denotsKO

2008-01-29T12:10:00.001+01:00

The Post Office

2005-12-12T04:41:00.000+01:00

DATELINE: Somewhere near the Grand Canyon / Arizona 1994 Summer/Fall

"What do you mean you mailed it? To where? I live in a fucking van. What did you use for a zip code, my license plate?"

"No. You said that you were on your way to The Grand Canyon, so we sent it there."

"Oh. I wasn't aware there was a post office at the bottom of the Grand Canyon."

"Look, Western Union wanted like sixty bucks to send that much money. We weren't going to spend that, so we found the town closest to where you said you were going, and sent it. It's addressed to you, general delivery."

"You're an idiot. What town did you send it too?"

"Tusayan, Arizona."

"I'm not sure where the hell that is, but I know it's not where I am. I'm deducting my gas to Tusayan and back from what you sent. You're fucking stupid. You say you trust me and ask me to send you some shit. Then in an effort to save a few fucking dollars you send me forty miles out of my way to go get It."

"Fuck you man. Take it or leave It."

"What? Screw you Eric. What if I decide to just leave it? You'll be out a hundred bucks for sure. I'll let it sit in that fucking post office for twenty years. I'm sure you were too paranoid to put a return address on it. At this point, Dickhead, you'll be lucky if I send you a post card."

Silence.

I hung up.

*********************************************************

"So what's up man?"

I was cursing to myself as I got back into the van. "They're fucking idiots. Instead of wiring it, they sent it through the mail."

"To where? We live in a god damn van!"

"Tusayan. Where ever the fuck that is." I hated complications. This was enough of a complication for me to forsake friendship for economics and not feel much guilt about it. It was possible this side trip was going to cost us more money than we stood to make, and more time than it was worth.

"Hey it's not far from here according to the map. Lets go get it. We'll be there in an hour and it's not that far out of our way." Todd cut in.

"Fine, but its spending money now. They're idiots and I'm not sending them anything." I told him.

As we pulled onto the road, I was handed a few hits of acid. It felt dry and comforting on my tongue. As it soaked up the saliva on my tongue, I watched the desert fly past my window. It had been a few days since I had eaten any LSD, and my head was clean. This would hit me strong and quick. It would definately make the ride to the post office a little more interesting. By the time we got there it would really be kicking in and by the time I had the money in my hand, it would be time for a beer, or twelve.

*********************************************************

As we pulled into the parking lot across the street from the post office I was putting my boots on; no socks, laces loose. I wouldn't need to be in them long. In and out, then off to the beer store. I was feeling the acid working in my skull for sure now. As I climbed from the back of the van, I was momentarily hypnotized by the flashes of sun reflected from the windows of passing cars. Each time a car raced passed, a miniature sun bounced off its window and slammed into my eyes with enough force to render me momentarily blind. A swirling, liquid light show danced across the back side of my eyelids each time I blinked at the flashing glare. It was incredibly bright out, and I can feel the sun heating my skin. Instantly there is a glisten of sweat on my body that was vented away by the breeze, almost as quickly as it formed.

I took a minute to gather my thoughts. This was the type of situation that would make most people on acid shrink away. Social contact with those not under the influence of the drug can be a mood shattering adventure. Fear and paranoia can quickly destroy any good feelings and render the rest of the trip unpleasant and tense. This is where I usually shined. I always thrived on the knowledge that I alone was on drugs, and those around me are simply actors in my play. Fear and paranoia are the demons of the weak, and would not influence me. Always in the back of my skull I could hear a soothing voice telling me "Be calm. All that you are experiencing is the effect of the drug you took. It will pass and you will be OK. Be calm. All that you..." An endless loop of sanity; there to keep my subconscious grounded and in control.

I crossed the street and entered the building. The air conditioning washed over me in a cold wave. Blinking as my eyes adjusted to the change from blinding sunlight to flickering fluorescent lighting, I scaned the room. It was pretty deserted. The one clerk at the desk was selling some stamps to an old lady with a cane and I could here the sounds of boxes being sorted and classic rock music leaking from behind a wall of mailboxes. Other than that, the place was dead.

I reminded myself that I am master of all I survey and they are all mindless sheep as I step into line behind the old lady. The clerk eyed me for a second. He knew I was not local instantly. I was wearing a pair of camouflaged cargo pants, cut off below the knees with a worn out black T-shirt. My boots were open and flopping off my heals as I walked. I'm sure the air in the room was filled with the scent of body odor and patchouli oil as soon as I opened the door to enter. When the old lady steped to the side to leave she looked at me with a startled, nervous glance. Holding her purse and stamps close to her body as she passed. I fought the urge to lunge toward her, just to see her try to run away.

"Can I help you?" he asked. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he knew that I was his superior.

"Yes you can. I should have some mail waiting here for me. It was sent 'General Delivery' a few days ago." I handed him my ID. He looked at the ID and stepped behind the wall to look for it. I could hear Steve Miller shaking peach trees in the back room.

"Yup, just came in this morning." he told me as he returned from the back. "We don't get much mail sent 'General Delivery' here. Are you camping near here or something?"

"Yeah. Something like that." retrieving my letter and ID, I headed for the door. Near the door I paused to throw the envelope away once it was empty. There was no cash in it. When I reached in expecting to pull out bills, all I found was a postal money order. "What the fuck is this?"

"Excuse me?" A guy wearing a badge had just entered the building and overheard my conversation with myself.

"Nothing. Just talking to myself."

"Well, watch your mouth boy. No one wants to hear you talking like that. If you want to use that kind of tongue, go back to where you're welcome. Do you understand me?" He was looking me directly in my eyes. He could instantly tell I was on something by the size of my dilated pupils and red eyes. He stared into my eyes for a long moment. Scanning my face. Perhaps he was flipping through a stack of wanted posters in his mind, quickly comparing my features with those of wanted murderers and child molesters. "Son, are you on drugs?"

"Well, if I was on drugs, it would be none of your business. Taking drugs is not against the law. Possessing drugs is against the law. I assure you, I don't possess any drugs." Who the hell did this pig think he was? Did he not know who was the master and who was the servant here? "Excuse me officer. I have things to do."

"Watch yourself." he warned as he approached his mailbox. "I'm sure you're just passing through, so I'll leave you alone. Don't give me a reason to look at you closer."

"Not a problem. I'll be moving on in just a few minutes." This said over my shoulder as I made my way back to the counter.

"Can I cash this here?" sliding the paper over the worn surface of the service desk. It had a vertical line down the middle, dividing the sheet in two equal halves. One side of the line was for the person who bought the money order to fill out. The other was for the person receiving it to fill out. Both were blank.

"Sure you can. Just fill it out with your name." He handed me a pen on a long chain that was screwed to the counter top. The chain made an omenous rattlesnake noise as it slid over the aluminum edge of the counter.

I heard the bell above the door ring as the cop exited. I turned to watch him go and saw a few people pass him on their way in. "Stupid pig" I thought as I eyed the new arrivals. More locals dressed like cowboys. I wondered if they really owned any cattle, or if they just thought suede fringe and tassles were cool.

Gripping the pen loosely in my fingers, I dutifully filled each line on the right side of the paper with a flourish and ease that would have made Shakespeare envious. "Ignorant sheep people" I told myself. When I was done I flipped the paper into my fingers deftly and held it out for the clerk.

"You have to fill out both sides." he stated. "Like you are sending it to yourself."

My mind stuttered. The confidence I had enjoyed just nanoseconds ago flowed out my toes onto the cool tile floor like a drained bladder. Frosty cold tingling crept in from my feet. "Huh? What? Why?"

"So we know who bought it."

"What? I didn't buy it. It came out of that letter I just picked up. You saw me open it. I didn't send it." What was happening? Did he know something? Did he know why the money was sent? Was he working with that cop? He must be. He's just trying to get information from me. Who is this guy? He looked a little different now. Was he the guy that had handed me the letter two minutes ago, or had he been switched? Sweat oozed from my palms. The bell rang again and I spun toward the sound like it was a gunshot. More people filed in the door. Where the fuck had all these people come from? There were now 15 people in line behind me, all staring at me coldly.

"Sir?" I spun again to look at him. Sweat now flowing freely. My forehead was cold. My face was on fire. "Sir, there are people waiting." I turned and saw puzzled stares again. Angry eyes cut my flesh like lasers. Would they attack me? It was no longer safe here. I had to get out of here, but I had to keep him from knowing more than he already did. He would tell them everything. Paranoia gripped me so hard I could barely breathe. I heard my knuckles crack from the pressure I was applying to the shaft of the pen.

I turned my attention back the money order. I was required to fill in the blanks, but I knew in my soul that doing it would spell my doom. I was shaking now. The chain ticked against the countertop with the steady, racing rythm of my heart. I clutched the pen so hard my knuckles turned white from the pressure squeezing the blood from them. I had no escape. Without this money we would be trapped here. It would get dark tonight and they would come for us. By morning our bones would already be picked clean by dirty, hungry fingers.

"Sir?"

"OK, OK. Sorry. So just my name and stuff here, on this side?"

"Yes sir. Just like the other side." A look somewhere between sympathy and burning hate was on his face.

Panic was setting in. My hand trembled at it's own rhythm. It scratched at the paper with slow determination. The words were unreadable to even me. I stopped. I had to calm myself. I could feel the beings behind me, what ever they were, sniffing at my neck. They could smell my fear and it made them eager to feed. They would suck the flesh from my spine in another minute. Sweat dripped from my nose as I stood staring at the paper.

"Are you OK? Do you need help, sir? I can smell your liver and I'm going to eat it raw."

"What?" I almost screamed at him.

"Are you OK, sir? You look ill."

"I'm fine. It's just...hot in here. That's all." I slowly finished filling the lines.

When I was done, the left side was totally incomprehensible while the right side was penned perfectly. I handed it to the clerk, pulling my hand back as quickly as possible once he had a suitable grip on it. He looked down at it quietly, then into my eyes. He knew everything about me now. I had tried to elude his gaze by looking at the door. It was blindingly bright outside. I could see silhouettes moving around the room and imagined what grotesque faces they had. I was going to die here. I knew that.

"Here is your money, sir." I turned to the clerk. He was watching me closely. As he handed me the money, his fingers brushed the palm of my hand. They were as cold as ice. He was as pulseless as everyone else in the room.

I made my way toward the exit. I could here whispers behind me. Were they making their move? I wasn't going to give them the chance. I knew if I could just make it into the sunlight they would be powerless to stop me. I started to run ten feet from the door. As I stumbled onto the wide sidewalk outside, I felt a hand try to pull me back. It was too late though. I had escaped. I crossed the street carefully. I did not want attention. Once I had made it to the parking lot the panic took over again. I began to sprint toward the van. Once I was close enough to be heard I began screaming.

"Open the door! Open the fucking door!"

The van's engine roared to life and the side door swung open. I was still screaming as I jumped into the van. "GO! GO! GO!"

Not knowing what had happened, everyone was scared. Had I just robbed the post office? Why was I in there so long? There was no way I could tell them what had happened. I didn't have the heart to tell them that they would be dead by morning if we didn't leave immediately.

"Just drive. I'm OK. Don't give them a reason to slow us down."

One For The Whiners

2005-12-11T10:27:00.000+01:00

It seems that a few readers have been whining to Mrs. D that I never finished 'The Persistence of Time'. This was the short story that I had started in November, but never finished. I have posted the rest of what I have here. I promise to finish it over the holidays. It was written in MS Word, so I had to edit it for blogger. If you come across any jacked-up looking punctuation, let me know.

I also have 'The Post Office' left to post here. It was on here for a few days, a while back, but I pulled it off. It will be posted tomorrow for your reading pleasure.

All Work & No Play...

2005-12-10T12:29:00.000+01:00

Damn, I've been busy. Haven't had time to post in the last few weeks. Really I guess I've been more lazy that busy; but tough shit. I'm sure you struggled on with your lives in my absence. Despite the nagging feelings of rejection and torment that kept you awake, weeping into your pillows at night, you survived. Now I'm back, and you can once again marvel at my razor sharp wit and intellect.

Here's a funny story that was related to me by a coworker. Since April there has been an old man staying in the hospital here. He is a WWII vet with no family that could be found. His admission to the hospital was a necessity due to his advanced age and inability to care for himself properly. I don't know why he chose to live here in Germany, but there a lot of retirees in the area. Perhaps his wife was German and passed on, leaving him alone. The old guy had become a regular fixture on the ward, and I saw him almost daily during the course of my duties. He was always quick to smile at me, even if senillity had robbed him of the knowledge of why he was smiling. I've been told that he is full Navaho, and was one of the original code talkers.

Someone was finally able to track down a distant relative that agreed to care for the old soldier. Arrangements were made for him to travel back to the U.S.A. to live the remainder of his days in the home of family. He was escorted back to the states by a young soldier from the hospital that spoke Navaho. The two had become friends and spent many hours together during his stay in the hospital. When the plane landed, the old man was greeted with a hero's welcome. He was met at the air terminal by George W. Bush. He was congratulated on his finally completed journey home as the president shook his hand.

I'm told that he looked Bush in the eye, smiling as always, and said.

"Thank you very much. Who are you?"

No Diploma Required

2005-11-21T15:29:00.000+01:00

Ever wonder how some people survive to adulthood? It seems that modern society strives to keep stupid people alive to fill jobs that smart people refuse to fill. Are we just shooting ourselves in the foot by not killing these people early in life.

This morning, I went to the Burger King here in the hospital to get a cup of coffee. I could tell by the slack-jawed, wide-eyed look on the chick's face that she was normally working at the fry station. It took her almost five minutes to take the the first guy's order, and I'm not so sure that it was done that well by the confused look in her eyes.

"Can I take your order, sir?"

"A large coffee please."

"O.K. Is that for here, or to go?"

"Uhhh....Does it matter? Are you going to put it in a bag, or something?"

"There is a to-go button, and a dine-in button. One has to be pressed before I can go on."

"Oh. OK then, make it for here."

She reaches over to grab an empty cup, and puts it on a tray. After a few, long, painfully sad minutes she has entered my order in all its complexity into the cash register.

"That'll be 75 cents."

Seeing a perfect opportunity to give her an IQ test, I hand her $1, 2 quarters, 2 dimes, and a nickel. She stared into her open hand for a full minute, not comprehending what she was given. Once she was convinced that she had added all the money up, she dutifully put each into its correct receptacle in the drawer. She then typed in the amount that she was given, and hit the button. Like a robot, she looked up at the magic math answer machine. Then she pulled out the same 1$ bill I had just given her and handed it back to me with a well practiced smile.

"Have a nice day sir."

"You too." I grabbed my cup and turned to go.

"Sir! You forgot your tray."

"That's alright, I don't need a tray. I decided to drink it at my desk."

"But...But...Can you put it over there for me?" She pointed at the little stack of used trays on top of the trash can. "We can't reuse trays."

Laughing outloud, I picked up the tray in front of her. The same tray that had not touched human hands other than hers, and placed it on the stack, after emptying the paper liner into the trash of course.

Sometimes I think our species is doomed.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

2005-11-13T16:49:00.000+01:00

My son is currently obsessed with a DVD collection of Christmas movies. Kids go through phases where they will watch the same movies repeatedly. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Ethan's current fixation on those old movies, the ones we used to only get to watch DURING the holiday season, brings back memories of years past. Times when the magic of a holiday such as Christmas was real. Times when my father's twisted sense of humor scarred my sisters and I into adulthood.

I don't remember my exact age, but I would guess that I was about six or seven years old. We lived in an old farmhouse in the country, our nearest neighbor being a mile or more away across open cornfields. Our home had the same ominous look as the Amityville house. It's front had a row of windows on the first floor that looked like a grinning mouth, full of teeth. The second floor showed two windows that made eyes. Long covered porches ran the full length of the front and back, with roofs that allowed daring children to move from one bedroom to another by scrambling across their shingled surfaces. Chimneys appeared as symmetrical horns from the top of the house, belching wood smoke to the sky in the winter months.

In those days my father hated beer, as I have noted here in the past. My mother always brought the stuff home, and being the guy he was, my father had no choice but to drink it. It was always a valiant effort on his part, he had to dispose of the foul fluid the only way he knew. Often, after long periods of judgment dulling labor, working hard to rid the fridge of beer, Dad attempted to entertain us by disproving all of our weak-minded childhood fantasies.

It was Christmas eve and, as it seemed was always the case back then, a fresh layer of snow had covered everything. We were all sent to bed to lie awake for what might have been hours awaiting Santa's arrival. I can clearly remember staring out my window from across the room. It must have been a full moon because there seemed to be an other worldly light coming from the just fallen snow outside on the roof. The whole world was glowing in anticipation of the coming of midnight, and with it the fulfillment of weeks of dreaming, wishing and begging. Slumber was slow to come. My heart was beating too quickly to allow my mind to grasp hold of the dancing sugarplums I had heard so much about.

As my brain finally felt the first tingles of sleep moving over it, I heard a noise outside. It was a heavy thump on the roof above, followed by another. My eyes snapped open before the first thump had ended. This was the moment I had longed for my whole life. I sat up, looking at the black sky outside. Was it Santa? Another thump had me sitting on the edge of the bed, my legs dangling from the side. The sound of jingling bells slipped into my room from outside, sending my heart into a dangerously rapid pace. A final thump on the roof threw me to my feet, silently running across the cold hardwood toward the window.

Three feet shy of the window, I heard a thunderous BOOM from outside. I stopped cold. The sill of my frost framed window was just beyond my reach. I was stunned by the totally foreign sound, and could not comprehend what it could have been. From outside, down on the pristine whiteness of the lawn, came the crazed voice of my father. I could hear him screaming maniacal laughter as I stepped closer to the glass and looked out. He was standing in the center of the yard bare chested, wearing only rubber boots and jeans, dancing in a circle with his shotgun.

"I got that summabitch! I got him! That'll teach that bastard to land on my roof!"

At my fathers feet laid a red velour hat with a fluffy white ball on top. From across the hall I heard my older sister screaming. She always tended to overreact in such situations, even though she was two years older than me. My mother soon rushed into the room to assure us that Dad had not really shot Santa Claus. It was all just a bad joke and we should get to sleep before the real Santa arrived. Sleep was impossible with the sound of one sister sobbing in the next room, and another screaming at her to shut up from down the hall.

I am often tempted to inject such memories into the fragile young minds of my children; but Mrs. Denotsko always talks me out of it. What harm could come from it though? I turned out fine. Right? Right?

I'll throw the book at you.

2005-11-08T07:30:00.000+01:00

THE PERSISTENCE OF TIME

In the dim glow of his workbench, Salvador Rollins was a god. There was nothing he could not fix. He had spent his entire life creating and repairing devices of all types. As a child, he had passed countless hours watching his father dismantle and repair jewelry and timepieces in his shop. By the time his father died and passed the business on to him, Sal had far surpassed him in the skills of the trade. He, at one time, was known to build elaborate, one of a kind pocket watches for the most rich and powerful people on the planet. Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon had both carried Rollins' work in their pockets during their famous 1959 meeting. He had even created a matched set of watches for the Kennedy family.

Over the years, the demand for Rollins' expertise dwindled to the point that his only marketable skill was the repair and restoration of antique watches, many of witch he had himself built. A gift of a gold-cased pocket watch is a traditional present given to an employee upon his or her retirement. In that capacity, a "gold watch" has come to be a cultural symbol used to allude to retirement, obsolescence, and old age; Sal himself had become a gold watch.

Right now, he was working on an antique pocket watch that he had built early in his career. It was rather unadorned in comparison to the style of his later pieces, but was one of his favorite creations. He had made several of them to be sold in fine jewelry stores around the U.S., so he had no recollection of this exact watch. They were not cheap watches by any measure. Who ever had originally bought it had good taste. It had most recently been found in a pawnshop on 42nd Street. It was clear that the fat slug behind the counter did not have a clue what its real value was. Sal had bought it for $5 with a cigar box full of other broken watches.

Now with the back open, Mr. Rollins looked at the fine jewels that formed the mechanics. The watch had lived a rough life, but was once truly loved. Through a magnifying lens, its life story unfolded to the skilled eyes examining it. There was an engraving on the back that told of a long ago lover's devotion. The small nicks in the once polished gold case were not from sharing a pocket with a ring of keys, but indicated that it had been in the mouth of a teething baby. A piece of pipe tobacco, intertwined with lint was lodged in the hinge. A jeweler had left tool marks around the rim of the back decades ago, probably the last time it had been repaired. The gears and springs had long ago frozen in place. There was evidence that the thing had been carried for a long time after it had quit telling the time. All these things were what made it so valuable to Sal. The monetary value of it was not important. In a society where 90% of all purchases were clogging landfills within six months, a thing such as this was a rare find.

He was slowly disassembling the mechanism, cleaning the interior and parts as he went, always searching for flaws. Large, oak, cutting boards flanked his bench. Years earlier he had drilled and hollowed hundreds of small depressions into their surfaces. Now each one received a part of the watch. The first piece removed went into the upper left recession, the second into the next... A watch of such fine quality could house near a thousand individual components. In this manner, by working in reverse order, and referring to countless notes and diagrams made along the way, he would later reassemble all the bits into a now working watch. Through the experience gained over his lifetime, he knew how each part worked in unison with its associated parts. He needed no instructions.

Structure and order were things that Sal worshipped. He had spent his life studying how things worked, and the kinds of things that stopped function matter just as much. It is a yin-yang relationship that touches every aspect of existence. All that lives must die. All that is built up will eventually be torn down. All that works will some day cease to function. These are all absolutes that must be.

Understanding how a watch functions is as important as knowing what could cause its hands to stop. While he focused his eyes and fingers to the task of disassembly, his mind saw teeth being torn from gears, springs being wound to the point of destruction. Then, after all is destroyed, his mind will turn to gears spinning around at incredibly high speeds, perfectly meshing teeth as they rotate. He saw his fingers wind the clock mechanism, turning the knob until the spiral spring inside was at the perfect tension and stopping deftly. He saw his soul live on inside that watch.

At this late stage of his life, Rollins worried little about things other than his current repair job. He never made enough money to pay his expenses. Every month his bills reduced his savings a little more. Had he been a keener businessperson, he could be worth millions by now. He chose not to hire artisans to build his watches for him, allowing him to reap the rewards of their labor. Instead, he kept his enterprise small and worked at his own pace, making far less money, but reaping much more satisfaction from his life. He had built a large nest egg over the years, always promising his wife that they would someday leave the city for a quiet home in the country. With her death his obligation to move away had also died. Now, all he had was his work. He couldn't even remember the last time he had climbed the stairs to his apartment above the store. While working at his bench one night, fatigue and weakness had taken control of his body. Intending to just rest for a while, he lied down on the old corduroy sofa in the back of the store, and had been spending his nights there for the last five years. It was easier to just sleep there and be only a few yards from his obsessions.

Most of the work he did was on watches that he had built in the past. He occasionally received requests from collectors to service and repair the treasures they had purchased at auction houses. Sometimes, it was the auction houses themselves that hired him. A watch would sell at a higher price if it were in immaculate, working condition. Usually the only thing required of him was to clean the watch components and reassemble them. Even such a mundane sounding task received his absolute devotion.

His repair jobs would be considered obsessions, if he were to ever leave the shop to be diagnosed by a professional. The watch he was currently working on had spent three months in his pocket before he even tried to examine it. He felt that such a thing, a thing that had been loved dearly for decades, should not be molested by anyone that did not also truly love it. He had devoted himself to knowing this watch. He was always conscious of its weight in his pocket. He held it in his hand while reading his morning paper, turning it and rubbing it with his fingertips. He knew from memory that there were exactly 840 fine notches that formed an intricate rope detail around the face of the watch. The button in the center of the knob that released the cover had a convex head; but was not symmetrical. It bulged slightly to one side, giving it an almost egg shaped profile. Only after learning everything there was to learn about an object could he feel qualified to dismantle it.

Outside his shop, the masses streamed by without noticing the place. His father had built the building in 1920, when the younger Rollins was only a baby. It was three stories high; with what was once decidedly detailed brickwork at every point along its face. Years of decline and the steady build up of lichen and pigeon droppings had hidden most of the fine patterns that had once been tooled into each brick. The street front exposure of the address was only fifteen feet wide, and it was book ended by newer buildings that were both two stories higher. They were home to a cellular phone store and a tattoo parlor. Both had lighted signs with 24-inch letters. The sign above his door was a simple, painted wood and gold leafed plaque that read only 'ROLLINS' FINE JEWELRY & WATCHES'.

The pillars of books and boxes inside, which had accumulated over the last fifteen years of his wife's absence, prevented any glimpse of the interior. He had once been meticulous about indexing and filing his reference books and diagrams. Now they sat in tall piles, randomly distributed around what had once been an immaculate showroom. At one time, the polished marble floor was empty except for the bronze and glass cases full of gold watches and fine jewelry. Now the cases were buried under the debris, the beauty of the bronze hidden under years of corrosion and decades of dust.

The rooftop of the building had once been alive with Ellen's passion, plants. He had built a small green house up there for her, and countless heavy, clay pots still lined the walls. He had never been good with plants, so after her death, they were all left to die. Everything was still as it was when she had last touched it. All the trees had been slowly transformed into dry, brittle sticks held upright by the dirt clumped around their roots. Some had been dead for so long that the rain moistened soil had caused the trunk and roots to rot away, allowing the tree to fall aside leaving just the orphaned pot. Bonsais that represented years upon years of disciplined care and training stood frozen in their winter state. The dense wood of the trees was bleached gray by the sun and the bark was falling away from the dry wood. Only the evergreens still clung to a little of their foliage, but this was all light brown and lifeless. Most of the needles had long ago been picked away by the birds.

Feeling the strain of intense concentration bringing on a headache, Sal put the watch down. After carefully placing it onto the maroon velvet pad in the center of the bench, he stared intently at the work surface. It was his routine to make careful observation of everything on his bench before leaving it. He memorized everything, cautiously noting where each tool and component was resting, so when he returned there would be no panicked effort to recollect what he had last done in the repair process. Only once he was positive that everything was as it should be could he move on. He stood slowly from his stool. Feeling his knees resist the motion, he braced himself for the inevitable crack of his joints that occasionally sent him to the floor. Once it came, he shuffled to the small bathroom in the back.

Feeling the need for food, Sal worked his way through stacks of boxes to what used to be his business office. Eight years earlier he had hired a contractor to install a shower in the bathroom on the first floor, and as a favor for an old friend of his grandfather, the contractor had also turned the office into a small kitchen. In the kitchen, he found no food. He must have eaten the last of the soup the day before. This meant that he was going to have to go out today for groceries. He had last been out on Thursday. It was now Tuesday.

He went to retrieve his wallet and hat. Anything that he might ever need was either at his bench, in the kitchen or on the shelves in the hall outside his cramped bathroom. At the shelves, he noticed stairs to his apartment upstairs. They had a thick layer of dust on them that had not been disturbed in at least a year. In his mind he could see himself carrying Ellen up those stairs fifty years earlier. The memory made him pause for a moment in warm reflection. After a few seconds, he started the trek to the front of the store. As he passed the workbench, the glint of sunlight off the watch drew his eye to the right. He stood staring at the watch, imagining the soothing ticks that would eventually come from its case. He stood for a long time in silence, wishing he could pick it up as one piece and drop it into his pocket. He didn't like to leave unfinished work on his bench. With the pain of separation, he moved on past the bench and out the front door. He looked back over his shoulder one last time after locking it. As he dropped his keys into his pocket he longed to feel the weight of the watch instead.

He and Ellen had always gone shopping together on Saturdays. They would stroll down the sidewalk hand in hand, always along the same route in the opposite direction of their destination. They would walk west to the park and circle around its perimeter until they faced east. They would spend the whole day going to buy a loaf of bread. Ellen had fallen in love with the neighborhood that skirted the park's west side. It was different now, but back then; it was filled with large Asian families. Their influence had turned that side of Speaker's park into a Zen sanctuary. It was dotted with quiet, hidden pockets of peacefully silent solitude. Large stone structures with trickling water shielded the visitors from the noise and smells of the city. It was not unusual for them to sit on a small bench in the park for hours in silence, doing nothing but watching a squirrel play in the trees or a bird continuously venturing out to gather food for its hungry chicks.

Today his path did not include the park. The younger generations had different values than those of their parents. The Zen solitude of the park had been pushed aside in favor of basketball courts and skateboard ramps. Now a stroll through the park was always punctuated with the sounds of cursing arguments over who had last touched the ball and the rumbling thunder of dangerously loud car stereos. Sal had, on occasion, sat watching young boys ride skateboards and roller blades on the cement ramps in the center of the park. The fluid motion of their skill had mesmerized him. The boys seemed to be glued to the skateboard, flying through the air, and the very next instant the board and the boy would be moving in opposite directions, only to come together at the very last instant before touchdown and speed away toward the next obstacle. It amazed him that such things could be accomplished with just a piece of plywood with wheels.

His intended destination today was three blocks east of his home. It was a beautiful early spring day, and despite his reluctance to leave his home, Sal welcomed the outing. An old friend of Ellen's, Bill, owned the only grocery store he shopped at. There were stores closer to his home; but they all lacked the simplicity that he wanted. He refused to shop at convenience stores. Just the idea of going into one of those places made him anxious. He rarely took the long way anywhere these days; but he made the effort. Sal Rollins was going to be eighty years old in July and felt every day of it. Sometimes his once a week walks would result in him spending the next day on his sofa, unwilling to move.

As he walked, Sal could think about nothing but the watch waiting on his workbench. It was not unusual for him to obsess over whatever watch, clock or piece of jewelry required his attention. He had once worked for two full months on a diamond bracelet that had fallen from its owner wrist into a blender. It was returned looking as if it were just purchased from the original maker. This watch had captured his mind more than any other thing. He always tried to build a connection with the objects that he worked on, but this time it seemed like the watch owned his mind. He had just started dismantling it yesterday, so there was still a long way to go. Working at his usual rate, the task would be finished in a few weeks. Years earlier it would be just a few days, but without the dexterity of youth, he worked much slower now.

As he walked, Sal made slow deliberate progress toward his objective. Every step was thought out before it was taken. At his age, a mistake as simple and slight as bringing his foot down on a discarded cap from a soda bottle had the potential to send him tumbling to the ground. Balance, and the ability to recover it once it is lost, was no longer a familiar thing to him. He rarely gave much attention to his age, except for times like this. The last decade had really seen a decline in his health. It was true that you are what you eat. For ten years Sal had eaten little other than canned soup and bread. On his weekly trip to the store, it was always painfully evident that his legs had turned to long, spindly noodles.

As he made his way along the sidewalk, keeping close to the buildings to avoid being knocked down by the faster moving traffic, Sal could see a truck in front of the store he was heading for. Closer now, he could see that there were boxes and appliances being loaded into it. His confusion made the final half block of travel seem like a lifetime. Once he had crossed the void, he could see that the mover were indeed emptying Bill's store piece by piece. Stunned, Sal stood staring into the open door at the foreign sight. Bill had not moved even a display shelf in the last thirty years, so to see the whole damn place nearly empty left him near speechless. At seventy-nine years old, no one had to tell Sal what had happened. Bill was, like himself, a dinosaur. Year after year Bill had lost money to the new generation of prepackaged franchised industry giants. He could not comprehend the idea of quitting his life to retire, even if it meant eventual annihilation.

Bill's wife, Margaret, had fallen ill and died within a year of Ellen. Bill had never wanted to be a storekeeper and always wanted to move from the city. That had always amused sal. Bill and Ellen had dated briefly in college, but decided to be friends instead. Sal always told them that if they had stayed together, they would be living in a little cottage in Maine, wishing they could move to the city. Now Bill was gone too. It mattered little if the store was closed due to Bill's death or due to his bankruptcy. Either one was death for him. If he was still alive, his bitch of a daughter had him locked in some nursing home somewhere so she could sell off his life.

Sal was turning to leave when he noticed a box on the sidewalk. It was open to the sky, and sat separate from the rest. He moved closer and looked inside. The box contained all Bills most prized things. Sal could see pictures, war medals, a trophy he had won in college. He had known Bill for fifty years. In front of him now sat the punctuation of every story he had ever heard from Bill's mouth, tossed to the side like it meant nothing.

"Son, can you help me with this box?' Sal refused to let his friend lose all that mattered to him. If Bill was locked away somewhere, he would want his stuff; and if he was dead Sal could not let it just sit on the sidewalk.

"What 'ya need old dude? Ya wanna take that crap? Cool, saves me some work cleaning up later." The mover picked up the box and set it gently on the two-wheeled caddie that Sal had originally intended to use for his groceries.

"Do you know what happened to the owner of this place? Has he died?"

Looking at his feet, ashamed of the insensitivity of his first words, the mover responded. "Yeah. I'm sorry about what I said a minute ago. Was he a friend?"

"A very old friend. Where is all this going?" motioning with his arm toward the truck.

"All I know is a lady was here earlier saying that the only thing worth anything was the building. I think she just hired us to empty it. Hang on a minute." He walked over to his partner and exchanged words for a few seconds before returning. "We're taking it to The Fischer Auction House down on the waterfront. They usually have weekly auctions of stuff like this."

"What is your name?"

"I'm Jimmy, Sir."

"Can you do me a favor Jimmy?" Sal pulled his wallet from the pocket of his coat and took out a business card, handing it to him. "If you find any more personal items like the ones in this box, I'll pay you for them. My friend's life is not up for sale at auction. Do you understand?"

"Yes Sir. I'll do that. I saw more upstairs, photos and stuff."

"Good bring me all that you find and I will give you fifty dollars for it."

"Yes, Sir."

Sal looked down into the box again. He and Ellen had never been able to have children. If they had, he would hope that their legacy of memories would not be so easily tossed aside. He turned to leave and had a thought.

"Jimmy."

"Yes?"

"I'll double that if you bring me a weeks worth of Campbell's Tomato soup and a loaf of bread too."

"I'll be there at six. Just tomato?"

"Just tomato." Sal said, as he turned west. "Just tomato, and some bread."

The walk home was sad for him. Since Ellen had died, he had become a hermit. He had lost contact with all his friends except for Bill, and only talked with Bill when he went out for food once a week. He had been contacted each time an old friend had died, but he never went to their funerals. If he hadn't needed food today, he might have never known that Bill was gone too. The sudden understanding of his long period of selfishness was burning him to the soul. He had never felt guilt so strong. The whole way home he wished for lightning to strike him down.

When six o'clock came, Sal was sitting in the study in the back of his store looking through Bill's things. He stood when he heard Jimmy knock at the front door. He slowly made his way to the front of the room. He was deeply sad, but felt a lot better now. Looking at the old pictures had taken him to happier times.

"Hello Mr. Rollins. I brought the things you asked for." Jimmy was standing at the door with a dolly loaded with four boxes. The two on top were more of Bill's things. Sal could see the edges of picture frames sticking above the edges of the box on the top of the stack.

"Thank you Jimmy. Let's take all these to the back room." Sal turned to lead the way.

"Wait just a minute Mr. Rollins. I still have two on the street. I don't want them to be stolen." Jimmy left the dolly of boxes and returned with two more. They were full cases of tomato soup. "The store still had all the groceries in it. I figured you could use them as much as anyone else."

"I'm almost eighty Jimmy. This should last me the rest of my life." Sal said, laughing now. "I guess those can go to the kitchen."

Jimmy carried the soup to the kitchen and returned for the dolly. Two of the boxes on the dolly were also food. He had brought cheese, crackers, oatmeal, and canned fruit in addition to the soup. Sal sat on the sofa looking at the items in the boxes while Jimmy emptied the boxes of food into the cabinets.

When Jimmy was done in the kitchen, he found Sal holding a small velvet pouch in one hand and a round, leather bound box in the other. He was crying. Jimmy knew what the items were. He had to hide them in the crotch of his pants to keep them from his coworkers. They were looking for valuables to pawn, and Jimmy refused to let them find these. The velvet bag held a gold locket, the finest he had ever seen. The box held a gold pocket watch on a chain that was much heavier than necessary. The engraved backs of both told that they had been gifts from Salvador and Ellen Rollins. Looking around him, Jimmy could hardly believe that Sal could afford such a luxury for himself, so to give such things as gifts told how dear the friends had been to him.

Sal didn't speak for a long time. Jimmy tried to give him privacy, but did not feel comfortable wandering around his home alone, so he just sat and waited. After a while Sal spoke.

"I'm sorry. I guess you need your money. I'll find my wallet." Sal had forgotten that Jimmy was there.

"Mr. Rollins, I don't want the money. I would have delivered the stuff for free if you had asked, and the food didn't cost me anything. I don't think your friend would have minded me taking it for you. Can you just tell me about that watch?" Jimmy was curious about it's origin.

"This watch?" Sal turned the leather case over in his hand.

The case alone was impressive. It was made of dense hardwood, covered with smooth deerskin leather. It was elaborately tooled with swirling shapes that gave the impression of twisted thorn bushes. In the center was a gold leafed monogram displaying Bill's initials intertwined together. The complexity of the monogram rendered it virtually unreadable. He opened the box with a twisting motion, seeing the watch for the first time in more than a decade. It was one of the finest watches he had ever made.

One of his watches had sold for more than $150,000 a few years earlier. This one could easily double that. Its case was gold with inlays of silver and platinum. Despite the detail, it was a relatively modest design. He had intended it to be a gift to a grocer. The face was coverless, with the crystal exposed. It was equipped with almost puritan hands and simple numerals. The only real detail was on the back. Another monogram, this one was a modification of the one on the box, except that it also incorporated Margaret's initials and the date of their marriage. He had spent more time designing and creating the details of the case than he had the inner workings of the chronometer itself.

The locket in the velvet pouch was almost a twin to the Bill's watch. Its details were more feminized, but almost an exact duplication. Releasing the catch on the necklace revealed a two-sided interior. One side contained a timepiece; the other was Bill and Margaret's wedding photo. In the photo, Bill was wearing his uniform with the medals he had been awarded for his actions on the beaches of Normandy. Margaret wore a simple white dress, a spray of tiny white flowers shot from her hair. Sal had taken the picture in 1945, the day after Bill had returned from Europe.

Jimmy sat on the floor of the room while Sal told every detail he could remember of Bill and Margaret. Each story lead to another, which, in turn, sparked a memory with another story attached. It was the first time Sal had talked to anyone for more than just a few moments in years. Being an orphan, Jimmy had never experienced such an orator in his presence. He had never had a grandfather to hear stories from and could not remember ever knowing anyone that captivated him so much.

Sal talked, and Jimmy listened until almost midnight, until Jimmy could see fatigue showing on Sal's face and excused himself. Sal, already sitting on the corduroy sofa, just lied down where he was and slept in his clothes.
For the first time in years, he did not dream of spinning gears or wound springs. He saw Ellen, wearing her planting apron, at a wooden table in the sun. She was working on a large, healthier than possible bonsai tree in the back yard of a small country cottage. The air was crisp and clean, and was blowing her hair gently. Sal could smell burning wood from the fieldstone chimney that pierced the tile roof of the house. The dogwood trees that lined the lawn were all meticulously cared for, and resembled large, flowering replicas of the bonsai tree she was working with at the table. In his dream, he only watched her. He did not try to talk to her out of fear that he would alter the scene.

When he woke, he opened his eyes as if he had just blinked. He was instantly alert, and staring out the door to the hall. His gaze was fixed on the stairs that led up to what was once their home, still thick with undisturbed dust. A few boxes and stacks of old magazines blocked progress beyond the fourth step. He lay still for a long time. He was not sad, just quietly remembering times they had shared. He went to the bench to continue his work, but today it seemed less important. He still gave it his full attention, but he let his mind wander to things long forgotten. Occasionally he would leave his workbench to examine Bill's things. He knew Bill and Margaret would not mind his curiosity. He read their letters from the war, wishing in a small way that he had experienced some of that conflict.

He had not served in the war due to the weakness of his lungs. All the time he had spent with his father in his workshop as a child had left him constantly short of breath. Exposure to the fumes of the furnace used to melt precious metals and the chemicals often employed in the trade is what had killed his father. It was unusual that Sal had achieved his age, considering the circumstances of his existence.

He and Ellen had never had any children. It was through their friends that they enjoyed the thrills and pain of parenthood. Looking now at the pictures of Bill's daughter, Sal felt pained to know how she had turned out. She had perhaps been given too much as a child. She grew to be very greedy, and constantly belittled her father for being a simple shopkeeper. In the last years of his life, Bill saw her very little, even though she lived in the same city. Looking at the photos took Sal back to when she was still a girl. Then, her father was the sun. She did not rise in the morning with out seeing him there. He had declined many opportunities to excel so that he could work just below where he lived. To her, later in life, he was a fool for not seeking riches, but to him, from the day she was born, he was tremendously rich.

Looking through Bill's life made Sal wonder what would become of all his memories once he was gone. He was the only child of an only child. He lacked even distant relatives, no children, nieces, nephews, no one to remember him fondly. He had intended to rewrite his will after Ellen passed, but had no one to name as an heir. He knew that his professional legacy would be sought after by collectors, but what of his personal legacy? He was cheerless to know that when the day came, there would be no one to save his possessions from the fate that he had saved Bill and Margaret’s from. They would just fall to the state, or possibly to the first person to find them unattended.

Jimmy called in sick the day after he met Sal. After leaving Sal Rollins asleep on his sofa, Jimmy went to a nearby bar to meet friends. He was excited to tell them of his new acquaintance, but as he started to tell the story he knew that they were not interested. They had arrived at the bar long before he did, and had already consumed much alcohol. Hoping that his audience would be more receptive on another day, Jimmy put his thoughts of Sal aside and enjoyed instead, talk of sports and supermodels. He stayed at the pub until the early hours of Wednesday morning, arriving home just before the sky opened into a day of torrential rains. He hated working outdoors in the rain, so he took the day off.

Most of his day was consumed with internet searches. By the time he was done, he had learned a lot about Salvador Rollins. He had never imagined that the rundown little shop he had passed dozens of times was the birthplace of so much history. Jimmy found websites devoted to Rollins' work. It seemed that Rollins had once been a name used with the same reverence as Rolex or Rolls Royce. Now collectors respected it even more, but it was for only the truly rich. The lack of mass-market production meant that Rollins' timepieces were exceptional finds that were rarely parted with, which drove auction prices to the extreme. Apparently, auction sales never included a share for the creator. Sal lived very simply, and showed no signs of his former fame.

The idea that a man's name could be worth so much, yet his existence mattered so little bothered Jimmy immensely. If Sal died tomorrow, who would notice? Having not even a name that would live on after his own passing, Jimmy decided to strive to know Sal Rollins. It seemed unjust to let this man's life fade like a season past, with no one that could say "I knew him well." or "We were friends."

Over the following weeks, Jimmy continued to visit Sal. He felt odd just stopping by to visit, but was compelled to know Sal, so that is what he did. At first Sal was wary of him, not knowing his intentions. As a few weeks passed, and Jimmy kept coming, Sal started to grow fond of him. Both had been seeking something, and they had possibly found it in each other. Sometimes Sal would tell him of all the people he had met over the years. Sometimes Jimmy would just fill a stool beside him as he worked, listening intently as he explained how the watch he was working on functioned. It was obvious that Sal loved to explain things. He had shown the engravings and marks of time on the gold case of the watch and told his theories of where each had come from. At times the only thing he did while visiting Sal was clean up around the store. He had found a stack of catalogs from Sotheby's and other famous auction houses that each contained pictures of Rollins watches. Each time one was sold they sent him a copy of the catalog, but never any of the profits.

Jimmy's girlfriend Anne had started to come with him to see where he was spending all his time. She was a warm girl with many of the same qualities as Jimmy. She was from a semi-wealthy family, and was currently at odds with her parents over her live-in relationship with Jimmy. They had not taken the time to get to know him, and saw him as a waste of her time. They saw no potential in him, wanting her to date someone with more of a pedigree. She was true to her love though; her eyes flashed with a light Sal had rarely seen when Jimmy spoke to her.

Over the following months, there was unmistakable improvement in the condition of the store. The polished marble once again looked like polished marble. Layers of fine cherry and walnut paneling gleamed with fresh light. Moldings seemed to have an extra dimension, rising reborn from curtains of cobwebs that had shrouded them in shadows and melancholy. The glass display cases had shed their clutter and dust insulation to reveal treasures and antiques that had been abandoned to darkness. Jimmy, being an amateur, enlisted Sal's help and together they had tinkered with the old wood and brass cash register until it too achieved new life.

Sal, unable to stand the flying dust, sometimes stayed in his shop while the work was conducted. Each night, after Jimmy and Anne had gone, he would wander the store and marvel at all the things that had been cleaned, polished, fixed, or simply found and were now visible. He had forgotten how high the ceiling was, until the chandelier was cleaned. It now threw tiny comets of rainbow illumination across the three dimensional relief of the tin, tiled ceiling, adding fluid motion to that which very recently was lifeless. Coming into the main part of his store now was like stepping into the past. It looked like it had twenty years in the past. Sal's heart ached when he thought about how he been living.

Jimmy's favorite place had become Sal's workshop. It was at he back of the store and was furnished with countless cabinets and drawers filled with tools of near infinite variety. Some were used in the manufacture of the watchcases and jewelry components, such as torches, grinders and mechanical presses capable of reducing a pellet of gold to a thin foil. Others were used to etch and engrave complex designs into the small items. On occasion, Jimmy would discover a series of drawers that held wire made of precious metals or silver roses as small as grains of rice. These had been fashioned in bulk for use in various projects. It was fascinating to him to see all the myriad components that were employed to create the complicated works that were on display in the front of the store. It became apparent that Sal's talents encompassed much more than watches.

Meeting Jimmy had been a life-changing event. Now, with Jimmy's help, Sal felt like he was regaining some of what he had allowed to slip away. He had finished restoring the watch and was itching for something to do with his days. Jimmy worked at the moving company during the days and only came around after work a few times a week, bringing Anne along on the weekends. Sal had spent the last few days bored and now was restless without something to occupy his brain. He had toyed with the idea of reopening the store for regular business, but had always been more engaged with the merchandise than the books. It was always Ellen who was the brain behind the business side of the operation.

Sal eventually started sleeping upstairs again. Anne and Jimmy spent an entire weekend cleaning the apartment. They were amazed with the countless antiques Ellen had accumulated. They had used the term 'living museum' several times while they wiped dust from black enameled cabinets and mopped gray floors. Sal knew that if his estate was to be sold, it would bring a handsome price; but to him, it was just furniture. The third story of his building housed even more items, but they had not ventured that far yet. It was always used for storage and some of Ellen's plants that were too delicate for the harsh sun on the roof of the building. It was equipped as a separate apartment and Sal and Ellen had lived there for a few years before Sal's parents died.

He felt guilty that Jimmy seemed to be putting his life on hold to help him reestablish his. He knew that Jimmy had been enrolled in college the previous year, but had put it on hold so that he could work. His intent was to allow his Anne to finish her education. Sal also was aware of how those kind of noble gestures often worked out. Jimmy had a good job, and once Anne got her degree, she would start working. Jimmy would not go back to school, choosing instead to keep his job because it was secure and familiar. Jimmy was the type of person that, too often, put others before himself.

Sal had decided to offer the top floor of his building to them, so Jimmy could work part-time and still go to school without worrying about paying rent. In exchange, he and Anne could help Sal get his store ready for a possible second life. He knew that there would be protests from Jimmy, so Sal had already contacted Anne and spelled out his intentions. She, at first opposed the idea. She did not want to be a burden to Sal, or take advantage of his kindness. Once he made it clear that they would be working for him to repay the favor, she seemed more receptive to his offer. He asked that she not say anything about the offer until Sal put it forward to Jimmy himself.

The week after he spoke to Anne was Sal's eightieth birthday. Anne had promised him that she would come to cook dinner for him. She was really bothered that he subsisted on tomato soup and toast. His diet had improved a little with Jimmy's delivery of groceries, but he still preferred soup if he was the person responsible for cooking. She had been taking a cooking course and had become quite gifted in the kitchen. She had even tossed around the idea of becoming a cook professionally. Ellen had loved to cook, so Sal's kitchen contained some of the finest cookware available. Anne had been slowly stocking it with fresh spices and exploring the cupboards while Jimmy and Sal were occupied with excavating and cleaning elsewhere.

On the afternoon of Sal's birthday, Jimmy and Anne arrived with bags of food for the dinner, and a potted tree for the store. It was a simple gift, but it touched Sal deeply. Ellen had originally taken up her hobby in hopes that the plants would clean the air indoors, and help Sal breathe easier. Over the years, their home became a jungle of greenery. One of the hardest aspects of all the cleaning they had done over these past weeks was facing the fact that he had let all the plants, that his wife had loved and cared for like children, die from neglect. They had spared the beautiful pots, but the plants had all been taken to the curb. Ellen had invested as much of herself in the task of finding the perfect pot for each plant as she had finding the perfect bookshelf or china hutch. She had impeccable taste in all things.

While Anne started her chosen task of meal preparation, Sal and Jimmy wandered the building, compiling a list of tasks that had yet to be accomplished. The list was divided into two sections. One was for jobs that could be easily done; the other was for jobs that would require the help of professionals, such as plumbing and wiring. Sal chose this as his opportunity to show the third floor to his friend. They had been to the storage room on that floor, and continued up to the roof a few times, but had never entered the apartment. At the door, Sal told Jimmy that he had a gift for him.

"It's your birthday Sal, not mine."

"That's why I'm not calling it a birthday gift. I prefer to call it a friendship gift, for all the work you have done for me. You and Anne have given my life back to me Jim." Sal opened the door to let Jimmy enter.

The apartment had been prepared for extended vacancy years ago. Everything was draped with canvas and looked pretty barren. It had the same simple, yet finely crafted woodwork as the floor below. It's fixtures were a bit more out dated, but had even more charm. At each window were more horticultural graveyards.

"Another cleaning job? You're too good to me Sal." Jimmy joked, not knowing Sal's intentions and confused about what his response should be. He entered the apartment when he felt Sal's hand on his back, pressing him forward.

"I want you and Anne to live here. That way you can finish school. Both of you can finish school." Sal was waiting for the standard Jimmy response of gracious refusal. It never came.

Jimmy walked slowly forward to what looked like a small dining set, covered with white canvas. He was idly pulling at the canvas, sliding it up onto the tabletop creating a series of horizontal ridges that pressed against each other; and then letting it fall under its own weight to its original position. He was not sure what he should say. From the first time he returned to Sal's uninvited, he had secretly hoped that he would be taken in. He had, over his 25 years, found himself often forming friendships with people out of some internal longing for a father. As a teenager, he dreamed of meeting someone that would provide a chance to escape his life of hardship and loneliness. Like Dickens' Pip, through some small act of kindness, he could earn the opportunity to live a great life. Too often, he was the victim of grifters and thieves, or just pushed away when he gave the impression of being too needy. He had tried to be close to his friends' fathers as a child to the point of straining his friendships and being shut out.

Sal was an old man. Would he be taking advantage of him if he accepted? Was he now the grifter, befriending a childless old man so that he could gain his favor before his death? He felt suddenly guilty for all he had done for Sal. He thought that maybe Sal felt obligated to him, and was only making the offer to even the score. On the other hand, was Sal not what he had seemed? Was he trying to pull Jimmy in closer to take something from him?

"Why? You don't owe me anything Sal."

"Jimmy, do you remember what this building looked like the first time you entered it?"

"You can't offer me this because I helped you clean up some dust. The most I could expect from you would be a little cash for my labor."

"I'm not talking about labor Jimmy. The mess was deeper than this building. I was just sitting here in the dark, waiting to die. You and Anne reminded me that I still had a life to live. You showed me that I could remember Ellen fondly, without feeling guilty for still breathing. You showed me that my life had not ended when her's did. I am not making this offer out of obligation. Call it a trade. If you live here, you don’t have to commute all the way here to work for free. Anne can stop dragging groceries to two addresses, and bitching at me about tomato soup."

Jimmy laughed at this last bit. Sal had no clue, but Anne complained about his diet to Jimmy far more than she complained to Sal. It was the one thing she had found to criticize about the old man. Other than his one-track diet, Sal was flawless in her eyes. He truly was a very likeable person.

"I will talk to Anne. If she's OK with it, I guess I have no choice." Jimmy conceded.

"I already talked to Anne for you. She's all for it." Sal started his slow deliberate shuffle toward the door, turning his back to the now protesting Jimmy.

"What do you mean you already talked to Anne? Were you asking to court me, or something? Did you need her permission to ask such a thing?"

"No. I just wanted to make sure she was as willing to put up with you for an extended stay. Things like this should be long term. Don't you think so?" Sal turned toward Jimmy again with a devilish grins growing on his face. He held out his hand toward him, showing a small glint in his eye. In his hand sat a small velvet pouch, similar to the one that had held Margaret's locket. This one was half the size, but looked ominous in Sal's skinny hand. "I'm a bit old fashioned Jimmy. If you want to ride the train, you have to buy a ticket."

He deposited the article into Jimmy's frozen hand and made as quick an exit as his frail form would allow.
With a weight of dread as big as any he could imagine, Jimmy felt the contents of the bag without removing it. He felt the bite of reality cause his chest to constrict and his lungs begin to panic for air.

"Wait Sal. I can'...you can't do this. What are you trying to accomplish with this?" Jimmy was almost yelling now. Having caught his breath, he felt that if he did not use it forcefully, it would leave him again. Waves of heat and frost alternated through his face and scalp, causing him to wobble and follow Sal with numb steps. He was lost. Ten minutes earlier he was thinking of nothing more than how much Sal's building needed better windows and an alarm system. Now he had a gun to his head and the assassin was his best friend.

"You don't have to keep it Jimmy. You could just set it down and walk away. Walk away to your job, your old apartment; or you could just face what you know you really want." Sal had made his way down to the landing that was halfway between the second and third floors. He turned to look back at the rigid form at the top of the stairs. "Just hang on to it. Anne and I didn't discuss that part of the deal. Understand me clearly though, it is part of the deal." He smiled warmly at Jimmy and made the turn toward the second floor.

Jimmy sat on the top step looking at the bag in his hand. He slowly pressed his fingers into the top of the drawstring that held it closed. As he pulled it open, the warm glow of gold escaped the black hole darkness of the maroon velvet. In the afternoon sun that was falling through the dusty window, the gold looked as if it was melting into his flesh. His skin took on the color of the metal as if it was transforming everything it touched to gold. Squeezing the bag slightly, he made the contents pop out into the palm of his hand, instantly confirming what he had known in his soul as soon as he had seen the pouch in Sal's hand.

Sal had been working on the set of rings for another young couple when Ellen had died. He had abandoned the project and forgotten about it until Jimmy and Anne had entered his life. He had been working to finish them for the last few weeks, always keeping them hidden when Jimmy was around. They were forged from the finest gold, polished and etched with immaculate ivy and roses. The matched set of three rings each held fine diamonds set in platinum. The wedding band had no immense central stone, but instead was covered with a series of small diamonds that were handpicked for purity. A larger stone could not have added to the detail that Sal had labored to achieve.

Jimmy stared at the set for a long time. He and Anne had never seriously discussed marriage. It was something that seemed to be an understood inevitability to them both, but was not a priority for them. Happiness was there whether the world had proof of their commitment or not. Now Sal had pushed the issue to the front of Jimmy's mind. It did not seem like a price that had to be paid, but a bill that was due anyway. He pushed the rings back into the bag and put the bag into his pocket before rising to join the birthday dinner.

Inside the second floor apartment, Anne was working at an incredible pace. She had already prepared a chicken to be roasted and placed it in the oven, and was now in the final stages of readying side dishes. She had the amazing ability to start all the bits and pieces of a meal with perfect timing so that each finished simultaneously. At the precise time, a bell would ring, and she would remove the bird from the oven just as all the accessories were ready to be transferred to serving dishes. Diner would then be served in a matter of minutes. Once she had progressed into the waiting period, she exited the kitchen, not looking in the least like she had been slaving over a stove.

In the den, they all shared a bottle of wine and listened as Sal told the story of when he had traveled to Italy to deliver a timepiece to a rich business executive, only to find that he had died the previous day. He arrived at the home as the memorial service was underway. Not wanting to intrude on the families mourning, he made his way back to his hotel, intending to return to the U.S. the next day. It turned out that the business executive was actually a mafia don, and his underlings had the impression that Sal was trying to escape paying a debt. Sal was rounded up and brought back to answer to the don's son for his indiscretions. After some reluctant assistance from an English-speaking butler, Sal was set free, but only after he was made to place the watch in the vest pocket of the dead client and kiss his corpse goodbye.

Sal was filed with stories, and Anne loved to watch Jimmy hear them. He would watch Sal with an intensity that could not be faked. His eyebrows would move up and down, as if they were mimicking the punctuation at the end of each of Sal's sentences. His forehead would form furrows when the story grew tense, then it would melt smooth again when the resolution of the tale brought Jimmy's laughter. It was almost as if Jimmy was an interpreter for the hearing impaired.

When the meal was ready, they all enjoyed it while sitting in the den, using folding T.V. trays placed in front of them. A large percentage of the apartment was still scattered with boxes a various debris from the cleaning process. Stacks of boxes still lined the hall and dining room, which was also serving as the staging area for items to be donated. Much of what remained was left for Sal to do alone. He insisted that he should inventory Ellen's personal belongings and keep only those things that were truly sentimental to him. All the rest would be donated to charities or sold in consignment stores.

Ellen had amassed an amazing wardrobe that spanned decades of ever shifting fashion trends. Anne's favorite things were also Sal's. He had shown her many pictures of Ellen wearing gracefully elegant business suits and dresses in the fifties and sixties. Like many women of the era, Ellen was riding the fashion coattails of Jacquelyn Kennedy, except that she had actually met her on more than one occasion. Those clothing items that were on the to-go list had been sorted into three boxes, items to be donated, those to be sold on consignment, and those that Anne had claimed for herself with Sal's blessing.

While it was informal, the meal was a very fitting birthday for an eighty-year-old man. He was able to sit comfortably in his favorite chair for the meal, and did not have to relocate after the meal in order to nap off some of the wine. Jimmy and Ellen cleaned up while Sal snored loudly in the den. The younger two were getting used to his geriatric narcolepsy. It was just one of the added perks of longevity.

Jimmy took advantage of Sal's downtime to hurry to the car for his gift. He carried it up carefully, and placed it on the stone toped coffee table in front of the sleeping man. He had been eager to give it to him for days, constantly fussing over it and adding last minute touches. He was desperate to make Sal proud, to give him some peace from some of his guilt. With the gift in place, he returned to the kitchen to join Anne for coffee.
"Sal offered us the place upstairs earlier tonight." Jimmy stated bluntly while pouring his coffee, knowing that Anne already knew.

"I know. He was worried that you might take his offer the wrong way. He approached me about it first, looking for a clue about how you might feel about it. I hope I wasn't wrong, keeping it from you I mean. He really does love you Jimmy." Anne was caught off guard. She had expected Sal to make the offer while she was there. She thought he would do it after he got his gift.

"Did he tell you what he wants us to do in exchange?"

"I don't really think things would change much. We are always here cleaning and helping him anyway. I hope you said yes Jim. Sal and I both want to see you finish school. We would be helping ourselves as much as Sal. Please tell me that you said yes." Why was he acting like Sal was asking for something beyond what they were already willing to give.

"That's not what he said he wanted from us. Not just that. That is just to pay the rent. There is something else he wants before we can have the place." Jimmy was standing, hand in his pocket, in front of Anne. He could see confusion in her eyes as he slowly sipped his coffee. He was waiting until he was sure she was off balance.

"What could he possibly want from us before we can move in? I don’t understand."

With that Jimmy set his cup down and pulled his hand from his pocket. In the same fluid motion, he dropped to his knee, allowing her to see the glimmer in his hand for the first time.

Sal's eyes opened when he heard foreign sounds in his home. After living alone for so long, he was accustomed to silence. The voices of burglars became voices of friends, as he realized the circumstances of the commotion. He could hear Anne's panicking voice from the kitchen and knew that he would soon have new neighbors. He was pleased to find that his request had prompted Jimmy to do today, what he would have done eventually anyway.

He pulled forward on the arms of his recliner to fold down the footrest so he could go congratulate the young lovers. As he leaned forward into the gloom of the now darkening room, a flash of light caught his eye. In the fading evening light, he saw the silhouette of a tree. Curious, he moved his hand to the left, while still watching the shadowy form in front of him, feeling for the lamp. As he flicked the lamp on his breath left him. He immediately recognized the shape, but not the form.

It was the shape of one of Ellen's most prized plants, a bonsai in the form of a thick-trunked, ficus tree. They had first seen it on a trip to Hawaii early in their married life. After five years of seeing her look at the photos of it, commenting how much she loved it, Sal arranged to have it delivered to her. The owner was reluctant to part with it. His father had raised it from a seedling and passed it on to him when he died. At the time that Ellen had passed, the tree's estimated age of the tree was more than fifty years. Sal had allowed all those years of dedication and love to whither in the hot sun.

In front of him on his table was the same tree reborn. It's bark and thick, buttressed roots were wrapped in swirling silver wire. Each strand of wire was pressed tightly against the bark of the tree. It followed the twisted grain of the wood all the way up the branches, out to the fine tip of each branch. Small foil leaves hung from every twig, the slight movement of air from Sal's breath caused the tree to look alive. He recognized the pot as the same that had held the tree in life. Inside the pot, he recognized what had once been flakes and slivers of bronze shavings. They were no longer piled around his band saw, but also had new life as soil for the tree. The hint of grass on the soil was from a piece of green, enameled metal he had used as inlays for a jewelry box. It too had been trimmed on the same saw. At random points along the trunk of the tree were polished semiprecious stones and crystals. At each, the wire wound around it creating a knotted pattern in the silver grain.

Sal could not believe the complexity and detail of it. He had been an artist his whole life, but had never been able to master natural forms. All his work had symmetry and order, things this lacked. It was natural and flowing in its perfection. It still held all the features and beauty that it had possessed in life. All the added elements were from his workshop, but in a form that he would never have been able to achieve. He was awed by its presence and its deep familiarity. He was brought to tears by seeing something that Ellen had held so dear, something that he had thought was destroyed by his neglect, given a second life.

Over the following weeks the third floor was readied for its new occupants. It was light work since it had been used very little in the previous decades. New lighting and plumbing fixtures were installed, as well as wallpaper. The floors were sanded and refinished after new windows were installed throughout the building. By the start of the fall semester, Jim and Anne were in their new home, and both were adjusting to the school schedule. By the first snowfall, they were settled in and felt as if they had always lived above Sal. The three dined together four nights per week, at Anne's insistence, so Sal could get more nutrition than his soup diet afforded him on its own. Anne also insisted that Sal begin receiving routine medical exams to make up for his history of personal neglect. Life was incredibly good for the newly formed family.

Well...here goes...something

2005-11-02T05:13:00.000+01:00

I'm a gonna write me a book this month. Stay tuned to this channel for updates. If anyone is still reading this thing, let me know if you'd like to read it. It's about the only thing you'll hear from me this month.

The Real Shizzle

2005-10-28T18:41:00.000+02:00

I'vizzle got a nizzle rizzle Pizzle Wizzle wizzle my grizzle sizzle instructor bizzle thizzle shizzle up in Mizzle Shizzle turnizzle out to bizzle too much for hizzle so hizzle wizzle forcizzle into rizzle aftizzle just a fizzle monthizzle Now hizzle sizzle prosthizzle nizzle on thizzle bizzle Hizzle got quizzle a buizzle goizzle now. All thizzle old lizzle wizzle nizzle on thizzle chizzle instizzle of thizzle bizzle Gizzle hizzle a vizzle.

I've got a new renter. PiKKeL WeeZeL was my grandmother's salsa instructor before they shacked up in Miami. She turned out to be too much for him, so he was forced into retirement after just a few monthes. Now he sells prosthetic nipples on the beach. He's got quite a buisiness going now. All the old ladies want nipples on their chests instead of their bellies. Give him a visit.

Let Them Eat Venison

2005-10-22T23:16:00.000+02:00

PART II

Conclusion of previous post.

"Look man, the van's not hurt very bad. Lets just get out of here." Will reasoned. He was as anxious to get going as I was, but when it came down to it, we drove 24/7 to get nowhere in particular. There was no schedule to maintain. No deadline to meet.

" Look guys, you know as well as I do that there are hungry people in the world. This thing could feed a family for a week or more. Don't you feel obligated to get it to someone that needs it?" Justin was almost crying. His drug twisted sense of civic duty was eating at his conscience.

" So, are you really suggesting that we load up this puddle of road kill and try to find someone willing to eat it?" I asked, just for clarification. Was it just the drugs, or did this seem logical to him?

"It's not going in my van. We live in this damn thing, and I'm not going to have blood all over my living room. No fucking way." Will said as he held the head lamp of his home where it used to be. It was about five inches in front of the metal that used to cradle it. The fender had been pushed in and the bumper had a bit of a twist to it now, but other than that, it was in good shape.

"Lets go. It's too mangled to eat. I just want sleep."

"No! Man, how many times have you been hungry? This is the right fucking thing to do, and you want to just go on with your lives and say tough shit to hungry people. We can put it on top of the van. Lets do this." Justin was crying now. Were we all that spun? We did too many drugs.

"O.K. Fine. It's going on top though." Will was on board, which meant so were the rest of us. His van, his decision.

What remained of the deer was almost reduced to pudding. It's trip through the ringer had crushed all the bones and left its spine broken and exposed. It had been sitting on the side of the road for 15 minutes now and was surrounded by a dark pool of blood. The head was missing an almost perfect circle in the place where there had once been an antler. It was summer and the deer's ears were covered in fat, swollen ticks that I knew would eventually drop off as the blood cooled. As we all stood around it Justin backed the van up to where we were. Traffic was picking up now with the coming of the light.

Thinking swiftly, I climbed to the roof of the van. The others gathered around the pot roast that would eventually be hoisted to the roof. I motioned to Will silently and he joined me on top. One of the others pulled a blue plastic tarp from the van and laid it out next to the carcass. They all gingerly pushed and pulled until it laid in the center of the tarp, and their hands were all stained red. The plastic was folded in half and they began to lift. Will and I were on our stomachs, reaching down to grasp the corners of the tarp.

Once we were in control of the weight of it, the others were forced to get underneath to push it up as we pulled. I rose to my knees, pulling hard at the dead weight as I went. The extra pull on my side made the tarp tilt toward Justin, spilling the blood that had pooled on the tarp. It dribbled out, hitting him squarely in the face and down his chest. He stepped back in disgust, almost getting run down by a passing truck. I smiled a little on the inside.

After much effort the deer was almost on the van roof. Everyone stood beneath it pushing to raise it the last few inches. I heard Will mutter a few curse words as he struggled to hold the corners of the tarp. We continued to pull until the tarp rested in the center of the roof. The mess had coated them all in blood and gore, while Will and I were still clean. The roof and back of the van dripped with what used to be the deer, it's hair stuck to everything.

Will drove slowly at first since the cargo was not secured to the van with anything but gravity. We left the highway at the next exit and drove into the suburbs of St. Louis. We endured the sickened stares of the local population at the stoplight and parked in the parking lot of a grocery store to find a pay phone.

Just as we were climbing from the vehicle to search a phone book for the number to a shelter or free kitchen, the sound of sirens could be heard in the distance. I instantly new what was next. Three police cars screamed into the lot and stopped in a tactical triangle around us and our blood soaked van, blocking any possibility of escape. From routine practice, we all knew the drill. Stop. Slowly extend your arms out to the sides and move to your knees. Then, palms on the ground, belly down, don't do anything quickly.

After a through search, we were all permitted to sit with our backs against a fence and answer questions. We explained the origin of the deer, and tried to explain why it was on top of our van. Hearing it all said outloud, made the shame of stupidity evident on our faces, most of all Justin.

"Who the hell did you think would want to eat road kill?" Pig #1 asked as pigs #2 through #6 laughed at us.

"Your Mom likes meat." The crowd of shoppers that had gathered choked a giggle at my wit. Pig #1 accidentally stepped on my hand. I shut up.

"You boys should load back up in your smelly little hippy van and leave. If I find your girlfriend up there on the side of the road, I'll put you all in jail for the holiday. Understand? The county line is another 8 miles down I-70. You hang on to her till then. After that it's not my problem." The police all got in their cars and drove slowly away, blowing kisses to me as they went.

By now I was barely functioning. I needed sleep and was in a rage as I drove up the ramp to I-70. The police had followed us to the ramp before going another route. I didn't care if the deer fell off or not. I drove highway speed for 8 miles until I passed a sign that indicated we were entering the next county. As soon as I was past the sign I put my full weight ontop of my right foot, which was planted firmly on the brake pedal. As the van skidded to a stop on the side of the road, Bambi earned his wings. The tarp wrapped meat blob flew through the air in front of the van, sliding through the grass and stopping a few yards from the road. I pulled back into traffic and headed for St. Louis. Blood still dripped from the roof and now ran down the windsheild.

PART III WILL BE POSTED BY MONDAY

Nightblind and Braindead

2005-10-21T13:03:00.000+02:00

I always drove at night. Will and the others were day people, and would switch out driving duties throughout the day. Myself, I preferred the quiet and solitude of the night. It offered time for reflection and contemplation of the swirling soup that was my drug skewed mind. I also stayed awake during the day, which often left me too tired to drive at night without some sort of chemical crutch to keep me from falling out the door onto the cracked pavement that was perpetually whizzing past. Not one to waste valuable driving time sleeping, I frequently took LSD to stay awake for my night drives. This sometimes wasn't even enough after three or four days of not sleeping.

July 3, 1994 Missouri

I had been awake for more than just a few days by now. Each night I would consume double the dose of LSD as the day before. The human body builds tolerance to the drug incredibly quickly. A dose of one hit would have to be doubled to two the next day to achieve the same high. Day three would be four hits, then eight... I was on about day five or six and it would soon be time for a few days off to let my head clean out. It just wouldn't work another day without selling an organ.

As I drove east on US 70 the sleep deprivation and hallucinogens were creeping up on me. I would see all manner of things wander onto the roadway. Sometimes I would imagine a hitchhiker walking into my path of travel. Some times it was an animal scurrying across the road. Each time I would stifle a scream and get ready to swerve around it only to see it dissolve into a shadow or a sign at the edge of the road. After a few times, I would regain control and would not be so quick to believe my eyes, only to freak out and try to dodge my imagination again after a little while. Other that this, it was a fairly uneventful night as we approached St. Louis.

Just as dawn was starting to turn the sky from black to a dark navy blue I was near the limit of my abilities. I was swerving around imaginary roadkill victims with more and more frequency, and finding it harder and harder to recover from my fright between incidents. Just as my racing heart would begin to beat at a somewhat normal rhythm, something else would scramble onto the road. I was terrified that I would run something, or someone over, but knew the whole time that there was nothing there to run over.

I pulled off the road into a rest area for a break. I got out and smoked a cigarette and walked around the van to clear my mind. The air was warm, but still felt cool enough to freshen me up. I walked barefoot across the small, sharp pebbles on the concrete it an attempt to stimulate brain activity. Everyone else was sleeping like the dead inside the van. At this time of day, on the 4th of July, there was little traffic on the road and only a few cars at the rest area. All was quiet as I got back in.

On the highway again, I could see the anonymously dark shapes and forms turning into trees and houses. I was sure my mind was awake enough to drive until the others were awake, but I prepared myself for the unexpected. It had been a long night and I was sure that I would still be tormented by hallucinations, no matter how awake I felt.

Just a few miles down the road I was starting to feel the weight of sleep pressing my chin into my chest. I shook my head from side to side and slapped my cheeks to wake up. Coming over a slight hill I saw movement in the trees at the side of the highway. It bolted toward the road. My first thought was that it was a kid. I could see the blue of denim flash against the dark green of the trees in the gloom. Refusing to play the victim to my sleep starved brain again, I didn't flinch. My hands gripped the steering wheel and I pressed the gas pedal down a fraction of an inch just to prove to myself that the boy was not there. He was running up the embankment in long bounding strides. Too long to be those of a kid. Our trajectories were locked. Neither of us slowed or changed course. All the previous hallucinations had lasted just a heart beat, but this one lived on. I could count the steps up the hill toward the road. This was lasting too long. Was he really there? I lifted my foot slightly, not knowing if he would suddenly be transformed into a bush or sprint onto the road and meet the grill of the van at sixty miles an hour. At last I snapped into reality. I pulled the wheel to the left and floored the brake pedal as he crossed the narrow gravel shoulder and reached the pavement. It was too late.

Just before his head slammed into the front right corner of the van, the boy became a young deer. It's head made first contact just above the headlight, the bumper hitting at it's shoulder. The deer folded in half as it was pressed down, under the bumper. The wheel was locked. It had stopped turning and screamed across the pavement, leaving a long arc of black rubber that curved to the left. I let my foot rise from the brakes in an attempt to regain control of the van. As the wheel started turning the deer's folded corpse forced it up. The van was almost airborne as the front wheel bounced over dead flesh. The front of the vehicle was not yet back to earth as the back wheel began it's flight. With both wheels off the ground, the van drifted toward the median of the divided highway. By pulling the steering wheel to the right, I forced it into a steady course and guided it to the side and stopped.

Screams of panic and confusion rose from the pile of passengers in the back. "What the fuck was that? What did you hit?"

"It was a kid! I hit a fucking little boy that ran into the road!" I screamed. "Wait! No! It was a deer! It was a deer!"

"You stupid fucker! You hit a kid?"

"No! I thought it was a kid, but it was a deer. It wasn't a kid. It wasn't a kid. It was a deer."

They all jumped from the side door. Some went to the front of the van to survey the damage, the others back toward the bloodied mass on the side of the road. I climbed out and smoked. I was so sure that it was a kid, but a kid in my mind. I was so confused. It had lasted so long. Him running up that hill, then it was a deer. It was a deer when it went under the van. Oh please. I prayed that it was still a deer when it came out the back.

"Holy shit man. You creamed that thing." Will told me as he came back to the van.

"Was it a deer?"

"Yeah. It WAS a deer. Why were you screaming that it was a little boy? How much acid did you eat last night? You need some sleep."

"It was a deer. It was a deer. OK. It was a deer. You should drive now Will."

"No wait guys. We can't just leave this deer here like this. We have to do something with it." Justin said.

"It's off the road. Lets go before we have cops here." Will replied in a still sleepy voice.

"No man. It's just not right." Justin argued.

TO BE CONTINUED

I Am the Bloglord

2005-10-20T05:07:00.000+02:00

I am the Bloglord. Not in the Lord of all Blogs sense, but the landlord renting some shit to someone sense. It's over there on the left under Patrons. Down a bit more. THERE.

HAUNTED HOUSE DRESSING the official site of writer Jeremy C. Shipp

Jeremy and I first met back in 71, when I was serving time for rodent pandering out of the back room of a Wal-Mart pet section. He was a volunteer with the prison chaplain, and would bring me books. He is a published author, and quite often the books he brought were his own. What I really remember him for was the tight little prison jumpsuit he wore. It fit him like a latex glove that had been stretched over a too ripe melon. He had cut the legs short, very short, and would always travel with the books stacked on the bottom shelf of the cart, creating the necessity for him to bend over to fetch one. Everyone knew Jeremy. He was the ray of hope in our gray lonely days.

Once I was paroled we never saw each other again, until yesterday when he bid to rent my blog. I've missed him endlessly all these years. Welcome Jeremy.

Why Do Today...What Can Be Put Off Till Tomorrow

2005-10-09T09:08:00.000+02:00

In my last post I said I would be posting on Fridays. It's now ~~Sunday Tuesday Thursday~~ a week later on Saturday. My lack of motivation got me thinking about procrastination and it's effect on my life. Avoiding things seems to be one of my special talents. I've always done it, and Mrs Denotsko will testify to my proficiency at it. 'In a minute' seems to be my catchphrase. Through my contemplation I started to remember a lot of major transformations in my life that were brought on by procrastination. I guess most of the pivotal decisions of my past were induced by the avoidance of making a decision. If that makes sense to anyone but me. Let me elaborate.

Sixth Grade: 1985

We were given six weeks to prepare a project for the science fair. Science was the one class that I consistently pulled an A in, but through procrastination, I had successfully avoided the task until the day before the fair was to begin. I knew that most of my classmates had been feverishly working on such things as growing beans upsidedown in the dark and splitting atoms, so there was no chance of building a winning project in 24 hours. I had been given an electronics kit the previous Christmas that allowed one to build 101 electronic gizmos, so that was were I started. My favorite gizmo was a High Voltage Generator. It was powered by a AAA battery and could generate about 12 volts of harmless pulsing electricity. Through a little trial and error I found that by replacing the AAA battery with a 9 volt battery and some of the other components with beefier ones, I could generate about 36 volts of pulsing, muscle cramping voltage. Holding the wires between my fingers would cause the muscles in my arms to flex and relax with steady rhythm. It was relatively painless, but quite a strange sensation. This would be my science fair entry.

The next day, I sat at my table in the gym with my stuff. Looking around the room, I could see elaborate diorama displays that obviously took many, many hours to build. I had no display, no hypothesis, no experiment, no conclusion, no research. I only had a square piece of cardboard with a shoe box and two metal bottle caps glued to it. The box contained all the guts of the device. There were two wires hidden beneath the cardboard and attached to the bottom side of the caps, which I had filled with salt water. A simple, hand written sign said "Place fingers in bottle caps." For a long time, no one even noticed me sitting there. It was definitely not the most eye catching display and showed very little potential.

It was a small school, where everyone new everyone. I was known to be a good student, but everyone that knew me also knew my potential for evil. The lack of embellishment displayed by my sign, combined with the malicious smile on my face eventually drew someone to my table. Mrs. Murkley was a third grade teacher and looked as if she was the result of a bulldog, waterbuffalo love affair. I had puked into her lap once after a chili eating contest, and she had hated me ever since. There were rumors that she was a fugitive from the law for eating a kid in Texas. She looked like she could have eaten 3 or 4 kids.

She had passed by a few times and given me that stern, disapproving, if you would just apply yourself you could do so much better, eyes burning a hole through my soul stare. She always made my blood run cold when she looked at me. This time she stopped and really looked at my display.

"What is this supposed to be?"

"A science fair. Where have you been?"

"You're not funny. Why did you even bring this? Her face was framed by fat flabby cheeks that drooped and swung from side to side. If she was capable of running, I'm sure you could hear them slapping against the triple chin that girdled her invisible neck.

"Well, read the sign."

"I read the sign Brian. What does it do?"

I answered with silence. Hoping she would lose interest and leave. She scared me and I wasn't sure how long I could maintain the tough guy act. I would eventually twitch or sweat and she would pounce on the display of weakness and destroy me. She stared into my eyes for what seemed like forever. Scanning my face for anything that would hint at the function of my project.

She stepped closer, looking at the shoebox. "What's in the box?"

"My secret ingredient." Like fishing, I fed out a little line. Would she bite?

"What's in the bottle caps?"

"Water."

Before I could even realize what was happening, she had her index fingers in the caps. As they broke the surface of the water her eyes opened wide. An electric current as small as 100 milliamps can kill if it travels the right path through the body. I had no clue at the time, but my shocker applied voltage perfectly along the right path. Flowing electrons follow the path of least resistance. In the human body, veins and arteries filled with salty blood are that path. An arc of current quickly traveled up the brachial artery into her armpit, across her heart, and out the other arm. She dropped like a stone. I sat staring at her, frozen with confusion.

Mr. Douglas, the P.E. teacher and Mrs. Coffee, the school nurse turned to see where the GLRUUUMPHH sound had come from. They saw Mrs. Murkley on her fat, beanbag knees. She was clutching her chest and sweating, but her eyes never left mine. She was growing redder and redder. As she began to see-saw into unconsciousness she seized and convulsed. Pulsating waves of body fat ran the length of her body. She looked like puddle that had just caught a stone.

Both witnesses were CPR instructors and immediately went to work. Mr. Douglas rolled her onto her back and began chest compressions as I was pulled from my chair and pushed toward the door. All the students were sent to the far end of the gym and we were all ushered into the hall. No one had seen what preceded the collapse. No one knew but me and her.

Mrs. Murkley recovered. She was hospitalized for a few weeks and had heart surgery. Not because of damage I had caused, but due to the thick bacon grease that clogged her heart. I had just precipitated the discovery of it. She was still in the hospital when summer vacation started and I was never asked about the incident. The next year I moved on to junior high school and never saw her again. She lived for another ten years and finally died after I was out of school.

It was this event that began a lifetime of fascination with electricity. If it wasn't for almost killing Mrs. Murkley that day, I might have been a lawyer or something.

Urgent Update to Follow...

2005-10-05T05:04:00.000+02:00

Apathy has a name, and it is Brian. It's come to my attention that I'm not a very reliable blogger. When it comes down to it...I suck at it. I can't find any reason to keep the world updated on my boring ass life daily or even bi-weekly. It would just kill me to sit at my computer all day and try to make it sound interesting and funny. It can't be done, but god knows some of you people sure try your best. Who cares if your cat just had kittens. Did you learn nothing from Bob Barker? Hell, I'm fixed and I'm not even a pet.

Whats up with all the shitty sniping? "I hate mommy blogs." "I hate blogs with bikini girls." "I hate blogs about politics." WHO FUCKING CARES!!!!! They're blogs. If you can't make it through the day without some blog action....It's time for a break people. You probably have bumper stickers that say witty things like 'I'D RATHER BE BLOGGING' 'BLOGGERS DO IT WITH THEIR FINGERS' 'YOUR BLOG OR MINE' 'MY OTHER BLOG IS COOLER THAN YOURS BECAUSE MY BLOG IS AN HONOR ROLL BLOG AT BLOGEXPLOSION.COM AND IF YOU CAN READ THIS MY FONT IS SUITABLE AND PLEASING TO THE EYES BECAUSE I HAVE NO FUCKING LIFE!'

A WORD OF NOTE: You don't all suck.

Starting Friday, this blog will only be updated weekly. You can expect the same high quality crappy stories as before, only now you don't have to wait anxiously for the wreck to happen. Friday will be the day to come by. I will also be offering a new feature to you. Just kidding, no new features.

Questions of Purpose

2005-09-30T07:05:00.000+02:00

I am posting this to pose a question to you. I know people will have a wide variety of reactions to this and I'd like to hear your take on it. This link leads to a letter written by the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq. For some it will raise feelings of pride for the sacrifices U.S. soldiers and their families are making. For others, it will cause feelings of disgust over another life wasted in a pointless war. For me it stirs feelings from both sides. Most of all, I feel that the mother just wanted to make things right with the people charged with a task none of us would want. She never states her opinion on the reasons her son was where he was when he died, just her sadness over his death and her guilt for her reaction to the news of his passing. I couldn't imagine having to write this letter.

A mothers letter.

Sorry folks

2005-09-27T18:18:00.000+02:00

The post titled A Simple Trip to the Post Office has been removed tomporarily. It will return at a later date that is yet to be determined. I'm working on another to replace it now so hang tight.

The misbehavers

2005-09-15T05:24:00.000+02:00

Sometimes in life, an unusual situation combined with circumstances beyond our control, and seen from someone else's unprepared perspective can take on a whole new meaning and bear more gravity than the casual observer's brain is capable of processing with any measurable degree of efficiency. At such times the human brain stops cold, as if it were waiting for a train to pass before continuing on it's journey down life's highway. In effect the mind enters 'bullet time', where there is so much information for it to process in such a short instant that time is seen to actually slow down. After those few seconds pass in what seems to be a matter of minutes, time will enter a hyper speed in an effort to catch itself back up with the timeline experienced by the rest of the universe. For some people, such a drastic stretch of the cosmos is not easily recovered from, and they find themselves in a state of shock that far exceeds the actual length of the initial disturbance. The 'Fight or Flight' instinct never engages and the individual is at the mercy of the moment. This is often what determines who lives and who dies.

Fifteen years ago, I was a rather gangly, maladjusted little guy with very little sense of what I should be doing with my free time. As is the norm, I surrounded myself with like minded youths, and due to our limited experience making decisions based on sound judgment, we all too often found ourselves in situations that the common man would strive to avoid. We somehow managed to avoid death, dismemberment, and prosecution by pure luck and, some might argue, divine intervention. Often, for some of us, escape was not possible and we were required by the hoodlum code to bear the brunt of the consequences so that our comrades could flee to greener pastures. Sometimes our escapes were so narrow, so heroic, so beyond belief, that they became the stuff of legend. It would not be inconceivable to make the assumption that, had we lived in a different era, they would be fodder for folk songs. We were not above seeing ourselves in league with Robin Hood or Davie Crockett. Authority had no hold on us. We would not be tamed or fenced by any man.

My usual company in those days was limited to those few who knew no fear. Many tried to run with us, but few ventured out with us more than once. Many were driven away by fear of the consequences. Those who could tolerate us more than once were sworn to never tell too many details of our doings and were our brothers in mayhem. No amount of torture or parental discipline would make one turn on the other. At the same time it was understood by all that we were not war heroes. If you fell behind in times of crisis, you were left behind. It was not uncommon for the slowest guy to be left to the wolves in to save the rest.

Where we grew up, there was little to do for entertainment. Our most common activities and adventures occurred in Carbondale, Illinois. It is a college town about 40 minutes from our home town. Many times, the fact that we commuted is what saved us from being tracked down afterwards. At the time, SIU was near the top of the best party college list. It was fertile ground for our kind of fun, and we never had trouble finding ways to cause trouble there. Even a simple trip to a fast food restaurant was sufficient grounds to warrant rowdiness.

On one such trip, we found out just how odd some people thought our idea of fun really was. On this day we were four, Adam, Chris, Dustin, and myself. We had been on an energetic roll for most of the day. We had come 40 miles with no real agenda and had found excitement in the smallest things as was our usual manner.

This day had all the hallmarks for disaster. We had been taking turns choking down a bottle of foul tasting schnapps Dustin had swiped from his mother. I had my camera. I always carried a video camera for little reason but to annoy strangers and in hopes of catching someone breaking a bone falling off their skateboard. And best of all, Adam was wearing his new kilt. It wasn't much of a kilt though. It was made by his mother who possessed few crafting skills. She had used pastel colored flannel, in a plaid design. It had no pleats like a traditional kilt, and it came down to about the mid calf area. It was essentially a simple, feminine looking skirt that wrapped around his waist and was fastened with velcro. He thought it was cool, so we encouraged him wear it for our own amusement. We even talked him into leaving his underwear at home like a true Scotsman.

We had been causing trouble on campus for most of the day and decided it was time to get food. As we trekked toward the commercial area, we came to a parking lot near the dorms. At the edge of the parking lot was a wooded ridge that separated the lot from the railroad tracks. This patch of woods was our first destination. We planned to finish our bottle of alcohol before we ate. The wooded area was filled with trails and small clearings used by local students for midday pot smoking and late night fornication. Unknown to us, this was why the local police made regular patrols of the area.

We emptied our bottle in short order and were killing a little time climbing the trees and throwing sticks at Dustin in a decided effort to make one stick into his flesh. Dustin was often subjected to such mistreatment because he was immune to pain or insult. He would simply laugh and dodge our wooden missiles with the skill and dexterity of a drunken blind man. We were not shy about screaming at the top of our lungs and creating as much noise as possible during such games. It would not be long before the police would be dispatched to our location.

The game eventually evolved into Dustin being wrestled to the ground by Chris and myself. Once he was subdued, Chris held him down while I fetched the video camera. I began filming and Adam began a slow, gyrating dance above Dustin's captive face. I can only imagine the horror of gazing upon Adam's naked genitals as they swung and flopped under his "kilt". Dustin was wailing and crying like he was being raped as Adam began to slowly lower his ass closer and closer to his face. Adam was holding his "kilt" up around his thighs as he ever so lowly moved closer to his prey, and I moved into position to record the moment of contact. I was on my knees in front of the scene with the lens of the camera pressed in close, the hem of the "kilt" almost resting on top of my head.

From behind me I heard a somewhat distressed voice mumble "What the hell...."

As I spun to see the confused police officer, Chris stood swiftly. Dustin, suddenly freed, rolled to his side and gazed puppy-like at the cop, just his head poking from beneath the curtain of Adam's skirt. Other than that, there was no movement. This was the moment I had spoken of earlier. Time stopped. One could almost hear the sparks popping across everyone's nerve synapses, brains trying desperately to comprehend the spectacle. As the seconds spread out over minutes, not even the wind moved.

Chris was the first act. He turned his back on us and ran. There being no trail in that direction, he made his own through the bushes. Dustin raised to his hands and knees like a wild animal. As he did, his skull pushed Adam's testicles into his pelvis with enough force to knock him down. I chose this moment to break free of the situation. Adam fell head first toward the cop, groaning as he went. I jumped and took the same course of escape as Chris. As I leaped, I grabbed the "kilt" and pulled with all my might, and hit Dustin with a firm shoulder as I passed him. Dustin, still trying to get to his feet, was thrown forward. Tripping over Adam as he groped in panic for something to cover his nakedness, Dustin fell into the still frozen cop's arms. I didn't look back.

Later I met back up with Chris who had taken refuge in an alley behind the strip of bars and pubs downtown. Myself, I just continued with the preset plan of finding food. Chris and I went on to have a glorious night of partying.

The next day, Dustin told of how he had somehow escaped the cops grasp. He was forced to call his mother for a ride home. Aside from her expert scolding, he was OK. Adam unfortunately, was charged with indecent exposure and had to ride to the police station wrapped in a towel. The cop had told him that upon arriving at the scene, he thought he had wandered into a sex act. Adam, having long hair, was thought to be a girl having sex with multiple partners as the camera rolled. It was the realization that Adam was indeed not a girl that had caused the cop to freeze in shock.

Adam's charges were reduced to disorderly conduct and the episode was eventually forgotten by his mother. It was some time before he would go out with us, but he knew the risks before he went. He had no hard feelings toward us.

What the Hell is Going On

2005-09-01T08:30:00.000+02:00

It seems as if New Orleans is Caught in some kind of apocalyptic nightmare. People seem to be more concerned with how it will affect gas prices than how to save these people. I'm usually not one to give a shit about politics; but imagine the rescue effort that could be under way if our military was on hand to help the population of our own country instead of playing police man to the planet. How many transport helicopters and 5-ton trucks do we have in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Why is it that the U.S. can give billions of dollars to other countries in their times of crisis, but in our own hour of need, it's the Red Cross and Salvation Army who do the work? Unfortunately since they are, in essence, religious relief organizations, they get no monetary help from our tax dollars. They exist solely on our donations. I saw that Germany has offered help. If Germany is in a position to help us, why do we have thousands of soldiers stationed there?

I am so disgusted with the news. I keep seeing these poor people foraging for food and water in sweltering heat. They keep calling them looters. I'm not so naive to believe that there are not those who are carrying away big screen TV's; but I do believe they are a minority. Have you noticed how many of them are black? It seems that those that could afford the gas left before the storm. Why are the poor always left to fend for themselves? No one went into the ghettos to save them. They had to come swimming out on their own, those that could. How many of the old and sick are still in there waiting to die? I think that when the final numbers roll in we will see a disproportionate number of the dead are from well below the poverty line. We should all be ashamed.

The Legend of the .22

2005-08-30T11:37:00.000+02:00

This is a story of gift of love, a family curse, and the bloodshed brought on by the cruel fate of genetic inaptitude. While no lives have been lost, the next chapter of our story has yet to be written.

Two hundred years ago, when dinosaurs still drank Pabst Blue Ribbon beer from cans with removable pull tabs (some time in the early seventies), my father bought a gun. It was a Ruger, six shot, .22 caliber revolver. The gun was to be a gift for my grandfather for Christmas. Legend holds that my grandfather loved this gun. He would spend many a lazy summer afternoon in the back yard, shooting it like a gunfighter. He had a quick draw holster, and would practice ripping it from his belt to shoot outlaws that looked remarkably similar to beer cans and hub caps.

On one fateful day he missed the outlaw due to a snagged pistol and an itchy trigger finger. As he pulled the firearm from its holster, it went off unexpectedly. It was only half way from it's sheath when the bullet left the barrel. The slug entered his leg just below the knee on the right leg. It traveled about six inches through his calf muscle and stopped midway through the shin bone, where it would rest till the end of his days.

Fast forward to the late seventies, about three years beyond my grandfathers death. The weapon had passed back into the hands of my father, who also loved the gun. On a bitterly cold winter night my father walked out the back door of our home with the gun in his hand. We lived in rural Wisconsin, far from the nearest town. There was a great commotion outside that, I am told, was being caused by wolves or wild dogs near the house. My father's intention was to fire the pistol into the air and scare them away. As he stepped from the relative safety of the porch to the icy steps beyond, he slipped and lost his grip on gravity. The gun left his hand as he fell to the ground, spinning wildly through the air. As he tells it, he landed on his back and could see it floating toward the earth above him. He reached out in an effort to catch it as it fell. The revolver fell through his outstretched hand and hit the step. When the butt of the gun connected with the step, a bullet was fired toward the sky. The hot lead passed through his forearm in to the roof above him. It passed between the bones, tearing a tunnel all the way from one side of his arm to the other. All soft tissue damage.

As the story goes, my aunt was called to transport him to the hospital. Being the alcohol fueled former airborne green beret he was, Dad decided that no situation was too dire for nicotine. He made my aunt stop at a gas station so he could buy some cigarettes. He went in to make the purchase with a blood soaked kitchen towel wrapped around his wound and no one had the ambition to call the incident in to the authorities.

Fast forward again, if you will, to the year 1986. I was in junior highschool in southern Illinois. My friends and I were going camping in the forest near our home. We had all the essential gear. A tent, some folding lawn chairs, 12 beers and a jelly jar full of whiskey. The alcohol was all stolen from our parents,a little at a time so they would not notice the loss. I also had a stash of Playboy magazines and cigarettes, along with my father's .22 caliber pistol hidden deep within my backpack. He would have beaten me if he knew I had it. He allowed me to use his guns when supervised; but never alone.

We traveled to our campsite by motorcycle. It was a few miles from the house in small patch of woods. The woods were surrounded by barren plains of coal slag left behind by a long ago coal mine. Once we had set up our camp, we proceeded to flip through the Playboys and smoke our cigarettes. Over beers we discussed all the loose women we had been with, knowing that each of us was lying. We were all unwilling to expose the other's lie for fear of having our own lies exposed.

Eventually the gun was produced for the inspection of my friends. We had all seen and fired weapons. They were quite common in our area. Rare though, was the occasion when a boy could hold one free of adult supervision. We all took turns wearing the holster on our belts. Pulling it from the holster, spinning it on one finger, and shoving it back down into it's pocket was the main trick we employed to entertain ourselves.

We set up a shooting range along a log that had been set on top of a pile of dirt. At chest high, it was perfect. We quickly ran through half of the bullets I had brought. Later, as my friends heated beans and hotdogs, I sat in a lawn chair cleaning the weapon. It wasn't very dirty; but it was decided (by me mostly) that since I had provided most of the contraband for the trip, I would be excused from the more mundane camp chores.

As they cooked and gathered firewood, I grew bored. I thought that it would be funny to see the other guys jump at the sound of a gunshot, so I scanned for a legitimate target. There was one can left on the log at the edge of camp, so I thought it would do just fine. It was a little out of my line of sight. Shooting it would require a bit of stretching. I had to lean back in the chair and over to one side in order to get a clear shot at the can. As I pushed my weight to the limits of my flexibility I could feel the leg of my chair press against a large rock. I pushed hard against it trying to get the can into my sights. At the very moment everything looked lined up, I squeezed slowly on the trigger and felt the leg of my cheap aluminum chair fold in on itself. I fell hard on my side and heard the round leave the pistol. It glanced across the front of my right shin and disappeared into the trees, taking a piece of my shin bone with it.

The wound was quite painful, but superficial. It was severe enough to require medical attention, though I got none. I kept it clean and hidden for almost a week before my parents took notice. I told them that I had caught it on a log while riding my motorcycle. Years later, the story came out at a family gathering. My father was shocked but not surprised by the tale. He himself had done such things as a young boy, and I am not unlike him in many ways.

My wife swears that when the gun is eventually passed on down to me that it will not enter our home without being dismantled first. I am not opposed to this plan, but I am curious to see witch kid gets hit in the head with it. The family curse will not go quietly. If it can't shoot one, it will inflict its scars more passively.

Got drama?

2005-08-29T22:22:00.000+02:00

Oh Shazaam. Things are slow today. Been cruising the blogs reading about all the drama in blogland. I found the usual fare of "Mommies Wrestling", "Mommies boxing", "Kid Burning", and, of course, the less interesting "I'm political". Then I hit pay dirt.

Welcome to the jerry Springer Show!

This is incredible! This poor woman thought she had found Mr. Right, only to hear 'Get her Sparkey!' 13 days into marital bliss. What ever happened to romance? Man, I'll tell you what, if Mrs. Denotsko ever complains about my genetic inability to be romantic, I'm reading this to her, again. I hate to find personal satisfaction in the misery of others; but I feel like the king of normality now. No matter how fucked things seem in my life sometimes, I can always take comfort in the fact that there are people far more disfunctional than me in the world. Come on. You're supposed to be fucking adults.

Rufus Brownleaf

2005-08-27T17:56:00.000+02:00

Back in the days when Mrs. Denotsko and I were travelers, we had many opportunities to meet many, many interesting people. Usually, these folks were met in locations frequented by the more nontraditional side of our population. We saw many of these locales, mostly because we were more comfortable surrounded by freaks like ourselves. One of my favorites was Berkeley, California. Having spent much of my youth studying to refine the process of rebellion, I was quite familiar with Berkley's history as a paradise of social protest. It was one of the places I had vowed to visit before death took me, and I was in awe. It was like standing in the middle of Stonehenge, or looking out over Pearl Harbor, or Saint Peter's Basilica. I could hear Mario Savio's voice echo as I walked past Sproul Hall. I stood in quiet reflection as I look ed at the garish tennis courts that had been built in People's Park. It was quite an experience for me.

As we kicked around Telegraph Avenue, enjoying the freedom that our lifestyle afforded us, we were in our element. We just hung out, and drank, got high with all the locals. As we sat in a bar, looking out the window at the local wildlife, a crazy old man kept putting himself into the center of our vision. He was making faces at us, and sticking his tongue out. He had a very warm personality, despite his bizarre behavior. We waved to him and he came inside to our table. He introduced himself as Rufus Brownleaf, and pulled up a chair. When a girl at the next table heard the name he claimed as his own, she called him a liar, and said his real name. After which he assailed her with a flurry of obscenities and curses upon her offspring. She only laughed at him and went back to her friends.

We spent a few hours listening to Rufus' views and philosophies on life and modern culture. He was fairly well educated, and I could tell that he had spent a lot of time thinking about things. He always referred to money as Exxon Coupons, and said he worshiped at the Temple of the Arches every other morning. We were well into our conversations before I realized the Temple of the Arches was MacDonald's. Rufus walked with a very pronounced limp and held his head cocked to the left. He said it was a result of a car accident in the mid 60's that had also claimed his mother's life. He was a young man at the time, and moved to Berkeley and had been living there ever since. He called the disability check he received monthly tit money from Uncle Sam's bosom.

As the evening wore on, Rufus invited us back to his apartment for the night. He was well aware that we had no place to stay and was willing to share anything he had. It was obvious that he really loved the fact that we all listened to his ramblings with out judgment. We loaded up into the van and headed for his secret lair. He lived on Telegraph Avenue; but way down in Oakland because it helped stretch his tit money a little farther. As we pulled up outside his building, he gave us the safety briefing. "Lock the doors, don't talk to anyone, you don't have any money, don't come outside without me."

He lived in the basement of a rundown row house. The front lawn and porch was littered with gangbangers, hookers, and trash. I'm pretty sure that if one looked close enough, it was also probably a collection point for empty bullet casings, crack vials, and used condoms. We immediately became the only thing worth looking at for the locals. Rufus escorted us around the house where we entered through a stairwell that led down to the basement. We didn't come back out till daylight had chased the neighbors inside.

We sat and listened to Rufus tell us about the things he had seen. He read to us from some of the thousands of books that were stacked around his home, and very graciously enjoyed our habit of almost nonstop pot smoking. We all stayed awake long into the night. After Rufus had slipped away to get some sleep, our friend Todd entertained us by doing silly dances. He had a sweater tied around his waist and swung the arms of it like little legs. Charlie Chaplain could not have had more skill.

The next morning, we left Rufus. As always, we promised to return to visit; but we never did. We lived our lives day by day, and the day never came. We never made it back to Berkeley. I have thought about that night with Rufus many, many times since that summer. It's strange to think that you could learn so much from a stranger in such a short time. There have been many times in my life that the thought of Rufus, and the life he lived, brought total contentment to me. He had nothing, and lived richer that anyone I have ever known.

The Pub Is Open

2005-08-26T22:47:00.000+02:00

I was getting pretty bored with the way my blog was looking lately. On a whim, I posted an appeal to the reading public for help. I asked if anyone would be willing to give my site a makeover in trade for a favor. Any favor at all. I even mentioned some of the possibilities.

I was expecting to get hit by every kind of freak imaginable. I would, if I had the know-how, have jumped on the chance to earn a favor. The possibilities of "THE FAVOR" are far underestimated in today's society. In times of integrity, a man's promise of "I owe you one" meant just that. You could expect to be repaid for your kindness, plus extra. You might not get an evening in the loft with a man's wife for that cold beer or help fixing a flat; but you knew he would repay you in time. This is what I was offering to any takers. Build me a new blog and I will humiliate myself for your amusement. No takers.

I was offered a make over in exchange for a link, and a makeover just to be nice. I'm sure she enjoys the challenge, and having a few spokespersons are handy if you choose to make money doing it for money later. In the end I got this great Irish Pub style template AND my wife got a makeover too, and Jerzey Girl got some great word-of-mouth advertising and a couple of loyal new friends.

Jerzey Girl did one hell of a job on both blogs. All I said was that I wanted my site to look like an Irish Pub, and she did the rest. I know she recently started working on her new project, Reality Graphix. So, if you suck at design like I do, she may be willing to get the job done for ya.

A Nice Guy with a Nice Mission

2005-08-26T07:10:00.000+02:00

Was bouncing between blogs this morning and hit this guys site which linked to this guys site. I recently found out that his effort could directly benefit my life and family. Let's help him out.

Wow. My shortest post ever.

I'm Not Funny

2005-08-22T13:43:00.000+02:00

Why didn't some one tell me? I was looking at the blog, or glob as it has become lately, and realized it has gotten quite boring in my misguided effort to shorten my posts. No more I say! I will not sacrifice the meat of the story for a few starchy potatoes. Who cares if every person that lands here reads it, or just keeps clicking. The story must be told in its truest form or not be told at all. If you feel like reading, you are always welcome. Without further discussion...Here is a long post.

I used to do drugs. I used to do A LOT of drugs. I would do any drug, in any quantity, in any setting without fear or paranoia. It was my special talent. I did drugs in Hunter S. Thomson, William Burroughs, Jim Morrison proportions. When people who knew me met me on the street, I would occasionally hear, "what's up man? Why aren't you high?" My ultimate goal was to someday be a "veteran", as I called those guys who could name any drug by its scientific nomenclature, tell you the recommended dosage, and point you to a person in possession of said drug. That being said, this is the story of an acid trip I once had in the swamps of Florida.

I was in the Ocala National Forest in central Florida for a Rainbow Gathering. For those of you who have never experienced 'A Gathering', it is a month long gathering of hippies in a national forest. They are usually in the same place at the same time every year. The rainbows avoid money when gathered and prefer instead, a barter system. Everyone eats at communal kitchens funded by food stamps and the good will of others.

I was first introduced to the rainbows at the age of 12 or so. I was out ripping up the countryside on my dirt bike when I came across this grizzled old hippy dude wandering the gravel roads in the Shawnee National Forest near my home. He was far from a paved road, and looked like he was carrying everything he owned on his back. When asked, he told me he was looking for a gathering in the forest. He said the way was marked with bits of cloth tied to trees on the roadsides. I rode ahead and helped him find the way; but this is all another story for another day.

So......I was in the Ocala National Forest in Florida. I had traveled there with my friend, Chris, two weeks earlier. Chris had a cousin that had been attacked by a shark or some other predator. Having heard the story many times, he had developed a extreme fear of being eaten by one of the countless alligators roaming around the swamp we were camped in. Sometimes a camper could hear them rustle through the tall grass just a few yards from camp. Every day some poor clueless hippy was out calling for a dog that would never be seen again, due to becoming gator lunch. I thought it was all good fun, and Chris eventually grew tired of my taunting him. I would rub sticks across his ankle while he slept, just to see him jump awake, screaming for his life. I even put a chunk of roadkill near the door to his tent and unzipped it while he was out. He refused to go into his tent until a trusted friend, not me, went in to check for reptiles. He finally had had enough, and went home to Illinois. I was alone in the camp.

There were dozens of other camps within sight of mine; but there was no direct route to them. The swamp was made up of a patchwork of pine Forrest, and dry grass expanses that would turn into soggy swamp without notice. The only way to navigate around was on the established trail. If you got off the trails, you would end up waist deep in muck before traveling far.

One night, I was out doing my usual routine; wandering from camp to camp getting high and drinking bad herbal tea. At one camp or another, someone had fed me a good healthy dose of hallucinogenic mushrooms and a few hits of acid laced Cool-Aid to wash them down. Nothing unusual for me. Another night in the woods.

During my wandering from camp to camp, nature called. My mind not being along for the walk, I left the trail to fertilize the trees. Not wanting to advertise my position, I also turned off my flashlight. Once the job was done, I was ready to hit the trail again. My flashlight was nowhere to be found. Given what I had just dropped on the ground near me, I didn't feel around too thoroughly in my search. I figured that it was just another crutch I didn't need. Again, my mind was not along for the walk.

I headed for the path. Apparently I walked out the wrong side of the woods. My path had been hugging the treeline when I left it, but now it wasn't. I walked in a very deliberate zig-zag pattern along the edge of the woods in an effort to find the path. It was not there. I could see two dozen camp fires from where I stood, so I knew I wasn't lost. Each camp had a trail leading out of it, so logic told me that if I could make my way to a camp I would find a path.

I started out heading for the closest fire. I was close enough that I could make out people standing around in its circle of light. Almost immediately, my foot plunged into swamp muck, and I was turned around. I tried going back to the woods to follow the edge around. As I walked along the edge of the woods, it became clear that I was going away from the other camps. OK. Getting a little freaked out now. I tried to cross the grass field again. Again I was stopped by swamp.

I could here rustling noises in the distance now. I called out to one of the camps in an effort to get someone to come get me. Hearing voices yell on the wind is not a cause for concern in these woods. They just yelled back with "Yeah!" "Party!" Having no flashlight, I could not signal to them. More noises. I headed for the trees. Once at the trees, I had about 15 meters between me and the swamp. I hoped this would be far enough that I would have some warning before I was eaten.

I walked the treeline for what seemed like hours. By walking either direction, I was traveling away from the other camps. How had it come to this? I could here the alligators calling to each other now. A low frog-like rumbling, groaning noise that sometimes came from all directions. To say that I was fast approaching terror would not be stretching the truth. I could hear them closer now, moving in the grass. They were out of the water. I moved into the woods to look for safety.

The woods were composed of small pines. The biggest tree there was only six or eight inches in diameter. All were poles. They all traveled straight up, the lowest branches not less that fifteen feet above the ground. Not the best for climbing, so I just sat at the base of one for awhile. I could not focus on anything. My vision was plagued by endless starburst explosions and pinwheels spinning around my head throwing off vivid trails of color. There was no moon to light the horizon, so the lightshow in my eyeballs was not distracted by things like distance and depth. I could not see anything. My head was just as cluttered. It raced from thought to thought without even asking me if I wanted to come along for the ride. By the time I was aware of the fact that I was contemplating citrus fruit, my brain had moved right along to the physics of the Frisbee. I had no way to judge time, so it raced and stopped at the same time. I could not, with any real assurance, be sure what year it was at this time.

The noises around me were ever present. They were even closer now. I could almost make out individual footsteps as they approached. I could hear the coldblooded hiss escaping from the alligator's mouth as it crept toward me. The only place to go was up. I stood and hugged the tree, wrapping my legs around its base. I started to climb the flagpole of a tree with the intent of reaching the top and staying there till morning. As I climbed, I could feel the rough bark of the tree biting into my arms and legs. This was pain far more tolerable than the bite of reptiles, so I continued to climb. Apparently due to poor tree selection, I could not climb high enough to reach the lowest branches. After what seemed like an eternity of scraping my way up the trunk of the tree, I still hadn't reached the safety of the branches. I was well above the ground though. When I looked down, I only saw the pinwheels and fireworks.

The night lasted a century. I clung to the tree for hours, hearing the carnage unfold beneath me. During the night there had been a horrible massacre at the base of the tree. I heard what I assumed was a small deer or goat ripped to pieces by the gators. I knew it would have been me if I had not climbed above their reach. I only needed to wait till daylight and the gators would retreat back to the cover of the swamp and I could go back to my camp. Just hang on till dawn.

As the sky started to show signs of the sun, I was still clinging to life. I had been staring toward the sky for hours. Finally, it started to gather light. It lightened so slowly that I at first didn't notice the trees silhouetted against it. It was a welcome sight. My arms and legs were numb from the ordeal. I waited for more light before I would begin my decent to the ground. The last thing I wanted to do was climb right down into the mouth of a waiting alligator. As the sun lit the far eastern sky, some of its light spilled through the tree canopy. Still I waited. It took a very long time before enough light had found its way through the tree tops for me to see. As my surroundings became more and more clear, it became obvious to me that I was only ten inches off the ground. I had been right there all night, clinging to the tree for my life. I was less than a foot above the carnage I had imagined the night before. The tree beneath my arms and legs was almost stripped of bark, above me the bark was unscarred.

I released my grip on the tree and lied on the ground at it's base for a long time. I replayed they nights events in my head to get a grip on what I was seeing. As I left the safety of the trees I found the path, right where I had left it. My flashlight was still sitting at the edge of the woods, beside a pile of my crap. The dry grass between the path and the swamp was trampled and criss-crossed with my wandering footsteps. No signs of an alligator. WTF?

I went back to camp to sleep.

A Makeover

2005-08-21T17:12:00.000+02:00

I would like to re-do the old blog here. It's pretty damn boring to look upon, isn't it? While I don't have much money or ambition, I do have time to donate and I'm not afraid of personal shame. So if anyone out there in blogland is interested in trading blog design skills for a favor, give me a holler.

You give me a new look, and I give you the favor of your choosing. Want me to wash your car? Bring it to Germany. Want a picture of yours truly in lingerie? It can be arranged. Want me to dedicate a week of blog posts to your greatness? You fucking rock and I'll tell the world.

Use your imagination in choosing the favor, because I sure don't have any spare cash.

I want my blog to look like an Irish Pub. Think dark beer and green carpet.
Any takers?

The Decorators

2005-08-21T11:29:00.000+02:00

My sister and I decided that the dog house in our back yard was just too drab. I was probably 5 or 6 years old. She felt sorry for our dog, and decided that we should paint the dog house. We looked in the garage and found a couple of cans of spraypaint.

When we started, the dog seemed excited about the project; but as the fumes from the paint found their way his direction, he made himself scarce. Unfortunately for the dog, the only colors available were silver and gold. The whole project soon became quite ugly. It didn't take long to finish painting the doghouse and ourselves. WOW! We were great artists.

We then moved our attention to the interior. It would look fabulous when we were done. We crawled inside and began to paint. The fumes hung heavily in the unventilated doghouse...........ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

The next thing I remember was my father pulling us across the lawn by our feet. He sprayed us thoroughly with the garden hose to try to revive us and clean us and punish us all in one action. He was terrified that we had poisoned ourselves with the paint fumes.

We recovered fine, and our dog loved the new look. His house glistened in the sun like a foil covered spaceship.

The Cube

2005-08-19T08:18:00.000+02:00

Bill had been a doorman at the Watson building for 30 years. He had seen all that Chicago had to offer, and was glad to be retiring. The last day on the job was something he had been counting down to for the last fifteen years or so. Today was that day. He intended to walk the long way home today, through the park and down Michigan Avenue. He would enjoy that walk immensly.

"Good afternoon Mrs. Denotsko." he said as she left the building with her children.

"Hi Bill. Last day huh. I hope you and your wife enjoy your time off."

"Oh, we definitely will Mrs. D." he lied.

His wife was a shrew. He hated her. He had been fantasizing about putting he dismembered body in the freezer for years. Why couldn't he have married a woman like Mrs. D? She was all he wanted. He felt his soul burn when he thought about that dipshit she was stuck with. That ass was on vacation for the first time in ten years, and was upstairs in the apartment. Why was she going out alone with the kids? He should have taken her to the tropics. He watched her with the pain of love missed as she walked toward the park with her children. Why did he have go home to that witch every night? Why was his life so empty?

Upstairs, Mr. D. Was working. What had brought him to this? It seemed that he would be able to relax on his time off; but here he was. This thing had been perfectly arranged a month ago, and now it was chaos. His compulsive nature would not allow him to put it down.

He was two hours into the task now. Had he even made any progress? Not by the looks of things. He thought that looking at it from different angles would help; but it was a mess from every side. It wasn't even possible to scrap it and start from the beginning. He needed coffee.

From the kitchen, he could see it through the doorway. This thing was going to make him have a breakdown. Why was he wasting his vacation like this? Why can't he just let it go? The more he hovered over the project, the more it ate at him. There was no escaping the grip it had on him. She had told him to let it go or she would leave without him, and she did. He didn't even know where she went.

Turning his back on it, he looked out the window. It was a long way down to the street below. Sixteen stories of mystery cubicles is what Bill had once called this building. And this was the worst one. Bill once told him that in his time at the door, three men had plunged to their deaths from this very window. What could make a man do that? He leaned out and watched the traffic creep by, imagining the trip down. It made him turn away from the window in fright. What was that thought that had flashed for a second? Had he considered jumping? He could see himself standing on the ledge, leaning out until gravity took hold. Breathing in the cool wind as he fell through it.

He almost sprinted back into his office. He had to finish this thing and get on with his life. He could do it if he just focused on one side at a time. That was the only way to get this done.

Time moved slowly as he worked. He could not get the image he saw at the window out of his brain. He found himself making excuses to go to the kitchen. The window was closed now; but he could open it easily with just one hand. Would anyone even care if he did it? The impact would definitely not go unnoticed. How could it? It's the kind of thing that would do damage. What would it do to a passing car? Just then, the decision was made. His family wouldn't even notice the loss.

Bill was counting the minutes now. Forty-seven minutes till the last of his days. He was across the street now having a smoke with Frank from the Parker building. As he eyed the building that had paid for his home and put two kids through rehab, he could see what looked like Jake Denotsko standing in his window.

"What the fuck is he doing?" he mumbled to the wind.

That was when the fall began. Bill could see the silhouette against the clouds reflecting off the windows. It was really moving fast. Too fast to comprehend. The fall took two seconds till impact. When the falling body hit the pavement, pieces were thrown hundreds of feet. The little colored cubes flew like popcorn as it exploded.

On the wind, Bill could barely hear a scream. The voice was shrieking what sounded like " Burn in hell Rubic's Cube!"

2005-08-19T05:09:00.000+02:00

I've been working out of town a lot this week. It's a nice drive.
Stopped by the wind mills the other day to take some pictures. It's pretty quiet up on that hill.
The only sound you hear is the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of the bades above your head.
I need to stop and smell the roses more often. Sometimes I forget that shit just isn't so important. Who cares, I've got time to kill and I'm willing to kill it.

This is, as usual, is a long ass story. If you don't feel like reading it, Shut up and leave.

2005-08-16T18:42:00.000+02:00

The Brain, the Twitch, and the Urge to Disrobe

If you frequent Mrs. Denotsko's page, you read this story. If you don't, read this story. It's one I have, for lack of a better word, avoided telling. Not because it's painful or depressing; but I fear sympathy. People are not all that much unlike lemmings. One snags his eyelid with a fishhook, and everybody wants to say 'Oh how horrible it must feel!', 'Is there anything I can do to help?', 'Please do try to be strong. Have faith that God will watch over you.'

Gimme a fucking break! On the inside, you are all are saying (even though you won't admit it to anyone, let alone yourself) ' What a sorry fucker.', 'Sure am glad I didn't win that coin toss.', 'WOW! Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy (that's not me)' I am a product of circumstance. Just like all of you, I say the same shit. Pity me not. My only regret is that I have only but one life to.... Fuck it. Just read the story. As usual, if you're short on time, come back when you have more. I'm one long winded sumbitch.

As Mrs. Denotsko said,(told you to read it, now your lost) I have MS. I won't go into some shit asking you to start a chain letter for me or sell baked goods at WalMart or collect little pull tabs from your Bud cans to buy me another minute of life. I'm here to tell the funny side of things.

My neurologist, we'll call him Dr. Fleischer because that's his name, suggested I start taking weekly intramuscular shots as a preventive treatment. I'm not big on needles; but I'm even not bigger on being numb on one side, so I decided it wouldn't kill me. Before I continue, let me say that as one who has been there, never decide something 'won't kill' you till all the facts are in. He warned me that the side effects of the shot could be unpleasant. He said to expect sore achy muscles and flu-like crapiness. He suggested that I take over the counter pain relievers before and after the shot to combat feeling shitty.

My wife and I were both a little shy to stab a long piece of steel into my thigh, so we enlisted the help of a friend of a friend to do it. She was a nurse in the OB/GYN clinic at the hospital I work in. About an hour after the shot, I started to feel the sore muscles. The dull ache slowly built into what I can only describe as pain. I decided it was time to take a break from the job I was working on, and went outside with a friend to have a smoke. By the end of the smoke, I had decided it was time to take a break from work altogether. By the time I had walked the entire length of the hospital back to the shop, my supervisor decided it was time to go to the E.R. My muscles were steadily getting stiffer. They would clench and release, clench and release. Giving the impression of a semi-slow speed seizure. My skin hurt. Have you ever had too much to drink and fallen into bed with your clothes still on? The next morning, when you took your shoes and socks off, the little hairs on your ankles hurt; or maybe you wore a pony tail in your hair too long, and felt the pain of your hair follicles returning to their proper alignment. Imagine that over your entire body. It hurt to wear clothes.

Once in the E.R., I was tossed onto a table and hooked to various bits of computerized hardware. As the machines beeped, and the nurses took blood pressure and temperature readings, the doctor wanted to ask a few questions. I told him in my very best every muscle in my body is stiff then not stiff English that I was recently diagnosed with MS and had taken a shot prescribed by my neurologist. I'm told this took about 45 minutes with the stuttering and twitching. He asked where I went for the shot. I told him OB/GYN. He looked confused, so I let someone else explain it.

They gave me a lot of different shots in an effort to stop the twitching. Finally a drug used to treat Parkinson's Disease stopped the worst of it. I was quite drugged by this point and have been told that I called everyone who talked to me Fucker. I have no recollection of this and doubt the credibility of the fuckers who say such things. I went home and slept for a day and was back at work.

Dr. Fleischer was puzzled by my reaction to the drug. He said that as far as he knew, no one had ever reacted that way to it. After a week or two he proposed that, just for the sake of science, we try again. He was not totally convinced that my reaction was the result of the shot. If it happened again, then we would know. Having suffered a near complete blackout of the last shot experience, I was game to try again. What the fuck. It's not like it would kill me.

The plan for shot two was simple. I come to work, take the shot, if anything happened, I would call the doc and meet him in the ER. This shot took longer to really take hold of me. I knew what to expect and fought it with all my might. I hurt sooooo much; but I refused to admit defeat. I would not go to the ER again. I walked and paced the floor for hours. I could beat this shit. I did too. I eventually quit cramping and twitching. I eventually slept. Except that this time, I remembered it.

What follows is the E-mail I sent to my neurologist regarding the second shot.

Sir,

I just want to let you know that I will not be taking that shot again. I was not twitching or convulsing like last time; but only by sheer force of will and intense concentration. I guess I was a little in denial about how bad it was the first time, what with all the stuff being pumped into me in the ER. This is some bad stuff. Ive been around and seen some stuff in my life. Ive wrecked cars, bikes, motorcycles, skateboards.fallen out of a moving speedboat, jumped into Lake Michigan in sub-freezing weather. Ive fallen 2 stories onto the hood of a truck. Ive even been shot. None of it compares with that shot.

I suppose taking this vile potion could, in the long run, save me from some degree of incapacitation from a potentially debilitating condition which I may or may not develop at some point in the future; but I cant stand that every week on a maybe. I think I will just put on some rose colored glasses and think happy thoughts. Maybe its not MS. If it is, it might not be so bad. Ive always thought it would be cool to know how to read Braille. I can have wheelchair races with my kids and get a job delivering groceries to first floor apartments. Think about how nice it would be to always have a parking space reserved for you right outside the store. There doing amazing thing in robotics now days. Perhaps I can have an exoskeleton made that will keep me mobile for decades into the future.

If you would like, we can try one of the other medications.

Let People Think What They Think They Want to Think About Thinks They Want to Think About

2005-08-12T20:51:00.000+02:00

Sometimes it's cool to just let folks assume things. In the spring of 2003, I was assigned to a PATRIOT missile battery in Germany. We were scheduled to deploy to Turkey at the end of March. The rumor was that we would convoy through Turkey and enter northern Iraq to provide air defense for the northern region. The rest of my unit left for Turkey around a week before I did. My commander had made the decision to leave me back temporarily due to the scheduled C-section birth of my son on April 1st. This was a tough decision for him, because I was the only person qualified to do my job. If something was to happen to prevent my arrival, he would surely had to answer a lot of questions. Missiles wouldn't fly without me running the radios that told them where to go.

My mother-in-law made the journey to Germany to be with my family after I left, so they were in good hands. Just a day after Mrs. Denotsko was released from the hospital, I was on a military chartered flight to Turkey. While I was in limbo waiting for my travel orders, a shipment of classified documents and electronics components had arrived. I was asked by my commander to transport them to him when I came. I carried the items in a locked, metal case like you see drug dealers use on Miami Vice. I looked cool.

I was traveling with two officers from one of our sister batteries who took themselves way too seriously. Myself being one of little rank, I was at the mercy of their paranoia. While I was the only one qualified and authorized to act as a courier of such materials, they felt it was their duty to tell me how to do it. I was made to use plastic zip ties to attach my case to my wrist, so if we were captured by one of the other 250 Americans we were traveling with, they would have to cut the zip ties to see my chaffed arm. They acted like I had the key to world domination in that case, and if it was to be lost, all hope would go with it.

Once we arrived at the airbase in Turkey, they forgot all about me and my doomsday device and split. Guess I wasn't interesting to them any more. I was informed that the plane's final destination was to be Saudi Arabia or someplace, and my luggage was checked all the way. I could come back in a day or two to pick it up, or get back on the plane and ride to the end. Then they would bring me and my luggage back. My commander was definitely not happy about this turn of events. Not at all. He had been informed that we could possibly be sent to Iraq in as little as 24 hours. He needed me, and I would be needing all my gear.

He went through about 5 levels of Air Force chain of command raising hell about the situation. The next thing I knew, we were sitting on a little conveyer belt truck that was traveling at a very uncomfortable speed across the flightline toward the plane I had just recently exited. The plane had been on it's way to the take off runway and was halted. After we had caught up with the plane, the side door to the cargo bay was opened and the conveyor was raised to it. I cut the zip ties and handed my case to the commander. I then walked up the ramp with three airman into the cargohold to find my bags.

Once in the plane, I got some very nervous glances. I was not in uniform, and had spent about 36 hours at the airport before the flight, so I was looking pretty scruffy. The airmen seemed to jump at anything I said. I suggested that we start the search on the left side of the plane, and work our way to the right. They jumped into the task like they had a rifle at their backs and would be shot if they moved too slowly. I tried to make conversation, but they just gave brief 1 or 2 word responses. I could hear the pilot revving the engines as if to tell us to hurry up.

The search was long and hot. After about a half hour of me talking out loud to myself, they started to loosen up a bit. The first guy asked me what I had in my bag that was so damn important. I said 'nothing special' and kept digging. Now that the subject had been hit, they all had questions. What are you? Why is that captain down there holding your case? What's in the case? Are you special Ops? Are you with the CIA? Are you with Delta Force? Why are they holding this plane just for you? What's in the bags?
I never answered any of the questions. I just kept looking and let them draw their own conclusions. We eventually found my shit and left the plane.

We were never given clearance to enter Iraq, so we stayed on the airbase in Turkey for the duration of our deployment. Over the next month, I'm pretty sure I saw the airmen from the plane again. I was a the chow hall waiting for my food and noticed some young guys in the corner eyeing me with an odd look of awe in their eyes. When I looked in their direction, they shifted their gaze away nervously.

Not once did I say anything to lead these guys in any direction. It's funny how people will tell themselves what they want to hear. Now, a few years later, I like to think these guys are back home telling the story. I hope in their version, I'm 6 foot 9 and bristling with weapons. Looking for a bag of grenades and ammo. AHHHH the delusion of recollection.

Your Assignment....Should You Choose to Accept It.

2005-08-12T17:02:00.000+02:00

I was asked by Mrs. Denotsko to send this along. I guess it's like tag; but I don't really know who to tag. With my incredible lack of friends in mind, I challenge you to ask this of strangers. Throughout the course of your days next week, challenge perfect strangers with random questions about themselves. Post their answers here, or on your blog with a link in the comments section here.I'm sure that with a little creativity and good timing, we can have some fun.

"Hey Man, where were you exactly 5 years ago this very minute?" to random guy at the urinal.

"So, what are your hobbies?" to Dr. Benway the gynecologist during pelvic exam.

You get the idea.

10 YEARS AGO
I was living in southern Illinois working a crappy job, smoking a lot, and waiting for our first born to get here.

5 YEARS AGO
I was in Georgia learning how to ba MULTICHANNEL TRANSMISSION SYSTEMS OPERATOR/MAINTAINER at the US Army Signal School.

1 YEAR AGO
I was in Texas learning biomedical equipment repair. Much better job.

YESTERDAY
Sat in the woods drinking coffee and yelling 'BANG BANG' and watching a bunch of sadly pathetic paper pushers pretend that they are in a convoy that's being attacked. Damn, that was good coffee.

TOMORROW
As little as possible.

I ENJOY...
Bullshitting people. Making them believe absurd stuff and laughing at them after I admit that I'm just fucking with them.
Shocking people with electricity.

5 BANDS THAT I KNOW THE LYRICS OF THEIR SONGS
I'm lucky if I can play a radio and remember my address. I don't have the dedication to memorize songs.

5 THINGS I WOULD DO WITH $100,000,000
I would hook up a lot of friends and family.
I would have one hell of a garage to build shit in.
I would use my money to discredit, shame, and destroy a lot of shitty assholes.
I would travel a lot.
I would probably smoke a lot of pot.

5 PLACES I WOULD RUN AWAY TO
Alaska
South America
India
Oregon
Iceland

5 HABITS I HAVE
I am too nice to some people out of pity. (BAD)
I am too mean to some people out of disgust.(BAD)
I don't let my emotions control my behavior.(?)
I don't care about money.(GOOD)
I get bored quickly. (?)

5 THINGS I LIKE DOING
I like to ....This is just like the I ENJOY item above, so I'll skip it.

5 THINGS I WILL NEVER WEAR
A suit in daily life.
Things that have a popular logo, just for the logo.
A burqa.
A tupe'.
Tight pants.

5 TV SHOWS I LIKE
News
The Brady Bunch
Kids in the Hall.
The Trailer Park Boys.
The Daily Show

5 MOVIES I LIKE
A Clockwork Orange
Runaway Train
The Shawshank redemption
Fight Club
Blackhawk Down

5 PEOPLE I'D LIKE TO MEET
Ed Rosenthal
Jack Black
A survivor of some fucked up situation like lost at sea, or trapped in a collapsed mine, etc.
An astronaut
Me at age 10.

5 BIGGEST JOYS AT THE MOMENT
My family

5 FAVORITE TOYS
Computer
motorized skateboard
that's about it

What Da Hell?

2005-08-10T18:25:00.000+02:00

Would I be wrong if I found this sexy?

Always Keep it professional ( C.Y.O.A. )

2005-08-09T17:45:00.000+02:00

C
O
M
P
E
T
E
N
C
E
IS MY WATCHWORD.

In my profession, it is absolutely imperative that your customers trust you. I mean, who wants to let someone they don't trust to fix medical equipment that could one day be used on them? There are a lot of times that someone brings me a machine and says " It won't turn on." Just for me to show them the power switch, and flip it on in front of them; thus breathing life into said apparatus right before their eyes. It's my job to make them feel incompetent and establish my superiority at every opportunity.

So, when they see an opportunity to make me look stupid, they jump on it like crazed weasels. I am in a position to look like an idiot every day. The mark of an expert is the ability to disguise these occurrences with clever conversation and creative wording. I am expected to be an expert technician on everything from an electrocardiograph to an infusion pump to a dental chair to a 5 foot long flexible scope used to look up peoples' asses.( I forget what those things are called :) )

Two weeks ago, an ECG machine was presented to me. UNIT WILL NOT PRINT is the only thing listed on the work order. Easy enough. I first consult the service manual. No help there. I take it apart, looking for the obvious. No loose dangling wires or fried components. OK. Another tech says that the paper in the machine doesn't look right. Sure enough it's the wrong paper. I think to myself, 'What a dumbass. This guy brought this all the way down here because he's too stupid to pick up the right paper. My god! He probably uses this thing every day, and he puts the wrong paper in it.'

I walked down to cardiology to see a friend about getting the correct paper so I can go back to the dumbass and act superior. I put in the paper to prepare for the roast. It still won't print. Damn it. Thought I was gonna have an easy one. Time to try something else. Most complicated mechanisms come with pretty detailed troubleshooting texts. Not this one. It is absolutely no help to a technician. I tried various things flying blind with no resolve.

Finally I just said screw it and ordered a new print head. When the $160.00 printhead arrives, I install it and still no printing. I stood at this machine for hours, randomly changing software configurations in a lame attempt to fix this thing. By now, two weeks have gone by.

Today I decided that it would be best if I just sent it back to the manufacturer for repair. I hate doing this. It is very hard for me to admit that an inanimate object can defeat me. There must be something I have missed. Something. Somewhere. I was standing in front of this demon box, still trying to use Jedi mind powers to somehow figure it out, when my friend from cardiology stops by on other business. I know he uses these things every day, maybe he knows some amazingly secret software menu that I haven't found yet that will make it print. He tried a couple of things with no luck. Then he says, "What's this? You've got the paper in backwards."

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

Sure enough, he flipped it around and hit the print button, and out spewed a near endless stream of zigging and zagging ECG lines. I can deal with this. My only problem now is what do I put in my notes. When servicing medical equipment, one must keep detailed notes describing every action performed. These notes are kept for the life of the equipment. Later down the road, if the equipment fries someone's grandmother, they can look to see if it was repaired correctly. I have to word my work order notes so everyone down the line that will read them will know that I am not in union with the dumbasses of the world. I don't need the added stress of being known as the guy who worked on an ECG for 2 weeks at the rate of $60.oo an hour just to flip the paper around in the end.

* 09 Aug 05 To correct fault, performed paper realignment operation. Once paper was realigned, paper edge sensor was receiving correct signal from processor and printing operations were executed without error. Unit is now fully operational.*

Oops

2005-08-08T15:42:00.000+02:00

I made a banner for Blogexplosion the other day. Today I noticed something funny about it. The first person to see it and tell me whats wrong with it will get a link to their blog from mine. Yeah, I know. I'm cheap.

Ten Thousand Upsidedown Screaming Yacking Trees

2005-08-07T09:22:00.000+02:00

My wife and I used to travel a lot back in the day. We were really just a couple of punker misfits going from city to city with all those stinking hippies you see at Dead shows. We picked up hitchhikers, and in turn, were picked up while hitchhiking. It was the way things went. Sometimes we just sat waiting to be picked up. Sometimes we just kicked around killing time.

We spent a lot of time in Seattle during the fall of '94. We were 4 then Mrs. D. and myself, Nathan, and Todd. We also had a kitten that we had found. Todd had dubbed it Ten Thousand Upsidedown Screaming Yacking Trees, Kitty-Kitty for short. His theory was that a cat would not come when called, no matter what you called it.

Nathan owned the van we were riding in. He was WAY into the hippie thing. He had lost his shoes sometime back, and had taken to walking around in a tie-dyed skirt and no shoes. When we hadn't seized control of the tape player with Nine Inch Nails or Danzig, he would play Crosby, Stills and Nash tapes till he cried in silent apathy for long lost crushes on nameless hippie girls.

Todd, on the other hand was Texas. We had picked him up in Albuquerque a few weeks earlier. He loved alcohol, Pantera, and hating Nathan. He was a tornado of energy and sarcasm that rarely slowed down. He reminded me of Jim Carey on amphetamines and an IV drip of sugar water after 10 days with no sleep. He was my long lost brother-I-never-had.

One of the scheduled events for this trip to Seattle was Nathan's appointment with the object of his childhood fantasies. The girl/woman/chick/whatever that had been his baby sitter 10 years earlier. She was a few years older than him, and in college I think. They were both now in a position to visit each other outside of the business relationship. If you know what I mean.

As was the plan, we met her and some of her friends at this upitty kind of bar in the University District. The kind of place where upwardly mobile student would meet for cocktails and deep philosophical discussions about such issues as the plight of the homeless and the starving masses in Africa. After which they would retire back to their dormrooms and film 'Girls Gone Wild' videos, stepping over the homeless, starving masses in disgust along the way.

We were a vision. Four oddball people that lived in a van; unbathed and unconcerned with all that mattered to the crowd gathered in this bar. As we entered I'm sure there was an audible gasp from those nearest the door. We always had some kind of scent wafting off of us; well, at least I always did. She, Candi or Tami or some name with an 'i' dotted with a cute little heartat the end, was the typical cheerleader chick. All her friends were a little too full of themselves, and would attempt to punctuate the conversation with condescending comments that were stated in a way that was intended to make them funny.

We had no money, so 'i' girl and her Mtv entourage paid for all the beer. We were all just there for the free beer, so the conversational jousting match was not taken very seriously on our side. After a little while, the GQ crowd was not enjoying the party so much; and their comments steadily increased in venom content. Which Todd, Mrs. D. and I found very entertaining. Nathan, however became increasingly uncomfortable with our behavior. He was crawling under his skin. This was probably his only chance in the last and next five years to get some, and he was having to deal with a three man cockblock.

After her friends tired of us mocking everything they held holy, they excused themselves. We followed the girl to her friends house in the burbs and continued to ingest free alcohol. Her friend lived in his parent's basement with his girlfriend. They were great people and enjoyed watching Nathan squirm as much as we did. The basement was great. There was a room to the side with saloon doors and arcade games inside. After the friend and his girlfriend retired for the night, and Nathan and the girl disappeared, Todd, Mrs. D. and I continued to drink and laugh. Todd would swagger thorough the saloon doors while whistling the music from The Good the Bad and the Ugly, and we would scream with laughter.

Nathan was afraid that if we kept going, we would get us all kicked out, so he came down and said we had to go sleep in the van. Mrs. D. and I obliged and went to sleep off the vodka. Alone in the van, we tried unsuccessfully to consummate the evening. Having drank too much, it was surely a funny thing to see. I only remember apologizing and falling into a pile of blankets.

As the sun rose into the sky, the van interior got warm enough to wake us. As was always the case after drinking, I awoke having not moved from the position I laid down in. It took a few minutes for me to get my brain fully awake. The first thing I noticed was the stiff little corpse of Ten Thousand Upsidedown Screaming Yacking Trees (Kitty-Kitty for short) pressed into the pile of blankets I was sleeping on.

The only explanation that makes sense to me, even now over 10 years later, is that my wife's cruel sadistic nature took hold of her in her drunkenness. She sometimes falls victim to her dark side and does things like stuff fluffy kittens under the limp body of innocent drunk guys, just to make them feel guilty the next morning. I have learned to deal with such things. I always forgive her in hopes that my charity will someday make her realize the error of her ways. God I'm like Gandhi. Mother Teresa doesn't have shit on me. Can an atheist be sainted?

Oh yeah, we buried the cat.

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

2005-08-05T07:22:00.000+02:00

There has been some discussion of my sleep habits on the internet lately. In an effort to expand on the issue, my wife and I will both be telling the same story today. I will tell it from my perspective, and she will tell her side. You, the reader, will have the task of deciding who's side you can relate to the most. I will understand if, due to sympathy for her, you think I'm a schmuck. That seems to be the way these things go. I only ask that you consider my side.

I used to work nights. I would get off around 3:00 in the A.M. despite my near sainthood, I had a tendency to drink 2 to 12 beers with my work associates after work. Keep in mind that this was not inconsiderate, or immature behavior for a married father of two; but rather a display of concern for my coworkers. I would hate to think that they might be sitting alone drinking. I only did this 4 or 5 nights a week, and I was always home by noon.

On one occasion, I had consumed a little too much alcohol. I came home, an fell into a deep sleep cuddled against my wife. I was cold that night, so I was spooned tight against her in an effort to capture some of her body heat. I really love Mrs. Denotsko, and I know that she loves me. This was my happy place.

As I slept the sleep of the truly sleepy sleeper, I began to dream the dreams of the drunk. What does every drunk really want? McDonald's french fries. So here I was, dreaming of french fries. I was standing in line at McD's, waiting for my food. They taste so good when I finally get them. MMmmmmm.

In my dream I am engaged in normal waking activities like waiting, eating, drinking long, cold drinks from my soda, and eventually sensing that my bladder was full. I made my way to the bathroom. Once inside, I saw the most amazing thing. I saw a tree rising through the roof, creating a huge canopy over the open ceiling. I could make out little flashes of blue through the leaves as a gentle wind sighed past. There were no sinks or toilets or urinals; just this magnificent tree in the center of the room. All the other men in the room were contentedly pissing on the tree. It was like what urinals in heaven must be like. Every man would rather piss on living vegetation than cold porcelain.

As I approached the tree to give it a little bit of life sustaining urine, I saw that all the guys were leering at me. I saw frightening lust in their eyes, and I was scared. Had my heaven spun into a wild hell of homosexuals fighting for position to see my penis as I stood next to the tree? They all craned their necks in an effort to see what I was packing. I had no choice but to lean forward against the tree in an effort to shield my package from their unmoving gaze. I leaned in until my chest rested on the tree, and my cupped hands blocked their vision. Something inside told me to find another latrine, but I really had to go.

As I stood there feeling the sharp, unforgiving bark of the tree dig into the soft skin of my face and chest, I couldn't piss. I could feel the walls of my bladder stretching to the point of explosion, but could not open the valve. The fags were watching me too closely. I was.....well....pee shy. I closed my eyes and concentrated on waterfalls, sprinklers, dripping faucets....

Finally, relief came. I could feel my bladder start to relax, and in my head, the dripping faucet exploded into a busted water main. It flooded my mind with visions of sailboats on the open seas, mermaids swimming through an ocean of my urine smiling at me in its warm embrace.

I felt my jaw being violently forced sideways. The fags were attacking me. They were pounding me for my secretive lack of a display. They punched me in the face repeatedly while screaming "What the fuck are you doing?! You stupid mother fucker!"

Why was this happening to me? All I wanted was to piss in peace. I felt the repeated blows to my skull and could do nothing, still trying to protect my penis from observation. I pressed harder against the tree. Still they attacked without mercy.

I was pulled from my slumber by Mrs. Denotsko's elbow crushing into my nose. What was this? Had she joined the navy? Rarely had I heard such language come from here lips. Was there a burglar? Was the house on fire?

"What the hell is your problem? Your pissing on my back you bastard!"

"No I'm not! Get the fuck out of the bathroom! Stop hitting me!"

I felt her grasp my arm and force my hand down under the blanket. I felt the warm ocean that I had seen the mermaids frolicking in. Had I really wet the bed?

BAMMM! Another elbow hit my face. Another. I was still pissing. In my sleep, a kickstand had extended beneath me and it was now shooting a hot yellow stream up my wife's back as she shoved me from the bed.

Once on the floor, the flood subsided and cold reality set in. I was attacked for a simple misunderstanding. Could my wife really be that harsh and unforgiving over such a small thing? It could happen to anyone.

I spent many a night alone for my misstep. Eventually the amnesia of time took hold, and she forgave me; but sometimes I think she's watching me while I sleep.

She's just waiting for another chance to beat me up.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho

2005-08-04T05:21:00.000+02:00

I have always worked. I can remember when I was a little kid, going to work with my dad. Always hearing about how when I was older I would work. It seemed like such a cool concept; you get up early, go to work, and someone gives you money to blow shit up. My dad did demolition then. Later I discovered that only a few people get to blow shit up....but work was a cool thing anyway.

When I was 11, my dad had motorcycles. He had a big cruiser, and an old James Dean style Triumph, and he had a big, mean, knarly, rip the flesh from your ass if you took off too fast motocross bike. I loved this death machine. I would beg Dad to let me ride on the back. It had no foot pegs for a passenger, so I had to hang on for my life with my legs sticking out srtaight in front of me like jousting lances. The only thing in the universe I wanted was a dirtbike. He used to take me to the motorcycle shop and let me sit on all the new dirtbikes, always asking which one I liked best. I knew that in a few months I would be getting a dirtbike for my birthday, and the hills would cower in feer of my boyhood manliness as I tore them to shreds on my scream machine.

On the day of my birth +12 years, I came home from school, knowing the party was about to start. As I entered the yard, I could see my pop sitting on the porch, in the swing, still trying to get rid of unwanted beer by drinking as much as possible before dinner. I think it made mom's cooking a little more edible too. He smiled as I approached knowing what I was expecting. He stood and met me at the steps.

"Walk with me." he said.

As we walked, I was pretty quiet. We were going towards the garage. It took all I had to keep from sprinting all the way there.

"It's your birthday, right? How old are you now? 17?"

"No Dad, I'm only 12"

"Only 12? Twelve's not so bad. I've been thinking about your birthday lately. I think you are almost a man now; and it's time you got a real man's present for a change instead of toys and shit."

Holy shit, I was gonna explode! There were only two things in the world that he told me I was too young for. His dirtbike, and firearms. I knew I was getting one of them today. It didn't matter which one. Mom would hate either. Niether could be clasified in the 'Toys and Shit' catagory.

"It was too big to wrap, so I put it in the garage."

POW! I was moving before he could finish. My feet didn't touch the ground for those last 25 yards.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! I got a dirtbike! I got a dirtbike!" I sounded like one of those old ladies on The Price is Right. So excited that I could only say one thing repeatedly, and not totally concerned with bladder control.

As I hit the garage door I tripped. I fell through the door moving so fast that I slid passed something green under a big red bow, and into a stack of boxes. I didn't even have time to see what the present was before I was passed it. As I was crawling back toward the door, I saw my present, and I saw my dads face.

He was grinning one of the biggest grins I've ever seen. It would be a long time before he would get that much pleasure from seeing my face. He was truly getting near orgasmic satisfaction from giving me this present.

Under the red bow was a gift that I would get a lot of use from. It would be the instrument that fueled many, many teenage wanderings. It was a lawnmower. The oldschool kind, with no motor. It only had spinning, human powered blades. Attached with tape was a list of people that he had contacted and were willing pay me for lawn service. Beside it was a pair of work boots. Steel toes.

I wished I had a gun. I would have shot him right in his big, beer fueled, grining face. BOOM. Dead, right there in the garage, beside that fucking lawnmower. I was pissed.

"I figure by the end of next summer, if you really work hard, you can save enough money to buy that dirtbike you want so bad."

I turned and walked to my room. I don't think I spoke to him for a week or two. Eventually, the old lady next door saw me in the yard and asked when I was coming to mow her yard.

"I'm not going to be mowing it Grace. Call Dad. He'll mow it for you." and I walked away.

Later that day, Dad came to my room and handed me $20. "I forgot to give you this for mowing our lawn last week. Good job. If you wnat some more, Your mom has some flowers to plant."

The next day I mowed Grace's lawn for another $25, and the yard down the road for $35 more. $75 dollars in one week was pretty amazing for a twelve year old.

By sixteen, I owned a riding lawn mower, two power push mowers, weed wackers, edgers, hedge trimmer..... I was like Hugh Hefner. I ALWAYS had a pocket full of cash and a tank full of gas. I owned a car and a motorcycle . With money like that, it's no wonder I was always in trouble.

Even when I was hitchhiking around the country later on, I always found work to do. I guess Dad had a lesson for me to learn. I am not afraid to work. The first word my kids learn to spell is J.O.B. and I always tell them money doesn't matter. What good is it if you are only concerned with making it, and never have time to enjoy it.

The pleasure is in the job....not the check.

I'll Sue Your Ass!

2005-08-03T21:50:00.000+02:00

Have you ever wished you could sue stupid people just for being stupid? I wish I could sue people to get back all the life they suck from me by wasting my time. Take 10 minutes of my life; guess what, I'm taking 10 of yours +2 more just for making me chase you down.

I hate people who are so oblivious to their own existence that they stare into space while the clerk at the counter asks for more money because they are trying to buy $13.45 worth of stuff and with a $10 bill. The clerks can be just as bad sometimes. Ever stood at a counter trying to pay for something while the bitch behind it spends 5 minutes helping some dumbass comparison shop the cigarette lighters?

"this one is 95 cents, this one is $1.25, this one is $!.49."
"How much is the blue one?"
"this one?"
" No, the dark blue one behind the red one to the left of the Big stallion Condoms."
"$1.25 plus tax."
"OK. I'll take that one. Go a head and give me a pack of those condoms too." says the 96 pound goon.
"that'll be $5.79 please."
"Oh shit. I forgot my wallet in the car. Can you wait one minute?"

FUCK YOU!!! I'LL EAT YOUR YOUNG BEFORE I LET YOU STEAL ANY MORE OF MY TIME!!!

Even better is the guy who stops in the middle of the street to chat with the guy driving toward him window to window. The whole time you sit and wait 25 feet from your destination; and he always acts like you're a big, floppy dick for honking at him and wanting past.

Fuck I hate humans.

I suck

2005-08-02T23:22:00.000+02:00

I had the most incredible story to tell. I got to sit in on a fantastic surgery today. I had it all typed up for you to read and somehow deleted the whole fucking thing. I SUCK! Sorry, I don't have the heart to re-do it. Trust me. It was fucking cool.

Thinking Inside the Box

2005-07-31T18:17:00.000+02:00

I've always been kind of a high energy guy. Back when I was a kid, Ridlin wasn't an option. Parents and teachers had to be a little more creative. What follows is the story of how Mrs. Nolan, my 2nd grade teacher, brought order back to her classroom. Well, she thought it worked.
There was this kid, Todd; he was my high school’s valedictorian in 1992, thanks to Mrs. Nolen's intervention back in 1982. Todd and I were best friends back then. We didn't hang out much away from school, because I lived way the hell outside of town and his family was nuts. His dad made him memorize the Periodic Table of Elements in the 3rd grade. He was always under a massive amount of pressure to achieve. I, well uh.....I wasn't.
I think he liked to hang with me because there were no consequences. If we got caught fucking off, I always took the heat. Of course he wasn't doing anything wrong....he was Todd. I didn't mind. Even at that age, I think I knew that me standing in the corner of the classroom holding a two foot tall stack of dictionaries wasn't going to cause a tsunami at home. Todd on the other hand would be in some real shit, for sure. So that's how it went. We raised hell, I took the blame when we got caught, and he did his homework.
Eventually, Mrs. Nolan started to realize that I was dragging Todd down. Something had to be done before he was pulled to the dark side, so she moved us to opposite sides of the room. It slowed me down; but I took it as a challenge. Soon I was just causing chaos all the way across the room by sending Todd notes and funny stick figure drawings. Now I had the whole class involved, because I had to psst, PSST! Until someone would reach for the note and pass it along. She tried to cut my wings by putting the fear of the paddle into every other kid in the room. Soon, no one would even acknowledge me when I tried to pass a note. I was forced to stand up and personally walk my notes and witty stick figure drawings across the room, and hand them to him saying:
"Here you go Todd, check out this funny cartoon of Mrs. Nolan wearing a Daisy Duke out fit." in a voice loud enough for her to hear, just so she would know that I could not be defeated.
Mrs. Nolan wasn't some fluffy first year teacher. She'd been teaching for like 126 years. Like a soldier that had been through many, many years of trench warfare, she was not going to be beaten by the games of a little boy. Back then, teachers had a lot more freedom to control the educational arena than they do today. Today's teachers are too busy with lawsuit happy parents, and mandatory testing to have any real impact in their student’s lives. Hell nowadays, teachers should be more scared of the students.
Mrs. Nolen's husband owned a local appliance store. I imagine them sitting in the living room of their little ranch style home at night, discussing my issues while on a commercial break from HEE HAW.
"Damn it just put the little bastard in a box and ignore him! I'm sick of hearing about it. Get me another Bud while your up, will ya."
One day, after a failed attempt to pass a note, she came into the room with a big refrigerator box. As I sat at my desk, she lifted up the box and placed it over my desk.
"Every time you disrupt my class, you will spend 1 hour in this box." she told me.
There was a square hole in the front of the box, just big enough for me to see her and the chalkboard. In my box, I knew immediately that I would spend a lot of time there. If my field of vision was limited, so was hers. By the end of the first day, I had little spy holes on all sides of the box. I could observe the entire classroom without her even knowing. I was always trying to think of ways to get put in the box.
By the end of the first week, I had the inside of my box decorated with all kinds of pictures and drawings. I could hit anyone with a spitball, and not be suspected. I could take little naps and not be disturbed. It was, without a doubt, the coolest place in the school.
I was sure not to mention my happy hole to my mother, who would have come to the school raising holy hell. She would have put a stop to the box very quickly. I think that semester was the happiest time of my elementary years.

Spinning Through Life

2005-07-29T18:17:00.000+02:00

A thousand years ago, back around 1994, I was a traveling' round the states killing time and brain cells. While engaged in countless nefarious doings and happenings, I got to see and do some real cool shit. Everything from traveling under an alias across the west coast while avoiding prosecution in my home state, to hanging with hippies in the swamps of Florida. One of the first things I learned was that there is a lot of pain and misery on this planet. I've seen some of the worst USA has to offer. It is all far, far out weighed by the really good people you meet when you are lost in the deepest sludge at the bottom of the pits of despair.

I've had people give me their last quarter. People who were no better off than me, giving up their next 2 meals. We all lived on Raman then, so at 10 cents a pack, a quarter could go a long way. Some of the best times were had at the worst of times. My wife and I met up with a trucker in Iowa once named Wendell. He drove us across a bit of the midwest and dropped us at a truckstop in Desmoines or some such armpit of a place.

Wendell was the personification of a 'good-ol-boy'. He didn't have any motives at all. He was just doing a nice thing for a couple of kids who needed a ride to wherever. He talked about his family and his job. He listened to our stories and was simply a hell of a guy. I think he was from Missouri. Along the way, Dawn played a couple songs on a harmonica, and Wendell loved them all. He said that he had always wanted to learn to play the harmonica.

When we got to a point where he was turning toward home, and we were continuing east, he looked for a safe place to let us out. As we came in to a truckstop, he put out a call on his CB in hopes of seeing us get a ride he could feel good about. Most of the replies were from those fuckertrucker types. You know the ones. The sleazeball assholes who drive cross country spreading STDs all the way home to their wives. Finally a sane and stable voice came over the speaker. We met the guy and he seemed OK. Before we left him, Dawn gave Wendell her harmonica.

The guy we rode with next got us all the was to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His name was Renegade. That's all we knew him as. He was another Wendell type guy. A friend for life in ten minutes, and his a story in his own right.

Later.

BE NICE TO EACH OTHER FUCKERS.

Upon the wings of....well.....chickens.

2005-07-26T17:22:00.000+02:00

photo credit to Mrs. Denotsko
Growing up in the country is not as boring as one would think. It takes longer that growing up in the city; but the journy is one hell of a lot of fun. You are forced to find entertainment for your self. There are no malls, or movie theaters, or those video arcades the kids love so much. There are no neighbors to playwith or harrass or set on fire. More on the fire thing some other time, maybe. Let me check the statute of limitations first.

Well, as I was getting to, you just have trees, fields, hills, and firearms to keep your self buisy. All of which can be employed in one way or another for personal amusement, and/or injury. Some of us were really lucky though. The truly blessed among us had chickens. Chickens may seem like odd fair for young boys; but don't jump to conclusions. I wasn't that bored. Not until puberty at least. JUST KIDDING :)

Back to the story now.

I was always facinated with flight. I'm sure many young, ignorant boys thought they could fly by jumping off the garage roof holding a kite, or umbrella. Many, many days of my youth were spent doing this. As a kid on a farm learns after some experimentation, is that you can fly a lot farther by jumping from the barn loft instead of a garage. You also get the bonus of a fluffy pile of hay to land in.

One day my father was sitting on the porch swing disposing of some unwanted beer. He'd been watching me for a while, jumping from the loft. I would run at top speed and launch myself from the loft window like Icarus on methamphetemines. I would land with a flop in the hay and immediately grab my kite and dash around the side of the barn. Emerging from the loft again a few minutes later. My father knew from his own childhood traumas that you just couldn't really gain any altitude with the equivalent of a parchute. A boy would eventually get hurt trying. He was always concerned with my safety.

I heard him calling me from a few hundred yards away. Never willing to keep my pop waiting, I rushed across the open terrain between us. Dodging, along the way, the psychotic goat that chased me with a butt hungry animal lust in its eyes every time it caught sight of me. As I launched my tiny frame over the barbed wire fence, snagging a nipple ever so slightly, my dad bust into laughter. It was like terrets syndrom, that laughter. Every time my father saw me in danger, he would burst out laughing. He just couldn't cope with the stress of it.

Once I had recovered from the fence and goat, he offered my this proposition.

"Go get me another beer, and I'll tell you how to fly without killing yourself."

OK! Right fucking on Daddy-O. The Wright brothers could have only wished for a fountain of knowlege like my dear old dad to drink from.

It took a few tries to get the beer. They kept hitting his hand half empty. I still can't figure it out, they were full when I got them from the fridge....but when they got to him, they were half gone. That must be why he was trying to get rid of them. Leaky cans. Eventually, he got a beer he was satisfied with, and I got my gold nugget of countryboy genious.

"Just run and catch some chickens, and tie their feet to a broomstick." he says.

"You crazy? Have you ever tried to catch chickens on 5 acres of open field? You fucking wacko old bastard. I'm 9 years old! I've got better shit to do with my time."I thought very, very, very quietly deep inside my brain. To the rest of the world, it sounded like, "REALLY!? HOW MANY CHICKENS WOULD I NEED OH GREAT AND WISE BUDDHA?"

"I did it with six; but you're a little lighter than I was. You could probably do it with just four."

BEEBBEEP!!! ZIP FUCKING TANG FOLKS. I was moving before he could even finish the

sentence. NASA couldn't reach the speeds I was hitting. "I'm gonna fly!!!!!!!"

I spent the rest of the day collecting supplies.

1 broomstick
4 chickens
1 roll of tape (I didnt that string would create a very secure bond, so I got electrical tape instead. Safety First.)

By the time I had caught 4 chickens, the sun was moving toward sunset. I spent some time behind the barn, where mom couldn't see me, taping chickens to the stick. I had discovered that roosters could be quite brutal, so I went with hens in my final design. When the construction was complete, I went to ask my father to look it over and make sure my flier was built correctly. I found him in the garage changing oil or something. He assured me that he didn't need to inspect it. He trusted my skills. He then handed me his motorcycle helmet and wished me the best of luck. As I ran from the yard, he called after me, reminding me to call if I was far from home when the chickens stopped to roost, and he would come to get me in the truck.

I stood in the loft window. I was, for the first time, looking up instead of down. I was trying to map a route around the trees and power poles, so I could reach cruising altitude without obstruction. Seemed clear enough. I could see that Dad had left the garage and was on the front porch to see the show. Is presence gave me confidence. His never yeilding concern for my safety always reassured me when I was about to attempt to bend the laws of physics . The sweat trickling from under the helmet cooled my neck as I stepped back from the opening.

After a few minutes of soothing, the disguntled chickens were ready for their trip into history. As stood in the center of the loft, holding the chicken flier, I could see my father on porch. He was leaning with his elbows on the rail, a beer in one hand, a cigarrett in the other. The sun was starting to set behind him, turning the sky the ominous shade of a fresh bruise.

Always lost in a vast world of geekdom, I started the countdown. I was picturing my self sitting alongside Chuck Yeager and Buzz Aldrin in a dusty bar reliving the glory of our deads.

7 rotate chickens into launch position

5 face the door

3BREATHE! BREATHE!

2 I start to run, 5 feet of chicken stick in my hands

1 SHUTTLE, GO WITH THROTTLE UP.

BOOM!

As I launched through the door, both ends of the 5 foot long stick struck the sides of the 4 foot opening, snapping the flier in the middle. I had jumped with all my strength and extended my legs behind me like Superman. As I flew through space, I could see my dad stand fully erect with a jolt. The extra weight of the helmet pulled my head toward the ground like a giant electromagnet had been swithed on beneath me. I was racing toward the ground at a rate equal to my speed away from the loft window. My mind was quickly trying to calculate my trajectory. The human mind is capable of amazing mathmatical acheivements. In less than .0026 seconds I knew that my projected landing area would be exactly 6 feet 4.5 inches beyond the 'sweet spot' of pillowy, life sustaining hay in the center of the pile under the window. My world was like a watercolor painting in a blender. I twisted and contorted my body in an effort to, somehow, reverse my path of travel and go back in the window.

As the planet came back into existance, I could hear my father laughing as the goat swooped in for the kill. He was in total panic over the outcome of my flight. He may have peed himself too.

Of man eating rabbits and such...

2005-07-25T17:35:00.000+02:00

When I was a kid, my dad would take me out walking around the countryside on slow, boring days. We would hunt mushrooms (the regular flavor not the ones that you discover later in life), shoot cans & fenceposts, skip rocks, build rodent snares..... In this way I was taught all the survival skills my father had to join the army to learn.

One one particularly nice fall day, we were walking along a small ravine, more of a ditch between corn fields really; but being about eight feet deep, it was a ravine to a small boy. It was littered with the various signs of our modern, disposable society; old broken washing machines, car tires, handleless buckets, and the occasional bathtub. At one point in our trek, we came across a piece of heating duct leaning against the side of the ditch so that one end was at the bottom of the trench, and the other stuck up to about my waist level.

As we approached, a rabbit ran into the low end of the duct. Never ones to pass up an opportunity to capture an animal with our bare hands, we quickly descended on opposite ends of the tube. Dad at the bottom, and me at the top. The duct, about ten feet long, was too long to just reach in and grab the rabbit. We tried banging on the sides in an effort to scare it out. Unfortunately, the rabbit was not swayed. He stood fast inside the tunnel. We tried poking it out with a stick. No luck.

Standing there thinking, my pop lit a cigarette. He always did this when there was deep thinking or heavy lifting to be done. As the fire flared in front of his face, he got an idea. We could smoke it out. He began stuffing his end of the duct with dry leaves and grass. As he was doing this, he told me what my part of the plan was. I would stand at the high end, waiting. As the rabbit ran out, trying to escape the smoke and fire, I could simply grab it. It sounded pretty plausible to me. I could just grab it. I could just grab it with my hands. I would have to be a complete idiot to be way out there with something like a net....So I would just use my hands.

As Dad started the fire, I stooped down over the opening, waiting for lunch. Dad fanned the grass and leaves to help it heat up, poking more dead grass in on top of the fire. The extra grass starved the fire of oxygen, creating thick choking smoke, which he then blew up the chimney of the near vertical piece of duct. Yeah....That fucking rabbit was toast.

He warned me that the rabbit would most likely be moving pretty fast as it ran from the tube, so I should lean in a little closer to the opening. That way it wouldn't have any escape path around me. As I leaned in closer, I thought I saw a grin flash across my dad's face.

YEAH. I thought. He's excited too. I leaned in as close as I could.

By now smoke was coming out my end of the duct. Any minute now....You're fucking as good as dead Buggs.

The smoke was stinging my eyes now. I could hear the rabbit start to move around now. Surely he was choking even worse than I was. And getting pretty hot too. My eyes and lungs were on fire now. The end of the tube faded in out of my vision now as I tried to squeeze the tears from my eyes.

Dad had retired back a few feet from the fire. To better see the capture.

Suddenly, it seamed like the entire world screamed out . I could hear the screeching, squealing, fluffy little ass on fire sound of a rabbit in flight for it's life. As the flames and smoke dealt its worst to us both, the rabbit made its move. The only sound I could hear was Buggs' long, razor sharp, predator toenails sliding and screeching up the tube like Freddy Kreuger's knife-fingers along a chalkboard. As it moved up the duct, it was constantly sliding back down. Only to increase the paralyzing terror in both of our hearts. I knew it was coming. I leaned in closer. My eyes and lungs were on fire. Now I could smell burning fur. I could see its eyes coming at me now.

OH FUCK THIS THING IS COMING FAST!!!

BAMMM!!!! It hit me so hard in the chest that I was thrown to my back. The rabbit, still running, sliced my chest, neck, face and head with its nails as it used me as a springboard to life. It didn't even slow down as it passed.

It took Dad a few minutes to breath. He was so distraught at my predicament, that he burst into some kind of hysterical, fear induced laughter. It was the strangest thing. Like hysterical blindness I suppose. Out of concern for my safety and well being, he could not function. Sometimes, when panic sets in, a person can do the strangest things to cope with fear.

My dad laughed. Hard.

Goooooo!

2005-07-23T16:01:00.000+02:00

OK... Earliest memory....I grew up kind of white trash, for those who don't already know me. We never had much money, and it was the country, so things were pretty funny sometimes. In hindsight, some would say I should be ashamed of the way I was raised. I don't think so. It made me who I am today. Who am I to complain.

I was in the bathtub with my sisters. I was probably only 2 or 3. I remember my sisters all screaming like the room had suddenly burst into flames. They were scared. Panic set in, and they all ran from the room. Leaving me there, alone. I didn't know why they ran away. I wasn't scared at all.

After a minute or two, my mom came for me. There I was, playing with my turd like a toy boat. Not a care in the world. Happy. Content. Country as fuck.....And liking it.

Get set....

2005-07-22T16:38:00.000+02:00

I think the 'theme' of this thing will be my rambling accounts of random memories as they come into my head. They definitely won't follow any sort of chronological order. There's a good chance that they won't be well written, or for that matter be very interesting. In the end, about all we can be sure of is that they will be posted here, by me, for the world to read if they feel so inclined.

Memories are funny, subjective little things. After all, they're just a fancy arrangement of neurons in our brains. To expect every one present at an event to remember it the same way would be like expecting all snowflakes to be identical. So, with that in mind, I will always try to ask those present at the remembered happenings to offer their take on 'how it all went down'. In that way, you the reader, can make the call on whether I'm full of shit or not.

A large number of my 'memories' are clouded by drugs, alcohol, stress, lack of sleep, and various combinations of them all. So a little input from bystanders and witnesses could be of some help. Many of the folks present at these happenings are no longer available for comment; but I'll do my best to bring you the most comprehensive coverage of ALL the things in my head. As soon as they can be sorted into some sort of legible grouping of words, they will be posted here for your review.

Please stand by.

On Your Marks....

2005-07-19T07:38:00.000+02:00

Time will tell if I have the dedication to make regular posts to this thing. I can make no guarantees. One good thing about this is the ever trusted spell check feature. Can honest, hardworking Americans live without spell check?

Well, I guess if anyone is going to ever read this, they might wonder who the fuck I am, or claim to be. I am most definately, with out much doubt, me.