Victoria the Mad ((of Huancayo, Peru)(a tribute))

Victoria the Mad
((Of Huancayo, Peru) (a tribute))





This is what I can put together on her, what happened up to the time she up and disappeared, forevermore, how I see it, this Mad Coffee Lady from Huancayo.
It was in the early 1970s, a dim rainy day in this mountain city of Peru, Victoria the Mad, as she was often called. She walked to and fro, around the Plaza de Arms, as often she did, with her tin cup half filled with coffee; knocking on business doors to the little shops that encircled the plaza to get a coin for something to eat, already hollering in her high pitch strong voice, in a childlike manner.
“Mr. Desoto! Give me a sol!” She asked. And he did, because if he hadn’t she would have taken whatever food her eye caught, even from school kids, she’d grab their sandwiches and hide in a doorway corner, and eat it. And with a sol, she could buy some bread and perhaps a tamale. Nobody knew exactly how old Victoria really was, not old, old, but somewhere in her late forties or fifties, or early sixties presumed—no, no, the older folks of the city claimed she was closer to fifty than sixty, she never asserted to be of any age. She was at one time quite a looker I had heard from those kids she stole sandwiches from—now grown men and women—who remembered her; but in due time—well, things changed, from bad to worse.
Nobody in Huancayo even remembered just how long she had been this way, kind of a borderline manic-depressive, vagabond, homeless, poor, always with bare feet, weathered-beaten, chilled to the veins, benumbed, sucked in cheeks, always wearing a black blouse and dress, long black hair caked with mud and knotted like someone had knitted it all together in a crisscross manner.
That is, Victoria the Mad, used the plaza, and the archways and at times the poorhouse, but that was too far away, somewhere on some backstreet of the city, on a dirt road, between the plaza and the old folks home, she was noticed through the front windows of maybe half the city folks, in particular ladies, watching her, hearing her manic screams, and at times cheerful voice, from house to house—perhaps preferring her to stay in the plaza area and out of the residential, as she’d walk to that poorhouse; —anyhow, they all locked their doors, locked themselves in their own homes. But even this was useless if she was determined, because she’d sit on their doorsteps, knowing sooner or later they’d have to leave, and then she’d pester them for food or a coin. And they’d want to get rid of this rat-colored thin lady who carried a tin cup, half filled with coffee, or something else, cloaked and wrapped in sludge, muck, and mud.
How she remained alive under such conditions was a mystery—to those who knew her, and didn’t know her, but knew of her—a mystery as bottomless and dark as a coal mine.
Already settled in Huancayo, the day she was born, it would have appeared she was already established upon the begging invitation, one often times: uncles and parents, and aunts, demanded of their children—to help pay their way.

Today was no different for her, she went from store to store around the plaza, begging, moving rapidly, in a kind of desperation, alarm and consternation as she charged her daily toll of food scraps and thrown- away garbage, and receiving that occasional coin for food, moving among the uproar of the people, inescapable from the tax payers. “Please, please…”she whispered, twisting and jerking dimly at her legs and arms, scratching, holding that tin cup up to faces, in front of faces, trying not to scream: no silk stockings, no lipstick, no high heels, no perfume, and then that evening she was gone, just like that, as if she had vanished into thin air, the way she appeared fifty-years ago, or thereabouts. She passed that way—that’s all I can say, she passed that way, but I guess that’s all, we all can say.

No: 636 (6-30-2010)

The Lame Duck: President Barack Hussein Obama

The Lame Duck: President Barack Hussein Obama


I’ve said if not once, a hundred times, when is President Hussein Obama going to get into his job? I’ve never seen a more worthless president in my 62-years on this earth. Not to back track all the old articles I’ve done on this fellow, let me just look at the few new issues at hand.
We got a president here that has done nothing for two months concerning the North Korean Crisis, of killing 46-soldiers our allies other than saying “Please don’t hit us anymore!” in the Pacific. We have a president that fires a four-star general because of an opinion which has more truth to it than fiction, one that was getting the job done in Afghanistan, or so than his predecessors. We got a president that has allowed American Citizens being taken out of a safe country, to Iran, and prosecuted for no reason, imprisoned for over a year—what kind of message does that give to the world? But then I’m not surprised, we got a president that has not spent one day in the military. We have a president that has not over a year been able to turn the economy one iota—matter-of-fact, it’s worse than ever: not one inch better. A president that cannot keep an eye on the biggest oil producing company in the world, allowing them a freehand in whatever they want, to do as it pleases, to the point it has now caused mankind a monstrous problem in the ecological echo system, the American system. A president that has sent more troops into Afghanistan a war that is over, should have been over, for an ongoing ten-year war, like Vietnam, and there is no end to it; and one in Iraq—that was proclaimed to have been won and over, draining our resources our tax dollars to this writing—all his promises were like stars in the atmosphere, too far to reach and everyone grabbed his bull…sh..t! And he is more concerned with sending half a billon dollars to feed Hamas, while they still hold Israel soldiers in captivity; a nation that claims if it had the means, like Iran claims, would obliterate the Jews, if they had the chance. Are we all nuts in America now? If it was up to him, he’d trade Arizona for a few acres of dirt land across the Rio Grand, so Mexico could move in.
I keep hoping he does something worth while, but he never fails to do the opposite. And he got a Nobel Price for Peace, by gosh, is we all that blind—where is the peace; and a Ph.D., from a Christian College, a man and president for abortion, and gay rights—unbelievable. There is something wrong with the way Americans are thinking nowadays. No wonder the American Empire is crumbling, like Iran says. If that is the best he can do, God helps us in the following three yeas to come.

Perhaps the President should read Mr. Faulkner’s “The Fable,” it would do him well; as well as the rest of the population of the United States, because everyone is sleeping: in essence, the president is trying to shut the General up, why? Because he wants Americans to think the war must go on, it is the essence of man, and it makes us look stronger, and it is good business. Actually I’m surprised a General had the guts to say what was said, they usually are the link pins in keeping the rest of the military behind them fooled in thinking it is for National Security, and freedom, and all that kind of rot.

6-27-2010

The Erie Russian Club (a short sketch)

The Erie Russian Club
(The summer of ’73)



I came out of the hot windless evening off the street in July into the cool cozy Russian Club, of Erie, Pennsylvania, myself; pass through the main lobby door into the barroom by the waiter, finding my way to the bar which looked into the dinning room, pulled up a stool. A few men I had seen before were standing at the bar, I had been a member going on six-months, a few men to my right were seated also on stools, I recognized them from before, I worked at Pennsylvania Electric Company, the director who was Russian recommended I join the club, and at his recommendations, I was given membership. They did some cheers, I joined them.
“Like a cigarette,” mentioned a short stocky man, Herb I think was his name, a rough looking character; I was all of twenty-four, ripe out of the Army, the Vietnam War. He pushed a pack of Camel cigarettes towards me in case I’d change my mind, I simple pulled out a pack of Lucky Strike lit one, he smiled. His fingers were thick, far from well-manicured, and the fellow next to him, who he was talking to—evidently before I arrived, had an even more of a grunt to his deep voice than Herb, with large puffy eyes, black curly hair, a little taller than Herb, both around forty-five, with un-ironed flannel shirts on, and dirty blue jeans on.
“Can’t taste those Lucky Strikes,” said Herb, “got to have my Camels. So how’s Henry down at the EPE (Erie Pennsylvania Electric)?”
He knew the director, he came drinking there on the weekends, today was Thursday, half-price drinks from seven to nine o’clock.
“Fine,” I said, “I really don’t see him much, I’m in the cellar sweeping all day.”
“Doesn’t take any brains to do that,” he laughed.
“I suppose,” I said, “but it pays well.”
He drew in a deep lungful of smoke from the Camel cigarette; let it out slowly making little circles, then let it all come out in one long smooth drag: “Give us a round here,” said Herb. I was drinking Coors, and he was drinking whiskey and water, his buddy had a bottle of Coors beer also.
“Only Russians can come in here, right?” I asked.
“American-Russians,” said Herb, adding “no wops or Mexicans or niggers allowed,” and he laughed.
“Nope,” said his partner, “just us Russians, and you know fella,” he went on to say,” the only reason you got a job out there at Pennsylvania Electric, is because you’re Russian. Henry would never have hired you otherwise, because I know him.”
I just nodded my head acknowledging his statement. I was starting to believe that because most everyone I met out at my place of work was in one-way or another connected to a Russian heritage.

There was a sudden silence in the bar area, the outside door opened up and someone had entered the room, a famous person, and varying number of eyes were looking at this fellow, even Herb, and his buddy, I slowly turned about to see who it was, a little tipsy. Then trying to figure exactly who the figure was—that moment of disconnected passion that comes during broken-up thoughts—unable to recognized exactly who he was, but knowing he was somebody imported, I went to ask Herb who he was, and just before I asked the stranger bumped into me—; there is a rear dinning room, where one can eat and drink nightly, it is a smoke-filled room, like the main bar area, just more refined—he bumped into me as I was saying “All right, who the heck is he?”
“That damn Jack Benny, he thinks he’s hot stuff,” said Herb, “he comes here now and then and thinks he owns the place, as if we all got to move for him, like a big shot!”
“Yaw, that’s him all right,” I said, “sure does look like him, saw him on television a few times. He’s Russian too, haw?”
There was lots of conversation over by the doorway, and all the way into the dinning room, they walked all the way back to the backroom, as if sweeping their way into the little backroom, beyond. My bottle of beer was half empty, and the night was getting on, I had to work the following day, and it was already 9:30 p.m., not late for a weekend, but getting late for a weekday. And I had two little twin boys at my apartment I had to take care of, so I abruptly swallowed my beer and bid farewell.

No: 643 (6-25-2010)

The Last Year of High School (1965...a short story)

The Last Year of High School
(Washington High School, 1965)


Oh yes, it was that last year that Chick got his 1959 Plymouth, jet black, and blasted around the Washington High School, like a lightening-bolt. It turned everyone’s head, should have, most likely did have, could have, even Turner, the Student Council—Social Studies teacher did a double take. I couldn’t do that morning any other way; I bought the car toughened up, made more transitive, super quick, and fast, just for that event. I knew exactly what I was doing, several friends walking towards me, as I parked my new car. Several girls I knew completely aware of me, a few never once looking at me other than looking at me with a passing glace, their eyes now hard and fixed so much so, the intent was unconscious, and set and hard. Beyond me, behind me, they looked a young painter, poet, roustabout, I walked out onto the street, and a yard or two, actual point, in the middle of the street, since now there were a huddle around me. Coach Simensen was looking, arms crossed, as if to say—‘Now what Chick¨ and Coach McManus, with his big belly, he looked serious too. I was a sportsman too, but I didn’t care to join any of the groups per se, I was a loner.
There was Sandy, the virgin bitch, not scoring or changing or seeing me bow, or begging, she held her head up and walked into the High School—I had dated her some—not quite arrogant and not really unmindful, just with a tone of innocence, as if she was sleepwalking, she’d marry some scumbag down the road and throw it in my face, because I up and left her dry one evening, didn’t bring her roses I suppose: I suppose I was no better. I don’t know she didn’t like my hardness, and I was hard, couldn’t change me, or she couldn’t change her, and I didn’t want to change her. And there was Pam S., in art class, and Linda, in art class nice, sweet, and the dough guys like Greer and Walsh, and a few others, friends. Diane F was friend, and Blackford, somewhere along the line I guess she was a friend. And there was Diane S., she always smiled at me, one big smile from Jr. High School, all the way through High School, you know what I mean, that smile that was immune in intensity; in years I’d meet her on one of my daily walks down by Rice and Larpenter Avenues, and we’d talk some, she bought a new apartment, had gotten her divorce, she lost something. She would be close to forty then—no a little more than forty then, maybe more on the forty-four side of life, but I knew her when I met her, she was a star in High School, on many of the pages in the yearbook like Bonnie and Olga, I had possibly not seen her in nearly twenty-years, a lot of human changes, so drastically were those years for her—they looked. It was as though I—you also possibly—that a girl like that, that showed so much possibility, could not other than, produce an exact replica of something more fulfilling.
And Margie M., I seen her also, she was another one of the flock, oh, yes, she knew me, I knew her, again from Jr. High School, even though I had a little crush on her—very little, perhaps every male of maturity status at Washington did at one time or another, even though I had—had had—didn’t have anymore, I watch myself, my ole friend Jack, got to her before me, his motorcycle I think, she had white hair at the twenty-fifth reunion. All these goodie, goodie girls like the bad boys. She turned out to be a social worker of all things, perhaps for those bad boys. And Diane F., she was nice, and Marilyn H., in Art, I liked art, in woodshop, I ran after the teacher with a saw, they kicked me out, art was more my style. Pam S., was cute, a sophomore. Never really got my attention too much, but got it nonetheless.
And Fred was there, he was on a lot of the sports, good ole fellow—I think, didn’t get to know him well—thus, I say this simple because I would decline to have him any other way. And Greg J, was there, he was a big ham, nice looking, king of the road type, you might say, to me not too existing, just breathing, having been born, becoming born, and then… to me, in that last year of High School, when the ham really came out of him, resilient enough for him to cope with his poisoned air, --so when the days passed, Greg was no longer to be seen taking up room in my space, he watched me from a distance, thank goodness; anyhow he looked, waved at me, said something, with a few gals as always by his side, doomed to his own fate, doomed to hunger and motion and flattery, and looking for that glare in someone else’s eye meant for him.
And Ray S., an ole pal, football boy, didn’t look like he’d be one at first sight, those kind don’t, “Sharp man, where you been hiding it?” he asked (meaning my mean mad black Plymouth). And there was Gayle J., the beauty with the big eyes, burning eyes, sweet and cute; I would remember her for a long time—had a dance or two with her, why I don’t know. Anyhow, I said to myself, you don’t marry these girls, you just look at them, I never even dated many girls from my High School, I dated girls from my neighborhood, Johnson High School, bar girls older than me, quite a number of girls. Many, but only a select few from my High School: better that way, no controversy, I could rise and fall without notice, much notice, the grapevine was thinner. Perhaps an awkward method, but Washington High School was not my official designated place to pick up girls. Oh yes, oh yes, they knew that. They figured I somehow already had arranged—laboriously whatever needs I needed in this area, and I suppose expected nothing to happen, I was safe to toy with: in which case they seldom did.
It was my generation, a single generation, one of many to be one overlapping a succession, but I liked the moment, the uproar of it, which would not last all that long—it is only revealed to you for a flash of a moment, almost robbing you of memory, then it is gone. The single result of all this is a vague hot picture of you looking back, and you were either second in command or in command of your life, one or the other.
I didn’t belong to any clubs, doubt they’d have me, especially the Stage, or Library, or Bowling or Audio Club, I was too wild for them, a silent wild child. Back there in that time of my own clowning belated adolescence.
I noticed up by the stairs by the door, where everyone stood and watched and showed off, saw me and my car racing around school like James Dean, that was in ’65, Kirlin, and Leroy, and Rob, who never became the actor he wanted to be—so I heard, and Maureen who had a crush on me—I think, Dave O., my old neighborhood friend, who somehow avoided me that last year, we hung around a lot in previous years, I remember looking in his face and it was as if he was trying to decide which of the two unbearable was the least unbearable, me or his father’s intent of having him avoid the bad boy, I think he chewed all his fingernails trying to figure that one out. That is, now he could play the good guy with all the High School girls and avoid the drinking and roustabout life, I’d bring to him, just wave as he seduced his new life, in passing me by—perhaps he was wiser than he thought, sometimes we are too much of a sentimentalist. This was no anguish, it was mere realism. We were all learning how to be grownups in the only way we could: God forbid. And then still more days passed, and I knew I was not coming back for any more; it was Now or Never, as Elvis’ song went. It was as if a single aim appeared interlocked circumstances—graduate, it was my mother’s wish. Here was a feller no brighter than a warm day, perhaps wiser, racing his car, never to grieve a moment in life, never say much beyond the moment, he drove too fast for the conservative city teachers, at war with the world, and wanting to see it all.
Bonnie somehow invented a smile, pretty Bonnie, a simple paradox with humor, secure in her checkable facts as she roamed the halls, a nod here and there. And Zibley, who was the joker, I’d meet at the twenty-fifth reunion, and Roy who I’d forget at the reunion and only to remember him later. As I would Roger remember him at first sight, with his white suite coat, that last year even he got more grown up, so you see how much effort a man will make to grow up that last year of High School. Defend oneself against old ways; reinvent oneself in nine months, mind and soul. And end up at the end of the string, as a pervert or deliberately infests himself with lice after a year of war, in Vietnam, living on the streets of the City, like Mike did, my old friend, did, does, still does; Roger to establish and maintain himself as what he uniquely was, then and now, and a little more now than then.
Yes, oh yes, there were many standing outside the school that day: Paulette, she was a peace of mind, gal; nothing will last forever, but when I met her years later, she was just the same gal; nothing different, not even lice; so now here I was a poet, a war veteran. And nothing will remain, praise to the gods, no, praise to God Almighty we change, now I can join those top dogs from High School, and take off my damned unbearable bad boy uniform. Never to be completely one of those bloodhounds—but neither the bad boy, in that lost time, in that lost era, in that forever lost moment, but it is better it remain or quit being remaining in memory, and live it by proxy, through stories yet to be written.


After High School

And now that I look back, which was all right then, is now, it was done, too late to help, them or me, we were used to one another, they were their own breed or strain of the High School student, and they nor I could expect no more, this is just simple conformation to a pattern.
It was to my surprise I would do all I did, all I was trying to do, to be, should be. I began to spend most of my time in Karate, traveling, crisscrossing the United States, then came war—medals and medals and more travel, then crisscrossing the world, then collage after collage, standing a little back from the window, watching the years coming and going to leave a dent here and there, the ambitious haul in life was in motion. No more snap-on-bow ties, moving faintly and steadily at becoming rich that was an initial goal, and thereafter, writing book after book after book. Years had never seen me spit again on the sidewalk (in addition, after four wives, children and grandchildren, all but one wife one brother, the rest had joined that old snobby group I left somewhere behind, how I picked them out, and fathered their children, and inherited grandchildren of the same, is beyond me, one of those things you just have to ponder on until the day you die and let go because the why is not there—they didn’t teach me that in High School, or seven years of college, or eleven years in the Military or around the world twenty-seven times, it is just a monster rubber plant you can never find any use for ).
Then one day I moved to Peru. Still standing where I might be out of the actual path of the pushy people, the people that charged an interest rate to be with them, and was put on television fifty times, and had a radio program, was in the papers, watching how much money I could spend, what kept me going, heart attack after heart attack, a few strokes in-between, a few other diseases cured and up and on my way I went, thrilled there was still life left in me. Realizing no matter how much money I could draw, or how famous I could become, out of the bank, someone else could draw more, but breath, oh but breath, there was always not enough of that it was not a commodity for sale, that I might be the one to lose it all, had on a few occasions lost it all, zero-plus one breath left, into it in time, and I now believed in the inevitable moment, the short day, designed for all humankind could be sooner than later, I had a choice in it—somewhat, that was when I sold it all and moved. Perhaps had I not, that someone might have said “Sorry there, you can’t draw out anymore breaths, because there aren’t anymore for you left to draw out, plus the bank is closed.”
But this time, I had learned all there was to learn about such things, and I knew how things were done. Some of us, a few of us, prepared ourselves to loot the bank, by thinking a little more light of the money, and more of life—wait a minute, that’s not exactly what I mean. I got too much respect of God and reverence for life, to just love money for money sake. You got me wrong if you think that I’m a thief, I just learned how to read better, how to take notes, look at them closer, turn them upside down, and then throw them in the waste basket. Evidently, a few of you have learned that too, otherwise you’d not be reading this. You must admit, too many people spend their most precious hours in the privy. Especially a lot of those board directors, who believe everything, all things are wrapped in something green, even the air is green for those folks.

No: 641 (6-24-2010)

"That's what he did!" (a short story)

“That’s what he did!”
(‘What goes around comes around’)


That’s what he did! Just waiting, even waiting longer to do it this one night than usual—what exact night? I don’t know, one night in the heat of lust, like many nights before—although this night would be the last night—stiff surge came through him. Sweating through his soundless room, he got up and went into her bedroom, so Lee told me. She was now a high-school girl, seventeen, about ready to receive her diploma, go on to college, hoping forevermore to be done with her father’s whims, and beyond his range of harm. He had his divorce, his PH.D, his retirement pension, from High School, he had been doing this going on three years or more, since his divorce but in this last year he didn’t ask, he just did it. And she forgot to lock the door again, and before she thought of it, just in time to be standing at the corner of her bed, she saw him, he was there again. Without even attempting to touch her he sat on the edge of her bed, she was his daughter—let me correct that, his adopted Korean daughter, who didn’t want to live with her mother and her new husband, Lee. That’s what he did, not even waiting for her to graduate, sitting there, knowing she would be leaving in the near future—now in her all juvenile sight, he proposed to her like a child in agony, “I get lonesome without your mother, let me touch you, you know where?” She stared at him—he wasn’t defending her, rather using her, she burst into tears: he had been her adviser, power, and the infallible. Three years had passed, to whom she had this mentor sneaking in her room in a voice of pity, only to regain his composure again, once after his visit, against all the rules of fatherhood, respectability, decorum—this was the dirty inflexibility of facts. Then she told her mother, finally told her mother, and her mother told her stepfather, and her stepfather wanted to hang the Ph.D., and now she wanted to move back home, and her new stepfather, was now not so bad after all (matter-of-fact, her adopted father would state later on down the road, that her stepfather was a much better man than he).
This is she. Tonya. And within a month he married a girl from the Philippines, a mail-order bride. No, an internet order bride. Tall and thin and more on the plain side than pretty, and twenty-five years his junior. And how he had learned to be a good father to his daughter in her sight, in front of her was beyond us, but the new wife was impressed. And for her it was a hard way too. That was when she first realized she was now safe from his advances, actually becoming a member of the household, his household—no longer a lover, but the new wife didn’t get along with Tonya neither—maybe she sensed something, who’s to say—nor did Tonya’s little sister two years younger, another adopted child, Korean child, get along with the new stepparents. And obviously we knew all this, but Tonya wanted Lee and her mother to be quiet about the molestation, wouldn’t condemn her father, and wouldn’t put a legible signature on a statement that might put him away. Which prevented everyone concerned from doing anything? But there was never any question about which one she loved, she never loved her new stepfather—even with all his support—evidently she was loyal to end; or her new stepmother, again loyal to the end to her mother (an elementary school teacher among us), but they soon learned quickly how he refused to support them by going to Manila with his new bride—to avoid this and that, you know what I mean, taxes and courts and child support, and whatever else whatever more may pop up, could pop up, might, and to be frank and honest, both stepparents had had enough of the brats—ungrateful kids, demanding kids, and like a nymph, like a deer, he followed her—like a camel in heat. Darting across the ocean forevermore, and she returned back home, and showed her PhD, to her family, indefinitely. So we thought of course she’d be alright, but now there was no solvency between man and wife, only mother and two girls. Doesn’t that beat all, and he went his way, and she— Carolyn, was her name—she found a new lover, who jolted her the same way she jolted her last two husbands, in particular Lee. And I suppose the one who jolted her said: ‘Anyone can see daylight, on an incompatible face scorched with evaporated tears that emerged so quickly and left faster than they emerged.’ And she was clinging to him, like white on rice.
So we thought, all of us thought at school where Carolyn worked, of course that they were some thrifty guys, both the husband and the boyfriend. The husband not only learned something more about success too. And the boyfriend was somehow converted by knowing the husband was quite ill when she left him, like he was, when they first met. Oh yes, say it again: what goes around comes around.


No: 642 (6-25-2010)

Night Train to San Francisco (a short story)

(August, 1968, a Minnesota/San Francisco Story)
Night Train to Fan Francisco



When I went to San Francisco, I put my leather-bound suitcase under the backseat of where I sat and looked out the side window. I couldn’t afford a berth; it was three times the amount of the economy coach ticket. And back in 1968, when I was but twenty-years old, it didn’t make a difference: I kicked my shoes off, and as night come quickly, I couldn’t see much anyway. I tossed my black Swede jacket over me—over my shoulders, took a newspaper I found laying on the open seat next to me, turned on the overhead light and read the employment section.
“Turn off the light,” said the porter, “Everyone’s trying to get some sleep.”
“No,” I said, “I don’t want to. I’m not sleepy, Mister.”
“Well, I guess so,” he said, adding “we’ll be stopping in a few hours if you want to get off the train and stretch your feet for ten-minutes…” then he looked down at my feet, “you should put your shoes on,” he grumbled.
“No,” I said, “I’ll not put them out in the aisle, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He simply turned his head and walked away.
I got up went and went to the washroom, washed my face. I wasn’t tired; I walked about the train—although dimly lit in all compartments. (It was my second train ride I had taken one back from Seattle to St. Paul, Minnesota a year earlier where I had visited for a short while)— A few of the windows were left slightly open and the night summer’s air came in cool. The moon was like a big white button in the sky. There were lights in the distance that blurred as the iron horse raced by. We crossed into Chicago now, but soon were outside of it. I looked out the window to see the windy city but all I could see were railroad yards and freight cars lined up to kingdomcome. Then suddenly we stopped—a dead stop, the porter came by again, “If you need cigarettes or anything, there’s a stand outside on the platform, be quick about it,” he said and I jumped up, crawled out from behind the two seats and onto the aisle, and then onto the landing place of the train station.
“Where are we?” I asked the owner of a stand, that was selling newspapers, magazines, cigarettes and warm quart beer, on the pier.
“Outside of Chicago, why?” he said and asked.
“No reason, give me a quart of beer.” I said.
“Will Hamm’s do?” he questioned.
“Yaw, how much?”
“$1.25 plus tax,” he quoted.
I paid the fellow, then the train started to move, and I found myself running to just make the train, jumping onto its step with one hand on the beer and the other on the railing. And there I stood in-between the two cars, and drank the quart down whole within a matter of minutes. Found a trash can, throw the empty bottle in it and went back to my original seat. An old lady was sitting in the seat next to mine, and I moved on over and round her, to the window side and fell to sleep. When I woke up the train had stopped again, we were someplace high up, it was cold and when I moved my jacket, the old lady pulled her arm back, as if it was searching for something, where it didn’t belong. I gave her a nasty look, one that perhaps said, it wasn’t safe for her anymore here, and when I’d come back she’d had gone.
“We’re going through cold country,” said the porter. We were in the mountains now. I put on my jacket, my shoes and reached under my seat to check if my suitcase was there, it was, and it was, thus, I moved out to find another quart of beer, rushing from one vender to another, then finding a little store on the pier, that was connected to the inside station and halfway out onto the platform. And I could feel the cool air in my lungs, I let a Luck Strike, and walked into the store casual, knowing I was only twenty, still not old enough to drink, or buy alcohol, but I usually didn’t have a problem with that. Hence, I walked inside the small story, two Negros were sitting about on wooden stools, their shoeshine box in front of them “Youall wants a shoeshine boy?” asked the Negro with the black teeth, and open mouth.
“No, just a quart of beer,” I rambled.
The storekeeper was asleep behind the counter in the corner, his head against a cushioned pillow.
“Hay, Ollie, wake up, yous got a customer,” said the middle-aged Negro with the black teeth. When he smiled he opened up his mouth wider showing off his damaged gums, and spit into a spittoon, tobacco he was chewing, his eyes were as red as Merlyn Monroe’s lips; his head was the shape of football, towards the backend, he was wearing a brown fitted knitted cap, and his ears looked were the cauliflower type, as if he was at one time a boxer, perhaps forty-five, the other fellow was sleeping on his forearms and knees, back bent.
I went back to my seat on the train and she was gone altogether with her things, and so I drank the six-pack of beer without fret. And fell to sleep sometime between the forth and fifth beer, because when I woke up, there were two half cans on the floor and one full one. I found my way back to the washroom carefully, as not to wake up the few folks still sleeping. The bathroom now smelled vulgar, pee and vomit were all over the seats, and no toilet paper.
Thereafter, I could smell the breakfast seep all the way down from the dinning car, three cars up. I looked out the window at the plateau countryside. It was forty-shades of green, and lots and lots of telephone poles, and fine looking horses grazing, small hills, patches of forest here and three. Seeing all this appeared as if I had never left Minnesota, but there wasn’t one cornfield, not one, but it was nice looking country anyhow.

No: 640 (6-23-2010)

Hallway Monitor ((Washington High School, 1965)(a short story))

(Washington High School, St. Paul, Minnesota (1965…)
Hallway Monitor




Hatless, his youthful face clutched upon the noon atmosphere of the High School, or perhaps it was something in his daydreaming he was trying to figure out, leaning against the wall, a hallway monitor for Washington High School, during lunch periods, insuring there was no trouble—a senor (1965). Gayle Johnson saw him first. “My Gosh,” she said smiling at him, “isn’t he handsome,” she told her two schoolmates (often told her school mates, she had a crush on him).
And one could imagine young Chick Evens looking like that.
Also, one could imagine Gayle getting that look back from Chick, and, helping that uppermost purpose which two people—being both of them fine-looking in similar calm and ease—likened to Greek gods, as only youth could define, to both entering their dreams, was like a consecration.
After a moment, both their gazes returned to earth, and he acknowledged effortlessly to her greeting, “Hello,” she said. Her speech was tender, her eyes were large and very Midwestern, slumberous—absorbing, near paralyzing, deep blue with a soft white haze, around its oval shape, long eyelashes, peaceful mouth, and he had a compulsion to swallow her up right then and there, and he most likely had, after she left through those cafeteria doors down several steps and on into the lunchroom, leaving him to drift back into his day-dreaming. These were eternal moments, of the school itself.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked her once at a High School dance.
“I suppose,” she said, looking around, as if to let her girlfriends know, look here.
He liked her very much, but there was nothing of a beggar in him. In his calm way, and belief that if it was meant to be, it would be. Perhaps just those smiles, served his appointed ends—that’s to say... how would it be with them two? He had probably never thought of it past those High School doors. He probably figured what she probably figured: it would all take care of its own. But it never did.

No: 639 (6-23-2010)
Dedicated to: Gayle Johnson

The Trombone Player & Rosa (a short story)

(Washington High School, St. Paul, Minnesota (1965…)
Schoolmate Idealist




W hen I was young I lived much in the moment, tending to my own business and dreaming of traveling, the Army, writing poetry, marriage, having kids, walking with the Lord up that old dirt road in back of our house, beyond our backyard that led up to Old Rice School, about learning to play the guitar, karate, and so forth and on, and I did all those things, plus. Although I never quite followed the flock, I hung around with them some, liked the bright colors of autumn, the loud and fast music of day, such as: Elvis, Johnny Cash, Connie Francis and Rick Nelson, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, I absorbed, and some of the Beatles stuff also—and of course girls, and some party life, and a few dozen fights in-between. I drowsed among the sunny days of my life also, in a warm kind of slumbering way. And always at twilight, I seemed to find a bar or place to drink, have a smoke, and kind of warm my nose and toes in the winters. And I remember Jerry and Renee from High School now and then, one of the few black boys and girls in our old High School, built in the late twenties; both very athletic, in many of the High School sports, and both very much involved with other events in the High School, and they were going with one another like two peas in a pod, so it appeared to us, she was the prettiest of the three black girls in school, and Jerry the most handsomest of the few black boys in school…
and haw, how she flowered ahead, and Jerry followed her about, carried her books, she was his ideal, she could have sought no better, had she wished to, and he could climb no higher than what he had for her within his heart, his mannerisms were equal to his love for her. Gosh, it looked to be heaven sent. We all figured she’d marry Jerry, and he’d no longer need to climb that ivory tower he put her on, to reach her. And she’d remain at home and bake and make cheese pies and treading out the breakfasts for the children, and never having to get calluses on those sweet black feet of hers, lay in the summer sun in the afternoons and he’d gladly go to work and that would be that.
She was pretty as a light-dark sparrow and thin and how she shined against the others, white or black. Sweet youth with a slim waist and wild small breasts sharp to amend her lose blouses. For none in this High School showed anymore promise than her, it seemed all pre arranged to us, who knew them, observed them.

After school let out, and we all graduated, and went our ways, and the sun had dropped from those youthful days, after all this, and the dreaming of golden valleys and church bells chiming for Jerry and Renee, years passed by quickly—as often the saying goes (too quickly), after all this, Renee did not marry Jerry, it was no longer like that, not like it was in High School, so near—was heaven, and now so far for Jerry. She went her own way, did a different dance, almost unobtrusively, so it would have looked, yet Jerry wooed her, flashing whatever he could to save the day, and never married. Heaven had willed other things. (I am old now, and I forget many things, but in 1990, we had a High school reunion, our twenty-fifth reunion, I was there, Jerry was there, Renee was not, Jerry was still not married, still waiting for Renee.)
He, Jerry, I’m sure had expected her there—if not, hoped at lest she’d show up sometime during the special event (but she didn’t)—perhaps even he saw her there—in some visionary quest, in that old sweet music that was playing—that early Rock and Roll, he must had forgotten the last twenty-five years for that evening—they who watched him, hushed about that, but we all knew, that he was briefly looking into heaven, for she was like the stars in his eyes still, and somehow I got the feeling he felt, she was promised to him, and he was just waiting, waiting, patiently waiting as if there would be a more dramatic part for me to write into this story. That now as twenty-years ago, it will be interesting if I make it to the next reunion, our fiftieth, in 2015.


No: 638 (6-22-2010)

The Schoolmate Idealist (a short story)

(Washington High School, St. Paul, Minnesota (1965…)
Schoolmate Idealist




W hen I was young I lived much in the moment, tending to my own business and dreaming of traveling, the Army, writing poetry, marriage, having kids, walking with the Lord up that old dirt road in back of our house, beyond our backyard that led up to Old Rice School, about learning to play the guitar, karate, and so forth and on, and I did all those things, plus. Although I never quite followed the flock, I hung around with them some, liked the bright colors of autumn, the loud and fast music of day, such as: Elvis, Johnny Cash, Connie Francis and Rick Nelson, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, I absorbed, and some of the Beatles stuff also—and of course girls, and some party life, and a few dozen fights in-between. I drowsed among the sunny days of my life also, in a warm kind of slumbering way. And always at twilight, I seemed to find a bar or place to drink, have a smoke, and kind of warm my nose and toes in the winters. And I remember Jerry and Renee from High School now and then, one of the few black boys and girls in our old High School, built in the late twenties; both very athletic, in many of the High School sports, and both very much involved with other events in the High School, and they were going with one another like two peas in a pod, so it appeared to us, she was the prettiest of the three black girls in school, and Jerry the most handsomest of the few black boys in school…
and haw, how she flowered ahead, and Jerry followed her about, carried her books, she was his ideal, she could have sought no better, had she wished to, and he could climb no higher than what he had for her within his heart, his mannerisms were equal to his love for her. Gosh, it looked to be heaven sent. We all figured she’d marry Jerry, and he’d no longer need to climb that ivory tower he put her on, to reach her. And she’d remain at home and bake and make cheese pies and treading out the breakfasts for the children, and never having to get calluses on those sweet black feet of hers, lay in the summer sun in the afternoons and he’d gladly go to work and that would be that.
She was pretty as a light-dark sparrow and thin and how she shined against the others, white or black. Sweet youth with a slim waist and wild small breasts sharp to amend her lose blouses. For none in this High School showed anymore promise than her, it seemed all pre arranged to us, who knew them, observed them.

After school let out, and we all graduated, and went our ways, and the sun had dropped from those youthful days, after all this, and the dreaming of golden valleys and church bells chiming for Jerry and Renee, years passed by quickly—as often the saying goes (too quickly), after all this, Renee did not marry Jerry, it was no longer like that, not like it was in High School, so near—was heaven, and now so far for Jerry. She went her own way, did a different dance, almost unobtrusively, so it would have looked, yet Jerry wooed her, flashing whatever he could to save the day, and never married. Heaven had willed other things. (I am old now, and I forget many things, but in 1990, we had a High school reunion, our twenty-fifth reunion, I was there, Jerry was there, Renee was not, Jerry was still not married, still waiting for Renee.)
He, Jerry, I’m sure had expected her there—if not, hoped at lest she’d show up sometime during the special event (but she didn’t)—perhaps even he saw her there—in some visionary quest, in that old sweet music that was playing—that early Rock and Roll, he must had forgotten the last twenty-five years for that evening—they who watched him, hushed about that, but we all knew, that he was briefly looking into heaven, for she was like the stars in his eyes still, and somehow I got the feeling he felt, she was promised to him, and he was just waiting, waiting, patiently waiting as if there would be a more dramatic part for me to write into this story. That now as twenty-years ago, it will be interesting if I make it to the next reunion, our fiftieth, in 2015.


No: 638 (6-22-2010)

The Russian Market & New Orleans Outsider (short stories)

The Russian Market
(Phnom Penh, Khmer Rouge, Cambodia 2000)





I could see his movements without looked in back of me, inside my head, he was behind me dragging his crutches from one stall to another at the Russian Market in Phnom Penh, he had been maimed, crippled, a one legged cripple, during the trying years of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot’s regime. I first noticed him when I walked through the archway of the tent and he pushed his crutch out in front of me, blocking my path, his hand out for spare change, I was with my wife we were tourists in the city and would leave that evening for Angkor Wat.
Demanding he was, and I moved around his crutch and into the tent area, and he moved from his leaning post, with Frankenstein agility demanding in a high scratchy voice, and an ongoing parading of words I didn’t fully understand, begging and demanding money. His menacing persistence and his unreserved irritation, aggravated me, had he approached me and my wife with some respect, or softer touch, instead of eyes that were bloodshot, and wild looking, unkempt looking, I would have given willingly. His gliding through the isles, was nearly as fast as I was walking, with those perturbing arm muscles of his, and large hands gripped onto those crutches, made me look about, “Go! Leave us alone; find another American to bother… (and as I looked about, I noticed there was none)” I told him sternly. His talkativeness and smirk assured me he had no intentions of doing so. Then he spoke English, “You are American and you have both legs, and you have money, and I am hungry, and I want only enough to have soup and bread, gentleman, I will follow you unless you help me. Someday you may need help.”
I had prided myself in work, not begging even when I was down and out in San Francisco, some thirty years prior. Had he been selling pencils or something I would not have given this a second thought, but because someone shot off his leg—or he stepped in some mine field and got it ripped off—what right did he have to demand? I asked myself. But on a second thought—staring at this fellow—perhaps he had earned it today, to have begged me and followed me, how humiliating it must be, how desperate was he. I thought about when I was in Seattle, some thirty-five years ago, again I was hungry, really hungry, and I just stayed hungry, never begging until I got paid my first paycheck, and bought three hamburgers, and could only eat one, my stomach had shriveled up. In any case, my time in this city was limited and worth more than a dollar, and so I gave him a dollar. And figured that was that. There was not much of a thank you to it, but he left, and I guess that was good enough.
Then twenty-minutes later, after he had had his soup, and coffee and bread, I saw him again, swinging around a corner of a tent, moving faster than a jackrabbit to catch up with me.
“Let’s get out of here dear,” I told Rosa, we had bought a few rusty lighters, Military cigarette lighters for souvenirs, from the late Vietnam War—the one I was in, leftovers from dead American soldiers, evidently picked up by the locals of other cities near battle fields, and sold to the merchants here to be sold as souvenirs to whomever. Without question this guy had a one track mind, to be my pain in the neck to my death or until I give him for his dinner, or kills himself on those crutches trying. His mouth sucking in for air, as he propelled those crutches, putting them in high gear, thus, I found myself walking more rapidly out to the back entrance: the market area was comprised of several tents, and then an arch to the street, and lo and behold, leaning against the seven foot tall, two foot thick wide wall out along the street area on the sidewalk, that circled this market area, were several more one legged veterans—Had I know this was their hangout I would have most likely avoided. Their pleas crawled up my back like spider legs. They all pushed their crutches out at me, front and crutch-ends. The street in front of me busy with motor vehicles, many bikes and small motorcycles, motionless I stood at the edge of the sidewalk, a ways away from the veterans, I checked to see the amount of loose change I had, and had Rosa go back and give three of them each a dollar’s worth of their money in coins, I knew if I went back, they’d hit me up for more, coming from a lady, they were more respectful, it’s easy to do when you see the down and out—to give every dime you have, plus, I knew if I gave all I had, I’d have nothing left for us, and to be honest, they needed more than a dollar. And often times, beggars can be more rude and impertinent than grateful, and the longer I stayed there the more this became the case.


No: 636 (6-21-2010)





New Orleans Outsider
(Labor Day Weekend, 2000 AD)


Three men leaned against a red brick wall, on the corner of Bourbon Street, one playing a violin, two with glowing brass horns. And there was some echoing singing in-between, when the violin wasn’t playing, and it filled the corner atmosphere, people who walked by stopped, put loose change into an upside-down hat. It was 10:30 p.m., I seemed to have had an image of this somehow before I had even gotten to New Orleans, this was my first trip, and of course Bourbon Street, to find it strange and hard was not really strange and hard to swallow. Somehow it was all clearly unambiguous.
My brother Mike, liked this city a lot, and I often wondered why, it was really alive, the movement of the crowd was to and fro back and forth, here and there, in the lit streets that felt dark, on roof-tops under a dark and dotted sky full of stars, a moon wrapped in a dark shady shroud, and balconies filled with people leaning over railings, watching people, staring down on the streets, while people were staring up at them. As I glanced everywhichway, even looking down the corner streets, with a little unease; I suppose if I had done anything by coming to New Orleans, it was to get it over with. What was I really here for? I wondered. I was forced to wait for that answer. How simple things would be, if you knew them right away. But as it was, I told myself: enjoy the moment.
True, it was sin city, many gay folk and prostitution, and joviality going on, one gay person sat by me and my wife, as we ordered a small glass of beer in a large bar that seemed more like a cafeteria, with stools and everybody sitting with everybody, and nobody knowing who anyone was, stranger to stranger, like at the Octoberfest, in West Germany, in Munich, of which I attended in 1970. He was tall and nice looking, and quite friendly, with a busy afro style haircut, several inches above his eyebrow, and high on more than life. Nobody was overaggressive.
But it all went further back than that. There in the bar across the street, a live band was playing loud, with blinking lights overhead, and a hoard of people standing near the band—and in ever square foot of the place. The night cooled down quick. Out of this wild and summer joyous fiesta came a man—I felt for a moment as if I was back in Saigon, thirty-five years ago, when sitting on the edge of a stool waiting for my plane to arrive to take me back to America, get me out of this damn war zone, a young man sat by me, a holy man, indeed! And while he was talking I missed my plane, the plane that crashed and killed 244-soldiers, on its way to Japan. I thought of this for the moment, when this man got off his stool, and approached me, through the people he raised his head. So new was his face it could have been that very same person, and the music continued—mind flapping music, and a breeze came through the two opened doors.
A policeman, perhaps I said, the man was dressed conservatively. Nice haircut. But how many policemen would go out of their way to greet me, I asked myself, there was no reason or crime for this. This was not fear, had I felt fear I would have escaped the moment, but what did this signify? I asked myself. He picked me out among the many, and approached me as if he knew me. Not cunningly, but as if he knew me, unscathed by time, events, space, like the smooth brass of one of those horns I saw on the corner of Bourbon Street, with the trio. Can you say what you’d do under such circumstances? Consequently, before he said a word, I wanted to say: “What do you want?” but I didn’t say that, I didn’t say anything at first—my second thought was to gain a part of the moment, had I said anything, I would break that chance, and he knew that also, somehow I knew he knew that, “Ah,” he said in very soft and calm voice, “you’re here, you know God is with you?” And he stood there a moment, smiled, not wanting anything, perhaps I was waiting for him to say what else he wanted, and he didn’t want anything, it was a simple greeting from someone that appeared to know me.
“Yes,” I said, as if it was obvious to me (but it wasn’t) my statement, he took no offence and again showed only respect and a glimmering smile and left and went back to his stool. But it wasn’t so obvious to me, I mean I knew God was with me, but perhaps was waiting for me outside this bar. Yet his voice, the way he looked when he said what he said, was reassuring to me for some reason that God was even in the bar with me, his voice said more, without saying more. It is a destiny you cannot know, but perhaps others do.

No: 637 (6-21-2010)

109 East Arch Street (a short story)

109 East Arch Street
(Moving to a new home, Summer of 1957)



My mother woke me and my brother up. I stood half asleep in the dark. I was near ten years old then, my brother Mike, two years older. I felt for my cloths, it was not quite first light yet, I couldn’t find the string to the ceiling light, so I opened the bedroom door, and the light from the kitchen lit up the bedroom some. I knew Grandpa had bought a new house, and we were moving today, the city was going to tare down all the houses on Mount Airy Hill, make a housing project out of the area.
“Don’t turn the light on,” my brother moaned, “I’ll kill you if you do.” And he fell back to sleep.
“Are you boys awake in there?” my mother said the second time, with an abnormal whisper, just above a whisper.
“Yes.” I said. Mike was still under the covers, “Wake up!” I said to him “Leave me alone,” he grumbled. “Maws making breakfast, I can hear her.” I told him.
“All right, if you boys aren’t out here in three minutes, no breakfast because we’re moving today, and I am not going to be cooking later on, not until dinner…” Maw said.
I stood by the edge of the bed and wanted to tickle Mike’s feet, that would wake him, I told myself, but he’d get so ornery and he’d hit me, although I could run faster than him, he was a little cubby. But the more I thought about it, I figured I’d get the first helping of the breakfast, and that was always the best. So I left him alone.

“Tie you shoes, you’re going to trip over them shoelaces,” said maw as I walked into the kitchen, looking like a scarecrow.
“I’m all ready.” I said.
“How about your brother, we’ll not be eating all day until dinner time around four o’clock, you better get him up?”
“He doesn’t listen to me!” I said with a high squeaking voice, I wanted to eat breakfast, “where we moving to?” I asked.
“Oh, not too far from here, about a mile on down the road, on a street called Cayuga Street,” said my mother.
The window shutter was up in the kitchen, and the sun was just coming over the horizon now. The kitchen table was against the window, because the kitchen was so small, and the stove was white and green, and pert near touched the ceiling, made of cast iron.
“Well, you eat first and then go wake you brother up again. Eat all you can, you’ll be hungry otherwise by noon.”
I ate and ate and ate, then my mother said, “Here eat another egg, and gave me another piece of toast, and I put some Peter Pan, peanut butter on it. And I got out another quart of milk, and it was warm the dry ice had melted, in the bottom of the ice box.
“Want another pancake?” asked my mother. I was mighty full, and she burnt the edges of the pancake with bacon fat, and I liked it that way, and I didn’t want Mike to get it, so I said yes, but I should have said no, I was really full. But I knew we were going away, and we’d not eat until dinner and perhaps later than normal dinner.
I look about the kitchen, I’d miss the old house, I told myself.
“Well,” said mother, “are you going to go wake your brother or what?”
“I think so,” I commented, “I was just thinking all the fun I had here, I hate to move.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, “It’s hard for me also, but grandpa is being forced to move, it’s the city you know. Try to keep out of the way when the men are working today, you can help a little if you want.” She lit a cigarette, poured herself a cup of coffee; she liked coffee an awful lot, strong with milk and lots of sugar, and started to eat some bacon she had put on a smaller plate than mine, with her fingers, waiting to serve Mike.
“Now you go wake up your brother before the food gets cold,” she said in a sterner voice. “Then when the men get here, stay outdoors and out of their way unless they need you and your brother to do something.”
I went back into the dinning room; grandpa was getting up, I noticed he had turned on the gas space heater in the living room. My brother was still curled up under the white sheets and light wool blanket. I pulled the covers over his feet, and I looked down at them as if they were big hamsters, his arches looked like valleys and his big toe like a mouse sticking his head out of a hole. Then I opened the door to make a quick getaway, and started ticking both his feet in those valley’s and he jumped up a mile, pert near hit the hanging string to the ceiling light, so it appeared, and I ran like the Lone Ranger to where grandpa was and pretended nothing was wrong.
“Is that you making all that noise in there, Mike?” said mother.
“I’m coming, I’m coming, that brat son of yours just tickled me, and I’ll get him later.”
“I told him to wake you up, just leave him alone, and get out here and eat!” Said maw, hearing grandpa was up and no longer talking in loud whisper, but in her normal voice.
“Why do we have to go?” I heard Mike say to mother.
“I don’t know,” she said. “We just do.”


No: 635 (6-20-2010)

The Rat with Alzheimer (a short story)

The Rat with Alzheimer
(Nobody Ever Remembers)



“Was it worth it?” she asked.
“How can you say that?” he queried her back.
“No.” In the long run, it is not worth it.”
“Yes, to me it was worth it,” he disagreed with a grin on his face, and slant to his eye.
“But he was your father. Can’t you understand? Your father, and I’ve been married to you for over three years, and you’ve forgotten everything he’s ever done for you.”
“Perhaps,” said Gene and he continued to eat his hoagie sandwich.
“It’s sad I did not get to know him, not at all. I might have had a different opinion than you. You never gave me the chance; you never asked me if I cared to.”
“I’m sorry, Maria. I didn’t know you cared to, perhaps I should have allowed you to, but I wasn’t talking to him.”
“And now he’s dead.”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“It’s hard to understand.”
“It does no good to talk about it now, my brother Lee feels the same way I do.”
“Yes. I know that,” said Maria downtrodden, biting her lip, then asked him, “Are you happy?”
“I haven’t thought about it but I’m not grieved stricken, so I guess I haven’t thought about it one way or the other.”
“Gene, he’s dead, forever dead, don’t you remember anything good about him, about both of you doing things together?”
“All right,” said Gene, I can’t stand it, please let it be as it is. He is dead.”
“But it’s more than that, can’t you see, now all we really do is take their places, the dead we just take their places. I don’t understand it; it makes me feel like I’m very replaceable to you, and because of some stupid misunderstanding you and your father had.”
“We all have to die sometime, my brother feels the same way, I doubt he’s grieving.”
“What can I expect? I mean in the process of your hating, you are willing to forget all the good things, kill part of yourself, over a little spilt milk. That kind of hate, or anger, or revenge does as much damage to the giver as the receiver. Nobody’s the winner. What can I expect?” And there was a long hesitation, and then she added to her dialogue, “Your anger was a success. No one will ever remember but you now. And now your kids will inherit your disposition, they emulate you know, and someday they will justify their anger towards you in the same manner—out of sight, out of mind, that kind of stuff. Holding grudges until someone dies.”
“Anyhow, the thing to do now is just live, and let the dead rest in peace.”
“He died in peace, and he’s resting in peace, it is you, you, you, that will not live in peace, or die in peace, perhaps rest in peace, if you don’t wake up.” Said Maria nearly in tears, then excused herself for a moment, made a phone call and walked back to the small porch they were on, sat on chair next to her husband. “Not being able to mend fences is not an accident, it is a fault, the failure is yours not his dying, I saw how resistant you were to his overtones for such renewal,” she said.
“But some things you just can’t put back together. They look impossible. Sometimes there is no way.”
“Yes, maybe so, in the end no one remembers anyway.”
“What do you mean?” asked Gene.
She was now quiet, didn’t answer him, and he stopped eating. There was no wind and it was hot on the small porch, in Columbus. He picked up his beer, took a gulp, wiped his lips with a napkin, then carefully looked at Maria, reached his arm out to touch her; she moved slightly away from it, she looked very sad.
“Don’t be sad about all this, I’m not,” Said Gene.
“That’s part of the issue, I’m dealing with here.”
“Dead is dead, we all get to that point darling, sooner or later. We must think of ourselves, what we got to do next.”
“Like what, what are we going to do next…?” Maria asked, then put her head down, emotionally, she was awfully puzzled, confused.
“Our marriage,” he said.
“If you are an example, now, for what resides in the future later, what can I expect? What can we predict from your children who will emulate you, I’m your third wife, what can I expect if you get sore at me?”
He now said nothing, for a long look, she had a poignant face.
“You talk like a preacher,” he remarked, then added, “who did you call?”
“And you don’t talk like a human being, like a Christian, as you think you are,” she replied, “and I’m part of your life, and when going to church I fell like a hypocrite.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but it is how I feel, and it’s the way it is. Who did you call?”
“You should react to your thinking not your feelings, that’s part of the problem I see.”
“Why are you bringing this up now, why not a year or two ago…?”
“Why isn’t now a good time?”
“I’m sorry, I guess I thought you always understood, it sounds like you were holding it all in.”
“I suppose I was, like you and your father. But what I do understand is your father is dead, and it is too late for you to do anything about it now. We all have expectations, and we all get let down. You’re as guilty with seeing your kids as your father was with you. And you slam him for not being there, and can’t see your own behavior, and I heard you say how much you loved your kids, and how much you felt your father didn’t love you, but to me you both look like two peas in the same pod, but you are more relentless. You both are like to like, and you both perhaps did the best you can. You just don’t’ realize you’re the bird in the cage, the rat with Alzheimer.”
“Aren’t you kind,” Gene remarked sarcastically, drinking the beer down to its bottom with one long gulp.
She was from the Philippines, where families were closer knit. She had been married to Gene a little over three-years, just got her citizenship. And at this very moment, discovering his sentimentality was next to nil. Thinking: what if he ever got mad at me.
“I am a good father,” said Gene.
“I believe you try to be, but are you a good son? And what kind of father do you want your children to be? Was your father a happy person?”
“He was happier than me I think.”
“It’s too bad the happy one is dead,” she commented.
“You talk like someone who lost hope.” And he reached over to touch her for the second time.
“Please do not touch me,” she exclaimed. Now he was hurt. “I’m sorry,” he told her.
“There is nothing to be sorry about. You are who you are, and you can’t change, and I am not qualified to help you change, nor have the time.” Then she stood up, as a taxi pulled up in front of their house, and she walked to the door, opened it, there was no wind, it was warm, but the warm air was fresher than the stale air on the porch, and she felt good, very good.
“Where you going?” he asked.
“The taxi’s for me, that was the phone call I made, I can’t help you,” she said. Not turning around but saying it loud enough for him to hear as she stepped down the three cement stairs onto the walkway to the street to the cab, “if his death couldn’t help you, nobody living can.” She mumbled. There was nothing she could do but leave, she felt. She didn’t want to act good about it, because she didn’t think it was good, or feel good about it, what he had been doing what she felt she had to do. She knew there was hollowness someplace in his heart, for loving, someplace he could and would, and had escaped to where there was no pain, and if one does not show the pain in life, one can never live fully. She kept on walking, never turning around, never looking back. And she knew what he would do, and he did what she thought he’d do, he got up, went to his computer, to look for a new wife.


No: 634 (6-20-20109

Three Short Exploited Stories

Three Short Exploited Stories


A Night at the American Hotel
(Remnants of the Cold War, 1970, Augsburg, Germany)


“Cheers, my friend,” said the stranger drinking with me and Sergeant Ralph Morgan at the American Hotel in Augsburg back in 1970, and he stood up “…to West Germany!” He added, after a hesitation.
A lot of us soldiers walked over from the military base three blocks away, and patronized the hotel’s basement bar and slot machine room, in those days.
We watched him get up and leave to go to the rest room, and I figured he was a spy, he was asking too many questions.
“What do you make of that fellow?” queried my comrade, Sergeant Morgan.
“I’m not sure, but he has to have a lot of money, he’s already bought the last several rounds.”
“Me either, but I bet he’s a spy!” said Morgan “what do you think, Evens?”
“Yes, I agree, he’s a spy, he was asking too many questions not to be.”
Then the stranger returned to the table, looked about, noticed the bar area where all the tables were, was pert near full, all twenty tables or so, and crowded at the small bar area, it was payday weekend, and Reese Military Compound was nearby, and a lot of American Soldiers, and German girls came there at the first of the month, and the hotel guests.
“We’re leaving soon,” the sergeant told me, “we’ll be gone for thirty days.”
“Oh, your whole unit is leaving soon?” questioned the stranger.
“Listen stranger,” Morgan told him “you can tell me tales all night long, if it pleases you, but don’t ask me any questions concerning my unit, that’s classified information and only given out on a need to know bases, and you don’t need to know.”
“I was just trying to make conversation, something to say, and nothing more…” said the stranger, in his late thirties, with a sport jacket on, and blue jeans and white shirt who spoke excellent German, and near excellent English.
“I don’t know you from Adam,” said Morgan, “matter-of-fact, why you are buying us so many rounds?”
“Cheers,” said the stranger, holding his glass of beer up high, and then stood up from the table, pushed his chair back, in back of him “perhaps another time,” he said, realizing Morgan was starting to ask too many questions, and he quickly found another table with GI’s and started to talk to them. Both I and the sergeant watched him closely.
“What do you make of that Corporal Evens?” commented Morgan, meaning to be a rhetorical question. Then the stranger bought a round for the four GI’s at the table. “If I told you of all the spies that came into this hotel, it would boggle you mind.”

No: 629 (6-19-2010)






Yellow Flash
(At the Gem Bar, 1982, Minneapolis, Minnesota)



As I started to walk out of the Gem bar to walk down the street to Gleak’s tavern (where I hung out some. in those far-off days writing poetry between 1st Avenue and Hennepin Avenue, and having it published in the small Minneapolis newspaper, called ‘Insight’), on 1st Avenue in the boiling hot July summer’s heat I felt serene, was cheerful and calm but felt a peculiarity—from my heel throughout my bones and to my throat, you know what I mean, something was up, bound to happen, and walking down the street alone, quickly all my euphoria melted.
I had figured as much, while drinking at the Gem bar, there might be trouble between two black fellows arguing, I was sitting at the bar, not all that far away from them.
“Come on, let’s go and get it,” the short thin Negro said to the other fellow, a taller and even thinner Negro. Any fool could see trouble was fermenting between them.
“No Fish, I’ll get it for you later,” said the taller one.
“Come on, let’s go and get it right now!” he said again.
“Nope!” He told Fish firmly, emphatically. And I put together, and I knew this was just another bad drug deal; I knew it even stronger when I seen the white ivory handle of a pistol sticking out of Fish’s side, tucked between his plaid cotton shirt, and his brown leather belt.
Fish took one big large gulp of his beer, swallowed it down and then he elbowed the tall thinner Negro in the ribs— jostled him good, that he spilled part of his drink—it looked to be whiskey and coke, or just plain coke. Fish looked around angrily, and just laughed.
“Well, let’s get going!” He pert near yelled. “Sorry I bumped you,” Fish remarked to his comrade.
The tall thinner Negro’s cloths were dirty and wrinkled, and worn. His eyes deep pitted, unshaven. Quite the opposite of Fish’s, whom was very short, his face char co darkened. The taller Negro had lighter skin. Fish had a leather jacket on, covering his white handle—I assume snub-nosed 38-revolver.

As I started to walk down the street I noticed the tall and thinner negro on the corner, across the street was Gleak’s, then Fish came running out from behind several surrounding cars in a parking lot, spotting his prey—then I heard the crack of a pistol, and saw a yellow flash, and Fish running down the street towards Hennepin Ave, and the tall Negro wobbled, and unable to hold onto anything he crashed like a falling timber onto the sidewalk, he had twelve-minutes to live, he’d die in the ambulance I’d find out tomorrow morning, in the newspaper.

No: 628/6-19-2010
Written at Starbucks Coffee shop, Lima, Peru (Surco)





The French Private
(WWI, 1918, somewhere in a trench in France)



Standing under a shelter of the trench, he was wet with sweat, hunger and very thirsty and simply empty inside, a flat look on his face. Fear brings on a dry mouth and thirst—just knowing an attack is eminent is enough, as it was for the French Private. And dying uselessly, especially when you know its over nothing, and you do not have proper support, because someone someplace, wants to impress some other person, so he can make rank, and is far-off in some safety zone, you have a right to be angry, as Tony was.
“Yo u sur e yo a re A-mer-ican…” said the French Private, a slight intoxicated, “you look more like da en e my tha n da e ne my…! He went on to say, in his babble.
“He’s an American-Russian,” said the American Sergeant to the French private.
“Whoopee do…” said the Private.
“He’s the cook in my platoon, what’s the problem here?”
“Where’s he from, sergeant?” asked the French soldier, trying to be and act more sober.
“Where you from, rummy?” asked the Sergeant.
“None of your business,” said the private, even more proudly.
“There are no enemies in my platoon,” commented the Sergeant.
“That’s a broad statement,” remarked the French soldier.
“We hate the Germans as much as you, but just remember it’s your war we’re fighting, not ours.”
“Man, you American’s are arrogant,” said the French private.
“Yaw, I suppose so, especially when we got to fight foreigners, on foreign lands, who are fighting other foreigners. What do you expect?”
The French soldier looked over to his drunken comrade, said “These Americans have odd ideas, to say the least.” And reached for a refill of his cup, from a wine jug his comrade was protecting along side of him.
The sergeant looked at the French private, he was unshaven, haggard looking, had been fighting this war going on three and a half years, whereas the American Sergeant, had been there only three and half months, it was 1918.
“Keep your head down,” said the sergeant to the French man, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. There were a lot of stray bullets wheezing over head. Then he started to turn around towards Tony, an American Private, frying an egg in a frying pan, and mumbled—not sure to whom, perhaps he, himself:
“I don’t mind the bullets; I just hate fighting all those foreigners when it isn’t an American crisis.

No: 631 (6-19-2010)

Gaza War

You ever hear that saying “You can’t be right, if the whole world thinks one way and you the other.” Well to be frank, I also found out in life, in more and more cases, the older I get, the more the world makes bad decisions only to return down the road and so “Well, that was then, and now is now.” In other words: you can be right--and the only right one in the whole world, and the whole world can be wrong, and it’s most likely, more often than not.
People fail to see, or understand, or incapable of dealing with, Israel taking charge of its self, its destiny. I mean, terrorists groups get less press than Israel; Israel is at war, with every country around them, and when you are at war, the game of life changes: Syria, Iran, Hamas, all those countries, even Turkey, is not playing by the rules, and this is war, and in war time you protect your people, land and culture. My advice to Israel, forget the rules, they are made for the losers. At the end of the day, only winners count.
There is blockade in place for a reason, so people can walk the streets of Jerusalem. And this investigation, which really needs it, the proof is in the pudding, no one is gilt free, and if you push someone in a corner, expects him to fight or melt. Everyone knows Hamas does not want peace, they want to drive Israel into the Red Sea, so they have said in so many words; everyone knows Iran wants to obliterate Israel, because they said so. And Syria is no friend to Israel, they have their own little terrorist group shooting rockets over into the Golan Heights, among other places in Israel reminding them, the war has not over. If Mexico was shooting rockets in America's back yard what do you think America would do? Now we got a double standard. I thought so. How about England shooting rockets into France? The point being, it's hard to see if you're 10,000 miles away. How about your neighbor shooting 38 rounds at your house? You got to do something to stop it; point of fact—out of sight, out of mind.

The Dead Eaters (Macabre Poem)

The Dead Eaters


The boat rowed steadily in the white waters of Hades
The Oarsman, drank mead, and foam like Crazy
Wound around his wrists, were rows of teeth of ivory
“Row, row!” he cried, to each and every one aboard,
And bit our lips, until they bleed to his desire—
“For I am Agaliarept, the Henchman of Hell,
And your new world, is mine!” he shirked and yelled.
And near the dock, with dripping blood upon the sand
I saw the dead eaters, wringing their hands.

Note: Written 6-14-2010/No: 2718
by Dlsiluk

The Ebon Room (a short story/cosmic horror)

The Ebon Room


Judson Macomb

“Long and dark eldritch evenings, I lived and listened and slept, in this wind howling deep lustrous black room of gloom—no electric bulbs embedded in the ceiling, flattened by boredom, covered by a load of stone, no birthdays, choked with idleness, as a urine pungent smell drifted throughout my cell daily, as if it was stuck in limbo like me. No stray birds, a few stray mice, while in a deep, frenzied fantasy. And never once did I blaspheme God, nor seek his invisible shield. And in the process became an absurdist, and believed that it all was meaningless, irrational but consequently, we must go on with our existence, this strained conceit in us demands we do so, thinking that we are more than what we are, or hoping we are— And waited, and I waited for shapes in the shadows to form, and sensed things of darkness near me, and after awhile, saw shrill looking cadaverous faces lingering and lurking in the air, and smelt putrid odors as it lingered likewise in invisible clouds overhead—beings, dragging their flimsy corpse like bodies to and fro, malodorously from corner to corner.
“I was young back then, filled with irony and the wonder of life. Dark rooms are not silent, doctor. All those days I watched and listened and I knew they were there. The creatures were like ebon manna falling from the sky while living those four-years in a silent panic. And with their yellow eyes I could see them clearer; they grew friendlier as time passed— in the amber twilights of my cell, created by some kind of sorcery, I do suppose, in this titan built prison, with no horizons, only a bleak and eldritch twilight, with anon wings to the eerie darkness it so dearly loved, and they even spoke to me—as they separated from one point in the room to another in their ongoing ashy like transfigurations, all these dark things: shadows, and shapes and strange things out of other worlds, out of space and time, out of a vapor like haze.
“I only got glimpses of them of course—when they talked and howled, lurked, moved about stealthily until they simply disappeared—this awful lone, that always was so still in my room, was a blessing when they came to visit me, even if they were who they were—whoever they were, as I stood the first few times—weirdly stood in a hysterical posture, and frantic—stood in an upright, pure vertical position until I got to know them better, and became at ease—became familiar with seeing them, they sounded like rushing water, far-off at sea when they spoke, as if halfway in our world, and halfway in theirs—they were, by and large, ebony shadows, with cadaverous glimpses: beings more ancient than the mountains, more diabolic than the creatures of the deep, and some were reptilian. ‘Huh!’ I said to myself, ‘it is better to mingle with the dead or half dead, since I am not allowed to mingle with the living.’ ”
I tried often to sit up erect; it was most, a most difficult task at times, after an extraordinary effort, I managed to do so, I did realize at that time I was very weak, my thoughts were confused, but my curiosity wasn’t, although I found it most difficult to orient myself in any manner, being light-headed, living in an enfeeble state of existence—dazed. But these abruptions—of what you call, unreality, allowed me to live on. You see doctor, it really wasn’t starvation that was going to kill me—I knew that from day one, but rather an extreme thirst for other life, contact; boredom you know, kills all living things faster than any disease. Thus, the roar of life is like protein to the flesh, not the complete peril of silence that would be a bitter death. You might say, during my captivity, I was in uncharted space, within the darkest reefs. Many of times I felt I died, and was revived by one or more of these creatures.

“One night—in the corner of my room, this yellow-eyed thing, reptilian thing, creature, with watermelon seeds for eyes, with a long purple shawl, or cape, something on that order—very long, you know the one, I saw him many times after this night, this first visit, he appeared to be beckoning me to come to him, in his little corner of the room, originally my room, not always did I see him but on many occasions thereafter he shared my room with me without knocking. He filled the room many a night with his chanting; it soothed me. Matter-of-fact, many of times I felt I had died, and was revived by one or more of these creatures.”

“How was your room?” questioned the doctor.
“It was long and narrow, with a tall ceiling, it was a trifle taller than I, and I’m pert near six-foot tall. This much I distinctly recall, but for the most part, it seems unreal and remote, and somehow belongs to another person other than me. In those days I often felt very dreamy and detached from everything and in particular, everybody. I found bugs very edible, after a while and I even pretended they were fruit. I can’t identify the bugs, but its portion was mouth-watering after a while.”
“You have given me a heap of weird impressions,” said the doctor, “some of which could not exist in our everyday reality. I do hope you see this more clearly now that you are out of your old environment, rest and proper nutrition intake is of course required before your abnormal reality completely disappears, and the oddity of it all. They differ—you know, from anything reasonable, through worlds unknown to us, who live in a world of matter-of-factness, or at least from anything I’ve ever encountered. I don’t want to send you to an asylum, you’ve been through enough, but you must acknowledge, that your long stay in that room contributed to these bizarre impressions.”
Consequently, in an effort to surmount his agitation, Judson Macomb started pacing the floor with vehement briskness from wall to wall in the doctor’s office.

“We are not in Germany anymore,” remarked the doctor, to his client, “you can let me know who gave you the cape, or is it a robe or was it a shawl? no one will tell the SS where you got it? And what wing were you on?”
Then Doctor R. J. Sharp saw Judson Macomb, his patient, start to tremble some, he wouldn’t or couldn’t stop. Then Judson rolled round on his back right there in the middle of his office floor—as if in some cyclopean cave, stretching out flat, his arms got entangled—a groaning from a shrill voice with some dysphonic noises came out of his mouth—indiscernible words, his eyes became a malignant red, as he tried to suppress the unpleasant moment, but he couldn’t. A sinister, ominous aching in his head prevailed; the inmost fibers of his body illumed to a purple and yellow heat, creating a near unearthly form to him, as his body vibrated like a thunder storm right then and there on the woodened floor. He held onto his head, he held onto it as if it might fall off his neck, and closed his eyes. “The room was like an alpine cliff sometimes,” he murmured, “if it wasn’t for those trans-dimensional pilgrims, I’d not be here today doctor,” he exclaimed, looking up at him. “Yes, they invaded my room, had overtaken my room but, but there I lived in a stupor, without a friend, what did the SS expect. In that room the granite walls were often drawn immeasurable nearer to me at times, as if to squeeze the life out of me like a python. I couldn’t stop them.” Then he cried out in silence with his convex and reddened eyes and looked towards the ceiling as if it was some great somber sky.

To try to break the moment, the doctor asked his patient a frivolous question, “You were known as number 545, is this correct?”
Judson breathed with difficulty. He glanced at the doctor—as he sat up, no longer a cosmic menace— soothe and exalt: “I never really liked falling to sleep back then, nor do I nowadays, because I never think I’ll wake up.”
“They were SS men, right?” asked the doctor.
Judson was now sitting up, and in a chair, he let his head droop, it seemed heavy for him, the muscles in his neck were sticking out. He turned to look out the window, there was a mild sun.
“They, the creatures and I had an obscure kind of telepathy between us, I felt assured they knew what I was thinking, what I was saying when I wasn’t saying anything out loud, and I knew what they were thinking, but not saying, out loud. We both had ramparts to each others brains.”
“Did you ever go over to help in the crematorium?” asked the doctor.
His client didn’t answer, but the doctor knew he most likely didn’t, or couldn’t, he was eighty-pounds when he was found in his room, and was near six foot tall.
“The creatures were dancing, dragging the dead like a heap of cobwebs, to and fro throughout the room, peering at me oddly, and after a few years, I got redeeming glimpses of a clear blue sky, they allowed me to see.”
“You do realize you were having hallucinations in that room, Mr. Macomb, don’t you?” remarked the doctor, knowing there were no windows in the room. And Judson closed his eyes again, remembering the stench, it was of a latrine, it floated in the air, everywhere.
“I just know this world was not my own,” replied Judson.
“Perhaps these hallucinations, and this strange-dimensional world, or worlds, with nameless beings, simple grew stranger from day to day, was created by your mind, a mad and long flash of fears, running through your mind so as to survive” said the doctor.
“Why do you say that?” asked Judson.
“Describe your guard that paced the hallway,” asked the doctor.
“I seldom seen him, but the few times I did, he had voracious eyes and a jaw long-drawn-out, and wide. And he mumbled and fumbled all the time, I heard him do so.”
“Well, first of all, you had that long shawl, cape or was it a robe wrapped around you, I mean that was the only thing you had on, when they found you, and you never saw a guard, but the first day, and that was four years before your release, and you never saw the sky, because they never took you out of that one room, and you say…” then the doctor hesitated to finish his sentence.
“The shawl, my reptilian friend, he gave it to me, is that what you wanted me to say?” asked Judson, “that my friend with the yellow irises, and black pupils the size of watermelon seeds was not really in my room, that I got it from a guard or someone else? But you said I never seen the guard or anyone else!”
“Well,” said the doctor, “isn’t that more believable than that reptilian creature in your room?” Although that was problematic also, usually political prisoners or criminals never got such things, matter-of-fact the only one that could have given him the long purple type robe, was the Commandant, and he never had one, so that was most unlikely, and out of the question. But the good doctor wanted Judson to face reality, not make up stories to his fancy. On the other hand, he had been too weak to work and was seldom brought out for exercising from his one man cell. He was actually dying. Had they had a gas chamber, he might have had a quicker death than being starved to death slowly.
“Why,” asked Judson Macomb, “why do you insist by implying it was not my friend in the room?” Then he got up, quite like, he had closed his eyes again, and was hardly breathing, scratching himself here and there, his eyes then opened, but now vacant, then turned towards the doctor, looking at his egg-shaped head, “Why?” he asked a second time.
“Because it’s not possible,” said the doctor, “you see, when they found you, you were in a cell as big as a stone coffin, in which one could neither stand nor lie—”

Written: 6-14 & 15-2006; No: 623

Alter of the Nephilim (7200 BC, a short story)

Altar of the Nephilim
((7200 BC) (Warlords))




1

The Spaceship
[A Dream Vision; a living dream vision within a dream]



I noticed a spaceship high in the sphere observing earth —it could not see me, I thought, but perhaps it could. Activities— a white dote, that is all it was, for the moment; I wondered what they looked like inside that spacecraft (from where I was standing, watching, observing on flat terrain, I could see underneath their helm), “…what do they look like?” I questioned inside my mind a second time, or perhaps my second self, questioned me, as if I was what they were thinking.
There were twelve-beings inside that spacecraft, I knew that instantly, call it second sight, if you like. The command center of the spacecraft was similar to a large arena. Thereafter, I was within a different dimension—do not ask me how I got there, I really do not know. I call it: an awaken vision-dream, or dream vision, on or the other. Henceforward, a moment later, I somehow brought up through space and time into their environment and onto their spaceship; I was within in a protective invisible bubble.

2

Meeting at the Round Pyramid


I had thought the quest was over for the Nephilim, after they had found the skull of the jaguar, and it was just a matter-of time now before they did their coordinating with the other angelic forces throughout the solar system to then provoke some kind of war with humans; but life is never so simple. When they had found the skull of the jaguar, it did not quiet things down one iota, but rather steered them up some. In addition, the timetable was set at AD 2016. Shortly after finding the skull, they went back to the spaceship, put the skull on an altar in a glass room overlooking the central operations room, or command center of the ship, and like a hurricane, the ship wheezed off into deep space.
However, it was less than 24-hours and they were over the same site; well, almost over the same site, a little ways outside of Mexico City, a short distance from Teotihuacán. The site was called Curculio; on their monitoring screen it looked like an oval altar of sorts. One of the technicians called it “The Round Pyramid,” but Number One, the angelic leader of the Nephilim, within his white plastic like uniform called it “The Altar of the Nephilim (or giants),” thus, this was where their sons worship them in the ancient days. From what I heard and saw, there were several altar built into this site, which was as a whole, a larger shrine, unto the Nephilim.
As they readied themselves to descend, I found myself like a magnet following them to the site. As we all reappeared by the pyramid of sorts, they simply walked around it. The two Shinning Ones, not angelic beings, but rather some sort of alien reptilian eerie looking creatures, that befriend the angelic force, with ebon eyes and saber like teeth, sharp as a razors edge, with wings ingrown into their shoulders, when together seemed to light up the area. And this evening there was a full moon so I could see the structure fairly well.
It was close to four-hundred feet in diameter, and about ninety-feet high. It seemed to have levels, and two access ramps. I would expect one was for the inhabitants to look at the people being sacrificed, down upon them, while in the dugout area, at the same time as the other ramp was for the priests to bring the sacrifices to be offered; one ramp going up to the top, the other going down to the bottom, quite a marvel, and quite impressive. The structures were made of dark volcanic rock.
I wondered what kind of rituals they had, animal or human my guess would be both. As I listened to the three beings checking the area out, the one I have chosen to call Number One, told a Shinny One, “This area was inhabited back thirty-thousand years ago…when the first volcanic activity occurred, and again, around 8,500 BC when the second volcanic activity occurred and killed all the inhabitants.”
Then he added, “My sons help built this altar to worship us. They too had met a destructive fate, but ceremonies to us still continue. Over twenty thousand people lived around this site at one time.”
It is how the myths started I would guess, so I told myself. The last sacrifice he mentioned, by humans, were around AD 100, at which time the site became barren until the 1920’s when it was rediscovered again.
Then, as he took a deep breath, he told the Shinning One’s with pride and the reptilian race with pride, the altar, that within a short period of time, would be once more used to worship their kind. I think he missed that part of life, God forbid.
As they walked about the spacecraft Number One stopped at several locations checking out this and that as the other two followed alongside of him, and then the spacecraft came to a halt, and a voice said: Captain, we are now over the site, two-hundred feet above it. Then the Captain took the bones of an ancient Jaguar and raised his hands into the air saying,
“The new empire is at hand, let the war begin, no peace; finish off God’s chosen, kill them all! Exterminate them! No peace ever and no talking about peace!”



3

The Killing Desert


I had learned much on this journey, one thing being, the giants were desperate to build their new Empire, to the point of devouring peace with the human race, especially the inhabitants within their direct vicinity, and against the wishes of the Watchers [otherwise known as the angelic renegades of the Rephaim, or their offspring giants, which was a half world away, over in near Syria] and the Nephilim [Giant warlords of a different sect, whom they warred with 6000-years prior and lost].
It was in those olden days, that some of the angelic race, the Watchers, along with the Nephilim saw a day of reckoning should they not make haste their escape, and did so with the Reptilian Race, and the Shinning Ones, many to the planet Moiromma, Mars, the dark side of the moon, the tunnels of Antarctica and elsewhere, such as: outside of their solar system. In point of fact, God was annoyed with their impudence, for standing their ground systematically and raping Earth’s women, eating their children, sacrificing virgins to the god-like, Nephilim, and for playing God.



4

The Large Cats
(Interlude)


In the scrubby fields of the desert sands in the Middle East, about fourteen-hundred miles from Jerusalem the giant cats, the jaguars and leopards, and hunting hounds fought a hundred-year war with the giants, as recorded in stone shortly thereafter, and rewritten in stone in South America. I had learned that in the silent desert at night one evening, that these huge cats would creep up to the beds of the giants and with their saber teeth, hack off their hands their feet, and accordingly, returning later when they were helpless and weak, eating them slowly alive.
During those days the huge saber tooth beasts seemed to be having been able to camouflage themselves within their surroundings. At which time the embarrassed giants who were an occupant of the land, the Nephilim, asked the surrounding inhabitants to help them, but they themselves were too weak from lack of food, and malnutrition, and because of that the giants threatened to kill them all if they did not bring all them. And by doing so, they themselves became ill. In addition, I doubt they wanted to anyways. Many of them moved to different lands, deserting the giants to fend for themselves.
And as I had mentioned the Nephilim had gradually withdrew from before their extinction, and the great cats, the Jaguars in particular, were all killed, but overall, through war among themselves, and the Rephaim Cult, and fighting with the Great Cats, and humankind, and then the Great Flood, the process of elimination took effect, leaving only a slight gene pool, on earth, as they struggled for survival thereafter, and new habitats.



5


This very day, as I try to memorize all that is taking place, dream or not, I am still standing on their ship, and I am not sure whom the winner will be in this forth coming war. Moreover, it seems they are proud as kings and as frustrated as children. They seek reconciliation with the humanity only to destroy them. They say there were 400,000 Giants in their day, and their cult had, 17,500 giant sons at is peak, an empire at one time; that at about 8000 BC, the number dropped quite a lot. And then after the Great Flood, to perhaps two-thousand, and then less than five-hundred in the time of King David; however, there were 3.5 million rebel angels scattered throughout the universe, willing to assist them, those who left with Lucifer. What was going on in my mind was, could this Nephilim sect, along with Lucifer polarize this group into a fighting force willing to take on earth? I mean, he tried it before, didn’t he, with God, how foolish, but it sounded as if 2016 AD, might be a good year for it. And then I found myself out of my bubble and on Earth’s soil once more; but what a trip!

Written: 7-3-2006, revised and reedited, 6-2010