Dubai, Iran and Hamas (Opinions and Commentary)

Dubai, Iran and Hamas
(An Opinion and commentary)



We keep fighting over Iran trying to persuade them not to build nuclear weapons, and they keep saying: we’re going to build them like it or not (we really should believe them). And Israel keeps saying: we’re going to have the last words in this game, and we all know they will. And we all kind of know the Mossad was behind the killing of the Hamas leader in Dubai (which was perhaps a good thing, perhaps saved some lives although I sure he’ll be replaced in a heartbeat), and if it wasn’t Mossad there’s still enough guilt and anger and revenge to go around for half the world to have sent a hit squad over to Dubai to find and kill him, he’s not all that popular with the good guys: and it is perhaps due to the fact, not only did he kill Jews but responsible for the deaths of many foreigners. So you can’t blame anybody for wanting him “Dead,” meaning dead-dead, or almost dead in a prison cell.
So nobody should be alarmed over this assassination, it was expected sooner or later, you know how the saying goes: live by the sword, die by the sword. So Dubai, stop having you’re a belly ache, you can’t be a safe haven for terrorists—bingo! That’s it. Get mad all you want, that’s the real world. And Iran, we all know when the time comes, and they are on top of their big bomb, it will come down crashing on them just like in Dubai—bingo! Again, don’t act so shocked. And we all know Iran supports the PLO—these are two peas in one pod, something like that, Iran has the same indentations as Hamas (just with Iran there are bigger goals), different name, same color camel.

Now for the UN, the world should know, and if they don’t know I’ll tell them, but they should know unless their eyes are shut, or their face is turned or they are just are plain Jew haters also, that the UN is no friend to the Jew never has been— And the SG-UN, Ban Ki-Moon is no friend to the Jew either, if anything he is just like those Secretary Generals before him who hold the philosophy: a good Jew is a dead Jew (I know these are harsh and frank words, but true as the day is long). When the Palestinians are shooting rockets at the cities and towns and into the countryside’s of Israel, he’s sitting in his million dollar lounge at the UN discussing the Goldstone report, on how Israel should lay down and die, and not fight back.
About seven years ago a PLO leader was killed I don’t remember his name but I remember him saying on Television something on this order: Israel should understand (and I do think Israel understands this much better than the rest of the world that doesn’t seem to be able to digest it, or if they can they pretend not to) the creed of the PLO, in part is never to put your arms down to Israel, and we will all fight to the death until Israel is either exterminated, or driven out of Palestine (or what they consider their home land). In addition he added: the only other way to win this war is if they drive us into the Red Sea and drawn us (he was killed by a bomb after that statement).
Perhaps it’s time for Israel to do just what that PLO leader suggested. For the sake of ending a fifty-year war and living a miserable life—remember that was not my suggestion, it was the terrorist’s suggestion, I just happened to believe he is right with his focus—do it and be done with it.

Each lie, becomes Your Truth...(a poem)

Each lie, becomes
Your truth… (A poem)


On what side of truth,
Do you wish to sand, my sons,
Which sides can you not see,
Father of your bluish-green eyes,
In the blinding valleys of youth
All that was, is now undone,
Like the ash from a fire
That’s now been buried…
(I say leave it where dead lions lie,
A live dog is better off)
All that was, is now undone,
Buried in the gathering winds
Thrown into a maze of darkness
Under the unblinking eyes of God,
Thus, swept and split
(Like old sinful rubbish)
Into the crevices of
Guilt and shame and innocence
(But whose guilt and whose
Innocence, surely not yours or mine?)
That too is all undone, a lie
Just like the gestures of the
Heart and soul, your youth
Long gone, blown away like breath,
All—good and bad, buried
Like a lungful of old stale air
(Long imprisoned)
To die in un-judging love:
All those deeds and words,
And your wicked wishes,
Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish
It’s all rubbish, each truth a lie
Yet you embrace as truth.
To be buried and never brought
Back to life—hence, your
Wicked wish is your truth—
The one you’ll die with.

Perhaps it would have been better
Had you never saw: earth or sky
That the father of those, bluish-green eyes
Would have buried you
At the moon’s first high tide—
Your hearts are like the grinding sea
Moving about death, like flying serpents.
You need to be fed more lies
To keep the untruth you live, alive
To survive your flying ranting
You have more blind days
Than the sun have rays…
Each lie, becomes your truth,
Each truth, a bloodless lie!
How do you live in the winding dark?
Unless you are already dead…


No: 2661/ 2-17-2010

Emma's Dilemma (1870, late Spring)

Emma’s Dilemma
(1870, late spring)



Dr. Lafayette Edmonds was woken up from his sleep by a pounding, a persistent pounding on his door, which was on the second floor, up a long staircase, his building being next to “Hobby’s Store” in Ozark (Alabama), it was late spring, and just outside the window he saw Ella Hightower. He arched himself to a better position to the edge of the glass, putting on his spectacles, to get a better look, and then lit a night candle. His wife, Sarah, sleeping in their double-bed, he was an old timer, likened to Josh, in his late sixties—semi retired, and not accustomed to being woken up in the middle of the night: although he didn’t mind if it was because of deaths or the dying, or was needed to attend a birth, something more than a cold or stomach ache, or similar; murmuring to himself, he opened up the door.
He heard from his grandfather clock in the living room—him being now in his office (his living quarters and office being side to side), the clock struck two chimes, it was 2:00 a.m., in the morning. After thirty-five years of quick responding to needs of the sick, he wasn’t fast anymore, thus, slowly he opened up the door, with no complains in his composure, or even in his verbal expressions, he said to Ella, now near fully awake, “It must really be an emergency to have you come down here all alone all this ways, at this god-forsaken hour of the morning, come on in Ella, what is the problem?” And he held the door open wide for her, candle lit and candle holder in his left hand.
Dr. Edmonds, looking at Ella carefully, saw worry in Ella’s face. On the other hand, Ella was expecting to find the old doctor wanting an explanation for waking him up so early, surprised he was still as crisp as he was at his age, seemingly with the same old concern he always had for others, and patience.
“Well,” said Ella, handing him an envelope with fifty-dollars in it, new American currency, he had no idea of why she was giving it to him, and mysteriously he said nothing, knowing she needed a moment to calm down and explain her manner, and surely for that time of night. She had a horse and buggy waiting for them along the front of the building, which was also used by a younger man by the name of Tony Bly, a shoe repair man, and leather worker.
“Emma is about to have a baby, and I do not want her to go to the county hospital, although I know it is proper medical care there, I want you, and only you to see her and to deliver it,” remarked Ella.
Dr. Edmonds was a benevolent old man, completely white hair, a tinge enfeebled with age, but his hands were not shaky, the greatest fault for an aging doctor I would think; plus, he was always very much involved with his patients and profession, perhaps to the point of obsession, and on the face of it, it was the only thing he knew, really knew and really enjoyed out of life other than his wife. He did not shoot guns, or hunt, or play any instruments, or smoke, or drink, or play games like chess, or cards, he just was a simple old doctor that loved his calling. His goal from birth to old age was simple, a doctor’s career in general practices.
“Okay,” he said, seeing the horse and buggy was all harnessed and standing down below the staircase, “I’m ready if you are,” he didn’t ask anymore questions, he felt as he always felt, he was a doctor, not a policeman, or clergy, or judge or sheriff or politician—or for that matter, adequate to even construct an issue in anything other than medicine, the only regret he might have had, or could have been imagined, was perhaps, he wanted another thirty-five years to treat his clients, and that would be out of the question.
Yancy Yankcavick, the stable owner saw Ella and the doctor leave the city limits, he was paid by the city as a night patrolman, and if he saw anything mysterious, he was to inform the sheriff, although he spent very little time combing the streets, and more time sleeping in a rickety old wooden chair crooked up against the sidewall of his stable—

“It’s good you keep in practice,” said Ella as they rode in this brisk chilly late spring night, down the Old Ozark Road to the Hightower Plantation.
“Well,” said the doctor mumbling in a no serious manner, “Some people take a half a life time to figure out what they want out of life, I always knew my calling, as if a bird was chattering inside my head until I did what I had to do, meaning: medical school. It didn’t really appear unexpectedly to me, I had no pretext to do anything else, and it was that or nothing, being a bum or drunk that would have been my second choice I suppose.” And they both laughed.
Once at the plantation mansion, Ella swung the door open rapidly, and the doctor went immediately to Ella’s room, he knew were it was, he had been there couple dozen of times before. The fireplace was warm in her room. The part of her face he saw was sweating and in pain, he walked to her bedside, the floor squeaking as he did, the glowing heat from the oak logs kept every inch of the large room warm, “Good evening—I mean morning, Emma…” and before he could say anything else, Emma remarked, “Get this baby out of me please doc, it’s killing me!”
“Glad you got the hearth going Ella,” said the doctor, “we’re having a cold spell it seems.”
And then dutifully in response to the pain and dilation of Emma, the doctor with cautious hands, delivered the child. It was a boy, a mulatto. Emma was now quiet “Let me see the little one?” asked Emma (she didn’t say: ‘Let me see my baby,’ she was apprehensive).
Briskly, she peered over the edge of the bed, Ella was holding the baby. “A colored boy,” she cried. “It’ll be all right,” said Ella, trying to overlook her shock. And even the doctor had something to say about this, “Well, I’ll be doggone!” he muffled under his breath, his manner a bit taken back. Ella now smiled, as she proceeded to cover the baby with a blanket.
“Mrs. Hightower,” said the doctor, “I see the child is in very capable hands, but you’ll not get the approval of the Ozark folks, they may stay away from your plantation after they hear of this; luckily you didn’t call for a midwife.” Meaning, she had some decisions to make.
“Well,” said Emma, “another mixed-colored born for Shantytown,” and Ella looked at Emma, then the doctor, and the doctor remarked, “It’s a pretty one, too bad! Do you want me to take him with me when I leave?”
“We’d be in an awful fix if you didn’t” said Ella.
“You can count on my silence, Mrs. Hightower,” said the doctor to Ella, then looking at Emma, “I guess there’s no arguing with the times, do you want to give him a name?” Then he hushed up.
“Josh,” said Emma “put a note in a basket and say his name is Josh, he had a good reputation in Shantytown, and someone will parent him, and if not—oh well, let’s hope someone does, we’ll never know one way or the other I suppose.” Then the doctor said, “Oh yes, you’ll always know, he has a web foot like your right one.” And she looked and it was true.
“Well,” said the doctor (it was now 4:00 a.m.) “News travels fast so it is best I take the child and get traveling,” and he leaned forward to take the child from Ella, and with a lowered voice, Ella said “Okay take little Josh,” not wanting to release the child, but after horridly and mentally examining the situation, she handed him over.

No. 607 (2-25-2010) EC
Part of the story “Colored and White” in the Manuscript
“The Cotton Belt”

Do Birds Know About God?

Do Birds Know About God?

Do birds know about God? That’s a good question (I’ve had hundreds of kids ask me this question). Let’s first look at: why do birds have wings and legs, and can fly and walk, and why do they build nests, and lay eggs and why do they play a roll in our epoch, I mean, they have come up through Greek mythology, as well as Egyptian, and in some of our earlier cultures men had wings, and heads of birds, even as far back as the birdmen of the South Pacific Islands (13,000 —26,000 BC). Of course there are some birds that don’t fly, like the ostrich, to heavy, but that’s not part of this question.

Anyhow, for one of the questions—the Wings: legend says, “God put hands and wings in a vase, and told his two new creatures to blindly pull one out, and they were both trying, one with their toes, and the other with its claws, and the bird snagged the wing, and the human grabbed onto the index finger with his big toe and the little one next to it, and God said, “Well done!” and that was that. Evidently, God had already given them both legs.
The egg, now there are a few schools of thought on the egg, I shall tell you the old, old, very old legend one: on a far Pacific island (some say Borneo) there were two angels, and God told them to figure out a way how to teach mankind the shape of the moon, and the earth, so they’d not forget it—and who made it a sign you might say, because earth was going to be a great gift to humankind, and now the earth was made, and man was about to be placed upon it. And so the two angels thought and thought, and one came up with the design of the square indicating north, south, east and west—and showed God a Rock. And God said, “That’s not good enough” and so the two angels quite heart broken, tried a second time, and after a long period of thinking, said, “Have the bird with the wings, which can fly about everywhere, lay eggs the shake of the earth, and how can man not notice that?” And God said, “Well done, but now you got to find a home for this wondering creature!” So the two angels were tasked a double task: and to get on the good side of God since they screwed up the first time, the two angels did themselves well, they created the bird nest, for the birds to lay eggs in, sleep in, and then after they departed, man took the nests and made “Bird nest Soup!” And God looked down and said, “It took you awhile, but you pulled through,” and the angels were happy.
So I do think I’ve now answered the trying questions that have been haunting man for centuries, and in particular children, and as far as “Do birds know about God?” Of course they do, God said in his book—in so many words: I know ever sparrow in ever nest and I feed them, and know even when they fall out of it: and everybody knows there feeder—right? (Although some want to deny it.)

"He Is What He Writes" (Dennis L. Siluk) reviewed by Benjamin Szumskyj

He Is What He Writes:

The Weird Tales of Dennis L. Siluk

Benjamin Szumskyj





Embarking on the critical study of author Dennis L. Siluk might be an endeavor that would fall on deaf ears, rather than the applause of a receptive audience. I mean no disrespect by this comment. This is because, despite dozens of published books and thousands of copies sold, Dennis L. Siluk’s literary career has been virtually undetected by the community of the weird tale. However, being unknown is potentially more rewarding than being found and forgotten, or worse still, ignored altogether. And being that none of Siluk’s many readers have chosen to study his works of fiction, bar the flurry of positive reviews, any study of his work will be both deserved and enlightening.
Siluk has written several books outside the weird tale canon, such as of poetry (Sirens, The Macabre Poems: and other selected poems), children’s stories (The Tale of Willie the Humpback Whale, Two Modern Short Stories of Immigrant Life: The Little Russian Twins & Uni’s Street Car), travel (Chasing the Sun, Romancing San Francisco: Sketches of Life in the Late '60's), mainstream (Perhaps It’s Love, Cold Kindness), non-fiction (A Path to Sobriety, the Inside Passage: A Common Sense Book on Understanding Alcoholism and Addiction, A Path to Relapse Prevention), thriller (The Mumbler), and pseudotheological (The Last Trumpet and the Woodbridge Demon).
The fiction collection that best encapsulates the style, imagination and originality of Siluk is Death on Demand: Seven Stories of Suspense (2003, iUniverse Inc). Though a relatively recent publication, it collects several stories written over a period of years. In discussing the following stories, I may reveal the endings in order to illustrate a point.
Death on Demand opens with, what I believe not only to be one of Siluk’s best stories, but perhaps one of the most powerfully written stories of the last decade ‘The Rape of Angelina’, a story which showcases the author’s background in psychology and sociology within a historical context. The story begins with a well-read individual who has acquired a forgotten poem written in 1278 AD entitled ‘The Lioness of Glastonbury’, whilst conducting research at an undisclosed university in England. Upon arriving in Glastonbury, he meets a man named Arthur who is distantly related to Angelina and happens to possess a copy of her diary, written in 1199 AD at the end of the Crusades. As he states:
“At Chalice Well, you will see a Lion’s Head. Angelina was a lioness. Although people thought she was timid, and coy, she was far from it. When she died, in 1221 AD, she left her diary, and the story of the three soldiers who wanted to rape her; one did the other two… Well, that’s part of the story; no one ever found out what happened to them or for that matter, how they died. But I know I got the diary. I found it in 1984, hidden in the old Abbey Barn, that place has a magnificent roof, doesn’t it?” [DOD, p. 18]
The story then changes to Angelina’s point of view, directly from her diary, as she recounts the events of that fateful year. The third chapter is crisply written, particularly the first section, in which the 13-year-old details her dream of finding a beloved knight and being married, her developing body, and the attention young boys give her. It’s an authentic narrative, for Angelina comes across as a sensible, mature and honorable girl who idolizes the life of King Arthur, as well as looking up to her grandfather. Soon enough, she is confronted by three wandering knights, who she believes to be visiting King Arthur’s grave site. However, they advance on her and each of the men rape Angelina. After being raped by the third attacker, who falls asleep (whom Angelina thinks is either English or Islamic-Arab), she picks up his sword and decapitates him.
Taking his bag of coins (‘I took them for my torn dress’ [DOD, p. 41]), she buries him (‘about three feet deep, and I rolled him into it just like mom puts in the ham during winter’ [DOD, p. 41]) and returns home, telling no one what had happened. That night, she asks her grandfather about the Holy Wars and Islamic culture, particularly, towards women. The next day, Angelina uses the remainder of the deceased rapist’s silver to buy a wolf, which she locks in a cage and is determined to domesticate.
Angelina continues her plan of revenge when, upon seeing the other two in a tavern, she tells the soberer of the pair to meet her at a disclosed location soon after. He agrees and upon leaving, Angelina buys some wine and quickly makes a visit to the local herb dealer, buying strong sleeping narcotics. Later on, she meets up with the man, tricks him into drinking the drugged wine, then releases the hungry wolf and he is mauled to death. Consider the macabre nature of the following scene, through the innocence of Angelina:
‘He couldn’t talk or make anymore sounds the wolf had chewed his nose and throat off, and open. I thought people died easy, but it’s not true. Sometimes they die slow. The wolf looked at me then went and started eating again, paying me little attention; I think he was making sure his meal was secure.’ [DOD, p. 65]
The third and final rapist is led to Chalice Well, where after passing out from drinking the same drugged wine, Angelina ‘tied his hands over his head; then tied his two legs together’, then proceeded to chop off his hands with his own sword and cast him down the well. The final scene is worth quoting at length,
‘As I look down the well, the rope followed him like a snake. He has no hands to untie his feet, and he can not climb the 30-feet to the top. And I know the well is pretty deep. I cannot see him, only hear his cries.
‘Now I put the top of the well cover back on; I will lock it now, so the children will not fall into it. I can still hear his screams, barely, but I do hear them, he is begging me to open the well door, and at the same time cursing me. He is not sorry for what he did to me, only sorry I could get revenge on him; now his body will sink soon, and he will sober up, or wake up drunk in hell.
‘I hear water splashing, he is lucky he is thin, not like the huge one, for he would sink if he was that big. He will get exhausted soon. I must bury the rest of his things.
‘”See Mr. Knight, you are paying for your sins. But I will tell the world you were a great knight, for that is what knights are created for; they are special. Thus, I will save you from disgrace. What would you do if you lived, just get drunk and rape more girls like me. Now, that is not what a good knight should have to look forward to. GOOD NIGHT!!” I think he heard me, I tried to say it loud enough through the locked well cover. Matter of fact he did hear me, he is saying “Come back…come backkkkkk, ppppleaseeeeezzzzzzz.” [DOD, p. 73]
Thus finish Angelina’s diary entries. Angelina tried to subconsciously forget her rape and murderous revenge, distancing herself from the whole experience and erasing the whole series of events from her mind. The townsfolk don’t believe she did it, nor would they desire to trial her for such atrocious crimes despite the evidence. Soon after, the Arthurian Green Knight enters the town and when the two meet one another, they instantly fall in love. After marrying one another, Angelina sadly dies in childbirth.
The final chapter returns to the present, with a psychological explanation of how Angelina erased the rape and killings from her memory. In reading this passage, one can begin to see Siluk’s knowledge in this area of psychology (in addition to the ‘Other’ voice heard by Angelina, throughout the story). The narrator ends up leaving Glastonbury, but the story remains there, for in leaving, he is unable to take away the story and he begins to disremember Angelina’s tragic life.
What makes this story work is that unlike many female characters that are raped in literature and extract vengeance, Angelina does not become a masculine force. Rather, she remains feminine and does not adopt the traits or personality of a male. Like Michael Moorcock in Gloriana, or the Unfulfill'd Queen (1978), Siluk is careful in his writing of one of humanity’s worst forms of violence. Angelina is such a likeable character who is able to remain stable of mind through her horrible ordeal that her reaction of vengeance becomes more realistic.
‘Seventh Born Son’ is an intriguing story, surrounding the life of ‘Vlad Bran, otherwise know as Vlad Hoof’ [DOD, p. 92], for he was born with a tail and hooves. Narrated by a ‘friend’ of Vlad’s, the story begins in Transylvania. What starts as a potentially clichéd story evolves into a cleverly crafted life story of a figure cursed by his environment. The stigma of literature, in this case Bram Stoker’s Dracula, has constructed a world to believe that Vlad’s hometown is a place of evil and vampirism. In deciding to leave the place he once called home and travel to Wales, he soon begins to think evil thoughts on killing other people. As a result, Vlad’s true nature begins to emerge as detailed in the following passage,
‘As several months passed, he established himself as a serious manager in the food department, the headwaiter, with several under him. And would attend weekly meetings concerning improvements, in which he gave good advice; never showing his discontent for the world outside his mind, his damaged soul. It was justice he yearned for. When he walked by city hall, he spit at it. When he walked by the National Museum he stopped and would always wonder if there were any misunderstood freaks of nature like him in there. He liked walking the riverfront and watching the alcoholics get drunk sitting by the benches, overlooking the Millennium Stadium. He felt if anyone knew what he was thinking – which was killing – and if they were half sober, they would realize he could and would carry it out. And just what he was thinking was revenge. Yes, revenge on the world. Anyone would do. But he was not a vampire like people thought him as. He was just misunderstood. He didn’t need blood to cure him, only blood to wipe the dirt they threw on him away. And so, as spring came, he drew up his plan.’ [DOD, p. 94]
So begins Vlad’s vengeful campaign. His first victim is a female whom he decapitates, the second victim is a priest lured away from the police and stabbed in the back, the third victim is raped and then mauled by wild dogs, the fourth victim is an old man pushed down a well, the fifth victim is a homeless man that is buried alive, while the sixth and seventh victims…are Vlad himself. He commits suicide (the flesh), then rigs a trap that when the police break down his door (after being tipped off by his ‘friend’), drives a stake into his chest, thus destroying Vlad’s spirit. All up, seven victims are slain, just as Vlad had wanted it. It is a satisfactory ending to a story fuelled by bloody passion and the relentless hatred of being a social outcast.
Even at the end of the story, we are never told in words as to whether there is any real supernaturalism in the story. We are made to believe that this all happened, regardless of the preconceived belief that Vlad was a vampire. If we are to toy with the belief that Vlad is capable of supernatural feats, say hypnotism (after his third victim is raped and simultaneously attacked by dogs), then it the reader’s choice to do so, for the author has not indicated as such. ‘Seventh Born Son’ succeeds in being a suspenseful story in that it relies heavily on pseudo-supernaturalism, that being, the allusion of the supernatural to mask realism. It is easily one of Siluk’s best short stories (1).
‘The Dead Vault’ begins as a touching account of love and murder, set during the eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, 1570-1293 BCE (New Kingdom period). It surrounds two lovers who partake in the murder of Tutankhamen,(2) but soon find themselves fleeing for their very lives, as ‘those who hired us, betrayed us, used us as an escape-goat, they are the ones who have sent the bone collectors to find us, and bring our bones back to them.’ [DOD, pp. 108-09] The lovers flee so far from their native Egypt they arrive in the Americas (!) and build an underground mound, where they await a peaceful death (Ohio to be exact).
This story is, perhaps, the poorest of the collection, due to the impractical choices Siluk constructs for his characters. Would a mound maker keep a diary? Why the Americas? Must they really die? Would an ancient Egyptian truly use the word ‘sidekick’? And being that Hesmaglig was a former teacher of Tutankhamen, why would he need to use his wife as a sexual distraction for the guards? Surely he would have access to the King’s chambers? Sadly, the story is full of weaknesses.
‘The Senator of Lima’ is a suspenseful story that on face value appears to be the author’s open discussion on the issue of terrorism in Peru. Like many of Siluk’s stories, the character of Chick Evans is semi-autobiographical, an innocent author who happens to be friends with the Senator of Lima. However, in his rise to power, the Senator had made a pact with the very real terrorist group Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA) and the Senator is aware that his life is in danger, as he has been unable to pay back his debts. Locking himself in his hotel room, the Senator asks his friend Evans for help, but no sooner is Evans confronted by members of MRTA and a verbal contract is made between them, in a game of cockfighting, Evans must win three out of six to save the Senator’s life, but if he loses, the Senator has to commit suicide. It’s a fulfilling ending and, I suspect, contains far more truths than Siluk is willing to admit.
‘The Old Man, and the Tides of Winter’ would have to be, for me, one of the most touching stories I have ever read. Set during a typical Minnesotan winter, an ageing man dwells on his life between his regular visits by his son. During a harsh storm one night, the old man comes across a young puppy and adopts it. However, soon after, the old man passes away and is found by his son, though the puppy is hesitant to leave his deceased master’s lap. His son takes the puppy and looks after it, on behalf of his father.
‘The Old Man of Chickamauga’ is set in Virginia, 1861, at the time of the Civil War. The story opens to a distressed old man, who is agonizing over the destruction of his land, property and death of his son-in-law. The Union soldiers are outside, preparing to burn down his house. History informs us that in January 1861, Virginia threatened secession from the union known as the United States of America. Due to the old man’s resistance to the Union soldiers, it would be safe to state that this is not West Virginia, for they did not wish to secede along with the rest of the state and were admitted into the Union on June 20, 1863. The union soldiers end up burning down the house with the old man inside, an action which later haunts Lieutenant Foremost. The story may have been written as a homage to Ambrose Bierce’s ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek’, when, towards the end of the story, Siluk has the Lieutenant say, ‘Let’s eat breakfast men…and then we got to go build a bridge at Owl Creek.’ [DOD, p. 153]
‘The Camel Market’ is a simple story, set in Troy (2900 BCE), in which a man reminisces of his childhood, working with his (now deceased) father in the camel market.
Thus ends Death on Demand: Seven Stories of Suspense. Siluk has crafted some powerfully written and imaginative stories here and continues the testament by many that small press is the true sanctuary of quality weird fiction. In a purely complimentary statement, Siluk shares the lust to write like the infamous Lin Carter, but I do wish he’d approach established markets and anthologies to showcase his work, rather than a print-on-demand publisher. Nevertheless, Siluk seemingly enters himself into every one of his characters, regardless of whether he has visited the locale of his story, or has experienced, in one form or another, the character’s life. This semi-autobiographical injection brings more life to each of his characters and narrators and builds Siluk up as being a Baron Munchausen-like character. Whether others feel Siluk’s work is deserved of study remains to be seen, though if one is to acknowledge that he has written and sold over 30 books, one could say that theoretically he must be doing something right as an author. Time will only tell.

References
Siluk, Dennis (2003), Death on Demand: Seven Stories of Suspense (Lincoln, NE. iUniverse Inc).

Notes
1 For some, what can only be described as bizarre reason, Siluk later expanded and retitled this story as ‘Dracula’s Ghost’. However, I feel that the story is weakened in this later version and do not recommend reading it prior to ‘Seventh Born Son’.

2 In the story, the narrator Hesmaglig stands by and watches his friend inflict a head wound to the young King’s skull. For decades, scientists and historians have believed this to be the sole cause of Tutankhamen’s death, but recently, debate has risen that the infamous pharaoh, in fact, died of a disease-infected wound on his leg.

Captain Sam (And the Stern-wheel Tale)

Captain Sam
((And the Stern-wheel boat) (a tale by Josh Jefferson))


“Toby, you aint know’ bout de time I tooken that trip on da stern wheel-boat down da Mississippi, with Mr. Hightower and Captain Sam B?” (Likened to a house boot, perhaps 35-foot long hull, 12-feet wife deck)
“No, I aint never heard you tell me that one?”
“Well, we’s goin’ to St. Louis from New Orleans, and Captain Sam had this here boat, I reckon he done had it for a longtime. He took his wife along this one night, and the boat struck a barrier of some kind, going around a crook in da river, and it started to skink, it run down in de water and tore the side apart, and Mrs. Sam she a-sleeping, and da water now was higher than the cabin floor, and Captain Sam he sho’ is raise a ruckus ‘bout it, and at the back, where his wife sleep he with an axe, cut into his wife’s sleeping quarters, da roof wuz rotten, pert near you could see-through it, when he done took that first heavy he-ho blow, it done crashed down through those moldy plank-floorboards, that it cracked her skull wide open.”
“It look like Sam got poorly judgment” said Toby.
“It ain’t so poorly all de time, jes’ that time,” said Josh, “Hightower, he used to get the ideas ‘bout movin’ sometimes, and finding him a Missy, when he away from da plantation, and he had his missy. Let me tell you de end of it,” said Josh.
“Well, go-on and tell me de tale!” said Toby
“He reckons he done loss her—and I suppose he did cuz he never did go and check on her after he heard that crack and saw what he saw, an’ he axe de ooman at de wheel—too!”
“Why he do that?” asked Toby.
“The oonigger, tell he boss he wife was mighty nice woman, and he like Sam fret he loosen her, and I reckon he didn’t need de ooman anymore, to take care of his poor little rotting stern-boat.”
“So,” remarked Toby, “now he boat-less and wifeless, what he say now?”
“He look at me and say, ‘you coon,’ to me and run off de boat, like ole cat scared out of his wits.”


No: 605 (2-19-2010)
Written for the book “The Cotton Belt”

Elton John: Gay Jesus

Elton John: Gay Jesus

I ask myself: What would make a superstar like Elton John, say such a thing as implying—perhaps in a comic way (I didn’t hear him say it I only read about it on CNN)—‘Jesus was Gay.’ First of all it’s not true, he knows it and everybody else knows it—Christian or not, so why imply it? Are we talking about character here—is there something wrong with him? Or hating Christians made him say that? Or just down right hating Jesus made him say that? Or trying to get a certain group’s attention? But what for? I know he feels there should not be any religion in the world and I can swallow that, and if he wants to die and be buried with his music sheets, goody for him, I’m okay with that also. And He’s not a bad singer, I got one of his CD’s, I probably won’t have tomorrow after I tell my wife, she’s a hard nosed Christian from the word go; she’s a terminator.
But back to the pattern of thought here: why, why did he do what he did, say what he said? And then smile or laugh about it. He’s a multimillionaire over and over, why does he have to do that. Why not scorn Buddha, or Mohammad (he’d get a lot of attention, more attention if he belittled the Muslims prophet, perhaps he’s scared)? Or maybe he has. He evidently believes in Jesus, he said he was smart, extra smart—inferred it anyhow. Most likely he has now separated those Christians that buy his CD’s, plus, he has put a damp spot on the gay community—or maybe the gay community goes along with him—it makes you stop and think but its reality. The gay community has had a long enduring struggle, and maybe they are now joining their forces and testing the water to see—whatever they are measuring, or perhaps Elton has some hidden jealousies, he can’t be as famous as Jesus or Elvis, or the Beatles. It all baffles me.
I’m not really mad at him; kind of pity him, for having so much, and finding it necessary to belittle someone bigger than him. He was put in a favorable place, to bring harmony through his voice through doors, and what does he do, slam them shut. Evidently he is unafraid of the devil and hell because if Jesus is God, and I believe he is (one third of the Godhead), he is in for one rude awakening, when he gets his one and only short day, and money will not bail him out—so he better make his peace with the devil.

Many Windows ((a poem: "Bringing it Together")(and Commentary on poetic form and structure))

Many Windows
“Bringing it together”


If I shine or if I’m dull
Little does it matter now?
Days fly by like drops of rain
As I slip an’ slide
Past the windows of my life
Down the unseen highways!

I stand looking out my windows
Little do I think or say
Blue, yellow, green and white
(All the windows of my life)
They all kind-of look the same
Kind-of look way too plain…

No matter where stand
No matter what I say
No matter where I go it seems
A Poet’s vanity, will never change
Like dirty windows, dirty panes,
That constantly needs cleaning!


By Dennis L. Siluk
Notes: Poem No: 2662 (2-18-2010): this poem was inspired after seeing the painting
By Christine Tulgren, “Bringing it Together:”



Commentary (on form and structure): When you look at something, you are looking at what is a structure, and the structure is made up of parts, like a book with chapters, or a poem with design, or a painting. The meaning of the word structure sounds—for the most part, as “fitting together…” something. The most obvious part of structure—that we normally look at is called elements, the basics; in the painting of Ms Tulgren, “Bringing it Together,” one can see why the lines fit together into a shape or pattern (for me they are windows, zooming by, like drops of rain, in place of days; at least to me this is the ‘why’ part of it). To somebody else, the painting (or perhaps poem of mine), at first glance has no form to announce—the relatable question maybe: “When does it take on this form that amazes you to want to buy the painting or cherish the poem, or finish reading the book?” I’ll answer that question in a moment. We must remember we are psychological beings first; but second: some writes prefer rigid forms, as do some artists: exact words, exact lines, exact everything, an extra syllable here or there, a brush stroke here or there, paint within boundaries, paint outside of boundaries—thus you get a psychological perception: the point being, the poet like the artist demonstrates his skill to the reader or observer when they can feel the pleasure of an obstacle overcome (if this makes sense, then buy the book, or the painting or put the poem on the wall); hence, the reader, the poet and/or the artist, we all succeed.

Editor's Picks: 'exploring Tosca,' winter 2010 Issue: "A Leaf and a Rose..."

Editor’s Picks: ‘exploring Tosca,’ a Minnesota, Cultural Magazine, winter 2010 Issue: Short Stories for Men and Women: “A Leaf and a Rose…” (and other stories) by award winning author Dennis Siluk is a perfect gift for scholar or non scholar—and especially for the world traveler.”

The Fifth Moon ((Poetic Prose)(Revised and Reedited 2-2010))

The Fifth Moon
((Unholy spirits descend to the Mosel Valley) (A Dramatic Prose Poem))




Dennis L. Siluk, Ed.D.
Andean Scholar, and Three Times Poet Laureate




The Fifth Moon
Copyright © 2010 by Dennis L. Siluk, Ed.D.


Dedicated to:


Any and all translations in Spanish by Rosa Peñaloza de Siluk

Front Cover by CAS (see end notes); all other art work in this book was
done by the Author


There is a drawing of power within the moon onto earth, and those on earth can feel this pull, and the unholy spirits that dwell upon the moon—occasionally dwell upon the moon, draw from the moon’s and earth’s inner core, power, and after five- consecutive moons, the power within the unholy spirits are at its most condensed and greatest point of commanding power’, and when they find a human participant—for whatever snares they with to entrap their prey , they have the drawing power of the five moons, it is said only the most Godly of men and women, can resist its heave—meaning, the ghoul or demon possessing its power. This is one such case…and this is also in one particular area of Planet Earth, where these unholy spirits, unscrupulous, often come to visit, know as the Mosel Valley, which is along its river, in West Germany—and now we shall begin the story…



Eltz Castle, Night in the Mosel Valley







Castle n the Mosel Valley




(1974) “I must talk to the dead,” Eva said. The old seer listened closely, she asked for one-hundred marks for her services.
Said Eva, “Is it death—, I must face to reach him, to go through?”
“Death, O death,” responded Ronda, the Seer, “death with a tear you may think is death, but it is not, and yes, you must taste it, flavor it, to get to it, to get to him.”




Ronda, the Seer



So the old seer (at Eltz Medieval Castle, in the Mosel Valley of Germany) laid her hands upon her breasts, The Duke, called the Lion, looking from his den of Saxony and Bavaria (AD 1192), just gawking.


The Duke, called the Lion


Said the old Seer (with wide owl looking eyes), “You must not groan, when you go down to death, lest you wake them up and spoil your quest!”
“If the dead come to my aid, I will reward you with twenty-thousand marks,” said Eva; a nice sum.
In and out of the courtyard the old seer paced, swimming with thoughts, chanting; then someone started yanking on the iron-bell at the gate, a call to let them in, and the seer opened it, but no one walked through, not anyone visible.

The breath of dusk, sank over the valley, a dark reeking sickness came with it. And the old seer laid down, as it sank overhead, laid down holding her knees inward, close to one another, her hands tightly gripping them, her forehead bruised, as if something hauntingly had slapped her naked life form about. She whimpered quietly, covering herself with old fall leaves lying about, and then Eva knelt beside her. The moon had lowered itself; it seemed now to have acquired ripples, five ripples in all, to its rims, making it look like five moons, five eyes looking at Eva, one larger than the other, overpowering each other, ‘What an eerie and odd sight,’ she murmured.
The hideous night— was developing into crystal orange, purple ash, a thick watery darkness, laced with shady hues.
Both remained silent; Eva, waiting for the seer to awake from her solitary frozen like enchantment—wanting and waiting for answers and to ask questions, and for answers to questions, pertaining to her journey into the voiceless deep; it was funny she thought, so very funny, how the fall leaves that laid upon the ground, around the seer, now were leaping and jumping around her—as if dancing in a some kind of voodoo ritual, as if trying to spellbind her, the air—the tone within the atmosphere had changed, produced no wind: in consequence, Eva’s nerves were under agitation, anticipation, revelations.
“Is it time?” she asked the seer.
But the seer’s eyes were bolted shut, with blackness, and purple-black eyelids. Her pulse was nil: Eva stumbled and then stopped, and her body lifted, hands unseen lifted her, hands invisible once waiting were not waiting anymore, but were laid over her breasts and diaphragm—then an assault took place, many out of breath voices were over her young and tender fleshly frame; hot—burning sensations filled her flesh, she took on pain from her heels to her head—an agony she had never known, experienced, then this horde, this unseen presence withdrew, muttering as if it wasn’t the end to end, wasn’t ended —they wanted more…



“…hands unseen lifted her…”


and the shadows and shapes, ghouls and goblins, and imps and devils and demons—watching from a glimmer on the moon, now all, mostly all, but not all, moved, down, down towards the courtyard of the castle, moved under and within the walls of the Eltz Castle (the fortress), moved like blinking eyes to and fro—pacing, racing, lurking and loitering: moved from the glimmer and flicker and spark of light, lit on the moon’s surface: down, down, down, onto the castle grounds, as they trailed one after another to join their comrades in the courtyard, and thereabouts, and the old woman seer, who didn’t move at all—not yet, not one iota, not one inch, although bruised from head to heel, there she remained in her trauma like state, eyes bolted shut, her pulse nil...
“Ingles, speak English!” Eva cried. And the voice that muttered in German went silent
“I will take you down to shoal, to hell, to see your brother, who at one time was your lover….” (he knew more than she told)
Then another voice yelled, “The trailing familiar spirits want her too!”
Between the devils and the ghouls, and the demons and the imps, she had stripped and danced for them as they sang ungodly songs, all so she could be rejoined with the brother she so loved, had so loved, had died and left her heart broken—a suicide. And she danced and they sang, and she sang and they danced, and the seer remained in some kind of trance, unmoved, from head to heel, nil—like an old worn-out wooden floorboard.


“…her lips unmoving,”




And the ghouls asked Eva to sing and dance more, “No, I will not,” she replied, in defiance, and the seer’s eyes opened up wide, very wide.
“My dear child,” said her voice, her lips unmoving, “unless they are pleased…you shall not see your brother, you must endure more,” and she shouted this second time, the same as she did the first, but louder, “No, I will not!!” her flesh, from heel to head, scorched red from her attacks, her voice hoarse:
“I cannot!” said Eva, boldly, “I will not!”
A hand appeared, touched hers, and accepting this alien being for just a second, strange it seemed it undid her garments—in a whisk (those she had just fastened back on); also there were other hands concealed; she tried to stop the invisible hands: tears now rolled over, and down, and around her cheeks, lips, her face, but the male voice had no pity, just said in a chant:
“This is part of your contract!” Thus, naked, her beauty was taken again— but this time less willingly!



Eva’s Demise





Eva and the Serpent Woman



The moon now bright, and as white as her skin: the shadows all leaped about her, as she wept; the husky spirit now ruled her. And the spirits continued to dance across her unclothed flesh.
Slender was her body, in the moon’s light, and the polluting, penetrating dance of the spirits—almost visible, but not quite, all of them seemed to touch her inviolability, as if she was a goddess…
Between brother and sister, she had lost her virginity, now at this hour of time an invidious virgin to the demonic world. The dead wanted her. The chant continued as the seer closed her eyes, bolted shut, with purple-black eyelids; Eva’s spirit almost broken, wailing inside of her once unnoticed hidden chambers within her second-self; her legs trembling, her thighs bruised.

She heard this certain voice again, the husky voice, the one that was trying to enslave her—more so enslave her than all the others, the one that came from the moon, the one and perhaps only one, that had the five embodied moons within him—its essence:
“Obey…!” the voice said— cold it was—with no pity, likened to the moons airless breathe—no infamy; and there about shadows paced, and as the evening progressed, everything that was unseen was forming a substance to its shapes (as if her eyes were developing some kind of fluid around the inner layer, the retina, and the lens seemed to thicken, and she assumed the optic nerve was working with her whole eye in some kind of conversion— and placing within her sockets, the eyes of the devil)—as if her eyes were drawing power—from that voice—whom had the power from the moons to materialize, and for her eyes to see those un-seeable damned beings, and that voice said:
‘Obey!’
Now with the moon’s light upon her, the shadows and shapes over her, flesh assaults continued—a beastly parade had invaded her, and she could see them all as if in a mist.




Refuge in the Valley






The Husky Voice of the Evil Spirit





It rained eyes from the moon: shadows, watching shadows. Her body now gone mad; the seer still in her trance, Eva, now running out of the courtyard, down to the Valley by the river—the Mosel: shadows swaggering along in a long trail. She hid—on hands and knees, telling herself, ‘…if this is less than hell—by gosh, my brother must be insane by now,’ then she added, ‘his soul can live without seeing me.’ She had had enough.
The moon that had appeared to have been five was becoming one again, she noticed—perhaps the husky demon was losing his extraordinary power, and it was as if she was coming out of a trance herself, yet, she remained hidden half exposed behind the boulders and foliage.
Said that old sounding husky voice once more, “Show your face Eva, we got carried away, we’ve traded love and wisdom, for power and control, long ago, and it is hard to separated, sit aside, hard to let go of old enduring habits, we never meant to hurt you.” And as she looked above the stones, there was her brother on hands and knees, on a dog leash, barking.
She would not show her face completely, she had only the wounded woman in her to offer; desire for them, to fill is all they really wanted: and she was learning quickly, demons were liars and perverts, they had no such thing called pity, or mercy, they reacted instead of acting, reacted to lustful, and evil emotions, more than acting to their thinking, and because of this, they had to endure a craving to fulfill their needs. Eva had opened a window for the demons to come in, and they did, and it was self-interest they favored, not her interest in the least, they just wanted to find the edge, the weak point in her and then overwhelm her; but for her it was now too high a price to pay—the way she was thinking was: let the dead lay with the dead.


“…eyes wide open, like a robot,”



There the seer stood, eyes wide open, like a robot, android, looking at her, looking at Eva, as if looking through her, as a result, she said, “They cannot murder you, only make you endure them. Now you can go to hell with your brother if you wish. They will keep their deal, it is a contract, a bond; they have to, for it is written.”
But out of some kind of protest she said, but did not want to say, but said it anyhow, “Can I come back, will I be able to?” (As if she was having second thoughts as if it wasn’t over and her mind wasn’t clear on the issue.)
Then, her second-self, told her mind loud and clear, for the second time: ‘Realize Eva, devils lie, ghouls stretch the truth, they will simply keep telling you what you want to hear, postpone your interests, if you go, you’ll never return—demon: generalize, delete, distort, and call it complete and pure truth! And as for the seer, she is simple their false prophet, one that has many faces, born to be used.’
Said the seer, in a volcanic voice, “The child in you is dead, now dead, you were submissive, and there are more spirits that want you— willing to do whatever you wish, they have made you their goddess!”
And she thought, deeply thought, ‘…with them there is no opposing once in their hands, their grips; God forbid. When does more sin, buy anything worth while?’
She looked at the moon, it was only one, and she felt good, and she knew the husky voice did not have the pulling power he once had. Then the husky spirit dragged her brother by the hair, all around her, like a flying vampire, said the voice, in an echoing tone, “Did you know Eva when you laid in the courtyard your brother was among the many that put fire inside of you? He was a twin-snake on top of you, he likes being a snake.”



The Twin-snake



‘Oh,’ she thought, ‘if it is not desire they get fed with, it is hate they wish to have in place of it… or revenge, or cripple someone with hurt, and then say they are sorry, but only when sorry is no longer an option, it s as if they cannot help it.’
Eva knew there were many watching for the pleasure of it, many that swept over her, but had no idea her brother was one of the many, never thought he would have allowed himself to be one—and she noticed he nodded his head—‘yes,’ he was one, she needed no more confirmation.
Then the seer, just like that, disappeared, “Ah!” Eva said aloud, “she’s a ghost-seer, and so the old woman burns with lust also.”

((An Interlude thought: ‘It is all a game of deception, and the ghouls and demonic beings have been playing it from the beginning of time…although the demons are more proficient at it—it would appear!’) (For even King Solomon who had power over the demons, had to seek God’s wisdom in dealing with them.))

Said the old husky voice, “Ronda the seer will be back, the dead are ripe for this…she had you in her other form.”
Eva looking at the moon, there was only one, not five now, as they had troubled her before.
Said the old husky voice again, “Come, follow me, it will not burn, God does not look down in Sheol, so He will not see what is happening, it will be pleasure, with the door shut.”
But Eva hated this voice, this maddening horde of ghouls and devils, shadows and shapes, and all; now she hated her brother as well, hated them all the same—they were all equal, no innocence, for they were all near the same, if not the same—and she knelt where she had stood, and started to pray.
She prayed loud and clear with sobbing tears, wounded she was, yet she cried to the high heavens, past the moon. Half uncovered she cried, and the ghouls and demons and all the unholy ones, the awful spirits left her sides, was no longer by her, they could not bear to listen to prayers to the Most High, it burned them like fire, it made them crackle and crack and smoke innerly-throughout, like flickering fire, it scorched their unholy essence, psyche, core.




The Powers (an angelic being)



Shame and grief had burned up her love for her brother; and her being was now hollow, voiceless, “Let fire eat fire,” she cried, “I am alive like the dog, and the lions are dead! Let there be a season for everything, and let this season end!”
Hearing this, long black shadows shouted, mimicking her, and turned the valley into an empty echo: stillness, no wind: as if a little tornado had come and chased every shadow out in a last hurrah—as if an angelic power had swept them away, swept them back into bowl like crickets. And a voce said, “You called ahead of me?” (It was as if an archangel had heard her echoing voice.)




Half Moon

Chant of the Ghoul



One of the five moons

The grinding of teeth of the shadows, ghouls, and demons could be heard in the dried-up sea-cliffs of the moon, all the way down to earth’s surface; had some one taken time to listen that is. The shadows and shapes and demons were drinking blood they had brought back from fresh graves upon earth, dancing and stomping their hoofs about the airless plateau, into the crumbling sod, and dust: drunken wits with desires came over them, as they continued their chanting and singing and grinding their teeth, gnawing at one another like wild beasts, rats, in a bloody feast, as they looked over the edge of the moon, waiting for a new participant, someone to open a window so they could crawl in and do their dirty deeds, and the husky demon was waiting for five moons to pass, again!


The Chanting Demon




Chanting, Dancing and Lustful Demon





There was tides, ripples, drowned around the moon, and the demonic being with a husky voice, called the Chanting Demon (the very one, Eva endured) sluggishly, cast his eyes down to earth, to the courtyard of the renowned Castle Eliz, in the Mosel Valley, his power had been zapped, he was regenerating. He whispered to Ronda the seer—transported via, telepathy, “Our lustful ears and icy fingers all await the waves and currents of a new message from you, and bring us someone who wishes to visit the land of the dead, we have loving spirits waiting!”


And Ronda leaped and jumped and
Danced in her wild form…



(And then you could hear him laughing so loud, it echoed from the moon to kingdom-come!)



(And that is how it was, during one season of the fifth-moon.)



Parts one and three provided here, part two deleted.




End of the Poetic Prose (Poem)

Notes by the author:


“I have traveled up and down the Mosel River, (in what was known back in the 1970s as West Germany), and throughout the valley area; the castle I am referring to here is Burg Eltz, it is back in the hills on the other side of the Mosel River, probably the only castle you’ll ever walk down to. At your first glimpse, from the cliff, you can see it. It is far from the river and road, perhaps that is why it was not destroyed in past wars. It was build near the time of the Dark Ages, around AD 1160. Henry, son of the Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony and Bavaria lived there from 1129-1195. This poetic prose poem was written at Barnes and Noble, Part I: 2/15/2006, in poetic dramatic prose form. Part II: 2/16/2006 #1213; Part III: 2/17/2006: #1214 [Half-Moon, and Chant of the Ghoul. Reedited 8-1-2007; reedited 9-2009 (light introduction added, part three modified, part two deleted).
The illustrations were added herewith in this book on 2-2010, and it has been on the internet for a number of years and published by “The Eldritch Dark,” which is a site that gives tribute to Clark A. Smith.
The illustrations within this book are done by the author all but the front cover, which is named “Nightmare,” and exclusively named at the time the author purchased the drawing, on 5-22-2004, from Tom Strawski, at which time they author Dennis L. Siluk and Tom named the drawing—both trying to figure out a deserving name. Tom Strausky, had purchased the drawing in 1980 from G. de La Ree who purchased it through an estate sale priory.
Reedited, 2-2010, while in Lima, Peru.
It is the one and only—the original drawing, and the author holds all rights to it (although authorization has been given to ‘The Eldritch Dark,’ to display it, as long as credit is given accordingly). “Nightmare” © 5(2004 by CAC (Dlsiluk)

The Back portrait is of the author, done by Yang Yang (International Artist, with a Gallery in Chicago, painted about AD 2000, it hangs in the author’s home in Peru, he lives in the Andes, Lima, and Minnesota).


About the book


This short volume contains one long poem (poetic prose), “The Fifth Moon,” writes the Poet Laureate, Dennis L. Siluk, “…is a story of one who has committed self-sacrifice…perhaps foolishly, even to the point of martyrdom, going as far as the mind can permit, and ending up in a near incapable task to free oneself; as often we ourselves come near to, if not downright part of.”
It appears to be in a new, or if not new, seldom seen, somewhat dramatic form, with mythical characters and protagonists. Here we see quite inefficient demonic forces—possessive with their intent, and aureole with such lustful embellishments, as to impulsively push the mind and infect the flesh of Eva, as far as she permits, at times lingering on that account a little wistfully, by trying to drag her down into the vaults of hell to be with her bother—whom she finds out is one of the possessors—if only the horde of demonic beings could have waited, their wish may have come true.
The author has provided many illustrations for the book, and it is an easy and quick read, and most interesting.

Last Order of War (April 9, 1865, Civl War Poem, with Commentary)

Last Order of War
(April 9, 1865, Civil War)



It was early spring, year of the war
Woke to my hearing of the river and small arms fire
And the cannon and the Gatling Gun
Deviled to find
The morning summons
With battle prayer and call of the bugle and horse
And the snap of a soldier’s salute, touch of his boots
Myself about to mount
The thud
In the nearby waking woods, and we set out.

My early day began with this battle—
Birds and the squirrels of the tall trees, mourned my name
Above the horse’s mane, a battle to be
And I rode into the deep
In chilly spring
And thought about the shower of all my days.
A low surge took my chest submerged in my own blood
Above the edge of death
Below the spectators
And the gates
Of this life closed, as the heavens opened.

A spring day full of birds in flight
Clouds and the riverside weeds and whistling crickets
Squirrels and the spring rains of April
Summery
In the war’s storeroom
Here is were we found death and soldiers singing
Their last battle hymns…!


No: 2660 (2-16-2010)

Commentary: On March 1865, a gentleman's agreement was struck to forgo fighting between Union and Confederate forces on the Rio Grande. In spite of this agreement, Col. Theodore H. Barrett, commanding forces at Brazos Santiago, Texas, dispatched 250 men of the 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment and 50 men of the 2nd Texas Cavalry Regiment under the command of Lt. Col. David Branson, to the mainland, on May 11, 1865, to attack Rebel outposts and camps.

Gingerbread Nigger (a short story)

Gingerbread Nigger
(Ashley Walsh)


The fall of 1866



“Don’t kid me, kid!” said Rosalina suspiciously.
“Why should I try,” said Ashley.
“What you got?” asked Rosalina Tapi.
“The Mayor,” I had him today, “why?”
“Bring it out?” Rosalina said to Ashley harshly.
“Take it easy,” Ashley said. “Why do you try to get so tough?” she stepped over Rosalina’s nightgown, as she walked forward.
As Ashley had come to New Orleans a year ago looking for a job, she got involved with Rosalina Tapi, a prostitute, they had their own business now, and shared all the monies: fifty, fifty, and they shared everything else equally. Ashley was a pretty black girl, a lightly colored black girl, so lightly colored that Rosalina called her the gingerbread nigger from the cotton belt.
Rosalina was nearer forty years old and it showed—wrinkles way beyond the eyes, like tributaries from the Mississippi River, that extended nearby her ears, and her forehead have deep fissures, a white girl that had left home at fourteen years old just like Ashley (her mother had married a Peruvian, acquiring that last name), and started her own business; Ashley was fifteen now.
“You got the money?” asked Rosalina, “I know the Mayor pays well, he used to be my customer.”
“I tell you,” said Ashley, “if you make a mistake with me, I’ll leave you” (but what she really meant is what she didn’t say, and the threat was: if you really bother me about this money, I’ll kill you, like I had Josh Washington Jefferson killed) she said it in a gruff tone.
“Oh shut up. You’re greedy. Every time you get a good customer you want to keep it all: I advise you not to do something you can’t undo later, my little gingerbread nigger!” And she paced nervously around Ashley’s room, murmuring ‘…damn coon, damn coon….”
“Have a drink,” said Ashley; looking out across Bourbon Street from the second story window, she didn’t expect Rosalina to get so upset.
“The hell with it,” said Rosalina, “you think because you’re young and pretty you can get away with it, but I’ll get even someday with you. I don’t want any of the mayor’s money—just keep it, but you better pay me the fifty percent of everyone else’s…!”
“I’ll make more money later, don’t worry,” Ashley said in a condescending tone.

She sat at the end of her bed, the light on now, it was dusk and she was holding her two one-hundred dollar bills she got from the mayor in her hands, holding it as if she had never seen so much money before at any one given time except for the thirty pieces of gold she stole from the Hightower plantation in Ozark, Alabama.
“It would be a pretty night to walk the streets,” suggested Rosalina. “As soon as this afterglow is gone,” meaning her scotch whiskey, she liked her drinking as much as Old Josh Jefferson from the Hightower plantation like his, back in Ozark, which got him, killed.
“Damn,” said Rosalina, “this is better than that crappy moonshine you niggers get up in Alabama,” Rosalina was white.
“That’s a rough mayor,” said Ashley, “He wants me again tonight, later on.” She lit a cigarette and smoked in the half dark.
“You’re doing all right,” said Rosalina, “you’re doing better than I expected, I don’t want to fight with you, just be careful of the mayor. The smoother everything goes the better.”
“Bring me back a sandwich?” asked Ashley. Rosalina was getting ready to go find a new customer.
“I’ll bring two, give one to your partner, if it’s the mayor!” said Rosalina. “Remember he likes his drinking. He won’t eat perhaps but, give it to him anyway. What about you?”
“After having sex, I get seasick,” and Rosalina started laughing, and said “I ain’t never heard of that before.”
“I enjoy it,” the girl said. “If it wasn’t for being seasick, I could do it all day long, without a rest.”
“Just be careful, and don’t get yourself killed in the process,” and Rosalina got laughing again, the scotch was getting to her.
“I hope not,” said Ashley.
“You are one hell of a good-looking girl,” said Rosalina, “all the men and the mayor say they like what they see from the ground up. And I reckon, I’d agree with them, yes, I’d say they are right, it’s just a shame you were born colored instead of white, but I guess that don’t much bother any of the customers behind closed doors, they are crazier than a hooting-owl over you, matter-of-fact, some of them make a fool out of themselves over you. Now what do you think of that?”
She didn’t say a word, it was as if she knew it already, and she had plans, yes, plans like she had with Josh Jefferson, long before Josh or anyone could figure out she had plans.
“How did that Josh character you were talking about, who liked to drink as much as me, get him-self killed? I remember you talking about him before, that he was one hell of a good lover?”
“I guess you can imagine,” the girl said. “He was very different, I feel badly about that. He didn’t mean to do wrong, but it’s just what that phase of life does to a man, and he was old, had a heart trouble, and died on top of me.”
“I guess he’s probably a good fellow,” Rosalina said, and thought.
Ashley got thinking: ‘…listen to what my mouth is saying, it will say anything, get me in trouble.’
“We are the only true revolutionary whores is town, since the end of the Civil War. The War did away with most of the old politicians, now we see American imperialism on the rise, and we can become rich,” but Ashley had thought she was already rich; she had saved up $1000-dollars. “We ought to start clean and give every politician a free toss in the hay, a chance to get to know us, and then charge them the next time, kind of a pulling in gift,” said Rosalina.”
“Slavery ended a year ago for me, the peasants, is on the move, and I want to be an owner of a big cotton or sugar estate someday, like the Hightower’s or Smiley’s up in Ozark. I don’t want to end up like Old Josh and those folks out by Ozark, picking cotton every year for pennies.”
Rosalina looked up from her watch, a gift from the old Mayor, before this new one came into office. And she got thinking of how Ashley comes on; like she used to nearly twenty-five years ago, but there was a danger in Ashley she figured.
“To raise money like you’re talking about,” Rosalina said “to do that you have to use means that later on would never be used. Also you have to use people we would not normally use.”
“But the end is worth it,” said Ashley.
‘She’s a radical,’ Rosalina told herself. ‘And she’s telling me too much, she thinks I agree with her, let her go on, and she’ll tell it all.’
“I guess you got some good plans,” she said to Ashley.
“If you’re out to helping me…” and she hesitated, thinking, she only needed her help now, she’d not need it in another year or so, so she hushed up.
“Lots of people I know would be willing to help us in any of our plans together, as long as they got a payoff sooner or later…” said Rosalina. But because of the state of movements she wanted to take—referring to Ashley—she could not trust her any longer—she was just bating her, plus she knew she had saved $1000-dollars up, and had $200-dollars tucked into her dress, close to her small bosoms, and she knew Ashley had her own plans now, and therefore, she had made her mind up.
“I guess they’re plenty bad men out there,” said Ashley.
“Oh, yes, plenty, absolutely murderous tyranny that goes over every little street in this city, every alley and side street in the city. Everyone in this city is out to make their fortunes, even private soldiers, and ship captains.”
“Bully for them,” Ashley said condescendingly (having heard that expression from some English customer a week ago or so).
“You cannot realize how bad it is,” said Rosalina. “I hated Ozark and the cotton country, that is the worse of all being a slave,” said Ashley.
“Do you think you’re from tyranny now? You do things you hate a thousands times more, do you not?”
“I want a drink,” said Ashley, who normally didn’t drink, and Rosalina fixed her a scotch and water, put a little dab of something in it, and gave it to her. For the most part, Ashley didn’t want to give Rosalina any clues to her tactics, or way of thinking, but it was hard for her not to be indifferent, but she was now trying to produce a peace-making attitude, to eliminate any inference she might be making.
“Are you sure,” said Rosalina, “you usually don’t drink.” And she replied, “It’s only 11:25 p.m.,” he’ll not be here until 1:00 a.m., or so,” and Rosalina handed her the drink slowly, almost dropping it on purpose, almost pulling it away deliberately, Ashley thinking it was due to her being skeptical about being too drunk when the Mayor showed up, but it was far from that of course, much more to be said about this moment—than met the eye.

It got dark and there was quietness to the place. She went down to the dock area, found an old friend, Captain Ashton Tyron Peron, who was headed out to sea at 3:00 a.m., fishing in the gulf for a long spell. A dear friend and customer of Rosalina; the captain sat with his feet on a wooden large barrow of wine, “What can I do for yaw, Rosalina?”
“Let me have some of that wine you’re drinking, first,” she said, and sat down with the Captain.
He was a big-faced fellow. “All right, what is it?”
She drank a few more swigs of the wine, and said, “Now is a good time to tell you, no sense in waiting. That Little girl I hired a year ago, I found out she killed an old man up in Ozark, I hired someone to go check on her about six months ago, some old cottager they call the Ghost told my man that, and I gave him a $20-dollar gold piece for the information, exactly what he asked for. I get the feeling she’s using me and going to kill me first chance she gets. I gave her a drop of an old paralyzing formula, in her drink, it knocked her out, take her out to sea with you, I’ll sell her to yaw for $500-dollars, and you don’t bring her back, when you’re done with her, throw her overboard, right into the sea. Keep her on that ship until you’re tired of her. I want to have a good night’s sleep. And there ain’t no one going to miss that little gingerbread nigger whore anyhow, noway.”
The captain walked with Rosalina on board the vessel, opened the hatch, and stepped on down, looked about, made some room for a bed, and brought a cot now into the hole, “This will have to do I guess…I’ll have to pay you when I get back, ain’t got the money now, but you know I’m good for it.”
Walking off the ship, he looked back at the hatch, “Come on now, let’s go get her, quite stalling,” she said.
“I ain’t stalling,” said the Captain, “just doing a heap of thinking!”

Things You Shouuld Know About Living In Peru

Things You Should Know
About Living in Peru


1) First of all the laws are not made to punish people, they are made to bribe people so the government doesn’t have to pay them. A Sergeant on the police force makes $300-dollars a month paycheck with 13-years service in Lima, Peru, and $900-dollars a month in bribes; matter of fact, the government wants to boost the bribes up because the police started complaining of the low fines didn’t match their cost of living.

2) There are no real construction laws—especially in the rural areas, this can be seen during earthquakes, and so forth—when I say ‘so forth’ I mean, just go into any neighborhood in Lima and look at the construction going on, ask if they got a permit, and they’ll tell you it’s none of you business, because they don’t. Matter of fact, they may boast of the money they had to pay to get the municipality to agree to bend the law for them to build a fifth floor on a building that should only be four. Again the under-bellow of the government, is not constructed well enough to enforce it, at best they will look at your complaint to pacify you, and even send someone out to investigate, and fine the person—if they have not been bribed already, but whatever damage is done it is done, and the fine put on the tax payer is on the house taxes, or paid up front as a bribe—the best job in town is being a mayor, or working for one in the municipality. So where you live in Lima can be dangerous unless you know what you’re looking at; and outside of Lime it just gets worse.

3) Will the police protect you? NO!! Just look around you will see every house, every building with private guards or privately paid neighborhood patrolmen, and the structures are all covered with cast iron, jail like bars—why? Because the police are a picture, a façade, an illusion (they are lazy, underpaid, and are part of the crime syndicate; in most cases if you’re houses are robbed, the police are in on it. Just go and report it and see what is done about it. If it’s under $1000-dollars they’ll tell you to nearly get lost, or to sign this and that, and that will be the last of it. If it is more than a thousand, it will most likely be the same. They will not show you mug-shots, I doubt they have them. Plus, the robbers if caught will be let out the next day (if not sooner, they do jail people for show and tell, for the media), again bribery, just like the Mayors, and the Judges, in most cases if you can get to the judges or the mail clerk without anyone seeing you, you can buy your way out of anything, or have the mail clerk look the other way, and get anything. If you are bringing in anything worth while they will find a tax, one you will not want to pay, and they will sell the object. If you tell them to send it back because you do not want it, it will never reach its destination. Peru is not known to be the number one thief in South America for nothing.

4) If you want your neighbor to turn his music down at 2:00 a.m., and he refuses to, the police will come out at 4:00 a.m., and knock on their door—maybe? This is really questionable, they are afraid of retaliation. And ask them if you insist, but once gone the music man or woman will turn it back up, and they know the police will not come a second time, and if they do, big deal, they just turn it down and back up. Nothing else will take place, plus it will be morning and lawful to have the music on.

5) Democracy in Peru is a farce, everyone knows it, but some people actually believe they have it: it is rights without responsibility; it is also an international screen to look good. If you try to see a prominent person in jail, you will have to be with ten-other people, no cameras no anything, and that is because they want to control his mouth. Most presidents rob the country blind, Garcia, Fujimori, and Toledo (and are wife), all publicly known have done so, Fujimori is the only one brought to trial thus far on human right charges, not for robbing the country blind.

6) If you own property in Peru, and you do not live on it, invaders will invade it, and own it within a certain amount of time, the municipality will even tell you to fence it up, and live on it, because they will not protect your rights, actually they’ll sell them to the next highest bidder and you will not know about it. Also if you have a maid, and she lives over three years in your house, she can ask for ownership of a portion of it—like the invaders. If you buy property, make sure it is clear, they sell the same one over and over and over, and the only one that gets it is usually the first one, the others happened to fall into the well soon after the first sale was completed, but somehow the paperwork at the municipality took so long to document, the original owner had enough time to resell it a half dozen times.

7) Lying in Peru is like drinking Coke in America, they can do it with a straight face better than any other country I’ve been in, and I’ve been in sixty. Nine out of ten times, what they say is because of what they want, not what they’re going to do. They have no respect for the neighbor; they will try to use the simplest means to get a job done, even at your expense.

8) Peruvians will think throwing stones and blocking traffic will get the job done, although it only slows the traffic down, hurts people, and nobody is responsible. The police, if they shoot the robber, or stone thrower, will lose his job, so they’ll most likely not get involved. If you get in a bus accident, and you’re on the bus, and hurt, you better have good insurance, they don’t, and they will perhaps pay up to 500 soles that is $150. Dollars on hospital bills and you have to fight for that.

9) In most town-ships, they are not looking to elect the honest mayor, or public official, they are looking for the one who will give them something free, look the other way when need be, keep a job they want to do little on. They will tell everyone how poor they are, and the next day build a second floor to their house.

The Story Emma Never Told (short story)

The Story Emma
Never Told
((1864-65) (a diary extract))


“A night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury”




Emma Hightower was receiving mail from Private Erwin Summerfield of Columbus, Ohio, her distance first cousin, he belonged to the D.C., Volunteers (evidently him and her brother, Frank had gotten together one day, being on different sides of the battlefield and discussed home life, and Emma), and the erotic sketches he was drawing and sending to her thereafter, she’d reply within her letters “The sketches, are just want the boys I’m sure would like,” there in Company B.,” and she’d draw others for him to give to them other boys?” And he became infatuated with her.
Private Erwin was well acquainted with the barrooms or as they were referred to as low saloons, near the Treasury Building, and brothels of Washington D.C., he handed them these obscene drawings out into the hands of unwilling younger men. It was during these times erotic photos were greatly published and sold among the soldiers. Especial the carte de visite, a photo print glued on cardboard, and was quite easily mass produced (over 200-million in one year alone).
They became so popular, Private Erwin figured he’d go into this business himself, and ordered hundreds, and sold them to his soldier friends. He got them square-cornered with gold boarders; naked women showing it all. And he even sent some to Emma Hightower, telling her he was going to mass produce them when he got out of the Army, after the war, and she and he could marry. And he was tall and handsome, but his name became associated with this kind of business. He became so indulged in this business, he became part of the Provost Marshal’s Office, giving prostitutes, issuing them their weekly certificates of health, and gathering them up to register and to be examined or face confinement. He became part of General Hooker’s Division, and was even sent to Nashville, as an overseer for the medical staff—
During his off hours, between drinking and womanizing, and Army life that is, he was attracted to the new so called “Peep-show box,” displaying a nude photo, which attracted many a Federal soldiers, he himself had intentions of building several of them.
While in Nashville, he was assigned to the Hospital Number Eleven, the Female Venereal Hospital, located on Market Street, near Locust Street. They were—those among the ill, prostitutes that followed the soldiers from place to place, and worked the city’s streets, all were detained for treatment here, Corporal Erwin, while among the women doing he laundry, fooled around with a black matron, a nurse, a cook even the maintenance man. He was sexually addicted, and black prostitutes was to him his doom, because once they started admitting them, receiving desegregate medical care, he became overwhelmed with them, feel head over heel over this one young missy (perhaps a girl of eighteen).

He would have been, might have been, that is, had fate not plaid him his rightful due, or portion of tribute that such persons get after such an uncommon lust for female flesh, a wealthy man…

All during this time Emma and now Sergeant Erwin wrote letters back and forth until one day he became one of the many unfortunate soldiers with scabs and blisters characteristic of the rupia-type lesions of their third –stage of syphilis. The remedy in 1865—was simply a joke ‘A night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury.” (Venus being the ecstasy and lust and beauty one gets before he befalls to Mercury—the unstable, erratic god of swift flights, from one place to another)(Or one planet, Venus, being of a bright beauty, the other dead and scorched with black doom))—all in all, a life with Mercury was a life he got, a slow death.

The Yellow Mulatto (1867, short story)

The Yellow Mulatto
(Winter of 1867)

Piece Three of Three



“Gee, it’s nice to see you, Jamaica,” said Emma Hightower (Jamaica was a mulatto from Jamaica, and had worked for the Hightower’s two seasons now, lived in a hut, next to Granny Mae Walsh.) It was a brisk Alabama, afternoon. She put her arms down she had been doing some housecleaning, Granny Mae Walsh was down visiting someone in Shantytown, “I’ve been thinking about you all day, you must be cold in that hut of yours? How you been?”
“Oh I’ve been pretty well, Miss Emma, but I was hoping I could get some firewood from yawall, perhaps make a fire inside my stove to keep warm, this is one god-forsaken cold day.”
“Yes,” Emma agreed, “but you been staying well,” and his teeth was chattering, disorderly, and couldn’t answer.
“Yes, ma’m, but—cold!”
“Oh, stop the uneasiness, come-on in out of the cold,” she said. He moved his head about to see if anyone else was in the house, and noticed there was no one.
“I sure would like to get warm but you’re all alone, and if some one came by, and I don’t want any more trouble, I had enough with Ned and Haiti, and the sheriff means business, and I’m what he calls one of those yellow niggers, or mulattos, and he don’t take kindly to us.” Then he hesitated, and said, “I sure would like to warm though, just a bit, and get some of that dry wood youall use for your hearth.”
Emma opened the door a little wider and carefully stepped back to allow him room to come in.
“How you been lately, Miss Emma?” he asked, hoping to keep things simple, warm up a bit, and get on out of there, “Where’s Mrs. Ella?”
“Mother’s down in Ozark at the store buying whatever, only god knows what!”
“I sure would appreciate that wood, Miss Emma,” said Jamaica, “What’s the matter with you Miss Emma, your arms look weak and hanging too loose to do any good?”
“I’m not used to housework I guess, and all this dust and cleaning gets to me I reckon.”
“Yes, Ma’m,” he said, “but if you let me help, you can be done in no time and that’ll pay for the wood, and you can take a nap, let me do it all.”
She glanced at Jamaica, “Perhaps,” she said, and she went into the bedroom and laid back and fell to sleep, and Jamaica washed the dishes, and wiped down everything noticeable, and swept the floor, mopped the floor, and then he sat back for a brief moment in a chair, fell to sleep.

It was pert near four o’clock when there was a hard knocking at the door, and Emma woke up, looked out the window, it was Pick Ritt, and the Sheriff, Pick liked Emma, and he was out on a social call, and the Sheriff had been over at another plantation, evidently they had met one another, while going opposite ways, and figured they’d stop at Emma’s for coffee, say hello.
She plum forgot Jamaica was in the house doing the house cleaning, and went directly to the door, on the way the sheriff could see her through the window, and she had glanced to the side of her, and noticed Jamaica had fallen to sleep, and started to panic, stutter, and opened the door, it really was too late to not open it, “You’re looking mighty fine, Pick,” said Emma, “and you also, Sheriff.” They both laughed a bit, “Are you here on business or just visiting?” asked Emma.
“I guess just visiting,” said the sheriff, and then noticed some boots extending beyond a chair, between the kitchen and living room. Without being asked, he stepped on in, looked around the corner, “Say! Emma, what’s that nigger doing in your house?”
“That’s Jamaica, he works here, and came over to get some firewood, he was cold, and I let him warm up, and he ended up doing some housework for me to pay for the wood, and I guess fell to sleep.”
“I know who he is, Miss Emma, and what he is, and he’s no better than a yellow mule, a crossbreed between a horse or a donkey, that’s what he is, but what’s he doing here?” asked the Sheriff (Jamaica stood up promptly, with a frightened look). Pick Ritt, stood in shock, he was cold, “Are you a nigger lover too?” he questioned Emma.
“You damn men, you’re sleeping with those Jackson girls, both lightly colored, and you judge me?” Pick stood unarmed, as if he was put in place, in the corner—acted as if nobody knew, “But a yellow skin,” said the Sheriff.
“He hasn’t done a thing but warmed up a bit, I didn’t know he fell to sleep, but so did I, in the bedroom—alone!”
“Yeh?” he said, shoving her to the side, “You best be out of town by twilight, or I’ll have you boiling hotter than you ever figured a nigger could be cooked, you should have some sense, you know you ought not to be in here, I can learn you quick, and I will after twilight, cause I’ll be back.” Then when Pick and Emma were trying to straighten out things, the Sheriff kicked him a good one in the groin, and Jamaica limped out to get his things in his hut.

No: 604 (2-14-2010)

The Darkest Hour (Part Five to: "Colored and White" 1891)

The Darkest Hour
(Part Five to: “Colored and White” 1891)



Some of the color folk in shantytown (outside of Ozark, Alabama) were concerned about Witty Jackson, awfully worried, she turned to drink and stayed in her shanty, old Amos’ shanty, just refilling glass after glass of wine and moonshine—week after week, and month after month, after her episode with the Hester boy and the other three boys who tried to rape her, whatever she could get to drink—she drank, and was now starting to act, or was acting now silly during those long chilly afternoons and dark silent cold nights (in early winter, o ’91). Talking to herself, she was very lonely, she’d say appealingly to herself, “Nobody will ever know,” then she took hold of the whole bottle, one bottle one evening, and drank it down, “Heave-ho,” she said, and said it in a loud voice, almost in a singsong manner. She drank it down as fast as she could—hoping she’d stop her heart, and just die, as soon as she finished. But after a while, she had put a small amount of water in it, to delude it, it tasted so ugly, and she found out she couldn’t drink it down as fast as she expected, and her throat burned to high heaven, and her eyes busted out with tears, then she fell onto the floor, fell onto her elbow, she wasn’t in her underclothes now just a short jacket, she tried to reach the bottle, it had also fallen on the floor, there was a drop or two of spirits left in the bottle.
She tried once more to reach the bottle; she watched the last of the liquid gurgle out of the bottle, as she lay helpless, feeling as if she was going to have her last and short day—the one we all get sooner or later. She was feeling as if she was traveling—spinning, a hundred miles an hour into outer space, passing the moon and all. She shut her eyes, she held onto something, perhaps her soul, her last breath, her spirit, something, and everything around her seemed to be revolving faster and faster—around that something, with each slow breath she drew. And she said to herself—knowing she was dying, “The day of dying is better than the day of being born,” turning over on her back now, her soul seemingly was trying to runaway, like the horses and wagon she was on a while back, when those boys from school dragged her off her buckboard, to rape her, unsuccessfully behind the stables But it did not matter anymore, not now, she had let go of life—or was trying to, with all her might trying to, pushed it away. “I’m going to lose myself, forever,” she murmured, weeping. “I don’t want to die,” she said, “but I don’t want to live like this either, I know what the white boys want to do with me, and the white men do to colored women whenever they find a secret moment away from their wives, there is something always working against being colored, her short black jacket came above her bronze exposed thighs, I can’t hold on much longer,” and all she could see was how useless it all was.
It wasn’t as if she was bad, she told the Lord, she was just lonesome. And she told him, she just couldn’t help it anymore. “I’m tired,” she said, “it’s too much to take, when Amos was alive it was bearable, and when Hark and my sister Burgundy was alive, it was fun, and when mom and dad were alive it was great (meaning all the family) but now it’s just me, being lonely, everyday being lonely. The only ones that want me are the ones who want to feel like somebody, feel good about themselves, those who have self-interest, not mine —” she was no longer afraid to die, and she felt herself sinking deeper and deeper into a lasting peace, gradually beyond the grips of humanity, her consciousness blacking out any worries that might have been, and then finding herself in a strange new world, no longer caring that she was colored.

No: 603 ((2-13-2010) (Originally: "Lonesome and Colored"))

The Hussy ((Part Four to: “Colored and White”) (1890))

The Hussy
((Part Four to: “Colored and White”) (1890))





It was now 1890, Witty Jackson had lived with her uncle all those years between 1869 to now the spring of 1890, her uncle Amos had died, was hung some time back in the mid 1880s (and that’s a story unto itself), and life had not changed all that much in Ozark, or the surrounding area, not for Shantytown or the plantation life anyhow, not for the colored or the sharecropper, or the cotton picker. Witty was in her early 30s, and still a lovely woman to look at, matter-of-fact, she was more filled out and had never been married, and many of the married men of Ozark and Shantytown had looked upon her with a delicate lust, although briefer was her beauty than twenty years prior, and slighter was her physical frame, but that didn’t stop the goodwives of Ozark from saying, “A hussy, that Witty Jackson is just a hussy, shouldn’t be allowed in town, she’s corrupted our own National Banker, the son of late J.R. Ritt and now with Pick Ritt, what else can we expect…?” it greatly disturbed them—but to Witty, it was a rare advantage, and a little profit. To Witty, who saw her brother and sister killed, and her parents killed and no one had lifted a finger to help, “Why should I mind the gossip, they’ll find something to talk about, if not me, than some other colored girl.” This was her dilemma in thinking.

“People say,” said Pick Ritt one afternoon to Witty, her part time lover, and gift giver, her sugar-daddy—as they say, “don’t take it too grievously to heart, that such a scandal should come upon us, at the very least they should put a brand on me, but they don’t, they put it on you, as a hussy, a shameless woman, a promiscuous woman, not looking at their own naughty baggage, little will they care to expose it too, but we must stop seeing one another before we have to stand in judgment before the whole town—it is a circumstance to be noted, if I lose all my southern dignity, it will be my death itself, and to this bank my father left me.”
And so it was, not so much the age had brought on any modification in the matter—or relationship, rather a sense of bad taste set aside among the good women of Ozark, for Witty; perhaps thinking, at least every mother thinking, such behavior might be transmitted to her child, so was their gossip; and Pick knew the only thing left was the whipping-post (figuratively speaking), should he not med his ways in the city, and this is what he was doing.


He, Hester Carter was not a large person, nor small—perhaps a little taller than short, but quite broad with big powerful hands and arms, with straight thick hair, who was the top fighter at the senior high school and he was proud of the fact he could whip any boy in town, and most of the men. He planned to go on the road as soon as he could and do some boxing, like Jack Johnson, and John L. Sullivan. His grandfather had been a fighter, and his cousins, and they lived now in Augusta, Georgia.
“Look how quick she’s walking,” Hester told his gang of buddies. Witty was leaving the Ritt Bank, it was near dusk, “maybe she’s got an inkling we’re waiting for her?” he whispered hiding alongside the stables, that lead out of town, Witty would be leaving town herself in a buckboard in a few minutes.
“Let’s get ready to run after her,” said Hester, to Buddy and Bear and Taylor, all high school seniors. “Don’t let her get away,” Hester told Taylor, his very good pal. Taylor was a tall redhead, thin and wiry, but strong, a little stupid—but he’d spar with Hester often in the backyard in a homemade boxing ring his father had made up for him; Taylor’s father owned the second, drugstore in town, it was at the other end of the town-let. “Don’t lose your head over her,” said Taylor, as Witty’s wagon got close to the stables.
“We’ve got plenty of time,” remarked Hester, “just hold your horses! If anyone goofs this up I’m going to make him hurt bad, she’s been on my mind ever since I was old enough to know better.”
“She’s a hussy,” said Taylor to Hester.
“She ain’t anything of the kind,” said Hester, “she’s just been everyone’s fancy for a long time and the Ritt’s are the riches in town so they took turns on her—you’re mama wishes she look as fine as Witty.”
“Don’t you go talking about my mama, or…!” said Taylor, and Hester took a sharp look at him,” Or what?” he replied.
“I just want everything to go okay for youall, that’s what,” said Taylor with a deep sigh.
“What’ll we do if she screams?” asked Buddy, a small boy of thirteen.
“If she screams once, it will only be once, I’ll knock her out with a right!” said Hester, “and nobody gets seconds, she’s all mine.”
Bear, a short lad of twelve, was tugging at Buddy’s trousers, “We really going to do this, we can get in trouble?”
“Stop being like a scared cat,” said Buddy. “I’m going home; I’m not getting caught up with something I can’t even have after I become part of it.”
“We ain’t going to get caught; it’s no different than stealing watermelons out of old man Hobby’s backyard,” said Taylor.
“Shut up and just does what I say,” said Hester. “When the wagon gets here, Taylor you jump in front of the horse, and hold him, and Bear and Buddy, grab her off the wagon and bring her to me, and I’ll knock her out with a punch, she’ll not know what happened.”
“Then what?” said Bear.
“Then we take her around the back of the stable, and Taylor watch to see if she gets ready to scream if she’s awake, and put our hand over her mouth and I’ll do what I plan on doing, don’t anyone get tough with her, just me, she’s mine.”
“You are never going to persuade her to do what you want,” said Taylor, “so I suppose knocking her out is the think to do.”
“Just so no one comes along,” said Bear.

Witty was wearing a light spring sweater, she had just left Pick Ritt’s Bank, from the backdoor, when she— perched on her wagon seat, was directly in front of the stables, Hester nudged Taylor to jump out and stop the horse, which he did, at the same time, Bear and Buddy jumped up on the wagon and grabbed her by the arms, she started to scream, and Taylor jumped up on the wagon put his hand over her mouth, and they all fell off the wagon—stumbling on top of one anther, and the horse took off running— spooked. And they carried her to the back corner of the stable—and down along the side some, unobserved. They got her down into some tumbleweed; there wasn’t a wind so there was a cluster of them all over the back and open field around and near the stables, all torn apart from their roots.
Hester was breathless, he took Taylor’s had from her mouth, “Be quiet” he said “and I‘ll not have to knock you out!” (He looked at his friends victoriously.)
“We really can’t do this,” said Bear.
“You’re mouth is too big for your head, shut up,” said Hester.
“Just because you think you’re John L. Sullivan, don’t mean you can push everyone around, you’re not my father…!” said Bear.
“I’m a nice girl, I’ve done some wrong but I ain’t no hussy, and you boys are doing a big wrong, and Pick Ritt will see to it that you-all go to jail for this.”
“She doesn’t look scared to me,” said Bear.
“It’s just going to be me, Witty,” said Hester, “no reason to get all upset, and no one will hurt you if you just be calm about this all.”
“I have a right to my say-so,” said Bear, “and I want you-all to know, that if we get caught, I’m telling that I tried to stop youall.”
Witty moved her shoulders up against the back of the wooden stable wall, and then asked “What are your intentions Hester?”
Bear knew she could recognize them all and he was really frightened of that. And everyone else was picking up on that. “She’s not going to be quiet on this matter,” said Bear, “let her go!”
“Undress yourself or I will,” said Hester (Hester didn’t want her clothes torn, lest she have a motive if she did go to the authorities.)
Bear slipped out into the dark weeds and ran home. He was scared to look, not that he hadn’t seen a naked girl before, he had seen his sister, and when her cousin had come over for a visit, her as well, but Witty was much more to be seen, she was more woman, and there she sat naked as a jaybird.
“His dad’ll know about it tomorrow,” said Buddy, “he’s a tattletale.”
“My dad would say,” said Hester, “I hope she was worth it, and be careful!”
“I want to go home too,” said Buddy, “I’m a little ashamed of myself forgoing along with this.”
“Get out of her and go home and suck your thumb,” said Hester, “Taylor and I will do what we got to do.” And Buddy ran off quickly.
Hester lit a match to look at Witty’s bronze nakedness.
“Who’s back there,” said old may Yancy Yankcavick holding a lantern, and a pistol, and then Yancy saw Hester, “and if you try one of your right hands on me Hester, this pistol might go off accidentally, so get you butts moving—now!”
“How did you know it was us?” questioned Hester, thinking it was Bear or Buddy who told.
“When you lit the match, dummy, now gets moving.” But it was a lie, it was Bear who told.


No: 602 (2-12-2010)