Women Have Always Been A Puzzle to Me

Always a Puzzle to Me

 

Hiking the pāhoehoe and ‘a’a in New Mexico

For many years, I’ve traveled by the lava flows around Grants, New Mexico. I’ve stopped to smell the lava occasionally, and even picked the tunas, the fruits of the prickly pear, as they are known around here, which grow near the lava by the highway. I’d never hiked through the lava fields before, so when a hike came up to do so, I jumped at it. Now, hiking through cold lava is not as easy as it sounds. The smooth flow, pāhoehoe, is not bad to walk on: mostly flat, good traction. The ‘a’a is not so easy. Much of the later half of the hike was on ‘a’a, the sharp, strewn rocks blown out of the volcanoes, including sharp rocks and loose gravel-like stones.

 El Malpais is a national park.

There is a trail, (a very loose term), through the badlands. It is 7.5 miles long. Seems easy, right? Well, people do get lost and die in there. In fact, human bones found scattered on a lava flow in El Malpais National Monument have been identified, just last year, as those of James Chatman and Crystal Tuggle, father and daughter, who never came back from an afternoon walk there nine years ago. See? It is so easy to get lost in there. The trail, such as it is, is marked with cairns throughout. Sometimes the cairns are no more than ten feet apart, sometimes, 20 to 30 feet apart, when the trail is obvious. Usually, it is not, so the cairns are placed liberally along the trail, showing the way through every twist and turn.

There’s one there, in the upper right corner, next to one of my hiking companions. Now, this one is fairly easy to spot, but do you see a problem? The cairns are simply piles of lava rocks. On a rise like this, fairly easy to spot, silhouetted against the sky. Imagine that you are walking through a field of lava and all of the cairns are about two to three feet tall (max), composed of rocks the exact same color of the background. Here are two cairns in a row; can you spot them?

The advice the park service gives is to always have the next cairn in sight before you leave the one you’re at, and I wholeheartedly endorse that. Occasionally, this takes a bit of reconnoitering, but there is always a cairn alongside the trail in the direction one needs to travel. Looking at the photo above, you might be tempted to say that one needs only follow the other hikers, right? Wrong. Suppose you’re a slower hiker, or you stop to pee or take a photo. The other hikers are gone, around a bend, down a hill, or behind a pile of lava somewhere. You then have to navigate on your own until you see them again. Sometimes you walk right past a cairn, if you glance up at the wrong moment, so you have to backtrack a bit and try again. Imagine doing this right after a snowstorm. It had snowed the night before, but fortunately, it was light, and tended to melt as the day wore on.

 

Helpfully, the park service has provided wooden posts for some cairns, sticking straight up through the center of the cairn, but even these have a tendency to fall down, due to the really intense winds blowing through there.    This one was near one end of the trail.

There were piles of these poles here and there, so I assume it’s an ongoing project for the few rangers that have kept their jobs. It’s unfortunate that the National Park Service has felt the brunt of the many cuts in government over the years.  I guess we need to keep raising our Congress people’s salaries, and keep paying them for life, and make sure they have top-of-the-line free medical care.  Well, at least they think it’s more important, for them, even if they don’t think it’s important for the rest of us.

Anyway, you came here for pictures, yes?

Here ya go:

As I told the hike leader, it was one hell of a hike. Although I was tired and aching by the time we finished, (just under five hours including two 15-minute breaks), I really enjoyed this hike. The views were always outstanding, and the experience, on the whole, was fantastic! It’s one of the best hikes I’ve ever done. On the way home, we stopped at the ‘WOW’ diner in Milan, near Grants. Their menu is just as unique and varied as the lava fields are. With three pages of choices, I may never experience everything on their menu, but I intend to try. (There are still lots of hikes in the area.)  It is the perfect end to a perfect hike.

Flying Again

The last time I was preparing to fly, I felt a feeling of impending doom, although I did not associate that with the flight itself. Now, I wonder. Here I am about to board another plane within a month’s time, and I again feel apprehensive.  Could it be that I have developed a fear of flying? It seems odd, although not so much considering the use to which some planes have been put in this country. However, I’ve always loved flying, even though I don’t get to do it much.  I have been excited the last few days about going to my brother’s wedding on  the east coast. Celebratory gatherings are so much more fun than wakes.

Why, then, does my mind dwell on scenarios of fighting with terrorists, surviving a plane crash, losing my luggage, and even ending up homeless, wandering the world? Too much violence in the world, I suppose. Hard to feel safe anymore. Of course, that was the intention of the terrorists, and the huge expenditure of money from a government in deficit has helped their cause by wasting our tax money on overblown security precautions, and a new bloated government agency. No amount of expenditure is going to make us safe ever again, but we keep on spending money, throwing money away, building new screening machines, hiring more clueless, uneducated screening personnel, making every U.S. citizen a terror suspect. We keep looking over our shoulders, backwards, instead of looking ahead.

    

Can we really keep spending money like this, just to create a false sense of security? It doesn’t even work, if I am any indication. I don’t believe all this removing my shoes, emptying my pockets, being x-rayed and hassled, and having to suspect all my fellow passengers is making me any safer. Paranoia inevitably leads to fear, and to an inability to function. Look, people: flying has always been dangerous. Planes crash on a regular basis. More people die in car crashes, to be sure, but there is no way to guarantee passenger safety just by hoping that our laughingly inadequate security measures are really going to keep some nutjob from finding a way to sabotage a plane. It’s unlikely that the whole flying a plane into a major U.S. landmark thing is really what every terrorist in the world is planning next. Our security measures are predicated on stopping that from happening. Someone can still plant a bomb in luggage, or fire a rocket grenade at a plane landing or taking off.  Hell, to really inspire more terror, someone is not going to do the same thing that was done before.

The next time, there’s going to be a nuke, or at least a dirty bomb. Forget the planes, for crying out loud. We need to ensure that those nuclear plants are secure, that transportation of fissionable materials, and even nuclear waste is secure. We know this, and yet we permit our government to spend the bulk of our security money on securing our air travel? Jeez, enough already. Let’s monitor terrorists, investigate possible security lapses in protecting our power grids and oil and gas facilities. Let’s go back to working with every nation in the world to seek out and destroy terror cells, and cut off their funding. No funding, no travel. If the nutjobs want to blow each other up, let ‘em. But if they can’t afford large bombs, intercontinental missiles, and even plane fare, then we’d be a lot safer.

Every day, people die in this country. Sometimes it’s from car crashes, bus crashes, plane crashes, gas line explosions, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, or accidents and homicides. Do we really think a few terrorists can do worse? I don’t. This is one huge MF-ing country. It can’t be taken down with a few explosions here and there. But we can fail, if we let fear dominate our everyday lives. We can fail if we use fear to win elections. We can fail if we keep seeing each other as the enemy. Some day, we need to stop fighting each other and work together to make this, again, a country that other nations envy, that everyone would like to imitate, not attack. People don’t hate us because of our freedom. They hate us because we threaten their way of life. Sure, some of them are just nuts, they strike out at power, because they are powerless. But, when we violate the sovereignty of other countries, when we exploit their resources, and attempt to impose, often simply economically, our way of life on other cultures, we create resentment. I think, maybe, we need to stop doing that.

Even the most powerful country on the face of the planet can fall under its own weight. Look at the Roman empire; look at the British empire. Look at the Third Reich. And those were just the most recent empires to fail. Throughout history nations and empires have risen and then fallen. If we want to remain a great nation, we have to represent more than a nation of powerful weapons and large armies. Spending all of our money and effort on weapons and security will not save us.

Are we with the rest of the world, or against it?

Dreaming Again

Haven’t had many dreams that I remember in some time. Maybe it’s because I sleep poorly. At any rate, my ex-wife was in my dream this morning. I hadn’t seen her in four years until just recently, when I spotted her dancing at a Salsa event one night. That was something we always did, mostly every week for fourteen years, so it upset me to see her dancing, knowing we could never dance again. She was on my mind for weeks after that, almost all the time. Spending time recently with my siblings and cousins, and laughing with them, broke the spell, and I hadn’t thought about her as much.

Suddenly, I’m dreaming about her this morning. In my dream, I run into her at a party at a friend’s house in the mountains. She asks me to go home with her, so we are driving up this steep mountain road to her place, somewhere deeper up in the mountains. She was always a drinker, so she has concocted a way to drink while driving. She is wearing one of those camelback water bags that hikers use, except that it is filled with wine. She attempts to take a drink from the tube but is having a hard time getting it to stay in her mouth. She is driving, and I realize she is drunk when she swerves across the road into the opposite lane of traffic. It is very late at night, so there is no other traffic, but there is some light snow on the highway, left over from an earlier storm. I am not concerned, as she has slowed way down, aware she is in the other lane. When she gets the wine tube in her mouth and takes a long swallow, she attempts to move back into the right lane when we see headlights behind us. So, she stops the car, on the left side of the road on the shoulder.  When the car passes, I look at her, realizing that she never used to drive when drunk. It was always my job to drive her home. I am wondering why I am not driving. I am wondering why I am with her at all, except I know I am still sexually attracted to her. Jokingly, I tell her that drinking WHILE driving will make them throw the book at her. She tells me to get out. It is cold, the wind is blowing powdery snow around the highway. I can’t believe she is serious. I tell her I was only joking. I want, after all, to go home with her.

All this thinking wakes me up: wrong part of the brain for dreaming, I guess.

I am left wondering why I would have a dream like that! Of course, the car ride could have been a metaphor for our marriage, but I don’t know why I would invent such an elaborate story. Perhaps I am correct, and it was a metaphor.

In a car = in the marriage

Worried about car ride = worried about marriage

Not in control of the car = not in control of marriage

Unwilling to get out of car = unwilling to get out of marriage

Warning her in car = telling her I was unhappy, wanted counseling

Cold, snow, mountain = there be monsters outside marriage

Pissed her off; she says get out = pissed her off; she said I had to go

I guess I never resolved that whole thing. I need to let go; thought I had.

He was survived by two cats

I have such an odd feeling, as though I have no future. I have cleaned up my house, put things away, and find myself thinking that it is ready for the estate sale after I die. It keeps running through my head that I haven’t much time left. Last night I even thought that my due date is coming up sooner than later. All bills are paid for the month. Rent check, book I sold, and Netflix movie are all in the mail.

I watched The Man Who Wasn’t There last night.  Perhaps it influenced me too much. In identifying with the protagonist, I ended up being depressed. Of course, I never have to dig too deep to find such feelings. Been that way for some time now. I don’t feel sad as such. I just have this gut feeling that I will die soon. I kept getting the idea running through my head last night that once I leave my house today I will never return. That could mean different things, but it’s hard to imagine not returning to my house if I’m still alive.

I hope someone takes care of my cats.

pɐoɹ ǝɥʇ ƃuıssoɹɔ ʇsoɥƃ ǝןɐd

˙ǝɯ punoɹɐ sɯɹɐ ǝsoɥʇ ɟo ssǝuʇɟos ƃuoɹʇs ǝɥʇ sı sɹǝʇʇɐɯ ʇɐɥʇ llɐ ˙uǝʇʇoƃɹoɟ sı ǝɔuǝıɹǝdxǝ ɥʇɐǝp-ɹɐǝu ɹno ˙ɯlɐɔ ɯɐ ı ˙sǝɥɔuı ʎq ǝʇoʎoɔ ǝɥʇ ssıɯ ǝʍ ˙ǝɯ sǝʌɐs ʇɐɥʇ ǝɔuǝsǝɹd ɹǝɥ sı ʇı ˙ǝɯ sɹoɥɔuɐ ǝɥs ˙ʎʇıɹnɔǝs ˙ʇlǝq ʇɐǝs ɐ ǝʞıl ʇsǝɥɔ ʎɯ punoɹɐ sɯɹɐ ‘ǝɯ puıɥǝq ɐʎɐɯ ˙ɹǝʇsɐsıp ɹɐǝu ˙ɥdɯ ǝʌıɟ-ʎʇɟıɟ ʇɐ ǝlɔʎɔɹoʇoɯ ˙puɐs ɟo ɹoloɔ ǝɥʇ ‘ǝʇoʎoɔ ɐ ˙pɐǝɥɐ pɐoɹ ǝɥʇ ƃuıssoɹɔ ʇsoɥƃ ǝlɐd

Albuquerque Lights Up for the 4th

Because of the fires throughout the state, the drought and extreme dryness, all fireworks were banned, including sales, possession and use, but the city of Albuquerque put on a good pyrotechnic display for all, for free.

Balloon Fiesta Park, 07/04/2011

Photos from Albuquerque’s Inagural Comic Expo!

June 24 First Day

Well, we have lots of other conventions here, like Bubonicon, or the Albuquerque Comic Con, but this is our first Comic Expo. I’m not sure why we need two Comic conventions, but we’ve got ‘em now. The “Expo” says it is more professional.  Stan (The Man) Lee will be here Saturday and Sunday, but  I was only able to attend on Friday. I saw a few friends, mostly photographers, and had my picture taken with LeVar Burton and Marina Sirtis. ( photo by Esi)

Attended a great and funny Q&A with Jeremy Bulloch,  who played Boba Fett in Star Wars’ movies. He also has appeared in Dr. Who and James Bond.

Bought some books and had ‘em signed, by Science Fiction author Robert E. Vardeman, and by comic strip artist Stephan McCranie.

I didn’t get to meet Doug Jones (Buffy, Hellboy,etc.) or Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) or ten other notable actors, animators directors and producers, but maybe next time.  Perhaps I’ll have time after a photo shoot on Sunday to stop in again. In the meantime, here are some of the photos I took on 6/24/11:

I Brake for Rhinoceros

Warning: I brake for rhinoceros. That’s what the bumper sticker on the pickup in front of me said. What I found odd was not that this was on I-25 between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, but that I thought rhinoceros should be plural, like rhinoceroses or maybe rhinoceri. I didn’t know that the plural of rhinoceros is rhinoceros, because I was surrounded on all sides by cactus plants known in the aggregate as cacti. So that seemed a good bet. Braking for rhinoceros didn’t seem as odd as the highway signs that say things like Caution: Watch For Water or Gusty Winds May Exist. There is even a large official-looking road sign near my house that says: Lizard Crossing. True enough everywhere around here, but try seeing one on the street ahead of you in the explosively bright afternoon sun with waves of heat shimmering over the road.
The idea that one brakes for rhinoceri tickled me, as tumbleweeds often seemed just as formidable charging across the highway. Some of them grow to enormous size, and, just as often, dozens of them blow by right in front of you. Tumbleweeds may seem innocuous blowing along, but not when you’re traveling between 70 and 80 miles per hour on a highway with traffic flowing anywhere between 60 mph and 110 mph, and several of them appear directly in your path. You can’t swerve into the other lane, because a long line of vehicles are backed up behind the Winnebagos there, and you can’t suddenly brake, because then the idiot behind you, traveling at 110 mph expecting you to get out of their way, will just plow into your ass.
So, sometimes you continue right along, hoping that the tumbleweeds will be knocked up over your hood and into the idiot behind you. For inexplicable reasons, at least part of the tumbleweed will end up under your car, wedged under the muffler or the heat shield. Unfortunately, tumbleweeds, at this stage of their lives, are ridiculously dry, and the underside of your car is pretty damn hot, so it is not unheard of to have one catch fire under there. Tumbleweeds are a good reason to carry a fire extinguisher in your vehicle. What I really need is a bumper sticker that says: I Brake For Tumbleweeds.

Photographer

She came into the room wearing only frilly pink panties. Her nipples were covered with black crosses of electrical tape. My heart jerked. My eyes felt like they popped out of my head. My hands were shaking; my legs were weak. I could barely speak.
I wanted to wrap my arms around her, pull that tape off with my teeth, taste her, lick her, feel her, fuck her. I wanted to give into my wild impulse and have sex on the spot, sex like no other: wild, uninhibited, hard.
Instead, I clicked the shutter shakily, again and again, over two hundred times. I am a photographer.

12/20/2010

THE JOY OF BRAIN TUMORS

I didn’t know I could find joy in
a brain tumor
I never really felt love before
the brain tumor
I never felt such fear
a brain tumor!?

We joke about it
It’s not like you have a brain tumor
We compare headaches to
brain tumors.

It’s my step-daughter that had
the brain tumor
I never knew such fear
- the all-day brain surgery
- the chemotherapy
- the radiation.

I never knew I felt such love
this young woman I’d known
thirteen years from girl to woman
I never knew such joy
- after the operation she survived
- still needed chemo she survived
- still needed radiation
gamma knife
- a high-tech magic bullet.

Bad brain tumor
bad brain tumor
dead brain tumor.

She survived
She’s alive
She’s healthy
She’s whole.

My chest loosened
I can breathe
My heart
is beating.

I never knew such joy before
the brain tumor.

The Dragon I Slept With

She said to me that I was lazy, that was why I was with her, that I was too lazy to look for love. She implied that was why I loved her. I think she felt she wasn’t good enough for anyone to fall in love with. She also said that I didn’t love her, I loved everyone. She was a hard person to love. She would not tell me she loved me, and, it’s likely she didn’t. She was never affectionate; she never touched me on her own. She was rarely passionate. I could touch her, but not too much, usually only after sex, and then we could cuddle together for a short while. If it was sex on the rare night, she would turn away quickly to her own spot on the far side of the bed. If it was a weekend morning, then she would get up shortly after sex, so the cuddling was short. She slept late on weekends, and told me never, ever, to wake her. I woke early on weekend mornings, and I waited for her to wake for hours sometimes. Over the years, she began to sleep late, wake up suddenly and jump out of bed before I could touch her.

Sometimes she would let me put my arms around her while she worked in the kitchen, but she wouldn’t stop what she was doing. Usually she’d move away or brush me off. She seemed to like it sometimes, but never for long. If I persisted, she said all I wanted was sex.

She never came to me for sex. Sometimes she allowed it; that was my impression. I liked sex, sure; never seemed to get enough. I liked sex with her, even though it was so one-sided. During the four years we dated before marriage and for a few years after that, we’d often had sex multiple times in an evening. One morning, I remarked to her in surprise that we’d had sex five times since the night before, and she was shocked; she didn’t remember the middle-of-the-night sex at all. That puzzled me for years. It was rare for her to orgasm, and she said she didn’t mind. She once told me that she had orgasms in her sleep. She thought that was the only time she had them. I knew better. She would orgasm during sex, sure enough, but only after a night of drinking. She had to be really drunk, and her body arched, and shuddered, and sounds came from deep within her chest. Afterward, she passed out. It was years before I found out that she just didn’t remember such things. I always thought it odd that she said she never had orgasms, no matter what I did, when I’d heard her moan softly and felt her breath quicken. And she breathed hard and fast and I kept going as long as I could, and her excitement excited me and I’d go crazy with lust for her. I never wanted to stop when she seemed to actually be enjoying it. I never knew if I pleased her, or if I disappointed, because she never said anything. After years of marriage, she would often just signal that that was enough, and I should stop.

I finally put it all together. It happened one time that we were out of town, staying at a motel in Santa Fe. We ate dinner and drank a lot. We drank way too much, and the increase in altitude made the drinks work faster, and we headed off to bed. It was not often, away from home, that she’d agree to sex, but this night was different, and we both got our clothes off quickly. She said that she had to use the bathroom. I don’t know when she came back. I woke up shortly afterward to find her nude, and asleep. It was a hard night for me in both meanings. I was aroused by her nude body always. She was out cold. I once heard a neighbor tell how he often had sex with his wife when she was passed out drunk. He loved for her to get drunk. That wasn’t me, however. I couldn’t see having sex without mutual desire, or at least acquiescence. I snuggled up to her, but I couldn’t fall asleep. I was aroused, probably because it had been awhile, and also she was nude in bed, which didn’t happen anymore. She always slept in a heavy nightshirt and socks. In the summer she’d wear something lighter, but always there were the socks. When I could snuggle with her, I’d get my hands inside her night clothes to feel her warm body, but often not until she was asleep. She always said she was too hot. She insisted on sleeping under a thick comforter all year long. She said it made her feel good, but she would throw it off several times a night.

Once, on a cold night, I awoke shivering and found neither of us covered. I pulled the comforter up over both of us, which woke her up. She asked me why I’d covered her. I told her it was cold; I thought she’d want to be covered. She yelled at me, angrily, to never cover her or uncover her. She thought I had been uncovering her at night.

On this particular night in Santa Fe I couldn’t sleep. It was a combination of the excessive alcohol and my desire for her. I tried falling asleep, but I couldn’t. I felt her soft belly and cupped my hands around her breasts. My rock-hard penis was nestled against her ass, and it wouldn’t settle down. I felt the curve of her hips and her soft thighs. I caressed her arms. I dared to rest my hand on her mound. She never woke. I was restless and excited. I wanted her so bad. Towards morning I was exhausted. It had been a long night. I dozed off only after light came in the crack between the heavy curtains, but not for long. I woke and dozed, woke and dozed, always with a hard on. Finally she was awake. I snuggled up against her, touched her, kissed her, and she pushed me off, gently this time. I persisted, however, and she said, “We already had sex.” I was incredulous. “What! We didn’t.” I told her she was wrong, that I would know. She insisted. She said that since she was naked, she knew we’d had sex. I struggled for words. It was impossible. There was no stickiness, no wet spot on the bed, no smells, and besides, sex is not something I have ever forgotten. She insisted we must have, but, after a quick trip to the bathroom, she came back to bed and agreed. It was too late for me. I was dead tired, and hung over. My penis was not very stiff, and I couldn’t keep it erect for more than a minute. I had to just give up. She said nothing. We got up and went to breakfast.

But, after that, I knew why she thought she never had orgasms, why she thought we didn’t have sex when we had, and why she thought we’d had sex when we hadn’t. She blacked out. She is one of those drunks who doesn’t remember what she did the night before. All those times we had sex after Thursday night dancing and drinking – she didn’t remember it. I think she remembered mostly the morning sex, the quick rushed sex because we both had to go to work. Years of long Thursday nights, and lots of sex that she would never remember. Orgasms she would never remember. My efforts to please her for nothing. I enjoyed the sex, but it was only a chore for her, something one does for someone else’s benefit. Did it mean she loved me? I guess I’ll never know. She never said. It’s been four years since I’ve seen her. I wrote her, without a reply. I sent her a book with a note in it, asking if we could get together to talk, see if we had misunderstood each other, if there was anything to say; she said no. I called her when her daughter had to travel to Texas for surgery, offered my help, offered to drive, share a motel room, or buy her a plane ticket. She said she’d think about it, that her sister might fly in from LA and go with her, but she never called me back. I called her and she said her son was taking her, and she didn’t want me there. My step-daughter said not to come, that it would just upset her mom more than she was already.

She lives alone now, as do I. She told her daughter once that she had never been alone before. She’d gone from home to marriage, and even after her first divorce, she’d had the kids with her. Now she is alone. She has her alcohol, and her phone and her sisters and friends to call long distance. Her son calls her nearly every day or she calls him. But, she doesn’t need anyone. She thinks she has always been this way, because she doesn’t remember when I held her hand, when I cuddled her, when I touched her and fucked her, and loved her, and only her, for all I was worth. She just doesn’t remember when someone really loved her, and when she thinks of me at all, she knows I didn’t love her, because I just love everyone.

What IS depression anyway?

Just what the fuck is depression anyway?  I tried researching it, after experiencing it for a few years.  Got medication simultaneously with counseling. I was definitely depressed.

Depression, which doctors call major depressive disorder, isn’t something you can just “snap out of.”

Symptoms

• Agitation, restlessness, and irritability
• Dramatic change in appetite, often with weight gain or loss
• Extreme difficulty concentrating
• Fatigue and lack of energy
• Feelings of hopelessness and helplessness
• Feelings of worthlessness, self-hate, and inappropriate guilt
• Inactivity and withdrawal from usual activities, a loss of interest or pleasure in activities that were once enjoyed (such as sex)
• Thoughts of death or suicide
• Trouble sleeping or excessive sleeping

Major depression disorder, according to the Mayo Clinic, is when a person has five or more symptoms of depression for at least 2 weeks. In addition, people with major depression often have behavior changes, such as new eating and sleeping patterns.

Depression can appear as anger and discouragement, rather than as feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. If depression is very severe, there may also be psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions. These symptoms may focus on themes of guilt, inadequacy, or disease.  It is thought to be caused by an imbalance of brain chemicals and other factors.

However.  Hmmph.  However, none of this says what depression is, or where it comes from. Obviously, trauma can bring it on: the loss of a loved one, a pet, a friend, or the end of a marriage, love affair, or even a job. Many things can trigger depression.  If it is caused solely by a chemical imbalance, then it would be entirely random, in my opinion.  People in all walks of life would be depressed for absolutely no discernible reason, whereas most of us can attribute those feelings to something that happened. Everyone deals with these things in different ways, and, in fact, it is common for everyone to be depressed at some time.  So, to follow the medical opinions, I should talk about major depressive disorder, that thing that just doesn’t go away for some people sometimes.

I think I know what it is, and where it comes from.  I’m not a doctor, neither an M.D., a psychologist nor a psychiatrist.

Now, Wikipedia says: “The biopsychosocial model proposes that biological, psychological, and social factors all play a role in causing depression. The diathesis–stress model specifies that depression results when a preexisting vulnerability, or diathesis, is activated by stressful life events. The preexisting vulnerability can be either genetic, implying an interaction between nature and nurture, or schematic, resulting from views of the world learned in childhood.”

Blah, blah, blah.

I think it is nothing more than our reaction to pain.  Pain, as many of us know, decreases in intensity after we suffer it for a time.  Runners, torture victims, accident victims, and victims of disease know what I’m talking about. There may be a variety of things involved, but we all commonly think about endorphins kicking in, numbing us to pain after awhile.

Endorphins (“endogenous morphine”) are endogenous opioid peptides that function as neurotransmitters. They are produced by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus in vertebrates during exercise, excitement, pain, consumption of spicy food, love and orgasm, and they resemble the opiates in their abilities to produce analgesia and a feeling of well-being.

Well-being after sex, yeah, I know that one pretty well. I also like chile, red or green, and sure enough, a blast of really hot spicy food brings about a lessening of the hotness after a short time. I can then eat hotter chile, but I pay for it later.  So, one thing to notice is that this morphine-like substance we produce in our bodies doesn’t last very long. But, we can produce it over and over again, in response to various stimuli, including stress.  Some of us experience stress daily, so we must also be producing endorphins daily.

Here’s what I think: depression is our bodies’ response to psychological pain.  Depression is our psychological morphine, producing analgesia.  We go numb in response to psychological pain.  We cry, or grieve deeply, sometimes feeling an overwhelming crushing weight.  We can’t function that way.  We have to go to work, or continue our normal routines, so we have to push those feelings aside just enough to function.  Depression is the result.  If it was a relatively minor pain, we may work it out through continuing our normal routines.  Sometimes, however, the pain was severe, or was perceived as severe, and continues to recur. We may keep brushing it aside.  I think this is a normal mental defense, allowing us to continue our life until we can deal with the cause of the pain, similar to the production of adrenalin or endorphins, which give us temporary options for survival.

But, it has to be dealt with sooner or later.  Just as an injury can be ignored while adrenalin or endorphin pumps through our bodies, eventually the injury must be treated.  Depression is our temporary defense against psychological pain, but at some point, we have to deal with the “injury” that produced the depression in the first place.  How we deal with the injury is what our mental health industry is all about.  Alcohol and other central nervous system depressants slow normal brain function. In higher doses, some CNS depressants can become general anesthetics.  Temporary.  These measures are temporary, and can actually worsen depression.

An interesting tidbit I gleaned from the research literature is that endorphins attach themselves to areas of the brain associated with emotions (limbic and prefrontal areas).  Perhaps endorphins are involved in the onset of depression? I do not know, nor care.

Do I know how to “cure” depression? No.  Various treatments, combinations of certain drugs with counseling, are said to allow our minds and bodies to slip out of depression long enough to allow us to reprogram ourselves out of it.  The length of treatment, types of drugs and types of counseling vary widely. The results vary widely.

Having just come out of a three-year long depression (at minimum), I have some observations:

1.) Depression is temporary.

2.) It does not occur 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

3.) In all likelihood, we prolong our depressive state ourselves.

4.) Whatever caused the initial depressive response must be overcome.

Yeah, I hear you: Overcome? How? Beats me.  Drugs and counseling will help in some cases.

My best guess?

Here ’tis.

1.) Recognise that one is depressed.

2.) Trace the cause. This may take medical and psychological help.

3.) Eliminate the cause. This one is tricky.

I know that there are techniques often applied, common sense approaches, that may or not be accepted by all.  For example, I have read that grief cannot be overcome unless one goes through various stages, like denial, and anger, leading to acceptance.  I’ve found this to be true for depression.  One cannot wish depression away – that is simply denial. Accept that one is depressed. And then get angry.  Avoid violent solutions, because the depression will worsen, and be prolonged, but anger? Anger is good.  Get really fucking angry. Maybe one thinks it was all their own fault. Let me tell you, getting angry with oneself doesn’t do a whole lot.  What hurt you badly? What was the thing that drove you over the edge? Was it your boss, your spouse, your ex, your lover, your sibling, your parent?  Hate them. Your injury? Hate it.  Give it all you’ve got.  Hate your boss, your spouse, your ex, the negligent driver, the government regulation, the politician?  Hate them.  Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.  Give into it.  Feel the vindication, the release, the shifting of the pain from yourself somewhere else.  When you’ve gotten the focus off of you and onto the cause, let it go.  Forget? No.  We can never forget.  But we can let the anger go, and the pain goes with it.  Then focus on change.  Get away from the source of the pain if you can, or confront it. Attempt to change the situation that caused the pain in the first place.  We all know what we have to do.  If we don’t, the pain will hit us again, and we will be depressed again.

In my opinion.

QUE PASO?

When I was a very young man
I asked my father to please tell me
Will I get lucky Will I get laid
Here’s what he said to me

Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future’s not ours to see
Que sera, sera
What will be, will be

When I grew up and fell in love
I asked each lover what lies ahead
Will there be love and sex every day
Here’s what my lovers said

Que sera, sera
What will be will be
The future’s not ours to see
Que sera, sera
What will be, will be

When I was just an old man
I asked my shrink what should I try
Could I fall in love again or fucking give up
This was his wise reply

Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future’s not ours to see
Que sera, sera
What will be, will be

What will be, will be
Que sera, sera.

The Picklement

The boy’s nickname was Terry. He didn’t particularly like his name, because a lot of girls had the same one, and it sounded like a child’s name anyway.  He’d started out with Terrance, but in 1st grade the other boys called him Clarence instead.  It always got a laugh, but not from Terry.  It sounded like the name of a clown, or some snooty rich kid in a story.
After grade school, he changed his name to Bob, although Bob didn’t have much of a ring to it.  Still, it seemed a nice unambiguously masculine name, and much more adult sounding than Terry, or Terrance.
Bob, as a name, worked fairly well for Terry.  People didn’t stumble all over it, like they did with Terry, confusing his name with Gerry,  Perry, Harry, but most often, oddly enough, with Larry.  He wondered if it had to do with Larry, Moe and Curly,  since the most common misunderstanding of his name was always Larry.  He tried emphasizing the T whenever he said Terry, but it didn’t help.  People just don’t get Terry usually until the third try.  It made introductions tedious, even though people always smiled, and often apologized.
Terry went by Bob all through high school.  He liked it.  People seemed to respond better.  He was older than he’d been of course, but high school boys are not generally known for their maturity, and Terry, or even Terrance could still have been disastrous.  If there was one thing Terry hated more than anything else, it was being teased.  Still, boys will use just about anything to tease another boy.  The school insisted that everyone wear ties.
Terry had a hard time waking up in the mornings, and taking the time to tie a perfect Windsor knot every day had gotten old fast.  Terry discovered the clip-on tie: perfect knot, perfect length, and impossible to discern.  Somehow, one day, a classmate noticed, and snatched it from him.   He chased after the perp, grabbing the tie and pushing the perp onto the ground.  Generally, Terry had always been very easy-going.  His father often said Terry would let someone take the shirt off his back, but that was what “turning the other cheek” meant in the real world.  In the religious world, “turning the other cheek” meant martyrdom, and martyrdom was preferred to violence.  However, just ignoring all the  jibes and taunts was not easy, and that one time, Terry ran his attacker down and won his self-respect. Or so he thought.
Instead of congratulating him on standing up for himself, his other classmates made light of it, pointing out that the other boy, although the same age, was shorter.  This made Terry into little more than a cowardly bully.  “But, what was I to do?” he asked, “let him take it?”  No one answered that.  Whining was not allowed.  However, this incident provided the catalyst for another far more embarrassing one, since the real bullies felt Terry was an easy mark, and could only defend himself against smaller adversaries.
Terry’s family didn’t have a lot of money, and clothes were patched, sewn and worn until they fell apart.  It so happened one day, as Terry bent over to pick up a fork he dropped in the school cafeteria, that his pants split.  He was mortified, but no one had seemed to notice.  The pants were brown corduroys, with lots of vertical lines, and baggy enough that Terry thought it would pass unnoticed if he walked slowly and kept his butt cheeks pinched together.  He sat down opposite his peers, and relaxed.  He made it through lunch without a single comment.  In fact, he relaxed too much, because as he stood, the gap widened enough for someone to see.  Ellis, agent provocateur, class clown, and always an outlaw, took it upon himself to take full advantage of the situation.  He grabbed a slice of pickle off his lunch tray  and ran up to Terry, dropping the pickle in the rip as Terry stood up.  The indignity of this was just too much.
That someone would see the tear no longer mattered.  Ellis was going down.  Terry lunged for him, and Ellis, cowardly as most bullies are, took off running.  Ellis laughed at Terry,  sidestepping and ducking through the cafeteria.  Terry chased him into the hallway.  Lunch break was not yet over, so there was no one in the hallway.  Terry chased him, gaining on him, running full tilt down the hallway.  Of course, yelling and running past the principal’s office, in a school  that prided itself on self-discipline, was not a particularly bright thing to do.  They were caught.
Now, Terry was in the equally uncomfortable position of trying to explain that someone had put a pickle in his pants.  Fortunately, it had been the principal who’d caught them.  The vice-principal was in charge of discipline, and he would have come down hard on them.  As it was, the principal referred Terry to Student Court, a disciplinary board wholly run by the students.
Terry explained the pickle incident, (picklement?) and the court, laughing behind their hands, let it go.  To add to Terry’s shame, all decisions by the Student Court were published in the school paper, although the rip in someone’s pants became a rip in someone’s shirt.  In 1965, no newspaper would dare even allude to something sexual , much less the innuendo of a pickle in someone’s pants.  It wasn’t journalistic integrity, but everyone knew the real story anyway.
Terry could see, by now, that the name didn’t make any difference.  He was kind of an oddball, it seemed, and names were nowhere near as important as he’d always believed.  After high school, he kept using Bob, although his employer and coworkers were not the types to care about a name one way or the other.   By now, however, Terry noticed that Bob was an extremely common name.  In every room, it seemed, there was a Bob. In a restaurant, in a garage, on the street, or at work, Bob was as ubiquitous as Tom, Dick and Harry.  Terry, realizing that, as an adult, he could have his name changed legally, thought about changing his name to Bilbo Baggins.  It was not a bad name, far out of the ordinary.  That would have been alright, but he knew his family wouldn’t like his dropping the surname. But, what would Bilbo be without a Baggins to go with it?  He thought about just using Frodo,  but few people had read the half a million word sequel to The Hobbit, so he would have had to spend a lot of time explaining the Lord of the Rings character to every person he met.
Of course, changing one’s name is a very superfluous thing to do anyway, as Terry had found out.  And now there were far more important things to worry about in the world, like sex and war, and getting to work on time.  He took night classes at the University where he worked, but he really wanted to go to school full time.  He applied for, and was accepted at another University a few years later, still calling himself Bob.  He kept his job on a part-time basis, as a sort of contract employee.  However, those aforementioned things, sex and war, took over most of his thoughts, as he sought one but wanted to avoid the other.  That took him to rallies and demonstrations, as well as into drug and sexual experimentation, and his studies suffered.  His thoughts were always elsewhere.  Dismissed from school on probation for a year, he decided to travel.
After a few years of odd jobs and traveling, he took a job one day in a small foundry in Arizona.  The foreman must also have thought Terry an oddball when he asked him his name, because  Terry paused.  It was a normal question, but suddenly, and without having given it any thought in years, he told the foreman his name: Terry.  It was, after all, how his family had known and still knew him.  No one he had ever met was as important as family, and he never changed his name again, even though he rarely got through another introduction without having to say his name at least three times.

TUMBLEBUNNIES

Dust bunnies blow across my floors
like tumbleweeds through my yard
Some blow away, keep tumbling
some get stuck.

Tumbleweeds in the ditch
tumbleweeds in the fence
dust bunnies in the corner
dust bunnies underneath

Memories are like that.

MORE PANCAKES PLEASE

Some people eat beans every day
some people have bread every meal
some eat anything any old way
We had potatoes, hey, what’s the deal?

Ate a lot of them growing up
with potatoes in the garden
and meat vegetable potatoes
every night for dinner

Mashed potatoes Scalloped potatoes
Boiled potatoes Baked potatoes
Home-fried potatoes
French-fried potatoes

Potatoes au gratin
Potatoes and ham
Bacon potato salad
Sweet potato pie

Potatoes in the stews
potatoes in the soups
potatoes as main course
potatoes on the side

But, ah! potato pancakes
smothered in applesauce
Couldn’t get enough
More pancakes please.

Back to the Mainstream

Fishing is religion to many people.  Fishing in New Mexico is like that – it’s a spiritual experience.  Rick loved fishing.  He also liked to drink, and he liked to party – “Ajua!” – and he liked to grow and eat the hottest chiles you’ve ever tasted – “Yesss!” – but he loved just a few things: his wife, his sons, and fishing.  There probably isn’t a river or lake in the whole state that he hadn’t fished.
“Rick’s dead.”  That’s how I got the news.  Linda repeated it, because I just stumbled out a “What?”  “Rick’s dead.”  “Yeah, but, but, you mean, Rick, Hilda’s Rick?”  “Yes.”  “But, how? when?  Was he in another accident?”
Well, anyway, Rick was dead.  The deal was this: he was at home, “evaluating,” a friend’s gun to give his wife, Hilda, for her protection.  The reason she needed protection is a family secret.  Rick didn’t know if he would buy it yet.  The story we were told was this: while Rick was loading the gun, Hilda left him to call Damien, one of her sons, and ask him about the value of the gun.  Rick didn’t know if he would buy it yet.  Rick, who had just the month before wrecked their truck, and who had broken an arm here and a leg there, having a habit of being not quite careful, dropped the gun.  The problem with an automatic, however, is that, as it’s loaded, that action cocks the gun.  The gun went off when it hit the floor, and the bullet, well, the bullet found Rick’s heart.  It had to pass through the sofa cushion, then it severed Rick’s scrotum, and traveled up through his stomach, where it managed to hit a valve in his heart, and no one could save him.
Hilda was devastated.  I don’t recall ever seeing a woman’s face so utterly deflated with sadness.  All of the skin in her face seemed to droop.  She cried, sobbing between spasms of crying.  Of course, her family was soon with her, as were Rick’s and Hilda’s friends: those that fished, and those without that particular religion.  Everyone came, and we all brought food and beer.  You come together to try to accept what has happened, you sit together, you talk, you eat, you drink.
Just days before the accident, Rick had one shot from a new bottle of tequila.  He had said he wanted to save it, to make it last.  Now, since he was gone, everyone crowded into the living room, the room with that bullet-holed sofa cushion, and shared the rest of his bottle.  It was our last chance to share a drink with him.  Martín, Hilda’s brother, sang a corrido in a great full voice laced with sadness.
Curious, I looked at the cushion.  Someone had turned it over so the hole was not so visible, but it was there.  I put my finger in it. I couldn’t imagine how it had happened.  I didn’t know at the time that Rick’s huevos had been blasted off, or I wouldn’t have touched the sofa at all.  There was, curiously, no blood, as if the cushion had not been under Rick for long after the bullet passed through it.  Perhaps he fell over onto the floor.  If there had been blood on the floor, it was gone now.
Eventually people hugged, and cried some more, and went back to their own homes.  There had been a church service earlier, but Rick had long ago insisted that there be no funeral, and no coffin for him.  He was cremated.  His ashes had been brought from the church, and rested in a jar in the hallway.  In the morning his family and friends took the ashes to Rick’s favorite fishing spot in all of Nuevo México.
It was a long drive from Albuquerque, past Bernalillo, traveling highway 550, through Cuba, through Aztec, and on and on near the Aztec ruins, almost to Colorado.  Five trucks convoyed behind Hilda, in the lead, because only she knew the place.  We pulled off the road, and plunged down an embankment to a sudden stop near the water.  There was a short hike along a thin, almost overgrown path.  Damien poured Rick into his fishing hole, a slowly revolving eddy alongside the swift flowing San Juan.  The ashes whirled round and round and round, some of them heading briefly upriver, where they slowly sank.  We all tossed flowers in the water, and watched, and waited for Rick to join the mainstream.
As the ashes and flowers slowly spiraled towards the deep rushing water, Rick’s family stood on the yellow sandstone rock that balanced over the eddy.  I thought the whole thing might just topple into the water, and the entire family drown, what with the aunt, the cousins, the sisters, the sons, the dog, and the friends standing or sitting on that cantilevered rock.  The sun is mercilessly bright when there are no clouds, and creates silver highlights on the surface of water.  The swift splashing water has shadows between the ripples.  Perhaps that helps explain what we saw.
Damien saw it first – a fish, probably dead, swirling with the ashes and the flowers.  It listed in the water, but wasn’t clearly dead, so Damien poked it with a stick.  It swam away! but only for a few feet.  It remained there, lazily pulled this way and that by the competing currents in that watery grave.  Someone said, “It’s drunk,” and it was almost certainly true.  The ashes and flowers had been followed by brandy, and beer, and tequila.  Rick was known to take a sip from time to time, well, probably more times than not.  The fish was drunk.
It wasn’t long before someone decided that the fish was Rick.  It made sense.  Rick had been coming to this spot for a long time, and he had just returned for the last time in what was left of his human form.  The fish wouldn’t go away.  It kept reappearing at intervals, and drifting, drifting, drifting, like it was waiting for something.  It seemed to be watching us watching it.
The fish told us that Rick wasn’t dead, that he would travel the San Juan now.  That he would hang around the fishing holes, drinking the beer and tequila that slipped from the hands and lips of  fisherman down the length of that river.
Gradually, the tears dried, and the sobs quieted.  People laughed about the fish.  The dog barked at it.  The shadows were creeping down the bank, moving over the edges of the water.  It was time to go.  The fish became more animated, swimming faster, reappearing less, and moving closer to the central current.  Finally, he disappeared into the shadowy, reckless middle.
Rick had joined his compadres in the water’s mainstream, and we felt relief.  Rick was free.  Rick was home.  I swear I heard something in the splashing, gurgling water, as we watched the river flow.  I swear I heard, “Ajua!”

HAIKU NIGHT

Dark blue evening sky
Wispy white clouds floating high
Feet in the water.

Deep Creek Youghiogheny

With nothing left to live for, no joy in my life, no pleasure in waking, breathing, eating, or even being, I knew I had to just get it over with and die.  I went through all the options: gun placed in my mouth to fire upwards, blowing the top of my head off – way too messy.
Razor along my vein, for maximum loss of blood – too slow, and painful.  What of pain? I shouldn’t care, but, it’s because I tired of pain that I no longer feel anything at all. No sense having pain be my last memory.
Jumping? What if I survive? What if I’m paralyzed? unable to die? kept alive for nothing?
Pills? so I can wake up choking on my own vomit?
Jumping in front of a bus? Same problem as jumping.
I really couldn’t come up with anything that didn’t involve some kind of pain, slow death, or public display.  I didn’t want anyone to know I died, or how I died. I had no one to impress, no one to feel sorry for me, no one to send a message to.  I just wanted it all to be over.
I found a solution: drowning.  I knew it would be unpleasant.  I had a plan for that. Nitrous oxide.  I would feel myself drowning, trying to pull air into my lungs, trying to breathe, but I wouldn’t care.  I’d laugh my way into death, gulping in whole lungfuls of water.  Then peace, with a smile on my face.
The water was deepest near the dam, about 75 feet, so I’d plunge deep into the numbing cold water. I wanted to sink, and sink fast.  I found four twenty-pound ankle weights.  It was hard walking with them, but I practiced until I managed to just look like I was just drunk or high or old. And jeez, was I ever old. Too old for life to hold any interest anymore.
With a small canister of nitrous oxide, I crossed Deep Creek’s concrete bridge leading to the dam.  It was 3:00 am.  I walked, slowly and silently. There was no traffic that time of morning.  I’d been there often enough to know.  I climbed the fence to the dam, clumsily, but without making a sound.    There was a maintenance ladder on the dam itself.  As I grabbed each rung, my legs felt dead.  It took a lot of effort to pull them up with me.  I was sweating in that nearly freezing air.  Those weights got heavier with every breath.
The water was calm, and inviting.  I opened up the canister and let it fill me with gas.  I had a small mask to cover my mouth and nose.  It took longer than I thought.  I hung there on the ladder, a few feet from the top.  My legs were tired. My feet were hooked uncomfortably in the rungs.  My hands, wrists, and ankles ached from the climb.  After awhile, I didn’t care much about the slight pain anymore.  I didn’t care much about the cold night air.  I was really happy, for the first time in many years.  I didn’t feel like laughing, but I was smiling.  I dropped the canister into the water.  The splash was reassuring, calming, a funny preview of my own fall.
I threw myself out as far as I could.  I was taking no chances, but there was little danger of hitting the dam wall, as it curved inward at this point, near the long tunnel that takes water to the powerhouse.  The water flows past the turbines, back into Deep Creek lake, back into the Youghiogheny river, continuing on its way to the Gulf of Mexico.  I hit feet first, as I expected. There was pain, pain to my feet, despite the thick hiking boots I’d worn, pain to my knees, pain to my hips.  But the water was so cold, and I was so excited, it didn’t matter.  I sunk quickly.  I opened my eyes, surprised that I’d had them shut so long, surprised that I was holding my breath.  There was not much to see. It was dark, but some light from the power plant was reflected down into the depths.  I had expected to touch bottom, but I seemed to be drifting down incredibly slowly.
It was time.  I pushed my stomach in with my fists, expelling a lot of air.  It blooped out of my mouth and nose.  When it seemed I had no more air left, I held myself still, trying not to breathe until the last possible second, when my reflexes would kick in and force me to.  It was peaceful.  As I faced death, I realized I was ready.  She was gone forever. There was no one left to care for, no one to mourn my passing, no reason for my existence.  I was now useless.  I’d had a good life.  I’d loved, and lost, and loved again, and again.  I’d worked many jobs, some I’d enjoyed, some I hadn’t.  I had done all that I had set out to do, and I was content with my lot in life.  Contrary to popular belief, I didn’t want to die out of regret.  Hell, if I’d still had any regrets, I’d have wanted to keep on living, kept on trying to overcome those regrets for the rest of my life.  No, I had no regrets. It was just time to go.
My lungs burned with the beginnings of pain, so I opened my mouth and swallowed, deeply.  I sucked greedily at the water, blowing some residual water out my nose.  Then, then there was only water, and I was afraid. Fear stabbed at me like an ice pick through my heart.  I wanted to breath!  I wanted air.  My brain felt funny.  It was hard to think, but I kept trying to breathe. There was a heaviness in my head, a feeling of darkness.   My lungs struggled, again and again, for air.  The water was too heavy, too thick. I kept choking.  I started retching, water into water, and water back in again.  It hurt.  It hurt bad.  Worst of all was the feeling of panic, of absolute fear.  I thought I’d wanted to die, but now I wanted to breathe, to live, to think again.
Too late.

Am I dead?

What? where? who? slipped vaguely through my barely conscious mind as I came to. There were no answers available.  As I started to lift my head, I couldn’t imagine where I was.  I was lying down; I might be dreaming.  I saw sky above.  I was outside.  I wasn’t in my bed.  I wanted to get up, find out.  In a sudden panic, I realized I didn’t know who I was. I felt like I was still dreaming.  A name, I must have a name.  Now that was scary.  I was awake and thinking, but I didn’t know anything.  I remember telling myself: Just lay here.  Relax.  Let it come. It was like trying to remember something on the tip of my tongue: think of something else, don’t think about what it was I’d forgotten.  I closed my eyes.
I remembered the construction site, being pushed into the hole above an unfinished cellar, waking up to pain, being carried across a field, blood on my face, getting stitches above my eye.  I remembered standing outside the tree house, trying to cover a hole in the roof on a rainy day, slipping, falling, coming to with a terrible sharp pain in my arm, the visiting relatives in our house, the ride to the hospital, the plaster cast.
It came back to me.  Pumping my bicycle down that hill, hell-bent for speed.  Traffic.  Lots of traffic, rush hour traffic.  A whole lane to myself.  I had been keeping up, moving fast.  An unseen car on my left was trying to cut across traffic into a driveway I don’t know was there, just to my right.  It was practically touching me as I looked into a woman’s face: wide open eyes, slack mouth.
So, I was – in the street, still.  Somehow I’d survived.  I opened my eyes to a grey-blue sky.  I knew who I was, forgot that I’d forgotten.  I saw firemen sitting in lawn chairs outside the firehouse across the street.  They appeared to be laughing at something, but I couldn’t hear them.
But, there were vague noises and voices, somewhere else, behind me, yes, and yards away.  I was alone in an empty circle of asphalt.
“I saw the whole thing,” I heard a man say – I could hear an eager concern in his voice – “It wasn’t your fault.  I’ll testify in court for you.”  Now, why would someone say that? I wondered.  I’d had the right of way.
Someone else – I remember a deep gravelly voice – asked, “What about him?”
“Him?  He’s dead,” another voice answered, flatly and certainly.

SMOKE, LIGHT, AND SCENTED LOVE

I’d like to be
a scented candle
in your room
burning for you
glowing
scenting

I’d like to please you
make you feel good
fill your senses
relax you

I see my scent
clinging to you
swirling
falling
rising
caressing you

I see my scent
clinging
to your hair
to your skin
long after
you blow me out

you set me aflame
you made me glow
incandescent
iridescent
you put me out
quenched my flame
I smolder
a smoky ember
yearning to
make you happy
light your face
make you smile

Your lips are a torch
when they smile
Should you smile
if only you would
I think it could
fan my ember
into a wildfire

light me up
so that
I may swirl around you
touching you
pleasing you

O to burn so brightly
even for a moment

ecstasy

though I be totally
consumed.

My Birthday Was Plural

Birthdays were never an egocentric event for me. My brother and I, although a year apart, shared the same birthday month, so my parents always combined the two into one party, one song. You know how people sing it, Happy Birthday to so-and-so? Ours were always together, Happy Birthday John and Terry. As a result, I think, I never thought of a birthday as a focus on me alone.  This is a little odd, since some psychologists believe children under the age of 7 reason egocentrically, believing that their view of the world is the same as anyone else’s view.  However, I at least saw that the world didn’t center around just me, but included my brother.
I remember much of my childhood, but not all.  However, I can interpolate some things.  I have no idea what my first birthday was like, although my mother was about to give birth to my brother, so I’m certain that weighed heavily on my parent’s minds.  Knowing them, I assume they used the occasion to have family over for cake.  What was my second birthday like? Well, I don’t know, but with John one year old, they might not have wanted people over so things stayed a little quieter.  At that age, I wouldn’t have cared.  I know we were a handful.  By my third birthday, I’m sure the tradition got started to have both our birthdays on the same day.  There were no other children as yet, and mom would have wanted to light candles and teach us to blow them out.  The difficulty would have been in trying to teach us our numbers, because John needed two, and I needed three.  She baked two cakes!  By the age of four, John and I knew the drill.  When October came around, and my mom started baking, we knew what to expect.  We knew there would be a cake with four candles for me, and a cake with three candles for him.  At the time, I remembered that previous birthday, my third, but that memory is long gone now.
You may well ask how I remember my fourth birthday at all, but I think it was the trauma of moving.  I can’t remember the place we moved from anymore, but it had a long stairway outside the building.  I remember being forced into a car, and driving a long way to the new place.  The car was green, the rear sloped in a continuous curve from roof to fender. The inside had a cloth-covered ceiling.  I remember that cloth, because in later years, it was loose, ripped, and always falling down.  At the time, I didn’t pay it much attention, because I was more excited about where we had arrived.  It was a small house, but it had a grass-covered front lawn.  We had not had one of those before.  My parents seemed happy about that, but, compared to the other lawns in the neighborhood, ours looked different.  It hadn’t been mowed in a long time. It was wild and tall.  I liked it, but, of course, no lawn is ever allowed to be like that for long.  I suspect that is when my dad bought his first lawn mower, because by the time I was ten, we had moved twice again, my bother and I had the job of mowing, and that thing seemed ancient.
Those old push mowers were something else.  I delighted in the spinning blades, each one of which curved in a broad sweep, much like present-day wind turbines.  To my ten-year-old brain, the blades should have been straight, but somewhere along the line, people had figured out how to cut grass more efficiently.  Often the blades would be near-dull, and pushing that thing through the grass was not my idea of fun.  It was however, not something I had to do, but something John and I had to do.
We were sidekicks.  From birthdays to work, we did everything together.  Hell, we even got punished together. My father, discovering something broken or missing, would confront us. If neither one of us owned up to it, he said we would both be punished.  Punishments ran a wide gamut then, from standing in a corner, to no dinner, to slaps on our butts, or the dreaded leather strap, which hurt like hell.  One time, John owned up to something neither of us had done, just to get the interrogation and slapping over, and so we wouldn’t both be punished.  Odd to think that our parents thought we’d ever do anything deliberately bad, knowing the consequences, but I guess they thought we wouldn’t ever do anything bad again if they punished us hard enough. Boy, were they wrong.
Running through the yard, we accidentally trampled mom’s azalea bush.  You’d have thought we went outside just to destroy that bush from the way my dad carried on.  We took our clothes off one time, and went out on the porch roof, climbing out the second story window.  A neighbor saw us, so that didn’t go over very well.   We also thought it was fun to throw small stones out that same window at passing cars, since the porch roof kept us from being seen from the street.  We thought we were pretty clever about it, trying to determine the exact time to throw a stone, so that it would hit a car while we ducked down.  We could hear the thunk on a car roof or door, and one time a car squealed to a sudden stop, and backed up to our house.  That we had to see.  Of course, that meant we were seen. Well, it was not fun anymore, as the driver got out and walked up to our house.
Then there was the time John and I built a small fire in an empty lot behind our house.  We tried to build it up with stones all around it, but we were too young then to know to clear the entire area of combustibles.  It spread, and we couldn’t put it out.  We got on our bicycles and rode for our lives, afraid we’d get caught, and we were. A neighbor had seen us, called the fire department, and called our mother.  She made us march out to the firemen and apologize.  They were incredibly nice to us.  They smiled at us.  I didn’t know what to make of that, because we had been scared to death to go out there and tell them it was our fault.  Our parents made sure we knew the danger of fire, and read us the riot act over that one.  I doubt we could sit down without wincing for days after that.
John and I were a class act though.  One time, investigating a construction site nearby, my brother and I and Eddie, a friend, were dropping rocks into a pool of muddy water in the incomplete basement of a new house.  There was a hole in the first floor where the stairs would eventually be. We didn’t question why the basement walls and the floor of the first floor were built, yet the concrete for the basement floor hadn’t been poured yet.  It was just fun to have a huge puddle far enough below us to makes big splashes.  Three boys, a hole, a long way to fall; what could go wrong?  I fell in, but Eddie went for his parents, and John found his way down to me.  I was laying face down, out cold, in the water.  He turned me over, saving my life.
Years later, we had ridden our bikes miles away from our house, and were investigating a sewer drain outlet.  All the storm water from the street above flowed out into a small creek, and beavers had built a dam on it.  It was just too damn fascinating to leave alone.  However, the concrete around the storm drain outlet was green and slimy.  John fell in.  The slime was everywhere.  He couldn’t grab hold of the edge to pull himself back up; he kept slipping back into the water.  It was deep there, over our heads.  We didn’t know how to swim yet, and the water was dark and filthy.  In retrospect, I think he was panicking, because he thrashed around like crazy.  I got on my stomach.  I reached out my hands and yelled at him to grab them.  He did. I was able to pull him far enough so he could climb out.  We rode over to a nearby house and knocked, explaining what had happened.  John was socking wet, and reeked.   My dad drove home from work and took us home.  He was, shall we say, upset, but also happy that we were OK.
So it continued over the years, through accident after accident.  We even shoplifted together; that was a mess of trouble.   Always we survived, and both of us have all our parts.  We even fought each other.  Sometimes only one of us got into trouble at a time.  We balanced everything out by being Altar boys and Boy Scouts. We served mass and camped together.  We were a team.
High school changed everything.  I went first, leaving John behind.  John developed new friends.  Rather than follow me to the same high school, he went to a religious school in another state for a year.  It was the sort of pre-seminary school you go to if you plan to be a priest, but before you go to an actual seminary.  It was strange not having him around.  Stranger still, he changed his mind and came back after that first year.  Instead of hanging out with me however, he had other friends.  He told me about discovering masturbation.  I had discovered that on my own.  He also knew girls. He did end up going to the same high school as me, but we never saw each other.   He was one of the popular kids.  He found a part-time job after school working on an assembly line for printed circuit boards.  I rarely saw him, and he never told me how to get a job like that or what he did.   He had money, bought himself a leather jacket, and combed his hair out and down and over his face, unlike my greasy pompadour.  He was as different as he could be.  I stayed after school myself, joining various clubs: Science, Computer, Drama.  When I was home, I had to study, usually two to three hours, just to keep up.
John and I didn’t have free time anymore; no time to waste riding our bicycles randomly, exploring, getting into trouble.  I stayed to myself. He thought I was weird.  I didn’t have friends, I didn’t date.  Well, I took my cousin out a couple times, but that didn’t go anywhere.   By the time I graduated high school, John and I were like strangers.  There were no more joint birthdays.  I got a job and left home.  He graduated the next year and got married.  I went to his wedding, dressed in a funky double-breasted suit I’d picked up for myself. It reminded me of my grandfather’s suit.  I looked and felt out-of-place around the family.  I tried to look and act mature. I had even bought a packet of Tiparillos, small plastic-tipped cigars.  I thought they’d make me look sophisticated, but when I tried inhaling one at the wedding reception, I thought I’d choke my lungs out. Clueless.
John invited me over one time after his daughter was born , a year later.  He’d always been the skinny one, but he’d put on a lot of weight. His wife cooked a lot.  They had certain meals on certain nights, same thing every week.  I asked him about sex, and he whispered to me, “Tonight’s the night.”  I thought, “What, once a week? Are you kidding?” Clueless.
I however, was very involved with anti-war activities.  I’d been arrested.  John thought it was a joke, that I’d gotten arrested for the hell of it.  Neither of us had been drafted, but I was caught up in a counter-culture, one that distrusted the family unit, authority, the draft, wars, and law itself.  I liked marijuana and tried LSD a few times.  Dropped out of school, lost my job.  I moved away.  I had many lovers.  Sex was my favorite drug.  I was a drifter and a carny.  I settled on the other side of the country, poured bronze, worked as a hod carrier, then found work in a cancer research laboratory at a University.  I took free classes there, got a degree.   I got married and divorced twice.  I retired.
I still miss my brother.  His 40th wedding anniversary is coming up soon.  I think I’ll go see him.   We’re so much alike.

A Tale of Two Cats

Hey Charlie boy, strange furry little child of mine. You want to go out, do you? Here you go, I said. Charlie, a tiger-striped short-haired domestic tabby, lept out the now open cat door. Why they waited like that puzzled me.  Charlie and his other half, a black and white short-haired domestic tabby, come and go as they please. Sometime they stay out all day, sometimes they pop in for a bite and pop right out again. Sometimes one or both sleeps on my bed all day. In summer they sometimes don’t show for a day or two. I never can figure them out. They don’t need me to open the cat door, but if I’m in the room, they sit or lay patiently until I notice them, and wait for me to hold the flap up so they can leap through the hole.
There’s cat litter in the house, but they rarely use it.  I hardly ever change it anymore. I can pull out the occasional piece of dried shit.  I can often hear them running around over my head. They love the flat-roofed houses around here.  There are six houses connected together, so they often run full tilt across the roofs, sounding like herds of miniature horses.  Cats and horses, of course, have exactly the same gait, moving both legs on either side in unison, alternating from one side to the other as they run.
Often they wait outside the clear plastic door, waiting patiently for me to notice them. I let them in. Sometimes they eat, sometimes they want to be petted, sometimes they are just looking for each other. Sometimes they want to go right back out.
If I’m too slow to notice them, they start scratching the small throw rug by the door.  There’s a small rug by my bed that they do the same thing to, if I’m too long in bed in the morning.  Charlie sometimes meows at me, but the other one, Kilala, just scratches like mad.  Sometimes they want food.  Charlie has a high-pitched meow he uses when he’s hungry, so I always know just what he wants. If he wants attention, he simply jumps up on my lap, or on the desk if I’m at the computer.
Kilala doesn’t ever jump up on me. She likes to rub her neck on all the corners of the walls, and likes me to pet her, mostly just around her neck and head. She was the feral one, showing up out of the blue one day.  Charlie was barely a year old when she showed up; I had raised him from a kitten. His mother had camped out in the yard, and dropped her litter.  I fed them every day.  Since this was the second time a cat had dropped a litter there, my wife insisted I get rid of them quickly.  Before I did, I heard one of them mewing and crying away from inside the fence I had recently put up.  There were pickets on both sides, and he must have fallen in from on top.  Fortunately, I had used deck screws to put the fence up, and I undid the screws on the plank closest to the crying.  It was the little striped orange cat I’d later call Charlie.  I took him over to his mother, petting him all the while.
After a few more weeks I went to Animal Control for a trap.  I set it up early, and put their bowl of cat food inside.  Later on, I found the mother and most kittens inside.  That made my wife happy.  She was glad to see them go.  It was the second litter I’d had to get rid of. I’d kept the mother of the first litter, after leaving all her wiry, well-trained mousers at Animal Control.  They were such lively, healthy animals.  I’d watched the mother train them in mousing, bringing them a field mouse to learn how to catch.  I hated to see them go, but my wife insisted, and she wasn’t interested in waiting for people to come by and take them.
I had the mother fixed; no more kittens for her.  She was a gentle cat, obviously a runaway, as she was well used to people, cat food and houses.  But, one day a few weeks after she been spayed, she died in the garden.  My wife noticed while she was watering.  I was sad. I never knew what killed her: complications from her spaying operation? insect poison on the garden?
But, next spring there was another female, another litter.  That was the litter Charlie came from.
When I trapped them, Charlie was the only one who hadn’t gone into the trap. So I kept him.  My wife wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea, but as long as the menagerie was gone, she was OK with keeping one.  Charlie was almost feral himself, still very young.  He stayed away from the house, but showed up every day looking for food.  While he ate, I petted him, and it must have imprinted, because, to this day, he often waits by his food until I pet him.  He’s the only animal I’ve ever seen who will allow himself to be petted while eating. He even purrs as he chomps away.
I think Kilala was no more than six months old then she showed up.  I never knew if she’d stay, so she was just “Girl” for the longest time. She was incredibly thin, but then I noticed her belly hanging down. Damn, another pregnant cat.  She took to Charlie right away.  They hung out a bit until she had her kittens, then she was often missing.  One day I found her with her kittens in a small pit under an old, low-slung bench in the garden area.  She grabbed one of the kittens and ran to the fence, vaulting it like a champion despite the bundle in her teeth. Later on, I noticed she had taken all the kittens, probably in the same manner.  As they got older, they needed more food than Kilala could provide, so she brought them all over to the bowl I had Charlie’s food in. She had eaten there before, so now she was teaching her progeny where the food was.  I had to put a lot more out.  I was happy again to see the kittens playing, fighting, running around the yard, but my wife insisted they could not stay. Again, I had to round ‘em up and take them away.  I kept Kilala of course. She was a great companion for Charlie.   I can’t stand to see animals kept by themselves.  Most animals, especially cats and dogs, are very social creatures. An animal locked up by itself, in a house or yard, is the cruelest kind of life, I think.
Charlie had already been neutered, and I had Kilala spayed.  I kept my fingers crossed, and was very happy to see that she survived.  Eventually I coaxed the two of them into the house to eat.  They had a ball investigating all the rooms in the house, and chasing each other through them.  They didn’t, however, like it when the outside door was closed.  They loved running out and in, and out and in again.  Whenever I could I left the sliding glass door and screen open.  In winter, when I couldn’t, I had to open the door every time they wanted in or out.  They never ran away. Even if they were out all day or night, they waited by the door for me to let them in again.
My wife hated the way I catered to them.  I couldn’t see just leaving them outside, or confining them inside, so I became their doorman.  I didn’t mind.  They are affectionate to me and each other, although, just as people do, sometimes they fight with each other. Often they mate, even though both are fixed.  It is always funny to watch them, curling together like a Yin and Yang painting, then suddenly fighting, or chasing each other around and biting and hissing.  But always, they return and sleep curled around each other.   They remind me so much of married couples, with one exception: they stay together.  Either one could leave, but they never do.  No matter how much they fight, they end up licking each other’s face, and cleaning each other’s fur.  And always they like to sleep together.
Not like humans.  My wife is no longer with me. We grew apart, without much affection passing between us anymore.  I loved her, but she seemed, to me, to be cold and hard.  Perhaps it was all in my mind.  I told her once, after she’d been away, and she kept insisting, drunkenly, that I tell her, that I hadn’t called her because I hadn’t missed her.  I had actually enjoyed a little time away from her. I meant nothing radical.  It just was nice to have the house to myself, with peace and quiet, without the constant noise of the TV and her nagging, once in a while.  I hadn’t meant more than that, but she wouldn’t talk to me anymore, wouldn’t listen to me.  She made me leave, and, of course, I took the cats.  The cats went with me kicking and screaming, but they adjusted to the new place, and they stay with me. I never heard from my human companion of fourteen years again.

The Future is Backwards

my indigestion, my yellow teeth
pain in my feet, pain in my back
or is it my sacroiliac?
all the times I’ve come to grief

they add up over time
these aches and pains
the body slows, stiffens
joints pop and squeak

The mind wanders though time
dull painful memories
sharp happy ones
the future is looking back

A DNA Vignette

The synthesis order from Dr. Jella’s lab was taped to my lab door when I arrived, even though I was early. Science marches on, without regard for working hours.  After flicking on the lights, I dropped my lunch bag on my desk in the rear of the lab, under the sealed windows that let in light, but no air.  I turned my PC on.  I wanted a cup of coffee. I wanted to sit quietly for a few minutes, playing Solitaire.  But, I had unfinished orders from the day before, as well as these new orders.  I’d be lucky to synthesize all of ‘em by days end. A long day ahead of me, probably ’till 7:00 pm.
I typed the first sequence into the machine: ACGCCCTATTACGACGAAGTTAC.  I could synthesize four pieces of DNA, or RNA simultaneously.  It would take almost four hours for the DNA Synthesizer to complete four oligonucleotides, then I could start the next four. Hopefully, they would finish in time to let me start another four before I went home. Those would run overnight.
I finished entering all the code letters for all of the syntheses, checked the level of the liquid reagents at every bottle position, and started the Pre Run.  Solenoids clicked on and off as current was applied to each one, moving a magnetic rod back and forth to allow the flow of gas or liquid for each step of the syntheses. Click, click-click, click, click-click, click, click, click, and occasionally the whoosh of gas as regulators adjusted the pressure of ultra high purity nitrogen that pushed all the liquids around.  After all the lines were purged of air and old liquids, and fresh liquid flowed from each reagent through all the lines, I started my first batch of the day.  I was happy that I’d had the machine upgraded from the original two-position one.  I’d never have been able to get this much done so quickly.  
I went for coffee, brought it back and sat idly in front of my PC.  I took a few sips while I stared out the window at a clear blue New Mexico sky, then got to work.  I entered the sequences I was making into my database, so I could keep track of them for billing purposes.  My lab was not directly funded by any grants or stipends.  I had to bill each researcher for the work I did, and then they paid me out of their grants.  It wasn’t a hard job.  The machines did most of my work, synthesizing DNA, or occasionally some RNA.  The RNA was tricky, as it required careful handling and sterile conditions.  There are enzymes that destroy DNA and RNA, but of the two, the RNA enzyme, RNAase, was the worst.  If contaminated with RNAase, the RNA I made would be useless, experiments ruined.  Time and money would be wasted.  I would lose credibility.  I was very careful in my work.
Besides the work synthesizing, I had other jobs: two of which were either synthesizing proteins or sequencing them.  In sequencing, the machine took each protein apart, one amino acid at a time and pumped it past a detector to identify it by its characteristic wavelength.  I didn’t have any orders for protein synthesis today, fortunately, because the process consumed a lot of time, and required constant monitoring. The final step in protein synthesis involved the use of a dangerous, highly corrosive acid in gaseous form: HF, or hydrogen fluoride.  HF is used to etch glass. Due to its insidious nature, it can splash undetected on your skin, and slowly eat its way to the bone. I hated working with HF.  People using it had lost arms, eyes, lungs and some had died.  I had to prepare a super cold bath of dry ice and methanol to cool the gas into liquid form for use.   When I opened the valve on the HF bottle, everything had to be ready: I wore a special apron made of acid resistant material over my lab coat, and wore similar gloves.  I had a special clear shield over my entire face, and the apparatus for using the HF gas was shielded behind a glass-sashed fume hood.  In theory, the gas flowed into my collection vial, liquefied, and cleaved my synthesized protein off of the glass beads it was attached to as part of the synthesis protocol.  Then it flowed through a trap of strong base to neutralize the acid. 
The first time I had tried the procedure, my boss at the time had worked with me. Dr. Latif was from an Arabic family, but had grown up in Trinidad, been educated in England, and had worked for the Mayo Clinic.  He was an interesting guy, full of stories about his parents and Trinidad.  Oddly enough, we were the same age, and liked the same kind of music, rock ‘n’ roll and Motown.  I needed music playing to get me through the day.  In today’s world, an iPod would have sufficed, but in those times, the music came from my radio/tape player and coworkers needed to like the same music for that to work.  Dr. Latif and I were suited up in our protective gear, and we switched on the gas.  All looked well at first.  The gas was cooling into liquid form, and flowing through the simple apparatus.  Suddenly the plastic container of strong base began to implode.  It made no sense.  We had followed all the instructions perfectly, and the pathway of gas was clear.  For some reason, it was back flushing, collapsing the trap.  We couldn’t just shut the gas off, because we feared the trap would either backflush into our protein mixture, or worse, rupture, spreading gas and caustic base all over the place.  Without losing our cool, we increased the pressure of a secondary gas, simple nitrogen that also flowed through to help keep the HF moving.  We opened the exhaust stopcock all the way. Success.  The plastic trap re-inflated.
After the experiment was over, we both let out of sighs of relief.  The danger had been very real.  We laughed too.  We were the only ones who knew the danger.  If the HF gas was released, and even if we’d gotten away safely, that floor of the building would have been in danger. Likely the entire building would have to be evacuated and sealed off.  We’d have needed a HazMat team, police and firemen.  It would have been a mess and created havoc.   We worked out our own procedure after that, and never had any further episodes.

Today, my first four oligonucleotides were finished synthesizing, and I took them off the machine; they would require a minimum of five to eight hours heating to be ready for purification next morning.  I was readying the machine for the next set of orders when Dr. Jella rushed in.  He looked anxious. He wanted to know if his DNA was ready.  I almost laughed.  Even if I had synthesized his orders first, it would still require heating and purification.   I told him that I could put his order ahead of the others I was about to start, and explained the time constraints.  He was so anxious looking that I told him that if it was for a critical experiment, and he needed it right away, I could stay late, even work all night to have it ready for him by morning.  He thought about that for a bit, but shrugged his shoulders, saying, “No, that’s alright. I can wait until tomorrow. It’s not, uh, not for anything real important.”  Turns out it was, but he didn’t want anyone to know what he was working on.
Later, I found out that reporters had been cold-calling various researchers, pumping them for information for a story.   Dr. Jella was working on the newly hot disease: hantavirus. The disease had flu-like symptoms, and people in New Mexico had died within days of showing symptoms of what everyone thought was a cold or flu.  A test for hantavirus was needed as soon as possible.  Researchers were working across the country to develop such a test.  Dr. Jella had the idea of creating a kit, using synthetic fragments of single-stranded hantavirus DNA.  If he had told me what it was for, I’d have gladly worked overnight. As it was, research is a highly competitive business.  Researchers across the country, especially at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, GA, where also racing to develop a test. Whoever developed an effective test first would not only get recognition, but would be able to grab new research money to continue their work.  Dr. Jella didn’t want word to get out of the specifics of what he doing.  Someone else could take that information and receive the credit, not to mention future grant money to research other diseases.  Basically, his job and life’s work was on the line.   
I arrived for work an hour early next day, and purified Dr. Jella’s oligos first.  Needless to say, he was at my door soon after.  ”Are they ready yet?” he asked, somewhat breathlessly, like he had run up the stairs.  I told him they were synthesized, and purified, but I would need another two hours, at least, to dry them down. A lot of water is used in the purification protocol, and I used a freeze-drying apparatus to evaporate all of the liquid. That made it easy to reconstitute the DNA to the desired concentration for experiments.  He looked very disappointed, but I promised him I’d bring the DNA to his lab as soon as it was ready.
Later, I found out that he was using the DNA I had synthesized for the hantavirus kit. It worked, and his kit is now used to detect hantavirus.  I got a mention in the paper he wrote describing the experiment.*  That was unusual. Most of the work I did went unacknowledged. Sometimes the lab itself was mentioned.  Most of the time, I went about my days synthesizing, sequencing, analyzing, purifying, and running the lab itself, buying materials, and billing the researchers. They paid me.  It was a good living.

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*(Rapid and specific detection of Sin Nombre virus antibodies in patients with hantavirus pulmonary syndrome by a strip immunoblot assay suitable for field diagnosis).

Ocean City Took My Breath

Stopped breathing.  Just like that.  The ocean had been cold.  Much colder than I’d expected from a warm Spring day. It was early in the beach season.  The winter had been harsh. Cold currents still flowed past the Jersey shore where my parents had dragged all seven kids. Normally, in Summer, they dragged us out of our comfortable beds early on a gray Baltimore morning, drove us across the Bay Bridge and down to the Ocean City on Maryland’s coast. I had no idea there was another Ocean City in New Jersey, and I have no memory of why we went there.
Me and my brother John had run into the waves, let them knock us over, felt the water churning and rolling over our heads.  We never tried to swim in the crashing surf, just dived under the waves and tried to touch bottom. Felt the undertow trying to drag us out to sea. Tried to body surf our way back to the beach. That was our relationship with the ocean. The younger kids were still too young to play in the surf like that.  They were walking along the sand, sticking their feet in the frigid water and running away from the incoming waves.
Me and John were the oldest. We did what we wanted sometimes. We were always together:  walking to school, serving mass as altar boys in the early mornings, riding our bikes miles away from home, sledding down the steep city streets in winter, building a tree house, or carrying groceries home from the store down the road.
Sometimes, when fighting the wild bucking waves and swift undercurrent, I’d do my best to stay under water as long as possible. John and I were pretty good at holding our breath.  I always hoped to see fish, crabs or starfish on the ocean bottom.  I was always digging in it, hoping to find something.
I came up after a long dive and didn’t see John anywhere.   No big deal.  He’d probably gone in.  I was freezing anyway.  Even my frenetic play hadn’t warmed me up all that much.  I headed into the warm dry sand towards my father.   I still didn’t see John anywhere. I knew Dad would know where he was.  As I got closer to him, I felt funny.  My body had instantly started to warm under the 75 degree sun, but I felt hotter than that. My breath became ragged, uncertain. I sped up, saw my dad turn his head towards me, and that was all I saw.
I awoke on my back, but my hair was full of sand.  A crowd encircled me.  “What happened?” I heard a voice ask.  I wanted to know that myself. Another disembodied voice in the crowd answered, “I think some old man drowned.”  Old man? At 15, I could hardly look old.  My dad was there too, looking down at me.  He picked me up.  A beach jeep pulled up, and hands grabbed me, loaded me into the jeep. It flew along the sand, bouncing and twisting.  Suddenly we were off the beach, on the street. An ambulance waited.  I was hustled into it.  A mask was pushed onto my face.  Oxygen poured into my nose and mouth. It felt good.  I didn’t notice anything else, but I wondered where John was.
Next thing I knew, I was lifted onto a gurney, rolled into a curtained-off room.  “I’m cold,” I remember saying.  It was warm in the room; everyone was in swimsuits around me.  The air was humid, but I shivered in all that heat.  A thick wool blanket was dropped over me.  I shook, uncontrollably.  I just couldn’t warm up. “I’m still cold,” I said.  Another heavy, dark green blanket was draped over me.  I still shivered, amazed that I could be so cold, warm as the day was, and covered in heavy blankets.  I felt like a freak.  Well, I was, I guess.  Turns out my rare allergy to cold had been my nemesis. In recent years, after playing for hours in the snow, and coming in the house to warm up, I had developed swollen hands, fingers that wouldn’t bend, red blotches on my face.  But this was summer!  Somehow, the cold ocean currents had swollen the muscles in my throat, tightening around my windpipe, cutting off my air.  As I warmed up, my breathing slowed, and I relaxed.  My parents had my clothes. I got dressed.  I remember being back in the station wagon, surrounded by all the other kids, including John, next to me as always. Freaks need their families.

Party time! to not forget history

I carry an Irish name
just part of my lineage
but important   I think.
I got the name from my father
he died – too much tobacco in his lungs
he got the name from his father
he died – bad lungs
too much mustard gas
he got his name from his father

who got his name from his father
a refugee from occupied Ireland.

I don’t know how he died
but I’ll bet he choked on the memory
of leaving his home to the British
the Anglos killed Celtic  men  women  children
took their land
sold some as slaves
no Irish could own land or money
no Irish could speak their native tongue
no Irish could have any other religion but that
of the bloody church of England
No school allowed, no life no culture

Not people       slaves
without hope     without justice
without reason   to live.

They fought and died for freedom
from the bloody English imperialists
who tried to own
the whole world    and failed.
They screwed the Irish even harder
took       their forests   their elk
their land      their money
their language  their culture.

The English fought the spirit of an entire nation
a people that had fought its way across Europe
survived invasions by Norsemen
by Vikings    by Romans
and invasions by the bloody British
’till any sane people would have gone mad with despair
again and again and again.

But the Irish fought back
the British killed them   jailed them
took more land   more crops   more slaves
left the Irish people potatoes.

Their crocodile tears did nothing
for the starving people of Ireland
when the potatoes lost heart.

So the Irish escaped their hell
joined relatives in Australia,
the United States, Mexico, Canada, and other places
Those that survived the trip.

I have their blood in me

the blood of the dispossessed, the beaten, the despised

the hated people who lived in Briton
before the British
who lived as one great people
artisans   bronze workers
honorable     egalitarian
young and old, male and female
many tribes and clans.

The Romans started the slaughter
started the theft of Celtic lands.
The Brits came and took more and more and
more and more and more and more.
But Ireland still exists
Independence for the southern part!
hope to many

But the British still own most of the land
and the factories
and cling to the stolen land in the North
as if it was somehow theirs to defend.
To defend from what?
from joint rule? from democratic elections?
guilty over their own bloody past
they are afraid of retribution.

The Irish clans and tribes lived their own
life   happily   if not always peacefully
but it was their land    their own fights
they had a system of justice praised
by the Roman invaders themselves.
They remind me of the Native peoples
of the Americas
forced from their land
forced to give up their cultures
forced to speak Spanish, or English
killed and beaten and raped as
were my ancestors too.

I don’t wonder at the Irish names
the Irish names that some
Native Americans carry    and the
marriages between Irish immigrants and
Native American peoples.
We are family, after all
we believed in the same things
people    land    even gods
gods who brought rain and sun
and game and water and fire.
in a simpler time
before the English brought their      civilization
to the Celtic tribes

and
British and Spanish brought their     civilization
to the American tribes.

Many of us drink a bit too much
after hundreds of years of
civilized rape     murder    theft.
and we distrust each other
see skin color as a barrier
as if the invaders ever cared
if we were white or brown or red.
To them we were all inferior
scum  vermin  heathens  savages
We know we are not.
similar history
similar struggle
We carry on.

Wouldn’t it be something
wouldn’t it be absolutely fucking amazing
it we saw each other as brothers and sisters
under the skin
on the skin
of our Earth?

Winding down, dow, do, d….

Emo warning.

Do you know that odd feeling in your throat when you get emotional? It tightens up, you find it hard to breathe, and maybe your eyes water.  Happens from time to time.  Sometimes I watch a sentimental movie and feel that.  There was a time when I felt deep regret over a lost love and I’d get that way.  Doesn’t seem to happen much anymore.  It’s an odd feeling, and only seems to occur with a sense of great loss, or empathy with someone’s loss or near loss.  I remember when my step-daughter survived cancer.  If it had been something I was watching in a movie, I’d have choked up like that, with my throat tensed and a feeling of  being overcome by emotion, regardless of outcome.  However, when Maya survived the surgery, and then again, when I found out the tumor was gone, after a whole lot of radiation and chemo treatments, I felt joy.  It was the purest joy I’d ever felt.  I was happy.  My throat did not tighten,  I did not cry, I did not feel overcome with emotion.  I was, instead, blissfully happy.  I stayed that way for a while.  I am, of course glad that she is fine today, and in complete remission, and it is not the type of tumor, being so rare, that she is likely to experience ever again.   The joy I felt back then was for her.  I love her so much.  I don’t need anything from her, don’t need to have love from her, or anything at all.  I wish her a long and happy life.

Mine is not so happy.   I experienced depression for a time in my life; got counseling, and medication.  It may have made a difference.  There was a change from that deep hopeless depression.  I was sad a lot.  It was sometimes overwhelming.  There was an almost physical pain, tightness in my chest, sighing.  That part is over now.

As always, I stay busy, even though I’ve retired from work.  I hike, I snowshoe, I read, I watch movies.  I buy things online and in junk/antique stores.  I don’t feel sad.  I eat a lot, which is not good, but it hardly seems to matter anymore. Nothing does really.  It’s not the way I ever thought I’d be: just drifting along.  No sadness, but no joy either.  It is hard to enjoy a movie, a good book, a good sleep.

Sometimes I nap and I wake up nearly suffocating.  It is dark and terrifying.  My throat feels like it has been closed up.  My brain feels oxygen starved.  I feel like I’m dying.  It happens more and more often.   I don’t know what it means for sure.  I’ve no known breathing problems.  I had pneumonia as a child a couple times, so perhaps my lungs are not all that strong, and I had asthma until I was twelve years old.  I don’t feel like there is anything wrong with my lungs now.  My hikes take me up over 10,000 feet above sea level sometimes.  It’s not all that easy, but I survive.  I hiked near that altitude once for 20 miles.

I don’t know what to make of all this sometimes.  I think I will drop off to sleep one day soon and I will just stop breathing.  That doesn’t seem to scare me.  It’s just the waking up unable to think straight and feeling like I’m dying that ever bothers me.  When I couple that with my lack of joy in living, with a loss of interest in companionship or love, and with no enthusiasm for the sex that always made me happy, I wonder if this is it?  Is my life over? Not in any figurative sense, but really.  Is this what it feels like to die, or just to grow old?

I should do something, right? I try.  I have a meeting tomorrow with people who want to change the world of politics.  That used to excite me, but it’s more running on inertia now. I do the things I used to do, and new things too.  I tried out to be a VJ ( a TV announcer/spokesperson), and it was good to try.  Didn’t happen.  I went to a local winery and I will be working there a couple days a week, with flexible days and hours.  I might be serving/selling wine, or helping clear the ditches, or helping with new construction. I may be able to help with some of the tedious paperwork stuff, since I have some experience with maintaining inventory and budgets.  It’s a new place for me. Something to do.

I don’t know if my life will change again.  I tried the guitar, but I’m not doing much with that anymore.  By now I thought I’d have a few dozens songs down.  My photographs never sell, so I don’t know how much I will keep that up.  My stories never sold, and I know they’re not that good.   My poems pale next to most everything I hear or read.  You’d think that would make me sad, but I don’t feel sad so much as tired.  I don’t know what the point of it all is anymore.  Going through the motions, eating, sleeping, doing things, watching things, reading, writing, working.  I just don’t know.   I know that people say, even when they’re dying, that life is a joy, and we can just enjoy every minute.  Can’t say I feel like doing that.

In reality, I think my life is winding down.  I think it may be ending soon.  I can’t say why.  It just seems like it.  Sometimes the brain knows things we don’t consciously admit to, or recognize.  Animals have been observed doing that: preparing themselves to die.  They sometimes seem to know.  Are people any different?

There are lots of things I can do: volunteer to help kids with their homework.  Ask someone out.  I have tried to get interested in other people, but the spark is just not there.  It’s not here in the sense that perhaps there is no need anymore?  If my life is going to end soon, then there really isn’t much point in anything.   I look at that in the reverse direction, and I think, if there isn’t much point in anything anymore, then maybe that’s the sure sign that I am going to die soon.   I have no regrets, no bucket list, no things I need to resolve. Death doesn’t scare me.  Nothing scares me.  Nothing excites me either, so that seems the same as death.

Well, tomorrow is another damn day.  Who knows what will happen?

I had a dream last night: I was moving.  I didn’t want to move. There were other people I was living with, and I didn’t want to go with them.  I stayed in bed while people finished packing.  I got up after awhile. There had been a very young kitten hanging around for awhile, feral, skittish.  I didn’t know where it had come from.  I saw it now, asleep by the bed.  It looked so sweet and happy there.  I went into the bathroom to pee and noticed little bits of cat shit around the toilet. Seems the kitten had decided to stick around.  I thought about sticking around myself, just by myself.  I heard a truck horn.  There were to be two vehicles going. Four guys in one big truck and the two women in a car.   I remember thinking it odd that the women and men were going separately, fearful that the women were going to disappear.  That it was deliberate.

I went back to the cat, stared at it.  I decided it was my cat.  I could stay.  Then I decided to go after all, but the cat was coming with me.

I REMEMBER TASTING ORANGE

I remember tasting
orange liquor
in your navel
drank it
ran my tongue
down
between your legs
thrusting it

into your sex
your red almond
of sweet
honey joy.

New Year’s Day, 2008

A new year.  It was a new year. It was the first new year whose coming I had not celebrated.  I had not anticipated such a new year.

After a fourteen-year marriage, I was alone. The house I’d lived in, worked on and renovated was lost to me.  She had that.  I would keep my future pension. That was all.

I was uneasy in my new place.  Winter-bare trees stared in my windows.  I stared at the rented walls, the rented high ceiling, the rented hard brick floor.  It didn’t feel like home.  It was the nicest place I could find.  It had all I needed, a small kitchen space, a nice bathroom, two bedrooms and a fireplace in the living room.  I had my books, my old vinyl, my 16-year old TV.  Still, I felt like a visitor, as though this was a hotel room far from home.  It seemed cavernous, empty and cold.

After almost four months there, I decided I was going to have a Christmas tree, but I had no ornaments.  eBay to the rescue!  Over the next two months I found and purchased dozens of old glass ornaments.  I’d remembered the thin glass ornaments my parents had decorated the tree with every year, many of them German, family heirlooms.  Online, I found indents, and double indents, and triple indents!  There were  multicolored ones, all fragile, large and small, and round ones, tear shapes, bell shapes and cello shapes.

I had walked down the street to the neighborhood tree lot. They brought in-state trees down from Mora every year.  I carried my tree home, as though I had walked into the forest and chopped it down myself.

Once decorated, the tree stood there silently all through Christmas.  As the new year arrived, I’d grown to accept it as part of my house.  The place seemed more like a home.  On New Year’s day, I built a fire and kept it going all day, for just me and my tree.

Dates and Palindromes

I happened to notice that today’s date, in the standard US nomenclature, is a palindrome: 01022010, if reading as January 2nd, 2010.   That is the way most of us speak of the date in English in this country.  Of course, it is sometimes written another way, as the 2nd of January, 2010.  Under that convention, today’s date is 02012010, not a palindrome at all, and confusing.  Of course, under that secondary convention, the palindrome for this year would be the 01 of February, 2010, or 01022010, but that dating convention leads to far more numerous palindromes.   I prefer to use the first convention, by which the last such palindrome date was October 2nd, 2001, and, which is more interesting, the one before that was August 31, 1380!

Of note are these: October 10, 1010 (not a palindrome), although January 1st, 1010 was; December 12, 1212 is an interesting repeating two-digit number also, but, again, not a palindrome;  and November 11, 1111 (now, that was quite  a date!).  Perhaps people don’t consider 11111111 as a palindrome?

So, assuming today is the palindrome for 2010, then one question that would arise is: when is the next such year?  Obviously, it occurs on November 2nd, 2011; 11022011.   However, no such date palindrome occurs again until 2020: 02022020. For those who put a lot of faith into numbers, it may mean something.  It means nothing of importance to me, but, still, I find it interesting to note that our 12-month, approximately 30-day cycles yield such rare sequences of numbers. 

This would all be so much simpler is there was only one conventional way to write a date.  So, I’m looking forward to February 2nd of 2020, the first date in 1010 years that is unambiguously a palindrome by any convention, even one that puts the year first.

Is the next dual-use, unambiguous one after the year 2020 in March of 3030?  There is, of course, Sept. 22, 2290, an ambiguous palindrome (It’s either 09222290 or 22092290), and October 3rd, 3001, (it’s either 10033001 or 03103001).  Another 1010 years?  I leave that to you, but I believe there is such a date.  Tell me if you think you know what it is.  There’s a hint in this post.

40 Years and a Retirement Hike

After spending nearly 40 years of my life working, post high school, I retired from my last job after 25 years there. 

In high school I flipped burgers, but after leaving high school, my first real job was running equipment in a physics lab at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.  It was a good job, working with a machine that used x-rays to measure molecular spacing in crystals, like silicon and germanium, which would prove vital to computers later on.  It was, however, boring and repetitious, but I took night classes for free there.  I stopped working full time to attend the University of Maryland Baltimore County  for two years, but continued working part time as an independent contractor.  I simply typed up a bill for my time every week.  As good as that was, I was also involved in anti-war and anti-government protests, as well as volunteer work with a free clinic,  classes with a chapter of the Black Panthers,  and experiments with sex and drugs, so college work seemed irrelevant.  The University finally told me my grade-point average was too low to continue, so I’d have to drop out for a couple semesters.  Instead, I left town with my bicycle, riding through parts of Michigan, Canada, Wisconsin and North Dakota.  Short of money, I took my second real job, as an electrician’s assistant for a large mid-western carnival: Murphy Brothers Mile Long Pleasure Exposition.  I spent a full season with them, running cables to rides, troubleshooting, and maintaining the generators.  Then, when my final pay was stolen by Toothless Lester, so he could go on a binge, I stayed on and worked small fairs in Oklahoma and Florida.  Florida in winter is nice, and I got to swim in the ocean in December, but the ride I was with didn’t get enough business, for the four of us it took to set up and run, for us to eat all that well.   I split to Virginia to visit people I’d met in Canada.  The only work I could find there was helping out on a small goat farm, so I passed on that, and hopped a train back to Baltimore.

I got another job at Johns Hopkins  after a short search, and this time I was preparing genetics and developmental biology laboratory materials for the pre-med students there.   That job got short circuited when a graduate student opened a drawer in a chicken egg incubator, and left it open.  The large rotating drum full of dozens of drawers full of eggs then tilted forward, and the drawer slid out.  It didn’t have far to go, and could have slipped back in, but ventilation was maintained by aid of a wooden blade revolving around the drum.  The graduate student was long gone by the time the wooden blade slammed into the open drawer, jamming the whole device, and causing the premature hatching of 50 to 60 chicks.  I was blamed.  As it was, there had been complaints from the students of contaminated agar plates, which was also blamed on me, even though the students did not follow instructions very well, and violated every protocol they were given to prevent contamination.  Another job down the tubes.  I knew exactly what to do: get on the bicycle again.  This time I left Baltimore directly, and rode west to Arizona.  After hiking across the Grand Canyon and back, I ended up in Scottsdale, Arizona, working for a crafts foundry run by Paolo Solari, a visionary architect building an “Arcology” in the desert.  I made bronze wind-bells, melting bronze, ramming clay/sand mixtures around molds and then pouring the bronze, cleaning up the raw products, assembling and even selling them.  Sometimes I helped out by giving tours to tourists and other visitors.  It was a fine job, but I met some bicyclists traveling through who were doing advance work for a cross-country bicycling/networking trip.  I agreed to join them when the group arrived from California.

That was my longest break from working ever, although it involved riding a bicycle nearly every day for six months.  Sometimes we did odd jobs to supplement our communal income, and we all gave workshops in our specialties.  Mine was bicycle maintenance and repair.  The tour ended, and I tried working for a solar contractor in Philadelphia, but that didn’t work out.  I hadn’t enough experience in carpentry (none with solar panels) to satisfy my boss, who had wanted to have me work unsupervised.  So, I traveled to New York City.  I knew a few people there and had a place to stay.  Then began my fourth major job: bicycle messenger.  I pedaled letters, packages, advertising films and even artwork all over Manhattan on my trusty metal steed.  However, I had met a fascinating and very sexy woman in Albuquerque when the bicycle group had stopped there for ten days.  Although I had met several woman in my travels, she seemed like the one.  She wanted me to move there, and I wanted her, so I found my way back to New Mexico.  Unfortunately, there weren’t many jobs available in the Land of Enchantment.  After six months of looking, working odd jobs, and hanging around the unemployment office, I finally got a job at the University of New Mexico as a mason’s helper.   For a couple of years I replaced broken sidewalks, mixed hod for block walls, and even laid a brick floor in the University President’s house.  There was also some remodeling and jack hammer work.  I transferred to a job at the Cancer Center for about a year and half, injecting and implanting, respectively, tumor cells or tumor chunks into rats and mice.  Then I would treat them with radiation and drugs, monitoring them, weighing them, and dissecting them.  It was OK work, but the Director, and my boss, the Associate Director, took their grant money and moved to Philadelphia.  I had no desire to go there, much less to the east coast, so I was out of work for another six months, doing odd jobs, and even collecting unemployment while I searched for work.  I finally found a good part-time job, analyzing electroplating baths for a printed-circuit board manufacturer,  which gave me a chance to take University classes again.  I did that for four years, but my quality control position was dropped, and I was looking for work again.  This time I ended up back at the University, working initially with mice, removing their glands for analysis and isolation of immunoglobulins, the wonderful molecules that protect our bodies from disease.

This time the job lasted 25 years.  It changed continuously though.  I stopped working with mice, and ran machines again exclusively.  There were machines for determining the amino acid sequence of a protein,  for purifying such proteins,  for making short versions of such proteins, for analyzing the total amino acid content of biological samples, and determining the purity of all of the above.  That changed too, as we obtained new machines: first, a machine for creating synthetic DNA.  Cool.  Then a machine for determining the sequence of various DNA samples.  That became my job then: making and sequencing DNA.  Interesting at first, but ultimately boring and repetitive, fraught with problems.  The problems could be fun to isolate and resolve, but dealing with an ever-changing clientele of Ph.D.s, graduate students, post-graduate students, undergraduates, and dealing with all the budget balancing was sometimes frustrating.  As this last and final job wound down, I went through the motions, doing the best job I knew how, but increasingly disinterested.  I could barely force myself to go to work, much less work all day, every day.  In the end, I suddenly decided I’d had enough, and retired.

So, what do I do the day after retirement? I went hiking in the Sandia Mountains here.  Hiking the entire 18-mile length of the Faulty trail from Placitas, New Mexico to Tijeras, New Mexico. It was fun, with beautiful views, a clear blue sky and leftover snowfall from a snowstorm four days earlier. Faulty Trail has a mysterious origin. Diamond blazes appeared on trees marking its route before any official Forest Service recognition, and it was unofficially called the Diamond Trail. Probably an old herding route, it was apparently cleared by a horse club. The Forest Service took it over and renamed it Faulty Trail in honor of the dikes—fissures filled with igneous rock that moved up from a lower fracture and created the limestone blocks—that appear alongside the trail. Working in a laboratory for twenty-five years, however, does not really prepare one for hiking rolling hills 18 miles at almost 8000 feet above sea level, even with some hiking experience over the last year.  I saw wild turkey, rabbit, raccoon, deer, and even fox tracks  in the snow and mud.   Many of the trees date to the 1700 and 1800s, and some have been cored and marked with their age,  so that is a wonderful experience.   I even saw a large black coyote near the crest of the mountain.  It was one hell of a long day however, from the meet-up at 7 a.m., to the timely lunch break halfway, to wandering off the trail for a bit, to the final late, forced steps on the darkened trail in the light of a full moon at 7:30 p.m. (2 1/2 hours beyond schedule).  Tired, sore, and as hungry as a bear, I ate, went home, and crawled into bed early that night, and slept the longest I have in fifteen years: 8 and 1/2 hours non-stop!

Now that is worth retiring for.

What Does Death Taste Like?

image by jasongoad.deviantart.com

I wonder what death tastes like.  Does it taste like the blackened bits of carbon that burn forever on the sides of an iron pan?

Does death taste like brown and yellow agglutinated crap served cold?

Perhaps death tastes of the rotting, putrefying meat of dead animals slaughtered for food served steaming hot?

It is often said that the stench of burning human corpses is sickeningly sweet.  Perhaps death brings an overwhelming flavor of sweetness with it?  Burning corpses layered with fatty oils, burning, smoking greasily, filling the air the nose the lungs the tongue with a cloying odor of blackened leather?

Is death sweet? The aroma of almonds, dead and broken, cut in bloodless slices, layered with caramelized sugar; does death taste like that? Or sweeter still, like the honey of billions of dead flowers?

Or could it be, could it taste like bitter astringent pee? the pee on her labia, like a sharp spice around the honey within?

Oh. Back to her. Her, she, the one who makes me long for death.  Her of the twisted mind and tortured soul like me, the one I longed to be with for these wasted years?  What of her? She is life itself, and smiles and joy and soft flesh and music and reading and video and laughter and companionship.  And death. She is death for me. To long for her is to long for death. O, to taste her would be joy!

Joy denied.

Love denied.

Laughter denied.

Companionship denied.

The sweet look in her eyes.

(A Day Without You 2nd Phase) by Beloved Creature

The poetry of her hands moving about in space, the hands I long to touch, to caress, to feel warm in my hands….

But it is death!  It is death to touch her, to want the untouchable.

Her as Zombie

It is death to taste her, death to smell her honey, taste it on the end of my thrusting tongue probing her sweetness, stirring our flesh into spasms of delight and ever more desire, fevered heat on every part of our skin, and all is sensing and touching and smelling and tasting without thought.

Her as Sugar Skull: on Dia de los Muertos

And there is la petit mort also.

That is the death I would taste.

Hooray! Lizard shit!

Rat shit, bat shit, dirty old twat! 69 assholes tied in a knot! Hooray! Lizard shit! FUCK!

- the world, according to photographer/model Kassandra Leigh Purcell

Fixing a Refrigerator with a Mass-air-flow Sensor and a Serpentine Belt

There was a lavender festival in my neighborhood last weekend. I didn’t go, but there was fresh lavender, and other products for sale across the street from me near the coffee shop.  I decided my house needed a little boost of sight and smell, so I bought a bunch of the fresh lavender.  Oddly, wildflower plants like that, when placed in water, need to have the water changed every day, as they foul it quickly.  I didn’t  know that.  It’s true.  That bunch of lavender sucked up every drop of water at first, then the second day the water was rank.  It does need to be changed every day.   So, who cares, right?  It’s just one of those things I might have mentioned to my ex-wife, and she would have ridiculed me for saying it.  “That’s really interesting,” she’d sneer at me.  She was a hard woman to talk to.  She loved to spread gossip, talk about other’ people’s lives, her sister and bother-in-law, her mother and her mother’s depression, or her other sisters, or her friends.  That was all she cared to talk about.   This worked well for her on the phone, because she could call one person, pump them for information under the guise of curiosity and friendliness, hang up the phone and talk about the conversation she’d just had with the next person who answered the phone.  She hated it when no one she called was home, especially if she had something she wanted to tell everyone.  I was always amazed at her ability to have the same conversation over and over.  She didn’t particularly like to talk with me, because I had little interest in the personal lives of other people, so  I had little to say. I tried, for a long time, to listen attentively, but not only had I usually heard much of the stories while she talked on the phone, but she had the habit of repeating the same stories over and over, not remembering who she had talked to.  This had the effect of making me zone out.  She wasn’t saying anything new, or interesting, so my mind would drift off, particularly since she always had the TV blaring.  It was very distracting.

I have no idea why I’m rambling on about this.  Just chain of thought.  So many things to think about lately.  I finally got around to fixing the refrigerator today. I had put a call in to the Sears repair people, because I had no idea what was wrong, or how serious it was.  The old thing cools really well, and keeps the freezer compartment frozen, so I had no complaints there.  However, the freezing cold water dripping onto the top shelf and turning to ice bothered me. I had a large plastic container under the drip, as it dripped at really odd times, sometimes all  at once.  Long story short, it’s $70 just to get a Sears repairman out, and then parts and labor.  It seemed cheaper than a new one.  I gave them my credit card info over the phone, but later on, a repair guy called, asked me about the problem, and told me how to fix it.  Since it involved turning the refrigerator off and “defrosting” the frost-free thing, I had put it off. I needed some ice coolers and ice for my food, and I couldn’t carry all that on the motorcycle.  I have a car,  but it needed work.  First, the  “mass airflow sensor” died.  Having no idea what or where it was, I asked the dealer about it – would cost a lot for the sensor, then labor, and I would need some other engine work done.  For $800 plus bucks, I didn’t trust ‘em.  I took it to a local mechanic who quickly diagnosed the same problem, but said he could probably clean the sensor and I wouldn’t need to buy a new one.  Cool.  $257.70 I could save. however, he said the engine had not been running correctly with the air flow off balance, so I’d need a tune-up.  It was about time for one, so I told him to go ahead.  Still, even though he did a great  job, even replacing the crappy battery terminals, the fouled spark plugs, wires, and valve cover gaskets, I still ended up spending $827.70.  So, I felt it was money well spent, if I could then depend on the car, in case I needed it.  Of course, when next I did need it, the serpentine belt broke, completely shredding all over the engine.  It was beginning to look like I’d never get those ice chests and ice so I could empty out the freezer.

Naturally, on my way to get a new belt, I laid the bike down when the front wheel spun sideways on some loose gravel in a turn bay.  Scraped the fuck out of my hands, my shoulder,  and cut my face too.  I totally freaked out the employees and customers at the dealership; walked in with blood running down my face, and all over my hands.  Got the belt however!   It was hard to work on with my hands bandaged. It took me a while to figure out how to replace it, even with a diagram of the path it had to travel, but I got it on last weekend, and everything worked.  So, finally I got the ice chests and ice today, so I could empty out the refrigerator.  Took three hours from the time I left for the ice and ice chests, took out all the food, and effected the fix I’d been instructed in by the repairman.  It all centered around a drain hole for the defrosted ice water that would ice over and prevent draining.  Since it couldn’t drain normally, the icy water would overflow into the refrigerator compartment.   Twisting a copper wire around the heating element and sticking it into the drain hole was the cure.  So far, it’s working.  I’m not certain I did it correctly, because the “obvious” place to wrap the wire around wasn’t so obvious to me, but I did get the entire refrigerator and freezer cleaned up.  Oddly enough, while it ran a long time to get back down to the cold temperatures, it then stopped cooling, long before it usually does.  It used to be near freezing in the back of the refrigerator compartment, but now I’ve had to raise the temperature setting I’ve been using all along. It’s more efficient now.  I’m hoping this fixes the thing for good – it often seemed to me to run far too long at a stretch, often long into the night.  Of course, it would have been way cheaper, easier, and less painful to buy a new refrigerator.

So, tired, but satisfied, I popped in a movie: Waltz With Bashir,  an animated film by an Israeli filmmaker who fought in the war in Lebanon in the early 1980s.  He had forgotten most of what he did, and travels around in the movie visiting old comrades from the war to see what they remembered.   What little they did remember centered around atrocities, young men shooting blindly in every direction out of fear, massacres, and other horrors.  This is an army oddly similar to the US army, in terms of weapons, training and sheer chutzpah.  I was tempted to think that Israel has no idea what modern warfare is about, and has no misgivings about killing innocent people for no real purpose.  Of course, I found that they weren’t really all that different from the US.  Our military has done, and is doing, some really horrific things in the name of freedom, democracy, and protection of the “homeland”.  I think the US and Israel are evidence of the new way war is fought, without clear strategy or objectives, just fighting and killing with huge tanks, powerful weapons, and clueless soldiers,  in hopes it will all come out right if we spend enough money, shoot enough bullets, and drop enough bombs.   Looks like something is being done, but all that happens is war continues, with the certainty that even if a conflict ends, another will start.  We’ve entered the period of endless, mindless war that was adroitly predicted in the novel 1984.  Always war somewhere; we’re always winning, but the enemy fights on, and we need to support war or we’re unpatriotic.  It just goes on and on.  There is no longer an end.  Even if the combat  troops leave Iraq, we’re leaving behind bases filled with troops, a clear provocation.  In Afghanistan, we don’t even have a winnable objective, no way of defeating the Taliban, al-Qa’ida, or other terrorists.  Bombs, tanks, and bullets just aren’t accomplishing anything except more deaths of our soldiers and local non-combatants, and a terrorist every now and again, and we’ve no plans to try anything else.  The more we fight, the stronger the Taliban and al-Qa’ida get.  It is mindless destruction, with unprecedented levels of non-combatant deaths, but all we ever care about are “our troops’ – support our troops, support our troops, support our troops, and don’t question any of this, because then you won’t be supporting our troops.  I’m sure there were good Germans under Hitler, good Japanese under the emperor, good Iraqis under Saddam Hussein who “supported our troops” too.   People never seem to notice that, and it no longer seems to matter.  No one really cares.  As long as innocent people are dying somewhere else, it’s not really our problem, because God is on our side.  Of course, God is also on the terrorist’s side, on the dictator’s side, on everyone’s side in every war, but still people die; still people lose.

Rambling again tonight.  No real purpose here.  Just a lack of purpose.  All seems pointless now.  War is pointless.  Patriotism is misdirected.  God is equated with war, guns and victory over all.  I honestly don’t know what to believe in anymore, or what to care about, and that is reflected in my personal life.  No desire for companionship, love, or sex.  Just day-to-day mechanical living.  Why?

I started another blog alongside this one back in 2007 that was about ennui and war and all that.  This blog was personal at first, but now it all seems to run together in my head; can’t keep any of it separate, and nothing seems more or less important than anything else.

Why Do I Ever Leave My House?

What is it with me and pain?  How is it I seem to mess myself up so often?  I went hiking Saturday the 4th of July. It was fun. We took off-the-map trails, found four geocaches.  Along the way the trail was about a 60 degree angle, down and up again. Going down I managed to slip on some loose rock and spun all the way around before I caught myself.  Ripped my middle finger open a little, bled on my backpack and shirt. No big deal. The hike was worse going back up; had to stop often to catch my breath, as we gained a bit of elevation as well as the distance climbing.  Made it.  Then, on the way back, it hailed!  In July!  Pea-sized bits on our faces and arms. Stopped under some trees by the last geocache and put on our rain gear, as it was pouring too.  Stayed where we were for a while, as lighting and thunder were arriving simultaneously.  We didn’t want to get into an open area where we were the tallest things around.  Finally headed on up to the top of the mountain where there was a porch around a gift shop that people drive to.  We had coffee and brownies, courtesy of one older hiker.  Not a bad day all in all.  I was sore in my upper legs later, and then sore on Sunday still, and then sore on Monday.  It didn’t hurt to walk upstairs, but downstairs was difficult.  I was not used to scrambling down such steep trails with loose footing.  Different muscles used, and they complained until today.  Today, the pain and stiffness was gone.  The cut on my finger was healing nicely.

I had to stop by the auto dealer on my way home. Friday had been a holiday from work, so I had driven my car for once, looking for a new desk chair, and a few other things that don’t fit on the motorcycle.  The ’96 Mercury Cougar is a good car, but I’d recently had to spend over $800 getting the mass air flow sensor fixed, and having the engine tuned up with new plugs and valve covers, filters, new battery terminals, etc.  It was running smooth and quiet.  All of a sudden, on my way home, it had made a funny noise, and the steering crapped out.  It’s power steering, but I could still move the wheel just enough to turn.  Found out the belt had disintegrated.  It was broken and shredded all over the engine.  A lot of coolant had boiled out too.   The belt is a serpentine one, snaking around various pulleys that operate the power steering, the air conditioning, the generator, as well the water pump.  Well, that was where I was going after work today, to the dealer for a good, reliable serpentine belt.

They had moved far up the interstate, and I had to fight traffic going north.  I got off near where they said the new place was, but didn’t see it.  It was supposed to be on the frontage road, and I hadn’t passed it yet, so I went down the side road a bit to turn around.  Pulled into a turn bay, but hit gravel.  The bike went down fast.  Picked it right up, although someone had stopped to help.  He even offered to put my bike in the back of his pickup, and take me to a hospital, but I thanked him and told him I was OK.  He had seen the bike spin out from under me.  The bike is OK, a little scratched up, especially my brand new windshield.  Crap.  Anyway, I got back on the frontage road and went through the intersection this time, and found the dealer about two blocks away around a curve.  Parts guy took my order for the belt, but he didn’t have a cash register in his work area, so he sent me out to the garage.  I told him about the accident.  He said he’d get me some gauze too and meet me up there.  The lady at the register gave me some wipes to clean myself up a bit, baby wipes of all things.  I didn’t know how my face looked, but I had seen and felt blood running down near my left eye, and my sunglasses were full of blood too.  I paid for the Ford Motorcraft belt, $52.81 and they gave me some bandages.  I went into their men’s room to clean up.  Nice gashes near my eye, and the eye was already swollen and dark.  Probably have a black eye tomorrow.  Scrapes on my left knuckles, my right thumb is torn up, both palms are scraped and full of gravel bits.  My left knee hurt, as well as my left shoulder, where my new heavy-duty cotton shirt was torn open.  I bandaged what I needed to in order to grip the handlebars and clutch and brakes, and headed home.  When I got there, I found a 1 3/4 inch diameter scrape on my shoulder, almost round, looks like the skin had been taken off with a belt sander, and still weeping. Oddly, it is not bleeding much except around the edge, and it doesn’t hurt. Smaller scrapes below it, right into the tattoo.  Both knees are scraped, but the left one is bleeding a lot.  Bandaged everything else up that I’d missed at the auto dealer, after cleaning with a little peroxide.

Damn, only one Advil left too. I had wanted two.  Added four aspirin.  I don’t even know why I’m complaining.  I didn’t break anything, and the bike still runs. People go through worse every day.  Still, I wonder why I’m so damn careless and accident prone?  I ride every day, so I suppose the odds were against me.  Just can’t believe I was so stupid.  Should have slowed down more before getting in the turn bay.  Should have been looking for hazards.   Should have taken the car in for scheduled maintenance – perhaps they’d have caught the bad belt?  and then I wouldn’t have had to go there, but I rarely even drive the car. I didn’t think it needed more maintenance so soon. Of course, it’s 13 years old.

Oh, man, my neck and shoulder area hurts now. I sure hope I didn’t do any damage to my collar-bone or neck.   More and more, I feel like I just want to be home and stay here, never going out again.  Work is a real pain with the budget problems and the move to a new lab space.  I really don’t want to deal with any of it anymore.   I’m tired.  And, so what?

Rent This Movie for GREAT Jazz

The Legend of 1900. Watch it.  The piano playing is phenomenal!  The story is unique.

Piano duel, Part 1 ; also:  Piano duel Part 2

<-The real Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton. As a teenager Jelly Roll Morton worked in the whorehouses of Storyville, New Orléans, as a piano player. From 1904 to 1917 Jelly Roll rambled through the South as gambler, pool shark, pimp, vaudeville comedian and pianist. He was the first great composer and piano player of Jazz and an important transitional figure between ragtime and jazz piano styles. He played on the West Coast from 1917 to 1922 and then moved to Chicago and where he hit his stride. Morton’s 1923 and 1924 recordings of piano solos for the Gennett label were very popular and influential.

He fell upon hard times after 1930 and even lost the diamond he had in his front tooth. He died just before the Dixieland revival rescued so many of his peers from obscurity. He blamed his declining health on a voodoo spell.  See: Red Hot Jazz.

Last night I dreamt I killed

Woke up from a nightmare last night. Middle of the night.  My heart was racing.  I was horrified.  It was raining.  I lay there for a time listening to the rain.  After awhile I heard hail hitting the roof.  There was lightning too.  In the dream, I had just killed someone, someone I loved.  In the dream, I didn’t feel anything.  I killed without remorse.  That woke me up, I think.  I had been thinking (in the dream) I had no feelings in me, but as I came back into consciousness, I realized I did care, and the horrible reality that I could do something like that terrified me.

Oddly, I can’t remember now who it was I was supposed to have killed.  Never saw  the face.  It was, however, very real, and I was really sure who it was when I woke up, but now I can’t remember for certain.  But, I clearly remember coming from behind, strangling her, and burying her.  The whole time that was going on, I was aware, in the dream, of my disconnect, of my inability to feel, or care about morality. It was as though I had actually lost all socialization, and had become a serial killer, and without the slightest hint of remorse.

Got up this morning after lying there for hours after that.  It was only 6:00 am on a Saturday.  I should get more sleep, but I wake up nearly every night, sometimes at 1:30 am, sometimes at 3:30 am, or 4:00, and sometimes I just watch the clock tick off the half hours until it’s time to get up. Made coffee.   It’s a special blend of mine: I take a can of  “Lite” coffee, which already has half the caffeine of regular coffee, and I mix it with a can of decaf coffee.  Still I can’t sleep at night.  I’ve tried doing without coffee altogether.  After the headaches stop, I feel good, but I still can’t sleep right, not even after months without caffeine.  I never get 7 or 8 hours sleep anymore.  The amount is not always vital, as long as there is some deep sleep involved, but 5 1/2 hours is my longest time spent asleep, with or without coffee. I don’t think it’s enough time to get a good rest.  I’d imagine this is why I’ve been so tense, irritable and depressed, but those things affect sleep, so it’s hard to say which came first.  Doesn’t matter what time I go to bed, I usually fall asleep right away, but I always wake up long before it’s time to get up.  I’ve gone on ten-miles hikes in the mountains, dropped into bed, to sleep, perchance to dream, but still I wake up, sometimes sweating, sometimes with a bad dream chasing me.  It’s aging me fast.  People used to think I was younger than I was, but now they’re sure I’m older than I am.  I have permanent dark circles under my eyes.  My hair rapidly turned from salt and pepper to almost all-white, so I dye it now.

Today a rental movie came in the mail: Hancock.   I enjoyed it.  I even felt some stirrings of emotion at all the appropriate times.  Movies somehow do that to me.  Hancock, of course is about a guy who happens to have super powers and creates more havoc trying to help than he helps.  Not knowing who he is, or where he came from, he stumbles along until people step up to help him straighten out his life.  In the end he does OK, and even finds out who he is.  Heroic, and a happy ending too.

After the movie, I sat back to daydream, because I always imagine myself in any movie I watch, or any book I read.  I became a superhero.  I don’t have super strength or the power to fly, or magnetic power, or x-ray vision – none of that.   I have the power I’ve always imagined I had, to transport myself instantly anywhere in the world or universe.  It’s a dormant power that surfaces when I need it.  My step-daughter Maya goes into the hospital soon for brain surgery.  The doctors are highly skilled at it, and the danger is not insignificant, but any operation is dangerous, and a brain operation seems more so.  4 1/2 years ago, Maya had her brain opened to remove a tumor, and they got almost all of it.  Enough cells remained to regrow, and she had chemotherapy.  The chemo didn’t work.  She lost all her hair, was sick as a dog, but the tumor actually started growing faster.  She had radiation treatments then, and the tumor was “burned” out of her skull.  No traces left on MRI, nothing in her blood, nothing in her spinal fluid all this time.  Now there’s something there.  Could be scar tissue, a common occurrence with radiation treatment.  They don’t know.  So, they’re going back in to find out.

In my daydream, I get a call from the hospital. She’s just died.  I scream, and suddenly I am there, standing by the phone hundreds of miles away. I ask to see her, and I grab her hand, talk to her, tell her to come back, and she does.  She’s not dead.  She recovers, but I die.  It’s a funny-strange scenario, but it actually makes me happy to think I could do that.  I’d readily trade places with her now if I could.  I don’t want her to suffer through the pain again.  I want her to continue enjoying life.  She can have mine.

Moon Watching, Watching Watchmen

The moon, low to the horizon and huge, has a reddish tint to it tonight.  I tried to take a picture when I got home, but it was behind the trees already.

I watched it heading west on my way home at 3 a.m Friday morning, in the western hemisphere, North America.  It was not full, but the light it reflected on a clear night was spectacular.

It reminded me of the scenes on the red surface of Mars in the movie I had just watched. Watchmen.  The only movie I’ve watched in a theater in over a year.  The only movie I’ve ever gone to see the first showing of, and at midnight to boot.  I read Watchman, the graphic novel, many years ago.  Still have it lying around.  Impressed me then, and the movie impressed me even more.  Damn, that was a spectacular movie.   Special effects aside, the graphic depiction of human nature qualifies it as literature, in my opinion, so it ought to be hailed as such.  That was one movie that surely tapped into the words and made them even more visual than the two dimensions of the flat page.  Of course, imagination has no bounds when reading, so the pictures, the colors, the artistic vision are not necessary, and so neither is the movie. Nevertheless, this is how we entertain ourselves, and ideas must be presented as entertainment.  The story, the book, the movie: all are superbly murderous, bloody, violent, tragic, lusty, depraved and, yet, somehow more than that, and much more than entertainment.

Such a story.  Is it a tragedy? It ends with horrible destruction, then hope, and finally, a theme that runs through the entire movie ends it: mankind sucks.  We could do better, but we don’t.  Even the noblest among us would sacrifice millions to save billions, and lie about it.  And the lie provides the hope for humanity, and, in the movie’s ending,  the lie is about to be exposed.

Of course, I had hoped to have seen the movie with Karen.  She’d heard about the graphic novel, but it was out of print.  She hadn’t tried to read it sooner because it was DC comics and, not Marvel.  Growing up, of course, I knew about the superior writing in Marvel comics, the multifaceted characters, the gray areas of truth and right and wrong, and the real life, love and rejection, paying bills, death, and jobs and tiny human dramas on the sidelines of every larger action.  The stuff that goes on even if you’re a superhero. Karen admires that about Marvel and doesn’t care for DC comics. I told her it was worth reading.  By the time I found my copy, it has just been reprinted, and she had already bought a copy.  She hadn’t read it last time we spoke of it, so I’m not sure what she thought.  We have similar ideas about war and peace and science and fiction and religion. We’ve read many of the same books, seen many of the same movies, and admired the best of humanity in all of it.  Unfortunately, the difference in our ages prevents us from seeing something like Watchmen together.

[aside: ran into Karen at the coffee cart later this very day.  I had to have coffee to stay awake after getting maybe one hour of sleep after this movie.  She smiled and forced a wave to me when she got in line.  I was talking to someone, so I waited until she come over to  sprinkle cinnamon on the whipped cream on top of her iced mocha. Told her I'd seen Watchmen, and she asked me about it. Told her how exciting it was, and the crowds there.  Asked her, since it was Friday, after all, if we could meet for lunch later.  She said she was having a working lunch.  Said she had to go.  The oddest thing of all was that I asked her if she had ever read the copy of Watchmen she had bought.  She got real defensive; said she'd read it two years ago! But I know she bought it only recently, when the second printing came out, and I had even asked her if she'd read it, and she said no, that she hadn't had time yet.  Now, suddenly she read it two years ago?  That doesn't make sense. Something is very odd here.]

When I asked her if we could see Silver Surfer together – that’s when she let me know.  She said, “That would be like a date!” with a look of horror or disgust on her face.  “Inappropriate.” That’s the word she used many times.  Inappropriate for me to ask her out, to want to meet her after work, see a movie, have a drink, give her flowers.  Even leaving aside my romantic interest in her, she can not even think of me as friend outside of the workplace.  I rarely see her anymore; we work in different buildings, for different departments, but, occasionally have lunch still.

As intriguing as Watchmen is, I still found part of me wishing I could watch it with Karen.  I didn’t ask her.  I know it’s beyond her to imagine going somewhere with me.  She’d rather go to a play, like Monty Python’s Holy Grail, with her uncle than with me.  I guess old men are OK if you’re related to them.   It’s not even sad anymore to think about. It’s something I’ve had to accept, like my former wife telling me I had to move out, or she’d call the police, tell them her life was in danger.  Very effective.  Very legal.  I could have challenged it later, but by then, I’d have been out, and why would I want to live with someone who’d done that to me?  And Karen.  How nice it would have been to tell her about all that, to have a friend I could talk to, who would listen. She wouldn’t listen – it was also inappropriate to speak of anything personal.  I’m not really sure why.  I could understand a woman not wanting to hear about my disintigrating marriage or the end, when it came.  But, even later? Long after the divorce, she wanted to hear nothing of it.   Of course, sometimes I think it was just because she didn’t want to encourage my inappropriate feelings for her.

But, life goes on. Sort of.  In Watchmen, life goes on, but the underlying tensions are not gone.  Even the deaths of so many millions can ultimately have been for nothing.   I understand the characters in the story who speak of the pointlessness of it all, that we have exactly the society we wanted.  We are violent and selfish and greedy and murderous.  Perhaps we’ll never change.  We cringe at horror, but do little to stop it.  We even participate in our own little ways.

And me? I go on for some reason. Inertia? I don’t know.  I move along with work, with my union activities, with reading, and movies, and guitar, and hiking, and it’s not doing a whole lot for me.  If it were doing something for someone else, perhaps I could accept that as my motivation.  I’m just not really sure I care about anything anymore.  I was happy enough being married to someone I loved, even if not every day was a good one.  I could have gone on that way for a long time, maybe forever.  When it fell apart, and, abruptly it was over, I found myself insanely in love with Karen.  I felt so good, so alive, so ready to fall in love all over again.  It was exhilarating to believe in love, to think I could actually have the “in love” feeling again. That would have given me a real reason to enjoy life and want to go on.  The chances seem slim now.  I feel a great sense of accelerated aging, of death coming soon, but  I don’t fear death.  I would like to be happy while I’m alive, but perhaps it’s just not possible anymore.  I don’t even know what would make me truly happy.  Karen. Well, there’s her, and my feelings for her. I’d certainly be happy being with her, but it cannot be.  So, I seem to be rejecting all possibilities that come my way: the old girlfriend back in my life, the other former lover living close by, the union sister who tried to interest me in dating a friend of hers, or even herself – why am I so withdrawn, so quick to misunderstand, so quick to push people away?

Good ol’ February 14

Another Valentine’s Day.  People make fun of the day, and criticize it as meaningless commercial promotion for the greeting card and candy companies.  I’ve often found, however, that when I’m in a serious relationship, it is satisfying to do something nice for your lover on a day that is dedicated to love. Once I didn’t, by mistake, actually.  I was one of those who felt that gifts or flowers as sentiment should come spontaneously and randomly, and I acted on that.  However, I knew, without a doubt, that my lover at the time would want to be treated special, so I had a plan. Since I rode a bicycle every day to and from work, it was difficult to range very far in getting flowers, which is what I thought most appropriate at that time.  And, of course, arranging to have them delivered never occurred to me. Every day, I passed a flower shop on the way home.  I had never had a real girlfriend or lover to buy flowers for before, and had no idea how early one has to buy these things.  However, the shop would certainly have had some kind of flowers left, even if they weren’t roses.  So, I left work, and headed home, climbing the slope of “nine-mile” hill steadily.  I reached the flower shop, and THEY WERE CLOSED! As in shut down and moved away. Crap.  I couldn’t believe it.  I knew of none other within miles, and I was expected at home anyway.  I went home, and promptly told my love what had happened, and she said it was OK, and no big deal.  DON”T EVER BELIEVE THAT.  It is just not true.  Later, after she’d left me for someone else, and we’d become friends again, years later, she told me that’s when she changed her mind about me. She was actually pretty upset.  She met this guy coincidentally the next day, and she became interested in  him.  

Be that all as it may be, however, I’ve been with many women since then, and I never screwed up like that again, always giving flowers and treats, and not because I had to, but because I wanted to.  So, I like Valentine’s Day.  However, since that last divorce and my subsequent unrequited love infatuation and rejection, I don’t think much of this approaching day of love.  It sucks, really.   I added a note to myself on my appointments calendar for the 14th: Kill myself.  Now, it’s unlikely I will.  For one thing, I’ve gotten really interested in learning guitar, and I practice every day.  I understand a little bit of the nomenclature, and I’m training my fingers, and making slow progress.  It may take a long time, but I think I can do it.  So, since I want to see how well I can do, I should stick around a bit longer.

Before this, I joined the Mountain Club, however.  I went on four hikes, up and down hilly terrain, for lengths of  8 to ten miles, and enjoyed it.  Loved the slowly increasing strength and stamina, but I haven’t been hiking since January 1.  I used to go hiking on level ground about 4 miles every Sunday before going mountaineering, but I haven’t even done that.  Now I’m focused on guitar.  I wonder if I can keep my interest in that?  Or will I lose the excitement that grips me now?  If I do, will I decide there’s no further reason to keep on living? or will I find another item on my bucket list to throw myself into?  I can’t predict, just can’t tell.

Where would I go now?

I watch so many, many movies these days.  The TV is useless for much of anything else.  I don’t know what I see in the movies.  I like to escape, of course, but that is less appealing than it used to be.  There are so many stories to see, ideas to hear, intrigues, and mysteries, and wonder. Still, I find it hard to sit still for movies anymore.  I wander off and read, or check my email or auctions or Word Press stats, or play solitaire, and watch some more.  It’s not so much the movies themselves, but that I am restless again, as restless as I was in 1973 and 1975 when I rode away from jobs and family and stability.  I rode away the first time, but came back and tried again.  In 1975 I rode away for good.

Movies seem to have relevance sometimes, but I am tired of extrapolating them into the myriad ways that they reflect my own life, or comment on it, or condemn it.  They’re not as much fun as they used to be for me.  Neither is my job, and my life, which once had purpose.  It’s time to return to the carnival.  We, most of us, speak of running away to join the circus, and that’s what I did so many years ago, although it turned out to be a carnival: no animals, well, live ones anyway.  There were always the two-headed goats and five-legged cows, but they were actually in jars of formaldehyde, which you would only find out after you paid your money to see ‘em.  The marks always lined up to see those kind of things, and the painted signs outside always made it seem like the animals were real, and just inside.  But, a carnival doesn’t put on animal shows, just people shows.  Mostly it’s all “punk” kiddie rides and ferris wheels, and all  the other mechanized thrill rides, with music blaring from giant speakers.  No big top, no tents really.  Lots of trucks, motor homes, and trailers.  And electrical generators, of course. Need power for all that stuff.  All those lights.  All those popcorn “poppers” and games-of-chance “joints”.  Try your luck, but you’re really buying cheap fluff.  Hotdogs and ice cream and sodas. Eat and spend. Eat and spend.  The real American dream.  Carnies epitomize our values – buy low, sell high. Maximize profits. The ideal is to get the most for the absolute least you must provide in return.  Provide thrills and escapism; promote gluttony for empty calories.  Cheap thrills.

When I left the carnival, I realized that much of the world around me was the same, even Universities.  It’s all sleight of hand, and manipulation, and cheap thrills.  Education, sure, it’s important, but secondary to research grants that pay the bills.  Stationary carnivals.  My brain is tired from trying to keep it straight.

I went back to work, and finished college.  I pay my bills, I eat a lot.  I watch movies. I marry and divorce and marry and divorce again, and buy and spend and work and buy and spend.  Cheap thrills.  I am viewed as more respectable than a carny, but the differences are slight.  Some towns only sit in one place, some move around, but we stay the same either way.

I can’t imagine I’d really want to work a carnival again.  But, traveling is always good.  Hiking? Bicycling? The physical activity is liberating.   As you put distance behind you, it feels like a new world, a new beginning, and you can’t go back.  All that walking or biking would be a waste if you went back.  But, one doesn’t have to travel in the opposite direction to go back.  I’ve been back to visit, but I live 1675 miles away.   Where would I go away to now?

Bitch, moan, grumble, gripe.

It’s a good thing I like to complain, because I felt like crap last night.  Had been to  a day-long meeting of statewide union execs, and felt funny.  It was a long, tedious legislative training session.  Parts if it were interesting, and in New Mexico, most of us public employees are entirely dependent on money flowing from Santa Fe.   But, I had a hard time getting lunch down, and couldn’t even finish it.  That should have been a warning sign, as I can eat, and eat, and eat like a teenager.  And, it shows.  Anyway, I keep feeling, first, pressure in my stomach, than a god-awful pain.  Every so often the pain would flare up, and it was intense.  Got home finally, and felt like crap.  Took a short nap, but woke up cold, shivering almost.  Then I felt feverish, like my face was on fire.  Then it seemed I was feverish and still cold!  Had to put slippers on my feet, and my winter vest, and I had the heat turned way up!  My head began to hurt, then my stomach too.  Sometimes it alternated, sometimes it was both.  I wanted someone to kill me!   Good god! that was painful! And, I couldn’t relax, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat or drink anything.  Tried to watch Hellboy II, but had to keep pausing it, as I couldn’t relax.  Wrapped myself in a blanket on the recliner.  Popped some vitamin C, drank a cup of ginger tea finally, but I had to force myself to drink it.  9:30 pm – I’d had enough – went to bed.  Woke up six hours later feeling better, surprised that I was alive at all.  Got up to pee, but went back to bed.  Didn’t want to get up at all.  Still hot. Then I realized I’d left the liquid-filled radiator heater on high all night!  Turned that off, and got back in bed.  My head still hurt, in fact, I couldn’t get comfortable anymore.  My neck felt like someone had pummeled it, but the worst part was that my whole head felt sore.  It hurt to be face down, sideways, or face up.  There was no position in which my head didn’t hurt.  And some acid had worked its was up my throat, so that tasted and felt horrible.  Finally forced myself up to take some Advil.  Feeling better now, but my stomach is still unhappy.  I wonder if I could have gotten food poisoning.  Sheesh.

Day 15 – a very slow day.

Well, here I am, 3 days into the new year of 2009, day 15 of my vacation from all things work related.  I’m trying to see what I’ve accomplished.

1.)  Replaced the remaining three almost-bald tires on the car – they have whitewall stripes too, matching the car (well, actually it’s cream colored).

2.) Took the rear tire off the motorcycle, scraped the grease off the gear and rim, and replaced the tire, which was stark-raving mad, er, nude, er, uh, bald.

3.) Broke a link out of the stretched-out bike chain (had to use a cold chisel); cleaned, adjusted and greased the chain.

4.) Went hiking around To’hajiilee, just west of Albuquerque. Hiked beyond my comfort level, took some nice pics.

5.) Had lunch with my 1st wife.  Learned she thought I wanted the divorce; I thought she did.

6.) Had dinner on Xmas day with my step-daughter; made a kick-ass chile with Italian sausage, green chile, and black beans. We both enjoyed it.

7.) Went hiking in San Lorenzo canyon (near Socorro, New Mexico); hiked just past my comfort level; took a few pics.

8.) Bought a digital picture frame; learned I haven’t beaten my eBay addiction yet.

9.) Read several books: Titan’s Daughter, by Sci Fi author James Blish; Ballroom of the Skies, a Sci Fi novel by crime/mystery novelist John D. MacDonald; Please Write For Details, also by John D. MacDonald, Wild Traveler, a 1967 story about an adopted coyote by A.M. Lightner; Jack of Eagles, by James Blish; Berlin (2): City of Smoke, graphic novel by Jason Lutes; graphic novel David Boring, by Daniel Clowes; graphic novel Far West (Vol. 1), by Richard Moore; the screenplay of Ghost World, by Daniel Clowes and Terry Zwigoff; a wierd “art” graphic novel Jellyfist, by Jhonen Vasquez and Jenny Goldberg; and Aya of Yop City, a graphic novel by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie.

10.) Finally watched: 2010: The Year We Make Contact, the new 2008 Journey to the Center of the Earth, the orignal Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), Transsiberian, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Outer Limits: The 2nd Soul, the animated Superman Doomsday, anime Kai Doh Maru, Bridge to Terabithia, a dumb anime: Fencer of Minerva, Chap. 1, and The Incredible Hulk, with which I easily identify.

11.) Learned how NOT to make chocolate chip cookies.

12.) Went out to dinner with an old girlfriend on New Year’s Eve; played 2 games of chess, took her home at 10:00 pm (She goes to bed early).

13.) Went hiking 5 miles up the La Luz Trail in our Sandia Mountains; took the old trail back down; got off the trail; had to bushwhack and slide through snow to the bottom and hike back up to the trailhead.  Went beyond any comfort level I thought I had before. Had a GREAT time, because my step-daughter and her boyfriend went with me. (Hope they forgive me for leading them astray.)

Did NOT pass Go, collect $200, fall into or out of love, or have sex, but I  least I kept myself busy.  What a demented way to live.

To be thankful is best

Sometimes I’m sad. Sad that I’ve managed to screw up three close relationships that I really cared about.  Sad that my job is boring and I want to retire. Sad that I can’t afford to retire.  Sad that I no longer have a house to retire in.  Sad that my body seems be to slowly breaking down, with pain and unwanted physical changes.   Sad that my lifestyle has left me with few close friends and very little family around me.  Sad that I live by myself and have gotten so used to it that I no longer want to change.  A friend pointed out to me that I haven’t really experienced serious tragedy in my life.  I suppose not, but sometimes it felt that way, and sometimes I feel like there’s nothing to live for.

All that being said however, I still am thankful.  Things haven’t turned out the way I expected, and the future is very uncertain, no matter what I do.  But, every year I have to remind myself, as if I could forget, that Maya is still alive and healthy.  Maya is my step-daughter, a woman so like a daughter to me as to be my daughter.  I watched her grow from an eight-year old into a woman, only to be struck with a malignant brain tumor soon after her 21st birthday.  I never thought about losing her before that, but the realization was like a physical kick in the heart.  There was always hope, and I never hoped so much in my life for anything.  I never gave up hope, and through the day-long surgery, debilitating drugs, poisonous and ultimately useless chemotherapy, and radiation treatments, she survived.  She was astute enough to opt out of the radical, shot-in-the-dark, full-head, and full-spine radiation treatments, so not only is the cancer gone, but she still has her short-term memory, and her full-strength immune system.  She is cancer free, healthy, strong (just ran a fast half-marathon) and absolutely beautiful in spirit and body.

Every time I see her is a joy.  I will always be thankful for her recovery.  Sometimes my life seems to suck, but, in my lifetime I have known a beautiful, loving person who survived a life-threatening, catastrophic illness that would have devastated me, her mother, her brother, her dad, and the rest of her extended family.  I am thankful for Maya, and I have told her so.  Life is not so bad.

Also, see published short story here (on pages 13-14):

That God-Damned Day

raison d’etre – 1:11:11

Time to ramble again.  I have a glass of wine in hand, a white wine from the New Mexican winery San Felipe, that they call Moscato.  Sweet, but not as much as a muscat. I sound like such a wine snob.  Ha!  I just shared my life with a wino for 14 years.  After a hundred wine tastings, visits to California wine country, and traveling to every winery in New Mexico, I absorbed some of the lore.

Tonight I’ve been watching the 1979 movie, Being There, with Peters Sellers and Shirley MacLaine, and really enjoying it.  I paused the movie to write this.  The readout is 1:11:11.  As with most movies, I only enjoy them if I put myself into the movie, and, much like a medical or psychology student studying disease, I imagine what I watch to apply to myself.  The child-like gardener that Peter Sellers plays is easy to empathize with. He only knows how to do one thing, but somehow people imagine that he knows much more.  Because of the way he’s dressed, and misinterpretations of his description of his life, he is taken to be more educated and intelligent than he really is. That’s where my imagination comes in.  I am him, and imagine that I’ve always been this way.  As far as imitating what I’ve read and watched and people I’ve known, I am.  I also question if I am who people think I am.  I say I work with DNA, which seems to impress people, but I backed into the position, working my way from lab work on rats and mice, to a research position extracting immunoglobulins from the glands of mice and purifying them, to working with proteins.  I learned how to operate simple machines that can uncover the amino acid sequence of proteins, or take amino acids and assemble then into a protein.  The machines simply take known science, and using valves and solenoids, deliver reagents in standard formulas with standard protocols.  From there I learned to do almost the exact same thing with DNA, using very similar machines. At first I was not paid very well, but these days I make about half of what some of the better-paid professors make.  I always live in dread that people will find me out – realize that I don’t really understand much of what I’m doing.

I’ve always wanted to be a scientist, but never could get through all the classes.  I understood basic chemistry, physics, and math in high school, but college was another story.  Laboratories were always fun, but genetics lectures, calculus, and physical chemistry bewildered me.  Oh, I understood the lectures well enough, but I could never remember all the formulas, equations and pathways, and did miserably on tests.  I persevered for a long time, finally passing several classes in calculus, basic genetics, basic physics, organic chemistry, and basic biochemistry, but even though I understood the purpose and usefulness of integrals and derivatives, and stoichiometry, the biology of cells, and vector analyses well enough, I can’t remember how to use them anymore.   I can balance simple chemical equations, and my high school algebra never leaves me, but my understanding of the science of DNA is so rudimentary.

Just like the gardener, I stumble through life, getting credit for knowing far more than I know.  What’s worse, it’s all falling away from me now as I age.  I can barely type anymore, as I invert so many letters and words, even adding extra words, or leaving some out.  Without editing, I hardly make sense.  Without computers, I’d have failed to get through many of my final classes, and it’s much worse now.  I just make too many mistakes, and don’t control my fingers all that well. The brain feels tired now.  I have been playing chess, and doing OK, but only against a novice player.   I don’t know how much longer I can continue to pretend that I have a clue what’s going on, or can concentrate long enough to do a job.  I’d like to retire from life now.  It’s been fun, but, really, it’s all a bit too much for me.  People, and money, and relationships and reading and writing.  I want to withdraw.  I don’t want to be here anymore.  But I stay.  I work every day.  I talk to people.  I go to political rallies.  I play chess.  I still exist.  Existence is not a sufficient raison d’etre.  But, then again, why should I care about the reason for my continued being? Why does it matter to me?  I think we all need a plan, something to shoot for.  What is left me at this stage of life?  Yes, yes, whatever I want.  But, I seem to want less and less.  To be a child again.  That would be nice. To play, to move from one thing to the next, to have no place to be, nothing I must do. Being here.

Surely, we all can’t be simply dragging ourselves along this way, simply to drag ourselves along?

NEVERTHELESS MORE

pussys are patient

impassive silent

women are not

men are impatient

mostly about sex

woman can take that

mostly they leave it

what women do want

is ‘our’ own house now

to spend ‘our’ money

to travel and dine

to eat and drink wine

to party and play

you don’t get a say

all for ‘us’ today

now and now and now

but sex tomorrow

I do prefer cats

but I love women

nevertheless more.

Ferguson Speaks From The Heart

more about “Ferguson Speaks From The Heart“, posted with vodpod

BREAKING POINTS

Things happen

violence flares

mom throws things

yells at Dad

Dad yells at Mom

throws things

Mom threw a glass at me

broken shard cut my leg.

Dad, angry knocked me

into walls or

my breath out

backhanded me

from across a table

spankings,

leather strap too

didn’t faze me

much

but

when he falsely accused

and slapped me

one way and back the other

and back again and

his hand swung

and I snapped

knocked him down

and raised my foot

to kick!

his head in

smash his brains

but

he caught my leg

in powerful arms

smiling

never hit me again.

35 years later

married

arguing

she accuses

falsely

she yells

calls me a liar

coffee cups in our hands

I empty mine at her

she throws hers in my face

and I snap

What is wrong with you?

escapes my lips

between clenched teeth

and I slap one way

and the other and swing

my open hand

to slap again

with fingers only

but she backs away

and I sit in my chair

and smash a remote

against a wall

I am my father.

she calls the police

domestic violence, she says

I’m in a domestic violence situation

she says

I listen from my chair

disbelief replaces anger.

the police come

while I clean up the coffee

she is not there

cops are suspicious

stained rag in my hand

no one else around

oh shit! I think

yes, of course, come in

search the house

she is not here

I don’t know where

crap!

I show them neighbors

where she might be

they find her

tell me I have to leave

counseling for me

anger management for me

Later on

She tells me to stay

unless it ever happens again

It never does, but

she keeps drinking

moody

angry happy sad up and down

never satisfied

impatient

demanding and hard

belittling and mean.

I left all that as a boy

but, now, in love

I can’t leave her

my heart beats

in a hollow

relationship

year after year after year.

THREE

In two thousand and three

three thousand dollars

bought three weeks in China

meals hotels and travel.

Beijing and Shanghai

Gulin, Xian, Hong Kong

Rivers Yangtze and Li

the Grand Canal in Suzhou

markets and pandas

and cormorants too

lacquerware silk

acrobats motorcyles

museums and gardens

flowers and ponds

temples and factories

and thousands of

the national bird

the construction crane

are everywhere.

Curious white masks

more and more we see

worn on bikes in shops

in cars on buses

an epidemic – SARS

Meanwhile

the USA invades Iraq

no weapons are found

bloody pictures posted

on walls, fences, bus stops

of Iraqi children.

Chinese express sympathy

for us poor Americans

our country is at war.

I wear my peace symbol

on my lapel as I travel.

Anxiety

returning home

will they let me return?

will SARS close US borders?

is peace treasonous?

But

all they ask is

did I have contact with

anyone, anyone with SARS?

and I have to remove

my shoes

pass through x-rays

and my bag is searched.

I’m home.

O’Maolchaithaigh 2008, ’09

Trippin’ Through the ’70s – Chapter Eight

Sean had tried “acid” himself once, under different conditions, with different results.  He had moved into a house with several other guys including Jeff, the young, long-haired landlord. The landlord was from New York City, and played a keyboard for parties and such around town. He had a friend in New York who made the stuff.  Sean bought two tabs from Jeff and had one tested by a lab, a free lab set up for just that purpose.  The lab tested street drugs to prevent people from being poisoned.  Pushers are such creepy people.  They’ll use strychnine to imitate LSD, since it has hallucinogenic properties.  They’ll even put animal tranquilizers in bags of oregano or cheap weed, and sell it as “Acapulco Gold”, and shit like that.  Most often, people found that all they’d gotten in place of acid was powdered sugar and methamphetamine – “speed” – deadly stuff, and highly addictive.
Sean’s tab turned out to be really pure LSD-25, the real deal, so he tried it.  He’d heard all the hype about visions and suicides, but Lenny’s friend David had insisted that the pure stuff wouldn’t hurt anyone. Sean had researched the journals in the Hopkins Medical library, and that appeared to be true.  The pure, unadulterated drug got pissed out of one’s system in short order.  He wanted to see if this drug could really unlock his subconscious mind.  At first, he had been disappointed.  He could make images in a black-light poster on his wall appear to move, but there were no colored lights, no hallucinations of things that weren’t there.  I think I see it now; most of this is hype. People see what they expect to see, he thought. This says so much about expectations, and self-delusion, he had pondered, thinking he understood a lot more about the world. Suddenly he had noticed that he was thinking a lot, non-stop.  All at once, he seemed to be aware of different levels of thought.  He was thinking about the Clinic, about friends, family, and school, all at the same time.  He felt detached, felt as if he was observing his thoughts from a distance.  This is interesting, he had thought.  I wonder why people jump out of windows?  Oh, yeah.  The effects of LSD are like temporary insanity.  So this is what it feels like to be insane. He felt like he was on the edge, that he could go either way – back to normalcy, or over the edge, trapped in his own thoughts. Insanity was actually attractive, in a sense.  One could give up responsibility for one’s self, and the rest of the world could go hang.  He got a phone call.  “Sean, it’s for you,” Jeff yelled up the stairs.  It was Sean’s brother Pat, a military cop home from Germany.    Sean couldn’t figure out why Pat would call, especially now. He was having a hard time following the conversation.  Pat said he just wanted to say hi.  That was unusual, in fact, it had never occurred to either of them to call each other before.  Sean told Pat he was tripping.  Pat had been involved with drugs himself, and Sean had always suspected that the drugs Pat picked up readily in Baltimore to sell in rural Pennsylvania had been the trouble that had pushed him into military service.  He expected Pat to congratulate him for trying it, that they’d have something in common now.  However, Pat said, “Well you know, I don’t do that stuff anymore.  I gave all that up in the army.  In fact, I once busted my whole platoon for drugs.”  Weird. Who is this guy? Sean wondered.  “Well, you take it easy.  I was just calling to say hi.”  Sean was really puzzled now.  If was as if he had called on cue.  He couldn’t have known; I didn’t tell anyone I was going to do this.  The drug lab? Nah. The deal with the lab ran like this: you wrote down the serial number on a dollar bill, and gave it to them with whatever drug you wanted tested.  That was the only way to get people to trust the service.  Then you called the lab later on and gave them the serial number.  Sean had called from the Free Clinic. They couldn’t have traced the call to me, he thought.  But that guy he spoke with, he had told Sean that the LSD was pure, more pure in fact, than anything he’d seen there. “Can you get some more?” the lab guy wanted to know.  “Sean said, No. I don’t think that would be a good idea, and had hung up. It had made him nervous then, and his mind spun wildly now.  Could they have a tap on the Clinic’s phone, traced the call to me, called my parents, and they’d called Pat?” Conspiracy theories and paranoia are common to drug users.
Sean was really getting tired of this already.  He wanted to go to sleep, but couldn’t.  He wandered around the house, looking at everything.  He tried to study, but couldn’t concentrate.  He’d think about the texture of his skin, and marvel at its complexity.  He’d watch the patterns of light shift in the house.  He’d feel lonely, then afraid.  He’d feel nothing.  In the light of dawn he went outside to watch the rain falling, feeling it thud against his eyeballs. Later on he marveled at the drops of water hanging onto each blade of grass.  So much life in each drop of water!  But, he’d had enough.  When Jeff finally woke up, he asked him to help.  Jeff gave him a mega-dose of  vitamin B6, which didn’t help.  It felt as if every cell in Sean’s body was on fire, and even a cold shower felt warm on his skin, but eventually he managed to fall asleep after the drug ran its course.
Well, anyway, that was why he knew that the woman in the Clinic that night was going to be alright.  Most nights at the Clinic, things were pretty routine. It felt good to work there.  Sean had spent two years buried in the physics lab, literally, for it was underground with no windows, few visitors, and no other regular employees.  Contact with new people and new ideas was exciting.
One night, he was talking with a patient, Mary, who had brought a stack of the Black Panther Party’s newspapers with her.  The Panthers, after the initial organization of the Clinic, had dropped out.  They had decided to work alone, in the poorest, not coincidentally, blackest section of the city.  He argued with Mary about the politics of violence that the Panthers represented.
“How can we become a peaceful society using violence?  Would anything change if everyone had a gun?  How could we defeat the government if it came to a real contest anyway?”
“You don’t understand.  The police shoot and kill people in the Black community every day.  They must be able to defend themselves.”
“But that still won’t change racism.”
“Sean, what I think you should do is come to a study group.”

And what a strange bunch that study group turned out to be!  A research technician, a taxi-driver on the fringes of the Mafia, the wife of the Panther’s lawyer, an ex-prostitute who still stripped on Baltimore’s infamous “Block” to help support her family, a former cheerleader and debutante, and Ron, a neighborhood guy, and the only Panther in the group.  They studied the ideology of the Panthers, a strategy of struggle based on the writings of China’s Mao Zedong.  Sean learned of the Panther’s free breakfast and school for ghetto kids.  The Panthers were also involved in trying to coax irresponsible absentee landlords into maintaining and repairing their rat infested buildings.  Additionally, flaking lead paint was being eaten by children – they had a campaign going to eliminate lead paint and have the houses repainted.   The group learned of Mao’s “Long March” across China and his efforts to modernize a backward country.  Mao had wanted to organize the peasants, the poorest people, to improve their own lives, and such also was the philosophy of the Panthers.  One day the study group was interrupted by a loud banging on the door.  “Police.  Open up.”  They swarmed in like (dare I say it?) loose hogs.  They dumped drawers, turned beds over, searched everyone, and refused to answer questions.  They took Ron.  “It’s not unusual,” Mary told Sean, “Happens all the time.”
Ron got out later, although they never found out what the cops had been looking for or why they took him in.
“We were lucky,” Mary said, “Sometimes they don’t bother to knock, they break the door down and come in shooting.  A house down the street got raided once and the pigs shot two people.  Later they said that they had made a mistake.”
“But didn’t the cops do anything for them?”
“They didn’t even offer to pay for the damages.”
“I don’t believe the police would do that.  How could they get away with it?”
“Sean, you’re too smart to be so naïve.  This is racism.  This is how it affects people here.  Many of the police are out-and-out racists.  A black man’s life is nothing to them.”
Well, the study group would not be just idle armchair philosophers.  They picketed jails in support of striking prisoners.  Only their visible presence prevented retaliations against the strikers.  “The guards must go.  The guards must go.  Stop racist attacks.  Stop racist beatings,” and so on.
They attended trials and Sean saw, first hand, how poor people were railroaded into jail.  Police crimes went unpunished, white-collar criminals stole thousands and were given petty fines, but a poor man who stole $28.75 with a gun was jailed for twenty years. 

Then came the end for the Panthers in Baltimore.  As a group, they were accused of the murder of a police informer.  Sean joined a legal study group to help with the defense, and watched those trials.  Those trials were the worst mockery of justice he’d seen.  The paid witnesses would contradict not only each other, but themselves.  Everyone was finally acquitted of the murder, but one man was convicted of conspiracy, for driving the car that was supposed to have taken the victim to the park where his body was found.  That man eventually became the first inmate in the Baltimore City jail ever to graduate from college while in prison.
The study group kept going.  Sean had  a vision: the Vietnamese, Chinese, South Africans, Palestinians, Blacks and other working people of the world and the U.S. would unite in common struggle; they were in fact already beginning to do so.  Freed of their daily struggle to survive, The Wretched of the Earth, as Franz Fanon of Africa put it, could rapidly take control of their own lives, just as Sean had been learning that people could take control of their own health.
In reality, in the U.S., few people were willing to talk, much less walk, the same direction.  People still talked about racism, injustice, poverty, and war as if they were campaign slogans.  Not much seemed to really be “a changing”, after all.
Panthers all over the country were attacked in their headquarters by police who always claimed that they were “responding to an unprovoked attack.”
The War ground on.  “Dick Nixon before he dicks you,” was a popular slogan.  Nevertheless, Richard “I am not a crook” Nixon used the promise of ending the War to win election for a second term.  His “secret plan” had meant escalation: the mining of Haiphong Harbor, the carpet bombing of Vietnamese cities and farmlands, and illegal “incursions” into Cambodia and Laos.

There was only one thing to do, Sean believed,  Destroy the U.S. government, the war machine, and all entrenched institutions that perpetuated war, human indignity, and destruction of our Earth.  But that was not only improbable, but stupid.  Even if such a thing could be brought to pass, what would emerge?  How could petty dictators be prevented from setting up local kingdoms?  How would we insure the quality of life that we hoped would be everyone’s birthright?  No, that was not a solution. As much as he hated to admit it, Sean knew governments were necessary just to maintain civilization and protect everyone’s rights.  Obviously the world’s present institutions are inadequate to prevent war, injustice and poverty, but what would replace them?  And how?  I can’t see a solution.  No one is ready to agree on how a better society would function.  Sure, no racism, sexism, or nationalism.  No war or poverty or injustice.  That was the goal only.  How could it be brought about and maintained?
In the meantime, until solutions could be found, Sean decided, I will disagree, I will protest, and I would keep on keeping on at the People’s Free Medical Clinic.  That place is my only real hope for the future.  I will defend it against all attack.

Sean really enjoyed decision making at the Clinic. Once a month they all ate together, doctors, nurses, staff volunteers, and neighbors.  Everyone had a say in policy making, but first they shared their potato salads, rice, squash, homemade bread, casseroles, beans, meatloaf, Quiche, or funny little Swedish meatballs.
When you share your food, and your stomach’s full, most disagreements seem petty.  Arguments among friends have resolutions.  They found funding, doctors and supplies.  Patients found them.  They made their presence and their ideals known.  Word got around the city.  The Women’s Center, separate but connected to the Clinic – physically and politically – had founded a city-wide network of consciousness raising groups, and published a widely read magazine: Women: A Journal of Liberation, dealing with alternative life styles, social change, and sexual politics.
They had contacts in all the hospitals.  Sean found that he could make referrals with every assurance that people could get the treatment and support that they needed.  Some patients joined the Clinic staff, and others joined them on buses to demonstrations.
On a practical level, the clinic staff went door-to-door, asking for monthly pledges of fifty cents or a dollar to maintain the Clinic and pay the rent.  It worked.   But the greater part of society seemed unchangeable to Sean.  What could really be done to revolutionize the way our country, and the world, operated? That question would follow him everywhere he went, from Baltimore to North Dakota to Oklahoma to Arizona to Florida and about thirty-five other states in the nation.  He was anxious to see and learn more about how people were living and coping in the rest of the country.  But where to go and how?  My part-time job and student loans barely keep me alive.  I didn’t want to quit school, now that I’m finally a full-time student, and I would certainly need money to travel.  I’d tried hitchhiking to Chicago once.  What a disaster.  You could kill a whole day just waiting for a ride.

He remembered why he’d gone to Chicago.  He’d met a woman at the Clinic once, Marilyn Gans. She was pretty and friendly.  She volunteered at the clinic, and wrote for Women.  After a dinner and meeting at her apartment for the patient advocates, Sean had stayed to help her clean up, and they fell to talking until the storm hit.  Baltimore had suddenly been hit with another one of the tail ends of a hurricane, and flood waters had risen quickly around the city.  The streets were all overflowing with water, and the emergency warnings took over all broadcasts on radio and TV.  Everyone was ordered to stay off the streets and indoors.  Sean and Marilyn just stared at her TV in disbelief.  Sean had seen bad storms before, but never heard warnings like this.  Marilyn had told him to stay the night, so he did. She had made a bed for him on the living room floor with sheets and blankets.  “You’ll have to stay in here, OK,” she asked. “Can I trust you?” she wanted to know.  Sean promised.  He had no intention of getting into trouble with the clinic or the Women’s center.  She said “goodnight” to him from her bedroom. Sean was in love again.  He liked her a lot, even though he hadn’t known her before that night. He enjoyed talking with her, liked the way she looked.  He said, “Goodnight Marilyn”.  But then, he said, “I wish we could sleep together.”  There was no reply, and Sean wasn’t expecting one.  He turned on his side, ready to sleep.  They had stayed up for hours, watching the storm sweep down the streets, and talked, and talked.  Sean was dead tired.  Suddenly, Marilyn was there, under the blanket next to him on the floor. Sean was excited.  She said, “Let’s just hold each other, OK?” So that was what they did. Sean noticed she had a short top on and cotton panties.  His erection felt painfully unused.
Marilyn contacted Sean a few days later, asked him to help her take a group of kids on a field trip.  She was a teacher, and Sean had told her how much he liked being around kids, how much he missed his brothers and sisters.  But Marilyn was polite and reserved with Sean.  He didn’t know how to pursue this relationship.  The constant talk around the clinic about Women’s liberation, and sex roles, and male domination had confused him.  He held back, waited to hear from her again, but she went back to Chicago when the school year ended.  She told him to come visit.  That was why he had gone to Chicago, even though he had little money.
He had finally started walking, hitchhiking at first, through Maryland and a bit of Pennsylvania. When he arrived in Ohio, he found himself stuck.  All around, on the concrete and guard rails of this huge intersection of highways were written things like, “This place sucks! No rides! Been here three days!” etc.  He was there an entire day.  He struck up a conversation with a younger guy who showed up.  Bill was an ex-marine from Iowa City; he said he had lied about his age to get in early when he was 17.  They read the graffiti, decided it was hopeless, and  then walked across the entire state of Ohio.  Bill had all his belongings in a paper bag.  He said he’d had a fight with his wife and had just thrown stuff in a bag and walked out one day.  He was on his way home now.  He was packing a huge bottle of black pills.  Sean asked him about those.  “Oh, they’re not speed,” Bill said, “These are something called Texedrine, with a T, and they’re not harmful.”  Sean passed on those at first. He and Bill walked into a diner one night and drank all the free coffee they could get.  When the waitress stopped being friendly they left the diner and tried to sleep around back, but they were too wired from the coffee. They decided to just keep walking, but Sean was losing steam after a while, so he took some of Bill’s pills.  After finally passing the Ohio state line into Indiana, they were picked up by a trucker who told them a grisly story about dead long-haired hitchhikers being found along the highway. He said they had been castrated.  The trucker let them off in front of a barber shop. Bill had a buzz cut, but Sean had long since grown his hair long, and wore a big, green, floppy hat. He’d realized that his long hair was a factor in not getting rides, so he had tucked it up inside the hat. Inside the truck cab he had taken off his hat and exposed the long hair.
They walked through cornfields all day and into the night. They were shot at outside of Gary, Indiana, as they walked along a dark road past a never-ending cornfield.  Sean had been walking behind Bill.  Bill stuck his thumb out to try for a ride when they noticed lights coming up behind them.  The response was a loud explosion that lit up the inside of a VW beetle, which had slowed down, and Sean saw a streak of light bisect the space between him and Bill.  The VW sped off as fast as one of those could go.  They kept walking until they were exhausted and slept right on the shoulder.  A sheriff woke them before dawn; wanted to know what they were doing, said they couldn’t sleep there.  They had to keep walking.   Eventually, Bill took the road for Iowa City, and Sean made it to Chicago.
Marilyn invited him to stay with her at her parent’s home.  They fed him three different kinds of meat at the first meal he had with them.  Marilyn said that her parents had been in a concentration camp, and that afterwards they had developed this need to have tons of food available all the time.  Both were now overweight, but Marilyn was thin.  Sean went to a theater group she was involved with, and learned to play basic percussion, as part of an effort to involve people in music and theater.  She asked Sean to stay in Chicago, but she wouldn’t kiss him, wouldn’t sleep with him.  She told him he could get a job there.  Sean didn’t want to live in Chicago.  He still liked Baltimore, “What would I do here?” he asked her.  She told him he could probably get a job in a record store she knew about.  Sean didn’t want to do that. After that, Marilyn told Sean she had things to do, so she couldn’t show him around the city anymore, but she had a friend, Amy, who could.  Amy kept asking him what his intentions were with Marilyn, and did he want to come back to her place. Sean realized that Marilyn was dumping him, and had set him up with this girlfriend of hers.  When he saw her again, Marilyn had wanted to know, “So, how’d you get along with Amy?”  It was clear to Sean what was what.  Sean counted out his remaining money, and found out he could afford to take the train home to Baltimore.  Marilyn drove him to the train station, and asked him one more time if he’d stay and get a job there, but Sean said no.  They promised to write.

Sean wasn’t about to try hitchhiking again, especially without a specific destination in mind.

 

Letter to the Governor and the general public about life at UNM

April 28, 2008

I see where things are going, and I’m not real happy about it, but they’re going to go where they go. I’m right in the middle of negotiations with my union local and the University. We’re not a typical sort of trade union; hell, most jobs in the USA aren’t trades anymore. Most jobs are turning into service jobs of one kind or another. A lot of our people are administrative assistants, (which is the new title for secretaries everywhere), or advisers or other desk jockeys. We live and work in a college town with a military base and a weapons lab and a big University. Even Enron has a chip plant nearby. The Sandia (Watermelon) and Manzano (Apple) Mountains are full of nuclear missiles. The anti-war people keep trying to get the city council to force the government to admit that the missiles are there, and that they are a target and hazard that we should be prepared for. There is the hope that we can get rid of those someday.

Our local is at the University.  Education is our mission, and every department has a mission statement, just like the corporations and their imitators all over the country. Useless things, mission statements. Hardly anyone reads ‘em, and they don’t reflect anything except the way the grossly overpaid administrators felt the day of the retreat when they wrote ‘em.

We do our jobs. We put up with asinine supervisors and managers who have or are working on their business degrees, and hope to make something more of themselves. They squeeze staff, push ‘em around, and then move on to their next position, a step up somewhere, with a fuller resume, and a recommendation or two. We remain here, and try to keep our jobs. Myself, I work in a DNA research lab, mostly running robot-like machines that manipulate DNA. It’s a living. I’m the President of the local, for the last four years, and I’m really tired of negotiations. We’ve done well for the staff here. We have to lobby the State every year for our raises, insurance and health benefits, because they control the purse strings. Negotiations are entirely dependent on what was appropriated before we even set negotiation ground rules, but we go through the motions anyway. We dick around with the contract every year, trying to improve on protections for staff, and make management more accountable. Sometimes we win a little, sometimes it’s a draw. But, every year the contract gets a little better, and we lose more members.

Everyone we represent by law isn’t a member, and they don’t have to be, to be protected by the contract or get the raise we negotiate. In fact, it’s rare that there’s much difference between the benefits of being a dues-paying member and a free rider. Usually, for staff we cover, it’s a clean shot at a certain raise percentage, while people outside of our representation get whatever their supervisors decide out of what funds are available, which can vary quite a bit.

So, one of our members has a problem with the way she was treated. She was getting pushed around and we fought back. She got the promotion she deserved, but a lousy performance review. These reviews don’t mean a whole lot, but it bothers people because they worry about the reviews being used against them. In this member’s case, she is being retaliated against for fighting for herself. She didn’t like her review, but we can respond to ratings and comments with our own comments before signing the damn things. I told her to go ahead and sign hers, and make all the comments she wanted. Her bosses sent the thing to the personnel department, excuse me, Human Resources department, and they sent it back because it was incomplete.

This is damn boring stuff, ain’t it?

Anywho, once it came back, the review was changed, comments were added, and then it was sent back to be put in her permanent record, and all of this after it had already been signed. Illegal, and even against University policy. Human Resources did nothing, and just assumed that the correct version is in this woman’s file, even though she told them it wasn’t. It seems a small matter. However, a contract is a contract, and just as our union contract has the force of law behind it, so does any other contract made in this country, or at least it used to. When you sign a document, it doesn’t get changed afterwards, or it’s no longer an accurate or legal document. Everything is on our side in this. Today, a group of three union officers went to HR to see the personnel files and were refused. HR has a 24-hour rule about access, and they didn’t know that, so they were pissed off. So far, they are no repercussions to the small-scale confrontation, but, like I said earlier, I have a bad sense about where this is going. We have already made it clear this could be a legal matter. The union officers, who are also the negotiating team, are pissed off, and HR is wanting to meet. Meanwhile we have to meet the same people in negotiations in a couple more days.

I’m so tired of all this. Important rights are at stake, but someone is going to lose a job here, maybe even me. I’m so tired of my job, and I seem to have few reasons to even stay around here. I wanted to retire in a few years, and try writing, or part-time work at least. Getting divorced took away my chance at retirement. It wasn’t my idea, but my ex got the house. I get to keep my retirement income if I ever retire, but it won’t be enough to buy a house, and I’m too old to take out a long-term mortgage anyway. My retirement income won’t even be enough to afford a nice place to live, so at the moment, I have no idea what kind of future to look for.

It’s so easy to push people around, even at what the right-wing nuts like to call a liberal university. There are good people here, and good ideas, but the place is being run as a business, and the management of the University see our union as an outside business muscling in on their territory. There is certainly a territorial fight over turf involved in negotiations every year. We feel like we win a little, but then we hear of managers pushing people around, telling them to quit if they don’t like it, and getting rid of people who actually understand how the ever-changing rules and regulations work. We have a new financial system that took years to put into place and tweak, and it forces people to conform to it, instead of being just a useful tool. The bureaucratic mind loves it, since they expect everything to fit under its umbrella, but there’s always something we can’t do, or must do because of the accounting software structure. Most of the admin assistants have been turned into part-time accountants, and are given purchasing cards that spell the end of their jobs if lost or not properly accounted for, even if no wrong doing occurs. It’s a funny place.

Our Governor gets to appoint the Regents, a medieval nomenclature for the political appointees who run this place. He ran for President of the United States. He knows a lot about international politics and is a skilled negotiator, but, really, he does not know what goes on at this university, except that tuition for students has to keep going up.

03/13/09 UPDATE: UNM’s faculty voted no confidence in UNM President Schmidly, Executive Vice President David Harris, and President of the Board of Regents Jamie Koch.  We’re still waiting to see what happens, as a new audit was also requested, but Governor Richardson visited campus and met with faculty.  Shortly afterwards, Jamie Koch stepped down as President of the Board.    Our Legislature is still in session, so we have yet to see if they will confirm Koch’s seat on the Board.  They still need to confirm the new President of the Board.  Meanwhile, the Board of Regents can’t meet, and UNM seems no worse for that.  Harris needs to go too.

THE DAY I TURNED 50: Dad, a Cat, & Death

THE DAY I TURNED 50

I awoke on my birthday
The day I turned 50
Cat asleep under the bed
I saw my father
Standing in the corner
Next to the open closet
I was surprised.
He was years dead.
I called to him
Asked him how he’d been
What he’d been doing
He smiled at me
The old superior smirk
He didn’t speak
Moved away quickly
Watching me watching him
Passing by.

I woke up again
Staring at the empty corner
The open closet door.
Under the bed the cat stirred.

I dreamt one morning
I held my cat on my lap
He’s dead too
Died that same month
The month I turned 50
I felt his purring weight
Knew he was dead
Two feet under
I spoke softly to him
Glad to see him
Felt the muscles rippling
Under striped orange fur.
He spoke to me
Said he was fine
The only thing was
He wished he’d lived
In the rain forest.
I didn’t think this strange
Even though his eyes
His eyes were blind
At least he had eyes now
They’d disappeared that day
That day he slept
On the bathroom floor
Trying to get up
His eyes were gunked shut
I tried to clean those eyes
But they were gone.
He went back to sleep
I held him felt him
Stroked him missed him.

He used to be my father’s cat.

Motorcycles and Old Trucks Are Like Cream and Sugar

I ride my bike to work every day, or, I should say, I used to ride it every day until it wouldn’t start anymore. I jumped it from a car battery – wouldn’t turn over. I checked fuses, charged the battery, checked the fuel line, and the spark plugs. Everything seems good, but it won’t start; it just grinds and wears the battery down, even the jumper battery. I replaced the starter solenoid – no luck. I jumped the solenoid across the terminals and the bike still just grinds, over and over, but real fast. Now it seems the starter button is dead too. I finally give up. I decide to take it to the best repairman in town. I have to schedule an appointment, and they squeeze me in as a favor, since I want to ride in the Ride for Kids that benefits pediatric brain tumor research and treatment and provides scholarships for the kids too. My step daughter went with me last year, and after all she went through with her brain tumor, I really look forward to her company.

I called to verify my appointment, but before I did, I had to make sure I’d have a truck to use. My friend Mark always has his good old Dodge, and after helping him build his house, he always lets me borrow it anytime I need it. He’s like that anyway. He’d lend anyone anything, even money, although his newest wife ameliorates that a bit, I think. I called him, and left a message on his cell phone, and I wasn’t expecting a quick reply, as he’s often busy or traveling. Amazingly, he called back in 20 minutes or so, from his plane. He had just turned his phone back on and got my message. Good timing. He was off to speak somewhere. I told him what I needed, and he apologized for being out of town, and that the truck was not available – it was at the airport. I was prepared to go get it, pay for it, and put it back before he returned, but he said, “But! There is another option!” (He often speaks in exclamation points, and loudly, as he is hard of hearing these days.) He said he had just bought another old truck, a ’59 Ford. It was in the field behind his house. “It’s a little tricky,” he said. I might have to spray the carburetor in order to get it to start. He had a can of spray on the seat, and the key was in the ignition.

So, OK. I come home, eat, and head over to his place. I leave my car inside his yard, and head for the field. It has been raining. The field is muddy. I traipse though the mud. I close the tailgate, noting that the bed is outlined in leftover manure, so I know what he uses it for. It doesn’t start right off. I spray into the air intake, several short bursts, as it says on the can. I try again – it fires right up! It is a very old looking, beat-up truck. However, it has all its windows, and they aren’t even cracked, which is damn good, because I can’t get stopped for anything, as the truck isn’t registered yet. The seat is high. It is narrower than the original, and welded in place in the center of the floor, so I can’t move it up, and it’s a little short on the ends. It reminds me a lot of the ’51 Dodge-post-office-parcel-post truck I used to drive. This one has four speeds instead of three, but in the darkness I can’t tell. The lights come on, but go off if I turn the knob too far. I don’t have instrument lights, which is why I can’t tell right off how many gears the truck has. I think it has four gears, but I can’t find fourth. I put in the gear where first was in my ’51, and head out, shifting into what I think are second and third. At the first stop the engine revs really high. I hit the gas and it dies. I spray the intake again, and it restarts. Off I go down the road. Playing with the light switch, I notice that I can get the instrument lights on, but it’s a delicate balance between having all lights, having only headlights, or having only instrument lights.

At every stop the engine races like the timing must be way the hell up, or the carburetor wildly adjusted to keep it running. It takes a while to understand what’s going on. I finally get a rhythm going for stopping: push the clutch in, and tap the gas before braking. I make it home in one piece, without the engine dying again.

In the morning I move the truck around (after spraying the air intake) and lay a board from a small grassy hillock onto the bed. The bike is heavy, and simply pushing it up a ramp isn’t going to be easy. I notice that I have put the truck in second gear, where I thought first was. It is the simple H pattern, but my tired brain and bad memory forgot all about that. I think it starts alright in second because it revs so fast. I push the bike up onto the grass and run towards the truck, but a neighbor stops to help and we push it on fairly easily. I’m wired on coffee, because I thought it would be a major effort by myself. I tie the bike down, noticing, in the light of day, all the colors. One door is a turquoise green, a fender is pink. The roof of the cab is painted white with black, zebra-like stripes. The rest of the truck is a faded pale blue, where it isn’t rusted through. The moistened manure smells really fine. I’m surprised my neighbors didn’t torch it the minute they saw it in the parking lot.

The truck fires right up this time and runs much the same, except after a few miles there is a popping noise from the accelerator, and it is suddenly unstuck, and I don’t have to hit it anymore to get it unstuck. Linkage? Anyway, it runs fine, but I try not to stop with the bike in the back. When I see the sign for the motorcycle shop, it is beautiful. I have never been so happy to arrive there. it takes three of us to get the bike down, and I abandon it there. Carl, the best bike mechanic in the world, chats a bit. I tell him how I am hoping to take my step daughter on the ride in ten days, and how happy I am that she is healthy again. Carl tells me about his wife Teresa, who had three surgeries on her ovaries, and how one operation left her bleeding internally, but she is much better now. His mother has also been operated on, and had her hips replaced. It is early in the shop. No one else has come in yet, and he is relaxed and calm. Later, people will be lined up, and the phone will not stop ringing all day. It rings now once, and he picks it up, but it is a fax coming in. I tell him how busy I am these days, with little time to work on the bike, and he tells me how busy his life is. He is in his church choir, and also plays drums for the church’s band, so he is often practicing. My step-daughter is in a similar sort of church herself. I am not religious, thank god.

A couple men show up outside the door, so I head out. I notice the CD on the truck seat. It is my Honda Magna 1993-1997 manual. I run it back inside to give to Carl, but he has already gone back into the shop. The men are explaining what they need to Carl’s substitute helper. I don’t know her, but with Teresa out, someone has to be up front to order parts and help customers. I hear her tell them that the earliest possible day she can fit them in is a month and ten days away! I am a very, very lucky man.

What kind of life would I have without motorcycles and old trucks?  It would be like drinking black coffee all the time just for the caffeine, without enjoying the drink.

Keratoses & Barnacles & Young Pretty Doctors

Actually, to be specific, Seborrheic Keratoses (seb-o-REE-ick Ker-ah-TOE-sees).

I found this thing on my ass, of all places. It was a mostly round, raised area, with a brown circle, almost like a cell nucleus off to one side, and the rest was red. I went to see a doctor over a month ago, and got referred to a dermatologist. The doc said it wasn’t cancer, so I guess that’s why there was no big rush. Of course, it’s also because the University is trying out this new managed care thing, and rather than have an employee stop by the employee health clinic and get seen right away, I guess it’s better to make appointments, and wait for those to come around, if I can remember to even go. But, I’m straying from the story here.

So the dermatologist, over a month later, takes a look at it, and she says right off what it is. I’ve got a nice pamphlet explaining it all. So, nobody really knows why these things occur, but they’re not cancerous, and they’re not from sun exposure. That is pretty obvious, especially if you saw how white my ass is. I’ve never had sun shining on that part of my anatomy for very long. Here’s the salient point from the brochure: “…almost everybody will eventually develop at least of few of these growths. They are sometimes referred to as barnacles of old age.” How nice. “They become more common and more numerous with advancing age,” which is what my doc kept trying to say, without ever mentioning age. She referred to it “when as we get wiser” and things like that, trying to be funny, I guess. I said, “You mean, as we get older and fatter?” She didn’t want to agree with that.

Anyway, my barnacle is irritated, probably by having my jeans rubbing against it all the time. Even though it isn’t dangerous to have one, these barnacles can itch or bleed, so they are often removed (among those of us with health insurance). Liquid nitrogen to the rescue! So I ended up having my ass frozen by Dr. Kim, a pretty young doctor. Not so bad.

Meanwhile, there are also actinic keratoses. The first doctor I went to noticed them on my forehead. They are little tiny hard bumps; they feel like a piece of sand glued to my forehead, and I’m always scratching them off. These I hadn’t given much thought to. I had felt them on my scalp before, and asked another doctor about them, but he tried to tell me they were just sand, and only after bugging him about it did he finally admit they were probably keratoses, which can be pre-cancerous. He dismissed it as insignificant and harmless, so I never worried about it. Hey, I’m getting old anyway, so who cares? Long story short, these are also called solar keratoses, because they are found on fair-skinned people who have had significant sun exposure; they are considered the earliest stage in the development of skin cancer (10% do become actual cancers).   How nice.

Again, treatment #1 is freeze ‘em right off with liquid nitrogen. That was more fun. However, it’s likely I have more, and will continue to develop more around my forehead and slowly receding hairline, so rather than make regular trips to have my face and scalp spot-frozen the rest of my life (the doc gives me another 30 years), there are other methods. One is a topical chemotherapy lotion that really reddens the skin for awhile ( that’ll look really nice all over my forehead), and the other is another cream that promotes an immune-type of response (also possibly creating red blotches all over my forehead) for a much longer time. I have a prescription for that, so once these frozen ones fall off, I will start using that. After three months: fours weeks of treatment, four none, four treatment, I should be through with these little things.  The odd thing: the cream, Aldara, is also used for genital warts and actual skin cancers (basal cell carcinomas).  In my incarnation as a cancer lab worker, I used to give skin cancer to rats, then treat them with combinations of drugs and radiation, before those treatments were tried on terminal cancer patients.  Then I had to dissect them – skin cancer will eventually invade the entire body, organs, lungs, brains – not a pretty sight.

And, the moral of this story? Use sunscreen, especially when you’re young. The doc, the young pretty one, said I probably got these started when I was 18 or so. Actually, it was riding a bicycle around the country a few times in my 20s, but close enough. Never wore a hat much, and certainly never used sunscreen. Of course, my parents took us to the beach every summer as kids, and we always got sunburned, every single time. It wasn’t ’till I lived in Arizona for awhile, after bicycling in from the East Coast, and working outdoors there, that I ever had a sustainable tan of any kind. I told Dr. Kim that it was great: I was tanned and muscled for the first time in my life. She thought that was pretty funny, or wanted to me to think I was funny.

“Who’s that knocking on my door?” said the fair Young Maiden….”

Just call me Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

You should listen to or read the bawdy lyrics for Barnacle Bill the Sailor sometime.

You won’t believe it! (Barnacle Bill the Sailor song lyrics)

A much tamer version: Betty Boop Cartoon

UPDATE: 4/30/08. I’ve started treatment for the actinic keratoses. Weird!  The first morning after treatment I could see more of the little bumps under the skin, and they stay visible.  No reddening of the skin yet.  I did wake up with acid reflux.  Felt like acid in my throat.  Later on, I felt so tired I was like the walking dead.   Drank an extra coffee to get me through the day.  I was unusually talkative, and even more unrestrained in what I said to people than usual.  Suddenly, about 9pm last night, I felt like I woke up.  My mind was clear, and I felt happy.  I even smiled, for no reason at all.  Odd.

UPDATE: 08/14/08. Finished treatment last month, but one area still itches.  Every place I saw raised bumps and scabs that itched like crazy during treatment, but only that one area still itches every day.  Odd.  I learned that 10% of all actininc keratoses become skin cancer, so I do wonder.

Why is it?

Why is it that wrapping a long cord around something is extremely satisfying? Like an electrical cord around a power tool or vacuum cleaner? You wrap it in neat circles around and around, so it’ll stay together and unwrap easily. But, it irritates you when you want to use it and you have to just as slowly unwrap it? Seems to take forever. Why is that?

Why is it that you’ll clean up your car or bike thoroughly once in while, vacuuming, wiping, washing, polishing, but, not other things you use just as much? Like the toilet, the bedroom, the garage, the den? Why is that?

Why is it that your house has no odor until company is coming? Then you smell something rotten, something fishy, sour milk and dirty socks? Why is that?

Why is it that you remember to watch the lunar eclipse, and when you go out the moon is covered by storm clouds and you can’t see squat? Why is that?

Why is it, that, needing a new VCR, and debating the relative merits and popularity of Blu-ray over High Def -DVD, you buy the cheaper Panasonic HD-DVD player that plays every CD & DVD format in the world, except Blu-ray, but Panasonic drops the entire technology a couple months later, leaving the foreseeable future solely to Sony’s Blu-ray? Why is that?

Why is it that, early in every political race, the one candidate, out of a huge field of candidates, that you really like, who makes the most sense, who seems the most trustworthy, intelligent and visionary, is never one of the the two left to duke it out? Why do we always have to choose the lesser of two evils? What’s that all about?

Why do people make lists like this? Why is that?

Coffee, tea, coke or Nana?

I LIKE TO DRINK

coffee  (Costa Rican)

Good to the last drop

black tea (Lipton)

Made from tiny little tea leaves
needs sugar
raw (Hawaiian)

And I like cow juice too

2%, (Creamland)

hormone free

Now, whiskey,

whiskey is OK,

(Jameson’s 1780)

Triple distilled

Twice as smooth

but

nothing

nothing beats a Coca Cola

make it real

I like the way
it dissolves my teeth
removes stains
or cleans the toilet bowl
Now, That’s good stuff.

© O’Maolchathaigh 2008, 09, 10

Now for something really cool, listen to and watch Nana Mouskouri sing a blues classic: Black Coffee
Oh, yeah.

The Pool Game – Your Shot

Armored troop carriers rolled down the streets over deep tread marks in the soft blacktop. Tanks had preceded them. There were troops already bivouaced in Druid Hill Park. It wasn’t a town in Czechoslovakia, or Poland, or Afghanistan. It was Crabtown, grave-site of Edgar Allen Poe, birthplace of the United States’ national anthem, and headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. It was Bal’more, Mar’lan’. It was the time we call 1968. Martin Luther King had just been assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, and city officials had persuaded Governor Spiro Theodore Agnew to send in the National Guard. Houses and businesses had burned before, and fireman had been shot at before in the inner city, but troops occupying the city – this was new.
I thought Agnew was a good man, Mike was thinking while he rode the bus past his old high school, I never expected him to put Baltimore under martial law. The bus went east on North Avenue past Gay Street, where his parents had once lived, past boarded-up storefronts and burned-out buildings, where it connected to Belair Road, and a transfer took him to the hamburger place where he worked after school, near his parent’s home in the whiter northeast section.
I would’ve voted for him if I could’ve, he thought, seeing a billboard with the Governor’s bulldog face. Agnew had run against a man who wanted to keep black people out of white neighborhoods. Mike knew that wasn’t right. He was almost eighteen, but the voting age was twenty-one, and he didn’t like that. At least that racist Mahoney creep didn’t get elected. George P. was an Irish Catholic, the Democratic Party nominee for Governor in 1966. His campaign slogan was, “Your Home Is Your Castle; Protect It”. Mike went to school with blacks. Daniel had told Mike how hard it was for his parents to move into a white neighborhood. Mike had asked Daniel why so many blacks lived in slum neighborhoods if they could afford Cadillacs and Continentals.
“You don’t understand, Mike,” Daniel told him, “We’ve got no place to move to.”
“Can’t you just move? I mean, isn’t discrimination illegal?”
“Mike, Mike, Mike. What do you think happens when a colored family looks at a house? The real estate man smiles, and the owner smiles, but nobody can be forced to sell their house. Don’t you see how it works?
“Yeah, Coonskin, I think I see. I never knew that was going on.”
“Damn it, I told you never to call me that.”
“I was just kidding, Daniel. It’s just your name that gets me. I watch Daniel Boone on TV, and that’s what Mingo calls him all the time.”
“It’s not funny.”
“I guess not. Sorry. It is kind of stupid. So that guy running for governor wants to keep things the way they are, huh?”
“Now you’re getting it. He says people should be able to sell their home to whoever they want. He’s talking about white people not having to sell their homes to black people.”
When Mike got home he watched the news. Governor Agnew said the troops would keep order. There was a curfew, and all citizens were “strongly urged” to stay home. Arsonists and looters would be shot on sight. By the time the ’68 Baltimore riots died down, six people had been killed, about 5,300 arrested and more than 5,500 armed troops were on patrol throughout the city.

A year later, Mike graduated, and moved into the inner city. He had a new job, one that he had seen posted on a bulletin board outside the guidance counselor’s office. He’d been so glad to get away from the hamburger stand, with their miserly wages and short hours, that he’d have done almost anything. As it was, he’d been hired by an old Physics professor at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, to run some old research equipment that used x-rays to measure molecular spacing in crystals.
Mike couldn’t get over how lucky he was, and Dr. Pshaw treated him like a grandson. Eventually, however, Mike came to believe that Pshaw was not quite the kindly old man he seemed. Pshaw was always coming up with strange ideas, like the time he said, “Mike, I think I know what to do about juvenile delinquency,” which intrigued Mike.
“What’s that, Dr. Pshaw?”
“It’s like this, I don’t think that young people should be treated like hardened criminals, and put in prison to learn, well, the sort of stuff they learn there from the other inmates.”
“Sure, I agree with you there. But what’s the alternative?”
“Well, this is my idea. It may not be a good one, but I think it would work.”
“Yeah?”
“I think that all offenders should be made to wear a jacket with the name of their crime on it. That way they would be recognized easily, and, more importantly, they wouldn’t be able to commit the same crime again.”
“But, wouldn’t they just take their jackets off?”
“No, that’s the beauty of it. If they don’t wear their jackets, they have to go to jail, so they’ll wear them.
Mike thought about it for a long time, hoping that Pshaw could be right, that there could be such simple answers. Of course, once someone took the jacket off, who would know? However, he respected Pshaw. He was the only role model in his life since he’d left home. But, Pshaw finally blew the kindly-old-man image one day, when Mike asked him, out of curiosity, about the other applicants for his job.
“Well, Mike,” he explained, in a grandfatherly voice, “there were a few others, as I believe I told you. But they were colored, you know?”
Mike just stared at him.
“It’s not that I’m prejudiced,” Pshaw elaborated,” it’s just that I grew up in the countryside, and well, there just weren’t any of them around when I was growing up.”
Mike was still staring, not sure that he was really hearing this. Dr. Pshaw seemed to be so honest, and fair, and, after all, a “scientist.” It had never occurred to Mike that a seeker of knowledge and truth could be biased. Mike was a little naive.
Pshaw continued: “I don’t know what it is, but I’m just too uncomfortable around those people.”
That was the most racist thing I ever heard, Mike thought, but he didn’t say anything. Now, he felt the guilt of the privileged. I thought I’d gotten this job on my own merits. Now it’s ruined, he complained silently.

Mike was sure that he, of course, was not racist, and he continued in that belief for several years, until now, until he found himself playing pool in a part of town where he was the only white guy around. Doesn’t bother me, he told himself, but he felt uncomfortable when he saw the bartender come out of the back room. The bartender owned the place. He was white.
Figures, Mike thought, that’s what Daniel used to tell me. He said that the reason people burned their own houses and looted the downtown stores was that the whites owned everything there. “The Whites,” he remembered him saying, “charge the people outrageous prices for things, and then they go home to their white suburbs, and take the money out of the community. The worst slums are owned by white slumlords, who don’t bother to fix anything.” Mike believed him, but he didn’t know what he could do about it.
“Anyone want to play?” he asked, glancing around the room at several people who weren’t.
“Sure. I’ll play. Rotation alright with you?” asked a middle aged man. Mike nodded, “I get so tired of playing Eight Ball, it’s too damn easy, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, you’re right, it’s too easy,” Mike said, but he thought, Oh shit, so he added, “but I don’t want to play for money, I just like to play, you know?”
“Yeah, OK. We’ll just play for the table.”
The older man moved around to shoot, and two balls fell in. “Your shot,” he said.
“Why’s that?” Mike asked.
“Because they were out of order.”
Oh, we’re playing serious, huh? Mike thought. He didn’t do too bad on that first game, but he still lost, and kept losing. He put a quarter in the slot. Bang, the balls fell into the hole when Mike pulled the slot back. He was filling up the rack, one ball here, two ball here, three ball here, when, Bang, there was a sound like a truck backfiring outside the pool hall. Heads lifted up from the tables.
Mike filled the rest of the rack quickly. Bang. Someone yelled, “There’s a shooting!” and everybody ran out of the hall, dropping cue sticks as they went. Mike watched everyone scramble outside in the seconds it took him to move his own feet. He left an empty building.

He stopped when he saw the gun directly in front of him. Bang. It fired again, at the ground. Mike looked down. He saw a young black guy, well dressed, bleeding. Bang. The body jerked. Mike saw his chest moving spasmodically. “He’s still alive!” Mike shouted. He looked at the man doing the shooting. The shooter, another black man, looked about fifty years old, and his face was contorted with hate. The man looked at Mike, seeing him for the first time.
“He deserved it,” he shouted at Mike.
People die that deserve to live, Mike wanted to say. Can you bring them back? he wanted to ask this guy with a gun. But he just stood there, watching the man’s face. Maybe it was Mike’s look, maybe it was the surprise of seeing him standing there, but the man suddenly lowered his gun, lowered his eyes, and turned and walked away, slowly.
People gathered around the wounded man. Mike stood apart, separate, but unequal. In a few minutes an ambulance silently turned the corner, followed by another police vehicle. Paramedics lifted the man onto a stretcher while the police stood by. They’ll probably question me, Mike thought, and want witnesses. What do I say? He looked at the crowd, at all the black faces, conscious of his own white skin. He couldn’t read their expressions. It looked more like no expressions at all to Mike. This is their neighborhood, what right do I have to be here? he thought. Do I tell the police what I saw? or is this none of my business? But he knew that he would never have hesitated anywhere else. He felt that the people standing there in that large crowd were different. He felt that their thoughts were alien to his way of thinking. No one looked at him, or entered the large open space around him. The ambulance door closed. The cops were writing something, but no one had spoken.
Maybe they already know all about it, Mike thought. Maybe the guy is going to be alright. Mike waited for them to come over, still unsure what to say. The cops walked around the ambulance, got back in their car, and escorted it away. Mike went back into the pool hall. What should I have done? he wondered. What should I have said? Why couldn’t I talk to that guy with the gun?
The hall was silent, but then small groups of men started quiet conversations along the walls. A ball cracked! against another.
“Do you want to finish the game?” Mike asked his partner.
“Uh, yeah. Might as well.”
They started playing, Mike’s partner sinking ball after ball, until he couldn’t find a shot. The remaining balls were crowded together on one side of the table, and he had tapped the cue ball lightly, so it banked off the side, but it rolled softly into a corner pocket. Mike retrieved it, lined it up on the center of the crowded balls, and shot. The crowded balls scattered, but the ivory cue ball leaped off the dark green table like it’d been shot. The other man laughed, retrieved the ball, and finished the game.
“Might as well call it a night,” Mike said, “Thanks for the games.” On the corner, the North Avenue bus hissed to a stop in front of him. The black driver stared at him, silently, as he dropped his coins into the box. He walked down the empty bus to a rear seat.

A New Bike

There I was: flying – nothing around me at all. Air – I could feel air under me. I knew I was gonna die. It’s a very comforting feeling – when you know you’re going to die. You just relax, you let it happen, you don’t fight it. I’ve heard that in such moments, your whole life flashes before your eyes. All I thought of was that I was going to be late. I thought about the classes I’d miss. Maybe I didn’t have that much time to think.
I don’t remember anything from the realization that I was airborne until I found myself lying on the ground, wondering where I was. I was lying down, I might be in bed, dreaming. I was outside. I wasn’t in a bed. I wanted to get up, find out. I realized I didn’t know who I was! Now that was scary! I remember telling myself (whoever I was): Just lay here. Relax. Let it come. It was like trying to remember something on the tip of my tongue: think of something else, don’t think about what it was I’d forgotten. I closed my eyes.
I remembered the construction site, the hole in the floor for the cellar steps to be added later, being pushed, falling, waking up to a headache, being carried across a field, blood on my face, getting stitches above my eye. I remembered standing outside the tree house, trying to cover a hole in the roof on a rainy day, slipping, falling, coming to with a terrible sharp pain in my arm, the visiting relatives in our house, the ride to the hospital, the plaster cast.
It came back to me. Pumping my bicycle down that hill, hell-bent for speed. Traffic. Lots of traffic, rush hour traffic. A whole lane to myself. I was keeping up, moving pretty fast. Warp factor seven, Scotty. Suddenly there is a car coming across the lane to my left, pointed right at me. A big white whale of a car. I see a panicked woman’s face through the windshield, her mouth open, her eyes wide. The car is trying to cut across traffic into a driveway I don’t know is there, to my right. It is practically on top of me as I stare into the woman’s eyes, then, I’m here.
So I knew where I was – in the street. Somehow I’d survived. I opened my eyes to a typical Baltimore grey-blue sky. I knew who I was, forgot that I’d forgotten.
Voices. There were people talking somewhere. “Now, don’t you worry about it none. I saw the whole thing,” I heard a man say – I could hear an eager concern in his voice – “It wasn’t your fault. I’ll testify in court for you.” Now, why would someone say that? I wondered. Someone else – I remember a deep gravelly voice – asked, “What about him?”
Another voice: “Him? He’s dead,” with a definite certainty in the tone. Nice!
It was time to get up. My leg muscles were strong from bicycling every day. I usually spring to my feet, like a cat, I imagined. So, I popped up off the street suddenly, wondering why I was alone, why no one had come to help me. Through the traffic I saw firemen sitting in lawn chairs in front of their station on the other side of the street. They weren’t looking my way. It was almost too much. No pain, but my left leg felt weak, wanting to give way, to not support my weight. I spun around on my right leg, and saw a car, the car, the white whale, an impressively long car, a Lincoln Continental Mark IV. It was empty, door open. There was a crowd on the sidewalk, maybe ten feet from me. Men, black and white, in denim overalls, with grey lunch boxes, brown bags and silver thermos bottles were arranged in a ragged circle around a white woman with her head hanging down. She was heavy, not fat, but matronly, motherly looking, with blond hair. Her dress looked expensive. As I started moving, she looked up in my direction, staring at me, her mouth open again, or was it still? I limped towards her. She practically jumped off the sidewalk and headed for me.
“Hear, sit in my car,” she insisted, softly, and gave me her arm for support. I let myself fall into the car, sinking into the plush rear seat.
She left me there. I looked around. It was an expensive car. Besides the softness of the seat, the colors were unusual. The interior and the seats were all the same light tan color. In 1973, it was the fanciest car I’d ever been in, except, perhaps, for the limousine I’d ridden in after my grandfather’s funeral mass. That had been some car. I remembered playing with the electric windows, thrilled to be in a black limousine, even one going to a cemetery. I was 12. I didn’t play with the windows this time. I was 22 years old. I knew the windows would be automatic. I knew the car was expensive, and I wondered if this woman would take me to the hospital. There was pain shooting up my leg from my foot now. The pain was increasing every moment. The woman’s face appeared at the door. “Are you all right?” she asked. There was a hint of worry, and fear, in her voice. “No,” I replied, “I’m not. My foot hurts. It hurts a lot. I don’t think I can walk on it.” She disappeared again. I laid back on the seat, trying to ease the pain. A fireman appeared. I told him about the pain. The swelling was very visible now. He told me I should go to a hospital, get it x-rayed. I said OK. He left for a couple of minutes, and came back with a piece of plastic. He put it on over my leg like a sleeve, and it filled with air, somehow. The pain seemed to lessen a bit. He asked me if I could walk. I said, “No, my foot hurts real bad.” He told me to lay back down. After a few minutes people grabbed me, helped me up and out of the belly of the beast, into an ambulance.
At the hospital, I lay on a gurney for quite some time. I thought accident victims would get immediate treatment, but I was wrong. First they ask questions: “Do you have insurance? Can you pay for this visit?” Then I get a clipboard with papers to sign. “Sign here, and here, and here.” Then nothing. The pain was intense, like the time I’d broken my arm. It worried me. No one seemed to care that I was in pain. Nearby, I heard children crying. I looked over. One of them had a head wound, another had a broken arm. They had to wait too. I did my best to be patient. When someone finally came to see me, I asked if I could get an x-ray. “Yes, as soon as it’s available.” The x-ray didn’t show a break. The doctor said the upper part of my foot was sprained. Nothing serious. I called my roommates to see if they could come get me. They were very nice. Don and Joan. I walked out of the hospital with an arm around each of their shoulders. I still couldn’t put any weight on the foot. I don’t know where they got the car, because none of us a had a car. Afterwards, the hospital sent me a bill, for x-rays and crutches. I couldn’t believe they billed me for crutches. No one had offered me crutches, or even mentioned ‘em.
I stopped by the Free Clinic where I volunteered and they found me a pair I could borrow. A lawyer called me. He called on behalf of the woman who had hit me. That was strange, as I’d given Mrs. Penn-Central-Fruit-Company my number, and had been expecting her to call. He acted like it might have been my fault, but that’s what lawyers do, I’ve since learned. He asked me how I was, and what had happened. I explained the situation. He said he’d call me back. When he did, he asked me what I wanted. I told him I’d lost my Schwinn ten-speed – it had been dragged across the lane under the car; one pedal arm had been bent backwards into the spokes, and the 16 gauge steel tubing was impossibly bent in a couple of places. I needed one to get to school. I told him I had a bill from the hospital. He said that his client had already offered to pay that – just send it to her. I told him she shouldn’t pay for the crutches on the bill, as they hadn’t given me any. He said he’d see about getting me another bike. I got a check. It was enough to buy a new ten-speed. I picked out a tough, German-made one, as soon as I was able to ride again. All my friends told me I should have sued the woman, but I had a new bike, and no expenses as a result of the accident, so I never considered doing that.

However, a couple months later, someone stole it from my girlfriend’s backyard, even as I was planning a cross-country bicycle trip. A friend of a friend at the Free Clinic came by with his Gitane bicycle, said I could use it. I told him I didn’t know when I’d be back. He said not to worry about it. It was a really nice bike. I’d had enough of Baltimore, of mildewed row-houses and cockroaches, of bumper-to-bumper traffic and pollution alerts. School was not working out very well. I was studying calculus, organic chemistry and physics, writing for the school newspaper, marching in demonstrations, going to meetings, and volunteering one night a week at the Free Clinic. My grades were terrible. I helped organize a teach-in at my school around the continuing war. We called a student strike, but few people boycotted classes. I missed a key genetics lab. A teaching assistant told me, “You’d better decide what’s important.” I figured everything was important, that I could do everything. The school finally decided for me, dismissing me on probation for six months. That was when I’d decided it was time to go. I’d quit my job to go to school full time. My savings were almost gone; the scholarship and loan were over. My girlfriend told me I could stay with her until I found work, but the idea didn’t thrill me. I didn’t want charity, and I didn’t know what kind of job I could find or when.

I traded my waterbed for a sleeping bag. Bought 5 pounds each of brown rice, soybeans, and granola. Threw in some alfalfa seeds for spouting too – needed greens. Took two pair of jeans, two long-sleeved shirts, some t-shirts, and some basic tools. I asked my mom to repay a loan I’d given her. She came by my girlfriend’s house and gave me part of it. I had about $80 altogether now. I headed west with my Gitane. A French racing bike. Gitane is French for gypsy. Bike (bique) means penis in French, I’d been told, so I wondered what I could do with my gypsy penis. I didn’t have much else.

The Seduction of Rosa

Charlie played with the gun, running his hands over it’s cool blue steel. He checked to see that it was loaded, and pointed it at Rosa’s fish tanks. Quite a mess that would make, he thought. He imagined the water pouring out through the holes, like blood pouring out of a body, splashing onto the floor, slowly seeping in. He pointed the gun at the sepia-toned picture of him and Rosa dressed in period clothes from the Civil War. He looked just like a bearded Union officer with the brass buttons on the uniform and the sword held across his body. Rosa was dressed in a long dark dress with lace on the ends of the sleeves, and a wide hat provided by the photo shop. She looked so happy. He put the gun barrel in his mouth. He put his finger on the trigger and slowly pulled the hammer back, but slowly released it, and brought his hand with the gun down to his lap. He emptied the gun of bullets, then put it back in his mouth and pulled the trigger – click! Click. Click-click-click! Click. He put the bullets back in. Again he put the gun to his mouth, and cocked it. It would only take a slight pressure to set it off now.
That night, three weeks ago, still played in his mind, in an endlessly repeating loop. He remembered how the evening started. He had walked into the bathroom. Rosa was standing at the sink putting on makeup.
“Mind if I take a leak?” he said.
“If you’re going to this party, aren’t you going to shower?”
“I’m planning to.”
“When?”
“Well, now, after I pee.”
“We’ll be late.”
“No we won’t, I’ll be real quick. I know how important this party is to you.” Rosa turned, then turned back to Charlie and said, “Oh, maybe we shouldn’t go.”
“What? You been wanting to go to this party all week. Now I’m all fired up and ready to party. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Rosa said quietly.
“You seem upset,” Charlie said. “Do you want to stay home?”
“I’m not upset. Just hurry up so we can go.”
“Sure. Rosa?” Charlie put his arm around Rosa, and tried to kiss her.
“Not now! I just put makeup on, and you smell.” She pushed him away.
“I’ll be ready in five minutes,” Charlie said, cheerfully. He felt rejected, but didn’t want to get Rosa any more upset. He thought she was being especially difficult lately. He did his best to get ready fast, although he couldn’t understand why there was such a hurry. It was just a dumb party. There’d be drinks and dancing, but the political animals would be out to convert them. He knew that they had been trying to get Rosa into their little socialist sect, and he and Rosa had been to a lot of their meetings. Even a Party can have a party, he had decided.
BEEP-BEEP. BEEP-BEEP. Rosa was leaning on the horn of her car, her ex-husband’s MG Midget. Charlie had to run out to the car.
“What’s the hurry? I was on my way.”
“I just wish you’d get ready ahead of time.”
“I was ready. It only took me a few minutes. Why the rush?” To himself, he fumed, Hell, you spent an hour and a half getting ready.
The rest of the drive was silent. Rosa pulled up to the curb on a strange block. Charlie decided to see if Rosa was still upset, so he said, “I’ve never been here. Whose house is this?” To his relief, Rosa seemed relaxed, “It’s Carol’s,” she answered, “You remember the blonde – with the Carpenters Union?”
“Yeah, I know the one.”
Inside, they were warmly welcomed. Too much! Charlie thought. These people are too friendly to be believed. They were soon separated by smiling people, people who never seemed to stop smiling, and not incidentally trying to discuss their own “correct” analyses of current events. Rosa and Charlie got some wine. People talked to them, dividing their attention different ways. Charlie noticed Rosa being dragged into a discussion in another room. Divide and conquer, that’s their plan, he thought. Charlie started in her direction when he was intercepted by Rebecca. She was one of the group’s better people, Charlie thought, friendly, but not always pushing the party line on him.
“Hey Charlie,” she said excitedly, “people are watching Star Trek in the next room. Wanna watch?” That’s a great idea. He’d just spent ten minutes in a useless conversation with Larry, who was insisting that Charlie define himself politically. Charlie had told him that he figured he was kind of a hippie redneck, just to shut him up. That somehow made Larry mad, and he said that he didn’t know how Rosa put up with that. What’s it to him? Charlie thought. Well, Rosa can see through these people. So he joined a small group around the TV, glad to be away from Larry. He watched a bit of the show, until he heard music start up in the other room. The music had people up and dancing, and several people asked Charlie to dance, before he had a chance to look for Rosa. After he’d danced to a couple of songs she walked into the room.
“Come on, let’s dance,” he said.
“No, I don’t feel like dancing,” Rosa said, coldly.
“Don’t feel like dancing? But this is a party, the music’s great. Hey, c’mon, let’s go for it.” Charlie put his hand in hers, and gently pulled, but was shocked to find that she was not only resisting him, but stiff, and pulling away.
“Rosa, what’s wrong?” Just then there were some new arrivals at the door. Rosa turned to him, said, “Alright, let’s dance,” but it was a futile effort. She was still stiff and her movements were jerky and uncoordinated. “Rosa, are you OK?” Charlie asked.
“No.”
“Do you want to go home?”
“Yes.”
On the way home Charlie tried to find out what was wrong, but Rosa just said that she was tired, that they could talk when they got home. As they walked in their door, Charlie asked, “Do you feel like talking now?”
“No. Yes. Oh, I don’t know, let’s go to bed.” They walked into the bedroom, but Rosa sat on the bed and started crying.
“Rosa, what is it?” Charlie put his arm around her, and they sat hugging each other awhile on the edge of the bed.
“Charlie, I’ve been seeing someone else.” Charlie didn’t say anything, he just held her tighter.
“Do you know who it is?” Charlie didn’t know what to say. He was thinking, Is this the same woman who told me that we were through if I ever touched another woman?
“Uh, is it Tom?” Tom had once been their roommate. He was a good friend of Rosa’s, and they talked with each other a lot.
“Tom?” she said, opening her eyes wide. “No!” she said, in an exasperated tone. “It’s Larry.”
Charlie almost laughed. Not Larry. He’s the most obnoxious, artificial bore I ever met.
“I don’t care,” he told her, “I love you.” But she started crying again. He hugged her tighter, and she continued to cry. Charlie felt numb. He wasn’t mad. He found it hard to think. He loved Rosa, and here she was crying. He wanted to comfort her. Surely, he wondered, if she’s crying, she must still love me? They sat there for minutes – five, ten, thirty – then wordlessly undressed and got under the covers.
Charlie didn’t know what to do. He loved Rosa, and didn’t want to have to think about anything else. He kissed her, and tried to make love. Rosa didn’t resist, but she was limp, unresponsive. Charlie kissed her mouth and neck. He kissed her cheeks, her forehead, the space between her eyes, and kissed the salty space below her eyes that had so recently been flooded with tears. He wondered if he would ever be able to touch her again. He kissed her some more, moving down her body, to her shoulders, and to her breasts. He paused to run his tongue briefly around her nipples. He kissed her stomach, her thighs, and in between. Rosa put her arms around him loosely.
After a few minutes, Charlie found that he could enter her easily. But she didn’t respond to his thrusts. She was passive, and quiet. Charlie kept trying to excite her.
He turned over and put Rosa on top. Charlie was feeling less passion now, but he wanted Rosa to know how much he wanted her. He wanted to remind her of the fun they’d always had in bed. He continued to kiss her, to touch her, to fuck her. Suddenly Rosa was crying, and Charlie stopped. He pulled her flat against his chest, and then lay silently while Rosa gently sobbed. Rosa Rosa, Rosa, was all Charlie thought. He loved her; always would.
In the morning, they were still curled together. Charlie lay awake for several minutes, digesting all the events of the previous evening. He reveled in Rosa’s warm nude body softly pressed against him. She moved slightly, pressing closer to him. But he had to know. He had to see what the new day might have brought.
“How are you, Rosa?” he ventured, and instantly regretted it, for she had still been asleep. She opened her eyes slowly, looked at Charlie, and rolled quickly out of his arms, and out of the bed.
She hurried into the bathroom. Charlie waited in the bed. When Rosa stepped out of the bathroom, he held an arm out to her, beckoning her to return to his side. She began hastily dressing.
“What are you going to do?” Charlie asked.
“I have things to do. I have to go.”
“Go where?” Charlie asked, dreading the answer.
“I don’t know. Charlie, I need time to think.”
“When will you be back?” Charlie asked.
“I won’t be back, Charlie. I have, I have to go.” It was Charlie’s turn to cry. Rosa came to him, and he began to sob, tears streaming from his eyes, along his nose, into his mouth and beard. Rosa held him while his body shook and heaved, and he cried. After he calmed down, she gently released herself from his arms.
“Do you have to go?” Charlie asked. Rosa looked away. “Where are you going?” he asked again.
“Probably to my sisters house. I need time to myself, time away from both of you.” Charlie straightened up, calmed himself. Maybe it’ll be OK, he thought. “I have to go grocery shopping,” he said to her. “Do you need anything from the store?”
“No,” she said, and hurried out the door. Charlie looked out at her, watched her as she started her car, and quickly drove out of the cul-de-sac, disappearing around the fire station on the corner. He heard her car’s engine accelerate down the street. She was gone.
Charlie had found Rosa’s thirty-eight snub-nose in the closet. She’d been gone for three weeks, and she no longer said she needed time to think. Five days ago, too anxious to wait any longer for her decision, he had called her from a phone booth. She was in love with Larry. She said, “We’ll always be friends, Charlie.” Right. He didn’t know what else to say; she’d made her decision. He pounded on the glass walls of the booth, hoping to break them. In his mind the booth shattered, he cut his wrists, and ended up in the hospital. Rosa would be sorry.

All of her things were still in the house, except for a few clothes. Charlie felt more lonely than he ever had, more so than before he’d met Rosa. When he met her two years ago she’d been married, but left her husband for Charlie. Charlie had been surprised. He liked Rosa, but was just passing through. He’d been traveling across country, enjoying his freedom to go anywhere, do anything. Meeting Rosa had changed his plans. At first, Charlie had simply found Rosa attractive. When he found that she was married he’d been disappointed. But Rosa offered him room at her house for a few days. He discarded the idea of sex with Rosa when he met her tall, blue eyed husband. Hans seemed an ideal husband, affectionate, intelligent, and open-minded. Hard to compete with that, Charlie thought. Although he worked, he didn’t seem to mind his wife’s role as director of a public interest group. Nor had he insisted on a common surname. Rosa had discarded his last name for her own. Hans even cooked dinner for them all the first night Charlie slept in their living room.
Rosa was bright and witty. She’d traveled a lot while she and her husband were in the Peace Corps together. She told Charlie about her experiences in Africa and her vacations in Europe. Since Charlie had never been out of the United States, he was fascinated. Here was the kind of woman he’d been hoping to meet, but she was married, so, Oh well, he thought. But he enjoyed talking with her. They discussed feminism and socialism, and Vietnam, and racism. They got high too. She had a stash of some really primo weed. One day, she invited Charlie to join her and her husband at a party. At the party, she danced with Charlie. He found himself really liking this woman, but he knew he had to leave soon. As they talked and laughed and danced, Charlie regretted that he’d probably never see her again.
Moving from one room to another, Charlie passed Rosa, stopped, and spontaneously kissed her. Rosa liked it. She pulled Charlie into the bathroom and shut the door. Charlie was pretty nervous about that, but Rosa was on fire, it seemed, until there was a knock on the door.
“Rosa! Are you in there?” boomed through the door. Rosa turned out the light in a panic. It didn’t help. Hans had been looking for her. Charlie turned the light back on and opened the door to an enraged Hans. Hans, however, said nothing, turned and walked away. Rosa ran after him. Charlie found another place to sleep that night. He was ashamed of himself, but expected that Hans and Rosa would patch things up. All we did was kiss, he thought. We just kissed.
In the morning, however, Rosa found Charlie and woke him up. “Rosa! What happened?” Charlie asked. “Oh, it’s OK. We talked about it. Don’t worry about it.” “Are you sure, Rosa? I never thought I’d see you again.” “Do you want to see me?” she asked. “Of course!” “Let’s go for a drive.” Rosa drove back to the house they’d partied at the night before. The house would be empty all day, and her friend had given her a key. Charlie was shocked, and nervous, but he overcame his misgivings when Rosa dropped her clothes. In fact, nothing existed then but him and Rosa.
Later, although glowing from his sexual encounter with Rosa, Charlie knew he still had to leave. Rosa was married, after all, and it was time to move on. Rosa, however, had other ideas. She said that she wanted to leave her husband. She said she had been trying to leave him for some time. “Now’s the time,” she told him. “But I’m leaving tomorrow,” Charlie reminded her. “Just stay two more weeks,” Rosa asked. When she looked at him, Charlie’s resolve melted. He could do that. He could stay two weeks, just to see what might come of this.
Rosa dropped Charlie off much later that day. They were saying good-bye, kissing each other just one more time. Rosa made Charlie promise not to say anything to her husband. “I want to tell him myself,” she insisted. As they kissed, just one more time, standing by her car on the curb, an old Dodge truck drove up, tires squealing as it jerked to a stop, crookedly, in front of them. Hans jumped out. “Are you fucking my wife?” he demanded of Charlie. Charlie was speechless. On the one hand he wanted to admit his guilt, bare his sin, and take his punishment. On the other hand, Rosa had insisted that he not tell Hans anything. He took the cowardly way out. He said, “Well, I had wanted to.” It was not admitting anything one way or the other. He didn’t want to just say “no”. What will he do if Rosa tells him? Charlie wondered. Maybe this way he’ll think I only tried to seduce her.
“What the hell does that mean?” Hans roared. Charlie was trying to think of what to say next when Rosa intervened. She grabbed Hans’s hand, and led him away. Rosa talked, Hans shouted. In the end, they drove away, Hans following the little MG in the old Dodge, but not before telling Charlie, “You stay the hell away from my wife! You hear me? Stay away from her, or I’ll kill you.”
Charlie wished he had now. He’d never felt this bad before. As he toyed with the gun, tasting the steel on his tongue, he still needed something to convince him to do it himself. Hans had left Rosa. She had come to Charlie, and Charlie couldn’t leave her. He found a job. He and Rosa rented a comfortable house. He’d felt such happiness with Rosa, such peace. On a trip home from Taos one day, Charlie told Rosa that he wanted to have children with her. He hadn’t wanted to have children before he met her. Rosa had smiled, and told him that she had said the same thing to a girlfriend just days before. She wanted a baby with Charlie. She’d never wanted to have children with Hans. They planned a long life together then, with a child or two. Charlie planned to build a house for them all. It was the happiest time Charlie had ever known.
Now it was over, and Charlie didn’t care about anything. He didn’t care about politics, or changing the world, or music, or sunsets. He closed the windows against the shrill noise of the birds. Rosa had taken her cats, and her dog, and Charlie was completely alone. The dog at least would have been some company. He had no family in town, except for Rosa’s family. It was Sunday, so Rosa and Larry were there now. His only close friends were out of town.

<– (Graffiti art. Photo by Paul Armstrong)
Charlie took the gun out of his mouth again. He walked out the back door to the back wall, and fired into the field behind the house. The noise, and the burst of light jolted Charlie’s senses. He couldn’t hear anything for a moment, but he saw a car on the street a few blocks away suddenly pull over and stop. Charlie looked at the car. He looked at the gun. He removed the spent shell and tossed it over the wall. He went back inside, afraid that someone had seen him, that they thought he was shooting at them, that they would call the police.
He felt foolish. Here he was worried about the police, when he was going to kill himself anyway. Not the police. My mom, my brothers and sisters. What will they think? They’ll miss me. This is more than just me. And Rosa, what will she think? Hah! She won’t care. Well, maybe she will, for a few days, or a few weeks. Maybe she’d even cry. But that’s all. Then she’ll forget me altogether. She might even laugh at me, be glad I’m gone, out of the way. She’ll be free to live her life with Larry and never think of me again. NO! Damn it. I’m not going to make their life that easy!
He put the gun back in the closet where Rosa had kept it. He was tired, and hungry. He hadn’t slept much in the past three weeks, and hadn’t eaten for the last five days. He forced himself to drink a glass of water, one swallow at a time. He made two pieces of toast. He ate one. He went to sleep.

Jeanne Gauna and Che Guevara

I think about Jeanne Gauna
and Cuba and Che Guevara
Little brown woman
with the huge smile
tiny NM town Jeanne
in big city Albuquerque
trips to Cuba
(the country, not the town)
sugar cane and rum
new houses new clinics
I think about Jeanne’s velorio
about her friend the priest
he said her language was
colorful
but he spoke of her work
tireless fighter for justice
a revolutionary
a friend

Jaime was there too
he’d been crying
I didn’t recognize him
sunken red eyes
behind dark glasses
Is he on drugs
I wondered oddly
I barely knew him
but he knew Jeanne
fellow traveler
husband Eric smiling
he smiles like Jeanne
after years with her
what else could he do?
son Karlos was there
Karlitos grown to man
fighter for justice

A revolutionary never dies
Che lives Jeanne lives
revolutionaries touch people
in ways we don’t imagine
until they’re gone
our lives are different
we remember them
we dream their dreams
we feel them near
we miss them
we carry on

Cimarrón Nuclear

Cimarrón obstensibly takes its name from the wild snow-fed river which begins there, in northeastern New Mexico, and flows 698 obstinate miles to the Arkansas River in Oklahoma, but cimarrón is also a Spanish word meaning wild, or willful.  It describes an unbroken animal or a wild man, or wild woman (cimarróna).  At one time it was applied to slaves who freed themselves (cimarrónes).

Charlie Morris saluted the first day of June, 1872 with a beer, although the sun had just recently risen over the nearby peaks. Joyce was still asleep upstairs. She and Charlie had been up late drinking, but he hadn’t been too tired to put Joyce to sleep with a smile. They had ridden down the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail from Raton to the St. James Hotel in Cimarrón three months ago. Joyce’s husband, Chunk Colbert, was a gambler, mean and vicious but seldom at home. Racing horses went well with his love of gambling, and his gun had often been used in anger. Which is why Charlie and Joyce had left town. They must have decided that a hundred miles was far enough away, or else passion simply overruled their common sense. Chunk found his wife missing when he returned one day, and he was able to find out where she had gone. On that same June morning that Charlie sat drinking a beer to clear his head, Chunk walked from the bright sunlight into the saloon in the St. James. When his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he saw Charlie Morris.
“Morris,” he said, in a voice that could stop a wild horse, “you got something that belongs to me.”
“What could that be?” Charlie asked, spilling beer on his fine grey vest.
“My wife!” Chunk said, and shot Charlie dead.

This was two years after Lucian Bonaparte Maxwell, son of an Irish emigrant from Dublin, sold most of his holdings in the largest individually owned piece of land in the United States, of which Cimarrón is a part, to three Englishman. The Maxwell Land Grant was originally obtained as a Mexican Land Grant by Charles Beaubien and Guadalupe Miranda, for assisting the Mexican government’s attempt to exterminate the Indians in its “Northern Province.” Maxwell married Beaubien’s thirteen-year-old daughter. Almost two million acres that had been stolen from the Ute, Apache, and Comanche eventually ended up in Maxwell’s hands.
In all its sordid history of gunfights, murder, and land wars, and after the railroads had come and gone, and the gold rushes were over, Cimarrón endured. The gold and coal are gone, although the timber industry and the Philmont Scout Ranch breathe life into the area. People still struggle to survive, and some still dream of the old days of greed and wealth.

In 1977 a new schemer came to Cimarrón. Bill Dufess came with a luxurious double-wide, and a lot of spending money. He was soft-spoken, and, as representative of a new industry coming to town, he came, he said, “to stay.”
Alicia, as mayor pro tem, ran the town while the mayor was busy logging in the mountains. The rest of the time she ran her beauty shop, cutting and perming and dyeing. She worried about paying off the trailer she lived and worked in. As she teased Margarita’s hair, she thought about how tired she was. It was demanding running the shop on her own, but at least she could support herself and her kids. She hadn’t just rolled over and died, or gone on welfare when her husband ran off with with that Albuquerque woman. She had borrowed some money and started her own business. She stopped what she was doing for a moment to clean her glasses, and brush sweaty hair out of her face.

“Margarita, are you going to the matanza at that Dufess fellow’s place?”
“I haven’t decided, but I hear there’s a lot of free beer.”
“Oh, and everyone’s invited, everyone around here.”
“That’s about a thousand people! Does he really have enough food for everyone?”
“Well, his company does seem to have a lot of money. That new double wide trailer of his sure cost a lot of money.”
“What about that dump his company wants to put in, Alicia? Do you think it’s a good idea?”
“I don’t know. Mayor Burns said he thought it was a good idea before he left for the timber harvest, but I’m not sure this guy Dufess is on the up-and-up.
“I hear there won’t be any smell, or anything. It’s not like a regular depósito.”
“That’s because it’s for residuos nucleares.”
“Oh my! You don’t think it will blow up?”
“Margarita! Really! Just because the hands on your old watch glow in the dark doesn’t mean they’re going to blow up, does it?
“Well, I suppose not, but what has that…”
“The hands glow because they’re radioactivo.”
“Oh. Then I suppose it’ll be alright.”
“Maybe. There. All done. Take a look.”
“Oh, eso es bonita, Alicia. It’s just beautiful.”
“Thanks. I try my best.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Alicia. Are you sure you don’t mind waiting for your money?”
“I’m sure. Go on. I’ve still got to close up.”
Alicia closed out the register and put the money in the bank bag. “I’d better not forget to take this tomorrow,” she reminded herself, “I don’t want that trailer payment to bounce.” She swept the floor and took the trash out to the garbage. “I wonder,” she thought, “what radioactive garbage looks like?”

Alicia had promised her kids that she’d take them to Santa Fe to see the Star Trek movie. She was more than a little curious herself, so she closed the shop early one slow afternoon. She’d seen some of the T.V. shows back in the sixties.
“And they’re just making a movie now?” her son had asked.
“Es verdad, mi jito. From before you were born to now, it’s been a long time, no?”
“It’s my whole lifetime. Can we have popcorn?”
“Sure you can, Roberto. Now, go and get your sister for me. We have to get going.”
“Ana! Aaannaaa!”
“Roberto! If I wanted you to shout, I’d have done it myself. Now go and get her. Vamanos! We don’t want to be late.”
They drove in relative silence. Alicia had insisted that her kids bring along something to read, and they had contained their excitement fairly well, even though they didn’t get out of Cimarrón very often. The twisting, potholed road between there and Santa Fe distracted her attention from the red sun-burnt cliffs that poked into a blue porcelain sky.
As they neared the theater, Alicia could see people lined up all the way around the corner.
“Oh, no, kids, there’s a long line. Maybe we should have waited until it came to Taos.”
“That’s OK, Mom, we’ll get out and get the tickets. You go ahead and park the car. We’ll wait for you,” Roberto promised.
That kid, he’s something, Alicia thought as she walked back to the theater from a street three blocks away.
“Excuse me ma’am, would you sign our petition?” asked a balding man in torn blue jeans. He had a red bandanna tied in a tight ring around what was left of his long hair.
“One of those Taos hippies,” Alicia thought as he pushed a clipboard toward her. “I’m sorry, I don’t really have time now.”
“But it’s about nuclear waste, ma’am. Do you want them to bury nuclear waste in New Mexico? Do you want your kids to be exposed to radiation?”
“What? Where? Do you mean Cimarrón?”
“Uh, no ma’am. I’m talking about down in Carlsbad. The government plans to ship radioactive waste from all over the country, and the world, into New Mexico, and bury it in Carlsbad.”
“Listen, I really have to run. Is there a number I could call to find out more about this?”
“I think there’s a number on the petition. I don’t have any information myself, I’m just taking the petition around. Here, you can have one. There. There’s the number.”
“Thanks.”
The following week, Alicia called the number. It wasn’t a local number, it was in Albuquerque. “What the hell,” she decided, “maybe they have some good information.”
“STOP. This is Colin speaking.”
“Stop? Stop what?
“Stop the dump, that’s what. No, really it stands for Stop Threatening Our Planet. Could I help you?”
“Yes. Can you send me some information about nuclear waste?”
“Of course. Do you mean general information, or something technical?”
“Well, I suppose I need general information. There’s a company that’s planning to put a waste dump here and I need to know more about it. People have been coming into my beauty shop and asking me questions, and I don’t have the answers.”
“Are you calling from Carlsbad?”
“Oh, no. This is Alicia Seria, from Cimarrón. I’m the Mayor pro tem here.”
“The Mayor! Alicia, I’ll be glad to send you any information you need. Would you tell me more about this waste dump? This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“Oh, good. I was afraid you were only concerned about Carlsbad.”
“No, not at all. We really don’t want radioactive waste traveling on New Mexico highways, or buried here.”
“From what I’ve seen of the roads around here, it wouldn’t be a good idea. Oh, by the way, I’m just the temporary mayor.”
Colin got all the information he could from Alicia. As soon as he hung up, he was back on the phone to alert the membership about this new problem. The next potluck meeting of STOP took place four days later. Charlie, one of the three coordinators, brushed bread crumbs out of his bushy red beard and called the meeting to order.
“Attention people. Most of us are finished eating, and we have some business to get to. Bring your drinks and deserts. Colin, you’re first on the agenda.” Nine people formed a ragged circle on the floor.
“Uh, well, as some of you know, we got a phone call from the mayor of Cimarrón. Apparently, a Texas company called Nuclear Futures wants to build a waste dump there.”
“Colin, I thought all the waste was supposed to go in one place?” asked Edith, the gray-headed professor’s wife.
“This is a private company, Edith. The Carlsbad site is a federal project. Nuclear Futures is planning a commercial dump. From what I, uh, understand, waste producers will pay them to accept their waste. And, listen to this, the waste will be in 55-gallon drums piled in shallow trenches and just covered over with dirt.”
“Wow. That’s pretty heavy,” said Ken, the cement factory unionist. “It sounds like another Love Canal in the making. What do the people in Cimarrón say about that?”
“Well, uh, the mayor, I mean, the acting mayor, told me that most people don’t know anything about the possible dangers. There’s this guy, Bill Dufess, who works for United Futures, who’s moved to Cimarrón. He says he’s planning to live there permanently, and he threw this big matanza last Saturday with all the food and beer people could want.”
“What does the Mayor say? Hey! what’s her name?” Charlie asked.
“Alicia Seria.”
“What does she want?”
“She’s afraid that this Dufess character is snowing people with all that beer and barbecue. She’s worried about the dump and she thinks people are afraid to question it.”
“What can we do?” Charlie asked.
“She’s asked us if some people could come up there with some information, and maybe debate this guy. I’ve already talked to George at the Albuquerque Resource Center and they have some movies we could take up there, and George wants to debate this Bill Dufess guy.”
“Won’t there be hearings?” asked the feminist-anarchist.
“No, none at all, Paula. George told me that New Mexico is the only state in the nation without some form of permitting and licensing for, uh, landfills.”
“I want to go up and meet Alicia and Dufess. Does anyone want to go with me?” Charlie asked. Three hands shot up.
“OK, let’s get together after the meeting and make arrangements. We’ll be able to report on what’s happening up there by the next meeting.”

“Alicia, can you give me a trim? I want to get rid of all these split ends.”
“Be with you in just in second. What, Ana?”
“Mom, can I go over to Monica’s?”
“Did you finish your homework?”
“I finished it at school.”
“OK, jita, but don’t forget to be home in time for dinner.”
“I won’t. Bye, mom.”
“Now, let’s get to those split ends, Effie.”
“What do you think, Alicia? Do you think I should shorten it like yours?”
“Oh, no. Your hair’s much too pretty this way. I’ll just give you a trim, and a shampoo, and you’ll see, you’ll like it.”
“Thanks, Alicia. I trust you.”
“How’s your boy doing, Effie?”
“Oh, real good. I didn’t think he was ever going to pass the fifth grade, but he’s much better now. You know, they have to learn so much these days. Sometimes I don’t know how they manage at all.”
“Yeah, my Roberto knows more than I do, I think. Sometimes I look at his homework, and I can’t make any sense of it. By the way, Effie, what do you think of this waste dump Dufess’s company wants to put in here?”
“Well, Alicia, I hear you’re against it?”
“Oh, not really, not yet. I’m just not real sure. I’m afraid of what could happen if one of those trucks carrying the waste were to turn over. Remember when that propane truck crashed on the old highway? We almost had to evacuate the town then.
“What can you do, Alicia? If they want some old dump here, I don’t think there’s much we could do about it anyway.”
“Turn your head a little, Effie. And don’t you be so sure about that.”
“What are you up to, Alicia?”
“Well, Tony and Eloy were talking about having a big town meeting. I thought I might invite those people from Albuquerque to come up and debate Dufess publicly, and maybe show a movie or something like that.”
“People sure are talking about that dump since you started asking questions.”
“I just got so tired of hearing only one side of it. All those slide shows of Dufess’s. And all that beer and barbecue of his makes me think he’s trying to buy us, and I kind of wonder why. Come on over to the sink, so I can rinse your hair.”

“Can we hear a report from the people who went to Cimarrón? Colin?”
“Oh, I talk too much all the time. Why don’t we let Charlie tell you about it?
“Charlie?”
“OK, sure. We met at that guy Bill Dufess’s trailer. He had this real slick slide show about the dump, about how safe it would be, and how people would benefit. It was real convincing.”
“How many people were there?”
“Not very many, Paula. Most of the townspeople had seen the slides already. But Alicia was there, and this one guy who’s all for it, and there were a couple of people who just watched, and didn’t say anything.”
“So what was accomplished?”
“Not much, but Alicia did say that some people are planning a town meeting, and we’re invited to come and present our information.”
“That’s great Charlie! You know, since New Mexico is hosting the Desert Alliance meeting next month, do you think it would be alright to have the meeting in Cimarrón? That way we could maybe combine our meeting with the town meeting. It would be a real good way for the people in Cimarrón to find out what’s happening in Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado. And I think the Alliance members would like to see Cimarrón.”
“Paula! That’s a great idea. What does everyone else think?”

Everyone thought it was a great idea, so Charlie asked his lover, Rosa, if she would go too. She said no, she didn’t want to go, and that she had things to do that weekend. Charlie didn’t like that. He and Rosa hadn’t done much together lately. She had her writing and he had his STOP meetings. They both held the same opinions of nuclear waste, but Rosa had her own ideas about what was important, and that was editing an anti-nuclear newsletter. Charlie felt that the petition drive that had been going on for the past few months was too important to abandon, so they had found themselves alone at separate meetings. Well, I’ll just have to go by myself then, he decided. Damn! This isn’t how I thought it would be when I moved here. I was going to start a family, and Rosa and I were going to make the world a better place for them. And she still doesn’t want kids yet. Can’t say I blame her, I don’t make much money fixing sidewalks and block walls at the University. Charlie didn’t have too much time to talk to Rosa, and convince her to go. He was spending nearly every night at the STOP office trying to coordinate things for the meeting in Cimarrón. He thought about Joyce, in Nevada. She was a lot of fun to talk with at that first Alliance meeting in Colorado. Too bad we only talked. I’d better write to her.

As busy as Alicia was, she arranged most of it. She convinced the town council to let the Desert Alliance use the community center. “Some of those anti-nuclear kids could even sleep there. And Tom and Sheryl have offered a couple rooms at their motel. I hope those people in Albuquerque bring their projector. I’ve been telling people that we’re going to have movies. That should get ‘em here.” She knew that the out-of-towners would bring their own food, but she had still convinced Margarita, Effie, and a few others to bring a dish for the town meeting.
Outside Alicia’s trailer, it was snowing. “They’d better bring warm clothes,” she thought. “I’ll get John at the store to donate some coffee and tea. Oh! And I’d better remember some sugar and milk too. This is exciting! I’ve never done anything like this before, but I’ll bet we can stop these Nuclear Futures people.”

Two carloads of people, armed with a movie projector, maps, leaflets, and pamphlets, left Albuquerque on a clear sunny morning for battle in Cimarrón. The first car left before dawn. Charlie drove the second car, which gave him an excuse to sleep a couple hours more. He didn’t talk much on the long drive up North, he was thinking about Joyce. He knew she was coming, and Rosa had insisted on staying home. From Joyce’s reply to his letter, Charlie felt that the possibility of sharing a bed or a sleeping bag with her were pretty good. It would help make this weekend more interesting, he thought. There’s probably no way we can stop that Nuclear Futures company. Shit. Two years we’ve been fighting that waste project in Carlsbad, and we’re no closer to stopping it. All those damn hearings are such a damned waste of time. We’ve got twenty thousand signatures on petitions, and all the polls show that the majority in the state are against it, and still the feds won’t listen. The Governor said he would stop it when he was running for office, but now the federal boys have made it a dump for military waste. National Security, my ass.

As Charlie pulled onto I-25, to head north, Alicia was already open for business, hoping to finish early so that she would be available to greet people and get things set up. She had an early appointment with Ruth Mondragon, so she turned the heat up to warm the front room beauty parlor. She had fed the kids, and they were already watching Saturday morning T.V. in her bedroom. With a cup of coffee in her hand, she sat down by the phone to call people and remind them about tomorrow’s meeting. She had managed to get five calls done when Ruth arrived.
“Buenos dias, Alicia!”
“Well, good morning to you too, Ruth. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“I sure would. It’s cold out there.”
As she was finishing Ruth’s perm, the phone rang.
“Morning Alicia. Cold enough for you?”
“Hi Cicero, what’s up? I hope we won’t be getting any snow today?”
“No, not as far as I’ve heard. Reason I called was to let you know that there’s some people parked outside my store. I think they’re the people you’re expecting.”
“Oh my goodness. Are they here so early? Thanks, Cicero. I’ll see you tonight. Bye.”
Ruth started to get up. “What’s the matter, Alicia? Is something wrong?”
“No, don’t get up. But could you do me a favor, Ruth? Would you take this key with you when you leave and open up the hall? And tell people I’ll be by soon, and that I’ll be bringing coffee?”
“Si, claro! I’m as much against this crazy dump as you are.”
“Thanks, Ruth. Well, let’s get you finished. I didn’t know you felt that way, Ruth. Didn’t I see you laughing with Dufess at his barbecue?”
“O Alicia, I’ve never been one to turn down free food. But I’ll tell you one thing, I sure was surprised to see where they intend to dig those trenches.”
“Here, let’s rinse you off. Why’s that, Ruth?”
“Why, that area floods. It’s been a while, but I remember a time about twenty years ago when two whole feet of topsoil washed off of there and it made a mess it took weeks to clean up.”
“Is that a fact?”
“It sure is. And that viejo of mine told me that his abuelo used to have a house over there years before that, but it got washed away.”
“No kidding? His grandfather lost his house there?”
“Verdad.”

Charlie turned his collar up against the cold damp of a Cimarrón morning as he got out of the car, and asked Colin: “Where are we supposed to go?”
“I don’t know, exactly. There’s some cars over there by that store. Pull up close, let’s see if we know anyone.”
A foggy window was rolled down.
“Colin! Charlie!”
“Hi Jim, you beat us here. What’s happening?”
“Well, I don’t know. I’ve been here about thirty or forty minutes. Got a cup of coffee from the store here.”
“Anyone come with you?”
“Yeah, there’s three more of us from Colorado here.”
Another car drove up.
“Hi guys.”
“Hi Ken.”
“Hey, I just came from the hall where the meeting will be. Someone unlocked the door, and she said that Alicia is bringing some hot chocolate and coffee, and we should meet her there.”
Charle helped Alicia start the coffee and hot water on a table by the door of the church hall.
“How are things going, Alicia?”
“Real good. If the weather doesn’t get too bad, I think we’ll have a good crowd tomorrow. A lot of people have promised to come.”
“Is Dufess coming?”
“Oh, yes, he said he’ll be here. And he’s bringing a film of his own, just for balance.”
“Oh, no.”
“It’s alright, that was the only way the town council would approve. They thought it was only fair, since there’s going to be a debate.”
“Well, that makes sense. I suppose it’ll work out. We’ve got the projector. I’ll be showing the movies. Anything I can do?”
“No, not a thing. You go ahead and join people.”
“Charlie took a cup of chocolate and walked into the large hall. Leaning against the stage was a familiar figure. Actually, the figure was not as familiar as the face. It’s Joyce! “Hi Joyce,” he called. She didn’t look the same. I know it’s been six months since I’ve seen her, but still, either she’s gotten a lot fatter, or she’s pregnant, he thought. He crossed the hall and hugged her, gently.

“Joyce, it’s nice to see you here.”

“It’s nice to see you too.”

“No, not just that. I mean, I was thinking about you all the way up here, hoping you’d be here.”

“You know, I was thinking about you too.”

“You were?”

“Well, yeah, ever since that time we went to that meeting in Coloado.”

“I remember. We stayed up half the night talking.”

Joyce looked away amoment, then said, “I got turned on that night.”

“Well,” Charlie said, searching for words.

“Well, yourself. I’d want to talk to you when we get a chance. I didn’t come all the way from Nevada just for this meeting, you know.”

“You look different.”

“Well, yeah. I’m pregnant.”

“No shit. That surprises me.”

“Yeah, it was a surprise to us too. We hadn’t planned it. Harry always said he didn’t want to have children, and I thought about an abortion, but now that I’m pregnant, he seems to like the idea.”

“Uh, oh, here comes Harry, he follows me everywhere. I don’t know when, but we’ll talk. Harry, this is my contact in the Desert Alliance that I’ve told you about.”

“Glad to meet you, Charlie. Joyce has told me a lot about you.”

Charlie shook Harry’s hand. He was very thin, but quite strong. Must be a vegetarian, he thought. “About me?” he asked.

“About STOP, mostly, and about Albuquerque. You send her a lot of information about what’s going on around here. It’s a lot more than we’ve been able to do about underground testing in Nevada.”

“Maybe you should think about moving here, Harry.”

“That’s not a bad idea, maybe we should.”

“Now why did I say that?” Charlie wondered.

Later, when everyone had arrived, Alicia announced that there were rooms at the Blue Sky Motel that were available for some people, but the rest would have to stay in the hall, itself. Charlie opted for the hall. He wanted to stay where the most people were, and he had brought his sleeping bag. After a day-long meeting with the Desert Alliance members, he had packed up his paperwork and gone to bed while the others were drinking at the bar. He didn’t feel very sociable, and besides, he didn’t drink.
As he was dressing the next morning, Joyce found him alone in the back room where he and a few others had slept.
“I guess I overslept.”
“I’ll say, everyone is already up. They’re having breakfast.”
“Where did you stay last night?”
“Harry and I stayed at the motel. Ooh, that bed felt sooo good.”
“It’s nice to see you.”
“I’m glad I found you. I didn’t know if we would ever be able to be alone.” Joyce moved closer to Charlie, looking at him, watching his eyes.

“Me either, ” Charlie said, and ran his hands through Joyce’s long hair. His hands felt hot.

“Hmmm, maybe we don’t really need to talk,” Joyce said, pushing her head against Charlie’s hand. He kissed her lips, and then her neck. Joyce put her arms around him, and pressed against him.
“Mmm,” Charlie said.

“You said it,” Joyce answered while she took off her coat.
Charlie ran his hands over her nipples and around her breasts.
“Whew! It’s getting hot,” Joyce said, as she took off her flannel shirt. Charlie responded by removing his shirt.
“Maybe we’d better not waste any time,” Joyce suggested, “We don’t know when someone might come in.”
“Are you sure it’s OK? Joyce? We won’t,” pointing to her stomach, “bother that?”
“Oh, no. The doctor told me I can have sex, but Harry hasn’t wanted to since I started to show.”
Charlie stripped off the rest off his clothes, and helped Joyce off with her pants.
“Just be gentle, Charlie.”
He was. Joyce moaned softly as her body warmed to Charlie’s touch, and Charlie felt fire play across his skin. A little milk came from Joyce’s nipples. He liked that. They slipped sideways through time in the realm of pleasure, until the last gentle spasms subsided and they lay peacefully embraced.
“Well, that was nice,” Joyce said, slowly and huskily, “but we seem to have made of mess of someone’s sleeping bag.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Charlie laughed, “It belonged to Rosa’s ex husband.”
“We’d better get dressed. Do you want to go for a walk?”
“Sure. Let’s get out of here.”
Half a block away, they ran right into Harry.
“There you are. I’ve been wondering what happened to you two.”
“Oh, we’ve been walking around, looking at the town, and we got to talking,” Joyce answered lightly, smiling.
“Well, I’m glad you two got a chance to talk. Do you want to head over to the motel?”
“Why?”
“You know the owners, Tom and Sheryl?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, their son just got in. He’s the editor of a Texas paper. He’d like to talk to a few of us so he can write a story.”
“All right! Let’s go.”

Alicia was worried about the meeting. She kept calling people to remind them, but the snow that had fallen the night before was making it difficult for people to travel the old roads in the community that surrounded the town. Finally there were about forty people, and they had polished off most of the food, so she introduced the speakers to everyone, and then they watched the films. Afterwards she had each person, George, from the Albuquerque Resource Center, and Bill Dufess, from Nuclear Futures, give a presentation. A few people left, but Alicia spoke to each of them before they did. George talked about the dangers of radiation leaching away from the dump, and Dufess spoke of the economic benefits that Cimarrón would derive from the increased truck traffic. He was trying to drive home a point about the safety of the project when Ruth Mondragon interrupted him.
“What about the flooding, Dufess?
“Yeah, what about that?” someone else interjected.
He looked confused. “I don’t understand, what flooding?”
“Every time the river overflows, that strip of land is under water.”
“This is the first I’d heard of it. The land is dry, and we searched the records and didn’t find any evidence of flooding.”
“How far back did you go?” Ruth wanted to know.
“We searched back twenty years.”
“Well, about twenty, maybe twenty-five years ago, we had one hell of flood here,” Ruth’s husband added. “And that wasn’t the first one, how do you know that won’t happen again?”
“Yeah,” Margarita spoke up, “how do we know that radioactive junk won’t come floating through town some day?”
Dufess smiled. “I’ll certainly look into it. But, you needn’t worry, the waste will certainly not leak out of there.”
“We’ve heard that before,” Joyce added.
“You’re all worried about nothing,” came a new voice. “I think this here dump’s gonna be good for business.” It was Mr. Lambe, from the diner. “Why, most people around here support this thing. There’s only a few crybabies against it.”

“You just say that because you stand to make a few bucks, Max,” Ruth told him.

“What, what’s wrong with that?” Lambe shouted out. “We could all use the money.”

“But what if it’s not safe?” Alicia asked.

“Yeah, ” someone shouted from the back. A chorus of “Yeahs” followed.

“Now listen, everyone,” Dufess broke in. I can guarantee you this is safe. Not only that, but I’ve spoken with Mr. Lambe, and other members of the business community here, and everyone agrees that this would be a good thing for Cimarrón financially.”

“Maybe it would,” Tom Hilton said, “but its not a good idea.” Tom had moved to Cimarrón in 1959, trying to resurrect the old hotel. “That’s where the old town was,” he said, “That’s Cimarrón’s history over there. The Maxwell mansion was there. The Yellow Front Saloon. The Cimarrón News and Press, where Clay Allison roped the press and dragged it into the river. Hell, Kit Carson hung out there. Billy the Kid was a friend of Maxwell’s son. Wyatt and Morgan Earp met Doc Holliday there. There’s a lot of history there. I don’t think we should turn it into a dump.”

Alicia said, “I think we ought to start a petition, and find out how many people really want that dump here.”

“You got it!” Ruth, on her feet, yelled out.
Everyone wanted to help Alicia draft a petition for Cimarrón. George offered his ideas, and other people wanted to use STOP’s petition.
“Why can’t we just say, ‘We don’t want a nuclear waste dump in Cimarrón’?” Alicia wanted to know.
“Or anywhere else in New Mexico,” Ruth suggested.
“OK, that’s it,” Alicia agreed. “Now let’s get some copies made up.”
“We’ll do that,” Charlie offered. If you’ll write it down, I’ll take it with me, type it, and send you a bunch of copies.”

Pretty soon, Alicia a few others had taken the petition around to every door in Cimarrón. Charlie called from Albuquerque to find out how it was going, and if she needed any help.
“Thanks Charlie, but it’s going great. We’ve got over seven hundred signatures, and there’s a photographer from the Santa Fe paper who’s going to come by and take a picture of us with all the names.”
“Wow! That’s really great, Alicia.”
“I’ll send you a copy of the paper when we get it.”

Two months after the story appeared in the papers, Nuclear Futures cancelled their plans to build the first commercial nuclear garbage dump in New Mexico.

“Ruthie, did you hear that Bill Dufess is moving?”
“I’m not surprised.”
“And he said he wanted to live here, whether or not the dump went in.”
“Alicia, I think we ought to have a party, to celebrate.”
“Let’s do it tonight. I’ll supply Tequila.”
“And I’ll bring Tony and Eloy. You call Rita and Effie.”
“Bueno.”
“Bueno bye.”

Six months later, Alicia was elected Mayor.

Charlie got a letter from Joyce. She was in New Hampshire. She’d been arrested at a sit-in protesting the building of the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant. Although she’d been well treated, she’d lost her baby when she’d gotten out of jail. She and Harry were going to get married. They’d decided to try for another child, and thought it best to get married first. Charlie and Rosa were invited, but they didn’t go. He stayed home because Rosa didn’t want to go. She couldn’t. She had a date, although Charlie didn’t know it yet.

© 1989 – 2010 rtmulcahy

Black Jack Ketchum, Clay Allison, Pat Garrett, Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, Jesse James, Kit Carson, and Zane Grey all either visited, worked, lived – or, in some cases, died – in Cimarrón.

Cops, Priests, and Altar Boy Scouts

(me in costume, years ago)

I wanted to be a priest. Yeah, a fucking god-damned priest. Why? Well, for one thing, they have a good break in life. They don’t pay taxes, and they have an easy life. All they do is give sermons and repeat the same old shit all the time.

Just because I said that, it doesn’t mean I wasn’t religious. You couldn’t have paid me enough to miss Mass on Sunday – a mortal sin. I didn’t want to go to hell. I was an altar boy too, serving God in the cold, damp fucking early mornings before school. I should have become a priest. I was primed for it. After eight years of Catholic schools I was ready to believe that God saw everything I did, knew everything I thought. I didn’t dare hurt Him by sinning. My classmates didn’t like my attitude. I was a true believer, and they weren’t. Of course, much of that was my reaction to their thinking of me as an idiot, so I had to have something that made me better than them, if I wasn’t ever going to be their equal.

I could see them laughing at my perfect, good-little-Catholic-boy responses to the nuns’ prompts in class. A good example is the story I wrote in fifth or sixth grade. We’d been told to write something about winter. Could have been about snow, and sledding, and snowball fights, and snowmen, and fun. Instead, I wrote a sermon. It was only a paper to be turned in, but I wrote a reminder to everyone to think of Jesus being born into that cold winter snow, much like the storms that were so terrible we couldn’t even go outside in them. I was proud of it. I was a religious Sambo, grinning and jiving that Jesus stuff, hoping to impress people with my virtuous love of God. A goody two-shoes in the extreme. Better than other people, with the correct relationship with God. Hah! It worked too well. The nun read it to the entire class. I’ve always been an idiot.

Father Kirsch didn’t think I was perfect. He kicked me out of “the altar boys” for talking and clowning around in line while we waited for his sorry late ass to show up at May Day procession rehearsal. He made us line up in twos, and stand that way until he got there. Since he was late, I was bored. When authority figures weren’t actually in the room, my virtue seemed to evaporate. Kirsch outdid everyone in the self-righteous department. He stormed and fumed about our performance, whether by the altar or on the street. He fired me right then and there, the moment he walked in, since I wasn’t standing there perfectly quiet and still. I was horrified. I cried on my way home. I couldn’t tell my parents about it. My dad had been a deacon himself for years, and had taught altars boys himself at a different church before we had moved, before we were old enough to be in ‘it’. Serving Mass was a kind of calling, akin to being called to the priesthood. You took it seriously, and, like everything else my parents told me to do, there was no such thing as refusing. For weeks I pretended to go to rehearsals. I walked down to the church and even looked in. I hung around the shrubbery until they were almost through and went home. My parents didn’t ask me where I’d been. Why would I lie about that? Eventually someone told them, and I was back serving Mass again, for awhile. Serving Mass under Kirsch was stressful however. Once I missed my cue to ring the bells, without which no one in the pews knew when to stand or kneel. Horrified, I missed the next one too. One rings them three times during the raising of the host, three times during the raising of the wine. That day it was once, then three. I could hear the confusion in the pews, but I never heard a word about that one.

I was also a boy scout – uniform and all. Weird that that organization finds so many ways to get money from parents, money mine could ill afford to part with when six other kids needed basic necessities too. Poorer kids didn’t join at all. All that crap: manual, merit badge books, field trips, uniform, compass, knife, and camping fees and gear too. There were times when I had to wear my uniform to class. Green was at least different than the tan shirt and brown pants I had to wear every other day of the school year, with the iron-on patches on my elbows and knees. I wore my knife on my belt. That was a odd thing to get away with, but when you’re a “boy scout” you are also close to perfect: trustworthy (people depend on you), loyal (to family, leaders, school and nation), helpful (without pay or reward), friendly (a friend to all), courteous (good manners), kind (strength in gentleness), obedient (obeys the law), cheerful (whistle while you work), thrifty (save), brave (can face danger), clean (in body and mind), and reverent (to God, and faithfully). So, there I was, on my way home one day, all gussied up in my starched shirt and badly creased pants (I had to iron my own clothes). I stopped by the drugstore where I read comics. Some of my classmates were hanging out there.

“Hey, pretty boy.” “Are you a good little scout?” “That’s a nice bandanna you’ve got there.” “Can I try it on? I want to tie my hair up.” Rough crowd. Even white Catholic boys have gangs, toughs and petty thieves. These guys regularly stole from the store. I was told a story once about being chased by cops down the alley, with gunshot warnings. These guys were 13 and 14. Like I said, tough neighborhood, of sorts. However, enough was enough. I saw red. I was a boy scout, brave and all that, so I pulled my knife out and waved it at them. “Come on,” I told ‘em, come and get me. Here I am. ” Of course, they backed away. They laughed too, but they weren’t smiling as I moved toward them. No one else in that school could possibly have carried a knife. I’m surprised they even let the Scouts carry one. I was insane, and waving a knife. And it was sharp too – I always made sure of that. I probably had a whetstone in my pocket. Even Maranelli backed off.

Maranelli was one of the tough ones. One time, a couple years later, walking home late one night, I got jumped. Two guys grabbed me from behind. I was surprised how strong they were, and how firmly I was held. I wasn’t optimistic until the third guy came around in front, saying, “Got any money?’ I recognized Maranelli. He recognized me too. “Hi Frank,” I said. He told the other two to let me go. “He’s OK,” he said. We didn’t say much else. Didn’t really know each other outside of grade school, and I was already in high school by then, downtown, away from there.

It’s a good thing I didn’t stick around that neighborhood, considering those kind of career choices. I was, as I said, a good boy – oldest of seven, responsible, the ‘good’ example. Washed dishes, mowed the lawn, picked weeds, scrubbed floors, babysat. Didn’t talk back. Studied. Went to Church on Sundays. Went to Monday night religion classes after eighth grade since I was in a public school then. Still. Still, I had been in trouble enough. Used to swipe candy bars on a regular basis, especially Kit Kats. Mmm, chocolate. My parents weren’t about to buy crap like that except at Easter. Since I’d read the whole Science Fiction and fantasy section of the local library, I took paperbacks from the same store too. I had a whole library of purloined paperbacks at home. A nearby toy store had lost several model cars to me and my brother. Somehow, I always forgot to confess such things on Saturday. Really. Never entered my mind while I was in the confessional. I had a routine, and I followed it. It was supposed to be instructional, but I used my littlest boy voice, and the priests rarely asked questions.

Got caught stealing a couple times only. The first time, the toy store owner just called my dad. He made me and my brother wait in his office. I ditched the razor blade there. I’d been using it to neatly open the clear plastic coverings on the packages. I stuffed it into the corrugations of a cardboard box. The owner was no dummy. His desk was locked. He did come in and search us. Looked all around the office too, even in the trash can, but nobody would think to rip apart all the cardboard on a box for a razor blade. He thought we had knives. I told him the packages were already cut. My dad took us home, read us the riot act. I don’t remember the punishment for that one. He told us the story about how he had been caught stealing and his dad had left welts all over his legs for that. Leather straps or a belt were not an uncommon punishment for us, but never that severe.

The second time, I was not so lucky. I’d stuffed some paperbacks under my jacket, but I’d done it so many times before that I actually forgot they were under my jacket as I reached for the door. The drugstore owner was pissed. He accused me of being with a gang; wanted to know which one. Told me that the gangs stole stuff for fun. Tried to convince him I wasn’t in a gang, didn’t know anyone in a gang. He had already called the cops though. Too late for cuteness and innocence. The two cops put me in the back of the squad car and headed out; said they were taking me downtown to the station. I started crying. Seemed the best thing to do, and really, I was scared. I wanted them to know I was really sorry. I was really scared of jail, and scared of my dad when he found out. I started telling them not to tell my dad, begged ‘em not to. Did my best to convince them that my dad would beat the hell out of me, and it was a possibility, after all. They didn’t turn at the light. They went on across the main street, up the hill and down the many blocks I walked each day. Took me home. My dad was at his second job. My mom came downstairs with two kids in her arms and two more screaming bloody murder upstairs. Cowards left me there. They left faster than I had imagined. Maybe they knew my mom’s dad, who’d been a Baltimore cop for a long time. My mom told ‘em, “His dad will take care of him.” Dad probably would have too, except he didn’t touch me anymore since I’d knocked him down and tried, really tried, to kick his teeth in. He was still stronger than me, after all, but that had made him proud somehow. He’s spent years trying to convince me not to turn the other cheek to bullies, to stand up for myself, and not take abuse. So I did. He started slapping my head back and forth. I knocked him down. He wasn’t expecting it. But he smiled the whole time, that time, and never hit me again.  We talked this time, and that was it. He yelled some, as I recall, but we both knew he wasn’t going to hit me.

Coffee Trash

OK, I’ll admit that I like coffee. No, this isn’t the first line of my therapy. I just like coffee. I like it leaded or unleaded, with caffeine or without. I enjoy drinking it. I like the flavor and mix of roasted bean extract flavored with raw sugar crystals and cow juice. I have access to an espresso cart at work, and I have developed an appreciation for espresso, but a single or even a double shot doesn’t give me much to sip on. I like Americano coffees. Hot water and two shots of espresso at work jump starts my day. On Sunday mornings I amble across the street to the Flying Star. It serves great coffee – far better than Starbucks, or any fast food restaurant or gas station convenience store. I have a favorite now; I order an Americano with four shots of espresso. The funny thing about espresso is that it doesn’t have the jolt of caffeine you’d expect, nor the bitterness of brewed coffee. It actually tastes good. So, to paraphrase a song lyric: my mind begins to wonder. I walk through Flying Star’s little parking lot every Sunday morning, and what do I always see but empty take out coffee cups. Not strange, you say? People are pigs, you say? Well, amazed to discover: the discarded coffee cups are not from Flying Star! Most are from Starbucks, with their characteristic green logo, some are from 7-Eleven, and some from Circle- K. It boggles my mind. There are no other coffee shops of any kind within miles. People have to have brought these cups with them on their way to Flying Star. Now that raises a lot of questions in my trivia-obsessed brain.

Do people need a coffee with them in order to drive to Flying Star? If they like Flying Star coffee, why buy coffee elsewhere before they get there? Are people that addicted to the caffeine that they have to buy one on the road on their way to a cafe? Why drop the cups in the parking lot? If they are going in to the Flying Star Cafe, why not dispose of the empties there, or just outside the door in the highly visible trash can? Why drop these cups in the parking lot at all? It’s a mystery to me. Flying Star coffee is highly rated around town, so I can’t understand why people are drinking coffee elsewhere, and then coming to this Cafe? Why would people drop their cups in the parking lot anyway?

The only thing I can come up with is that these are smokers, or former smokers, or that they have tapped into that same mentality. Smokers used to drop matches and butts everywhere, higgedly-piggedly, although I rarely see a used match anymore. Occasionally I’ll see a discarded, far more ubiquitous disposable lighter. One of the problems associated with smokers is that they simply drop their spent butts wherever they happen to be, sometimes putting them out, sometimes not. If a building policy forbids smoking inside, then piles of tobacco droppings are certain to be found spread around the door like guano. Smokers seem to have adopted the crime mentality that permeates many people’s brains; it is the mentality of the law-abiding citizen who breaks a law or moral code, and comes to accept the label of criminal. Once you’re a criminal already, then why care about anything? How else to explain the careless way smokers throw matches, cigarette butts, and cigar butts out of car windows, over their shoulder, on simply down at their feet? It is the behaviour of brain-addled addicts, to be sure, but addicts who have no sense of social responsibility. Enter our new, more socially-acceptable addiction: coffee. Along with the habit comes the old habits: toss, drop, ignore.

Cigarette butts were bad enough. Now it’s styrofoam cups littering the sidewalks, and all the parking lots of our schools and workplaces. It is a shameful product of minds that cannot accept responsibility for their own actions; that cannot see their actions as bad. I imagine the attitude is, “It’s not my driveway, my house, my sidewalk, so why should it matter?”

Why have we become such trashy people? Is it simply another sign of civilization in decline? The attitude used to be: “Out of sight, out of mind.” It gave us leave to dispose of things we called trash, even people, because we didn’t see it anymore. Now, we have, “Out of mind, out of sight.” If we don’t mind, it don’t matter. How long before nothing matters anymore? Sad.

BLOODROCK

8am. Saturday morning. Phone. Ringing.
Hi! It’s Mark I’ve got a truck
taking the lava rocks to Mt. Taylor today
wanna come?

Three years Mark collected these rocks
just a few each trip
he’d drive 70 miles to see May
she lives near Grants on Oso Ridge.

The rocks are bad luck, May Lee said
don’t mix East flow with West flow
if you do if you do
Enemy of the People may return.

In the Navajo story of creation
the Twins slew the monster -
the one who troubled the People
his blood is black hard sharp.

Landscapers create rock gardens
Mark decorated his land
delineated his agriculture
with lavaculture.

Jesús fell his friend Jesús
fell off the wagon fell down
face onto sharp rocks
blood on the rocks.

Mark remembered the tale of the flow
the respect of Navajo for myth
Mark respects tradition
guilt guilt guilty

Love on the rocks too
Could his rocks be cursed?
bad blood between him and May
“Get out” “I’m leaving”

He decided to put things right
return the rock to its home
to the dead lava lake
oh and maybe May would come?

Heavy rocks
four strong men leather gloves
wheelbarrow rented flatbed
We panted the truck canted.

We drove to Mt. Taylor
(stopped to pee and gas the truck
12 dollars twelve gallons.
or three gallons a-piss).

To the mountain whose blood we carried
unloaded our burden
tossed right, threw left, dumped back
and May helped too.

A black lake of cold liquid rock
old pools glass-smooth sharp
whirls and eddies
frozen in time by the sacred mountain.

A few hundred pounds next to the flow
prodigal shards of blood of the beast
returned to their home
wasteland of unfriendly stone.

Our mission done, we played in the snow
the sky darkened rumbled
flashes split the air
time to go.

Lunch at El Cafecito
green chile stew pie and ice cream
the sky opened water poured
drove 60 miles home

the windows leaked.

A Painting for Her

2,215 words

It’s easy to die in The Big Apple. Asphalt flows like taffy under the weight of gridlocked traffic. In winter, the black taffy hardens, ripples, and cracks. Gargantuan trucks and buses rumble along the scarred, warped surface. Taxis buzz around like hornets, cutting in and out of lanes, indifferent to all. A city bus in front of me belched a thick cloud of inky smoke, so I zipped out from behind it to pass. I heard the hiss of an air brake over my left shoulder. As I turned to look, the sun was eclipsed by the biggest trash truck I’d ever seen. It pulled up alongside me and pinned me against the bus. My ten-speed was trapped, wedged between tons of unyielding steel. Traffic was backed up, as usual, so I sat in the semidarkness waiting for something to happen. I didn’t get off — hell, that bike was my livelihood. Fortunately, when the light changed, the trash truck angled left, so I escaped. I was lucky that day. I rode those streets in the winter of 1976.
New York mornings are bitterly cold. Damp ocean winds blow across the island, picking up excess moisture from all the rivers and bays. It felt as though the cold seeped its way through my skin, past muscle, and into bone. I left for work early, one such grey, windy morning. A package in the large red pouch across my shoulders — a late pickup from the previous day — banged against my side. Steam seeped from manhole covers. My breath formed a cloud around my face. Ice formed on my mustache, and I felt the damp cold penetrating my beard.

Traffic was light. I raced along the streets, my feet spinning in smooth, even circles. Man, I felt great! I was sucking up oxygen, pumping it into my brain. My muscles were warming up. It was going to be a great day. Until. Until, without warning, the right side of my handlebars snapped off. I let go of it. With the brake and shifting cables still attached, it just hung there. I stared at it. Disbelief froze my brain. As I watched, the errant handlebar swung into the spokes of my tire. The bike jerked to a stop. I had time to think about how lucky I was to still be on the bike, but momentum caught up with me. I pitched over the handlebar, onto the street. It should have been painful, but I jumped right up — the street was far too cold for me to savor the moment right then — draped the handlebar over the center stem, and finished my delivery. Neither rain, nor hail, nor frozen street would stay this courier from his appointed rounds.
Of course, I didn’t work for the Post Office. I was a lot faster than that. As a bike messenger for Mobile Messenger Service, I delivered anything I could carry, from anywhere in Manhattan, to anywhere in Manhattan, the same day. For ten bucks extra, you got it in thirty minutes, guaranteed, a feat the Post Office couldn’t even touch. It was a popular service. I delivered letters and small packages to office buildings, including skyscrapers like the Empire State Building, and the World Trade Center. Dark-suited men and women swarm those lobbies, frantic and impatient. When an elevator opens, the swarm attacks. It’s a crowded ride, but the express elevators take you fifty floors without stopping! I don’t think those dark swarms enjoyed it, but I had a great time: Beam me up — the life forms are hostile!

Bicycles are indispensable to the advertising folks on Madison Avenue too. They needed their commercials run to and from developing labs all day. I met one of ‘em, the director of the Mr. Whipple (“Please Don’t Squeeze the Charmin”) ads. I told him those were the worst commercials on TV, and his chin dropped. Hey, it’s for wiping shit off your ass. Who wants to hug it? 
Running around like that, in and out of offices, studios, and film labs, you never knew who you might run into. The dispatcher sent me to an apartment building for a pickup. Guy name of Plimpton invited me in. He was still getting some papers together, stuffing ‘em in an envelope. He told me he was a writer; said he wrote about sports. He’d actually played with professional teams: baseball, football, and hockey, just to write about it. What a life a writer has.
One afternoon, after I’d finished delivering a letter to an office in Rockefeller Center, I called the dispatcher to see if there was a job waiting. There was. I had to get to the Met (the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and pick up a package. Funny thing was, there was no deliver-to address. I would get instructions at the museum. I’d never been to the Met, so I enjoyed the experience. It’s a huge place — takes up several city blocks, cutting off a lot of streets. There were hundreds of people clogging the sidewalk; and hot-dog carts, pretzel wagons, and balloon vendors competed for their attention. I u-locked my bike to a pole and ran up one hell of a lot of steps.
Inside, I collected a brown-paper-wrapped painting, and squeezed it into my bag. The delivery address was on 5th avenue, alongside Central Park. Faan-cy. Bunny M. was sending a painting to one J. K. Onassis. Now this was exciting. How many of those could there be? Better yet, she had to sign for it! The building was old, wrinkled with elaborately chiseled cornices. The doorman looked just as old. He made a phone call before he’d let me in that marbled lobby. I was escorted to an elevator by a much younger, dark-haired dude in a starched white jacket. He looked like a cook. He got in, punched a button, and stood by the panel, staring into space. I stood by the door, eager for it to open. I felt like a cab at a traffic light, gunning my motor. We rode up a few floors, and it opened into a kitchen. My leg moved forward, but my foot didn’t touch down. I realized there was something across my chest, holding me back.
I turned my head. It was the guy in white. His arm felt like the steel bar of a subway turnstile when you forgot to put a coin in. I began to suspect he was neither a bellhop, nor a cook. His eyes were cold, with a steady glare. “I will take the package,” he said. His voice reinforced the threat in his eyes. “It has to be signed for,” I said, hopefully, and with as much authority as I could muster. “I will take care of it,” he insisted, in a tone that most people wouldn’t disobey, and “You stay here.” I wasn’t going to move from that spot.
He took my package, and my clipboard, and disappeared through a doorway on the right. I was disappointed, of course. I’d never meet the apartment’s famous occupant. I stuck my head out — there was no one around. I had let my excitement build up as the elevator crawled to this place. Now, I was reduced to standing in a little steel box. I saw through the kitchen doorway to a polished hardwood hall, hoping to see a figure there, hoping to see Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

I heard footsteps. They were too heavy for her. It was the chef/bellboy dude. But, behind him, she came. She looked heavier than I’d imagined, but it may have been the bulky sweater obscuring her figure. When she saw me, she stopped. “Oh!” she cried out. There was fear in her eyes. Perhaps it had always been there, ever since Dallas in ’63. She seemed to collect herself, and said, “I didn’t know he was right here.” “Sorry, ma’am. I shouldn’t have brought him up.” She smiled at me then, and the look of fear was obscured by the beauty of those eyes. “Thank you,” she said to me. “It’s my job, Ms. Onassis,” I said. “Nevertheless, I appreciate your promptness, and the care you took.” “You’re welcome,” I stammered, “You’re very welcome, of course, anyway.”
“Please come in,” she said.
I stepped off the elevator. The door didn’t close behind me. “I just made some coffee. It’s so cold today. Would you like some? Oh, that’s silly of me. You probably must go on with your deliveries?” “No ma’am. I, I didn’t know where I was going when I was sent to the museum, so I don’t have any other stops to make until I call in.”
“Well, then, sit,” she insisted, with a smile I couldn’t have refused. “You too, Alex,” she directed at her protector? It was a command, and I enjoyed the worried look on his face. I suppose Secret Service agents are like that. I’d decided that’s who he had to be. The way his arm shot across my chest; that look in his eyes — no, this was no servant.
Jackie set out a plate of brownies. I was nervous. I stuffed half a brownie in my mouth. This was the woman married to President Kennedy. This was the woman in the car with him when his head was blown apart. This was the woman who scooped up some of his brain, and carried it in her cupped hands to the doctor. This was also the same woman who’d married a Greek millionaire. He was dead now too. Jackie was one of the rich and famous, and she was sitting right there across a table from me, talking to me. I gulped at my coffee to wash the brownie down, and burned my tongue.
“I do appreciate the care you took with my delivery. Did you know it was a painting?” “Well, it sure looked like one, ma’am,” I blurted out, slurring the “looked” into something like booked. “You mean it traveled like one?” she asked. “Uh, I don’t, Oh! I see. Yes, well, no, I mean, it looked like it could be from the shape of the package.” “Yes, it was from my friend Bunny. She knows I like Egyptian art, and she found a wonderful painting for me.”
“I’m sure glad it was me who got to bring it to you really am glad to meet you,” I rushed out. Pause. Silence. I finished my coffee, and two more brownies. Jackie looked kind of embarrassed by the combination of hero worship and sweat oozing from me. I needed to say something, anything. “Do you collect art, Ms. Onassis?” “Well, yes. I suppose I do. Would you like to see some?” “Sure! I mean, yes! of course, thank you, yes, I would.”
I followed her to another room off of that hallway I’d seen through the kitchen, Mr. Secret Service somehow always between us. There were small Egyptian statues, and paintings, as I expected, but also shelves full of books, books about Egypt. Egypt? Books always impressed me, more than anything else. “I see you admire my books.” “Yes ma’am. Are they all about Egypt?” “Well, no, but I am fascinated by Egyptian literature, you know.” “No, I didn’t know that. I don’t really know what it is you do at all.”
“Are you a writer?”, she asked me. I laughed. “Um, no. Can’t say I am.” “Oh, OK,” she said, smiling, “I thought you might be a reporter or something.” “Oh, no. No ma’am”, I said. “I’m just a messenger.” “I suppose you think I take lazy cruises, sunning myself on exotic beaches, and living an easy life?” she asked. I imagined her in a bikini. I imagined her without a bikini. “Well, uh, the thought had crossed my mind,” I said. She laughed. Jackie had laughed at my little joke. I liked her. “Actually,” she said, still smiling, “I’m working right here in New York, just like you are. I work for a publishing house, Viking. Do you know it?” I didn’t know who published anything, so I had to say, “No.” “Well, no matter,” she replied, “It’s real work, something I’ve always wanted to get back to someday.”
It was hard to imagine her working. It was also hard to imagine leaving her. I wanted to spend the rest of the day just in her presence. I watched her lips moving. Her lips were temptingly moist. I felt warm. She was looking at me. I thought I saw a question in her stare. Suddenly I realized I’d lost track of what she was saying. “I do have work to get back to,” she said. “Me too,” I said, in a higher pitched voice than I expected. She slipped me a George, and thanked me again for being punctual and careful with her package. Alex took me back down on the elevator. I called in to Mobile Messenger from the lobby. “Where’ve you been, dude?” the dispatcher asked. “I’ll tell you when I get back — you won’t believe it,” I said. “Have you got anything for me?”

“Yeah. It’s a rush job. Can you make it to the Bowery in ten minutes?”  “Sure.” But I didn’t.

Barstool Cowgirl

She thought she was totally cool. I found her irresistible. Her jet-black hair caught my attention, and hell, wild women always attract me. The red dress and the sensuous way she was poured into it riveted my attention on her. I introduced myself, sitting down on the empty stool to her left, and flexed the muscles under my tattoo.  Roofing work gives me muscles and a nice tan.  The booze was insidiously working its way to my brain.  I said, “Did you see the sky turn scarlet at sunset?” The long slow pull she took of her whiskey put the diamond on her finger in front of my face, long enough for me to take notice. “That’s a good one,” she said with a wink, and the words poured out slowly, friendly, “Yeah, I suppose you can sit here.”
This could get ugly, I thought. That ring sent streaks of light flashing through my retinas and bouncing around my brain while she talked. She kept asking questions and watching my reactions. She bought me another pint of stout. I’d been thinking of leaving, just saying good-bye and walking away, but I couldn’t refuse. She asked me what I’d read lately, and I had to confess that all I’d read lately were the channel listings in TV Guide. I didn’t know if “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was even a book. She rattled off the titles of half a dozen books: Tuesdays With Morrie, Sex and the City, The Bone Collector, The Perfect Storm, Night Train, before I recognized Killing Floor. I don’t know why, but I didn’t even try to fake it; I admitted I had bought it, but hadn’t read it. When would I have had time to read?
She asked me what I thought about putting a road through the petroglyphs. Did I think the Forest Service should log 600-year-old Ponderosa Pines in New Mexico? Did I think the new Governor had deliberately exceeded his authority in signing the Indian Gaming Compact? This is the hardest bar room mating ritual I’ve ever run across. I asked her if she’d ever watched Babylon-5 on TV, and she didn’t know what that was. I tried to explain the show. “Oh,” she said, “I don’t care for science fiction; it’s too predictable.”
Frankie, the bartender and a damn good tattoo artist, put a bowl of pretzels in front of us, and Carmen excused herself to go pee. I grabbed a fistful of pretzels, and watched her walk away, totally absorbed in her walk. There was confidence in the way she carried herself. Now’s my chance to leave, I thought, popping pretzels in my mouth. That diamond ring on her finger mortified me. I thought about jealous husbands and tall boyfriends. I thought about fists and guns, and quietly slipping out of back doors. Did I really want to do this again? I gave it all too much thought, because she was already coming back. I heard her boots clicking on the wooden floor, and turned to see her adjusting her red cowgirl hat, angling it slightly over one eye. She had the other eye on me. Well, what the hell, I thought, I’m a weak man. I went fishing for compliments. I asked her if she liked my tattoo. “Yeah, I like it,” she said, “It reminds me of the one my husband has on his butt.” Well, there it was, the code word, husband, for “You’re barking up the wrong tree; don’t bother me,” but she certainly seemed available. I didn’t ask about the husband – perhaps I should have. If she wasn’t going to talk about him, then why should I? I wanted to keep my cool, pretend I didn’t care about husbands. The truth was, I didn’t really care about the whole institution of marriage; there was nothing sacred about it to me. I didn’t know anyone, including my parents, who was still married.

However, I did remember the tall blond guy in the pickup, demanding to know if I was fucking his wife. I remembered the trucker waiting outside the bowling alley to avenge his dishonor. And I thought about the others, the guys who never knew that their wives or girlfriends fooled around, and with more than just me.

The band played a nice high energy electric country. I two-stepped with Carmen. We drank. We danced through two sets, and I asked her if she’d like to come home with me. “No,” she said, and, “I have to go,” she said, but, “Would you like to come to a party tomorrow night?” she said, finally. I told her I did, so she wrote down the party address on the back of a deposit slip from her checkbook. I stashed that paper with two addresses in my wallet, stuck it in between two twenties I knew I wouldn’t need until the next day, and walked her to her car. “Nice car!”, I said. It was a little green MG, low to the ground, dual carburetors, bucket seats. I was impressed. I kissed her before she got in. She wrapped her arms around me, and sucked my lip into her mouth. After just a few minutes of stuff like that, she poured herself into the seat. “I’ll see you tomorrow night,” she said, and the engine roared. She winked at me, and peeled out of the lot.

The party was rolling by the time I got there. I was late since I’d been at the bar all afternoon. The front door was open and I strolled in. Carmen saw me right away; she must have been watching the door. “Beer’s in the fridge,” she yelled at me, from the other side of the room. I didn’t know who her husband was, or where he was, so I just waved at her, and grabbed a Mickey’s wide-mouth off the shelf from behind the Jack Daniels. Hmm, cold Jack Daniels, I wonder whose that is? I didn’t have to wonder long, because Carmen was there before I could close the door. She grabbed that bottle and took a god-awful-long swig, and then sloshed some into a glass. She never said a word to me, just planted her lips, sticky with Jack Daniels, on mine. She tickled the base of my tongue and I forgot to breathe. My lips throbbed with waves of pleasure. My mind took a vacation. She squeezed her left arm under my right, and steered me somewhere. She pulled me into a room along the hallway from the kitchen, and closed the door. She snapped my buckle open, and yanked on my pants. I pulled away from her a moment to unbutton my shirt, and her dress was off – fell off of her like it was made to do that. Well, I won’t bore you with the details, but when it was over, I was higher than a Carlsbad bat at sundown. It was hard to get dressed after that, what with all the kissing each others lips and other parts, but we finally managed it, and as we kissed again, there was a knock on the door. Carmen turned the light out.

Man, oh, man, that wasn’t a good idea, I was thinking. “Carmen, are you in there?” I heard a man ask. Carmen didn’t say anything. “He knows you’re in here,” I said. She turned the light back on, and the door opened. Sure enough, it was another tall one, blond, Aryan looking, at least six-foot-three. At five-eight, I’m impressed by that. He looked at Carmen, looked at me, spun on his left heel, and walked away. Carmen went after him. I went back to the party.

I danced a snappy Reggae tune with a pretty woman whose boyfriend glowered at me the whole time, then headed back to the kitchen, looking for something to eat. I found Carmen there. “We’re leaving,” she said. “Are you going to be alright?” I asked, feeling guilty, but admiring the way her clothes caressed her body. “Oh, it’ll be OK,” she said, “We have to go home and talk,” and she hurried out of the kitchen. I found a half-eaten green-chile-chicken enchilada casserole in the fridge, and wolfed the rest of that down like I hadn’t eaten in days. Actually, I probably hadn’t. The next night, I went back to the bar. Frankie poured me a Guinness as soon as he saw me. “Well, what happened partner?” he asked, “You left all of a sudden last night. Did you shack up with that pretty little filly you were with?” “Yeah, I did,” I said. “Well, how’s come you’re here now? You can’t be tired of her already?” he asked, winking, as he wiped the bar around my glass. So I told him the whole story, and he asked what I was going to do now.

“You know, Frankie, I think I’m going to have you ink some clothes onto that Elvis tattoo.”

© 1997, 2010

IF LOVE EXPECTS FOREVER

There’s more to love than romance and lust
more to love than sharing and caring
or kissing so looong you forget to breathe.
There’s more to love than even that.

I lost a love
a special love, comforting, relaxed
sensual, full of future,
an obliteration of all failures.

I hurt How to describe the pain?
I hurt everywhere all at once
my skin muscle bone
every cell in my body hurt.

I’d lost more than a lover
more than the comfort of her flesh
more than her presence in my life her beauty her wit
I’d lost more than a mate to share sorrow and joy

I’d lost more than the children we might have had
the feel of her swollen belly
the cry of our infant
the joy of teaching, nursing, nurturing
our children our children our children

I cried at first
pounding my hands on a floor wet with tears
I played with her gun carelessly left behind.
Shot a bullet into the desert it worked well.

no not that.
I imagined her return
believing our love would bring her back.

“I couldn’t hurt him,” she told me
She had to do what was best for her.

So she went to him

she didn’t talk, about us
she didn’t want to care.

I couldn’t live I couldn’t die

I was dead.

Radio, sweet music, had lost its power
The birds just screeched flowers only smelled
I couldn’t eat I couldn’t drink I couldn’t feel
No food no water no love
Too late too late too late.

“Our love is over,” my love told me.
“Men always want to hang on.
When it’s over it’s over.” It’s over.
“We’ll still be friends really.” Really?
Once we shared ideas
Now she’s too busy his politics her politics
my ideas are wrong, my friends mistaken.

Love is more than that
more than expectations
more than pain pain goes away.
Love is learning how to survive
day-to-day
and love again
no expectations now.

Losing love showed me my soul

I never knew I had one.

© O’Maolchathaigh

Do you think you could satisfy me?

“Do you think you could satisfy me?” she asked. What a question! I had never dreamt someone would ever ask me that. It was certainly my intention, but I wasn’t going to say anything lame like, “I think so,” or anything along those lines. Who would say no? Perhaps she just meant to clarify the nature of our relationship. I’d only just met her, having stopped briefly in Manhattan, Kansas on a bicycle tour of the US. I first saw Marti talking to Bob as I came down the stairs of the community center that was putting up our little bike group. She looked up at me, and stopped talking. I took advantage of the moment to drink in her visage. She had a Mae West shape, if Mae West had been a brunette: curvy, substantial, intense. I liked her right away. I don’t however, interrupt people. Marti did that for me, asking, “Who is that?” Bob briefly introduced me as a member of the group. Of course, that would be obvious, deeply tanned as I was, wearing little more than sandals on the muscular legs sticking out of my cutoff jeans. I left the two of them talking, thinking I would probably never meet the woman again. Yes, I was wrong.
She showed up at a dinner for the group later that day, sponsored by the community center. She was getting food, so I walked over to her, and started filling a plate for myself.

“So, what brought you tonight?” I asked. (I’m not a brilliant conversationalist)

“Bob invited me.”

“Are you staying for any of the workshops?” I asked.

“No. I can’t, really. I’ve got a lot of studying to do tonight.”

“That’s too bad. I was hoping to get together with you. I, I’m really interested in you.”

“I could tell.”

“When can we see each other?”

“I told you I’m real busy.”

“What about tomorrow?” I asked.

“I’m still really busy.” I was disappointed, and must have looked it, because she said, “Well, I do have a little free time.”

“When?”

“How about, say, one o’clock?”

“Sure! Where?”

“Would you mind meeting me at the Silver Mine? It’s a bar, if that’s alright?”

“I’ll be there.”

“OK,” she said, stuffing the last of her food in her mouth, “See you then.” She got up. “I’m sorry, but I really have to go now.”

I was disappointed. Did she really plan to show up? I wondered. Have I misread her?

I met her there outside that dark alcohol cave on that next gloriously sunny summer day. She seemed very nervous. She had dark glasses on. We went in. She said she didn’t really drink, but this was an out of the way place. She kept her glasses on. I asked her why she wanted to come there. She said she didn’t want anyone to see her. Why? She said it was a small town. Curious. We talked about life, pollution, and politics. I told bicycle stories. After we each drank a beer, and refilled our glasses, the conversation turned to casual sex. I love talking about sex, especially if that might make it happen. Marti asked if I believed in monogamy.

“Well, no,” I said. ” I think that if two people are attracted to each other, regardless of their other attachments, they should act on it.”

“Regardless of the consequences?”

“There are always consequences.”

“You know what I mean!”

I took a long sip of my beer and leaned back on the wooden bench. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s no problem. I mean, as long as you take precautions – you know – to prevent pregnancy, or disease.”

“And you would be willing to take such precautions?”

“Of course!”

“Then I have another question.”

“Shoot.”

Marti leaned across the sticky formica table right up close to my face and asked that question. I wasn’t prepared for that question. What would anyone say to that, I thought, except, yes? But, who could know whether or not someone could be satisfied? Is she testing me? trying to see if I’m experienced? naive? or both? I told her: “Yes. I don’t see why not. But, why do you ask such a question?” I was not expecting anything like her answer.

“Because I don’t usually fuck men. My lover right now is a woman. Does that bother you?”

Thoughts caroomed from synapse to synapse through different banks of my memory, like the unrequited passion I’d felt for Bonnie, my best friend in college. She lived with her lover. We’d come close to having sex while stoned and drunk, but it had never happened. Marti’s sexual preference was no shock, but I felt like I’d been there before. “No,” I told her, “But, why do you want me then?”

“Well,” she said, “It’s been a long time since my last relationship with a man.” I was a little puzzled, but I accepted her story at face value. All the time, however, she was nervous, looking over her shoulder, and watching the door. The bar, I had discovered, was quite some distance from the University, and, from the looks of it, not frequented by students. “Do you live around here,” I asked.

“No, I live in the dorm,” she told me. I was impatient by then, so I said, “Well, let’s go.”

“No! I mean, not now. I, I have studying to do,” she said in a low voice, “Would you like to come over about seven?” She was smiling at me, nervously playing with her glass, and starting to get up. “Room 10,” she said, and stood up. I pushed the bench back to get up, but she said, “No. Why don’t you stay, and finish the beer?” We had ordered a pitcher. She turned and hustled out the door.

I hope I don’t just end up talking about sex with this woman, I thought.

I showed up at the dorm after dinner the next evening, and who is leaving the dorm but Bob? “Hey Bob, what are you doing around here?”

“Oh, hi Sean, he said, “I came to shower. They have plenty of hot water, soap and towels here.”

“Sounds great!” I said.

“Yeah, it is. Are you going for one?” he asked me.

“Of course. Catch ya later.” I said, leaving aside the reason why I might be there if I hadn’t known about the showers. Men are such doofuses. This was getting stranger. I knew Bob was here seeing Marti. Why hadn’t he said so? Why would he hide it? Was Marti up to something? Why the two men if she was gay? Were there other men too? I was very clear on why Marti wanted me to come by. Perhaps I was too late. I knocked on her door. No response. I knocked again. She answered. She opened the door, looked surprised to see me, and looked up and down the hallway, before pulling me in and locking the door.

“Why’d you do that?’ I asked.

“Well, we’re all pretty open here. People feel free to just wander in anytime.”

“Oh, yeah. I saw Bob leaving when I got here. Said he’d come for a shower.”

“You did? Yeah, he was here. There’s other showers, but I told him he could use mine.”

“That’s all?”

“He also wanted me to go out with him tonight.”

“What’d you say?”

“I told him I was too busy.”

“Hmmm. And how is your work going? Do you have time for me?”

“Of course, silly. I’ve been working all afternoon so that I’d have some free time.”

I smiled. I said, “Com’ere.” We kissed, for a delightfully long time. She pulled me onto the the bed. I kissed her face and neck and my hands roamed over her breasts and arms. I started to stroke her thigh and mound. She touched her hand to my crotch briefly. I guess she was checking to see if I was ready. Was I ever! She pushed me away then, gently, and got up. “Hold that thought,” she said, “I’ve got to do something.”

She popped into the tiny bathroom. She came out nude. I pulled my clothes off in an instant and joined her on the bed. I had brought my ‘precautions’ and started to unroll one. “No. Don’t. I already took care of it.”

“Then why did you ask…?” She put her finger on my lips. Sometimes I don’t know when to shut up. ” It doesn’t matter,” she said, “Fuck me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Her body was taut but smooth. She was amazingly responsive and excitable. I’d never known a woman to seem so surprised when I entered her. She moaned right away. I wasn’t all that much of a Don Juan, but she really, really, seemed to like it. I worried, for a moment, that her moans and yells would bring someone to the door. She seemed to enjoy every second, thrusting up at me, and rotating her hips. I didn’t ever want to stop, but eventually I had to, after the most intense orgasm I’d ever experienced. I decided that I would never need to get stoned ever again. This was way better, beyond compare.

We separated for a few minutes, to cool down in the hot July evening, and then I snuggled up to her, thinking about later, thinking about sleeping in a soft bed with a soft woman.

“Sean,” she said, “You can’t stay.”

“”Why?” I asked.

“Oh, Sean, I’d like you to, but it’s just not a good idea. I could get into serious trouble.”

“You’re a grown woman. Surely you can do as you want?”

“Not here, I’m afraid. This University is pretty liberal, but not that liberal. This isn’t California.” I felt myself take offense. “I’m not from California,” I said.

“Where are you from, anyway?”

“Baltimore, Maryland, originally.”

“Really! I’m from Annapolis – you know, the Naval Academy, and all that.”

“You a Navy brat?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure am. I’ll be going back there too.”

“When?”

“Well I still have to write my thesis. I’ll be doing some research in New York first, but I’ll be going home in December.” I started thinking I might want to head east. “Sometimes,” I said, “I think I’d like to live on the Eastern Shore. It’s so beautiful there. I’d like to get a boat so I could crab and fish and sail.”

“Have you been to Annapolis?” she asked me.

“Just briefly, when I was in the Scouts. It’s a nice looking place.”

“I’d love to show you around. You could even stay with me.”

“I’d like that.”

“I’ll send you my address and phone number in New York. Call me when you get to the coast.”

That was that. Unfortunately, my bicycle group was leaving town in the morning. We were on a schedule.

I saw her again, one night about a year or so later, when I happened to be in New York. We had written to each other a little, and she was very surprised to see me, but just as nervous as before. She indicated she was ‘with’ someone. I told her I had just wanted to see her. That seemed to make her even more nervous. She told me I could stay at her place overnight. She didn’t. Horndog that I was, I had been hopeful. She asked me not to answer the phone. I gave her a number where she could contact me next day. She rushed off. I never heard from her. She never wrote again either. Perhaps I hadn’t lived up to her image of me from that one encounter? That was OK, since I was in love with the woman I lived with in Albuquerque.

A Comedy Duo

You think of comedy duos, you think of Abbott and Costello, Laurel & Hardy, Cheech and Chong, or maybe Burns and Allen, depending on your age. However, I think my parents were one of the best comedy acts I’ve ever seen. The driving trip was their specialty.

Somehow, they always thought, first off, that waking up three, four, or all seven kids hours before we usually got up was a good idea. Sure, they’d warn the older ones we would all have to get up early, and there was always a strict deadline to be on the road, like 5:00 am sharp. Of course, that never worked, but it never deterred them in the slightest. They’d drag us all out of our dreams and make sure we dressed, or were dressed. My mom went on to make the sandwiches and boiled eggs, while my dad was doing things to the car. There was barely enough light to see when we all finally stumbled out to the car, and fell back asleep, but not before we were told to pee now or forever hold our pees. That rarely worked either. Somebody always had to pee, of course, before we’d gone a mile or two. That was easy enough when we stopped for gas. I never saw us go anywhere without having to stop and put in a whole two dollars worth of gas.

However, on the return trip, all of the younger kids were asleep, and we were not allowed to stop for any reason. Me and my brother John were usually awake or woke up on the way back, and we always had to pee. My mom was prepared for this after a few such trips. She carried a mason jar with her, and she’d pass it back to us when we had to go. We’d fill it up, and she’d open her door just enough to pour it out onto the road. Woe onto any of us if we lost time or gas mileage because we had to stop. It’s pretty embarrassing to pee with your parents listening a foot away, but having to pass that jar of hot piss to your mom just seemed really odd. We handled it carefully too, since the thought of spilling any in the car seemed terrifying.

Going or coming, my parents were always fun to watch. If my mother was driving, my dad was always reaching over to grab the steering wheel – to straighten out the car, he said. He was nervous watching someone else drive, and couldn’t stand to see her not drive straight down the center of the lane squarely between the lines. Eventually they would teach me to line up the edge of the hood with the highway stripes, and that would put me dead center. I don’t know why it was so vitally important. Of course, since we couldn’t stop, sometimes the driver would fall asleep, and start to drift, so I can understand how grabbing the steering wheel came about. If my father was driving, he rolled the window all the way down, even on a cold night, to help keep himself awake, and we’d freeze our nuts off in the back seat. Even with that, I remember waking up when the car went off the road onto the shoulder. That was nerve-wracking, since the shoulders often sloped down away from the highway, and the car could roll over. My parents always managed to straighten the car. I learned from that that you don’t panic, you keep going, and gradually slow, until you can pull back on the road smoothly. Worked for me one time, but I never went off the road again after that. Nowadays I stop as soon after dark as I can, eat dinner and hit the sack.

By far the best part of the whole routine was watching them trade drivers. Remember, they couldn’t stop the car, even to pee, so stopping to switch drivers appeared to be out of the question too. One of them would suddenly say, “Grab the wheel,” and the other would do it. Then would begin the incredible acrobatics, as one person slipped under as the other climbed over, all while one person held the wheel and the other kept a foot on the accelerator. Keeping the car straight always seemed to work OK; the hard part was transferring power to the pedal. “Get the accelerator!” “I can’t, your foot’s in the way.” “Well, I can’t let go.” “Well let go now, damn it.” And suddenly, they’d be completely on their own part of the seat, and I’d relax. It was the best show I ever watched, and it played a couple times each trip, each and every time. Loved it.

Who does Santa support for President?

Oh, you’re looking for another celebrity endorsement, are you? Well, you won’t get one here. I will tell you this: Santa is a man of peace, and not peace when it’s convenient or politically correct, but now. Those of you fighting in Iraq, and Santa knows exactly who you are after all, need to get out of there. Santa does not endorse any of your gods either. Get out. Get out now. You say you still want to know who should take over as President of the United States? I haven’t seen much good will coming from Republicans or Democrats, and not much effort has been made by any of these politicians to seriously end this war. Now they are even preparing for another war, even while occupying two countries. No, my friends, it is not for Santa to say who US citizens should vote for in their Presidential circus. That said, however, I think you should all search your hearts and vote for whoever you think will end this mess quickly and bring all of your loved ones home quickest. That’s all Santa has to say on this subject.

Are old women sexually attractive?

In response to one of my posts on another blog, I got this email (excerpted):

>>> Why aren’t you attracted to women closer to your own age? For that matter why can’t most middle-aged men appreciate women of a certain age? I’m in my mid-thirties and it really gets on my nerves when I’ve been hit on by men in their 70′s. After this happened a few times I began to wonder if I looked old or something. It’s not flattering to be hit on by someone old enough to be your father, trust me. It makes you wonder what is wrong with the guy and whether he has some issues about control and/or power. …it’s no fun being a woman and getting unwanted male attention. … OK, I guess I feel pretty sensitive about the whole age thing. … And hey, why not try to meet some women your own age?<<<

I’ve been giving the second part of your message some thought. I’m attracted to women my own age, for friendship. Sexually, I never stopped being turned on by my ex, even as her jowls increased, her weight increased, her hands turned old & leathery looking, and she had to regularly dye her hair. Every look at her bare skin or touch of her body was enough to arouse me. I’m still attracted to her. However, being attracted sexually to other old-looking women is difficult. For one, in my experience, women lose interest in sex as they get old, especially during and after menopause. Men never lose interest their entire lives, and can in fact father children their entire lives. Since it is rare for an old woman to conceive, I suspect men have always looked to younger women for sex. I’ve heard that some older women enjoy sex, but I’ve yet to meet one, so why would I expect to have good sex with a woman who no longer enjoys it, and/or who only has it for their spouse’s sake? I love cuddling, holding hands, snuggling during movies and in bed, but that is not enough. I believe the answer to your question is simply, sex. Men are conditioned, perhaps also inherently through biology, to seek out young women for procreation. This is not to say that a man can’t continue to have a great sexual relationship with his spouse when they get old, but a single man? or a married man that is not getting sex and/or passion? Of course men will hit on women of any age that appear sexually attractive. IMHO.

This woman is definitely sexually attractive (at age 52):

This a a good resource on sexual arousal of older people: http://health.med.umich.edu/healthcontent.cfm?xyzpdqabc=0&id=6&action=detail&AEProductID=HW_Knowledgebase&AEArticleID=hw159186

Men are almost universally attracted to women of all ages, and I can’t see that changing. For friendship, it doesn’t matter. If an older woman, who is not interested in sex, wants to live with or be married to a man, then she must let him seek out other women for sex, not insist that he be “faithful”, whatever the hell that means. Just because a man loves a woman, that doesn’t mean he only wants sex with her. Usually it’s true, a man wants sex with his partner, and that’s usually enough, but when a woman doesn’t enjoy sex, or rejects it of hand, why the hell would they object to a man having sex with another woman, regardless of age? I think the same holds true for women: if they want sex, and their spouse/significant other doesn’t, then they should have sex with other men, and there should be no jealousy, nor any change in living arrangements. Maybe old women who don’t enjoy sex should just live with each other.

>>> I know you’re being honest and frankly, it scares me. Getting old for a woman isn’t the same as for a man. It’s like, we can’t all be Demi Moore and look fabulous. I am friends with a couple of women in their mid-to-late forties and I think they are drinking themselves to death because of their loneliness (much like the woman you ran into while you were walking in the ditch). I hope you can see a woman’s point-of-view on this one. Men are often guaranteed a lifetime of love and companionship.<<<

-

No one is asking women to look like Demi Moore. Well, of course, I can understand why you’d feel that way somewhat. What I don’t understand is why older women can’t be happy with their friends? Why are they lonely? Why does a woman need a man? If she wants sex, then I can see it. But if a woman has already had lovers, husbands, children, and isn’t interested in sex anymore, why would she need to have another man, and only a man, just for companionship? I don’t understand that. Children tend to stay in touch, visit, and be around their mothers all their lives, so it seems that women are usually guaranteed a lifetime of love and men are the ones that aren’t. I doubt seriously that men in general are guaranteed any love or companionship for life. The ones that do have it have had to go out and actively seek it out, perhaps again and again, and it’s a crapshoot. Additionally, just because a man is with a woman, that doesn’t mean he’s getting love or companionship. I do know about that. Men do not seek out young women for looks so much as for the sex. Are you saying that women in their 50s and 60s look for men for sex? or they can’t imagine the “disgrace” of only living with other women? If a woman is fun to be around, and there’s some sexual tension or playfulness, then I don’t think she has to worry about finding a man in her old age, or keeping the one she has. Many old women and men hang out together for fun and companionship. Old people can live together, but denying men sex because a woman doesn’t want it anymore? That’s wrong. If older men were free to have sex outside such a relationship, then such a scenario wouldn’t result in a man leaving an older woman, just for sex. All bets are off if the woman is actually interested in sex. Some women fail to appreciate how important sex is to most men, again, IMHO, and place too much importance on men having sex with other women, even when they are not interested in it themselves.

You also said, “I began to wonder if I looked old or something.” Are you kidding? Do you think people have a filter on their attractions, that men can only be attracted to people their own age? That was the funniest thing I ever read, that a man who hits on you thinks you look old! That was really, really funny. Thanks.

And I am certainly interested in woman in their 30s, or 40′s. I married my 1st wife in her 30s, and my second was already over 40 when I met her, 45 just before we married. Both women were divorced with two kids, one of each already a teenager. I certainly have never been bothered by such things. My first real, live-in relationship was with a woman 5 years older than me. There is only ONE woman under 30 I am interested in at all (she’s 27), and I am far too old for her to even consider.

See also:

older-men-find-older-women-just-as-attractive-as-their-younger-counterparts-survey-shows

All this being said, however, I think the question can be simplified to: Are women attractive? Certainly. Some are, some aren’t. Women that wouldn’t have been attractive to me when they were younger, aren’t suddenly going to be attractive when they get older, just because I am older. So, no, not all women are attractive to all men, nor are all men attractive to all women. Age can be a factor, but it is not the primary factor in a relationship, any more than a certain kind of look. We can be influenced by society: family, friends, commercial ads, movies, etc. but we are still attracted to who we are attracted to, regardless of sex, colors, or age. No one has any right to condemn anyone else for who they are attracted to, as long as the attraction is based on real physical interaction, not fantasy or mental disease.

The question I should really pose here is: Are old men sexually attractive if they aren’t rich or famous?

Could it be? is better than shoulda-coulda

I feel good today. There is more bounce in my step, and my eyes seem clearer. It’s a warm fall day, of course, but it’s easy to overlook that when you’re busy obsessing over a failed marriage, an unrequited love, being short of money every month, having union meetings to call and preside over, and trying to figure out how to assist people who need help keeping their jobs, and being treated fairly at work, since they pay dues hoping the union can do that. I’ve a meeting today, but I went for my usual 4-shot espresso/Americano across the street. I could make my own, but Sunday mornings I want to get out of this casita and be around people. The cafe has wonderfully pleasant staff, and really good coffee. I realized on my way home that I didn’t feel compelled to see my ex anymore. Sometimes I’m tempted to call, to see about going over there, having sex again. I woke up thinking about sex with various people I know or knew, obviously feeling a bit horny this morning. I always have sexual dreams about my unrequited, but she is off limits.

My ex, the Dragon, is still by herself as far as I know. Her general hatred and mistrust of men should keep her that way for awhile. I keep thinking back to that time I went over to finish up the computer swap from my system to hers and having her standing next to me while I lay under the desk pushing and pulling cables and getting everything plugged in. She was wearing that light, almost transparent wrap she has and it was parted, exposing her bare legs next to my eyes. There was a small hole in it, and I mentioned it to her, talking from my position under the desk, not seeing her face. She answered, in a pleasant voice, that she knew about the hole, and regretted that the wrap was wearing out, as it was so comfortable. My hand ached to stroke her legs, and our conversation was not strained or angry, so, who knows? She is sexually attractive to me always. I also thought of others though.

I was married before this. Ran into her in the grocery store last weekend. Talked a bit, but we sometimes see each other at work, so it’s not like we haven’t kept up. I’ve asked her to come by and check out the new place before, or to come for coffee some on Sunday mornings when I’m across the street. I should have invited her right there and then to come by when she finished shopping, because she wasn’t all that far away from my little place, but I didn’t. I fantasized about being in bed with her again too. She still wears that small gold Tumi knife figurine that I gave her shortly after we met, but she’s been with the same guy now for about 13 years.

-

My mind connects a vision of Carla from about 27 years ago, to Karen, my current object of desire, unrequited, these last few years. Karen has facial acne, and Carla had facial acne. I remember Carla telling me just before she left that she was pregnant, and she needed money for an abortion, but when I pressed for more information, asked for some kind of evidence, she backed off. I thought she was just trying to squeeze me for money. She had been living in LA, but was here visiting, living with her sister. I met her at one of Mark’s construction parties. He had lots of gatherings of people to work on his house. Friends, students, friends of friends; they all came to help Mark make adobes for his walls, mix mud for the adobes and the floors, pour a slab for his kitchen/living area, etc. In the tradition of barn building, some people brought food and drink; others, like myself, came to labor. It was at one of these work parties that I met Carla, whose sister had brought her along. I don’t know how it started. I must have noticed her or even been introduced by her sister, who I knew from my brief stint as a math assistant at the technical vocational school that she and Mark both worked at. She was a very cute woman, long dark hair framing a pretty face, and it wasn’t long before we were hanging around each other. I took Carla for a ride on the motorcycle to cool off, and we stopped along the arroyo that runs along the nearby Pueblo. It was a damn hot day, and the water looked inviting, so we got in. Since it was next to a highway, we left our clothes on, but that didn’t stop us from playing around, and even dry humping a bit. Can you dry hump under water? Wet hump? Anyway, it was too public an area, and who knows what was in that ditch water? We decided to go to my house, and the sex was nice, very nice. We saw each other for awhile after that. I found it hard to imagine living with a smoker, however. She was sexy, so I can overlook a lot for that, like most men. The t-shirt she sometimes wore said ‘Good Stuff’, and she was. She was often at my house, so I bought a TV for entertainment. It had been years since I’d had someone to live with, and I just didn’t know what to do with her. I liked fucking her, but I wasn’t making any plans. If she had stayed around, who knows, maybe we’d have stayed together, and she’d have moved in permanently? As it was, she said she was going back to LA, and I found that was OK with me. She just announced that she was going. That was after she said she might be pregnant, but we seemed to have settled that, and she didn’t bring it up again. I bought her a carton of cigarettes as a parting gift.

Suddenly it occurred to me that Karen is exactly old enough to be Carla’s daughter. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the head? They both have the same acne problem and the same build. K may even be smaller than the petite Carla, but since Carla smoked, that could have resulted in a small baby, from the oxygen deprivation. I have visions of Luke and Darth Vader: “I am your father”. Cool. I’d love to be Karen’s father. That would pretty much kill my sexual fantasies, but I would welcome the permanent link to her. I know Karen is adopted, and she knows her biological mother. She told me the last name once, but I can’t remember. What if? Man, I come up with doozies in this fevered imagination of mine. I had the same thought before, wondering if I could be Karen’s biological father with a another woman from my past.

Probably not, but there was this woman Chris, and she told me she was pregnant and that was somewhere in that same time period. She had been something. We mostly just had sex. Sex is one of my all-time favorite things to do. I was busy with a part-time job and lots of studying. I didn’t want a full-time relationship, or marriage. One time, Chris said she wouldn’t mind having another child. Her daughter had been taken to Florida by her ex. She said that, if she got pregnant, she knew someone who would marry her, even if I didn’t want to. I said OK, so I didn’t worry about it after that. One day, of course, she told me was pregnant, and wanted me to marry her. I reminded her we agreed not to do that, that I wasn’t interested in marriage. She threatened to abort the baby if I didn’t marry her, and I just wasn’t interested. I don’t know why. I certainly didn’t have a definite future at the time, and I felt no deep affection for her, and didn’t care if she had the baby or not. I never saw her again, so I don’t know if she decided to have the child or not. Another potential biological mother of Karen. How did I go from wanting to live with Karen, to marry her, and have children with her, to wondering if I could be her father? Well, I already know I’m insane. What sort of man believes he can hook up with a beautiful sexy young woman at my age? Why would she trust an asshole like me anyway?

Gold Glasses for Grandmom

“There is gold in them.” The woman in the antique store told me that the glasses were made with gold. They were old glasses. She didn’t know how it was done. They were red. I couldn’t understand why glasses made with gold in them could be red, but there they were. She said that was how you could tell, that only glasses made that way could be that color of red. Blood red. Nothing else is that exact color. She thought they had been made during the Depression. I was so intrigued that I came back a few days later and bought them. People have been coloring glass for centuries. The ancient Romans knew that adding gold to glass would convert it into a ruby-red material when heated in a controlled fashion. My favorite colors have always been blue and green and black. I think I liked the glasses more because I imagined the gold swirled around in their making. I’d done some glass blowing, so I could appreciate the red hot glowing balls of molten glass being formed into joints, into tubes and balls and shapes. The hot glass is so pretty that you want to touch its perfection, but you cannot. Years later I was to work in a printed-circuit board shop, and learn how gold is applied to the finger tabs along the edge on each board, the tabs that connect the board to other boards, and to power. Gold’s properties as a conductor make it almost perfect for connecting these thin circuits. One need only apply a current across an object in a tank of acidic dissolved gold, and you can coat that object with a layer of gold. Of course, on a circuit board, under the gold is a layer of nickel. I do not know exactly what the nickel is for, unless it is to create a thickness and strength for the very thin layer of gold, which could otherwise be worn off quickly. And the gold must have something to adhere to. I don’t remember exactly why nickel was used, for once you see the gold tank, you forget all else. It is a shining pool of red, the color of blood. For gold does not dissolve into any old solvent. To dissolve gold and maintain it in solution you need cyanide – actually hydrogen cyanide is its proper name. The structure that forms is similar to a structure found in hemoglobin. Cyanide is also necessary for the commercial preparation of amino acids. It is considered likely that hydrogen cyanide played a part in the origin of life. It is released from molecules in cherries, apricots, bitter almonds and apple seeds. At the right concentration hydrogen cyanide will kill a human within a few minutes. The toxicity is caused by the cyanide ion, which prevents cellular respiration.
It occurred to me to ask my grandmother if she had known about these glasses, and she said she remembered when Ruby Reds were popular, but had never owned any. I had only five of the small juice glasses. Five. She had five children left before my father died, but she had raised six healthy children. Six.  One of my aunts had died, hit by a car, while still a young and beautiful mother. I brought the glasses with me to my father’s wake and gave them to her then. I don’t know why. I seldom saw her, and wanted to give her something. After a while at the wake I saw her, and she was a little on the tipsy side as my father might had said. She was carrying the glasses around the house with her. I dismissed it at the time as an old woman having had too much to drink. But she was hugging the glasses, and would not put them down. After that I looked for more. I finally found one, and bought it, for it had finally occurred to me that she might have found more significance in the number of glasses than I had intended. I sent it to her so that she could have six blood-red cyanide glasses of gold, one for each of her children.