The Old Huancayo Theater

2009-08-24T16:03:00.001-07:00

The old Huancayo theater house, where the dance (Marinera) was to be held was, in Ximena H’s day, and surely is now, a dreary enough place. Perhaps the most unsightly building on that long narrow stretch of road between the Plaza de Arms in downtown Huancayo, and all the way to the old theater house itself. It often appeared to me when I rode by it—those several years—it was always uninhabited and it stared back at me with its curtain-less windows—that looked like pale to dead, dried up eyes.
The building had been purchased by a private university in the city. The second floor, and only floor, of my recollection that the building had, reached out to its stairway, no outside balconies about; it served as an entry way to look down upon the theater—it was a bulky built looking building, larger looking outside than it was actually inside.
Outside, a place of small to large business: a car dealer up the block, some shops painted others unpainted, and a mass of chicken cafés along the roadside, a fruit juice store, framed houses, shops, inhabited by men and women, long serving the community—all open to the fall rain storms.
All summer long it seemed to me, it remained a quiet sleepy place, perchance because it is a distance away from the inner core of the city, some ten-block away from the Shulcas River, although within the city limits.
On special days (and occasions) however, the doors are ready to be opened, and such parties come waiting, and standing in long lines alongside the roadside all the way down to those chicken cafes, all the way up to the door’s entrance, waiting for the guard to open those long closed doors. And there is the screaming of the city’s children, the laughter of parents, and the old rustic, hoarse voices of the elder and grandparents, chewing the fat, chitchatting the evening away with old friends, waiting for the evening events to start. And then afterwards, after the events are over, the once empty and clean floors, reside with the many empty cans and candy wrappers, and bits and pieces of paper left on the floor, that if not cleaned up would remain rotting at the base of the building.
Those events bring life to the building, a little life to the community.
The night Ximena H. danced the Marinera, an adventurous girl of fourteen-years old, daughter to a restaurant owner, I went to walk down those lively isles, it seemed quite clean, it all had a mellow warmth to the many voices crisscrossing the theater, and the dancers touched the audience with their delightful colors and movements—like the wind at twilight. The eyes of the audience moved back and forth as the dancers danced, it all sent a thrill to the audience.

No: 453; 8-21-2009 (SA); Dedicated to Ximena H.

Note to the reader: To those who have spent time at this theater, may not agree with my picture in writing of it, but it is how I see it, and we all have our own versions on how we see and depict things, even the gospels, in the New Testament can verify this. Thus, take no offence, none t was meant.

The Stranger’s Story

2009-08-24T16:01:00.000-07:00

(A Huancayo Chicken Franchise)

Part One
The Stranger

Federico Cristobal Palacios, he looked persistently interested in something, exactly what he didn’t say, and no one exactly asked him what he was doing there, having nothing to do with the charge of the large chicken franchise. He sat down by the time card, near the office, in the back of the largest chicken café in Huancayo, Peru. The weather outside was damp, it had been raining, the October rains had started, and had you asked him, by the look on his face, it didn’t seem to interest him anymore than the women bringing up chicken to the a certain other woman who was doing the checking of the chickens, the woman had a cigarette in her mouth. “I think,” she said to the young lady with a rotting and green looking chicken, “we’ll use this one for chicken soup, chop it up,” she demanded.
The law was something—so it appeared—outside of her mind, not fearful of it one iota, and the look on her face told Federico, had an inspector asked her who allowed this chicken to be put into soup for public consumption, she’d decline to have anything to do with the order. She kept that cigarette in her mouth without smoking it all during Federico’s deliberation of this, or perhaps it was more like contemplation.
This is the sort of thing I mean he was seeing—one person after the other came to this section, some eating chicken, then having it inspected, then putting it into the soup, or re-cooked, or used for other plates to be served to the public.
In a way it wasn’t all that puzzling to him, just pay the judge or the inspector or the police officer a small sum of money, and they’d look the other way, such things happened in Huancayo everyday on a regular bases, the bribing was cheaper than fixing the problem, and heck, no one went to jail. And if anyone died because of the rotting and rat bitten meat, no one talked about it, and if they did it was forgotten the next day.
Anyhow, the man’s name was Freddy Sali, and he had come near the stranger, he might once have been a sheep herder or something of the sort in the near by Los Andes, in the Mantaro Valley, there was a peculiar abstract air about him. About himself and his past, he wore a dark suite, and a pin to that, a golden pin, and a nice tie, short trimmed hair, perchance, in his late forties.
“If you sit over there, by those other fellows you’ll have a better chance in getting a job,” Freddy told the stranger, in a hurry. What was not known was he had not come there for a job. As to his story, Freddy didn’t ask, and the stranger didn’t say. He knew anyhow, the stranger that is, knew, the devil was there—it doesn’t matter then—men can’t tell the truth in that direction, so let it go.
To be a little more indefinite about this stranger, he got up and walked over to that place Freddy pointed to, and a dozen men were sitting at, waiting. Freddy was there with a few other fellows, handing out cards, brown thin cards, cards like perhaps a traveling agent might give. Freddy had been some sort of a small official, he had given one man two cards, then took one back, gave it to Federico. Then walked away, next, the man who Freddy had give the two cards to, and had taken one back leaned over the shoulder of Federico and his chair, and grabbed it from Federico, said, “It belongs to my friend,” which it would have seemed, his friend had disappeared, if indeed there was such a friend, perhaps he wanted to sell it. It was in his blood, Federico knew, and then the stranger in front of him asked, “You got a license to drive a truck?”
“Yes,” said Federico, looked at this frugal man and after a short time said, “I wonder if that robber, who took the card from my hand ever pays taxes?”
It was just an off the wall statement, nothing more –the man was strong and well-built, but now grew thin and nervous. Yet he carried himself well with a sort of dark air surrounding him. He had something that appealed strongly to men, a roughness, a seedy kind of roughness, trying to get, or have it creep out of Federico, who he was, and what was he doing there. You know how such things are done. You say such and such, and expect the other person to tell you what you want to know, if indeed you are willing to talk things over with a stranger, but Federico wasn’t willing, and this annoyed the other man. And he grew angry and tramped off to the bathroom hoping Federico would disappear before he got back.
The other men talked and talked after that, and life in the chicken hiring area of the franchise, had been jaded somewhat, and grew habitually more silent, and when Federico was silent, the other men become evermore silent. Prior to this, they had all talked for two hours and then someone waved from an open door, only Federico noticed it, he picked up his few belongings, his hat, and newspaper and walked to the opened door.

Part Two
The Stranger’s Story

He had come in from out of the October rains. You see at first everyone who saw him thought he had something to do with something at the Chicken Franchise. Some were even convinced he was, more than what he was, perhaps the tax man, or law, or a judge—whose to say, just because he sat there silent most of the morning, breathing in that chicken air of indifference, everyone began wanting to do something for him, or find out something about him. Word of mouth among the folks there, which came in confusion, also came in whispers and murmurs, likened on a crazy little stage, no one broke out into cheers, but most wanted to make sure he was not the law, for one reason or the other, to stay clear of the law.
To him, to Federico Cristobal Palacios, the door was open to the side of the chicken franchise, and thus, this was simply a location among many he saw, one might go to avoid the rain, as he had done. For him, there was nothing important in life to talk over with strangers, he was sixty-one years old, looked perhaps like fifty, looking for work, and while he sat there he saw a good deal of how people in the city –some with glasses others without glasses turned a cheek, when it came to their needs and wants, perhaps when they got home they complained to their wives of the dirty, rotting chickens they were serving: had they got the job, surely they said nothing, or if something, perhaps on the order of something more casual, less brutal for the company.

As Federico, arrived at the door, he hugged his wife, happily, she had been looking for him, “I have dear a very small amount of money on me left (she had done some shopping), barely enough to buy a meal for me, I feel miserable poor,” she said, adding, “I’m hungry, why not eat some chicken at this franchise?”
“No…no, never—we can’t eat here!” he said. She looked at him surprised, knowing she’d be unable to break his resistance.
“I had stopped to simply get out of the rain, and oh well, it’s a long story, and unbelievable, let’s go to the Mia Mamma, they have some great choices, like the Denver Sandwich, or Irish Soup, and you can be sure nothing looks or tastes, or is, like dirty lace curtains.
And so they stood there for a moment, near this peculiar grey greasy chicken building waiting for the taxi, cold and cheerless.

No: 454 /8-24-2009 (from a dream) Note: I love the city of Huancayo, Peru, and its people, but there are a few problems here, and why avid them, and this story that came out of a dream, kind of spells out some of it, like it or not, and I’m sure a few folks will not like it… corruption in this city starts from the top, and goes to the very bottom, and that goes for El Tambo as well…!

To Have; --and Never Have Had (a dramatic-romance, short story)

2009-08-21T13:12:00.000-07:00

To Have; --and Never Have Had

Part I

((A dramatic- romance) (a story that transcends all generations, which all generations can identify with))

“You have to ask yourself this question, some time in your life,” she told her husband in a letter, in rhyme: “For one crowded season of madness in one wonderful life—is it worth growing old without your loving wife?”’

Georgette Wes

Part One, Chapter One
The Apartment

“Fine,” Gordon Wes said to his wife, Georgette.
“I hear you have been seeing a few women at the American Hotel, NCO Club again,” she said. “And don’t deny it, more than one person told me they saw you with your hands around a young military nurse.”
“So what about it?” he asked.
“What about it, what you think, I should think about it?” she answered.
“And I heard you’ve been seeing that Command Sergeant Major, that fat, ugly drunken slob.”
“You didn’t see it, nobody saw us that you know of.”
“Where have you been, at the club again?”
“Yes,” he said. “So you guessed right, so you know.”
“Stay away from me you reek of booze,” she remarked. “And yes, I was sitting and talking to a friend.”
“Did you kiss him?” he asked.
“No.”
“Did he kiss you?” he asked.
“No, he was that young corporal, Chick Evens, the one I told you about, that I met two months ago at the military commissary and he borrowed me his ration card, and I bought you some booze and cigarettes with it, and some other food items.”
“You bitch!” he called her.
“No need to call me names.” She commented.
“Bitch, bitch…you’re a super bitch!”
“Okay,” she remarked. “Let’s just call it quits, I mean really quits, it’s over between us. I’ve been a good and faithful wife, always taking care of you, but somehow since you’ve come to Germany, left our home and friends in Columbus, Ohio, you’ve become a real jerk; if men have menopause, I think you’re into it.”
“No,” he said, “I’m jut tired to be a husband, you’re selfish and conceited and always complaining. Evidently I made you happy up to now.”
“Well, that may have been true, but you no longer make me happy, and it’s been getting worse these last two months.”
“Whose fault is that, your seeing that CSM, and Corporal.”
“Didn’t I ask you for more of your time, but you just don’t give it to me. You can afford to give it to everybody else, the college classes you teach, the nurses you meet and drink with, and the sergeants at the NCO club.”
“To be honest, I’m sick of you, I’m even to the point, and I dislike you.”
“Oh leave that young corporal out of it. You coming home smelling of perfume and having lipstick stains on your ear and neck is too much.”
“I know you’ve kissed that drunken slop of a—whatever kind of sergeant he is.”
“No, I have not, not yet, but had I known what I know now, I might have. All I do at night is waiting, and wait and wait for you. As you drink and visit your bar friends for hours, and stay for hours, tonight Corporal Evens brought me home from the commissary, to insure I did not get hurt.”
“Oh, Evens, is it?”
“Yes and no, it is Evens who is my friend, and Command Sergeant Major, Mulligan whom I’m attracted to.”
“And what’s his first name?”
“Alfonzo.”
“Spell it?”
“Not sure if I can,” she said, and laughed.
“All right,” he commented.
“All right nothing,” she said, adding, “You don’t understand, it is all over as of tonight—period!”
“So be it!”
“You bet it is!”
“Don’t be so theatrical, dear!”
“No, I am not over-the-top, as you fellows say, I am to the point. And I’m not saying it again.”
“So what’s next, what are you going to do?”
“That’s a good question, I’m not sure yet, it’s all happening so suddenly I suppose, perhaps if Alfonzo asks me to marry him, I will.”
“I doubt that!” said Gordon heatedly.
“That’ll be up to me, not you.” She stated, firmly.
“Marry you, I doubt he’d even come close to asking, he just wants to take you to bed, throw you in the sack and then move on.”
“How wrong you are, he’s already asked me!”
“You women have things all set up, long before you break the news.”
Gordon Wes, had run empty, he didn’t have another word to say, actually somewhat lost for words, it was all too much for him to digest—everything he heard, she said, overheated him, his voice now coming from some empty abyss deep down, “To mar-ry hi…m, haw ww!”
“Why not?” She responded, “He loves me, wants to spend time with me, he makes enough money to support me also.”
“Well, for now you’re married to me!”
“You call this a marriage? The love you offer is the greatest sin and burden a man can place upon a wife. The love you have given me recently is a quick explosion into wonderland—a place you have never taken me, nor could and a humorous smile as you walk away conceited with thinking you did a charitable thing.” Then she thought about what she said, Gordon silent, “I shouldn’t have said that, I guess I really do not know what is and is not good love making, you could be great for all I know, I’m just angry, and mad because you call Alfonzo a zero, a drunk and he maybe all those things, but he is loving and kind, something you are not. You should teach ethics, it would do you better.”
“No.” that was all he could say.
“Go be with all your women, I don’t care anymore. Let them think you are wonderful.”
They both looked sad, angry faces, her pretty still, and him, handsome still, both swollen flesh.
“I can see you don’t love me anymore,” commented Georgette.
“It’s over used word for too many things, too many emotions, pretenses, I’m starting to hate, to love.”
“Hell with it,” he said, then punched her in the ribs, and she fell to the floor, she was crying, not out of anger, but pain, real pain, her face, facedown on the floor.
“By god, why did you think you had to do that?”
“It’s been settling deep inside me for a long time, I just had to, needed to you might say.”

Gordon’s wife, Georgette, now, sat silent at the kitchen table, her hands hanging down along her sides; she had been drained, weakened to the point of exhaustion, Gordon Wes, looked at the clock, felt his heart, both ticking away, everything was too quiet, his wife just staring at the wall, not looking at him, or talking to him, then after a long while, her husband said without looking at her, pacing in circles in the living room, “I’m sorry it happened. But perhaps you’re right, it’s really over.”
“It hasn’t always been like this, but for some odd reason, it has ever since we came to Augsburg, Germany; ever since you started teaching these three locations and you and I being separated as often as we have been.”
“Yes, I suppose it has been like that.” Gordon concurred. “I’m really sorry I hit you!”
“Oh, that’s no big thing,” Georgette replied in a very tired and worn-out voice, adding, “I just want to leave as soon as I can, and I’ll need the two big suitcases if you don’t mind, and half of what is in the bank?”
“Listen, stay the night, leave tomorrow sometime.”
“No, I got to do it now, right now, I have a place to go, don’t worry about me, you never do anyhow, anymore!”
“Hell with it, do whatever you want!”
“Gosh Almighty, I wish it had never come to this, I wish you had never hit me, but you did. It’s all unfixable now. And I wish I hadn’t said all I said, but I did, and that also is unfixable.”
“No, nothing is over like that, it started long ago, we are just now reaping the effects.”
“Oh hell with it all, and the hell with you,” said Gordon vehemently. And his wife started to cry.
“Well, let’s just say our goodbyes, no sense in being sour about it all, oh, I know you don’t want it to be over, and I don’t want it to be over, but it is over, no matter what we want or say, it is over, you have your rummy girlfriends, and I have my rummy Command Sergeant Major. Tomorrow, or next week or in a year we’ll say to ourselves: I don’t remember what the reasons were for our separated, but we’ll both know we hurt each other beyond repair. You do understand that don’t you?” She said all that with a tearful voice.
“Yes I suppose I do underhand…and now what?”
“Someday you really will understand.”
“I suppose, now what?”
“I can sleep on the couch tonight,” she said.
“No need to you can have the bed.”
“No, I don’t want the bed, it’s yours!”
“I need to go out and have a drink, I’ll be back in a little while,” he said. And he started to leave.
“Goodbye,” she said in a soft tearful voice…he stopped, heard it, never turned about, and then walked out the door to go to the car, and onto the bar. And he thought about her figure and her face as he walked down to his car, and he thought about her dark eyes and her long black hair and how her breasts were so firm and round for her age, and how he liked making love to her, but perhaps she didn’t enjoy it as much as him, so it would seem after this evening. And as he opened the car door, she was looking out the apartment window at him from the third floor, and her elbows were on the window sill, her chin in her hand, and he pulled out of his parking space, and she started crying again.

Part Two, Chapter Two
The American Hotel

He took his car and drove down the street. It was twilight, and the moon was out, and the buildings were dark against it, he looked out his window at the German made, cobblestone, narrow streets, and lights coming from the buildings, apartments, and the military base nearby, and down a few unpaved alleys, with old brick houses, on each side of the street, an old lady sweeping the dirt away from her doorway, a stone church, and a building with a tower steeple, a sharp cross on the top of it, it was all let up all the roofs and their shadows against the moon’s light. Even a pizzeria (or parlor), one that served beer and pizzas, that was also open he noticed, he had met Chris Steward in there the manager, a twenty-four year old German Jew, he had an eye for her. The main highway between the apartment building the one he lived in and the American Hotel across was busy, he waited at the stop sign, between here and there, the crossed the highway, there were several guesthouses, and one other good restaurant he ate at and drank (one of which also made pizzas) nearby. As he drove down the street, on one side of the street was the Military Base—Reese, it was an old World War Two base for artillery and many buildings to the compound; on the other side of the street were old buildings, dark brick, that had several offices in, one that sold cloths, and had a doctor and dentist in them, on the second level—the second floor, was the medical area. Behind that was the American Hotel, on the corner, behind the hotel the street lead into a more residential area, both small and large framed houses, cozy like, in-between more guesthouses and smaller buildings. There was a German whitewashed jail building you could see it by the reflection of the moonlight, Gordon often drove by it, could barley see the top of the three story building now.
Augsburg was a quaint, medium size city—in 1969, charming with lightly bright smiling and festive people. At the American Hotel they even had a gambling room, always crowed with GI’s playing the slots. Those handles clicking brittle against the metal partitions set inside the tomb like boxes, with all those silver looking coins, jumping and falling until they settled, with all the wheels abruptly stopping the inside rotating wheels.
Tonight was the night to get drunk, and play those one arm bandits he thought, get your mind separated from reality.
“What youall goin’ to have?” said the southern bartender, Sergeant Manes, from Ozark, Alabama.
“I don’t know,” said Gordon Wes, deliberating. “Something strong thought.”
“Youall dont look very well this evenin’ Professor Wes, whatsa matter with youall? if-en you dont mind me askin’?”
“No, I dont mind.” Said the professor.
“Eyes goin’ to fix youall up with somthin’ fine,” said the big burley black bartender, with his rustic hoarse voice. “You ever try southern moonshine, sir?”
“Go ahead; I know you got some, your own private stock I hear.” And the sergeant laughs, “You bet your life I do!” he comments.
“You drink this Professor and you are goin’ to feel good all over. Matter-of-fact, youall’s goin’ to want to fight everyone in the damn hotel here,” said Sergeant Manes. And he started to pour Professor Gordon Wes, his special moonshine, from a bottle hidden under the counter.

Sitting on a stood at the bar, Gordon Wes drank down four shots of that so called white lightening, or moonshine, it didn’t seem to affect him much, he didn’t feel any better or worse for that matter, and the big burley bartender looked surprised at the professor waiting for it to hit him.
“Mamma Mia,” Sergeant Manes said as if in surprise he didn’t fall off the stool—to Wes, “You have one iron stomach, if-en I ever did see one!”
“Give me something else, something that just don’t burn all the way from your lips to your feet, and don’t do a single thing to boot!”
“Youall gots to be careful, cuz once that moonshine hits home, you is a goner,” said the bartender.
“Just give me a beer with a shot of whiskey on the side.”
He drank the whiskey down, and the beer as a chaser, and it warmed his insides up, and thought: Georgette was right; he was no more than a well off bum, drunk. It didn’t do all that much for him. Drinking was not the overall cure, it only pushed aside issues, troubles, problems, and he knew tonight if he kept drinking he’d drink himself unconscious, and wake up, and Georgette would be gone, but he continued to drink nonetheless.
“Oh yes,” he murmured at the bar. “I’m Professor Gordon Wes, and I teach psychology here in Augsburg, and Munich, along with Darmstadt and Frankfurt, for the ‘University of Maryland, Extension Program, courses for the Military…!” then he noticed Manes was looking at him strange, and then he figure it out, he was acting strange, his head was getting dizzy and his eyelids wanted to go to sleep, and he nearly had to pull them up with his fingers, and Manes noticed this. But he was a good paying customer and they like him at the American Hotel Bar, and so Manes smiled, as if he knew the moonshine was starting to take effect, and said not a word.

A shorter man than he, built well, with red hair came in with two other soldiers. He sat down at the bar, on a barstool, with both his friends, as if waiting and looking for an empty table to sit at. The red headed soldier’s friend were called Bruce, he was taller than all three, the other one was called Sergeant, and he was the shorter one, more silent, both of them from the south, the red head from the Midwest.
“I’m Professor Wes. Have we ever met before, perhaps in Jackson, New York, or Manhattan?” he said to the red head.
“I’m just a soldier sir,” said the red head, “a corporal in the Army, stationed over there at Reese Compound. I doubt we ever met, I’ve mean I’ve been in New Jersey, but not in New York.”
“I’m glad,” said the professor. “Do you want some moonshine? I’ll buy you one!”
“No, I’m a beer drinker,” said the corporal. “You look kind of near to the ground tonight professor, if you know what I mean, what’s the matter?”
“I’m really happy to meet you,” said the professor, “needed someone to talk to, some wife problems but I’ll get over it.”
“I guess so,” said the corporal. “Meet my friends, Bruce and Sergeant…” and the sergeant said quickly, “No first or last names please—not here anyway…” and thus, the corporal smiled and simple repeated himself, “and here is Sergeant, sergeant,” with a chuckle.
“Yes, I understand” said the professor, “lot’s of commies around here I hear.”
“Yes,” said the corporal, “the communists have infiltrated the hotel here, and so has the media. Everyone trying to get all the worthless information they can out of us GI’s.”
“Yes,” said the professor, contentedly. “That is were we are at. This is the most penetrated bar and hotel in this part of West Germany, with the most communists and media seeking hounds I’ve ever been around.” Then the professor asked “What you boys going to do now?”
“Not much, just drink, maybe gamble a little, and get a table to sit at, and drink some more, why?”
“Well, I’m about half crocked now; let me buy you boys a drink.” And he did, he ordered three beers for the three soldiers.
“That’s grand,” said Bruce, thanking him, the corporal shaking his hand, for a thank you.
“That’s splendid,” said the Sergeant thanking him also. And they all hit each other’s glasses as in a toast, “To better days, and long life,” said the professor.

To Have; --and Never Have Had

Part II

Part Two: Chapter Three
Pie-eyed at the Hotel

“I loved her,” said Professor Wes, “more than anything else, above anything else. She is by far the best of the lot of women I’ve met, I’ve married I mean, she’s just recently an agitator in all I do.”
“Why?” asked Corporal Evens.
“It’s part of being her, Georgette, that’s her name. Do you want to see her picture?” he said now pie-eyed, the drinks had hit him.
Corporal Evens was somewhat stunned, but did not let on he knew his wife, not yet.
“It’s crazy,” he said aloud, and Bruce and the Sergeant looked at him and so did the professor.
“Gee,” Evens said with a smile, “I know your wife.”
Professor Wes edged away with his stood a little. Then he saw Alfonso Mulligan sitting at a table with three friends, way in the back of the bar.
“You must be that Corporal she’s talking about then?” said the professor.
“I’m happy I met you sir.” Said Evens near tongue-tied, but loosed up by the alcohol, adding, “Yes I am he.”
“Well, at least you’re not sleeping with her like that Command Sergeant Major over there is,” and he pointed towards him with his finger.
Evens seemed hesitate to say a word, but wanted to stick up for Georgette, but felt it was not to take sides, not in a bar half drunk anyhow, he’d look the worse for it, so he simple hurried onto taking a drink with his friends.
The Professor fixed a glaring stare at the CSM, detached himself room the group for the moment, “You okay?” asked Evens to the professor.
His lips were trembling, and his head was circling, in an ongoing motion, as if he was dizzy, and going to fall off the stool.
“Come on sir,” said the bartender, “its best youall catch a cab back home before the little wife hangs you out to dry.” And he and the Evens group laughed. “No offence,” added Sergeant Manes.
With the large arm of Manes over the shoulder of the Professor’s he walked him out of the bar, and hotel, and to a taxi, “You’re a nice fella,” said the professor, slurring his words, separating the syllables unintentionally, “but I don’t wa nt a ta xi, I can wa lk ho me by myself, it’s on ly four or five blocks a way.”

Back at the hotel, Corporal evens asks Sergeant Manes, “Does he come in her much?”
“He started to a few months ago, why you asking? I really should say a word to you guys, it’s his businesses.”
“I know his wife, that’s way,” said Evens.
“Nice fella all right, he keeps to himself, plenty of money. But he gets stone drunk, and seems a bit strange, fools around with the gals somewhat, but I never seen him kiss them or hug them, or pat them on the ass, he likes whiskey, lots of whiskey I think he likes to drink more than womanize, that’s his lover, but he likes female attention…” said the barkeep.
“My god, what a drunk,” said Evens.
“You don’t know who is and who isn’t until they come here, and as far as I can see Corporal, you’ll be like him if you don’t slow down on your drinking!”
“Perhaps, but I don’t have the money he got,” and he laughed.
“Say,” said Evens to his friends, “we’re not doing anything but drinking come on let’s see where the old professor is, maybe we can walk him across the highway to his apartment, he’s going to get killed out there.”
“By gosh,” said the barkeep, “I didn’t think of that.”
“We’ll go out and look,” said Evens to Manes, “we’ll keep him out of harms way, if we can find him.”
“Thanks guys,” said the Sergeant.
Then the three went out of the hotel, all three of them and as they got to the highway, Bruce said in an agonizing voice, his ulcers were acting up, “What do you think happened to the professor?” he asked, he was nowhere to be seen.
They had been on the edge of the highway looking across it, down it, on both sides—right and left, and into the bushes along side the road leading to the highway, everything dimly lit up, cars hurtling by. Then abruptly, Bruce fell to the ground, curled up like an embryo, his ulcers were torturing him. Sweat trickling down off his forehead. His breathing oozing out slowly, as the other two simple stood by him to insure no one interfered as Bruce usually instructed them to do, if indeed an episode such as this one occurred.
After Bruce recovered from the ulcer event, they edged back toward the hotel and to the bar area.

Part Three, Chapter Four
The Highway and the Bushes

He was a needy person to say the least, but with passion, fated to need, to find something, anything to caress, something strong enough –that is, stronger than him! Something deeper than flesh and bone, deeper than love, because this wasn’t durable enough for him: what he had to give, was willing to give, was heart and soul, it had nothing to do with her in particular—she didn’t fail him, he was already doomed, had he found someone to read his palms, or perhaps his horoscope. She had already proved she was a mere mortal, perchance he was looking for something immortal—whose to say, but there he was, standing in the middle—between two highways, on grass, an isle (land mass), he even saw with a glimpse, a shadow in the window of his apartment, it was a silhouette of his wife.
He knew if he’d not stop his drinking, his immortal lover, his devotee who understood his needs more than anyone on earth, who could creep deep down into his soul, he knew if he did not give her up, his attitude would worsen toward humanity, his wife, he’d be a Frankenstein, a Stalin, something of that sort. But there was nothing better—than alcohol.
At one time he was a quite and neat, positive and charming man, matter-of-fact, he still had some of that recipe, and he accepted responsibility with rights, now it was to the contrary, no responsibility, but he wanted his rights—nonetheless.

And now, now the lights to her apartment went off. And he found himself lying in some bushes by the cement stairway that lead to the front door of the apartment building.
Oh yes, this was doubtless the last straw. A most important message he was giving to Georgette—perhaps without his even knowing. All he had done tried to do—everything was in the open—per near. He was not hiding a thing, anything, not one iota. He wanted it all public, or didn’t care if it was. And there he was and there you are ((I can tell you in confidence, he loved her, but naturally he loved something else more—the drink) (no computation or imputation of course)).
And then he saw the lights go off in their apartment.
“Yes,” she said, out loud as if speaking to the walls. “What does he want?” For that matter, she even asked, “What does God assume I can or should do?” And she went onto say, “You do understand Lord, I have informed him and you and I tried in earnest to persuade him to walk a different path in life,” so she said in dismay. And there she sat in darkness as if waiting for His answer, if indeed it was a question, more than a statement. And there she sat, waiting, watching the blinking lights reflect in the window, through the window into the wall mirror from the cars on the highway.

Part Three, End Chapter Five
Waiting for the Taxi

Gordon’s wife—restless and sleepless, had kept looking out the window hoping he would come home, perhaps try to put it back together, but he past-out in the grass, hidden in the bushes by his apartment…in the morning she took her last look before she walked out of the apartment, out of the building with her two suitcases, now waiting outside on the sidewalk, near the bushes, the bushes being in back of her, her facing the street, she never noticed it was him in the bushes, his leg showing, and to onlookers, he was just a bum, a drunk bum in the bushes passed out.
There she stood with her suitcases by her sides waiting for the taxi, who couldn’t hear his moaning, and snoring and coughing behind those bushes, her mind was not thinking—or detecting, so all she could do was watch—look at faces, expressions and gestures of the pedestrians walking by, in the cars, buses. And when she thought she saw his face, in one of those cars, or pedestrians, or buses, she got spooked, perhaps distressed, anyway, troubled and almost wanting to cover her face, to be unnoticed.
Misplaced. Gordon had told her he didn’t want to be her husband and she told him the same, and now shortly after they had told each other this, it all was happening. He was absent, not just absent today, or yesterday, but for two months absent, and today of all days, he was absent, and she felt not there
Misplaced. Lost on a sidewalk waiting for a taxi to take her to someplace, maybe a hotel, maybe to see the man that told her he wanted to marry her, maybe to the Frankfurt airport.
His passions, Gordon’s passions, and wants and lack of unawareness and fear of perhaps growing old, of missing out of something, somewhere, somehow, as if all of humanity must stop for a moment and let him catch up—simple as it is, or was—as that is, gentle and tender as God allows age to creep up on a person, to allow him to grow older and wiser in his decision making, and dealings with people, in this case, with his wife per se, it just all wasn’t so simple for him, nor was it working out.
Misplaced. Yes, she felt omitted, and she felt she had to survive him, she hoped he understood, and she knew she could not contradict him without a battle, and she felt she had already been through the war. His bullheadedness was destroying her, and she was crying to maintain her identity, her own identity, not his, and she had no more perseverance. So finally looking at that window, and out that window, all night long, for her husband, for the last time, the expected happened, anticipated by both of them, perhaps only realized by her at the moment. Because of his sudden deafness to her pleas, the isolation, solitude, it was all battles in a war, a war she had already been through, and she felt she survived and stood gunfire, but how fortunate can one person be? So yes, she pushed right ahead with her plan which was to established a new life. Evidently he didn’t hear the over-and under-tones, the alarm, desperation of her. This intellectual man created a tragic face on her. On one hand, what she needed she couldn’t get, and she needed to make her husband need her first, or second, but she wasn’t even third. Thus, it couldn’t last, and as she stood on the corner feeling misplaced, displaced, and discouraged, she knew there was no place for her in his life, her marriage and her life, with him. He had put her on the installment plan, like a car, payment and then repayment, a new episode, a new chapter.
So she had to go make a plan of her own…not him to make one for her, which would be under his heel—she had learned in life one thing, if anything, self-interest is stronger than the whims of the devil himself.

But what would wipe out that hurt and emptiness, she was feeling, if indeed there was something that could? What could he do to remedy all this, to bring it back to normal? He could not just say ‘Sorry!’ and return. Oh no, that would not do. He would need to say sorry to her, and want to say sorry to her. Would he tell her that? Would he leave his lover, the bottle? And all those other women, he was thinking about? Whatever, and who’s to say, under the bushes he laid, stone drunk. And what would she say to his sorry? ‘Keep your sorry, your investment is gone.’ Or ‘Keep your sorry, until I ask for it.’ But she wasn’t doing any asking, she was simply waiting for the taxi. If anything, she was only sorry that she was ashamed that she looked out that window all night for him.
So, she got into the taxi and said in a whisper looking back, out of the back window, seeing a foot, only a foot of a bum in the bushes, looked with a squint of her eyes, as if the shoe might be familiar —said in a whisper, “Good day to it all,” and was gone.
So if he had intentions to say ‘Sorry!’ He’d have to have someone else tell her, she wouldn’t any longer listen—no more un-unified solitary for her. Thereafter, she never breathed his name again, not even in thinking, never looked back a second time—it was Sodom and Gomorra back there, and she was out of it. She was no longer his snap-on bow tie.

When it was all over, that is, when the grieving process passed—and grieving does pass with time, the lose and the hurt mended to where it only left a scare, which took somewhere around fifteen-months, it was like a blurred dream to her, all fifteen-years of her marriage, and she was heard to have said, “It was all like to have, and never have had —and then it was gone.”

“You have to ask yourself this question, some time in your life,” she told her husband in a letter, in rhyme: “For one crowded season of madness in one wonderful life—is it worth growing old without your loving wife?” Georgette Wes

End to the Story

(Notes: Incidentally, for those curious minded folks out there, Georgette, is a real person, although her name has been changed, and this story is based somewhat on actual events, I say somewhat, also somewhat on conjecture, meaning, I tried to fill in the gaps when I didn’t have fact. I did meet Georgette (and our friendship did last somewhere around a little over two-months) —, and her intentions—and this is all I can tell you—were to go back to America, and my guess is, she took that taxi she waited so long for, to the airport, although she might not have, but I never saw her after these events around Augsburg, and so that is my best guess. And for clarity sake, I was Chick Evens in this story, and at the time I told her (while living in Augsburg Germany for ten-months, in 1970—yes I changed the date by a year too), I didn’t want to be part of a divorce—or feel in part, I was part of a divorce, and she understood, although I think I hurt her, because I ended up being—really being, her unqualified listener, unbiased friend (or perhaps biased, against him for her), and not a critic in any way of her, she already had one, her husband no need to overdue it I felt at the time: but to be frank, I never knew what to say anyhow, but she was one sport, and fine woman, and I mean that with all due respect. There are two sides to ever story though, and you mostly get hers in this short story you’ve just read, not his, although you got all I know of him, and perhaps a little more that I didn’t know and on her behalf slated this story to make it come out as I feel it should, or under such circumstances would—Ill never really know, but I do hope they ended up back together sometime in this brief life we all have, but my mind tells me, most probably not. Drinking is most deficiently the devils closest companion. By and large, for my money, and for this story, she never did go back to him, nor did he ask to come back, they both found a new life, he with the bottle in West Germany, and she in America, with a sober and down to earth fella, and she lived happily ever after, for him, whose to say—perhaps he waited for this magical moment to drink his life away in oblivion, they often do.)

Notes on the writing of “To Have; --and Never Have Had”: 8-16-2009; Part two 8-17-2009 ((No: 453) (the original name “The Yellow Rat” changed 8-17-2009)) 1378-1966-3372 Part Three (The Taxi), written at the café, Mia Mamma, 8-18-2009, during lunch. On 8-19-2009, the author wrote out the notes to the short story in the morning at his Huancayo, apartment… (Pie-eyed written 8-19-2009; The Highway and Bushes, written out on napkin, 8-19, and reedited and written into the story 8-20-2009 (a five day project) 5942

As a Sleeping Man Kills a Fly (a story about a season of death)

2009-08-18T11:25:00.001-07:00

When I die, I do hope it is not as quick as a sleeping man swats kills a fly. That is how my aunt Rose died, and my cousin, Larry died, and how my uncle Chris died in the hospital, unattended, all alone in the dark; it all happened suddenly and abrupt, without warning—to all mentioned, all in the matter of a few years, on nice seasonal days. There she was my Auntie Rose, walking in the living room of her granddaughter’s apartment where she lived, and choked to death, no one hearing her, almost sleepwalking, and she died, just like that, and that was all that was left of her, one short, and everlasting day. Then she turned cold in death, and pale and stiff, as we all do. We had vaguely spoken to one another after my mother died, three years prior. And like my grandfather, twenty-years before, she laid on the floor, her blue veins protruding. There she was like that—just like that.
After that, after my mother’s death, winters and summers came and left seemingly unnoticed for me, perhaps because I was trying hard to adjust to my new conditions. Then came another death, up to this writing, to this very moment, there has been several deaths in the family, one after the other, so compactly side by side, one might think this was a most prosperous season for our family to die in, the last being Ann my aunt and godmother. She was the last to lend a quick alert to our family tree, and add another soul into the once half empty canister.
My brother Mike notifies me almost every time such an event, a death, and its undertaking takes place, within the family, and among our old, and near childhood, neighborhood friends. He and I of course, are still hanging in there. Yet it makes me wonder, and conceivably him some, who will be the fellow to notify me of the next death, if indeed he isn’t around to do it, if indeed I go first—and he’s not around to do it thereafter—well, you see what I mean.
The feeling of having the other person at hand of something or for something, of managing such affairs—and someone to tell them to, is comfortable, and nice, especially on a cold and rainy outside (night or day, any season will do). Both he and I, feel this, it makes us warm and cozy. I don't know, but most likely, the death of so, so many draws us closer. Both he and I have felt this, possibly Mike more consciously than I because he is the one doing the calling, and telling, going to the wakes, and funerals, receiving the death phone calls from the beloved and grieving—I’m six-thousand miles away (thank goodness).

Oh-key, go ahead, say what you want, what you will, I don’t like funerals—period. They are to me like spots of dried paste. And spots of blistering paint, one inside the old house, the other on the exterior; death and funerals are like old worn-out overcoats, never again to see the light of day. The bodies are taut and hard, ugly and dreadful, pale and in areas soft, and no light in their eyes.
Well, to the devil with it all, I’m sure there will be a new disaster to the family sooner than later, ahead, and the prospects are good it could be me! When I die, I do hope though, like my mother, I have time to say goodbye, if not, let me say it now: Goodbye!

8-15-2009/Written at the Mia Mamma Café, Huancayo, Peru, No: 452

Old Man Bernabe ((Based in Fact (In English and Spanish))

2009-08-15T07:12:00.000-07:00

English Version

Old Man Bernabe
(Based on actual Events)

He came into the bedroom of his wooden shack in the small city of Satipo, in the Central Jungle of Peru, and opened up the window while the old man, Bernabe was still sleeping in the early part of the morning. The old man was trembling somewhat, his bronze face, had turned white, and he looked ill. And as he moved about in bed, it seemed to his lawyer and constant companion of sorts—his aging body was more than aching, it was being drained of its life’s resources.
“What’s the matter, Bernabe?” he said in a low voice.
The old man was only sixty-seven years old, looked near ninety, said after opening his eyes, his eyelids trying to close as he opened them, his will trying to keep them open, “I’ve got a pain in my head,” he commented.
“You better go back to sleep then,” said his pal and lawyer.
“No. I’ll be all right.” And he tried to sit up in bed, and did so half- hazard. “Wait out in the kitchen; I’ll see you when I’m dressed,” he told his lawyer, in a murmur.
When the old man appeared in the kitchen, fully dressed, he sat on a chair by the wooden stove, his grandson, fifteen-years old had set the fire for him, the soup was hot and the boy was outside feeding the two dogs, chickens, guinea pigs.
The lawyer, stood looking at the old man, he looked very sick and despondent. He put his hand on his forehead, and he could tell he had a fever.
“You should go back to bed,” said the lawyer, “you’re really ill.”
“What is it?” asked Bernabe.
“I can’t tell what your temperature is, but you should see a doctor!”
On the kitchen table, there were some pills; his grandson had left them out for him to take, and instructions for taking them. One was for the fever (a form of influenza, a deadly form, germs of influenza was prevalent, a light epidemic in Peru during these days, and in the city of Satipo); the other pill was for stress (he had been trying for a number of months to get ownership of three lots of land that connected onto his, he was trying to invade the somewhat deserted property, by cutting down trees and building an outhouse, while the owners were far-off in Huancayo—a seven hour drive by bus, and the lawyer was his accomplice); the third pill was to avoid pneumonia. He took all the pills with one gulp of water, then went to his sink, put a washrag under the spout cold water filled the rag, and then he wiped his forehead, it cooled it down, and took away his headache, and now he could think straight.
“Do you want me to read the newspaper to you?” asked the lawyer.
“All right. If you want to,” said the old man. His face pale, once dark brown, deep rooted wrinkles and his hair on two sides stood up as if he had horns. He sat still in the chair and seemed very detached from what was being read, his eyes small, like black dots with yellowish-white-fog surrounding them.
The lawyer read aloud from the morning newspaper, the grandson had bought and brought, and placed on the kitchen table, and was going to read to him after he fed the animals.
The boy came inside the shanty, “How do you feel, grandpa?” He asked him.
“Just the same as before, so far anyhow,” he remarked.
The boy sat a foot away from the old man, on a lower wooden stool; saw that his grandfather had taken the pills. It would have been natural for him to go back to sleep, on this hot summer’s day, but he appeared restless, and not hungry, he never touched the soup—the boy noticed, the old man just looked about very strangely.
“Why not go to bed grandpa? I’ll wake you up later,” said the boy.
“I’d prefer to stay awake. I think someone wants to kill me over my land.”
After a while he said to the boy and lawyer, “You don’t need to stick around here with me, I’m sure you got other things to do.”
“It doesn’t bother us,” said the lawyer, speaking for the boy also.
“Well,” said the old man, “I think it would bother me, so it should bother you.”
The lawyer looked at him; thought perhaps the old man was a little woozy from the heat of the day, the pills, and the fever and the issues surrounding the three lots of land. And so the lawyer left the hut for a while.

It was a bright, hot day, the ground covered with a light wetness from a rain shower the day before. He looked about the three lots; he had cut down all the trees on two lots, the two he and the lawyer were trying to swindle the rightful owners out of. The party that owned the land had cut the bushes, and grass, and the bare ground had been cleaned of debris, a wooden fence was put up, and several times the old man had started to tare it back down, only for the young owner to confront the old man, and say in so many words: leave well enough alone, the property is not yours.
He didn’t take to the young man, and would scream as if he was being beat by him, when he’d show up to check out his family’s property, and upon seeing the young man, the old man, got red eyed with anger.
“He’s going to kill me,” the old man yelped to the police and inside the courthouse, trying to set up the young man so he and the lawyer could steal his property legal like.
At the house, the old man refused to talk to anyone but his lawyer, or his grandson.
“You can’t come in,” he’d tell the young man who wanted to settle the issue, and anybody else who wished to debate the issue out, contrary to his benefit, he’d not let in likewise; and so the issue that never was an issue until the old man decided one day with his lawyer pal to somehow make it an issue, positioned himself in grabbing the land from under them. And now he was white-faced, his cheeks flushed by stress and fever, and mentally drained from staring and thinking and worrying, and wondering what was next to come—the unknown.
“What is it?” asked the grandson.
“Who said there’s something wrong?” remarked the old man to his grandson. Then stared at the boy, “I don’t worry, so you don’t need to, I just wish I could keep from thinking, and find some rest.”
“Don’t think grandpa,” the boy told him. “Just take it easy.”
“I’m taking it easy,” and stared from out of the kitchen window. It was obvious he was holding something in, his body was tight, rigid and he trembled.
“Take this wet rag, grandpa, wipe your forehead, it helps you to think straight.”
“Do you really think it will do any good?”
“It always does,” said the boy.
He sat back down at the table, and had some cold soup.
“What time do you think I’ll die?” he asked the boy.
“What?”
“How much longer do I have to live?”
“You’re not going to die. That’s silly, why talk like that?”
“Oh, yes, I am. I can feel it in my head, my heart, my lungs, everything, I can feel it everywhere. I can’t live forever.”
It would have seemed—and did seem to the boy at this juncture, the old man was waiting to die, perhaps waiting all day long, ever since he rolled out of bed.
“Oh,” the boy said, not knowing what else to say.
The old man had papers in his hand, signed papers the lawyer had given him to use to fight in court with, signed receipts that just appeared out of nowhere one day and became official the next day, and the old man looked at them, gazed at them, a foot in front of his face. He dropped the papers on the table, and slowly made it to his bed, where he laid back and relaxed. His whole body relaxed, and the next day, when the lawyer came over, he noticed the slack in the body as it laid on the bed, and the boy in the corner, he was crying, and the lawyer thought: boy he cries very easily at such things—and he asked the boy for the papers, which to the boy were of no importance, his grandfather had passed on.

No: 451 (8-14-2009)

Spanish Version

El Anciano Bernabé
(Basado en acontecimientos reales)

Él entró en el dormitorio de su cabaña de madera en la pequeña ciudad de Satipo, en la Selva Central de Perú, y abrió la ventana mientras el anciano Bernabé estaba todavía durmiendo en las tempranas horas de la mañana. El anciano estaba un tanto temblando, su cara bronceada se había vuelto pálida y parecía enfermo. Mientras se movía en la cama, le parecía a su abogado y constante compañero—que su envejecido cuerpo más que adolorido estaba siendo drenado de los recursos de su vida.
“¿Cuál es el problema Bernabé?”, él dijo con una voz baja.
El anciano que sólo tenía sesenta y siete años, pero parecía cerca de noventa, dijo después de abrir sus ojos, sus párpados tratando de cerrarse mientras él los abría, su voluntad trataba de mantenerlos abiertos, “tengo un dolor en mi cabeza”, él comentó.
“Entonces es mejor que vuelvas a la cama”, dijo su amigo y abogado.
“No, estaré bien”, y él trató de sentarse en la cama, y lo hizo con tanta dificultad. “Espérame en la cocina, te veré allí cuando esté vestido”, le dijo a su abogado en un murmullo.
Cuando el anciano se apareció en la cocina, totalmente vestido, se sentó en una silla por el fogón, su nieto, de quince años de edad, había prendido el fuego por él, la sopa estaba caliente y el chico estaba afuera alimentando a sus dos perros, gallinas y cuyes.
El abogado se paró mirando al anciano, él lucía muy enfermo y abatido; él puso sus manos en la frente del anciano y podía decir que tenía fiebre.
“Deberías de volver a la cama”, dijo el abogado, “tú estás realmente enfermo”.
“¿Qué es esto?”, preguntó Bernabé.
“No puedo decirte cuánto es tu temperatura, pero, ¡deberías ver a un doctor!”
“En la mesa de la cocina, habían algunas pastillas; su nieto las había dejado allí para que él las tomara, y las instrucciones de cómo tomarlas. Una era para la fiebre (una clase de influenza, una forma mortal, gérmenes de la influenza estaban establecidas, había una epidemia ligera en Perú y en la ciudad de Satipo durante esos días); la otra pastilla era para el estrés (él había estado tratando por varios meses de adueñarse de los tres lotes de terreno colindantes con el suyo, él estaba tratando de invadir la propiedad un tanto abandonada, cortando los árboles y construyendo una cabaña, mientras los propietarios estaban lejos en Huancayo—a siete horas de viaje en autobús, y el abogado era su cómplice); la tercera pastilla era para prevenir la neumonía. Él tomó todas las pastillas con un sorbo de agua, luego fue a su caño, puso un estropajo debajo del chorro de agua y luego se lo puso en la frente, esto lo refrescaba y calmaba el dolor de cabeza, y ahora podía pensar con claridad.
“¿Quieres que te lea el periódico?”, preguntó su abogado.
“Muy bien, si quieres”, dijo el anciano. Su cara estaba pálida, la que una vez había sido bronceada, sus arrugas muy profundas y su cabello formaba a sus costados como dos cuernos. Él estaba sentado inmóvil en su silla, y parecía distanciado de lo que se estaba leyendo, sus ojos eran pequeños, como dos puntos negros, el blanco era amarillento rodeado de niebla.
El abogado leyó en voz alta el periódico que su nieto lo había comprado y traído esta mañana y lo había puesto en la mesa de la cocina, para luego leérselo al anciano después de alimentar a los animales.
El chico entró a la cabaña, “¿cómo te sientes abuelito?” él le preguntó.
“Lo mismo que antes, por ahora de todas formas”, él comentó.
El chico se sentó a treinta centímetros del anciano, en una pequeña banca de madera; vio que su abuelo había tomado las pastillas. Hubiera parecido normal que él volviera a dormir, en este día caluroso de verano, pero él parecía inquieto y sin hambre, él ni tocó la sopa—él chico lo había notado, y el anciano sólo miraba muy extrañamente alrededor.
“¿Por qué no vuelves a la cama abuelito? Te despertaré más tarde”, dijo el chico.
“Prefiero estar despierto. Creo que alguien trata de matarme por mi terreno”.
Luego de un rato él le dijo al chico y al abogado, “ustedes no necesitan permanecer alrededor mío, estoy seguro que ustedes tienen otras cosas que hacer”.
“No nos molesta”, dijo el abogado, hablando por el chico también.
“Bien”, dijo el anciano, “creo que a mi me molestaría, por eso esto debería molestarte”.
El abogado lo miró; pensó que talvez el anciano estaba un poco fastidiado por el calor del día, las pastillas, la fiebre y los problemas que lo rodeaban por los tres lotes de terreno. Y por eso el abogado dejó la cabaña por un rato.
Era un día brillante, caluroso, la tierra estaba ligeramente húmeda por la lluvia de la noche anterior. Él miró a los tres lotes de terreno; él había cortado los árboles de dos de ellos, los dos que él y el abogado estaban tratando de estafar a los verdaderos dueños. El grupo que poseía el terreno había cortado los arbustos y el gras, habían limpiado de escombros del suelo y habían puesto un cerco de madera; y muchas veces el anciano lo había derribado, sólo para que el joven propietario lo confrontara y dijera en pocas palabras: deja en paz, esta propiedad no es tuya.
Él no le hizo caso al joven, y cuando el joven propietario se aparecería para chequear la propiedad de su familia, el anciano gritaría como si estuviera siendo golpeado por él y luego de ver al joven, él tendría ojos rojos con cólera.
“Él va a matarme”, el anciano gritó a la policía y lo repitió dentro del juzgado, tratando de tenderle una trampa al joven para que de esta manera, él y su abogado, pudieran robarse su propiedad como si fuera legalmente.
En su casa el anciano se rehusaba a hablar con nadie, sólo con su abogado y su nieto.
“Tú no puedes venir”, él le diría al joven propietario, quien trataba de solucionar el problema, y a alguien más que deseara debatir el problema, contrario a su beneficio, de la misma forma no los dejaría; y ahora era un problema el que nunca antes había sido un problema hasta que el anciano decidió un día, con su amigo abogado, agarrarse el terreno. Y ahora él estaba con la cara blanca, sus mejillas ruborizadas por el estrés y la fiebre, y mentalmente agotado de tanto ver, pensar y preocuparse, y preguntarse qué era lo siguiente por venir—lo desconocido.
“¿Qué es esto?”, preguntó el nieto.
“¿Quién dijo que hay algo mal?”, comentó el anciano a su nieto. Luego miró fijamente al chico, “yo no me preocupo, por eso tú no necesitas preocuparte, sólo desearía dejar de pensar y descansar algo”.
“No pienses abuelito”, el chico le dijo, “tómalo con calma”.
“Lo estoy tomando con tranquilidad”, y miró fijamente por la ventana de la cocina. Era obvio que él estaba sosteniendo algo, su cuerpo estaba rígido, rígido y tembloroso.
“Toma este estropajo mojado abuelito, y límpiate la frente, esto te ayuda a pensar bien”.
“¿Realmente piensas que esto ayudará?”
“Siempre lo hace”, dijo el chico.
Él se sentó de vuelta en la mesa, y tomó un poco de sopa fría.
“¿A qué hora piensas que moriré?”, le preguntó al chico.
“¿Qué?”
“¿Cuánto más tengo que vivir?”
“No vas a morir. Esto es ridículo, ¿porqué hablas de esa forma?”
“Oh sí, lo haré. Lo puedo sentir en mi cabeza, mi corazón, mis pulmones, todo, lo puedo sentir por todos sitios. No puedo vivir para siempre”.
Parecería—y esto le pareció al chico a este punto, que el anciano estaba esperando morir, talvez esperando el día largo, desde que se levantó de la cama.
“Oh”, dijo el chico, no sabiendo qué más decir.
El anciano tenía documentos en sus manos, documentos firmados que el abogado le había dado para que peleara en la corte, recibos firmados que justo habían aparecido un día de la nada y al día siguiente se habían convertido oficiales, y el anciano miraba fijamente a éstos, a treinta centímetros de su cara. Él dejó caer los documentos en la mesa, y lentamente llegó a su cama, donde se tiró de espaldas y se relajó. Su cuerpo entero estaba relajado, y al día siguiente, cuando el abogado llegó, él notó la relajación en su cuerpo tirado en la cama, y al chico en la esquina, él estaba llorando, y el abogado pensó: ¡Cielos! él llora tan fácilmente por tales cosas—y le pidió al chico los documentos, que para el chico eran sin importancia, su abuelo se había muerto.

# 451 (14-Agosto-2009)

The Bullfight (Issues around the: La Corrida de Toros)

2009-08-05T12:07:00.000-07:00

English Version

Issues around the:
Corrida de Toros

By Dennis L. Siluk Ed.D.

Part One: The Bullfighter

The bullfight it is a tragedy, and not a sport, nor a contest between the bull and matador—for the most part. It is, as I said, a tragedy, insofar as, the death of the bull. Yes, there is a dangerous link involving the bullfighter against the bull, but inevitable death for the bull.
The matador, or bullfighter, can measure his own danger by increasing or decreasing his distance and/or his stance towards the bull, that is to say, he can at will fall back from those horns of the bull; he is by and large, in control, not the bull. Of course the bullfighter must be aware of his abilities; such as: reflexes, judgments and so forth; to include, goring or being thrown about like hay by a bull which is most often due to the ignorance (if not by youth and inexperience) then by the lack of agility or quickness on behalf of the matador.
The bulls are not as stupid as many may think; for when you do not study the bull, and the rules of distraction, change and the character of the beast, gaining knowledge of the traits of the bull, learning the techniques of those before you, the bull actually doesn’t look so stupid anymore, it is usually the bullfighter that does (and the unaware observing participant in the Plaza de Toros, or gallery). My last bullfight, the young matador was just that, unaware of the techniques, and not quick enough, and in consequence, got a horn in the arm pit, in Mexico City.

Part Two: The Moral Issue

There are of course moral issues on bullfighting, and killing of the bull. Consequently, this issue is more or less resolved in how you see the bullfight, and by whose values and standards you prefer to go or live by. I do not, or prefer not to, defend the bull or bullfighter, or morality in general—I can sleep very well after a bullfight, I only feel horror when I see what man is capable of doing to man, in war, or in some dark alley, or in the open, or in the way the justice system when it is carried out unjustly, and when a judge looks the other way because of gain or profit, because the judicial system is corrupt, unreasonable, and unpredictable.
People seem to be more affected by the bullfight nowadays and unaffected by the abuse of the criminal system they live under—oh yes, publicly they disapprove of it, but secretly they expect corruption at some point in time to assist them somehow. Thus, the very thing that should horrify and disgust them, they overlook and yell at the blood the bull sheds in the bullring.

Part Three: The Tragedy and Ritual

I have already proclaimed, there is a tragedy in the bullfight, but there also resides a ritual in the bullfight (which I will go around, rather than explain because I want to look at the art and culture aspect of it).
Either you can see and feel this or you cannot. You might say a man of culture is more aware of this, than a person to the contrary. The man of culture may see the art in the bullfight, the person not of culture, if open-minded, may also see this, but most often doesn’t.
When you think of men killing men in war or for pleasure, or vengeance, the bullfight becomes much more civilized. On another note, man has become so proficient in warfare, much more than in bullfighting, which in comparison, is simply a stomp on the big toe. Yet, we justify the war, and criminalize the bullfight. I think somewhere along the line, we got our wires crossed.

Written: 8-4-2009 (Article on Bullfighting)

Versión en Español

Temas acerca de:
La Corrida de Toros

Por El Dr. Dennis L. Siluk

Parte Uno: El Torero

La Corrida de Toros—por la mayor parte—es una tragedia y no un deporte, ni una competencia entre el toro y el torero. Es, como lo dije, una tragedia en la medida en que el toro muere. Sí, hay una conexión peligrosa involucrando al torero en contra del toro, pero una muerte inevitable para el toro.
El torero, o matador, puede medir su propio peligro, incrementando o disminuyendo su postura y/o distancia hacia el toro, es decir, él puede por su voluntad recurrir a esos cuernos del toro; él está, en general, en control, no el toro. Por supuesto que el torero debe de estar consciente de sus habilidades: como reflejo, juicio, etc. incluyendo, el ser corneado o ser tirado alrededor como un paquete de heno por el toro, lo que a menudo ocurre debido a la ignorancia (o a la juventud o inexperiencia) o por falta de agilidad o rapidez del torero.
Los toros no son tan estúpidos como muchos pueden pensar; porque cuando no estudias al toro y las reglas de distracción, el cambio y el carácter de la bestia, o no adquieres conocimiento de los rasgos del toro, o no aprendes las técnica de aquellos antes que tú, el toro realmente no parece tan estúpido nunca más, es generalmente el torero quien lo parece (y los ingenuos participantes observando en la Plaza de Toros, o arena). En mi última corrida de toros, el joven torero era justo eso, inexperto de las técnicas y no suficientemente rápido; en consecuencia, fue corneado en el brazo; esto pasó en la Ciudad de México.

Parte Dos: El Tema Moral

Hay por supuesto temas morales en la corrida de toros, y en la matanza del toro. Consecuentemente, el tema es más o menos resuelto en cómo ves tú la corrida de toros, y por qué valores y estándares tú prefieres ir o vivir. Yo prefiero no defender al toro o al torero, o la moralidad en general—puedo dormir muy bien luego de ver una corrida de toros—sólo siento horror cuando veo a un hombre ser capaz de hacerle daño a otro hombre, en la guerra, o en algún callejón oscuro, o en las áreas abiertas, o cuando el sistema de justicia es llevado a cabo injustamente y cuando un juez se hace al disimulado debido a ganancia o beneficio, debido a que el sistema judicial es corrupto, poco razonable e impredecible.
La gente parece estar más conmovida por la corrida de toros hoy en día y despreocupada por el abuso del sistema criminal bajo el que viven—oh sí, públicamente ellos lo desaprueban, pero secretamente ellos esperan corrupción hasta cierto punto para que los asistan, de alguna forma, en algún momento. Así, precisamente la cosa que debería horrorizarlos y disgustarlos, ellos lo ignoran y en cambio gritan por la sangre que el toro derrama en la arena.

Parte Tres: La Tragedia y Ritual

Ya he proclamado que hay una tragedia en la corrida de toros, pero también reside un ritual en ésta (el que lo repetiré, en vez de explicar porque quiero ver el arte y aspecto cultural en esto).
Tú puedes ver y sentir esto, o no lo puedes. Tú talvez digas que un hombre de cultura es más consciente de esto que un hombre que no lo es. El hombre de cultura talvez vea el arte en la corrida de toros, la persona no de cultura, si tiene una mentalidad abierta, también puede ver esto, aunque frecuentemente no.
Cuando pienses en los hombres matando a otros hombres en la guerra, o por placer, o por venganza, la corrida de toros se vuelve más civilizada. En otra nota, el hombre se ha vuelto tan competente en la guerra, mucho más que en la corrida de toros, que en comparación, es simplemente una patada en el dedo gordo del pie. Aún, justificamos la guerra, y criminalizamos la corrida de toros. Creo que en alguna parte a lo largo del camino, se nos cruzaron los chicotes.

Escrito: 4-Agosto-2009 (Articulo en La Corrida de Toros)

Throats of a Thousand Demons (In English and Spanish)

2009-07-31T09:08:00.000-07:00

Tyr, the Nightmare Demon

(A Nightmare of the real kind)

I heard the screams and yelling of a thousand demons, sounds of destruction and immediate death—it all came from the helm of a distant old wooden vessel—but one demon passed through the whole atmosphere around and above me—, never in all my days left on earth shall I forget the increasing agony within my heart’s valves, and its compressing chambers, and the intense pervading terror, to the point the walls of those chambers were about to bust open—; thus, I felt my blood being squeezed through congealing and hardening veins—my skin cold and Goosebumps covering me from head to toe, standing hard and erect, and the voice of the Demon of Nightmares babbling as his hand grabbed my shadow and held it high by its neck, around its throat, the heavy body under it, pulling downward as to decapitate, the neck thinning— as the neck was stretching, my heart utterly being brought to an alarm state.
“You have to see this!” the demon repeated twice, and I looked and sensed I was going into a tumbling, headlong, insensible—numbness, should I not quickly escape.
“No!” I said exceedingly apposing the voice. I didn’t want to watch and then, that was when I called out to my wife Rosa, “Wake me up!” whereupon I found myself reviving and bound once again to the waking world—paler than death.

I had nearly been run-down by a wild and loose demon, hailed by his demonic onlookers. Upon feeling my eyes opening, my explanation to my wife was but a few words—I was by all means, rough-looking from the nightly experience. Somehow he had crept into my dreams and it was impossible to avoid coming in contact with.
My wife asked, “Did you forget your prayers last night?” And I had.
“Thus, it was then obvious,” she told me, “the demon rode immediately over you—as if without the least perceptible impediment to his progress.”

No: 444 ((Nightmare, 7-28-2009) (written: 7-30-2009)) EAP

Spanish Version

Gargantas de Mil Demonios

(Una pesadilla real)

O í los gritos y rugidos de mil demonios, sonidos de destrucción y muerte inmediata—que venía del timón de un distante buque de madera viejo—pero un demonio pasó a través de la atmósfera alrededor y encima de mi—, nunca, en todos los días que me quedan en la tierra me olvidaré de la agonía creciente dentro de las válvulas de mi corazón, y sus cavidades comprimidas, y el intenso terror impregnado, al punto que las paredes de esas cavidades estaban a punto de estallar—; así, sentí que mi sangre estaba siendo exprimida a través de mis venas endurecidas y sangre coagulada—mi piel estaba fría y estaba cubierto de pies a cabeza con piel de gallina; el Demonio de las Pesadillas, tambaleándose pero erguido, balbuceaba, mientras sus manos agarraban mi sombra y la sostenía en alto a la altura de su cuello, alrededor de su garganta, debajo de su pesado cuerpo, jalándolo hacia abajo como para decapitarlo, el cuello adelgazándose—mientras mi cuello estaba siendo estirado, mi corazón fue llevado completamente a un estado de alarma.
“Tienes que ver esto”, el demonio repitió dos veces, y miré y sentí que caería de cabeza insensiblemente dentro de un adormecimiento, si no escapaba rápidamente.
“No” dije sumamente con dificultad. Yo no quería ver, y entonces fue cuando llamé a mi esposa Rosa, “¡Despiértame!” A este punto me encontré a mi mismo reanimándome y una vez más en el mundo vivo—más pálido que la muerte.
Casi fui atropellado por un salvaje demonio suelto, convocado por sus espectadores demonios. Al sentir mis ojos abiertos, mi explicación a mi esposa fue sólo unas cuantas palabras—estaba por todos los medios, movido por la experiencia nocturna. De alguna forma él se metió en mis sueños y era imposible evitarlo venir en contacto conmigo.
Mi esposa preguntó, “¿Te olvidaste de tus oraciones anoche?” Y sí, me había olvidado.
“Entonces, es obvio”, ella me dijo, “que el demonio pasó inmediatamente sobre ti—como si sin el más menor impedimento perceptible en su avance”.

# 444 ((Pesadilla, 28-Julio-2009) (Escrito el 30-Julio-2009)) EAP

The Mystery of Stone Ship ((in English and Spanish)(from: the Satipo jungles Peru))

2009-07-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

The Mystery of Stone Ship

(A Legend out of the Jungles of Satipo)

(Advance) It’s a very old rock structure, brown, with a sandy like texture to it, about the size of a 17th Century Ship, it resides in the middle of the Perene Rio, in the Central Jungles of Peru, called Satipo. Deep within the jungle nearby this rock structure, lived a tribe of natives, the ‘Ashaninka,’ derived from the earlier natives called the ‘Arawak’ …I have visited an Ashaninka tribe myself; they are a warm hearted peaceful people, very creative in the arts. And so now for the Legend…:

Throughout the bloody and frightfully sixteen-hundreds, the so called Colonists (Colonos), with their slave ships, sought out the Ashaninka natives, for slaves, sold them to the highest bidder, in the Lima, and Huancayo markets, and in other parts of Peru, along with other cities of South America. The Colonists jammed an absolutely peaceful people into the guts of the ship; it was absolutely body to body. The officers were very cold and dehumanizing. The aftermath of these years took a toll; the Colonists had rapped the land like fire in dry grass—of its masses, putting them into slavery. These natives: insulted, frightened, none of them to return to their tribes. And the Colonists kept their recurrent surge up, keeping the slave-flesh, in the hole of the ship, with stale, deadly breath and putrid surroundings, many died on the journey to the markets, thrown over the stern of the ship for the fish and vultures to eat, once dead.
On a given day, something took place, that would mold into a legend, something, every Colonist would ponder on thereafter, and ship captains would forever take into account, when they’d sailed down the Rio Perene by what would be named—forevermore the ‘The Rock of Stone Ship.’

It was an atrociously hot day. The rain had stopped; the captain had anchored his ship in the middle of the river, scouts lowered a small vessel into the waters, turned the boat towards an orchard like opening of the jungle, they were to search for tribal members, and return to the ship with the information, where they were now, how many of them were useful as slaves. In the meantime the Captain and his crew remained waiting onboard.

In those days, the chief of the Ashaninka kept a look out for the ships. They knew what the Colonists were contemplating, and of course the ship was taller than anything in sight and filled a good portion of the center of the river, and it was of course a symbolical threat once seen. And on this hot summer’s day, it was seen by the chief, and his bodyguards.
The path the chief and his bodyguards were on came out on to the top of a hill; there they prayed that none of their kind would be kidnapped into slavery this day.

The scouts from the ship looked about spent quite a lot of their time trying to find stragglers, or the tribe itself, but they saw nothing, nothing but massive trees which shaded them from the hot sun, and would condemn them as they rested and fell to sleep, and when they awoke and went back to inform their captain of their fruitless search, they noticed suddenly the ship was gone. Refusing to believe the ship and its crew, and its captain could have left so anonymously, they moved about, but the only thing they found was a rock island mound in the middle of the river, that wasn’t there before, it resided where the ship had been anchored.
It was a brown structure, likened to the ship itself in design and some details, as if it was melted down from wood to soft stone, somewhat circular dimensions, the rock island being the same size of the ship, which was now covered with large ants, running about.

The Chief, now looking down from the top of the hill, could see the newly formed mound, and the three scouts standing on it, in disarray, he said nothing, just bowed his head.

Written 7-17-2009, in part, at the hotel in Satipo, while visiting the rivers and falls and natives of this Central, Peruvian Jungle

Spanish Version

El Misterio del Barco de Piedra

(Una Legenda de las Selvas de Satipo)

(Avance) Es una construcción de roca muy antigua de color marrón, con una textura arenosa, similar al tamaño de un barco del siglo diecisiete, éste reside en el medio del río Perene, en la Selva Central de Peru, en la ciudad llamada Satipo. Profundo dentro de la selva, cerca de esta construcción de piedra, vive una tribu de nativos llamada ‘Los Ashaninka’, descendientes de los primeros nativos llamados ‘Los Arawak’…Yo he visitado una tribu Ashaninka, ellos son personas pacíficas muy cordiales y muy creativos en las artes. Y ahora la leyenda…:

Durante los sangrientos y terribles años 1600s, los llamados colonos con sus barcos de esclavos, buscaban a los nativos Ashaninkas para esclavizarlos y venderlos al mejor postor en los mercados de Lima y Huancayo, y en otras partes de Perú, así como también en otras ciudades de Sudamérica. Los colonos, fríos e inhumanos, atascaban a esta gente pacífica en el interior de los barcos, era completamente cuerpo con cuerpo. Las repercusiones de estos años trajeron un número de víctimas, los colonos habían vejado esta tierra, como el fuego en pasto seco, de sus masas, poniéndolos en la esclavitud. Estos nativos insultados, asustados, ninguno de ellos retornaron a sus tribus. Los colonos mantenían su recurrente aumento, manteniendo la carne esclava en el hueco del barco, con viciado aliento mortal y alrededores putrefactos, muchos morían en el camino al mercado, siendo luego tirados sobre la popa del barco para que, una vez muertos, los peces y los buitres se los comieran.

Pero un día dado, algo tomó lugar que se moldearía en una leyenda, algo en que cada colono reflexionaría, y algo, en la que los capitanes de barco lo tomarían siempre en cuenta cuando navegaban por el río Perene, por los alrededores de lo sería llamado—siempre “La Roca del Barco de Piedra”

Era un atroz día caluroso, la lluvia había cesado y el capitán del barco había anclado en el medio del río, así los exploradores habían descendido a pequeños botes en el agua y se dirigían hacia una abertura de la selva, similar a una huerta, ellos iban a buscar a los miembros de las tribus y volverían al barco con la información de dónde se encontraban ahora, cuántos de ellos servirían como esclavos. Mientras tanto el capitán y su tripulación permanecían esperando en el barco.

En aquellos días, el Jefe de los Ashaninkas mantenía guardia sobre los barcos. Ellos, los Ashaninkas, sabían lo que los colonos estaban contemplando; y por supuesto, el barco era más alto que todo lo que se veía a la vista y ocupaba una gran porción en el medio del río, y era por supuesto, una amenaza simbólica una vez visto. Y en este día caluroso de verano, éste fue visto por el Jefe y sus guardaespaldas.

El camino que el Jefe de los Ashaninkas y sus guardaespaldas seguían llegaba a la cúspide de un cerro; allí ellos rezaron para que ninguno de su clase fuera secuestrado en la esclavitud ese día.

Los exploradores del barco miraron alrededor, emplearon bastante de su tiempo tratando de encontrar rezagados, o a la tribu misma, pero no encontraron nada, nada, sólo los árboles masivos que los protegían del sol caluroso y que los condenarían mientras ellos descansaban y se quedaban dormidos. Cuando ellos despertaron y regresaron a informarle a su capitán de su búsqueda infructuosa, ellos notaron repentinamente que el barco no estaba. Negándose a creer que el barco, su tripulación y su capitán podrían haber partido tan secretamente, ellos caminaron alrededor, pero la única cosa que ellos encontraron fue una isla de roca en el medio del río, que no estaba allí antes, ésta estaba donde el capitán había anclado el barco.

Era una construcción marrón, similar al mismo barco en diseño y algunos detalles, como si éste hubiera sido fundido de madera a piedra suave, de dimensiones un tanto circulares, la isla o montículo de roca era del mismo tamaño que el barco y ahora había sido cubierta con hormigas grandes corriendo por todos lados.

El Jefe de la Tribu, ahora mirando hacia abajo desde la cima del cerro podía ver al recientemente montículo formado y a los tres exploradores parados sobre éste en desconcierto; él no dijo nada, sólo inclinó su cabeza.

Escrito en parte el 17 de Julio del 2009, en un hotel en Satipo, mientras visitaba las cataratas y a los nativos de la Selva Central, en Perú.

The Conley Boys (Based on actual events)

2009-07-13T13:23:00.000-07:00

The Conley Boys
(Based on true events)

Dan Conley climbed into the car where his younger brother Jessie was sitting behind the steering wheel, waiting for him, after running out of the bank from robbing it. He set down the bag of cash on the floor, between his legs, and knocked on the dashboard with his fist, as if to say: job competed let’s get the hell out of here. There were no words spoken. Dan, looking at his brother Jessie, behind the steering wheel, gave him a smile, still having the smell of the hot asphalt street in his nostrils; Jessie feeling the manual gearshift, shifted quickly into first gear—looking into the rearview mirror, there was someone behind him, he had seen a figure, but it was by a blink of an eye, and more likened to a shadow that whizzed by. He felt and sensed it again, from his peripheral vision. Now someone was at the side of his door—blocking the sun, and the wheels of the car started to spin on the hot asphalt street, and they were burning rubber as the car speeded out of its parking space, and out of town.
“Jessie,” Dan said, listening to the tires squealing.
Jessie was silent, dodging the traffic to escape the police.
“He’s there, over there too,” Jessie remarked.
“Who’s there?” asked Dan.
“What do you mean who?” asked the hoarse voice of Jessie. “I want to get out of here fast brother,” he added.
Something in his head clicked, he was seeing things, thought Dan, and his voice had changed, he knew Jessie had been drinking all night, and he knew Jessie was tired and hungry.

A short fat elderly woman sat on a bus stop bench on the far side of the road at the corner in this little Minnesota town, a ways outside of the county they had just robbed a bank in. Above her head was a café sign that read, ‘Food and Beer, Open Twenty-four hours, daily’ and under that sign it read, on the windows in white letters ‘Food, food…!” and had pictures of food pasted onto the glass.
The short fat elderly woman sat motionless on the bench, turned to look at the green 1960 Ford Galaxy 500, and stared as if in a trance. They had stopped at the corner stop sign, looking to their side, checking out the restaurant, waiting for the red light to change to green.
Ahead of them was another sign that read “Straight ahead, Canada, and Welcome!”
They’d go back to their wives after a quick rest in Canada, and they had both thought of this, talked about it, or they’d eventually, get caught again, and go back to jail, and they thought about that also. But this time, Jessie in particular was getting tired of the bank robbery business, and serving years upon years, a half lifetime in jails. Age was catching up with both of them, but Jessie was feeling it more so. Dan was forty-two years old, and Jessie forty.
“Canada Welcomes You!” Dan read the sign aloud.
Dan saw Jessie looking at the sign sharply, hesitantly, almost morbidly.
“Canada is getting old brother, we made some scandals up here,” said Jessie. “The police are still looking for us, but if we must go let hit the café, I’m hungry.”
Dan looked at Jessie, knowing he was spontaneous and perhaps he was now, and he was more on the wild side than he usually, and then leaned back into the soft seat of the car deep in thought, there was something wrong.
“Relax,” Dan told Jessie. “Take that hat off your head; it’s too hot for a hat.”
“I thought we were dead,” said Jessie, still with his hat on. Then hit the dashboard with his fist. The little fat lady looked at him across from the street. As if wondering what they were going to do, they had just sat at the corner talking, through three green lights.
“How many banks and stores and gas stations, and restaurants have we robbed this year?” Jessie Asked.
“About twenty, that’s all.”
Then Jessie stepped on the gas and within a minute they were out of town. Dan looked up and into the mirror checking out to see if anyone was following them, it was a habit, even if he knew he was safe from the police he had trained himself to double-check, to doubt what might be the obvious. He knew from experience, that when you least expected it, the police were on your tail. He felt for certain they had made a clean break from them, and the check was just a kind of reassurance.
Dan, as well as Jessie, had left their wives behind as usual; and both had spent twenty-years in jail, off and on, in different jails, prisons, halfway houses, pretrial confinement centers, on house arrest, you name it, in the criminal justice system, they had experienced it, spent half their lives dealing with it, they both had qualified to be veterans of the system.

It was believed of old everywhere and everywhere in the criminal justice system in the Midwest, it is still believed by some, they were the modern day Frank and Jessie James type robbers of yesteryear.
Jessie took a more relaxed posture now, took his hat off and threw it into the backseat, then made a turn to the Canadian Boarder. His face had changed from an aloof attitude, to a more peaceful if not tolerate manner. He looked pale and tired, drained and nearly fried as far as thinking went, and his appearance was that of a sickly person, and taking that hat off gave him a stranger look, as if he was missing hair that he should not have been missing; that is to say, his scalp (skin and hair on the top of his head) was unhealthy looking, hair thinning, skin discolored and cut.
“You seem better, but you don’t look so well,” said Dan.
“I’ve been feeling shitty since that bank robber, two months ago,” Jessie said. “And when I was serving my last ‘time’ a year ago or so, it was mostly in the hospital, they told me I had cancer, I thought it stopped spreading, and I got my strength back some, but it’s back again I guess…!” Jessie explained.
“No,” said Dan. “It’s not true. You’re kidding, you just want to go back home!”
Jessie leaned to his right side looked across the dashboard, then directly into Dan’s face, and pushed his right hand to Dan’s left shoulder, said in a serious tone of voice, hoarse like, “Brother, it’s true, give me a cigarette.”
Dan handed him one “Thanks,” he told his brother. Then Dan lit it for him.
“Want some?” Jessie asked Dan.
“No,” Dan replied shaking his head, “not now anyway.”
“There isn’t much time anymore,” Jessie said.
“I’m a robber,” Dan replied.
“I know,” laughed Jessie.
Dan sat back in the car seat angry at what he had heard come out of Jessie’s mouth. He wasn’t mad at Jessie per se, but at time, the times, it had come and gone, and he only knew those summers that were and this summer, it was to him a little while, and that little while was going to be no more. It was all coming to an end.
I’ll let you have the car and most of the money if you want, but I got to go back home to Shelly, I’ve been feeling bad, and I’m not sure how much time I’ve got left. I can’t serve anymore time Dan.”
“To-morrow morning…tomorrow I suppose, we’ll split up then,” said Dan in a stupor.
“You can have it all if you want, I just want to rest in a nice bed, with clean sheets, and a warm body next to mine,” said Jessie. He leaned back, and then over the steering wheel. He was no longer interested in robbing, it did not appeal to him. For a moment he almost fell to sleep driving; Dan would have liked to have helped him but he sat back, unable to figure out how to. It was all up to him he told himself, as was his driving. It was the way they worked things.
“How much is half Dan?” asked Jessie. Dan was still trying to figure out how they could stick together and do some more jobs. The idea of them splitting up was too much for him to handle, yet I suppose in the back of his mind he knew it was a fruitless endeavor.
“I don’t like this situation for you or for me,” Dan said.
“Dan look,” said Jessie, “what you see is all I have left of me, and it will not get any better, before it gets worse.”
“Why don’t I put you on the next bus home, I’ll need the car, and we’ll split-up the money, fifty-fifty, we have $12,000-dollars,” Dan explained.
“I’m offering to put you on the bus tomorrow morning,” Dan told Jessie in an exhausted tone of voice.
“I don’t really like the situation either,” Jessie reiterated.
“How much do I get?” asked Jessie, as if he had forgot the sum total Dan had just confirmed between them.
“We each get six-grand,” answer Dan.
“Six-grand and a good breakfast,” Jessie said. He had a smile on his face, but Dan noticed it was becoming hard for him to even open his mouth to smile, everything, every movement, every breath strained him.
“You got it brother, your six-grand and the biggest breakfast you can eat,” Dan exclaimed, unable to hold back the pain of losing his brother.
“Can I have twenty-dollars now?” Jessie asked.
“Sure,” said Dan, his emotions more under control now. Next he took the bag grabbing a twenty-dollar note from it, and handing it to Jessie.
“You know I’ve got to have one good breakfast with my brother before we part.” Said Jessie (feeling it maybe the last they see of each other).
“I know,” said Dan.
“All I want is to see my wife, have a good breakfast with my brother, and a little time to make peace with God,” said Jessie with a deep breath, as if trying to help his heart and lungs operate properly.
Jessie was telling his brother his desires, man to man, before they’d part, and Dan was—for the most part—in another world, hearing but not hearing, thinking about how life was going to be without Jessie. He didn’t hear much of what he said, but I suppose he didn’t have to, he knew his brother inside and out.
“If you need a little extra, you can have a few thousand,” Dan said. “I can get more.”
“All right,” Jessie said, “let’s stop here and eat.”
Dan picked up his bag of money, and got out of the car.
“Shut the door,” Jessie called to Dan; Dan’s mind was elsewhere, and he turned around and shut the car door.

They were quiet in the café. The morning sun had been penetrating, and the cool air had been brisk, and refreshing, the wind had been perfect, just enough to lift up and push back their hair. There they were in the café, as quiet as sleeping mice. There were several customers sitting at tables, and at the counter. Old man playing cards, solitary at one table, and two men at another smoking and drinking coffee they had the paper laying to the side of them on the table. Jessie ordered eggs over easy, bacon and toast, fried potatoes, coffee and a glass of milk. Dan ordered the same, but neither one could eat but half the breakfast, the food was fine, but Jessie was falling to sleep, and Dan had lost his appetite.
A waiter came by asking if they needed anything else.
“Bring me some more coffee,” Dan said, “for both of us.”
The waiter came back carrying a tray with a pot of coffee, looking at Jessie almost falling asleep where he sat.
“I think your partner will need a little more than you my friend,” said the waiter.
Dan smiled with a smirk.
“A hell of a lot he knows,” said Dan.

He brought him to a motel, thereafter; and Jessie slept hard and long, and the following morning Jessie took a bus back home, it would be the last time Dan saw his brother Jessie. Dan would end up servicing another two sentences in prison. Not being able to see Jessie’ funeral. But he had talked to Jessie over the phone. Jessie was happy for once in his life. But Dan never got over it, could never quite let go of the past. Matter-of-fact, as I am writing this, he is somewhere out there running from the law, at fifty-six years old; still living the legacy of Frank and Jessie James, as if he himself was part of the saga, right out of the Old West, only his brother is no longer his sidekick.

Notes: This story was originally written in AD 2000, after talking to Dan about his life of robbing banks, who thereafter, would escape the confinements of the Bureau of Prisons where I worked—and written in short story form for the book, “Everyday’s an Adventure,” under the title: “The Restless” published in 2002, reedited 6-2009.

2009-07-11T14:24:00.000-07:00

English Version

Baby Obese

By Dr. Dennis L. Siluk

The slow morning clouds swerved on. It would be first light, the crack of dawn after a while, and he would be asking for his coffee, plain, strong and dark, but that would be in a few hours yet, he was now only cold, and remaining under his two blankets, as he tried to go back to sleep, which would cure that. His breathing appeared to be with less effortless now, in the thin mountain air, and then he decided to get up and walk about his first floor apartment, and he looked out the window, he knew it was near daybreak, the night almost ended. He could tell that from the streetlights and the bushes and flowers in the garden outside his window, everything had shadows now; the inky like night had turned into a light gradation of grays. Cars and other vehicles were starting to become constant and ceaseless on the street beyond his garden bushes, thus, giving over to the hummingbirds dancing over the tall foliage, next to his pantry window. He had got up, and stared out the window. He was a little stiff, his old bones, and muscles, he needed to stretch them out, walk to cure that cold inside them, and soon he knew there’d be sun. He went on outside with his wife to catch a taxi, toward the corner, where they sold the papers in a little cubicle, and there were many neighborhood voices, and bird calls, unending—all these quick and vital thumping hearts ready to meet the early July morning. He did not look anywhichway.
By the time they got to the café, it was too late to eat breakfast. The old man grasped his belt, behind him the taxi had quickly taken off, his young wife by his side, holding his elbow; he had fallen three times in two days, lost his balance. He thought for a moment of pulling his arm away, but he did know himself, if he did, he could lose his balance again. So he looked down toward the ground and walked slowly to the café door entrance. His pulse and breathe racing; presently he was in the road, about to step up onto the sidewalk. He could hear the movement of vehicles on the two crossroads, as if they were almost upon him, but he didn’t look; he had to make sure he kept his balance, and even then he knew his ankles might give out, as if the body knew his very urgent need in that moment, if only he had wings, so he thought. He looked around him, it was a weed and rock choked road.
Once inside the Mia Mamma Café, he saw in an instant in the far-off distance, the colorful silhouette of Mini, the chef. The early summer light, and coolness of the sky had not vanished, and shinned outward as if running from the glass doors to the kitchen, pausing now without knowing on two figures, Nancy and Mini, then on a third figure, but only on his back (Enrique).
“Hola, Hola!” he said, in Spanish.
His back towards the back doors, his face toward what he knew to be the café kitchen, knowing behind the wall of the kitchen was the café garden where he’d eat today, he was hugging his books, he was brave he thought, he didn’t fall for the forth time in two days, God forbid.
Mini and Nancy gave him a kiss on the cheek, and he stumbled forward on his feet, looking for, the child he called the Little Elephant, a child, whom he was a Great Uncle to. His wife went to go fetch him. He was huge for six months old, much living meat and volume and weight as to any two children he had ever seen. He feared to hold him, lest he drop him. He had an astonishing high voice he thought, like the fighting call of Bruce Lee, that karate man of the movies. And when he returned the same call back to the child, troubled features appeared on his face. And this day, it was no different; when he first saw him this forenoon, the child only showed an expression of ox-like interest, when he saw the old man. Thereafter, his little arms were reaching for the old man’s wife’s neck, for security. His little heart and lungs drumming, as if they were looking for a safe-house; he almost burst into tears, sobbing for speech. He saw the astonished face of the old man, without knowing who he was, or perhaps knew who he was, and that in itself was the reason for his behavior.
“What?” the old man said in the café kitchen. “Yes, the boy cries when I imitate him.”
“Take him,” his wife told him.
But it was too late this time too. The baby elefante, as the old man referred to the child, was being carried away, back through the door of the kitchen, near screaming.
Behind him, were the soups and hot dishes being prepared for lunch, it was 12:05 p.m., he lifted up the covers of the pots to smell the aroma, squatting beside them, as if he wanted to dive inside the big pots deliberately, if not for the aroma, to get away from the baby elefante.

No: 440, written: 7-8-2009, Huancayo, Peru●●

Spanish Version

El Bebé Obeso

Las nubes se habían esparcido lentamente, dentro de poco iban a aparecer las primeras luces de la mañana y él estaría pidiendo su taza de café bien cargado sin azúcar, pero eso sería en unas cuantas horas más adelante, ahora él estaba solamente con frío y permanecía debajo de sus dos frazadas mientras trataba de volver a dormir. Su respiración era menos dificultosa ahora, en el aire fino de las sierras; luego él decidió levantarse y caminar en su departamento de un piso, miró a través de la ventana, él sabía que era cerca del amanecer, la noche casi había terminado; él podía decirlo por las luces de la calle y las ramas y flores en el jardín afuera de su ventana, todo tenía sombras ahora; la noche oscura se había vuelto con tonos grises ligeros. En la calle, más allá de los arbustos de su jardín, los carros y otros vehículos empezaron a volverse más constantes y continuos, dejando así paso a los colibríes que danzaban sobre los altos follajes, cerca de la ventana de su cocina. Él se había levantado, y miraba por la ventana; estaba un poco adormecido, necesitaba estirar sus viejos huesos y músculos, caminar para curar el frío dentro de ellos, y él sabía que pronto el sol saldría. Más tarde él y su esposa salieron a la calle, a la esquina donde vendían periódicos en un kiosco, para coger un taxi, y allí había muchas voces de los vecinos, y cantos de pájaros sin fin—todos estos rápidos latidos vitales de los corazones listos para encontrar la mañana temprana de Julio. Él no miró hacia ningún lado.
Para el rato en que llegaron al café, era muy tarde para tomar desayuno. El anciano se ajustó su cinturón, detrás de él el taxi se alejó rápidamente, su joven esposa estaba a su lado, cogiéndolo por el codo, él se había caído tres veces en dos días, había perdido su equilibrio. Él pensó por un momento en jalar su codo y soltarse de las manos de su esposa, pero él sabía bien que si lo hacía él podía perder su equilibrio de nuevo. Así él miró al suelo y caminó lentamente hacia la puerta de entrada del café. Su pulso y su respiración estaban rápidos; actualmente él estaba en la pista, cerca a un paso de la vereda. Él podía oír el movimiento de los vehículos en las dos pistas, como si ellos estuvieran casi encima de él, pero él no miró; él tenía que estar seguro de mantener su equilibrio, e incluso entonces él sabía que sus tobillos podrían agotarse, como si su cuerpo sabría su necesidad urgente en ese momento, si sólo el tuviera alas, eso él pensó. Él miró alrededor suyo, era una calle de tierra, piedras y mala hierba.
Una vez dentro del café restaurante La Mia Mamma, él vio por un instante en la distancia, la silueta colorida de Mini, la chef. La temprana luz de verano y el frescor del cielo no habían desaparecido y brillaban extendiéndose como si corriendo desde la puerta de cristal hacia la cocina, posándose ahora sin saber sobre dos figuras, la de Nancy y Mini, luego sobre una tercera figura, pero sólo en su espalda, la de Enrique.
“¡Hola, Hola!” él saludó en español.
Su espalda daba hacia la puerta de entrada, su cara hacia lo que él sabía era la cocina del café, sabiendo que detrás de la pared de la cocina estaba el jardín del café donde él comería hoy día, él estaba abrazando sus libros; él era valiente, él pensó, de no haberse caído por cuarta vez en dos días, Dios no lo permita.
Mini y Nancy le saludaron con un beso en la mejilla, y él se balanceó hacia delante sobre sus pies, buscando al bebé al que él llamaba el Bebé Elefante, un niño del que él era su tío abuelo. Su esposa fue a buscar al bebé; él era enorme para un bebé de seis meses, mucha carne viviente, volumen y peso como dos niños juntos que él nunca había visto antes. Él temía cargarlo, por temor a soltarlo. Él tenía una asombrosa voz alta, él pensó, como los gritos de pelea de Bruce Lee, ese karateka de las películas. Cuando él le devolvía esos mismos gritos al bebé, facciones de molestia aparecían en su carita. Y este día no fue diferente; cuando él lo vio por primera vez esta tarde, el niño sólo mostró una expresión como la de un buey molesto cuando vio al anciano. Luego sus bracitos trataron de abrazar el cuello de su esposa, por seguridad. Su corazoncito y pulmones estaban rápidos como si estuvieran buscando una casa segura; él casi rompe en llanto; gimiendo por hablar. Él vio la cara de asombro del anciano, sin saber quién era él, o talvez sabía quién era él, y eso, en sí mismo era la razón de su comportamiento.
“¿Qué?” el anciano dijo en la cocina del café. “Si, el niño llora cuando lo imito”.
“Cárgalo” su esposa le dijo.
Pero era muy tarde este vez también. El Bebé Elefante, como el anciano se refería al niño, estaba siendo llevado a través de la puerta de la cocina, casi gritando.
Detrás de él se estaban preparando las sopas y los platos calientes para ser servidos en el almuerzo, eran las doce y cinco de la tarde, él levantó las tapas de las ollas para oler el aroma, agachándose al lado de ellas, como si queriendo zambullirse dentro de las grandes ollas deliberadamente, si no por el aroma para escaparse del bebé elefante.

No: 440, escrito: 8-Julio-2009, Huancayo, Peru

"Nothing will Come of Nothing" (Chapter one thru three; a light drama, short novelette)

2009-06-30T19:33:00.000-07:00

1964-71

Chapter I
Tony’s Background

Tony Garcia was once a karate expert, champion in San Francisco. To be frank, I wasn’t really all that impressed by the so called designation given him on behalf of the Gojo kai, Karate Dojo, but it meant a lot to Tony. I doubt he cared for karate all that much, yet painfully he learned it, and skillfully to offset any emotions concerned with inferiority he might inhibit, he was a shy kind of person, he had felt on being treated as a Mexican at Berkley University. By and large, there was a certain comfort in knowing as a second degree black belt, he could kick the daylights out of most anyone at the university, should they get too superior with him over his cultural roots, although a nice kind of lad, good natured, he never fought except at exhibitions, or at the dojo, and with other karate experts. He was a top pupil of one of the greatest masters of karate from Japan. He wasn’t really very fast, but his style and techniques, and force, made him a deadly opponent. All in all, this gave Garcia some kind of satisfaction, of some odd sort. When I knew him, for I was studying karate at the same dojo as he, while with the rest of the karate black belts in San Francisco, he seemed to fade into the woodwork; no one in particular could point him out by name. And during expositions, when I would be taking pictures of the sparing, he’d get mad if he saw one of himself receiving a kick or punch from his opponent. And he held a suspicion that perhaps I had it in for him, and liked the other guy more because he was white, and his face would show it, as if an elephant had sat on it, but I’d simply say, “The Camera speaks for itself.”
Tony Garcia was a member of high society, through his father being one of he richest Mexican families in San Francisco, and through his mother being from one of the oldest. He attended a prep school prior to going to Berkley. And played some baseball, basketball and football, and no one seemed to inflict any kind of race consciousness on him. That is to say, no one ever made him feel like a wetback, or Mexican that didn’t belong where he was. Upon graduation from college, he married, Colleen Macaulay, a blond haired Caucasian, he was married fifteen months, and had two children, a girl and a boy. Spent most of the $150,000-dollars his family gave him, with it taking a trip for 90-days around the world. Thereafter, he fell into a depression, with only $20,000-dollars left, the rest of the estate being in his mother’s hands, after his father had died, the previous year. Now his marriage became rather repellent, a life of domestic discontent, with a wife that wanted a rich husband, and so Tony at twenty-four years old, and his wife at twenty-two, were separated when Colleen found herself a new prosperous lover in Paris, a pianist twice her age. In any case he had been thinking of leaving her out of boredom, but he felt, pity for her, had he left her, and had he left, he would have underprivileged her of himself and his means, and so she simply beat him too the punch. For the most part, it was probably a most healthful departure needed by both individuals.
The divorce took place quickly after their separation, and Tony went to the East Coast, New York City, and mingled among the literary people of the city, and the artists thereof, with his $20,000-dollars left, and a $200 a month income his mother decided to give him, as a bonus to leave her alone. He found a job at a newspaper, and became a regular for the weekly cultural section of the paper, an assistant editor and then the sole editor, and with the new found prestige of editing, and seeing his name in print, he started writing his own novel. But the novel had to be written chapter by chapter on his own time, he could not afford to do it full time, as he would have liked to. Plus, much of his free time was spent courting the lady who wished to bring the paper up, her father owning quite a lot of stock in the newspaper, and she was very demanding to say the least: with his free time, his work time, and his writing time. Once this woman saw the impending downfall of the paper appearing, she grabbed $20,000-dollars from the paper, and Tony, and off they went to Germany, and spent a year in Frankfurt, and some time in Munich, and Heidelberg, where she had attended the university, for four years. Then to Paris, all this time, she supported Tony in his writing of his novel. At this time and juncture, Tony had three or four friends, me, Chick Evens, his girlfriend, Katharine Cooley, Hans Gunderson, from Darmstadt, Germany, who was now a part time professor at the University of Heidelberg, and was now in Paris, and Bernadette Vanderbilt, whom took a liking to Chick Evens, and whom Tony took a liking to her.
During the following summer months in 1970, Ms Cooley’s attitude appeared to be changing toward Tony, perhaps because his was changing and taking a more interest in Bernadette, she wanted him to marry her; at this time, Tony’s mother, up his allowance to $500 a month, making things more available for him.
He was moderately happy, but I suppose he preferred San Francisco or New York City to Paris, both familiar to him, but Katharine wanted Europe, if not Paris or Berlin, to be his place to discover his writing style, and complete his first novel. And when he finished the novel that summer it was rather good, but it was poorly received by the public, he was an unknown name, it was called “With and Without.”
Thereafter, he simply went to visit me, often at the bookstore “Shakespeare And Company,” to see how I was doing on my book, and to see if Bernadette Vanderbilt was there, and Hans Gunderson was staying at their apartment for a while Ms Cooley’s friend, and Ezra Daniel, a poet from St. Paul, Minnesota, my home town, who attended the University of Minnesota with me, he was working on a book of verse, living with me at the time, on the West Bank, in a small apartment, near Notre Dame Cathedral. This was when Bernadette, Ezra and I decided to go to the Oktoberfest together, in Munich, and Tony wanted to come along, but not with Katharine Cooley. And so there were four of us. This was when Tony started playing bridge instead of reading at the bookstore with Bernadette, and started working out at the local gym, as if trying to impress and get to know Bernadette better.
I became aware of Tony’s attitude towards Katharine one evening when he and Katharine and Bernadette and I were eating and drinking at the Lipp’s, Café. We had our dinner, coffee and wine, Tony mentioned to her he was going with us to the Oktoberfest, and Hans Gunderson could keep her company when he was gone. He told her he needed to get away from everything familiar, and just be with friends. She suggested he go to Heidelberg, or Augsburg, with Hans, he was going to do some discussion groups, and seminaries, and he could help, even get paid for his work, and that way all three of them could be together.
“I don’t know anybody in any of those places,” he said.
And I was going to tell Katharine she could come along, but Bernadette kicked me under the table, on purpose, before it came out of my mouth, she whispered, “I know what you’re going to say, but don’t she’s been with him a while know she knows everything about him, she’s a fine girl, let her go with Hans alone, maybe they’ll fall in love, and he appreciates her, maybe this separation will be more useful than he plans.”
I was kicked the second time by Bernadette, to insure I understood what I was suppose to do—be quite, and mind my own business.
“Hell,” I said, “why not go to Heidelberg for the illumination, it’s a great event and has festive activities, you and Hans can go,” I told Katharine.
Tony looked relieved. But Bernadette kicked me again. Then I said, “I think we got to go,” to both Tony and Katharine.
“Yes,” said Katharine.
“Oh, well,” I remarked, “let’s go Bernadette.”
“We’ll be okay,” said Tony, “go on now.”
“I’m not sure,” said Katharine thinking about my suggestion, “but we will be fine though,” she added.
“We’ll see you tomorrow at the bookstore,” I remarked in passing.
“Goodbye, good night, Chick,” said Tony, and started to finish his wine, looking at Bernadette as she touched up her face in a mirror, unnoticing Tony’s interest.

Chapter II
To Europe and the
Novel

That summer Tony Garcia went for a weekend to Augsburg, with Katherine and Hans, and Bernadette, with his novel, and it was accepted by a fairly first-rate publisher, with the help of Arthur Burg, a rich Polish-German Jew, living in Augsburg, and a friend to Hans Gunderson. It had previously been published by a Paris publisher, with a first edition of only 1200 copies, which only sold three hundred to date, it would be now translated into German, as well as French, still the American edition had not seen the light of day though. After the publication, and contract, his attitude on the way back to Paris, made it unlivable for the other three, and he was flirting with Bernadette, and a few women at the publishing firm. He was now more enthusiastic about remaining in Europe however; the first German edition would be 5000-copies. Arthur Burg, as well as his associates at the publishing firm, commended his novel decidedly, and his outlook had shifted to a new zenith. And now he was falling in love, head over heals with Bernadette, and Bernadette, who had an eye for Chick Evens, was simply being kind to Tony, she had no real interest in him, but she did catch Mr. Burg’s eye, whom was in cloth designing filed, the world of fashion, likened to Lilly Ann, in San Francisco, and the publishing business, his income for the year of 1967, was 53-million dollars. As far as Tony went, it would have seemed to an on looker, he had never been in love in his entire life.
For the most part, Tony had married out of desperation of having someone available for him, and I would guess, Katherine was his rebound, and now he was starting to realize he was an eye-catching number to women. This changed his personality in the following months, and was not all that pleasant to have around, for his book was doing well, going into a second printing of 12,100-copies, and even a publisher from New York was taking interest in his English manuscript, and there seemed to have been some connections between New York, Paris and Germany on the matter, and several thousand dollars in contracts in the making.
Then there was another thing that took place. Tony started reading Frederic Manning’s “Scenes and Portraits,” (1930 edition), it sounds as if it should have been, no big deal, but one must have an open mind, and some wisdom to go along with this reading, and he read it, and reread it, it is a very ominous and indulging book, from the mystic writings of “The King of Uruk,” and those of “At the House of Euripides,” to scenes dealing with “Paradise of the Disillusioned,” if read too early in life, it can be, as I mentioned before, more menacing than reassuring. It recounts impressive, fables, if not truths hidden between the lines, truths, philosophical substance, other writes have missed, in the ardent adventures, and struggles of humanities existence.
For a man to take this serious at twenty-five, as a handbook to life, can be most weighty if not grave, it would have seemed to me, there were more practical books for him to read, more that he was equipped for and he created some uncertainties because of his impressions, for on the study of the whole book, he felt it was pretty sound. No one quite understood how this book influenced him, but it did.
“Hello Tony,” I said. “Did you stop by to cheer me up, Chick?”
“How about you and me going to Tibet, and get some Chinese wisdom and write some spiritual idioms?”
“No,” I commented.
“Why not?” he asked.
“I’ve never had any interest in going to Tibet, or writing sacred things, or freezing in the high mountains, I got enough of that growing up in Minnesota.”
“Those monks in Asia got a lot of wisdom, you know.”
“They look awfully boring to me.”
I had only stopped over to see how he and Katherine was doing, I had several more pages to type at the bookstore, for one of my chapters in my book, and I needed to get going.
“Do you know any wise sayings?” he asked.
“Out of sight, out of mind…” I said, and he gave me a crucial smile.
“No, that’s why I want to go, make up some original ones, get inspiration.”
“Why me, you got Hans and Katharine?”
“No; listen, Chick, if I paid your way, and my way, and all the food and lodging, would you go with me?”
“No,” I said, “I like Europe, Germany in particular, and Paris for writing at the moment, and want to got to the Octoberfest in a six weeks.”
“All my living days, I’ve wanted to go on such a trip, see Lhasa, and the Potala Palace, the center of Tibetan life, where the Dalai Lama fled the country some ten-years ago.”
“Don’t be silly,” I remarked. “You now can go anyplace you want, you got plenty of money, and you don’t need a chaperone, or bodyguard.”
“I know, but if you agree to go, I’ll get started then, and somehow I just can’t get moving.”
“It’s called depression, get out of this apartment and do something.”
“Since my book now is in three languages, and New York picked it up, my life is going so fast I can’t keep up with it.”
“It’s just a life, nothing dangerous in it for you or me, no sense in making it more difficult: boxers and fighters, and matadors, and bulls and cocks that kill one another in cockfights, and soldiers that fight in wars, they got to live to the height to the hilt, they got to worry, not us, we just pace back and forth, get fed write this and that, just constantly entertain ourselves; I’m not interested in being a monk, or writing what monks write.”
“No, I don’t think I’d like war or bullfighting, or boxing as a profession, or even karate as a teacher, it doesn’t interest me.”
“Perhaps it is because you’ve only read books on the subjects, if you got involved with them!”
“I still want to go to Tibet.”
He had a determined mind, for a Mexican.
“As Shakespeare wrote in King Lear, ‘Nothing will come of nothing…’”
I had discovered that was the best way to get rid of my presence, with my friend, he had been drinking, and once drinking he talked, and talked and talked until he fall to sleep, and got blue in the face in the process. And there were a lot of liquor bottles around his end table, and where he sat.
“Chick;” said Tony, “I’m twenty-five, and I’ve lived one tired of my life, I got to figure out what I’m going to do with the other two thirds, do you ever think like that?”
“No, I just make a plan, and follow it though, and make a new plan and follow that one through, and don’t worry about the other two-thirds, because today is today, and that is all I have, I live in the present, in the moment.”
“Well, I still want to go to Tibet.”
“Listen up, Tony, most cities all look the same, most all the people in the cities have self-interest as their number one God, I’m serious, you get tired of going from city to city looking for something that is different, moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that. Usually if you find one good spot, and you stay there, you can reach out all over the world from that one spot, and do and see everything you want, and get ahead, but moving everything you got from here to there, all the time, you never will. So I like visiting Paris, and Germany, and waiting for the Octoberfest, and then back home I go.”
“But you haven’t been to Tibet yet, have you?”
“No, and if I went there with you tomorrow, the way I feel today, and missed the Octoberfest, I’d hate it. This is a good town to be in, in the summer, and Germany in the fall.”
“I’m sick of Europe; I’m sick of Paris, and the Quarter. Nothing happening to me here, I’m even tired of the night lights.”
“Well,” I remarked, “I got to get down to the bookstore and borrow their typewriter, and get those several pages out.”
“You don’t really have to go, you just want to get away from me, I can tell. Do you care if I go down to the bookstore with you and you and I just chum about?”
“I think you’re hoping, Bernadette, is there, correct?”
“Do you mind?”
“No, come along.”
We walked down to the bookstore, and I typed my pages as he read some more out of the book “Scenes and Portraits” and glanced at the newspaper. I went upstairs into a back room, there was Bernadette, sleeping on a cot. She was asleep with her arms covering her head. I didn’t want to wake her, but I knew Tony would should he see her.
“Bernadette,” I said, and shook her by the arm and shoulder slightly. She looked up, smiled, and blinked several times as trying to clear her vision.
“I was dreaming of you and me,” she said.
“Gosh, what was I doing, or what were you doing?”
“I’m sure you’d like it to be some imaginary thing, but it is none of your business, it is my dream, we were just hugging, nothing more, so keep your mind where it belongs.”
“Talking, or dreaming?” She laughed, said, “I wish you didn’t have Multiple Sclerosis, you always need so much sleep, and get so tired so easily.”
I could imagine her dream; she was kind of disappointed in my physical ailments. We went down the steps to meet with Tony, lest he spot us talking and take offense, with his over sensitivity of his Mexican heritage.

Chapter III
Café de Fore
and Les Deux Magots

It was a warm summer night and I sat at an outside table on the covered entrance of the Café de Fore, Tony had just left, and Bernadette was watching me get drunk and the electric lights on under the terrace that read in neon lights, “Café de Flore,” switched on, there was a stop sign and traffic lights I was watching in front of our table, and a crowd of people walking by taxis pulling up and pulling out and dropping off folks for evening dinner, on two sides of the cafe. I watched a few nice looking women walk by, and then lost sight of them, and Bernadette, commented, “Men don’t think of sex in the same way women do, do them?”
“Well, what would you think?” I remarked.
“Pardon,” she said, “what’s the matter?” she asked, “you thinking about those women that just walked by?”
“Sure. Aren’t you?”
“Don’t you know? You never know in this town what men and women are thinking.”
“Men think of sex as being pumpkin soup, women think of it as, shopping for the recipe,” I stated.
“Would you like to go somewhere else?” asked Bernadette.
“No.”
“Why?”
“There isn’t anywhere to go.”
“My apartment, or to the Eiffel Tower at the lower restaurant, I know the manager there, we don’t need a reservation.”
“The coffee here has a great boost but it only lasts for a short time, but the wine is teriffic, what kind is it?” She grinned and made a point of not laughing, because I didn’t know what I was drinking, although I paid for it and it was expensive.
“Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee de la Reine des Bois, Domaine de la Mordoree,” said Bernadette.
I stopped a taxi it pulled up to the curb, and we both settled into the backseat of the car, and we were driven down to her apartment on Saint Germain Boulevard. I looked at the clock in the car it was 11:00 p.m., we turned off Saint Germain, and was left off on the side street of the hotel. Inside her hotel, she cuddled against me, and she said she had look up at me after a few minutes, and I had fallen to sleep. And she put a light blanket over me for the evening as I fell to sleep on the couch, and she in her bedroom.

“What happened to me last night?” I asked her in the morning.
“Never mind,” she said, a bit disturbed.
“Are you up set?” I asked.
“Yes, a little but I can’t blame you, your sick and I feel sick and the whole world is sick.”
She came out of the kitchen into the light that came through the windows behind the sofa, the Seine was a block away in the background, you could see it from the window, as well as Notre Dame Cathedral.
“You don’t need to drink much do you and you go out like a light bulb!”
“Yes, that’s so true. And my gout, I got the gout also.”
“It doesn’t matter all that much to me, to women such things are not all that important.”
“You’re British, right?”
“I’ve know you for six weeks, and you don’t know yet?”
“Well, I know you come from a well to do family, and you have some relatives in Minnesota, and in San Francisco, but where in England?”
“Shipton,” she stated.
“American-British, Right?
“Something on that order.”
“Good, I don’t detest either one.”
“I met an Arthur Burg, in Augsburg, Germany; he took a liking to me.”
“How do you know?”
“A girl knows these things.”
“Would you like to go for breakfast?” I asked. I really didn’t want to eat, I wanted to go to my place and sleep, but knew she did, and it would be nice to keep her company, she never liked eating alone. So we went and had breakfast at Les Deux Magots, we had boiled eggs, coffee, orange justice, and pastries.
“It isn’t bad here,” she said, “it’s fashionable.”
“Better than on the other side of the river.”
“But I like the German food also,” she commented, “let’s order another bottle of wine,” she said, “I’ll pay for it this time if you don’t mind?”
We drank another bottle of wine, and Bernadette made a joke, “Why did the bacon laugh?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Because the egg cracked a joke.”
“Where did you find that joke?” I asked Bernadette.
“My nephews… how about this one, “Where do ghosts make their beer?”
“Just say it!”
“At the boo—ery!”
“I can’t believe this, how many nephews you got?”
“It’s a shame you got MS. We get on well, how does it affect you anyhow?”
“Hard to get an erection… !”
“Yes, I figured as much. You are blunt aren’t you?”
“I don’t know how I got it, I just got it.”
“Oh, those dirty diseases.”
We would have continued on with the subject of illnesses, but she had already agreed it was a damn shame, and I didn’t say anything more on the subject, a calamity is just that, a calamity, and better to be avoided after you know enough about what it is, and how it is, no sense in belabouring it.
“Everyone’s meeting tonight at the Moulin Rouge; you know it’s been around since the 1880s. You got to be there.”
“Who’s everyone?”
“Tony, and Hans, and me and Katharine, and I think your buddy Ezra will be there.”
“How about your buddy, Arthur?”
“I wish he was, but he’s in Augsburg, says he might meet us at the Oktoberfest though. You must come dear.”
“Of course, I’ll come,” I said.
“And bring Ezra!”
“Thanks, we’ll be there,” and I got up and left, went back to my small apartment by where Bernadette’s hotel was and laid down on the bed, I needed to write more, but the wine was getting to me, and my foot was sore, the gout was starting to plumage my system. It all was too much for me, the night before, and this morning, the wine and the late hours.

A Telephone Wait ((Cody's Invisible Dime)(summer of '81)) In English and Spanish

2009-06-23T16:48:00.000-07:00

A Very Short Story

A Telephone Wait
((Cody’s Invisible dime) (summer of ’81))

He come up to a telephone booth, attached onto a grocery store that was also a gas station, and pretended to drop a dime into the proper slot. I saw from his profile he looked serious, kind of, maybe a little forlorn as he did it, he was playing a half mile away from his home apartment building, on York Street, with his brother Shawn, and a few neighbourhood kids. His face was fair, and he did everything slowly as though he was thinking, if not uncertain of something.
But when I came to the corner in my car, stopped, rolled down the window, he was still standing at the outside phone booth attached onto the building, talking to someone, looking a wee concerned, this boy of nine-years old.
When I put my hand out the window to wave him over to the car, I knew he saw it from the corner of his eye.
He appeared as if to know I was going to be right where I was, and there I was when he fully turned about, calmly and ghostly surprised at the same time; if anything it seemed to be a light form of insight he had.
“What’s the matter, Cody?” I asked as he came rushing to the side of my car window.
“Oh. I’m all right,” he commented, excited to see me, catching his breath.
“You get enough sleep. I’ll see you this weekend, if you mother lets me. Thought I’d go looking for you. So I drove around the neighbourhood.” Then we heisted, both smiling at one another, “What is it?” I asked him.
He hesitated, but his body movements told me he was trying to put some words together, looking up into the sky, and down at the ground, then eye level, not quite knowing how to explain it.
“Do you need something?” I asked.
He shook his head ‘No!’
“All right. If not, do you mind if I ask who you were talking to on the phone?” I remarked.
“You, dad!” He said, energetically, with a smile.
“Really?” I said.
“What did you ask?”
“For you to come visit me here.”
His face was now bright in wonderment, and merriment; there were bright areas under his eyes.
“Oh,” I said, what else could I say?
Cody stood still on the side of the car a moment he seemed somewhat detached from what had just happened.
“How do you feel, Cody? I asked him (he couldn’t say amazed, but he looked it) (he had been pretending to call me on the phone, pretended to drop a dime into the phone slot, and all of a sudden I appeared. Coincidence, perhaps, but I doubt he thought so.)
I sat back a tinge, in my seat, smiled, his little hands on the car door over the window slots, I could see his fingers a ways inside the car, as if he wanted to jump in, or open the door: perhaps, thinking I’d stay longer.
“Why don’t you try to go join your friends, I know your mother gets mad if she sees you talking to me.”
After a moment he said, to me, “Did you hear me talking dad?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, “someone did.”

Written 6-23-2009
Dedicated to that little boy

Spanish Version

Un Cuento muy Corto
Espera en el Teléfono
((La Moneda Invisible de Cody) (Verano de 1981))

Él se acercó a una cabina telefónica, que estaba junto a un supermercado donde también había un grifo de gasolina, y fingió poner una moneda en la respectiva ranura del teléfono. Lo vi de perfil, parecía serio, talvez un poco triste mientras hacía esto; él estaba jugando a ocho cuadras de su departamento, en la calle York, con su hermano Shawn y otros niños del vecindario. Él hacía todo esto lentamente mientras estaba pensando, si no vacilando en algo.
Pero cuando llegué a la esquina, y detuve mi carro bajando las ventanas, él todavía estaba parado afuera en la cabina telefónica, hablando con alguien, luciendo un poquito preocupado, este niño de nueve años de edad.
Cuando saqué mi mano afuera de la ventana del carro para saludarlo, supe que él me había visto por el rabillo de su ojo.
Parecía que él sabía que yo iba a estar justo donde estaba, y allí estaba cuando él se volteó totalmente, calmada y fantasmagóricamente sorprendido al mismo tiempo; si algo había, parecía que era una forma leve de perspicacia que él tenía.
“¿Qué pasa Cody?” pregunté mientras que él vino corriendo hacia el costado de mi carro.
“Ah, estoy bien”, él comentó, emocionado de verme, recuperando su respiración.
“Duerme suficientemente que te veré este fin de semana, si tu madre me deja. Pensé que iría a verte, por eso maneje alrededor del barrio.” Luego sonreímos el uno al otro, “¿Qué es esto?” le pregunté.
Él vaciló, pero los movimientos de su cuerpo me dijeron que él estaba tratando de encontrar las palabras, mirando hacia el cielo y hacia abajo, al suelo, luego levantó sus ojos, no sabiendo cómo explicar esto.
“¿Necesitas algo?” pregunté
Él movió su cabeza, “No”
“Esta bien, si no, te molestaría si pregunto con quién estabas hablando en el teléfono” recalqué.
“¡Contigo papi!” él dijo enérgicamente, con una sonrisa.
“¿De verdad?” dije.
“¿Qué pediste?”
“Que me vengas a visitar acá”.
Su cara ahora estaba brillando de asombro y alegría, había áreas brillantes debajo de sus ojos.
“Ah” dije, ¿qué más pude decir?
Cody estuvo parado inmóvil al lado del carro por un momento él parecía algo apartado de lo que acababa de suceder.
“¿Cómo te sientes Cody?” Le pregunté a él (él no pudo decir: asombrado; pero lo parecía) (él estaba fingiendo llamarme por el teléfono, fingió poner una moneda en la ranura del teléfono, y de repente me aparecí. ¿Coincidencia? Talvez, pero dudo que él lo pensara así)
Me recosté atrás un poquito, en mi asiento, sonreí, sus manitos en la puerta del carro sobre la abertura de la ventana, pude ver sus dedos un poco dentro del carro, como si quisiera saltar dentro, o abrir la puerta: talvez, pensando si yo me quedaría más tiempo.
“¿Porqué no tratas de unirte a tus amigos, yo sé que tu mamá se pone muy furiosa cuando te ve hablando conmigo”.
“Después de un momento él me dijo, “¿Me escuchaste hablando contigo papá?”
“Eso no importa” dije, “alguien lo hizo”.

Escrito el 23 de Junio del 2009
Dedicado a ese niño.

Big Blowoff Maui (short story of a storm in 2001)

2009-06-22T16:38:00.000-07:00

Big Blow off Maui
(12/2001)

It was dark and there was water in the street and no lights on the road, and the trees were blown down everywhere, I had heard once we got off the plane at the Maui airport, a storm was coming, it evidently had come. The streets and everything was full of water, gutters, and cars and just everywhere was water and the wind was picking up, a moon was scarcely seen overhead and dark clouds and plenty rough weather seemed to be brewing. So I grabbed my wife’s hand and got into the escorted tourist van. And we were headed for our hotel within minutes; it was off the Western Harbour.
When we got to the hotel all the lights were out, and the wind was picking up, “Man,” I said to Rosa, “this is some storm coming.” Like a hurricane in the makings.
It was just as dark as an empty barrel, looking down into it, we couldn’t even recognize our hotel, the driver had to shine his headlights on the sigh, and point to it, and when we got out, he was gone like a flash.
As we walked to the back of the hotel, where there was kind of a plaza area with a pool in the middle of it, trees and all types of greenery were blowing in wind, water from the sea and branches from the trees, and birds, whole trees and some dead birds, a few pelicans, all kinds of birds trying to escape, everything floating in the sky, flying by, blowing in the wind, you had to look everywhichway, lest you get slapped with something, someplace on your body.
Everyone had gone inside to two of the four buildings, one serving food on a lower bottom floor, a hot meal cafeteria style, and Rosa and I were hungry, very hungry. The other part that was opened was by the desk clerk.
We talked to the hotel clerk, got our keys to our rooms, and we went and put our luggage in it, but there were no lights. And it now was raining hard; I started to look out towards the sea, and to where they were serving hot food, kind of back and forth, one on each side of me, thinking: should we go eat or run back to our rooms.
“Let’s see what they got left to eat,” I told Rosa “we ought to eat something before morning,” we had flown directly from Minnesota, to San Francisco, and then onto Maui, with very little to eat.
We were way on the other side, across from the plaza, to where the café was, and we ran, getting slapped with the air, and blows of water from the sea carried by the winds, the hotel was a hundred yards from the beach.
When we got to the café, the floor was under an inch of water, “We haven’t had a storm like this in a decade,” said some voice serving food behind a long row of tables, to a guest in front of me. The food looked like it was mostly picked over. And the sign read $25.00. And it was take it or leave it (written under the $25.00-dollars), and where the nearest café was—only God knew.
“If this storm would just take a break until we get settled in,” I commented to Rosa.
There we were standing up with our trays and dishes of food, bits and pieces of leftovers, looking out a glass window at the tall tress looking as if they were going to be ripped out of the ground any minute, and a few smaller ones were already ripped up and out from its roots and all. We looked about, there was no place to sit down, and so we ate standing up.
It made me shaky to think how much the dinner cost; it was the closest thing to anything eatable though.
As we finished our food and walked outside, I could see the tops of the trees floating as if they were ships out at sea. And you could hear the hard twisted winds, its whistling and noise clanking, in your ears, braches breaking. I hung onto Rosa as if onto a little dinghy, and she I, we took a couple of breaths like doves and nearly swam to our hotel rooms.
I could see Rosa’s hair was tied down somehow, close to her head, and I had to carry my hat. She was right up close to me, when we got into our apartment building; the hallway was dark, drenched. We went up one flight of stairs, and once in our apartment, I had to let go of Rosa, and I heard a great thump, looked out the window, thought a building crashed, but it was a large tree had fallen by the pool, and then I noticed lighting and thunder and there was no longer a moon to be seen.
My head felt tired, stiff and then I rested on the bed, fully clothed, in case I had to get up quick, for whatever reason, and fell to sleep. It wasn’t any good staying up or worrying (the hotel staff was not going to vacate the hotel, and told us to simply lock ourselves in our rooms and outwait the storm), the wind was like a hammer, and the rains lashed out like glass, clear and sharp against our windows and stone building. That night it came onto Maui, like a blowing storm out of control, and it blew for hours and hours and hours. You couldn’t get out of the hotel, until morning, even if you wanted to, and where would you go anyhow. But it came out all right, in the morning, Maui was as if it had a nightmare, and had taken a sedative.

No: 419/ 6-22-2009
Dedicated to my sidekick, Rosa

Sons with no Mothers (a short story on greed)

2009-06-22T16:23:00.000-07:00

Sons with no Mothers
(July of 2007, to December)

Every time I meet Adelmo and Jaime (these two sons without mothers) they greet me, walking with or without friends, down the streets or in the plaza of Huancayo, Peru, they put their hands out to me.
“Hello Lee, old friend,” they say to me. I tell them, “You have no blood in your face.” It is bad and a cold insult to a Peruvian. But true in their cases, and they know it. And it doesn’t faze them.
And they tell me some sad story of how little they have. They make it very sad, they even believe what they’re telling me, believe in their own lies.
These are sons without a mother for you. They spend another person’s money and say they are broke only to ask for more money to borrow at a later date. Try to get a cent, or a sole from them— god-forbid a dollar, out of them. It’s in possible.
Every time I see them, in front of other friends, I wonder how they are swindling them, thinking of cheating them: what kind of blood is in their veins? I ask myself.

At one time Adelmo received $1500-dollars from me to do something for me, something he never did, never intended to do. And it did not have any effect on him knowing he had to pay me back, but couldn’t because he spent the money, so he said. He owed me $1000-dollars, he wouldn’t pay me (he did although get together $500-in five months, and begged I give him time for the rest).
“You can trust me for it,” he’d say, “aren’t we friends?”
“It’s not a matter of trust,” I said, “it’s a matter of money you took by deception—by not fulfilling your part of the deal, and never having any intentions to do so.”

“I haven’t got it,” he’d say.
“You have it,” I said, “it’s just you have other plans for it.”
“You don’t understand,” he’d comment, adding “don’t worry about it, I’ll pay you soon.”
“When?” my wife would ask.
“Soon!” he’d say.
“Pay me some now!” She told him (this rhetoric went on for six months. And my wife was getting a sharp sound in her ears, as if over stressed. I told her to back off leave it alone. But she continued a while longer.)

“I can’t,” he’d say to her time and again (then he did pay that five-hundred, but that was two months before we left Huancayo, for Lima.)
“My god,” I told him to his face, “you’re ahead of the journalist school and you can’t pay $1000-dollars and you got a daughter in college, and you spent my money and then you talk to me like nothing happened, as if you and I are best friends, what kind of a man are you?”
At that time he was going to all kinds of engagements and charging people for this and that, and I suppose that is how he got the five-hundred dollars together, but that was all he’d give. I told him a few times, “You have no blood in your face,” and he’d stare at me with his innocent droopy dog like eyes. Look at me as if I was tarring his heart out of his chest. Nothing, exactly nothing bothered him, cold as a fish on ice. They spend another person’s money on themselves or for vanity’s sake, and they never, ever pay. Just try to get a cent, and god forbid, a dollar from them.

Jaime was a young friend who worked for a newspaper in Huancayo. We, he and a girlfriend, a married woman—he took a liking for, my wife and I, went to Villa Rica together for a poetry reading. When it came time to pay the driver, each owing him 55 soles (about $20.00 dollars), he looked at me, dumbfounded, said, “I only took with me fourteen soles, I expected you to pay for the transportation.” And he expected me to pay for his girlfriend’s transportation. I felt sorry for the guy so I gave him 100 soles, so he could help his woman friend also with the fare. But once he got the money, he told her to pay her own way. Then after that he wanted advice from me as his psychologist, free.
Often during these months, he’d show up at my apartment, and I’d ask, “For what are you here for?”
“For my own business, thought I’d stop on by…” then he’d wait around until lunch time, when we had to go, and tag along for a free lunch at a café; and even ask after I’d pay for the lunch, for a desert. He had written two small articles on two of my books, and somehow, figured I owed him life and limb.
As I have said before, here are two souls without mothers, and no blood in their faces.

No: 421 (6-22-2009).

Kina Malpartida and Halana Dos Santos, in: Championship Fight (a barroom sketch)

2009-06-21T13:18:00.000-07:00

Kina vs. Halana, in:
Championship Fight (a barroom sketch)

June 20, 2009

Sitting in a bar in with my buddies in Lima, Peru watching the world woman’s Boxing Championship bout called “Champion of the Poor,” between Kina Malpartida, of Peru and Halana Dos Santos of Brazil…and

“I never saw a female boxer fight so hard to the styles of a man before, and with near the same strength, clean and swift and as beautiful as Mohammad Ali. There never was a woman like that. She moved just like a bull and tiger both in one, like Rocky Marciano, she was a little nervous at first though.” Lee told his drinking buddy, Enrique.
“Do you know her?” one of the men asked sitting next to Enrique, in the bar.
“Did I know her? I know about her like you know about nobody in the world and I love boxing like you love the God of Wine (the man was drinking a glass of Trapiche, Malbec, 2008, red wine, from Argentina.) She is the greatest, finest, Peruvian, most stunning woman boxer that ever lived, and Halana couldn’t put her down like a dog, as she thought she might.”
“Did you go down and see the fight?” asked the stranger.
“No. I was right here, it just ended. She’s the only female boxer worth her salt.”
Lee tried to be respectful to the bald headed wino, who said all this in a high melodramatic way, but Enrique was starting to shake his head as the stranger leaned over by him.
“You should have married her,” said the wino.
“It wouldn’t have hurt her career,” said Lee, to the bald headed wino, “but I’m already married.”
“Well I guess that’s a drawback, a husband isn’t what she really needs anyhow,” said the stranger.
“Gosh, what a fighter she was,” repeated Lee.
“That is a fine way to look at it,” commented Enrique, his brother-in-law, “Didn’t Kina knock her out, it happened so fast I didn’t get to see the end result?”
“A technical knockout is what they call it,” said Lee, “she was in the corner, and it was curtains, had they not stopped the fight.”
“It was a trick,” said the wino, “the Peruvian took Halana by surprise.”
“Kina knocked her down,” said Lee.
“She turned to smile at me, and that got the Peruvian the knockout!” remarked the wino.
“I thought you said you weren’t at the fight?” said Lee.
“No, you said you were not at the fight, I went out just for the fight.”
“It was a great fight,” remarked Enrique, then whispered to Lee, “I hope to god this creep leaves.”
“How can you say that?” said the wino to Lee and Enrique.
“I say it because it’s true,” Enrique said. “I’m the only one here sitting next to you, leave us in peace.”
“What did he say?” said the wino to Lee.
“He said you’re a drunken wino, and he knows Kina and she’s going to come here after the fight and knock the shit out of you for bothering her brother-in-law.”
“It’s a lie,” the wino said.
“It’s true,” Enrique said, “That’s truly what he said.”
“It’s a lie,” the wino said proudly.
And just then, some woman next to the wino hauled off and hit the wino, and he fell on the floor, and she said, “And it doesn’t make any difference to me whether you believe it or not, I’m the sister-in-law of Kina,” and the drunk just smiled as he looked up at her, and said, “It could be possible.”

Written one day after the fight, 6-21-2009
Inspired by, and dedicated to: Kina Malpartida.

The Quadruple Knockout! (Donkeyland Fight, 1960)

2009-06-05T10:03:00.001-07:00

The Quadruple Knockout!
[Donkeyland; and the Cayuga Street Gang; 1960]

I really couldn’t say for sure, but what I remember was we all stopped playing baseball in the empty lot, and walked over to the new kid standing somewhat in the way of the players; he had moved in by Ernest Brandt’s house, his first name was Buddy, can’t remember his last name. He had a white tea shirt on (a muscleman shirt), looked pressed and even, real clean. We were all dirty from playing baseball, all but him that is, and he looked too clean for us, so we tried to ignore him, but he wouldn’t let us. It was the summer of 1960, I was thirteen years old, almost fourteen, in three months that is. And Buddy was all of fifteen and half a-foot taller than I, but I was weight lifting, and had fourteen inch biceps. It was a hot and dusty day there in the empty lot, and somehow we all were called into Buddy’s little interruption, he wanted to tell us something, and he did:
“Anytime anyone of you guys want to fight me, I’m ready,” and he said it loud and he said it clear and he said it with a smirk on his face, and he looked ready, but he wasn’t ready, at one moment he even looked as if he was going to walk away at the same time, everyone talking among themselves over who got to fight him, and here is this guy standing there, as if he was Bruce Lee.
All of us boys were saying amongst ourselves, almost as if in a football huddle talking who was going to tackle that guy:
Voices in all directions saying: …me, me, I’ll fight him. No, let me fight him; meee…let me have him…. Echoes from all directions
Jack, my close friend at the time, wanted to fight him bad, he was always hyper, and he was real comfortable with the idea at first, but he didn’t do anything. The train of guys (or so it seemed), were all standing in that empty lot around him now, I among them, Indian’s Hill to the side of us, Cayuga Street in back of us, and him in the front of us, everyone gambling for the right to punch him out, or try.
Jack said, “Let me take him on,” then started cussing as he usually did, but he didn’t throw a punch, as he listened to the other boys argue with their hands gripping into a fist mode; the lucky guy would be me, and I was heated up, and I was ready to go, to do it.
Doug, and Roger, were there, Larry (the tough guy of the neighborhood) was not, he most likely—had he been there—most likely would not have hesitated, and the guy would have been hamburger, he would have thrown the first punch, and the fight might have been over before the guys stopped arguing. And so the dispute was with us. And the more the confrontation went on, the more I wanted him, as if he was the prized bull and I the matador, and he stood there like a bull, wanting anyone to charge, to come to forward, not waste his time. So I figured—it should me be.
Now there was a circle around him as I said before, and he stood quietly, stone-still, as everyone wagered for the right to fight him, and everybody wanting the right to fight him, but nobody fighting him, and I looked, just stared at him, saying to my mind’s eye, what am I waiting for. I had been weight lifting, had several fights before, but was no tough guy, not like Larry Lund, anyhow, but was getting a reputation—somewhat.
“Can’t I have him,” I said, and everyone looked at me, I mean everyone, and they looked at one another, and Buddy looked at me, and he shook his head okay, as if it was okay for me to fight him, and when he took one step forward before he even put up his fists, just that one step, I grabbed him and threw him on the ground like a runaway chicken who knows his head is coming off with an ax soon; and I never stopped punching his face-in until someone grabbed me off of him (I think it was Jack): lest I make him hamburger.
I suppose I was waiting to show the boys what I was made out of; this was a chance, they’ll tell me later how I was—I figured. But I had lost control somehow, a light went off inside my head, I didn’t like that, it was dull youth telling me to fight I presume, and I had won the fight, light on or off it didn’t matter to me, yet in years to come this would be repeated somewhat in other fights, to win was the main thing, and once you started, took that leap forward, you didn’t stop until your opponent was down and out. But was it unfair? I mean I jumped the gun; didn’t give him a chance. I didn’t look at the Golden Glove Rules, and I think Buddy did, none of us neighborhood guys did, I just punched, grabbed, and I didn’t squander any time in the process. He was perhaps a better puncher than I and he expected me to punch his way, so he could march on to victory, and I knew my fight would have to be by strength, surprise, push and force, and then a relentless number of punches, perhaps four, or double even that, but as most fights are, it is that first solid punch often, and if he was a puncher, I’d never get a second I knew that, and down he flee like a raging bull to the ground.

July, 2006 (Note: Donkeyland was what the St. Paul, Police called the area where he Cayuga Street Gang hung out); Revised and reedited June 5, 2009

On the porch in the summers (Grandpa and me)

2009-06-04T16:38:00.000-07:00

On the porch in the summers
(Grandpa and me)

From a little after midmorning, until near twilight of a long still, anguish dead summer day, we’d be on the porch, old grandpa Anton, still swearing away, cussing as always, mom said it was his way of getting it out—on that fresh hot artless porch with a sofa on it, and screens all around it, with blinds half down, fastened with a string, feeling the blinds would keep the sun out and the porch would be fresher, but when it went down in the east, it slashed its full yellow rays into the side of the porch, almost blinding you, I thought of it as being no more than the eternal sun getting ready to meet the eternal night, and clash, vibrantly clash, with the condensed and hyper-distilled look on grandpa’s face, before going away, until sunrise, when it would wake him up again on the porch, he slept there in the summers, not in his bedroom: I was simple an idle boy, with no rank, young flesh with a long embattled vanishing old stream, vanishing in interval, running one space to the next until his bones dried up, and the ghost in him mused with his shadow docilely as if it were the voice of fate haunting him in his own house. Out of this calm thunderclap, he would change from man to animal, to demon. It seemed grandpa wore those eternal dark blue or black, suites and all, all the time, it suited him well.
Grandpa was sitting in the sofa so bolt upright, in the curved soft sofa, he slept on in the summer, although his bone structure was rigid as well as having iron shinbones and ankles—and an air of impotent, self-puzzlement, indomitable frustrated look, as if he was long dead. As if at any moment, outraged summarized could be called to mind, upon a peaceful scene, sulfur-reeking, from his lips like a beast, yet I knew for the most part he was harmless. Mother would say, “That’s just the way he is, you can’t change an old goat, or teach one new tricks,” wild and relaxed, he’d remain, with his air of bleak, fatigued and dilapidated gulp of air.
His voice didn’t stop, but somehow vanished in his mumbling, grumbling, complaining and rumble-jumble carrying on, in a bloodless face, paradoxical, then it vanished…as sudden and as quick as the way it started, just like nothing, a puff of smoke, it vanished and I seemed to watch the smoke suddenly float out of the porch and be soaked up by the earth.
Then there was this savage quiet he produced. Him sitting and me standing on the porch, as if there was a coffin—a smelly gloomy over rotting coffin, between us, and I was near fearful to move, immobile and pontific, creating in me my future garrulous, if not imitative, outraged baffled ghosts. Perhaps the one that is helping me write this epistle about him and me on the porch in those now far-off summers of my formative years.
We seldom talked to one another, just long silences usually, as if we were not people, in a land of no language. It seemed as if he had a demon—who came out of nowhere warning him he was in the land with a strange, violently strange creature, me. Without gentleness he’d destroy without regret something, yes, saved by this demon.
And when I left for the Army, and college, and for my travels, I am sure he said “I don’t imagine he will come back here, and settle down as a grandchild should, he’s a wild one, not like his brother, already working and making plans, this one he will leave, enter some literary profession, be married, but never remain married. Perhaps he will be out among young friends instead of the old family.”
I was only twelve then, standing on that porch, due to his astonishment, I did exactly all he knew I’d do, have exchanged no more than fifty-words in our whole lifetime, living in the same house, ten-years, he did not recognize me as he revealed a character worth noticing, indicating a cold, implacable and to a certain degree, callousness.
The dusty heat of the day, those summer days, he’d walk back and forth, pacing the floor in the house from the porch to the kitchen, as if it was a half mile between each, and its actual size—it was of fifty-feet—of rug and a shabby rug at that, yet it had the same air as the half mile would have had, same quality, his face would remain grim, for a grim endurance is what he had, created to fit into his little smaller world, the one he put into his pocket, took out in the hallway, as if it was in a tomb, in his slow and heated weighed down time. He’d look at his wrist, check his watch, the time, the dim face now looking at an expressionless grandson, urgent and intent to be more than he would ever expect.
“He wants to tell me something, I know he does,” my grandfather thought, staring at me: oh yes, I could read his mind, but if he had asked me what I was thinking, it would displease the demon that stayed with him, then he’d tell himself, “There is no reason to talk to him, he’s already mummified.”
And mother would say, “He’s seventy years old, going to be eighty soon…” as if he was already vanished from this earth, fled to none knew where, but he was right here, in front of me, breathing the same air, hearing the same talk going on in the house, just not talking to me. My childhood was full of this, him, echoing with sonorous defeat to make a friend out of a grandfather that was interchangeable and almost numberless. It would have seen, or does seem, did seem, he had a war going on with some personal ghosts.
“Ah,” said my mother, “But why tell me about it, what can I do, I can’t change him!”

No: 410/6-4-2009

Riding the Rails: Chicago Bound

2009-06-01T14:36:00.001-07:00

Riding the Rails: Chicago Bound

Chick Evens and Tom Fortuna, stood still looked about the railroad yard.
“It’s all right,” Tom said.
“You mean the lousy brakeman’s gone—right,” Chick asked Tom.
“He’s nowhere insight,” remarked Tom.
Evens wiped his hands on his trousers, getting the dirt off of them, he looked down the tracks a-ways, could still see the lights of the caboose, it had left the Jackson Street Railroad Yard, had slowed down a mile away at the Mississippi Railroad Yard (where they were at now, near their homes), but was going in the opposite direction he and Tom wanted to go, wanted to catch a ride from St. Paul, to Chicago. They were both fifteen-years old, it was a Friday night, they figured they’d jump the train as it slowed down, and be in Chicago by morning, have breakfast and if their luck held out, be back in St. Paul by noon the next day for lunch.
The train was coming, he could feel the distinct power in its movement of the ground, unlike anything else, it woke him up—vibrated through his feet to his stomach and arms and throat and jaw and teeth, startled his inners, the sound was so loud and powerful, he could feel, if not sense, and was convinced the train would soon bear down upon him.

Chick touched the stepladder attached onto the freight car that ran parallel to him, as he ran and allowed the pull of the train to automatically lift and pull his body over and up onto its steel ladder—next to it, then he’d hang on with one hand, pull the rest of his body up and to the ladder bars, as Tom would do the same, was doing the same, and Chick noticed underneath the boxcar was a hobo or bum (a hobo being a traveling worker, and a bum being a bum), and in-between two boxcars (the one he was hanging onto, and the one Tom was hanging onto, next to his) was another vagrant; both he and Tom, hanging onto the side ladders, attached to the freight cars. He could hardly see them, but they were there, moving shadows nonetheless, and with the moon being their lamp, he could see their outlines.
The gravel and packed sand along side the tracks, extended beyond the rim of the steel tracks, and solid wooden row of timbers. In part He was about to do what the hobos were doing, riding the rods, that required skill and lots of courage, and it required a man to position himself under the freight car, hanging onto a rod, as Jack Dempsey did when he was sixteen, Evens at fifteen, but not to the extend Jack did. In those far-off days, folks had to go long distances to find work; this was an adventure trip, nothing more. Therefore, he simply, grabbed with one hand, and jumped with one foot landing on that ladder I mentioned, at the end of one freight car, and there he was. The metal ladder went to the roof of the car, he remained on its first step, held with two hands the third bar to the ladder, gripped the iron like bar in front of him with no breathing space between bar and fingers.
Chick was not what was called ‘a teenage-freight rider, riding the rails’ as many teenagers did during the depression years in the 1920s and 30s, on a regular bases, but from his perspective, and Tom’s, it was presumed simply, and attempted at simply, for its romanticism of the road, and in time, Chick Evens would travel the roads throughout the whole United States by car, trains and planes, then crisscross the world by planes. But today, for now, this evening, at this very moment, it was his first ride on a freight train, and his first, attempt at riding the rails, as they say; call it the spirit of adventure.

The boxcars started to speed up; there was acceleration, a rush inside of Chick, along with the trains forward thrust. Likewise, Tom was hanging on tight, heart-wrenching: it was a free ride, open air, exhilarating, and Evens tried to get another look at the traveler underneath the freight car on the car’s structural rods he got a glimpse of his hand hanging beyond the boxcar, and his elbow, his smudged and muddy boots, then he saw another man climbing a ladder beyond Tom’s boxcar, looking like he was going to ride the deck (on top of the railroad car), unless it was a guard. He thought maybe he should have tried an empty gondola car, that is, an unoccupied caboose, but that would have been too dangerous, once in it you’d not be able to escape easily, if someone put a spike in the door, and most of them were closed anyhow, so this was for the most part, safer, yet one needed to be mindful of the risk.

Four miles outside of St. Paul, the train started to slow down; Chick could see and feel the slower movement of the train. What he was hoping was there’d be no swaying trains, coming the opposite way, it could sweep him off the train into it, the one riding the rods were safer, they were confined in a smaller space, less detectable than he, who had to hang exposed, and hang on for dear life; whereas, those under him could roll out and off the train when he wanted to with no difficulty or move back farther in, plus he got only a little dust and cinders on him, whereas Evens got them all, even got dirt thrown in his face, and that got a little fearful for him, and the monotonous sound of the wheels, could lull a man to sleep, on the rails, and falling to sleep, meant falling to your death. Although one needed to be careful if he road the rods, because at road crossings, one could get their cloths caught in planks, and be pulled under the train itself, and cut in two. For some this kind of life, was a lifestyle, for Chick Evens, as already pointed out, it was an adventure, no more, and one that appeared to be ending sooner than expected.
Another three miles and then the train came to a dead stop. They were in some railroad yard, a junction, there was a highway to the left of them, and lights, from a restaurant, a gas station and a bar lit up the area he was in.
Chick stepped down off the ladder backwards, it was easier to pull his self off and then be facing forward in a comfortable option to take a second step, to catch oneself, and not get hurt. The same way he got onto the ladder, achieving solid footing. Then he looked straight ahead, the sign read: “New Port,” and he said to Tom: “Well, exactly where are we?”
(A man yelled from the top of the roof, ‘You kids get the hell out of here before…!”)
“Let’s get going,” said Tom.
“Where is New Port?” Chick asked Tom.
Tom a little embarrassed, remarked, “Seven miles from where we started out from, my older sister lives out here with her husband. And there isn’t any more trains going to Chicago, and only one leaving here at 2:00 a.m., to go back to the Jackson Street Yards, only slowing down at the Mississippi Yards.” (Tom had watched trains pretty much, knew about them, but as far as Chick was concerned: the blind was following the blind.)

“So now we got to walk seven miles back home, is that right Tom?” asked Evens, as if he didn’t know, nor needed any confirmation, but out of anger. Tom looked at Evens, smiled, Evens’ face was unhappy, said in a blunt way, “And we are only 393-miles from Chicago.”
Tom looked at his watch, “its 11:20 p.m., we should get back in a few hours if we keep a good stride.” He commented.
He looked at Tom, “Let’s sit down over by the embankment, rest, get our wind, and then head on back.”
And there they sat, blank like, looking off into emptiness, to nowhere, discouraged, but Evens came to the point after a minute or two of meditation: he got his ride, learned a few things along the way, and for now that would just have to do, it would have to be good enough, like it or not, and his composure showed it was—under the circumstances— showed that it was kosher.
“Let’s go Tom,” said Chick.
“Sure,” said Tom, droopy faced, not looking forward to the seven mile walk back along the tracks, “What’s the matter?” Asked Tom.
“I’m alright, just thinking it will be about 3:00 a.m., by the time we get back.”
“I don’t know, but that sounds about right,” said Tom.
“Come on; let’s get going then, no time to waste.”

It was 2:45 a.m., when Evens walked through the door of his home, everyone sleeping, and he went directly to the bathroom, which meant he had to go halfway into his mother’s bedroom, “Who’s that?” she said.
“Just me, Chick mom, went to the bathroom?”
“Oh, when did you get…?” and before she could finished her statement-question, and before Evens had to lie, she fell back to sleep.

June 1, 2009: No: 409./ds

A Quiet, felt Moment (In English and Spanish)

2009-05-25T09:29:00.001-07:00

A Quiet, felt Moment

“It is late,” said the old man’s wife.
“Every night is late, at 11:00 p.m., midnight, 3:00 a.m., and 4:30 a.m.,” said the old man.
In the nights now, the street outside his window was noisy, and so he’d read until he got tired, waited for it to become quiet, and when he felt that moment, he’d lay down in bed, he felt the difference, falling to sleep. The neighbours, new neighbours, the store owner selling beer—unlicensed to do so—strangers, all sitting at the little corner store, outside on chairs by tables, leaning against cars, drinking beer, singing songs, making noise, to all hours of the night. But he would be woken up, always woken up, by the drunks, the car horns, and the loud music from the car radios. He would be woken up numerous times throughout the night, besides having to relieve himself; and then there was the little fat lady with five dogs next door, she had to take them out three times a night and they’d run in the park across the street, into his garden.
“Last week the old man tried to commit suicide,” said one of the two drunks sitting on the edge of the curve across the street from the old man’s house.
“Why?” asked his companion.
“He couldn’t sleep.”
“Why not?”
“No reason.”
“How do you know there wasn’t a reason? How do you know he even tried?”
The two drunks sat on the edge of the sidewalk, on the curve drinking two quart bottles of beer, looking at the old man’s house across the street, at the second story window, where he slept. There were two other drunks sleeping it off under a tree in the park, near the corner, by the bicycle shop, the lady next to the old man’s house, brought her five dogs out of her apartment to do their duty, to relieve themselves. And they went right for the old man’s garden, where the dim arc light lit them up.
“His wife takes care of him,” said one of the drunks.
“What does it matter, if he complains about all the noise on this block, he can go back to America,” said the second drunk.
“We better move before he looks out his window, thinking we are robbers and shoots us with his revolver.”
The old man now is looking through a hole he made in his curtains.
“What is it dear?” asked his wife.
“These drunks again, from the store.”
“You’ll be tired in the morning if you stay up all night.”
“I never get to sleep anyhow until you get up it seems nowadays.”
The old man motioned with his fingers in the shape of a pistol, at the drunks, they didn’t see him, “a little more and I’ll get back into bed,” he told his wife.
“Now what are you doing?” asked his wife.
“More drunks and the lady, the crazy one next door, she’s allowing her dogs to use our garden as a toilet again.”
“Come to bed please.”
“They think I wanted to kill myself, Angel, the day security guard told me so, how foolish, can you believe that, I wanted to kill them, not me!”
“How would they know?”
“The lady with the dogs, she gossips, makes things up, to get attention I suppose.”
“Oh…ool,” said his wife, in a fading voice.
“No fear for their soul, no respect, no blood in their face.”
“I’m tired dear, come to bed, you get all worked up over nothing.”
“They say I got plenty of money, and they wish I’d go back to America, and they think I stay up all night for no reason.”
“I suppose so, but they don’t have wives, you have.”
“A wife would be no good for drunks.”
“You can’t tell them that.”
“I know. I’m happy to be old. An old man is a scarce thing.”
“Not always, he can be a nasty thing also.”
“I wish it was quiet again.”
The old man looked at the park and the church across the street from his window, had pulled back the curtains, then he looked left, down towards the store, where there was four drunks, all drinking beers, leaning against the cars.
“When they going to finish?” remarked the old man, waiting for his wife to say something, to answer him, and he looked at the bed, she had fallen back to sleep. He then looked at the clock it was 3:00 a.m. He would lie in bed in another hour, and it would be quiet for a moment, and he’d be exhausted and fall to sleep, he knew this, “I suppose,” he said in a whisper, as if he was talking to his second self, “It’s all about getting old.”

4-17-2009 /dedicated to my neighbours in San Juan Miraflores, Lima Peru

Spanish Version

Sentir un Momento Tranquilo

“Es tarde,” dijo la esposa del anciano.
“Cada noche es tarde, a las 11:00 de la noche, en la medianoche, a las 3:00 de la madrugada y a las 4:30 de la mañana” dijo el anciano.
Afuera de su ventana, ahora en las noches, la calle estaba ruidosa y por eso él leería hasta cansarse, esperando que ésta se volviera tranquila y cuando él sentía ese momento, él se tiraría en la cama; él sentía la diferencia y entonces se quedaba dormido. Los vecinos, los nuevos vecinos, el dueño de la tienda vendiendo cerveza—sin licencia—a extraños, todos sentados afuera en sillas por las mesas en la pequeña esquina de la tienda, recostados en los carros, bebiendo cerveza, cantando canciones, haciendo bulla, todas las horas de la noche. Por ello él se despertaría, siempre se despertaría, debido a los borrachos, a las bocinas de los carros y a la música alta de las radios de los carros. Él se despertaría muchas veces durante las noches, por estos motivos, aparte de tener que ir al baño; y luego había una pequeña señora gorda de la casa del costado con cinco perros, ella tendría que sacarlos afuera de su casa tres veces en las noches y ellos correrían a su jardín, que estaba por el parque cruzando la calle.
“La semana pasada el anciano trató de suicidarse”, dijo uno de los dos borrachos sentados al filo del sardinel que estaba cruzando la calle al frente de la casa del anciano.
“¿Por qué?” preguntó su compañero.
“Él no podía dormir”
“¿Por qué no?”
“No hay ninguna razón”
“¿Cómo es que sabes que no hay ninguna razón?” “¿Cómo es que sabes que él siquiera lo intentó?”
Los dos borrachos sentados al filo de la acera, encima del sardinel bebían dos botellas de cerveza, mirando a la casa del anciano al frente de la calle, mirando a la ventana del segundo piso, donde él dormía. Habían otros dos borrachos durmiendo bajo un árbol en el parque, cerca de la esquina, por la tienda de bicicletas; la señora de la casa contigua a la del anciano sacó a sus cinco perros para que hicieran sus necesidades, y ellos fueron directamente al jardín del anciano, donde las luces del arco estaban prendidas.
“Su esposa lo cuida”, dijo uno de los borrachos.
“Qué importa que él se queje de toda esa bulla en su cuadra, él puede volver a Norteamérica” dijo el otro borracho.
“Mejor nos vamos antes que él mire por su ventana, y nos dispare con su revolver pensando que somos rateros”.
El anciano ahora estaba mirando a través del hueco que hizo en sus cortinas.
“¿Qué es esto querido?” preguntó su esposa.
“Estos borrachos de nuevo, los de la tienda”.
“Estarás cansado mañana si te quedas despierto toda la noche”.
“Nunca llego a dormir de todas formas hasta que tú te levantas, eso parece en estos días”.
El anciano hizo señas con sus dedos en forma de pistola a los borrachos, ellos no lo vieron, “un poco más y volveré a la cama” él le dijo a su esposa.
“¿Qué estás haciendo ahora?” preguntó su esposa.
“Más borrachos y la señora, esa loca de la casa del costado, está dejando que sus perros usen nuestro jardín como si fuera su baño de nuevo”.
“Ven a la cama, por favor”.
“Ellos piensan que quise suicidarme, Ángel, el vigilante del día me lo dijo, qué tontos, ¿puedes creerlo? ¡Quiero matarlo a ellos, no a mi!”
“¿Cómo lo sabrían ellos?”
“La señora de los perros, ella chismosea, inventa cosas, para llamar la atención me imagino”.
“Ah…ah…” dijo su esposa con una voz apagada.
“No tienen miedo por sus almas, no respeto, no tienen sangre en sus caras”.
“Estoy cansada querido, ven a la cama, tú te preocupas mucho por nada”.
“Ellos dicen que tengo un montón de dinero y desean que vuelva a Norteamérica, y piensan que estoy despierto toda la noche sin ninguna razón”.
“Me imagino que si, pero ellos no tienen esposas, tú si tienes”.
“Una esposa no sería bueno para un borracho”.
“No puedes decirlo eso a ellos”
“Lo sé. Estoy feliz de ser un viejo. Un anciano es una cosa rara”.
“No siempre, puede ser una cosa fea también”.
“Desearía que fuera tranquilo de nuevo”.
El anciano miró desde su ventana al parque y a la iglesia al frente de su casa, había corrido las cortinas, luego miró a la izquierda, abajo hacia la tienda donde estaban los cuatro borrachos, todos tomando cerveza, recostados en los carros.
“¿Cuándo van a terminar?” recalcó el anciano, esperando que su esposa dijera algo, le respondiera a él y luego miró hacia la cama, ella se había quedado dormida. Él entonces miró al reloj, eran las 3:00 de la mañana. Él se recostaría en la cama en una hora, afuera estaría tranquilo por un momento y él estaría tan exhausto que se quedaría dormido, él lo sabía esto, “Me imagino…” él dijo en un susurro, como si estuviera hablándose a sí mismo, “…que es todo sobre envejecer”.

17-Abril-2009 /dedicado a mis vecinos en San Juan Miraflores, Lima Perú

The Frozen Tongue ((A Very Short Story)(in English and Spanish))

2009-05-25T09:27:00.001-07:00

The Frozen Tongue
((A Chick Evens, Episode, 1958, St. Paul, Minnesota)(a very short Story))

The sidewalk around the garage was scattered with broken, long and heavy ice icicles, once frozen onto the rim of the garage roof. I was but eleven-years old back then, back in the winter of 1958, and I had heard how cold metal or iron, would freeze a person’s tongue onto its surface, as quick as the clap of an eye. I was born with a curious nature indeed, and this was quite fascinating, yet to me unproven. So of all things, I put my tongue onto the door knob of the garage door, it must had been five below zero out. And it froze onto it, quicker than I could spit.
I started to pull, or try to pull away, but my tongue would not release from the metal knob, and so there I stood, like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, crouched down nearly on bended knees, praying my brother Mike, that he would come along soon and save the day (I needed no more proof, it worked).
As I remained in this position for eons it seemed, this raised the question, that surely my brother Mike would ask, “Why… would someone do something as silly as this?”
I mean it was harsh weather, a Minnesota winter is nothing to laugh about, for it is an enduring experience, each and every year.
I hadn’t the answer other than, ‘To see if it worked.’
When my brother did show up, he said, “Don’t you have better things to do,” a rhetorical question of course.
And I just prayed he’d hurry up, and go fetch some warm water, which he did, and pour it over my tongue, which he did, but instead of just my tongue, it went all over my face and mouth and then onto the knob, “Oh!” I cried “it’s free!” and that was that, and it was worth the additional wetness I had to bear—it just got a little messy that’s all.
My brother, Mike, who is two year older than I, looked at me with his intense eyes, carefully, “How long you been like that?” he questioned.
¨There came a mysterious pause from me, then a succession of “I don’t know (s).”
We both exchanged a humorous look, I think my face apologized mutely for taking up his time, and as he walked up those stone stairs, his back to me, on the path to our house, he laughed shaking his head, right to left (and in a like manner, I shook my shoulders up and down).

Written on the terrace roof, Lima, Peru 1-19-2009, Dedicated to Mike E. Siluk. •••

Spanish Version

La Lengua Congelada
((Un episodio de Chick Evens, 1958, San Pablo, Minnesota)(un cuento muy corto))

La acera alrededor del garaje estaba esparcida con carámbanos rotos, largos y pesados, de hielo una vez congelados al filo del techo del garaje. Yo tenía sólo once años de edad en ese entonces, allá en el invierno de 1958 y había oído cómo el metal o hierro frío congelaría la lengua de una persona en su superficie tan rápido como el parpadeo de un ojo y esto era bastante fascinante, pero todavía no probado por mi. Yo había nacido con una naturaleza curiosa de verdad. Por eso, puse mi lengua sobre la perilla de la puerta del garaje, afuera debió haber estado en quince grados centígrados bajo cero, y ésta se congeló sobre la perilla más rápido de que pudiera escupir.
Empecé a jalar, o traté de jalarla fuera, pero mi lengua no se soltaría de la perilla de metal, y por eso allí estuve, como el jorobado de Nuestra Señora, doblado hacia abajo con mis rodillas dobladas, rezando para que mi hermano Mike viniera pronto y me salvara el día (no necesitaba más pruebas, esto funcionaba).
Mientras permanecía en esta posición, que parecía una eternidad, una pregunta surgió, que seguramente mi hermano Mike preguntaría: “¿Por qué...alguien haría algo así de tonto?”
Quiero decir que era un clima duro, un invierno de Minnesota no es nada como para reírse, porque es una experiencia dura, todos los años.
No tenía otra respuesta que: “para ver si funcionaba”.
Cuando mi hermano Mike apareció, él dijo: “¿No tienes mejores cosas que hacer?” una pregunta retórica por supuesto.
Y yo sólo rezaba para que él se apurara, y echara agua tibia sobre mi lengua, lo que él lo hizo, y me echó agua sobre mi lengua, y no sólo en mi lengua sino en toda mi cara y boca y luego en la perilla, “Ah” grité “está libre” y esto fue todo; valió la pena la mojada adicional que tuve que soportar—solamente estuvo un poco desordenado, eso es todo.
Mi hermano Mike, quien es dos años mayor que yo, me miró con sus intensos ojos, cuidadosamente, “¿Cuánto tiempo has estado así?” él preguntó.
Allí vino una pausa misteriosa por mi, luego una sucesión de “no lo se…”
Ambos intercambiamos una mirada graciosa, creo que mi cara se disculpaba silenciosamente por ocupar su tiempo, y mientras él subía esas gradas de piedra de espaldas hacia mi, en el camino a nuestra casa, él se rió moviendo su cabeza a la derecha e izquierda (de la misma forma, yo moví mis hombros arriba y abajo)

Escrito en la azotea de mi casa en Lima, Perú 19 de Enero del 2009, Dedicado a Mike E. Siluk.

The Little Russian Twins (in English and Spanish9

2009-05-25T09:20:00.001-07:00

The Little Russian Twins

(Yulie and Anatolee)
Poetic Prose Narration

No children ever looked so scornful, so undignified than Yulie and Anatolee, the little Russian twins, gossiped the neighbors as they passed through Prince Lane, a rich neighborhood, on their way to Pleasant Elementary school each morning. But no matter who peered from their windows, porches or lawns—they would have to admit, Yulie and Anatolee walked splendidly together: chatting along the way, and showing very much interest in what one another had to say, not noticing the onlookers.
Yulie, the youngest of the twins by nine minutes, wore oversized shirts, short pants and a jacket—with three shades of colorful dirt: sandals that were made to fit his little feet by squeezing them in.
Anatolee, the elder, wore basically the same except for a hat which he found some months past and never seemed to take off. Both wore the same cloths—it seemed--: winter, spring, summer and fall, except for trading with one another every so often. And for lack of a comb—their hair seemed always to be messy.
At school, the well-to-do children often ridiculed and teased Yulie and Anatolee for their broken speech, dirty cloths, and messy hair. But the twins never laughed back, got angry, or gave it much notice.
One day during class, Mrs. Rightbird, Yulie and Anatolee's teacher, asked Yulie, “Can’t you and your brother afford a simple comb to groom your hair with before coming to class?”
“We have very little money,” replied Yulie, “and what we do have must be used for food, paper and pencils so we can eat and learn; because of this, we feel a comb is less important, and use our fingers, which cost nothing.”
This angered Mrs. Rightbird to the point of stomping her feet and yelling: “How disrespectful you are! I will surely have to talk with your parents about this.”
Anatolee exclaimed, “My brother simply answered your question. I’m sure he is not trying to be—as you say—disrespectful!”
Angered again, Mrs. Rightbird yelled, “You both are disrespectful and out of place! Have you no manners at all? I would never let my children dress or be seen the way you two are!”
After school that day, Mrs. Rightbird went to the main office to check Yulie and Anatolee’s records, hoping to get their address and telephone number. But to her surprise she found the records contained only their first names, grades and the date they were admitted into school. How mysterious she thought, for the twins had been at Pleasant Elementary going on two years.
As the children arrived back at school the next day, Mrs. Rightbird pulled Yulie and Anatolee aside and questioned them about the odd files she had found, demanding she be given an explanation promptly. Yulie quickly explained that at the time of admittance into school they had no residence and was in search of one—but, that they had one now. She then demanded it be given to her.
“One Riverside Lane,” replied Anatolee.
“Is this an apartment?” questioned Mrs. Rightbird.
“No,” said Yulie, “it’s kind of an old castle.”
Having heard this, Mrs. Rightbird left Yulie and Anatolee to their studies.
That day after school-uncertain the twins had given her the proper address. Mrs. Rightbird followed them on their journey home. They walked through the rich neighborhoods, the inner-city, down to the riverbank, and then alongside the Mississippi River, and its neighboring ancient tall cliff walls, which gave light to many caves.
After walking a short distance further, Yulie and Anatolee entered a small inlet that led into a vast inner cave. Mrs. Rightbird followed close behind.
Inside the cave, Mrs. Rightbird hid behind a huge rock that looked like an ancient pillar, while observing the twins. Yulie went quickly to the center of the cave where a fire was barely burning. He picked up a few pieces of driftwood-gathered the day before—and set them in the center of the fire to feed it. Anatolee joined his brother. Both of them, then sat down harmoniously on separate wooden fruit crates—resting from the long walk and absorbing the fire's warmth from the brisk fall air.
They gave thanks to God for the day, the food they were about to eat, the chance to learn, for His presence and love. After a moment of silence, they gave thanks for their loving and caring parents who had brought them to America for freedom-although deceased now.
Mrs. Rightbird leaned tiredly against the wall of the cave. She thought of the humiliation, shame, and disrespect she and others had tried to inflict upon these two young immigrants. Then with a tear gazing at the twins, she thought how fulfilled they appeared to be, how simply pleased, how noble.

Notes on the story: “The Little Russian Twins (Yulie and Anatolee)” Originally published in the book “Reading for Little People”; 1983 © Dennis L. Siluk; written in 1982, and published in a chapbook form of 100-copies, in 1984 (the first short story of the author’s and published with his second story “Uni’s Street Corner” under the title “Two Modern Short Stories of Immigrant Live”) © under, Dennis L. Siluk, printed by Four Winds Press (Edited y Donna Reading) Out of print for 25-years (reedited and translated into Spanish, 12-2008)

Spanish Version

Los Pequeños Mellizos Rusos

(Yulie y Anatolee)
Relato en Prosa Poética

Ningún niño alguna vez lució más desdeñoso, más indecoroso que Yulie y Anatolee, los pequeños mellizos rusos, chismoseaban los vecinos mientras ellos caminaban a través de la Calle Príncipe, un vecindario rico, en su camino a la “Escuela Primaria Agradable” cada mañana. Pero no importa quién miraba detenidamente desde sus ventanas, puertas o céspedes—ellos tendrían que admitir, que Yulie y Anatolee caminaban espléndidamente juntos, conversando a lo largo del camino y mostrando bastante interés en lo que el otro tenía que decir, no dándose cuenta de los espectadores.
Yulie, el menor de los mellizos por nueve minutos, vestía camisas muy grandes, pantalones cortos y una chaqueta—con tres tonos de color sucio, sandalias que fueron hechas para encajar a sus pequeños pies metiéndolos con dificultad.
Anatolee, el mayor, vestía básicamente lo mismo excepto por un sombrero que él se encontró algunos meses atrás y que parecía nunca quitárselo. Ambos vestían las mismas ropas—eso parecía—en invierno, primavera, verano y otoño, excepto por intercambiarlos uno con el otro cada cierto tiempo. Y por la falta de un peine—sus cabellos parecían siempre desordenados.
En la escuela, los niños acomodados frecuentemente ridiculizaban y tomaban el pelo a Yulie y Anatolee por su forma de hablar, su ropa sucia y sus cabellos despeinados. Pero los mellizos nunca se molestaban o le daban mucha importancia.
Un día durante las clases, la señora Rightbird, la profesora de Yulie y Anatolee, le preguntó a Yulie, “¿Pueden tú y tu hermano comprar un simple peine para peinarse sus cabellos antes de venir a la escuela?”.
“Nosotros tenemos poco dinero” respondió Yulie, “y lo que tenemos lo gastamos en comida, papel y lápices para poder comer y aprender; debido a esto, sentimos que peinarse es menos importante y usamos nuestros dedos, que no cuesta nada”.
Esto enfadó a la señora Rightbird al punto de zapatear gritando: “¡Qué irrespetuoso eres! De seguro tendré que hablar con tus padres sobre esto”
Anatolee exclamó, “mi hermano simplemente contestó a su pregunta. Yo estoy seguro que él no está tratando de ser—como usted lo dijo— ¡irrespetuoso!”
Enfadada de nuevo, la señora Rightbird gritó: “¡Ambos de ustedes son irrespetuosos y fuera de lugar! ¿No tienen ustedes algunos modales en absoluto? Yo no le dejaría a mis hijos vestir o lucir de la forma de ustedes dos”.
Ese día después de terminar las clases, la señora Rightbird fue directamente a la Dirección de la escuela para revisar los registros de Yulie y Anatolee, esperando obtener su dirección y número telefónico. Pero para su sorpresa encontró que los registros sólo contenían sus nombres de pila, sus grados y la fecha en que fueron admitidos en la escuela. “¡Qué misterioso!” Ella pensó, ya que los mellizos habían estado yendo a la “Escuela Primaria Agradable” por dos años.
Mientras los niños regresaban de vuelta a la escuela al siguiente día, la señora Rightbird jaló a Yulie y Anatolee a un costado y les preguntó sobre los archivos raros que ella había encontrado, exigiendo le dieran una explicación puntual. Yulie rápidamente explicó que en el tiempo de su admisión en la escuela ellos no tenían una residencia y que estaban en la búsqueda de una—pero, ahora ellos tenían una. Entonces ella exigió que le dieran la dirección.
“En la Calle Ribera” respondió Anatolee.
“¿Es esto un departamento?” preguntó la señora Rightbird.
“No”, dijo Yulie, “es una clase de castillo viejo”.
Habiendo escuchado esto la señora Rightbird dejó que Yulie y Anatolee fueran a sus clases.
Ese día, después de las clases, dudando que ellos le hubieran dado la dirección apropiada, la señora Rightbird siguió a los mellizos en su camino de regreso a casa. Ellos pasaron por los barrios ricos, también por barrios pobres, bajaron hacia la orilla del río y luego caminaron a lo largo del Río Mississippi y sus vecinas paredes altas de los acantilados antiguos, que daban luz a muchas cuevas.
Después de caminar una distancia corta más, Yulie y Anatolee entraron a una pequeña ensenada que conducía al interior de una amplia cueva, la señora Rightbird los seguía detrás, muy de cerca.
Dentro de la cueva, la señora Rightbird se ocultó detrás de una roca enorme que parecía como un pilar antiguo, mientras observaba a los mellizos. Yulie fue rápidamente al centro de la cueva donde un fuego apenas ardía. Él cogió unas cuantas piezas de madera que habían recogido del mar el día anterior—y los colocó en el centro del fuego para alimentarlo. Anatolee se unió a su hermano. Ambos de ellos, después se sentaron armoniosamente separados en cajones vacíos de frutas—descansando de la larga caminata y absorbiendo el calor del fuego del enérgico aire de otoño.
Ellos dieron gracias a Dios por el día, por la comida que estaban a punto de comer, por la oportunidad de aprender, por Su Presencia y Su Amor. Después de un momento de silencio, ellos dieron gracias a Dios por sus bondadosos y cariñosos padres quienes los habían traído a Norteamérica por libertad—a pesar de que estaban muertos ahora.
La señora Rightbird se recostó cansadamente contra la pared de la cueva. Ella pensó en la humillación, vergüenza, y falta de respeto que ella y otros habían tratado de infligir sobre estos dos jóvenes inmigrantes. Luego con una lágrima, mirando larga y fijamente a los mellizos, ella pensó en qué realizados ellos aparecían ser, qué satisfechos, simplemente, qué nobles.

Amaze ((Gay and Angry)(a short story))

2009-05-22T17:38:00.000-07:00

She troubled me.

She troubled me, and my wife, and from what I remember her of her foster parents she troubled them, but most people seemed to like her, especially those who went on that school trip I once took with her to South Dakota, to: the Bad Lands, and Black Hills and Mount Rushmore. Her foster mother and father presided over some of the children on that trip of this Minnesota rural district, where my granddaughter, Maria-Lee lived (I had remarried, and so Maria was no relation to my new wife).
She treated her foster parents like servants of some old southern town, before the advent of the Civil War, in the 1860s. I didn’t take a liking to that and confronted her with the issue, but she didn’t feel certain guilt whatsoever over that confrontation: “Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t like the way I acted before?” Was all she could say.
I was one of those grandparents, living quite a ways from her, in the City of St. Paul. However, as it happened, I did not stick around to be told off by a thirteen year old kid, and I told her so, “If you can’t respect your foster parents, and you look like you want to confront me negatively about this, how then do you expect this to turn out between us?” I added to that, in so many words: I’m not the kind of person that will take all your crap. And to be frank, I think she was very happy I did not get involved with her controlling issue of her foster parents.
She really did not have anything more to say on the matter, but she had a secret, something that was bothering her, and perhaps to a light extent, me. Something that was really worrying her very much, something she was afraid to tell anybody, even me—I couldn’t imagine what it was, and she couldn’t imagine what my reaction would be, it was such an odd thing that she had no one to tell her not to worry. Had she asked me, that is what I would have said?
I had never really heard of anyone having such a problem like the one that was troubling Maria at her age. On the one hand it appeared maybe silly, when I found out: on the other hand…
I wanted to tell her, that her secret was nothing to get angry at me over, or about. Because I had no magical powers to make her different than what she chose to be, or how she chose to live, not after she was an adult anyway. I might have been to her, a serious minded adult, one that could force a proposal from her, and make her restore lost femininity if indeed I wanted to, but I wouldn’t and couldn’t. In short, she was angry from the age I met her, at thirteen years old, and when she called me, when she was sixteen years old she was still angry, and when she phoned my wife at a full adult’s age, and said, what her secret was, she was still angry. Maybe she had a wish, I had a wish, and who could make wishes come true? Would I accept her as she was? She was too angry to deal with.
Not even card tricks could make her less angry, and again there was no magic I knew other than, time to allow this anger to sink into some deep sinkhole and die, but it was hard to tell when it would, and if it would.

Now, about this wish and secret…

of hers, which I’m sure the worry was with her from morning to night: it wasn’t anything she could straighten out and ask me—evidently, but she did tell my wife when she phoned her. It required the right time, and a careful prepared moment. She seldom called me and I didn’t want anymore disrespect. But when she did, I listen to my wife, what she had to say about what Maria had to say, and how she had said what she said. And it was not a delicate moment; again her thick ugly anger came out, attempting to catch my ear.
We never talked after that last conversation when she was sixteen years old, not verbally at least. She was too stupid, and I was too nervous. Yes, nervous. It was just something I sensed in me, powerful, as was the stupidly she carried about concerning this issue.
She saw something though in me, a desire. And so she tried to get ahold of me in South America, and turned her anger down and rolled her sleeves up, eyes and heart elsewhere though, and said “I want to start a new relationship with you (inferring she was sorry, and that should mend all hurts and injuries and so for and on).” She didn’t call me grandfather, rather by my first name, which was the first disrespectful thing I noticed. I was to her, what I always was to her, a brief visit, curiosity, home blood substance.
When I think of her, the humid winds of the old Mississippi River drift deep and seep deep into my bone, they no longer are for an innocent girl.
I love her, and she wanted to love me, but she loved beyond me, and so I kept my distance, as she behaved indifferently. She felt it, but she never reasoned what caused my coldness; it wasn’t as she thought, and I told her so, the last time we talked on the computer: I never cared one way or the other if she were gay, I did care if you were angry and disrespectful, she wanted respect, she just couldn’t give it, I didn’t care to walk on eggshells with anybody, her included, life is too short for that. Why be around people that make you unhappy. No sense in it, they use you, drain you then walk away proud as a bear who just sucked up all the honey in the beehive.
‘Really,’ she thought. Perhaps thinking, this is all a little humorous. It struck me as a very dry subject—her lesbianism.
I said, “If you are happy where you are in life (knowing it must had been difficult for her) I can’t help in that area, I don’t know how, the only thing I would be able to do is accept. I’m fine, and I’m fine with you. Everything’s hunky-dory.” But of course I would not have cared for her to bring her lover around, that perhaps might have been another issue, but one that could have been solved later on.
I said, “I’m sorry things did not work out better for us, but why do you want to have a relationship with an old man now?” She really didn’t have an answer.
What was there to say? How could I explain that all through the years I waited for her to accept me for me, I had already accepted her—and her secret, the one she never told me until she was of age, other than disrespect for me and her foster parents. And so we remained silent, and perhaps that is the best, no one gets hurt that way, especially if it is a one-way street.

Dedicated to Maria… (Granddaughter) 5-22-2009

Unseen (Death at Ten, a short story)

2009-05-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

He shall not forget the moment he walked though those metal doors, it was his own first sight of death, there was a cold chilly silence in the room, he stood about while Mrs. La Rose saw, and claimed the dead body to be her husband’s—discolored and bloated; he was ten-years old, she was his babysitter. The man was just lying there; it was to him, new and terrifying. He wanted to run away, out of the city morgue. His mind came dashing back though; he leaned against a pole; the warm day and hot car Mr. La Rose was found in, found dead in (heart attack) made his body decay quicker than normal, someone said, it smelled like dead rotting something. After a few more minutes, he was actually comfortable. That’s what it was like for him that day, death previously, unseen, had lost its mystic.
As for the body—well, Mr. La Rose was a medium size man, and there had been booze on his breath—and reeking from his body, out of his pores he had sweated booze, fifty-one years old, separated from his wife for years, Margaret.

∙

It stayed in my mind all these years, that even though Mr. La Rose, was a womanizer, a drunk and non-supporter of his two boys, the same ages as me and my brother. She could not hold back her tears, although there were at the moment only a few drops from each eye; so determinedly when death came, and as it lied in front of her, she shivered with pain, I can see it again, as so often I had seen it back then, her love for a man, perched on top of a hill top, once bold.
And then as I stood there shivering in that cold room, with my boyish interest in death, a curiosity, and nervous dread, I thought: here was a man who really was not through with his life…had he been old, in his late 60s or 70s or even 80s, death might have become a comforting theme—something of that sort; at any rate, he wasn’t. But he quieted me lying there perhaps put a fear and chill in me as well.
I knew him slightly—I cannot now remember, every time I saw him, it was although only a few times, I do remember with patches of inky darkness, shadows of those days.

He was as one who goes though a wide tall building, newly constructed by the hand of death, the elevator man, as he stops from floor to floor he jumps out and tries to fling all of life he can into his already over flooded, over intoxicated system, in a matter of minutes, he never makes it to the top floor, awakening in the land called “The Dead!” thinking it’s all part of his imagination.

∙

Broken Silence

(Uncomfortable silence ensued and in the end it was broken by the voice of the morgue staff.)

Staff: There’s no one here except your husband, Mrs. If you’d like some time alone, I can watch the two boys, in the hallway. I might as well make myself useful!

Mrs. La Rose: (taking off her shawl, a dray woman—she nodded her head ‘yes’ waited for everyone to leave, she also turned to look over her shoulder to see if we all did leave, and we did.)

Note: written: 5-16-2009 (No. 400/SA 5DS)

"The Rose Room" (short story about the stockyards in Minnesota)

2009-05-16T21:12:00.000-07:00

The Rose Room
((The Stockyards of South St. Paul, Minnesota, 1966) (a Chick Evens Story))

Chick Evens went to work for the stockyards one summer in 1966, near the town-let of South Saint Paul, the summer was extremely hot, and you could bake an egg on the sidewalks.
His mother worked at Swift’s Meats (in the meatpacking department), the company which he now came to be employed at, made a deep impression on Chick’s mind and he never forgot the thoughts and experiences that came to him during those last months of that summer working at the stockyards inside a packing house (cutting up carcasses of hogs), and especially delivering animal waste to the Rose Room!

The traditional puffing forth smoke, which attracted attention to its tall chimneys as they rumbled along and burnt up the remains of pigs and cows, and sheep, and goats, slowly over miles of bones and animal waste, circulated the air, and drifted throughout the huge stockyards, second in the nation, only to Chicago’s.
One could see and smell at any section, division or corner of the town-let this putrid smoke, from the stockyards, all the way down to the Mississippi River, some five-miles away, and even across the Robert Street Bridge, to the other side of the river, where resided St. Paul, proper, the inner city, the downtown area; that dark to light gray smoke, rising into the clear morning sky.
Where some of this smoke came from was a dim lit, small room through which an employee brought in stacks of animal throw away, desecrated meats, from throughout the stockyards. From these stacks could be seen glowing and pale pus from hams, torn hides, discolored skin and unusable bones and infected guts, and so forth, nothing to please an appetite.
There was no wind, or windows in this room—this room they called ‘The Rose Room’, just an iron round plate on the floor, heavy as a Cadillac car, it was opened by pressing a yellow button, and machinery lifted this tonnage door about three feet up…then it stopped as if a person might fall or jump into this inferno pit, and there was hell’s fire. You could hear the crackling of the fire, feel the heat penetrating your pours, and smell the punishingly putrid stink therewithal, and near suffocating in the process: it all was close to gagging the lungs, to a point of collapsing.
The fire was equal to any spot in a blazing forest fire, it grew along the sides of the pit when the iron door was opened, like snakes running up its sides to escape.

∙

In the afternoons I went to what they called the Rose Room, opened up the door to the house of flames, it crackled and snapped under my feet, even the soul of my shoes got hot through the thick stone floor, the smell of this room was putrid, foul, sizzling. It made a man think about going back to school, it did me anyway, learn a real trade—it was a room I swear rented out by the devil or perhaps God Himself, to express where souls go to decay—the repentance abyss.
My mind captured such an image even before I set foot out of this room, the first time I brought in a wheelbarrow of animal waste—I remember I had little to say, looking into that abyss of flames, pouring my wheelbarrow of rotten animal carcasses, soft tissue, over the edge of the iron rounded door, watching the massive fire consume it even before it hit the bottom of the pot, boldly and freely.

∙

The fatty tissue, he poured down, into the pit, became inflamed almost instantly. This was a house with only one window—the fire window. When he had poured the waste over the edge of the opening, the fire leaped back up at him, swept over the rim of the frame that held the iron door in place, it swept all the way to his feet, he jumped back, stood against the wall looking into the hungered fire, as if it was a living beast trying to harm him, and a voice said something, a voice to the side of him, by the door that was usually shut to the room, except if someone else was waiting to commence in the same traditional work he had just finished…

∙

The Employee

Employee: Come on, come on! Let’s get going here sunny, I don’t have all day—give the rose a kiss and get the hell out of there so I can drop my load! (A laugh)

Chick Evens: It almost got me!

Employee: It’s a suicide escape! ((he declared shrewdly) (he comes to stand beside Evens)) It creeps in when you’re half sleeping, or daydreaming on the job, stay alert in this room kid—now move on out of here, go around my backside, give me some room to maneuver my wheelbarrow.

Note: the stockyards in South St. Paul, created and built the city of South Saint Paul, establishing it’s self in between, 1885-1887, and built by Gustavus Franklin Swift Jr., and prior to him, his father. Prior to Swift’s And Company, there was no city south of St. Paul, Minnesota. It was one of the largest stockyards in the world, and second only to Chicago in the United States. This story is dedicated to the Swift Family, who in their way contributed to the employment of so many people in some many areas of the United States, and especially, South Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Written 5-16-2009 ((No: 398) (SA/5ds))

A Hamlet in Minnesota (Gray Cloud Isalnd, 1962, a Chick Evens Story)

2009-05-14T21:09:00.000-07:00

A Hamlet in Minnesota
((Gray Cloud Island) (1962, a Chick Evens Story))

They drove out of the city limits (of ST. Paul) all four teenagers, drinking in the car; they seemed to have driven out of nothing into nowhere. And all of a sudden there was a crash, and Chick Evens standing looking down at the car, his car, a 1952, Desoto, and three bodies in the car, the car smashed to smithereens, totaled (he was in stone black stillness, as if high up in a tree, looking down), everything unmoving, his brain was numb, curious.
Then he appeared in real time, his brain now tired, and angry. He was a fellow who loses his temper. Sometimes smashing things; in this case, he kicked the car and kicked it hard, smashing the front headlight out with his kick, mad as the devil.
He tapped Ralph Eldridge on the shoulder, he was still alive, and then he pulled him out of the front seat of the Desoto, the two girls in the backseat, knocked out cold.

This was his the first time in his life he had come so close to dying (fifteen years old, drunk, and no license). He had three friends’ lives in his hands. He had only to walk way, don’t look back and they would have been dead.

∙

How vividly I remember this night when I turned that corner in Gray Cloud Island and I slammed on the brakes and the car ended up on the icy Mississippi River.
It was a freezing cold night in December. In Minnesota, December, January and February are usually the most enduring months. Everyone who lives in Minnesota all they do is sneeze and cough, and their chest and nasal passages are congested, until summer—sneezing all day long, coughing all night long.

I always used strong beer—even at age fifteen—to drive the chill out of my body, after and before eating; as I had done this night. But there was a snag.

∙

He had pulled Ralph out of the car, “What happened?” he asked, and started laughing.
“What’s so funny” remarked Evens—the car demolished.
“You only got one shoe on, and no sock on your right foot.”
That was odd, wasn’t it he thought…

∙

When I looked about—an empty wine bottle lay by the front tire of the car, empty beer bottles half under the seats, the car on solid ice, and leaning forward I made one of my odd but truthful observations—that seemed to have dawned on me unexpectedly, “I want you to notice something Ralph?” I said.
“What?” he asked. I began, “The two girls haven’t woke up yet, I can hear them breathing, so they’re fine, maybe I ought to get the hell out of here before the cops come?”
“That doesn’t sound completely right?” Ralph told me.
“Well, put it this way,” I said, “it’s a favor to the township of this little hamlet, I’m sure if they have to spend their time handling weary dissatisfied folk—on my account, it will only add to their dull lives’ tension. It all cost tax money too, to put us in jail, and feed us you know.”
Ralph smiled at me, “That’s put real sympathetically!” He commented.
“Ralph, you are unspeakably dull, and this is not dull business: better for us both that we become sober and out of here quick.”
We then woke the two girls up, and helped them out of the back seat of the car, stabilized them somewhat, and they flagged down a car, as the ice cracked on the river, and the car started sinking, and we, Ralph and I, hiked over to his sisters house.

Here we were in an automobile with two flashy, to be honest, more plain than flashy, young girls, and had taken them out for a ride, now we left them as they caught a ride back to town (I took the license plates off the car), and we quickly made up some cock and bull stories in case the police investigated the accident. But I read nothing about it in the newspapers the following week, and that lead me to live, a grey and somewhat cheerless life waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen. As a result, I made my mind up to go to the police and let them know it was me who had had that ugly accident where everyone was okay; I had no intentions bringing anyone else’s name up, or into the story. And when I did go to the St. Paul Police Station, and start to explain my story, the police officer said, “What are you talking about?” (As he checked out his records for an accident report.)

Police Station
(St. Paul, Minnesota)

Police Officer: I don’t know what you are talking about Mr. Chick Evens, there is no such matter that has been reported, or brought to our attention (a look of dreary and meaninglessness on his face).

Chick Evens: (Thinking: if I stay and try to convince him of my fault, he would just talk thus, as I have just described aimlessly, throughout this quarter hour, and then we would have parted the afternoon anyway, the same way.) Thank you officer, have a good day. (Thinking: I do not feel I am a silly ass about this, just a tired one.)

5-14-2009 (SA)

The Old Couple in Athens ((1995)(a short story))

2009-05-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

The Old Couple in Athens

An old man and his wife with raggedy old cloths on, and the man, with an warn smidgen hat, both droopy eyed, walked slowly down a hill, alongside of a road in Athens, Greece, in the fall of 1995, and with very dusty and patched cloths. They both stopped when they saw me. There was a small bridge that crossed over a canal, up ahead of them; I had been going the opposite way, and just crossed over it. A few cars and trucks drove by. They were peasants that had seemed to have trudged in an unimpressed manner, a long ways, for a lengthy while in high ankle wool socks.
They both stood there looking at me without moving. They were too tired to have a long conversation, and perhaps go much farther.
I was on my way back to my hotel, after being in the old part of the city, shopping, looking at sites, and having a nice late afternoon meal, in an outside café, admiring the acropolis.
“Where do you come from?” asked the old man.
“From Minnesota, the United States of America,” I said and smiled.
“And you?” I asked.
“Istanbul, Turkey—, old Constan!” he said with a smile and half grin. His wife seemly happy he had mentioned their native city and appeared pleased he had done so while smiling at her with pride.
“I was a merchant, I sold things,” he explained.
“Oh,” I said, not quite understanding.
“Oh yes,” he said “we stayed as long as we could taking care of our shop in the Gran Bazaar. I was the last one to leave Istanbul in the family; my brother was a pork butcher, but seldom do people want pork nowadays, and only the Christians usually, a few Muslims, and Jews, but it’s a bad business if you live in that city.”

He didn’t look like a merchant. Or that he might have a butcher for a brother. I examined his dark dusty cloths, his wool scarf, his old warn and wrinkly face, his wife’s steel rimmed teeth, and said, “What merchandise did you sell?”
“Various kinds,” he said, and shook his head and shoulders. “I had to leave much of it behind.”
He had beside him, a big canvas like sack, he had carried it over his shoulder as the bums do in the old movies I used to watch, but this one was larger, perhaps his wife could have fit in it.
“What merchandise did you bring with you?” I asked.
“I have some bronze items, and some marble evil-eyes,” he remarked.
“And you had to leave most of your merchandise?”
“Yes, because I couldn’t pay the rent. The owner of the shop told me to go before he got hold of the police, and they’d force me to go.”
“And do you have family here in Athens?” I mentioned, looking at the bridge ahead and the old city below and the acropolis on the hill. I sensed he was in no hurry to continue down the incline into the city proper.
“No,” he said, “just me and my wife and this bag of merchandise.”
Cats and birds seem to be able to look out for themselves, but I couldn’t imagine how this old man and his wife could make it.
“I am with out political views,” said the old man. Then hesitated, “I’m seventy-two years old, my wife is sixty-seven years old, we are tired, let’s sit here,” and they squatted right then and there.
“This is a bad spot to stop and rest for too long,” I said, “it’s getting pretty dark, quickly. If you can make it down to the old city, there are still lights on.”
“We’ll rest here a while,” he said, “and then we’ll go where all the cars go!”
“Towards the city,” I told him.
“I don’t’ know, we don’t know anyone in the old city, but thank you for your concern!”
He looked at me very blankly, tiredly, and then said, “We’ll be all right.”
And I gave him three-dollars. And as I continued my walk up the hill to my hotel looking back a few times over my shoulders the old man and his wife were next to the bridge on their way towards the old city.

“Why they’ll most likely be fine,” I murmured aloud.
“You think so?” questioned my mind.
“Why not,” I answered, clearly, watching for my hotel, then added to my monologue, “but what will they do?” I muttered noisily.
“Doesn’t the Lord take care of man better than his own sparrows?” my mind questioned me.
And I answered “Yes,” and I figured that was all the luck he really needed, or ever would need.

5-9-2009∙

Carpe diem ((Seize the Day)(a "Romance in Augsburg": Special Edition))

2009-04-28T22:06:00.000-07:00

Carpe diem

((Seize the Day) (a “Romance in Augsburg”: Special Edition))

Three time Poet
Dennis L. Siluk, Ed.D.

Special Index

Train to Munich
(Written 2005)
Evening at the October Fest
(Written 2009)
The Thrasher
(Written 2009)

The general definition of carpe:
is "pick, pluck, pluck off, gather" as in plucking, although Horace uses the word in the sense of "enjoy, make use of, seize." Also this phrase is expressed in: 1 Corinthians 15:32, Isaiah 22:13; and in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Siduri

In this updated version of “A Romance in Augsburg” (originally published in 2003) the author has added three additional chapters into it, and reedited and revised the original Manuscript (the Chapters or section coming under the heading of: “Carpe diem” which are: Train to Munich (written: 2005 the other two written in 2009); Evening at the October Fest, and its linking chapter, The Hillside; and The Thrasher or, the Glass Bar).

Carpe diem

When age shall surround thy face and brow
When deep trenches fill thy eyes and mouth
When beauty’s effect has been long gone
When you stumble, and your worth is nil
To all the fading, raining, and sweet clouds
Your, once beauty’s effect, will have gone!

Seize the day, and make use the moment,
Aagainst the gusty storms, of time and vanity:
Gaze upon the colors of her youthful cloths,
Her fresh shape and colors of beauty…
For beauty’s effect will long be gone!

No: 2605 4-28-2009 © (Dlsiluk)

Train to Munich
(Augsburg, Germany, 1970)

As we got off the train (Ski and I) we were obvious to any onlookers, that we were soldiers, as apparent as someone carrying a sack of potatoes, I would expect, walking through that train station, out its doors, then outside onto the sidewalk, at 5:00 a.m. I witnessed right away young folks walking about, talking in different languages, English, German, Spanish, and so forth and so on. I also saw a number of hippie like characters trying to get a few hours of sleep in the corners of the train station, outside the train station backs against the building, sacks in their hands, in their laps, along side of them, wrapped around their hands, laying beside them, or laying on top of them, the renowned Oktoberfest was in motion, it was the main event in Munich, and we, Ski and I, were going to it, and this was the place to be, if you were in Germany in October of 1970, or at least the place I wanted to be. No reservations needed, just your body, a few bucks in your pocket, time to spare, energy.
Several young Germans were walking on the opposite side of the sidewalk, several blocks from the train station, where Ski and I crossed over to the other side: “You speak English?” asked Ski, to the group. They looked at us strangely; we simply wanted to find our way to the fairgrounds, needed directions. Ski was always, or almost always, abrupt with his way of trying to make a dialogue—with anyone (but me).
“American GI’s” a voice from the group said, with a tone of belittlement.
Ski lifted his eyebrows, I figured this would be a fight, or it was at least in the makings.
“No, we’re reporters from New York City…”said Ski. In consequence we got a lot more respect instantly, I was a more than bit surprised.
“We’re from a …” (a magazine he said, can’t remember which one he said, but they were impressed, and so was I that we could get away with such a fib)—and to be frank, I felt something like a volt of electricity in the air—connecting and shooting into my legs running up to my arms, after this mirage was created; I was liking my part of the charade, although I didn’t do much.

—We then walked about Munich for a number of hours, I saw an old bum laying drunk on the sidewalk, everyone just stepped over him or around him, and I stopped and starred at him, I wanted to help him I think, bent over to see if I could, but Ski said rapidly, “Come on… (pulling me back up) we’re almost there, he can’t be helped, and he’ll sleep it off!”
And for the most part, I think for once he was right, and we could see the entrance to the Oktoberfest from where the guy laid—near the gutter of the street, and we were both getting excited at that moment to get inside that event.
Once through the entrance, we found a big beer tent, like a great hall, and we couldn’t pass it up, or I couldn’t, and we stopped, with inside of it and had purchased a few giant mugs each filled with beer, filled to its rim.

The Oktoberfest was huge, with big beer tents all about. It was perhaps 11:00 a.m. We walked about for a while, I didn’t want to get too drunk too quick, so I slowly drank my beers, and found a place to rest under a shady tree, on an embankment (which I’d return to later on, and where a lot of hippies were, and would be all day into the evening hours; Ski and I would return there to rest again, and watch all the hippies sack out for the night, having their own personal picnics).
Then we went onto another large beer tent I was getting drunk now, and ended up dancing on the tables with folks I never knew, holding hands, looped within theirs. I was talking to a woman later on at the entrance of a beer tent, I had said a few words in German, and she rattled on for an hour, and she thought I could understand her, but I really could only understand every fifth word or so, which I suppose was good enough.

(Then Ski came in from outside, he had been checking out the area, by himself, said he had met this Danish girl, a beauty, she had to talk to a few of her friends and would meet him at this tent later on, he was going to introduce her to me, and we’d walk her to the entrance to meet her friends, and then part our ways, he was hoping to gat her address in Denmark.)

While we waited, we both went into the tent bathroom, and some guy was taking pictures of folks urinating, with a Polaroid, Camera, instant pictures, I said to myself, this was bad news, and Ski blew up, grabbed his camera and broke it in front of him, broke it into several pieces, and the guy almost cried, and when he started yelling, Ski leaped on him and beat him, I had to pull him off the guy before he’d kill him.
“Let’s get out of this bathroom quick Ski, German police may somehow take his side…!” I had experienced that in San Francisco, in a bar when a man put his hands around me, and appeared to be ready to kiss me or who knows what, and I told him not to, and he was gay, and he did it a second time, and I put my elbow into his ribs, and I heard one of them crack, as his head fell onto the bar counter. And the bartender told me to get out of his bar, and called the police on me, of all things. Evidently I was in the wrong kind of bar, at the wrong time.
So I told Ski, what I said I told him, and out we went nearby the entrance of the tent to wait. After a few minutes, we went back up on that hill, we could see the entrance from there to the tent, and we had purchased a sandwich and we ate it, sitting down for once. Then we went back to the tent to wait.

Evening at the October Fest

As I waited with Ski by the entrance of the beer tent, I wanted to jump back up on the tables—, and dance some more, and drink with all the strangers, and all the wives and girlfriends of the male strangers, wives with their husbands could have cared less. Matter of fact, they preferred you, in this case me, to dance with their mate, so they could dance with someone else’s. I looked about there were not many GI’s here in the tent, but many folks from all over Europe. And we just waited, me, with a beer in hand for the Danish beauty.
I called the waitress over again; she was dressed with a cute old fashion, German dress, loud horns were playing in the background, brass horns.
“A dark beer, please,” I asked the waitress, doing it far enough in advance, knowing it took ten minutes before she’d get back with it, and I had only half a beer left, and that would be gone by the time she got back.
“Yes, of course, in a minute, don’t move…!” she said.
“Good,” I said as she walked away, and Ski checking out around the corner of the tent to see if his little Danish beauty was coming. I had seen her I felt, walking about with her friends early on, and I think Ski had also, and that is why he left me in the tent alone, to find her.
“I’m going to meet her in Denmark, in two weeks,” said Ski.
“Really!” I said, surprised he was so confident.
“I hear they are kind of free spirited up there, maybe she likes pot or drugs, then what?”
“I think she does, I think she’s using now with her friends, but when I visit her, I’ll change her mind.”
“What makes you think you’ll make her?” I asked.
“That’s a good way of putting it, but I will.”

(The waitress came back with my dark beer, “Here sir, seven marks!” I paid her and she left, and I heard Ski say:)

“Here she comes,” said Ski, “I think that’s her,” he added, “quite now, don’t say anything to disrupt it…let me do the introductions.”
“Thank you, pal!”
“Yes…yes, isn’t she a beauty?”
She was lovely, bronze skin, dark eyes, long black hair, it made me think of what I once read in a sonnet by Shakespeare ‘When forty winters besiege thy brow…’ something like that. It meant to me, women lose their beauty, and for a short moment in youth, it is best to gaze upon it while you can, and I found myself doing just that, and I think she took notice of that.
“Hello,” she said, “so this is you friend, Chick, he calls you?”
“Yes, that me,” I said, kind of lost for words; it looked like she was doing her own introduction.
“My name, Barbatte,” she said with a very darling smile. She looked at her watch, “Listen,” she said looking at Ski, “You and your friend come visit me in Denmark, I give you may address, okay?”
“Really,” I said, Ski looking at me. “I have a girlfriend, but it sounds inviting, but I can’t get any time off from the Military, used my vacation days up before I came to Germany.” She looked a little disappointed.
Her dark bronze skin and her gentleness were very alluring, but I could smell pot on her, it reeked from her cloths. I figured Ski was going to have a rude awakening when he went to Copenhagen; he took pot as being no different than heroin. It really didn’t matter to me if she used, Mac and his friends used it in the barracks all the time, I avoid it, I had my beer, that was enough, although Mac invited me several times to join their pot parties; perhaps wondering if I was ever going to tell Ski, knowing Ski took it hard, his sister had been strung out on it, I had learned recently, and some tragic thing took place with her because of it. And Mac didn’t want any trouble with Ski. But I didn’t say a word to anyone about Mac use.
As we walked Barbatte, to the entrance of the gate to the fest, to meet her girlfriends, she made out a card for Ski, giving him her address and phone number, and wanted to make me one out for me also almost insisteing, but I discarded the offer of taking it, saying, “My girlfriend Chris was very jealous,” and I’d simply never get to Denmark, but I wanted to and she perhaps could see it but, I just felt as Shakespeare wrote in his sonnet: “Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now…” and I did.

“I’m getting tired of this whole event,” said Ski, to me, as now Barbatte was far-off on her way to the train station.
And so we left.

The Thrasher—and the Glass Bar

(An Chapter story to: “A Romance in Augsburg,” previously unpublished)

I walked slowly out of the October Fest, Ski along side me. Our train would note leave until 2:00 a.m., we looked up and street, at some lights, walked around the curve. There were people on both sides of the street.
I felt my pants; my knees were green from kneeling on the grass of the embankment, inside the fest area. My hands were dirty somewhat, his finger nails dirt under them.
“I need to wash up someplace,” I told Ski.
“Come with me, I have an address, got something to show you,” said Ski.
“What?” I said, didn’t care for any mysteries.
Ski went over to the edge of the sidewalk, flagged down a taxi, “Take us to the Glass Bar.” He said, and the driver seemed to know it. When we arrived at the nightclub, it was amazing I thought, three floors of glass, all glass, you could see people walking up and own the stairway. What a trip I said to myself. You could see everything that was going on.
“I guess this is something to show me,” I said to Ski. He had never been there himself, yet he had heard about it.
“Come on, let’s go in and you can wash up.”
There was a bouncer at the front of the door, and a few inside, all dressed like penguins, with big broad shoulders, in their late 30s, hanging stomachs. I found the washroom, washed up carefully in the cold water, the hot wasn’t working. Getting the dirt out from under my nails, and I squatted down and wiped my knees clean with a paper tower.
When I came out, I saw Ski rubbing his eyes, he was tired. He had two beers in his hands, “Here Evens,” he said, “Take one.” And I did.
I looked around, we went to the second floor, there were weird looking drawings on the mirrored pillars as we went up, step by step, these three flights, they looked like Dali’s or Picasso’s, drawings, I’m sure replicas. There was a horde of drinkers continuously coming down the stairs, as well as going up them, bumping into Ski and me almost one right after the other, and Ski was taking a disliking to it. I sensed he wished he had not come, but it was near Midnight, and we had at least an hour to burn. It was dark outside, loud music from floor to floor, and it was something to do.
My hands were still a little wet, I put my beer down on the floor, we were in the middle between the second and third floors, wiped my hands on my trousers, and then picked up my beer, someone bumped into me, it fell out of my hands, and crashed on the floor—beer and glass all over, the man kept walking up the stairs, with no apology, didn’t look back once, Ski grabbed him, and said “Look at what you just did—jerk!” The man had a tie on, he turned about, a young man—a ahead of him was his two friends—the man stood there looking, firelight in his eyes, Ski could see it and so could I, I was now wiping my pants off again, with a towel I had taken out of the bathroom just in case, had put it in my pocket for safe keeping, it came in handy. The man didn’t look alone. Ski stepped out from the railing, “Well,” he said; the man looked up at him, at Ski, and Ski said to the man, “Where did you get that shiner?” and he said “What shiner?” And Ski hit him a solid blow along side the temple, and he dropped to his knees, and the other two turned about.
“Why you bastard!” he said, and they both went for Ski, I grabbed the foot of the second man, I was on a lower step than Ski, and he slipped down three stairs beyond me, on top of the wise guy Ski had previously hit.
The guy that was going to hit Ski, had second thoughts, and the bouncer was rushing up the first flight of stairs now, Ski said to the man backing off, “Thought you were a tough one, didn’t you!” and went to grab him.
The man rushing up the stairs yelled, “No more fighting, no more rough stuff, this is a glass bar, a glass bar!”
The man I tripped, his nose was sunken, his eyes red, he only saw the man’s face as he rushed up the stairs then fell back as if he passed out, he was a German, perhaps faking it to get sympathy.
“Look here!” the bouncer said, a big man, and heavy. “This is a glass bar, ever see one before,” Ski didn’t answer, but I did for him, “No we never did.”
“I don’t know who started the fight, but you two got to go.”
I think Ski wanted to argue, but I saw two more penguins coming to assist this one, and I could take no more, “Let’s beat it Ski, our train to Augsburg will be coming in, in an hour and a half.”
“Smart friend you have,” said the man who rushed up the two flights of stairs.
“You bet!” said Ski, “it’s time to go.”
As we walked out of the bar, everyone seemed to bust their eyes on us, Ski gave them the finger.
“Don’t bother with them Ski,” I told him.
“Sure,” he said, and he looked a little down.
“What’s the matter,” I asked him, outside the bar.
“Their crazy here, can you believe it, they kick us out and the German gets to stay and drink? Honest to God I can’t figure it out.”
I hesitated, “Come on, let’s walk this off…” we walked three miles to the train station, checked our watch, it was 1:45 a.m.

Overview of Siluk's top Books (of 40)

2009-04-25T20:44:00.000-07:00

Siluk’s Top Books

According to readers, and the publisher and the internet, and critics, and bookstores, the top ten out of Mr. Dennis L. Siluk’s, 40-books, are listed bellow (it should be noted, very few of Mr. Siluk’s book are signed):

1) Death on Demand (only a hand full signed, less than 75) 2003 Rare
2) The Macabre Poems (only a hand full signed, less than 75)
3) Drugs and Alcohol Volume I, of III (many sold, perhaps 100 signed)
4) Romancing San Francisco (only a hand full signed, perhaps 50 singed)
5) Where the Birds Don’t Sing (only a hand full signed, perhaps 50 signed, Vietnam sketches, built into a novel)
6) The Last Trumpet… (Collectable) only 400-made, of which only 100 were signed, only in a First Edition. Most rare.2002 Poetic Prophecy, 2002
7) The Other Door (1981) Classic, of which 750, were made printed, First Edition only, perhaps 400-signed.Very rare. Poetry, Author’s first book
8) The Save Child, the Unsafe Chile (200- printed, only 10 to 20-singed, 1985) Most rare.
9) The Jumping Serpents of Bosnia (and other …Eldritch Writings) 50- books signed (a recent book) 2008
10) Drusilla’s Ghost (50-singed) 2003
11) Last Autumn and Winter (poetry, 50-signed) 2006, The Tale of Wholly the Humpback Whale (many sold, many signed, perhaps 6000-singed)
12) Cornfield Laughter (Expected to do well, will be out in May, 2009) In English and Spanish
13) “Windmills” The Poetry of Juan Parra del Riego (edited, chosen and translated by D.L. Siluk) 2009; 75-signed.
14) Sirens ( A Mixture of Poetry, 50-signed) 2003
15) After Eve (2004, a novel, 50-signed)
16) Revenge of the Tiamat (trilogy), in English and Spanish (35-signed)
17) Peruvian Poems (2005) 50-signed

Books in the Making (and expected dates for publishing) Many of the authors
Writings are in English and Spanish, especially his Peruvian Poetry.

The Green Sea of the Amazon (selected writings) 2009
Old Josh, in: Poor Black (sketches of the old south) 2010
Men with Torrent Women (drama, short stories) 2010
The Unpublished Poems of D.L. Siluk 2010
Curse of the Abyss Worm (horror, supernatural, a novel) 2011
The Tales of the Port of Poseidonia (a short novel) 2011
The Cadaverous Planets (science fiction) 2011
A Midwinter Soldier (autobiographical, novelette) 2012

The Big Brick House in Erie ((1973)(a very short story))

2009-01-07T15:36:00.000-08:00

The Big Brick House in Erie (1973)
(A very short Story)

I was invited to my boss' house, worked for Pennsylvania, Electric Company back in 1972-’73, I was young so very young back then freshly out of the Vietnam, and its ongoing war, just got married, had twins: perhaps twenty-five years old at the time; l lived in Erie, Pennsylvania for a year, total, worked for an Iron Foundry prior to getting a job at the Electric Company; had it not been for my origins (being Russian), like my boss’ I’d not have gotten the job. After working at the company for a few months, I hung around with his nephews (not knowing at the time, they were his nephews) and when I saw his big, red brick house, it somewhat startled me: made of: red-brick, smoothly mortared. In-between: a few chimneys on each side of the house, Victorian style. It was a big, red brick huge house with windows everywhere: all around the house, up and down each of the three floors, and a window in the attic to boot.
To a poor Midwestern chap like me, my eyes were mortified, they were shaken (hands fidgeting, legs weakening) had to catch my breath, I even questioned myself, “Did people really live like this?”
On one hand, I was delighted, in that I got an invitation, to see a friends uncle’s beautiful country style house in the city, as big as a mansion down south, let’s say as in Alabama or North Carolina, in which I’ve been to both locations. In life certain things impress you, and you never quite get over them until you somehow wrap them up in some kind of bag for later examination, and if life permits, it haunts you until you deal with whatever causes the haunting.
His wife answered the door, she said hello to us, his nephew and me, and when I walked inside the house, my boss was surprised, yet greeted me well, cheerful, I wanted to say, “You have everything here.” But I didn’t say a word; I just looked and listened, observed and appreciated, without envy getting in the way.
I think he noticed I felt a bit Uncomfortable (I was brought up in an extended family where two bedrooms fitted four families); so, I smiled the best I could, looking about the house it was to me: Buckingham Palace.

I spoke to him loosely about trivialities, very shyly, when we left he thanked me very much for coming, but his mind was already looking forward to other businesses. He appeared to be very eager, and self absorbed. The weather was windy outside, and a chill was in the air, winter was coming on, it was November.
I had heard a few weeks after that experience, he had put his housed up for collateral, he was working on a side project, and it fell through, meaning, it didn’t do very well, and he was losing that beautiful house. When I saw him the few times at work--thereafter, I could hardly lift my head to greet him, but I did, and he was as if he was normal.
A few other times he sat down in his office, on the second floor, I noticed him when I needed to visit the office, he was quiet and reserved self-absorbed sitting alone in that big chair, on the verge of bankruptcy. I guess I was thinking at the time, if I was he, I’d be hollering and throwing things in the air, into the bull ring to fight the bull if necessary, just to make me feel better.
Well, that was a long time ago of course, and writing this, it is 2-23-2006, autumns have come and gone quicker than a clap of an eye.
I am now fifty-eight years old, yes, a quarter century plus, has passed, I owned several big houses a few years ago or so, retired at fifty-two, sold all the houses—one each year, I got two left, one bigger than his, and one smaller than his, the smaller one is in case I have to file bankruptcy or sell the big one; his big house has always been a reminder for me, things come and go, change as years pass, and never did I once forget that big house, in Erie: never once, that’s why I have a plan B.

Written 2/23/06 (St. Paul, Minnesota) revised and rewritten at my home in Lima, Peru, 1-7-2009)

The Great Hillside Massacre near Hanover (242 AD)

2009-01-05T12:52:00.000-08:00

The Great Hillside Massacre near Hanover
(242 AD)

The Last Great Germanic Battle

Advance: For the most part, Germany between AD 200-600 was a migrating people, into the early Middle Ages, coming out of the Dark Age. Along the boarders of Austria, Germany all the way to England, Rome’s western provinces, the German people—immigrants for the most part adored to Latin, dialects. It might be fair to say, eventually all the Germanic peoples were Christianized, but not so to the so called, hunters of the deep. While medieval Europe was developing, and the Roman Empire becoming part of it, as a result, common identity, history and culture transcended linguistic boarders.

Segimer II, whose ancestors were present at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, about A.D. 9, a three day battle, was about to repeat, that battle, in what would be known as “The Great Hillside Massacre Near Hanover” but in miniature form. At which time his accusers ambushed and destroyed three Roman legions. Thus, he would try to duplicate this feat. One may even say at this point, the German people achieved something they didn’t really seek, an origin. Oh that battle was a harsh one compared to the one to follow, 20,000-Roman soldiers lost their life, many falling on their own swords. Many were taken as sacrificial offerings by the nomadic tribesmen. Some ransomed, and some used as common slaves. But in the forth coming battle, it would be slightly different.

You might want to call it one of the last greatest battles between the Roman Empire, and the German Barbarians (or, hunters of the deep) on the other hand you may want to remember it as, the massacre of Hanover. Roma had not given up complete control over the Germanic countryside’s, especially Northern Germany. There was a great tribesman who had no name in particular, but was call after his ancestors Segimer II, with his cohorts lived in the deep of the forest, and had a hand full of warriors. For weeks they had been chased by the Romans, Rome being of course still the superpower of the known world at the time (241 BC), and the barbarians knew with their superior technology, and long range weapons, they could never defeat the battalion of Romans that seemingly shadowed them, like white on rice, like an elephant to a mouse, and eventually they’d become a trophy, in some Roman home hold, should they not use wit and seizure reasoning for a forthcoming battle that no matter what, would take place. As a consequence, about fifty-miles out site of Handover, the Germanic tribe lured the close to five hundred Roman soldiers into the forest (south of the city of Hanover), where the real battle would take place, instead of this cat and mouse chase through the open spaces.
The leader of the tribe, with his fifty warriors, hunters of the deep, swearing to fight to the last warrior, lured the Romans into the forest, by using wit and trick, and their woman (after the battle, many of the soldiers fell almost into a shock seeing the few women they had captured from the barbarians, now dead, they were not accustomed to seeing dead women among the dead men, the sight of a dead woman was quite appalling, but they had given their lives up, keeping the Romans busy drinking, and comfortably saturated with countryside sex; some with extraordinary beauty, they caught the Roman eye, the blued eyed she-devils, were planted, watered and brought to perfection for just this obscure part of the great massacre, it was no small importance) and wine to subdue them slowly, and then came the overnight ambush, when the legion was sleeping, once awaken by human agony, of the Romans being butchered one by one, the man to man, onslaught began right then and there in the campsite. It was a massive grave by the time the battle finished, the Romans being shredded to a company size level, thus, the standoff killed three froths of the five-hundred men, one hundred and twenty-five left, wandering aimlessly among their dead.
As they looked upon their fellow comrades, the dead comrades, and the dead horses, blood colored the ground everywhere. Shovels, spears, arrows, a catapult, crossbows, all unused, allying dormant in the dirt for posterity, to tell the story, that there was a feverish, great battle that took place here, perhaps the last Germanic battle, on a hillside.
The Germanic tribe, left the loitering Romans to bury their own, and so they did, while the barbarians went several miles south to their forfeited city of stone and logs; they knew if the battle didn’t take place, it was just a matter of time when they’d have to uproot, and take their families into another section of the forest—deeper; it was clear the Romans were determined to wipe out the remaining tribes of the area, and accordingly, in the process, the last great Legion, was reduced to a wandering, aimless company size level.
Most of the Roman soldiers were in shock, walking from one dead man to another, the first few days, they couldn’t even smell the rotting of flesh, or noticed the discoloration, and bloating of the bodies even the mules and horses, dogs that they had, they were almost in a trance, couldn’t find their wits, and when they did, most were resigned to going their own way to get out of the deep, lost, hungry, and the leadership torn apart.
They seemed an unfitting sight for a Roman soldier, looking less than incongruous, if not odd and absurd, finding shallow waters to drink from, and their once baggage animals pushed to one side of the river, to die as they were, some mules and horses tried to get away and were drowned in the shallow water, broken legs from running and tripping.
Speaking literally, one hardly could say, they looked like Roman soldiers, it would have been extremely doubtful to an on looker. All in all, the once pleasant, though dusty, ride though the open fields of Germany and the beautiful forest that brought both compensation and reward to the naked eye for their long endurance over those past long miles, now brought unpleasantness of duty, and the changed impression follow him to his death.
The tribesman, leader, left behind a dozen assassins, and during their disarray, wiped out every Roman soldier left, by either leading them to great bogs, and letting them be sucked into to its depths, or by a more warrior like assassination, and as a result, nothing was left to be written of this last, and lost massacre, previously untold, and now told.

Written (Lima, Peru) 1-5-2009

Old Man Big Bird (...and His Apartment) A Short Story of Aging

2009-01-04T20:41:00.000-08:00

Old Man Big Bird
(…and his apartment)

The old man (Stan), they called him Big Bird, he stood six foot six, in apartment three, second floor, side apartment, sat in his room each night, after returning from the bar, trying to read the paper, television loud, a bottle of whisky to his side on an end-table, a pack of cigarettes, by the bottle of whiskey where the ashtray was, he had quite drinking for a spell, but started back up, it was his 76-year on this earth.
Each day he’d go to the bar at noon, eat his lunch, go for a walk—up and down Rice Street (St. Paul, Minnesota), and then go to his apartment, across from the alley, and take a nap, then get back up about five p.m., and start drinking, return to his apartment between 9:00 p.m., and 11:00 p.m., and turn on the television—loud, and start that routine I just mentioned. He had lived in the apartment for fifteen-years. Big Bird, shrieked to anyone who tried to stop his routine, didn’t care for his family all that much, his kids seemed to get on his nerves when they came to visit him, and when his daughter cleaned his apartment up, he’d leave, lest he get in a confrontation with her.
Some times he’d be gone for a few days, and Mr. Murphy, who owned the three-plex apartment house, he had purchased it five-years prior, and would simple say if one of his kids appeared and ask where he was,
“We’d not seen him in days I’ll let him know you asked,” and that was usually that, because Mr. Murphy knew his tenant didn’t want to be bothered with his kids trivialities, or anybody’s for that matter, and for the most part, he didn’t blame Big Bird, they only came around with claws to get something, and the old man was wiser than they thought.
It would have appeared, or it did at least to Mr. Murphy that, Big Bird didn’t want any calamity in his old age, the common heart of humanity to appease them, had strayed away from him long ago, as does a little child, to his parents, once they grow up. He didn’t care to give offence to his children or to anyone in particular, but he was old, and growing feeble, and his ways were strange, if not steep, and he liked them that way.

But getting back to that loud television at night, and his drinking, and smoking, he became pie-eyed nightly, that dirty-faced little devil, and he’d scream loud as it seemed he’d be fighting with his demon. Mr. Murphy, lived in apartment two, across from his apartment, and heard this nightly, and Big Bird would leave the window open, allowing a storm, its rain, and wind—in the winter, snow, to circulate his apartment; sometimes Mr. Murphy would have to go in and close it, Big Bird never locked his place, he had a hard time finding his keys. Thus he made a deal with Big Bird, if he smoked, he couldn’t drink in his room, and if he chose to drink, he couldn’t smoke in his room. Well he chose to drink, and so the smoking stopped for a while, then gradually he started back up again. He wasn’t trouble-making: he just wanted to do what he wanted to do, a bit of a man mislaid perhaps, or perchance, he felt, ‘Why not now, in my old age, it’s bad enough— just being old.’

Disregarding all this, what bothered Mr. Murphy the most, was the television and lights being on all night long, and him being passed out in that sofa chair of his. I mean, Mr. Murphy paid the electric bill, not his tenants.
“Sir,” said Mr. Murphy, to Big Bird leaving his apartment one forenoon, to have lunch, he was at this time the most sober of the day, and he said bluntly, but awkwardly also, looking up into Big Bird’s eyes, for he was eight-inches taller than Mr. Murphy,
“It’s a waste of my money, and silly to leave your television on all night long and be passed out in the chair, I’ve got to pay the bill.”
Then Mr. Murphy was going to say, ‘Forget it,’ because the old man simply looked dumbfounded at the questioning, as if Mr. Murphy was crowding him. Long he stood there thinking, inconsequent surmises, trying to figure out, what Mr. Murphy was after or up to, then said Big Bird with a particular apprehensive grin,
“Here, will this cover the extra electric bill each month?”
He had handed Mr. Murphy a $20-dollar bill, Mr. Murphy had figured it out to be at least seven to fourteen dollars a month more—depending, thus, twenty-dollars was more than sufficient.
“Oh yes,” he said in a softer voice, “that’ll do just fine.”
And that was that. He died of cancer six months later (in 2002), and he paid his last months rent, even though he never got to live in his apartment for those last days, it was all he had left to his life, and if he grieved at all for anything, it was for that apartment and his right to live there as he pleased.

1-4-2009 (Written in Lima, Peru)

The Sad Young Sergeant (a short story, concerning Agent Orange)

2009-01-04T19:25:00.000-08:00

The Sad Young Sergeant

((… Agent Orange) (1971, Fort Rucker, Alabama))

His dull face showed a shade of vengeance by some inward self-satisfaction needed, a smugness almost that appeared to offend him, yet gave him content, if not joy—it wasn’t in his nature, but it was there nonetheless, that he found something out of nothing, and now could utter what it was, he had learned the name for it, ‘Agent Orange.’
“They fired bombs and guns I thought,” he told Lee, adding, “I never expected to live through the war, only to die at the hands of some mysterious, infectious chemical agent called ‘Agent Orange.’” He told Lee Evens, his back against the wall, chair up on its two hind legs, Joe Montgomery, from Fayetteville, North Carolina, it was the summer of 1977 (furthermore he added, ‘It had a delayed reaction, somehow’), nine-years, then buff, all of a sudden it was there’).
“It was Lee, to me, the final boom! And now it is the last part of the war for me, which I thought was over nine-years ago, evidently I was wrong. Yes indeed, a lost war, that I forgot was still embedded in me, to my death do I part with it.”
Furthermore, added Joe (in a voice of discontent), “they all fell dead around us, when we went to pick them up, to check out their pockets for papers, and so forth, they were silent, discoloured; the dead are smelly, and ugly, and discoloured, and bloated, and just awful.” He said to Lee, at the mess hall.
Then Joe’s hand started to shake, I mean really shake, as if it his system was on automatic, like someone under electric shock, his left arm, dancing in the air, as he looked at it, then Joe looked at Lee, looking at him, “You see, I have no control over it,” and his face started to pulsate, and his legs seemed to tap, and his back arched. He had to let go of his coffee, and his spoon, he had to wait for his system to cool down. He no longer was in control.
After a moment’s agony, he smiled again, “Everyday now, it gets worse,” he tells Lee, Lee looking, unable to speak, and if he could what would he say, so he told himself.
“No kidding aside, I’ll be dead in two months, so the doctor tells me, and my lawyers say, this substance was used by the army for experimental purposes in several areas in Vietnam, during the time I was there, and I was in one of those several areas, and they are unsure of the effects, but here they are, in full motion, yet I fear my family will not see any money from this for years, it’s under investigation, and you know what that means in the Army. Listen up, you need to check out and see if you were in any of these areas, I mean it lays dormant for years, and then like an eruption from a volcano, it explodes one day.”
“How long you been in the Army?” asked Sergeant Evens.
“Going on fifteen-years, I won’t live to get my pension; perhaps now you understand Sergeant Lee (right then the spoon fell out from under his fingers).”
Under the stringent circumstances, Sergeant Joe Montgomery, still had remarkable agility, and his large black frame, bruised here and there, kept a smile on his face, knowing somehow, there was no escape from his fate, yet, with the brief time he had left, he was not going to ask for pity, or any such thing, and let it imprison him, he committed no crime, he was the victim, and said, sadly, “Too bad I loved the Army so, and it would have been great to get to know you better Lee,” and then I noticed across his arm he had a tattoo of the American Flag, underneath it, it read, “The American Flag, with all its Glory!”

1-4-2008 (Written in Lima, Peru)

Aunt Mary (And the Water-pistol, 1958)

2009-01-03T16:58:00.001-08:00

Aunt Mary
(And the Water-pistol)
1958

Mother and me, the two of us, went walking through the back way, through our backyard that is, and through Zackary’s backyard, which had a pathway to Granite Street, there on the sidewalk, we crossed the street, walking up hill to Patron’s store, a small grocery store in the neighborhood. I don’t recall exactly whaat the walk was for—that is to say, once we arrived at the grocery store what our purpose was, what we or she intended to purchase, or what we were to buy at the store, mother seldom took walks like that—she usually went to the larger stores and bought in quantity, such as several loafs of bread, and milk, and fifty-pounds of potatoes, and a crate of pears—it was cheaper that way, so I must assume it was in need for a distraction of her weekend routine in cleaning the house, and perhaps to buy me a popsicle, and an item or two she needed for cooking. And we bumped into Aunt Mary, she was my mother’s aunt, and thus, making her my great aunt. She was in her late 70s, I was eleven years old at the time, and my mother was thirty-eight; she, Mary, lived a few blocks away from us, and it was the first time I saw her, the very first time we met, I hadn’t even know she lived where she lived prior to this quick and rippled meeting.
So, to Mother, me and Aunt Mary, talk, they rambled on about what was, updating one another, you know, loose talk for the most part; whenever Aunt Mary asked mother a question, the conversation went on longer, then it came to a standstill, no one was talking any longer, and Aunt Mary was just looking at me, that was all.
“What can I buy for you?” asked Aunt Mary.
I invoke her consideration of the present scene somehow.
There was clearly nothing to be said because Aunt Mary was somehow set on buying me something. All the same, my mother clearly said,
“He’s fine, he doesn’t need anything.”
Looking in a exquisite visible way, mother wanted to cater to her wishes I gathered after she, Aunt Mary, produced a light delicate laughter—and, if you will, a bend of the eyebrows, hoping she’d not be refused with her frankness: thus,
“No,” she said, “I want to buy him something, here I have a dollar,” and a dollar in 1958, was likened to $10.00 now (or in 2009, as I write this short-lived story out), and she was on a pension, and lived alone in a big house.

Aunt Mary finished her demand that I take the dollar, and buy want I wanted, which was a squirt-gun (or water-pistol), one you squirted water out of, and at your enemy, or if not enemy, someone familiar, like my brother Mike, which I would do later on that day, and get hollered at for doing so, with a hot lecture by my mother for abusing Aunt Mary’s gift.
Nonetheless, she gave me the dollar, and stood waiting down the block for me and my mother to return with the gun, and my mother with her groceries, and we did, and I had the gun. She looked at my smile; it was greater than she had calculated.
In consequence, to buy a present for a dollar, and to have many happy hours with it thereafter was a bargain at anyone’s planning, which I assume she didn’t plan but had good insight at the moment, or so it seemed, so it would have appeared to an onlooker, but of course it was instantaneous, but something fine, and rare, and I never ever forgot her happiness in giving it to me, or my delightfulness in receiving it.
Perhaps I learned that day, happiness is a byproduct, in saying that I mean, it is something sterling when you give, even if it is a little, and it is worthy of the honor of being or receiving, happiness in return.
Her eyes were shinning brilliantly, her face lost its oldness for a moment, and she pulled out her lungs to take in a full length breath, and both of us mighty proud over a simple plastic water gun.

I would see her once more before she died, which was not long after that, perhaps three or four months. People know when they have but a short time left maybe that was what she was doing, planting a seed, before she pass on. Feeling somehow, confident that it would be delivered to the right chambers of my mind; that was of course, fifty-one years ago, and I still have not forgotten that charming warm summer day.

Written 1-3-2009, Lima, Peru

A Winter's Evening in Augsburg (1970)

2009-01-02T20:28:00.000-08:00

A Winter’s Evening in Augsburg
(1970)

Inside the nightclub (disco) it was warm and lit up, sections, the lower, and the rounded balcony. The mugs of beer glowed with the wood of the tables, waitress were cleaning some off, and young customers were eating pretzels, popcorn and chips, seated and gazing about for girls, everyone appeared to be happy and content. Outside the nightclub, it was a chilly winter’s evening.
Two American soldiers (Ski and Christopher Wright) sat together at a side table, overlooking the dance floor; there was a clock that was way high on the wall. A waitress took their order, and brought Christopher a large cold beer, and Ski, who sipped on his, while the other Christopher downed his like water.
After a few more drinks, Ski was still on his first, but Christopher was on his third, “Can I bring you coffee, sir?” asked the waitress to Ski, thinking perhaps he was the driver for the two of them, and didn’t want to get in an accident.
“No,” he said, “I’m fine.”
“She thinks the coffee will keep me awake,” said Ski to his friend.
“Bring me another beer,” yelled Christopher to a passing waitress.
“Thank you Fraulein,” he said as she picked up two marks from the table.
“Do you speak German,” she asked Christopher, since he and Ski looked like they may have some German in them, “No,” Christopher said, “Maybe a little,” he added with a smile.
“Oh, yes, sir, I speak English, some.” She said and moved on another table.
“Look over there,” said Ski, “That gal is checking you out,” and he looked, “should I ask her if she wants to dance with you?” he asked Christopher.
“No,” I can if indeed she is directing those looks at me, perhaps its coincidental, she’s just looking about.”
“Mademoiselle!” yelled Ski, catching her attention through the loud music and dancing, she was two tables away.
“Yes sir,” she said, with a cleaver smile.
Christopher watched her close, she looked thin, a few years older than he, perhaps Jewish-German with a little hook on the nose, pretty, with blue eyes, and brownish hair, and she had a glass of wine in her hands. She spoke English, and looked interesting to Christopher.
“Stop speaking for me,” said Christopher to Ski, kind of direct, but not hatful.
“I can’t talk to you over this noise, come here,” she yelled, then with two and a half finger she waved Christopher on.
“I don’t necessarily like the way she’s waving me on, it’s kind of like a doggish, you know—to its master.”
The waitress came over, asked,
“Do you want me to move your drinks over to her table?” evidently, she was watching the movements, and Christopher pretended not to understand her broken English. She then went away.
“She wants you to come to her,” said Ski.
The waitress came over to their table again, “How much is her wine,” asked Christopher, “Four marks, sir,” she said, then he counted out the money slowly, put it on the table, “Then here, bring her whatever she’s drinking.”
“Cheers!” she said, holding up her glass of wine, looking at Christopher and Ski.
Christopher stood up this time, as she again was waving him on with those two and a half fingers, “Mademoiselle,” he said, “Would you like to dance?”
“Well of course, I’ve been waving you on for fifteen minutes now.” She said almost provokingly.
“Matter-of-fact, I don’t like the way you’ve been doing that finger thing, it looks like I’m suppose to be your trained dog.”
“Oh,” she said with a chuckle, “that’s kind of an ugly thing, you Americans are touchy,” she said, grabbing his hands before he changed his mind to dance, and holding him tightly, as if he was a rail, or post.
They danced several dances, and that was how they met, Chris Steward, and Christopher Wright.

“Have a cigarette,” she said, then offered Christopher one from her pack, he took it, she lit it, and they at down and laughed.
“I don’t smoke much,” said Chris, “It’s a dirty habit I’ve been trying to stop.”
“I smoke too much,” said the soldier boy, taking a puff of the cigarette, and drank his beer glass empty. He looked at the clock, and then his watch, his was a bit faster, “I should be going, it’s 10:00 O’ clock, and we have headcount, or bed check at midnight, I got to get a taxi or bus back to the base.”
Chris called the waitress, “The bill please,” and she paid it, said, “I have a car, don’t worry about getting back to the base, I’ll get you there in time, but let’s go to another club, I know one a mile or two from here.”
“If you like,” he said.
“You would like to stay with me, wouldn’t you?” she asked.
The waitress blushed as she gave her back some change.
“I mean, no disrespect,” she added, knowing he was sensitive, “but two make a party, not one, night loafer in Augsburg is velvety, I have friends I’d like you to meet.”
“That sounds interesting, but I also have a duty to be at the base by midnight, I must be in bed, myself in person.”

They were now in the car, and he asked, “Where did you learn you’re English?”
“At an English School, I am a manager of a café, among other things, and it helps because we serve a lot of GI’s.”
“Tell me about it,” asked Christopher.
“The school or the Pizzeria?” she asked as she drove deeper into the center of the city.
“You’re an awfully good looking soldier,” said Chris, “and let’s just keep it on the first date scale; I’ll tell you more about me if we go on a second date, ok?”
“Yes,” said Christopher….

Originally written in 2002, St. Paul, Minnesota, for the book, “A Romance in Augsburg.” Rewritten for “Days without Women,” shorter form, 1-2-2008.

Days without Women (A short story of a young man's drinking life)

2009-01-02T09:30:00.000-08:00

Days without Women

It wasn’t any serious conversation, nothing much at all, mostly about not seeing him for a long time, and then he sat down by her in the Monetary Bar, off the corners of Sycamore street and Acker, the Jackson Street bridge in the front of the bar, a few hundred feet away, that cross the railroad track underneath it, he sat on a stood, hadn’t seen Jennifer St. Clair, for a very long time, perhaps 15-years he being thirty-eight years old now, she about thirty-five.
Everybody else around the bar was too drunk to notice him at first, someone was hammering on the bar for another drink, an old friend he noticed; then he noticed another old friend, who hadn’t noticed him yet, was bragging how he was a Black Belt now in karate. Then he ordered a coke. The girl looked at him strangely, but she had heard he had quite drinking some five-years back, his brother had said it to someone, and someone mentioned it in passing to someone else, and she picked up on it, someplace along the line.
“All right,” said Jennifer, “what’s up, what brought you back to this corner bar?”
“You mean, why I am here if I don’t drink anymore?” said Lee.
“I guess that’s what I mean. You got out of the neighborhood, you’re one of the few, and if you stick around here you’ll be like us again, drunks, busybodies, and gossipers.”
“I did stay away for a long time; I guess I wanted to simply say hello, and goodbye.”
It was early evening, Friday, and the counter of the bar was full of people, at the far-end of the counter, to his right, was a group of people, they looked familiar to Lee, but older of course, he stared at them, they looked out of place to his mind, his new world of sobriety. The girl next to him, her husband waved, his name was Johnny, and kept on talking to the folks at the end of the bar, then the karate man, waved, but kept a serious look, his hair was cut short, Lee knew him when he was a kid, they hung around together, his sister always had a crush on him, and Jennifer looked away from them, she was more lovely then he had remembered her.
“They’ll wanting you to go over there in a few minutes and drink with them, you know how they get,” she said, then hesitated, adding, “please Lee get out of here.”
Her hands were slim and brown and lovely, she was of the Chippewa race of Indians, like Johnny her husband.
“I will, I swear I will go after I finish my coke, Ok?”
“It won’t make you happy staying here,” she commented with a half smile, her puerperal vision, catching her husband’s eye looking at Lee, as if to try and persuade him to join the guys.
“If they want you to join them, what you going to do about it?” asked the girl.
“I told you, leave after I drink my coke.”
“No: I mean what really are you going to do, go join them, or what?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “They can join me I suppose.”
She glanced at him, and put out her hand, and he held it lightly, then let go quickly (as she picked up her glass of beer and drank it half down), “I always liked you Lee,” she said, adding “you were always different.”
“Want a beer Lee?” said Johnny from afar.
“No, thanks,” said Lee.
“It doesn’t do any good to stay, they’ll keep on needling you until you have a drink with them,” said Jennifer.
“Yes,” responded Lee, “I know how it is, I suppose this proves it.”
“I’m sorry Lee, but nothing has changed here since you’ve been gone traveling around the world I hear? Although it’s nice you haven’t forgotten us. I care for you very much, I’m stuck here, and you aren’t.”
“I understand.” He said.
“Yaw, that’s the trouble, you do understand,” she said with a sigh, and finishing off the other part of the glass of beer, then yelling at the barman to bring her another.

♦

Lee started thinking about his drinking days, his Army travels, there were many of them, twenty-years of drinking, eight-years in the Army, he stopped drinking back in ’84, he told himself he ought to get whatever there was out of life, sober now, instead of bar after bar life. Women were plentiful, but he was too drunk to do anything with them half the time. He had come a long way. He saw the bar he used to drink in, while stationed at Fort Rucker, Alabama, back in ’78, the vision was clear, there was this girl kind of sticking on him—or trying to, every time he came into the bar she’d sit by him and say, “Why is a nice looking soldier like you getting drunk every night here?”
She was a good looker, fine shape, some years younger than him, but a pest he thought, trying to reform him, when he didn’t want to be transformed or reformed or taken apart and put back together.
He had come close to telling her off many times, but this one night he did, all drunk eyed and under a dark cloud, he said in so many words, “Why is a nice girl like you lying about here waiting for me, drinking beer only to insult me, you’re a glass fixture in here just like me, just not so drunk. Shut up and beat it.”
She left, not sure if she was hurt, or wounded because of the words, but he added as she walked away, “You’re no saint baby!” And she never looked back, matter of fact; she drank her drink slowly, and disappeared, never to return.
Then there was the girl in the bar downtown Minneapolis, back in 1982, that one sat by him all night trying to tell him to go home with her—to bed with her, pretty as a peacock, but he sculled back in his chair, as if it was a boat, and lashed out at her like a viper, looking though his beer glass, she must have been rich he thought, but he wanted his drinking time, and he didn’t want to be uncomfortable, her hair was floating as the fan overhead circulated the warm air in the bar.
She left confused, her charms didn’t work, alcohol won, her face looked hard, her head and noise up in the air, dingily like, and there were a handful of more girls, in a hundred more bars, but it was all the same: you bumped in to one, was like bumping into the all, he told himself, one was just like another, but he wasn’t looking for girls, he was looking to get drunk and if a girl wanted to be quiet and submit to his style, ok, if not adios.
There was even a time when he went home with a girl, and they were in bed, and he said wait a minute, and vomited all over her bed and floor, that completed the night, and he passed out in his car.
It was a hell of a thing all right, to get drunk daily, and chase the women off nightly, and pass out, wake up, it was a hurricane hit, each twenty-four hours.

“Come back Lee wherever you are,” said Jennifer.
They hadn’t said a word for a while, Lee had zoned out of the present, and she noticed that.
Johnny had yelled for Lee to have a beer with him, and so did Mr. Karate man, and Big Ace, and a few of the others, of the one time gang members that were now aging, said Jeninifer back to them, “What do you want with him?”
“Have him come and have a drink with us,” said a voice from the group.
“No,” she said, “Were talking about old times, you know that.”
“All right,” said the unnamed voice.
“This place is all wrong for you Lee.”
“Yes, I got to go, but I’ll come back visit you folks again,” said Lee.
“No, you won’t, and I don’t blame you.” She said.
“No, really, I’ll come back.”
“We’ll see,” she commented.
“Yes,” he said, “That’s the hell of it, my curiosity: it will probably entice me to do so. I like to see how every one is.”
“Really.” She could not believe he said that, her voice was happy and sad at the same time.
“You better go then,” her voice sounded hurt, and yet, undamaged.
He looked at her, the shape of her face, there was still youth in her eyes, she had three children now, so she had said, her cheek bones curved outward, in another five years, she’d be unable to find her beauty, he knew that, funny she still had some he thought. She had a thick head of dark hair, and a nice forehead he thought.
“Oh, you’re too sweet,” he said.
“And when you come back, you can tell me of all the travels you done since then.”
Her voice sounded stranger, not recognizable, yet settled in the fact it was as it had to be.
“Yes,” he said ominously, “if the good Lord’s willing.” Adding, “you’re right, I’m a different man, and at times I’m even a stranger to myself.”
He looked at the door, at her, he saw that she was a tinge uncomfortable with him now, the forth glass of beer in front of her, half gone, and he was to her likewise, a different looking man. The group down at the corner of the bar moved a little ways closer to them, as if working their way down. Then looking into her beer glass, it was like a mirror, he saw his past it was all quite true, he was out of place here.
Next, he started to leave the bar, she said, as he passed her,
“You look very well, Lee; you must be living a very good life.”
He never looked back, he knew if he would he’d see the group, and then have to have that drink, and it just wasn’t worth it.

Written in Lima, Peru 1-2-2009

That Morning Rain (a Mystery story in Villa Rica, Peru)

2008-12-28T21:56:00.000-08:00

That Morning Rain
(The Mountain Girl from Villa Rica)

In the Valley of Villa Rica, there is a small Hamlet, a township of some 10,000-inhabitants, located in the Andes of Peru, the central region, on the edge of a Jungle. It is Coffee country, and there are a lot of plantations there. Mercedes, lives in the hill area, with her husband, Adelmo, they have a small adobe house, perhaps no more than three-hundred square feet. It rains there a lot, and the township is surrounded by mountains, and the mountains are green, full of foliage. The town has only one paved road, Main Street, all the rest are dirt roads, and Mercedes works for a plantation owner by the name of Herbert Sandoval, in the outer part of town by a stream, he lives with his wife Sara: the town’s priest is Father Sarmiento. Mercedes works in the household of Herbert, and sometimes accompanies him to the hillsides where his plantation is. There they also have a cottage for the caretaker.
Herbert, has three children, the oldest is twelve, Enrique, whom often seems to put self-interest before, compassion. The girl, Claudia, she is ten-years old, thinking and acting as if she’s going on fifteen; she is a tomboy, spoiled, and a little reckless. The younger child, is Daniel, a typical young squirt, always wanting his way, but perhaps the more tranquil of the three, the one who listens the most, and blackmails the other two older siblings, by threatening to tell their parents, this or that, if indeed he does not get his way, he gathers all the typical gossip kids like, and don’t know what to do with, because it is normally misunderstood.

(August, 2008) Mercedes, she is working in the yard, at the plantation’s cottage, Daniel is there, she’s watching him, babysitting in a way, for Sara; Mercedes husband is in Huancayo, and if she could have her way, that is where he’d have him stay—Oh, she loves him beyond reproach, beyond good senses, and he is abusive to her, perhaps because she drinks a lot, as he does, and when they are together, it is like two fires blowing in the wind, at each other.

She was just released from jail, for disorderly conduct, and was seen hanging around with the only black man in town, Patrick Lopez, a mixture of black, Mexican, and Peruvian blood.
They had painted the town red—as the old expression goes, and after her yelling and laughing and making all kinds of noise, Herbert Sandoval, came to her rescue, and bailed her out of jail, as he often has, matter-of-fact, Herbert’s wife, Sara, is a little upset because he seems to give her more consideration than her, and for a thirty-year old drunk, shapely and vicious, it is not appealing to her.
But as I was saying, Mercedes is at the cottage, with Daniel, she is a little tipsy, at the moment, had a bottle of whisky hidden in her underclothes, and every so often has went behind the cottage to have a snort.
“Mercedes,” calls Daniel, “a car is coming up the road, it looks like Father Sarmiento, and he’s with that poet and journalist, Apolinario,” but she simply continues drinking as if she didn’t hear but of course she did, Daniel is but a few feet away from here, Daniel adds, “Didn’t you hear me?”
“Of course I heard you,” says Mercedes, “can’t you see I’m busy?” (she takes the bottle of whisky, and swallows a big swallow, then grabs Daniel by the hand) “Ok boy, let’s go see what they want!”
A red truck pulls up to the edge of the road, the house is about three hundred feet from the dirt road, and Father Sarmiento can see Mercedes swaying in the morning wind, he knows she’s drunk, and he sees Daniel.
“You just never learn, do you Mercedes,” says the priest, then pushes her away from Daniel, as if to protect him from her drunken behavior, and she pushes him back, and he kicks her, and she falls down, and he kicks her in the face, and three teeth are broken, “I don’t know if it’s drugs or alcohol, or both, but you are a vegetable in the making, and you shouldn’t be in care of that young boy in your condition.” (He goes to kick her again, but Apolinario grabs the angry priest, says, “I think she got the message Father!”)
Life has not been fair with her, and she has up to now, tried three suicide attempts: once she tried to drawn herself in a lake, but it wasn’t deep enough, Wetland Lake, it was almost all dried up. The second attempt, she tried to hang herself on a banner tree, up in Herbert’s coffee plantation, on the upper plateau area, the branch was too weak to hold her, it broke, only to break the branch, and come tumbling back down, she did although have a headache for a spell. The third attempt, she ran in front of a car, it stopped in time, to be quite honest, not many folks have cars in Villa Rica, and most all streets are gravel roads, as I mentioned before, and to get the car over twenty-five miles an hour on any given street, is a task in itself.

♦

It is now September, 2008, and it is raining cats and dogs, and Mercedes’ belly is getting larger, everyone thinks it’s the black man, who got her pregnant, or at least that is the gossip in Villa Rica. She is at the household of her employer at this very moment, helping Sara with the dishes.
“Mrs. Sara,” says Mercedes, “have you heard anything about Adelmo being back in town, I heard he was this morning when I was cleaning up the backyard, your neighbor said he saw him at the bar last night?”
“I don’t drink, Mercedes, so I wouldn’t know.”
“But if he is, and me having this belly he’ll cut my throat!”
“Well,” said Sara, looking at her boy Daniel “we couldn’t have that, can we!” (Giving her a smirk.)
“Yaw mama, who’ll do all the work then, I hope not me!” says Daniel and runs out into the backroom.

(Evening) “I’ll take Mercedes home, Sara,” said Herbert.
“I suppose it’s because Adelmo might be in town?” replied Sara.
“Yes, that’s it in a nutshell, and he is in town, I saw him myself today walking aimlessly, half drunk down the sidewalks of town,” answered Herbert (Mercedes now trembling, thinking he’ll be lurking someplace around the house, come 3:00 a.m., with a butcher’ knife.
Now Sara had finished her dishes, and Herbert, left with Mercedes, taking her home. The rain was coming down lightly now, fog dropping in the township, and covering the nearby hills. It cooled the hot day making the evening comfortable for sleeping.

The Children want to go with their father, and so they at the last minute jump in the back of his truck, and now Mercedes and Herbert are in the front seat, says Mercedes to Herbert, “You best just drop me off, and get out of sight, I’m afraid once he sees my belly, and I suppose, gossip has told him it was Patrick Lopez, he’ll be coming to cut my throat for sure.
Herbert couldn’t control his tongue, his curiosity, said with a hoarse throat, “Is he the father?”
“I wish he was,” she said then looked out the window, “I suppose it’ll rain all night, and in the morning again, your coffee plants are getting it’s full of rainwater.” She commented.

“I don’t think Adelmo ever cheated on you, did he?” asked Herbert.
“No, and if he did I’d cut his throat, so I can’t blame him any, can I?” replied Mercedes.
Herbert didn’t know what to say, matter-of-fact, he wished he had never said what he did say, he never expected such an answer, then said; I mean, she was near, if not almost ready for him to do her in.
By the time they got to Mercedes’ shack, it was dark, and she quickly went into the hut, lit a kerosene lamp, started to cook hot water for coffee, she knew Herbert like coffee hot, black and with lots of sugar, especially his coffee beans from his coffee plants, and she had some.

“I hope Adelmo don’t kill her,” said Daniel to his brother and sister, I mean, I like her, and whose going to watch me when…” before he could finish his statement, Claudia spoke, “Who wants to raise a black child anyway?”
Said Enrique, indifferent, “Does it really matter, I mean, we all just goin’ to do what we normally do with or without her.”
There wasn’t an ounce of anxiety, in the children, perhaps some ignorance, in what was happening, taking place.
“It’s kind of dark here Enrique, isn’t it,” says Claudia, a tinge scared, a foggy gibbous moon overhead, as she walked by the side of the shanty, and Enrique and Daniel behind her.

Mercedes has left the door open, and Claudia can hear her talking to her father, she’s drinking down shot after shot of whisky, as Herbert listens to her yell about how she’d kill the child of any woman whoever would dare to give birth to a child of her husband’s, and kill him likewise, because he got her pregnant in the first place. Perhaps justifying what she was feeling would happen to her once Herbert left and Adelmo come to the house. At this point, Herbert is unsure of what to do or say, it is out of his hands he feels, as she feels also.
Herbert and the children leave, and in the morning rain, Mercedes walks to work, and as time goes by, several days, Herbert drives her home each night, and Sara is forming some hidden anger on this matter.

On and about the tenth day, that Adelmo has been in town, Mercedes at about 3: 00 a.m., hears sounds outside her hut, and she goes to investigate, she is never seen of again, thereafter. Three days passes and Adelmo is spotted walking the streets of Villa Rica, and is picked up for questioning on the disappearance of his wife.
The following morning, during a light rain—the forth day—Adelmo is picked up for the second time, now for suspicion of murder, Herbert assuming it was a dirty deed, evil he did, and thus called the police and was jailed.
Adelmo agrees he has been out to the hut each night, ready to kill her but he didn’t and although he might have, she wasn’t there the evening before, for him to kill her anyhow. But no one believes him, until his lawyer, Joseph Dudley, an American-Peruvian living in Villa Rica, brings up the question, “Where is Father Sarmiento?” indicating he and Mercedes must have ran off, that she was his mistress. True or not he found the needle in the haystack that cleared Adelmo’s name.

Several months later, Father Sarmiento, was found dead, and buried in a small town called Huacrapuquio, buried in a shallow grave, alongside a new street the townsfolk’s were excavating, Adelmo’s hometown matter-of-fact, of 3600-inhabitants, a township where at one time, it was a terrorist haven, but Adelmo was no where to be found to answer the police inquire into this mysterious investigation. Incidentally, they never found Mercedes, but they found her shoe, it was alongside Sarmiento, in his gravesite.

Written 12-28-2008 (Written in Lima, Peru)

The Limping Gringo Stranger of Huacrapuquio (a short story)

2008-12-28T21:03:00.000-08:00

The Limping Gringo Stranger of
Huacrapuquio

One afternoon Mayor Vladimir Rodriguez, he was told a stranger had come into town, his area of jurisdiction, the little hamlet called Huacrapuquio, in the Valley of Mantaro in the central region of the Andes, in Peru (a township of some 3600- inhabitants). The Mayor sat down in a wicker-chair, in his backyard under a patch of sunshine, listened to his Governor Theodosia Tapia speak on the matter; the Mayor pretended to be very busy, as he spoke. This was to conceal his fear, in that, someone had come into his town-let, come into it and haunted it, whom he had heard about prior to his Governor’s arrival, through the grapevine (the assistant Mayor, being the Governor of that township), was told—and he told the Mayor the same thing—if he was to stare into the stranger’s two vast, disjointed eyes, which were lit with points of coal-dark coldness, which also brought several men to trembling knees—he, himself, would notice them and endure the same fate; thus, the governor was in a state of wretched fear, confusion and dumfound ness.

But I want to go back a month or so, perhaps this will help the reader with the story, connect the dots as they say. The city was putting in a road of asphalt, and dug deep along a curves just outside the town-let, and to their amazement, uncovered an entrance to a cave— perhaps, more likened to a deep dry well, some forty-feet deep; matter of fact, one of the workers pert near fell into the open pit.
It was discovered, by shinning a flashlight down into the depths of the pit, bones of a 15,000-year old Saber-tooth cat, the size of a lion, paws larger than the man’s feet, inside his shoes. Two saber-teeth were found also, about nine inches long, matter-of-fact, 70%, of the ancient cat, that the anthropologists, and archeologist from Lima’s cultural and historical museum, figured it’s weight to be around 300-pounds, a youthful cat, and had it been older the weight would of course increased conceivably.
In the process of excavation, they noticed the arms, or front legs, paws, were twice the size of the back, eliminating the concept that such cats of ancient times resembled those of today, with bodies more proportioned. This cat had a thinner and less of a torso in comparison of the modern lion or tiger, it seemed as if it leaped upon its pray rather than trying to out run it, it would have been much slower because of those back legs—yet powerful they may have been to carry out that one time fatal leap, more so than the contemporary lion, or tiger of today.

The excavation proved—without question—to be a great find indeed, only one other such cat, was found to be so complete in the whole world, and that was found in the United States, where they had found 100% of the beast. This is what brought the Limping Gringo Stranger to Huacrapuquio, so they now say.
He had the stranger that is, a haggard voice, and those who approached him, noticed his quivering mouth as they looked into his sharp dark eyes. A few of the Peruvians had asked him, “What’s the matter?” A simple question that was never asked a second time, he was what might be called a fright-agent, he’d move his hand over his mouth, becoming inarticulate, in a despairing whisper, he’d be talking to someone, whom no one could figure out exactly who.
As you can see (or have read up to this juncture)—and I speak to you, the reader—the dots are seemingly related, that is: the appearance of the stranger, connecting to the hauntingness of his devil like eyes, and the discovery of the town folks’ ancient cat, connecting I mean, in a mysterious way, but connecting nonetheless. But in the following paragraphs, why he did what he did—be it for fame or game—no one has yet to put a figure on. Perchance, you can.

The stranger first appeared to be good natured and he was to all appearances just a stranger passing right on through the township.
For seeking out a better description, especially because of his behavior, the stranger was compared to the devil himself—quickly after his arrival—whom came to work his evil on this little hamlet, he seemed to have a sin against purity, there was no man worse in that town-let. But I am afraid—my narration is getting ahead of events.

The Mayor shook his head miserable to the governor, both of them sitting in those handmade wicker-chairs in the Mayor’s backyard, under a patch of sun. The Mayor cleared his throat, so that he could make his voice soft and say something quiet, if anything, without noticeable agony, and try to act like an intelligent politician. He then repeated to the Governor, in a devotional phrase, and he was not a man of God per se, but perhaps to act like it, in return God would help him to handle this correctly.
“Tell me what you’ve done for this man, I say, for him, and to rid this city of him?” asked the Mayor in penury.
The Governor looked at him through his near tearful eyes, and had no response, thus, the Mayor repeated himself, and again, he was reassured by the Governor’s distraught impression he created he’d have to abandon this approach.

●

The Mayor met the stranger, as the stranger had asked, which entailed seeing the remains of the ancient cat bones, still under excavation, they had been preserved in the mud, and the cave had been shut off from civilization, now to the contrary. At first, when he, Mayor Vladimir Rodriguez, met the Limping Gringo Stranger, he seemed pleasant enough—limped every other step it seemed, a bit off balance physically, matter-of-fact, they acquired a kind of commodore within minutes. But Vladimir was watchful, feeling behind the curtain of this man’s face, reverend or not at the moment, his mortal soul was alone in this situation, was in danger, and then the stranger did his labored whispering, sibilant and cautious, broken at intervals, as if he was talking to his higher priest, his words all being inaudible and in question, incoherent for the listener.
Said the stranger, the Limping Gringo, looking down at the bones, then at the Mayor, “I see someone broke the tooth during the excavation, it is not hard to fix…!”
The Mayor knew this was fact—that the tooth was accidentally broken during the process of digging it out, but how did the stranger know it was broken that way, and not in the past 15,000-years, this was in question—deep in the vaults of the Mayor’s mind, and was the Gringo implying he could fix it, really fix it to where it never was broken, or looked broken? Perhaps the stranger was teasing him, it was to the archeologists a difficult task, to say the least, and he said to the stranger with a daring voice, “This is a serious complex situation you speak of.”
The Mayor waited, straining nervously to hear what the stranger would say next, “I can fix it for you, standing up here, looking over it, if you wish?” said the stranger, in a quite clear and audible voice.
Vladimir’s turn to talk came next, he now being quite alarmed at the stranger’s statement—but the National Institution for Culture was considering building the township a small museum to house these bones, and this would be an unprincipled victory for him, if indeed he could fix the tooth, what seemed really to be unfixable, he would look even better; but it would be submitting to some kind of black magic, a weakness to his real faith—or so he proclaimed to be Christian, but living the life of one was a different road, I mean he had rosaries, and statues in his house of the Virgin Mary, and Christ on the Cross, and in his car a silver medal hanging around the mirror, but faith, that little muster seed the Good Book talks about, that was a different animal, it was far and in-between when he actually said a prayer, meant it without asking for something in return, not really believing, but going through the process, the motions to impress his onlookers as if he had that seed of faith, and if the stranger could have some kind of victory, in showing man’s weakness, in violation to humanity’s ability, so be it, let him show-off, but he would in the process stamp his association with the grayish world this man lived in, and be connected perhaps with the ebony mark of his soul. But so be it, it was a chance he was willing to take, and magic was more trick than authenticity, I mean, the Mayor believed that the devil himself had no more power that the tactician, perhaps likened to his faith in God.
Don Vladimir was almost memorized by the stranger’s eyes, “Yes, do as you say you can do, dazzle me if you can with the near to impossible,” said the Mayor to the Limping Gringo.
“Ok,” said the stranger, “I shall astound you,” and at the same time cast you into those unrepentant wild creator’s bones!”
“You are boastful,” said the Mayor, “you are taking up much of my time, and now you say, you can cast my flesh and blood into those bones, and fix the saber tooth now cracked in the blink of an eye, if you can’t what do you offer me for my time?”
The words blurred in the face of the stranger, but he kept his composure, and you could hear a husky mumble, he now hesitated as if tensely he was looking for something to offer.
“I confess,” said the stranger, “what do you want?”
Vladimir had never contemplated this before, but he had convincing ears that maybe something could be gained from this escapade. The stranger gazed at Vladimir, and fear took on a solid form for the mayor, he had not prayed at any given moment, nor tried to convince God Himself, he was in need, but nonetheless, he was in a tense emotional struggle.
And now there was beside him a most beautiful woman, she stood naked in a most shameful position, long reddish hair, youthful, “She can be your mistress for as long as you want her, a slight courtesy rendered to you, until you make up your mind, that is, what you really want.”
His heart and lungs beat fast as a trains wheels, pressing out of his chest, his face precipitately lay in the crook of his elbow, he took off his light jacket, and put it on this fleshly, shapely human looking female, as if to be a gentleman, in the devil’s world.
“Ok,” he said as if, he was ready to go home now, that there was not going to be any demoniac notion partially possessing him.
“Bless me Father,” he said to some dark face deeply imbedded into the stone wall of the cave, “My friend, he has taken a bite of temptation,” then instantly the bone of the saber-tooth cat, was mended as if it was new, then he looked at Vladimir, said, “This was really an easy task,” now the shadow of the woman, moved a little to the far corner of the narrow limestone slat that dropped forty-feet to the bones, and she waved for the Mayor to join him.
The Mayor had come to a point of exhaustion, still looking at the lovely lady, with immodest thoughts and desires, not even able to whisper the Lord’s name for help, too caught up in the evil being played upon him—the scheme of schemes, and in a strange, romantic excitement, a curious thing did happened, he fell with the damsel, and was melted into the bones of the beast, where he possessed the days and encounters of the beast when he walked the earth, 15,000-years ago.

●

The bones, with delicacy were taken out of the trench, and put into the town’s museum, even until the last moment, when he burned his bronze flesh as if in fire, into the bones, he could see the hard-eyed incorrigible girl whom seducing him, her tight pressed fingers shoving him deeper and deeper into the bones.
The stranger, the Limping Gringo that is, felt a great relief in a job well done. For the moment, the Limping Gringo, like the commoner in the king devil’s chair, he tasted the arrogance of the state of affairs, murmured to his high priest.
And now, Vladimir, who had come to his senses, he began to repent, aloud but of course, meaninglessly, “Oh, God Almighty, I am so sorry for having offended thee… but you must fix this now, lest I remain here and walk the same paths over and over within the life of the saber-tooth cat, and my life as well.”
A minute later, a door opened up in the museum, and you could hear a woman’s voice, giving two people a tour of the bones, a man, gringo from the United States visiting the township, and a Peruvian woman (man and wife), that is when he came to the full realization of what he had done.
In spite of his wishful thinking, this subterfuge of the devil’s helper was his impossible new world, at least until the final judgment day.

Note: Written out on napkins, 12-23-2008, a day after visiting the hamlet, Huacrapuquio, Peru, and handing out hundreds of books to the children of that city for Christmas, 2008. Completed on 12-25-2008, and reedited on 12-26-2008. The story originally written out in draft at 1:15 PM; having seen the town, and the museum, and hearing about the saber-tooth cat, of 13,000 BC., the author tried to plant fiction with nonfiction, creating this story, “The Limping Gringo Stranger…” The story does not show the real character of the Mayor or Governor of Huacrapuquio, whom are to the contrary of the writers characters; and should not be assumed otherwise.

Dedicated to the town folks of Huacrapuquio, Peru

The Dead don't Forgive (short story, part of "The Lore Machaco..." in Villa Rica, Peru)

2008-12-28T21:01:00.000-08:00

The Dead do not Forgive
(Life for Katita after the ordeal)

The following year, a year after the ordeal, she had visited her home city of Huancayo again, more afraid of taking the bus than ever, not because of the robbers per se, more so because of the vast bus accidents, between Lima and Huancayo, so many of the drivers unchecked by the owners of the different bus lines, falling to sleep while driving, and the bus falling into the river by La Oroya, and around the bends in the Andes, three in one week. They drove tired, with loud music on trying to keep them awake, only one driver, no shift changing, and some drunk.
In any case, she, Katita, made it the second year, back home, heavy rain all about, it was December, the rainy season, many of the buildings and adobe houses had tin roofs, you could hear the rain drops, She was happy, she noticed a police officer detaining a drunk in the plaza de arms area, then let him go. It made her think, She had forgiven her captors long ago, perhaps even being a little selfish in the process, or in the vain of self-interest, her father once told her—and now it came to mind, “If you can’t forgive the person for forgiveness sake, do it for yourself, so you can let go, and go forward in life,” and she did just that, and it made sense to her back then, and now she needed it, but there was an issue unsettled in her mine.

For a while now, she remembered Johnny’s eyes, those pitying eyes of irony, and now looking into the glass of a clothing shop near Puno and Real streets, she saw her reflection, her scrutinizing eyes, those eyes that, her prominent dissect eyes that, they were not the ones that killed him, she exclaimed to herself, “oh no,” she muttered, nor the ones that killed Juan Diego, or Carlos—thus showing little sign of emotion, she wondered why she wanted to laugh, but didn’t, insisted on showing no emotion, for they were all dead now, she knew even Angel was dead, she read about the police finding his corpse buried near where she was buried. Or that is what she remembered anyways.
Her soul told her she wanted to be in compliance with God’s rules, to forgive, so she could be forgiven. Perhaps she had emptied all that out in what was now an abandoned mine—; then came thunder and lightening overhead, and she woke up for her little trance, her daydreaming, and thoughts, she escaped the radiogram that was being sent to her by her subconscious, contorting her soft little body to keep those thoughts, unforgiving thoughts, away from her, adopting a passive attitude, she started walking, looking about, and stopped and talked to the father, a priest as he was checking the prayer books at the Cathedral in the pews, and she told him her thoughts, and asked what to do.
“Tell me father, “she pleaded, “Have I sinned because my heart is not as forgiving as my mind?”
The priest looked deep into her eyes, “Oh, the magic of the devil,” he said, with a convicting tone, “those evil spirits that haunt a man, and a woman, twist things, nothing young lady is black and white in the invisible world, not even witches in the seeable one, the laborer of forgiveness is not straight forward either, you forgave joylessly—so it appears, but you forgave nonetheless, and with a touch of contempt I gather, and now you feel the blood they shed, that has been shed is stained on you, like ink on sheepskin, there forever. We all fumble like blind men here on earth, fighting the unequivocally missing links. To tell the truth, as I think you have done, no hold no concrete accusations in your heart, you are doing right, and you have implied that the two of you, that is, God and you, are working this out. The devil puts ideas in everybody’s head, looking for weak points. It is true what they say about him, he surrounds you then vanishes, into a gray blur, leaves you lost in the labyrinth of the underground mines. Go child, shrug him off, and everything will work out, so don’t despair.”
And she did what he said to do, she left, serious, yet staring at him, somewhat fascinated he had the words—some words of comfort, why didn’t she? With her bulging eyes, listening to the music in the park, music that seemed to come out of the water, defused throughout the park, she knew she’d not miss anymore sleep, and even though still disoriented and confused on some matters, she had buried most of her discontent, inside the rags they took off her to rape her, and bury her alive, she buried those shapeless sins with those rags—once and for all, thinking, if God says he forgives, He must also forget—thus was her conclusion, and then she heard a voice whisper, it was her mother’s, “Funny bumping into you here,” she mentioned, “Lets get some Pantone?” And she loved that idea, they both loved Pantone, and there was a little café across the street, a Japanese gentlemen owned it, and thus, she went and they had coffee and Pantone until their hearts were content.

Written at 3:45 a.m., Friday, 12-19-2008

Uamak’s Account (or, The Tiamat and the Lost Age)

2008-11-24T15:03:00.000-08:00

(Part Two to the Uamak Saga)

I shill tell you of the Seer-cat Woman, and the Virus Word (and her compadre, Vii, the huge and mighty demon, and the Tiamat of old. You have heard the tale have you not, perhaps not, in many likenesses in which the hero was named Siren the Great, or Hercules, the Tiamat, Gwyllion (daughter to the Tiamat) Seth, Nimrod, Gilgamesh, Azaz’el, or even St. Christopher. But it was the Tiamat, herself, no other that had to face the hideous and demoniac thing called the Virus Worm. Which came out of the abyss when the earth opened up in an earthquake, and crawled out from amongst its opposed living quarters, deep in the crust of the earth, and here sprang the uncouth, and infamous tales of the ‘Curse of the Virus Worm,’ that took place in New Orleans, in the 77-day cult, that spread to the Midwest, to include Minnesota. This virus worm revolves down the ages, when the earth opened up, under the waters of the Red Sea, in the time of Moses. Although the substance of truth is lost in those deep and huge waters, lost and passes into the forgotten legends of those far-off days. But the essence of the worm has yet to be discovered, you will discover it now, as you read my account.

I know whereof I speak, for I was Uamak, the very one, the companion of the Great Tiamat and her daughter Gwyllion, and Vii at one time, this time I talk about was in ages past.
As I wait here on a cliff over looking the Icelandic sea, and deep down before me awaits my death, the demon of death he rows his boat, which creeps slowly along the rocky shores of this peninsula, tries to blind my mind, filled with glittering doom, he wants me to join his ill-racked life, in the forever lasting rowing of his boat, to and fro, to and fro, within the Icelandic waters, cursed to do so, like a one demonic parade, I too have been cursed here, to remain on this rock looking down at the demon of death rowing and rowing, as he makes company with me, and tries to make deals with me. He freezes me with his glimpses, far ahead of my escaping his wind—it is his job I suppose, his shadow-like atmosphere that surrounds me, his invisible manifestations of entanglement.

The Tiamat, Vii and his daughter Gwyllion came out of the vaults of hell, I had never been there, although a product, like Gwyllion, of a mother whom was seized by an angelic renegade, and thus, that renegade produced through my mother (like Gilgamesh and Christopher themselves), a semi (hybrid) demonic being.
Most human beings cannot bridge this gap between angelic, demonic and human, I am all of the above, yes indeed, even with those awful gulfs of blackness that surround me, and the ugly and unstable shapes I take, I have a spirit and soul, even an ego, spun underneath this truly flexible flesh, and behind all this is 8000-years of age, and 26,000-years of existence.

I can tell you the strangest tale of all, for I lived it. I have no reason to lie, the black wings of death, wait below me, I myself came to many souls upon the earth, in years past, in many shapes, like Vii and the Tiamat, I was not restricted to one, although the Seer-cat Woman was, her being as old as I.
I was this so called hybrid, a man, and in a race you now know, call it what you please, but those like me are restless, and in the beginning we were of a dark age, and our history is long. The arctic blood that ran through my veins back then no man could hold onto me but for a moment, a quick moment at that. I was a degenerated product of an ultimate civilization of demons that roamed the earth, 6008 BC, also.
Sinned was a man for his time, he lived in a city called Yort, he had powers over us demon (likened to Solomon), and he, to the Tiamat was her antagonist at the time, an outguessed future, or perhaps more like un-guessed for the Tiamat and for Sinned himself, she killed his father, both fathers, which included his step-father, the father his wife married after the first one died.
But it is of none of these things I would speak, I want to take you further back with me, into an age before Sinned, before the race of blue-eyes were created, when pre-man, became demon, and the wisest minds became wild philosophers, when there were boundaries between angelic forces and pre-man, and then abruptly we became slayers, when lovers became repine and wayfaring, somewhat like it is now on earth.
Thus came the Virus Worm into the world, and it was buried far and deep for it was infecting our shapes, the service of our skin, changed, altered, shifted our thinking, Azaz’el planted the worm by the gift of Satan, the ten-winged beast into our society (before time was time, called pre-history, and when he rebelled, he commanded us to follow.
And thus we were spread out to recognized landmarks and worldwide continents to do his bidding, for he was thrown out of heaven, yet he seemed always to go back, if not pleading for restitution, to blasphemy his once king of kings. He was powerful to say the least.
Oh, we were not fighters! Not in the least. Let me speak of Uamak, I saw that we were all crippled minded with Azaz’el, and his Master, Christopher escaped this and so did Gilgamesh, but the rest of us didn’t.
Our heads should have hung on loose ropes that once cut would bury us forever for the sins we committed back then, but God wanted to see, how many men would follow dead-idols (namely us), and he used us, and we knew he was using us, but to get out of hell, and under those rocks, and off those chains, Uri’el had placed upon us, this was our doom, or task if we did not want to be confined. Our trial of doom you might say, to follow the naked renegade wolves, for we were all naked back then, even before Adam and Eve, whom didn’t show up until the third era, we were the first, and the second, was almost doomed from the start, and the third, the Adam era, and then the forth, the Christ era. I saw them all.

But into the second era, it was a battle, one to madden all history, drunkenness and slaughter and fury, death and more death, and the supernatural against the wild cats, which the Seer-cat woman, ruled the land, and soon the cats, creating the age—perhaps better to say, she modified the second era, by infecting her cats with the virus worm, from the first era, that infected us, almost brought a standstill to the second era, killing all but 2000-humans on the face of the earth, and the earth was not as you know it now, it was surrounded by one ocean.
Thereafter, the cats became huge, superior with the Seer’s infiltration of spirit, and the virus worm inside of them, that gave them undreamed verbosity, ferociousness, that insisted them to war with the human race, in slaughter battles for days on end, without resting.
Blood-soaked the earth in those far-off lands, of what became Sumer, and Asia Minor, and Syria, and the whole coast of the Mediterranean to include as far north as artic circle, broke humankind down to live in caves and write their lost tongue on the walls, a quivering sentiment for the future flesh to read of this appalling and dreadful savage time.

Yet it would be wrong to say there was not an occasional touch of individual mercy—if one of us performed such a task, they were punished severely, I myself tired this once and only once in this especially valiant time, where the enemy was 10,000-cats, at 2000-pounds per cat, infected with the curse of the worm, which was the essence of Satan’s blood; and a million angelic renegades, and ten-million pre- Adamic men, to the human race many turned into ghosts, imps, and other ungodly figures, with mental distortions, and lustful cravings.

This era was so bad it glutted even my own lusting soul, and so I sought for an once of grace, that is why I did what I did: rigidly Vii followed me around, reporting back to the Tiamat of my intentions, for the Seer-cat had read my mind, she was from the superior race of the first order of hybrids like the Tiamat, I being of the second order, thus she was half-angelic, I being one third, Vii being one third, and cautiously I blindly went to help the hunting couple, who were experimenting with a stone and slingshot to kill the giant beast infected cats, trifle was their hunting battle gear, and weapons, and sad to say, ineffective.
And I explained to Morg, and his wife Rgom, a couple with several children whom lived in a dungy looking cave, along the high cliffs of what is now called Greece, this would not do, lying on the ground a great bow I had made with long piercing arrows, this I had learned from Amazes one of the Ten leaders of the two-hundred Angelic Watchers, who were sent to watch over mankind, yet did quite the opposite, they cohabitated with them, like Azaz’el, an archangel at one time, now an archenemy to Uri’el a Great Holy angelic being, and God himself.
The couple took the bow and arrow, and it was a mighty bow all of twelve feet in height (bones dangling around their necks for bravery, and they knew that their predecessors had been turned into shapeless pulp in trying to kill their kind, as these titan cats whom was cast from the ultimate mold of darkness, might vanish before the first arrow struck it target, and the closer they got to the titan cats, the more veil the air, the flying debris around them, all about them were colossal piles of shattered bones, broken from a hundred years of defeat, dirge over them, they were a crumbling society, now in shards).
The bow was higher than them in height, wider than their physique, and the arrow was balanced perfectly, to enter wherever it was pointed, for their hunt and kill, and they duplicated the arrows, and they shot a huge cat, rattled all the cats by them, Morg appeared at the side of the cat stood like a statue, at the edge of its jungle, painted his face, and looked ferocity in the face; the wild cats, they were impressed, but leniency, would not be granted me, for here I sit, at the edge of the cliff overlooking the Icelandic sea; yet this was the advent of a fearful end to an age—that age, the age of the Seer-cat Woman you might say (not the Abyss Virus Worm), for within twenty-years, the new generation of humans had forged their way to be the hunters no longer the hunted, nor the prey.

It was indeed the conquest of a lost age. And although I was sent here, I have hope, for perhaps scattered among these years, there will be a way to escape, for I helped rear a fallen race, from a monstrosity of dancing loathsomely demonic beings, dancing with demonic harps in madness, who lost an age due to pride, control and all at the end punished by what was presented: seventy-two deaths, this is perhaps one of them, the one I am presently living in.

In closing, I have two things to say, one: let my account be told from village to city, to continent, from base camps to isolated tribes, so that all men may know that the beast, and the devil and the Abyss Worm, and the demonic forces, prey on them in hidden places, for where once the bow and sword ruled, is no more, but the ghost of the past live in the invisible among mankind, and they know the destructive weapons they have, and they want him to use them upon themselves.
Secondly, I shall tell you where my companions went: Vii still roams the earth, last time I heard he was in New Orleans, with the cult I mentioned before, and the Tiamat, was cast to hell with her daughter, whom reappeared again in around 6000 BC., at the city of Yort, is Asia Minor, and again at the cult in New Orleans. And the Seer-cat Woman went to cobble with her master in Pergamun, in Asia Minor, and you all know where I am.

This account, Written by: Uamak, translated by Dlsiluk, Ed.D.

Uamak’s Ode

Thus, here I lay at the door of death
in-arms that tried to scorn the world
demonic beings, hairy, apish, with
pillars of horror and madness,
fearsomely roaming the plateaus
choked valleys, plunged on hillsides
with no sign, naught, of human life,
and down from the ride game the
wild cats of the second age—and
Uamak, in defiance, who hurled
the age to its feet, and put his heel
under the paws of the Beast…!

11-22-2008 No: 2520

Written throughout the day of 11-22-2008

Omaha Beach—and the Pathfinders

2008-11-20T13:06:00.000-08:00

[June 6, 1945—POW]

From Minnesota to Omaha Beach

Buck Sergeant, Wally Siluk born in St. Paul, Minnesota, along the banks of the Mississippi, it seemed every one in the Army spelled his name differently, had said his goodbyes to his father Anton Siluk,, and was on one of the five thousand ships, twelve miles out, off the beaches of Omaha, the date: June 6, 1945. He was looking at the coast of Normandy (Europe’s France), he and 200,000 other troops, American and British. The pathfinders had already left, the men who were to light up the way for the drop zones of paratroopers and gliders, infantry. This indeed would be remembered as D-Day. Back home, back in America, his sister Elsie was with her new child Michael Edward, she was without husband, and working at the munitions plant. Her father was taking care of his restaurant, and Elise, like the rest of the world was holding their breaths to see the outcome of this Second World War [WWII].

The Pathfinders

H-hour, the assault-troops were crunched within Coast Guard boats [LCA’s] that raced for the shore, racing by the U.S.S. Augusta on the sidelines. Mountains of waves hit his boats on all sides, as they received direct hits from the Germans ashore, thus blasting boats in flames, mounds of flames, with groups of men that would never see the sun again, youthful officers and enlisted men alike, flames that digested the boats before they even got to shore, blasted to kingdom come, exactly where and on exactly what service they had done, nobody at the time would say, could tell (in the best of clarity, they became the target, allowing another boat to jealousy roar by, and prey thunderous prayers they did not meet with the same fate), therefore, like Sergeant Wally Siluk’s boat did, it passed immune in the uproar across the waters, the cheering cities of America back home, would only cheer for the victory on victory day, not for the souls, individual souls, that would be left for the individual families, in those boats that no longer looked like boats, but more like a totem pole of innocence, for another man’s war, a floating piece of melted metal, with hieroglyphs on the side of them, marking once a name given them, a number, now burning, like a lozenge slowly melted in the mouth of a German gunman.
Furthermore, the off shore sea, was covered with fire, an inferno blaze of metal sizzling (as if in a frying pan) in the waters, never before seen to that date. And those bodies fried to a crisp, never made it back home that was their hearse. But Wally said to himself, “This is war,” as if, what do you expect. And so the Anglo-Saxon war went on, the battle went on…

You could see weapons being held over their heads: the who, the soldiers in the cold green waters, soldiers from North America, trying to make it to shore—now in the waters, some survived the blasts, some jumped out of their boats in time, others hit other boats, clumsy was the invasion, and thus, soldiers were knocked out of their boats by their own kind, holding their weapons high over their heads; gear on their backs, many drowning before they got one shot, one round out other the weapons they practiced with for exactly this service, being the water was too deep, too much equipment to carry, too heavy and way too long carrying what they had to carry to fight a battle, a gutter-sweeping battle for Europe: them soldiers caught in the impossible reach for help, caught in the waves and flames, and fire overhead, all struggling just to get ashore, those men, permanently separated from mankind’s, manmade civilization, to fight animal, to kill for the practical purpose they were trained for, paid to do, for their country, and Europe, they did their best, whereupon—even up to death.
And yet the battle had barely started, Germans would be waiting for them, were waiting for them, meanness itself had failed, the very thing they were taught in Basic Training, had failed in actuality, war was different, it was intact and unbreakable in comparison to what they seen; war was ruin and destruction, no time for hesitation or argument, no sainthood available here, only heroism, and that was a remote place, merely because someone had to see you with some rank doing some impossible thing, and then, regardless of whatever you did, it would be to the advantage of the military, to suck more youth into their cause, to fight their war, to keep the munitions plants in America pumping out killer bees, so the rich could get richer. The earth did not falter, it was mankind.

Ambush

And so the Germans on shore, were waiting, ambush, it was set up to be an ambush, it was like an ambush, but save that one, Sergeant Wally, believed they knew the answer to this war, this battle, youth before family, country before youth, modesty and discretion, God is with us, we are the powerful, the potent, we are enough to win, we are the cushion between the two continents, we are the inheritors of Atlantis, but it didn’t stop the cold outrage of Germany, plucking boat after boat, soldier after soldier, in this ambush, as the Angel-Saxton wave, mass of soldiers drifted to shore, almost surreptitiously, so they thought, but for many his crucifix indeed was waiting, the talisman (the charm of needed victory on both sides) had set up the ambush (the Germans knew in advance, and so did the Angle-Saxons know of the slaughter that awaited them, the higher ups, industry, they knew the sea would be covered with blood).

Many would die, and be wounded before the day was over: before the battle really started, many, so many had died. What if someone would have said: I’m not firing, and a chain reaction took place, resulted in no one firing: God sent, but I think God these days said: “So be it, let it rest on your shoulders, as it has in your hearts!” And it was as it was.
Men from the 4th Division, at Utah Beach were also hit, lightly hit at first, but then came the Artillery—one could hear the German made shells ‘88s’, explode among the troops still rushing out of the waters onto the beaches. The privacy of battle was over, the Germans had their hands full now, and they flung away the meager cardinal thinking that they were the candidates for consecration by the God of War.
General Norman Coat, walked aimlessly up and down Omaha Beach, the reason? Who knows? Wally fell to a shell, it blew, and he flew (as pantomime furbished out of the blood-filled literature that would be written about this battle in days to come); thus, he flew several feet in the air, the lower section of his leg now off, blown off, off from the upper part of the knee. He would be a POW for the rest of the war; it was a rough day, for both empires, both fighting against fore zenith of victory.
Utah Beach was the biggest success of the day. By dusk, Utah was in allied control, as Wally was pulled off Omaha by the enemy, and put into a concentration camp.
The only thing Wally would remember of that day for a long, very long time was Father Edward Walters’s words, servicing the 1st Division. It was months after his arrival home that he got his full memory back.

Note: Written in the summer of 2005 (St. Paul, Minnesota and modified, revised and reedited, 11-2008, in El Tambo, Huancayo, Peru.

John Nobel and the Mac Camp Boy

2008-11-20T13:01:00.000-08:00

John Nobel
[Voyage down the Mississippi, from St. Paul, on down to New Orleans—1925]

Part one of two Parts

At a little after seven, John Nobel came down-stars, from the upper deck of the riverboat, after a brief greeting from one of the other guests, he leaned over the vessel’s railing. A few other folk wondered through the door, called “Dinner is being served!” He had rather expected hat, a butler of sorts announcing dinner, and he also added, “…cocktails.” He put these thoughts back into his mind for later, figured the lounge would not disappear, turned his attention to some black folks in the distance, near the shore,

“Well, what do yaw make of that, Niggers singing and dancing on a woodened raft, must had drifted down the Ohio to the Mississippi, must be at least twenty of them,” said John Noble, to himself, out loud, a smirk—rather what tried to be a smirk, turned out to be a grotesque smile.
There were also some Negro babies he observed, women, and a few half breads, on the raft. Obediently, they paid little attention to him, jammed tight together, one bowed his head, as if to say hello, when John Nobel looked closer, staring that is, a little girl was standing up, arms spread out wide, eyes lifted up toward the stars.
The nose of the riverboat, bumped into a drifting raft, two other black souls were on it, had been on it, they had jumped off, had been sleeping evidently, woken up in time, jumping overboard just in time, it made some noise, and the raft tilted rakishly,

He, John Nobel, continued standing on deck, holding a book, “Windy McPherson’s Son,” by Sherwood Anderson, in his hand—the book had a marker in it, on page thirteen, as the boat got closer to the shores—closer to the point, so close one could see the moss growing along the banks, stacks of sugarcane and cotton and more Negro’s doing labor.

He got thinking of all the books he wanted to read, and had heard were coming out, or just been written: such as, Anderson’s new book coming out: “Black Laughter,” and the new writers such as William Faulkner’s, “Soldiers Pay,” already out, and Hemingway’s ”Torrents of Spring,” along with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, “The Great Gatsby.” He had read pomes by Juan Parra del Riego, he liked them, and a new book was out, poems to his wife, and knowing he was ill, if not dead by now, the book would be scarce the very month this year it appeared (1925).
He was short of time, no time to read them not all of them, if any, yes, even at 47-years old, he could sense life was like a seagull flying out to sea on its last flight, and “Fast it’ll go…” he murmured.

If you would have asked him, he would have said he needed more time, maybe fifteen more years would do, but what would he do with those many years: read, read and read more books? It was a rhetorical question. He was the lone stone, in the valley no one ever hears when it falls and breaks off from a higher peak: cracks and rolls down the hill to the bottom, there it rests; people walk by and pay no attention to it, as if it was there a million years.
Yes, he was looking into an endless gulf of water, as far as you could see, or not see, the day now had turned into night as the Mississippi Queen chugged along, going down this endless river—empty except for water, his inner voice telling him what he knew, ‘Time was short, very short.’
He saw a pretty woman walk by, said to himself, ‘She has no form,’ then turned the opposite way, saw another, ‘That one has a nice figure,’ he looked at her mouth as she walked by, passionate vitality in her walk and balance, and the mobility of her mouth gave a constant impression of change, unrest, intense life, what he wanted, what he was now lacking.

He thought about his wife, it was night, of the next day—his wife, no children, Rosa, she died from childbirth, as did the child, years, and years ago—how many years past, he had forgot (he yawned, but he didn’t move, just stared into the black river). Rosa was his life, he called to the waters, several times, “Rosa, Rosa!” looking at the moon now a tinge slanted, or so it seemed to him, as it faded in and out of drifting gray clouds—mystic shadows, it was full dusk.
The Riverboat went down the river string-straight: slowly, slowly tugging along, through: frogs, fireflies, and crickets: he could hear them all yawning, and dogs yelping along the river banks, as the riverboat folks, slept in their rooms turning over those big cow-eyes, deep into dreams of what they’d be doing once in New Orleans, he saw a few fish jump out of the water along side the boat, ‘…curiosity even hits God’s dinner food,’ he chattered in the deep dark of the night, only the stars and moon for light, a world of near perfect ecstasy, and quiet.

Ever since he was a kid he had a notion to travel down the Mississippi like Mark Twain, right on down to New Orleans, only now he was dying, and when he thought of it he was quite young. Rosa was quite young also; Rosa, his wife was the sister to Ella (Mrs. Ella Sillvc: something similar to that, he couldn’t remember the name clear, or pronounce it—Russian, everyone pronounced it and wrote it differently).
He had noticed one of the Mac Camp boys were on the boat going to the same location he was: perhaps he was nineteen-years old he told himself, perhaps twenty, no older. His family came up from the South, or was it, a few of them went to the south, and the rest stayed here in the Middle West, or as they were starting to call it, the Midwest. They saw one another a few times, both acknowledging the other on the boat, both going about their day-dreaming; He—about writing the Great American Novel; and Nobel, about other things, and possibly reading that novel Mac Camp was wishing to write.
Later that night, early morning, the moon went down with an unruly churn under an umbrella of gray and doom like clouds, left a rustling in John’s chest.
It was a darkish-blue black night, and the pilot was a bit nervous; so John had noticed, observing him in the pilot’s cabin above him. He knew that the Captain was acquainted with the Mississippi like the back of his hands, but this river could change from one steam boat trip to the next, and there the old coot was, pacing the square cabin as if he was talking to a ghost.
“By Gad!” he yelped in a whisper, “they ought to put some of these crazy pilots, to rest, before they put the vessel off its course, it getting to be outrageous to watch him pace, and not pay attention to the river, talking to a ghost it looks like.”

Out of the deep-dark, came voices, Negro voices, that came in whispers to Nobel: thinking it was that raft of blacks he saw before, singing away, laughing as if not to have a damn care in the world: almost jealous the way they lived, free as a bee it seemed. Old man Günter Gunderson from St. Paul, Minnesota, had given him a loan; it was nice of him, he thought, it would come in handy, perhaps never get paid back, but Mr. Gunderson knew that. He kept the $500-dollrs hidden for this very thing, this trip. Not in the damn bank, but in his sock, underneath the wooden steps that went down into the basement of his rooming house. No one knew it. He sold him his shack of a house on the levee, a shanty, it wasn’t much, but the old man said he’d use it for someone he was thinking about, who might need it. He knew John had only a limited time to live; cancer was eating him up slowly, like a garbage worm, a maggot. He could have taken the railroad down along the river, faster, but this was more scenic he thought, more mystic, silent. Down to St. Louis, now down to New Orleans.
“Here I am!” John said (it was impossible to determine whether this question was a question, or a statement: ingenuous or malicious, but he said it cheerfully).

New Orleans

When John arrived at the Port of New Orleans, the place of his boyhood dreams, the place where he never thought he’d get to go to, he got off the boat slowly, and onto land, and walked right over to Jackson Square (Park): he still had over $400 on him.
“It’s a curious day,” he slashed suddenly out of his mouth, feeling like a trespasser, but who was bored with life, now this, an enormous thing had happened he had a slice of a dream, and it hit him in the stomach! He looked back at the boat, up the river then to the park, said “One minute I’m on the ship, the next here in the park, will death be like that?”

He had hidden in his socks, in his pockets, big pockets, his money now, where he also kept four bottles of homemade brew, strong whiskey he bought on the boat. With his book in his hands and with the wind blowing through his hair he found a place to sit in the sun, in the park.
It was 11:00 a.m., John Nobel had purchased a few sandwiches before he got off the boat, to eat for lunch, and so he sat in the park, looking back at the boat, the Mississippi River, taking a drink of his whiskey, eating his ham and cheese sandwich, and putting down another shot of whisky after each bite; looking at his book and the people in the park. A boy came by with pointed out a café, said they served a good lunch in an hour or so, and left to meet other prospects for the café.
“Jack London,” he said out loud, “I would like to read more of his stuff,” he liked especially the book, “Before Adam,” it was his favorite of London’s, then he ate his second sandwich, with another shot of whisky.
He had fallen to sleep now, for a spell, than woke up again, took a few more shots of whiskey, looked to where the boy had pointed out where the café was, he had to push, push hard, very hard the food down, it outwardly didn’t want to go down—it squeezed inside his heart, pained him to push it down farther, he looked at his book, opened it, it was on page #13, his face tired, and sleepy, almost drooping like a dogs, tired-droopy, he took another shot, the food now sloshed down, he rested his book on his lap, laid his head back caught some of that fine bright sun seeping through the leafier part of the trees, and never woke up again.

The Mac Camp Boy
[1925—New Orleans]

Part Two of Two Parts

The young lad, by the name of Mac Camp, had gotten off the boat just like Mr. Nobel had, but he went his own way, slim, milky-white skin from those long winters in Minnesota, blond hair, not tall, nor short, deep blue eyes. He hung around Bourbon Street drinking and doing what pleased him; going into the bars and listening to the Jazz Age come alive, the Fitzgerald age some called it; walking drunk down side streets giving tips to the street players that rested against the walls of the buildings playing their saxophones and trumpets, trombones, and drums; sleeping here and there, at houses—new friends he’d met in the bars.
A few women ended up taking him in for a week or two, taking their share of his money during the encounters: his glance and glare for the hookers fell more than casually on each and everyone he passed, women—became like loose branches from a tree, he had no end in trying to grab them, picking them up, he was like deep crusted ice; often he’d go over to the park, scan it, pick up tramps, so drunk at times his eyes squinted to see them, against the hard dimensionless glare of the moon.

It looked as if after several weeks of this dauntless city life—in the City of Night— wore his welcome out, as often we do when we have no more to offer the recipients, the so called friends—and thus, the doors were being closed to him, one right after the other. He got a few drinks though, from recent acquaintances, but only a few, as he was now down to the last few dollars, something dismal about this lad, just as he knew there was something gorgeous about life, it became dusty, he seemed self destructive, or caught up in the exhilaration of every moment of his day being filled with pleasure, drink and rich foods, becoming restless, and discontent he gave it all.

Consequently, he was becoming a burden to his friends, those friends he knew for only a few months, friends that had already been settled, in New Orleans—on this note his friendships ended. And he found himself increasingly alone, with no means to eat, drink or able to find shelter.
He looked for Mr. Nobel, but could not find him either (unaware he had died); nor was he told by anyone of his death. In consequence he had no place to go, nor knew anyone to help him, that would help him—yet he found a few dimes and nickels to buy a pint of whiskey, begging here and there, going to those old friends, beckoned them and yawned at them and started to respond with bitterness and narrowed eyes, he became to many of them an intolerable spirit.

Walking stiffly past the outskirts of the City, rigid faced with pride, unbecoming. He had been looking for an abandon house, or its equivalent: possibly an open door to an outside basement, potato cellar would also do, so he told himself. His posture and face was in despair, pale and thin, he seemed to have aged over night; it was vanity and stupidity that got him into this mess; yet he kept a jonquil-colored voice to the situation.
And like Mr. Nobel, he had nearly four-hundred dollars: I say had. A sum not to laugh at, yet he had nothing left to provide for his survival until he found work, and an apartment. He wanted to be a writer, and so, carried a pencil and pad of paper always writing poetry or something on it. It had come into sight that after a while he forgot the days, the names of the days to the week he was living in a stupor [a trance]; He even forgot the names of foods, but not for the taste.

It was close to 2:00 a.m., and he had just found a barn door open, a little ways outside the city—he had walked long and steady, past an old cemetery that had old seashells for tombs, molded into its marble like substance, crushed into its masonry to create mausoleums—
‘…evening in a barn, better than on a park bench…’ he told himself.
He looked hard and steady at the barn, from a distance, he was interested, with encouragement, and no malice intent, with indifference, and no disdain, he took innumerable little stops to the barn, convinced there would be no trouble should the owner see him enter it.
The wind must have opened the door, he thought. He could hear horses in there (he breathed deep and slow, feeling with each breath himself diffused, becoming one with the hay and loft, and horses, he was so very tired).
The sky was building up to a storm behind him, there in the countryside, were dark was as black as the blackbirds’ wings.
With no lighting except for the moon, and the house, a house that, was about three hundred feet from the barn, perhaps more…had no light in it either. But you knew someone lived there, it look so. It had curtains in the window; he could see that from the refractor of light of the moon beaming on them. Then suddenly it started to rain (as expected), not pour, just a medium-heavy rain, a few sparks of lightening, and a roar now and then that accompanies such lightening.

(He looked about as with a tremendous effort, as with a tremendous effort to find a place to rest, sleep, “Yes, O yes,” he said, in a whisper, with his suffocating voice, looking up to where the loft was.)

He climbed up the ladder onto and into the loft, it was filled with hay, and laid back, listened to the horses, two of them, letting them know he was there, they moved a bit to see who had entered, the wind woke them, disturbed them more than he did, as did the crackling of the door with old hinges. Then he laid back and fell deep into the hay, covered a portion of his body with it, his mind had lost orderliness, space and time was oblivious to him: except he knew it was raining, for he could hear it—it was a blur, but he knew it, and it was dark, very, very dark, so it had to be night.

The Visitors

It must not had been but thirty-minutes, and the lad was woken up to the singing voices of Negroes, so was his notion, that is what it sounded like, and so he laid back down again to sleep, giving it not much thought— whereupon, he ended up pushing his body up a bit, like a turtle coming out of a shell, most of the hay falling off his legs, his bare shoulders and unbuttoned pants, his shoes off, and his long neck showing.
But no sooner had he rested his head back on the hay, no sooner than five-minutes or so, the voices of the Negroes had entered the barn, and now the horses got a little more aroused, unsettled you might say, not all that much, to wake the people in the house up, but then the storm covered that noise pretty good, so everything remained stone-silent under the sounds of the storm.
All three of those huge middle-aged, black-bucks were stumbling about, drunker than a mule on local-weed, then one saw something move in the loft. Said the tallest of the three black man,
“I done heard a noise up in the loft, Lucas? Whut youall think it is?”
“The rat?” said Silas.
They all started laughing, voice deliverable.
For the young Mac Camp boy, it was loud and clear, matter-of-fact, he pushed himself back a bit to get out of their focus, but he looked even more like a female to the stumbling drunk Negroes, the more he moved, for the more he uncovered himself, he was still half drunk himself, and clumsy at that.
His hands now trembling as six-eyes stared up into the loft. He told himself, ‘be quiet,’ but out of fear and terror of being raped or death, he couldn’t help himself. Lucas caught a glimpse of his milky white skin, and didn’t think of how the white folks would treat him should they find out what he was thinking: hang him for raping a white women, he just started climbing up the ladder like a bulldog after a cat, like a cat after a bird—drunk as can be: in the heat, and saturated with alcohol, lust seeped out of his pours, like sweat on the back of a horse—to the boy, when he saw the huge Blackman he was but a flea on a bears tail—what man can be talked to or reasoned with—when intoxicated with both alcohol and lust, indomitable, he continued up the ladder with his two huge buck friends behind him.

Said Silas with a burning tongue, “…I ain’ never mess up ‘round white folk kaze da hang ya ef-in dey catch yaw wit’ a white woman…I goin’ to see things I ain’ wantin’ to’ see…she sho look white.”

Tad right behind Silas, saying, “Some niggers is mighty fool, dey is one, you Lucas, wes best get on out of her…!”

Lucas, likened to a camel in heat didn’t heard not a word, saying, “Some women sho’ do a heap of breathen… cuz I hear her cryin’ I hears it….”

Silas (knowing now he was going to go along with whatever Lucas did), whispered, “Don’t youall forget me! Oh, Lawd, have mercy on my soul…”

Tad, “Yawl bunch of helpless niggers, cuz you git a mind for murder…I knows it.”

Lucas, “White folks git my body; ef-in day finds me now, day lynch me anyway.”

Raison d'être

The horses were now standing—curious as to what the commotion was all about, and then all of a sudden, Locus had the young figure, framed within his vision. Long blond hair, covering his ears, and he must had shaved, or couldn’t shave yet, for his face was smooth, no one could tell, for his skin looked as smooth as a woman’s.
The boy, near nineteen, had forgotten for a moment on how to reason, he was thinking on how to rationalize his way out of this situation, but his head wouldn’t work, it was blank, as if he fell down some stairs, knocked himself out, he was in a daze looking into big black faces, big eyeballs—white and red, then he suddenly woke up a tinge more, more and more: something grabbed him…poignant, unforgivable, like a turbulence—it was like one of those rare times you are caught in a stupor, wordless, and he was being handled like a bushel of discontent,

“I’m no female,” shouted the boy, “Stop, stop,” but the big Negroes just jumped on him as if he was: He was already laying somewhat on his back trying to pull his pants up, as they had already pulled them halfway off him, and the other two, holding his hands, his legs—successfully, pulled his underclothes to his knees—and turned him over onto his belly, —Lucas, and the other two men, saw he was now just a pretty white boy living like a nigger in a loft, he grabbed him, which infuriated the boy, but what could he do…?
“You is a white fox, boy—“ said Lucas, “…you is a pretty boy… an’ I jes’ a fool nigger…” said Lucas with a sacrilege tone to his voice, turning the boy completely on his stomach, all peering over this young lad…thus started the sexual taboo; thenceforth was his boyishness broken, completely gone, feminized with fear, brooded fear…!

Notes: interlinking Chapters, written for the novelette ‘Look at Me,’ subtitle, Mississippi shanty Town, written, 2003. Written: July, August and September of 2005, reedited and revised 11-2008 (book originally called, “Mississippi Levee”

A Branch from the Devil

2008-10-15T13:16:00.000-07:00

(A Murder Mystery, along the Thames)

Chapter One
Katita’s Formative Years

Katita whose Christian family name will not be mentioned here, for it would at once, draw attention, unneeded and uncalled-for attention to the family, her father had abandoned her mother at a very young age; the period of his death, which forms the initial subject of my heretofore, narrative to be. At this exact point, Katita’s mother received a pension—for the most part, on behalf of her daughter, to care for her and her education, until she would turn twenty-five years of age. At the age of twelve years old, her mother died, in a like manner of her husband, drowned, and found along the hard rock and cemented shores of London’s Thames River, and so we see the inheritance of Katita’s father goes to her, and her guardian (whom is of little significance in this narrative, but nonetheless, I shall mention her name, Claudia Belmont, a small structured woman, of a very old age, a relative, Godmother, to the child).
She, Katita’s alluring and great beauty, was accepted by the young spirited, charming and at times folly of her personality, even at an anticipative angle, she become awake to the latter part of it, and while at the edge of it, acquire a profound terror.
There was no serious investigation into the drowning of her father and mother (that took place over a seven year period), in London’s Thames, River—that is, up to one fine morning when the policeman came knocking on her door, she replied to all his questions—the investigation officer being Thomas Harding—with a perfect alibi to the death of Juan Parra de Roule, her Latin lover from the Andes of Peru (drowning in the Thames): thus, the offence died away, even forgotten by Miss Katita.
His corpse, Juan Parra’s was found; along those cement walls of London’s Thames River, at the point not far from Cleopatra’s Needle, the ancient structure that over looks the river, brought to London in the 1880s. Matter of fact, this is where all three bodies were found, if not next to it, nearby it. Evidently, and according to Harding’s’ theory, the bodies either floated away from the needle, or remained by it because of the debris the tourist threw in the river, and it collected on the banks underneath the needle, whatever the case, he was convinced the murders—yes indeed, he referred to them as murders, took place right there.
Katita now was twenty-two years old, and thus far, the murders would have spanned a 17-year period. And to his theory, they all connected to the same murderer, the atrocity of all three marched to the same beat, and so it was at this juncture Thomas Harding came to view these murders and its victims connecting to Katita herself, but absent was a clue to the mystery, yet Mr. Harding was sure there was an assassin, that these were not simply coincidences. No one doubted it was a devilish mystery, but as described and the murders being in a seventeen year span, nothing was brought forth to light.

Chapter Two
Mr. Harding’s Investigation

To Mr. Harding, it was obvious, the three corpses did not drawn, positively so, they had too many bruses to indicated otherwise. Strange as it appeared to everyone, Harding kept the case open, although having—reluctantly—to discharge the only suspect he had, Katita, for she had passed and passed before his and, but the wise inspector simply could never procure a perfect scenario for her murdering the father, and he knew without a doubt, the assailant was linked to all three.

Chapter Three
Concluding Facts

In respect for the supposition of Mr. Harding, who died not knowing the facts, the complete facts to his case that is, or not taking them into to account, if indeed he knew them, and overlooked them, this explanation, to the facts, that took place, at its latest date being, his death in the Thames River in the summer of 1974, when Mr. Harding was found drawn, a few years into the investigation. I shall give him the credit, for his everlasting endeavors.
Had Mr. Harding taken the time, or kept an open mind, and not overlooked certain things in his overview of the case important miscalculations, —henceforward, he might have found his error, which produces at length the results only a loving father like he might have missed. For in regard to youth at its briefest point, it has its most variance for evil or good. Perhaps a branch from the devil can sway it, and in this case I think it did.
While visiting her father along the Thames, in 1952, at the age of five years old, Katita seemingly appeared to have embedded thoughts altogether apart from her own, to be fully entertained, pushed her father, gently, and he fell to his death, there on the cemented gradated bank, rolling the rest of the way into the river, as he had turned away from the needle, to enjoy the tranquility of the water, the motive, the rupturing of the family, he was guilty of many sins, and among them, threatening his wife, Katita’s mother.
In a like manner, and again at the same location, in the same way, in 1959, Katita’s mother died, the motive was, she, was to bring her daughter to an orphanage, convinced the young girl was consuming too much of her life, to a point she had no free time for herself—perhaps dating was included. In any case, by the shake of the dice, and a new voice in her head, and reflection, which appeared obvious, she had committed her second murder, exactly the same way.
Exposed within these limits of murder, she marched forward and killed her boyfriend, for adultery, so she claimed, and killed him in her old style of execution, but this time with the help of a small baseball bat she kept under her car seat.
And I suppose at this point, you readers can guess how she killed her last antagonist, Mr. Harding.

Note: “A Branch from the Devil,” written after lunch at “Mia Mamma’s” restaurant, the afternoon of, 10-14-2008, in El Tambo, in Huancayo, Peru (I had a nice Steak, with bone and fat, and Split Pea soup for lunch, three bowls, coffee and coke, and the wind came and blew the umbrellas wildly about as my wife and I sat outside in the open part of the Café, and perhaps all this food and wind and then the sun inspired me to write this story, and thus, came a branch into my mind, and of course, who else could do such evil deeds as drowning so many, but the devil himself. The name Katita, came from the little girl who was eating over by me under another umbrella with her mother, the previous day, I had met her before, she came and kissed me goodbye, and thus, the little angel got into my story, I do hope if she ever reads it, she not take offence. And so I shall dedicate this story to her, the little beauty, so she pardons me for using her name.)

A Branch from the Devil

2008-10-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

(A Murder Mystery, along the Thames)

Chapter One
Katita’s Formative Years

Katita whose Christian family name will not be mentioned here, for it would at once, draw attention, unneeded and uncalled-for attention to the family, her father had abandoned her mother at a very young age; the period of his death, which forms the initial subject of my heretofore, narrative to be. At this exact point, Katita’s mother received a pension—for the most part, on behalf of her daughter, to care for her and her education, until she would turn twenty-five years of age. At the age of twelve years old, her mother died, in a like manner of her husband, drowned, and found along the hard rock and cemented shores of London’s Thames River, and so we see the inheritance of Katita’s father goes to her, and her guardian (whom is of little significance in this narrative, but nonetheless, I shall mention her name, Claudia Belmont, a small structured woman, of a very old age, a relative, Godmother, to the child).
She, Katita’s alluring and great beauty, was accepted by the young spirited, charming and at times folly of her personality, even at an anticipative angle, she become awake to the latter part of it, and while at the edge of it, acquire a profound terror.
There was no serious investigation into the drowning of her father and mother (that took place over a seven year period), in London’s Thames, River—that is, up to one fine morning when the policeman came knocking on her door, she replied to all his questions—the investigation officer being Thomas Harding—with a perfect alibi to the death of Juan Parra de Roule, her Latin lover from the Andes of Peru (drowning in the Thames): thus, the offence died away, even forgotten by Miss Katita.
His corpse, Juan Parra’s was found; along those cement walls of London’s Thames River, at the point not far from Cleopatra’s Needle, the ancient structure that over looks the river, brought to London in the 1880s. Matter of fact, this is where all three bodies were found, if not next to it, nearby it. Evidently, and according to Harding’s’ theory, the bodies either floated away from the needle, or remained by it because of the debris the tourist threw in the river, and it collected on the banks underneath the needle, whatever the case, he was convinced the murders—yes indeed, he referred to them as murders, took place right there.
Katita now was twenty-two years old, and thus far, the murders would have spanned a 17-year period. And to his theory, they all connected to the same murderer, the atrocity of all three marched to the same beat, and so it was at this juncture Thomas Harding came to view these murders and its victims connecting to Katita herself, but absent was a clue to the mystery, yet Mr. Harding was sure there was an assassin, that these were not simply coincidences. No one doubted it was a devilish mystery, but as described and the murders being in a seventeen year span, nothing was brought forth to light.

Chapter Two
Mr. Harding’s Investigation

To Mr. Harding, it was obvious, the three corpses did not drawn, positively so, they had too many bruses to indicated otherwise. Strange as it appeared to everyone, Harding kept the case open, although having—reluctantly—to discharge the only suspect he had, Katita, for she had passed and passed before his and, but the wise inspector simply could never procure a perfect scenario for her murdering the father, and he knew without a doubt, the assailant was linked to all three.

Chapter Three
Concluding Facts

In respect for the supposition of Mr. Harding, who died not knowing the facts, the complete facts to his case that is, or not taking them into to account, if indeed he knew them, and overlooked them, this explanation, to the facts, that took place, at its latest date being, his death in the Thames River in the summer of 1974, when Mr. Harding was found drawn, a few years into the investigation. I shall give him the credit, for his everlasting endeavors.
Had Mr. Harding taken the time, or kept an open mind, and not overlooked certain things in his overview of the case important miscalculations, —henceforward, he might have found his error, which produces at length the results only a loving father like he might have missed. For in regard to youth at its briefest point, it has its most variance for evil or good. Perhaps a branch from the devil can sway it, and in this case I think it did.
While visiting her father along the Thames, in 1952, at the age of five years old, Katita seemingly appeared to have embedded thoughts altogether apart from her own, to be fully entertained, pushed her father, gently, and he fell to his death, there on the cemented gradated bank, rolling the rest of the way into the river, as he had turned away from the needle, to enjoy the tranquility of the water, the motive, the rupturing of the family, he was guilty of many sins, and among them, threatening his wife, Katita’s mother.
In a like manner, and again at the same location, in the same way, in 1959, Katita’s mother died, the motive was, she, was to bring her daughter to an orphanage, convinced the young girl was consuming too much of her life, to a point she had no free time for herself—perhaps dating was included. In any case, by the shake of the dice, and a new voice in her head, and reflection, which appeared obvious, she had committed her second murder, exactly the same way.
Exposed within these limits of murder, she marched forward and killed her boyfriend, for adultery, so she claimed, and killed him in her old style of execution, but this time with the help of a small baseball bat she kept under her car seat.
And I suppose at this point, you readers can guess how she killed her last antagonist, Mr. Harding.

Note: “A Branch from the Devil,” written after lunch at “Mia Mamma’s” restaurant, the afternoon of, 10-14-2008, in El Tambo, in Huancayo, Peru (I had a nice Steak, with bone and fat, and Split Pea soup for lunch, three bowls, coffee and coke, and the wind came and blew the umbrellas wildly about as my wife and I sat outside in the open part of the Café, and perhaps all this food and wind and then the sun inspired me to write this story, and thus, came a branch into my mind, and of course, who else could do such evil deeds as drowning so many, but the devil himself. The name Katita, came from the little girl who was eating over by me under another umbrella with her mother, the previous day, I had met her before, she came and kissed me goodbye, and thus, the little angel got into my story, I do hope if she ever reads it, she not take offence. And so I shall dedicate this story to her, the little beauty, so she pardons me for using her name.)

The Drug Mules and the Hell Lords (Short Fiction)

2008-10-13T14:50:00.000-07:00

The Drug Mules
And the Hell Lords

A Demonic Hell Lord

Long before they did what they did, they knew man; they knew his nature better than he knew himself.
Long before the old man (the victim) Mr. Santana, heard the sound of the engines to the 747 jet in Lima, Peru, in route to Miami, he knew the dangers that surrounded his journey. He did not need to rise from his straw-mattress bed, pretend he was not one of the many caught in a bee-hive, so dense with tenements, few if any survived the trials and tribulations that go along with it, with the business at hand, accordingly, tongueless and dreadfully he boarded the jet, anxiety ridden, merged with health problems, henceforward the 67-year old man went and sat down quietly in his seat, as the jet took off, and the night faded on.
He had been raised in a mountain city in Peru, called Sapallanga—in fact, he was dreaming of going back after this one last delivery; if only he could (he had remembered as a boy the legends of the sighting and visualizations people have had of the Holy Virgin of Cocharcas, on the hilltop of the City. How he’d climb the hill during the fiestas, and like so many others, making his pilgrimage, his homage, he’d give his respects to the Virgin). If only he cold get out of the hands of the Hell Lords (the Drug Mules).
He was among the doomed men—of his kind, his dealings, his trade, which he appeared to have gotten it by blind chance, and bad luck. It had become visible one day as a lustful echo in his brain, and then a golden apple in his lap—then it all died away, left were the chief demons that were already disgorging his soul.

Evil, sin, cowardliness, repentance, guilt, bravity, lust: the Hell Lords (Hela, Pluto, Mephisto), they all believed in them—and hoped the men and women they were after, to be put into their eternal dens: of madness, misery and spells, put into their death-dens, would not come out of the darkness until they acquired their rude awakenings. Yes, they all believed in them, and hoped man did not, and did not become capable of such beliefs, they gave them promises, affirmed them, not needs, but wants, wishes, then they’d flee for a little while, putting them into the loneliest experience of all, into the land of darkness, slowly as if boiling them alive like a frog. That’s how it is done.
To believe, not in anything, to enter the sphere of emptiness—then escaping into one’s past, future, seeking out the promise, the one given, but to really living it, became another thing: or to have the chance to live it simply become an obsession. This was Mr. Santana’s actuality, truth, yet he was hanging on as if he had an unaccountable time period to get things right, a time he set to do what he wanted to do for himself, not quite knowing he needed to do it sooner than later, sooner than he thought. Yet in the back chambers, a hidden chamber in his mind, he knew nobody in this business really could escape his fate (so he confirmed with the source, the ones that put him into this dilemma).

There he sat in his seat, morning was breaking, and he could see it through the porthole next to him, the dark rainbow of purple and orange, a new horizon. The seat to his right was empty. There he sat in his seat doing nothing in particular, the only thing left he could do was breath and dream, and he was tired of dreaming, and he was starting to get tired of breathing, and he had to go to the restrooms. And there he sat, with fifty-packages of heroin inside of him (so the autopsy would read).
He got up from his seat, walked to the back, on his way, to the restrooms, someone’s foot was strangely laying in his path, as if extended, as if it had an extension on it, as if it grew outward from a hip, like a stem, into his pathway, and the old man tripped, stumbled trying to balance himself as he fell, but was tripped and fell nonetheless over that unidentified foot, it was still somewhat dark, and inside that darkness—down that aisle, the old man fell on top of the tip of the black shoe, that encased a foot (or a hoof) which broke open two bags inside of him, of heroin, split them open as he fell deep—sunk deep into the tip of the shoe, and its substance escaped and when he awoke (dead), there they were, the three Hell Lords waiting!

Note: Partly written 10-8-2008, completed, 10-10-2008
Dedicated to Enrique Herrera

More Short Stories by: Dr. Dennis L. Siluk, Ed.D. (2007-2009)

The Old Huancayo Theater

The Stranger’s Story

To Have; --and Never Have Had (a dramatic-romance, short story)

As a Sleeping Man Kills a Fly (a story about a season of death)

Old Man Bernabe ((Based in Fact (In English and Spanish))

The Bullfight (Issues around the: La Corrida de Toros)

Throats of a Thousand Demons (In English and Spanish)

The Mystery of Stone Ship ((in English and Spanish)(from: the Satipo jungles Peru))

The Conley Boys (Based on actual events)

"Nothing will Come of Nothing" (Chapter one thru three; a light drama, short novelette)

A Telephone Wait ((Cody's Invisible Dime)(summer of '81)) In English and Spanish

Big Blowoff Maui (short story of a storm in 2001)

Sons with no Mothers (a short story on greed)

Kina Malpartida and Halana Dos Santos, in: Championship Fight (a barroom sketch)

The Quadruple Knockout! (Donkeyland Fight, 1960)

On the porch in the summers (Grandpa and me)

Riding the Rails: Chicago Bound

A Quiet, felt Moment (In English and Spanish)

The Frozen Tongue ((A Very Short Story)(in English and Spanish))

The Little Russian Twins (in English and Spanish9

Amaze ((Gay and Angry)(a short story))

Unseen (Death at Ten, a short story)

"The Rose Room" (short story about the stockyards in Minnesota)

A Hamlet in Minnesota (Gray Cloud Isalnd, 1962, a Chick Evens Story)

The Old Couple in Athens ((1995)(a short story))

Carpe diem ((Seize the Day)(a "Romance in Augsburg": Special Edition))

Overview of Siluk's top Books (of 40)

The Big Brick House in Erie ((1973)(a very short story))

The Great Hillside Massacre near Hanover (242 AD)

Old Man Big Bird (...and His Apartment) A Short Story of Aging

The Sad Young Sergeant (a short story, concerning Agent Orange)

Aunt Mary (And the Water-pistol, 1958)

A Winter's Evening in Augsburg (1970)

Days without Women (A short story of a young man's drinking life)

That Morning Rain (a Mystery story in Villa Rica, Peru)

The Limping Gringo Stranger of Huacrapuquio (a short story)

The Dead don't Forgive (short story, part of "The Lore Machaco..." in Villa Rica, Peru)

Uamak’s Account (or, The Tiamat and the Lost Age)

Omaha Beach—and the Pathfinders

John Nobel and the Mac Camp Boy

A Branch from the Devil

A Branch from the Devil

The Drug Mules and the Hell Lords (Short Fiction)