Merry Christmas, Detroit or Take the Homeless Skating

Tim could hardly be called tiny but the name sort of stuck with Tim since he didn’t hit puberty until late in high school. As the saying goes, Tiny’s nut did not drop until late in adolescence. Tiny or Tim as his mother called him, was short and had a high pitched voice until senior year of high school. It was at that time that Tiny joined the ranks of all the other boys who were becoming men.
Tiny grew up in suburban Detroit and played ice hockey from kindergarten through juniors when he finally came to grips with the fact that he was good and not great and that professional hockey was not going to be his vocation. Tiny went to the University of Michigan, became an accountant, found a job and started a family in Los Angeles before being moved back by his company to suburban Detroit.
Saying that he was born and raised in Detroit was not a source of pride to Tiny. He felt as though he had not really gone very far in life by returning to a town that seemed to have crumbled, decayed and stagnated through the years. Returning to Detroit seemed to be a punishment to Tiny who was squeezed out in the running to climb a rung up the ladder of his company’s firm. Instead his boss gave him a ho-hum review and gave him the choice of losing his job or move to Detroit. Tiny opted to keep his job and move to Detroit.
For anyone that ever had to move from Los Angeles to Detroit and really spent some time in inner city Detroit where neighborhoods gave way to prairie and trees grew through the roofs of abandon homes that were not burned down or decayed to pieces, Detroit could be quite surreal. Tiny was determined to put in his time for his company that was housed in the General Motors Renaissance Center along the banks of the Detroit River in the heart of downtown Detroit. Tiny bought a condominium on Lafayette which was walking distance from the Renaissance Center. He didn’t want his family to get the feeling of permanence. Condominiums seem more transient than single family homes at least Tiny felt this was the case.
Tiny’s wife was sort of indifferent to Detroit being a native Angelino who thought places like Michigan was somewhere on the east coast. It had to be since it was in the Eastern Time zone, right? Susan exercised profusely and shuttled their sons to hockey practice up in Troy, some fifteen miles north of the city to play for Little Caesar’s. Tiny, when he wasn’t working, spent a great deal of his own free time late at night playing men’s league hockey or rat hockey in well to-do towns north and west of Detroit. When Tiny told fellow hockey mates that he lived in 313, most were quite stunned.
It was the night before Christmas Eve that Tiny went with some of his buddies that were Detroit Firemen to play in a fund raising tournament in Windsor, Ontario. Tiny sent his wife Susan alone with their two boys to a holiday tournament outside of Toronto and opted to play hockey himself.
The tournament was uneventful for Tiny. He played defense and had a few assists and allowed a few bad goals to happen by not tying up his man. He had a few push matches in front of his goalie, had a good sweat and then returned with the team to downtown Detroit to finish a night of male bonding; play hockey, drink, watch hockey, drink, gamble and drink some more and then possibly hit a strip club, pass out, return home hung over and be low keyed and a family man on Christmas Eve.
Tiny stood out in front of a downtown watering hole called the Old Shillelagh after watching the Detroit Red Wings play at Joe Louis Arena. A digital display could be seen from the street letting everyone know that only eight two days were left until St. Patrick’s Day or possibly one hundred days left of potential winter weather before the Tigers would return to Comerica Park as a sure sign of summer.
Tiny smoked a large cigar that dangled out of the corner of his mouth like a large phallic symbol. Smoking indoors was only allowed in casinos and so the men stood on Monroe Street smoking, laughing and talking. A disheveled looking black man with rags hanging off of him and leathery exposed hands asked the smoking men if they had any change to spare. The man wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“Its Christmas y’all… Y’ain’t got some spare change so I kin buy me a hamburger and a little water? Come ahn y’all… Find it in y’heart t’help a man who ain’t gotta dime.”
Tiny listened to the man and he thought about how he felt trapped in a Detroit that was so different than the city his father had worked as an assembly line worker for General Motors from the end of World War II until 1984. Tiny’s father retired before he was let go. He outlasted the change that was coming. Tiny’s rant was angry, racist and drunk. Even his fellow hockey mates were surprised by his words even though they may not have disagreed with him.
“This is your fucking Detroit… Since the riots and Coleman Young, you people have done nothing but run this city into the fucking shitter and you hold your hand out and ask people like us to give you more. Well you got the whole fucking city to yourselves. Go ask one of your own to give you some fucking change… I could use a change. Change this town back to a place where people might want to live.”
The man looked at Tiny with a blank stare and then shuffled off into the night. Tiny went back in and had a few more pints of Guinness before deciding to go to his parent’s home rather than go on to play poker at the Greektown Casino and crash at the Greektown Hotel with his teammates. Tiny would have stayed but he needed to let his parent’s dog out at his boyhood home in Warren since his parents were visiting Tiny’s brother and his family in Akron, Ohio.
Tiny blared Van Halen on his fabulous sound system in his Range Rover as he sped north on interstate 75. The thought came to Tiny to piss on the abandon Fisher Body 21 that once made Cadillac limousines. It was symbolic. Tiny needed to piss but he was going to piss on the symbol of what Detroit had become and was mired in. The building stood abandoned with all the windows smashed out of it, covered in graffiti and home to drug addicts and homeless. It was Detroit's Chernobyl. Snow had begun to gently fall as Tiny took the interstate 94 ramp from interstate 75. Tiny was singing, Hot for Teachers as he took the curve too fast. Tiny couldn’t control the SUV. It hit the guard rail and went right through it. The large vehicle felt weightless as it plummeted over twenty feet and landed nose first on the ground. The car didn’t roll or tip, it stood vertically on end. The airbag deployed and hit Tiny with such force that it broke his nose and cheek bones. Tiny smashed his sternum on the steering wheel and fell in and out of consciousness. Tiny had a dream that he was walking on a sunny day through a field of knee high grass towards the Fisher Body 21 building. It was the 1950’s and the building was strong looking, vibrant and intact. Tiny walked up to the security guard at the entrance who saw him bleeding. The security guard posed a question.
“Say Mack… What in the world happened to you?”
The security guard asked over and over until the voice changed along with the words and the accent. The day was no longer sunny; it was cold, dark and snowy. He could hear a voice posing the same question over and over again.
“Say man… What happened to you? You okay, man? I know you breathin. Kin you hear me?”
Two old homeless black men raced from the fire they had built within the Fisher Body 21 building to see what had happened to the driver of the car that had sailed over the side of the freeway. Tiny gave a faint response. One of the homeless men took off on foot to possibly find a cop or someone with a cell phone that could call for an ambulance. The other homeless man ran back to the building and grabbed a ratty old comforter that he dug out of the garbage. It smelled horrible but it was warm and Tiny began to go into shock. Tiny was aware of the fact that he was seriously hurt and the idea of dying that night was entirely possible. Tiny was scared and began to say out loud that he wanted to live. He had a wife and kids and he hadn’t yet done all the things he set out to do in life. Tiny suddenly regretted that he didn’t spend more time with his wife and kids. He regretted racing through life, doing two things at a time at all times. He regretted being so angry and dissatisfied with life. Tiny sniffled as he listened to a homeless black man that he couldn’t see. All he could feel was a random stranger holding his hand. If he were to die, someone living would witness it. The homeless stranger was no stranger to the loss of life. Jonas had lived through Vietnam and at least a decade on the streets. Jonas quietly tried to reassure Tiny to fight.
“Listen boy… You keep yo eyes open an tell y’self you gone live. You got a wife an kids… That reason nuff to live foh. Yo wife an kids don’t want to be putting yo ass in the goddamn ground on Christmas… Hell naw. She want you to give her some present and y’kids want the same. They want to sit round and eat and talk like people do on dem holidays… Just like Jimmy Stewart,” said Jonas.
Jonas rubbed the top of Tiny’s left hand. Jonas was cold but acclimated to being cold since he lived in the cold. Tiny trembled almost uncontrollably as his teeth chattered.
“You cold, I knows it… Picture walking through a jungle where it so dang hot you kin barely breathe. You got mosquitoes biting on you and you sweat so much at all times. I lived through that in Vietnam foh two years, boy. I sat in the jungle with a young good ole boy from Georgia who hated me foh the color my skin an when the time come an he was tremblin from shock ah been shot, he held mah hand an thanked me foh being wid him… He died an I felt bad. I felt real bad cause I nevah toll him to fight. I jus listen to him an he needed t’hear me tell em to fight foh his life… I’m telling you, boy. Fight foh yo life. Fight foh yo family… You don’t give up, boy. You keep treading water cause the lifeguard coming.”
Tiny fought hard to stay awake. He thought about all the things he wanted to do and say to people that meant so much to him. After a while he could hear sirens getting closer and closer. The voice ceased speaking to him and his left hand grew cold. Tiny passed out and came to in the hospital surrounded by his entire family and a television news crew.
Every year since the accident on the day before Christmas Eve, Tiny and his hockey teammates rent out the Old Shillelagh and Campus Martius ice rink. Homeless people from all over Detroit come to get a free meal of corned beef and cabbage and then ice skate for free at Campus Martius, which has an outdoor rink. Homeless men and women put aside their woes and demons for a few hours as they shuffled across the ice to the sounds of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas. It may seem like a bizarre thing to take the homeless ice skating but none of them minded. In fact every year the homeless look forward to a day of dignity. Tiny served food at the restaurant and tied skates at the ice rink. He no longer raced around in traffic and cut people off. He did not let insignificant things ruin his days either. Tiny spent time with his family and took time to appreciate and grasp that every moment of life was life itself. Tiny took the time to take life in instead of letting it race past him. Almost dying will put life in true perspective.
Tiny was offered a lateral move with his company back to Los Angeles and he declined. When asked why, he answered; I am Detroit, Detroit is me.

O Sole Mio- A Christmas Card

Hello again family and friends. Every year during the Christmas season, I write a little essay telling you all how things have been for Todd, the kids and I over the past year. This year upon thinking about all that is not right, I decided to let you all know exactly how things really are rather than just gush about the good things.
In the past, I would tell you that Todd received a promotion and his company just couldn’t function without him. I would usually go on to tell you what great places we’ve been in the past year and how well balanced the kids are in our suburban nirvana nestled in between hundreds of other tract homes in a part of the country that I would never had considered living in had Todd’s company not moved us here… Back before he became expendable.
Todd lost his job some eight months ago now when his great American enterprise moved operations to India. Some prosperous young man in India now has his job and he and his wife are now helping to build a middle class in a society of great disparity much like ours is becoming. I know that sounds angry and it should. My two vacations each year, has dropped to none. I am trapped in my pre-fabricated clone home in the middle of Stepford with my knight-in-shining-armor who now sleeps until 11am while I get the kids off to school after their meager portions of government cheese and a hard boiled egg paid for by government relief or unemployment benefits. I then run errands only to return to find that my unemployed viscount has now fancied himself a chef and has taken to watching cooking shows all day long on the cable that we can no longer afford either.
Last week, I mistakenly purchased one too many cans of kidney beans which prompted Todd to spread our trash on the front driveway to find a receipt for an 89 cent can of beans that will probably out live me as long as it remains in its sarcophagus. Todd saved 89 cents but went on a shopping spree with money we no longer have at Crate and Barrel. $242.63 if you minus the money he saved on a can of beans that he will no doubt need next week and I have been asked to for go my sixty two dollar a month gym membership, make my own coffee as well as Todd’s but yet he can parade around the house in his high society top hat, making the world’s finest chili with the world’s finest cookware made in China or India undoubtedly. This is after the children are at school and I’m looking on line trying to help my beau become part of the 90% of the nation that does have employment. I look at that damn 2008 Obama/Biden sticker that is magnetized to my empty refrigerator and tell myself; Yes We Can… Find a job.
Yes we can also tell everyone exactly how it is in a Christmas card without any smoke and no mirrors. Unemployed but yet under golfed. Our change of life has not hit the stash of single malt liquor and cigars or daily fees for golf. I cannot fault my man for his Don Quixote view of our future. His mother whom I know will get this same blanket seasons greetings as the rest of you, has enabled her son to be mediocre while believing he is superior. Momma always told sonny Jim that he was special and he should be to her the way my two male spawn are special to me albeit that they nearly killed me the way a baby Kiwi tries to kill its own mother during the birthing process. Having twins is cruel to humans.
It is truly impossible to be objective and I hope I don’t enable my little men to be oblivious, helpless, useless, over critical slobs who are unaware of reality. I know I won’t let them play golf. It really is a good walk spoiled as Mark Twain once said.
But getting back to my dear mother-in-law who criticizes my cooking, my cleaning, my childrearing, my taste in furnishing, the color of my hair and so on. I so wish that your son could have found a precious woman like you so that he could truly see what it would have been like to have lived a tortured life. Your poor husband, rest his soul, served dutifully for his country and then silently for his family. Hen pecked would not begin to describe the reality that was his. You dear mother of my husband, will get a chance to make the spread you claim you once made each year previous to me. I will be spending my Christmas in Hawaii with my sister who is equally disenchanted with matrimony. We will be sipping tropical drinks and listening to the gentle whine of slide guitars at a pig roast somewhere near the sea. It won’t feel like Christmas and that will be fine. I usually have to brace myself for Thanksgiving and keep my hands firmly on the wheel until Christmas before I can exhale only to see family again at Easter. Not this year.
There are those of you who will conclude that I have watched too much Oprah, or am going through the change of life or like many women in their forties, or have become bi-polar instantly as if a switch were flipped and a flood of unbridled chemicals have suddenly broke my inner damn and raised havoc on my ability to reason. Quite the contraire. Unlike olden times when reformed women could be beaten with a stick the same circumference of a male thumb, stoned to death or burned as a heretic, the worst that could happen to me is a divorce and that may not be the worst thing if my groom does not come to grips with the fact that the boat moves by me rowing it o sole mio.
I will be back from Hawaii two days after the New Year and so here is my resolution; if I am not invited to dinner occasionally, I will take myself to dinner. If I wash clothes, dishes and floors, somebody better become Chef Boyardee in a hurry and understand that the maid does not cook, the cook cooks and if you want me to do my best cooking, which is in the bedroom, somebody better put me in the mood now and then because it is not obligatory any longer to have relations with one’s spouse.
My two boys are going to learn to read and exercise. I will be donating our televisions to those less fortunate. If the man of the house wishes to watch television, he will need to bring his television and all his other supplies to his bomb shelter in the basement. My boys are developing man breasts, a pear shape and are well on their way to forming the classic American, middle aged, middle class, sedentary physique due to processed fast-food and a virtual world via Xbox. My boys will learn what it was like for my father to push a hoop with a stick for amusement, run, ride a real bicycle and occasionally read. Their father can now make them real food that will not give them heart disease by the age of sixteen now that he has become a cuisine wizard. Then my boys can read about Melville’s Whale or Hemingway’s shark and try to draw an image based on something they are reading instead of hours of mindless viewing. A mind is a terrible thing to waste and a waist is a terrible thing to not mind.
So in conclusion, I truly wish you all a happy holiday season. If you are happy, I am happy for you. If you send a sanitized blanket Christmas card each year, consider being truthful about how you feel for it is quite liberating. I hope you all keep in mind the reason we celebrate things like Christmas. Most of us are Christians the way we are Scorpios or Irish; it is something that we claim to be but really do not do as Jesus would do for the most part. I’m in the same boat as you all and taking that boat to Hawaii. Happy holidays to you all and may the New Year be everything the last year was not. Aloha.


With sincerity unmatched,

Sylvia

I Love You, Dude or The Hockey Marriage

The Ronnies are what Ron Taylor and Ron Fitzgibbons were called by everyone from grade school on who knew the two best friends. The Ronnies spent nights at each other’s house as little boys and played on the same hockey teams all the way through high school. They were voted the most likely to go Columbine on their own high school by their classmates.
Ron T. never finished college. He was a freshman for four years at a junior college and was fortunate to pass the drug test that UPS gave him before he got a job loading panel trucks in the middle of the night. Ron T. sort of liked his job. It was mindless and secure.
Ron F. sold beer in the summers at Wrigley Field which was sort of funny since he hated the Cubs and thought baseball in general was sort of an out dated sport. Most of the year he worked for a Korean man who owned an independent video store. In the store on the shelves were the entire first rate Hollywood blockbusters like Iron Man 9, Spiderman 7, and The Flintstones meet Yogi Bear at the Phantom Ranch with The Globetrotters and Scooby Doo and so on. Behind a wall of the store was the world of debauchery that 90% of the customers came in for but even those customers were getting most of their stuff off the internet. Ron F. was able to talk his boss into buying the Center Ice package so that he could watch all the NHL games from work during the baseball off season. And so between selling and renting DVDs to lonely men, Ron T. would sit behind the counter, glued to any number of NHL games.
Ron T. and Ron F. would play ice hockey every morning somewhere around the city of Chicago. Sometimes it was at Johnny’s Ice House on Madison Avenue, some times Mc Fetridge on the north side of the city, sometimes Franklin Park by O’Hare and so on. Usually the boys played everyday except Saturdays. Saturday nights were reserved for going out to clubs to try and find love for the night with any women that would have them.
Both Ronnies played juniors for a few years after high school and then hung it up when they realized that being third liners on a junior B team in the middle of nowhere, was a sign that they were not going to be scouted by the NHL. They both came back to Chicago and became men’s league all-stars. Any night of the week, they could both find a late night game with a team that needed a player and usually they did that in addition to playing pick up hockey each morning. Days went as follows: Ron F. picks up Ron T. after he takes a quick nap after work. They hit the 7-11 to get a Monster energy drink and donuts though most recently; Ron T. began to grow up a bit at 28 years age and began to drink coffee. The clerk whom they called Habib yelled at the Ronnies almost daily for making a mess. They would then show up at a rink early and watch whatever was on television which was usually The View. They would criticize the women and guests without listening to anything they were talking about while putting tape on their sticks and checking the blades of their skates for nicks.
“Dude… That one dude from Cheers was fucking Whoopie Goldberg until he found out she was a fucking bull dyke and was fucking around with Ellen degenerate…” said Ron F. in his pseudo surfer boy/burnout voice that he still maintained from high school.
“That’s fucking bullshit, dude. They just fucking broke up. She’s as ugly as your asshole but she ain’t a dyke. She’s fucking old and knows that she’s not fuckable anymore. Most white dudes wanna fuck a black chick like Beyonce. When they can’t, they go home and beat a woman that looks like Whoopie.” Said Ron T. while taping his $200.00 Easton one piece stick with 5.5 lie and a slight heel curve.
“Fuck it, dude. I hope we get two goalies. I don’t care if it’s a fucking St. Bernard or your fucking mother just as long as we have something to shoot at,” said Ron F.
In the pick up games, the Ronnies always wore the same color. It was a gray which was not white and not dark. On the front was the name of one of their men’s league teams that they had pledge alliance to called The Pigs. Their jerseys said in big letters, “The Pigs” and underneath that was a pig with a flat top hair cut holding a hockey stick in one hand and his penis in the other. At the age of twenty eight, the Ronnies thought that was still hilarious.
Ron T. was the passer and Ron F. was the scorer. Ron T. was geared towards being defensive and Ron F. was most concerned with scoring and so they worked well together. One day Ron T. took a slap shot from the blue line. It rode up the blade of someone’s stick and took out six of Ron F.’s front teeth. The teeth exploded and left shards of porcelain throughout Ron F.’s mouth. The Ronnies were sent to Cook County Hospital where they sat for close to six hours because Ron F. did not have health insurance and after six hours the duo grew tired of waiting for the free health care and went home. The bleeding had stopped but Ron Fitzgibbon’s mouth was a mess as was his swollen face.
The cost to replace the three upper and three lower teeth for Ron F. was going to be over $10,000.00. There was no way either of the boys had that sort of money. Luckily for the boys, there was a way and a loop hole. Since civil marriages between men and men and women and women were going to be legal in Illinois, Ron F. popped the question to Ron T.
“Look man, you hit me in the fucking mouth. I can’t talk or even smile cause I look like a fucking golf ball went through my fucking teeth. We get this thing done and I get my fucking teeth fixed after you can claim me on your insurance and then we get a divorce or annulment or whatever it is you need so that you can still get married in a Catholic Church when you find the right person,” said Ron F.
“Are you fucking cracked?! You want me to marry you so you can get insurance?! I’m not fucking doing it, dude. I’ll find a way to get the $10,000.00,” said Ron T.
“What the fuck do you care? Being a fag is in style now, dude. Nobody is going to say shit. They’ll say those two dudes got married. Who the fuck cares anymore? Fucking Magic Johnson got AIDS, got rid of it and got fat and nobody cares that he’s probably fucking dudes. We don’t gotta have a party and invite friends. We just do this and I get my shit fixed and then we get this shit undone. I think you owe me this much, fucker…” said Ron F.
Ron T. thought about the idea and decided it was the fairest thing he could do considering he was the reason his friend was missing a mouthful of teeth. Both Ronnies were too manly to wear a cage or a visor on their helmets. They grew up idolizing Chris Chelios and Tony Amonte from the Chicago Blackhawks and decided after high school that they would never use facial protection again. Both received a few stitches here and there as well as a black eye now and then but never a need for a dental overhaul.
Ron F. did all the leg work. He got the marriage license and filed all the paper work so that on the first day of legal same sex unions, he could get legally married to Ron T. so that he could then add him to his insurance and get Ron F.’s teeth fixed.
The spring day happened and both men dressed in dark suits nervously sat waiting for their chance to approach the judge as they looked at honest to goodness same sex couples that were ecstatic that their day had finally arrived. An older white man with a close kept gray beard and a young black man, young enough to be his son, held hands, giggled and snuck kisses as they sat next to the Ronnies who looked more like they were going to jail than to be united in matrimonial bliss. The flamboyant young black man asked the Ronnies if they had plans to go on a honeymoon to celebrate. Ron F. was disgusted and gave the most deranged answer he could muster.
“I got a can of fucking Crisco, a gerbil and some PVC in the trunk of the car. My fiance lost a bet we had on who would win Dancing with the Stars and so he will be the happy recipient of the rodent at the closest fuck palace we can find near this place. We don’t have the time for Cancun…” said Ron F.
The two Ronnies looked somber and embarrassed as they said their vows in front of the judge. When the ceremony concluded, they hugged each other like two Soviet era diplomats and then walked out without any further contact. They emerged from the court house with cameras and microphones in their face. Ron T. was ready to just run on foot but Ron F. punched a camera man in the face who put the camera too close to him. For that he landed in jail and in the paper and it soon became known to all who ever knew the two Ronnies that they were joined together in matrimony. Some were genuinely surprised but most who remembered the inseparable pair said that they knew it all along.
If you go to open hockey some morning somewhere in Chicago, you may run into the Ronnies. Don’t mention the marriage if you can help it. It makes them both angry. They most likely will be wearing Pig jerseys. And full metal cages.

God's Acre or The Known Unknowns

There is a town just south and west of Chicago called Plainfield that now in the age of interstates and suburban sprawl, is considered a suburb even though it is some forty miles from Chicago. The population has tripled in size since 1990 and could quadruple past the current population in the year 2030 when the whole world will quadruple and there will be fewer resources, less land and a lot more ocean.
The first Europeans to settle the area proselytized to Pottawatomie Indians about Jesus and god and salvation and all and then wound up with the land which was eventually taken by the state. Fast forward to the year 1990 and Jed was given a gift by his paternal grandparents of a trailer in a new development for mobile homes called of all things, God’s acre.
Someone who was familiar with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, dubbed the park God’s Acre after one of Longfellow’s poems. The developer knew that the land before the mobile home park was a dump site and before that, a Pottawatomie burial ground. A sign out in front of the mobile home park read:

God’s Acre- This is the field and acre of our god

The phrase rang well to those who loved and feared god equally and so the developer was able to corral moralists, evangelists and Methodists into buying mobile homes in his Plainfield park of God’s acre.
The opportunist that had developed the land for a mobile home park had a good cash flow but had bad assets other places that went belly up. Robbing Peter to pay Paul and Mary, no longer worked and so the land that the homes rested upon went into foreclosure and the entire park

was bought up by a new entity that was a holding company from North Dakota. A representative came for the closing and then got back quickly to Fargo.
Now Jed was in arrears on his assessment by some eighteen months. Jed squandered his disability check at a casino one month and could not pay his assessment. No letters or calls ever came. Another month passed and then several more and nobody had ever inquired as to where his assessment was and when it could be expected. When the Fargo based company bought up the land, they hired an attorney to re-coup debts. Jed found that he could lose the only thing he owned besides a beat up American Motors Eagle circa 1985 with faux wood and looked to be jacked up but really was designed that way. The mobile home and car were both gifts from his paternal grandparents. God bless them.
Jed went to court and was assigned an attorney who represented him the best he could but the reality was that Jed was going to lose his mobile home due to back assessments that he could not pay. The court was giving him just two weeks to come up with the money or lose his property.
Jed sat watching the Detroit Lions lose on Thanksgiving Day while he ate a processed turkey breast in gravy that was high in sodium but was really tasty and juicy. Jed sat watching the game on his television that was about to die as he drank vodka straight from the bottle in hopes that he would get sleepy. Sleep never came and it had been several days since Jed had any sleep. Jed was drunk and unable to sleep but in his drunken state, he got the idea to take an over the counter sleep aid to help him sleep. The sleep aid with nearly a fifth of hard liquor put Jed on the fence between life and death. While Jed road that fence, he had a vision. Down from the heavens floated down a beautiful figure in a red and white bikini top and blue bottoms with white stars. Fifty stars in all. The beautiful figure wore glasses and held a bolt action rifle as she floated to the ground. She walked towards Jed who was out on his back porch smoking a cigarette. Jed was so astounded that he couldn’t speak. The heavenly figure in the bikini with the bolt action rifle spoke instead.
“Jedidiah… Do you want to lose this palace? Do you want to lose what makes the American dream a dream? A man is a king and this is your kingdom… What are you prepared to do?”

Jed stuttered as he asked the figure if she was possibly Sarah Palin.
“I am who you think I am, Jedidiah… I know that you masturbate to pictures of me that really are not me but a Photoshop photo and that’s okay… We have all sinned. I am here to ask you what it is that you believe in. What do you want out of life? What makes you happy? What do you feel is possible given your limitations and poor health?”
“I… I don’t know.”
The beautiful figure pushed her glasses back while smiling and never releasing her finger from the trigger of the bolt action rifle. She bent down and whispered to Jed words of wisdom that Donald Rumsfeld had once spoken before her. It may have been plagiarism or just a tribute to a man who understood god’s plan and the thrill of war.
“Jedidiah… As we know, there are known knowns. There are the things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are things we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know… Do you understand?” Asked the angelic figure.
“You mean like god and taxes and stuff like that?”
“I’m not entirely sure either but I guess what I’m saying is that you have to know what it is that you can do to help the situation at hand. You can’t just up and join the military… You’re too old, too fat and too lazy. What do you know that you know you can do and know that it will work beyond a shadow of a doubt?”
The figure began to rise and she waved and blew a kiss to Jed as he waved back and smiled. Jed came to on the floor of his mobile home. His dog was eating his vomit and a grunting man was doing abdomen exercises on television with a device that looked like a large IUD. The next commercial was for a pay per view wrestling smack down of several oiled up men with long hair and tights. The light suddenly went on in Jed’s foggy head. Jed felt reassured, hopeful and energized. He sat up and took a deep breath and exclaimed out loud while his dog licked the remnants of his spew.

“This life is really wonderful…”
Jed sent out invitations to all his friends on Facebook that there was going to be a showdown of showdowns. The Mexican Luchadores against the American heroes. People from all over came to see two fat Mexicans in masks take on two fat Americans in wigs. They hit one another with chairs, tables, watermelons and pulled hair and elbowed one another. When the dust cleared, Jed had enough money to pay the back assessment and his three friends who believed in what Jed knew to be true; stupidity knows what it knows as well as the unknown.

the Milosevic Twins or To Sing Like Ethel Merman

The Milosevic Twins decided after the Yugoslavian War, to get rid of their last name after Slobodan created all sorts of problems, issues, wars, slaughter and so forth in their former homeland. The Twins weren’t even Serbian. They had some officials back in the day of Tito and Communism; change everyone’s name to Milosevic. A village of five thousand plus people and every last name in the phone book was Milosevic.
The Milos Twins had lost their jobs as laborers after the fall of Communism. During the war, they joined a militia that hunted Serbian soldiers. Their job was to kill humans and try to stay alive. During days of extreme heat and extreme cold, the twins killed, raped and pillaged while being exposed to the elements. They had a cousin in Detroit who knew a rich Jewish man who made all his money on coin operated machines and needed a crew to take care of a neglected apartment building he owned near 8 Mile Road. Detroit sounded like paradise compared to the remnants of what was once Yugoslavia and so they took off for Detroit.
The building happened to be on the south end of 8 Mile on the Detroit side of the road. When they arrived, the bricks were missing mortar, the roof was leaking badly, the heating system sputtered and often left tenants without heat, the plumbing didn’t plumb and so forth. The building was surrounded by burned out and abandon homes. At the end of the street was an all purpose mini market to buy all you need to get by on at an inflated price. Detroit had a lot of open space and the twins liked that.
Out of the twenty two tenants, only a handful was paying rent and those were Section 8 tenants. Mr. Rosenblatt was very relieved to have the Milos Twins. They were tall and lean with sandy colored hair and they weren’t afraid of anything. Before long, they had the building back in order and rents were being paid. Toilets flushed and money went in the bank and pocket of Mr. Rosenblatt.
One day Edo and Edin or Ed and Eddy, received an angry phone message from a woman in one of the units of the building. What Ed and Eddy knew of the woman was that she was about forty years old, ghostly white, thin to the point of being emaciated, lived alone and her father paid her rent in cash once a month. A bus from Detroit Mercy would pick her up once a week and other than that, the woman kept to herself. The twins surmised that she was hopped up on medication and so they didn’t give much credence to the bizarre message.
“Ed and Eddy… DON’T PLAY FUCKING GAMES WITH ME! I CAME HOME TO FIND THE GOD DAMN DISNEY CHANNEL ON A HUGE TURD IN MY TOILET… NO TOILET PAPER AND NOT EVEN THE DECENCY TO FLUSH THE TOILET. I AM MISSING MAIL AND JEWERLY… I HAVE CALLED THE DETROIT POLICE. I DEMAND MY JEWELRY BACK IMMEDIATELY AND WANT A LOCKSMITH TO CHANGE MY FUCKING LOCKS… Thank you.”
Two plain clothes detectives came to the door to ask Ed and Eddy some questions inside their apartment that was very bare. The two black cops sat as Ed brought in some tea with some tasty little cookies from their country. European teams were playing soccer on their television. The two cops wondered what kind of men who are brothers, live together in a bad part of Detroit. The cops marveled at how much the two men looked alike, sounded alike, gestured alike and laughed alike. Ike, the former Michigan State lineman spoke first.
“Boys… We been getting strange phone calls from a Miss Daphne Dumont. She says you’re eating her food, using her toilet, stealing her belongings and so forth. Now we understand she lives right above your unit. We have come by on several occasions to speak with her and we are finding nobody home. We have traced the phone calls to a land line within that unit but whenever we come out, there is no answer. Can you tell us what you know?”
Ed and Eddy looked at one another and blinked hard. They both took a sip of their tea, shook their heads simultaneously and then started speaking. It was like old Rap tunes of the past. One would begin a sentence and the other would finish it, complete with hand gestures.
“Something ain’t right, Mr. Officers…” said Ed.
“No ain’t right at all…” said Eddy.
“She runs around all night up above us…”said Ed.
“And listens to music from old movies…” Said Eddy.
“Oh Yeah… She likes Annie get your Gun, Brigadoon, seven brothers and some brides or something… She likes all of them…” Said Ed.
“Yeah and we caught her taking a shit in the laundry room. We got it on tape…” Said Eddy.
“Oh yeah… We can play it for you. We set up a camera to catch whoever it was who was shitting everyday on the floor. It was like a horse pile…” Said Ed.
“Just like an animal but it smelled of spices mostly…” Said Eddy.
“Yeah and we notice that she cooks with the same spices… Eddy, put on the tape for the officers.” Said Ed.
The two police officers and the twins watched the closed caption video of their upstairs neighbor. She wore a trench coat and boots one might wear to go fly fishing in a stream. The boots came up to her thighs. The men all commented on how large her breasts were for such a thin woman and the Afro-like pubic hair that surrounded her vagina. None of the men were particularly turned on by the site of a squatting woman singing, “Happy Talk” from South Pacific while feces streamed like soft serve from her person. Tremaine, the second officer grasped his mouth and was about to vomit. Both officers asked the twins to turn off the film.
The phone calls to Ed and Eddy and the Detroit Police never stopped. All involved began to ignore the calls until the day that Ed called Officer Ike on his cell phone. Ed and Eddy had come in for lunch and found water streaming down the walls of their unit. Westside Story was blaring out of the surround sound and water poured out of light sockets and cracks in the ceiling. The two officers on the case hurried over and authorized the twins to force the door open. They could hear Ms. Dumont singing like Ethel Merman at the top of her lungs. Her pitch was not what it should have been but that isn’t what concerned the quartet. Daphne sung, Officer Krupke as the door was forced open, sending three feet high water streaming down the hallway. Daphne stood on the couch, singing into a wooden spoon. She wore pink boots with Hello Kitty logos on both sides. She was completely naked except the boots and happened to have been missing her nose which was removed due to cancer. The men were nearly over come by the smell of urine and feces. It was not unlike visiting the monkey house on a hot humid day. Without any air conditioning.
“Gee, Officer Krupke,
We're down on our knees,
'Cause no one wants a fellow with a social disease.
Gee, Officer Krupke,
What are we to do?
Gee, Officer Krupke,
Krup you!”

A Mother on the Edge or I Ain't Saying She's a Golddigah

My dearest family,
First off I would thank you for your caring and concern. Yes, I took the chance to take a trip without Tim and after 10 precious months of sobriety he faltered. I'm sure each of you who care is asking, how I reacted when I reached home.
(Translation: THANKS FOR YOUR HOSPITALITY ON SUCH SHORT NOTICE. AFTER TEN MONTHS OF CONSTANT BABYSITTING, I LEFT FOR A SABBATICAL AND RETURNED TO FIND THAT LATENT HOMOSEXUALITY AND ALCOHOLISM HAS RESURFACED LIKE A SEA MONSTER.)

I had no idea what I would say, do, or think. I do know that I was raw, ripped apart, and left for dead emotionally. The only thing that kept my mind, heart and mind from exploding was PRAYER! There is not much you can say to a drunken person, if you lash out it only wounds their already self-hating soul, it may give the person lashing out a brief moment of release, but the words can't be taken back. (Translation: I CAME HOME TO FIND THAT CAPTAIN MORGAN HAS ONCE AGAIN RANSACKED MY HOME. I CAN ONLY PRAY THAT MY PHONE BILL WILL NOT BE CLOSE TO A GRAND AGAIN FOR 1-900 GUYSLOVE. SPEAKING OR RAW AND RIPPED, HOW MANY TIMES CAN A MIDDLE AGED MAN MASTERBATE AND WHY CAN’T HE AT LEAST PULL HIS GODDAMN PANTS BACK UP? FOR FUCK’S SAKE.)


As I sat across the room from this shell of a human being I once loved so dearly my heart cracked with pity and compassion. I prayed again silently, asking that the Holy Spirit would guide my words and help control my own feelings for the sake of this sad creature. The words came, and they were calm and just and clear...it was as if I had left and someone else had stepped into my being. (TRANSLATION: I ASKED MYSELF WHAT IT IS THAT OPRAH WOULD DO OR SUGGEST I DO VIA SOME THERAPIST DU JOUR. I JUST RETURNED FROM MEETING AN OLD FLAME FROM HIGH SCHOOL THAT HAS AN INDOOR JACUZZI AND POOL. HE IS GOING TO RETIRE IN A FEW YEARS AND NEEDS SOMEONE TO HELP HIM SPEND ALL THAT MONEY. I CAN ONLY PRAY THAT HE WILL NOT CHANGE HIS MIND. THANK GOD I STILL HAVE SOME SEX APPEAL LEFT… LOOK AT THIS PATHETIC FUCK. I SHOULD KICK HIM SQUARE IN THE ASS.)

At this time I have set up counseling sessions to help guide me to a choice I know I have to make. I ask that you keep me and Tim in your good thoughts and prayers so that this choice, when it comes will be less painful and that the wounds heal quickly. Until I choose a direction in this matter, I will continue to be strong in my resolve to do the best. I ask patience from those I know love me as mother, and friend and help me when I feel like I'm going to die inside from having to do what will save me and hurt another. (TRANSLATION: LOOK, THIS IS MY FIFTH MARRIAGE. A DIVORCE IS NOTHING MORE THAN A FIRE DRILL AT THIS POINT... AND ALTHOUGH THE LEGALITY OF SPLITTING EVERYTHING REALLY SUCKS AND I JUST WIND UP MAKING SOME YOUNG ATTORNEY WEALTHY, IT HAS TO HAPPEN SOON. I KNOW A THERAPIST WHO WILL SAY ALL THE RIGHT THINGS SO THAT THIS CREATURE UNDERSTANDS HE’S JUST A DRAIN ON MY LIFE AND THAT I’M JUSTIFIED IN WALKING AWAY WHILE I STILL HAVE OPTIONS.)

I love each of you and again thank you in advance for your support, understanding and comfort. I too wish I could blink and all would be resolved and behind me, but life does not work that way. Everything is possible with GOD and with the good will we have within each of us to do things right. (TRANSLATION: I LEARNED FROM MY MENONITE/BORN AGAIN DAUGHTER, THAT USING GOD AS A CRUTCH FOR EVERYTHING ABSOLVES YOU QUITE A BIT. JUST SAY, I PRAYED ABOUT THIS AND GOD WANTS ME TO LEAVE YOU… AND THEN TAKE HALF. AMEN.)

I hesitate to pick up the phone and talk right now, I can't talk...I have this horrible knot in my stomach and heart. I know you understand. This to me is like a very slow death, I dread the funeral. (TRANSLATION: I ACTUALLY CALLED TWO OF MY THREE CHIDREN AND GOT VOICE MAIL. THAT’S WHY I DECIDED TO WRITE YOU THIS WHILE DRINKING A GLASS OF WINE. ACTUALLY TWO. I HAVE TO REMEMBER TO CALL MY ATTORNEY IN THE MORNING TO GET THIS ALL GOING.)

My love and blessings to all,

Mommy

The Ineffable or The Hitchhiker

“Sometimes things are just not as they appear, young man…” said Terrance as he drove his large 1972 Chrysler Newport down a desolate country road late at night.
“Yeah… How so?” Asked Purvis, who grasped a lead pipe in his right hand as he waited for the right moment to beat Terrance over the head to steal his car.
“We spend our whole lives thinking that what we think is true is true. You take that war in Vietnam… I spent two years running through the jungle. What I’ve learned is that we don’t really know anything. You take absolutes… Absolutes. The things we believe that are completely true and just are because we all have come to accept an idea, that does not make it a truth. Rationalities run our lives with reason or so we are lead to believe. We all are born, live and die, right?” Said Terrance.
“Yeah… I dig what you’re saying, man.” Said Purvis.
Purvis had just robbed a family that was quietly sleeping in their rooms in a remote area on the outskirts of New Orleans. Purvis dodged the draft and was hiding out with drifters, thieves and drug addicts wherever he could. In the presence of the parents who were bound and gagged, Purvis raped a sixteen year old girl, kicked the family dog to death and made off with several hundred dollars in currency as well as some jewelry. Purvis stuck out his thumb as headlights came towards him for the first time in what seemed like a half hour as he walked down a dark country road. The sounds of frogs and crickets filled the air like a symphony. Purvis thought about alligators coming out of the cattails and attacking him. Purvis had no way of knowing if they were out there and if they were hungry.
Terrance had hopped into his car to go for a ride after sounds began to make shapes and colors. Terrance was watching The Hollywood Squares when the sounds of the voices on television began to emit smells and voices such as Charles Nelson Reilly and Paul Lynne were followed by colors. There were swirling mélanges of pinkish purple. Terrance was eating some crawfish stew when everything just snapped. The walls began to heave like they were breathing and voices told him he needed to move on before Charlie found him. Terrance decided to leave his house and go for a ride. Fate or divine intervention brought Purvis, a young, white, angry male together with a black man who had served in Vietnam and had a PHD in philosophy and suffered the effects of Agent Orange and LSD.
Purvis had never met a black man with such a strange way of speaking. It all sound like English but he had no idea what he was talking about.
“The Greek thinking was killed off by Constantine and his mother upon finding Christianity… If had not been for Constantine’s mother, we’d all be pagan still. Is it any wonder that the dark ages were dark? Dutch pictures of a Dutch Virgin Mary and Christ child… How did that happen? How did Paul find the gentiles? He was looking for Jews… That’s the joke of it all. Paul was looking to convert Jews, man!” Said Terrance, with a hardy laugh.
Purvis took the heavy lead pipe and cracked Terrance over the right part of his head. Terrance heard a dull thud and for a few seconds, all his thoughts seem to dissipate. He looked over at Purvis who was shocked that the large black man was still driving the vehicle while blood poured into his right ear. Terrance stopped the car abruptly which caused Purvis to slam his head against the dashboard. Terrance grabbed rope from under his side of the bench seat and tied up the hands and feet of Purvis. All the while Terrance never stopped speaking.
“You were born a blank slate young man… There is no such thing as original sin. Someone taught you to be who you are. Someone filled your slate full of hate. Sad that things got to come to this. In the whole universe, something brought you to me tonight. Why you think this is possible? A curse and a blessing all at the same time… I know what you’re thinking… Some white man gave the monkey a brain and created a monster. I ain’t no monkey and no monster. There was no Frankenstein and I wasn’t fabricated by some great white mind… At least I don’t believe this to be true. Then again beliefs are a funny thing. We all believe that America is destined to be something that god had planned. Everything is in god’s plan. Progress in the age of enlightenment, right? The whole world wants to be American. I want to live in America, everything is good in America… John Wayne loves god and god loves him like a damn disciple. God told white people to come to America and bring black people with them to lighten the load. Can’t hardly believe how that whole thing worked… Capitalism has brought about a perversion that has hampered our ability to find our soul. We got a soul in us, man. As much as you feel you had the right to try to off me and drive away in my automobile for monetary means, to help you get a fix and a meal til you need to hunt someone else again like an animal on the Serengeti. I don’t blame you. You come to the water hole and lost this time to a stronger and more intelligent animal.” Said Terrance.
“You are one crazy nigger. You gonna kill me, than just do it. All this crazy talk... I can’t take it.” Said Purvis.
“Where do you think you’re going to go to once you leave here? Do you think you’re going to go to god? Go to hell? Maybe a hallway as far as the eye can see for the rest of time. You take numbers for example and then you can understand that infinity is possible. Forever is forever and it don’t end, man. We got a starting point and it difficult to accept that from zero, we can go either direction for ever just like heaven and just like hell. And forever is a real long time. I grew up a Baptist with a father who was a minister and the more I learned, the less religion made sense to me. We look for justice and legitimacy in everything we do. Religion teaches us this. There is too much that cannot be explained. You wanna have faith in something subliminal... Something intangible. You can go to sleep and a dream makes more sense than reality. Your reality right now is like a bad dream, young man.” Said Terrance.
“You’re really nuts, man. I wish you’d just speak English. You gonna torture me? Then just do it. I don’t want to hear all your stuff anymore. I don’t even understand what you’re saying.” Said Purvis.
“You ever seen a baby born?” Asked Terrance.
“No.” Said Purvis.
“You ever seen somebody die?” Asked Terrance.
Purvis had killed animals and then later people. It was always random and devoid of empathy. The people killed had material things that Purvis needed and desired. Killing was a way of separating what one had from what he needed. There was no remorse.
Terrance got close enough to kiss Purvis and whispered in his ear. The blood trickled down from Terrance’s ear onto the bench seat. Purvis sweated profusely and for the first time in his life, thought of all the people he had killed and tortured in his life. Terrance was torturing him and would ultimately kill him.
“Life…” Whispered Terrance into the ear of Purvis. “Life is ineffable… Among truths and beliefs and deities, I can tell you this is a universal among universals and Socrates and Aristotle would back me on this. When you think you’re time is about to pass, there are the questions we cannot answer as living beings and life suddenly has a lot more value. Faith? Nothing? You tell me, young man. I’m gonna wait here listening to Smokey Robinson. You Crackers don’t know nothing about Smokey.”
The song, More Love, played on the radio while the two men sweated and bled. Purvis had never heard the song. Terrance heard the song for the first time while sleeping with a Vietnamese woman who looked to be ten years old even though she was twenty two with three children.
Let it be soon, don’t hesitate
Make it now, don’t wait
Open your heart and let my love come in
I want the moment to stop when I can fill your heart
With more love, and more joy
Than age or time could ever destroy
My love will be so solid
It would take a hundred lifetimes
To live it down, wear it down, tear it down
This is no fiction
This is no act
This is real, it’s a fact
I’ll always belong only to you
Each day I’ll be living to make sure
I’m giving you more love and more joy
Than age or time could ever destroy
My love will be so solid
It would take a hundred lifetimes
To live it down, wear it down, tear it down
As we grow older no need to fear
When you need me I’ll be here
I’ll be beside you every step of the way
A heart that’s truthful and keeping you youthful
With more love, more joy
Than age or time can ever destroy
My love will be so solid
It would take a hundred lifetimes
To live it down, war it down, tear it down.

Purvis couldn’t focus on the lyrics. Terrance almost began to start crying. He felt almost angry that a strong emotional moment could not be shared or understood by another living being near him. Purvis was suddenly worth less than life.
“We are born, we mature and then we decay… And it don’t make no sense and it ain’t no comfort, young man. Is there anything of value in anything in life? Is there anything real in the mystery that is life itself? We are going to die. We don’t know when or why. We can look for symbols to help us understand what life is about… To understand the crux of humanity. We put a man on the moon and what does that mean? What does that mean to you? We got into an automobile and drove down this road. That you can comprehend. The moon? What is the moon, man? I been to Asia and that might as well be the moon. Nobody I knew could have found Vietnam on a damn map before 1962 but they could have told you where the moon was. Nobody can really say for certain why going there was a necessity and if they could explain it, is what they are saying the truth? What is the truth anyway? How do you define the moon anymore than truth?” Asked Terrance.
“You weirdo… What the hell do you want from me? Look… Just let me go and I won’t say nothing to nobody. I hit you over the head cause I was scared. I’m sorry, man.” Said Purvis.
“I understand that you are perplexed by the mystery of life. I know that I am and it plagues me. How do I live with this thing that makes me powerless and emasculates me? Life is a circle. You start here and end here and for what purpose? I have concluded that it’s all not going anywhere. It’s hard to believe that we leave here and go nowhere and that we are plagued with the thought that maybe this is all there is.” Said Terrance.
“You’re really sick, man… Really. You need help.” Said Purvis.
“I maybe the only sane, clear thinking human being you will ever meet... Then again, I believe that I am the last person you will ever meet too. I just want you to appreciate how fragile this all is before you go because we are all really just hanging on by a thread, man. Fate and faith sound almost the same when you say it in English. I haven’t figured out the difference….”
Terrance was about to smash the head of Purvis when flashing lights filled the dark night. Terrance smelled lemons and grapefruits as the sirens blared towards him. The sounds made strange shapes. Terrance was hypnotized by the lights and was unable to move. Several police officers approached the vehicle with drawn guns. Purvis was all too ready to purge himself of his sins. Terrance was held in high esteem as a war hero and one who sought to right wrongs wherever they raised their heads. Amen.

Elections

Joe Doe… The Republican candidate… Joe is tough on crime… He wants to issue automatic weapons to everyone with a driver’s license for our protection. Who needs to hunt with an M-16? Hunt Bambi with a machine gun? Joe Doe says it is every American’s inalienable right and that giving everyone guns is the answer to crime. Line each other up with an infrared scope? Don’t be caught up in the cross hairs of a thoughtless, selfish agenda. Stealing from the poor to give to the rich. Smaller government? Joe Doe talks about sexually transmitted diseases, sexual orientation and sex education… Sex? Look at the list of banks that Joe Doe has been in bed with. Joe Doe is in favor of cutting back on education, relief for those out of work, substance abuse programs. Joe Doe would like to lower tariffs so that cheap foreign products continue to flood our markets. Leaded toothpaste from China for your kids? A vote for Joe Doe is a vote against the common man and common sense. Want another war? Maybe in Iran? Joe Doe believes that we are doing quote, “The Lord’s work” in Afghanistan. Do you want your children to believe that the world was created just a few thousand years ago? That man was tempted by women? That a snake was the cause of this all? We’re not biting your apples, Joe… Why does Joe drive a foreign car but yet rallies for American Auto Workers? Why does he own land on foreign soil if he loves this land so much? Why would he allow drilling in Alaska, Nebraska and anywhere that oil could be found? BP would be his VP… Vote no on Joe… When it comes to Joe, just say no.


Carmena Bonita- The Democratic candidate- Carmena Bonita? Muy bonita. There is the unanswered question about where she is born. Donde Carmina? Think we have too many undocumented aliens now? Just wait until Carmena opens the borders to anyone and everyone trying to quote, “Just make a living”. Your future, your savings, your tax dollars going to help those that are sapping our country’s vigor, vitality and spunk. Carmina- we’re not buying your junk.
Want your kids to know that besides mommy and daddy, there can be a mommy and a mommy or a daddy and a daddy? Want your children to be issued colored, flavored condoms in the classrooms? Don’t ask, we’ll tell… Birth control? Perform fellatio. Want to be further taxed so that those unwilling to carry their own weight can remain comfortable? Didn’t think so… Carmena is in favor of raising tariffs on everything so that we start a world wide trade war that will plunge us further into a greater and longer lasting recession. Carmena Bonita would like to open the gates, ban god and allow your teenage daughters to have abortions as if it were a pedicure… Oh and speaking of feet, Carmena wants you to foot the bill… No esta aqui, Carmina. America for Americans… Real Americans.

Section 8 or Happy Endings in Paradise

Horace owned an apartment building that housed close to thirty families on a side street just north of Devon Avenue between California Avenue and Kedzie in Chicago. For most people, these coordinates mean absolutely nothing. What you need to know is that it was a launching pad into Americana for fresh off the boat European Jews, Indians, Pakistanis, Croatians and Koreans with a smattering of Latinos from various Central American countries.
Horace inherited the building from his father who had purchased it upon moving to the United States from England. Horace’s real name was Armitage Cockfoster III. There were two other Armitage Cockfosters before him and a string of others going back to the days of feudalism. In honor of one of Horace’s relatives who was viscount, they named the last stop on The Underground after him. If you take one of the lines going out towards nowhere, The Tube train has a sign on the front that reads; Cockfosters.
All the tenants knew was that they paid there check to A. Cockfoster Management Inc. and their logo was a rooster on a weathervane. Horace never told his janitor or any of the tenants that he was in fact Armitage Cockfoster III. This mysterious entity who was supposed to be living in London always scared the janitor into complying with Horace.
“Dwight… Mr. Cockfoster received a most inarticulate letter from a Mr. Leviticus Israel regarding a plethora of inadequacies in his unit. Mr. Cockfoster has dispatched me to determine what is necessary and what is bogus. I shall be at the building later this afternoon,” said Horace.
Dwight, who was named after Dwight D. Eisenhower, was actually born and raised in Romania and received the name Dwight after General Eisenhower had traveled through Bucharest after World War II. General Eisenhower took a picture with Dwight’s father and had a bite of a pastry and a sip of coffee. Both are still in a sub zero freezer and have been determined to indeed have Dwight D. Eisenhower’s DNA on the pastry and coffee.
Dwight Iliescu was smoking a cigarette out in front of the building and nervously groomed his bushy moustache with his thumb and index finger. He flicked the cigarette into the street as Horace pulled up in his Jaguar with a Union Jack sticker on the back. Dwight thought Horace was a mealy mouthed little yes man for some fat cat sitting in a comfy chair in front of a fireplace somewhere in the English countryside, sipping Scotch and petting one of several bloodhounds. That kind of stuff only happens in movies.
“Meester Horace… Let me say to you something before we go up. These people are animals. They are dirty people who cause this problem for themselves. These guy can’t even talk English. Everything motherfuck this motherfuck that. You see for youself. He’s home now.” Said Dwight.
“Don’t they work during the day?” Asked Horace.
“Boss, nobody works. You work and I work so that they can stay home and don’t do shit. That’s how it work, boss. Come on.” Said Dwight.
They climbed a staircase that squeaked and flexed. The hallway smelled of spices from India and urine. The forty watt refrigerator bulbs helped to set the dismal mood of the run down building. Horace did what was necessary. Much of what needed to be done for the sake of humanity was optional in Horace’s opinion.
The door opened and a smallish black man of possibly forty years of age, opened the door and genuflected as if he were ushering royalty. Mr. Israel had no idea he was actually in the presence of some sort of periphery royalty and that’s the way Horace liked it.
“Yeah… I done sent an email to that Mr. Cock… Cock… Whatever his last name is. Far as I’m concerned it cain be Cocksucker cause he ain’t spend a fucking nickel on this bitch. Who you now?” Asked Leviticus.
“Horace Spencer… I have been sent by Mr. Cockfoster to see what your complaints are so that we can avert any issues with Section 8,” said Horace.
“Kay… Follow me… You see them motherfucking baseboards? That there some Tom and Jerry bullshit. Look at the size them fucking holes! I got them stuffed up with steel wool but them motherfuckers cain chew threw anything. I done come out the other day an they looking at me dead in my face. I done stomped my feet and they just look at me like I’m crazy. Well I come home the other day an my two boys got one them rats on a goddamn glue board and the pouring bleach on the motherfucking thing in the bathtub and it screaming and then my wife an daughter was screaming and I was ready to just clean out the whole motherfucking place. I went and got my 22 and shot the thing in the head. Now I will pay to fix the damage to the wall. The shell got lodged right here and I done took it out already. So I know Dwight brought up some Mexicans to put some shit in the corners but them rats are fucking sharp. They ain’t eating that shit when they cain chew through the cabinets and eat themselves some Captain Crunch… Okay next,” said Leviticus.
The three men walked into the living room where Leviticus pointed at the ceiling. Horace was mystified by the huge Star of David that hung from a thick and expensive gold chain from Leviticus’ neck. Leviticus wore a long sleeved polyester shirt that was unbuttoned to the middle of his chest. Horace was familiar with Sammy Davis Jr. but was not aware of any other black Jews. Truth was that Leviticus married a devout Jewish woman and changed his name so that he and the children and wife, would all be Jewish together. Israel and Leviticus were adopted names. His real name was Ronald Smith even though nobody called him that any longer.
“Look at that ceiling… Okay… They students up there, right? Indians and they do some kind of dance and light up some shit that burn my eyes an my kid’s eyes. The kids be crying. I went up there an toll them they breaking my ceiling and to quit lighting that shit up. They do what they fucking want. Crazy ass fucking music at all hours … One time I go up there an they got a fucking octopus looking thing on the floor an they all smoking out this thang. I toll them they gone push me too far. You best talk to them Indians cause we gone have a problem soon,” said Leviticus.
“Are we talking about east or west Indies?” Asked Horace.
“I don’t know nothing bout which side they come from. You got the 7-11 Indians and you got yo casino Indians in a fucking tee-pee fighting with John Wayne, okay? Upstairs they the quickie mart Indians. They cook some crazy shit and smoke some stuff I ain’t never smelled before. I smoked weed in my day an this ain’t no fucking weed that I know of. Anyway, you talk to them and I need this shit fixed cause I don’t need no fucking plaster falling on my family, ya dig? Okay next…”
The three men then moved into the bathroom where flies clung to rust colored stains on a bubbled wall. Horace blinked hard and shook his head. Horace understood that the damage meant a leaking sanitary pipe in the wall. The cost to fix was going to be possibly hundreds or a thousand.
“Them flies love shit and shit coming down the motherfucking walls from the inside. Now I cain smell the shit an piss. You cain’t smell that now cause my wife done bleached the shit out the walls but it will come back. Now y’all cain fix this or I cain call the city an then Section 8 ain’t gone pay shit, y’dig? Now I know y’all ain’t got rats, dancing Indians and shit rolling down the inside y’ walls at yo place. I’m tire of Dwight here always telling me he gone fix this an fix that. I cain tell you his lazy ass don’t do shit round here. If it weren’t for the fucking Mexicans this place would look worse than it do. You wanna keep Dwight, that’s Mr. Cocksucker’s bullshit to work out with y’all.” Said Leviticus.
“Fuck you, you fucking guy… Who you think you are? I work more in one day than you work in you whole life!” Shouted Dwight.
Horace stepped between the two men. It was at that moment that he noticed a hole in the wall behind a poster of The Power Rangers that was twenty years old, torn and curling enough to show a fist sized hole in the wall. Horace pulled the poster back to discover the hole. Leviticus quickly explained the damage.
“Okay now this here a touchy subject cause I done toll my wife you cain’t be hammering on them walls less you know where the studs are. So she wanted to hang a religious thang there an I toll her to wait til I cain git to it an she tried and made that hole. I will pay this out my own pocket but I wish not to discuss this in the presence of my wife cause she will git violent an I don’t need that shit. I got nough problems without having to fight over walls, y’dig? So I will cover this one but y’all gone hafta roll up y’sleeves and git this shit done lickity motherfucking split cause I done had nough.” Said Leviticus.
Horace made a few notes on a note book and told Leviticus that he would get back to him shortly. Leviticus told them both men; god bless. As Horace and Dwight walked down the stairs, Horace read an email from his realtor on his Blackberry. There was a cash offer for the building that was thirty percent lower than what the market value was just a year earlier. All Horace caught was Dwight’s question about what he thought could and should be done. Horace massaged his temples and looked across Devon Avenue where there was a neon sign on a Korean restaurant that advertised live barbeque. The sign flashed the word Paradise. There was a massage parlor behind the restaurant for happy endings. Horace said the word out loud and smiled. Dwight didn’t understand the comment. He lit a cigarette and watched as Horace drove off in his late model Jaguar and then spit on the ground. Dwight said to himself in Romanian inside his own head.
“If this is paradise, what the hell is hell?”

Mixed Marriages

Kevin met Keisha after a hockey game. It seems unlikely given that Keisha really had an almost disdain for the sport of ice hockey. Keisha’s boyfriend at the time was the goalie on the opposing team. Kevin noticed the pretty African-American woman in the stands and made it a point of finding out where the opposing team was going to drink that night. It was at the bar of a Red Lobster that Kevin met Keisha. Kevin paid the waiter twenty dollars to check her identification and then give Kevin all the information. Keisha got up to use the washroom at the Red Lobster and it was in the galley that Kevin intercepted Keisha and professed his undying love for her.
It could have been Kevin’s boldness that really attracted Keisha to him since Kevin grabbed Keisha and began kissing her in nearly clear view of where her boyfriend was sitting. That move was the beginning of a love and life everlasting. The profession of love that needed to be legally bound by a document whereby Kevin and Keisha would belong to one another was where it all headed from that moment on. It all culminated in marriage at a Baptist Church with a Catholic priest also presiding. It was a grand affair to see the friends and family of Kevin get together and break bread with the family and friends of Keisha. Black people trying to dance to rock from the 1980’s and white people just trying to dance. The whites had to admit that Keisha was stunning in her white gown and the blacks had decided that Kevin looked okay for a pasty dude that really needed to take in a bit more Vitamin D via the sun.
Time went on and is often the case, Kevin and Keisha got together and eventually had a child. They both were excited to be parents and really loved their young daughter with all their being. Kendra was born with curly light brown hair, light skin and blue eyes. There was a twenty five percent chance that Kendra would come out light skinned and she did. That in itself meant nothing to either parent other than the child looked more white than black to most but occasionally she looked more black than white to others. Kevin joked that Kendra was a white zebra with black stripes and everyone always chuckled at the comment. It was sort of cute to all but Keisha.
Now for Keisha’s thirty fifth birthday, Kevin had decided that he and his wife would take a grand vacation and travel to South Africa. A land where white people once ruled over black people and now black people ruled over all. As the time drew closer, Keisha began to think about the tremendous amount of miles and even more kilometers it would take by airplane to get to Johannesburg and the possibility of the airplane crashing into the sea and then their young daughter would become ward of the state. It suddenly became imperative that legally custody be granted to one of their friends in the event of their death. The only issue was who it was going to be.
“Benita is the sister I never had. I would do anything for Benita and she would do anything for me. She is Kendra’s godmother and she loves Kendra as her own. Benita did a great job with her own children and knows that she would do a fabulous job with Kendra if something were to happen to us. I would like to legally make Benita Kendra’s legal guardian before we go… She is the right choice; she is a loving, educated black woman.”
Kevin happened to be working on his spoken word/poetry reading. He was matching up a bible verse from the Gideon Bible that he stole from a motel in Fargo, North Dakota to some rhythms that he came up with on his $150.00 Casio that he bought in at a pawn shop under the elevated train on the north side of Chicago. It was sort of a Bossa Nova beat underneath poetry. Kevin frequented a coffee house on the north side of Chicago with a clear view of Lake Michigan. On Tuesday nights, random people would congregate to read indirect words about being indirect. Kevin chose the Gideon’sBible. A smooth jazzy beat looped over and over as Kevin softly read Deuteronomy 4: 32.
“Ask about the former days, long before your time, form the day God man on earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other…”
Keisha interrupted. Kevin blinked hard and turned off the Casio. He could no longer concentrate.
“Why the bible, baby? Why don’t you write a poem about something on your mind and rattle that off at the poetry readings? Asked Keisha.
“Because the bible moves me. That’s why. Why is black so important to you?” Asked Kevin.
Keisha was taken aback by the question. Kevin was aggravated by being interrupted and by Betty’s qualification of being a suitable surrogate parent because she was black.
“What if I said I wanted to have my brother Peter to be a surrogate in the event of our death?” Said Kevin.
“You want you’re under achieving brother to raise our child? The only white landscaper on the north shore? Maybe he could put her in a junior college and teach her how to tell the difference between grass and weeds,” said Keisha.
“Oh and your friend Betty, the one you call your sister, the one you tell our daughter that she is our aunt, the one who chose some man whore to be her husband… You want her to hook up with some slick bastard who is going to be lining up our daughter when she hits puberty? Great idea. Benita chooses a worthless man before and so he will be the next one but meanwhile our daughter winds up being the Korean chick that Woody Allen wound up marrying that was his foster child. No way. I’m not game for that.”
Keisha became indignant at the implication that all black men were womanizers and capable of indiscretions with young girls who may or may not be relations.
“So all black men will rape our daughter, huh? Is that what you’re saying? Its cool to sleep and marry a black woman but still keep your eye on the brother, right?”
“You get on a goddamn elevator; you’re the first one to hold your purse against your body as soon as some dude with braids, sagging pants and a long white t-shirt comes slooping up towards us. I already know he views you as an Uncle Tom and a sell out because you stand there staring at the floor display, clutching my hand. I didn’t make the black man a villain, they made themselves one. I’m just here to give each individual a fair shake. When it comes to my daughter and I’m already dead, I have to say that the screening process left up to your friend Betty, scares the hell out of me. Her judgment sucks in my opinion. A warm body and a large cock is all that she really needs, right?”
“Your brother is an under achieving bust out. He’d be happy watching television all day, drinking a six pack, asking your mom if the mail came so he could see if maybe some credit card company sent him or your mother’s dog a check in the mail. Loser is what should be tattooed on his forehead and it saddens me to think that you would want your daughter to possibly be raised by someone that has zero ambition that is content watching NHL games in your mother’s basement with other bust outs who live with their mothers. Why is this? Because he is white? You can be a worthless human being as long as you are white? Is that the case?”
Two days passed and neither Keisha nor Kevin would talk to one another. The two had angered each other and dredged up latent racism that dwelled deep within both of them. It was Kevin that thought long and hard about a compromise that would keep their South African vacation from being a case study in apartheid; suggest the lesbian Asian friend to be the surrogate mother and custodial parent in the event of death. Keisha was surprised by the suggestion but listened to her husband without interruption.
“I thought about this whole thing and it is really all pretty silly. I know that Benita would be a good parent to our daughter despite whatever philandering waste of space that she might hook up with and although my brother is a bit arrested in his development, rest assured he would care for and love our daughter more than if it were his own. I have a solution. Your good friend Joyce from Wisconsin would be a great alternative. Although I hope our daughter does not turn out lesbian, I know that Joyce would take good care of Kendra and being sort of butch, she would try to instill in her the necessity to be proficient at sports. Hopefully our daughter would never be a Green Bay Packer fan but if it happens… Just like being a lesbo, I won’t be around to witness it… What do you think?” Asked Kevin.
Keisha thought about the whole issue and the potential for ruining their own two week dream vacation to Africa and decided that an Asian lesbian was a great compromise. Joyce cried upon being asked to be a parent in the event of their death. Kevin, Keisha and Joyce toasted the agreement. Disaster was averted.

Candy for the Eyes or My African Mail Order Bride

Dear Lillian,

I started going to church back when I was in the joint for passing some bad checks and I now understand that there is something greater than myself out there. We all make mistakes and I’m on the right path now. I’m sure you know what I mean. Here in America, people got it pretty easy if you’re white and don’t live in Appalachia or Flint, Michigan. It’s still a little rough for blacks and Hispanics but with this new president, there is sort of an illusion that things are getting better. We haven’t seen it too much here in Detroit and those that live in this trailer park definitely don’t feel like anything is on the way up. At least we are not killing each other with machetes. I saw that one movie called Hotel Rwanda and it was pretty nasty. I have heard of Dakar because they had this special on the Discovery Channel where these guys race from Paris to Dakar in little Renaults.


Anyway, getting back to getting you here and helping you get that money. I have to talk to my mother since she is the signer on my savings account. Having that money in my account will help us to get that double wide trailer that we need. I would never use your money but if the bank sees that I have money in my account, they will probably give us the loan and then I can help you to fly here to Detroit.

You’re going to like Detroit. It’s probably just as dangerous as anything you’ll find in Africa but you won’t have to worry about being eaten by lions. We have an American football team here called the Lions but they couldn’t eat a sandwich. LOL… All kidding aside, I can help you enroll at Wayne State or maybe just a commuter college until you feel you can rattle of English well enough. I think you’re beautiful and if you don’t mind that I’m white with freckles and red hair, I don’t mind at all that you are black. Actually you have a slamming body. That’s sort of an idiomatic expression. You’re like candy for the eyes.

Please write again when the minister lets you use his computer. My buddy Bill and I are going to meet up at a bar on Gratiot and I’m going to show him a picture of my future wife. He might ask me if you have any girlfriends at the camp that might want to come to Detroit. Let me know. I’ll take a picture of me and Bill tonight when we’re at the bar so you and your friends can see what we look like.

With all my heart- Janusz or Jan

—–Original Message—–
From: Lillian Bacon To: blackhumourist Sent: Tue, Aug 31, 2010 5:03 am
Subject: MY LOVE ONE PLEASE I NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE
DEAREST ONE
firstly I thank you for your reaction to mine email; Enline with the message, which I have sent to you.
How was your night over there in your country,i believe you had a nice night and that the arthmosphere over there in your country is very nice today? Mine is a little bit warm over here in Dakar Senegal.
My name is Lillian Bacon i am (24) but age doesn’t matter in a real relationship, so i am confortable with your age,I am from Rwanda in East Africa ,5.4ft tall, light in complexion single,(never married ) and presently i am residing here in Dakar as a result of the civil war that was fought in my country some years ago.
My late father Dr Philip Bacon; was a politician and the managing director of a Gold & Mine Ind in Kigali (the capital of Rwanda) before the rebels attacked our house one early morning and killed my mother and my father in cold blood.
It was only me that is alive now and I managed to make my way to a near by country Senegal where i am leaving now as a refugee under a Reverend-Pastor’s care and i am using his computer to send these message to you.
I would like to know more about you. Your likes and dislikes,
PLAESE Do to not be offended for this message that come;s from me please, fair which to me obliged to put simple trust on you due to my situation here as the refugee and I shall demand most your conscientiousness after yours to know about me, I shall really grow fond we to have good inspite attitudes therefore I have this as a trust which i belive that you can not betray it at the end. I have communicated you because of my difficaute situation here in this refugees camp;Its just like one staying in the prison and i hope by Gods grace i will come out here soon.

i don’t have any relatives now whom i can go to all my relatives ran away in the middle of the war the only person i have now is Rev- Paul Devine , who is the pastor of the (CHRIST DE SAVIOR
MISSION) here in the camp he has been very nice to me since i came here but i am not living with him rather i am leaving in the women’s hostel because the camp have two hostels one for men the other for women.

The Pastors Tel number is (00221771492401) . if you call and tell him that you want to speak with me he will send for me in the hostel.As a refugee here i don’t have any right or privilledge to any thing be it money or whatever because it is against the law of this country.My love I want to go back to my studies because i only attended my first year before the traggic incident that lead to my being in this situation now took place.

Please listen to this(please it’s a secret,even no one knows about it ecept the Reverend that knows about it),i have my late father’s statement of account and death certificate here with me which i will send to you latter,because when he was alive he deposited some amount of money in a leading Foreign bank which he used my name as the next of kin,the amount in question is $7.6(Seven Million Six Hundred Thousand USDollars).
So i will like you to help me transfer this money to your account and from it you can send some money for me to get my travelling documents and air ticket to come over to meet with you.I kept this secret to people in the camp here the only person that knows about it is the Reverend because he is like a father to me.So in the light of above i will like you to keep it to yourself and don’t tell it to anyone for i am afraid of loosing my life and the money if people gets to know about it.

Remember i am giving you all this information due to the trust i deposed on you.I like honest and understanding people,truthful and a man of vision,hardworking and GOD fearing people.My favourite language is english but our language is french but i speak english very fluently.Meanwhile i will like you to call me like i said i have alot to tell you Attached here is my picture.I will send you more in my next mail.Have a nice day and think about me.Awaiting to hear from you soonest.
Yours in love,
miss Lillian

Road Trip of Life

Now Jack bought a one way ticket to Seattle, landed and took a cab to the suburb of Bellevue. Down a dead end street on the second floor above a garage was the office of an elderly attorney who attended mass every morning at 9am then walked two miles to his office and began his day at 11am and then broke at noon for lunch. Luckily for Jack, he showed up at 11:10am. In the office were awards for racing Alfa Romeo cars back when the octogenarian had a full head of brown hair.
“God damn computers. Everything is computers and I hate these damn things… You know anything about computers?” Asked the attorney.
“Enough to do my job at home like a trained pony,” responded Jack.
Jack listened to the man talk about the weather in Seattle and how he once had to visit Chicago for a court case.
“Honest to god… I get in the hotel and it stinks to high heaven of cigarettes and I was afraid I was going to catch something on my feet cause the carpet was so disgusting, you know what I mean? So I’m walking around in my underwear and wingtip shoes. I says to myself; this is ridiculous. I went to court, then I sat at a jazz lounge til my flight left and never went back to Chicago. Place is as flat as a board and is either too hot or too cold… So let me ask you, what happened to your father-in-law?”
Jack said very little as he packed up pictures and letters in a box to take back to his wife in Chicago. Jack was there to pick up the automobile that once belonged to his father-in-law. All Jack could think about was the little old man lying in a coffin with his eyes and mouth sewn shut. A minister said some scripted, canned, semi-thought provoking words that he used over and over again about the celebration of life and god’s desire to call us all home at his discretion. The closing of the casket and dropping into the ground and covering the casket with dirt and then the realization that generations and generations of people were placed in underground tombs for as far as the eye could see. A little old man whose job meant more to him than his family, died and was remembered by four people on a late summer day and then that was it.
“I don’t envy you, young man. That is one helluva drive to make in two days. Why don’t you take your time?”
“Because I’m an American and as an American, it is necessary to rush through life so that we can get on with eternity and whatever that is exactly.”
“Amen to that…”
Jack was a hyperactive child back before ADD was a term and as a hyperactive adult, he did not relish the idea of sitting in a vehicle for thirty four hours. Google said that it took thirty four hours at fifty five miles an hour. Jack thought that if he could just average eighty miles an hour, he could shave the trip down to twenty six hours and twenty five minutes. Jack wondered what he would think about for the better part of two days while driving east on interstate 90. Jack had a habit of talking out loud to himself whenever he was alone and so he did. It gave him something to do.
“How come it is that whenever you get out of a big city, there’s nothing but Country Music stations? How is it that I’m less than 100 miles from the Canadian border and everyone sounds like they’re from Alabama… For fuck’s sake.”
“Two hours into this bitch and my hip hurts on my left side and I need a coffee. I need a coffee so I can stay awake and then I’ll need to piss and then that will kill my time. I could try to piss in a bottle but then I gotta worry about truckers or old people in RVs watching me piss and then they’ll think I’m playing with myself and will wind up calling the highway patrol . Fuck it, I’ll go to the rest stops but I hate them cause they’re overrun with fat people who picnic under signs of some monument to Sitting Bull or George Custer at an interstate bathroom. George Custer fought people who once came from people in Asia who crossed an ice bridge and then they stopped looking Asian and migrated all over the hemisphere. We mark the land were whites and Indians fought by building rest stops off of interstates. Now Indians own casinos where old white people in RVs pull up to eat at the all you can eat buffet and waste their pensions at slot machines with their air tanks, while smoking and drinking. I would say the Indians win on this battle… Casinos… Everyone knows you have to smoke while you drink and drinking makes you feel as though you really can beat the odds. Then while you’re sitting there quietly listening to the sounds of the slot machine give you double diamonds, a cherry and a seven and then you look over at the old lady you’ve been with since the Korean War and wonder what happened. How did I get so old? How did she get so old? What happened to her face, tits and ass? How did my life pass so fast and I never really did anything except what I was expected to do? I had dreams and plans and never really got around to them and now I’m spending my vacation at an Indian casino…”

Jack then thought seriously about death without speaking. He wondered what would be best when the day came. Cremation did not sound so nice to him and the idea of being in a box and then the lid closed and then being placed six feet into the ground with no light or air, sounded almost worse than being made into ashes. These sorts of thoughts never came to Jack until the funeral of his father-in-law and since then it was all he could think about whenever pondering the future. The future was a highway like an interstate and although it seemed long, somewhere along the highway, there would be an exit with his name on it.
Jack pulled off the highway at a rest stop and marveled at the variety of people that were hurrying up to rid themselves of matter from their bodies. The old biker couples who had matching leather outfits made by Harley Davidson, bandanas by Harley Davidson, bikes by Harley Davidson and spiked dog collar made by Harley Davidson while they sat under the shade of a tree fifteen feet from their deluxe touring bike with an air conditioned side car for their pet. A blond haired Minnesota woman with a modified Swedish accent that became a common American dialect if you happen to be from Duluth wore her hair and clothes much the way women did twenty years ago in places like Chicago, New York or Los Angeles. A portly trucker with large side burns wore a sweat soaked cowboy hat. He stood head pointed up towards the sun with his eyes closed as he took drags of a cigarette and sips of the seventy five cent coffee made out of a vending machine. Children under ten yelled to one another and ran around the grass while older children sent text messages. Jack sat in a pair of shorts and a t shirt that said, “I’d rather be in Cleveland”. He opened the box of pictures and letters that were packed into the box by the attorney. As Jack ate a cheese stick and beef jerky, he looked at pictures of anonymous people from the 1950’s. They looked so attractive in suits and dresses. It appeared they were at a picnic and showed up dressed to go dinner and dancing. In the box were dozens of letters. Jack opened a few as he ate.

My Dearest Leon,
I had such a great time today and am enjoying every moment of getting to know you and the essence of who you really are. Taking a ride on the river with the Dixie Jazz band was a swell idea. I can’t remember when I had a better evening. The food, wine and music were perfect for such a humid night. For late August, you’d never be able to believe that in a few short months, the ground will be covered with decaying leaves and snow. We must take every moment for what it is and cherish it as a moment in time. All we can hang on to are memories and as long as I have my mind, I will remember that our relationship took a definitive turn tonight. Your hinting at what I may or may not want to do with the rest of my life was very sweet. You caught me off guard actually. I would like to spend the rest of my life with a man like you.

Yours truly and forever if you so choose- Dorothy

There were pictures of Leon and Dorothy throughout the box as well as pictures of their friends and relatives and then their children. Jack recognized the little girl who stood at waist level between her parents at some sort of a carnival. A smiling toothless grin from the girl who would become his wife one day in between the two people that helped usher her into the world and aided her in becoming the person she grew to become. Jack thought about the day when all he would be was a photograph in a box. Then he snapped out of the deep thoughts and looked around and wondered when it was that people really got so fat. When did people become morbidly obese, bloated characters of what a human is supposed to look like? He wondered if it wasn’t some sort of population control by a hidden branch of the government by which the FDA approved fat laden foods, stuffed with hormones and chemicals so that people became very stupid, fat and lazy. They would get heart disease, diabetes and fallen arches from the weight of it all and then pass on to make room for other beings and then possibly when birth rates lowered, the fat, chemical and hormonal levels in food would also level out. Jack decided that had to be the plan. Why else would grocery stores like Wholefoods be so expensive? You would need an advance degree to get a job that would afford you the luxury of purchasing organic foods at extreme prices. Weed out those that cannot contribute to society. Poor and average people don’t have the resources to avert personal disaster. Jack could no longer eat any more of the beef jerky.

“Pakistan… They had biblical type floods in Pakistan. They are our ally, right? They have nuclear weapons and are harboring the creatures whose whole life purpose is to defeat the great evil which is America… We’re going to send millions and millions of dollars to help people who detest us and when it’s all said and done, those at the grass roots level will recruit poor water logged people to do missions for their god against America… Iran- they are a year away from having nuclear weapons? What are the Israelis going to do about this? What if Iran makes these weapons and gives them to terrorists or uses them against Israel? Some guy under the age of forty just won an award for determining the rate at which the world is deteriorating? Sixty percent is irreversible damage caused by humans… Like how could the Canadians be extracting oil in northern Alberta from sand and making huge bodies of tainted water that are a byproduct caused by pulling oil from deep in the earth? Every ten seconds a cannon goes off to keep migratory birds from landing in the useless water and killing themselves. This is all so I can pick up an eight cylinder vehicle in Seattle and drive it to Chicago without ever thinking about what goes into making this happen… Well at least it’s a tremendous relief to know that Steven Tyler will be a judge on American Idol this year. I just wasn’t sure how something so important to American society, was going to turn out… Chicago 338 miles… I’m glad we don’t use metrics yet. Those numbers are always crazy. 1178 kilometers to Kenora… Who goes to Kenora anyway?”

Jack walked in after his child had gone to bed and his wife was watching a replay of The View. The women were discussing a movie. Jack’s wife turned and smiled for a moment before tuning back in to what was being discussed on the taped program. Jack was gone for two days but conversed with his wife as if he had only just stepped out of the room for a moment.
“Lucy… I’m home.”
“Well I’m glad you’re back okay…”
“Yes it was a long journey... And you never can tell where the road my lead to. A trip like that will really make one ponder life and death and what it all really means…”
“I’m sorry dear, I was listening to Whoopie. Did you say something?”
“I just said that a road trip will lead your mind to roam… You know… Being on the road and all… Life, death the future… Stuff like that.”
“I don’t understand what that means?”
“And that’s fine… What’s for dinner?”

Online Job Applicants

Thank you Frederick. Before I fill out this application, I wanted to clarify that this will be only the third shift as I will be attending school during the day? My classes are online but I really need to concentrate during daytime hours. I also must tell you that I have a small dog that accompanies me wherever I go that has issues with separation anxiety. Rommel, my pitbull terrier has ripped apart my furniture and chews my shoes when I have left him for any period of time alone. I must leave doors open in my apartment such as bedroom and bathroom doors when I'm home. Anyway, I don't believe he would be a problem if I were to get the job as I would mostly be alone except for the janitorial staff. I actually have a note from Rommel's veterinarian stating that Rommel has been diagnosed with this disorder and that being alone is really not ideal for his mental health. I initially thought that getting a companion for him would be good but he would possibly kill another dog if left alone.

I do believe working alone in the evening would really help me to ease back into the work place. My panic attacks are much better but then again I only have ventured out of my apartment for essentials in the middle of the night and tend to buy most of my food and necessities at the 24 hour Walgreens near home.

I have considered this job because it is quite close to public transportation and that it is only four hours per day. I appreciate you taking the time to conduct this interview over the phone because it is quite difficult for me to travel during daytime hours.

My printer is not currently working but I will go to the 24 hour Kinkos near my apartment later tonight to print this application and send back to you hopefully tomorrow. Once again, thank you very much and God Bless you for your time and consideration.


C. Dorff

-----Original Message-----
From: Frederick Diggs
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 2:35 PM
To: cdorff@cdorff.com
Subject: Employment Application

Hi

Confirming our phone conversation today, attached please find our employment application for you to complete and bring with you to your interview scheduled for Thursday, 6/24 at 4:00pm. You will be meeting with Dana Sirolli, Director of Student Financial Services.

We look forward to seeing you at that time.

Frederick