Thursday, May 14, 2009
The Game of Life
His family used to go to Colorado every year to see relatives. When he was in his early teens he met Jimmy, the kid who lived across the alley, behind his grandparents.
A couple of years younger, the kid across the alley worshiped the young man. The young man was smart, good looking, had an infectious laugh and enjoyed being alive. And those around him, including Jimmy, unconsciously fed off his zest for life. Jimmy's parents were first generation immigrants from Greece. Both parents spoke broken English and over the course of several summer visits also came to like the young man immensely.
After a couple of years they (actually it was the mother) suggested that the young man should meet their daughter, something that the young man was disinclined to do. (He was scared to death of girls!)
But then, in the normal course of events, he finally got a good look at her. And what a stunner! She was gorgeous. And isn't that what gets the engine running? So, tentatively, the young man got to know her, just a little. And he discovered that she was not only pretty, but she also had a great personality, although she could be just a bit arrogant. Talking with her he found that she had her life mapped out and was surely going places. Suddenly the grandparents place became a whole lot more palatable.
After another year or two the young lady's mother suggested that the young man should ask her daughter out (which he wanted to do anyway) and a year later, after thinking about it for about 360 days in the intervening time) he got up the gumption to do so. They were sitting in the family's living room and the young man had a sneaking suspicion that somewhere, other ears were listening.
Anyway, he asked her out.
Her reply stunned him. "I've been reading a book. It talks about a syndrome among men. It's called the 'Peter Pan' syndrome, and Randy, you've got it. No offense, but I'm going places with my life. You, on the other hand, think life is just a big game. You think your charm and good looks will be enough to get you places and it won't. You've got nothing to offer me, Randy. You're never going anywhere." She said it with gay, light laughter that struck the young man to the core of his being.
He walked out of her back door and across the alley in a haze. He had never had anyone attack him so blatantly on a psychological level and it was an entirely new experience. He walked around for over an hour, thinking about what she had said, and in the years to come it was something he never forgot.
She was right about most of it. She was going places. She became a surgeon and by the time she died she was worth over $4 million. Her husband was also a doctor and he accumulated nearly $6 million. They lived in a big house, impressed the neighbors, belonged to all the right clubs, had lots of stuff, and had 4 children who also did well and visited once a year. She got everything that she wanted. Good for her!
He, on the other hand, lived up to her Pete Pan assessment, approaching life as a game. His software gaming company, a name you would recognize, made him more than rich before he was 30. (One of his early, most profitable and popular games, a joint venture with Disney, was all about Peter Pan, the Lost Boys and pirates.) He also loved his not so glamorous wife fiercely, a trait he would have bestowed on any woman he had married. He and his wife, the most beautiful woman he'd ever met (he grew up and realized, as most of us do, that beauty comes from the inside) lived a full, happy life with kids and animals and grandkids everywhere. The family grew up close and none of the kids would have ever envisioned moving more than an hour or two away from mom and dad. They were always visiting the old homestead and rare was the day when at least one kid, grandkid, and eventually great grandkid didn't drop by. There was always something popping around the place.
Randy never lost his zest for life, never stopped laughing and never worried about "things." Life, after all, was just a game. And when he thought back to that day in the parlor, which he actually rarely did, he would have told you that the bright, beautiful, young Greek girl was definitely right about him and definitely not the girl for him. (A fact most people would have agreed with, given her proclivity to be "proper" and "focused," as opposed to his approach towards "real" and "fun.")
His employees loved him, his wife loved him, the kids and grandkids and all the animals loved him, and he was happier than at least 98% of the world's population.
When he died he was worth over $100 million, an estate that could have been much larger if he hadn't given away 4 times that amount over the years to family, friends, employees, community groups and any number of non-profits and other worthwhile causes. But as he looked at the faces of his family, gathered around him as he lay on his deathbed, he knew that it was the people in his life that had made him rich.
Over 3500 of those people showed up to pay their last respects.
You could say of Randy that he had missed out on the Greek girl. But Tinkerbell would have been proud.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Golden
I first noticed her one evening as I walked into O’Tooles. I probably visited O’Tooles’ three or four times a week, so I was a regular and therefore knew she wasn’t. She was sitting on the bus bench out front, next to the curb. I just glanced at her and didn't even realize she'd made an impression on me until I was sitting inside, massaging my first brew for the evening. Then I caught myself remembering that blond hair. "Golden wheat" would be how I’d describe it. I was wondering how that golden wheat would feel if I ran my fingers through it. Beautiful hair.
For some reason, thinking about her sitting out there all alone made me feel guilty. I was unaccountably worried about her for no reason. Go figure. So before I even finished with that first brew, I found myself on my feet, headed for the door.
She was still there. I gulped a couple of times, suddenly realizing that she might interpret the approach of a stranger as antagonistic. Don't most of them react that way? But I swallowed hard, buttressed my ego, and made the approach.
She looked up at me as I came around the bench, smiled, and her eyes said it all. It was like we had known each other forever. We seemed to speak volumes to each other without even opening our mouths. I sat down next to her, and somehow knew we had a future. We spent a while on the bench getting to know each other and it became clear she was everything you'd expect in a "free spirit." And that hair. So golden. I just kept wanting to reach out and touch it.
I sat there thinking someone would come along and claim her or order me away from her, or she’d get up and board the next bus, but for about an hour, all the buses in the world could have passed by and we wouldn’t have noticed. We existed on our own little island.
I don’t know if that sort of thing has ever happened to you. It’s not a ‘maybe’ or a ‘sort of.’ It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience and you’ve either had it or you haven’t. And if you have, man, it’s a knock down show stopper.
I finally decided to take the plunge and asked her to come home with me. What joy I experienced when she agreed.
I can't really explain to you what it was like to run my fingers through her hair. It put me in a place of peace, of calm. My troubles all seemed to disappear. And she loved it whenever I touched her. We were destined to meet, to love and we made each other complete. I have to truthfully state that I have never loved anyone or anything as much as I loved her and have never felt as loved, either. There was no denying that it was total commitment on both our parts.
We’d know what each other was thinking. We’d go for the couch at the same time, for the kitchen, even for the bed. We’d go out for long walks together and spent time traveling. We laughed at funny movies and grew quiet at tear-jerkers. We sought each other’s comfort and gave of ourselves to each other freely.
We spent 14 years together, sharing the good times and the bad. We laughed together and cried together. When I hurt, she hurt and when she hurt, I hurt. We were almost constant companions and friends of the closet kind.
I buried her yesterday. I’ve known grief before and I know this terrible ache will go away with time, to resolve itself into a smaller but gentler pain. But this tears still come for now. God, I will miss her. I know I'll never see or touch or run my fingers through the same beautiful golden wheat ever again. I will miss her bark and her head in my lap and the way she would reach out with her paw to let me know it was time to go out or time to go to bed or time for me to feed her. She was beautiful, and I will miss her.
For some reason, thinking about her sitting out there all alone made me feel guilty. I was unaccountably worried about her for no reason. Go figure. So before I even finished with that first brew, I found myself on my feet, headed for the door.
She was still there. I gulped a couple of times, suddenly realizing that she might interpret the approach of a stranger as antagonistic. Don't most of them react that way? But I swallowed hard, buttressed my ego, and made the approach.
She looked up at me as I came around the bench, smiled, and her eyes said it all. It was like we had known each other forever. We seemed to speak volumes to each other without even opening our mouths. I sat down next to her, and somehow knew we had a future. We spent a while on the bench getting to know each other and it became clear she was everything you'd expect in a "free spirit." And that hair. So golden. I just kept wanting to reach out and touch it.
I sat there thinking someone would come along and claim her or order me away from her, or she’d get up and board the next bus, but for about an hour, all the buses in the world could have passed by and we wouldn’t have noticed. We existed on our own little island.
I don’t know if that sort of thing has ever happened to you. It’s not a ‘maybe’ or a ‘sort of.’ It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience and you’ve either had it or you haven’t. And if you have, man, it’s a knock down show stopper.
I finally decided to take the plunge and asked her to come home with me. What joy I experienced when she agreed.
I can't really explain to you what it was like to run my fingers through her hair. It put me in a place of peace, of calm. My troubles all seemed to disappear. And she loved it whenever I touched her. We were destined to meet, to love and we made each other complete. I have to truthfully state that I have never loved anyone or anything as much as I loved her and have never felt as loved, either. There was no denying that it was total commitment on both our parts.
We’d know what each other was thinking. We’d go for the couch at the same time, for the kitchen, even for the bed. We’d go out for long walks together and spent time traveling. We laughed at funny movies and grew quiet at tear-jerkers. We sought each other’s comfort and gave of ourselves to each other freely.
We spent 14 years together, sharing the good times and the bad. We laughed together and cried together. When I hurt, she hurt and when she hurt, I hurt. We were almost constant companions and friends of the closet kind.
I buried her yesterday. I’ve known grief before and I know this terrible ache will go away with time, to resolve itself into a smaller but gentler pain. But this tears still come for now. God, I will miss her. I know I'll never see or touch or run my fingers through the same beautiful golden wheat ever again. I will miss her bark and her head in my lap and the way she would reach out with her paw to let me know it was time to go out or time to go to bed or time for me to feed her. She was beautiful, and I will miss her.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Dog Days
Manny and Drazil had been married for 42 years. They had had five children (that they rarely saw), 3 grandchildren (so far), 2 Fords, 4 Buicks, 2 Chevy’s, a Plymouth, and cats. Lots of cats. Drazil wouldn’t own a car built by “one of them countries…” and “by-gooly-gawd Manfried, I … ” wouldn’t have a dog. Manny hated cats but loved dogs and his heart had an empty space that only a dog would fill. But Drazil declared, “No dogs!” So no dogs.
They never fought because Manny refused to. They never talked although Drazil never stopped talking. In fact, after 42 years almost the only time Manny ever even got a word in edgewise around the house was when he went into the bathroom and shut the door. Even then, Drazil would just crank it up a notch or two and go right on blathering about what she had given up and how unfair life was and how she should have married Tommy Thompson who made good money selling insurance and how she should have listened to her mother. (Manny also wished she had listened to her mother.)
Somewhere in the middle years Manny had declared independence, if even for just a short time, and took an evening walk. Every night after dinner he would help Drazil clean up the table and do the dishes (he really did love the girl; or at least, used to) and then he would announce, “I guess I’ll go for my walk.” He would then turn for the door and struggle through all the verbal reasons why he was a no-good, lazy, rambling, shiftless… until he made it out the door. “Why, oh mamma? Why?”
At first, Drazil had tried to go with him, telling him she just knew he was planning on cavorting with that Jezebel, the widow Mary Turner down the block. But Manny hit the sidewalk smoking (figuratively, not literally) pretty good for an older lame guy with a cane, and big fat Drazil just couldn’t keep up with him. (He’d almost had a heart attack the week he’d had to speed pace the old lady to get her to stop interfering with his “alone” time. And his bum lag had hurt for a month. But it was worth it. Oh yeah. Worth every ice pack he’d strapped on that killer.) Then she tried to follow him. But he was wise to her and managed to find a couple of good spots to hide. Fact one of them gave him a clear shot into that Jezebels’ Mary Turner’s bedroom and since she never put the curtains down and since she did, in fact, have some mighty interesting habits... oh well, not part of this story. Anyway, night after night after night Drazil would beat him up with words until he got out the door.
Over the years he’d settled on a fairly regular path, walking over across the town’s narrow commercial corridor and down to the end of the nearer of the two jetties. He’d been in the Navy in his free years and loved the sea and some nights he would just stand on the end of the jetty and stare off over the water for long periods. He liked to walk up and down the docks, admiring whatever small ships were tied up in the town’s small harbor. He would usually walk to the end of the farther jetty before turning for home and would thus walk back into the life that he’d never planned and surely didn’t want.
So for more than 20 years Manny had declared his independence and had gone out for his nightly.
As I said, they’d been married for 42 years when it happened. Or didn’t, depending on your point of view.
Thursday night, in May, year of the married, 42, Manny cleaned off the table, helped with the dishes, and announced that he was going out for his nightly. And out he went.
He was usually gone about an hour but occasionally things heated up at the Turner house and he’d be out about an hour and a half. And on very rare occasions, like the night he’d made friends with Rufus, a neighborhood dog, he’d be out for close to two hours. But the May night was different.
Every night as soon as Manny left, Drazil would either call Beatrice Mitchell or Roxanne Bonafuco, both long time friends and fellow … talkers. They’d spend Drazil’s empty air time going on and on about whatever it was their brains had glommed onto for that particular night which was usually nothing.
But that May night, Drazil called both of her buds and used up the air time for each account. After three hours she finally hit a dead spot and actually shut up for the grand sum of 2 whole minutes. Then she realized that Manny had been gone for over 3 hours and she started to get mad. “I’ll sure give him a piece of my mind when he gets home,” she thought, never realizing that she’d already given about 300 times her whole mind over the years. It was just amazing how she could disgorge it.
When 4 hours passed she started to get worried. And when the clock hit the 6 hour mark she got scared and called the “… no account shiftless, overpaid…”cops.
The cops figured Manny was probably laid out somewhere on a neighborhood sidewalk from a heart attack or stroke and they began to canvas the neighborhood. After about an hour of that even the cops began to get concerned and they sent in some detectives. By that time a full fledged search was about to start.
They looked for Manny for two whole days but finally and eventually they found his cane at the end of one of the far jetty. After spending almost four days on the case and having to interact with Drazil for what seemed a couple of years during that 4 day period, the detectives threw up their hands and did the math. Since nobody had located a cadaver in the common areas of the hood, and since Manny didn’t have any funning dealings or strange behavior in his history, they called off the search and officially listed Manny as a Missing Person, probably drowned.
Drazil ended up with a hole in her life that she had to fill so she got a parakeet. She talked to that parakeet for hours and hours but it wasn’t like having a real man to organize. She just really needed to express herself. (After about a week, the parakeet, who didn’t mind the cats but dear god woman SHUT UP! also wanted to express himself. He began earnestly praying to the Parakeet God, “Please, please, PLEASE somebody slip a gun into my cage so I can blow my brains out!”)
So time went on. And after 7 years Drazil was allowed to finally list Manny as officially dead. In due course she filled out all the official paperwork and filed for surviving spouse social security benefits.
Lo and behold, the SSA came back and said, “… recipient currently receiving benefits…” What the…???
Several letters were exchanged and the gist of it was that Manny or somebody who claimed to be Manny, was still receiving benefits. And, “Further, we are sorry to inform you that privacy laws preclude us from informing you of the recipients’ address of record…”
Why that dog! ‘If he … if I find, when I find…”
But she never did find him. And Manny, or whoever, kept his social security benefits and now also had his freedom.
Oh yeah and by the way. Drazil never put it together. Spent too much time depressing that suicidal parakeet. That Jezebel, the widow Mary Turner? Left town about two days after Manny disappeared.
That double dog!
They never fought because Manny refused to. They never talked although Drazil never stopped talking. In fact, after 42 years almost the only time Manny ever even got a word in edgewise around the house was when he went into the bathroom and shut the door. Even then, Drazil would just crank it up a notch or two and go right on blathering about what she had given up and how unfair life was and how she should have married Tommy Thompson who made good money selling insurance and how she should have listened to her mother. (Manny also wished she had listened to her mother.)
Somewhere in the middle years Manny had declared independence, if even for just a short time, and took an evening walk. Every night after dinner he would help Drazil clean up the table and do the dishes (he really did love the girl; or at least, used to) and then he would announce, “I guess I’ll go for my walk.” He would then turn for the door and struggle through all the verbal reasons why he was a no-good, lazy, rambling, shiftless… until he made it out the door. “Why, oh mamma? Why?”
At first, Drazil had tried to go with him, telling him she just knew he was planning on cavorting with that Jezebel, the widow Mary Turner down the block. But Manny hit the sidewalk smoking (figuratively, not literally) pretty good for an older lame guy with a cane, and big fat Drazil just couldn’t keep up with him. (He’d almost had a heart attack the week he’d had to speed pace the old lady to get her to stop interfering with his “alone” time. And his bum lag had hurt for a month. But it was worth it. Oh yeah. Worth every ice pack he’d strapped on that killer.) Then she tried to follow him. But he was wise to her and managed to find a couple of good spots to hide. Fact one of them gave him a clear shot into that Jezebels’ Mary Turner’s bedroom and since she never put the curtains down and since she did, in fact, have some mighty interesting habits... oh well, not part of this story. Anyway, night after night after night Drazil would beat him up with words until he got out the door.
Over the years he’d settled on a fairly regular path, walking over across the town’s narrow commercial corridor and down to the end of the nearer of the two jetties. He’d been in the Navy in his free years and loved the sea and some nights he would just stand on the end of the jetty and stare off over the water for long periods. He liked to walk up and down the docks, admiring whatever small ships were tied up in the town’s small harbor. He would usually walk to the end of the farther jetty before turning for home and would thus walk back into the life that he’d never planned and surely didn’t want.
So for more than 20 years Manny had declared his independence and had gone out for his nightly.
As I said, they’d been married for 42 years when it happened. Or didn’t, depending on your point of view.
Thursday night, in May, year of the married, 42, Manny cleaned off the table, helped with the dishes, and announced that he was going out for his nightly. And out he went.
He was usually gone about an hour but occasionally things heated up at the Turner house and he’d be out about an hour and a half. And on very rare occasions, like the night he’d made friends with Rufus, a neighborhood dog, he’d be out for close to two hours. But the May night was different.
Every night as soon as Manny left, Drazil would either call Beatrice Mitchell or Roxanne Bonafuco, both long time friends and fellow … talkers. They’d spend Drazil’s empty air time going on and on about whatever it was their brains had glommed onto for that particular night which was usually nothing.
But that May night, Drazil called both of her buds and used up the air time for each account. After three hours she finally hit a dead spot and actually shut up for the grand sum of 2 whole minutes. Then she realized that Manny had been gone for over 3 hours and she started to get mad. “I’ll sure give him a piece of my mind when he gets home,” she thought, never realizing that she’d already given about 300 times her whole mind over the years. It was just amazing how she could disgorge it.
When 4 hours passed she started to get worried. And when the clock hit the 6 hour mark she got scared and called the “… no account shiftless, overpaid…”cops.
The cops figured Manny was probably laid out somewhere on a neighborhood sidewalk from a heart attack or stroke and they began to canvas the neighborhood. After about an hour of that even the cops began to get concerned and they sent in some detectives. By that time a full fledged search was about to start.
They looked for Manny for two whole days but finally and eventually they found his cane at the end of one of the far jetty. After spending almost four days on the case and having to interact with Drazil for what seemed a couple of years during that 4 day period, the detectives threw up their hands and did the math. Since nobody had located a cadaver in the common areas of the hood, and since Manny didn’t have any funning dealings or strange behavior in his history, they called off the search and officially listed Manny as a Missing Person, probably drowned.
Drazil ended up with a hole in her life that she had to fill so she got a parakeet. She talked to that parakeet for hours and hours but it wasn’t like having a real man to organize. She just really needed to express herself. (After about a week, the parakeet, who didn’t mind the cats but dear god woman SHUT UP! also wanted to express himself. He began earnestly praying to the Parakeet God, “Please, please, PLEASE somebody slip a gun into my cage so I can blow my brains out!”)
So time went on. And after 7 years Drazil was allowed to finally list Manny as officially dead. In due course she filled out all the official paperwork and filed for surviving spouse social security benefits.
Lo and behold, the SSA came back and said, “… recipient currently receiving benefits…” What the…???
Several letters were exchanged and the gist of it was that Manny or somebody who claimed to be Manny, was still receiving benefits. And, “Further, we are sorry to inform you that privacy laws preclude us from informing you of the recipients’ address of record…”
Why that dog! ‘If he … if I find, when I find…”
But she never did find him. And Manny, or whoever, kept his social security benefits and now also had his freedom.
Oh yeah and by the way. Drazil never put it together. Spent too much time depressing that suicidal parakeet. That Jezebel, the widow Mary Turner? Left town about two days after Manny disappeared.
That double dog!
Thursday, May 7, 2009
F&G Jerome
Although he didn't know it, Jerome had joined Thoreau’s mass of men. You know - the kinds who lead lives of quiet desperation?
His early years have been spent in lively, enjoyable pursuit of his primary goal; to gain Fame and Glory. He couldn’t remember where he’d first heard the phrase (I can, but this is his story, not mine) but he liked it and quickly adopted it as an excellent set of goals. Fame and Glory. What else could anybody ask for?
He first tried putting together a band. It was easy, right? And lots of money and girls? Way kewl! But the band couldn’t even get gigs at the Sheraton lounge. He went solo but didn't have fingers long enough to do well on those sneering guitar strings. He tried piano (fingers again), trumpet (no embouchure), and even the drums (nobody within six blocks liked that idea). He tried to emulate the dancing singers of his time but his size 12 dogs didn't mind real well and besides, his moonwalk looked like a drunken stagger. He joined a couple of school teams but was either too big (gymnastics) too small (football) too quick (golf) or too slow (wrestling).
He tried to excel in school but could only manage a 3.6, pretty acceptable but not Fame and Glory numbers. He tried painting, photography, wood carving, and even pottery. (One of his art teachers asked him if he had tried sports because, well, the art thing just wasn't working.) (Which was funny in a sad sort of way, because one of his coaches had suggested that maybe he should take up art.) He even tried his hand at counted-cross stitching a life-sized heron, which turned out remarkably well (his mother had it framed and proudly hung it on the living room wall) but both his brothers (one older and one younger), and his sister (older and with no goals in life other than to "find a man") ("good luck" was what Jerome usually thought to himself) made so much fun of his "feminine activity" that he finally liberated it from it’s public display spot. He ended up sticking it in the basement behind some boxes of books that his dad had put on top of some old bags of hardened, ready-mix concrete. Nobody was in a rush to break up and move the bags, so he figured nobody would be looking behind them anytime soon. His mother kept asking what happened to her favorite heron, but everybody in the family, including Jerome, pleaded innocence. So while the heron found a new permanent home in the basement, Jerome had to endure his siblings’ femininity comments well into adulthood, a fact that grated him to no end.
By the time Jerome was middle aged he’d turned to inventions. He tried this, he tried that, he tried about six times to get something patented. One was a plastic cut out pasted into a golf tee. Huh? Another was a hose that automatically recoiled itself. (Idea was stolen and the company made millions.) Another was a self closing toilet seat. The prototype almost got his dad.
Maybe his wackiest invention was a simple coffin lined with brass plates that he'd coated in a complicated mixture of chemicals. Jerome claimed the coated brass would preserve a body for millions if not billions of years. It got perhaps the fastest rejection of all of his patents.
Thing was, patent applications weren’t cheap and the mortgage could only go unpaid for so long. So before he was 45 Jerome was broke, childless, divorced, and had generally given up on ever achieving his Fame and Glory. He also discovered that love could hurt worse than anything else. (Big surprise, huh?) And because he couldn't stand seeing his ex-wife every week or so walking around town with whichever new boyfriend she’d picked up (she’d certainly found her fame and glory) he moved back to his hometown and got a cheap room at the local “Y.” The best thing about that was that the Y was less than two blocks away from of his childhood home and he could walk over and take care of his parents whenever he felt the urge, now that they were both getting old and senile. (He could also visit the brass-lined coffin and still not found heron in the basement. But even he'd forgotten they were down there.)
Two days after his mother died (and 3 1/2 years after his father passed away,) he finally took the turn that got him his oh-so-more than five minutes of fame and questionable glory.
He walked over to the old place, turned the key in the lock, and once again entered his past. He spent the day going through what was left of his parents’ possessions. Upon inspection of the basement, he’d been reintroduced to the coffin invention, now full of National Geographics and other incredibly valuable treasures (old toys, an erector set his mother had saved from his youth, some of his sister’s dolls and a two sets of golf clubs.) He’d found the heron thingy behind the still hardening cement and since he surely didn’t want to remind anybody about it, he stuffed it under the padding on the underside of the coffin lid. He’d actually used the spot to hide his Playboys at one time and several of them still held his interest, ragged and dog eared as they were. After a day of thinking about what a waste his life was, he decided it was time to check out. Despondent, discouraged, depressed, Jerome started back to his crummy room at the Y. On his way he walked into the local convenience store and for no known reason, held them up. Jerome's weapon of choice was a comb in his pocket that he told the clerk was a gun.
When the cops showed up Jerome walked out of the store, whipped the black comb out and pointed it at the cops, while at the same time screaming that he was going to “Kill ya all!!” The hail of gunfire put an end to him and the comb. He made it on all the local nightly news reports except one. So much for fame and glory.
The only good part of all the commotion was that the county had identified his parents’ home in the holdup investigation, and his still living siblings were located and informed of the whole shooting thing less than 2 days after the comb became dead. Yes, they already knew about it. But none of them wanted to be embarrassed by association. Nevertheless, his oldest sister finally took the plunge (no telling what was in that house) and showed up in town. After walking through the house she decided it was time to put the brass-lined coffin to good use. At least Jerome finally got a small but apparently long-term return out of one of his inventions.
He was mourned with hardly a pauper’s funeral and was buried in a corner of the County cemetery (Potter’s Field sort of spot) with nothing more than a small block of stone to mark his life.
Name. Born. Died. No F and G there. Interpretation? “Loser!”
Exactly 1,113,751 years later, (give or take a year or two) the Disperiato III landed approximately 200 miles from Jerome's childhood home and favorite convenience store. Of course by then the home and store had long since disappeared, as had all other hints that at one time there was a thriving civilization on the third planet of this backwater solar system located way out here at almost the end of an arm of the galaxy.
The Disperiato III was a Class I survey ship. And that's what they did. The flybys had indicated possible rich deposits of zinc and other metals that the Hortians were desperate for. The survey teams designated the landing site as "Prime" and proceeded to expand their grids from there. They were more than a little startled to receive some sonar scanned echoes from the very first pulses. Yes, they had anticipated metals and were extremely pleased to discover how rich the deposits seemed to be, but they also got pings from archaeological returns that exceeded their wildest expectations. The teams, recognizing the significance of those pings, immediately called for additional assistance.
The geologists had moved on to the rich mineral deposits by the time the true archaeologists arrived. Yet even so, the geologists kept reporting more and more archaeological prospects.
The first archaeological vessel, the Foxton I, following established procedure, set down approximate 200 miles from prime, and interestingly enough (or there wouldn’t be a story) on the very spot where Jerome's favorite bar used to offer up libations. Let the digging began.
Over the course of the first solar cycle, the original dig brought up tremendous amounts of treasures. Each was carefully catalogued, sealed, stored and otherwise prepared for trans-shipment back to the Hortians central system where it would be offloaded to one of the warehouse worlds. Once the artifacts arrived at the warehousing facilities, the scientists studied, cleaned, began re-cataloging, tested and otherwise pontificated on each item. After the mandatory five years, the items were allowed to go the block for auction.
Now as a matter of fact, the Hortians civilization and all of its subcultures, valued archaeological artifacts above all else. Such items had tremendous religious significance, an explanation of which will be avoided here. Suffice it to say, artifacts were gold for both the pocket and the soul.
And thus it was that even today, 700 years later, the single most expensive artifact ever auctioned, cataloged, studied, discussed in universities throughout the known universe, or pondered about by great and not so great minds is the creature discovered packed within a brass lined box, remarkably preserved even after all these cycles. Who were they? What were they, why the brass lined vessel? Was the creature a venerated God, a favorite pet, a famous and important member of their society? This male was definitely somebody important, because of all the burial sites discovered so far, he was the only one who was found to be in such an elaborate, scientifically advanced coffin.
And hanging next to the open, brass-lined box was a portion of a portrait of some sort of exotic flying creature which fine minds agreed generally came from the same time period. In fact, the portrait had been linked to fossils that the archaeologists had discovered. Was the creature the symbol of a great nation? The pet of a ruler? Another God worshiped by others? Were they a pair?
In any case, the artwork itself was considered to be incredibly exquisite and brilliant in its execution. And except for the creature in the brass box, it remains the most expensive artifact ever auctioned throughout the known systems.
Today, the creature, still in its brass lined box, and the exquisite artwork occupy the most prominent places in the most prominent museum in the known universe; located next to each other, these are the two venerated artifacts that we see in the Central Forum of the Universal Imperial Museum. And because of the goodness of Sar Vincent the XXIII, the Central Forum is opened for 12 hours once every 20 years so that the masses can pass through and offer their respects. Both artifacts have been loaned to the museum by the families of the respective owners. Both have been viewed by millions of museum vid visitors each year. Billions of others own holograms, replicas, and other echoes of the two artifacts in their homes, community hallways, and other official public, and not so public structures.
In short, the two items are the most revered and talked about artifacts across more than 900 worlds.
Ya made it, buddy.
His early years have been spent in lively, enjoyable pursuit of his primary goal; to gain Fame and Glory. He couldn’t remember where he’d first heard the phrase (I can, but this is his story, not mine) but he liked it and quickly adopted it as an excellent set of goals. Fame and Glory. What else could anybody ask for?
He first tried putting together a band. It was easy, right? And lots of money and girls? Way kewl! But the band couldn’t even get gigs at the Sheraton lounge. He went solo but didn't have fingers long enough to do well on those sneering guitar strings. He tried piano (fingers again), trumpet (no embouchure), and even the drums (nobody within six blocks liked that idea). He tried to emulate the dancing singers of his time but his size 12 dogs didn't mind real well and besides, his moonwalk looked like a drunken stagger. He joined a couple of school teams but was either too big (gymnastics) too small (football) too quick (golf) or too slow (wrestling).
He tried to excel in school but could only manage a 3.6, pretty acceptable but not Fame and Glory numbers. He tried painting, photography, wood carving, and even pottery. (One of his art teachers asked him if he had tried sports because, well, the art thing just wasn't working.) (Which was funny in a sad sort of way, because one of his coaches had suggested that maybe he should take up art.) He even tried his hand at counted-cross stitching a life-sized heron, which turned out remarkably well (his mother had it framed and proudly hung it on the living room wall) but both his brothers (one older and one younger), and his sister (older and with no goals in life other than to "find a man") ("good luck" was what Jerome usually thought to himself) made so much fun of his "feminine activity" that he finally liberated it from it’s public display spot. He ended up sticking it in the basement behind some boxes of books that his dad had put on top of some old bags of hardened, ready-mix concrete. Nobody was in a rush to break up and move the bags, so he figured nobody would be looking behind them anytime soon. His mother kept asking what happened to her favorite heron, but everybody in the family, including Jerome, pleaded innocence. So while the heron found a new permanent home in the basement, Jerome had to endure his siblings’ femininity comments well into adulthood, a fact that grated him to no end.
By the time Jerome was middle aged he’d turned to inventions. He tried this, he tried that, he tried about six times to get something patented. One was a plastic cut out pasted into a golf tee. Huh? Another was a hose that automatically recoiled itself. (Idea was stolen and the company made millions.) Another was a self closing toilet seat. The prototype almost got his dad.
Maybe his wackiest invention was a simple coffin lined with brass plates that he'd coated in a complicated mixture of chemicals. Jerome claimed the coated brass would preserve a body for millions if not billions of years. It got perhaps the fastest rejection of all of his patents.
Thing was, patent applications weren’t cheap and the mortgage could only go unpaid for so long. So before he was 45 Jerome was broke, childless, divorced, and had generally given up on ever achieving his Fame and Glory. He also discovered that love could hurt worse than anything else. (Big surprise, huh?) And because he couldn't stand seeing his ex-wife every week or so walking around town with whichever new boyfriend she’d picked up (she’d certainly found her fame and glory) he moved back to his hometown and got a cheap room at the local “Y.” The best thing about that was that the Y was less than two blocks away from of his childhood home and he could walk over and take care of his parents whenever he felt the urge, now that they were both getting old and senile. (He could also visit the brass-lined coffin and still not found heron in the basement. But even he'd forgotten they were down there.)
Two days after his mother died (and 3 1/2 years after his father passed away,) he finally took the turn that got him his oh-so-more than five minutes of fame and questionable glory.
He walked over to the old place, turned the key in the lock, and once again entered his past. He spent the day going through what was left of his parents’ possessions. Upon inspection of the basement, he’d been reintroduced to the coffin invention, now full of National Geographics and other incredibly valuable treasures (old toys, an erector set his mother had saved from his youth, some of his sister’s dolls and a two sets of golf clubs.) He’d found the heron thingy behind the still hardening cement and since he surely didn’t want to remind anybody about it, he stuffed it under the padding on the underside of the coffin lid. He’d actually used the spot to hide his Playboys at one time and several of them still held his interest, ragged and dog eared as they were. After a day of thinking about what a waste his life was, he decided it was time to check out. Despondent, discouraged, depressed, Jerome started back to his crummy room at the Y. On his way he walked into the local convenience store and for no known reason, held them up. Jerome's weapon of choice was a comb in his pocket that he told the clerk was a gun.
When the cops showed up Jerome walked out of the store, whipped the black comb out and pointed it at the cops, while at the same time screaming that he was going to “Kill ya all!!” The hail of gunfire put an end to him and the comb. He made it on all the local nightly news reports except one. So much for fame and glory.
The only good part of all the commotion was that the county had identified his parents’ home in the holdup investigation, and his still living siblings were located and informed of the whole shooting thing less than 2 days after the comb became dead. Yes, they already knew about it. But none of them wanted to be embarrassed by association. Nevertheless, his oldest sister finally took the plunge (no telling what was in that house) and showed up in town. After walking through the house she decided it was time to put the brass-lined coffin to good use. At least Jerome finally got a small but apparently long-term return out of one of his inventions.
He was mourned with hardly a pauper’s funeral and was buried in a corner of the County cemetery (Potter’s Field sort of spot) with nothing more than a small block of stone to mark his life.
Name. Born. Died. No F and G there. Interpretation? “Loser!”
Exactly 1,113,751 years later, (give or take a year or two) the Disperiato III landed approximately 200 miles from Jerome's childhood home and favorite convenience store. Of course by then the home and store had long since disappeared, as had all other hints that at one time there was a thriving civilization on the third planet of this backwater solar system located way out here at almost the end of an arm of the galaxy.
The Disperiato III was a Class I survey ship. And that's what they did. The flybys had indicated possible rich deposits of zinc and other metals that the Hortians were desperate for. The survey teams designated the landing site as "Prime" and proceeded to expand their grids from there. They were more than a little startled to receive some sonar scanned echoes from the very first pulses. Yes, they had anticipated metals and were extremely pleased to discover how rich the deposits seemed to be, but they also got pings from archaeological returns that exceeded their wildest expectations. The teams, recognizing the significance of those pings, immediately called for additional assistance.
The geologists had moved on to the rich mineral deposits by the time the true archaeologists arrived. Yet even so, the geologists kept reporting more and more archaeological prospects.
The first archaeological vessel, the Foxton I, following established procedure, set down approximate 200 miles from prime, and interestingly enough (or there wouldn’t be a story) on the very spot where Jerome's favorite bar used to offer up libations. Let the digging began.
Over the course of the first solar cycle, the original dig brought up tremendous amounts of treasures. Each was carefully catalogued, sealed, stored and otherwise prepared for trans-shipment back to the Hortians central system where it would be offloaded to one of the warehouse worlds. Once the artifacts arrived at the warehousing facilities, the scientists studied, cleaned, began re-cataloging, tested and otherwise pontificated on each item. After the mandatory five years, the items were allowed to go the block for auction.
Now as a matter of fact, the Hortians civilization and all of its subcultures, valued archaeological artifacts above all else. Such items had tremendous religious significance, an explanation of which will be avoided here. Suffice it to say, artifacts were gold for both the pocket and the soul.
And thus it was that even today, 700 years later, the single most expensive artifact ever auctioned, cataloged, studied, discussed in universities throughout the known universe, or pondered about by great and not so great minds is the creature discovered packed within a brass lined box, remarkably preserved even after all these cycles. Who were they? What were they, why the brass lined vessel? Was the creature a venerated God, a favorite pet, a famous and important member of their society? This male was definitely somebody important, because of all the burial sites discovered so far, he was the only one who was found to be in such an elaborate, scientifically advanced coffin.
And hanging next to the open, brass-lined box was a portion of a portrait of some sort of exotic flying creature which fine minds agreed generally came from the same time period. In fact, the portrait had been linked to fossils that the archaeologists had discovered. Was the creature the symbol of a great nation? The pet of a ruler? Another God worshiped by others? Were they a pair?
In any case, the artwork itself was considered to be incredibly exquisite and brilliant in its execution. And except for the creature in the brass box, it remains the most expensive artifact ever auctioned throughout the known systems.
Today, the creature, still in its brass lined box, and the exquisite artwork occupy the most prominent places in the most prominent museum in the known universe; located next to each other, these are the two venerated artifacts that we see in the Central Forum of the Universal Imperial Museum. And because of the goodness of Sar Vincent the XXIII, the Central Forum is opened for 12 hours once every 20 years so that the masses can pass through and offer their respects. Both artifacts have been loaned to the museum by the families of the respective owners. Both have been viewed by millions of museum vid visitors each year. Billions of others own holograms, replicas, and other echoes of the two artifacts in their homes, community hallways, and other official public, and not so public structures.
In short, the two items are the most revered and talked about artifacts across more than 900 worlds.
Ya made it, buddy.
Fame and glory, Jerome. Fame and Glory!
Anybody Going Down?
Howell McMorley was mean. He was mean to his employees. He was mean to his wife. He was mean to his kids. He was mean to his neighbors, his friends, his cat, his dogs, and he was even mean to his goldfish. To everybody who knew him he was known as "McMeany."
One of his employees’ sons was in a serious vehicle accident and when notified, the employee rushed out of the office to the hospital. McMeany docked the employee a full day's pay and censured him for failure to request “Leave in Advance.”
One afternoon McMeany’s wife dropped a frying plan and splashed grease all over her arm. She was badly burned and wore a bandage around most of her right arm for about a month. As often as he could, McMeany would reach out, grab her arm, give it a good squeeze, and ask if it still hurt. Between cries of pain and tears, she reported that it did.
When his teenage daughter got her first pimple, McMeany commented to her, "Now you're going to be even uglier." The sad part was, the daughter was actually very pretty.
Anyway, I could go on and on telling you about the mean stuff he did to almost every living thing that crossed his path on a regular basis. Bottom line, he was a cruel individual.
One of his more annoying tricks was known as the Elevator Caper. McMeany owned a small, five-story building. There were four elevators, two in two separate banks. If McMeany got an on an empty elevator and you happened to be trying to catch the same elevator he'd hit the "Close Door" button. Nobody could prove it, but most employees thought he'd secretly had the “Close Door” safety features disabled, because once the button was pushed, the door closed no matter who stuck their arm out to hold. (One employee had the proof of that.).
If McMeany happened to get on an elevator that was already occupied, he immediately punched all the floor buttons that hadn't already been activated.
He was just a jerk.
One Friday McMeany got on an elevator on the fifth floor. It was the end of the workday and the elevator was packed. McMeany forced his way on (even though others had already deferred to the number of people crammed into the car) and proceeded to punch all the buttons. The doors closed amidst a general fluttering though no words were spoken.
Then a funny thing happened.
At the fourth floor, everybody except McMeany unaccountably exited the car, joining a relatively large number of people who were already waiting. And nobody got on.
McMeany, who already had his ready finger over the "Close Door" button, sort of blinked at the migration, and hopefully asked, "Anybody going down?"
His Marketing VP looked him straight in the eye and replied, "Nope. Not as far as you're going."
As McMeany was thinking that one over, the door closed. The elevator proceeded to drop down to the third floor but for some reason the doors didn't open. The car just slid right past the stop. Then the second floor. Again, no stop and no doors. Then one. No stop. Then the first parking garage, and finally the bottom, the second garage. No doors.
And the elevator kept going down, down, down.
McMeany died of a heart attack that day. He might have survived, but when the doors actually did open up about an hour later on three, nobody took the time to call 911. They just all moved to a different car. The cleaning guy finally had to call because he had to clean the elevators every Tuesday and Friday evenings, and the body was in the way.
The body was cremated and returned to Mrs. McMeany. She promptly dumped the ashes in the toilet. Then she did what most people do on a toilet and flush all the filth away together. The urn became a pot for a cactus plant that refused to grow.
McMeany? Last time we checked he was, in a sense, still alive and well (check that… maybe we should change that to “aware,” if maybe not so alive and well) in an elevator that is, we can safely assume, is still going down, and down, and down. Oh yeah. All the buttons are lit. And the screams continue.
One of his employees’ sons was in a serious vehicle accident and when notified, the employee rushed out of the office to the hospital. McMeany docked the employee a full day's pay and censured him for failure to request “Leave in Advance.”
One afternoon McMeany’s wife dropped a frying plan and splashed grease all over her arm. She was badly burned and wore a bandage around most of her right arm for about a month. As often as he could, McMeany would reach out, grab her arm, give it a good squeeze, and ask if it still hurt. Between cries of pain and tears, she reported that it did.
When his teenage daughter got her first pimple, McMeany commented to her, "Now you're going to be even uglier." The sad part was, the daughter was actually very pretty.
Anyway, I could go on and on telling you about the mean stuff he did to almost every living thing that crossed his path on a regular basis. Bottom line, he was a cruel individual.
One of his more annoying tricks was known as the Elevator Caper. McMeany owned a small, five-story building. There were four elevators, two in two separate banks. If McMeany got an on an empty elevator and you happened to be trying to catch the same elevator he'd hit the "Close Door" button. Nobody could prove it, but most employees thought he'd secretly had the “Close Door” safety features disabled, because once the button was pushed, the door closed no matter who stuck their arm out to hold. (One employee had the proof of that.).
If McMeany happened to get on an elevator that was already occupied, he immediately punched all the floor buttons that hadn't already been activated.
He was just a jerk.
One Friday McMeany got on an elevator on the fifth floor. It was the end of the workday and the elevator was packed. McMeany forced his way on (even though others had already deferred to the number of people crammed into the car) and proceeded to punch all the buttons. The doors closed amidst a general fluttering though no words were spoken.
Then a funny thing happened.
At the fourth floor, everybody except McMeany unaccountably exited the car, joining a relatively large number of people who were already waiting. And nobody got on.
McMeany, who already had his ready finger over the "Close Door" button, sort of blinked at the migration, and hopefully asked, "Anybody going down?"
His Marketing VP looked him straight in the eye and replied, "Nope. Not as far as you're going."
As McMeany was thinking that one over, the door closed. The elevator proceeded to drop down to the third floor but for some reason the doors didn't open. The car just slid right past the stop. Then the second floor. Again, no stop and no doors. Then one. No stop. Then the first parking garage, and finally the bottom, the second garage. No doors.
And the elevator kept going down, down, down.
McMeany died of a heart attack that day. He might have survived, but when the doors actually did open up about an hour later on three, nobody took the time to call 911. They just all moved to a different car. The cleaning guy finally had to call because he had to clean the elevators every Tuesday and Friday evenings, and the body was in the way.
The body was cremated and returned to Mrs. McMeany. She promptly dumped the ashes in the toilet. Then she did what most people do on a toilet and flush all the filth away together. The urn became a pot for a cactus plant that refused to grow.
McMeany? Last time we checked he was, in a sense, still alive and well (check that… maybe we should change that to “aware,” if maybe not so alive and well) in an elevator that is, we can safely assume, is still going down, and down, and down. Oh yeah. All the buttons are lit. And the screams continue.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
John Maguire
Bleary eyed was the best description. That, and falling down drunk. John Maguire was lost. Not location lost. Soul lost. He was dirty, smelly, drunk and just an all around general non-contributor to society. The cops on the beat knew John well. He never caused them any trouble, which was exactly how they liked it. But they kept their collective eye on him, just in case. John was sort of like Sung’s Corner Store. Mr. Sung had stepped off the boat from Korea in the midst of the Korean War. He’d found his corner and opened his store. The store, give or take several Sung generations, had been there ever since. Seemed like John Maguire was in the same category. He’d been the drunk in the alley for as long as anybody could remember (except for maybe old man Sung.) The cops left John alone. John left them alone. He was disgusting, but generally harmless.
People looked (a more accurate description might be “averted their eyes”) at John as an unavoidable blight on the landscape; sort of like the empty lot in the middle of the street that served as the neighborhood dump. There, let’s not talk about it, best forgotten.
You walked around John. You tried to avoid his glance because if he noticed you at all his hand would come out. You didn’t want to and you hadn’t but you always felt guilty about not supporting him. After you passed you always had that conflicted, dirty feeling. He was disgusting and made you feel bad. (Some did support John. When you saw that, it made you feel even worse.)
And here’s the sad part. John knew stuff. Not just some stuff. John knew stuff no other human being knew or even suspected. John was an anomaly. Actually, John was the first member of a new species on the taxonomy chart. A new order on the evolutionary scale. One that we might call Homo-utopian. John was the next rung up on that evolutionary ladder. And that was why he drank.
John’s IQ would have been measured at around 225. Fantastically high by most current standards but just average in the new species. When he was 10 he discovered Einstein. By 12 John had pretty much dismissed all of Einstein’s theories. Not on an opinion basis. No, John had disproved Einstein’s theories based on 2 new mathematical disciplines that he developed. (One of them while he was bored in Health class.) Combined with his new cosmological model, John pretty much blew Einstein out of the water. (He flunked Health class. He couldn’t be bothered.) About that time (pun intended) he had an idea about a time machine and started designing it a month before his 13th birthday. By the time John got to be 13 1/2 (notice how kids are “13 1/2” or “going on 5”? Ever hear an adult say, “I’m 37 going on 38”?) his parents had enough of the squiggles and diagrams and reams of wasted paper John had been accumulating during the past four years, including two options for the time machine. John was at school, again ignoring some teacher, when his mom went into his bedroom one day and tossed out every piece of paper she could find. So much for debunking Einstein. (And meeting him.)
John decided to go on to other issues. He decided to try to figure out his mother and so gravitated towards psychology. It took him about 3 weeks to conclude that the psychological arts were mostly smoke and mirrors. His final conclusion about psychology was that psychologists believed that for every action there was an excuse. He also decided (correctly) not to try to figure out mom or, ultimately, any other female of the homosapien species. (I told you he was smart!)
He next tried theoretical chemistry. He quickly discovered several cures for diabetes. How could people not see the answers? He moved on and quickly found out not only how to cure cancer but how to inoculate against it. (He also theorized an additional 37 elements on the periodic chart but that’s another story.) His diabetes and cancer discoveries caused him to do a quick study of patents. Man, were those expensive! So he asked his dad for a loan in order to patent and license his discoveries. (Think of the billions that would have made him.) His dad turned him down and told him to stop spending so much time in the library and cut out wasting all that paper. Did he think money grew on trees? Well, ‘No’. . . but then again. Besides, the librarians had caught him scribbling in some of the library books (he’d been making corrections.) His dad was getting tired of looking at him. “Go outside and play some ball, kid. Why can’t you just be normal?”
He went outside and deciphered dog talk. His own larynx chords would not allow him to duplicate some dog sounds so he went into the garage and made a translator/barker out of an old car battery, a shoebox, a can of nuts and bolts, a bike tire (the inner tube part,) and a fishing pole. He got whacked for that one. The fishing pole was a favorite. Before he got whacked he had categorized most dog conversations into “Happy, Happy, Happy”, “Food”, “Chase the (fill in the blank)” and “Bark!” He also realized that the only real dog-to-dog communicating that went on was nose-to-butt. That didn’t appeal to him but he did enjoy getting all the neighborhood dogs barking about “Happy! Happy! Happy!” Too kewl. And it pissed off the adults.
That was fun for about a week then became boring, especially after the fishing pole got liberated. But the garage proved fascinating. John spent one afternoon developing a fuel source for the family car based on water and pill bugs. (There were a lot of pill bugs in the garage.) The car needed some alterations to make the new fuel work so Saturday morning John started in on the alterations. By the time his dad got to him he had a good portion of stuff that one would normally find attached to the engine lying out on the driveway. He received a real thrashing that time and spent several weeks in his room. (It was summer vacation.)
As you can imagine, John failed at everything. He corrected his teachers, really screwed up the grading curve, knew all the answers, didn’t have time to talk to other 12 or 13 yr olds, and made adults uncomfortable. And had no time for girls. (See later.) You would have thought that somebody would have noticed and they did, but John’s dad was threatened by a smart son so he did everything he could to discourage the boy.
By the time he got out of high school, John was emotionally ruined. Having pretty much the same raging hormones as his classmates didn’t help. Especially hormones with an IQ around 225. (Imagine what those guys could come up with!!!) (Well, then again, maybe you can’t.) The girls were so afraid of his intelligence they didn’t even make fun of him. So no girlfriends. (See earlier) Not even the fat and ugly ones. Talk about a sorry case. (And he could have made them skinny with peaches and cream complexions using just a can of peas and some WD-40.)
John started to drink. He actually started during his Junior year. Like most kids, he wanted to experiment. Like most kids, he had a beer or two. But unlike most kids, he started finishing off the whole six-pack all by himself. By the end of his Senior year he could put away a fifth of Red Rock Wine without much visible affect. He got kicked out of the house two days after he graduated. “Get a job, kid!”
Three days later he hit the big city, found his alley and had been there ever since. Homo-utopian, IQ around 225, filthy clothes, filthy body, mind in a fog. Answers to some of man’s most pressing questions held behind drooping lids, quivering lips and mud caked knees. For 25 years John had free reign to claim every piece of trash in that alley. What a career.
Enter Petey Swenser and crew. Petey was a no-good, no-account, low caste, local hood. His big claim to fame was boosting cars and grabbing purses. He was on the prowl that night and so far the pickings had been slim. He and his three accomplices were getting frustrated after two hours of not finding a single petty crime to commit or defenseless old lady to beat up. Then they turned down John’s alley.
When they exited John’s alley they left the man in flames. John’s cries woke up the locals and the emergency services were called. But he was too badly burned to survive. He died on a gurney in a dingy hospital hallway at the city’s welfare hospital. One of the orderlies who cleaned up afterwards mentioned that things probably turned out for the best. After all, John only had misery and pain mapped out for the rest of his life. “Wasn’t worth nuthin’ anyway! Just another bum.”
Roughly 3,650 years later the next attempt at evolutionary upgrading would occur. All the right factors and all the right choices and all the right flukes would occur and little Jessica Moraine would enter the world. Her IQ would be around 260. More like it. Unlike John, though, Jessica would be very shy and introverted. No one would ever suspect her incredible intelligence without spending a good amount of time getting to know her. Her father was totally taken in by his daughter and she received mountains of love at home. Her mother knew she was special but she also knew that specialty could change Jessica’s life. Mom kept quiet. (Living on the colony on Titan didn’t hurt. The locals were mostly adherents to the Progressive-Reactionary cartelish philosophy.) Jessica also made good choices. She married a man who would become an extremely wealth textiles tycoon. (Not only did silkworms thrive on Titan, Jessica’s husband loved his wife enough to listen to her suggestions and her suggestions usually led to a much-improved bottom line. Which may have accounted for why he loved her so much. Hmmm …) Jessica would bear 7 sons and 2 daughters for her tycoon. (Her hormones worked good, too!) Of those, 3 sons and 1 daughter would also be Homo-utopian. And so Homo sapiens’ domination of the earth - and several other planets and moons - would, finally, begin to wane.
But between John and Jessica humanity would experience billions of tears and immeasurable pain and suffering. Disease, poverty, the ultimate total consumption of fossil fuels, over crowding, wars, widespread crop failures and cannibalism, total racial genocide, and even, in some areas of the southern hemisphere, the total and complete breakdown of society. Man had many black days to travel through before Jessica would appear.
John couldn’t have known. But then again, John wouldn’t have cared.
People looked (a more accurate description might be “averted their eyes”) at John as an unavoidable blight on the landscape; sort of like the empty lot in the middle of the street that served as the neighborhood dump. There, let’s not talk about it, best forgotten.
You walked around John. You tried to avoid his glance because if he noticed you at all his hand would come out. You didn’t want to and you hadn’t but you always felt guilty about not supporting him. After you passed you always had that conflicted, dirty feeling. He was disgusting and made you feel bad. (Some did support John. When you saw that, it made you feel even worse.)
And here’s the sad part. John knew stuff. Not just some stuff. John knew stuff no other human being knew or even suspected. John was an anomaly. Actually, John was the first member of a new species on the taxonomy chart. A new order on the evolutionary scale. One that we might call Homo-utopian. John was the next rung up on that evolutionary ladder. And that was why he drank.
John’s IQ would have been measured at around 225. Fantastically high by most current standards but just average in the new species. When he was 10 he discovered Einstein. By 12 John had pretty much dismissed all of Einstein’s theories. Not on an opinion basis. No, John had disproved Einstein’s theories based on 2 new mathematical disciplines that he developed. (One of them while he was bored in Health class.) Combined with his new cosmological model, John pretty much blew Einstein out of the water. (He flunked Health class. He couldn’t be bothered.) About that time (pun intended) he had an idea about a time machine and started designing it a month before his 13th birthday. By the time John got to be 13 1/2 (notice how kids are “13 1/2” or “going on 5”? Ever hear an adult say, “I’m 37 going on 38”?) his parents had enough of the squiggles and diagrams and reams of wasted paper John had been accumulating during the past four years, including two options for the time machine. John was at school, again ignoring some teacher, when his mom went into his bedroom one day and tossed out every piece of paper she could find. So much for debunking Einstein. (And meeting him.)
John decided to go on to other issues. He decided to try to figure out his mother and so gravitated towards psychology. It took him about 3 weeks to conclude that the psychological arts were mostly smoke and mirrors. His final conclusion about psychology was that psychologists believed that for every action there was an excuse. He also decided (correctly) not to try to figure out mom or, ultimately, any other female of the homosapien species. (I told you he was smart!)
He next tried theoretical chemistry. He quickly discovered several cures for diabetes. How could people not see the answers? He moved on and quickly found out not only how to cure cancer but how to inoculate against it. (He also theorized an additional 37 elements on the periodic chart but that’s another story.) His diabetes and cancer discoveries caused him to do a quick study of patents. Man, were those expensive! So he asked his dad for a loan in order to patent and license his discoveries. (Think of the billions that would have made him.) His dad turned him down and told him to stop spending so much time in the library and cut out wasting all that paper. Did he think money grew on trees? Well, ‘No’. . . but then again. Besides, the librarians had caught him scribbling in some of the library books (he’d been making corrections.) His dad was getting tired of looking at him. “Go outside and play some ball, kid. Why can’t you just be normal?”
He went outside and deciphered dog talk. His own larynx chords would not allow him to duplicate some dog sounds so he went into the garage and made a translator/barker out of an old car battery, a shoebox, a can of nuts and bolts, a bike tire (the inner tube part,) and a fishing pole. He got whacked for that one. The fishing pole was a favorite. Before he got whacked he had categorized most dog conversations into “Happy, Happy, Happy”, “Food”, “Chase the (fill in the blank)” and “Bark!” He also realized that the only real dog-to-dog communicating that went on was nose-to-butt. That didn’t appeal to him but he did enjoy getting all the neighborhood dogs barking about “Happy! Happy! Happy!” Too kewl. And it pissed off the adults.
That was fun for about a week then became boring, especially after the fishing pole got liberated. But the garage proved fascinating. John spent one afternoon developing a fuel source for the family car based on water and pill bugs. (There were a lot of pill bugs in the garage.) The car needed some alterations to make the new fuel work so Saturday morning John started in on the alterations. By the time his dad got to him he had a good portion of stuff that one would normally find attached to the engine lying out on the driveway. He received a real thrashing that time and spent several weeks in his room. (It was summer vacation.)
As you can imagine, John failed at everything. He corrected his teachers, really screwed up the grading curve, knew all the answers, didn’t have time to talk to other 12 or 13 yr olds, and made adults uncomfortable. And had no time for girls. (See later.) You would have thought that somebody would have noticed and they did, but John’s dad was threatened by a smart son so he did everything he could to discourage the boy.
By the time he got out of high school, John was emotionally ruined. Having pretty much the same raging hormones as his classmates didn’t help. Especially hormones with an IQ around 225. (Imagine what those guys could come up with!!!) (Well, then again, maybe you can’t.) The girls were so afraid of his intelligence they didn’t even make fun of him. So no girlfriends. (See earlier) Not even the fat and ugly ones. Talk about a sorry case. (And he could have made them skinny with peaches and cream complexions using just a can of peas and some WD-40.)
John started to drink. He actually started during his Junior year. Like most kids, he wanted to experiment. Like most kids, he had a beer or two. But unlike most kids, he started finishing off the whole six-pack all by himself. By the end of his Senior year he could put away a fifth of Red Rock Wine without much visible affect. He got kicked out of the house two days after he graduated. “Get a job, kid!”
Three days later he hit the big city, found his alley and had been there ever since. Homo-utopian, IQ around 225, filthy clothes, filthy body, mind in a fog. Answers to some of man’s most pressing questions held behind drooping lids, quivering lips and mud caked knees. For 25 years John had free reign to claim every piece of trash in that alley. What a career.
Enter Petey Swenser and crew. Petey was a no-good, no-account, low caste, local hood. His big claim to fame was boosting cars and grabbing purses. He was on the prowl that night and so far the pickings had been slim. He and his three accomplices were getting frustrated after two hours of not finding a single petty crime to commit or defenseless old lady to beat up. Then they turned down John’s alley.
When they exited John’s alley they left the man in flames. John’s cries woke up the locals and the emergency services were called. But he was too badly burned to survive. He died on a gurney in a dingy hospital hallway at the city’s welfare hospital. One of the orderlies who cleaned up afterwards mentioned that things probably turned out for the best. After all, John only had misery and pain mapped out for the rest of his life. “Wasn’t worth nuthin’ anyway! Just another bum.”
Roughly 3,650 years later the next attempt at evolutionary upgrading would occur. All the right factors and all the right choices and all the right flukes would occur and little Jessica Moraine would enter the world. Her IQ would be around 260. More like it. Unlike John, though, Jessica would be very shy and introverted. No one would ever suspect her incredible intelligence without spending a good amount of time getting to know her. Her father was totally taken in by his daughter and she received mountains of love at home. Her mother knew she was special but she also knew that specialty could change Jessica’s life. Mom kept quiet. (Living on the colony on Titan didn’t hurt. The locals were mostly adherents to the Progressive-Reactionary cartelish philosophy.) Jessica also made good choices. She married a man who would become an extremely wealth textiles tycoon. (Not only did silkworms thrive on Titan, Jessica’s husband loved his wife enough to listen to her suggestions and her suggestions usually led to a much-improved bottom line. Which may have accounted for why he loved her so much. Hmmm …) Jessica would bear 7 sons and 2 daughters for her tycoon. (Her hormones worked good, too!) Of those, 3 sons and 1 daughter would also be Homo-utopian. And so Homo sapiens’ domination of the earth - and several other planets and moons - would, finally, begin to wane.
But between John and Jessica humanity would experience billions of tears and immeasurable pain and suffering. Disease, poverty, the ultimate total consumption of fossil fuels, over crowding, wars, widespread crop failures and cannibalism, total racial genocide, and even, in some areas of the southern hemisphere, the total and complete breakdown of society. Man had many black days to travel through before Jessica would appear.
John couldn’t have known. But then again, John wouldn’t have cared.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Carolina Charley-bird
I decided to get up early yesterday and drive over to the wildlife preserve to see if I could get some good shots. I got a new Canon EF500mm f/4L IS USM last Tuesday. (For those of you not into photography, that’s the really big white lens the pro photographers use at sporting events like football games. You see them on the sidelines and in the end zones all the time.) I bought it to get close-ups of wildlife and I decided that it was time to try it out. (It cost me over $5,000 so while I was eager to use it, I was sort of scared too. I mean, which one of us hasn’t imagined, “Oh honey, you know that $5000 lens I just got? Well, I broke it today.”)
I talked Adam into going with me and picked him up at about 4:30. We stopped and got coffee at Micky D’s and hit the reserve about 6:00, just as the sun was coming up. Took about ½ hour to get out to the third platform, the highest overlook platform in the park. The platform has three separate viewing levels with the top one at about 60 feet above the ground. Great viewing site. We set up our tripods and starting looking for shots. By that time there was lots of activity.
We’d been at it a couple of hours and everything was starting to settle down when I saw this real pretty little wren. Adam identified it as the Carolina Wren, the state bird. Since I’d just
moved into the state, it was a new and kind of neat opportunity. I started concentrating on the wren, taking smart shots with a brand new 8GB memory card. The bird was flitting around just at the tree line, no more than about 50 feet back from the platform, while Adam was facing about 180 degrees the other way, looking out over the impoundment for water birds, beavers, muskrats and other water critters.
I’d been watching the wren, which I had named “Carolina Charley-bird,” about 10 minutes when I began to get this notion that something about the bird was wrong. The notion turned into an itch I just couldn’t scratch ... and then I had it. The thing was flying sideways. Oh not all the time, but enough of the time to make you wonder about hummingbirds and bumblebees. Every so often the little thing would just zip and slip sideways. Not turn and fly, but more like, face you and move in a 90 degree sideways direction, without turning. And he kept bumping into things. Branches, leaves, and even once a tree trunk. It was like the thing was either drunk or on drugs. It was the oddest thing…
I finally mentioned it to Adam. He thought I was kidding him but he finally turned around, found the little culprit, and after a minute or two said, “Wow! You’re right! He’s flying sideways.”
And just about then is when it happened. BAM! The little thing flew right into a tree trunk hard enough for us to hear a faint “thunk,” fell about 6 inches to a fairly large limb, bounced off of that and fluttered to the ground.
I stood there debating whether or not I should climb down and render assistance, about 15 seconds probably, when he popped up, took off and flew up about 6 feet to a limb in an adjacent tree. And here’s where it gets really weird.
Carolina Charley sat on this limb just vibrating. In fact, the whole limb (not a big one mind you, but one about the size of my thumb) clear out to the last leaf, was shaking. Not a lot, but enough to notice. Adam and I were both mesmerized by the whole thing. “That’s just nuts!” was Adam’s comment.
Then the thing’s head popped off. Yep, you read it right. Charley-bird’s entire head just flew off. The whole thing reminded me of those military films where a tank gets hit just right and the turret flies up about 30 feet into the air. Straight up. Charley-bird was playing tank turret. We even heard a little “POP!”
The head ended up in the leaves but the body stayed on the limb. Cept now, no vibrating. But you could see into the body with my long lens and Adam had a nice set of binoculars that also showed the inner workings.
That little bird seemed to be made of metal. Looked like gears, wires, chips, and all the rest. The thing was some kind of little robot. Me and Adam started to argue.
“But we gotta go get it. It’s obviously worth something to somebody,” I suggested.
“No way man. You just know we don’t wanna meet whoever owns that thing. Let’s get out of here.”
“Are you nuts? Don’t you want to see into the thing?”
"Man. We’ve already seen too much. That thing belongs to the CIA or NSA or Green Beret or somebody who’s not gonna like us getting involved. I’m otta here dude!”
“Adam? Adam! ADAM!”
But he’d have no part of it. He was packed up and off that platform in record time. “I’ll meet ya at the car in 20 minutes, man. Let’s GO!”
I packed up my gear and walked down to the bottom of the platform. But I couldn’t just walk away. So I stacked the stuff where I could easily see it from the tree line and went adventuring.
The body was easy, even though the whole tree line was different from that angle. Had to shinny up to about the 7 foot level to get that tree to bend over enough to grab the right branch. Wasn’t a very big tree. Charley-bird… well at least Charley-bird’s body, was still hanging on to that branch pretty tight but I managed to pry open the little toes and pull him off without doing any discernible damage. Little toes were metal and yep, all of the innards were not God’s creation, unless vicariously.
The head took a little longer to locate only because of all the leaves. But I found it about 8 feet from where I started looking. By the time I got back to my gear my 20 minutes was up. But hey! I had the car keys so no problem.
I walked out towards the parking lot and met Adam, coming back at me, about 10 minutes away from the cars.
“Come ON man. You LOOKING for trouble? Let’s GO!”
“OK, OK. Hold your shorties on for crying out loud.”
We tossed all of our gear into the trunk, willy-nilly, me with two parts of Carolina Charley-bird in a green lens backpack, thinking of all the money I was going to make. I was figuring on holding him for ransom.
The reserve overlook tower is about 7 miles down a dead end road, along a short spit of land. Don’t get me wrong. The road wasn't there just for the reserve. In fact, there were lots of houses, several access roads to the water and even a couple of businesses along the way but that road was the only way in or out of the reserve and the surrounding country. We’d made it about ¾ of the way back to the main road when we got stopped. A state police car was actually parked diagonally across the narrow road. We rolled up to the cruiser, slowed, stopped and were ordered, by loudspeaker, “Out of the vehicle!” Not sure what she’d been told but she got us out, spread eagled on the ground, then handcuffed us and sat us up, leaning against my car, in about 2 minutes. Then she went back to her cruiser and just sat there, driver’s door open, watching us. Never asked for my “driver’s license, registration and proof of insurance,” like you see on COPS all the time. Just, “OUT! FACE DOWN! HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK! Sit Up. SHUT UP! STAY!” Maybe nobody had told her about Miranda or the Supreme Court. Anyway, good Cop, bad dogs. "STAY!" I noticed she was sorta hot, in a female cop kind of way.
We sat there for about 20 minutes while she turned away incoming traffic. She wouldn’t even talk to us.
The helicopter landed pretty close. All black, no numbers. Short little squat-bug of a copter.
Two guys got out. Camo outfits but without any patches, badges or insignia. Just vanilla camo. And of course, the sunglasses. Probably worth as much as the chopper. One of the vanilla sunglass wearers walks right up to me, leans down into my personal space, and says, “Where is it?”
For about a nanosecond I thought about playing dumb. But then the enormity of the situation hit me. “Trunk, green backpack.” I told him where the trunk popper was, next to the driver seat. He popped the trunk and dragged out the backpack.
“Got it.”
Then he opened up every bag in the trunk, popped the memory stick out of every camera, including Adam’s gear (which I will replace!) and stuffed them in his shirt pocket.
"Hey man! You can't so that!" I was sure I had some rights to my own gear.
He just walked over, bent into my space again and said, "Wanna bet?" All I could see were those big black sunglasses. Nothing in there, just a long deep black.
That was all. Go ahead. Call me a weeny. But you weren't there. The arguing ceased.
He generally shifted all the trunk occupants to make sure that everything had been searched. While sunglasses One was doing that, sunglasses Two was doing a pretty good pat-down search of me and Adam.
“Ouch! Not so hard, man,” said Adam, squirming just a little from the abuse.
“Just want you boys to get the message.”
Even made us take off our shoes and dump them out. Nothing. Cept some bad smells. Then the socks and a look at the bottom of our feet. (There are some jobs I just wouldn't want.)
And then they were gone. Poof. Never existed. (Bye bye black helicopter with no numbers and vanilla camo sunglasses guys.)
The Smoky Bear waited in her car until she got a radio call. Took about 10 minutes. Then she came over, stood us both up, un-cuffed us and turned us around.
“You boys don’t want no more of that kind of trouble now, do you?”
“No ma’am.” “No sir, er … ma’am. No officer.”
“Have a nice day, now. Ya hear?” Back to the cruiser, back down the road. Goodbye sorta hot Smoky Bear. Free at last. (Maybe I could exceed the speed limit on my way out of here and meet her again. Get her phone number?)
“You dumb ass. I told ya there’d be trouble!” Adam was not a happy camper. He grumped all the way home, imaging all sorts of more dire consequences. I did not speed.
So today my question is, what should I do with the memory card that I had in the camera? Not the one that I’d stuffed in there while I was walking back to the cars. But the one with all the pictures of old Charlie-bird flitting around. The one that for some reason I’d put back in the plastic case and left under a particular rock on my little sojourn out of the valley of tank turret popping? The one with all the shots I took of Charley-bird flitting sideways. And down the little suckers open neck. And up into the little sucker’s head. The one with very clear shots of all that hardware and the great cosmetics on that little bird. What to do, what to do?
I did notice that it seemed that a lot of birds were paying particular attention to me this morning when I took the dogs out. Right now I’m in the basement with the curtains on all the little windows closed. And I’m wondering. Birds ... and what else?
I talked Adam into going with me and picked him up at about 4:30. We stopped and got coffee at Micky D’s and hit the reserve about 6:00, just as the sun was coming up. Took about ½ hour to get out to the third platform, the highest overlook platform in the park. The platform has three separate viewing levels with the top one at about 60 feet above the ground. Great viewing site. We set up our tripods and starting looking for shots. By that time there was lots of activity.
We’d been at it a couple of hours and everything was starting to settle down when I saw this real pretty little wren. Adam identified it as the Carolina Wren, the state bird. Since I’d just
moved into the state, it was a new and kind of neat opportunity. I started concentrating on the wren, taking smart shots with a brand new 8GB memory card. The bird was flitting around just at the tree line, no more than about 50 feet back from the platform, while Adam was facing about 180 degrees the other way, looking out over the impoundment for water birds, beavers, muskrats and other water critters.I’d been watching the wren, which I had named “Carolina Charley-bird,” about 10 minutes when I began to get this notion that something about the bird was wrong. The notion turned into an itch I just couldn’t scratch ... and then I had it. The thing was flying sideways. Oh not all the time, but enough of the time to make you wonder about hummingbirds and bumblebees. Every so often the little thing would just zip and slip sideways. Not turn and fly, but more like, face you and move in a 90 degree sideways direction, without turning. And he kept bumping into things. Branches, leaves, and even once a tree trunk. It was like the thing was either drunk or on drugs. It was the oddest thing…
I finally mentioned it to Adam. He thought I was kidding him but he finally turned around, found the little culprit, and after a minute or two said, “Wow! You’re right! He’s flying sideways.”
And just about then is when it happened. BAM! The little thing flew right into a tree trunk hard enough for us to hear a faint “thunk,” fell about 6 inches to a fairly large limb, bounced off of that and fluttered to the ground.
I stood there debating whether or not I should climb down and render assistance, about 15 seconds probably, when he popped up, took off and flew up about 6 feet to a limb in an adjacent tree. And here’s where it gets really weird.
Carolina Charley sat on this limb just vibrating. In fact, the whole limb (not a big one mind you, but one about the size of my thumb) clear out to the last leaf, was shaking. Not a lot, but enough to notice. Adam and I were both mesmerized by the whole thing. “That’s just nuts!” was Adam’s comment.
Then the thing’s head popped off. Yep, you read it right. Charley-bird’s entire head just flew off. The whole thing reminded me of those military films where a tank gets hit just right and the turret flies up about 30 feet into the air. Straight up. Charley-bird was playing tank turret. We even heard a little “POP!”
The head ended up in the leaves but the body stayed on the limb. Cept now, no vibrating. But you could see into the body with my long lens and Adam had a nice set of binoculars that also showed the inner workings.
That little bird seemed to be made of metal. Looked like gears, wires, chips, and all the rest. The thing was some kind of little robot. Me and Adam started to argue.
“But we gotta go get it. It’s obviously worth something to somebody,” I suggested.
“No way man. You just know we don’t wanna meet whoever owns that thing. Let’s get out of here.”
“Are you nuts? Don’t you want to see into the thing?”
"Man. We’ve already seen too much. That thing belongs to the CIA or NSA or Green Beret or somebody who’s not gonna like us getting involved. I’m otta here dude!”
“Adam? Adam! ADAM!”
But he’d have no part of it. He was packed up and off that platform in record time. “I’ll meet ya at the car in 20 minutes, man. Let’s GO!”
I packed up my gear and walked down to the bottom of the platform. But I couldn’t just walk away. So I stacked the stuff where I could easily see it from the tree line and went adventuring.
The body was easy, even though the whole tree line was different from that angle. Had to shinny up to about the 7 foot level to get that tree to bend over enough to grab the right branch. Wasn’t a very big tree. Charley-bird… well at least Charley-bird’s body, was still hanging on to that branch pretty tight but I managed to pry open the little toes and pull him off without doing any discernible damage. Little toes were metal and yep, all of the innards were not God’s creation, unless vicariously.
The head took a little longer to locate only because of all the leaves. But I found it about 8 feet from where I started looking. By the time I got back to my gear my 20 minutes was up. But hey! I had the car keys so no problem.
I walked out towards the parking lot and met Adam, coming back at me, about 10 minutes away from the cars.
“Come ON man. You LOOKING for trouble? Let’s GO!”
“OK, OK. Hold your shorties on for crying out loud.”
We tossed all of our gear into the trunk, willy-nilly, me with two parts of Carolina Charley-bird in a green lens backpack, thinking of all the money I was going to make. I was figuring on holding him for ransom.
The reserve overlook tower is about 7 miles down a dead end road, along a short spit of land. Don’t get me wrong. The road wasn't there just for the reserve. In fact, there were lots of houses, several access roads to the water and even a couple of businesses along the way but that road was the only way in or out of the reserve and the surrounding country. We’d made it about ¾ of the way back to the main road when we got stopped. A state police car was actually parked diagonally across the narrow road. We rolled up to the cruiser, slowed, stopped and were ordered, by loudspeaker, “Out of the vehicle!” Not sure what she’d been told but she got us out, spread eagled on the ground, then handcuffed us and sat us up, leaning against my car, in about 2 minutes. Then she went back to her cruiser and just sat there, driver’s door open, watching us. Never asked for my “driver’s license, registration and proof of insurance,” like you see on COPS all the time. Just, “OUT! FACE DOWN! HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK! Sit Up. SHUT UP! STAY!” Maybe nobody had told her about Miranda or the Supreme Court. Anyway, good Cop, bad dogs. "STAY!" I noticed she was sorta hot, in a female cop kind of way.
We sat there for about 20 minutes while she turned away incoming traffic. She wouldn’t even talk to us.
The helicopter landed pretty close. All black, no numbers. Short little squat-bug of a copter.
Two guys got out. Camo outfits but without any patches, badges or insignia. Just vanilla camo. And of course, the sunglasses. Probably worth as much as the chopper. One of the vanilla sunglass wearers walks right up to me, leans down into my personal space, and says, “Where is it?”
For about a nanosecond I thought about playing dumb. But then the enormity of the situation hit me. “Trunk, green backpack.” I told him where the trunk popper was, next to the driver seat. He popped the trunk and dragged out the backpack.
“Got it.”
Then he opened up every bag in the trunk, popped the memory stick out of every camera, including Adam’s gear (which I will replace!) and stuffed them in his shirt pocket.
"Hey man! You can't so that!" I was sure I had some rights to my own gear.
He just walked over, bent into my space again and said, "Wanna bet?" All I could see were those big black sunglasses. Nothing in there, just a long deep black.
That was all. Go ahead. Call me a weeny. But you weren't there. The arguing ceased.
He generally shifted all the trunk occupants to make sure that everything had been searched. While sunglasses One was doing that, sunglasses Two was doing a pretty good pat-down search of me and Adam.
“Ouch! Not so hard, man,” said Adam, squirming just a little from the abuse.
“Just want you boys to get the message.”
Even made us take off our shoes and dump them out. Nothing. Cept some bad smells. Then the socks and a look at the bottom of our feet. (There are some jobs I just wouldn't want.)
And then they were gone. Poof. Never existed. (Bye bye black helicopter with no numbers and vanilla camo sunglasses guys.)
The Smoky Bear waited in her car until she got a radio call. Took about 10 minutes. Then she came over, stood us both up, un-cuffed us and turned us around.
“You boys don’t want no more of that kind of trouble now, do you?”
“No ma’am.” “No sir, er … ma’am. No officer.”
“Have a nice day, now. Ya hear?” Back to the cruiser, back down the road. Goodbye sorta hot Smoky Bear. Free at last. (Maybe I could exceed the speed limit on my way out of here and meet her again. Get her phone number?)
“You dumb ass. I told ya there’d be trouble!” Adam was not a happy camper. He grumped all the way home, imaging all sorts of more dire consequences. I did not speed.
So today my question is, what should I do with the memory card that I had in the camera? Not the one that I’d stuffed in there while I was walking back to the cars. But the one with all the pictures of old Charlie-bird flitting around. The one that for some reason I’d put back in the plastic case and left under a particular rock on my little sojourn out of the valley of tank turret popping? The one with all the shots I took of Charley-bird flitting sideways. And down the little suckers open neck. And up into the little sucker’s head. The one with very clear shots of all that hardware and the great cosmetics on that little bird. What to do, what to do?
I did notice that it seemed that a lot of birds were paying particular attention to me this morning when I took the dogs out. Right now I’m in the basement with the curtains on all the little windows closed. And I’m wondering. Birds ... and what else?
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