Category Archives: Stories

Driving Fast Cars

Posted on by
6

There was a time in my life when I was married, had just bought a house, and money was tight. We had two cars, and one of them was a Miata. Not a practical car. We decided to sell it. Triska got the Jetta (a fine automobile in its own right) most of the time, which left me bus and bicycle as my primary transport. This worked most of the time.

Eventually, as the divorce gradually mobilized, it became clear that I was going to need my own car again. Triska was an enthusiastic and welcome shopping helper, and that extended to car shopping, but the best times were when I showed up at the dealership on my own.

Heck, you’re test-driving cars, why limit yourself? When you show up at a dealership, the salesmen are watching you. They are grading you. They are already deciding what car they’re going to sell you. If you show up on a bicycle, wearing clothes one might wear when bicycling around, they’ve got no baseline, except that in California, only health nuts bicycle around for transportation (those and poor people, but you can tell them by looking).

Thus it was one Sunday when I made the reasonably flat ride to the Jaguar dealership in Kearny Mesa. I arrived a bit winded but uncategorizeable, except that I was white and I was riding a bike. I just wanted to look at the XK-8’s. They were new back then. It might have been the weekend; there were other customers milling about. I was just trying not to get too much slobber on these beautiful machines.

(Yes, I am aware that these machines cost as much to build as it would take to feed a desperate village in Africa. That doesn’t make them not beautiful.)

Eventually, a salesman decided to give me a try. He drifted over and asked if he could help me with anything. “I’m just looking,” I said, or something like that. I didn’t want to waste his time. He didn’t go away, however. I asked him if one could get the Jag with cloth seats. “Only leather,” he said apologetically – knowingly. “You drive a convertible,” I said. He pointed to his ’60s mustang convertible across the street.

“Everyone wants leather,” he said, shaking his head. I understood. He understood that I understood.

“So, you want to drive it?”

I don’t recall the exact disclaimers I used, but he waved them off. “It’ll be fun,” he said. He didn’t have to twist my arm very hard. “All right.”

It was his job to drive the Jag off the lot, then he turned the helm over to me. “You want the top down?” he asked. I looked at him – Have you forgotten me already? – and he showed me how the top mechanism works. His take: the perfect mechanism. The windows work in synch with the top, everything is carefully choreographed and fully automated. My take: Damn! that’s got about fifty points of failure, and it weighs a lot.

On things like that, I diverge from the boys at Jaguar and just about every other ‘luxury’ mark. To me luxury is a top I can reach back and lift with one hand, flip a couple of latches, and be on my way, without waiting for the friggin’ machines to do their little dance. Time is my luxury. A car unencumbered by extra crap is my luxury. My current car, lovingly garaged eight time zones from here, is spartan by modern standards, but honestly has way too much busy crap.

So – the top raising/lowering mechanism on the Jag was preposterously complex. At this point the top is down and I’m behind the wheel. I’ve been driving four-bangers for a long time, and a smooth and throaty eight is affecting me below the belt. I pulled away from the curb, wheeled around, and headed onto the streets. The salesman pointed toward a freeway on-ramp, one of the loopy ones. “Push it,” he said.

There I am, sitting in a rock-solid, powerful beast of a car, and the salesman is telling me to push it. I pushed. I whooshed around that curve and hit the freeway in stride.

“That was pretty good,” the salesman said. “But let’s try it again. This time, push it.”

Thumbs up to both car and salesman. We came back around, hit another clover leaf loop, and I pushed it. The car was rock-solid, stable, the engine only just starting to have fun. We came out of that loop and I shot onto the freeway, slowing down to match traffic.

“Remember,” the salesman said, “you pay any tickets. But let’s try that again. This time, push it.” (The message: you haven’t driven a car that can do this before.)

I did. Holy crap. White-knuckle madness, the car performing with aplomb. “That’s good enough,” the salesman said.

We did some other performance tests as well, including brakes. Most salesmen try to talk me out of a serious brake test. Not this guy. I think he was having fun as copilot. “I know! Let’s do…!” He did a good job demonstrating to me that the car was a beast, but a civilized beast. (The jaguar folks may want to quote me on that one.)

If you need a really stylish way to burn a lot of gas flying around freeway ramps, this is your car. If you need a good way to kill an afternoon, ride your bike to you local Jaguar dealership. Shortly thereafter I experienced the two-stage turbo of the RX-7 (holy crap what a hoot to drive – two-stage my ass I was turning left at a traffic light and the turbo kicked in and I was in Arizona) and a few other cars as well.

And some people go to the movies for action.

Thanks!

The Stan-Man Plan

Posted on by
10

The last couple of days the creative juices have been obnoxiously viscous. I got some good restructuring done on my front-burner project, but the little ideas that lead to little stories seem to be stuck. Rather than stare at my screen yesterday, after I was fried on my main story I decided to relax and just do a bit of reading. I pulled up for inspection my NaNoWriMo piece from the year before last. I remembered having fun writing it.

I also had fun reading it. It’s silly, and more than a little far-fetched, but it was good light entertainment. There is a tiny country somewhere in asia, probably wedged between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, that has been overlooked and forgotten for centuries. (If I were to work on the story some more, I would put a statue in the square of the capital. It would be Ghengis Kahn, gesturing to the side. “Let’s go around” the plaque would read.) Because they were bypassed by everyone, they are an insular and perplexing people.

Overlooked, that is, until a drunken general at a cocktail party declares that the US needs “a man in every stan!” The general promptly forgets, but his aide does not. Crumley doed not like his boss at all. He sends Robert McFadden, the only person in the US who speaks Ztrtkijistani. McFarland is, of course, completely unqualified to be a field agent. He begins to drink a lot, and under the influence he sends cryptic messages back to HQ.

Once the Americans are interested, of course the Russians become interested as well, and eventually the Chinese join the fray. Here are three short excerpts:


“They’re hiding something,” Crumley told the general.

The general nodded. “You bet your sweet ass they are.”

“Petersen says they’ve broken McFadden’s code. We have to assume that they know we know everything he knows.”

The general nodded. “All right then, we can’t let on that we know they know we know everything he knows.” He pounded his desk, sloshing his martini dangerously. “God DAMN I love my job some days.” He pulled out a Cuban cigar to celebrate, and to annoy Crumley. After spending several seconds lighting it with great care and blowing the smoke in Crumley’ direction he said, “We have to expand the code Petersen figured out in a way that he’ll understand, so they read one thing while he gets our true meaning. And they can’t know it’s happening.”

“Perhaps we should get a radio to him.”

“Yes, yes, but first we have to tell him it’s coming. What have we told him so far?”

“Er, nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing?”

Crumley was defensive. “We have never sent him anything. By the time we knew what was happening, they had broken our code.”

The general set his cigar down carefully and leaned forward, his dark eyes glinting under his bushy eyebrows. “We will not leave our man out to dry.”

“Of course not, sir.”

“Draft some extraction plans, if it’s not too late. Military force is an option.”

* * *

“They’re hiding something,” Sergei told the general.

The general nodded. “You bet your sweet ass they are.”

“Petrov says he’s broken their code. We have to assume The Americans know the Ztrtkijis know everything the spy knows.”

The general nodded. “All right then, we can’t let on that we know the Americans know the Ztrtkijis know everything the spy knows.” He pounded his desk, sloshing his vodka dangerously. “God DAMN I love my job some days.” He pulled out a Cuban cigar to celebrate, and to annoy Sergei. After spending several seconds lighting it with great care and blowing the smoke in Sergei’s direction he said, “We need to get closer to the action, but we can’t let anyone know it’s us.”

“We need to get some specialists in there.”

“Yes, yes, but first we have to tell our ground people we’re coming. Who do we have in there?”

“Er, no one.”

“What do you mean, no one?”

Sergei was defensive. “We’ve never seen the need before. By the time we knew what was happening, it was too late.”

The general set his cigar down carefully and leaned forward, his dark eyes glinting under his bushy eyebrows. “We will not leave that country to the Americans.”

“Of course not, sir.”

“Draft some contingency plans, if it’s not too late. Military force is an option.”

* * *

“They’re hiding something,” Chan told the general.

The general nodded. “You bet your sweet ass they are.”

“Xing says he’s broken their code. We have to assume the Russians have as well, but we do not think the Russians know the Americans know the Russians know the Americans know that the Ztrtkijis know what the spy is reporting.”

The general nodded. “All right then, we can’t let on that we are interested in finding out just what it is they know.” He pounded his desk, sloshing his vodka dangerously. “God DAMN I love my job some days.” He pulled out a pack of Marlboros to celebrate, and to annoy Chan. After spending several seconds lighting one with great care and blowing the smoke in Chan’s direction he said, “We need to get closer to the action, but we can’t let anyone know it’s us.”

“The American fell silent the moment we became interested. We need to get some specialists in there.”

“Yes, yes, but first we have to tell our ground people we’re coming. Who do we have there?”

“Er, no one.”

“What do you mean, no one? We have the largest human intelligence organization in the world. You could hit the country with a stone from our borders.”

Sergei was defensive. “We’ve never seen the need before. By the time we got wind that the Russians were moving, it was too late.”

The general set his Marlboro down carefully and leaned forward, his dark eyes glinting under his bushy eyebrows. “This is an opportunity to outflank our rivals. We will not leave that country to the Americans or the Russians.”

“Of course not, sir.”

“Draft some contingency plans, if it’s not too late. Military force is an option.”

Obviously, this is the perfect sort of story when quantity matters over quality, as cut-and-paste becomes an attractive option. The story gets pretty convoluted, partly by design and partly because no idea is a bad idea in November. Just for giggles, if any of you are interested in reading the whole thing, I decided to toss it up on the Hut’s servers. (You probably want to right-click and download the file, rather than read it in your browser, but it works eaither way.) It’s a pdf, as that was the best way to preserve some of the formatting that Jer’s Novel Writer does that other word processors aren’t so good at.

If you do decide to give it a go, there are a couple of things you should keep in mind. Mainly, this is a very rough draft. There are parts that I quite like, and other parts that go nowhere. I dislike the Spy Party rather a lot. It must have been getting close to the end of the month. There are continuity issues (someone moves into his hotel room before he moves out, for instance), but if you just roll with those, none of them were deal breakers for me on this reading.

Anywhoo, it’s your call. There are lots of more worthwhile things you could read instead, but since when did life have to be worthwhile?

Thanks!

One Man’s Heaven

Posted on by
2

I regarded the man sitting on the stool next to mine. “So you’re the devil, huh?” It sounds a little farfetched I know, but there was something about him that made it believable. The faint smell of brimstone, perhaps, or teeth a little sharper than necessary.

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Want another beer?” I motioned to Rose.

“Sure,” said the Devil. “Thanks.”

We sipped our beers in silence for a while. “So are you here for my soul or something?”

“Nah. Nothing personal, but yours isn’t really worth the effort.” He looked at my empty glass. “My turn,” he said, and ordered another round. He paid cash.

“So how’s it gonig?” I asked.

He cast me a sour look. “Shitty.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Didn’t you pay attention in Sunday School? I’m in hell, pal.”

I looked around. “I’ve always liked this place.”

Thanks!

A New Superhero

Posted on by
1

During my travels in the US I actually watched TV a couple of times, and one show I saw was about cephalopods. You’ve got your octopuses (if you want to get all snooty, don’t uses ‘octopi’, that would be a Latin plural on a Greek word. ‘Octopi’ is false erudition. The formal plural would be octopodes, with the accent on the top. But I digress.), your squids, and your cuttlefish.

In this television show they had some mind-boggling footage of cuttlefish, which have developed some amazing system that gives them muscular control over the color of their skins. They flashed colors and patterns across their bodies, sometimes one pattern on the side with the female (everything’s cool, baby), and an entirely different pattern on the side with the rival male (back off, chump).

Give fine enough motor control, a cuttlefish could play a movie on his skin.

It wasn’t until the second beer tonight that I considered what it would be like to have cuttlefish skin. Some people are worried about genetic manipulation, that it would lead to frivolous modifications of the human form. I’ve got my shopping list right here, and it starts with wings. Cuttlefish skin is right up there, though, probably even edging out gills and wheels.

Cuttlefish-man the superhero would rock. A master of disguise and ingenious at camouflage, he works out by displaying “tattoos”, then animating them running around on his skin.

I picture a superhero job interview that goes something like: “Cuttlefish-man? What the hell kind of name is that?” The interviewer looks up from the resume he is scannning to discover the chair in front of his desk is empty — until a pair of square-slitted eyes blink somewhere in the air over the back of the chair. Cuttlefish-man reappears (he would have to be bald, I suppose). “That’s what kind” he would say without a hint of smugness.

Science note: while invisibility is impossible (and even if it were possible the invisible man would be blind… Holy crap! what a great moment! The lab accident makes him invisible, but the point is completely meaningless to him because his eyes don’t work anymore! The light passes right through his retinas. It would go something like: *Lab Explodes* “Oh, shit I can’t see!” “Where are you?” “I’m right here but I’m blind, I’m blind!” “But I can’t see you!” “Dude, that’s seriously not funny. Help me!” He would imagine himself the way any adult who lost their sight imagined themselves. As far as his senses are concerned, he is completely ordinary. A blind invisible man would be the best superhero ever — uh, except Cuttlefish-Man, of course, who we’re talking about here…), it is possible to project an image that from a certain point of view is indistinguishable from invisibility.

Of course, it’s not all fun and games for the newest entry in the super-pantheon. Cuttlefish-man has inherited the shy, retiring nature of his namesake, which makes it awkward when he has to work naked. Bruce Wayne is bugging him all the time for skin samples, so he can develop his own “cuttle-suit”. He is awkward around women, worried that he’s going to light up like a billboard when she leans toward him over the table. That doesn’t actually happen — or, at least not very often — but his ears turn awfully red.

Thanks!

Grundwig (A Gargoyle Cop Story)

Posted on by
8

Intro

We see a gothic rooftop silhouetted against a setting sun. There are fanciful stone gargoyles around the perimiter, in silhouette. As light fades the profile of an extra gargoyle appears. We move closer until we see his brooding face as he looks out over the ancient city.

My name is Grundgwig. I guess you could call me a cop.

Move in, show from the other side, now silhouetted against the moon, the spires of the ancient city arrayed beneath.

I work the night shift.

Cut to: a manhole cover rattling, a jet of steam escaping.

Grundwig raises his head, listening, smelling – something is wrong. He leaps from the cathedral to a neighboring building. Nimbly he bounds through the night, unnoticed by the shadowy, indistinct figures of the humans below.

The manhole cover slowly rises, revealing a wickedly-taloned hand and a pair of glowing eyes. There are no people in the cobbled street. The demon begins to slink out of the manhole, but Grundwig lands on the cover with his full force. With a crash and a scream from the demon the fiend disappears back into the sewers. Grundwig follows. Battle ensues, breaking pipes and damaging stonework. The demon makes a final desperate lunge at Grundwig’s throat, but he is a spy, not a fighter, and Grundwig eventually gets the best of him. To permanently kill the demon Grundwig eats its heart.

As the rest of the demon corpse turns to goo, Grundwig breathes a heavy sigh.

Things have been busy lately.

The Office – hidden away in vaults beneath the city we find headquarters decked out in a completely gargoyle-like fashion. Everything has a gothic look, and many of the items are unidentifiable. There are gargoyles of every shape and description hanging from cielings, clinging to walls, and their furniture is modified to match.

There is a general bustle in the room, professional if a little on the loud side.

Grundwig is larger than most of the others, and has to push his way through the bustle to his desk. On the way he greets the others by name. He collapses into his chair with a heavy sigh.

“Long Night?” A decidedly hot babe-gargoyle-cop sits on the corner of his desk.

“Hey, Rowena.”

“Hey.”

Grundwig sighs. “Man, I’m looking forward to the short nights of summer.”

“Yeah, me too, so I can listen to you complain about how long the days are.”

Grundwig looks at his desk.

“You OK?”

“Yeah, just got a lot of paperwork to do.”

“Busy night?”

“Ate three.”

Her eyes get round. “Damn, G, you gotta slow down.”

“I’d love to.” He turns to his paperwork.

“What’re you doing later? Heading for the Hole?”

“If I ever finish this stuff, yeah, I guess.”

“See you there, then, maybe.”

“Yeah.”

She hesitates and walks away.

As the sun rises we find Grundwig back on the cathedral, in a contemplative pose.

It will never end.

Grundwig runs his hands over the stony scales on his head.

They come, we kill them, then more come. Sometimes they kill us. I am good at what I do, but it will not end until I make a mistake and my heart is eaten.

A bell tolls behind him, unbearably loud.

“Dammit!” Grundwig leaps up, frazzled, then retreats from the rooftop. “I hate Sundays.”

Chapter 1

A demon furtively walks the ancient streets, keeping to the shadows. Grundwig drops down but the demon dodges, and rolls nimbly away. Grundwig pursues and corners the other.

Rather than attacking mindlessly, the demon cowers, but wields the first weapon we have seen, a nasty-looking knife. “Wait, wait, wait!”

Grundwig hesitates. “You can speak?”

“No, I can’t.”

Grundwig disarms the demon and rears back to tear the its head off.

“Yes! Yes I can speak! What do you expect when you ask such a numb-nuts question? The Maker gives some us more intelligence than others.”

“Huh.” He registers this fact and prepares to tear the heart out of the demon.

“Wait!”

“Why?”

“Don’t you wonder why I’ve been given superior intelligence, and what I’m doing here now?”

“Don’t see how it matters. I won’t believe anything you tell me anyway.”

“So you’re not as dumb as you look. That’s good, that’s good. But don’t you think it would be a good idea to take me back and let your superiors decide what to do with me?”

“No.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because you want me to.”

“I want to live, Einstein. This is why the Maker gives so few of us intelligence. Gives us a chance to reprioritize.”

“How convenient.”

“I’m not pretending to be on your side, Chumley, I’m just buying time. But you could score some big points bringing me in alive. I can tell you things.”

“Like what?”

“Now, if I told you, you’d have no reason to keep me alive, would you?”

“There’s something you don’t understand.”

“What?”

Grundwig pushes his face directly into the demon’s, and grinnes with all his teeth. “I don’t need to score big points.”

“Er…”

“The only thing keeping you alive is the possibility that I will have one less 1066/HST to fill out in the morning.”

“Ah.”

“But I’m getting a little hungry.”

“OK, OK, OK, I’ll give you a free sample. If this don’t make you soil your trousers, I don’t know what will. The Maker is resurrecting dragons.”

Grundwig tears the demon’s heart out and eats it. “Tell me something I don’t know.” he mutters.

1

Thanks!

Friday the 13th

Posted on by
4

I woke to the sound of a phone ringing, a nasty little chirp made of ice picks and cold water. I closed my eyes tighter. Not my phone, not my problem. Out in the hall, just outside the door to my room, it rang and didn’t stop ringing, it’s shrill voice insistent. It almost won; I was about to give up and answer it when it finally fell silent once more. I took a chance and opened one bleary eye.

Apparently, it was daytime.

It was daytime when I went to sleep as well, I thought I remembered. Or was that the time before? Christ, what day was it anyway? I tried to do the math, to count the number of times it had been night since the others had gone away.

It was morning when they left, early morning, I was sure of that. I had been up late the night before, listening to the clock chime the hours away, small numbers gradually increasing. After the others pulled away I turned out all the lights and stood in the morning gloom, feeling the fatigue that seemed to rise from my gut, my eyes gritty and heavy.

I plodded back to my room and had a nice blink, maybe fifteen minutes or so, but then I pulled myself erect. No time for sleep.

How long ago had that been? I had slept once — twice, maybe? — since then, dreamless interludes of indeterminate length, waking up not refreshed but sustained, the hours demanded by my frail body grudgingly allowed.

It was gray in my room. I rolled over and looked out the curtainless window. Snow. Big, fat flakes driving in mad circles, while the wind moaned and howled. Had it been snowing when I went to bed? Vaguely I recalled watching the brightening rectangle of my window, watching dawn arrive on weary legs, ready for another go of it. I thought I remembered flurries.

Snow! There was nothing in the room to tell me what time it was, and the leaden sky outside gave no hints either. It was day, but which day? I looked at the snow. Hell, what month is it?

With a groan I sat up. My head hurt, triggering another memory of the previous waking period. What I was feeling now was just the echo of the cranial carpet-bombing I had endured previously; it was that pain that had finally driven me from my task and into bed.

What had I been drinking?

I turned to the nightstand and there was a glass, the culprit, an inch of liquid still remaining. Water. The substance of life, they call it, but there’s not a single molecule of caffeine in there. I had been going for stretches of more than twenty-four waking hours (probably) without the help of that most beloved of alkaloids, too intent even to pause and make tea. Something had to give, and it was the crippling headache of caffeine withdrawl that put an end to my marathon. Today was the day to restore a normal life.

I began to think of the things I should have been doing over the last few days. People had been trying to reach me, I assumed. When I could stand to look at my computer again I’d check. That may be a while yet. I climbed out of bed and surveyed the wreckage that was me. Hygene had obviously not been a priority for the last few days. The need to be clean was suddenly more powerful than the need to make a big ol’ cup of tea.

The stream of hot water was perfect, and I stood in a shower coma, letting the hot water pull me back into the real world. It was Friday, I guessed. Friday the 13th. I hoped so, anyway. If it was the 14th it was going to be a bad day.

Out of the shower, clean and dry, I felt my allergies kick up, an itching in my ears. Oh, man, a Q-tip would feel good just now. But I had no Q-tip. I searched the bathroom; along with the usual hodge-podge of cleaning supplies and spare toilet paper there was a blow dryer, a curling iron, two cup dispensers (one still with cups) stashed behind the toilet paper, a comb, a plunger, toothpaste from a byegone era, and I don’t remember what else but there were NO Q-Tips. The longer I searched the more my ears yearned for that intrusive cottony goodness. In the end I did my best with my little finger, but it just wasn’t the same.

Out of the shower, clean and dry, teeth scrubbed and ears un-Q-Tipped, I faced the next difficulty in the aftermath of the previous days: no clean clothes to put next to my now-clean skin. I chose the least bad and gathered all the rest to wash. What industry! What a go-getter attitude!

I dumped my clothes into the machine and recalled the special instructions she had given me before she left. It was necessary, I recalled, to put a weight on the lid or the machine would not operate. I dumped in my clothes, closed the lid and surveyed my options. Cotton/sturdy was the obvious choice (any clothes I might have had that weren’t sturdy are long gone). Fourteen minutes for whites, ten for colors. I split the difference and pulled the knob. Rather than a rush of water I was met by a low hum. Right, right, gotta push down on the lid. I pushed, I pulled, I fiddled with the knob, and did all those things that almost never work but we do anyway. Nothing but that same low hum. I raised the lid and observed only a tiny flow of water going in, barely a trickle. I applied my super-deductive skills (and remembered what I had been told) and with a few twists established that the hot water was almost completely blocked. I had meant to run on warm anyway, but the switch had originally been set to ‘hot’ and than meant ‘none’.

Next to the washer is a utility sink. In the sink was a large bucket. I knew what I had to do. While the washer availed itself of the cold water, I added a couple of bucketfulls of hot. Splash-click-rumble, the machine set to turning my dirty clothes into clean ones, no weights required. It was with a sense of smug saticfaction that I left the laundry room, suddenly quite sure that three days (probably) in a house is plenty long enough. It was time to hit the town! I went to fetch my shoes and… all my socks were in the wash.

Rats.

I considered going sockless, but not for very long. I considered sock substitutes, wondering what I could possibly use. Nothing came to mind. The thought of being trapped for the duration of the wash cycle and the longer delay for the dryer made me really, really want to get out of there. I had nowhere to go, but that didn’t matter.

“Maybe,” I thought, “there’s a cache of unused socks somewhere in the house.”

But where? The closet for my room held a surprisingly large supply of party goods, but nothing resembling a sock. There was even less hope across the hall, where the computers live. Just up the hall toward the living room there was one more bedroom, called the guest room, although now it has been overrun by a rampaging stamp collection. Still, a guy can hope.

In the corner of the room is a handcrafted double-dulcimer (on second thought, I imagine they’re all handcrafted) resting against a spinning wheel. Next to those is a large chest of drawers, crafted of rich wood, grandly massive, the side panels starting to split due to the dry climate here. On top was arrayed a row of bottles on either side of a small pitcher with a Czech flag in it. There was 151 Bacardi, an Australian wine called the Little Penguin, and a custom-labled wine from Believe In Me with the lable made to look like a call sheet, and fuego’s name right there on it. There was a couple of other wines and some little hexagonal bottles of czech booze. There was no dust on any of them.

The bottles, flag, and a large candle were arranged in an arc, as if paying homage to the flat box resting at the focus of their attention. The box was empty, but I recognized it as the box for one of those big silver belt buckles, another gift to fuego for working on a movie here in the land of enchantment.

I opened the first large drawer… and found a cache of unused socks.

No shit.

Socked and satisfied, I scraped the snow off the glass surfaces of the car and hit the road. The radio was playing a classic from the Nose Rock era, called, I believe, “Sing Through Your Nose”. The coda goes like this:

Backup singers:

  • Sing through your nose,
  • Sing through your nose, now
  • (repeat)

Lead Singer (about an octave higher, through nose)

  • Sing through your nose,
  • Ohhhh, sing through your nose

This goes on for a a while, then

Lead Singer (now positively wailing through his nose)

  • Sing through your nose,
  • Woah, oh, oh, oh Sweet child of mine,
  • Sing thgough your n-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-se!

I think the band is Twisted Sister*. The song is oddly named “Sweet Child of Mine” or something like that. (Then again, if they called that one “Sing Through Your Nose”, they’d have to name all their songs that, and it would get confusing.) I may have gotten a couple of lyrics wrong; it’s hard to concentrate with other music playing in here right now.

‘Here’ is Pizza Hut, the last pizza place standing in this town — although ‘standing’ is a bit of an exaggeration when you look at the condition of the building and the fixtures. There are buckets everywhere; ‘roof’ is apparently a euphamism here. There is a cieling tile sagging with all the water it is holding. That’s not going to be pretty when it gives way. The green chile on the pizza is surprisingly good, though, and in the end, isn’t that what really matters?

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone, and Happy Birthday, Mom!

* Writer’s correction: The band above has been identified by a faithful reader as Guns ‘n’ Noses.

Thanks!

Two Secrets

Posted on by
Reply

Back when I played in band, the director passed out very simple arrangements of Bach and guys like that for us to warm up on. They were designed for the purpose, with long sustained notes so that those who were into that kind of thing could check their intonation. Nevertheless, despite their simplicity, when played well they sounded pretty nice.

My hard drive has a directory called “scribbles” cluttered with bits like that, things I wrote to get myself into a certain mood or just to explore a single moment or sketch a character. No big twists or surprises, no character development, just a few paragraphs that develop a feeling. Most of these derelicts aren’t terribly interesting, but now and then I write one that I put in the “slightly better” section of the junk drawer. I think now I’ll take those slightly better bits and put them here instead. Heck, I’m writing them anyway, I may as well get a blog episode out of them once in a while.

For example, here’s one from yesterday. Keep in mind that a polished final work is not the goal of the exercise.

The moment had to come, when the front door clicked shut behind her and she was back in her apartment, alone. The noise from the street outside was distant, only making the silence in the messy room all the more tangible. She stood, one arm holding the other, surveying a place that was no longer a home. It was changed, irrevocably; already the smell of Camel unfiltereds was fading, replaced by something else, something stale and dead.

Jillian had been waiting for this moment, tired of fighting through all the well-intentioned are-you-sure?’s and sympathetic smiles. She was sure — sure she didn’t want to be around any of those people anymore. People who pretended to understand but didn’t have the slightest clue, with their advice and empty assurances, people who couldn’t just shut the fuck up for a moment. Couldn’t they feel anything at all, these people? Couldn’t they see that she just needed some time to think?

She would be leaving soon. The only question was how far she would go. How far would the petty noise of all those people follow her, how far could their voices reach? There was one voice she could never escape, no matter how far she went, the voice she would never hear again.

She took another step into the room. The ash tray on the coffee table was overflowing, around it were empty beer bottles, Chinese take-out containers and pizza boxes. How many arguments had the clutter caused in the last two years? Two years! How had they not killed each other in that time?

Two years, and two secrets. Horrible, dark things, lurking, waiting to destroy. Jillian looked at the mess. Had Carla’s secret been written here all along, spelled out in alcohol and days on the sofa? Had she been slowly dissolving herself right before Jillian’s eyes, until the final act of dissolution was just another step in a long progression? Had Jillian ever truly heard her roommate’s voice, or had she drowned it out with her own?

Now there was only one secret. One secret, with nowhere to go, stripped of meaning, but heavier than ever. How many times had she tried to tell Carla, how many hints and clues had she left, telling her roommate that she loved her? How many nights had she jumped up from the sofa while they shared a blanket, watching a movie and munching popcorn, afraid of what she might do if she stayed? How many nights had she cried alone?

Had Carla been crying, too, on those lonely nights?

1

Thanks!

He Didn’t Trust Love Songs

Posted on by
3

He didn’t trust love songs.

They seemed nothing more than packaging — shiny boxes, painted with pretty girls and handsome boys clinging to their microphones and their machines of music, their faces contorted with emotion that threatened to crush their souls, to erase their very beings, performance after performance.

Empty boxes, empty of love, empty of life.

What could fit in such a small place? Certainly not love. Certainly nothing of depth, nothing with the size and overwhelming complexity of love.

Unless…

In dark times he would go to the places love songs could be found. They seemed harmless, these puffs of air, these confections of smoke and light, following each other in aimless circles. He listened, waiting for the mask to slip, waiting to glimpse the darker truth that lay behind the emptiness. Each love song is like the one before, but with each he feels closer to something.

Together, all the love songs, all the nothings, add up to a larger zero. The sum of all the boxes with their happy ribbons and and shiny walls is large enough to hold love, but there is something else there instead, the dread secret, the beast waiting to devour his soul. Some nights he could almost hear the demon whipering in the amplifier hiss, he could feel it watching him from flashing video screens.

There is no love; it is gone, lost, as if it never was.

He didn’t trust love songs.

Thanks!

My favorite job

Posted on by
14

I met Belladonna on a movie set, so it’s only natural that she thought I knew something about movies. From the start she was a better conversationalist than I was, more open and sincere, but she eventually tired of trying to reach me through cinema. ‘Do you remember in…’ she would ask, only to be confronted by my apologetic shrug. The list of movies I haven’t seen is immense, and finally she got tired of saying “I can’t believe you haven’t seen…”

There was a period when I felt very comfortable with Belladonna, when there was a mutually understood vast gulf between us. In fact, even now she is one of the few members of the XX set that I can just chill with, although I haven’t seen her for quite some time.

She would be surprised, I think, to learn that once it was my job, my paid profession, to watch movies and talk to people about them.

Once upon a time there was a video store. This is not a David and Goliath story; this little video store had managed to carve out a big chunk of the Southern California market. The way they accomplished this feat was remarkable, however. Get this: they succeeded with two crazy gambits. They offered bulk discounts (if you rent a lot of movies you don’t pay as much), and they offered good customer service.

In each store, much of the time, there was an extra person on payroll whose job was to hang out and talk about movies with the customers. That was it. Much of the time customers would approach that person for recommendations, but other times the movie whisperer would simply strike up a chat with indecisive renters. Did you see X? What did you think? If you’ve got a big sound system, you’re hurting yourself if you don’t see ‘Mission’.

You hit a couple of good recommendations, people are looking for you later. You miss, people are almost apologetic that they didn’t like it, but when they explain why you can nail the next recommendation. My job, even though I ostensibly was in management, was to watch movies at home and to talk about movies at work. I did that job well.

Some of you, the ones who have bought whole-heartedly my craftily-constructed image as an antisocial recluse, capable only of communicating through grunts and belches (and when confronted with a female simply losing consciousness), might be surprised to learn that I did very well in this role. Here’s why: It was a controlled transaction. I can deal with strangers, I can even deal with surprises. It’s uncertainty that’s tough.

Log jam in my head. So many metaphors, so many moments.

Back to Video Library. It was easy work, pleasant work, and almost none of the other people there wanted floor duty. Even people who loved to talk movies with coworkers dreaded going out and talking movies with strangers. So I would do it. It was better than working. It made it easy to go into the office each day. Working with Wendy and Maryann didn’t hurt, either.

Wendy. For a long time she thought I was gay because I didn’t hit on her. I wasn’t gay, I was just afraid. When I dropped a semi-truth to establish my heterosexuality I became a curiosity to her, a science experiment. Had the stars shifted a little bit one way or the other, placing me at the top of the stairs at a party rather than at the bottom, putting me in the back seat rather than in the front seat, I would have come to know all that lay behind the promise that was Wendy. Oh, stars! Still you taunt me so!

Wendy’s friend — I’ve called her Maryann, but as I sit here and remember it seems like there’s been a awful lot of Maryann’s in my life. More than is natural; I suspect I’m painting old faces I remember affectionately with a name I also like. None of them will ever touch the real Maryann, young and poised with dark hair and fair skin and, yes, buxom — she sat at the back of the bus, her stop beyond mine. She sat three rows behind me when I told the lie to Suzie (Susie? oh, please forgive me I don’t remember), the horrible lie that would have been nothing but I repeated it, and again; there was no cock to crow but the betrayal was just as real. And three rows behind was Marianne, cool and perfect and unaware. I never felt as alone as I did at her birthday party.

Which all leads up to Michelle. Susie introduced us; I think she was relieved to divert me. Michelle liked me. I didn’t really understand that, then, and even now it mystifies me. Michelle. To me she was (and still is) some unattainable thing, and I considered myself a dalliance and treated her the same way. We did not share our dreams. We did not reveal our secrets. But now, much too late, much too late, I realize that she liked me. At night, sometimes, I wonder what might have been, even though I know the answer. There is a little echo of her in every strong, intelligent woman I write. I miss her, and hope she is well. I doubt we shall ever speak again. I don’t think I’d have anything to say, even if we did.

That was before Wendy, before this particular Maryann, before Video Library. It was all a long time ago. It was a good job, though, talking about movies.

Thanks!

A Little Bit of Humor for You

Posted on by
10

A regular at the Little Café Near Home told me this joke last night. I offer it to you as a lesson about the culture I am now surrounded by. (This is not a verbatim rendition, my rambling instincts are evident in the retelling.)

An American, a German, and a Czech were exploring the deepest jungles of the Amazon when they were captured by a tribe of cannibals. They were trussed up and brought before the chief. With three large pots heating over roaring fires behind him, the chief addressed the captives. “You will each be given two glass spheres,” he said, “and placed in separate huts. I will visit each of you in turn. If you can show me something with the spheres that I have never seen before, I will set you free. Otherwise, you’re on the menu tonight.”

The three captives were each given a pair of glass balls and taken to their huts.

First, the chief visited the American. When he entered, the American was sitting cross-legged on the dirt floor, with his hands in front of him. Over each hand a glass ball was hovering, in complete defiance of gravity.

“Seen it before,” said the chief.

Next he visited the German. Like the American he sat in deep concentration. He was moving his hands fluidly, and the spheres were flying about the room in a graceful dance.

“Seen it,” said the chief.

Finally, the chief visited the Czech. He entered the hut and returned almost immediately. The tribe waited for the verdict. The chief shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “It’s been five minutes and the guy broke one of the balls and lost the other.”

1

Thanks!

The Curiously Uncomfortable Couch

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve mentioned the Curiously Uncomfortable Couch before. I rent a furnished apartment (actually, in Czech tradition, overfurnished) and one article is a large two-piece sofa unit that is not pleasant to sit on. I’ve witnessed (even built) some furniture that fell short in the comfort department, but what makes this particular piece unique in my experience is that there seems to have been no attempt whatsoever to make it comfortable.

The thing converts into a curiously uncomfortable bed, as well. There is a drawer that pulls out and a rather clever mechanism that raises a pad to be level with the couch. The raised pad section is far, more comfortable than the rest of the couch. Obviously the manufacturer knew how to make comfortable things, in this case they just… didn’t.

I don’t sit on the Curiously Uncomfortable Couch very often. Last night was an exception, however. I was reading a book, didn’t want to stop, and the couch looked like a good place to be. I marshaled all the pillows I could find and settled in. Almost instantly the sleepies hit me, and rather than haul all the stuff back to the bed, or even pull out the drawer, I turned off the light and rolled over to sleep.

It was one of the best nights of sleep I’ve had in a long time.

Thanks!

Elephants of Doom

Posted on by
10

The challenge, thanks to C5K3:

The tall, thin man drove the International pickup as if someone’s life were at stake. 


Everything about the truck said one of a kind. Upfront was an air horn designed by the thin man’s musician/inventor friend, Juan, to be audible (and repugnant) only to squirrels. The roof had been replaced with a convertible top which was now up due to the blinding snow storm. The storm didn’t bother (or perhaps didn’t register with) the exceptional dog drooling out the passenger window and onto the “Got Fuego?” sign painted on the door. Behind the rear wheels were playmate silhouette mud flaps, a gift from Heath, another friend. The rear bumper had the world’s longest bumper sticker: “I break for kung fu brew masters, ivory billed wood peckers, pervious MOHs and rock stackers.”


The cargo, which provided the vital ballast to keep the truck’s balding tires on the slick, twisting highway, consisted of four kegs of Guinness Stout and twenty fifty pound bags of peanuts – one of which was leaking nuts at a steady rate.


It was dark, and the thin man was wearing sunglasses.

The tall, lanky man cursed as the rear tires of the battered pickup truck lost their grip and slid dangerously towards the precipice, sending a handful of peanuts sailing out into the void. He cranked the wheel and brought the vehicle under control, at least for the moment, and mashed the gas pedal to the floor. “Elephants,” he muttered. “It had to be elephants.”

His were the only tire tracks in the snow that was rapidly piling up on the crumbling blacktop. People did not come this way often in the best of times, and these were far from the best of times. Without the four kegs of Guinness and 1,000 pounds of peanuts in the back of the truck to provide ballast he would have sailed off the road long before. The snow would be deeper and he would be lighter on his way back down, but if he didn’t make it in time, none of that would matter. The Elephants of Doom were on the move.

The large dog in the passenger seat tried to turn at the sound of the thin man’s voice, but his tongue was connected to the “got fuego?” sign on the passenger door by a long icicle of drool. The dog blinked the snow out of his eyes and stuck his head back out the window.

Suddenly the thin man hit the brakes, sending the machine into a heart-stopping sideways drift and throwing a shower of goober peas out of the truck, pelting the man standing serenely in the middle of the road.

From the trees a pair of glowing red eyes, rather far apart, watched the truck skid to a stop. The eyes narrowed as a robed figure pitched a metal barrel into the back of the truck and climbed into the passenger seat. With the sound of grinding gears the truck lurched forward, but the extra keg in back seemed to help traction. The glowing eyes followed the progress of the truck until it was lost around the next curve. There was no mistaking the message on the sticker that took up the entire width of the 2×4 that served as the truck’s rear bumper. “I brake for kung fu brew masters, ivory-billed woodpeckers, pervious MOH’s and rock stackers,” the sign read, but it said so much more.

The elephant crouching in the forest twitched his trunk nervously. This is not good. I’d better warn the others. It’s as if… The glowing eyes widened as they spotted the objects scattered on the road. Peanuts!

Peanuts! Peanuts! Peanuts! Hoo Boy!

The two said little to one another as the truck rumbled on. They both knew time was short. They both knew that it was going to take more than beer, peanuts, and Kung-Fu smack-down to stop the Elephants of Doom.

The Monk broke the silence. “Rock slide around the next corner,” he said.

Rather than slow down the tall man gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, ready to swerve.

“Relax, become one with the truck,” the monk said.

“Bite me.” The truck roared around the corner almost sideways, heading directly toward a boulder lying on the double yellow lines. With a curse and a yank on the wheel the tall man whipped the rear of the truck around, almost off the road once more, drifting toward oblivion, when the rear wheels caught and powered the beast down the road.

“How’d you know that was there?”

“I have achieved harmony with the trees, with the snow and with the rocks themselves. Also, I saw an Elephant of Doom hiding at the side of the road.”

“They’re on to us, then.”

“Oh, yes. How could they not be? But what else did you see?”

“Now that you mention it, it was odd the way that second rock was balanced on top of the big one.”

“There are few hands on the planet that could have done that. Whatever the message was the rock stacker was trying to send us, we’d best not forget it. In the meantime — watch out!” In the road ahead stood a small knot of squirrels, shivering and groggy from the cold, but with determined looks in their beady little eyes. They shot each other reassuring glances as the truck roared down upon them.

The tall man didn’t flinch. He roared directly over the squirrels. He heard the rapid-fire thump-thump-thump and checked his rearview mirror. No trace of the rodents remained. He let out a sigh of relief.

The monk was less sanguine. “You didn’t even try to avoid them! You willfully killed living creatures! What kind of man are you?”

“I’m the kind that doesn’t swerve off the road just because a suicidal critter wants to take a shortcut to oblivion.”

“But isn’t that a special horn to repel them mounted right on the front of your truck?”

“Yeah, but it’s too cold to put my lips on the mouthpiece right now. Besides, the squirrels wanted to die; I was just helping them out.”

“That is not for you to decide.”

“Look buddy, you might be willing to wait until some ninja rodent shoves a black hole up your Zen ass, but me, I’m not giving them the chance.”
The silence in the cab of the truck seemed chillier than it had before, but then again, the heater was broken.

The High Council of the Elephants of Doom sat around the campfire, discussing the latest crisis while some of their minions prepared the sacrificial bonfire on a hilltop nearby.

“The squirrels have failed.”

“I never did trust those little rats.” The Elephant shuddered. “Too much like mice, if you ask me.”

“They were a little too eager for this mission.”

“Came out of hibernation for it.”

“We can conclude,” trumpeted Doom Leader, “that squirrels are not to be trusted. I was not relying on them in any case. Have we heard from Elephant of Doom Second Class Snorky?”

“We found him staggering along the road. He’s still coming down off his peanut high, but it’s safe to assume that the robed one is now with the thin one.”

Council of Doom Member Ollie used his trunk to adjust the enormous earmuffs he was wearing. “How can you tell them apart? They all look thin to me.”

“The one operating that shamelessly sexy vehicle. It doesn’t matter. Things are coming to a head. Nothing must be allowed to stop our evil plan of DOOM!”

“Evil? Our plan is evil?”

“Well, not for us, of course. For us it’s pretty damn good. But for the rest of the world, I think it’s safe to call it the ‘Evil plan of Doom’. Just so there’s no confusion. It’s easier that ‘Evil Plan of Doom for Everyone Except the Elephants of Doom’.”

“Fair enough.”

“Too many Dooms in that second one.”

“Doesn’t really trip off the tongue.”

“Might be hard for people to remember.”

“We can remember it, though. We never forget.”

“Maybe we could call it ‘Evil Plan of Doom for Everyone Except the Elephants of Doom which Only the Elephants of Doom can Remember’.”
“EPDEEEDOEDR for short.”

“No, look. Evil Plan of Doom. That’s it. Now, how long until the tall one reaches the checkpoint? We have to activate our next trap at precisely the right moment.”

“Umm… judging by his previous rate of progress…”

“Yes?”

“Taking into account the steadily worsening weather conditions…”

“Yes?”

“…and the deterioration of the pavement at higher altitude…”

“When the hell will they be there!?”

“We just missed it.”

“That’s strange,” the Monk said.

“What is?”

“I fully expected a diabolical and crafty trap to spring on us at that last curve.”

The thin man nodded. “It did look like a crafty-trap-like sort of spot. We must have them off-balance.”

“Off-balance, perhaps, but remember, elephants don’t tip.”

The thin man shot the monk an annoyed look. “You really expect me to pick up your straight lines?”

“Are we not expected to engage in witty banter as we, an unlikely pair of heroes, rides to near-certain death?”

“Key word: witty.”

“Well, then, I suppose I will have to provide the zingers, while you are the straight man.”

“Are monks even allowed to use the word ‘zinger’?”

“Ah! Now I see! You are the brooding, angry, witty type. I assume in that case you also have a story concerning you and elephants, one that makes this mission
more personal, but all the more difficult because of that. You and pachyderms have a… history.”

The thin man set his jaw and stared out into the driving snow. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

The Monk nodded, satisfied, and let it drop.

“But if you insist…”

* * *

“Peanuts! Fifty cents! Feed the elephants!”

The thin boy clutched his mother’s hand. “Can we, mommy? I want to feed the elephants!”

The thin boy’s mother smiled indulgently. “Of course. It’s the circus, after all.” She produced two quarters and handed them to the thin boy. “Go get your peanuts.”

Timidly the thin boy approached the vendor and held out the two quarters silently. “Here ya go kid,” the busker said. He handed the thin boy a paper bag, red and white striped, filled with peanuts. “You can feed any of the elephants you want, except that one over there.”

The thin boy looked in the direction indicated. “The one with the glowing red eyes?”

“Yeah, that one. He’s, uh, allergic.”

“O.K.” The thin boy gazed into the eyes of the forbidden elephant.

Peanutsssssssss. The voice was like a whisper at the back of his brain that only he could hear. He snapped his gaze away from the fearsome creature and ran back to his parents. They walked over to the pen that held the rest of the elephants. The towering beasts reached over the fence and with a snuffling whuffling trunk would lift the peanuts right from the thin boy’s palm.

“Say, what about that one over there?”

“No, dad, were not supposed to feed that one. He’s allergic.”

“An elephant allergic to peanuts? That’s absurd.”

“Really, dad. That’s what the man said.”

“Huh. well, if that’s what the man said.” The thin boy’s dad was still looking over at the red-eyed elephant. “He looks hungry, though.”

“Now, honey, I’m sure they know what’s best for their animals,” the thin boy’s mother said.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right. Still, what harm could one lousy peanut do?”

“I don’t know, and neither do you. You’re supposed to be setting an example.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry, dear. That poor elephant will just have to wait for his regular meal.”

The peanut bag was nearly empty when the thin boy realized his father was not by his side. He turned to see his father walking, trance-like, toward the forbidden elephant, a single peanut in his outstretched hand. The thin boy looked into the red eyes of the elephant and saw there madness, rage, and mayhem.

He ran after his father as fast as he could, watching as the elephant reached out for the proffered treat. The thin boy was going to be too late. He dove, gravel flying behind him in slow motion. “Nooooo-” he called out as the elephant’s nimble nose picked up the peanut, just beyond the reach of the thin boy’s outstretched hands. “-oooooooo-” the boy continued as the elephant placed the peanut in its mouth.

* * *

“-oooooo!” concluded the thin man, while the big dog howled along. He took a moment to gather himself. “Fourteen people were killed that day. My parents were two of them. I’ve never been able to look at an elephant the same way since.”

The monk blinked himself awake. “Interesting,” he said. “You could hear the elephant’s voice in your head?”

“That’s what I thought then.”

“Hm. Have your eyes ever glown red?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Good. If they do, I’ll have to kill you.”

“What!? Why?”

“Because if I don’t, you’ll become a person… of Doom.”

There was a pause in the conversation as the thin man digested that. “That would suck,” he finally said.

They rode in silence for a while as the snow continued to deepen. “I’m impervious,” the monk observed.

“Lucky for us I’m not.”

The monk raised an eyebrow. “You’re pervious?”

“As pervious as they come.”

“I don’t remember your tenure.”

“Honestly, how many do you remember?”

The monk nodded. “You’re pervious, that’s all that really matters. Do you think the Elephants know?”

“They do have a reputation for remembering things.”

“We’ll have to assume the worst.”

“We’ll have to assume the worst,” Doom Leader said. “With a bumper sticker like that, the chances of one of them being pervious is just too great.”

“That’s all right,” one of the others said. “Most of those guys never do anything anyway.”

“Yes, but should one of them choose to exercise their power, it would change everything.”

The other elephant snorted through his trunk. “Pfff. That’ll never happen.”

The Youngest Elephant of Doom on the council asked, “What is this ‘pervious’ thing anyway?”

Doom Leader closed his eyes for a moment, remembering back to times long past. “There was a time, long ago, when men were real men and elephants were real elephants. There was among humans a special group, the elite of the elite, who would wander the Earth. They were crusaders for justice, defenders of the weak, pickers-up of the downtrodden, brushers-off of those who had sand kicked on them, mediators for the…”

“We get the picture,” one of the other Elephants of Doom said.

“Yes, well, these men were known as the pervious Men Of Honor. They were few, but their power was legendary. No Creature of Doom dared oppose them. Now, ‘pervious MOH’ is nothing more than a name, just old stories that no one really believes anymore.”

“Then why should we worry?”

“Because although the power lies dormant, it still exists. It would be just like the power of the pervious to awaken on the night we execute our Evil Plan of Doom. Pass the marshmallows, would you?”

While Doom Leader carefully skewered a marshmallow and held it over the fire, one of the workers from up on the hill came down to report. “The pit is ready, and the firewood has been stacked. The sacrifice has been prepared. We can begin whenever you are ready.”

Doom Leader ran his trunk over his long tusks, and his eyes glowed brighter. “Eeeexcellent. Prepare the trumpet, prepare the drum. It will not be long now.”

The worker Elephant of Doom stood nervously nearby. “Uh, sir?”

“What is it, lad?”

“They say, that is, some of the boys are saying, and I don’t know what to believe…”

“What is it they’re saying?”

“They’re saying that people are coming… with peanuts.” The last word was little more than a whisper, lost in the wind, but it carried with it a mixture of fear and secret longing.

“It’s true, boy, it’s true. But don’t worry; once the ceremony starts, the power of the peanut will be unable to reach you. We will be beyond temptation. Tell the others that the Council of Doom will protect them.” Doom Leader curled his trunk over his head defiantly. “It will take more then Beer, peanuts, and Kung Fu Smack-down to stop us this night!”

“Yes, sir!”

“And tell them also…”

“Sir?”

“Tell them the Council of Doom has run out of cocoa. Have someone make some more.”

The wind stopped, but the snow kept falling, in big, lazy flakes. An eerie silence descended over the forest, which the occupants of the truck could not hear over the roar of the International Harvester V-8 with the rusted-out exhaust system. Squinting, the monk pushed the large dog aside and peered out the passenger window into the unbroken blackness of the sky. “It’s going to be midnight soon.”

The thin man hit the brakes and the truck drifted sideways to come to rest perfectly positioned between two graceful stacks of rocks. He took off his sunglasses. “We’re here.” He killed the engine and opened his door, stepping out into the soft, powdery snow, the quiet ticks of the cooling engine the only sound, except for the dog panting, the door slamming, the monk hauling kegs out of the back of the truck, and the distant drumming.

The two men began to load the peanuts and beer onto the big dog.

“This stuff must weigh a ton,” the monk said.

“Shh. He doesn’t know that.”

“So then he can carry it?”

The thin man nodded.

“That’s a pretty stupid dog.”

The thin man shrugged and strapped another keg to the dog. “Ceremony’s started. Peanuts won’t be much good now.”

“No, not ’till the party after.”

“Good point. Load them on.”

“But they must–“

“Ix-nay on the eight-way.”

“Right right right. Throw me another bungee strap.”

The elephants swayed in a ponderous ring around the blazing fire pit, chanting ominous but unintelligible syllables. The flames jumped and danced with their utterances, gaining strength as the pachyderms accelerated their shambling dance. The thin man and the monk raised their heads up from the arroyo to the north, witnessing a landscape ravaged by dancing elephants.

“We’re too late,” the thin man said.

“We still must try. Beer, peanuts, and kung fu smack-down may not be enough, but if it’s all we have, we still have to try.”

The thin man nodded. “There’s always the chance that something unexpected will happen.”

“Well, then. It’s been good knowing you.”

“Yeah, something like that.” The thin man gestured to the dog, who stood drooling tirelessly. “Let’s party.”

The trio burst out of the gully. The thin man began pulling beers while the monk struck a kung fu pose with peanuts in either hand. His voice rang out in the still night air. “Stop! You foul creatures of Doom!”

One elephant paused to glance in their direction long enough to make a trumpet-like snorting sound through its trunk, then continued in its dance.

“Time to get up close and personal,” the thin man said.

Before they could move, a horrifying squak rose from fire, as the flames leapt the the height of the treetops. Slowly there rose from the flames a mighty creature, a bird with a pointed beak. The flames danced around it, but didn’t touch its feathers. “Squaaaaawww!” the creature called through the night.

“Ivory-billed woodpecker, if I’m not mistaken,” the monk said. “Though large for the species, and fireproof.”

“Ivory-billed woodpecker of Doom,” corrected the thin man.

“Sqwaaaauuuu!’ the titan bird called into the night, then fixed its glowing red gaze on the intruders. “Squau? Squee sqo squonk!”

“Not the traditional call of an Ivory-billed woodpecker,” observed the monk.

“You want to take it up with him? You gotta get though the killer elephants first.”

The two prepared for battle against the onrushing herd, preparing beer, peanuts, and kung fu smack-down.
“Squeeerrrawww?” The herd shambled to a stop, and turned to look at the giant bird standing in the flames. Next to the pyre was a stack of rocks, elegant, graceful, seeming to defy gravity. At the top of the stack was a peanut.

“It’s inside the doom perimeter!” Doom Leader croaked.

“Peanut,” the rest of the herd droned, their eyes brightening. “PEANUT!”

* * *

The thin man stretched out by the campfire, enjoying his beer. The elephant next to him shifted lazily and reached out for more peanuts. You can hear my words?”

“Yeah. Don’t tell the monk.”

Pfff. Friggin’ boy scout. Although he does make a fine Pale Ale.

The thin man raised his mug. “True enough, true enough. He is a man of God, after all. You guys done with all this Doom stuff?”

Ha! you may have thwarted us this time, puny human, but we will be back!

“Yeah, that’s what they all say.”

2

Thanks!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Posted on by
5

For the past couple of days my acting career has been on the upswing. This time I am a cowboy in another movie you will likely never see. In fact, I will probably never see it.

The movie is supposed to be a comedy, and part of the humor (if I may be so bold) comes from the fact that most of the cowboys and cowgirls speak little or no English and learned their lines phonetically. Comprehensible is all they’re trying for, and usually they achieve that. Every once in a while they even get enough behind the lines to be convincing. It seems that only one of the czech actors bothered to study the script ahead of time, so in between scenes the writer/assistant director has to drill them on their lines, explain the meanings, and try to help them get a little emotion behind the words. I imagine he is getting frustrated, especially when one actor said, “I know not to study, because they will just change everything anyway.”

The story might even be funny if the lines were delivered well, but pretty girls is what the movie is really about, and the quality of the dialog will only be a footnote. My performance will be even less than that.

That’s not to say the movie won’t be successful. The budget is practically zero, and the ranch where we’re filming is very pretty, nestled up in the hills in a rural part of the Czech republic. Horses frolic in the pastures, and as far as I can tell the sun is always shining here. The real reason the film will succeed, however, is that is has lots of very pretty women in it, and they spend a lot of the time not wearing very much (always somehow when I’m not in the scene — when I’m around it’s all about riding horses and poorly-delivered dialog).

Friday, my first day on the set, was all about hurry up and wait. It didn’t start well; I spent an hour and a half at the train station waiting to be picked up, thinking about the casting for a commercial I was missing. Things got better when I reached the set, as I was able to set up the computer and work on my own stuff while waiting. I spent the entire day here, and “worked” for about fifteen minutes. Work involved standing and waving; then I was asked to ad lib something as the riders passed. Woo hoo! I put on a bit of Texan, spoke my piece, then headed back to the ranch house. A few hours later I was told I wasn’t needed any more that day.

Yesterday, Monday, was a different story. This was the day they shot most of the scenes that were called the “comedy” scenes, and I was in many of them. I had a few more lines, and once more I was asked to ad-lib to stretch out my part. “We need more blah-blah-blah,” was how the director put it. I blah-blah-blah’d to the satisfaction of those present and earned my pay. Little John (who had hooked me up for this job) was here also, and as always it was fun to hang out with him when we had breaks. It was a fun day.

Today is more like the first day. Once more I am needed to open a gate and make a comment to riders as they pass through. then I’m done. Transit time from Prague to the set and back is likely to be longer than the time I spend here (although they are running behind today). One other important event today is that I get paid.

Then I return home, cowboy no longer, and wait for the next little character role to happen my way.

…except even the best-laid plans sometimes don’t pan out. One of the other scenes went long, and I happened to be on hand while the director and writer tried to juggle things. Thus it came to pass that I told them I could come back tomorrow if it would help. It would, so I will. So, a pleasant-but-slow train ride to Beroun, lunch, and pay for a half-day, and in return I did… nothing. It’s a fair exchange, I think.

Thanks!

Looks like I’ve got me a date!

Posted on by
4

I’m not used to getting hit on. Sometimes, after a conversation that in retrospect seemed flirtatious, I’ve spoken with friends and asked, “So was she…?” only to be smacked upside the head. “Yes, you moron, she was interested in you.” These conversations occur, of course, long after the fact.

So tonight I was in the Little Café Near Home, and I had an interesting conversation with another patron whom I had met once before. We talked about all kinds of stuff. It was when he paid for my drinks and waited for me to saddle up and leave that the alarm bells went off. I reviewed our previous conversation. Plenty of things that could be misinterpreted. For instance, while we were talking I got a message about a possible gathering on Thursday. I mentioned it, and he asked if he could come along. “Sure, sure, the more the merrier,” I said.

“We’ll have to think of a story for me, to explain why I’m there,” he said. Now, sitting here, it’s obvious, although maybe tomorrow it won’t be again. I did not stop to think why he would want a cover story. A friend joining me at a gathering seemed perfectly natural. I didn’t think past that, I thought it would be fun to invent a completely fictitious background for him. It was a creative writing exercise. I ran with it. My story involved prison.

There were other questions he asked, mildly personal ones, that had I caught on I could have answered with equally innocuous but meaningful answers.

So now I’m contemplating what to tell him and how. It’s my own fault; if I had a clue I would have read the signs long before and not allowed this situation to develop. On the plus side there is the fact that I carry around me an aura of remoteness carefully crafted keep people from getting too close. It should work on anyone, I figure, as long as I remember to use it. But I am classically clueless, unable to recognize even the most obvious of come-ons. Mostly I think it’s because I can’t imagine why anyone would hit on me in the first place.

Note to all and everyone. Hints don’t work on me. I can sit in the corner and watch the subtle nuances of a conversation and tell you things the participants themselves don’t know, but make me part of the interaction and whatever observational or analytical skills I have vanish in a haze of self-delusion.

* * *

Time has passed, and now I find myself in the Budvar Bar, the closest drinkery to my house. Hockey is on, Czech Republic hosting Finland, and it’s Thursday, so the waitress has no shirt on. Old men are playing cards for money, and one of them has no nose. Generally I avoid this place on Thursdays, but, well, I know that no one will talk to me here, and right now I don’t want to talk to anyone. I have a lot of work to do. I am conspicuously the one of these things that is not like the others.

I have mentioned in the past that it is a peculiar Czech talent to turn a woman serving beer with no shirt on into an oddly unsexy event. Tonight, however, if you will allow my Y-chromosome to speak for a moment, we have the exception that proves the rule. The difference: her smile. Rare enough among waitresses throughout the land, waitresses without shirts wrap themselves instead in a wall of studied disinterest, boredom, and downright disdain. I can’t blame them. Tonight, however, the waitress has a pretty smile, and that makes all the difference. (“You’re the best”, I just heard from the table next to mine. “Thank you,” she said, blushing a little, proving it. She is much more comfortable with the arrangement than I am.)

It still bothers me when she stands in front of the hockey game, though. I haven’t seen hockey for quite some time. (Now that I think of it, I haven’t seen breasts either, but somehow boobs seem subordinate to hockey in August.) And now a little more time has passed, The Czechs beat the Fins in a shootout, the crowd (and the smoke) is thinning, the Partial People (one with no nose, one with no larynx) are playing cards, and the only topless woman who has ever tweaked my imagination has gone home early. Obviously, I did not have the same affect on her. But…

It was a good night.

Thanks!

To sleep, perchance to dream

Posted on by
1

I got the text message on my phone this morning. It was from Soup Boy. “You remember Gretel?”

“Of course,” I typed back. I had met Gretel a few times here and there. We had been extras together once, but the first time I saw her she was asleep on my sofa. I imagined, now that Soup Boy has broken up with his girlfriend, that forthcoming would be an interesting story about the two of them.

It wasn’t long before the next message came in, short and to the point, the way phone text messages are. “She’s dead. She committed suicide yesterday.”

“Wholly crap,” I responded, and that’s it. A few hours later, it’s still about all I can come up with. That and questions. There’s a threshold, the line between life and death, and you can only cross it once. What was it about yesterday that made it her last? She was far from home; what was she hoping to find when she came to Prague? And, of course, the big one, the one only she could ever answer, and probably even then I wouldn’t understand: Why?

Now she’s gone. I have odd regrets. I wish I’d known when her heart beat for the last time, so I could put down whatever meaningless task I was performing and mark her passage. I wish I could have known before that and somehow brought her the happiness she ultimately despaired of ever finding. I wish I’d taken the time and had the courage to get to know her better. I wish she wasn’t dead.

We all have our private and public faces — some of us even have different personalities for different occasions. Gretel, the few times I talked to her, seemed chipper and upbeat, clever and conversational. Of course, that is what she wanted me to see of her. I’ve had some experience with people who are skilled at hiding their troubled thoughts. I was married to one. How many others do I know, among my happy and well-adjusted friends, who, when they are alone, face demons no one else knows about? How many sit in the darkness and wonder if it might be better not to be?

Do I even want to know the answer to that?

Thanks!