It sounded silly at first as if someone was trying to be funny but it wasn’t a joke when a protestor by the name of Billy amassed people from all over North America and the world to occupy public space within the city of Detroit.
900,000 vacant lots within the city limits of Detroit and to occupy a blighted big city sounded almost charitable. Bill was feeling anything but compassion for the city of Detroit and the United States in general. Bill started off watching crowds of people on television in the Middle East fell leaders like Mubarak and Gaddafi. It was en vogue to drop heads of state like at no time since the fall of the Soviet empire. Billy joined people in occupying parks in places like Oakland and New York Cityonly to be returned home by Billy’s father’s deep pockets when it came time to bail him out. Soon the idea came to Billy to amass as many dissatisfied, disenchanted, and downtrodden; serfs and petty bourgeoisie and set up camp around the General Motor’sRenaissance Center in the heart of downtown Detroit ironically enough called Hart Plaza.
At first, Bill didn’t have many takers as most of his Detroit buddies who lived in metropolitan Detroit, knew that at night, late night, there were not a whole lot of people around downtown Detroit. Sewer covers blew off steam like English tea kettles every few feet around desolate streets and sidewalks. Every now and then you’d see a Chrysler 300 at a red light, waiting for no other cars to pass as the lights quietly turned from green to yellow and red. Most police officers patrolled several blocks away in the more vibrant Greektown where middle class Detroiters could take a stay-cation at one of the casino hotels, eat at a fairly upscale restaurant and try to win their house out of foreclosure inside the casinos. Those that stayed at the Hilton at the top of the GM Renaissance Center drove in by taxi or limousine and never had to venture out into the streets of Detroit. The people the protesters were trying to harass were largely unreachable. From up high, executives staying for a night or two could see the tents set up in the plaza. Most thought it was some sort of Hooverville in a town with nearly 20% unemployment.
The first Occupy Detroit gatherings were sort of pathetic as those who wanted to yell and scream at passersby took note of congregation of homeless men who actually danced to the sounds of a drummer who was leading a chant, “Bring out the 1%, bring out the 1%”. The black homeless men wondered if somehow the population of white people had actually dropped to 1%. The thought of white people being only 1% of the city of Detroit lead a few homeless people to wonder if they should pick up and move to other big cities where there was a larger pool of financially stable and generous white folk. The native Detroiters felt sort of silly when nobody noticed them except a few Red Wing fans that cut through HartPlaza on their way to Joe Louis Arena to catch a game. The hockey fans thought it was sort of dumb to camp outside in inner city Detroit but they politely ignored the small group. Within a few days, the Detroit protestors packed up and went home without any fanfare. No beatings, television crews, cops with night sticks or tear gas. Billy had to retool. Billy read up on other charismatic leaders like Hitler, Jim Jones, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro and H. Ross Perot to see how it was that they were able to draw people to them. Billy would never admit to reading Perot’s biography since he was in the top 1% of the top 1% but he read it nonetheless.
Billy remembered Michael Moore’s movie called Roger and me and how Moore had hounded a GM executive named Roger Smith everywhere in order to get an explanation why it was that he closed GM plants in Flint, Michigan and so Billy wrote a letter to Moore in hopes that he might be willing to help a fellow antiestablishment native of Michigan. Mooreliked the idea quite a bit. Michael Moore then used his larger base of fans and followers who hated the government, rich people and the mainstream in general and before long, Billy had close to a 1000 people who had descended upon Jefferson Avenue in front of the GM Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit. Moorehad chosen a rare time when there were throngs of sports fans out to see the Detroit Lions on a Sunday afternoon and the Detroit Red Wings in the evening. Moore told Billy to get the people together at about five in the evening and think of something that would bring traffic to a screeching halt. Billy had a great idea.
Hundreds of football fans on their way to see a hockey game and hockey fans that had just seen a football game, were stopped by a large group of mostly young white people who were throwing metal spoons onto Jefferson Avenue in front of the General Motors building. Bill felt like Che Guevara and Fidel Castro rolled up into one big Hugo Chavez. Bill climbed up a statue that symbolized the city of Detroit onWoodward Avenue and spoke through a megaphone. A few news trucks were out in front of the melee and filmed the action. Bill was in heaven.
The crowd quit banging drums and throwing metal spoons onto Jeffersonwhile Bill stood with his ratty looking red dread locks that hung like dirty rope over a Jamaican flag hoodie as he shouted into the amplification device.
“I’ve been to Seattle and New York and Oakland to help the people of those cities get people to understand that we are being taken for a ride by our government, by the fat cats who own 85% of everything worth owning. Look at that giant symbol of what the government involved itself in… General Motors. General Motors made a shit product and made the people at the top wealthy while working people on assembly lines lost their jobs. What happened? Your government gave your tax dollars to save a company that should have never failed. General Motors was once the largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world and they became in danger of going under. How does that happen? Your government bailed out companies that have fucked us all in the ass… How many people are out of jobs? How many people have been foreclosed on? Who has swooped up and bought up all these homes that once belonged to working people? The very banks that have caused this fucking mess. You starve and they eat cake with silver spoons in their mouths. Well if they are in search of a spoon tonight, my friends let them come down to the streets ofDetroitto find one. Millions of spoons for millionaires. When are you going to wake up people? When are you going to get up out of your chair and go to the window and yell that you’re mad as hell and not going to take it anymore?”
It was at that moment that a man by the name of Bob who owned a gun shop and riffle range in Northern Michigan, had decided that since the Lions were in danger of making the playoffs for the first time in years and that the Detroit Red Wings were in danger of making the playoffs for the 21st year in a row, that he would make the pilgrimage to the city of Detroit that epitomized everything that Bob disliked about America; Crime, racial tension, traffic, shopping malls, unemployment and rich white kids with nothing better to do than take up a liberal cause. Bob decided to rip through Jefferson over the spoons in his large truck, sending protestors flying to the left and right of him. A dozen or more people had leaned on a sign near the tunnel to Canada that read, Welcome to the United States of America. The sign snapped off and flew into the windshield of Bob’s brand new GMC truck that had a hand painted sign on both sides and the back window that read, “Bob’s Emporium of armaments- The playground for those believe in the Bill of Rights.
The windshield looked like a kaleidoscope after the heavy sign hit the windshield. Bob exited the vehicle as his wife rolled down the passenger side window and calmly lit a cigarette and gazed at the mob that had filled the street. Bob walked towards the sound of the voice and saw the slight figure yelling passionately into the megaphone. Bill seemed like the ring leader of the band of misfits and so he pulled Billy down off of the symbol ofDetroitand gave him and ass beating like he had never had before. The local news caught the whole the incident. A large man in a Detroit Lions hat and a Red Wings Gordie Howe jersey beat the young man with the megaphone senseless. Protestors through bottles and rocks at the Bob and before long, large groups of drunken football and hockey fans came to the rescue of Gordie Howe or at least a man wearing his jersey. When the dust settled,Detroit had made the national and international news. Possibly a million spoons littered Jefferson Avenue in front of the GM Renaissance Center and brought traffic to a stand still. Red Wing and Lions fans and protestors alike were taken into custody by the Detroit Police. Billy was given his proverbial one call. Billy called his father as he always did and expected to be bailed out without question once again. Billy hated his father for being a rich and successful owner of a flatware company that had moved operations from the United States to China. The spoons that were scattered all over the streets of Detroit came from a warehouse belonging to Billy’s father. Billy, well known to everyone who worked for his father, loaded crate after crate of spoons into trucks from his father’s factory for the sole purpose of letting people know that the rich were born, living and dying with silver spoons in their mouths. Billy’s father attitude had changed towards his son. He was very firm and to the point with Billy who had cost him a lot of money by stealing his spoons. Several millions.
“I’m going to speak plainly to you, son. The fake Rasta hair, no deodorant, Reggae listening, Haile Salassie is god bullshit was cute. You thought you’d rebel against having life the easy way and I would just sit back and shrug my shoulders because I should have some sort of guilt for having money. I have no guilt, son. I don’t know a man alive who ever claimed to have enough money and today, you cost me a whole lot of money. Your father is part of the 1% and you thought you might try to punish me at a tremendous expense by taking my spoons. You’ve dubbed yourself the new voice for the poor and people of color, right? A modern day Lenin waiting for the revolution to take hold in the streets of Detroit. It isn’t coming, Billy. Well I want you to know that you are going to work to pay off your debt. You want to ally yourself with the poor and ordinary man. You’re going to be right there with them now. Reading Marx and hating me while I put you through college and this is what I get… A big bill for all your pseudo communist bullshit. Here’s the deal, son; you will learn what it is like to truly work for one solid year or I will see to it that you spend your time in jail for what you’ve done. This is America, son. A free country and one where you have choices and so I give you the choice, if I bail you out this time, you go to work for one year, no days off or you can say no and know that I will do all I can with my pull and connections to see that you do at least a year for your brash stupidity. When some lifer is lining your ass up in the shower like a Penn State date, you’ll wish you had joined the proletariat… The choice is yours to make.”
In a factory in a remote part of China, where people wear medical masks over their faces at all times and are forced to breathe the air that has a strange tint to it when the light of day illuminates the sky, works Billy. Behind him wearing a suit is a young black man, whose only job is to watch and live with Billy 24 hours a day for a year. The day after Billy’s father bailed him out of jail; Billy’s father ordered a shake at a fast food restaurant and offered a job to a young man that was mopping a floor who was roughly the same age as Billy. The young man went from making minimum wage to a half million dollars in a year and his only job was to make sure Billy worked every day, twelve hours a day, loading silverware into boxes to be shipped to the head quarters in Detroit,Michigan. Hundreds of sullen Chinese stood in front of an assembly line, collecting spoons, knives and forks with one young white American. Jefferson, who just the week before had to take two buses to make just over $200.00 a week, was dressed in nice clothes, had a chauffeur and a nice apartment that he shared with Billy. Billy’s father sent Jefferson a text, thanking him for taking the $500,000.00 dollar job that came with a bonus of a new car and a condo if Billy could complete the year without fail. Jefferson replied to Billy’s father.
NO THANK YOU, SIR. AND THANK YOU FOR KEEPING THE AMERICAN DREAM ALIVE AND WELL. GOD BLESS YOU, SIR.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Inheritance Day
“Before we get started, I just wanted to give each of you a calendar for 2012 from our law firm as a token of our sincere condolences regarding the death of your loved one. It has our web address, email addresses and phone numbers in the event that any of you would require our services going forward… Now then I will need a check made out to our firm in the amount of $375.00 for the consultation that occurred between our office and your mother prior to her death back at the beginning of the month. We generally bill on the last day of the month and with your mother’s passage on the 28th of November, it would have been impossible to bill and collect prior to her passing. I just want to explain our billing process so that everyone here is aware of the charges prior to the time today…”
Maricella DiMaria Woechichowski passed on Wednesday in her sleep in her modest frame house in Hamtramck, Michigan, just north of the city of Detroit. Mary, as she was called, arrived on Ellis Island at the age of two and eventually migrated with her family to Detroit. Around the time of World War II was when married Maricella married Wochek. Wochek was a hard working weekend alcoholic who ignored his Italian beauty for the most part. They had a daughter by the name of Cynthia in 1945 and then James in 1960. Both children of Maricella were present at the attorney’s office on Monday morning following the wake Friday night and the funeral on Saturday.
Jimmy sat slouched, chewing his thumb nail in a pair of faded and torn blue jeans with a pair of black high top gym shoes. He wore a black leather coat and a black t shirt with the name of his band emblazoned in white. Jimmy slipped off his jacket to be comfortable, showing off an array of skulls, grim reaper tattoos as well as winged angels. Everyone studied the name of the band, Death March written in gothic, Nazi Germany script. Jimmy and his girlfriend Zanna never figured out why Cindy, her husband and the attorney, stared at the two of them.
Zanna looked like Jimmy from behind in that she wore similar jeans and had an identically black dye job on shoulder length feathered hair. Zanna wore a brightly colored roach clip from her hair and suede boots that came up to her knees. She was Albanian with a thick New York City/Brooklyn accent and had been with Jimmy for three years after seeing one of his concerts and buying a skull necklace off of him from his crafts display that accompanied band t-shirts and CDs. Zanna glared back at Cynthia and her husband as she chewed strawberry bubble gum, careful never to smear the lip gloss from her lips. Cynthia’s husband Tom stealthily admired Zanna’s firm fake tits that filled out her baby doll T-shirt quite well.
Cindy looked old enough to be her brother’s mother. She looked matronly even though she never gave birth to a child. Cindy had always been in love with Dachshunds so Tom bought her a ranch so that Cindy could breed Dachshunds on the gulf side of Florida. Cindy’s husband worked as a personal assistant to a televangelist and motivational speaker. They had two homes in Florida, six cars, a boat and forty Dachshunds. They had a team of undocumented Mexican helpers watching over the brood of dogs as they made the pilgrimage to Detroit on interstate 75 in their RV from Tampa Bay.
Jimmy loved skulls and singing about death and Satan and Cindy was part of the Evangelical women’s group at Church that helped raise money for born-again single mothers in Senegal. Jimmy screamed incoherent lyrics through an octave divider that lowered his voice and distorted it so that nobody could detect that he had no pitch while banging distorted chords on a Flying V guitar. His fans were angry suburban boys in their teens. Cindy sang in the women’s choir at church while playing an organ. Most of the songs she sang were two hundred years old. Jimmy never moved out of his parent’s home and Cindy moved out at the age of twenty-three. After three failed marriages, Cindy found god and a wealthy man. Jimmy never married but had a slew of fragile relationships that one might experience in junior high. Jimmy believes that Zanna is a keeper.
“Ok… So James will be given title to the home in Hamtramck and everything in it as well as the 1987 Lincoln Continental and Cindy will receive $352,000.00 that are in certificates of deposit. The following messages are to be read to each of you prior to signing any documentation… Jimmy, you were always such a good boy but so dumb in many ways. You graduated high school in 1978 and never grew up. The music you play hurts people’s ears. You wear clothes that nobody wears anymore and have a haircut that makes you look like an ugly woman. You got this dog walking thing that you started in Gross Pointe and I think it shows that you are worried a little bit for your future. Don’t waste all your money on Marijuana. I know you still sit up in your room and smoke Marijuana. It is no secret. After thirty five years of smelling it in my house, I have become accustomed to the distinct odor. You’re 51 years old and still go to those shows with high school kids, play video games and do drugs. It is time to grow up. This New York girl you got now is nothing but a user. You want some companionship and like your poppa used to say; a piece of ass is nothing but a drain on your life. You get her pregnant and you are going to regret it. I’m guessing in her early forties that she could still have a few. You were always good to me and took care of me despite the fact that you had no ambition. Never any back talk. You were a good boy. You get the house. I paid the taxes for the next two years. You have to make enough money and put away for utilities and taxes. You got to cut the lawn and take out the trash. Nobody will tell you to do that no more… Now then, Cindy… You were an angry child who blamed me for not leaving your father years ago but then went on to marry three men who were angry drunks. You hated life for not being able to have children. You hated Detroit so much that you could never come to see me. I would call you and you would never answer. I would get blanket Christmas cards addressed to everyone you knew with all those Dachshunds dressed up like reindeer every year with some kind of a re-cap of your life with Carl and all those dogs. You could never just write me a personal card, it always had to be some long winded thing about you and dogs and your women’s group and about some people you don’t even know in Africa. Did you really dislike me that much? You traveled to Alaska in an RV but could never make it to see your mother in Michigan. You use religion as a crutch for your great unhappiness. You were a good looking girl with a scowl on her face and have become a lumpy senior citizen with a permanent frown. I want to thank you for coming to my funeral if you in fact made it and hope that your dogs all cry at your funeral along with the people you’ve never met in Africa. I suspect you’ll die and a few people at that Protestant Church will sing a few songs and say a few nice things for you and then they’ll have coffee cake and punch and they will need to try and figure out who will play the organ at the services going forward. Sadly, we are all replaceable. My only goal in life was to be a good wife and a good mother. Once you two grew up, I realized I missed the boat on the most important thing in life which was to make myself happy.
So you sat in a foreign Catholic Church in Detroit and listened to some young fellow say some nice things about an old lady he never knew. Something about god calling his flock home and so on. While this was all going on, you were probably taking a head count and were wondering what it was going to cost to feed all those people you didn’t know. For this reason, I want you to have all my money that was really saved by your father who saved every extra cent and never did anything with that money. We never went anywhere or saw anything. Money should make you happy, Cynthia. The only home you’ve ever known should be a comfort to you, Jimmy. Alright. I did my job as a wife and as a mother. You kids were not easy and your father was a bastard but I made it through. Getting a job seating people at a restaurant in Greektown was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I sat trapped in the house my whole life and then when your father passed, I got a job seating people. They asked if I was Greek and I told them that as a Sicilian. I looked Greek. That was good enough for them. I met so many people over the last twenty five years. I met some really nice people and some not so nice. I met old and young, rich and poor. People of all kinds of colors and shades. If I had to do it all over, I would do it differently as would most people. There is still time on the clock for you both. Figure out what makes you happy and just be happy. Happiness is all there really is. You should not die unhappy because that would truly be sad. Alright then, enjoy the gifts and don’t squander them. I had a good life. Momma loves you.
Maricella DiMaria Woechichowski passed on Wednesday in her sleep in her modest frame house in Hamtramck, Michigan, just north of the city of Detroit. Mary, as she was called, arrived on Ellis Island at the age of two and eventually migrated with her family to Detroit. Around the time of World War II was when married Maricella married Wochek. Wochek was a hard working weekend alcoholic who ignored his Italian beauty for the most part. They had a daughter by the name of Cynthia in 1945 and then James in 1960. Both children of Maricella were present at the attorney’s office on Monday morning following the wake Friday night and the funeral on Saturday.
Jimmy sat slouched, chewing his thumb nail in a pair of faded and torn blue jeans with a pair of black high top gym shoes. He wore a black leather coat and a black t shirt with the name of his band emblazoned in white. Jimmy slipped off his jacket to be comfortable, showing off an array of skulls, grim reaper tattoos as well as winged angels. Everyone studied the name of the band, Death March written in gothic, Nazi Germany script. Jimmy and his girlfriend Zanna never figured out why Cindy, her husband and the attorney, stared at the two of them.
Zanna looked like Jimmy from behind in that she wore similar jeans and had an identically black dye job on shoulder length feathered hair. Zanna wore a brightly colored roach clip from her hair and suede boots that came up to her knees. She was Albanian with a thick New York City/Brooklyn accent and had been with Jimmy for three years after seeing one of his concerts and buying a skull necklace off of him from his crafts display that accompanied band t-shirts and CDs. Zanna glared back at Cynthia and her husband as she chewed strawberry bubble gum, careful never to smear the lip gloss from her lips. Cynthia’s husband Tom stealthily admired Zanna’s firm fake tits that filled out her baby doll T-shirt quite well.
Cindy looked old enough to be her brother’s mother. She looked matronly even though she never gave birth to a child. Cindy had always been in love with Dachshunds so Tom bought her a ranch so that Cindy could breed Dachshunds on the gulf side of Florida. Cindy’s husband worked as a personal assistant to a televangelist and motivational speaker. They had two homes in Florida, six cars, a boat and forty Dachshunds. They had a team of undocumented Mexican helpers watching over the brood of dogs as they made the pilgrimage to Detroit on interstate 75 in their RV from Tampa Bay.
Jimmy loved skulls and singing about death and Satan and Cindy was part of the Evangelical women’s group at Church that helped raise money for born-again single mothers in Senegal. Jimmy screamed incoherent lyrics through an octave divider that lowered his voice and distorted it so that nobody could detect that he had no pitch while banging distorted chords on a Flying V guitar. His fans were angry suburban boys in their teens. Cindy sang in the women’s choir at church while playing an organ. Most of the songs she sang were two hundred years old. Jimmy never moved out of his parent’s home and Cindy moved out at the age of twenty-three. After three failed marriages, Cindy found god and a wealthy man. Jimmy never married but had a slew of fragile relationships that one might experience in junior high. Jimmy believes that Zanna is a keeper.
“Ok… So James will be given title to the home in Hamtramck and everything in it as well as the 1987 Lincoln Continental and Cindy will receive $352,000.00 that are in certificates of deposit. The following messages are to be read to each of you prior to signing any documentation… Jimmy, you were always such a good boy but so dumb in many ways. You graduated high school in 1978 and never grew up. The music you play hurts people’s ears. You wear clothes that nobody wears anymore and have a haircut that makes you look like an ugly woman. You got this dog walking thing that you started in Gross Pointe and I think it shows that you are worried a little bit for your future. Don’t waste all your money on Marijuana. I know you still sit up in your room and smoke Marijuana. It is no secret. After thirty five years of smelling it in my house, I have become accustomed to the distinct odor. You’re 51 years old and still go to those shows with high school kids, play video games and do drugs. It is time to grow up. This New York girl you got now is nothing but a user. You want some companionship and like your poppa used to say; a piece of ass is nothing but a drain on your life. You get her pregnant and you are going to regret it. I’m guessing in her early forties that she could still have a few. You were always good to me and took care of me despite the fact that you had no ambition. Never any back talk. You were a good boy. You get the house. I paid the taxes for the next two years. You have to make enough money and put away for utilities and taxes. You got to cut the lawn and take out the trash. Nobody will tell you to do that no more… Now then, Cindy… You were an angry child who blamed me for not leaving your father years ago but then went on to marry three men who were angry drunks. You hated life for not being able to have children. You hated Detroit so much that you could never come to see me. I would call you and you would never answer. I would get blanket Christmas cards addressed to everyone you knew with all those Dachshunds dressed up like reindeer every year with some kind of a re-cap of your life with Carl and all those dogs. You could never just write me a personal card, it always had to be some long winded thing about you and dogs and your women’s group and about some people you don’t even know in Africa. Did you really dislike me that much? You traveled to Alaska in an RV but could never make it to see your mother in Michigan. You use religion as a crutch for your great unhappiness. You were a good looking girl with a scowl on her face and have become a lumpy senior citizen with a permanent frown. I want to thank you for coming to my funeral if you in fact made it and hope that your dogs all cry at your funeral along with the people you’ve never met in Africa. I suspect you’ll die and a few people at that Protestant Church will sing a few songs and say a few nice things for you and then they’ll have coffee cake and punch and they will need to try and figure out who will play the organ at the services going forward. Sadly, we are all replaceable. My only goal in life was to be a good wife and a good mother. Once you two grew up, I realized I missed the boat on the most important thing in life which was to make myself happy.
So you sat in a foreign Catholic Church in Detroit and listened to some young fellow say some nice things about an old lady he never knew. Something about god calling his flock home and so on. While this was all going on, you were probably taking a head count and were wondering what it was going to cost to feed all those people you didn’t know. For this reason, I want you to have all my money that was really saved by your father who saved every extra cent and never did anything with that money. We never went anywhere or saw anything. Money should make you happy, Cynthia. The only home you’ve ever known should be a comfort to you, Jimmy. Alright. I did my job as a wife and as a mother. You kids were not easy and your father was a bastard but I made it through. Getting a job seating people at a restaurant in Greektown was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I sat trapped in the house my whole life and then when your father passed, I got a job seating people. They asked if I was Greek and I told them that as a Sicilian. I looked Greek. That was good enough for them. I met so many people over the last twenty five years. I met some really nice people and some not so nice. I met old and young, rich and poor. People of all kinds of colors and shades. If I had to do it all over, I would do it differently as would most people. There is still time on the clock for you both. Figure out what makes you happy and just be happy. Happiness is all there really is. You should not die unhappy because that would truly be sad. Alright then, enjoy the gifts and don’t squander them. I had a good life. Momma loves you.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Etienne's Etouffe
“It comes with a heavy heart and my hat in hand that I must unequivocally declare that I will need to abrogate and hereby retract the covenant previous agreed upon by all parties. I am savvy to the verifiable fact that the brick and mortar which have most likely been derived during the reign of Napoleon are in need of a formidable amount of preservation but at this time it behooves me to choose the plumbing over the mortar as it is eminently more important and hygienic to dispose of waste in the most proper of ways possible… Please accept this mea culpa and know that within a reasonable amount of time, all deficiencies will be addressed. As you know my father and I are on the very brink of pauperism due to his severe maladies that appear to have the upper hand at this point. You being a fair-minded woman should be able to comprehend our quandary. Getting blood from a stone will not be possible.”
Rachel played the message for Steve as they sat outside eating a beignet at Café du Monde in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Rachel immediately got on the phone and called her Uncle Chaim who had been contracted to come down from Brooklyn, New York with his crew of day laborers and change the dilapidated storefront into classy restaurant called Etienne’s Etouffe. Steve learned cooking as a trade while serving time in the Wayne County Prison in Detroit, Michigan. Steve was unemployed and took to small time stickups in and around Detroit. While in prison, an old black man from the Deep South in Louisiana took Steve under his wing. Steve liked Sir Leopold’s manner of speaking and ability to cook tasty stuff that hardly anyone had ever heard of in Detroit. Sir Leopold claimed to a descendant of a man by the name of Cadillac.
“Dee people of Day-twah want to drive dem a Cadillac. I am hare to tell you mon vieux, that Sir Leopold right chair before your eyes eeze a di-rect descendant of a man by the name of Antoine Laument de la Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac. The city and the car have my great grandpere ten times back to thank for the name of the city and auto. You must know dat dere dat at a young age, pussy will make you do things you should not do. Dare I was, a man from deep down whare eet would take a journey jus to git you to Nawlins. Dem Cajuns knowd dat I was a true Cajun from Acadie, Acadia from my great grandpere and dat when eet was time to eat, they come to see Sir Leopold. Leopold ain’t gone live for all days and I must pass on dem secrets to one who gone carry on dem technique of making true food de Louisianne. First you gotchu a great nom en Francais. Dem name Steven est Etienne in the French. Use Etienne, learn dem ways of Sir Leopold and go to vieux carre and open up a restaurant. People gone to flock to eat down home food wid out making dem pauvre for wanting dem food.”
So it was that Steven became Etienne and masterfully learned how to cook deep down Cajun cuisine from a relative of a French explorer who might have been one of the original Cajuns and gave his namesake to a luxury automobile and named the city of Detroit what it is still called to this day.
Rachel met Steven who was a Barista at a Starbucks near Wayne State University in Detroit. Rachel was a defector from an orthodox Jewish family who decided that she was going to live like everyone else lived and fuck Christian boys if she wanted to and she did want to. Rachel tasted Steven’s concoctions and decided that they needed to relocate from Detroit to the French Quarter where mostly northern tourists could come in and get a good meal at a reasonable price and believe that they were getting the food from authentic Cajuns. Rachel had family from Montreal that spoke French and so she learned during her extended summer visits how to speak enough French for common, English only speakers to believe that she was the real deal.
Rachel and Etienne had found a great little place on Dauphine Street that was owned by an elderly former Lawyer and his son who was a substitute English teacher in the New Orleans School District. The elder Clement Dupuis was supposedly dying of cancer for over ten years but never really saw a physician for his maladies. The elder Dupuis declared that he had bone cancer when all he really had was gout. The gout was both hereditary but fueled by heavy drinking of Bourbon and eating shrimp. Elder Dupuis’ red, throbbing big toes caused him to hobble when he did attempt to walk. The younger Dupuis wore a droopy moustache and tried to speak in ways that he felt would impress people with a limited vocabulary. More than anything, it was pretentious and annoying.
After Rachel let Etienne hear the message from the younger Dupuis, she called her Uncle Chaim to relay the news that the Dupuis were trying to renege on the contract to fix the broken bricks on the building that was initially constructed in 1800, three years before the Louisiana Purchase. Uncle Chaim was a nervous little man with a potbelly that claimed to be tied to elite Israeli intelligence and was wary of everyone and anyone who did not see the world in the exact same way he did. Uncle Chaim got on the phone and called the younger Dupuis to explain to him that if he wanted to void the contract, he would have difficulties.
“The problem with the fucking south is that they are always about thirty years behind the fucking times. I know you people don’t consider yourselves like the rest of the south because you watch people fuck in bars and listen to Jazz on Bourbon Street. Well I’m here to tell you that all you fucks could have never won the Civil War cause you’re so fucking stupid. You think you can just call my niece and tell her that your old man is deathly ill and you ain’t got any money and so the deal is off, right? Wrong! The fucking Mossad will come down to New Orleans and take you and your lame father and drop you off on the streets of Baghdad with a sign around your fucking necks that reads, “Infidels” in fucking Arabic. You have no idea who are fucking with. At a minimum, I will send your fucking asses to work at Mc Donald’s to pay me my money… Is this getting into your backwoods, livestock fucking head? I do the work or you will regret ever fucking with me, got it?”
The younger Dupuis paraphrased all that Uncle Chaim threatened to a group of building inspectors that were still sifting through condemned homes from Hurricane Katrina some five years later. A large man by the name of Marcel, who had sideburns and a nearly third trimester gut on him, listened to the younger Dupuis. Marcel believed with all of his being that Jews killed Christ. What Marcel never stopped to think about was the fact that Jesus was Jewish. Marcel spit tobacco into a cup and shook his head in anger as the younger Dupuis shared the conversation with the men he knew as friends and fellow card players.
“He said what?! Sommabitch Jewboy got some goddamn nerve comin down here thinking he gone run things. Put his ass on the phone. Sommabitch ruined my suppah. I ain’t even the appetite no mo to eat now dat I’m so hoppin mad.”
Marcel leaned forward in his seat and spit once in his cup before asking Chaim Saul if he was the person he was speaking to on the phone. Chaim acknowledged that he was indeed that person.
“Son, imma tell you now, man to man dat if that money ain’t re-turned in the manner in which you received it, we gone send our own people up north to bring yo fat ass down hare an feed you to dem gators. You thank I’m jus talking, test me, boy. In this day of GPS, you cain’t hide. Let me break it down for you- money tomorrow, no money, kidnap yo fat ass, gator buffet, comprenez vous?”
Within twenty-four hours, the FBI was interviewing all parties on what was agreed upon and discussed, what was threatened and promised. The city building inspectors were worried about things like pensions and jobs in a town that had extraordinarily high unemployment. Marcel thought that maybe an apology and a handshake could begin to sort out the misunderstanding. It took an inordinate amount of ass kissing to keep Chaim from pressing the issue legally. How was it that the contract was honored and Chaim wound up making twenty percent more than initially agreed upon?
“Listen to me, Eliot… Send me two fucking guys who look the part and I can get them some bogus ID… I know the job I took is only worth $20,000.00 but now it is a matter of principle. I can’t let these backward fucks back me into a corner. You send me the guys. I fly them in an out of New Orleans in a day to put the fear of Jesus into them and then this is done… Come on, you owe me.”
And so they lived happily ever after…
Rachel played the message for Steve as they sat outside eating a beignet at Café du Monde in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Rachel immediately got on the phone and called her Uncle Chaim who had been contracted to come down from Brooklyn, New York with his crew of day laborers and change the dilapidated storefront into classy restaurant called Etienne’s Etouffe. Steve learned cooking as a trade while serving time in the Wayne County Prison in Detroit, Michigan. Steve was unemployed and took to small time stickups in and around Detroit. While in prison, an old black man from the Deep South in Louisiana took Steve under his wing. Steve liked Sir Leopold’s manner of speaking and ability to cook tasty stuff that hardly anyone had ever heard of in Detroit. Sir Leopold claimed to a descendant of a man by the name of Cadillac.
“Dee people of Day-twah want to drive dem a Cadillac. I am hare to tell you mon vieux, that Sir Leopold right chair before your eyes eeze a di-rect descendant of a man by the name of Antoine Laument de la Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac. The city and the car have my great grandpere ten times back to thank for the name of the city and auto. You must know dat dere dat at a young age, pussy will make you do things you should not do. Dare I was, a man from deep down whare eet would take a journey jus to git you to Nawlins. Dem Cajuns knowd dat I was a true Cajun from Acadie, Acadia from my great grandpere and dat when eet was time to eat, they come to see Sir Leopold. Leopold ain’t gone live for all days and I must pass on dem secrets to one who gone carry on dem technique of making true food de Louisianne. First you gotchu a great nom en Francais. Dem name Steven est Etienne in the French. Use Etienne, learn dem ways of Sir Leopold and go to vieux carre and open up a restaurant. People gone to flock to eat down home food wid out making dem pauvre for wanting dem food.”
So it was that Steven became Etienne and masterfully learned how to cook deep down Cajun cuisine from a relative of a French explorer who might have been one of the original Cajuns and gave his namesake to a luxury automobile and named the city of Detroit what it is still called to this day.
Rachel met Steven who was a Barista at a Starbucks near Wayne State University in Detroit. Rachel was a defector from an orthodox Jewish family who decided that she was going to live like everyone else lived and fuck Christian boys if she wanted to and she did want to. Rachel tasted Steven’s concoctions and decided that they needed to relocate from Detroit to the French Quarter where mostly northern tourists could come in and get a good meal at a reasonable price and believe that they were getting the food from authentic Cajuns. Rachel had family from Montreal that spoke French and so she learned during her extended summer visits how to speak enough French for common, English only speakers to believe that she was the real deal.
Rachel and Etienne had found a great little place on Dauphine Street that was owned by an elderly former Lawyer and his son who was a substitute English teacher in the New Orleans School District. The elder Clement Dupuis was supposedly dying of cancer for over ten years but never really saw a physician for his maladies. The elder Dupuis declared that he had bone cancer when all he really had was gout. The gout was both hereditary but fueled by heavy drinking of Bourbon and eating shrimp. Elder Dupuis’ red, throbbing big toes caused him to hobble when he did attempt to walk. The younger Dupuis wore a droopy moustache and tried to speak in ways that he felt would impress people with a limited vocabulary. More than anything, it was pretentious and annoying.
After Rachel let Etienne hear the message from the younger Dupuis, she called her Uncle Chaim to relay the news that the Dupuis were trying to renege on the contract to fix the broken bricks on the building that was initially constructed in 1800, three years before the Louisiana Purchase. Uncle Chaim was a nervous little man with a potbelly that claimed to be tied to elite Israeli intelligence and was wary of everyone and anyone who did not see the world in the exact same way he did. Uncle Chaim got on the phone and called the younger Dupuis to explain to him that if he wanted to void the contract, he would have difficulties.
“The problem with the fucking south is that they are always about thirty years behind the fucking times. I know you people don’t consider yourselves like the rest of the south because you watch people fuck in bars and listen to Jazz on Bourbon Street. Well I’m here to tell you that all you fucks could have never won the Civil War cause you’re so fucking stupid. You think you can just call my niece and tell her that your old man is deathly ill and you ain’t got any money and so the deal is off, right? Wrong! The fucking Mossad will come down to New Orleans and take you and your lame father and drop you off on the streets of Baghdad with a sign around your fucking necks that reads, “Infidels” in fucking Arabic. You have no idea who are fucking with. At a minimum, I will send your fucking asses to work at Mc Donald’s to pay me my money… Is this getting into your backwoods, livestock fucking head? I do the work or you will regret ever fucking with me, got it?”
The younger Dupuis paraphrased all that Uncle Chaim threatened to a group of building inspectors that were still sifting through condemned homes from Hurricane Katrina some five years later. A large man by the name of Marcel, who had sideburns and a nearly third trimester gut on him, listened to the younger Dupuis. Marcel believed with all of his being that Jews killed Christ. What Marcel never stopped to think about was the fact that Jesus was Jewish. Marcel spit tobacco into a cup and shook his head in anger as the younger Dupuis shared the conversation with the men he knew as friends and fellow card players.
“He said what?! Sommabitch Jewboy got some goddamn nerve comin down here thinking he gone run things. Put his ass on the phone. Sommabitch ruined my suppah. I ain’t even the appetite no mo to eat now dat I’m so hoppin mad.”
Marcel leaned forward in his seat and spit once in his cup before asking Chaim Saul if he was the person he was speaking to on the phone. Chaim acknowledged that he was indeed that person.
“Son, imma tell you now, man to man dat if that money ain’t re-turned in the manner in which you received it, we gone send our own people up north to bring yo fat ass down hare an feed you to dem gators. You thank I’m jus talking, test me, boy. In this day of GPS, you cain’t hide. Let me break it down for you- money tomorrow, no money, kidnap yo fat ass, gator buffet, comprenez vous?”
Within twenty-four hours, the FBI was interviewing all parties on what was agreed upon and discussed, what was threatened and promised. The city building inspectors were worried about things like pensions and jobs in a town that had extraordinarily high unemployment. Marcel thought that maybe an apology and a handshake could begin to sort out the misunderstanding. It took an inordinate amount of ass kissing to keep Chaim from pressing the issue legally. How was it that the contract was honored and Chaim wound up making twenty percent more than initially agreed upon?
“Listen to me, Eliot… Send me two fucking guys who look the part and I can get them some bogus ID… I know the job I took is only worth $20,000.00 but now it is a matter of principle. I can’t let these backward fucks back me into a corner. You send me the guys. I fly them in an out of New Orleans in a day to put the fear of Jesus into them and then this is done… Come on, you owe me.”
And so they lived happily ever after…
Saturday, November 12, 2011
The Beat Your Ass Cafe
Patrice Fort was born and raised in a really small town that most people never heard of in Alberta. For those of you in the states, Alberta is a province, which is sort of like a state except that it is not a state. The Fort family slowly moved from the Plaines of Abraham near Quebec City and over the years kept moving west like the Mormons in search of a new town called Springfield. The Forts wound up in no place Alberta.
Fort, if you know the French language, means strong and Patrice was the epitome of a Cro-Magnon man of the modern age. Patrice was a hair over six feet tall and weighed 250 lbs. Patrice was a solid mass of muscle like a human pit-bull. At a young age, Patrice learned that his ice hockey skills were mediocre at best. Patrice was not fast and did not make the best decisions on the ice nor did he have the best shot. Patrice was able to fight and from the age of thirteen, Patrice never lost a fight.
The thing that scared people most about Patrice when they were faced with fighting him was that there was no anger or malice. It was just something he was born and bred to do and so he would pummel opponents who messed with the premier players on whatever team he happened to be playing on. It was during juniors that life suddenly changed for Patrice.
Patrice’s Quebec junior team had gone south to New York City to play in a tournament sponsored by some bank that no longer exists in the states. Patrice had never been to a city as large as New York and had never imagined so much humanity crammed into such a small space in a place like Manhattan. Patrice went into a Starbucks and ordered a tall hot chocolate and watched the unique people that walked down the sidewalk near Times Square. From the Starbucks window, for Patrice it was like watching a freak show at the circus. There were so many different types of people, in varying sizes and shapes. An older woman of about sixty years of age came up and spoke to Patrice in a way he had never heard before. Even though the woman was older, she was shapely and confident.
“Many years have come and gone man and you’re one of the last relics of the Neanderthal period, man. All swelled up with muscles and I suppose you never took one supplement… Man, dig that crazy tune.”
Herbie Hancock was playing Cantaloupe Island over the speakers in the Starbucks. The woman put her hand on Patrice’s large forearm and closed her eyes as the song played. Patrice looked at the strange woman and sort of dug the tune that softly played.
“People are always saying that this or that is the shit. I’m here to tell you that this is the true shit, man. You weren’t around when this shit was devised. People were swinging to Benny Goodman and then cats like Herbie came round and opened people’s eyes to music that could speak without words. 1964, we all thought the world would end, man. Kennedy killed and a cowboy with his hands on the nuclear button, man. Beatles came and what did they say? They said too much but listen to this here, man. I know you can feel it, cave man, baby… I bet you’re hung like a horse.”
It was the first time that Patrice had ever had sex with a woman and the woman was older than his own mother and twice as shapely. There were very few sags and lumps on the old Beatnik woman. They made love, if you want to call it that, several time over the course of an afternoon while listening to cool Jazz and hearing the woman read Beat Poetry by Ginsberg and Kerouac. Patrice left the small basement apartment in Manhattan and was never the same.
As the years went on, teammates came to understand that Patrice was a bit out there but they respected the difference. And wouldn’t respect a man who could kill them with his bare hands. On planes and trains, Patrice listened to Coltrane, Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk through earphones and wrote poetry.
What colour is blue when the sky is gray. Walk down the streets of Detroit like I came from Mars, come to visit bars full of coulorful coloured folk and they think they know me because the press wants to own me, ride me, pride me like a pony and it’s phony. Won’t eat gluten. I’m free like Putin who wants to keep Russia from anarchy after the fall of The Wall and Soviet dynamo. The Red Army Team came to town when I was young. Ate biscuits and drank coffee in a vast land. I followed the road from Alberta to everywhere, man. Everywhere is nowhere and yet I’m somewhere between where I should be and where I am. Sit in the shade sipping wine no words to this Monk tune that rolls through my mind. If the colour blue is true, I hold out hope for me and you… Coltrane, last train try in vain… Gonna sit outside in Portugal or Spain and write a few words on the balcony in the rain… Rinse and repeat that, Cat.
Now to you and I, words strung together such as this meant little or nothing. A long stream of unconsciousness. Patrice was traded from Phoenix, to San Jose to Boston and then went to Nashville and landed in Detroit at minimum wage for the NHL. The Detroit Red Wings were a finesse team that really did not need a lug or a goon to go out and fight to protect the true hockey players of the team. The fighters were an outdated necessity from days gone by of clutch and grab hockey a la Philadelphia in the 1970’s. Detroit grabbed Patrice and never really played him until one day against Chicago, a heated rival who happened to be winning the game and taunted the Detroit team. The Detroit coach, Mike Babcock, nodded to Patrice, who on his first shift, beat up two Chicago players and mistakenly punched a referee. From that point on, Patrice had a home in the hearts of Detroit Red Wing fans.
Most people don’t know the story behind the finger snapping when Patrice takes the ice. To those from out of town or watching on Versus, it may sound like the theme from the Adams Family is being played. Before long, large groups of Beatnik poetry types who frequented Patrice’s café in the Detroit suburb of Hamtramck, began going to Detroit Red Wing games, wearing jerseys that had the name FORT on the back. Scruffy faced young men who appeared to be anti-sports, showed up wearing Red Wing jerseys, snapping their fingers violently whenever Patrice got on the ice or fought. Before long, everyone got in on the act. It was like throwing octopus on the ice.
After home games in Hamtramck on Jos Campau there is a Beatnik café where people drink and read poetry to Jazz. It is called, Beat Your Ass Café. It is nothing more than an old Polish watering hole that Patrice bought to host poetry readings and feature live Jazz. On the walls are pictures of some of Patrice’s best fights with the dates and names of opponents. Patrice usually appears after games and reads his latest poetry while young Jazz musicians play behind him and others. It is standing room only after Red Wing games. Dig that.
Fort, if you know the French language, means strong and Patrice was the epitome of a Cro-Magnon man of the modern age. Patrice was a hair over six feet tall and weighed 250 lbs. Patrice was a solid mass of muscle like a human pit-bull. At a young age, Patrice learned that his ice hockey skills were mediocre at best. Patrice was not fast and did not make the best decisions on the ice nor did he have the best shot. Patrice was able to fight and from the age of thirteen, Patrice never lost a fight.
The thing that scared people most about Patrice when they were faced with fighting him was that there was no anger or malice. It was just something he was born and bred to do and so he would pummel opponents who messed with the premier players on whatever team he happened to be playing on. It was during juniors that life suddenly changed for Patrice.
Patrice’s Quebec junior team had gone south to New York City to play in a tournament sponsored by some bank that no longer exists in the states. Patrice had never been to a city as large as New York and had never imagined so much humanity crammed into such a small space in a place like Manhattan. Patrice went into a Starbucks and ordered a tall hot chocolate and watched the unique people that walked down the sidewalk near Times Square. From the Starbucks window, for Patrice it was like watching a freak show at the circus. There were so many different types of people, in varying sizes and shapes. An older woman of about sixty years of age came up and spoke to Patrice in a way he had never heard before. Even though the woman was older, she was shapely and confident.
“Many years have come and gone man and you’re one of the last relics of the Neanderthal period, man. All swelled up with muscles and I suppose you never took one supplement… Man, dig that crazy tune.”
Herbie Hancock was playing Cantaloupe Island over the speakers in the Starbucks. The woman put her hand on Patrice’s large forearm and closed her eyes as the song played. Patrice looked at the strange woman and sort of dug the tune that softly played.
“People are always saying that this or that is the shit. I’m here to tell you that this is the true shit, man. You weren’t around when this shit was devised. People were swinging to Benny Goodman and then cats like Herbie came round and opened people’s eyes to music that could speak without words. 1964, we all thought the world would end, man. Kennedy killed and a cowboy with his hands on the nuclear button, man. Beatles came and what did they say? They said too much but listen to this here, man. I know you can feel it, cave man, baby… I bet you’re hung like a horse.”
It was the first time that Patrice had ever had sex with a woman and the woman was older than his own mother and twice as shapely. There were very few sags and lumps on the old Beatnik woman. They made love, if you want to call it that, several time over the course of an afternoon while listening to cool Jazz and hearing the woman read Beat Poetry by Ginsberg and Kerouac. Patrice left the small basement apartment in Manhattan and was never the same.
As the years went on, teammates came to understand that Patrice was a bit out there but they respected the difference. And wouldn’t respect a man who could kill them with his bare hands. On planes and trains, Patrice listened to Coltrane, Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk through earphones and wrote poetry.
What colour is blue when the sky is gray. Walk down the streets of Detroit like I came from Mars, come to visit bars full of coulorful coloured folk and they think they know me because the press wants to own me, ride me, pride me like a pony and it’s phony. Won’t eat gluten. I’m free like Putin who wants to keep Russia from anarchy after the fall of The Wall and Soviet dynamo. The Red Army Team came to town when I was young. Ate biscuits and drank coffee in a vast land. I followed the road from Alberta to everywhere, man. Everywhere is nowhere and yet I’m somewhere between where I should be and where I am. Sit in the shade sipping wine no words to this Monk tune that rolls through my mind. If the colour blue is true, I hold out hope for me and you… Coltrane, last train try in vain… Gonna sit outside in Portugal or Spain and write a few words on the balcony in the rain… Rinse and repeat that, Cat.
Now to you and I, words strung together such as this meant little or nothing. A long stream of unconsciousness. Patrice was traded from Phoenix, to San Jose to Boston and then went to Nashville and landed in Detroit at minimum wage for the NHL. The Detroit Red Wings were a finesse team that really did not need a lug or a goon to go out and fight to protect the true hockey players of the team. The fighters were an outdated necessity from days gone by of clutch and grab hockey a la Philadelphia in the 1970’s. Detroit grabbed Patrice and never really played him until one day against Chicago, a heated rival who happened to be winning the game and taunted the Detroit team. The Detroit coach, Mike Babcock, nodded to Patrice, who on his first shift, beat up two Chicago players and mistakenly punched a referee. From that point on, Patrice had a home in the hearts of Detroit Red Wing fans.
Most people don’t know the story behind the finger snapping when Patrice takes the ice. To those from out of town or watching on Versus, it may sound like the theme from the Adams Family is being played. Before long, large groups of Beatnik poetry types who frequented Patrice’s café in the Detroit suburb of Hamtramck, began going to Detroit Red Wing games, wearing jerseys that had the name FORT on the back. Scruffy faced young men who appeared to be anti-sports, showed up wearing Red Wing jerseys, snapping their fingers violently whenever Patrice got on the ice or fought. Before long, everyone got in on the act. It was like throwing octopus on the ice.
After home games in Hamtramck on Jos Campau there is a Beatnik café where people drink and read poetry to Jazz. It is called, Beat Your Ass Café. It is nothing more than an old Polish watering hole that Patrice bought to host poetry readings and feature live Jazz. On the walls are pictures of some of Patrice’s best fights with the dates and names of opponents. Patrice usually appears after games and reads his latest poetry while young Jazz musicians play behind him and others. It is standing room only after Red Wing games. Dig that.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Cleveland de Brasil
Mathew, Mark and Luke all lived in a gated community on a hillside that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. All three of the men were part of the hated 1% of the United States that appeared to be flourishing off of the backs of those being displaced from homes and depleted of savings.
Mathew and Mark had become friends with Luke and his wife Maria a few years back after Luke made a killing buying and selling real estate. Luke’s name was actually Joao, which is John but decided to go with the middle name of Lucio or Luke. Understand? Orange County in California saw home prices tank before the rest of the nation. Luke moved from Ohio by way of Sao Paulo to southern California and quickly became a very wealthy man.
Mathew and Mark’s wives, Martha and Myrtle were friends with Luke and Maria and really appeared to like them but actually were suspicious of them and wondered how it was that both of them could seem so in tune to one another and so happy and content and yet never speak to one another. The quartet noticed that quite often, Luke and Maria would just look at one another without saying a word and it appeared as though they had a conversation with their minds. Mathew finally said to Mark when Luke went to his wine cellar to get a bottle of wine that he had purchased at a small winery in Italy.
“I think these two are aliens… I know it sounds weird but how do two people look so perfect, act so perfect, never fight, never complain and yet look at you as if they know something you’re trying to hide something that they already know about. Who comes from Cleveland and makes a fortune in real estate? What’s their secret?”
The three sets of couples sat eating and drinking wine in Luke and Maria’s backyard that had a magnificient view of thePacific Ocean. It was warm as the sun began to set. The wine flowed like water. Luke had more alcohol than he had had in quite some time and could not contain himself any longer. Luke was no longer the quiet observer as usual. Luke went from being quiet to loud and aggressive yet maliciously playful all along.
“Let’s play a game… Shall we? A game of, ‘I know what you’re thinking’… You all must agree to this first. I want to make sure we are all on board,” said Luke.
Maria grabbed her husband by the arm without saying a word. Luke pursed his lips and held his hand up. Maria blinked hard and took a seat with her arms folded.
“This game is called Guess the Guests…Now then… One among us is sleeping with another among us while married to two others among us. One among us has actually been set for life since birth and has set up a faux business to give the appearance of hard work while screwing the secretary while she shoves beads up his ass in his office. One among us worried about insider information that they had knowledge of and is worried about the feds closing in on them. One among us is fucking everything they can whenever the chance presents itself including with friends of their offspring. One among is certifiably cuckoo and is on every sort of medication you could imagine to help this individual walk a straight line. Straight enough so that nobody knows or suspects that something very wrong is going on inside their brain… I’ll make this easy on all of you. If you take me and my wife out of the running on this guessing game, that narrows the field to just the four of you.”
“Luke! Nao… Por favor, pare. Eles nao sabem que podemos ler suas mentes…”
The guests were stunned that Maria could speak another language other than English. She looked like them and sounded like them but then suddenly bust out in another tongue when the chips were down and out.
“You see it for yourself tonight, my dear friends… My wife and I are truly capable of disagreeing, of fighting, of disappointment in one another. Here I am a Midwestern fly-by-night who happened to have that Midas touch… Like Goldfinger, right? I make money hand over fist and you all wonder how. How is he doing this? How do these two manage to get along so well? They seem plastic. They seem fake. They seem to be aliens who use some sort of telepathy to communicate with one another like some sort of weirdo Twilight Zone bullshit, right? You’re goddamn right that I see it in your eyes and read it like a book. I know your secrets… I know your dirty little secrets and you can’t hide from Luke. I know when you’re being honest and that is far more than any of you know about yourselves… So as they say in Brazil or shall I say Cleveland, after too many drinks; go fuck yourselves and cry or have another drink and dance… I will be back. I am going for more of the truth serum… A little of that Cleveland Indian fire water. You either be gone or remain when I get back. You have a choice.”
Nobody left the table and nobody spoke while Luke was gone. They were all stunned and shocked by the brash outburst of a man who had never said very much in the past. Luke had never bragged or judged before. Loud Samba music accompanied Luke’s return. Luke laughed loudly with a cigar dangling out of the corner of his mouth, holding four bottles of red wine. He was singing along with the song in Portugese. The guests all guessed it was Spanish. They were wrong.
Batom- a bala bate no meu coracao. Dentes espalhados pelo chao- Natural- E a vezes social… Vai la cou boi!
Nobody in the backyard had ever really heard Samba music before or danced to it except Maria who had grown up with it long before they reached Cleveland. They all drank and all danced and gave very little thought to the things Luke had said. They may as well as have danced naked. Their inhibitions disappeared. The Mexican wait staff and the Vietnamese au pair joined in on the dancing as did neighbors adjacent to Luke’s property until the sun came up over Santa Monica Boulevard.
At about two in the afternoon following the party, Luke stood and stared out at the water the way he had once done at the Atlantic Ocean as a boy and Lake Erie as a younger man. He held a cup of coffee and suffered through a headache as he watched surfers off in the distance wading on boards, waiting to catch the right wave. Maria approached Luke and without saying a word, spoke to her husband in Portuguese. I could write what she said to Luke in Portuguese and it would really sound pretty. In English, this is how it went;
“You nearly let the cat out of the bag last night. I really thought you were going to tell them how we know… They could never begin to grasp how we know things. It would blow their minds.”
Luke or Lucio, Joao or John, took a drink of his coffee turned to his wife and replied without opening his mouth with a big toothy smile.
“Pessoas de Cleveland… pode ser estranho…
“The People of Cleveland… can be strange”
Mathew and Mark had become friends with Luke and his wife Maria a few years back after Luke made a killing buying and selling real estate. Luke’s name was actually Joao, which is John but decided to go with the middle name of Lucio or Luke. Understand? Orange County in California saw home prices tank before the rest of the nation. Luke moved from Ohio by way of Sao Paulo to southern California and quickly became a very wealthy man.
Mathew and Mark’s wives, Martha and Myrtle were friends with Luke and Maria and really appeared to like them but actually were suspicious of them and wondered how it was that both of them could seem so in tune to one another and so happy and content and yet never speak to one another. The quartet noticed that quite often, Luke and Maria would just look at one another without saying a word and it appeared as though they had a conversation with their minds. Mathew finally said to Mark when Luke went to his wine cellar to get a bottle of wine that he had purchased at a small winery in Italy.
“I think these two are aliens… I know it sounds weird but how do two people look so perfect, act so perfect, never fight, never complain and yet look at you as if they know something you’re trying to hide something that they already know about. Who comes from Cleveland and makes a fortune in real estate? What’s their secret?”
The three sets of couples sat eating and drinking wine in Luke and Maria’s backyard that had a magnificient view of thePacific Ocean. It was warm as the sun began to set. The wine flowed like water. Luke had more alcohol than he had had in quite some time and could not contain himself any longer. Luke was no longer the quiet observer as usual. Luke went from being quiet to loud and aggressive yet maliciously playful all along.
“Let’s play a game… Shall we? A game of, ‘I know what you’re thinking’… You all must agree to this first. I want to make sure we are all on board,” said Luke.
Maria grabbed her husband by the arm without saying a word. Luke pursed his lips and held his hand up. Maria blinked hard and took a seat with her arms folded.
“This game is called Guess the Guests…Now then… One among us is sleeping with another among us while married to two others among us. One among us has actually been set for life since birth and has set up a faux business to give the appearance of hard work while screwing the secretary while she shoves beads up his ass in his office. One among us worried about insider information that they had knowledge of and is worried about the feds closing in on them. One among us is fucking everything they can whenever the chance presents itself including with friends of their offspring. One among is certifiably cuckoo and is on every sort of medication you could imagine to help this individual walk a straight line. Straight enough so that nobody knows or suspects that something very wrong is going on inside their brain… I’ll make this easy on all of you. If you take me and my wife out of the running on this guessing game, that narrows the field to just the four of you.”
“Luke! Nao… Por favor, pare. Eles nao sabem que podemos ler suas mentes…”
The guests were stunned that Maria could speak another language other than English. She looked like them and sounded like them but then suddenly bust out in another tongue when the chips were down and out.
“You see it for yourself tonight, my dear friends… My wife and I are truly capable of disagreeing, of fighting, of disappointment in one another. Here I am a Midwestern fly-by-night who happened to have that Midas touch… Like Goldfinger, right? I make money hand over fist and you all wonder how. How is he doing this? How do these two manage to get along so well? They seem plastic. They seem fake. They seem to be aliens who use some sort of telepathy to communicate with one another like some sort of weirdo Twilight Zone bullshit, right? You’re goddamn right that I see it in your eyes and read it like a book. I know your secrets… I know your dirty little secrets and you can’t hide from Luke. I know when you’re being honest and that is far more than any of you know about yourselves… So as they say in Brazil or shall I say Cleveland, after too many drinks; go fuck yourselves and cry or have another drink and dance… I will be back. I am going for more of the truth serum… A little of that Cleveland Indian fire water. You either be gone or remain when I get back. You have a choice.”
Nobody left the table and nobody spoke while Luke was gone. They were all stunned and shocked by the brash outburst of a man who had never said very much in the past. Luke had never bragged or judged before. Loud Samba music accompanied Luke’s return. Luke laughed loudly with a cigar dangling out of the corner of his mouth, holding four bottles of red wine. He was singing along with the song in Portugese. The guests all guessed it was Spanish. They were wrong.
Batom- a bala bate no meu coracao. Dentes espalhados pelo chao- Natural- E a vezes social… Vai la cou boi!
Nobody in the backyard had ever really heard Samba music before or danced to it except Maria who had grown up with it long before they reached Cleveland. They all drank and all danced and gave very little thought to the things Luke had said. They may as well as have danced naked. Their inhibitions disappeared. The Mexican wait staff and the Vietnamese au pair joined in on the dancing as did neighbors adjacent to Luke’s property until the sun came up over Santa Monica Boulevard.
At about two in the afternoon following the party, Luke stood and stared out at the water the way he had once done at the Atlantic Ocean as a boy and Lake Erie as a younger man. He held a cup of coffee and suffered through a headache as he watched surfers off in the distance wading on boards, waiting to catch the right wave. Maria approached Luke and without saying a word, spoke to her husband in Portuguese. I could write what she said to Luke in Portuguese and it would really sound pretty. In English, this is how it went;
“You nearly let the cat out of the bag last night. I really thought you were going to tell them how we know… They could never begin to grasp how we know things. It would blow their minds.”
Luke or Lucio, Joao or John, took a drink of his coffee turned to his wife and replied without opening his mouth with a big toothy smile.
“Pessoas de Cleveland… pode ser estranho…
“The People of Cleveland… can be strange”
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
The Naked Truth
Virgil was one of those quiet middle aged guys that would blend in at parties or picnics without notice. All the people who knew of Virgil knew that he worked as a consultant for oil companies that had interests in the Middle East. At any given time, Virgil could be gone for weeks on end and then he would be home golfing and doing wood working in his basement work shop. Nothing unusual.
Virgil and his wife Gretchen, raised twin girls that went to college and were trying to make their way through adulthood. Carter and Reagan were born on Election Day in 1980. Gretchen at the time thought it would be cute to name her fraternal twin girls after the presidential candidates. Virgil went along with this.
Carter was a thoughtful and quiet girl who loved to sing, dance and write poems. Carter always carried a few more pounds than her sister and was not very good at math. Boys found her introverted nature to be odd and so it was rare that Carter dated much during high school. At the age of thirty, her boyfriend whom she had lived with for several years, quit his job to live in a park by Wall Street and protest banks and rich people with other idealists from around the country. Carter considered quitting her job as a kindergarten teacher and joining her boyfriend but changed her mind when she thought about losing her medical and dental benefits.
Reagan was slightly taller than Carter and was thin, vibrant, active and everyone’s best friend. She met Nathan at her high priced gym and had been seeing him for close to two years. Nathan was tall, had a nice smile, full head of hair, stomach muscles, a good job, a condo with parking and a healthy bank account. Nathan loved to fuck a lot and so did Reagan but when they were not fucking, they also liked to jog together, play tennis, eat sushi, watch 30 Rock and take Tango lessons. Reagan suggested marriage and Nathan thought that the idea had some merit and so they became engaged.
Virgil on paper was a mild mannered consultant but what nobody knew about Virgil was that he worked for the CIA and was in charge of questioning suspected terrorists on their ties to terrorist groups from around the world. Sleep deprivation, constant questioning of similar words that were substituted to carefully lure a mentally broken individual into purging themselves was Virgil’s forte. There of course was food deprivation and not allowing suspects to have water but offering coffee and then denying the suspects to use of the washroom. The job was unique and actually Virgil was quite a unique guy and yet nobody really knew this about him and that is how he wanted it.
Now Virgil ran checks upon checks on Nathan and all he could find was that he was a party guy who loved fantasy sports and was treated for a Chlamydia once at age twenty two. Virgil suspected his future son-in-law was a player but could not prove anything conclusively.
Howard, one of Virgil’s drinking buddies from the CIA who had been actively working on a truth serum, felt that he had a billion dollar product that would prove to be valuable to governments and to wives everywhere; an innocuous liquid that makes a person want to spill their guts. Howard and Virgil tested the creation out on a Pakistani cab driver who they rounded up randomly. What they learned from the cab driver was that he had two other wives in Pakistan and several children. He had an orthodox Jewish woman that he was sleeping with on the side, liked to have beads stuffed in his ass and often went into tire stores just so he could smell the tires. Virgil was sold on the product and agreed with Howard that he was well on his way to being a billionaire. After much pleading and prodding, Virgil convinced Howard to attend his daughter’s wedding and administer doses of the serum into the champagne flutes of the best man, who was a life long friend of Nathan’s and into the glasses of Nathan’s parents. Virgil suspected that the wealthy people looked down at Virgil and his family and wanted to hear about it. The serum was slipped into the flutes belonging to Nathan’s best man, a man by the name of Jim but was mistakenly slipped into the glasses of Virgil’s two daughters, Carter and Reagan.
Jim stood during dinner and walked up to the microphone while still chewing his roast beef. The desire to speak became overwhelming like an itch or a burn within him.
“Um, my name is Jim and I am Nathan’s best bud. We’ve been friends since we were six and I’ve always liked Nathan even though he is selfish and pretty vain. Nathan was always better in sports than me and could always get pussy… I mean girls… and so I always rode his coat tails just to get chicks. I don’t know why Nathan wants to be married. He still is getting more ass than anyone I know and probably will always need variety. He could tell you himself about all the chicks that still call him and want to be with him. It really is crazy. Reagan is really hot but is really high maintenance and I give the whole marriage about two months before they are ready to kill each other or divorce. I hope they never have kids because they are both too caught up in themselves to really be selfless parents… Okay, that was crazy but I feel much better.”
Carter then pushed Jim away from the microphone and gripped it as if her life depended on it. Carter was out of breath and flush.
“Wow… Okay, so I just want to say that I have always loved Reagan and always wished that I was her identical twin instead of fraternal. I wanted nice legs, a pretty smile, a vibrant personality, firm tits and an ass that turns heads. I didn’t get any of those things and have always thought it was unfair. I think Reagan is really beautiful on the outside but a train wreck on the inside and I truly believe she will never be happy. I know my parents both favor her and I don’t give a fuck really…”
As Virgil was escorting his daughter Carter away from the microphone and into another room, Reagan spoke into the microphone for about five minutes on how she thought she was fat and ugly and wished that she could sing and write poems like her sister. She hated being insincere and really was scared to get old and ugly. She confided in everyone that she really did not like anal sex but did it because Nathan really liked it and that she really only had one orgasm with him in three years since he is really predictable and rough. Reagan did let everyone know that when her high school boyfriend comes into town, they always have a lot of laughs, dinner, drinks and really good sex. Virgil returned to find a lot of grumbling among guests and crying and screaming among the wedding party. The orchestra tried to smother the debacle by playing Glenn Miller’s, In the Mood. It didn’t work.
When the dust settled, Reagan had come home to live with Virgil and Gretchen again in the bedroom she occupied as a girl. She was in therapy and found that gardening really helped her to feel better in general. Nathan found a new girl and then some other new girls. Jim was not allowed around them. Carter began to speak to men with confidence and exercise a bit more. Her sex life improved as did her self esteem. Howard and Virgil still met for drinks periodically and spoke about things that guys speak about when they work for the Central Intelligence Agency. Both agreed that although billions of dollars would be fantastic and solve many of Howard’s needs and desires, humanity really was not ready for the naked truth. And that is no lie.
Virgil and his wife Gretchen, raised twin girls that went to college and were trying to make their way through adulthood. Carter and Reagan were born on Election Day in 1980. Gretchen at the time thought it would be cute to name her fraternal twin girls after the presidential candidates. Virgil went along with this.
Carter was a thoughtful and quiet girl who loved to sing, dance and write poems. Carter always carried a few more pounds than her sister and was not very good at math. Boys found her introverted nature to be odd and so it was rare that Carter dated much during high school. At the age of thirty, her boyfriend whom she had lived with for several years, quit his job to live in a park by Wall Street and protest banks and rich people with other idealists from around the country. Carter considered quitting her job as a kindergarten teacher and joining her boyfriend but changed her mind when she thought about losing her medical and dental benefits.
Reagan was slightly taller than Carter and was thin, vibrant, active and everyone’s best friend. She met Nathan at her high priced gym and had been seeing him for close to two years. Nathan was tall, had a nice smile, full head of hair, stomach muscles, a good job, a condo with parking and a healthy bank account. Nathan loved to fuck a lot and so did Reagan but when they were not fucking, they also liked to jog together, play tennis, eat sushi, watch 30 Rock and take Tango lessons. Reagan suggested marriage and Nathan thought that the idea had some merit and so they became engaged.
Virgil on paper was a mild mannered consultant but what nobody knew about Virgil was that he worked for the CIA and was in charge of questioning suspected terrorists on their ties to terrorist groups from around the world. Sleep deprivation, constant questioning of similar words that were substituted to carefully lure a mentally broken individual into purging themselves was Virgil’s forte. There of course was food deprivation and not allowing suspects to have water but offering coffee and then denying the suspects to use of the washroom. The job was unique and actually Virgil was quite a unique guy and yet nobody really knew this about him and that is how he wanted it.
Now Virgil ran checks upon checks on Nathan and all he could find was that he was a party guy who loved fantasy sports and was treated for a Chlamydia once at age twenty two. Virgil suspected his future son-in-law was a player but could not prove anything conclusively.
Howard, one of Virgil’s drinking buddies from the CIA who had been actively working on a truth serum, felt that he had a billion dollar product that would prove to be valuable to governments and to wives everywhere; an innocuous liquid that makes a person want to spill their guts. Howard and Virgil tested the creation out on a Pakistani cab driver who they rounded up randomly. What they learned from the cab driver was that he had two other wives in Pakistan and several children. He had an orthodox Jewish woman that he was sleeping with on the side, liked to have beads stuffed in his ass and often went into tire stores just so he could smell the tires. Virgil was sold on the product and agreed with Howard that he was well on his way to being a billionaire. After much pleading and prodding, Virgil convinced Howard to attend his daughter’s wedding and administer doses of the serum into the champagne flutes of the best man, who was a life long friend of Nathan’s and into the glasses of Nathan’s parents. Virgil suspected that the wealthy people looked down at Virgil and his family and wanted to hear about it. The serum was slipped into the flutes belonging to Nathan’s best man, a man by the name of Jim but was mistakenly slipped into the glasses of Virgil’s two daughters, Carter and Reagan.
Jim stood during dinner and walked up to the microphone while still chewing his roast beef. The desire to speak became overwhelming like an itch or a burn within him.
“Um, my name is Jim and I am Nathan’s best bud. We’ve been friends since we were six and I’ve always liked Nathan even though he is selfish and pretty vain. Nathan was always better in sports than me and could always get pussy… I mean girls… and so I always rode his coat tails just to get chicks. I don’t know why Nathan wants to be married. He still is getting more ass than anyone I know and probably will always need variety. He could tell you himself about all the chicks that still call him and want to be with him. It really is crazy. Reagan is really hot but is really high maintenance and I give the whole marriage about two months before they are ready to kill each other or divorce. I hope they never have kids because they are both too caught up in themselves to really be selfless parents… Okay, that was crazy but I feel much better.”
Carter then pushed Jim away from the microphone and gripped it as if her life depended on it. Carter was out of breath and flush.
“Wow… Okay, so I just want to say that I have always loved Reagan and always wished that I was her identical twin instead of fraternal. I wanted nice legs, a pretty smile, a vibrant personality, firm tits and an ass that turns heads. I didn’t get any of those things and have always thought it was unfair. I think Reagan is really beautiful on the outside but a train wreck on the inside and I truly believe she will never be happy. I know my parents both favor her and I don’t give a fuck really…”
As Virgil was escorting his daughter Carter away from the microphone and into another room, Reagan spoke into the microphone for about five minutes on how she thought she was fat and ugly and wished that she could sing and write poems like her sister. She hated being insincere and really was scared to get old and ugly. She confided in everyone that she really did not like anal sex but did it because Nathan really liked it and that she really only had one orgasm with him in three years since he is really predictable and rough. Reagan did let everyone know that when her high school boyfriend comes into town, they always have a lot of laughs, dinner, drinks and really good sex. Virgil returned to find a lot of grumbling among guests and crying and screaming among the wedding party. The orchestra tried to smother the debacle by playing Glenn Miller’s, In the Mood. It didn’t work.
When the dust settled, Reagan had come home to live with Virgil and Gretchen again in the bedroom she occupied as a girl. She was in therapy and found that gardening really helped her to feel better in general. Nathan found a new girl and then some other new girls. Jim was not allowed around them. Carter began to speak to men with confidence and exercise a bit more. Her sex life improved as did her self esteem. Howard and Virgil still met for drinks periodically and spoke about things that guys speak about when they work for the Central Intelligence Agency. Both agreed that although billions of dollars would be fantastic and solve many of Howard’s needs and desires, humanity really was not ready for the naked truth. And that is no lie.
The Naked Truth
Virgil was one of those quiet middle aged guys that would blend in at parties or picnics without notice. All the people who knew of Virgil knew that he worked as a consultant for oil companies that had interests in the Middle East. At any given time, Virgil could be gone for weeks on end and then he would be home golfing and doing wood working in his basement work shop. Nothing unusual.
Virgil and his wife Gretchen, raised twin girls that went to college and were trying to make their way through adulthood. Carter and Reagan were born on Election Day in 1980. Gretchen at the time thought it would be cute to name her fraternal twin girls after the presidential candidates. Virgil went along with this.
Carter was a thoughtful and quiet girl who loved to sing, dance and write poems. Carter always carried a few more pounds than her sister and was not very good at math. Boys found her introverted nature to be odd and so it was rare that Carter dated much during high school. At the age of thirty, her boyfriend whom she had lived with for several years, quit his job to live in a park by Wall Street and protest banks and rich people with other idealists from around the country. Carter considered quitting her job as a kindergarten teacher and joining her boyfriend but changed her mind when she thought about losing her medical and dental benefits.
Reagan was slightly taller than Carter and was thin, vibrant, active and everyone’s best friend. She met Nathan at her high priced gym and had been seeing him for close to two years. Nathan was tall, had a nice smile, full head of hair, stomach muscles, a good job, a condo with parking and a healthy bank account. Nathan loved to fuck a lot and so did Reagan but when they were not fucking, they also liked to jog together, play tennis, eat sushi, watch 30 Rock and take Tango lessons. Reagan suggested marriage and Nathan thought that the idea had some merit and so they became engaged.
Virgil on paper was a mild mannered consultant but what nobody knew about Virgil was that he worked for the CIA and was in charge of questioning suspected terrorists on their ties to terrorist groups from around the world. Sleep deprivation, constant questioning of similar words that were substituted to carefully lure a mentally broken individual into purging themselves was Virgil’s forte. There of course was food deprivation and not allowing suspects to have water but offering coffee and then denying the suspects to use of the washroom. The job was unique and actually Virgil was quite a unique guy and yet nobody really knew this about him and that is how he wanted it.
Now Virgil ran checks upon checks on Nathan and all he could find was that he was a party guy who loved fantasy sports and was treated for a Chlamydia once at age twenty two. Virgil suspected his future son-in-law was a player but could not prove anything conclusively.
Howard, one of Virgil’s drinking buddies from the CIA who had been actively working on a truth serum, felt that he had a billion dollar product that would prove to be valuable to governments and to wives everywhere; an innocuous liquid that makes a person want to spill their guts. Howard and Virgil tested the creation out on a Pakistani cab driver who they rounded up randomly. What they learned from the cab driver was that he had two other wives in Pakistan and several children. He had an orthodox Jewish woman that he was sleeping with on the side, liked to have beads stuffed in his ass and often went into tire stores just so he could smell the tires. Virgil was sold on the product and agreed with Howard that he was well on his way to being a billionaire. After much pleading and prodding, Virgil convinced Howard to attend his daughter’s wedding and administer doses of the serum into the champagne flutes of the best man, who was a life long friend of Nathan’s and into the glasses of Nathan’s parents. Virgil suspected that the wealthy people looked down at Virgil and his family and wanted to hear about it. The serum was slipped into the flutes belonging to Nathan’s best man, a man by the name of Jim but was mistakenly slipped into the glasses of Virgil’s two daughters, Carter and Reagan.
Jim stood during dinner and walked up to the microphone while still chewing his roast beef. The desire to speak became overwhelming like an itch or a burn within him.
“Um, my name is Jim and I am Nathan’s best bud. We’ve been friends since we were six and I’ve always liked Nathan even though he is selfish and pretty vain. Nathan was always better in sports than me and could always get pussy… I mean girls… and so I always rode his coat tails just to get chicks. I don’t know why Nathan wants to be married. He still is getting more ass than anyone I know and probably will always need variety. He could tell you himself about all the chicks that still call him and want to be with him. It really is crazy. Reagan is really hot but is really high maintenance and I give the whole marriage about two months before they are ready to kill each other or divorce. I hope they never have kids because they are both too caught up in themselves to really be selfless parents… Okay, that was crazy but I feel much better.”
Carter then pushed Jim away from the microphone and gripped it as if her life depended on it. Carter was out of breath and flush.
“Wow… Okay, so I just want to say that I have always loved Reagan and always wished that I was her identical twin instead of fraternal. I wanted nice legs, a pretty smile, a vibrant personality, firm tits and an ass that turns heads. I didn’t get any of those things and have always thought it was unfair. I think Reagan is really beautiful on the outside but a train wreck on the inside and I truly believe she will never be happy. I know my parents both favor her and I don’t give a fuck really…”
As Virgil was escorting his daughter Carter away from the microphone and into another room, Reagan spoke into the microphone for about five minutes on how she thought she was fat and ugly and wished that she could sing and write poems like her sister. She hated being insincere and really was scared to get old and ugly. She confided in everyone that she really did not like anal sex but did it because Nathan really liked it and that she really only had one orgasm with him in three years since he is really predictable and rough. Reagan did let everyone know that when her high school boyfriend comes into town, they always have a lot of laughs, dinner, drinks and really good sex. Virgil returned to find a lot of grumbling among guests and crying and screaming among the wedding party. The orchestra tried to smother the debacle by playing Glenn Miller’s, In the Mood. It didn’t work.
When the dust settled, Reagan had come home to live with Virgil and Gretchen again in the bedroom she occupied as a girl. She was in therapy and found that gardening really helped her to feel better in general. Nathan found a new girl and then some other new girls. Jim was not allowed around them. Carter began to speak to men with confidence and exercise a bit more. Her sex life improved as did her self esteem. Howard and Virgil still met for drinks periodically and spoke about things that guys speak about when they work for the Central Intelligence Agency. Both agreed that although billions of dollars would be fantastic and solve many of Howard’s needs and desires, humanity really was not ready for the naked truth. And that is no lie.
Virgil and his wife Gretchen, raised twin girls that went to college and were trying to make their way through adulthood. Carter and Reagan were born on Election Day in 1980. Gretchen at the time thought it would be cute to name her fraternal twin girls after the presidential candidates. Virgil went along with this.
Carter was a thoughtful and quiet girl who loved to sing, dance and write poems. Carter always carried a few more pounds than her sister and was not very good at math. Boys found her introverted nature to be odd and so it was rare that Carter dated much during high school. At the age of thirty, her boyfriend whom she had lived with for several years, quit his job to live in a park by Wall Street and protest banks and rich people with other idealists from around the country. Carter considered quitting her job as a kindergarten teacher and joining her boyfriend but changed her mind when she thought about losing her medical and dental benefits.
Reagan was slightly taller than Carter and was thin, vibrant, active and everyone’s best friend. She met Nathan at her high priced gym and had been seeing him for close to two years. Nathan was tall, had a nice smile, full head of hair, stomach muscles, a good job, a condo with parking and a healthy bank account. Nathan loved to fuck a lot and so did Reagan but when they were not fucking, they also liked to jog together, play tennis, eat sushi, watch 30 Rock and take Tango lessons. Reagan suggested marriage and Nathan thought that the idea had some merit and so they became engaged.
Virgil on paper was a mild mannered consultant but what nobody knew about Virgil was that he worked for the CIA and was in charge of questioning suspected terrorists on their ties to terrorist groups from around the world. Sleep deprivation, constant questioning of similar words that were substituted to carefully lure a mentally broken individual into purging themselves was Virgil’s forte. There of course was food deprivation and not allowing suspects to have water but offering coffee and then denying the suspects to use of the washroom. The job was unique and actually Virgil was quite a unique guy and yet nobody really knew this about him and that is how he wanted it.
Now Virgil ran checks upon checks on Nathan and all he could find was that he was a party guy who loved fantasy sports and was treated for a Chlamydia once at age twenty two. Virgil suspected his future son-in-law was a player but could not prove anything conclusively.
Howard, one of Virgil’s drinking buddies from the CIA who had been actively working on a truth serum, felt that he had a billion dollar product that would prove to be valuable to governments and to wives everywhere; an innocuous liquid that makes a person want to spill their guts. Howard and Virgil tested the creation out on a Pakistani cab driver who they rounded up randomly. What they learned from the cab driver was that he had two other wives in Pakistan and several children. He had an orthodox Jewish woman that he was sleeping with on the side, liked to have beads stuffed in his ass and often went into tire stores just so he could smell the tires. Virgil was sold on the product and agreed with Howard that he was well on his way to being a billionaire. After much pleading and prodding, Virgil convinced Howard to attend his daughter’s wedding and administer doses of the serum into the champagne flutes of the best man, who was a life long friend of Nathan’s and into the glasses of Nathan’s parents. Virgil suspected that the wealthy people looked down at Virgil and his family and wanted to hear about it. The serum was slipped into the flutes belonging to Nathan’s best man, a man by the name of Jim but was mistakenly slipped into the glasses of Virgil’s two daughters, Carter and Reagan.
Jim stood during dinner and walked up to the microphone while still chewing his roast beef. The desire to speak became overwhelming like an itch or a burn within him.
“Um, my name is Jim and I am Nathan’s best bud. We’ve been friends since we were six and I’ve always liked Nathan even though he is selfish and pretty vain. Nathan was always better in sports than me and could always get pussy… I mean girls… and so I always rode his coat tails just to get chicks. I don’t know why Nathan wants to be married. He still is getting more ass than anyone I know and probably will always need variety. He could tell you himself about all the chicks that still call him and want to be with him. It really is crazy. Reagan is really hot but is really high maintenance and I give the whole marriage about two months before they are ready to kill each other or divorce. I hope they never have kids because they are both too caught up in themselves to really be selfless parents… Okay, that was crazy but I feel much better.”
Carter then pushed Jim away from the microphone and gripped it as if her life depended on it. Carter was out of breath and flush.
“Wow… Okay, so I just want to say that I have always loved Reagan and always wished that I was her identical twin instead of fraternal. I wanted nice legs, a pretty smile, a vibrant personality, firm tits and an ass that turns heads. I didn’t get any of those things and have always thought it was unfair. I think Reagan is really beautiful on the outside but a train wreck on the inside and I truly believe she will never be happy. I know my parents both favor her and I don’t give a fuck really…”
As Virgil was escorting his daughter Carter away from the microphone and into another room, Reagan spoke into the microphone for about five minutes on how she thought she was fat and ugly and wished that she could sing and write poems like her sister. She hated being insincere and really was scared to get old and ugly. She confided in everyone that she really did not like anal sex but did it because Nathan really liked it and that she really only had one orgasm with him in three years since he is really predictable and rough. Reagan did let everyone know that when her high school boyfriend comes into town, they always have a lot of laughs, dinner, drinks and really good sex. Virgil returned to find a lot of grumbling among guests and crying and screaming among the wedding party. The orchestra tried to smother the debacle by playing Glenn Miller’s, In the Mood. It didn’t work.
When the dust settled, Reagan had come home to live with Virgil and Gretchen again in the bedroom she occupied as a girl. She was in therapy and found that gardening really helped her to feel better in general. Nathan found a new girl and then some other new girls. Jim was not allowed around them. Carter began to speak to men with confidence and exercise a bit more. Her sex life improved as did her self esteem. Howard and Virgil still met for drinks periodically and spoke about things that guys speak about when they work for the Central Intelligence Agency. Both agreed that although billions of dollars would be fantastic and solve many of Howard’s needs and desires, humanity really was not ready for the naked truth. And that is no lie.
Monday, September 19, 2011
The Young Americans... In Canada
Dion had decided at the age of twenty six that it was time to throw in the towel, lower the flag and wave the white drapeau that signifies giving in or giving up. For women the announcement of marriage to other women sends voices up octaves, accompanied by hand holding, discussions about dresses and registries. For men, especially young men, the news is received, processed and then there is a two second delay where the stone faces of other male comrades, brothers and friends appear to ask why with their eyes. Once Dion’s friends and cousins accepted the news the first important question among men was asked.
“When and where are we having the bachelor party?”
Dion was born in Romania with his other Romanian friends and cousins and wound up of all places in Detroit. Dion grew up to love all things Detroit; American cars, Lions, Tigers, Red Wings and Pistons. Dion loved University of Michigan even though he never attended the school. Trumpet playing of all things lead him towards his destiny of finding and falling in love with the minister’s daughter at a Romanian Pentecostal Church in Detroit. It actually was a Missionary Baptist Church for the most part with a black congregation but at noon when the black Baptists were having coffee in the gym, the Romanians would come in and have their service in Romanian and then when the Romanians took the gym, the Koreans took the sanctuary. By the time the Koreans took the gym for their post church fellowship, the church janitor had well earned his day of rest which would have to come on a Monday.
Dion was a band geek in junior high and high school and offered to play trumpet after his mother had prodded him to go back to church and play his trumpet with the organ player during the hymnal periods of the service. It all worked out for Dion. Dion met Dianna, the daughter of the minister of their church who was beautiful and detached at the time Dion met her. Dion gave up drinking, swear, chewing tobacco, visits to casinos, and strip clubs. Dion went to rough parts of Detroit with his girlfriend as inner city missionaries to try and work with teens. Dion liked that idea a lot better than packing up and moving to Angola and so he willingly got together with his girlfriend to spend Friday and Saturday nights playing basketball and talking about the word of god with poor children that cared more about getting a nice car, a nice piece of ass and money in their pockets by any means necessary. Speaking English in a Portuguese speaking country like Angola might have been easier than trying to convince poor inner city black teens in Detroit that leading a clean life, will lead to positive things. Some bought into it and other showed up to the church gym to play basketball and eat coffee cake. After a year or more of this sort of stuff, Dion decided that being with Dianna on a full time basis was his destiny in life and so be posed the question, Dianna cried and accepted. A life of marital bliss was immanent if not terminal for the young couple.
Theo, Dion’s cousin and life long friend, got their inner circle of friends together to do Dion’s last night as a single man the right way. Theo knew that his cousin had played along with the no sex, no drinking, no dancing and no swearing rules of devout Romanian born again types but also knew that his cousin Dion was once quite the partier and cocksman.
“Troy, Tommy, you and me are going to Windsor tonight. I got the Fong Sisters coming to a private suite that I rented on the top floor of Caesar’s Windsor. The Fong Sisters are lesbian and sisters. Totally out of control, dude… Where you can find sisters who are lesbian and would do each other in front of people? That is extra special. I met them at the casino last month in Windsor. I’m telling you, they are smoking hot and will do anything. They originally came from China but live in Ontario now. Beautiful fucking faces, tight asses and huge fake tits on skinny frames. They got a website where you can see them 69ing each other covered in chocolate syrup.” Said Theo.
“I would have been fine going to a strip club around here, getting a few beers and calling it a night,” said Dion.
“Whaddya you like fifty now? Fuck that shit… You are going down but you’re going down in a grand style, bro. Don’t sweat it, it will be mayhem. Fully stocked bar in the limo, fully stocked bar in the suite, room service and the lesbian show… Oh and I paid for the happy ending shower with them both for you.” Said Theo as he high fived Dion.
The foursome drank in the back of the stretch limo and blared music. They opened up the moon roof, stood and yelled like little boys in the tunnel that went under the Detroit River from downtown Detroit to Windsor, Ontario in the country of Canada. Once on the Canadian side of the river, cameras picked up the sight of four young men hanging out of the moon roof up to the waist, singing, yelling and hoisting drinks which spilled onto each other. Constable Williams caught sight of this on his desk monitor while he ate a sandwich he had just purchased on Huron-Church Road at the Tim Horton’s which was on the south side of the street, not to be confused with the Tim Horton’s on Huron-Church on the north side of the street, less than a kilometer away from the Tim Horton’s on the south side of Huron-Church Road.
Yes. Well then, Constable Williams was eating his sandwich and studying the monitor of unruly Americans in a limousine. Pieces of the bread stuck to his bushy moustache. Constable Williams lifted the cup to his tea and doused the tea bag several times before taking a sip. He put the quartet on full screen and followed them all the way up to line three at customs. Constable Williams got on the phone and called for the sniffer dogs to meet him at line three.
The limousine queued up behind several cars. The driver was an older black man that was listening to the Detroit Tigers game in his compartment, not paying attention at all to the frat boy activity going on the other side of his contained area. The boys were mixing drinks and singing when the doors were thrown open. Two German Sheppards accompanied four uniformed men who had just asked the four young men to step out of the vehicle.
“Smart people you are in America, eh?” Asked Constable Williams.
Theo giggled and said, “yes, sir”.
“You young Americans… Just like in the David Bowie song. You boys know that song, eh? So smart in America that they spent millions to send men to the moon just so that they could say that they sent men to the moon and give em a ticker tape parade in New York City… Yes, you Americans are so smart. Only smart men would ride in the tunnel that have hanging signs that could decapitate them as they stick their heads out of an opening in the roof. Smart, young Americans… You smart men have anything you want to declare before we set the dogs to find contraband?”
The four young men all sobered up enough to take Constable Williams seriously. Three out of the four men had nothing worse than chewing tobacco on them. Theo though thought that buying two joints from a guy at work would be the icing on the cake as the Chinese born sisters and lesbians did their thing in front of them. Of course they were going to purchase Cohiba Cigars at the duty free store and take them up to their suite also. Theo had forgotten about the two joints packed in a plastic bag that was in a small pocket on the sleeve of his Hollister sweat shirt. The first German Sheppard found the joints in a matter of three seconds. The dog put its front paws up on Theo’s shoulders as if they were going to slow dance together. Constable Williams held up the discovered bag with two hand rolled joints and smiled.
“We are about to get to know each other very intimately tonight, boys.”
Dion stood up and day dreamed as his soon to be father-in-law conducted the wedding ceremony. To Dianna’s eye, Dion looked to have been crying. She had no idea that her betrothed had been drinking, smoking, detained by Canadian border guards and forced to do a full cavity check, naked in a bare room with a lot of lights. Dion could only think about touching his toes and the Canadian guard flashing a light up his ass as the guard probed around with a gloved index finger in search of further illegal contraband. They boys never made it to the hotel. They were detained at the border until the early hours of the morning and then sent back to the United States without their joints or really good stories to share with their friends. During the ceremony, Dion turned and looked at his best man, Theo with squinty eyes and could only shake his head as he recalled the indignity of his night in Canada. Call it bad luck of the draw or that God truly does work in mysterious ways.
David Bowie- Young American
I got a suite and you got defeat
Ain't there a man you can say no more?
Ain't there a pen that will write before they die?
Ain't you proud that you've still got faces?
Ain't there one damn song that can make me
break down and cry?
All night
I want the young American
Young American, young American, I want the young American
“When and where are we having the bachelor party?”
Dion was born in Romania with his other Romanian friends and cousins and wound up of all places in Detroit. Dion grew up to love all things Detroit; American cars, Lions, Tigers, Red Wings and Pistons. Dion loved University of Michigan even though he never attended the school. Trumpet playing of all things lead him towards his destiny of finding and falling in love with the minister’s daughter at a Romanian Pentecostal Church in Detroit. It actually was a Missionary Baptist Church for the most part with a black congregation but at noon when the black Baptists were having coffee in the gym, the Romanians would come in and have their service in Romanian and then when the Romanians took the gym, the Koreans took the sanctuary. By the time the Koreans took the gym for their post church fellowship, the church janitor had well earned his day of rest which would have to come on a Monday.
Dion was a band geek in junior high and high school and offered to play trumpet after his mother had prodded him to go back to church and play his trumpet with the organ player during the hymnal periods of the service. It all worked out for Dion. Dion met Dianna, the daughter of the minister of their church who was beautiful and detached at the time Dion met her. Dion gave up drinking, swear, chewing tobacco, visits to casinos, and strip clubs. Dion went to rough parts of Detroit with his girlfriend as inner city missionaries to try and work with teens. Dion liked that idea a lot better than packing up and moving to Angola and so he willingly got together with his girlfriend to spend Friday and Saturday nights playing basketball and talking about the word of god with poor children that cared more about getting a nice car, a nice piece of ass and money in their pockets by any means necessary. Speaking English in a Portuguese speaking country like Angola might have been easier than trying to convince poor inner city black teens in Detroit that leading a clean life, will lead to positive things. Some bought into it and other showed up to the church gym to play basketball and eat coffee cake. After a year or more of this sort of stuff, Dion decided that being with Dianna on a full time basis was his destiny in life and so be posed the question, Dianna cried and accepted. A life of marital bliss was immanent if not terminal for the young couple.
Theo, Dion’s cousin and life long friend, got their inner circle of friends together to do Dion’s last night as a single man the right way. Theo knew that his cousin had played along with the no sex, no drinking, no dancing and no swearing rules of devout Romanian born again types but also knew that his cousin Dion was once quite the partier and cocksman.
“Troy, Tommy, you and me are going to Windsor tonight. I got the Fong Sisters coming to a private suite that I rented on the top floor of Caesar’s Windsor. The Fong Sisters are lesbian and sisters. Totally out of control, dude… Where you can find sisters who are lesbian and would do each other in front of people? That is extra special. I met them at the casino last month in Windsor. I’m telling you, they are smoking hot and will do anything. They originally came from China but live in Ontario now. Beautiful fucking faces, tight asses and huge fake tits on skinny frames. They got a website where you can see them 69ing each other covered in chocolate syrup.” Said Theo.
“I would have been fine going to a strip club around here, getting a few beers and calling it a night,” said Dion.
“Whaddya you like fifty now? Fuck that shit… You are going down but you’re going down in a grand style, bro. Don’t sweat it, it will be mayhem. Fully stocked bar in the limo, fully stocked bar in the suite, room service and the lesbian show… Oh and I paid for the happy ending shower with them both for you.” Said Theo as he high fived Dion.
The foursome drank in the back of the stretch limo and blared music. They opened up the moon roof, stood and yelled like little boys in the tunnel that went under the Detroit River from downtown Detroit to Windsor, Ontario in the country of Canada. Once on the Canadian side of the river, cameras picked up the sight of four young men hanging out of the moon roof up to the waist, singing, yelling and hoisting drinks which spilled onto each other. Constable Williams caught sight of this on his desk monitor while he ate a sandwich he had just purchased on Huron-Church Road at the Tim Horton’s which was on the south side of the street, not to be confused with the Tim Horton’s on Huron-Church on the north side of the street, less than a kilometer away from the Tim Horton’s on the south side of Huron-Church Road.
Yes. Well then, Constable Williams was eating his sandwich and studying the monitor of unruly Americans in a limousine. Pieces of the bread stuck to his bushy moustache. Constable Williams lifted the cup to his tea and doused the tea bag several times before taking a sip. He put the quartet on full screen and followed them all the way up to line three at customs. Constable Williams got on the phone and called for the sniffer dogs to meet him at line three.
The limousine queued up behind several cars. The driver was an older black man that was listening to the Detroit Tigers game in his compartment, not paying attention at all to the frat boy activity going on the other side of his contained area. The boys were mixing drinks and singing when the doors were thrown open. Two German Sheppards accompanied four uniformed men who had just asked the four young men to step out of the vehicle.
“Smart people you are in America, eh?” Asked Constable Williams.
Theo giggled and said, “yes, sir”.
“You young Americans… Just like in the David Bowie song. You boys know that song, eh? So smart in America that they spent millions to send men to the moon just so that they could say that they sent men to the moon and give em a ticker tape parade in New York City… Yes, you Americans are so smart. Only smart men would ride in the tunnel that have hanging signs that could decapitate them as they stick their heads out of an opening in the roof. Smart, young Americans… You smart men have anything you want to declare before we set the dogs to find contraband?”
The four young men all sobered up enough to take Constable Williams seriously. Three out of the four men had nothing worse than chewing tobacco on them. Theo though thought that buying two joints from a guy at work would be the icing on the cake as the Chinese born sisters and lesbians did their thing in front of them. Of course they were going to purchase Cohiba Cigars at the duty free store and take them up to their suite also. Theo had forgotten about the two joints packed in a plastic bag that was in a small pocket on the sleeve of his Hollister sweat shirt. The first German Sheppard found the joints in a matter of three seconds. The dog put its front paws up on Theo’s shoulders as if they were going to slow dance together. Constable Williams held up the discovered bag with two hand rolled joints and smiled.
“We are about to get to know each other very intimately tonight, boys.”
Dion stood up and day dreamed as his soon to be father-in-law conducted the wedding ceremony. To Dianna’s eye, Dion looked to have been crying. She had no idea that her betrothed had been drinking, smoking, detained by Canadian border guards and forced to do a full cavity check, naked in a bare room with a lot of lights. Dion could only think about touching his toes and the Canadian guard flashing a light up his ass as the guard probed around with a gloved index finger in search of further illegal contraband. They boys never made it to the hotel. They were detained at the border until the early hours of the morning and then sent back to the United States without their joints or really good stories to share with their friends. During the ceremony, Dion turned and looked at his best man, Theo with squinty eyes and could only shake his head as he recalled the indignity of his night in Canada. Call it bad luck of the draw or that God truly does work in mysterious ways.
David Bowie- Young American
I got a suite and you got defeat
Ain't there a man you can say no more?
Ain't there a pen that will write before they die?
Ain't you proud that you've still got faces?
Ain't there one damn song that can make me
break down and cry?
All night
I want the young American
Young American, young American, I want the young American
Monday, September 12, 2011
Harry the Angry Clown or The Cubs Suck
Every city in the United States has that local figure that is known by most of the inhabitants who are native to that city. Harry the Angry Clown, is well known in Chicago for snapping one day the way a suicidal gun man does at a shopping mall. Harry never hurt anyone and never really wanted to. He was and always will be a clown and clowns really love to make people happy when happiness is hard to find.
Harry was a smallish Jewish boy who grew up in an area of the south side of Chicago that was Italian, Irish or Black. Harry’s father joked that having to dodge the micks, dagos and schwartas, would either make him fast or tough. For all of Harry’s disdain of the south side and ethnic groups, Harry never left his home. Harry stayed and took care of his parents and when they passed on, he remained in the home he always lived in.
Harry’s parents had wished that Harry would have become an attorney or a doctor or even a slick car salesman. The choice to become a full time clown did not sit well with either of his parents. Harry’s father would generally say the same things over and over to him about the logistics of not having a conventional vocation.
“Whaddya gonna do if you get sick? You want the government should take care of you? The goddamn government is broke and corrupt. They’ll find a goddamn loophole to leave you out in the cold. You wanna sit at Cook County with all the schwartzas? Huh? You smoke and don’t exercise. You eat nothing but fatty food. You’re gonna wind up a heart attack patient by the time you’re thirty years old.”
At the age of forty, Harry did wind up with a scare that left him waiting in the lobby of the country hospital for hours just as his father had prophesized. After real heart attacks, strokes, stabbings, shootings and overdoses, Harry would be seen by a physician. Harry didn’t much mind the wait because his favorite baseball team, The Chicago Cubs, was just beginning a road game on the west coast against San Diego.
Most intelligent people who analyze why it is that grown men live for and follow sports as if the sport had some sort of true direction on their lives, will tell you that these men are borderline delusional and lacking fundamental depth to their own lives. Following the statistics of individual players, spending larges sums of money on tickets to games, alcohol and food, when truly viewed properly appears to be a waste and a terrific diversion from reality. Those that run over small children in attempts to retrieve foul balls or home runs are usually cut of the same cloth as those who call sports radio and refer to their teams as if they were truly part of the team. “We just didn’t have it tonight…” These same individuals stand in line to have transitory athletes sign all sorts of things for them so that one day someone will enter their homes and ask who it was that signed that T shirt, that bat, that photograph? That moment will bring depth and meaning to their lives. Hopefully.
Harry was one of those men who in their mid forties, had followed the Chicago Cubs so closely that he could actually be put on a panel and quizzed game show style on obscure statistics and players who nobody remembered or cared about. Sitting in the hospital lobby really didn’t bother Harry. There he was in a red and yellow outfit with a red bulbous nose and white and black make up on his face. He held his chest as he slouched in his chair glued to the small television screen which was strapped to the ceiling. Other occupants either lived in the lobby because they were homeless or were poor people without insurance. Just about every seat in the lobby was taken but Harry felt fortunate to have a seat in front of the television. A burly and surly security guard sauntered through the lobby to make sure nothing too strange was happening. Harry stopped the guard and asked/demanded that he turn up the volume enough so that he could hear the commentators babble. The security guard refused to do it. Harry approached a young black child that was sitting in the lobby with his mother and his brothers and sisters. His youngest sister had swallowed a bell from a toy. The mom packed up her five children and took two buses to get to the hospital. Harry eyed the young boy who was about ten years of age. He thought the boy was strong and agile enough to reach up and turn up the volume manually to the television if he were to climb up and stand on Harry’s shoulders.
“Hey son! How would you like to make five dollars right here? No funny stuff even though I’m a clown. Five dollars and a candy bar. And I will give your brothers and sisters each a candy bar too. Doesn’t that sound swell? Whaddya say?”
The young wiry boy climbed up Harry in his clown suit as if he were a tree. He reached up and turned up the volume. The security guard was behind a podium talking to another security guard and never noticed the event taking place. The young boy scared the death out his mother and awed those sitting around watching when he did a backwards flip off of Harry’s shoulders and landed on his feet. The boy got a lot of claps. The clown got to watch the Cubs game with the benefit of audio.
The game ended and then the post game ended and then reruns of Friends ended. The late news came on and then infomercials for bras and a waist band that hid fat. Then the Cubs game aired again about 2am in the morning. Harry was still waiting. The young boy who did the flip was asleep, leaning against a younger brother. Harry watched the game for the second time. The Cubs had a commanding 10-0 lead. Zambrano had enough runs to hold him through three games and yet the Padres whittled away at the lead until the Padres were up 16-10 in the ninth inning. The Cubs would have had to score a touch down and kick and extra point to win the game at that point. Seeing the game a second time put Harry over the edge.
It is hard to say what it is that makes marginally sane people throw down their cards and opt out of the game. For Harry it was a culmination of several events that day. His wife and secretary had sent Harry to 7200 South Central when the party was at 7200 North Central, which was about twenty miles away. Harry missed the party and was being yelled at by the parent who said they had nothing else planned for twenty screaming and crying five year olds who were bored watching movies they had all seen many times. While Harry was listening to the berating, a Chicago Police officer noticed the clown talking on his cell phone while driving. Within the city limits of Chicago, it is unlawful to speak on a handheld device. Harry was ticketed for the use of a hand held cell phone, no seat belt, expired license plates, expired license card and a broken mirror. The cost to Harry was going to be hundreds of dollars. Harry called his wife and began swearing at her about not paying attention to north and south. His wife had no sense of direction and since she lived on the south side, she assumed the call came from the south side and never asked the client if the house they lived in was north or south of downtown Chicago. Everything just seemed to fall apart at once for Harry. He felt a tightening in his chest and decided that he needed to get to a hospital at once. Upon trying to get admitted to the nearest hospital, he was directed to the county hospital that had to take people with no insurance benefits. Fourteen hours later, Harry felt no more tightening in his chest. He was just incensed that he was still waiting and that he had to endure one of the most miserable Cub losses twice in a day. Harry walked out of the hospital and went directly to a bar on the north side that closed at four in the morning and then opened up again two hours later at six. The Cubs were scheduled to play the Pittsburg Pirates later that day as a make up for a rained out game earlier in the season. Both Pittsburg and the Cubs would have rather told the league that they both were happy to forfeit the meaningless game but the league wouldn’t let them do that. Instead the Cubs had to catch a red eye back to Chicago and be at Wrigley Field by 11am. It was a tough day for millionaires but they worked it out.
Harry drank beer and ate nuts and said nothing to the other patrons that were getting off of a third shift and wanted a beer or two before going to sleep. At about 11:30, Harry paid to get into Wrigley Field and was one of the first fans to enter the park. It will forever be known as the game that never happened. No rain or snow or other acts of God stopped the game from happening. The game was cancelled due to a hostage situation where by the entire Cubs team was being held at gun point by a man in a clown outfit in their clubhouse. Harry yelled into the faces of players as he made them kneel on the ground with their heads down as if they were praying. Nobody noticed at first that the gun was one of those guns that shoot a daisy out. One of the players who was an avid hunter in the off season realized that the gun was a fake. Several players rushed Harry and held him until the authorities arrived.
Harry wrote a book about his devotion to the Cubs and how he came to snap one day. This was after receiving psychiatric help and paying his debt to society in jail. Upon being released from prison, Harry did talk show after talk show and even had a cameo on Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm upon becoming a free man. The Chicago White Sox gave Harry a life time season ticket four rows up behind home plate in full view for the viewers at home, watching the games on television. The caveat was that Harry had to attend all home games in full clown gear with an oversized White Sox hat and T shirt. The White Sox were nearly as frustrating as the Cubs but at least they ended each season with a winning record and a tease of post season play. Harry became less enthralled with baseball and spectator sports in general. When asked about professional baseball by a sports reporter in Chicago and the allure they hold with the common man, Harry had only one comment while smoking a cigarette outside US Cellular Field.
“It’s all pretty much a clown show… Right?”
Harry was a smallish Jewish boy who grew up in an area of the south side of Chicago that was Italian, Irish or Black. Harry’s father joked that having to dodge the micks, dagos and schwartas, would either make him fast or tough. For all of Harry’s disdain of the south side and ethnic groups, Harry never left his home. Harry stayed and took care of his parents and when they passed on, he remained in the home he always lived in.
Harry’s parents had wished that Harry would have become an attorney or a doctor or even a slick car salesman. The choice to become a full time clown did not sit well with either of his parents. Harry’s father would generally say the same things over and over to him about the logistics of not having a conventional vocation.
“Whaddya gonna do if you get sick? You want the government should take care of you? The goddamn government is broke and corrupt. They’ll find a goddamn loophole to leave you out in the cold. You wanna sit at Cook County with all the schwartzas? Huh? You smoke and don’t exercise. You eat nothing but fatty food. You’re gonna wind up a heart attack patient by the time you’re thirty years old.”
At the age of forty, Harry did wind up with a scare that left him waiting in the lobby of the country hospital for hours just as his father had prophesized. After real heart attacks, strokes, stabbings, shootings and overdoses, Harry would be seen by a physician. Harry didn’t much mind the wait because his favorite baseball team, The Chicago Cubs, was just beginning a road game on the west coast against San Diego.
Most intelligent people who analyze why it is that grown men live for and follow sports as if the sport had some sort of true direction on their lives, will tell you that these men are borderline delusional and lacking fundamental depth to their own lives. Following the statistics of individual players, spending larges sums of money on tickets to games, alcohol and food, when truly viewed properly appears to be a waste and a terrific diversion from reality. Those that run over small children in attempts to retrieve foul balls or home runs are usually cut of the same cloth as those who call sports radio and refer to their teams as if they were truly part of the team. “We just didn’t have it tonight…” These same individuals stand in line to have transitory athletes sign all sorts of things for them so that one day someone will enter their homes and ask who it was that signed that T shirt, that bat, that photograph? That moment will bring depth and meaning to their lives. Hopefully.
Harry was one of those men who in their mid forties, had followed the Chicago Cubs so closely that he could actually be put on a panel and quizzed game show style on obscure statistics and players who nobody remembered or cared about. Sitting in the hospital lobby really didn’t bother Harry. There he was in a red and yellow outfit with a red bulbous nose and white and black make up on his face. He held his chest as he slouched in his chair glued to the small television screen which was strapped to the ceiling. Other occupants either lived in the lobby because they were homeless or were poor people without insurance. Just about every seat in the lobby was taken but Harry felt fortunate to have a seat in front of the television. A burly and surly security guard sauntered through the lobby to make sure nothing too strange was happening. Harry stopped the guard and asked/demanded that he turn up the volume enough so that he could hear the commentators babble. The security guard refused to do it. Harry approached a young black child that was sitting in the lobby with his mother and his brothers and sisters. His youngest sister had swallowed a bell from a toy. The mom packed up her five children and took two buses to get to the hospital. Harry eyed the young boy who was about ten years of age. He thought the boy was strong and agile enough to reach up and turn up the volume manually to the television if he were to climb up and stand on Harry’s shoulders.
“Hey son! How would you like to make five dollars right here? No funny stuff even though I’m a clown. Five dollars and a candy bar. And I will give your brothers and sisters each a candy bar too. Doesn’t that sound swell? Whaddya say?”
The young wiry boy climbed up Harry in his clown suit as if he were a tree. He reached up and turned up the volume. The security guard was behind a podium talking to another security guard and never noticed the event taking place. The young boy scared the death out his mother and awed those sitting around watching when he did a backwards flip off of Harry’s shoulders and landed on his feet. The boy got a lot of claps. The clown got to watch the Cubs game with the benefit of audio.
The game ended and then the post game ended and then reruns of Friends ended. The late news came on and then infomercials for bras and a waist band that hid fat. Then the Cubs game aired again about 2am in the morning. Harry was still waiting. The young boy who did the flip was asleep, leaning against a younger brother. Harry watched the game for the second time. The Cubs had a commanding 10-0 lead. Zambrano had enough runs to hold him through three games and yet the Padres whittled away at the lead until the Padres were up 16-10 in the ninth inning. The Cubs would have had to score a touch down and kick and extra point to win the game at that point. Seeing the game a second time put Harry over the edge.
It is hard to say what it is that makes marginally sane people throw down their cards and opt out of the game. For Harry it was a culmination of several events that day. His wife and secretary had sent Harry to 7200 South Central when the party was at 7200 North Central, which was about twenty miles away. Harry missed the party and was being yelled at by the parent who said they had nothing else planned for twenty screaming and crying five year olds who were bored watching movies they had all seen many times. While Harry was listening to the berating, a Chicago Police officer noticed the clown talking on his cell phone while driving. Within the city limits of Chicago, it is unlawful to speak on a handheld device. Harry was ticketed for the use of a hand held cell phone, no seat belt, expired license plates, expired license card and a broken mirror. The cost to Harry was going to be hundreds of dollars. Harry called his wife and began swearing at her about not paying attention to north and south. His wife had no sense of direction and since she lived on the south side, she assumed the call came from the south side and never asked the client if the house they lived in was north or south of downtown Chicago. Everything just seemed to fall apart at once for Harry. He felt a tightening in his chest and decided that he needed to get to a hospital at once. Upon trying to get admitted to the nearest hospital, he was directed to the county hospital that had to take people with no insurance benefits. Fourteen hours later, Harry felt no more tightening in his chest. He was just incensed that he was still waiting and that he had to endure one of the most miserable Cub losses twice in a day. Harry walked out of the hospital and went directly to a bar on the north side that closed at four in the morning and then opened up again two hours later at six. The Cubs were scheduled to play the Pittsburg Pirates later that day as a make up for a rained out game earlier in the season. Both Pittsburg and the Cubs would have rather told the league that they both were happy to forfeit the meaningless game but the league wouldn’t let them do that. Instead the Cubs had to catch a red eye back to Chicago and be at Wrigley Field by 11am. It was a tough day for millionaires but they worked it out.
Harry drank beer and ate nuts and said nothing to the other patrons that were getting off of a third shift and wanted a beer or two before going to sleep. At about 11:30, Harry paid to get into Wrigley Field and was one of the first fans to enter the park. It will forever be known as the game that never happened. No rain or snow or other acts of God stopped the game from happening. The game was cancelled due to a hostage situation where by the entire Cubs team was being held at gun point by a man in a clown outfit in their clubhouse. Harry yelled into the faces of players as he made them kneel on the ground with their heads down as if they were praying. Nobody noticed at first that the gun was one of those guns that shoot a daisy out. One of the players who was an avid hunter in the off season realized that the gun was a fake. Several players rushed Harry and held him until the authorities arrived.
Harry wrote a book about his devotion to the Cubs and how he came to snap one day. This was after receiving psychiatric help and paying his debt to society in jail. Upon being released from prison, Harry did talk show after talk show and even had a cameo on Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm upon becoming a free man. The Chicago White Sox gave Harry a life time season ticket four rows up behind home plate in full view for the viewers at home, watching the games on television. The caveat was that Harry had to attend all home games in full clown gear with an oversized White Sox hat and T shirt. The White Sox were nearly as frustrating as the Cubs but at least they ended each season with a winning record and a tease of post season play. Harry became less enthralled with baseball and spectator sports in general. When asked about professional baseball by a sports reporter in Chicago and the allure they hold with the common man, Harry had only one comment while smoking a cigarette outside US Cellular Field.
“It’s all pretty much a clown show… Right?”
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
The Road From Iraq to Detroit
Bill had finished two years in Iraq before being shipped out for four more in Afghanistan. After six years of driving around in a light armored vehicle, he was fortunate to be alive and whole. Bill had served one more year than his grandfather had in World War II and nearly five more than his father had in Vietnam. At the age of twenty five, Bill was hoping to become a police officer somewhere in the state of Michigan. On Labor Day, Bertram volunteered to drive the school bus route that had been his since 1973, one more time to ensure Bill would be ready to go come Tuesday.
Bertram had a late model Cadillac STS that he had saved up to buy for a number of years when his 1990 Pontiac had too many problems to throw money at. Bertram sadly knew that the new Cadillac was probably going to be the last car he would ever purchase in his life. At the age of sixty six, it just didn’t make too much sense to make a lot of long term plans like a thirty year mortgage on a house. To buy a car out right in cash made more sense than to make payments into his seventies.
On a bright, sunny and cool Labor Day Monday, Bertram met Bill at a Coney Island off of Grand River in Detroit. Bertram was finishing some eggs while reading about the Detroit Tigers huge win over the Chicago White Sox the night before. Bertram, a tall and thin black man, clean shaven, wore a thin black tie on top of a long sleeved with shirt and dark tan slacks with shiny black shoes. On the table next to the coffee and paper was a black pork pie hat.
Bill, a muscular young white man with four day old stubble on his head and face, walked in with a faded black sleeveless Detroit Red Wings T shirt from his high school days that proudly displayed a tattoo of a gothic D on his right shoulder. He had a stud earring in his left ear, a furrowed brow and torn blue jeans as we walked into the Coney Island to meet Bertram. Bill plopped himself down across from Bill as the waitress poured a cup of coffee for Bill. Bill was tired and a bit hung over from being at the Tiger’s game the night before. After the game, Bill and his friends hung out in the patio area of The Elwood, a bar down the street from Comerica Park.
Bill thought it was a bit overkill to go through the bus route one more time but didn’t want to insult an old guy that gave a low level job, more respect than it deserved. As they walked out to the parking lot, there was a huge boat of a car with the top down. It was a 1973 Cadillac Eldorado painted light blue.
“You evah driven one these old cars, young man?”
“Can’t say I have…”
Bertram tossed the keys across the car to Bill and got in on the passenger side of his own car. The white seats were like new and the dashboard did not have a speck of dust. Bill turned the car on. Immediately the 8 track player began to play Summer Breeze by the Isley Brothers. Bill still thought that the trip was pointless but looked forward to cruising around with the top down in a beautiful old car. Bertram did most the talking.
“So you gonna pick up the bus off Seven Mile… My advice is to get there early so you ain’t lined up to get out there by the last minute. You got you some fellas there with a chip on they shoulder, they gone try to cut and squeeze you outta place. You gone want to bust them in the jaw. My feeling is why go through that hassle the first day. Get up early and take yo time and avoid all that mess…”
Bertram spoke slow and in a deep rich voice. Bill felt like he was driving in a time warp as he looked over at Bertram who was wearing a Pork Pie Hat and squared off Ray-Ban sunglasses. Bill followed where Bertram directed him to go.
“Make a right here on Grand River… This is where you gone begin. Now you gone find and make yer own way and I ain’t about to start telling you how you gone get things done. That would be wrong of me. I am gone to tell you how Bertram done things and you listen and decide whatchu want to do… I started this here bus route afta losing my job at the Fisher Body 21 plant. That’s that skeleton looking building you see off of 75 when you trying to git ovah to the 94. I lost that job onna count I couldn’t keep mah self from drinking afta work. You see… I waddn’t married and I was young and had a few bones and so I would go out and have one and then one lead to anothah one and then a few moh and then before you knew what was going on, the sun be coming up. So afta I missed work a few dozen times, they decided to drop me and they wasn’t nothing I could do even though I was in the union. They only so much the union can do to help you when you off drunk every othah day… Okay, here is where you gone make the first stop. Lemme jus say this; the kids gone test you and the mo you try to act as bad as them, they gone try to git to you mo. When I first started, there was a young guy with a large Afro and a pick stuck all up in his hair. He came on the bus with a box blarin music loud. I toll him to turn off the music and he toll me to do something to m’self. My first thought was that not more than a year earlier, I was trying hard to stay alive in Nam and here some young punk who ain’t even got his feet wet yet in life gone step up to me? I took his box and threw it out the bus and him with it. The othah kids wasn’t scared. They didn’t respect me no mo foh dat. I didn’t git fired but I had to go and buy the punk a new box and aftah he looked like he did nothing wrong. I ain’t gone throw religion in yo face cause we all got to find our way. I started getting my life right and all the othah things in life fell in. I began to think how I was gone to git the kids on my side and still git them to be respectful. They gone swear and let they pants hang off they ass. They gone git worked up ovah a pretty girl and act a fool. How to let em know to act like young men and ladies and have respect foh each othah and they selves? It wasn’t easy but I managed it, young man.”
Bill had applied and accepted the job of being a school bus driver in inner city Detroit where most students were poor and all were black. Bill looked to be a formidable looking young white guy with anger issues. As they drove slowly down Grand River, the boarded up buildings and weeds growing in cracks in the side walk reminded him of driving in parts of Baghdad and Afghanistan. Bill believed there were predators hiding behind windows of abandon buildings, ready to kill him and Bertram for the classic car not unlike what he had lived through in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bill’s head was on a swivel. He surveyed things from left to right and constantly used his peripheral vision as he drove an even thirty miles and hour. Bertram wasn’t as cautious.
“Yeah, I get what you’re saying. The obvious difference between you and I is the color of our skin. Them kids are gonna see me tomorrow and automatically are gonna hate me for what they think I am,” said Bill.
“And you already decided that they gone look at you a certain way. Imma tell you right now… Some dem girls gone be workin you like a stick shift. You a good lookin young man with a good smile and strong build. Them girls look like women an probably they lookin as good as they evah gone look in they lives but you got to remember that they children trapped in an adult body. Anyway… All yo preconceived ideas and thoughts about young, poor black children gone ooze from yo eyes when they step on dat bus. They already gone think that you some rich kid from Southfield or Royal Oak. They ain’t gone think you jus some regular working class kid who jus live above 8 Mile all up in Warren. They ain’t gone know you served. They gone to think all the things they learned bout white people they whole lives. How you gone to show dem they wrong? I tell you what… If enough white people and black people would put aside what they think and what they learned, we could bring this city back to what it was. Black people blame whites and whites blame blacks. How bout people who are black and white get together and say we Detroiters and we gone bring back this town. I need you and you need me to do it. I look at Nelson Mandela and the whole dang country of South Africa. Them black people went from being nothing to running the country and they did not go aftah white people to punish them foh the past. Why? Cause a smart man like Mandela understood dat you need the whites to keep the country going. Detroit need the whites to be in Detroit and if dat evah happens, things gone change. Prejudice keep things where they at. You ain’t gotta go to Mississippi, boy. You got more racism in this state and city than you gone find in the south. You and I both know cause we served in active combat that when you think might die, it don’t matter much the color of the skin of the dude next to you. Somebody you know jus die and you not sure if you the next to git picked off and you lookin at the dude next to you and he from Hicksville, Alabama where they hated people from the north and they didn’t much like niggahs but he crying and just wants to be held like a baby and be told dat he gone make it, dat he ain’t gone die but if he does, he want you there wid him so that he don’t die alone… Make a right up here.”
Bill thought back to a day in Baghdad when a young boy had tripped a mine on the side of the road. Bill had gotten out of his tank and tried to comfort a young boy that was missing a leg. The boy, who was not more than ten years of age, died from a loss of blood. Bill held the boy until fellow soldiers pried the boy away from him. Despite all the gore and death Bill had witnessed, seeing a young boy die in a matter of minutes, hit Bill the hardest and had the greatest impact on him. Tears began to stream down Bill’s cheeks. Bertram asked no questions. He just put his hand on Bill’s shoulder and rubbed it.
“If I can give you one mo piece of advice, young man, I would like you to know dat you got you a finite number of days and yes when you young like you is, you can throw way years and still come out okay. But them years gone roll like a Sherman Tank and take down evrah thang in it way. Thirty, forty, fifty and then you git to sixty or mo like me and you wonder whatchu did with your life. You ask yo-self if you lived or you jus existed? What is the purpose of all this really? I could have kept working foh a few more years but then it hit me in the spring when I had mah sixty sixth birthday; I ain’t gone be round much longer. My wife dead, my son dead, two mah brothers dead and mah parents dead so long ago I sometimes think I jus made them up in mah mind. If it weren’t foh pictures, Idda believe they was nevah here. So I got to thinking bout what might make me happy and I decided that I will take this here car all the way to Los Angeles. Imma go to California aftah living mah whole life in Dee-troit. If you don’t count the two years I lived in Vietnam, I ain’t nevah been nowhere else. I got me an apartment picked out on computer where I can see the sun set ovah the Pacific Ocean. Imma stay there all winter. And so I tell you, young man, find now what gone make you happy. Don’t keep saying someday cause that someday gone end up at the end of a road that you cain’t turn round on… Speak of which, this here yo last stop. Aftah here, you take dem right to school or you finished foh the day… You gone be fine.”
Bill drove back to the Coney Island and shook hands with an old man who had done more for him in an hour than most people had done for him in years. After shaking hands with Bertram, Bill leaned forward and hugged Bertram. Bill quietly spoke near Bertram’s ear before ending the embrace.
“Not many people can begin to understand where I came from and where I’m going. What I went through and where I could wind up… I hope the west coast is exactly what you want and need. Thank you for your time, sir.”
At the second stop of the first day, a young black man with sleep still in his eyes stepped onto the bus with a straight brim Detroit Tigers hat and a white Tiger’s Jersey. In the rear view mirror, Bill could see that the name on the back of the jersey was Verlander. The young man sleepily stared out of the window while checking for messages on his cell phone that weren’t there. His eyes met Bill’s several times in the mirror. They both looked away. Finally Bill engaged the young man in conversation.
“Everyone thinks it’s going to be Boston, The Yankees or Phily. We got Verlander, Valverde, Cabrera and Jackson. Verlander might win the Cy Young but it takes a whole team and the Tigers are tough as hell this year,” said Bill.
“If I could pitch like Verlander, I’d quit school today,” said the young man.
“Most of us will never be a Verlander. If we all just try to be as good as we can be everything will be alright.” Said Bill.
The young man nodded as he thought about what Bill said.
“True dat…”
Bertram had a late model Cadillac STS that he had saved up to buy for a number of years when his 1990 Pontiac had too many problems to throw money at. Bertram sadly knew that the new Cadillac was probably going to be the last car he would ever purchase in his life. At the age of sixty six, it just didn’t make too much sense to make a lot of long term plans like a thirty year mortgage on a house. To buy a car out right in cash made more sense than to make payments into his seventies.
On a bright, sunny and cool Labor Day Monday, Bertram met Bill at a Coney Island off of Grand River in Detroit. Bertram was finishing some eggs while reading about the Detroit Tigers huge win over the Chicago White Sox the night before. Bertram, a tall and thin black man, clean shaven, wore a thin black tie on top of a long sleeved with shirt and dark tan slacks with shiny black shoes. On the table next to the coffee and paper was a black pork pie hat.
Bill, a muscular young white man with four day old stubble on his head and face, walked in with a faded black sleeveless Detroit Red Wings T shirt from his high school days that proudly displayed a tattoo of a gothic D on his right shoulder. He had a stud earring in his left ear, a furrowed brow and torn blue jeans as we walked into the Coney Island to meet Bertram. Bill plopped himself down across from Bill as the waitress poured a cup of coffee for Bill. Bill was tired and a bit hung over from being at the Tiger’s game the night before. After the game, Bill and his friends hung out in the patio area of The Elwood, a bar down the street from Comerica Park.
Bill thought it was a bit overkill to go through the bus route one more time but didn’t want to insult an old guy that gave a low level job, more respect than it deserved. As they walked out to the parking lot, there was a huge boat of a car with the top down. It was a 1973 Cadillac Eldorado painted light blue.
“You evah driven one these old cars, young man?”
“Can’t say I have…”
Bertram tossed the keys across the car to Bill and got in on the passenger side of his own car. The white seats were like new and the dashboard did not have a speck of dust. Bill turned the car on. Immediately the 8 track player began to play Summer Breeze by the Isley Brothers. Bill still thought that the trip was pointless but looked forward to cruising around with the top down in a beautiful old car. Bertram did most the talking.
“So you gonna pick up the bus off Seven Mile… My advice is to get there early so you ain’t lined up to get out there by the last minute. You got you some fellas there with a chip on they shoulder, they gone try to cut and squeeze you outta place. You gone want to bust them in the jaw. My feeling is why go through that hassle the first day. Get up early and take yo time and avoid all that mess…”
Bertram spoke slow and in a deep rich voice. Bill felt like he was driving in a time warp as he looked over at Bertram who was wearing a Pork Pie Hat and squared off Ray-Ban sunglasses. Bill followed where Bertram directed him to go.
“Make a right here on Grand River… This is where you gone begin. Now you gone find and make yer own way and I ain’t about to start telling you how you gone get things done. That would be wrong of me. I am gone to tell you how Bertram done things and you listen and decide whatchu want to do… I started this here bus route afta losing my job at the Fisher Body 21 plant. That’s that skeleton looking building you see off of 75 when you trying to git ovah to the 94. I lost that job onna count I couldn’t keep mah self from drinking afta work. You see… I waddn’t married and I was young and had a few bones and so I would go out and have one and then one lead to anothah one and then a few moh and then before you knew what was going on, the sun be coming up. So afta I missed work a few dozen times, they decided to drop me and they wasn’t nothing I could do even though I was in the union. They only so much the union can do to help you when you off drunk every othah day… Okay, here is where you gone make the first stop. Lemme jus say this; the kids gone test you and the mo you try to act as bad as them, they gone try to git to you mo. When I first started, there was a young guy with a large Afro and a pick stuck all up in his hair. He came on the bus with a box blarin music loud. I toll him to turn off the music and he toll me to do something to m’self. My first thought was that not more than a year earlier, I was trying hard to stay alive in Nam and here some young punk who ain’t even got his feet wet yet in life gone step up to me? I took his box and threw it out the bus and him with it. The othah kids wasn’t scared. They didn’t respect me no mo foh dat. I didn’t git fired but I had to go and buy the punk a new box and aftah he looked like he did nothing wrong. I ain’t gone throw religion in yo face cause we all got to find our way. I started getting my life right and all the othah things in life fell in. I began to think how I was gone to git the kids on my side and still git them to be respectful. They gone swear and let they pants hang off they ass. They gone git worked up ovah a pretty girl and act a fool. How to let em know to act like young men and ladies and have respect foh each othah and they selves? It wasn’t easy but I managed it, young man.”
Bill had applied and accepted the job of being a school bus driver in inner city Detroit where most students were poor and all were black. Bill looked to be a formidable looking young white guy with anger issues. As they drove slowly down Grand River, the boarded up buildings and weeds growing in cracks in the side walk reminded him of driving in parts of Baghdad and Afghanistan. Bill believed there were predators hiding behind windows of abandon buildings, ready to kill him and Bertram for the classic car not unlike what he had lived through in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bill’s head was on a swivel. He surveyed things from left to right and constantly used his peripheral vision as he drove an even thirty miles and hour. Bertram wasn’t as cautious.
“Yeah, I get what you’re saying. The obvious difference between you and I is the color of our skin. Them kids are gonna see me tomorrow and automatically are gonna hate me for what they think I am,” said Bill.
“And you already decided that they gone look at you a certain way. Imma tell you right now… Some dem girls gone be workin you like a stick shift. You a good lookin young man with a good smile and strong build. Them girls look like women an probably they lookin as good as they evah gone look in they lives but you got to remember that they children trapped in an adult body. Anyway… All yo preconceived ideas and thoughts about young, poor black children gone ooze from yo eyes when they step on dat bus. They already gone think that you some rich kid from Southfield or Royal Oak. They ain’t gone think you jus some regular working class kid who jus live above 8 Mile all up in Warren. They ain’t gone know you served. They gone to think all the things they learned bout white people they whole lives. How you gone to show dem they wrong? I tell you what… If enough white people and black people would put aside what they think and what they learned, we could bring this city back to what it was. Black people blame whites and whites blame blacks. How bout people who are black and white get together and say we Detroiters and we gone bring back this town. I need you and you need me to do it. I look at Nelson Mandela and the whole dang country of South Africa. Them black people went from being nothing to running the country and they did not go aftah white people to punish them foh the past. Why? Cause a smart man like Mandela understood dat you need the whites to keep the country going. Detroit need the whites to be in Detroit and if dat evah happens, things gone change. Prejudice keep things where they at. You ain’t gotta go to Mississippi, boy. You got more racism in this state and city than you gone find in the south. You and I both know cause we served in active combat that when you think might die, it don’t matter much the color of the skin of the dude next to you. Somebody you know jus die and you not sure if you the next to git picked off and you lookin at the dude next to you and he from Hicksville, Alabama where they hated people from the north and they didn’t much like niggahs but he crying and just wants to be held like a baby and be told dat he gone make it, dat he ain’t gone die but if he does, he want you there wid him so that he don’t die alone… Make a right up here.”
Bill thought back to a day in Baghdad when a young boy had tripped a mine on the side of the road. Bill had gotten out of his tank and tried to comfort a young boy that was missing a leg. The boy, who was not more than ten years of age, died from a loss of blood. Bill held the boy until fellow soldiers pried the boy away from him. Despite all the gore and death Bill had witnessed, seeing a young boy die in a matter of minutes, hit Bill the hardest and had the greatest impact on him. Tears began to stream down Bill’s cheeks. Bertram asked no questions. He just put his hand on Bill’s shoulder and rubbed it.
“If I can give you one mo piece of advice, young man, I would like you to know dat you got you a finite number of days and yes when you young like you is, you can throw way years and still come out okay. But them years gone roll like a Sherman Tank and take down evrah thang in it way. Thirty, forty, fifty and then you git to sixty or mo like me and you wonder whatchu did with your life. You ask yo-self if you lived or you jus existed? What is the purpose of all this really? I could have kept working foh a few more years but then it hit me in the spring when I had mah sixty sixth birthday; I ain’t gone be round much longer. My wife dead, my son dead, two mah brothers dead and mah parents dead so long ago I sometimes think I jus made them up in mah mind. If it weren’t foh pictures, Idda believe they was nevah here. So I got to thinking bout what might make me happy and I decided that I will take this here car all the way to Los Angeles. Imma go to California aftah living mah whole life in Dee-troit. If you don’t count the two years I lived in Vietnam, I ain’t nevah been nowhere else. I got me an apartment picked out on computer where I can see the sun set ovah the Pacific Ocean. Imma stay there all winter. And so I tell you, young man, find now what gone make you happy. Don’t keep saying someday cause that someday gone end up at the end of a road that you cain’t turn round on… Speak of which, this here yo last stop. Aftah here, you take dem right to school or you finished foh the day… You gone be fine.”
Bill drove back to the Coney Island and shook hands with an old man who had done more for him in an hour than most people had done for him in years. After shaking hands with Bertram, Bill leaned forward and hugged Bertram. Bill quietly spoke near Bertram’s ear before ending the embrace.
“Not many people can begin to understand where I came from and where I’m going. What I went through and where I could wind up… I hope the west coast is exactly what you want and need. Thank you for your time, sir.”
At the second stop of the first day, a young black man with sleep still in his eyes stepped onto the bus with a straight brim Detroit Tigers hat and a white Tiger’s Jersey. In the rear view mirror, Bill could see that the name on the back of the jersey was Verlander. The young man sleepily stared out of the window while checking for messages on his cell phone that weren’t there. His eyes met Bill’s several times in the mirror. They both looked away. Finally Bill engaged the young man in conversation.
“Everyone thinks it’s going to be Boston, The Yankees or Phily. We got Verlander, Valverde, Cabrera and Jackson. Verlander might win the Cy Young but it takes a whole team and the Tigers are tough as hell this year,” said Bill.
“If I could pitch like Verlander, I’d quit school today,” said the young man.
“Most of us will never be a Verlander. If we all just try to be as good as we can be everything will be alright.” Said Bill.
The young man nodded as he thought about what Bill said.
“True dat…”
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
God Hates Haters More Than Faggots
Thorson Jensen received the news that his younger brother Erik had died on a Monday. Erik died in Afghanistan by an improvised explosive device on the road side in an area of the country that looked like Mars. Thor had been working on a 1947 Indian Motorcycle back in Nowhere, Minnesota when he received the call from his father.
The news hit Thor rather hard. Erik had been Thor’s younger brother who had been uncommonly handsome, wholesome and talented. Erik had been on the student council, a wrestler and a singer in the school choir as well as musicals. The only odd thing about Erik was that he always seemed indifferent to women.
During boot camp, Erik had met a young man from Northern California by the name of Timothy who had been a high school football player and an outstanding student. The two hit it off and became a couple. Erik and Timothy together came to grips with their sexuality and found that they were each other’s best friend and lover. Both of them believed that being discrete was important and to act like men was expected and so it was not known to anyone in either of their lives for quite a while.
It was during Christmas while Erik was on leave that he broke the news to his family. It was like a bomb had been dropped on their ice hut on one of 10,000 lakes in Minnesota. There was Thor, Erik and their father Lars, ice fishing in a hut when Erik told his brother and father the news. Thor and Lars were in disbelief but after giving it some thought, they later realized that there were signs that they just never picked up on such as Erik’s love for musicals, gardening and color coordination of clothes. Erik was just too handsome and too perfect of a man for an area of Minnesota that was just not that refined.
Thor had been the black sheep and renegade of the family. He looked like Hulk Hogan and had been a modern day pirate that pillaged. After doing half his adult life in prison, Thor went clean and started his own motorcycle repair shop that also fixed snowmobiles and lawnmowers. It was by no means lucrative but it was steady and that is what Thor wanted. Thor found a woman to settle down with that was covered in tattoos and had three children by three different fathers and was a recovering heroin addict. They were a typical biker family.
It was quiet for a good minute or so after Erik broke the news to his brother and father that he was not only gay but had found his life partner. Thor broke the ice with a little joke.
“We wouldn’t mind meeting him I suppose… Hope he won’t take offense to the fact that I think all Oakland Raider fans are queers.”
Timothy showed up at Easter with Erik. Timothy was equally good looking, masculine and well mannered. Thor and Lars didn’t know what to discuss with Erik and Timothy at first but after awhile, it was like talking to any other men. The fact that they were not demonstrative in front of them or effeminate in anyway, made the whole thing harder to believe. Mom, dad and brother shrugged it off and decided that maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.
Nobody ever thinks that they would out live their children and to stand at a grave site service and subliminally listen to a priest preach the merits of a young man he did not know, was like back ground music to the parent’s deeper thoughts and memories of their son’s life from the cradle to the grave.
A stone’s throw away was a group from Kansas that carried placards that read things like, “thank god for dead soldiers” and “god hates fags”. They yelled over the priest who was saying pleasant things about a young man who was good and had selflessly served his country. The extremist, anti-homosexual, anti-flag, anti-American group claimed to be primitive Baptists. Primitive as in preliterate with physical similarities to humans. Uncivilized, savage, simple and wholly unsophisticated splintered synod of Baptists. Their hateful message was so profound that even other Baptists couldn’t recognize them as being like them.
Thor and his band of biker buddies stood by silently upon Thor’s orders. Thor’s emotions changed from sadness to anger.
The obnoxiously hateful group spewed such vitriol at a moment when as big and strong as he was, Thor was about to break down and cry. Instead, Thor and his band of friends dressed in leather and boots just glared at the idiocy of the moment. Women with high pitched voices yelling over men reciting bible verses who claimed to understand what god hated.
“Most god loving people would agree that the men of Sodom were wicked and sought to break the order of things and destroy the differences between right and wrong. This faggot was punished by god for being a sodomite. He was a faggot and god hates faggots. Genesis 13:13… In the beginning god discussed his disgust with faggots, sodomites, homosexuals.”
Lars balled up his fist and was about to attack the group when Thor stopped his father. Lars was mystified by his older son’s restraint. Thor had always been prone to fisticuffs. If ever a time called for violence, the desecration of a soldier’s funeral called for action. Thor simply whispered calmly in his father’s ear.
“God has a plan for those motherfuckers.”
One of the biker brotherhood was instructed to follow the troop away from the funeral to a motel where they were all registered. It was at about midnight when most people are in their deep REM sleep that Thor and his gang of friends kicked open the doors to their motel rooms and rounded them up. Thor lit a large cigar and took swigs from a bottle of Jack Daniels as he kicked back in a chair with his feet up on the bed. The group of protesters sat cowered together on a double bed while an infomercial on the television loudly made a pitch for a fat hiding girdle like device. Fat people could look thin by wearing what was akin to a girdle without having to exercise. It was nothing new except to those who knew nothing about the Victorian Era. One of the bikers turned off the television so that Thor could be heard clearly.
Thor opened up a dictionary and began to read calmly to all of them the definition of empathy.
“Empathy… If you’re psychotic this means nothing to you and I suspect that to be without of empathy leaves you probably in the psycho camp. You bunch of fucking misfits picked the wrong fucking funeral to show up at… Well then, let’s see… Empathy- is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings such as sadness or happiness by another being… Those unable to recognize this cornerstone in human emotion are devoid of empathy. Meaning that they do not give a fuck about other’s emotions. You motherfuckers are going to learn something about empathy tonight. After tonight, I suspect you will be able to put suffering into the proper perspective.”
Thor and his friends drove through the night from southern Minnesota through Iowa into Kansas so that all those attending the Westboro Baptist Church could see the fruit of god’s labor. Hanging off of every peak around the church was a protestor who was bound by the hands and ankles together with a tennis ball stuffed into their mouths with a duct tape to secure the balls in their mouths. Sticking out of their exposed anuses were rubber chickens. The heads of the rubber chickens were hidden with in the anal cavities. All that was visible of the rubber chickens was a neck and body. A dozen members hung from every peak of the church with their asses exposed with dangling rubber chickens. The, “godhatesamerica.com” banner was removed. In its place was spray paint on the building that read, “God hates haters more than faggots.” It was a sight to behold on the Lord’s day.
The news hit Thor rather hard. Erik had been Thor’s younger brother who had been uncommonly handsome, wholesome and talented. Erik had been on the student council, a wrestler and a singer in the school choir as well as musicals. The only odd thing about Erik was that he always seemed indifferent to women.
During boot camp, Erik had met a young man from Northern California by the name of Timothy who had been a high school football player and an outstanding student. The two hit it off and became a couple. Erik and Timothy together came to grips with their sexuality and found that they were each other’s best friend and lover. Both of them believed that being discrete was important and to act like men was expected and so it was not known to anyone in either of their lives for quite a while.
It was during Christmas while Erik was on leave that he broke the news to his family. It was like a bomb had been dropped on their ice hut on one of 10,000 lakes in Minnesota. There was Thor, Erik and their father Lars, ice fishing in a hut when Erik told his brother and father the news. Thor and Lars were in disbelief but after giving it some thought, they later realized that there were signs that they just never picked up on such as Erik’s love for musicals, gardening and color coordination of clothes. Erik was just too handsome and too perfect of a man for an area of Minnesota that was just not that refined.
Thor had been the black sheep and renegade of the family. He looked like Hulk Hogan and had been a modern day pirate that pillaged. After doing half his adult life in prison, Thor went clean and started his own motorcycle repair shop that also fixed snowmobiles and lawnmowers. It was by no means lucrative but it was steady and that is what Thor wanted. Thor found a woman to settle down with that was covered in tattoos and had three children by three different fathers and was a recovering heroin addict. They were a typical biker family.
It was quiet for a good minute or so after Erik broke the news to his brother and father that he was not only gay but had found his life partner. Thor broke the ice with a little joke.
“We wouldn’t mind meeting him I suppose… Hope he won’t take offense to the fact that I think all Oakland Raider fans are queers.”
Timothy showed up at Easter with Erik. Timothy was equally good looking, masculine and well mannered. Thor and Lars didn’t know what to discuss with Erik and Timothy at first but after awhile, it was like talking to any other men. The fact that they were not demonstrative in front of them or effeminate in anyway, made the whole thing harder to believe. Mom, dad and brother shrugged it off and decided that maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.
Nobody ever thinks that they would out live their children and to stand at a grave site service and subliminally listen to a priest preach the merits of a young man he did not know, was like back ground music to the parent’s deeper thoughts and memories of their son’s life from the cradle to the grave.
A stone’s throw away was a group from Kansas that carried placards that read things like, “thank god for dead soldiers” and “god hates fags”. They yelled over the priest who was saying pleasant things about a young man who was good and had selflessly served his country. The extremist, anti-homosexual, anti-flag, anti-American group claimed to be primitive Baptists. Primitive as in preliterate with physical similarities to humans. Uncivilized, savage, simple and wholly unsophisticated splintered synod of Baptists. Their hateful message was so profound that even other Baptists couldn’t recognize them as being like them.
Thor and his band of biker buddies stood by silently upon Thor’s orders. Thor’s emotions changed from sadness to anger.
The obnoxiously hateful group spewed such vitriol at a moment when as big and strong as he was, Thor was about to break down and cry. Instead, Thor and his band of friends dressed in leather and boots just glared at the idiocy of the moment. Women with high pitched voices yelling over men reciting bible verses who claimed to understand what god hated.
“Most god loving people would agree that the men of Sodom were wicked and sought to break the order of things and destroy the differences between right and wrong. This faggot was punished by god for being a sodomite. He was a faggot and god hates faggots. Genesis 13:13… In the beginning god discussed his disgust with faggots, sodomites, homosexuals.”
Lars balled up his fist and was about to attack the group when Thor stopped his father. Lars was mystified by his older son’s restraint. Thor had always been prone to fisticuffs. If ever a time called for violence, the desecration of a soldier’s funeral called for action. Thor simply whispered calmly in his father’s ear.
“God has a plan for those motherfuckers.”
One of the biker brotherhood was instructed to follow the troop away from the funeral to a motel where they were all registered. It was at about midnight when most people are in their deep REM sleep that Thor and his gang of friends kicked open the doors to their motel rooms and rounded them up. Thor lit a large cigar and took swigs from a bottle of Jack Daniels as he kicked back in a chair with his feet up on the bed. The group of protesters sat cowered together on a double bed while an infomercial on the television loudly made a pitch for a fat hiding girdle like device. Fat people could look thin by wearing what was akin to a girdle without having to exercise. It was nothing new except to those who knew nothing about the Victorian Era. One of the bikers turned off the television so that Thor could be heard clearly.
Thor opened up a dictionary and began to read calmly to all of them the definition of empathy.
“Empathy… If you’re psychotic this means nothing to you and I suspect that to be without of empathy leaves you probably in the psycho camp. You bunch of fucking misfits picked the wrong fucking funeral to show up at… Well then, let’s see… Empathy- is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings such as sadness or happiness by another being… Those unable to recognize this cornerstone in human emotion are devoid of empathy. Meaning that they do not give a fuck about other’s emotions. You motherfuckers are going to learn something about empathy tonight. After tonight, I suspect you will be able to put suffering into the proper perspective.”
Thor and his friends drove through the night from southern Minnesota through Iowa into Kansas so that all those attending the Westboro Baptist Church could see the fruit of god’s labor. Hanging off of every peak around the church was a protestor who was bound by the hands and ankles together with a tennis ball stuffed into their mouths with a duct tape to secure the balls in their mouths. Sticking out of their exposed anuses were rubber chickens. The heads of the rubber chickens were hidden with in the anal cavities. All that was visible of the rubber chickens was a neck and body. A dozen members hung from every peak of the church with their asses exposed with dangling rubber chickens. The, “godhatesamerica.com” banner was removed. In its place was spray paint on the building that read, “God hates haters more than faggots.” It was a sight to behold on the Lord’s day.
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