear taking over; perhaps the inspector just wanted him gone, out of sight and out of mind and just out of his hair. How should a man act when another finds out he’s a stinking thief. He felt the inspector was damned cruel but they’re all cruel he concluded, even if you’re straight with the records. Still, he had enough of the PX business, enough of their damn inspections. So he reasoned, as one often does to be able to accept the situation—oh yes, put horns on top of it, call it a devil, and be done with being polite: to the devil with it all. And that is what he was doing.

Chapter Seven
Marriage

Three Months Later

One afternoon, late, Mac and Belinda had gotten married, she was showing, her blouses no longer tucked in, and behind her belt, and Sergeant Robert Brown had stopped Staff Sergeant Wright, nearby the Babenhausen PX, talk to him about his daughter, Melody. He was bearing a gun. He showed him the gun; it was hidden behind his coat, “Tell your friend Mac, I’m a good shot, plus he’s a big target, I’m going to shoot him. He rapped my daughter, and I can’t figure out why you are friends with him.” Brown remarked.
“Is it worth-while, go to the police?” said Lee.
“I did,” rebuke Sergeant Brown, “but there’s no hard proof! Maybe you can testify for me, get him to tell the truth.”
“There’s no good chance of it. He just got married and he told me Melody was constantly running after him, and to be honest, I saw her one day, clear as the day is long, likened a lioness after him.”
“It’s not very pleasant to hear my daughter is like that, she’s seventeen years old, no matter what, he took advantage of her,” said Brown.
“I should think it even more unpleasant to allow her to continue to do what she’s doing,” said Lee.

(Brown thought, daughter or no daughter, to continue to talk about it, was only going to cause more friction.)

“We’re friends,” brown said, “I don’t want to talk about that anymore, just let him know I’m after him—with a gun!”
“I wouldn’t think about that anymore, Robert, any person would be upset finding out what you’ve learned, but that’s all over. And if you shoot him, I’ll testify I’ve heard you threaten to kill him—don’t make me a part of your scheme.”

Nightclub

That night Mac got together with Lee for a short period, at a nightclub outside of Babenhausen; Mac having a soda and Lee a beer as usual. As they sat at a table, Lee listening to the night noises all over, with some lastingly emphasized words, he said to Mac, “Brown has a gun, he’s looking for you, says you’ve raped his daughter, he’s miserably in raged over it.”
The fear was there like a cold clammy half-hollow iceberg, where once all he’d show was confidence, he looked sick.
“Does Belinda know of Melody?” asked Lee.
“I told her the night before,” his voice was of a deep sound, sort of coughing and grunts, as if he was thinking hard, as he talked. Lee could hear him breathing heavily. He couldn’t tell him not to be afraid, but he did say, “I told him, confronted him, about the wildness I saw in Melody, and that while I’m here if he shoots you, I’ll testify to the police to his threats.”
“Is he dead serious?” asked Mac.
“Well, who’s to say, but he acted like it, until I told him he’d be accountable.”
“I’ll have to check into this, maybe report what you said to the police, I mean I’ll report it.”
“Do you think his threats carry that far?”
“It sounds like he’d like to carry them out,” said Lee. “If you get shot…” Lee started to say then stopped abruptly. “Talk to Melody, maybe she’d be the best one to straighten things out?”
“I tried already to talk to her properly,” said Mac, “she’s out for revenge because I married Belinda. It’s really all about that.”
“You must have told her you’d marry her then?” Lee questioned.
“I shouldn’t have chanced it, but I did. You can hit me whenever you want, it was stupid of me to have said such a thing, but it’s what she wanted to hear, and I figured it would pass, but she thinks it was a solid deal.”
“Marvelous,” Lee said.

Chapter Seven
Lo and Behold

Six Weeks Later

“I’m ready,” Staff Sergeant Lee Erwin Wright said.
“You set in front,” said Mac, Belinda doesn’t mind sitting in the back, then we can talk on our way to the airport, and she don’t have to twist about looking at you as we talk, her belly is getting bigger by the day gets in the way you know (they were heading to Frankfurt; Lee was being relocated to Alabama).
“Yes, darling, said Belinda. “It sounds less strenuous, doesn’t it?”
“Of course,” said Mac.
“Finished with everything here in Germany, is that right?” remarked Belinda.
Just then, a Corporal Will Wilson came running up to the car, “I’ll see you this evening…!” he said (a white boy, no more than twenty-three or twenty-four years old, his new protégé).
“Yes,” said Mac.
“I’m ready if you’re ready Lee,” said Mac.
“Must make the 3:00 p.m., flight,” Lee said. (Then it occurred to him, he found his self a new white partner. Chances were he’d not be bothered all that much in the bars, hanging around with whity, sure that was his hidden motive, especially when he hit on the white gals in the clubs.)
The car stopped at a stop light, “Is everything all right?” asked Mac.
“Everything’s fine, just keep going ahead and to the right, you know the way to Frankfurt!”
“He’s a marvelous friend, isn’t he Belinda?” said Mac.
He was sitting almost too relaxed driving, thought Lee, “Mac really likes you Lee,” said Belinda.
“What do you mean?” asked Lee.
“He doesn’t even borrow me his Mercedes, but you he does you!” she replied.
“Yes, I was always afraid I’d crash it, and have to pay to fix it, and that would be my paycheck for six-months.” Both Belinda and Mac chuckled.
“Oh,” said Mac, “you’ll never find a better nigger than me!” jesting.

…after that

And that would be the last time they saw each other, talked to each other. Oh, what about the gun-bearer? You see, Lee called on the phone trying to find out what took place about that mishap—if indeed anything at all—after he left, as a result, he ended up talking to Sergeant Sims, not being able to get a hold of Mac. He had said the following to him:
“For some reason, Mac had felt after you left, he couldn’t be hit, shot, he was safe—and perhaps in a way he was right—but he was found dead nonetheless, in a hotel room no more than two weeks after you left, such a shame, he had been with Melody of all things, that very night. Perhaps she lured him there, but the gun that Sergeant Brown had was not the murder weapon, not at all, the police clearly stated that (as if it was beyond a doubt) and to the best of my understanding—of what reasoning that is that can be derived from this calamity—neither he nor she could just leave each other alone, they could not just stop it (both in some kind of fixation, beyond lust and compassion, perhaps we can call it, a tranquilized compulsion, like smoking cigarettes, the craving comes and until you light one, it doesn’t go away, it puts you under duress—although I think Sergeant Brown mellowed down after you talked to him, and perchance wasn’t the culprit as the police first thought, and everyone first thought—but I repeat his gun was not the weapon, and all the concluding evidence pointed elsewhere for malice. For one thing, she, Melody was suffering, I saw her a few times, spoke to her in passing, we just simply ran into each other. But don’t you worry; you didn’t have anything to do with it. If anything you ironed it out somewhat, or tried to. At least I’d like to think so.”

∙

(Melody’s Story) On one evening about two weeks after Sergeant Wright left for the states, Mac and I got together at the hotel garden, he got quite drunk. He was a gentleman as always. I had seen him earlier on that day, coming down the walk in at Babenhausen Military Base, we were between a fence, it all happened so mysteriously. After I asked him what time he’d like to meet me at the hotel garden—he had not eaten—but said he’d be ready to go as soon as lunch was finished; about frothy-five minutes to an hour. I trusted him only in that he would show up, in nothing else did I have confidence in him, because he was mysterious about his life, about everything in his life—a compulsive liar, who stacked lie upon lie until he forgot where he placed each lie, and sometimes confusing them, I got the truth—but only by holding in anger and hate, and I knew sooner or later that anger and hate, and under that, as my psychologist said, was hurt—it would come out.
It was a windy day but the sun was coming out, and it looked by the time he got to the garden cloudy, dark clouds were forming, and I knew behind clouds was rain. So I asked him to get us a room at the hotel in Babenhausen Township. I was going to shoot him right there and then, but it was no longer a wonderful day, and it seemed so downright nasty to have him dead in the wet grass, the devil forbid. Yes, I shot him in the hotel room, turned the music on loud, and had a 22-revolver, and shot him in the chest and head. Then I left the hotel and started down the road—buried the revolver in a cabbage patch. I saw his wife drive by, she was wearing a yellow and red scarf around her neck, I helped him pick it out, he said it was for his mother, he was always mysterious, but I knew beyond a doubt he’d show up, it’s just like fishing, he was caught on my hook, and I on his.

Police Station
(Babenhausen, West Germany)

Police Officer (sitting sullenly in an interrogation room with Melody): I know you shot him, who else could have? We can’t find the gun, and we know your father’s gun is a 38 Special, and you’re the only one with reason enough. You have to own up to this (he said).

Melody Brown: ((Young Melody appeared not to hear the Officer, she was thinking: what in heaven’s name makes him say ‘I know you shot him’ he thinks I shot him) (she smiles, a reluctant smile to the officer, says to her mind’s eye: he needs to press the subject, to bring me into action.)) Thank you officer, but I can’t understand a word you’re saying, I think you had a few too many beers today. (Melody thinking: let him be with his scornful look, I could shoot him too, just like that, what’s the difference. Her second self says: ‘No, no, Melody you are too cold, it doesn’t make any difference what he says, he can’t prove anything unless he finds the gun in the cabbage patch, then he can trace it…’

The Chief of Police (talking to the Police Officer doing the interrogation, in private): Let her go, look at her she’s got her own demons chasing her, she’s not meant to be a killer, if indeed she killed him, and I’d bet a month wages she’d confess under harder and longer interrogation techniques; but let her go, we can close the case, we got enough crazy people out there to amuse us, and keep us busy, why torture an already tormented girl. Put the file in ‘Unsolved.’

No: 516 • (11-12-2009) Chapters one and two
11-13-2009, Chapters three, four, five, six and seven (and ‘…after that’)
Parts two and three (Melody’s Story and Police Station, written on 11-15-2009)
Much of the story based on actual events (ds)

No Laughing Matter

2009-11-30T15:14:00.001-08:00

(Donkeyland, a Side Street Saga—a 1950)

They were rather a grubby and unruly bunch (The Donkeyland Gang, so the police called them, us), and they were sometimes pretty rebellious, but just the same, like any other large neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota, in the 1950s, and early ‘60s, they had their self-importance. They pert near all stuck together. Just suppose you had a few too many drinks in the neighborhood, on a weekend night, and you felt a little argumentative, or confrontational and not reluctant to a fight yourself, and you happened to meet someone, a stranger, down around the turnaround where the guys hung-out, and he got smart with you, and you gave him a little lip back, “Come on lets duke it out!”
And the stranger got ready to punch you out—
He better not do that. The devil only knows how many of the neighborhood guys you’d have on your hands. It would be like Custer’s last stand. They’d come forward like lightening, appearing out of nowhere, out of the allies, and houses and behind trees, and garages, as it were.
Now you take anyone of them guys. You could trust those fellows (well, most of them). None of them would stick a knife into you anyhow. That’s what they’d not do.
And just think of it, most of the girls from that neighborhood would marry into that bunch. I suppose that’s no way to put it. But that’s how it was. There were a few fellows, crazy like bananas, and there were a few smart-alecks of the neighborhood, young men who should have known better, encouraging the crazy one’s to do crazy things. I don’t remember any philosophic ones, but Roger would make wise-cracks about people…and Doug was one of the smart-alecks, and Jerry (we called him Ace) and Dan (just crazy Dan) were two of the crazy’s. And Gunner was Mike, my brother, who liked to windup the engines in his hotrods lay rubber on the street—as they referred to it back then, and mouse was really Gary, the mechanic, and Chick Evens, the poet (that’s me), to name a few, and there were a lot of cousins among the Lund’s.
On the weekends, especially on Friday nights, and sometimes all day on Saturday, thru Sunday afternoons, there’d be a party out there at Jerry and Betty Hino’s house. There’d be beer, plenty of that, and wine and sometimes there’d be some whiskey, even sometimes friends of the bunch in the neighborhood would show up, drop a name, and join in on the party, folks who really were not of the neighborhood. And some of us drank so hard, and in time died of the sickness. But Betty was always friendly and willing to share her hot meals to those who would stick around and drink for several hours. Between the two, Jerry and Better, I think they had fourteen-kids (from previous marriages).
And there were among us, all kinds of rough people too.
There were several girls unmarried, Nancy and Carol, and Jennie, and her sister Jacky, and Katharine and her twin sister (whom Chick Evens dated both Jackie and Katharine for a season), and Jennie married, one of the Lund’s and there were two Nancy’s, one married a Lund, another David. And there was Shelly, who dated Roger; her father was the caretaker from Oakland Cemetery, near Cayuga Street.
But the parties never ended, nor the drinking, and sometimes dancing and singing and just general hell raising and maybe a fight or two. And when you turned sixteen or seventeen, when you looked older than you were, and found an ID, that said you were twenty-one, “What the hell?” most of us said, it’s my neighborhood, and off to the two bars that were on two corners one across from the other, by Jackson and Sycamore Streets. And there’d you’d start your bar drinking—thinking as we thought back then—a man’s king in his own neighborhood, ain’t he?
Chick, one of the two Evens’ boys, playing guitars with Bill K., and Sonny M., and singing Elvis and Rick Nelson songs, were sullen and seldom looking for a fight when they’d go drinking, and they were much like that at home. They’d rather be drinking and singing songs, like Johnny Cash’s, “Ring of Fire,” or Elvis’ “Heartbreak Hotel” or Rick Nelson’s “Traveling Man,” than breaking into boxcars for several cases of beer, or selling stolen copper back to the junkyards, from where they originally took it, although, Chick Evens was not innocent of those crimes completely.
And during those now far-off years, many of the boys ended up at Red Wing’s incarceration center for breaking the law— a sort of boystown, and some of boys ended up in prison and jail. These were the hard-boiled young men stilling cars and using them for racing in the neighborhood, among other things; which was no laughing matter.
And pretty near everyone smoked cigarettes—and in later years, pot, and there wasn’t any boy in the neighborhood who could out drink Ace, or out fight Larry. There was even a few that didn’t drink like Pat, who did much weightlifting, but those fellows you could count on one hand. And we’d say, “He’s fine, don’t bother him about drinking, he’s got to keep up those muscles,” and we all understood, Pat even got Chick Evens into weightlifting, and Pat’s sister, as pretty as a doll, never hung around with the bunch, I suppose she didn’t like everyone howling drunk.
I wasn’t much of a neighborhood guy, but you could live in it, if you were by a hair's breadth, friends with the neighbored itself. They lived. They married and had children. Now of course they are pretty old. Ace, perhaps seventy or more, he bought us boozes all the time (being underage); he was the oldest of the group. I’d like to know how their doing now, for they’re nearly all gone I hear. Some died, in the Vietnam War, alcoholism or/drugs, heart attacks, cancer, took them, and some were carried off to a state instruction; also accidents took a few like Sid and Kathy. Perhaps there were thirty of us, a few more a few less.
It was just a little strip of land, called Donkeyland, a mere street called Cayuga was the epicenter, which is now empty, a parking lot, and empty spaces, I suppose somewhere in that near vicinity, a new neighbor has taken its place, so I heard, with no code of honor. There will always be at least one such place; before us, there was the Mississippi Rats (a decade earlier), so I heard, and new one of those guys, they’d now be in their eighties.
We all played softball in that empty lot next to my grandfather’s house, and we got silly drunk and cross-eyed, in that empty lot, and turnaround (which was next to one another), and some of us, habitually silent, and some of us, had odd habits.
The neighborhood had no plan in life just innumerable funny angles, and eventually we all went to work, settled down. It’s like this: many of us simply crept out from under the bushes and did what we had to do. They were quite a bunch of men and women, and for the most part as I look back, it was no laughing matter, none of us took a disliking for the other, just some of us like me, walked quietly away.

No: 526 (11-28-2009)

The Mansion on Summit Hill

2009-11-30T15:13:00.001-08:00

(1981)

The house on Summit Hill showed only a light in the far back room—in the roomy area—the dining room, and those rooms beyond within the mansion, purlieus and mysterious they appeared from which come that displeasing light that emanated an stench— beyond description. From behind some curtains by this back room across the wide hall a pair of yellow eyes transferred to an alarmed brain, a simple perception from which the brain presumed those yellowish-eyes (let’s call them evil eyes) were not all human, they were lower than the average human forehead allowed. I had been drinking and so was Tessa, and we had walked into the mansion by accident, thinking it was an old mansion turned into an apartment building, and were about to visit a friend of hers.
The dweller of those eyes was pulled back by a well dressed type figure, which had entered the hall, that connected to the enormous room I and Tessa were standing in, “Are you a thief in the night?” said the man in a well fitted black suite, in a near soft voice. At the same time I noticed behind the curtains—and couldn’t help but see—one large dark wolf like ear, but it was ten feet from the bottom to the upper part of the curtain, I held inside of me a fearful revulsion to this precarious man thirty feet from Tessa and I. He was hard eyed as he scanned me with a tense expression, perhaps close to the same height as myself, five foot eight inches tall. Thin lipped, “We found the door opened sir,” I said, “thinking it was a different location!” I said distinctly said loud so he could hear me, a moment later, he stepped back into his room, and the curtains moved some, the thing behind the curtains still concealed, I had the conviction—whatever it was— was a creature of innocence.
Stooping low, the creature crawled into the dim light and on into the room without a sound, the very room the mysterious man had entered. There was a disquieting to my soul, and I as looked about I couldn’t help but take in the elegance of the home, the old designs on the wallpaper and the large crystal chandelier hanging above us, the easy chairs, then Tessa said “I think we should leave,” despite her worry, I suggested we wait a minute. Everywhere ivory and bronze, and gold looking statues appeared as I examined the place, and objects of exquisiteness. I was so obviously taken in by it all, it dazzled me, then I had a faint indication—though dim was the room we stood in—I wanted to go look behind the drapery the creature was a moment ago, and so I did, Tessa behind me, hesitate for an instant, but she drew close to me, it was so eerie I thought. And from behind the curtain I could see the well dressed man; he was in the process of an experiment of some kind. Doubtless the gentlemen was no apprentice, he was making good use of some cutting instruments. But I am no expert in such areas, and all that I could make out of it was doing some crossbreeding, he had dogs and rabbits in cages, dogs with rabbit ears, and rabbits with dog feet—or paws, then my careless elbow slipped on a railing and he heard me, looked my way, his stare was cold, gave me shivers up and down my spine, goose bumps. But I still conjured in my mind I wanted to investigate this mysterious episode in my life, a tad more. But Tessa wanted to leave.
The noise I had made, plus stepping out from behind the curtains now, somewhat quietly, was like an explosion inside of me. I had thought all St. Paul, Minnesota had heard it. About to run out of the house, an arm grabbed me, and one Tessa, and dragged both of us, as we stood on our feet— talons dug into our skin a half inch—into the room with the dim light.
“Inquisitive,” said the gentleman, “you are an unavoidable conclusion to my procedure.”
Standing before us, the creature was near laughable, he had a bear’s head, and wolf ears, hairy in spots, and had a man’s torso, and a man’s feet, but wide like a duck’s.
Then I noticed Tessa’s knees trembling.
“What are you going to do with us?” I asked.
Here he became silent for a long moment.
“I feel quite relieved that at last I found a female specimen I can use, one so young, healthy and lovely…and perhaps intelligent!”

A moment later I heard voices, I was tied to a chair, I couldn’t move, the voices came from that room with the dim light—I knew I was in it. The voice said, “I’m positive in a week or two of companionship with him, she’ll get pregnant and produce—in the long run, a missing link of some sort.”
“You are to be congratulated, Professor,” said another voice, upon having that creature carry Tessa, off an operating table, and into another room, as if they had did something to her internal female structure—or who’s to say. The voice said to me, and everything was foggy when he said it to me, “You will be her mate, unless you want someone else to be?” And I knew who that someone else might be, and the creature grunted.
“What’s the creature’s name?” I asked.
“Sanoj” said the voice (and the creature growled when he heard his name).
Said the Professor’s companion, “I wish you’d let her find her own mate in her own way.”
“She will not be wise enough to make such a judgment, and I do not want another Sanoj!”
“It is perfectly ridiculous for it to happen again, especially at her age,” said the other man’s voice (as if he had taken a wrong turn somewhere along the line during his experiments).
I looked to the unlit side of the room, Sanoj, was standing there like a pillar in Athens, out of the window, arclights geminating a glow on him. Then I passed out, and when I awoke I found myself out on a country road, and thinking: was this another dream, or along night’s nightmare from my drinking binge? (If indeed I had drinking binge.) The girl Tessa I had picked up from the bar downtown someplace along the Mississippi River, I’d never seen her before, or never again. And to this day I do not know if it as unreal, or just a weird nightmare or… the only other thing, being genuine. But what bothered me was when I got near my apartment, I read the morning paper from a newsstand, it was ten-days since I had last read the paper, and I read the paper that very evening I picked up Tessa.

No: 523 (11-24-2009)

The Eel-fishers Basket

2009-11-13T06:40:00.000-08:00

(A Chick Evens Story)

It was a fairly large looking basket, jammed with perfectly slimy looking eels and the old eel-fisherman felt they were simply priceless. Too heavy to lift by himself he had to pull it, so Mr. Chick Evens got out of his vehicle to help the old man carry the basket up a step onto the wooden sidewalk, taking glimpses into it—it had been his second day in Iceland, staying at a hotel in Reykjavik, he had just come back from the cliffs overlooking the coast (and a nearby lighthouse), forty-some miles outside of the city limits; he was no more than a mile or so from the city itself—now, and its coast.
The Old man was bringing the basket into a Sea Market Store with an abundance of seafood to be sorted, sold and shipped. A few workers rushed to help the old man and his assistant with the basket on the wooden walkway leading into the store.
“They look very fine,” said the owner looking into the basket. Evens, frightfully putout when he heard that, they looked ugly, narrow and with a dark damp and sliminess to them, and he pulled back from the basket, and the old man, and the owner saw that.
The rain started as Chick Evens turned about and stepped into the road, his guide was waiting for him in the car. The September winds blew through his cloths, his cloths wavy like leaves on a tree. The road in front of the fish market, lead back to Reykjavik, he was kind of on top of a slight hill. The Sea Food Store (or marketplace) had a porch, smoke coming from its chimney in back of the one story building, where there was the smokehouse, a garage, water tanks. Big trees against the gray woodened structure, it looked as if it was the first of the autumn storms creeping in. As Evens was about to reach the vehicle (for he had originally been looking for a café or restaurant, he was getting hungry), the owner stood on the porch looking towards him, strangely.
“Well,” the owner said to Evens, “have you ever ate eel before, or whale?”
“Hey, Mr. Evens!” said the old man stepping down off of the sidewalk step onto the road, “I’ll pull one of those eels out for you to eat, we can cook it up in the back, right here (and he looked at Edgar when he said that),” remarked the old man.
The old man, and Mr. Chick Evens stood together looking up at Mr. Edgar Gordon now, then down at the basket of eels. The wind was blowing straight up the hill from the oceanfront. They could hear the surf along the Reykjavik coast.
“She’s blowing down there hard,” Edgar said.
“She’ll blow like that until twilight,” said the old man, “is your cook in?” looking at Edgar.
“Let’s all go to the back, have a drink, and I’ll provide the whale meat, if you provide the eel,” Edgar told the old man, and the old eel-fisherman, nodded his head—yes.

Edgar went out to the kitchen and came back with three slices of whale meat, and a large eel cut up, and on the tray was a pitcher of beer and a bottle of water. Evens reached for the water. The old man reached for the beer—as they all sat by a fireplace behind the kitchen.
“All right?” he said.
“Good,” said the old man.
They sat in front of the fireplace and drank the beer, and water, as the cook took the sea food off the tray and cook it, with its thin gravy.
“It’s got a different, soggy and wormy like taste to it,” said Mr. Evens, looking at it as if it was a live alligator. The whale meat was more to his liking.
“That’s eel for yaw,” said Edgar, stretching out his feet under the table. “Better take your shoes off if you’re going to finish that eel,” he remarked, and laughed.
“Got any coffee?” Evens asked.
“Eat the rest of the eel, that ought to clench it for you!” said Edgar. “It’s a gift to try all you can in life, you can’t buy everything, but you can try most things out for size. Now that basket of eels isn’t as ugly as it was at first, when it first appeared to you—correct?”
“I can’t get into it, but it’s all right now, it isn’t a bad dinner, it’s just something I hadn’t tried before, dissimilar to my familiar tastes that is.”
Said the old man to Evens, “From old shadows what remains of them, it takes a shade of light, like dawn or anything in life, it has to slowly drift into you, enjoy now what time takes away, so much is swift to change, then comes old age. If a man has no variety, he cannot spread himself about.”
Said Edgar with his grizzled voice, “So many have died, millions and millions and millions, dead in their folds, in their wrinkles and collapsed before their time, who have lived in a stage set, you are to break branches, to clear paths, to new insights, I see that in you!”
Mr. Evens thought about that for a moment, thought about how he wanted to be a writer, and then ate the whole thing (even though his deeper thoughts on the issue were flat to hackled—he felt the eel was no more than a long silk worm, that sagged as he labored to eat it, a tongue that flowed down into his belly; a creature with no neck or shoulders. He thought it was no more than an earthly mortal sea dweller that had no purpose in life, no design and to no good to any man whatsoever, a lizard without legs, eyes like a black ominous owl). It all was a symbol he told himself. “Sure,” he said, and then asked both his new comrades, “Did you ever read “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket?”
“No,” said the old man, and Edgar.
“That’s a real sea faring book,” he commented, and they both said simultaneously, “We’ll have to try that!” and all three laughed wholeheartedly, holding their stomachs.

No: 515• ((11-11-2009) (EP))

Note: In September, of 1999, the author went on a trip to Iceland, for an extended weekend, and did some whale searching in the ocean, off Iceland’s coast. He went into the interior of Iceland, and then out to the cliffs overlooking the ocean and to where there resided an old lighthouse nearby, and to an area where astronauts train, a rough and hot terrain indeed. Also to the Blue Lagoon, for swimming, and the fishing market he describes in the story “The Eel-fishers Basket,” where he stopped for a short period of time.

Ten Years Here and There

2009-11-13T06:39:00.002-08:00

(The Language of Life)

Let’s go backwards with this—my time thing; since it is my time we are talking about, for the record, I’m sixty-two years old, perhaps with a life expediency of seventy to eighty-three (or eight to twenty-one years); and that’s a big perhaps too, considering walking across the street and getting run over, or a robber killing you, or a plane crashing, or a car accident, or some medical illness like a heart attack, or cancer, or a stroke. So my point is this, time is like a stepladder (it’s not a commodity), you have only so many steps to your ladder, and that is that. So if I go backwards, I’ve spent ten-years perfecting my writing skills, style (although I’ve written poetry since my twelve-year of life, onward, and my writings spans three decades to my first published book in 1981, plus five universities), overlapping these ten-years I had a business, and made a lot of money, and had a career, as a counselor for the Federal Prison System (BOP), but in addition, had two heart attacks and a stroke I survived, plus MS I live with (this is fifteen to twenty years out of my sixty-two years thus far.)

(In-between all of the above, in the last ten years (1999 to 2009) I’ve seen the depths of the Amazon Jungle, in Peru (and the central Jungle of Satipo in Peru, took a shower under the waterfalls); climbed the highest canopy in the world in the Jungle there, 119-feet; took a submarine 129-feet below the ocean in Maui; landed on the Mendenhal Glacier—four miles out landing on it with a helicopter, the spot being 400-feet thick, in Alaska (and went to the far north, to Barrow in the Arctic; and in Venezuela, flew a DC 10, over the Amazon Basin; went to the highest city in the world over 15,000-feet above sea level, Cerro de Pasco, went into the jungles of Java, into the volcanoes of Equator, and to the center of the world where centrifugal force is nil, balancing an egg on the tip of a nail. Watched the ships come in through the Panama Canal, the greatest engineering achievement man has ever accomplished. And five years before that 1994 to 1999, I had went inside the pyramids in Mexico; and went to Egypt inside the Great Pyramids there likewise. Again I went inside the volcanoes of Easter Island, walked along the sands of the Suez Cannel. Climbed the Rock of Gibraltar, to its very top, where stands its cannon, and walked through the Kasbahs of Tangier; walked a small length of the Great Wall of China, outside of Beijing. Learned how to play the piano (knew how the play the guitar since the age of twelve). I climbed the steps to the Acropolis, in Athens, and the steps to the Taj Ma Hal, in India, and the steps to Anker Wat, in Cambodia. Also going to the last 20th Century’s World’s fair’s, in Lisbon, in 1998.)

Prior to this I spent ten-years in biblical studies, writing a few books in-between, and overlapping this, going through two marriages, no three plus the one I’m on now. Now we are up to twenty-five to thirty-years. Near half my life time, the end part, we are now getting into the middle.
I spent eleven-years in the Army—1969 to 1980, crisscrossing Europe, and in a war (1971, the Vietnam War, and came out a decorated Soldier), and traveling from one side of the earth to the other, over lapping these ten-years—which makes it 35 to 40-years now. At this point we jump into my twenties. I crisscrossed the United States, living in, Seattle, Omaha, San Francisco (while in San Francisco, I leaned Karate from one of the Greatest Karate men in the world), the Dakotas, and throughout Minnesota, and so forth.
Well, we are now at—or in-between the ages of five and nineteen, I went to school to learn the basics like everyone (winning second place in Art for the City of St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1965), and did my drinking and smoking cigarettes, and going to church and working a dozen jobs, trying to get to be a grown up. And I don’t remember the first five years of life all that much (but much of it was spent on a boarding-farm; my mother being a meatpacker, and my brother and me, along with my mother lived in an extended family with my grandfather and aunts between my seventh birthday and seventeenth). In the process of these years I’ve had a few dear friends, and a mother and a brother, my father left before I was born, so we live through hardships and tragedies, and hope for the best, and thank God for the moment, and don’t cry about spilt milk.

So we are at the last ten-years or twenty of my life, perhaps even less, so if this was you instead of me, what do you have to do, what ever that is, you better do it now. So if God gives you or me the ultimate, let’s say 83-years, I got 21-years left, if he gives us ten, then we got one big thing left to do, at 21-years perhaps we can get away with doing two big things, but remember you’re not young anymore so you are limited; that is why the bible specifies: there is a season for everything under the sun. But that is it. Point of fact, if you’ve made it to my age, you don’t have much time left. If you are in your twenties or forties, perhaps you got time to see the world—but you better get going, I’ve seen sixty-countries, wrote forty-two books, known a lot of my friends who have died. Against what I’m saying is a theory, you can’t bury yourself under layers of crap, to where years and years and years go by, and you end up with five years left—and you need thirty-years more of living to catch up on those years you never did live, and what can you do in five years? Of course there are many things you can do, but not many things you can start from scratch and end up being a success at. You must learn the language of life. Before there is no life left to learn about.
The question may arise is —“Why do we (or I) postpone?” Perchance, and just conceivable it could be—you are already dead; let me put it less strenuously: when we make up lies, it is with pieces of the truth—but only enough truth to let the lie overwhelm us. If you are wondering why you postpone it is a thing you must figure out for yourself.

(If you are not satisfied with your life, you may want to take an inventory and adjust it…the sooner the better!)

No: 513 (11-9 & 10-2009)

“Hard to the End…!” (1939)

2009-11-13T06:39:00.001-08:00

Josh Morgan had no sentimental weakness, nothing could stomp him. Up-beat to the end; ambivalent, to his comrades: He had stopped filming the script “The Battle Fields of Spain,” went to his Madrid Hotel, to play five tennis matches, he was thirty-four years old. He got a pain in his side—he reclined by the pool and realized within a short period of time, he was having a heart attack. The production was shut down during his recuperation period. His doctor informed him he’d have to avoid exertion, stress for the rest of his life. He was at the top of his field, played the hard core rolls because he had lived them, he was what he played.
One of the scenes involved Mr. Morgan to run out into a mass of humanity, surrounded by gunfire, and overhead blasting, it was a high spirited scene for the movie, and a much needed one to make if the film was to be a success. Thus, the cameras rolled. Everyone had felt this scene could, most likely would undo Mr. Morgan, but it didn’t.
Josh had informed the director, explained it away that: “I watched twenty-war movies, over and over and over while in my recuperation period (he had taken the time to bust up his shock endurance, to where he’d be near sedate to the disruption and seemingly fictional disaster surrounding him within the scene, once the cameras started rolling again. All within disregard for the doctor’s orders, in consequence, Josh Morgan finished the film…

Said Mr. Morgan to the entertainment world and its media at large, and in particular to the producer of the studio, and director of the script, “I’m not going to be an infinite patient, if I’m going to die, let it come while I’m climbing a mountain, or filming a rough scene! —it’s all the same to me!”
At the age of thirty-seven, in May of 1941, he died doing just that. He burnt himself out, but finished the last film he was staring in, called “Hard to the End…!”

No: 514 (11-10-2009)

White Castle Hamburgers a strange Story

2009-11-09T14:14:00.002-08:00

(1965, the dating Game)

The road of the past was hard and smooth for the old man, a little dusty too, and early in the morning the old man sat in his easy chair trying to figure out a new short story to write, anyone, on anything would do from the far past—he had been dry for an idea on what to write. Perhaps a story, he said one before he was a soldier, and had traveled far away across the seas, something that provoked his Irish wits. When he was young, before he started all his traveling and something he’d imagine he’d never do again; He looked outside his window; there was the snow caped mountain, “White Mountain,” and those snowy mountains alongside White Mountain. Then Sid came to mind, a friend whom he had doubled with when he dated back in his teens. A good old pal, he had died at the early age of nineteen-years old, a car accident, but up to that time, they had a lot of fun together. “Oh, yes” he said aloud, remembering now what lead up to the circumstances at the White Castle Hamburger café… “Quite so,” he murmured to himself, picking up his pen, as to start his first sentence… “That’s it...!” he concluded, he had it now—the picture of the events, the plot, the theme, the conclusion, although there was no insight to be given out on this so called… narration, more of an account than a unfolding of events, but a risky one, it wouldn’t leave him in a light should someone figure out it was more fact than fiction…he remembered:

he rode through the city with his friend Sid in his 1955-dodge his parents had bought for him, through the crowed city he drove, to meet a blind date. It was Friday night. And the moon appeared to him to be rising and falling, he had a few drinks, he was seventeen-years old, they both, Lee and Sid were seventeen-years old. Sid drove outside of the city where there were open fields and hidden roads, Sid with his part time girlfriend Eva, and Lee, with his blind date, Barbara, with her bronze Italian skin, and dark thick hair, they sat still in the backseat.
“Well,” said Lee, “do you like what you see or not?” She, Barbara turned a little pale in the face, surprised he was so forthright. Against the side of the car were thick and high trees, they could not be seen from the distant highway (Highway 36).
“Yes,” she said, “I like what I see!” He moved her over to the corner of the car, “Will you be uncomfortable here?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she remarked.
“Sid seems not to be wasting any time up front there,” said Lee, he was making out with Eva. Lee put his hand on Barb’s shoulder.
“You can start kissing me if you want,” said Barb, nearly two-years younger than Lee.
He shook his head, “Sure!”
“What did Lee say Barb?” asked Eva.
“That you and Sid started making out already!”
“Isn’t he observant!” said Eva.
“How do you like it out here?” asked Sid to Lee, opening up a can of beer.
Lee looked out the side of the car, somewhat blocked by a tree. “Well, I don’t mind it I guess,” Sid replied—“except it’s along ride back if we both get too drunk.”
The woods were dark; the road had left the highway about a mile behind them, the radiator was hot and boiling, Sid had to turn the car off, it was fall and a chill was in the air as well as in the car now. Eva looked annoyingly and suspiciously at the sounds the radiator was making, the engine silent now, “I hope we can make it back safely,” she said.
“Certainly,” Sid said.
Eva wore a short skirt and a loose blouse and a light leather jacket. She leaned forward against Sid, pushed her breasts against him, and smiled. She smiled seemingly on both sides of her face, because it was clear to Lee as she turned the good side toward him. She had a charm and a good side of her face that always smiled, even when she wasn’t trying to smile. Her nose was small, and it looked very cold and firm he thought, taking good notice in her.
“You like me don’t you Lee?” she asked.
“He adores you, and so do I,” said Sid, “now let him and Barb make- out (and she stroked her hair).”
“Tell Lee, Barb we have to go; I think Sid’s a misogynist, he took a bite out of my ear!”
“That’s an accidental love kiss…” Sid told her.
“Will you shut your mouth and take me home?” she asked. Sid went silent.
“Lee, will you get us out of here?” she was mad.
“Will you stop quarreling; let’s go Sid and take them both to their homes, so we can get drunk on our own, in peace and quiet.”

Two Weeks Later

Eva called Lee up asked to go out with him and they are now looking about for a place to eat…Lee stops at a White Castle Hamburger Café…

“I’m not Italian, my family and I am from Bucharest,” said Eva to Lee as they stopped at an outdoor hamburger place, called ‘White Castle.’
“I’m glad I’m with you and not with Sid!” remarked Eva.
“I don’t know why you say that?” said Lee.
“He’s dull…and irritating!” the young woman said.
“You talking about Sid as dull, he was trying to be with you, what did you expect from him?”
“Lovely place, couldn’t you find me a better place to eat?” Lee had ordered several White Castle hamburgers (you know those little things that take three bites and they’re gone).
“Oh, no. You eat them, I don’t want them.” Said Eva, as the hamburgers were brought to the car, and Lee pulled out a few for her.
“Ah,” said Lee, to the young woman, “here take at least one, I paid for them, I can’t eat them all!”
“No…you don’t understand,” said Eva.
“You want to pay the bill?” said Lee.
“Oh no, but listen, I want to go home,” she said.
“Every time you don’t get your way you want to go home,” said Lee.
“You can amuse yourself by yourself, I said take me home!”
“Just eat a hamburger or two, and in a little while I’ll take you home,” said Lee.
“Listen,” said Eva, “don’t bother to ask me again. I tell you these hamburgers are awful.”
Lee took a hamburger out of the bag, handed it to Eva, “Eat it!” he demanded.
“No!” she repeated.
“Well,” he said, as he waited with the hamburger in the open palm of his hand for her to take, which she would not take, “Jerk,” she called him.
It started to rain, a few cars drove by them watching them quarrel.
“SMASH!—Smack!” the open hamburger in the palm of Lee’s hand somehow jumped by impulse out of his hand right smack into her face.
“Well, see,” said Lee, “you did eat it…somewhat!”
“Oh, yes…you son…of…! She started to say, holding back the last part of the word.
Finally they both could see eye to eye.
“It’s gone now, I’ll take you home.” The hamburger was all over her face, on her dress and partly on the floor.
“Oh you’ve been gone a long time,” she said in a hateful voice. “I’d walk home but it’s raining,” she added.
She wiped the remaining parts of the hamburger off her face and skirt, and Lee took her home. The following day, he called Barb up for another date, hoping it would end up better than with Eva.

No: 511 (11-2-2009)•

Roses, Beggars and Vagabonds

2009-11-09T14:14:00.001-08:00

(At Istanbul’s Bazaar)

A Story and Poem

Poetic Prose (in a half truth)

There was in time past sorcery and magic which were prevalent
and to be quite honest, I found it very much alive in the old realm of Istanbul…

The Story

I had just arrived at the Istanbul’s main bazaar (open market), on a visit to Asia Minor, it was 1996; and after a late lunch was walking with a few friends down one of the many halls—with merchants on each side of me, selling everything under the sun, to include: rugs, copper and brass items, glass like evil-eyes on chains, to keep the bad spirits and omens away. Opposite me, across the hall and walking the other way, was a short old lady, with a blind gaunt old man, she pulled him along with a rope tied around his wrist, and she kept looking at me intently, as I stood looking at her and him, as I stood, in my little group consisting of two men and three women, not including me. I found my eyes followed them, for it appeared to me after they had passed me, the woman alone in front of the man was carrying something in a little tied up pouch. I shuddered as I thought it might be something to curse another with. The woman had stopped and was looking at me with eyes that seemed to burst into flames. She walked across to the other side of the corridor and the fifty or so feet to me, without preface said:
“Why do you look so strange at me, even look so overcome?” I didn’t care to reply, and held back my answer. Her large and firewoman eyes were fixed eagerly upon me, as if she could, and was looking through me, from side to side and from first to last, and from end to end. I sensed I became a little embarrassed, wherefore she asked “Give me a coin! And I will not give you the evil-eye!”
“What do you mean?” I queried.
She answered ambiguously: “I will throw a curse on you before this hour tomorrow!”
Her answers and statement fascinated me, and she started to move away from me, in gaunt yet stately form, “I don’t believe in such powers of another person who believes in Christ, Jesus.”
“A rich soul,” she said and took off her cap reverently as she said:
“I will give you a letter in Gaelic, I can’t read it, for a coin, and drown the curse!”
As she spoke I looked round as though someone else was staring at me, a kind of second sight, which I think she had also (perhaps her little imp, ready to charge me at daybreak).
There stood the gaunt woman with a look of triumph on her face and the poetic prose on ancient paper in Gaelic, she knowing ahead of time such ancient scrolls interested me.

It is here, where the story overhangs, that is, where this old woman of bony features, reddish eyes, and sienna (yellowish) skin, of a black sorcery gneiss of the ancients, perhaps at one time been originally a wild one, there seemed to be an evidence of an old upheaval which must have shaken those around her, like it did to me at first, but broadly speaking she took several coins from me, and here is where we made our separation.

And the Poetic Prose (Letter)
(An old Gaelic Verse) (Translated by Dlsiluk):

Payment or benefit of cleric care that one and all persons were meant to receive, within this branch of sacred humanity—be that we are roses, or barbarians, vagabonds, and even beggars, but we die alike, and will receive the punishment afterward, for the days we’ve squandered in life: it is now foretold, declared and let forth by the authority of this letter that all curious minded people, in parish and parlors, that be of bitter felons, or procurators, going about in any country or countries within the realm—do not labile the kings or queens of earth, to those who have lawful games and crafty and subtle gaining schemes, to themselves who have knowledge of extraordinary things, palmistry or another absurd circus witchery, bear this in mind, for you know their destinies, deaths, turns, and other such things: satanically imaginations: and all the ecstasies a person soars for—bring your whole body of magic and labor having no land or master, nor bring any lustful merchandise to detain you, whereby he or she— might find their living, and give no rescoring to him or her, do not rob death of its lawful giving’s and getting’s…for heaven and hell will not forgive thee.

Notes: Poem: 2649 (11-5-2009) done in an Old English style or form of writing, when magic and sorcery were prevalent. Story: 510 (11-5-2009) Fiction with nonfiction, author went to Istanbul in 1996, met this old lady…

Murder near Stone Meadows

2009-11-09T14:13:00.002-08:00

Elmer Abernathy’s Story

((1893, North Carolina) (Part one of two))

A Southern Account of Malice

The First house, the very first house, that really didn’t look like a house, ever to sit on the Abernathy plantation property, was a shack with two rooms, and one room had a stove you fed with wood, that was back in 1853, when Elmer Abernathy was born, built by Aston Cole Abernathy (born 1771, died 1855), he built that shack in 1803, he would be Langdon’s Great, Great Grandfather. Thereafter, Elmer, married a woman twice his age, and had a child by her, she named the child Alex, born in 1879, then she ran off, a drunk with a drunk, and he, Elmer, the Great Grandfather to Langdon Abernathy, got his divorce, and he married a good woman named Elsie, gave her, her new name, Abernathy, and in 1882, she gave him a son they named Justin C. Abernathy, the ‘C’ for Cole, Langdon’s Grandfather the one who fought in WWI, the Corporal, he died in 1947.
Elmer’s father, Aston, came over from Europe in the late 1790s, bought the land around 1803, and little by little, Aston Cole Abernathy cleared the rocky land, died in 1855 of a heart attack they say, at the ripe old age of eighty-four.
Elmer was born in that little shack, so Langdon’s father would tell him which is making it Langdon the only one not born in it. I mean Elmer, Justin and Cole were all born in it, but Langdon, he was born in the city hospital, of all places, down in Fayetteville, North Carolina, twenty-one miles outside the city, and brought to the plantation three days after his birth. Caroline, his mother, told Cole, her husband “This thing you call a traditional birth, that you call a right to those in your family to have it in this plantation house, that has become in itself your family roots, is for the birds, nowadays, they got hospitals for us humans, and plus, I’m having the baby not you.”
And thus, that put a stop to the tradition. Although Cole’s brother, Chris, didn’t like it, but he wasn’t married to Caroline: so Cole told him. As a result the insisting stopped pretty abruptly. Her recovery was quick for the most part, because Caroline was a strong woman, and needed very little recuperation time; she was home in a matter of days.

Getting back to Elmer Abernathy, Langdon’s Great Grandfather, his fate was to die ungracefully, if not pointlessly by an unknown nobody unfortunately. Elsie was twenty-two years old when they met, of good European stock. And he ended up being the one responsible for taking that little shack and building it into a full plantation house, with twelve-rooms, of which five were bedrooms. He seldom left his land, and plantation house, only to get what he needed for building more onto it, or mending or building fences and a barn, or seed for planting, he left the rest of the chores for his working men, and his wife, and their children: Alex (born 1879) and Justin C. Abernathy (born 1882); but Alex turned out to be rather the lazy one.
He, Elmer, never went to war, or church, yet he was a godly man in many ways, not too romantic, but he loved his wife in a flat emotional way, and ended up being a good provider.
It was in 1893, the railroad was laying track beyond the hill, that is over beyond his fields, of which he had 400- acres of land, and beyond the edge of the hill down its slope which was the boarder line of his land, and state property, and a wooded area, and a little ways beyond that was where they were laying the track, and where some twenty-men, in tents and all were doing the labor; some black folks, Chinese and Irish.
At night it seemed some of these workers went off into the wooded area, shooting wild game half drunk, bringing back to their camp: dogs, wolves, deer and a few rabbits. And those who were too drunk to carry them back left the carcasses where they lay after they had shot them. Elmer was aware of this, and so he would walk his lands edge at night before he headed on back to his house, and go to bed; he had to make sure nobody was hanging around his land, that didn’t belong there.

Justin, was eleven years old at the time, and Alex thirteen, in future time, Langdon’s Grandfather to be, he was well liked by his father, Elmer, and Alex, to the contrary, a mischievous, lazy good for nothing lad, a jealous kind of rat, snake in the grass, thin creature, an older brother that played rough with his younger brother. Alex’s eyes were bearable at times, but most of the times they were cat-eyes, searching, not sure what for, but nevertheless searching, and spying on his half-brother, stepmother and father.
Alex was crude, and witted, cursed with his drunken mother’s malice mind, he’d often remain silent, in a daze, wept like a madman, and felt he could, if given the chance make everything different, so much so that his defiance went to action, a plan came into his mind, and night after night he put it together like sewing a patch on a jacket. He would be in charge of the family, yes indeed; he was going to take the issue up with the very person who caused the problem, his father. Now it happened to be a silent protest at this juncture took place, but a few more steps in the right direction of thinking, it would be less than silent; the undisturbed plan would be explosive, if succeed.
He was a restless kind of kid, perhaps had too much time on his hands to think up such plans, but he did on July 2, 1893 come to the conclusion in the morning it would be implemented, his devious and dubious plan would be put into practice, and therefore, in the evening, he snuck out through his bedroom window, and up to where the railroad tracks were being laid, and talked to several men, and found two men that looked as if they were troublemakers, and he asked, “Do you carry a gun?”
The one called Clarence, the hairy one, said, “Now why would a boy your age care one way or another?”
“I want you to kill someone for me? I got $500-dollars, I will give you two hundred now, and the rest after you do the job.”
The men started laughing, and Alex pulled out his money—cash, paper currency, and then they stopped laughing, pulled the kid over behind a tree, “Who,” asked Clarence, “who do you want dead?”
“My father,” Alex replied.
“Your father, for heaven’s sake why?” asked Clarence’s friend, a puny little man of pale color, had looked like he drank himself into old age, perhaps no older than forty, and looking sixty.
“That’s my business,” remarked Alex, “are you for hire or not?”
“When do you want the job done, we’ll only be here a few more days?” announced Clarence.
“Tonight,” he said, it was near twilight.
“You mean, right now?” said the pale looking guy.
“My father checks out the edge of his property every night to make sure you folks don’t cross over into it, he’ll be over yonder there in a spell,” said Alex, anxious.
Clarence looked at his friend, they both nodded (both were half tramps hired for a week or two weeks work, drifters for the most part.

So the two men, and Alex hid behind some trees and bushes, waited for Elmer Abernathy just beyond the hill, on the edge of his property, and sure enough, at 10:30 p.m., sharp, he walked by. Clarence showed his face, and Elmer said, looking at the two men, said: “You’re on private property, did you know that?”
“Yup!” said Clarence, his friend in back of him, and Alex hiding behind a tree.
“Well you best be getting off it before I talk to your foreman on the railroad, I’m sure youall work for them!” said Elmer with a curious look, it seemed he did a doubletalk on a tree, the very one Alex was hiding behind, he saw movement. And Clarence noticed, that Elmer noticed there was a tinge of movement in that direction.
“Someone else with you folks?” asked Elmer.
Clarence was kind of playful, and said, “Yup,” and if you guess who, I’ll give you the two-hundred dollars he gave me—I mean us!”
Elmer was now confused, and Alex was sweating with embarrassment, if not down right shame, but he could live with it, he simply held his breath, and like any unashamed person of such malice, had no blood in his face.
“I aint got time for jokes or playing ‘round, you and your friends get on off my property,” said Elmer, in a tone that made it sound as if it was final.
Next, Clarence pulled out his gun, put it up to Elmer’s head, it was a revolver, six shots, said “Your boy is behind that tree Mister, he done paid us five-hundred dollars to kill you,” and then he yelled for the boy to come out, “come out here boy, and tell your old-man it’s time to leave this earth, to die!” But Alex remained hidden, sweating like a hog, he had let out his breath, what he was holding inside of him, and shaking like a rattlesnake ready to bite.
“You don’t believe me do yaw,” said Clarence; but somehow he, Elmer did believe him, because he knew how much money was in that candy jar, just five-hundred dollars, no more, and the killer knew the boy’s name, like he knew the exact amount in the candy jar, but all he could do was shake his head looking towards the tree—in disgust.
“Sorry,” Clarence told Elmer, “but a job is a job,” and he pulled the trigger, blew a hole in his head as big as a silver dollar, and Elmer wobbled a bit, and then fell like a tree just cut from it base onto the ground, and you could hear the thump when he landed.
Next, Alex came running out, “I’m not paying you three-hundred dollars just for having fun with me,” and he turned around to walk away, and Clarence shot him in the back of the head, it hit him so hard, he fell flat on his face. After that, the pale man, his friend said, “We gots to git out of town befur the law gits wise!” and rushed over to get the $300-dollars remaining in the boy’s trouser pocket, he saw the boy put it in there, and he, Clarence, shot his friend the same way he shot Alex, and he took the five-hundred dollars himself, for himself, thereafter, and took the first freight train out of town just after twilight.

The Frenzied Murder near
Stone Meadows
((1929) (Part Two))

Clarence Carpenter was found dead with multiple wounds, stab wounds in his head, neck, back, the Fayetteville Police told the detective, matter-of-fact, there were 320-stab wounds in his whole body, he had been tied to a tree, in the woods in the back of Stone Meadows (in back of the Stanley Plantation, next to the Abernathy Plantation), twenty-one miles outside of Fayetteville, North Carolina, that is, 320-confirmed stab wounds. The detective shook his head; he had never seen or heard of such an atrocity, massacre to a human shape, body, and flesh. His job was to figure out why, and who did it. Clarence had once worked on the railroad in that area of the country, but that was years ago, many, many years ago, he was now in his 70s, the last time he was in this part of the country was back in 1893, it was now 1929, and he was a bum back then. Now married and semi retired: he was said to have been a victim of a frenzied, brutal, horrific attack by perhaps Satanists; or so the police reports had read.
Justin C. Abernathy, back in 1893 was eleven-years old, he was now forty-seven years old, been through WWI, got a metal for his bravery, and was kind of rich. His father had been killed by a transit, a person who worked for the railroad back then, and left town. His name was also Clarence. So now finding this person dead in the back of his farmland was odd indeed the police thought, and Tina Tate Carpenter, Clarence’s wife, whom was 59-years old, whom had hired the deceive, was living in New Orleans the past thirty some years, married twenty-five of them to Clarence.
Detective Bob Faulk, was a young sporty kind of man, thirty-years old, and more than willing to take risks. He lived in New Orleans, and was highly recommend, Tina Tate hired him, she had a next to new shop that sold used cloths and such things, her husband had set her up in business, as a way to get her away from him so he could live his quiet life. Clarence had been working on other enterprises, and would never tell his wife exactly what they were, but he brought home money, and at times lots of it, so she said little to nothing.
Tina offered the Detective $5000, to find the murderer of her husband, and if he couldn’t, she would simply pay him $200 for his efforts, and he had a month to do it.
The whole matter puzzled Bob Faulk, although the proposal was good, not all what he wanted, expected but he took the case, and was now in the morgue with the police looking at the body.
The third day, Bob was at the Abernathy plantation, talking to Justin C. Abernathy, the hero of Fayetteville, from WWI, and when they talked, outside of his plantation house, he seemed too much occupied with work to be personal or even helpful, that in itself irritated Bob, even gave him ideas he was the killer.
“I am new here,” said Bob, and you do not know me, and it has been said your father was killed by a stranger by the name of Clarence, and there was a man by such a name back then working for the Railroad, Clarence Buck, and perhaps the murderer mistook this stranger to be Clearance Carpenter?” said Bob.
“Are you asking a question, or making a statement, or trying to accuse me of a murder?” asked Justin—looking at Bob straight in his eyes.
The detective followed Justin into the barnyard, and helped Justin unhitch a horse to a buggy, Josh a Blackman, a hired hand for the plantation, used it quite often, not knowing how to drive, he’d use it to go to the country store a few miles up the dirty road, past all the plantations.
Nothing was said between Bob and Justin, only Josh had a moment’s conversation with Justin, and an introduction to the detective, other than that Justin was of an occupied mind, as was Bob Faulk; yet somehow he was convinced Justin got his revenge for his father’s death by killing Clarence, but how did he do it? I mean, who goes all the way to New Orleans, and brings back the suspect to his father’s exact spot where he was killed, and murders him just beyond his door, on public property, tied to a tree, and then goes crazy with a knife. It was all too bazaar.
He, Bob Faulk, knew he had to become more acquainted with Justin, so he asked, “Do you mind if I stay on at your place for a week or so, while I clear up this investigation? I’ll pay you $20-dollars a day room and board.”
He expected a flat no, but Justin looked at him, “Thank you for your offer of money, but it will be an inconvenience, yet we can talk about it over coffee, and if you offer $30-dollars a day, I might say yes.”
Bob knew he had to make that $5000-dollars, that $200 advance was just not going to make it, and now he was not certain if it was Justin, he kind of broke the resistance cord.
Justin knew in his mind, the New Orleans man, had a scheme, but it didn’t seem to bother him all that much, he was to be financed for a week, and that could help him make enough money needed rapidly for seed to plant, times were hard it was 1929, the country was in a depression; and at dinner that evening at his house, he asked for it in advance, $210-dollars for a week, and he got it, not with a smile, but a big sigh from Bob Faulk, the detective, he had to add money out of his own pocket to make the sum, that was his advance, down the drain.
Evening after evening the two men talked on the subject, and the more they talked, the more Bob was convinced it was not him, there were deep shadows in the back of his mind, shadows that told him, someone else was in back of this. He then thought about Josh, the negro helper, there was something sleek about him, something that suggested a well-bred mind, one like a cleaver hound.
As he spent the following two days talking to him, in pursuit of the information, he tried to make it fit into his scheme, but he only grew a long jaw trying to carefully wiggle parts that didn’t fit, into his puzzle.
The whole week was coming to an end, when he talked to Amos, from the Stanley plantation, and he said, he was sure, Amos was sure he saw a woman and a man in the backwoods there, and in some way suggested it might have been his lover on the side, but Bob couldn’t figure why they would be here and not in New Orleans.
As they, Bob and Justin sat on his porch the last day of the week, the day he was to return to New Orleans, they both sat in the darkness, the front porch only lit by the moon, the plantation house had no voices, just the two, and he, Justin pulls out a letter, “I got this today from the post office, it’s for you,” he said.
The detective opens the letter it read, “Dear Bob, the murderer was Tina Tate Carpenter, she did not fritter away any time in going to the insurance company to cash in on her $25,000-dollar insurance policy, evidently he talks in his sleep, and she discovered he had in fact killed a man called Elmer Abernathy from North Carolina, and had her husband taken here out to where he did the slaying back when he worked on the railroad back in 1893—simply saying she was curious, and threatened to expose him if he didn’t, he was somewhat drugged it seems, and was to a certain degree unconscious of the fact; she knew he murdered Mr. Abernathy, and she knew he was dating younger woman, and the inclination for her to put an end to all and make a handsome sum in the process, was too unbearable not to take. She now is in jail. It looks like you may not get your fee, since we found the murderer, or I should say the insurance company did. But that will be between you and her estate, if and when judgments come in for it to payout. So my best recommendation is for you to do just that—try and put a judgment against her estate, she will not be going home for a long spell.”

“It looks like you’re broke?” said Justin to the detective.
“Well,” he said, “it’s been an interesting summer, and it sure is a still night, a slight breeze blowing down over the hill from the railroad tracks, I could hear the rumbling the last few nights, it all was nice, I’m happy it is not you, or Josh, I like you both, and there is a possibility of a judgment against her estate, it was Tina Tate Carpenter who killed Clarence, her husband, and now that puts an end to this melodrama of sorts for you and me both.” And then they simply sat back in their chairs steadily breathing in the fresh cool air of the night, and both started laughing, not at each other or Mrs. Carpenter but perhaps at the liberated feeling they finally had, the case was finalized, although neither one could be friends openly, not inanimate friends anyhow, but distant laughing friends—they could be.

Notes: Written 7-2-2008 “Mayhem in the Countryside,” Part one: Elmer Abernathy’s Story ((This Novelette, done in sketches, here is one of nine sketches of the saga, written over a three month period, May, June and July, 2008)(approximate: 11,000-words complete)). In the late 60s, the author lived in both: North Carolina (near Fayetteville), and Alabama (near Huntsville). There are two additional parts to this story, and the author is unsure if he will add it into this book… Part two: “The Frenzied Murder near Stone Meadows,” Written: 7-4-2008 ((For Rosa) (reedited 9-2009)) Reedited, 10-2009.

Journey of a Woman

2009-11-09T14:13:00.001-08:00

((1941 to 1945) (A Short Novelette out of Minnesota, of: Love, Promise, Romance, War and Tragedy))

Based mostly on actual events

Part One
The Gem Bar [1941]
Forces beyond our control sometimes determine human behavior, for example a passive kiss turns out to be an ongoing affair, and a much more serious affair than it would have ever been imagined at the onset. You know, things stick to their natural world, kind of like that—for example, nudity and beauty captivates and it is done impulsively by nature—our human nature as it has been called, and it is seemingly normal to be so; and in a like manner man becomes a force of gravity, which pulls on the imagination—because of this captivation. Some folks call it naturalism; I call it forces beyond our control, the ‘beastful’ nature of man, or in man. It's just the way it is, the way it's always been. And from where I stand, there is not a whole lot of difference between man and woman in this area—or train of thought.

I’ve read the books: "Gone With the Wind," "The Great Gatsby," "The Old Man and the Sea," also, "The Scarlet Letter," to mention a few of the classics, possibly I’ve read all the so called, Great American Novels, to include the “Great Gatsby” to me they were all great tragedies; even "Moby Dick," another great tragedy, to include the “Enormous Room,” or Jack London’s “Call of the Wild.” We can even add the “Aeneid,” by Vergil and the fictionalized “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket,” the only novel by Edgar Allan Poe. Again full of life’s tragedies, perhaps that is what makes a good story good.
Yes indeed, what made them great stories was tragedy I suppose, a love gone, victory un-won, or through hardships victory won. And so I shall tell you a story, it is one of many in a world of so much tragedy. A misfortune, heartbreak, a romance that started out joyfully and ended in … (let’s leave that part out for now) a hard luck story mixed together with that so called captivation I was talking about in the first paragraph of this story, that had it not taken place, had this story not been writing, it simply would have been one less in the annuals of misfortune faded into the oblivion. So tragedy has its attributes you see, let no one tell you different, and it has its memories that we all can attest to. Sometimes just the memories allow us to live on in a world that would be hard to bear, too hard to bear alone, or without those memories, victory won or un-won, it really doesn’t matter.

She was born in 1920; her name was Teresa S. (Anton was her father's first name he had come over from Russia to America in 1916, and fought in WWI), her boyfriend's name is Murray Young. The location of this story is in St. Paul, Minnesota, at a bar called, the “Gem,” the year is 1941, the first day of the month of November. The snow is falling, drifting with the winds across the city’s streets, the snow is coming down in big flakes, settling on Teresa’s mohair coat, on her shoulders in particular, also on her smooth and youthful milky white skin, as she, Teresa opens the door to the Gem Bar, with her girlfriend Dorothy alongside of her, from Long Prairie, Minnesota, down to visit her relative for the Winter Carnival (a school mate from her 6th, 7th, and 8th grades, she, Teresa like Dorothy never made it past the 8th grade—it wasn’t necessary for a working girl back in those far-off days. Dorothy is down for the Christmas holidays. She and Dorothy they will remain friends for the next fifty-years, oh she didn't know it at the time of course, how could she, she was only twenty-one years old, but six of the fifty-years were already used up. Dorothy would die before Teresa; die some twelve-years before Teresa. But I'm really getting ahead of my story.
As I was saying, or about to say, she, Teresa S., opened the door, and they both walked into the Gem Bar. Neither her nor Dorothy (a tall, thin, nice looking girl, but a little flirtatious)—didn’t drink that much, but Dorothy was checking out all the guys the moment she pushed the door shut behind her, and with a few glimpses she caught the eye of everyman in the bar. She wasn't a bad flirt, just a fun flirt you could say, that loved men in military uniforms and men in general, and there was Murray.
“Let’s sit down over there,” she pointedly said to Teresa, Dorothy with an eagle eye still scrutinizing the scene thereabouts.
“Sure,” was Teresa’s answer, it didn’t matter one way or another to her where she sat; but it did to Dorothy, she wanted a clear view of this particular man, she did not know his name yet. Two men sat at an open table. The booth Dorothy chose was cozy, private and mellow. It looked like mahogany wood with its auburn color, yet the bar was not so richly designed to have mahogany, she thought. Their position in the bar was snug, concealed for the most part, and comfortable and calm so they both squeezed into opposite sides of the booth, there was even a mirror on the wall besides them, there they could check out the men inconspicuously, and themselves.
You could see outside the window by the door, snow was coming down (November in St. Paul is usually a winter wonderland). The city usually built a toboggan slide that reached from the Capitol—on Capital Hill, down a few blocks, ending up on 10th and Cedar streets, almost in front of old St. Louis School and its Catholic church next to it, built in 1886.
As one slid down the slide with their toboggan, they’d slide right into several stacks of hay. It looked dangerously fun, and it was exactly that, and it was all excitement back in those days on the toboggan slide. And back up that long steep hill you’d have to climb, three blocks long, to stand in line in the cold to get a second ride, once reached, you’d climb the twenty or so steps up onto the top of the big toboggan slide—and down again you’d go.
Here, in the frozen north, people lived in what might be considered a new mounting ice age, you had to make your own fun, or you’d have to hibernate the winter away like a bear. To add to this winter fun, or celebration, there was every five to ten years, an Ice Castle built, the local city merchants built it periodically in some location in St. Paul, ice bricks, solid ice bricks cut out from the Mississippi River that runs straight through the city, were brought to the spot selected by the Carnaval Committee. Along with the Winter Carnival, was a hidden treasure, a medallion, the St. Paul Pioneer Press (local city newspaper) sponsored, a $10,000-gift, to whomever found the medallion hidden somewhere throughout the city, most often in a park or public domain. The Carnival in itself was known throughout the world.

“Let’s see your IDs,” said the waitress as they had sat down into the booth now. Teresa pulled hers out right away.
“September 28, just twenty-one by a few days, okay, and you miss?” she put out her hand for Dorothy’s:
“Twenty-one by a few months; so what can I get for you two young ladies?” Said the streetwise waitress, or seemingly so, for she talked in such a manner; she was in her late thirties.
“I’ll take a vodka-sour,” said Dorothy with an excited smile, adding, “I heard they were good, although I’ve never had one, but let’s try.”
The waitress nodded her head as if it was a good selection.
Said Teresa with a little more reserve, “How about just Coke on ice and put an olive, cherry or something in it so it looks like a drink,” the waitress commented, “Straight Coke is the same price as rum and coke would be, sure you don’t want a little rum in it?” Teresa hesitated, “Well, just… ju-st a pinch, no more.” (She was by no means a drinker.)
Teresa kept looking at the young man with his friend—the clean shaving man, he looked a bit like: F. Scott Fitzgerald she thought, in his younger day that is (the flamboyant Irish writer from Minnesota, that lived up on Summit Avenue, who wrote “This Side of Paradise,” and “The Great Gatsby,” he had died most recently at the age of forty-five years old of alcoholism); and there he sat over by a table next to the bar, it was Murray and Stan, Murray was about five-foot eight inches tall, robust, light blondish hair, but not too blond to make him a real blond; he had a fresh—healthy creamy white completion, bright blue eyes, a good looker. Teresa was five foot-four inches tall, slim, with a nice full and round face, clear bluish green eyes, brown hair, and a fresh look also, with a touch of reserve, and a lion’s heart, unforeseen, she kept the lion part hidden, but you knew it was there after a moment or two. But it all melted when Murray caught her glance, and her heart dropped to the floor, her mouth went dry, she quickly turned to Dorothy, as one might turn and say: ‘…what now! ~?’ But she didn’t say that, “I think I stared too long at...him, see, the one drinking the beer, the blond with the farmer, or at least he looks like a farmer."
Dorothy looked hard and long at the farmer, he was taller than Murray, and had slimmer and longer hands, and thick fingers, “He doesn’t look like a dancer,” said Dorothy, “and I want to dance, dance and dance the night away.”
“You can teach him,” said Teresa (she didn’t want competition).
“Yaw, sure, why not.”
Then they both started shifting their heads towards the two strangers, Murray and Stan. Although, Stan’s back was facing the girls’ booth, so the best look you could get of Stan was a view or full picture of his neck and head, and lounging limps, as they moved back and forth as he drank his beer; when he leaned a bit forward to talk to his friend Murray, is when you got the profile view of him, his nose, mouth and cheek came into the picture.
Then a Nat King Cole Trio song came on the jukebox, and Murray got up, started walking towards Teresa, it was like he was transfixed on her and only her, he was captivated. Teresa’s smile started emerging, her heart started pumping - pounding, she never forget this moment (never would), this was a magical moment—as if all the snow flakes in Minnesota were falling all around her like musical notes playing Strauss’ “The Blue Danube,” “…the Vienna Woods” and the “Voices of Spring,” all at once. It was as if—the closer he got to her, as if each step he made was made in concert of her breathing, oh it was but a few feet I know, but to her it took her breath away, and it was hard to digest, swallow, and this moment would not go away for sixty-years.
“Could I have this dance with you, miss...?” the words seemed to echo of him to her, emotionally her eyes glanced downward trying to recapture her composure, thought a moment, a full emotional moment, looked up into his youthful face, not sure why, it was as if she had a premonition, one that said, grab the moment, the whole moment, absorb it, take it all in (it won’t last), and when she turned her eyes back up they caught his, they were drawn into his like some magnetic force that only God could create—as if the earth and moon were being pulled together, it was heaven on earth. You don’t create these moments, she’d say to herself in times to come, they just happen, something human and out of control takes place, something beyond our senses.
She stood up, smiled as soft a smile as anyone could, and fragility appeared in her glowing eyes as her hand met his, for she was a hard working woman, hard to melt, but she was melting - even her voice quivered a tinge, had been born to a Russian Family, and raised the past several years at St. Joseph’s Orphanage, and when she had turned sixteen, she lived with a family that she did housework for until she was eighteen when she moved back to her father’s house. Her mother had died when she was thirteen, and left her father with nine kids, her father could not take care of them, or her—she understood it wasn’t his fault, it was life, it was a hard life, and it was as it was. She had learned it was part of life and she was not the only one in such situations, and held no grudges, no one’s fault, no ill will detained. She was young and lovely to look at, and it was her time, whatever happened in the past, it was as it was, times were rigid, and it was her time. She stood up, “My name is Teresa,” she said with an excited voice, and a second big smile.
“I— (he stuttered a bit)” he was lost for words as he put out his hand, forgot his name for a second “I’m Murray.” And he put his hand around her thin waist—and rested his hand on her shoulder, moved in a bit, and they danced slowly, and he hummed with the song, and she liked his humming, as she looked up from his shoulders to his face meeting his eyes, she liked his looks. He swallowed a ton of air trying to calm down - almost hyperventilating, and started to feel a little cramped, excited, and took in another deep breath, so he’d calm down. He wasn’t sure if she had noticed, but he did, and so he stopped and suggested they join them in the booth.
“Sure?” was her answer.
He looked into her eyes like a young kid would look at a bowl full of ice cream, his heart beating faster than the drums in the movie “Drums Along the Mohawk” or the drums in the Nat King Cole’s Trio band that was playing from the jukebox.
There they sat the night away, Teresa nursing her drink, and Dorothy with her farmer, who was as gentile and calm as the day is long. They got up several times, and danced: ending up, dancing the night away. He was clumsy, but for some reason she liked it, he could be taught she thought, and he was adorable in his own way: amiable. She still had that roaming eye though, and he noticed it, but she didn’t notice him noticing, he just was enjoying the moment.
“Do you work around here,” asked Murray in his slow spoken soft voice.
“Been working at White Castle, making hamburgers, but I’m going to go I think to Portland, Oregon with Dorothy, they got this community down there, with houses and all, and they pay you to work in the munitions plant. It is like a military base I hear, kind of.”
Murray had heard about it and his smile disappeared for a moment and now his serious side developed. “Yaw, I heard about it, good money they say, I, I am going into the Army I think, not sure yet, possibly though.”
“Oh,” she said nervously.
“Maybe not, who knows; I really like you, and that could put a damper on it; you’re very lovely.” She had not heard a full-grown man say that before, those were the things you heard in the movies, it took a little courage for a man to be so gracious she silently pondered. He was three years older than she.
“I’d like to date you some more if possible?” He said with a serious tone to his voice, and boyish look. She didn’t say a word, just nodded her head ‘yes,’ it was as if she was tongue tied, and not sure of what to say: happily tongue-tied that is.

Part Two
The War and Decisions
December 7, 1941. Teresa and Murray, Stan and Dorothy, all had dated for a month. Taking walks down by the Mississippi River which was but a few blocks from the Gem Bar, and would go shopping at the Emporium, and the Golden Rule, big department stores, getting ready for Christmas. It was a wonderful time for them, a breathtaking time to be alive. They talked about marriage, but only on the side, kind of testing the water one might say. Dropping a few words (a hint) here and there; Dorothy and Stan were getting it on even better than Teresa and Murray, he was dropping over at her uncle’s house on Dayton Avenue daily, where Murray and Teresa would meet after her shift at White Castle, and she’d go listen to the radio at his apartment, and they’d talk. Teresa lived on Arch Street with her sisters and father. On the weekends they’d dance at the Gem, it was as if life had dropped a stunning rainbow over them, a youthful, striking rainbow, and one that would never lift. But like all rainbows, God never promised they’d remain; only that He’d not destroy earth with one (and seldom to have we remained tranquil in the valley).
And so came December 7, 1941, the Japanese hit Peal Harbor, and the news went around the world like the eruption that shook and covered Pompeii. It was a sad day for America, for Murray’s world; yet it woke up a sleeping giant, and now WWII would mold into the hearts of every American.
“I’m going in the Army Teresa, I’ve got to,” said Murray at the Gem Bar one evening, as they danced, it was December 17, ten-days after the attack.
“I’ve got to join the Army; it’s the thing to do.”
“Well, how about Stan, is he going in?”
“No, he got what you call flat feet, couldn’t make it, 4-f they say, can’t run or something; but he’d like to. He’s going to marry Dorothy he told me, if she’ll marry him, going to live in the country, because she likes the night life too much in the city here, and it’s just trouble, can’t raise a family under such circumstances.” (Dorothy had come to the city to visit, and liked it so much, remained in the city, although as a growing youngster, she had lived in the city before, attended a public school.)
She, Teresa kind of remained silent lying in his arms as they danced, thinking she was, and thinking of how her life would be without him.
“Portland, is looking better, maybe Chicago,” she murmured.
“Did you say something Teresa?” asked Murray.
“Oh nothing really just thinking aloud…”
“I hope you’re not mad, but I got to go...” before he could finish the sentence she said:
“I know, you got to go to war, it’s the way it is, isn’t it….” And she smiled.

Teresa knew he had to go, do his duty (as would her two brothers, Frank and Wally a few months down the line), because her father who came from Russia, had not been in America no longer than a year before he had to go back to Europe and fight in WWI, she knew a man’s world involved war and soldiering, as it would her son, in twenty some years down the road, when he’d have to go to the War in Vietnam (1971), she’d say the same thing, ‘You got to do what you got to do, what you feel and think is right to do, I can’t make up your mind for you.’ It was the way it was. And in years to come, she’d also have to accept her youngest brother’s death, in Italy, a few months before WWII ended. And Wally would become a POW (Prisoner of War) in Germany, who was one year younger than she. It was the way it was – ‘why,’ who’s to know, the ‘why’s’ never make sense anyways, when it comes to war; why—was not in the equation. Sometimes things determine our outcomes, things beyond our imagination, our control; that was how it was looked at, at least up in Minnesota.
She snuggled into his arms, held in a tear never looked back up at him; it was too painful; it was shortly after that he had left. She would walk him down to the train depot, and wave him off, like so many other young boys back then, men I guess, they looked like boys with men’s bodies, she told herself.

Part Three
Omaha Beach
(June 6, 1945—POW) Private First Class Murray Young kept a picture of Teresa in his wallet and wrote to her as often as he could; in the picture she wore a sailor’s blue and white top, as a blouse, she looked as pretty as a spring sparrow he thought.
It seemed everyone in the Army spelled his name differently [Young, Yang, Younger, Yean and so on]. He sent a letter to Teresa that he was on one of the five thousand ships, twelve miles out, off the beaches of Omaha, the date: June 6, 1945. That he was looking at the coast of Normandy (Europe’s France); he and 200,000 other troops that is, American and British troops, hopefully the letter would get back to her he pondered and gave it to the mailroom clerk onboard.
The pathfinders had already left the ship, the men who were to lighten the way for the drop zones of paratroopers, gliders, and infantry. This would be remembered as D-Day. Back home his sister was with her new child she was without a husband, and working at the munitions plant. As he expected Teresa might be, for she said she was going to Portland to work with her girlfriend in the little city-plant built for that very purpose, which was built in kind of a dugout, quarry type area, outside of the city limits, peopled by folks from all over the country. Teresa’s father was taking care of his restaurant, Tony’s restaurant down on Wabasha Street in St. Paul, and they, like the rest of the world was holding their breath to see the outcome of this Second World War.
H-hour, the assault troops were crunched in Coast Guard boats [LCA’s] racing for shore, racing by the U.S.S. Augusta on the sidelines. Mountains of waves hit his boat on all sides, as they received direct hits from the German artillery ashore, consequently blasting their boats in flames, mounds of flames, and many boats were destroyed before they even got to shores of Normandy, blasted and sunk to the bottom of the ocean—to the watery abyss.
You could see the soldiers holding weapons over their heads trying to make it to shore; gear on their backs, many drowning - many being crushed and sucked under the boats, with the boats, sucked to the bottom of the ocean, all struggling just to get ashore, whereupon, Germans were waiting for them. Many would die this day, Murray knew this, like so many knew, many would be wounded, and many were wounded before the day was over.
Men from the 4th Division at Utah Beach were also hit, lightly hit at first, but then came the artillery—one could hear the German made shells “88s” explode among the troops, as they rushed out of the waters onto the beaches, checking to see if they were all together, adjusting their helmets, checking their rifles once they hit the beach.
General Norman Coat, walked aimlessly up and own Omaha Beach, out of wits, who knows; Murray fell to a shell, it blew shrapnel to the lower section of his leg, not off just full of shrapnel. He would be a POW for the rest of the war, which would not last long, and Teresa would get word of his detention; it was a rough day. Utah Beach was the biggest success of the day by far. And by dusk, Utah was in allied control, as Murray was pulled off Omaha by the enemy and put into a concentration camp.
The only thing Murray would remember of that day for a long time was Father Edward Waters’ words, servicing the 1st Division. It was months after his arrival home that he got his full memory back.
And during his recovery, after the Germans gave up, he had received a letter that was three month old, a letter Teresa had written a few days prior to his Omaha Beach, flotilla adventure, it was a ‘Dear John Letter.’ It read: “Dear Murray, I have been dating another man, and I feel we need to call off our future plans. I’m sorry for giving you such bad news, especially while serving our country, as Always, Teresa.”

Part Four
Chicago to Portland

Teresa and Dorothy had ventured to Chicago, both working for Montgomery Ward’s in the packaging department. It only lasted three months, and then they took a train to Portland and worked outside the city limits a bit, in the ammunitions plant.
There they stayed six-months. And upon her return in 1944, back to St. Paul, Minnesota, she [meaning: Teresa] started dating a man by the name of Ere Erwin Wright, and his friend, Adolph Gunderson. She then heard Murray had come back home and broke it off with both men (it was 1945, the war had ended). She liked Mr. Gunderson a bit more than Erwin, but she still had that spark for Murray. She had went to visit him at his parents’ home, there he looked at her as if she was a disloyal companion—a betrayer, he was still hurt, and yet they both knew it was love, or had been, possibly it was a trust issue for him along with pride, and she was young also, wanting to grab some adventures in life, but she did suck-in her pride trying to mend fences. Call it fascination, or call it lust, whatever captures two people, that is what it was—with all that it was it was more than that, more than attraction, it was love, but his anger and hurt was too far imbedded into his bones: his marrow (whatever could have been, would not be), it dominated his character, his soul, he told her he couldn’t see her ever again. She left that day, a little sadder than when she arrived. Maybe it was good, for his love wasn’t strong enough to endure such hardships, and she was upfront about it all.
She started dating Mr. Gunderson again, and on the side, his friend Erwin. She never did marry, but dated a man thereafter by the name of Ernie Brandt, for forty-years they dated, never marrying, and when she came to accepting Christ into her heart, she had to ask him to leave [he had then, after forty-years asked her to marry him, but he died; another story and tragedy, he died thirteen years before her, and was ten-years older than her.
And when it was quiet in her home, at the ripe old age of 83, she took out his picture [Murray’s picture], and said to me: “There are probably not too many days that go by I don’t think of Murray, he was a handsome man wasn’t he?” she said, showing me his picture. And he was. And forever young he was to her; she died six-months after she told me that, had showed me the picture (although I had seen it throughout my younger years and wondered just who was the soldier, in her picture book). He was one of those men, unforgettable and unbreakable men you seldom find in a life time, and so was she.
Unfading Love

She dreamt so high
that she never lost her dream
in peace with it,
until the day she died—;
thus, she kept rocking in her chair
even in old age and all…
with memories of those far-off days
that once she met a man named
Murray, a romance and love
that never faded…!

Note: #1395 7/23/006

Afterthought:

Was Murray placing a judgment on her—who’s to say, I don’t rightly know, I suppose anyone, any young woman that is, is liable to write a foolish letter, as many did, in World War Two (and regret it later on), in every war that ever was, what they would called a “Dear John Letter.” I got one in Vietnam, I wanted to forget it, related to the relationship I had in Germany that is, I suppose as Murray may have thought, wipe it off your mind, clear the slate, start all over. And then when he returned, she found her flame was still burning, she was dying to know if it could be rekindled as it was before. Perhaps she had to ask him, lest she see everyone on the street with his likeness, a never-ending task to bear. So she asked. Men hide their hurt, and play with the anger, and I suppose he was angry, and not dealing with the hurt. Oh well, all these guesses, she was dying to know anyhow, and there was an ounce of probability the candle could be relit—and the glow that once was rekindled. But it wasn’t. And perhaps better for it, she may have put him in the stove, and I’d not be writing this letter. And so life goes on. Being twenty-one years old, pretty, slim, and knowing your window to life is wide open is quite a fabulous thing, we don’t think it will ever close, but slowly it does, we get old. As a result, she would look back, I do not think in regret, but in the fact she had a road of life to look back on—don’t we all.

And so now, at eighty-three years old, she sat in the sofa chair I gave her, in a large room, containing a wide long table aligned, a built-in cabinet with memorabilia in front of her, several feet away from her. Here she napped occasionally in the hot or brisk afternoons, among the many objects she purchased. All her rooms bore many objects. She spent most of the days sitting in that chair. It was to this room she’d retire, and spend her last days in—always having that picture nearby, in case she wanted to glace at it. He was forever handsome, he really was.

Notes: Dedicated to Elise Teresa Siluk. and Dorothy [Originally names for this story were: “Almost Everyday” “Lonely Girl” and “Up in Minnesota” final name “Journey of a Woman”) written September 18, 2004 [reedited 7/22/2006]; Revised and reedited at the “El Parquetito’s Café,” and the “La Favorita,” café in Miraflores, Lima, Peru, 7/23/2006; reedited again in 11-2009, at the author’s apartment in El Tambo, Huancayo, Peru (in the Andes).In writing this story, I tried to put together the best I could of a romance my mother told me about, the only one she’d ever tell me about. Along with trying to put the pieces together, which she never did; I did meet Dorothy once, I went to Long Prairie, with my mother to meet her long time friend, when I had returned from Vietnam, back around 1972, and I went to the bar mentioned in this story to see how it was arranged.

Intruding Death

2009-11-09T14:12:00.001-08:00

(A look at Approaching Death)

In most cases we have no inkling of what awaits us, without warning within seconds our lives hang in the balance. The only reason I’m alive today, and not in my grave is that I’ve been rescued by God’s crew so many times, I’ve lost count. Death is so commonly looked at, reported in the media, broadcasted on television, we are mere statistics, and we only pay attention when it hits us in our own home. There are a few jokes out there: “Life is just death and taxes,” or “Now that I’m old, just learning about life, I’ve got to die,” or “Here today, gone tomorrow,” or “I’d rather live it up now and live in hell, than be bored in heaven.” But no matter what, everyone, everywhere, sometime within the future, will die, the rich and the famous and the paupers alike.
Each person is granted a short day, a funeral, a grave, it is no longer sleeping, and no makeup in the world will help. We are all trying to eat better, live longer, not necessarily happier, but longer; people stopping drinking, smoking, reducing the risk of early death; not necessarily living a better life, but a healthier one.
I have friends and family members taking more vitamins pills than eating food. Lower the cholesterol, to live another day, and then the day comes and they die alone anyhow, and the kids or family members put them in the grave, and before that they’ve already emptied out their bank accounts. So as the old saying goes, “You can’t take it with you…” and so death is proven beyond a doubt—but why did it not sink in to the dying, so the dying could prepare for it?
Even if you knew the moment of your death, I doubt most people would put their lives in order, perhaps cause more chaos. Everyone thinks they got one more day to live, just one more day. Regrettably, when the day comes, the old motto of the boy scouts, of which was—once upon a time for me, “be prepared,” the person about to face death, is not prepared. My mother was, but I doubt any of her sisters or brother was, or my grandfather was. It is my hope those reading this, will be prepared. Each and every one of us will face God, for those who do not know Him, it is best you make peace with him—and the sooner the better. You are his creation; you are in the palm of his hand, carved, if he is for you, who can be against you. Naturally you have to go to him, that’s how it works. Don’t worry what you think he wants you to do; he really doesn’t need you to do anything other than come to him. Not much different than you wanting a son or daughter to come to you, after a long dry spell of not seeing them.
We owe him a debt, gratitude for giving us life. Much like I owe my mother, yet, we seem to think it is so impossible to have a talk with God, Jesus, or even the Holy Spirit, where in essence it is so very simple.
I once heard God say, “Dennis, you’re like King David, a man after my own heart…!” And I pretended not to fully understand that, not sure why, perhaps I felt so far beneath such a statement, it couldn’t be true, but it was true, because I was after his heart. I said, “No, not really,” and he said “What?” and I corrected myself by saying, “I’m sorry, you’re absolutely right, I am after your heart Sir.”
Then, as always I listened to Him, and at times when I had more faith than reason, I could hear him speaking, and I shared my moments from my life with him, much as I’d do with a counselor. It was as if he kept a file on me, he knew my curiosities. I had asked him once, “How it can be, in heaven there are no tears, I’d surely cry if I made it to heaven and knew my grandfather or a family member didn’t?”
It was an unanswerable question I thought. Then in a small room, I was simply praying one evening, my mother in the other room, and the room filled up with light, and a hand appeared, I went to touch it, and it was like a mist, and I could see every pore in my body, and it was as if the light went through me, and I thought at that very moment, of that questioned I had asked, and I knew the answer, more than knew it, I felt it, and somehow, in a different dimension, understood it, it was—heaven on earth. It is something you cannot explain in words, or hope others to understand, it is just an experience I am telling you.

We need to know how to face death, God, and ourselves, and at the same time be at peace with God, man and ourselves. When I was drinking, and I mean drinking for twenty-year straight, I could fell my inevitable death approaching. I said to God, “To be able to see you, just once, I’d be happy to live in hell the rest of my life.”
He knew how to comfort me, “I saw Him appear when I was stone sober, driving down a highway, matter-of-fact, the vision came so clear in my window, I was fearful I might get into an accident, it was a snowy winter in Minnesota, back in the early 1980s. Then shortly after that, I had another open-eyed vision, Christ on the cross, and it was so horrifying, I asked God to take it away. I wrote a poem on it, sent it to a publisher, gave it to my Church elders, and they all thought I was blasphemous, saying “I don’t know how you could have described this unless you saw it…!” it wasn’t a question, rather a statement, so I remained silent on the matter, I wasn’t out to prove anything, it was just a poem.
I stopped drinking on July 25, 1984, stopped smoking two weeks later, said to God, in so many words, “My life is shattered (like glass, broke like a toy), I don’t want to live like this anymore, death would be better.” And the taste for alcohol became putrid, and overtime when I saw a cigarette, or a billboard of a cigarette advertisement, I coughed, as if it was a reminder, and I have not drank or smoked ever since.
For all the upset and suffering I’ve had in my life, most has been caused my own actions.
When my mother died, her death was crushing for me, I went into a depression for a long period, I had to see a doctor, I wanted to drink again, but I didn’t, I wanted to die, but I couldn’t, and my life changed, and I discovered my mother was prepared, she said to me on her death bed three days before she went into a coma and died, “I’m okay with it, Dennis, I don’t want to live this, I even saw an angel.” (She was more than at peace, she was happier than a hound with ten-chicken bones at his disposal.)

We need to deal with death the same way we deal with life and tragedy. All too often we desperately seek out our earthly treasures, spending all our time on trying to get them, then sell them, or try to keep them, and take only glance at death, and when tragedy comes, then we take time out to pray; once the tragedy is over, back to the old ways.
I remember when I was in the hospital in 1994, I had three heart attacks, and a quadruple bypass, two strokes on the operating table, and it left my left side paralyzed. My mother went on a crusade, from church to church to pray for me. The doctor said I was a fruitcake, and for three days a man stood at the end of my bed, a large man, broad shoulders, and I asked the doctor and nurses who it was and nobody knew, and I said it must be Dr. Bush, my doctor, and the nurse said, “He doesn’t come in at 4:00 a.m., in the mornings and stand at the end of your bed or anybody’s bed, he comes in around 1:00 p.m., and makes his rounds with two nurses.” Then I checked the doctor pictures on the wall in the nurses area, everyone of them, all twenty or so, and downstairs, I checked the other billboards with every worker in the hospital of a doctor or administrative status, he was not to be found, so the only conclusion can be is what one of the other patients said, “It was an angel.”
As it turned out, my paralyzed side, and my heart rhythm, went back to normal within a short period of time. Nevertheless, the fruitcake was no longer a fruitcake. In all situations, one needs to think about the dire possibilities—had it not been for the guard whom was an angel, perhaps the demonic world would have stepped in and I’d still be paralyzed.

Now back to death, the human mind would rather deal with life, not death, like anything, we want to push it out of sight, so it remains out of mind. You know how it goes—it only happens to the other guy, until it happens to you.
We need not count wars for death or epidemics, why point them out, from my understanding, death is total in every generation. It takes every one of us, like it or not, in one way or the other. We are not going to out live our children in most cases. Who you see today, you will see later on in death—after death, he or she will be of your generation. Who is born late in your life, will long forget you—in most cases, as a lifeless victim to death. Hemingway, and Faulkner, who now live on in their books, died two generations before me—that is, I lived to know about him, but at his death I was thirteen-years old. Why did this happen to such people like them? Hemingway was around sixty-years old, Faulkner a few years older when they died. My friend Sid, died at nineteen-years old, a friend in war died at 43-years old, going home from Vietnam, had a heart attack. Why did the Lord choose them for the death sentence when He did (if indeed they did not die before their time?)
There are a lot of “why’s” here. Perhaps the broader question is, “Why has God chosen for us to die?”
Biblically speaking, it is an appointment God has made for us, like it or not. Perhaps because it is the most dramatic if not democratic of all life experiences; when I was in the Army in Basic Training, we had to go through the gas chamber, and take off our masks. I asked the sergeant why we had to take our masks off, when I knew the gas ultimately intrudes the eyes to the point of disappearing vision, and excruciating pain. He said, “It’s an experience you need to face only once to know how it is how it feels, and hopefully never again.”
I wanted to deny the pain and the blurring of vision, long before I felt it, but when I experienced it—and I was prepared for it because I held in a deep gulp of air, and when the mask came off, and I had to say slowly my Social Security Number, I let out the air slowly, and I did it—now it became real. Oh yes, there was an awkwardness to it all, whichever is the case, I was glad to have experienced it—who’s to know when in future time you’ll need that experience.
Living in Peru now for the last four-years folks call me a survivor of the Vietnam War, now thirty-four years later, the word ‘survivor’ is rarely used, but it implies a long death row took place. But why must we experience death? Perhaps the angels will ask me someday, “How was dying, death?” They don’t know. If I can tell them anything, it will be that.

What is your life like? Life in its simplest form, is but a mist in the wind or flicker in a fire, then it’s over, vanished faster than it appeared. If we want to live each moment in life—it is best we do as much as we can now before it ends. The improbability of death is not the disappearing from earth one day, it will take place for certain, and it is what you are going to do now with it and the grounding for the coming event.

When I was fifteen-years old, in the middle of winter, my 1953 Desoto, a large bulk of a car ended up on the Mississippi River, I think I died that day, I ended up in a tree looking down on myself in the car, it was dark—I was not prepared and the inevitable came to my doorsteps. I just stared aimlessly at the Desoto that went over a thirty-food embankment, and crashed to about four feet in height. My body half out of the car; can you imagine anyone saying (looking at that boy half in the car and half out) “It reminds me that I will have to face death someday?”
To me, that evening was my Pearl Harbor, the heart in me I felt stopped, and of all places I was in a tree looking down upon myself, trying to find me in the dark, in the dark that is, the Desoto was like a battleship that hit an iceberg. No one knew the car landed on the thin ice of the Mississippi River, unheeded, and I was unprepared to die, like Sid I imagine, who wanted me to go drinking with him the night he and three others got in a car accident, and I happened to say, “No,” for some odd reason, blindly refusing to face a girlfriend’s scorn if I did, which saved my life, and killed all of them.

No. 511 (11-5-209)

In a Still Heat

2009-11-09T14:11:00.000-08:00

(Indian Warfare in Upper New York, 1757)

Advance: There was a painting that shows Myron Hightower, kept high on the wall in Charles Terrence Hightower’s plantation, in Ozark, Alabama. He was the first Hightower that came to the America, in A.D. 1650, he was born 1620, and had a son Eugene Shep Hightower, his portrait is next to Myron’s, born 1670, died 1767. And alongside that is Charles Shep Hightower born 1734 died 1800. Charles Terrence Hightower, born 1789 would die in 1869, a few years after his son would die in the Civil War. Charles had fought in the War of 1812, his picture is also there on the wall. But the picture, or portrait that is not that there, is that of Captain Pip Greg Hightower, a cousin to Eugene Shep Hightower, born 1673, and this is the story of an Indian raid—less than a battle, that took place in 1757, one that wounded Pip Hightower, and killed him two weeks later. But the essence of the story is not of the Captain, it is of an old soldier named Colonel Colin Martin—for the most part; and it takes place in Upper New York State.

The Story

The old man sat there alone, his face raw from the wind and pained from life, his eyes scared and worried from a skirmish that was now taking place. His pipe fell out of his hand, smoke came out of his nostrils, and a gulp of air filled his stomach, he had inhaled from his mouth.
The old man was seated on a tree stump, in a clearing by the woods, “Listen,” he went on mumbling in English, “I don’t know what I’m doing, wish I could be fighting, and be more useful!” If only someone could take him to the fight, the skirmish—he’d do just that, fight.
He looked at the forest, its edge, knew that there was a valley, more like gorge down its five-hundred foot slope, its progression. He started yelling so much, his voice carried an echo.
For a moment the birds and a fox nearby and a hound nearby gaped at him. He knew the men were scrambling throughout the woods everywhichway to find the party of Indians that raided a homestead nearby killing all. Captain Pip Greg Hightower, and his Sergeant, Gil Brandt, along with forty-six militia men and two scouts, with muskets and blankets, had gone searching for them. “Kill them, Kill them!” were in all the hearts of the one-hundred eyes searching for the party of Indians.
As Captain Hightower’s men searched high and low, they noticed many abandoned fires, much more than the single party they were seeking after would have needed, or used.
For the old man, once a young soldier, and loving the taste of battle, the high, even the kill, born in 1673, was having his first nervous breakdown it would seem, not being able to fight. His heart was beating like a drummer’s partridge. He was too old for sough sounds, but he could hear them carried through the winds, coming from the soldiers and Indians, so there it was.
If only someone could understand the temptations of war a man carries with him who has seen much war—was the inner thoughts of the old man; if only his fellow soldiers could pick out the worry the old man had in his face for his fellow soldiers, he knew some were weak men, young men, men that had never been in conflict, in a battle, he prayed for them.

Now he could hear rapid fire coming from the gorge, down the slope, into the woods. There was a still heat in the woods, he knew such by heart, and he knew they’d be thirsty when they came out of it. He heard the shouts of the men, the stamping hoofs of horses, the treading of feet. If only he could get started, moving. But he couldn’t.
If he could make it to the edge of the hill, roll down it straight to ground level, end up at the edge of the woods, facing the gorge, he could nearly see everything, everywhichway, but the roll down the hill would be ridged and he could get stuck someplace in-between the solid top of the slope, and/or somewhere in the fluttered in-between. And it was fall with a ton of autumn leaves per square meter. And the sun and blue and squirrels would camouflage him, he’d never be found, and that was not the way he wanted to die; in battle, in a fight would be much better.
He saw a porcupine climbing up a tree; he could maybe do the same, halfway, see the fighting, but his arms were no longer as strong as they used to be.

Then it was twilight and he saw one line of marching men, rifles in one hand over their shoulders, their hats in the other hand, only sixty-eyes. When they got to the old man, they all were thirsty and fell out to drink the water he was guarding. The old man handed them cups, and he handed them rags to wipe their mouths, and sweat off their foreheads, “We got them all even two British,” said Captain Hightower to the old man who was looking up, “but I can’t figure out all those abandoned fires we saw.”
“What happened to the scouts?” question the old man.
“Killed in the undergrowth like wild boars,” said Hightower, adding, “the woods were dusty, branches slapping our hot faces, burns like an open wound with salt.”
Then Captain Hightower ordered two men to pick old man Colin Martin (retired Colonel) up and place him on a wooden platform, with poles—one man in front the other in back—and carry him back to the fortress. He had lost both his legs in battle.
The old man looked up, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, high overhead, nothing and in the woods nothing at all but leaves, uproariously, bursting leaves, covering everything. The woods ahead fell even deeper into a sleepy like mode, a quiet flow and a still heat, no birds, or squirrels, or wind now, instinct told the old man—looking at the heavily laden environment with leaves, noticing the leaves moving without the wind blowing, things were crawling in them, human things.
“What did you say?” asked Hightower.
“Leaves talk; leave me here with a musket, and tarry to the fortress, all those abandoned fires… they’re all around us.”
The captain knew not to question the old man, he had been around, and fought more battles than any man alive he knew of. His instincts were good; he trusted them, more than he trusted a man’s thinking, or rationalization. And he was seldom wrong.

The sixty-eyes ran, never looking back, but could hear the crackling of arrows, and rattle of leaves and the old man’s heart started drumming again, as he shot one enemy in the chest. His half-body swayed suddenly against the branches and leaves piled up against a tree and went slack, like it had felled off a cliff, and his mind went into galvanized senselessness, yelling like a wild dog at the Indians. It was the way he wished to die, in battle. His face gray and smiling and his lips moved, but his voice was lost.
An Indian stood before him (the militia now safe within the fortress). The Indian was oddly silent. He took the musket from the clutches of the old man, and could hear the old man discharge his last breath.

No: 512 (11-8-2009)

Walking Men of Saigon

2009-11-02T06:50:00.002-08:00

((February, 1989-2002))

Part One of Two

Two Brothers

Danh, the elder of the boys (born 1964), was named by his father, and it meant fame, and An, was named by his mother (Vang, the birth mother to Langdon Abernathy’s child), and it meant peace, perhaps they knew something before hand, a premonition, because their personalities seemed to shape, or mold that way; Vang, shrewd as she was, was only half as shrewd and mean as her husband, Nguyen Khoa.
The boys were dropped off in 1979, at their Aunt Ly’s home, in Saigon, ten-years have now passed, and Danh is twenty-five years old. And An, a year younger; Ly, is in her 70s, and handicapped, she walks now with a limp, she had put on a second floor to her house, several years ago at the request of Danh, who had said at the time: if she didn’t, he’d cut her ankles off, and she believed he would have. He has turned out to be lazy growing up these past years, not in the gentle manner of his brother, An. Oh, I almost forgot, Ly got that broken ankle, and busted up toes by Danh one night, he done it without Ly saying anything, just woke up from a drunk, and suggested she give him her savings, wherever she hid it in the house, or suffer the consequences. She didn’t think he had it in him, and he did, and took a seventy pound rock and used it as a hammer, a huge rock he brought home from Canal Ben, and so he was ready for such an occasion, walked into her bedroom, her eyes closed, lying silently on her bed, and bang, crash, smash, he threw it on her right ankle, foot and toes, it fell on her like an eight-inch projectile. In a like manner, He tried to bully An, but he couldn’t.

An, he worked for the Canal Ban city project, just sweeping the canal area clean, a peasants job, but it was peaceful and tranquil, and he often used the phrase: ‘…it is better to be a live dog than a dead lion.’ Whereas for the other boy, his philosophy was just the opposite, what belong to him was his, and what belong to others was his if he was shrewd enough to get it away from the other person, in essence, he couldn’t or wouldn’t give up greed to save his soul, matter-of-fact, he’d vomit it out first, if indeed, he needed to. Perhaps it would have been best for him never to have been born, but he was, and man would suffer all the more for it.
An, he wanted to be a clergy, a monk or Christian priest. He was having what you might call, a mental conflict over Buddhism and Christianity, especially with Ly and her sister Oni. Danh thought it all silly, if not plain dirty hogwash.
“You’ll have to learn things and I suppose I’ll have to be your teacher,” said, Trang, the brother to Ly and Qui, born 1922 (named for honor, and was a man of wisdom, a learned man of theology, and was once a professor at a college in Saigon, before the war.)
And so it was that An did his work, and his studies in theology, and his menial tasks at home to help Ly as much he could. Along with his working everyday at the Canal, and walked over to Tang’s house after work, and home to Ly’s house thereafter, and Danh did his share of walking, but it wasn’t in the same directions, he’d walk over to his neighbor’s house, and make love to her, while the husband was gone, and gamble in the afternoons, with the local men at the parks, and walked down to see his brother and fight with him over trivialities of life, while he was working at the canal, trying to convince him to join him in his lifestyle of awkwardness, to rob and do what needs to be done to the tourists coming into Saigon for fame and fortune, as if he was Robin Hood, but was not going to give to the poor, he was the poor in his eyes no matter how much he had. They could start a mafia type gang he suggested, and the local merchants pay them tribute, in American dollars, but An, just laughed at the suggestion, and kept sweeping, and told him to go find his treasures without him.

As the old saying goes, when the student is ready, the teacher will come. And it was so, his learning from Trang had come to an end, he was asked to send a letter by Trang to the Bishop of Saigon, who had been release from prison after many years, and who proclaimed he was needed in the prison system during his imprisonment (from the communist takeover of Saigon in 1975), and thus, made no qualms, even laughed at the ungainly, if not adopted new home environment the government gave him. The Bishop was to be ordained a cardinal, and was newly assigned to the Vatican.
Danh, got hold of this information, went down to the Canal, his brother sweeping it as usual. He had told him how he annoyed and irritated him, flesh and blood, whatever, however could he be his brother and so simple minded, it was what he mumbled on the way walking down to the canal: that he did not like the people he hung around with, associated with. And as quiet and peaceful as the boy was he said nothing when Danh arrived knowing his nonsense, just kept sweeping as if he was already in paradise, and he wasn’t there. This in itself irritated Danh more, the turning of his back on him, as if he was no more than a huge stump in a forest, or a stupid huge rock in the rice field.
“Look at me,” he said, “when I talk to you.”
The water in the canal was deep and rich, and if you felt it, it was cool, clear for the morning, Danh was breathing in the freshness of it all, then he turned around said with the kindest voice, and smile, “Do you not have something better to do with your unproductive life?”
It was not the best choice of words, for the climate and mood his brother was in. He, Danh looked into his brother’s eyes; they were filled with a rich deep soil, and one that was full of promise. His brother turned about again, even whistled this time, which brought more discouragement to the face of the elder brother.
For the most part, it was hard for Danh to make ends meet, in his life, and most folks spoke of the hard conditions in Saigon as temporary. But in many minds, the future held did hold promise, but for some odd reason, Danh never saw that part of life, he was angry, perhaps because Zuxin, his step mother though of him as unworthy to care for, left him behind, and his father gave to his real mother a disease that killed her, and his father, the bad seed, died in a bad way. It all was a reflection of him, it all was to him steadily fixed in his mind, the world had to pay off this mortgage, and this debt life had burdened him with, for they owed it to him for his hardships.
He also saw his community, his surroundings as hopeless, beaten men before they were beaten, defeated women, all walking along the Canal daily, begging and sleeping wherever they could. He was to be the undefeated, the unbeatable, and find a better position in life; a millionaire maybe.
“You do everything well,” said Danh to his brother.
“Isn’t that the way things are done?” he commented back.
If there are two self’s in a man, he lost one, and it was the higher self he lost, and became subjected to the lower, perhaps jealousy in that life was starting to favor his brother, in retribution for his brother’s satisfied life and position in it, he took out a nine-inch knife from his boot, and with an exalted motion, plunged the knife into his brother, ripped him upwards, from his stomach area to his heart (likened to Cain to Abel).
Neatly and clearly and perfectly the task was done in a matter of seconds. He stood there a moment, several people saw his face, he actually stood there admiring his work, his brother now an ugly picture on the dockside of the canal, and then he ran.
Word had gotten to Trang, what Danh had done, and he was in his own right, a man of means and friends, and he told his friends whoever saw Danh, to let him know, that he should go, leave Saigon, and do it before twilight, lest he end up like his brother; to go to Phan Rang, or Phan Thiet, or Dang Nai, it didn’t matter where he went as long was it was out of Saigon, and never to return to Saigon in his lifetime, for he was a dead man should he try, and he had but hours to leave the city before he would condemn him publicly to death, if found in the city thereafter, and he ran, and he ran, and not a soul knew where to.

“Sure…”
((April 16, 1998) (Story Nineteen)

Part Two of Two

Sometimes we make history by those we know, and hang around with, not by what and who we are, and Danh Khoa, was determined to do so. He fled to Thailand from Saigon, it was 1989, and he stayed there until the opening months of 1990. He found where Pol Pot was living, living since 1984, on a plantation villa, near Twat, under the protection of guards, and the unit 838. We all have a hero of some kind, and Pol Pot was Danh’s new hero, even though he killed 26% of the population in Cambodia, between the years of 1976 and 1979. And history would record, and did record him to be amongst the top elite of evil men that have thus far walked the earth since man was first seen upon it.
There he met Pol Pot, through his persistence, and there he became a soldier under his right hand man, or one of them, for he took orders from Son Cham, who took them indirectly through Son Seu by way of Pol Pot.
In 1989, Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia, and between that period and into 1990 Pol Pot organized himself to make his comeback, his return to Cambodia, he would not accept any peace deals with anyone. Of course the legacy of the Khmer Rouge was over for the most part, the so called Red Khmer Tribe, and the massive starvation of the people thrown out of their cities, and brought into the country side to farm for the new kingdom, the 1.7 million people that died under his three year war regime, now he was back in the jungles building his forces. Although in 1996, they would desert, but not Danh Khoa.
Danh Khoa, had found a cause to live for (as often men do in religion, or a cult, or don’t do, and hide in alcohol, or drugs), a reason that is, one to even die for if necessary, for he would have given his life up for Pol Pot, as easy as his step mother, Zuxin, gave him up to his Aunt Ly, so many years ago.
He thought a few times of his brother An, that how fragile he was, he would have never survived in today’s world, with its roads sunken without truth, coal poured over his kindness by evil doers, the grass as bristly as stout chives, he would never have survived all this, therefore he did him a favor, if God takes martyrs, he got one as a gift by him.
But what he didn’t realize was, when you played with the devil, expect to bleed a little, and perhaps a lot.
It was April, 1998, and Pol Pot had a stroke, his left side was paralyzed. Before he died he ordered the execution of Son Seu. And Pol Pot died on April 15. On April 16, Son Cham brought in a recording, it was the voice of Danh Khoa, and he had agreed along with Son Seu, that the ongoing negations for peace within the rebel group were a good course to take. This is of course what drove the nail into Son Seu’s grave, an act according to Pol Pot, as treason.
In consequence, Son Cham asked Danh Khoa, why he made such a statement, and basically it was a simple reply, as truthful and simple as Danh Khoa could ever be, but to Son Cham, it was too silly to be truthful, for Danh Khoa said the following:
“I had never really talked to Son Seu as you well know, and this was a great thing to me, to have been in his presence, as I have been in Pol Pot’s presence, yet I had never talked to either one directly, and that day I was sitting, guarding the door and he looked at me and he asked me if I went along with his beliefs, I never said, yes or no, I nodded my head ‘yes,’ and said ‘sure…’ so I suppose I was trying to impress him, but believe me, that was it.”
“The Americans call this one man, a little man in a fairy tale Rumpelstilskin, do you know why?”
“No,” said Danh Khoa.
“It is because he could, and did spin Gold out of straw; can you?” he added.
“No,” said Danh.
“Then you need to stop lying.”
Then he started to remember his brother, An, all his pious talk, he told him time and again, and tired he became of it. How he refused to listen to his brother, and now how Son Cham refuses to listen to him. When you lie, they listen, when you tell the truth they laugh, he told himself, as Son looked at him with cobra eyes.
“You have put your foot into the grave, Danh, what are your last words?”
Thin lipped he was, and he knew, Son was looking for a scapegoat, and he had nothing to offer him, not a ragbag or a silver coin, nothing to bring but the close on his body to the grave.
“The dead are bored you know,” said Son, then he ordered three men to take him to the graveyard, lie him down face down into the mud, and bury him alive.”
Said Son Cham, walking out of the office likened to a pious king, “Get busy being dead, just like your brother.” (He knew the story behind his brother, and if you could kill your own brother, what wouldn’t you do? Not even the Devil could answer that question.)
And he was executed within the hour.

To Walk with Dead Lions

2009-11-02T06:50:00.001-08:00

((Based actual events, 1988) (a Very Short Story))

One hot afternoon a few miles outside of Havana they took him down from a tree he had hung himself—dead. There were smolder in the air, mixed with salty moister from the sea in the sky that had drifted swiftly in — through the city of Havana, and to the outskirts. After a while, when it got dark and the city lights went on, the hospital was notified, Dr. Dulio was notified his patient had committed suicide. He and the other doctors talked. Dr. Dulio sat on a chair. He was cool and fresh in the hot evening, he was given a letter, it was from his patient, it would read and express kind thoughts, and a ‘thank you’ for his compassion.
He was his patient for six-months. When he took the assignment (as an intern), he understood his patient had a ten-year history of mental illnesses, along with physical ailments. He prepared himself for the long term with this patient. After the patient got better, they gave him a pass to visit whomever. But when he walked down those halls he thought of his wife in his home.
Before he left the hospital, out those swinging doors into the city of Havana, he prayed. It was bright and quiet, and he hoped his wife was praying for his return, his visit likewise, but of course—things are often, too often, not the way they seem, it would be a surprise. He felt as if he was only half married—he was gone a long time—but he wanted everyone to know about it, his love for his wife, and he felt good, as if he could never lose her.
His wife wrote him letters. He sorted them by the dates and reread them over and over and straight through. He wrote back too, mostly about the hospital and his doctor friend Dulio, and how much he loved her and how it was without a solution to get along without her, and how he missed her each and every night.
After the pass was given to him, he agreed to return to the hospital on time. It was understood he would not drink, or take any mood-altering drugs, chemicals, un-prescribed, and inside his mind he told himself, he could careless, his only mission was to visit his wife.
As he walked those hot afternoon streets in Havana, to his home, what was once his home, He remembered when he had to say to his wife goodbye, they kissed and hugged good-bye! It was a very warm goodbye. Now he thought—over the top of his head—it would be the same warm and similar reunion.
He went to his house in Havana. It was a long and lonely walk, and what he would see, he was not prepared for, and there he stood outside his home, once his home, living in the sweltering heat he stood there stone-still looking at his wife embracing another man throw his big bay window.
He was almost sorry for coming home, and he knew he would almost certainly not be able to understand, and he didn’t know how to forgive her at that moment—he nearly said “What did you expect!” But of course, he didn’t say that, because it was completely, totally unexpected. He had been for a long while depressed, this was the clincher.
He loved her as always, but he realized now it was not to be return on her behalf—her love was more towards self-interest, a different kind of love than the one he had for her, offered her, which was unconditional. He told himself, what he was going to do was for the best, and he did it.

Note: 501, written: 10-26-2009 ••
Inspired by Dr. Dulio (of Huancayo, Peru)

Unsullied Lightness

2009-11-02T06:49:00.001-08:00

Man seeks on earth, for what is only in heaven—
Unsullied Lightness

He had been in a great battle, and he was a slayer of men, and had been slain, and a hundred years had passed, and then he was revived, and he was asked, “How long have you been sleeping?” and he looked about, yawned, stretched out his hands (he was very thin, his hair on his head was long, and his beard was very long, and he could see that his forearms were thin, and ankles were very thin: then he looked about at nature, the sun was bright, and everything was green, and the birds were singing, and the earth was marvelous, and he was hungry very hungry and extremely thirsty, and he replied with a hoarse and dried out voice, “Perhaps a day, or part of a day,” he wasn’t sure.
His second reaction was simple, confusion, and horror, when he completely focused on who was asking the question. I’m sure he would not have been terrified had it been the Devil himself, but it wasn’t, the person’s light in his eyes were unbearable.
He did not grow weary of imagining these circumstances, and he didn’t know the dreadful fact, he had been dead for one-hundred years. He was for the most part, vain, and replied to his silent his mind, he’s mind’s eye, his second self, that pure and general act of living was heaven on earth. He absurdly tried to exhaust all the variations of whom this person was staring down on him—all thought there could be no doubt whom He was.
With truth and terror (and perhaps for once with no pretense, his mind returned back to the tremulous eve of his death. But that reality did not coincide with the logic inferred here. Now everything seemed to be a little prophetic. The pieces of his life were coming clear…

And the voice said, looking down upon this man, “There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men…”

No: 502 (10-27-2009) JLB (Inspired in part by the Koran, II 261) also, Ecclesiastes Ch. VI: 1

The Sergeant Carter and Ming Story

2009-11-02T06:45:00.000-08:00

Chapter Six

The Sergeant Carter and
Ming Story

((From Saigon to Phnom Penh 1978-1987) (in Six-parts))

Nguyen’s Repayment
((It’s all too late) (Saigon))

Part One

It is the summer of 1978, and the two children of Nguyen (both by birth Vang’s and one by Langdon Abernathy, Nguyen being the husband), are ten and eleven years old now. Vang has been dead for a few years, and Zuxin who worked with Vang in Cam Ranh Bay during the war years is Nguyen’s new wife. (That was how Vang got to know Langdon.)

(During the past couple of years Ming has visited them during the summers. Cam Ranh Bay is being used as a Market Place now, in particular the Air Base there. Things have changed. He worked for the underground in Saigon in those war years, a civilian sanitary engineer, an army-trained sniper no one knew he was, who was assigned to collect data for the underground fighting of the Americans, thus, he was also a spy, his wife never know much of what he was, Vang, although being a one time sniper she did know, thinking he was retired at the time she was with him.)

This summer Ming is staying at the house with Zuxin, it has been enlarged to six rooms, instead of three. They now have a sturdy roof and a dog on top of the roof to warn them of the midnight robbers, and there are quite a few. Zuxin’s husband, he now works in interrogation of the new order, that in which many of the citizens that worked for the Americans were sent there for relearning, to be reprogrammed for the New Life in Vietnam, the new city, his boss is Major Manh, he himself is a Sergeant, or its equivalent, he also works for him at his main civilian job, in the sanitary plant.
Ming had to attend reprogramming classes within the new order, as to have a new attitude, heart and mind for nationalism, being a friend of Nguyen, she was only limited to a few, she had met Major Manh once, but never talked to him, and thus, because of him and Zuxin’s husband, no harsh punishment was ever given her, and each summer she had told Nguyen she’d come to help Zuxin with the children and household cleaning, and so forth and so on, and of course, he had and has had, a continuous ongoing personal agenda with her, during the summers.
She is taller than Zuxin or Vang was, slender, and is younger than Vang, who would be thirty-nine this year had she lived, whereas, Nguyen is forty-nine-years old, and Zuxin, thirty-seven, and Ming twenty-eight, long silk like black hair, and deep dark eyes.
She is not really attracted to him, he is ugly, thin, and his face is sunken in like a squeezed sponge; he has bony hands, and is a very prideful man. But she cannot escape his grip on her, lest she run from him out of the country. She also has aunts and uncles in China.
Saigon, now from the ashes of the late war, has been renamed Ho Chi Minh City, is growing not only with new markets, and reprogramming clinics, but with many new cloths shops, Ming has taken a job in one, a part time job, as Zuxin has also—they work sometimes together, allowing the boys to run wild as boys often do anyhow, so they feel, and it brings money into the household.
Nguyen Khoa, is working with Yoon his friend, and the superintendent Mr. Manh, on a preliminary blueprint, which will enable Mr. Manh to finish his job on the septic tank system for a section of the city. Both Yoon and Manh have been over recently to Nguyen’s house, and have recognized Ming from the reprogramming, and recent years she has visited Nguyen and Zuxin; Ming being quite a pretty woman, who appears to be quite educated yet fanciful in an almost ill way—as if she is manic if not at times depressed, bored with life, and yet intelligent, and perhaps a little promiscuous, so she comes into view in the eyes of Manh, and so Nguyen had thought likewise, neither one sharing this opinion with one another.
Mr. Manh, sixty-two years old has told Nguyen he thinks she, Ming, if given a chance will take a liking for him, he feels she has given him the eye, flirting with him, and Yoon over some wine this morning, has said the same thing, but if you were to ask Ming, it would be a simple no, she was being kind the few times she was introduced to the two men, and so often, she has come to the realization, and conclusion making a man feel good, or smiling at him, or being kind to him, evidently gives him, or them the wrong message, a false impression, as if she would like to bestow her womanhood upon them, how wrong can a man be, but she is in a man’s world, and thus smiles and tries to get away like a cat chasing a mouse, or a bear scenting his honey—thinking it belongs to him, and she, trying to cover the scent up, before she gets eaten up because of her honey.
Manh, asks when Nguyen’s shift will end, as well as for Yoon also, his shift, and Nguyen says, at 4:00 p.m. He tells Nguyen to bring Ming to the outside truck, parked in the back where all the trucks are park when they arrive back from their trips throughout the city. There he will wait for her.
Nguyen, when he asks Ming to come to the plant, he doesn’t tell her exactly the truth, he says,
“It’s for showing you the place, Mr. Manh wants you to see it,” and she replies,
“I expected something like this, he’s always checking me out,” but she wasn’t thinking what Manh was really thinking, she had never been married, and was thinking along those lines, and perhaps that he’s interested.
She somewhat resists, even though Nguyen pleads, she knows there is something there she can’t escape and therefore, doesn’t want to go, call it intuition.
Zuxin is at work and the boys are running around in a gang.
Nguyen starts to think about Vang, shakes his head as if it wouldn’t happen again, couldn’t happen again, that was in wartime when she got her disease, this is different (he had gotten medication, but it was too late for her, and that child of her’s, Langdon’s child).
On the other hand, he doesn’t want to upset Mr. Manh. Hence, he calls Zuxin at work so she can let Vy Hoang know, Ming will not be to work, and that she is going with him to see the plant where he works.

Zuxin hesitates, says, “Oh, I see, tell her I love her.”

Funny response, thought Nguyen, I mean, ‘I love her,’ was that really necessary, simply going to the plant.

In his own way, he loved Vang, but it was all too late to save her from syphilis, and as soon as that thought came and left, thus, he allowed Ming to go on with him to the plant, no more pauses.

As Mr. Manh waits he continues to examine into the phases of the new drainage system construction, he and Yoon and Nguyen were looking on, or at. Then they arrive, Ming and Nguyen, he sees Nguyen bringing her into the plant, and several other men see him do it, and Mr. Manh sees that all the men are watching, attracted to her, he then whispers something to Yoon, and greets Ming.
“I will take you on a tour of the back area of the plant,” Manh tells Ming, “and Nguyen, he can come with,” now Yoon is talking to the workmen that saw Ming come in.
“Miss Ming, in a plant like this one, as you can see we are many serious men, seriousness is in anyone of them, sometimes here we work twelve to fourteen hours to make sure the city has a sanitary drainage system in place, we all call it part of participating in nationalism, the new national government, where North and South now have been united as one, as you are one of us, as you remember your reprogramming.”

(Although he is concealing his real motives for showing her the plant, and brings her to the back parking lot; she smiles, nods her head as if she understands the word patriotism.)

Ming, for the most part is a good observer, and knows something is up, but feels helpless, and is hoping for the best, but she also knows the evil in men, those with power, and feels she will have to cooperate, and unable to confront anyone directly. And they, both Manh and Nguyen, and now Yoon are keeping her company, and will not tell her why.
It dawns on Nguyen, that Manh would do such a thing, plan such a thing, didn’t think he had it in him, and is quite bold on the situation, meaning, he did not think much about asking him to do what he was planning on doing, he didn’t know exactly what he was thinking, but it was one of those things, that strain you, until you can figure it out, and hopefully when you do it is not too late. He says to himself, aloud,
“My wife, I should call my wife let her know I’ll be late.”
“Didn’t Ming call her?” said Manh, “she knows you’ll be late.”
Then they arrived at the truck (among many trucks), Yoon opened it, there was a mattress in the back of it,
“You must be careful dear, you don’t want to fall. And if you do not go onto that mattress for me, I will have you sent back to the reprogramming… and this time harsh punishment will prevail,” and he said no more. And he took her by her hand and led her to the mattress, and he took her sexually, and Yoon took her, and several men from the plant came down and waited for their turns.
“Fine, Nguyen now you can go call your wife, tell her we are done today with Ming, for her to bring her back tomorrow,” said Manh.
“Why her?” asked Nguyen.
“Why not her,” replied Manh.
“Because she is my wife!” said Nguyen, with a troubled voice, holding his anger back.
“Because she knows her way down here, and I need you to finish the work we are working on, she’s been here before, you can’t tell…!” said Manh.
Then Nguyen looked at the several men going into see Ming, and Yoon, and they all laughed at him, smirked, and tears came down his cheeks, shame filled his face. These men you see, along with twenty others are willing to sacrifice you for your wife, they are what you call, stockholders in her,” and he laughed, and the men ganged up on Nguyen, and beat, and beat and beat him to pulp, and there he lay in a pool of his own blood, as the last man, carried Ming out said, “We’ll send his wife his checks, he will not be needing them,” Manh added to that little monologue, telling Ming “And tell Zuxin, I will be seeing you both tomorrow, be here at 4:15 pm., sharp.”

No Tears for the Damned
((Story Ten: for the Screen) (The Revenge of Zuxin and Ming))

Ton Sun Nhut Air Base

Part Two

Zuxin and Ming are now alone in the house, and have a plan; it must be implemented in one day and evening. They’ve already sold Zuxin’s house; the property has been sold to Mr. Jong, a week ago for $5000-dollars, and will become a boutique, the money being distributed, between the two girls. It will take place tomorrow, the 2nd of January, 1979, the second day of the New Year; people will be traveling back and forth across the boarder between Vietnam and Cambodia, soldiers as well as citizens of each country will be tired, excess work means less double checking identifications, for all the celebrations are over.
Mr. Jong, is a rich man that goes to the cloths shop where Zuxin works, and likes Zuxin, and he has offered to help her, and she has offered herself to him, if he takes them to Phnom Penh in his car, on the 2nd of January, and arranges passports, if he does, he will have a weekend with her at any hotel he wishes while in Phnom Penh.
Zuxin’s husband is now dead, and buried, yet she remains ambitious, as does Ming, they want to better themselves, and staying in Saigon, raising kids that are saying constantly: “You aren’t my mother, you can’t tell us what to do (only feed us, bed us, and be our slaves)” and don’t appreciate their labors, she can do without that. Selfish they are, and so, they do not plan on trying to change them for the next ten-years. Ming, is always a charming and understanding companion, and does not drink like a lot of self pitied folks do, simple because of hardships, and she’d be a much better accompanying person to end up with.
They were both born to dream of a better life, not necessarily money, but a better background than this, what they were enduring, not really living: meaning, being a slave to disparity, to Mr. Manh, and his future whims and Yoon (assistant to Nguyen Khoa, at the sanitary plant in Saigon, who took advantage of Ming also, although never Zuxin, for some odd reason, perhaps afraid of reprisal, yet it was stunning to Zuxin that she would take advantage of a friend. Ming had already told Zuxin, how her husband forced her into an affair on the side, and was sorry to have to tell her. But under the circumstances that was forgiven instantly. She did not add Yoon into her new plans, figuring his day would come, he would take one chance to many, they all think alike, she told Ming, they all feel they got one more chance before it catches up with them, and then when it does, they can’t figure it out— what they did wrong on judgment day. And if they survive through it (so she continues to explain) they figure they will do it right next time, forgetting they were originally in the wrong, and they try it again, and get away with it, and then again, and that is that, they face death in the face, and plead, but death does not discriminate, they are left with only a reception afterwards and even then, the robber, the kidnapper, the thief, the killer, they all try to sneak through the back door into heaven. They no longer play the game, “I’d rather be in hell, than have to endure the rules of heaven (so they say); that is, until the day they have to face it.” This has all changed, to God have mercy on my soul, but God looks at his deeds, and the one’s he has wronged, and if you do not speak up on behalf of them, they fall, sink into the abyss, never to be seen, never to be heard of again, and to Zuxin and Ming, this was befitting.
This is what she had told Ming as they sat in the house, figuring out the plan of escape, dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the‘t’s.

Day of Emancipation

If you wait long enough, the day always comes. It is the day, and they talk in the morning, and separate themselves, getting the children ready to go visit their Aunt’s place, they have told her in advance that they were coming early in the morning to do some shopping, and they are standing at the door, Zuxin and Ming look at each other, at the two wild boys, the kids paying them no attention whatsoever, which is normal for them anyhow, just taking in a deep breath, as if to say, let’s get on with it. Alas, the show will change for their whole lives, hereafter.
Zuxin is now without the house, the kids, $5000, dollars in her purse, or half in her’s and half in Ming’s.
“So far so good,” Zuxin says to Ming, you can hear the aunt in the kitchen as they walk away, moaning and complaining, “I hope your mother, or whoever you kids call her, comes early to pick you rug rats up.”
Ly (short for lion), she has taken to drink, the old aunt, and loses patience easily, and you can see her through the window pouring a glass of sake (a glass of an alcoholic beverage made from rice; or simply rice wine). Her sister Qu i (turtle) is Vang’s husbands’ mother, and Ly and Qui are sisters, Qui has passed on; Ly being the older sister and in her 60s.

It is Zuxin and Ming standing at the corner now a block from Ly’s home, a bag in each hand, a big bag, as if it is a shopping day, they do not want to be suspicious, more incognita you might say, in case they bump into someone. She sees which way the taxis are set, they cross the street so they can catch one going in the direction they want, she must risk Mr. Manh and his wife Si are sleeping, expects them to be at home sleeping this morning, it is 6:30 a.m., and she has something nasty in store for them. The way she has it planned, they will not be able to escape, or even fight the forces off, or outrun them, a violent reaction from fear will be delivered, she wants to cleanse herself physically and mentally from this lonely part of her mind, the part her and Ming have been swimming in.

They meet, Thiea, Chiem, and Cham, called by Mr. Jong, Zuxin’s friend, as the ‘Brutes,’ or paid killers. They are large, ugly, broad and deadly looking, strong as bulls. She hands them fifty-dollars each, and says, “You’ll each get the other fifty when the job is done.”

Now they are standing outside of Mr. Manh and his wife, Si’s home, the day has come, and now the time, hour, they go through the locked doors, Ming and Zuxin watch, one of the three brutes stands out by the street, incase there is an onlooker, he can subdue him or her. Another stands by the door blocking Thiea, the one with a crowbar, prying the door open, ripping the hinges on the other side of the door loose so he can push the rest of the way with his body weight, and muscular force through the door, and its side hinges that hold aboard across the door, thus hindering some of the noise; it is all within three to four minutes time.
They all walk into the house, Ming looks at Zuxin, says “Graduation day has come…,” Zuxin has now taken her plan to the second level, she is efficient if anything, she can’t persuade Ming to wait outside the bedroom, Ming wants to be part of this ordeal, this oddity in the raw, this sin for the damned.

There is a chair in the bedroom; Ming sits at one end of it, and Zuxin on the other. The three men, stand to the side of the bed, she makes a face as she looks at Mr. Manh sleeping, and tells Ming “How can he sleep so sound, and be so dishonest, so without courage and character, no kindness in his bones, she, his wife must be of the same mold, like two peas in a pod, or if not, then she has been blindly in love for a long time, and going to suffer for it.”
Perhaps she was trying to convince herself what was going to take place, and hoped it was authorized by God himself, or perhaps she was asking God to overlook it, and had a little part of Satan in her soul for the moment, whatever, her manner towards the two sleeping became unthinkable. She even declined to listen to the second self, hidden in that room somewhere deep in her mind. And then Mr. Manh woke up, seeing the three men standing, hovering over him, and was about to scream, next Thiea, told him not to, with a nine inch knife at his throat.
Then old man Manh looked at the two girls,
“I don’t know what you are up to, but you’ll pay for this!”
“We already have, now it’s your turn, and your wife’s,” then she woke up: I think she was pretending to be sleeping, thought Zuxin, because she was not as startled as she should have been. “What is going on,” she said looking at her husband dumbfounded.
“Be quiet,” says Thiea, his friends looking at both of them, Si, in her forties, her husband in his fifties. She has a fairly decent shape, and face looks as if it has had the Paris treatment, smooth silk like skin for an older woman, not under fed or pale, but rich with color, and her bones strong, not weak like so many from lack of proper nourishment.
“Chiem, cover their mouths with their own socks,” commanded Thiea, and he did what he was told, as they sat erect in bed, against the mahogany wooden back to the bed: “No veneration for you today Mr. Manh, and because of your moral and mental cruelness your wife will have to suffer the consequences, as you will soon find out.”
And Cham tied both he and Si to the bed, to make them unmovable.

Ming gets up, and Zuxin follows, tells him, “You look afraid, Mr. Manh,” although she would have liked to tell him more, time was of the essence and the brutes needed to get on with the show.
“He looks afraid,” said Ming to Zuxin, “Just wait a minute, and we shall see just how afraid he really is.”
Mr. Manh got a few words out under the sock tied around his mouth, Ming and Zuxin could hardly make it out, but they did, he said,
“You girls got warped brains, this is a scandal,” and Zuxin, countered this with, “Not yet, just wait a minute, and those words will come true.”
And then all three brutes left to go to the other side of the bed, Si was striped naked by them, “They are not going to kill you Si, just do what your husband has done to us…!” and her husband looked now terrified, the wife, simply looked at him, dismayed, as if he was removed from the marriage already.
“Si,” said Ming, “the case against your husband has already been tried, please believe me, he will suffer more than you, just fall to sleep if you can, and dream of what you’d like to do with him after this ordeal.”
Then the three brutes unclothed themselves, and for three hours raped Si, quietly, she remained through this hell, as if she had retired from life itself, as if she was going to be a well to do widow. At the end of it, she was untied, told not to leave, if she did—she was told—they ’d run after her with a knife.
Now the three brutes, got dressed, took the knife over to Mr. Manh (it was close to 10:00 a.m., and they had to meet Mr. Jong at 11:00 a.m., to hightail it out of the city, but as she would have said: first things first.
The wife looked brazen and boldfaced at her husband.
“You do not have to watch Si,” said Ming, it is our party, and we do not intend to kill your husband.”
“I think it might be better you do, if you do not intend to leave town, he is a bad one,” said Si. Then cringes and whines, and says,
“Kill him for me!”
“No,” said Zuxin, “that was never in our plans. And we must follow the plan.”
Swifter than a hawk grabbing its pry, Thiea took his knife, and castrated Si’s husband, laying the remains on the bed next to him.
“You look helpless Mr. Manh, and you should know the police will not save you, didn’t and will not, you are damned today.”
If anything, it was anger keeping the castrated quiet and possible revenge. And then all five of the assailants walked out of the bedroom Thiea giving the knife to Si, leaving Mr. Manh tied to the bed. And Mr. Jong was waiting across the street to take them to Cambodia: the last thing heard from Si’s bedroom was her husband saying “Please don’t kill me,” then a sigh, and nothing else was heard. And the three brutes got their second fifty-dollars, and Jong, got more than what he bargained for in Cambodia.

Iron Skirts–for Phnom Penh
((May, 1980 to July 1, 1980) (Along the Mekong; story eleven: for the Screen))

Part Three

The Grand Stupa of Phnom Penh

Mr. Morgan Carter, otherwise known as Staff Sergeant Carter, and still with the nickname Serge, was of Irish descendant, and lived along the Levee, in St. Paul, Minnesota, until they tore it down in 1960, and then he and his family moved towards what the city called, the North End, and he joined the Army. Thus, he was now retired, it is May of 1980, and he’s been retired for only a few months now, and has taken a vacation in Phnom Penh, Cambodia of all places. He has seen most of the sights, in particular, the Grand Stupa in Phnom Penh, which he thought was impressive. And now he is walking along the banks of the Mekong River that runs along side the city.

Zuxin’s Aunt (Tuyen Hoang, sister to Naomi Hoang, Zuxin’s mother not married, lives in Phnom Penh, with her brother, Sun, where Ming still lives, as Zuxin has married none other than the rich man called, Mr. Jong, who once lived by the Tan Su Nut airbase in Saigon; and who had bought Zuxin’s home, and owns several boutiques himself, second husband to Zuxin).
In any case, Ming is out in the river with Tuyen and Sun, trying to catch fish, with a handsome looking wide and large net. Sun throws it out, and it sinks, and Tuyen lifts one side Sun the other, and Ming is nearby to assist when called upon.
Morgan Carter the II, is walking down along the bank of the river, the Mekong, daydreaming, his hotel is nearby, he was at the Russian Market, and did some more sightseeing, it is his second day, yesterday he went to the Stupa, and this new day, he sees three people fishing, one looks a tinge tall, taller that is than the other two, and he remembers Ming being tall, the girl that worked in the mess hall back ten-years ago—slim, pretty, long black hair, an eye catcher, he remembers her from the 611th Ordinance Company, in Cam Ranh Bay, the same unit and place Langdon Abernathy was assigned to; they were both friends.

Sun points to Morgan who is walking towards them with a cowboy hat on, you can’t miss him, the only Irish American in town, the Midwestern boy is as white as rice, with light bluish-green eyes. He looks to Ming as a man in his late 30s. The city is not all that safe, Pol Pot is in the jungle with his terrorists, and has control of most everything in Cambodia, so she wonders: is this fellow lost, or crazy; she expresses that anyhow on her face.
Most of the young men in the city are to her considered criminals with a form of desecration, if not self destruction, and going no place in life. (Sun starts to pull in his net, it has sank to the bottom of the river, and he is bringing it up and out, he feels some weight to it, so he knows he’s got a few fish in it, he rushes over to his sister to close the net, so the fish do not escape, she has now let a few wiggle their way to freedom, and for the curious, one can see them fighting over the loss, in the background, for Ming is walking forward to see who the person is.)
Now Ming and Morgan see each other clearer, and know who one another are without guessing, and they walk faster, smiles tell each other they are aware; she remembers him, he was at the Ordnance Company in Cam Ranh, for a year, and returned there several times when he was on his way elsewhere, he never was a compete stranger between 1966 through 1971.
“Is it really you Serge?” cries Ming.
“Call me Morgan; I’m a retired sergeant now Ming, no longer a Staff Sergeant, just a plain tourist here.”
The wind from the Mekong is setting in, you can hear it.
“Come, we’ll go see Zuxin, she’s married now, married a rich man who lived down by Vang, down by Ton Sun Nhut Air Base, owns a few dress shops in Saigon, and they have a home here, and she owns a dress shop here in Phnom Penh also.”
For some odd reason they both start laughing, as if the stress of seeing each other had melted, and now they were at ease with one another, cordial, tranquil within a few minutes.
Says Morgan with an up beat, and excited to be seeing Ming, he always had an eye for her anyhow, “She can wait, and I’d rather visit with you. What the heck you been doing all these years? Kind of a rhetorical question, only need to know you’re okay, really okay.”
“Morgan, let’s—you and I just sit on the bank here, the sun will be going down in a half hour.”
And Morgan does. And they talk, sitting on that weedy and slightly wet bank, on a shroud, then she takes off her cloths, and goes swimming, gets into the water up to just past her breasts, “Come in Morgan,” she calls.
He joins her, makes no attempt to touch her. Her reaction from previous experiences seems to have faded into oblivion, as if the wrong she was done, was paid for in full, and all her soul wiped clean, to the point of it not even being able to remember what she had to endure in Saigon, as if it never happened. Innocence resides in her bones, her thighs, it is how she became, the knightly figure for the strong woman , the one who would inherit the new age, the age of Aquarius on earth: she is ahead of her times; or perhaps one of a kind. The past invalidated, squashed, packed in and stepped on like a tomato, that turned into ketchup. Hence, give to the next man waiting, let him seduce me, if that is what he needs to appease his desires, his cravings, to pacify his inners, I am a woman, and then let us go on with life, and fight the everyday fires, I am thirty years old, too old to be fighting man and the beast inside of him, and trying to survive in-between for food, and cloths, and all the necessities of life. Give me peace, I will pay the price, even if my skirts get heavy as iron (this is what she told her second self, the one in the back room of her mind, the one she talked to—now and then, the one, only she knew about, and kept her, her secret, the only other friend she ever really had besides God himself).

—Morgan is unsure what to do, but his body functions aren’t, only his mind, and Ming can feel that. She has no friend to save her, like the last time (when she needed a friend and had none), but she knows, her friend in the back of her mind also knows, confirms, she is safe with Morgan, and he will protect her if need be, Morgan is a good ole soul; therefore, she will not refuse him, and she doesn’t. She faces him, while in the waters. He begins to smell her flesh, what he desires, what most men desire, asking nothing, but in his mind perhaps this freak chance is and can be, and was meant to be, a lasting romance, so he feels from his toes to his throat, and all those spaces in-between, this growing, and growing desire. She knows Morgan is a hard man, he has to be, and he endured five-tours of duty in war, while in Vietnam. She will be safe with him, she knows, he is really quite gentle, she knows this also.
“Will you come and live with me?” he asks.
She is moved by his consideration and offer, it wouldn’t matter, and she is not after pity, but she does tell him about her ambition before she says yes, “I want to own someday a little, just a small dress shop, I’ve saved up $2500-dollars, a deal I made in Saigon, selling Zuxin’s house (she tells him this, so he doesn’t think less of her ambition).”
For some odd reason, it is clear to him why she is telling him all this, all this unnecessary information, unless she had a deeper plan for him, perhaps them together, and he is close to forty, he is not all that young, but Ming knows he will be getting a military retirement, or is getting one, they, the soldiers, the so called lifer’s talked about it all the time at the 611th Ordnance Company in Cam Ranh Bay.
In all reality, she also tells herself: love is a decision, not just an emotion that needs to be fed like a cow. And it is obvious they have both accessed this. She also knows that at eighteen or twenty, such a decision if made by such a young mind would in most cases be immature, but at their ages, and their desires, it is not wise to wait if indeed it is made with an honest and mature mind, matter-of-fact, it is perhaps prudent, to not waste time.
“Well,” said Morgan, “I have $8,000-dollars saved, how about you and I getting that little dress shop together, and having a little apartment above it? We can endure this war, here in Cambodia, just like we did the last one, in Vietnam.”
No more words needed to be said on the subject, she shakes her head ‘yes,’ matter-of-fact; she shakes it until he has to grab her head and stop her shaking it.
She thinks (now staring into his bluish-green eyes): life is not always so great, but if you can outwait the bad times, it comes in spurts, the good times will somehow reach you with an ounce of pure happiness. That the roads of life go up and down, and seldom are we in the valley of ecstasy, but there is a valley if you can make the journeys up and down the mountains, in search of it, most give-up somewhere in-between, and gripe about it up to the day of their funeral.

Ming would have seemed—to an onlooker—as an adult child; Morgan, at that very moment perhaps likewise: “Yes, yes,” says Morgan, “I seem to have been waiting for you all these years.”
That would have been considered the stupidest and most unclear statement he had ever made, had he not made it at that moment, at that specific time and location, and to Ming. He never made statements like that, it wasn’t him, and in consequence, it had to be as it was, a truthful statement, as truthful as one can make it, as truthful as one saying there must be a God, who else could have created all this, it just didn’t happen by chance.
Ming didn’t laugh, although Morgan after he said it, thought she might.
“I just had to get my act together, and then here you are, so simple, God makes things simple, somehow he does it, and it is beyond me, in all this earthly mess.”

You, the reader, nor I the writer, could not tell them this was not a magical God sent moment, they would have told me not to write it, to leave it out of this story, and so they swore within their hearts it was destiny, their fate to have met twice in their lives, both from oceans and masses of land apart, both meeting ten-years later down the road, both meeting in a city ravished with war.

In a Dead Voice
((March, 1971, Vietnam) (Morgan, March, 1986—Phnom Penh)

Part Four

Even to Sergeant Morgan Carter, he knew there were two sides to every man, and he knew he was no exception. One he could lay his life down for a county that did not appreciate his duty assignments, in a War that was not popular, as in his, that being, Vietnam, where he served five tours of duty, or five years, even got two Bronze Stars for Valor, almost a Medal of Honor, for saving a man’s life, in the middle of rocket fire, whereas most men are dead, when they receive such a gifts from the Army, or are even considered for such an award.
His uncle Frank, got one in WWII, but he had to die for it, and was buried in Florence, Italy, along with the Purple Heart.
Yes, he would die, give up his life for folks that called him ‘Baby Killer,’ every time he went home on leave, and he never killed any babies, perhaps the bombings did, but he would have said, and he did say on a few occasions, “..tell me of a war that didn’t kill babies…?” he didn’t know of any, they all did, they just didn’t publish them, not like now, this was the first war ever put on the television screen for a Pulitzer Prize, but he didn’t bomb anyone, he shot them, or shot at them, and most of the time he didn’t know how many he killed, he didn’t keep count, nor did he go check on the ones he thought he shot, and they were not babies, they were also folks with guns, and knifes, and rifles, and so forth, like to like, he called it—and they were shooting back.
On the other hand, during the first tour of duty in Vietnam, in 1965, he fought a lot with his fellow comrades over simple things, and would have been called a drunk, and a good for nothing soldier at times, not all the time, but at times, and could have shot your foot off for the skimpiest of reasons. Why was this, he asked himself— (now 1986) the war now long gone, why does a man choose to do what he does when he does it, especially while in the act of war. A hero and a bum in the same body, just not at the same time, you can be, you can be all of that and hide it from the real world. We all looked the same, kind of. So he told himself. He had witnessed many soldiers hide, dig holes in the ground to cover themselves up from incoming rockets, gun fire, all wanting another hour of life, breath; privates, sergeants and officers, they were all alike during such a moment, and he saw many a man go crazy, shoot themselves in the foot to get out of Vietnam, the war, the day to day Army terror. It was he said, “The confused beast inside of each man.” And so it was.

Dead Black Smoke
(Parts based on an eye witness)

The helicopter appeared over the airbase in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, March, 1971, almost before Carter knew it, it was there, he could hear it before he saw it, and when he saw it, and it was just a mild shadowy configuration, he went into a process of deliberation. What he heard was a whizzing, a fast whiz of its propelled horizontal rotors, which could have been two or more; Sergeant Carter guessed it to be an AH-1G Cobra, a gunship for the most part, he didn’t think it was a UH-1 Huey (officially the ‘Iriquois’), it was mostly used for transport. It was searching…for the VC, or Vietcong, going somewhat is a circle, a loop around the outer rim of the airbase, in the thick of some jungle brush, thereabouts. It was not a good circle, but rather like a ripple that the helicopter traveled in, even perchance a bit clumsy in its maneuvering.
The chopper was looking for where the VC was launching their rockets from, almost at random; the pilot was Warrant Officer Herald Lund…

The Vietcong had ungracefully tried to shoot rockets out of underground bunkers, out into the ammo dumps, three ammo dumps on Cam Ranh Bay, trying to hit their targets, and in the process trying to deal with a helicopter overhead, one trying to find them and put them out of business, on the other hand, the Vietcong was trying to eliminate the helicopter, as it went in a loop, at an angle as if to make a strike and then an immediate turn, then came a sudden sound of an explosion, and the Cobra disappeared from the air, it whirled towards the bay, and rammed into the waters of the South China Sea.
Captain Rosenboum sent out his company of 167-men to secure the ammo dump, he was Captain of the 611th Ordnance Company; the night stood motionless for a moment, Staff Sergeant Morgan Carter II, came to a stop, a standstill, as he drove his jeep along the white sandy beach road along the seashore of the bay, dead black smoke rising from out in the bay. He disembarked his jeep, walked a few feet closer to the water to get a better view; it was an American helicopter he concluded. At that very moment, a five-ton truck, with some thirty soldiers were on the back of it heading out to secure Alpha Ammo Dump, several miles away, rockets were still hitting the area.
It was night, more night than day, and the Staff Sergeant wanted to do something, and he now had to deliberate quickly if he was to get on out to the Ammo Dump, or evaluate this circumstances, and then what—he was ordered to go to the dump and secure, and to wait for the troops they would be there shortly after his arrival. The helicopter was some three-hundred yards out into the water, pouring out Black Death. There was no one in sight, but then there was not much sight to be seen. He went back to his jeep, turned on its lights, drove down to the edge of the water; there now he could see the illusion of a Cobra in the distant water.
He knew Chief Warrant Officer Lund, he had met him, and he was in that helicopter, the Cobra, although Morgan didn’t know it at this point. Lund’s head was bobbing up and down in the water, smashed between his seat, and the front dash of the chopper, someone else was already in the water, thrown out of the chopper when it hit, which the force blew the door open.

Sergeant Carter could see the nose of the helicopter was sinking, and he also noticed movement in the pilot’s seat perhaps the person was struggling and couldn’t free himself, was his mental conclusion, everything observable came by glances, a flash, nothing clear.
CW Lund, was a heavy man, and there was a Specialist Five Atwood whom was on board of the helicopter at the time it crashed also, he had freed himself and was now swimming away from the site, evidently he did not go back to try and save the Warrant Officer, or perhaps he couldn’t, perhaps all the strength left in him was to swim to safety, nonetheless, when he saw the headlights of the jeep, and a figure standing on the white sands of Cam Ranh Bay, he yelled, “Lund, still in the chopper—help him!” If there were others Sergeant Carter didn’t notice them or remember them, nor would he put it in his report.
Sergeant Carter made his decision now, and jumped into the waters of the bay, and in a matter of minutes was swimming past Atwood, and down and into the helicopter itself, and sure enough there was an acquaintance, CW4 Lund, a half smile came on Lund’s face, “I’ve had it,” said Lund, “not sure if you can get me free, and if so, I’m not sure if I got the energy to swim out of this mess!”
The Sergeant pushed back the seat of the Cobra, and freed the Warrant Officer of his safety belt, and the six-foot, 280-pound man grabbed the five-foot eight inch, one-hundred and forty pound Sergeant, and down they both went, but it wasn’t to freedom it was the helicopter had moved, and sunk deeper, and the Chief Warrant Officer was panicking, and the Sergeant was being overwhelmed with his panic height and weight in that little space, and he pushed the CW off him, whom was becoming likened to a wild dog, freed himself, and with his feet pushed himself out of the helicopter, thinking Lund would do the same, but he didn’t he evidently couldn’t swim, or if he could, he couldn’t think to swim, or hold his breath long enough to free himself from the wreckage, to swim to freedom.
Atwood was now on the white sandy beach, headlights on him, he was exhausted, and lay there resting.
Next the Sergeant was on the beach, got to his knees, took several deep breaths, “Where’s Lund?” asked the Specialist.
“Where you left him, read the report…!” said Carter, and the sergeant simply walked away, got into his jeep, and went out to where the incoming rockets were hitting, which was: Ammo Dump Alpha.

†

“Wake up Morgan,” said his wife, Ming: “You’re having a nightmare again,” she told him, “…did you get to the end this nightmare this time…?” she asked.
“Yes, I think so,” he said “I left him behind in the helicopter, like Atwater did, I mean Atwood…I’ll explain it all another day, how about breakfast?”
“Yes, I’ll make it, I’m just finishing up on your coffee, the way you like it; are we going to the Russian Market today?” she asked, and Morgan nodded his head yes—he loved he Phnom Penh open Market, looked towards the window, the sun was shinning through it, birds were chirping, and then it completely dawned on him, he completely realized it was 1986, not 1971, and he was not in Vietnam, he was in his home, in Cambodia, and his wife was asking simple things, little daily things, things we overlook, in the mass of things that we’ve already stored for who knows when, like old pictures thrown in a box, to be explored another day, or thrown out.

Keys to the Jeep
((Story Sixteen) (October, 1970)
(Story told by Morgan, April, 1987))

Part Five

“Corporal Gills, give me your jeep keys, I need to get to the back area, where the Ammo dump is, Alpha dump is, and fast!” said Staff Sergeant Morgan Carter; then added, so there would be no resistance, “that is a direct order Corporal, from a Staff Sergeant!” (Knowing he out ranked him.)

“I work for a Major, and he wants the jeep cleaned for tonight, and he wants me to get it cleaned at the airstrip,” answered Corporal Gills, “plus I am not sure exactly what a direct order is.”
“First of all, I don’t see the Major, second I don’t need the jeep tonight, third, this is an emergency, if you need to contact him, and then do so, and to educate you, there is no such thing as a direct order, other than, the order is being given to you face to face, and that this order you do not seem to want to follow is coming from an authority, me, and you are a subordinate and let me add one more thing this dialogue, or two…you are really being given a lawful order, because there are no such things as unlawful ones, and you are in a war zone which means if you refuse me, you can be put to death.” said the Staff Sergeant.
“I haven’t a phone as you can see, now how can I do that?” said the corporal, a little stubborn and witty.
“Bad luck for you corporal, my emergency outweighs his car wash, unless you get a lawful order (perhaps a written one) by him not to follow my directions, or my orders, which he can supersede, if he were reachable, and which you will be accountable for not following a non commission officer’s request.”
The corporal now looked confused; he had never come under such a silly attack, especially when he worked as a Major’s driver.
“But how do I know you are a real staff sergeant, you are in civilian cloths?” said the Corporal, feeling unarmored and frustrated.
“You do not know this, but if you want to go check out my locker, at the 611th Ordnance Company, you will see my strips. Also in there is my id card, read at your leisure.”
“Sergeant, I really need to get to the air strip…!” said the corporal, as if the Sergeant was fooling with him.
The sergeant was taking down his jeep number, and his name, and the time of day, and the corporal was looking at him as he was doing this, and at the bottom of the paper it read, “Corporal Gills’ refused this Staff Sergeant a direct, lawful order… .”
“Where you from Corporal,” asked the sergeant.
“Well, I used to live in Vancouver…” replied the Corporal.
“Canada right?” confirmed the sergeant.
“Corporal Vancouver, give me the keys or take off those stripes.”
“I can’t, I just take orders from a Major,” said the Corporal.
“No, you are now taking orders from me, who out rank you, and the Major is not here to protect you. And to be honest, the jeep looks clean and there are no ballrooms here to be cleaning jeeps for folks who are just going to get them dirty in an hour after they are cleaned anyhow! Listen up, you give me a lift to the Ammo Dump, and go to the motor pool and tell them I sent you, and they will wash the jeep for you.”
Fine, the corporal said and drove the Sergeant to Alpha Dump, and he walked in to a shack, a few minutes later, the Sergeant came out with a rounded package, something heavy, somewhat heavy in a bag, got back into the jeep, and told him to drive back along the coast of the bay, and onto his unit, and he could drop him off and go get his jeep cleaned.
“What’s in the bag Sergeant, if you do not mind me asking?” asked the corporal.
“No, I don’t mind you asking, but what do you think is in it, I mean what would you think a sergeant who have you bring him to an ammo dump for, take you out of your way to drive him to an ammo dump put something into a bag that looks heavy and round?”
The corporal thought on this for a few minutes, looking at the road, the bag, the bay, the sergeant and back to the road. “You sure have a way with a conversation Sergeant, I mean a simple question needs a simple answer, and you make it out to be an act of congress, as if we got to debate everything out.”

(Ming was sitting in the living room, with Morgan Carter, her husband, he was telling her about his times at the 611, back in 1970. They had eaten lunch, and the afternoon was warm, and it was simply a nice day do to nothing, and perhaps out of boredom, he was telling her this story, Corporal Gills just popped into his mind you like that. “Well,” said his wife, “what was in the bag?” she asked. “What do you think was in the bag?” He asked his wife. “I suppose a shell casing of a bomb.” She replied. “Why that?” asked Morgan. “Because you wouldn’t be allowed to carry a live bomb in a jeep over a rough road on your lap, would you? She answered and asked at the same time.)

Well, we got down along the beach area, and he said, the corporal that is, said, “A bomb, or its shell or its parts, it must be a defect your company commander wants to look at.”
Fine, I thought and then said, “Boy, are you right on corporal,” and he smiled at me like he had just received the Army Commendation Medal, for miraculous service. Next he dropped me off at the 611, and I went into my hutch, and opened up the bag, sat on my bunk bed, and ate my watermelon.

A Scorned Mother
(Sergeant Carter and the Corporal)

Part Six

Ming asked Morgan, “Did you ever see the corporal again?”
“Funny you ask that,” said Morgan, “No, I never did, but I heard what happened to him, as I look back, I kind of liked him, he was kind of a simple laid back lad, trying to make everything seem right.”
“Well, it’s a long story, but I’ll tell you it in a nutshell. We don’t really know people we bump into and go on our way, especially in the Army, but they all have a history, and baggage, they often do not share, and we think because of this, we get to know them pretty well, but so often we kid ourselves, I shall tell you what I heard: his mother, she utterly condemned her husband, the three boys’ father, for whatever reasons, after he left, and the three kids were raised by a scorned mother. He remarried, and had three more kids, two boys and one daughter.
“When the old man died all the kids went to the funeral, all six of them, one side loved him the other hated him because of the scorn they heard from their mother all those years. The boys from the scorned mother’s side of the family, never got the side of the father, what took place, he let the hot sun beat on the kids head, just like the mother let the scorn burn out their hearts. The mother used hate to control the kids I’d say, and it was a way to get even with the father, teach him a lesson, have his kids hate him, you know what I mean, if I can’t have you, I’ll turn the kids away from you, thus, her revenge settled into a cold molded cloud.
“And what you plant in kids is what comes out of them usually, what you harvest, is what you’ve planted, I mean, and so a perfect love was for the father on one side, by his new family, and a perfect hate on the other, from the old family.
“Corporal Gills went home to Iowa, with an energetic spirit, and found the two families fighting over vaporous old wounds, the ones the father set by not saying anything all those years, and the one the mother knitted into their fabric, their flesh all those years, and he was no longer around to put out the little fires, that would or could grow into a forest fire.
“Corporal Gills tried to put out the fire between the kids of both families, but it ended up quarrelsome, and one of the boys from the new family of the Gills, Charles Riley Gills, killed one of the boys, Corporal Gills younger brother. Thereafter feelings crept in the little sleepy eyed town in Iowa, and Corporal Gills, killed Charles Riley Gills, by beating him over the head with a pipe, but no one saw it, so he was under suspicion, not yet convicted of the crime. The daughter took a shotgun and killed the other brother of Corporal Gills, and she ended up in jail.
“Well, fine, they seemed to have gotten even (two for one although), but at the local bar, inside the bar, the remaining brother of the new Gills family, met Corporal Gills in there playing pool, awaiting trial, and started a fight, and he killed the boy, they called it manslaughter.
“Well, Corporal Gills got twenty years, and so did Peggy Gills.
“Hate is a form of control I believe, anger that eats at the soul. I suppose Corporal Gills is still serving his twenty-years in prison, and will be getting out in another three. Sometimes hate is a recurring nightmare, it controls you, you got to put it to sleep, you got to forgive the other person, not for their sake, but for yours, so it has no more control over you, so you can be set free, and go forward. You know what I mean about nightmares, because I get them as you already know Ming, old war nightmares, they call nowadays, stress related.
“It is funny now that I think of it Ming, ugliness sometimes shines brighter, and echoes louder than love. And family can be the most burdensome.”

Ming took in a deep breath, she was not expecting that from an American family, she thought it was just poor old families in Saigon, or a third world country’s dilemma that struggled with such emotions, and feelings of vengeance, she said,
“I guess we are all connected somehow, to one another, us human beings and we all get hurt along life’s road, and we get that inclination to hurt back, and we just never take into consideration, the ripples that come out of all of it. I wonder if I will have to pay for my sins here or in heaven, or in the waiting place before one goes to heaven.”

The Tobacco Kings

2009-11-02T06:44:00.001-08:00

Shep’s Story

The Tobacco Kings
(Myron Shep Charles Hightower, of Virginia, 1650)

Part one of three to Shep’s Story

The first known Hightower, Myron Shep Charles Hightower, who came over to America in A.D. 1650, who built a brand-new plantation in Virginia, as settlements took over Indian lands, brought with him twenty-Englishmen, and bought forty-slaves along the way, to do one thing, and one thing only—some miles outside of Jamestown, and it was to create a private enterprise, backed up by rich and private financial backers, who were bankers in England—capitalists, and grow as much tobacco as possible, to sell back to the English people. After arriving, and unloading, and settling in, they started what history would not record, and hired the immigrants that came to America prior to before 1640, from what was known as England’s marshes. Perhaps a hundred of them, along with the slaves and the men Myron brought with him, within three years he had an enterprise that was paying off.
Although, it was not uncommon for ten or so workers to die each year for so called medical reasons, one year, the third year burials outstripped the hiring. The main cause of death was malaria, along with whatever disease the colonists brought with them from Europe. Malaria didn’t kill their victims right away, just weakened them for months on end, and in many cases the body without its proper nutrition could not fight it off, and coupled with a weak immune system, and lack of nutrition, and no medications, the environmental elements produced a full-blown death; after several relapses.

So here we had an ongoing dilemma, sick people trying to get better, with more than enough mosquitoes, all waiting to hit the bull’s –eye— the worker. It was said, before the Marsh-Landers came to Virginia, from England (so the Indians claimed) there were no parasites, or malaria to be found—who’s to say, it didn’t matter in the long run, the disease migrated to the Carolinas where it crippled and drained large portions of Cornwallis Army.
To Myron Hightower (born 1620), it didn’t become much of an issue, he had his business, and people were replaceable. And he built a large home in upper New York, where he planned on retiring. And in time as years passed, late in life he married, and had a son he named: Eugene Shep Hightower (born: 1670, died 1767, whom would die at the ripe old age of 97-years old) Myron had this child at the age of 70-years old who took over the tobacco business in latter years, all seemingly immune to the malarial diseases and relapses.
In 1734, Eugene’s wife gave birth to Charles Shep Hightower, whom was simply called Shep. At which time Eugene retired in upper New York, in his brick built home, and invested into a saw mill, and hence, that ended the tobacco kings.

No: 509 ((10-29-2009) (written in the afternoon))

Shep’s Valley
(Shep Charles Shep Hightower, 1775-1786)

Part Two

In the old days, in upper New York, Charles Ship Hightower, lived in what was back then a rich and lumbering town. His family had come over to America in 1650—Shep was born 1734 (would die in Alabama in 1800). He, married Emily Hightower, grandmother to Emma, born 1755, died 1790, Charles’ mother, and Emma being Charles’ daughter. For a number of years there were plenty of logs to be cut, at which time Shep’s father owned the mill that cut the logs, and stacked them in the yard, sold them as needed, piles of lumber were carried away and many houses were built from his lumber. His son, Charles Terrence Hightower, would be born after all the Indian, and British and American conflicts were over, born 1789, three years after he had moved to Alabama, from upper New York.
He worked in the mill those prior years, with the great saws and wheels, belts and iron, operating the mill, and loading lumber. And he fought the Indians in-between. He had built himself a small cabin, which got burnt down by the Indians, one-story. Then years later there was nothing of the mill left, again the Indians did their dirty work, broken white limestone for its foundations—all crumbled to nothingness. Oh he had his neighbors come and clear the debris, his land, trying to rebuild the cabin and mill, and he had hired help, but it all seemed so fruitless, and then Shep and his wife became the hired help. His father being killed by the Indians, and his house burnt down likewise, and his mother had died prior to most of this ongoing conflict of pneumonia.

“There it is,” he’d tell his wife in later years, the mill, the cabin; he couldn’t even remember how it was what it was suppose to be. “I just can’t remember,” Shep would say in those far-off years. Perhaps didn’t want to remember, they were trying years to say the least.
“No,” Emily would say if her kids asked too many questions about those years “ask your father!” She was intent on supporting her husband no matter what, all the time they were sidekicks, so it would seem. She loved those younger days in New York State though. But Shep left the Valley, and they both moved down to Ozark, another member went on a little further, to New Orleans. Shep, he simply said one day to Emily, “It isn’t fun anymore here,” and he laughed, and Emily said, “I don’t know what to say,” and after that statement, she didn’t say a word, they just packed up and left.

No: 507 ((10-29-2009) (written in the wee hours of the night))

Shep’s Journey
((Part Three to hip’s Story’) (1787-‘89))

In 1787, Shep and his wife Emily Hightower was traveling by covered wagon, from upper New York, down to Alabama, carrying just the basic needs from what was left out of Shep’s father’s belongings, and his burnt out homestead, which the Indians shattered. He and his wife suffered much under the Indians of the region, and requested no aid from anyone. He was very hungry for starting over and knew his youth was on his side, he had time to do what he needed to do, and he was going to build the most magnificent plantation in all of Alabama; although he had only a little money.
He was delighted with upper New York. It was a beautiful country, he said, just a bit too hostile for his blood, as was the previous war years. On his way through the costal states, territories, such as: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, they had gone through many towns, walked much, and seen much. Georgia he did not like. Yet they had a good time together, up to a dividing point. It was early October, and the country was pleasant, but the Indians and the British had done some bad things. He talked about it a little in Atlanta, in spite of the war; he believed altogether in the Revolution, clearing the country of savages and the British completely. He asked in Georgia, “How is the movement going in Washington?” to a group of war veterans (which would turn out to be a mistake).
“Confusing,” a solider of the Revolution commented, “But it will get better, this is just the beginning, we won the war, but there will be more battles with the Indians. Why not settle here?” he commented.
“Why should I?” questioned Shep.
“You have everything here. It is the spot down south here, everyone is sure of. It will be the starting point of everything down south, not Alabama.”
He said quickly his good-byes to the few and the group of revolutionists he met, to head on down to Ozark, Alabama, his father knew the banker there, a Mr. Ritt, and he would provide a loan for land, payable in ten-years. He couldn’t do any better than that. But before he got to go on his way, the revolutionists knowing Shep didn’t do any fighting in the war spoke to him about it.
“Why not?” asked one of the several revolutionists, “why didn’t you fight, it was a requirement!”
“No,” he said, very shyly, “I was never asked…” he did not like Georgia, and he didn’t want to offend anyone, lest a Revolutionist who fought in the war for his independence, so he said little more. He was very eager to get on his way, as was his wife likewise; he was sure he’d love Alabama now that it was autumn.
When Mr. Ritt, sent out inquires, seeking what might have happened to Mr. Shep Hightower, the last he heard was he was serving time in jail in Atlanta for draft dodging, for it was mandatory during those war years, to be in uniform, or hung, and there was no requirement that he had to be asked, it was his job to enlist voluntarily. His sentence was limited to six-months in jail.

No: 508 ((10-29-2009) (written in the Morning))

Moonlight through the Pines ((1788) (Jail time in Atlanta))

2009-11-02T06:43:00.001-08:00

Part Four

You know how it is there early in the morning in Atlanta, with the bums in jail still asleep against the walls of the jail cell; before even the jailers are awake to eat their breakfast, before the wagons come by with goods, go across the square, and there be still the beggars just coming awake in the square, looking for their next drink, or getting a drink out of the nearby fountain. But if you are inside the jailhouse, in one of the side cells, you stand up, there waiting for you in the not so far distance, is the moonlight through the pines. The longer you look towards it, the more it seems to crawl over to you.
“Well,” said Shep Hightower to his three other jail mates, “I sure can see it,” he told them. “But yesterday morning, I couldn’t, I wonder why?”
“It isn’t that you couldn’t” said Rum Bum Raphael “you couldn’t have seen it. That’s all that’s too it.”
The other two came over to the bared in windows in the cell and they stood there looking out into the far-off pines. “There nice looking trees but I can’t see the moon,” one of the two said. “I don’t mean to make you two feel bad… (referring to Shep and Raphael), he told them, “I tell you true I can’t see it!”
“Afterwards, when you’re feeling better, things will change, and then you’ll see it,” said Rum Bum Raphael.
“I know it,” he replied, “I’m all for it now. But later on I’ll be…” and he went silent.
“He makes his living with the boats,” said Raphael. Yes said Pig’s-eye Pet, from the upper Mississippi, “if I lose all this time here in jail, I’ll lose my living, I hope I can get out in ten-days, drunken and disorderly conduct, that’s why they put me in here, how about you?” he asked Shep.
“I think the fellows who put me in here,” said Shep, “needed me to argue with them so they could put me in here, because the one kept on…I can’t even pay my way out.”
“All this will not last, you know,” said Pigs-eye Pet, “maybe I’ll go back up towards Pig’s eye, that area on the Mississippi, by what they call Minnsota, and build a bar; I’m getting too old for this.”
“Listen,” said Shep. “I don’t give a hoot, who’s president of this country, or mayor of this city, I haven’t done anyone any harm, that can talk.”
“Well, you’re here for somthin’” said Pig’s-eye.
“Yes, I’m here because of someone with a long tongue,” said Shep, “I was accused of evading the draft, I wasn’t in the war!”
“Do you know what we do with them?” said Rum Bum Raphael.
“Don’t get tough with me,” Shep said. “You folks asked me. I didn’t offer it freely.”
“Shut up,” said Pig’s-eye Pet to Raphael, “you’re liquor is still in you talking.”
“So you wouldn’t,” said Raphael.
“It’s just like I told you,” answered Shep.
“But you didn’t tell us much; I don’t understand right off, I don’t mean to be nasty. I guess it’s a disappointment, too. You look like a fine man.”
Shep didn’t even answer him.
“Maybe he’s not so fine a man,” said the third man, with no name.
“What’s that? A threat?” said Shep.
“Listen,” said Pig’s-eye Pet, “Don’t everyone be so though so early in the morning. I’m sure Shep has done his share of fighting, he’s a broad man, he just didn’t fight in the war, and he’ll tell us why when the time comes.”
“So you’re sure I’ll do as you say,” said Shep.
“No,” said Pet, “and I don’t give a damn, but I may cut your throat when you’re sleeping for being a coward or draft dodger. I am angry now,” he said. “I’d like to kill you but you’re younger and tougher, so I’ll just wait!”
“Oh, hell,” I’ll tell you. “Don’t need to threaten so much.”
“Come on, Shep.” Raphael told him. The third unnamed inmate said, “I’m very sorry for what I said, I think we all are but we still got to know.”
The three of them stood in front of him, and watched and waited for him to speak. They were all older men, in their late forties or early fifties. They all wore bad clothes; none of them wore hates, and they looked like they had not a dime to their names. They talked plenty among themselves, knew each other, and they spoke the kind of English bums with no money spoke, drunks. Pet and Raphael looked like distant cousins. Pet being a little taller than Raphael, and the third inmate. All three slim, dirty thick hair. Shep figured none were as mean as they talked, but he was plenty nervous when Pet threatened him, and no one said a word.
Then they threw a Blackman into the cell with them. The one with no name cried out, “Get this nigger out of here, what the hell is the matter with you jailers,” and the two jailers were laughing fiercely, holding their stomachs. One of the three men stood behind the Blackman, the other two (not to include Shep), stood in front of him, blocking the sight of the jailers, then there was a smash, Pet had hit the Blackman in the face, while the other two started kicking him, and Pet plunged his head onto the wooden floor, nearly broke his neck. One of the jailers’ shot a bullet over their heads. “Nigger,” yelled the jailer, “get on over here,” and the jailer took him out of the cell immediately; said Shep, “Take me out of her also; I’ll bunk with the nigger! It’s safer!” And the three white men took offence to that.

“They calls me Isaiah, cuz I looks fur the hand of God in all I does,” the Blackman told Shep, while both sitting on the lower of the iron bunk beds, in the next cell, the Blackman trying to get his head and neck back up, it had been twisted and bruised pretty bad. “Here,” said the jailer, handing the Blackman a cut of rum, to settle his pain. And he stood up, walked over to the jail bars and grabbed the rum, and drank it, and Shep took a sip out of the same cup, right in front of the other three bums in the next cell, which infuriated those men more. The beating the three men gave the Blackman didn’t make them feel one iota bad about what they had done.
“You seem awfully brave about it all, over in that cell,” said Pet to Shep.
“I was watching how brave you were, one against three,” then the Blackman looked up, saw Pet, the Blackman was taller than all of them, pert near six-foot three. He looked in pretty bad shape.
“I’ll see you when you get out of jail,” said Pet.
“Don’t talk about it,” Shep said, “you don’t scare me, I’ve beaten better men than you, it makes me sick even thinking about what I’d do to you, should you want to find out what sort of day will it be, the day you face me.”
“Well,” said Pet, “we’ll see.”
“That’s up to you.”
“What sort of day do you think it will be?” asked Raphael.
“Just about like today, as you did to this nigger!” said Shep.
“All right, as soon as that day comes, we’ll both be looking for you.”
The man with no name simply said, “That’s fine, you folks just put it down against what you think you owe each other, I’m out of it.”
Said the jailer, “Have a bottle of beer, shut you guys up for a spell,” and he handed them a quart of beer through the jail bars.

When Shep Hightower served his time in jail, and was released—having told his wife, Emily about that situation, she was fearful they’d be after him.
“Don’t worry,” Shep said, “it was all big talk by drunks, rum business. Their lives are all drinking, no money, and big talkers; they have other business to attend to, just say your goodbyes to Atlanta, and don’t worry either about those boys.” And as they rode out of Atlanta that early Saturday morning, he showed his wife the moon’s glistening light through the pines, and noticed on the grass in the park area, Pet and Raphael, both sleeping off a previous night’s drunk.

The Ozark Ritt Bank

1788-1789

Part Two of Three

Shep Hightower went into the Ozark Bank (owned by the Ritt family) and sat down at a table. He and his wife Emily noticed the bank had new panes of glass in their windows, as if the war had at one time shot it up and was now fixed up. There were a few drunks on the wooden sidewalk outside, drunk, and a few drinking standing outside of the bar across the street, and some folks eating in a nearby restaurant.
An elder man was playing dominoes sitting at a table in the bank with a younger man; said the older man to Shep, “You must be Shep Hightower, I’m Albert Ritt and this is my son John, have you eaten yet I know you’ve been on a long journey, but I’ve been expecting you?”
We’ve had some boiled cabbage and beef stew, and black bean soup last night, even had a bottle of beer. My wife and I are both still plenty full. I’d like to get down to business. This is my wife Emily.”
And thus, Albert took a liking for them both immediately.
“How do you do,” said Emily.
“You will have some coffee?” he asked Emily.
“Thank you,” said Emily. “We are quite alone here?”
“Except for me and my son,” Mr. Ritt said. “You have land about seventeen miles outside of town, four-hundred acres of it.”
“Ah,” said Shep. “I had imagined it was something bigger.”
“It can be…!” said the elder Ritt, “we can triple that, when you pay for the first four-hundred!”
“On what terms?” asked Shep?
“I see,” said Albert, “would you mind leaving us?” he said to his son, although he looked as interested as ever and smiled at Shep and Emily as he left.
“He’s noisy,” said Albert. “He doesn’t understand much business yet, only nineteen.” He motioned for his lawyer and account to join them at the table.
“Oh, yes,” said Albert. “Now these are the circumstances that would—that have made me consider you for a non-collateral loan. I knew you father, and my father knew your father’s father, while in the tobacco business.”
“I’m broke,” said Shep.
“I see,” said Mr. Ritt. “But do you owe any money to anyone? Can you be libeled?”
“No,” said Shep.
“Quite so,” said Albert, “that in itself is something accommodating. I know that the good business folks in England trusted their fortune with your father and grandfather, and made well by doing so, I’ll trust you likewise. Your name is a good name, like gold.”
“I’d leave the next two years to you, land and all, plus $2000-dollars in cash.”
“Then what?” asked Shep.
“Of course you have to start paying back the loan, with interest and the cost of the land. Buy yourself some niggers to do the work, you can get them cheap now, fifty dollars a head, seventy-five next month, and ten-years from now they’ll be worth $800-dollars a head. You see it is quite simple, just don’t betray me. I expect you all paid up in five-years, land and all, plus twelve hundred dollars interest a year, and we’ll settle on a price for the land.”
“When would I get the money?” asked Shep.
“Five-hundred when you agree and sign this paper, and the other fifteen-hundred, when you start loading up your wagon with needed supplies, and buy those niggers I told you about. You can get them here, but they’ll cost you a little more or go on down to New Orleans, they got a market place for them. You don’t need the real fit ones; they cost you more, buy the weaker ones, and feed them.”

Shep and Emily went off with the five-hundred dollars, and they both smiled at Mr. Ritt. He hid his money in his sock, and in the morning, asked the store keeper, “Where you want us to start loading our supplies, “Alright,” said the storekeeper, “Mr. Ritt, said to let you charge up to $1500-dollars.”
Said Emily, as they were loading the wagon, “Shep, I think I’m pregnant, it feels like a boy. If it is, I’ll name him Charles, I like that name.” Shep immediately said, “No more lifting for you.”

A Rebirth of Shep’s Love

1789

Part Three of Three

After a while, after they settled in, but their first log cabin up, bought three slaves, started to plant their first crop, he seemed to be in a circle of life, a perfect geometrical circle, with no beginning or end, with the child on its way; hence, there appeared even a to be a new and more softer love he had for his wife, as if he’d catch the early morning sun hitting a raindrop on their bedroom window, as if it had come all the way from heaven just to look upon her. And the sound of her voice appeared to change for him, as if it was Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. And he carried a letter in his pocket as he was doing the planting, as if it had kept the scent of a thousand roses on it, he’d look at it as if it was Emily herself. All in all, it was a kind of rebirth of his love for the woman he loved, and the child she carried inside of her for him.

No: 509 ((parts one and two, completed 10-31-2009; part three, written, 11-1-2009) (part of the book “The Vanquished Plantations))

Bavarian Sun

2009-11-02T06:42:00.000-08:00

((1970, Augsburg, Germany)(Barbarian Potato Fields))

It was warm, but with a chill coming down into the Barbarian gorge, early in the morning, my bones lightly shivered. The sun had melted the last of the light patches of snow on the ground, as we drove along the potato fields. It was spring in the gorge but he sun was extremely warm. We came along the roadside, women were planting in the fields, and their backs were bent carrying seeds in their aprons. As we passed the cemetery a burial had just started. Chris (the German-Jewish young lady I had been dating), said, “My grandmother is buried here, I want to see her, I will be also be buried here, beside her right here in the cemetery (she had leukemia).”
We got out of the car and walked through those thick Jewish-German cast-iron gates. I said, “Grüss Gott,” to a few folks walking as we walked past them coming up to the gravestone, of Chris’ grandmother.
“Its funny people never speak to you in graveyards I guess,” I said to Chris.
“Their not here for that,” she said.
We stopped by her grandmother’s gravestone, and she spoke something in German, I watched two custodians digging a hole, as if it was to be filled up later on, with the same old earth. They had barbarian hats, and high leather boots, and I stared at the grave to be, and then at Chris. And then the two men stopped shoveling, and they straightened up their backs, took a drink out of a quart bottle of beer that rested besides them: then went on digging into the earth and spreading the earth evenly around the grave hole, as if to be easily re-filled later on. Somehow, in this bright spring morning the grave-digging, and the praying over the gravestone—at the ripe old age of twenty-two, seemed dreamlike to me, if not unreal.
“What a day to die and be buried on,” I said.
“I want to be buried right here, right with my grandmother, she spent a lot of time raising me,” said Chris.
“Well,” I said, “did we really have to come here?” She didn’t respond, she was into other things.
The only shadows were made by headstones, or by the people standing by them, and in the sun the sweat melted into my underclothing. It was pleasant to be warmed by the sun, although you could not rest in it. It was getting late in the morning, and I was getting hungry. We hadn’t stayed too long, but perhaps too long in the valley. I was glad the day wasn’t over, I wanted to do other things, but it was a lovely morning in gorge.
We drove out of the gorge, past many an old style Bavarian inn and guesthouse, and just houses in particular. And I guess it was good to be down in the gorge. It was spring, and I felt by the chill in the air, there might be some frost in the evening, but tomorrow in the early morning the sun again would melt it, for the winter winds and the snow had been spoiled by the sun, once and for all for this year. We were both tired of the chilled air, to include the sun. You could not completely get away from it though.
We saw a guesthouse, the innkeeper sat in his chair outside in the sun, a table on the sidewalk, and beside him his wife stood enjoying the fresh air. And we stopped the car, and we walked up to the inn, and I said “Grüss Gott,” and they returned the greeting, and we sat in the guesthouse and had lunch, we had our share of the morning sun.

No: 510 ((11-1-2009) (written on the day of life)) Dedicated to Chris S.

To The High Lonesome

2009-11-02T06:41:00.000-08:00

(Civil War, 1865)(Too-drunk Henry, 56-years old)

Here there were dead men, their clothing dishonored amongst the mud, some buried under the mud, their cloths protruding, Too-drunk Henry, walked among the dead, the battle the day before, was indecisive, smoke of the battle was still in the air, the smell of death reeked, the falling rain was washing all the blood stained bodies clean, medics were looking among the lying to see if any of the infantry were alive, moving caps and overcoats and dragging one body after the other to see and feel his pulse for any king of life signs. Every inch of ground to Corporal Too-drunk Henry from Ozark Alabama, who had some Indian and white blood in him, was covered with repulsion. He was one of the oldest soldiers in his company, at fifty-six years old, thought he’d join and do something heroic before he crooked; the patriotic example of his countrymen. Like Charles Hightower of the Hightower Plantation did in the War of 1812.
He felt cowardly to-day though, not yesterday when the fighting was, but today. “This war is cold,” he murmured walking about the dead. “Well,” said his comrade in arms, “—yes, but its’ not suppose to be like that!” Said Captain Ritt who had joined the Army only a few months before this battle, as he pointed to the dead bodies, lying now in little hay like bundles here and there, the war all of a sudden had no meaning to Too-drunk Henry; His mind unengaged.
“The war is just about over Captain, under these circumstances I do not wish to be shot!”

Nothing could be plainer, and a day before the battle a Lieutenant had gone over the hill, meaning, he deserted. “Do understood sir,” said the corporal to the Ozark Captain, I might head on to the high lonesome tomorrow, please don’t send any troops looking for me?”
There was really no more to say, if anything, he had said way too much already. The Captain looked at him; he had his superior officer as well to be accountable to. Thus he remained silent on the matter. When the corporal had joined his company, he knew there might be a favor asked in the future by Henry and this was it, but he remained silent for a long spell.
“You have twenty-four hours Henry,” said Captain Ritt. “And then if no one has notified the General of your AWOL, or missing in action, I will have to.” He was discomforted by this, but he went along with it nonetheless. What he was really doing, and the Captain knew the corporal didn’t understand it fully was, the Army, any Army has an underbelly, with character, a make-up, some have even called it a personality, but what it really is, is the unit, pieces (one for all and all for one kind of thing). If the unit is a squad, of which twelve-soldiers are attached to it, then the unit has twenty-four legs and twenty-four arms, and twelve-heads, and twenty-four ears, and twelve-noses. Anything other than that, it would be less than a unit. That is what makes the unit, with its character of brute force.
In the morning, the Corporal was gone. It felt—to the Captain—in the long run, it was better for the unit as a whole, they didn’t need a coward in the unit, and he hopped he’d stay in the mountains, and never return to Ozark, if so, he’d have to stop being silent for a moment.

No: 506 (10-28-2009)

The Tale of: The Kind Boy

2009-11-02T06:40:00.000-08:00

(A Minnesota North Woods Story)

Let me call the kind boy, for the present, Tommy T. Thompson. The fair story or tale which now is lying before me (and now lying before you) need not be desecrated with my real designation, for he was a kind boy in heart indeed, to the uttermost regions of his young life. Although indignant winds, along with unparalleled calamity followed him. And a cloud of dense gloom would prevail. But I suppose I am telling you too much too quick, I must if I can, keep the eternal, unpardonable crime, a secret until the end of the story; lest I give it away, and you lose all interest. But hold on to your seats, unspeakable misery is on its way, whose origin alone is the purpose of this tale.

So feeble and ill-directed was his mind (not his heart or intended deed)—Tommy T. Thompson, the orphan boy, of twelve, who worked part time, at the hamlet’s one and only restaurant, in the deep of the Minnesota North Woods, and this was of course the age when a boy abandons his leading-strings, he thinks for himself, and as a result, left to the guidance of his own will, went out one fair morning and collected a bushel, of berries, red berries, nice and juicy berries. It was a misty-looking morning—and the woods were a spirit-soothing place to be, and so was the respected old hamlet that had a sum total population of one-hundred and sixty-six citizens, and his heart was full of a kind and refreshing chilliness, he inhaled the fragrance of the berries —those very cherished berries he picked and placed one by one into that bushel upon the stillness of the misty atmosphere, it gave him perhaps as much pleasure as any person might have—alas! This was just the beginning.
However slight and temporary, he felt loyalty to the town’s folks, for they all went to this one and only restaurant, each and every Sunday to eat a hearty meal, and the desert was always jello, he wanted to contribute something, anything, and show he was worthy of their respect. He was fully overshadowed by his elation to contribute to the extensive and whole domain of the township, and when he arrived back into the kitchen part of the restaurant, he put all the red berries into the red jello, as was it was thickening.

Oh, what a gigantic paradox, to utterly never find out this was such monstrous mistake! I well remember the story for the boy told me, in his old age, although it had no bearing at the time, nor have I had ever seen anything similar thereafter.
Oh want a good afternoon that lunch was and dinner, and the whole town as usual came to eat, and they had each a double portion of that jello, with those red berries in it. It was likened to a half-holiday. Yet, in point of fact, in the fact that the whole picture was not visible—how little there was to celebrate.
In truth, the enthusiasm, and the boy’s imperiousness, commanded the moment, it was bravado for the boy, and he told the owners and the customers when he served them, “I made this simple jello into a supreme desert (and of course unqualified)
It was no doubt a strange state of affairs, and they all went home to their own endeavors thereafter, and on his head, and in his mind, was success.

In the morning, he awake early as usual, found that
His employer and the employer’s wife, both elder persons, were dead in their beds. The feeling of confusion, detestable coincidence confounded him, thus producing a vexation of sorts, he wanted to make more jello, get more inevitable consideration, acknowledgement. But they were old, perhaps this was what happens to old folks, they just up and die one day, just like that, like this; he concealed any other such disturbance his mind might want to create for personal reasons, perhaps out of self-interests.
He then went out into the hamlet; he was going to report the deaths to the constable. But there was an odd condition existing between him and the town-let. It was empty. He kind of wanted to discover in such circumstances, the elation he felt the afternoon before, and it was all quite an annoyance, no one was around, no one, not even one person, of the 166-citizens that lived in the town-let. His emotions were becoming identical to that of seeing his employers’ deaths.
Perhaps this all was a dream, an elusion, however vivid it was; he walked by the huge houses noisily into them, his once tranquil breathing turned sour. He walked by and then into the other countless houses, and stores, even inside of apartments, all occupants were dead in their bed.
He slowly and quietly withdrew; it didn’t dawn on him then, but would later, that his good intentions, his so called kindness killed the whole hamlet with his red poisonous berries.

In Short, I do not wish, however, to trance the course of this depressing extravagance any further (let it be where dead dogs lie), now and forever, which defies all laws, I have said enough; but for the readers beware of children who need attention, and mean well, but are unqualified to compete.

No: 504 (10-27-2009) EAP (Inspired during lunch at the Mia Mamma, Restaurant, after eating ‘Mini’s Jello, which I have eaten so often, the story popped right out of it, almost took a bite out of my nose.)

Little Girl Blue

2009-11-02T06:39:00.000-08:00

((1973, St. Paul, Minnesota) (Sharla and Sheryl))

Let me call this for the present, two lost little kittens although lost might not be the correct word. The two little girls involved, one eight (Sharla) the other five (Sheryl), looked about for the house, my house, not knowing for sure what the correct number was, not even knowing if I was at home—they were taking a chance, but by familiarity they looked for my apartment house, and then stopped in front of it (it was a duplex, I lived upstairs). There was white snow drifting lightly across the road I remember as I had looked out the window prior, slouch on the sidewalks, and alongside of the road, it was a chilled late afternoon. The gale rubbing against their faces, the exposed surface of their flesh was red, near a crush like look.
I jumped from my chair, the hallway door was locked, and no one was downstairs, and I rushed to look out the window to see who was doing the knocking, making the noise. On the white below Sharla and Sheryl stood there like two wooden soldiers. Dropping an awareness in my body, I stared hard—snow seemed to drop off from all over her, she must had been in the cold winter elements for a long spell—so I thought, told myself—curiously looking. Sharla looked like a shot rabbit, and Sheryl, simply cold and confused, she stood a little further back, as Sharla continued knocking at the door, and I rushed down the stairs to greet them.

“What is it,” I said, when I opened the door, knowing her mother Carol lived near a mile up the road. Sharla knocked the snow off her some—went to say something, but couldn’t for the moment, she was if anything—tongue-tied, allowing her body to plunge down to normality.
Shivering as she came in from the outdoors of the crystalline motorized snow, she seemingly floated up the stairs whispering something dramatic, she held to her left and sat down in the apartment on a couch, her little sister to her side.
I looked down at her, knowing now it wasn’t a friendly visit, it was more than that. She held tight in her sitting position, her knees shaking.
“I was afraid I’d never find your house,” she said, and then she started crying, and I hugged her and told her “you’re safe now.” (Not really knowing why I said what I said, just sensing she needed to hear that for some reason…)
“Is it all right we stay here a while until my mother comes home, she’s late, she’s never been so late, and I can’t fine my keys to the house, and she didn’t call us, and it’s been two hours that we waited for her.”
“Sure,” I said, “you can stay here as long as you need to!” She smiled. Little Sheryl, sat knowing very little of the situation except for what her big sister told her, and it seemed she did not tell her the full impact she had been feeling, perhaps a little abandonment, that is to say, knowing you are not really abandoned, yet feeling you have been dropped into empty space—without a clue of what happens next, you’re on your own, it is a complex emotion, she was unsure if her mother was okay, perhaps for those hours she wasn’t sure of anything anymore, although on the other hand, she was sure of one thing, that her uncle lived somewhere down the road, in a big house, on the second floor, and it was a chance, a big chance, she might find it—if indeed she’d decided to go look for it—and he could help. She followed her gut feeling, she was courageous, and she was correct ((if not lucky) (and perhaps it wasn’t luck, perchance it was God sent)).

I stood silent for a minute. Looked at the empty look in Sheryl’s face; it is hell isn’t it, I wanted to say, but I didn’t say that. It reminded me of the time my brother and I were lost in North St. Paul, I was likened to Sheryl then—perhaps a few years older, and Mike my brother my big brother, about eleven at the time, he was similar to Sharla, had to find a way home for us—do something, because I didn’t know what I would have done, I was empty and blank, I wasn’t sure what was going on completely, although my brother’s mind knew, but I had a good idea now what he might have been thinking. In any case, Sharla’s instincts were correct, as my brother’s were, in Mike’s case he begged to get a dime to use for the phone and made a phone call that would end our dilemma; for Sharla and Sheryl, I was home, thank God.
About an hour and a half later, I got hold of Carol, to let her know where her two girls were. I never asked what her situation was, I felt it was none of my business, she was a good mother, that is all I knew, and whatever her reasons were, I’m sure they were more than substantial.

No: 505 (10-28-2009) EAP (Inspired by a real happening in 1973, dedicated to the two sisters Sharla and Sheryl)

The Mozo (Or the author’s 62nd Birthday Party)

2009-10-19T15:46:00.001-07:00

Written: 10/9/2009

(October 7, 2009) It was the last of the Navarro Correa Wine (Merlot, aged in a wood vat, very strong, very expensive). I drank my second glass of wine, perhaps no more than an ounce, the prior glass was three-quarters filled, perhaps three ounces and the waiter filled the other glasses of the five persons at the birthday party, and he held it so as to pour it as the guests held their glasses, he was a young man, the Mozo (waiter) well mannered, thin in the face, and looked at the bottle steadily as he poured. We watched him disappear beyond the archway of the room, into the adjacent room—perhaps to get another white cloth to wrap around the bottle, as if to guard against a spill, a drop or two of wine, thus, it would catch it.
Apolinario took a mouthful, then the mozo poured nearly the rest of the wine out into Alex’s glass, sitting on the side of Apolinario. The last ounce was poured into my glass; it splattered on the tablecloth, fading into it.
“Salud,” I said, returning the glass to my mouth (I thought at the moment I’d have to have someone carry me out of the private guest room, on my sixty-second birthday, I hadn’t drank anything in twenty-five years, had I had anymore of that in my system, I’d would have gotten sick on the spot, and had to be bed rested immediately, I do believe.)
“Don’t drink too much,” my wife Rosa said. (But I felt somehow I just had to drink the second drink, that ounce of wine; Marissa, the other female in our little birthday party, had only drank an ounce out of the first of two pouring, she was still in everyone’s shadow as far as drinking went.)
The air was fresh, the sun shinning though the windows, which had an eminence of pure light and heat, and inside this antique room, one could glance, from a distance away, the impeding public.
(I told myself, I can’t drink, and I can’t throw the wine away, it cost an arm and a leg, per near; God knows I’ll be sick by evening.)
Apolinario’s back was to the windows, the sun on it, as was the sun to Alex’s back, it was a sun-filled room, the blue and the sunny outside was inside. Apolinario was looking to the quiet mark of my profile (the side view of my face), I smiled at him, not sure why he was staring, I assumed the wine had hit him.
“Señor, Dennis,” said Marissa (still after seven-years of knowing her, still calling her Melissa, not realizing the ‘e’ and the ‘l’ doesn’t belong in her name, until my wife pointed it out during the writing of this story…)
“Yes, Señorita,” I acknowledged; she looked at me, she had deep brown eyes with softened irises, as if they had been soaked in warm water, for the moment, and she explained how she appreciated our friendship.
“Señor, Dennis,” said Alex, a wee fatigued from the wine, the sun slanted upon his shoulder, upon this serene moment, and he gave his appreciation for our many years of friendship, also.
Near motionless, with a rigid quality of unacquainted idleness, Apolinario had rested his eyes—quite spent, almost dead upon me. He looked for a moment, a tad intoxicated, like an artificial statue, attached to a chair, as if he had put on a new face (façade). The man looked at me. “Are you alright?” I asked him, he said in his soft un-rhythmic voice, “Si.” Then the man turned his head in a slight deprecatory gesture (or so it seemed); as Marissa received her desert, a large portion of a rounded pancake, with the trimmings.
“It’s delicious,” the woman said, to those at the table; as her fork rippled briefly through its layers.
Papa Augusto was at the other end of the table (my father-in-law), he was starting to get into religion, carefully between thumb and fingers, and I had to ask him to please refrain from talking on both politics and religion (knowing this could get into a debate).
“Whoosh (or go-ahead), let him speak his mind…” said Apolinario, but I insisted, and Papa Augusto looked at us quietly, and gave his happiness for his friendship with me.

And when I had gotten home, trying to rest, lying upon my bed, to take a nap, the jerking of my heart (unbelievable rapidity) took place, along with numbness in my face, a sour stomach—in consequence, I was sick for three days, because of drinking three and a half ounces of wine—evidently not my forte. The wine was sharp and potent, harsh; it was as if a mule kicked me in the head, stomach, and chest.

And so, this is the story of my 62nd Birthday, and what I left out was that the steak and the food in general, was great, as was the two waiters, and especially the wine pourer, just the aftereffects of the wine, and thus, if the good Lord is willing, it will be another twenty-five years before I drink another glass of wine!

No: 489 (10-9-2009)

A Fear and a Dream (In English and Spanish)

2009-10-19T15:43:00.000-07:00

English Version

A Fear and a Dream
A Story of Inspiration and Determination

((Regional Swimming Champion) (in five parts))

A Story based on actual events, using the persons real name…

Part One
The Post Office

(The Winter of 2002)

(Winter of 2002, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA) Those who saw her descend from the large U. S. Mail Truck off 4th Street, in the inner-city down by the Mississippi River, on the chilly morning of December 22, saw a short woman (four-foot eleven inches tall), a little stiff from the cold, with a bronze Peruvian face, and a cute smile that stretch from each corner of her mouth, and almost pure dark-brown hair, that looked to be more black, than dark-brown.
“A determined little driver,” someone said, out of the group standing outside the post office, eating their lunch, smoking cigarettes. They were remarking about her size and determination to drive a big truck, that usually only men drove, she was a post office carrier, only having learned how to drive a year earlier, at the ripe old age of forty-three years old. The men that had never saw her before—this being her first month driving—thought there was something inaccurate with their eyes; because of so many people, men and women too, in the state of Minnesota driving mail trucks. So they watched her go on about her business, with a grunt, strained eyes, yet purposeful as she vanished into the large front seat of her truck, with one big pillow behind her to support her back, and push her forward a half foot, and another big pillow under her to bring her up to the steering wheel, and arranged the seat to allow her short feet to reach the gas pedal. And then they left to do their work, and perhaps thought about it little more, knowing they’d see her around. And that was all of that.
And those who saw this little beauty, in the post office a year after she drove those big trucks, saw her as one of the main tellers, a job that required six-years working at the post office—not one, plus, sharp skills in math and social skills dealing with the public, a job that needed a person to know two languages, but not a requirement (because she was one of the few, very few that filled that needed-prerequisite), and she’d move big bags of mail, dragging them here and there when not working as a teller, and in time a very short time, promoted, and receiving for reply, the workers glare she didn’t expect, but envy and jealousy, penetrates deep, especially in the indolent, but to those doing the glaring and complaining—the superiors put it to rest very quickly, put them into a second-class status, saying, her skills were far above theirs. That made things all right; victory had been accomplished twice, for this non American, in the breadbasket of America, who was working with a working permit, married to an American, had all her requirements fulfilled to be an American, and who (in the year of 2004) at the age of forty-five years old started a sport that would change her life—(that would take fear and replace it with a dream), she would be called secretly by many—during those days, “A late bloomer!”

Part Two
A Journey to Minnesota

(January, 1998, to October, 2009)

For a good many years Rosa Peñaloza (her second last name would be added onto that, in 2000, making it Rosa Peñaloza de Siluk) had worked in Lima, Peru, at a telephone company—fifteen-years—to be exact, was a degreed accountant, and with all her spare time, was a devoted Catholic, working for her parish Church, free. Never married, taking care of five families ((at times her mother and father along with her sisters and brother-in-laws and their children, plus a maid with two kids, all living in her house, living under her roof, for several years, as she was the most steadily employed) (coming from a family of eight children)).
Her mother had told her—she was approaching middle-age and unmarried—something to ponder. The local parish priest wanted her to be a nun, something else to ponder. Outside her business and church hours, she made time for her nieces and nephews (who were potential under a hardship, and would have been under more of a hardship had she not taken them in under her wing)—she made their time a continual and lively childhood for each and everyone.
These are little fluttering tag-like ends of her personal history, which seems as I look back, are simply leaking out as I write, leading up to the present—which will be the championship.
Her own thinking, talks, things she can only remember, or had imagined, were never quite completely told to me by her (being her husband), thus, I have used fragments to catch up, or to bring up her life to the present day, fragments tossed in the air as by a wind and then abruptly dropped somewhere, someplace.

She was laughing heartily now, at her little successes, during those years. She had married in 2000, met her husband in 1999 (had been talked into taking a trip to America, Disneyland, by her mother, so she could enjoy life before she was put into her grave—and had been given a course in English, a birthday gift by her brother David, for whatever reasons, I never knew—had met him (her husband to be) at the airport in Atlanta, and that in itself is a story by itself) while he was on a trip to Peru. For this reason, she would leave Peru, to live with her future husband in Minnesota (prior to this they met in Guatemala to see the old ruins called Tikal for one week) and then they were married two weeks later; there was an element of sadness among her family, but also elation for her. Asked by a few of her friends “How can you take such a chance and marry a stranger, of sorts?” she replied, “Why would God give me a bad man?” And that was that.

She walked off the airplane, and walked onto the cold ground of Minnesota in February, of 2000, going forward a little unsteadily, life had not yet expressed itself fully for her, definitely in her mind, and for three of those six years she would live in Minnesota, she she’d roll about awkwardly.
At any rate, for her a second life had just begun. She would travel the world eleven-times; get her car license, a permit to carry a gun (an expert shot). She plunged again and again into the unknown, run her husband’s tenant apartment business, helped with the taxes, and did the maintenance on the six buildings they now owned together and sent money to Lima to keep up their home there, and had a crew of five men to include one woman, who rebelled against her being a female boss. “You wait,” her husband said, “I’ll talk to the employees (to include his daughter, and son-in-law);” and he approached all of them, said in his stern voice, “If you can’t work for my wife, you can’t work for me!” Thus, that settled the issue of equal rights.
Hang on now, and you’ll see now what happened.

Part Three
Belly of the Camel

From time to time, her husband started to learn, his wife, Rosa was terrified of water (not bottled water, but swimming in particular, the ocean, lakes, rivers, pools, anyplace a person could drown.) When he had taken her to Rio de Janeiro, on the most famous beach in the world, Copa Cabana, and he was in, what might be considered, shallow water, perhaps up to his wife’s elbows, she panicked and started screaming and tried pulling him out of the water, as a great wave was forthcoming, one she didn’t see, but he saw. Once the wave struck, her husband ready for it, picked her up with his right arm, in a loop around her waist, dug his feet into the sand, in karate like stance—firm, and withstood the onslaught of the wave, had he not picked her up, she, and all her 110-pounds would have been gone out to sea.
He tried to laugh at the situation, but did not succeed very well; it was a serious thing for her.

(Now that I am writing of my wife, I perhaps am not making a comfortable likeness of her. It maybe I overdo, or under do the notes of her life, but it is as I see it, and saw it, I am unable to temperament, or characterize it in her own account, since I am writing this in secret, and without her advise as I have often got when doing my writings—thus leaving all bias out. For one thing, she can be more cleaver than I give her credit for, and I seem to be making her out, simpler.
On many evenings I have spent with her, she was silent, and perhaps a little dull—or I was a little dull, she’d fall to sleep quickly, and of all the movies we watched, let’s say 1000-in the years we were married, nine-years plus, she fell to sleep through 850 of them; and I’d read and write, and for many hours I did this, that's why, she’d walk away awkwardly (if she was not sleeping, or knitting) alone and along, doing something to break this boredom (I being twelve-years her senior), she’d finally find other things to do; at times, catch a cab, go shopping, etc.
My life was very active, had been very active prior to me becoming her husband (up to my heart attack and stroke, in 1993-94, and acquiring my neurological disease MS, in 1996…) and for a spell it became less active, and then as I improved, it became more active again, but never as active as it had been—if that makes sense; especially while in my youth, now in Rosa’s later years she had become newly active…but nothing in the long run of our lives had been dull, or inactive for very long, to the contrary. I had found out, what perhaps she never knew, something she kept a harness on, a yoke around: she was locked in a bottle, and once opened, she was put into a large room—figuratively speaking—and it would be a hopeless affair to stop her now, it really was the summer of her life, life trickling down her back, there was nothing she couldn’t do, once she put her mind to it! And whatever she did, she did it well, and complete.)

We were talking about swimming—were we not, and her fear of it, and water in general? I had thought she had given up the struggle to deal with her fear of swimming that she would run aimlessly through the earth’s land mass, and jump over those water holes as life went on. But evidently I was wrong; her mind must have been striving to conquer water in all its drowning forms. She tried to swim in a swimming pool while in a four-star hotel in Copan, Honduras, she failed when she saw a frog in the water—of all things, it even maddened me to a point I criticized her, and I seldom have in the past made fun of her in any form, for there is nothing to criticize her for, and I apologized somewhere down the road I think for that. Perhaps in this one area of life, she was simply stumbling in the half darkness.
During the summer of 2004, she started taking swimming lessons from an Olympic Champion, in St. Paul, Minnesota, $100-dollars an hour. It had turned out disastrous. Oh she learned a thing or two in those six-months (the fear factor had faded slightly), and two-thousand dollars later, but she could not go into water any deeper than her knees, or turn about in the water, or dive, or do much of anything but swim (which in itself was a small and God given accomplishment)—lightly swim, as long as she could see the bottom of the pool with the naked eye. Swimming under water was out of the question. If anything, she had broken the first straw on the camels back, but the camel didn’t fall yet. The death of the camel—symbolically speaking—would take some more years.
After that, and in the fall of 2006, her and her husband came to Peru, having a home in Lima, and one in the Andes, within the city of Huancayo. She was trying hard to adjust to her new environment; she had loved the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, and missed her disastrous swimming lessons.
Up to the very moment when it would happen—breaking the camel to its knees, it looked to her husband that swimming was out of the future equation, as far as anything significant, but the issue kept arising; however she had saved some money and she sought out another location in Lima for swimming and lessons (a last try from her husband, whom suggested she take it an inch at a time, instead of a foot at a time, which I suppose he had previously expected, he thus, wiped out all expectations of her, and told her to simply go and enjoy it), and the owner of the local pool, happened to be an Olympic swimming champion. Accordingly, she had been lead to two Olympic champions, and henceforward, she took a new undertaking, now she would break the camel’s back, and it would drop to its belly not to its knees.

Part Four
The Late Bloomer

In the following eight-months, swimming became a very warm, and comfortable, and nice sport for Rosa. She would go swimming even if it was cold and rainy outside. It seemed at the time, as if the death of the camel had drawn her closer together with her once fear of the water. Perhaps both the water and Rosa felt it, perhaps Rosa being the more conscious of it; that pleased me at the time. And in time it would even come to the point, she’d go swimming in the evenings.
In Huancayo, she sought out two swimming locations, and did one in the mornings and one in the evenings (sometimes twice a day, at other times, a different one each day), and had conquered most of her fears—she could now dive well, pretty well, and by the first of October, 2009, she could do her flip-turns under the water, quite well, and swim 29-laps, Olympic swimming pool laps, she had stamina galore. She could do such swimming techniques as the: front crawl, back stroke, breaststroke and a little bit of the butterfly, and then came the camel again, back broken and all—for there still remained a deep water fear (but it didn’t stop her, she was swimming under the water, fearsomely swimming), and her professors (or instructors), along with her coach for the nearing competition, Edson Azaña, at both pools told her, “You’re going to be in the next regional championship, in November,” a month away; she was now fifty-years old, competing against hard boned youth with agility, and reflexes to match.

It was a wonder to me how this woman could keep looking forward, burying defeat all along the way—in everyway, even when her fear was at its height, with its loud voice, she never once screamed defeat, she told herself, and she told me “I can’t quite, I can’t give up…” even when the devil was in the corner saying: ‘You can’t do it,’ she screamed back, evidently silently, “Watch and see!”

And now for the last part of this story, ‘The Championship’ (to be continued) …

Note.- I want to thanks on behalf of my wife to the instructors (and swimming pools): in USA, to Beth Peterson, Olympic Champion, from the YWCA; in Lima, Peru: Cabana, Miguel, Willy and Luis from the Juana Alarco; Atilio and Reynaldo from Ernesto Domenack (Olimpic Champion); in Huancayo, Peru: Omar Chavez from the Aquatic Park and Johnny Roca from the Juan Bosco Swimming Pools, and to the coach Edson Azaña from the Aquatic Park for training my wife for the competition.

Written 10-14-2009/No: 492

Spanish Version

(Versión en Español)

Un Temor y un Sueño
Una Historia de Inspiración y Determinación

((Campeonato Regional de Natación) (en cinco partes))

Una Historia basada en hechos reales, usando el nombre verdadero de la persona…

Parte Uno
La Oficina de Correos

(Invierno del 2002)

(Invierno del 2002, San Pablo, Minnesota, Estados Unidos de Norteamérica) Aquellos que la vieron descender del camión grande de la Oficina de Correos, en la Calle 4 por el río Mississippi, en el centro de la ciudad, en la mañana fría del 22 de diciembre, vieron a una mujer baja de estatura (1.50 m.) un poco agarrotada por el frío, con una cara bronceada y una bonita sonrisa que se estiraba a cada lado de su boca, y con cabellos castaño oscuro, que parecían más bien negro, ella era peruana.
“Una pequeña chofer decidida” alguien, del grupo parado afuera de la oficina de correos, dijo, comiendo sus almuerzos, fumando cigarrillos. Ellos estaban comentando sobre su estatura y su decisión a manejar ese camión grande, que generalmente lo manejaban los hombres; ella era una empleada de la oficina de correos, y había aprendido a manejar sólo un año antes, a la edad madura de cuarenta y tres años. Los hombres que nunca la habían visto antes—siendo éste su primer mes de trabajo—pensaron que había algo erróneo con sus ojos, debido a tanta gente, hombres y mujeres también, en el estado de Minnesota manejando los camiones de la oficina de correos. Así ellos la vieron, murmurando, con ojos nerviosos, aunque con atención, la vieron ocuparse de su trabajo, mientras desaparecía en el asiento grande de su camión, con un cojín detrás de ella para soportar su espalda y empujarla quince centímetros adelante, y otro cojín grande en su asiento para levantarla hacia el timón, habiendo arreglado el asiento para permitir que sus pequeños pies alcanzaran los pedales. Y después ellos se fueron a trabajar, y talvez pensaron un poquito más sobre esto, sabiendo que la verían a ella alrededor.

Y aquellos que vieron a esta pequeña belleza en la oficina de correos, manejando esos camiones grandes un año atrás, la vieron como una de las principales cajeras, un trabajo que requería de seis años de experiencia en la oficina de correos—no uno, además, de grandes habilidades en matemáticas y habilidades en tratar con el público, un trabajo que requería de una persona bilingüe, aunque no un requisito (ella era una de las pocas, muy pocas que llenaban esos prerrequisitos necesarios). Ella movería grandes paquetes de correspondencia, jalándolos de aquí para allá cuanto no estaba trabajando como cajera, y en muy poco tiempo, fue ascendida, y recibió por respuesta la mirada amarga de sus compañeros, que ella no lo esperaba, pero la envidia y los celos, penetraban muy profundo, especialmente en el indolente; pero para aquellos que miraban amargados, con envidia y quejándose—los jefes los tranquilizaron muy rápidamente, poniéndolos a ellos en una categoría de segunda clase, diciéndoles que las habilidades de ella eran muy superiores a las de ellos. Esto hizo que las cosas estuvieran bien; la victoria se había cumplido dos veces en esta no americana, en el corazón de Norteamérica, quien estaba trabajando con un permiso de trabajo, casada con un americano; ella había cumplido con todos los requisitos para ser una ciudadana americana, y quien (en el año 2004) a la edad de cuarenta y cinco años empezaría un deporte que cambiaría su vida (que sacaría sus temores y los reemplazaría con un sueño), ella sería llamada por muchos—en secreto, durante aquellos días—“Un florecer tardío”.

Parte Dos
Un Viaje a Minnesota

(Enero de 1998 a Octubre del 2009)

Por muchos buenos años, Rosa Peñaloza (su nombre sería cambiado en el año 2000, a Rosa Peñaloza de Siluk) había trabajado en la compañía de teléfonos en Lima, Perú—quince años, para ser más exactos—ella era una contadora y una católica devota que en todo su tiempo libre trabajaba gratis para su iglesia. Nunca se había casado, haciéndose cargo de casi cinco familias ((en ese tiempo su madre, su padre junto con sus hermanas, cuñados y cuñadas, sobrinos, más una empleada con dos hijos, todos viviendo bajo el mismo techo en su casa por muchos años, ya que ella era la que tenía un trabajo permanente) (y venía de una familia de ocho hijos)).
Su madre le había dicho que ella se estaba aproximando a una edad madura y soltera—algo en qué pensar. El sacerdote de la iglesia quería que ella fuera monja—algo más en qué pensar. Fuera de su trabajo e iglesia, ella hacía tiempo para ocuparse de sus sobrinas y sobrinos—haciendo de sus tiempos una animada infancia para cada uno y todos.
Estas son como pequeñas etiquetas de su historia personal, que parecerían, mientras miro atrás, estar simplemente goteando mientras escribo, dirigiéndose al presente—que será el campeonato. Sus propios pensamientos, conversaciones, cosas que ella sólo puede recordar, o haberse imaginado, nunca me fueron completamente dichas por ella (siendo yo su esposo), así, he usado fragmentos para coger o traer su vida al presente día, fragmentos lanzados en el aire como por un viento y luego arrojados abruptamente en algún lugar.

Ella ahora estaba riendo con gusto, por su pequeño éxito, durante aquellos años. Ella se había casado en el año 2000, había conocido a su futuro esposo en 1999 en el aeropuerto de Atlanta, mientras él iba en un viaje a Perú (ella, había sido convencida por su madre de hacer un viaje a Estados Unidos, a Disneylandia, para que disfrutara de la vida antes de que muriera—y previamente había recibido clases de inglés, un regalo de su hermano David, por razones que nunca lo supe). Por esta razón ella dejaría Perú, para reunirse con su futuro esposo en Minnesota, Estados Unidos, y dos semanas más tarde ellos se casarían; había un elemento de tristeza entre su familia, aunque también euforia por ella. Cuando algunos de sus amigos le preguntaban, “¿Cómo puedes tomar este riesgo de casarte con un extraño?”, ella les respondía, “¿Porqué Dios me mandaría un hombre malo?

Ella bajo del avión y caminó en el suelo frío de Minnesota en Febrero del 2000, yendo adelante un poquito temblorosa, la vida no se había manifestado totalmente para ella, y tres de los seis años en que ella viviría en Minnesota, serían difíciles para ella.
En todo caso, para ella, una segunda vida acababa de empezar. Ella viajaría once veces alrededor del mundo, obtendría su licencia para conducir, un permiso para portar armas (una tiradora experta). Ella saltaría de nuevo y de nuevo en lo desconocido; ella administraba el negocio de arrendamiento de propiedades de su esposo, lo ayudaba con los impuestos, y se encargaba del mantenimiento de los seis edificios que, ahora, ellos tenían juntos, también enviaba dinero a Lima para el mantenimiento de su casa allí, y tenía un equipo de seis personas a su cargo, la mayoría hombres incluyendo a una mujer, quienes se rebelaron en contra de ella por ser una jefa mujer. “Tú espera”, su esposo le dijo, “hablaré con los empleados”, y él se dirigió a todos ellos, dijo con una voz severa, “¡Si ustedes no pueden trabajar para mi esposa, entonces no pueden trabajar para mi!”. Así, se arregló el problema de igualdad de derechos.

Ahora espera, y verás lo que pasó.

Parte Tres
Barriga del Camello

Con el tiempo su esposo empezó a aprender, que su esposa Rosa, tenía terror al agua (no al agua en botella, sino a nadar en particular, al océano, a los lagos, ríos, piscinas, cualquier lugar en el que una persona podría ahogarse). Cuando él la llevó a Río de Janeiro, Brasil, a la más hermosa playa del mundo: Copa Cabana, y él estaba en la playa en lo que consideraba como parte baja, talvez con el agua hasta el codo de su esposa, ella entró en pánico y empezó a gritar tratando de jalar a su esposo fuera del agua, mientras una ola grande estaba viniendo, una que ella no vio, pero que él si la había visto. Una vez que la ola golpeó, su esposo que estaba preparado para ésta, la cogió a ella con su brazo derecho, por su cintura, hundió sus pies en la arena en una postura firme de karate y resistió el ataque de la ola, si él no la hubiera agarrado, el mar la hubiera arrastrado a ella con todos sus cincuenta kilos.
Él trató de reírse de la situación, pero no tuvo buen éxito; era una cosa muy seria para ella.

Estuvimos hablando acerca de nadar— ¿cierto? Y el temor a esto, y al agua en general. Pensé que ella se había rendido en la lucha para vencer el temor a nadar y que ella correría sin dirección a través de la tierra, y que saltaría sobre aquellos charcos de agua mientras la vida continuaba. Pero evidentemente estaba equivocado; su mente estaba luchando por conquistar al agua en todas sus formas. Ella trató de nadar en una piscina de un hotel cuatro estrellas en Copan, Honduras, pero ella fracasó cuando vio a una rana en el agua—de todas las cosas, esto incluso me molestó muchísimo al punto que la critiqué, y nunca lo había hecho antes, porque no hay nada de que criticarla, y en algún momento me disculpe con ella por esto. Talvez en esta área de la vida, ella estaba simplemente tropezando en medio de la oscuridad.
Durante el verano del 2004, ella empezó a tomar clases de natación con una campeona olímpica, en San Pablo, Minnesota, costaba cien dólares la hora. Esto resultó desastroso. ¡Ah! ella aprendió algunas cosas en esos seis meses (el factor temor se había disipado ligeramente y dos mis dólares), pero ella no podía entrar en el agua que estuviera más arriba de sus rodillas, ni darse vueltas, ni clavados, sólo nadar, ligeramente nadar, siempre y cuando ella pudiera ver el fondo de la piscina a simple vista. Nadar bajo el agua era imposible. Si había algo, era que ella había roto la primera paja de la giba del camello, pero el camello no se había caído todavía. La muerte del camello—hablando figurativamente—tomaría lugar algunos años más.
Luego de ello, en el otoño del 2006, ella y su esposo vinieron a Perú, teniendo una casa en Lima y otra en Los Andes, en la ciudad de Huancayo. Ella estaba tratando duro de acostumbrarse a su nuevo ambiente; a ella le había gustado mucho la ciudad de San Pablo, Minnesota, y extrañaba sus desastrosas clases de natación.
Hasta el mismo momento cuando esto ocurrió—doblar al camello a sus rodillas—le pareció a su esposo que la natación estaba fuera de una futura ecuación, en lo que respectaba a algo significante, pero el tema seguía surgiendo; sin embargo, ella había ahorrado algo de dinero y buscó un lugar en Lima para nadar y tomar clases (un último intento de su esposo, quien sugirió que lo tomara pulgada por pulgada, en vez de pie por pie, que supongo él previamente lo había hecho; él, así, borró todas las expectativas de ella, y le dijo simplemente que fuera y disfrutara). Y sucedió que el dueño de la piscina era un campeón olímpico en natación. Por consiguiente, ella había sido dirigida por dos campeones olímpicos, y en el futuro, ella tomaría una nueva responsabilidad, ahora ella rompería la giba del camello, y este caería en su estómago no sólo sobre sus rodillas.

Parte Cuatro
Un Florecer Tardío

En los siguientes ocho meses, la natación se convirtió en un cálido, cómodo, y bonito deporte para Rosa. Ella iría a nadar incluso si hacía frío o estaba lloviendo. En ese tiempo parecería, como si la muerte del camello la habría acercado más cerca con su, una vez, temor al agua. Talvez ambos, el agua y Rosa lo sentían, talvez Rosa era la más consciente de esto; esto me complacía. Y con el tiempo incluso llegaría al punto de que ella iría a nadar en las tardes.
En Huancayo, ella buscó dos piscinas, en la que iba a nadar un día en las mañanas a una y al siguiente día en las tardes a la otra, y había conquistado casi todos sus temores—ahora ella podía hacer clavados muy bien, y para el primero de octubre del 2009, ella podía darse la vuelta olímpica bajo el agua, nadar 29 vueltas en piscinas olímpicas, ella tenía resistencia a montones. Ella podía nadar, estilo libre, espalda, pecho y un poco de mariposa; y luego, el camello viene de nuevo, con la espalda rota y todo—porque todavía permanecía el temor al agua profunda (pero esto no la detuvo a ella, ella estaba nadando bajo el agua) y sus profesores o instructores en ambas piscinas, junto con su entrenador para la competencia cercana, Edson Azaña, le dijeron: “tú vas a estar en la próxima competencia regional de natación, en noviembre”, a un mes; ella ahora tenía cincuenta años de edad, e iba a competir con personas más jóvenes,
Era un asombro para mi ver cómo esta mujer continuaba adelante, enterrando derrotas a lo largo del camino—en todas las formas, incluso cuando su temor estaba en su máximo, ella nunca gritó derrota, ella se dijo a si misma, y me lo dijo: “No puedo dejarlo, no puedo rendirme…” incluso cuando el diablo estaba en la esquina diciéndole: “tú no puedes hacerlo”, ella le gritaba respondiéndole, evidentemente silenciosamente, “Observa y verás”.

Y ahora por la última parte de esta historia, “El Campeonato” (continuará…)

Nota.- Quiero agradecer, en nombre de mi esposa, a los siguientes profesores (y Academias de Natación): En Estados Unidos, a Beth Peterson, Campeona Olímpica (YWCA); en Lima, Peru: Cabana, Miguel, Willy y Luis (Juana Alarco); Atilio y Reynaldo ((Ernesto Domenack) (Campeón Olímpico)); en Huancayo, Peru: Omar Chávez (Aquatic Park) y Johnny Roca (Juan Bosco), y al entrenador profesor Edson Azaña (Aquatic Park) por preparar a mi esposa para el campeonato de natación.

Escrito 14-Octubre-2009/Nro: 492

“Uncle Lee’s last Go-around!”

2009-10-19T15:42:00.000-07:00

I know what they said. They said I didn’t know Uncle Lee very well, or all that much, that he was a crazy poet and writer, who, if he didn’t die of a heart attack or stroke, would have killed himself in another year or two or three on some crazy adventure.
The good folks of the city had driven Uncle Lee local and I feel he did what he did because he knew he was on his last go-around and if he didn’t—land on White Mountain, some 16,000 plus feet high in the Andes, by way of a helicopter, and have a picnic—and then go write what he felt he had to write, that he only could write, or would write, it would never have gotten written had he not—he would have died sooner. For good or bad it was forever for Uncle Lee—a now or never thing.
Uncle Lee was the finest man I ever came to know; nobody could bend or beat him. No woman, or man, poor or rich, clergy or politician, poet or journalist, dog or cat, we can add horses in there also, he liked them, riding them, betting on them, like at bullfights, or boxing matches, or cockfights, and so forth, because in spite of them, he went on living, getting fun and adventure out of life, not making big issues out of silly things, doing the things most important to him, because I was around to observe him, and that is something no other person but his wife got to do. He didn’t meddle into other folks’ lives.
He was everybody’s uncle, I suppose you could say (or everyone thought so). He didn’t acknowledge having any children—said most kids were ungrateful little rug rats, after the age of ten, and expected handouts and felt life owed them a free living; nor did he acknowledge any kin, not at all except a brother, named Mike, someplace in Minnesota. He lived with his wife whom he called his sidekick (and of course, she had kin).
He lived in a little apartment in the city of Huancayo, in the Andes of Peru; a neat warm apartment. His wife never cooked, but she kept a neat and clean house, and would run to the drugstore when he needed medicine (he was all of twelve years her senior).
In those first years he came to Huancayo, I saw a lot of him, if not in the newspapers or on television, or on the radio, then in person, at his house or a café called Mia Mamma, among other restaurants, and cafés. He liked to sit in the sun and bake, while eating his lunch in quiet, he didn’t care to look out of windows, he said once: “The reason is, is that I never get to taste the God given fresh air, or feel the sun’s heat in those enclosures.”
So you see I knew him pretty well, or as well and perhaps even more so than most people, to include his journalist friends, whom were mostly bloodsuckers or otherwise known as leaches, other than the younger group, and even some of them; even better than his wife’s kin. And they were always protective of him.
He had a liking for ice cream; it tasted all right to me, especially on a warm August day in Huancayo. He didn’t care for most of our city’s sports, he’d never come to see us play; only his wife’s swimming. Anyhow, we’d all wait to hear about his next book, or new production, his next forthcoming book to come out, and I never missed a presentation of his. The next day we’d all talk about Uncle Lee, how he sat behind a table or podium not saying anything, just standing or sitting there all clean and neat and proper like a scholar, with his clean looking tie and suite jacket on, and a whole lot of medals on each lapel, looking more like a general than an Andean Scholar, or Poet Laureate—as he was. And then abruptly, he’d talk, answer questions, tired looking eyes behind his small glassed-in, framed glasses, and it was always short and sweet.

Uncle Lee didn’t die that one day he was ill, it was after that. He came home after a long spell in the hospital, weighing thirty-pounds less, his eyes foggy, likened to cracked eggs, near dead eyes, but still alive. We hoped he’d remember us, and he did, although he had to relearn our names. Faces he never forgot, just names. His brother remained in that there Minnesota, up near Canada, I heard him tell once “I think my brother feels Peru is a bit too dangerous for his blood.”
I remember that one afternoon when he called over the young waiter, and he looked at Uncle Lee, as if he had wide window glass eyes—the boy being his nephew, eleven-years old at the time, “You’re my waiter, hey?” he said, and the boy said back, “Yes, uncle.”
With those eyes that were now pale, and in need have something, he commented staring at the boy, “You shook my hand like a man today, it’s about time,” he affirmed to the boy.
The boy began to say something else, then Uncle Lee said, “Okay, okay. Just give me another hand shake like that and I’ll double your tip.”
The boy did it, shook his hand firm, and got two- soles. And Uncle Lee said, “All right, okay, you know a firm hand shake gives a message (the boy stood there in astonishment) it means we aren’t going to fight, we’re friends.” And that was that, a lesson perhaps, if not a confirmation to the boy, he was entering a new world, outside of his democratic home front.
And the boy took the money and put it in his pocket and went to eat his lunch, his mother, the cook had made for him.

I don’t know for sure how his religion was, I just heard he never disconnected himself of it, not even for a minute or two, he said and I heard him say it, and he said it more than once, but I’ll try to quite him the best I can: “The best of men or the worse of men are all entitled to it (religion), anybody, and everybody, but cussing and drinking, and lying and fornication, and taking what does not belong to you—all these kinds of things don’t get washed away because you got a cross in the car hanging around your rearview mirror, instead of those large white or black dice, and you say look I got religion; or you go to a fiesta, and pray for an hour prior to the drinking and dancing and eating, and drink and cuss for ten-hours afterward, spend all your money and can’t buy a dime’s worth of bread for the household, and say I got religion, it isn’t going to save you one bit, you don’t have a license to whore about and look God in the face, and not think he’s not going to slam the door in your face and say “I don’t know you,” because that’s exactly what’s He’s going to say about you and your religion, it’s not worth a plum nickel. Those are the folks that haven’t a notion of anything about religion because it means something different.”
I suppose you could say, Uncle Lee lived on the quiet side of the street, but often went over to the wild side to ponder, with the reckless, I guess in his younger day, he was very much like them.

When he got ill, this last time, I suppose we all thought, that was all of him, that this was the last for Uncle Lee, that he would surely die, because even a cat only has nine-lives, and he had used them all up long ago. But he always lived on the edge, so we were baffled one which way to think.
I went to see him at his apartment because I wanted to, because he was—as I mentioned before—the finest of men I had known, got to know, I’d ever get to know perhaps, because he made fun out of life, grabbed opportunities in spite of limitations, if indeed he had any, or if there were hurdles, or stumbling blocks in his way, it didn’t matter, he went around them, under them, or over them. Regardless, people had tried to kill him (his kin, from way back, for his money; I heard it was a son-in-law, and a daughter), and he was robbed a number of times, beat a few times—so I learned about him, but he held no grudges, he said, “It’s the price you pay for being alive.”
I didn’t understand all of him; perhaps no one did, not even himself, not even his mother, whom he lived with, and she lived with him, back and forth for 33-years, closer than two peas in a pod; as I was saying, I didn’t understand all of him, yet, in time I might, but I’d have to get old for that, yet I think I knew more of him than most folks knew, besides the surface things that everybody knew. In any case, this was Uncle Lee’s last go-around. His picnic on White Mountain, and his last writings of Huancayo, and his hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota, where he lived, but never cared to return to, said they all grew to be snobs back there.
He said the region, the Mantaro Valley, and Huancayo, of which he loved so dearly, had no top to it, or on it—no lid. That is, or was to his surprise, un-comprehendible, why God had so much patience with the folks of the Valley Region. That it was alive, and an un-rule-ridden, valley region full of small towns and one big city. That the folks were terrified and timed, fiesta clinging, and could be quite deceiving—but warm hearted. It was hard for me to understand all that, but perhaps he was more right than wrong.

He would not have had to ask me, no—not anymore than he did, and he never did verbally, and I would have gone with him anywhere, anytime, had he asked. I could tell from his voice though, this last time, he was not fine. Then came the sign that arrow that no one can dodge…

Note: written while still ill (the 11th-day), at the author’s apartment in Huancayo, Peru, No: 494, 10-17-2100; dedicated to Uncle Lee.