Smaller All The While

"Your father can't walk anymore."
"What?"
"He can only walk about 50 feet, his back is bad. He has trouble getting food from the store. He's living alone in Florida, maybe you should go down there and help him since you can't get a job."

It was a short flight from Greenville, SC to Orlando, FL. An hour on the flight, I read the in-flight magazine. It said that between the age of 30 and 40 the average man loses an inch in height due to the shrinking and dehydrating of the discs between the vertebrae. I was 33 and getting smaller. Damn. One more year and I would outlive Jesus though, that made me feel better.

My dad was in a one bedroom apartment. I went into his bedroom, there was no bed, no furniture at all in there, just a sheet and blanket and a pillow on the floor and a pile of dirty clothes in the corner. I moved to the kitchen. There was a pile of rusting forks and spoons in the kitchen sink. How could these things rust? I checked the cupboards, many empty tubs, plastic tubs.

"What are these?"
"Oh, those are ice cream"

On the counter there were empty orange juice cartons, about 10 of them. The refrigerator was empty except for a stick of butter and about a dozen chicken carcasses, only the bones left. In the living room there were two plastic chairs, a desk with computer, and a television. The bathroom doorknob was broken and there were shirts hung up on the shower pole drying.

"What are those shirts doing in there, where do you wash them?"
"In the sink"
"Why don't you go to the laundry room?"
"I can't walk"

I had some work cut out for me so I got a 12 pack of beer and watched the superbowl. Dallas v. Pittsburgh. In the morning I scrubbed the rust off the silverware, then went to the salvation army and bought a couch to have delivered. I slept on that, and my dad kept sleeping on the floor and washing his shirts in the sink. He went to work every day and when he came home we would talk about politics. He complained against "the left" and we didn't agree on much. I found a big pile of magazines on the floor, Handgunner, Shooter's Bible, etc.

"Do you have a gun? What's with all these magazines?"
"No, but I'm going to get one. I'm researching the market"
"Why?"
"Home invasions"
"You're not going to get a gun, c'mon, who's going to invade this place anyway? It's hardly a home"
"I'm going to get a gun"

His back really was bad, I had to drive him to the entrance of the aerospace company where he worked and pick him up at the end of the day. He couldn't walk from the parking lot.

"So when are you going to get an appointment with the doctor, you need to get your back fixed, this is ridiculous"
"I have to get the insurance straightened out, those assholes at work don't know what they're doing"
That went on for a month or so but I finally nagged him into getting the appointment. Surgery.

I got him a walker so he could get around the house better. Then things worsened so I had to get him a wheelchair. He liked it. "You know, this thing is pretty comfortable." I threw the gun magazines out and played basketball in the afternoons. Florida was not as warm as I had thought.

We met with the surgeon. He had very blue eyes so I didn't really trust him. You can never really tell what a person with blue eyes is feeling or thinking. It's a cold color and I can't read it. So I figured if he screwed the surgery up I would kill him. It made me feel better. I probably would have done it, back then. I wasn't happy anyway.

The surgery went OK though and my father had about six stitches in the small of his back. We got rid of the wheelchair and the walker and he began to walk around again.

It was time to go. Florida was not for me. Some people get lonely if they are alone too much, but not me. I crave solitude and need it. People talk too much. But I'll have to keep an eye on that so that I don't wind up sleeping on a floor surrounded only by gun magazines and rusted forks fearing the home invasion and getting smaller all the while, shrinking and shrinking, waiting to disappear completely.

Steve's Boots

Steve Enero was this guy I knew when I was working at the lumberyard on Sepulveda, just south of Victory Anyway, he ordered some boots, they didn't fit him because they were too large but they fit me just fine, so he gave them to me. We made a makeshift benchpress device from lumber on our downtime, and we would lift. I guess I was 19, he was 21. He shot a guy in the mouth, initiation, you know, when he was younger, turned the poor fool into a vegetable, so he was sent to the San Joaquin Valley and rode a tractor for a while.



His

girlfriend was really cute. I couldn't get laid; didn't know how yet. We had fun working there, but he had a thing for the love boat, PCP, and one day it did him in. He didn't work there anymore. I kept working there. We had had plans to make a really cool coffee table out of clear redwood, and I made it. I sanded it and everything, it was nice. He lived in Arleta and one day his Dad came around and said he had been shot, he took the coffee table. His friends shot him, many times, in the truck I used to ride around with him, in that truck. He cursed at me sometimes because I slammed the door. "Gabacho, don't slam the fuckin' door!" I wore those boots for a long time, to Ireland, to the East Coast, everywhere. He was gone, then. In 1982. He had a short life.

L.A. to Calexico (leg one SOTB)

I spent a year in California once trying to figure out what to do. I thought I was going to work there. It was mostly a wasted year, except for the trip I took to Mexico. It was sometime in the late Spring, I think it was May. I was living with my friend Roger in the North Hollywood Apartments. They were publicly subsidized apartments, everyone there was hispanic, the billboards were in Spanish and in all the neighborhood stores that was the language that I heard. Roger is of Lebanese extraction and very dark complected so he fit in fine, I stood out a bit but figured out the rules. Leave nothing in your car. Get up early in the morning, get back in the apartment early in the evening. It was OK to go out in the front or back in the alley close to the door. I seldom went further than that at night on foot. When I would get up in the mornings I would always see broken glass in the streets, the windows of cars had been broken. Those people didn't know the rules. They had left something in the car, and it was gone in the morning.

My friend Hooper had come into some money; his mother had passed away and left him about $10,000. He didn't work and lived in a trailer, going through the money: He spent it on coke mostly. That stuff really is addictive. I wasn't working myself, just looking for work so he said "Hey, let's go down to Mexico. I'll pay." We tried to get Roger to go too. Roger hadn't worked in many years, he got money from the government somehow and just steamed along. He would go jogging every day and read books about metaphysics, play chess on the computer, and watch a little TV. He was from the '60s and still talked about The Establishment. Anyway, Roger wouldn't go. "Someone might break in," he said. I wondered if he really meant his home might be broken into our his routine, his life, his mind. I let it go though, didn't ask him about that.

Of course this was one of Hooper's attempts to break away from his addiction. I figured I might as well go along, I would pick a place off the beaten road where there wouldn't be the city temptations. I spoke passable Spanish so I broke out my Northern Mexico handbook and picked a destination. Cosala. It was in the mountains in Sinaloa, was a former mining town and dated to colonial times. Muy tranquilo, the book said. We would park at the border in Calexico, cross into Mexico and take the buses, as I had done before. The buses in Mexico are a good means of transport. The intercity ones that traveled long distances had TV monitors and bathrooms. There are enough poor in the country who don't have cars and can afford no other means of travel, so that is how they go. So that is how we would go.

It is a long way down to Cosala from the border, about 1,000 miles, very close to the Tropic of Cancer in the Western slopes of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains. It would have been about the same distance to go to the tip of Baja California, but the only thing there is a resort called Cabo San Lucas, and almost nothing in between. Who would want to go there? I saw pictures, it looked appalling, unless you wanted to sleep at a resort which wasn't very different from one in Florida. I wanted to go where there were no gringos and stay in the $7 hotels, talk to the gente in their language, sit in the nice plazas that those towns all seemed to have and talk to the pretty small town girls. So we would go to Hermosillo on our first leg, a long day of travel. Then, rest up and continue on to Culiacan, on the coast, where we could catch a smaller bus to take us up the mountain roads to Cosala. That was the plan.

When we got to the frontera, my friend wanted to spend the night across the border, in Mexico. He didn't understand that the frontera was part of neither country, it wasn't really American or Mexican. All along the border this is so, and although there doesn't appear to be too much difference, it is better to spend the night on the American side, cross over in the morning and get away from the frontera, to avoid incident. I had figured this out in Laredo before, on a previous trip. I was with a different friend on that trip so Hooper didn't understand. It wasn't yet dark so I thought I would take him over there to have a look, over the border to Mexicali, I figured at least I might get a sense of where the bus station was.

Calexico was a town or poor people, but Mexicali was poorer and dirtier. There was a smell of fetid water from somewhere unseen and the sidewalks were a very very dark gray from the many decades of dirt that had been ground into them. No one washed things down in a town like that, and there were many small clumps of garbage in the gutters that had been there for several days. We walked around a bit and I spoke to a few people in Spanish, Con permiso, donde desta el estacion del autobus? From their answers, it was clear that it was not close to the border, not within walking distance, and a few people were directing me to the local city buses or were confused and just shrugged.

I had seen enough; it was clear we would have to take a taxi in the morning to reach the bus station. It was growing dark and the people walking on the streets were thinning out. As we walked I could smell the alcohol on their breaths and the tawdry shops were closing down, the bars would now start to fill. Some of the men smiled at us, I had seen that smile before and it is not a friendly one. I suppose you could be fooled by it, maybe that is why they flashed their teeth.

We had had a huge argument about staying in this town for the night, the entire drive from L.A. to Calexio it raged. "Let's just stay in Mexico!" he kept yelling. I prevailed, but it was exhausting. I asked Hooper if he wanted to go back now to the American side. "Yeah, let's get out of here," he said as he looked around in the twilight town. He was no sissy, he had spent some time in L.A. County Jail and that is no fun. But he was laughing a little nervously now and we crossed back over the border into Calexico, back to our hotel and made it an early night. I didn't have to argue with him about things as much after that.

"Don't worry Hoop," I said, "You can see real Mexico tomorrow. This whole border is just a necessary evil. And by the way, I aims to bring me back a wife!" I told him some stories about my other visit, and then he went down to the bar. I stayed in the room, reading about where we were headed, then went to sleep, wondering how it was going to turn out.

The Road to Camarillo

See the boy.

He is younger than the other two boys, they are all brothers. The boy is the youngest, smallest, the tall one is next, the strong one is oldest. They are all boys and they are all brothers. The tall brother has a problem. It is a problem the boy recalls from an afternoon with sun from a sycamore squinting at his tall brother go mad. The sun never looked the same after that and the boy lost something early.

There were trips the boy would make out to the hospital in the station wagon along the roads to Camarillo. He had A&W root beer afterward.

All of the brothers grew and the mad one would come to visit. The boy liked to use the bathroom as his refuge. If his parents were screaming, it would be a little more quiet in there. No one cared if he was taking a dump. Most of the time it was OK, but when his parents were trashing each other he took to the bathroom and ran the water.

Strong brother leaves to go next door, leaving mad boy and the boy. The boy is in the bathroom. Mad tall brother drags heavy feet to the bathroom door, knocks on the door...He wants to listen to music, he wants to listen to Jesus Christ Superstar. The boy opens the door and tall brother pounces on him like a mongoose with acne. "Gotcha!" he says. The boy will be his prisoner now...well OK.

There is an antique vehicle in the car port in the California sun, the boy is marched out, grabbed around the neck. It chafes a bit but there is nothing for an 8 year old to do. They study the car. There is talk of the engine from the tall brother which becomes a meditation on the Germans and Jesus Christ. The Torah, the Mail, the Lee Enfield rifle, World War II. They were all in it together. So the boy must be guilty. He is grabbed and marched through the car port to the gate that hangs off a hinge and into the back yard.

The boy sees the tangerine tree and the orange tree.

The tangerine tree brought forth the sweetest fruit, with very few seeds. The orange tree grew sour yellow oranges that were only good for juice, and even then they required large amounts of sugar added. Nothing good comes from sugar, it's too sweet for this sunshine.

The boy sees the oranges and recalls there being so many, and in such surplus, that he could use them for target practice against the cinderblock wall in the back of the yard. Now he sees the trees tossing in the wind...no it is not wind. The mad boy has picked him up and is carrying him, the crazy back and forth wind. He stomps forward with the load of the boy across his arms in front of him. He is a strong boy, and the boy himself is very young.

Splash they jump together into the shallow end.

The boy sees the tangerine tree and orange tree.

He wants to see them again, as they go down in his vision at an angle, splash, taste of chlorine, strong, runs up and through the boy's mouth and nostrils as his head goes under the force of mad brother's thrust once, twice, thrice. The boy breathes in hard through his nose and then he is marched further, but underwater, to the deep end. There is a thrashing of the water and it becomes white, then blue, then dark. The boy feels death. He can no longer see when his head comes above to the California sun, not before the next plunge.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Strong brother is standing at the edge,his arms folded. All of the brothers have a way of folding their arms. It speaks loud, and in that case, it saved the boy's life. There is something to be said for that.


See the man. His back hurts. So does his strong brother of the folded arms. The man admires his strong brother. They are all men now, even mad brother; his belly is distended and he appears in a hunched way, very harmless. The man feels the hinge of a squeaky iron thing that has run back and forth too may times; rust. They are reunited. The man can't disremember those eyes for he looked in them on the way down. Mad brother speaks of the FedEx and various non sequiturs. It is time for the man to let it go. It helps to have strong brother there. It helps a lot.

There is a moment when the man goes to get his meat from the table, and mad brother is standing behind him, when the man's neck feels, his neck feels, his whole back feels, vulnerable. It caused the man to have very good peripheral vision. There are carving knives nearby.

See the man.

Primal Prayer Redux

In the time when God created all things, he created the sun.
And the sun is born and dies and comes again.
He created the moon,
And the moon is born and dies and comes again.
He created the stars,
And the stars are born and die and come again.
He created man.
And man is born and dies and comes not again.

Primal African Prayer
Dinka, Sudan

God Bless New Jersey

Sometimes the only thing I remember about a job is the people that I worked with. I had a job years ago, I can scarcely remember the name of the place. I'm not even sure what we did. It involved going through mountains of paper and gleaning key information from documents, then entering it into a database. Whatever that is called, that was my job. It paid the rent but that was it, no health insurance, no vacation days, etc. Just a job.

More than that though I remember working with Kiefer and Freddy. Actually their names were Keith and Fred, but that morphed a bit. Fred hated being called Freddy so that was no problem for me to figure out. Freddy it was! Maybe Freddy got mad and turned it all on poor Keith, because between the two of us we turned him into Kiefer. Then Kiefer-Rico. Then Kiefer-Rico Suave. Then Kiefer-Rico Suave Gonchar Jones. And that was his name thereafter, although we generally shortened it to Kiefer.

Kiefer was a redneck who had somehow been to college, he drove a truck and this was just at the dawn of the SUV years, so that was a big deal. He had a CB radio. And, best of all, he lived in an honest to goodness trailer park. Now Freddy was a black guy from NW DC, couldn't swim, city all the way...he'd never seen a trailer park so he was very curious. I was interested myself. We beat the drum for half the summer.

"C'mon Kiefer, when are we gonna hang out at the trailer?" "Never!" He was very insistent about it.

Kiefer was about my height but he only weighed 100 pounds. He had gone to UNC-Greensboro or somewhere like that. Freddy wound up at UDC, he was normal sized, had the ear ring thing going on and all of that. We all had nothing in common, really. But we had the job in common, and that was enough. We all gave each other grief, just to keep the monotony at bay. I used to go camping alone a lot back in those days, sometimes in West Virginia. I didn't think about it too much at the time, but I realize now I was just trying to get away from my wife as much as anything. She worked there too, but she woudln't sit at the same table with us. "JP, you and those boys! You are like children!" She was right of course. She sat with a bunch of respectable quiet ladies at a separate long table across the room and they would frown at us occasionally. We were all in a big hangar type of building.

I was pretty good about deflecting my share of grief, just by beating them to the punch. "Well I'm back from West Virginia guys. I got sodomized by hillbillies again, so don't bug me, I'm in a foul mood." No wonder the proper people didn't sit at our table.

The drumbeat continued for the trailer visit. "C'mon Kiefer! We'll bring some beer. Whaddaya say?" "No!" Kiefer's voice was very shrill. It was only a matter of time...the documents kept coming, there were millions of pages to go through, so what else was there to do? Freddy and I talked about sports, women, and money, and tortured Kiefer.

"Kiefer-Rico, how did you get that trailer?" "I put it on my credit card! No payments!" This was getting better and better. "Can we drive it around? What color is it? Was it born in West Virginia? Where is the gas pedal?" Finally he caved in and let us come see it, I think just so we'd shut up. He wasn't thinking clearly, but that was OK. We were going to the trailer, and it was only going to cost us a 12 pack of Budweiser and two pizzas, quite a bargain.

We caravaned over there after work, and it was a true trailer park, it even had a name, Mountain View Family Park, or Rustling Pines of America or something. There were no mountains or pine trees around, just lots of trailers, all cheek by jowl and crammed in at whatever angle they seemed to fit. I have actually seen other trailer parks, where the trailers are parallel to each other and there is some order. Not at Rustling Pines. They were all at the oddest angles, and Kiefer's was no exception, we had a hell of a time parking. The colors were appalling, some of the trailers were purple, some were bright red, some were just dirty and caving in. Poor guy, no wonder he didn't want us coming over. On the other hand, I was renting a one bedroom in Arlington for more than half my month's pay, so after seeing the inside and having a few beers I stopped feeling sorry for Kiefer. I figured I would enjoy the trailer park, it was one of the long days of summer, plenty of light left.

We went outside and sat on his little stoop and drank the beers. Freddy started to get drunk. "LOOK HOW FAT THESE PEOPLE ARE!" He was talking too loud. It was true though, they were all huge...except Kiefer of course. Maybe there was some trailer park weight equilibrium ratio at work which would explain it. But nothing would explain the color some of these people had painted those things. I was probably talking too loud about that myself. "WHAT COLOR IS THAT THING KIEFER? THAT IS HEINOUS!"

It got a bit later and I realized Freddy couldn't hold his budweisers very well. "LOOK AT THOSE BIG ONES!" and the family, all 800 pounds of them, were walking right by. People were starting to turn and look at us. I was getting a little nervous. Finally Freddy said "HEY KIEFER WHICH ONE OF THESE IS THE LYNCHIN TREE?!" That was it for the outdoor conversation. We hustled Freddy indoors and sat around waiting for the pizza. It was summertime, there were no good sports on and we didn't have much money so we talked about women, there in the trailer park. We tried to get Kiefer to put on some country music but he wouldn't budge on that one. Probably just as well, now that I think of it.

Kiefer-Rico Suave Gonchar Jones announced that he was taking a second job to help make the credit card payments on the trailer. Security guard in one of the local malls, now this was special. It was hard to picture him intimidating anyone or dissuading anyone from doing anything, really. Maybe he would be good with scaring the kids. One day he showed up to work with his security guard uniform on; he had graudated and was going to the ceremony directly after work, that was the story anyway. I spent half the day in tears, it was hard to concentrate with officer Rico across the table. He had tied a blue ribbon on the antenna of his truck, to signify solidarity with the fallen men and women of law enforcement, to go along with the CB. He was fully blown hick now, and to see him in that uniform, all that could be said was, "Kiefer, they are going to bury you in that some day".

We decided to head up to Atlantic City on Labor Day, do a little gambling. Freddy played with the CB radio on the way up, he was pretty good. He was putting on a show, telling jokes, and he sounded pretty white too. It was hard to tell from the static and pings and all of that but I think the CB community didn't appreciate The Freddy Show so instead we talked about craps and made our way north, although we ran into a lot of traffic when we hit Jersey since everyone was going to the shore.

Freddy and I headed right to the blackjack tables when we got there, Kiefer went to play the slots with the senior citizens. I had brought about $200 with me, and the cheapest table was the $15 one, which is where we were parked. I didn't last too long, maybe 45 minutes. I normally do better than that, and I always sit out a couple of hands here and there, just to keep the cards fresh. It did me no good, I lost two for every one I hit, so wound up broke. Things were going better for Freddy.

He was drinking the "free" drinks and throwing chips around. He even threw me a couple, he didn't care. He was going to be rich. "God bless America," he said. "God bless New Jersey!" I tried to tell him, cash out, let's go spend some of that. He didn't listen.

Twenty minutes later the chips were gone and we were sitting in one of the lounges. Freddy had one hand wrapped around a long island iced tea and the other wrapped around the back of his neck, like he was trying to pull his head forward or it would flop backward into the naugahyde. He was inconsolable. Frank Sinatra was playing, and the waitresses were walking around half naked in the dark. God bless New Jersey. Kiefer-Rico Suave Gonchar Jones came up, grinning like he had eaten the governor. "Look at all these dimes!" He did have a lot of them, in a big plastic tub. How did that happen? It was dark now, so we headed out to the "gentleman's bar". It was the only thing left to do, we couldn't afford the tables anymore and it wasn't even 9:00.

Things began to grow increasingly hazy. Somehow we had to keep running back to the cash machine: Kiefer-Rico Suave had developed a strong appetite for lap dances. I wound up talking to some girl who had a diamond in her mouth. Freddy joined in. "Ooh, have you all been drinking?" she said. I steadfastly denied it. Freddy said "C'mon JP, she has greens stuck on that diamond." I'm not sure about that but I saw his point.

Things got even hazier. It became late and I was carrying Freddy down the sidewalk for some reason. We were all broke. Time to head south...then I woke up, we were in the truck, bouncing over pot holes. I looked around, I knew where we were right away, just not which city. Freddy was knocked out cold. "Kiefer, where are we, still in Atlantic City?" "Yeah..I can't find the expressway" "Man, we're in the ghetto, get us out of here!" "I'm trying, hold on" I slumped over in the back, went back to sleep. Maybe the hoodlums would think he really was a fallen member of law enforcement, come for revenge...

I woke up near Maryland House, on I-95. It was early morning, the sun was up and very bright. I'd be home in an hour. I have a much better job now, but I don't meet people like that at work anymore; we had a lot of fun, between the trailer and the trip to AC. What we should have done was drive the trailer up to AC, park it there on the beach for the whole weekend, I thought, as I drank black hot coffee from the Maryland House. But you never think of those things at the time, it is always in hindsight.

Wilma Menaces Mexico

She takes aim at the Yucatan; the House OKs shields for gunmakers; Don't worry, be happy; DeLay released on 10K bond, he is smiling for his mug shot; Diabetes pill *might* be harmful; New Hampshire Senator wins $853,000 in the lottery; GIs burned 2 dead in Afghanistan; Rocket hits school in Iraq; Ford plans plant layoffs; The ethics of truth; Joe Montana has high blood pressure; Madonna and David Letterman ride horses; Hariri was killed by Syria; Panel hears concerns; We are all crazy here; Let's put on a show; No one behaves; Computer problems? no problem; Global impact; Go team.

This is the crap I read every day on the way to my job. I am sorry and I don't even know why. Thoreau said the man who runs to the news every day has not heard from himself in a while.

I really should quit.

November Grudge

The trees are bending over
The cows are lying down
The autumn's taking over
You can hear the buckshot hounds
Someone's crying in the woods
Someone's burying all his clothes
Now Slam the Crank from Wheezer
Slept outside last night and froze
--T. Waits/K. Brennan

This month makes ice on the sidewalk for a man to slip on, it makes the sun bloody and the moon cold, collars up, people turn away from each other. Before it was here it made her, and she was over the sea and we were together in a park and at a museum, next to a canal in Holland, on a bus or on a train together, always together. After that, I was back here and she was out there, so what to do about that? I used a typewriter then a lot and typed and typed, sending lots of letters, opening hers, but still I was here and she was there. The typing wasn't enough: I had to get out there, I had to get away from here, I thought so anyway.

So I did, and it wasn't at all the same. I did everything wrong, I said something else wrong, I was in the wrong mountains in the wrong month with the wrong attitude and the wrong woman. So that was that, I was out in the streets of Flagstaff with a return ticket, Phoenix to Washington D.C. But that plane did not leave for three days, so I got a room at a hotel, The Spur, and found a bar. Then another, and another, there were quite a few bars for such a small town next to an interstate. Pabst Blue Ribbon, $1. There were pool tables and some sympathetic people, and Indians begging for money but I had nothing but stories that they didn't want to hear so I gave them nothing and didn't feel bad about it. I was still young enough then to feel sorry only for myself.

Eventually even that gets old so I wound up bored at the end of a bar just staring at the mirror, and I heard a sound. Two guys had fallen off their stools and were rolling around so I went over there to see the show and it turned out they were just brothers, twins actually, beating each other up, but in a nice way. They got thrown out so I followed them and hung out with them the rest of the night. I don't recall their names; they were slavic though and they had just finished six months fishing in Alaska and had driven down there, on their way to somewhere else. One brother was very obnoxious and would keep insulting people everywhere we went until we all got thrown out of each bar and came full circle back to the original bar. By then a whole new set of people were there so they let us back in. Obnoxious brother passed out so we carried him out to their van, got some bourbon and cigars, and talked for a while. Obnoxious brother came to and he was more agreeable somehow, odd fellow.

They were OK guys actually, they bought me some food at a coffee shop and after I threw that up I said goodbye and made my way back to The Spur hotel over the ice on all the sidewalks in November. I fell many times, the traffic just went on by, it was not very uncommon it seemed for a man to flop his way down a street at night on the ice in Flagstaff, so long as he stayed out of the road.

In the morning I realized I had just enough money for the bus fare back to Phoenix and a little to spare. There was an old drugstore there with the stools where you could sit and have coffee, so I went in there and drank the coffee and watched TV. Everyone knew each other. A dwarf in a cowboy hat came in with his girlfriend, she was regular sized. They sat down next to me and began to argue, but not in a terribly loud way or even very vociferously, it seemed more like a pattern of relating that soothed them, along with the coffee and the general company. She kept saying he had bitten her and he kept denying it and she kept offering to show him the marks of her injuries, and he kept denying it, shaking his dwarf head that was inside a cowboy hat. Round and round it went, on and on, a calliope from hell just for me it seemed. I was beginning to feel like I might be going insane so I got up out of there and left them, still talking about the biting.

I settled in at the bus station and spent the next couple of nights there, sleeping on the molded plastic seats with one hand on my luggage. I didn't get much rest, it was uncomfortable. There was a water fountain and people would leave newspapers and magazines so I had something to read. The Arizona Republic. People. I read it all, then would read it over again, just to keep the mind from going out the window, I knew if I didn't keep it on something other than circumstances it would just go out and never return to me.

Finally the bus arrived, I got on and we pulled out, down the side of the mountains to Phoenix. The bus terminal was nowhere near the airport, I hadn't planned on this part. She was supposed to drive me, her, that person. I caught a taxi and didn't ask how much, when we got there I paid him all the paper money I had, $8. The fare was $12, but he took what I had. I had missed my flight so they booked me on the next one and I had a quarter, a dime, and some pennies on me but I was on my way back. There was plenty to read in the airport and then I was in Atlanta connecting to Virginia and I felt better to be in the eastern time zone. No one was wearing cowboy hats anymore and there were people still wearing shorts and I felt OK although I was very hungry. No dwarves, no biting. Talk about football and stock prices, I listened to people talk about things like that and it was better than food. In a few hours I was back in Virginia and everything was fine. But I haven't been back to that part of Arizona since then, almost twenty years ago. Every time November rolls around on the calendar I feel a little off, I think it was from that time. I always get my bearings, but it definitely throws me off just a bit. I was born in this month; this month made me but it made some other things in me that I don't really like very much, so I do hold a grudge.

Where Y'at?

I understand there are some people who missed out on their chance to see New Orleans, and that is a shame, now that it seems much of it is gone. I can't say I spent a
great deal of time there, but I was there for a bit in March of 1992, just after Mardi Gras. I was driving back and forth cross-country (with
a diversion into Mexico), and I definitely wanted to see this place I had heard so much about. I was driving my $400 car and camping in a tent
every night. Let me think... Alexandria, Charlottesville, Comer's Rock, Lake Hartwell, Talladega Nat'l Forest, Hattiesburg, then Waveland, Mississippi, which is
just a half an hour east of New Orleans. So I had been just a week on the road. Still, I thought it would be nice to be in a city after
spending so much time in the woods and thickets along my path, and this was my first time in the deep south.

I found out New Orleans wasn't really the deep south, as far as I could tell, it wasn't really like it belonged to any country. It was a city-state given over to its own creed and colors. I rolled down I-10 east after pitching my tent in Waveland, MS, and pulled up at a pay lot. There was a guy there, sweating in his booth, one leg crooked, chewing on a toothpick. "Where Y'at Chief"? I had seen some movies and read a bit so I knew this meant, really, "How are Y'all"? but I figured I would play along and said "Well I reckon I'm in New Orleans". I suppose he thought I was a rube, seeing my Virginia tags and all the camping gear. It was early afternoon; I walked around a bit and returned to Waveland, got some cube steak, cooked it up and slept pretty well.

Ever since I had hit Hattiesburg, I had noticed a lot of standing water around. It was pretty difficult to find dry high ground to pitch a tent. There was just so much water everywhere, it was either standing here and there or falling out of the sky, or dripping off of leaves, or there was dew, plus it was just in the air: humidity. Now it was not a rain forest, I have since then been to a few of those. However, it was clear there was no dry season here. The place never truly dried out. Lots of mosquitoes.

So to that rule, there was this exception: The French Quarter. It was high and dry as far as I could tell. There were no mosquitoes. I would wake up early and come into the Quarter in the late mornings, go into the 24 hour bars that had no doors since they never closed and drink lots of coffee and scribble in my journal. I wish I still had that journal.

I saw the tourist gift shops and they seemed to sell a lot of crap about being drunk. "I got drunk in Nawlins". Truly tacky stuff. I stuck to my schedule for a couple of days, coffee in the French quarter and walking around until early afternoon, when the college boys started rolling around, and the men in black who would part them from their money and their lives possibly later on, that was when I would get on I-10 East back to Waveland, back to my tent and the dampness, to cook up some more cube steaks and have some beers and try to pull in the local radio stations.

One day I was walking around the quarter and I saw a flatbed truck pull up at an intersection and stop. Two guys piled out and one pulled a keyboard off the back, the other hung up some speakers from the rear views. It happened very quickly and before I knew it they had launched into "Honeybee", by Muddy Waters:

"Sail on, sail on my little honey bee, sail on
Sail on, sail on my little honey bee, sail on
You gonna keep on sailing till you lose your happy home

Sail on, sail on my little honey bee, sail on
Sail on, sail on my little honey bee, sail on
I don't mind you sailing, but please don't sail so long

All right little honey bee...

I hear a lotta buzzing, sound like my little honey bee
I hear a lotta buzzing, sound like my little honey bee
She been all around the world making honey
But now she is coming back home to me"

The man on the mouth harp was great and the singer belted it right out, it was great. Delta blues in the delta, these guys had no contract, they just drove around. One guy ambled around with a big blue top hat upside down and the crowd that had gathered tossed money into it; I did so too, in a distracted way because I wanted to hear the whole song. Then, like that, they were gone. Speakers off the rear views, keyboard back up into the flatbed and off they went, waving and smiling.

I'm not sure that was legal, but it sure was fun. So I figured ah what the heck let me get a beer. I ordered up a Dixie, then another and a few more. They tend to add up. I went back out into the streets and had a mercantile disagreement with a lean tall light skinned fellow who claimed to be a member of the merchant marine. He said he had to ship out in just a couple of hours and pointed at a big ship sitting in the river.

I figured to settle this mercantile disagreement it would be best if we tasted the wares on my turf, in my car, which I had parked on the street, I think on Bourbon street, only a few blocks from everything, but a little out of the way. No pedestrians. He got in and he really stuck to his story. Since I had a knife in my left boot, a CNS depressant like they don't sell anymore in my right pocket, and a hatchet under my seat, skinny had some big stones. Or, maybe he didn't know any better. Or, maybe I had the big stones. I was not sober at this point. I studied that, figured he might be armed in a more lethal way so I kicked him out of the Oldsmobile, and not in a polite way, then drove off toward Uptown, down twenty bucks.

I was tired and found a parking spot under the live oaks and their graybeards of epiphytes in an unlighted neighborhood, locked the doors, put the hatchet on the seat near my belly, slumped over onto the Oldsomobile bench seat and slept.

I woke up with that yellow old beer staleness in my mouth at near midnight, straightened up behind the wheel and began scratching my head, then my arms, then the small of my back. Mosquitoes from Waveland. I grabbed the water jug and drank a bunch all at once. I knew it was time for me to get out of the bottomland and onto higher ground. I have wise blood, ask anyone, ask Flannery O'Connor, if you're dead and reading this in heaven, I am always bit the most and with great and misplaced vehemence by mosquitoes. Put me in a crowd, they will kill one another to find me and shove their proboscis into me like junkies for the finest fix.

I was a hived up mess as I found the on ramp, I-10 West to Lake Charles, Beaumont, Houston. I spent a night in a rest stop west of Houston, the sky paling as I woke, I resumed West, I did not stop until I was just short of Austin. High ground, dry ground. I spent close to a week there, waiting to go to Mexico and healing up.

New Orleans can take the blood out of a man and leave poison in its stead, or if she is in a hissy mood just take all of his blood, leave him dead, and just save the poison. I got out with a minor bloodletting and a mild case of poisoning, so I can't complain.

This Scribbling Might Stay

Woody Guthrie lived in Brooklyn, NY for most of his life. Most people think of him wandering around in the dust bowl in Oklahoma but that's not true. It does by no means render these words any less authentic. At work, I have a bates label machine, and I took the time to put a label with words on it, it reads "This Machine Kills Fascists." It brings me comfort.

"Sometimes I think I'm gonna lose my mind
But it don't look like I ever do
I've loved so many people everywhere I went
Some too much, and others not enough

Well I don't know
I may go
Down or up or anywhere
But I feel
Like this scribbling might stay

Maybe if I hadn't seen so much hard feelings
I might not could've felt other people's
So when you think of me, if and when you do
Just say, 'Well, another man's done gone'

Well, another man's done gone"



Amen, as they say.

Pumping Gas

The Spring and Summer before I went to school at UVA I worked at a gas station, the Hess station at Bailey's Crossroads. It seemed like the ideal job for me because I could still study and I thought pumping gas would not be very demanding, intellectually, so it looked like a good fit. I drove by and saw the "Hiring" sign, walked in and talked to Don, he was the owner.

"So what are you doin'?" Don was from Arkansas, that was his interview method. I remember later he trotted out his high school yearbook and he showed me a picture, it was a picture of Johnny Cash. They went to the same high school, they were even in the same grade. "Well that's my claim to fame," he said. But that was later, right now he wanted to know what I was doin. I told him I was going to be attending UVA in the fall, hopefully, and right now I was still taking classes at NOVA and also at George Mason University. He said, "Well you're not gonna get rich here. I'll pay you five dollars an hour." That seemed fine so I filled out a simple form and that was it. He made an off color joke about NOVA, since there were so many foreigners there. I liked the foreigners. I think he sensed that, because I didn't laugh too much at his joke. A real southerner from his generation loves to tell a good joke and he loves to get "applause". I was not clapping. We had our understanding.

It was 1987. As it turned out, after April became May I found out I had made it in to UVA. It was good news; I had also made it in to Va Tech but I did not entertain that. I would be going down to Charlottesville. But in the meantime I had things to do, like work and study. I got my first "B", in Astronomy, at George Mason. It was a bit of a shock to my system, even though I had already been accepted, this was my first grade less than an "A". Damn. I had spent the last two years with my nose in a book all the time, I took a page from the immigrants.

They drove cabs or something and studied a lot. They didn't do anything else. That seemed like a good idea, so I did pretty much the same. There were Ethiopians, Vietnamese, Somalians, Malaysians, people from all over the world, and they were the majority. There were some white Americans at NOVA, like most white Americans at Junior College they were just screwing around, killing time, wasting their parents' money, waiting to be kicked out of the basement. Sometimes they would come up to me when I was studying, "Hey do you party?" No, I didn't party, not with them especially. Anyway, what was there to celebrate? We hadn't accomplished anything, that was why we were at NOVA. I would party when I had done something worth it. I didn't do much except ride the bike trail to Mount Vernon and back, 20 miles, six days a week. I was in good shape then.

So I was done with classes in the Spring and I had the Summer to goof off until it was time to go to real school. I worked with the usual bunch that would work at a gas station. Back then no one stood behind the bulletproof glass, we kept all our paper money neatly folded in our top left pockets on our shirts and we had coin changers on our belts, the kind with four cylinders. We were walking cash registers. We walked from pump to pump collecting money and giving change. You had to do the math in your head. If you couldn't do the math in your head, you couldn't work. And you had to keep your money very straight, twenties folded this way, tens that, ones the other, in such an order and only that order. Those were the rules.

There was a McDonald's right next door and Don laid the rule down hard: No parking on the lot if you don't buy gas. He made it clear he wasn't running a parking lot for McDonald's. So I had to go balls up a few times and throw guys off the lot. One time they were black guys, they called me a redneck and a cracker. I said they had to move, off the lot. I just stood and did not move and did not say anything further. They left. One guy I asked to leave, he wound up offering me a job climbing trees, chopping branches or something. I declined, politely. I was learning to be couth and not curse, I was discarding all the coarse language I had learned was "normal" growing up in Los Angeles. I still kept it handy, but I tried to use it only when it was truly needed.

Everyone needs gasoline. That is, if they drive a car. As a result, I ran into the broadest section of society, from bottom to top. Barely functioning cars would pull into the full servie aisle, they would ask for 2$ of gas. It was a huge markup in full service, since we pumped it and they would not have to get out of the car. So they got hardly any gas for their 2$, but they got to stay in their car. On the other hand, wealthy persons with nice cars used to pull up and very carefully pump their own gas. They used the lowest octane and they paid the least amount, and they were very careful about it.

After a while I lost all respect for cars, as things that might be attractive or somehow meaningful. They were just pieces of metal and either the customer or I kept putting fuel into them and they kept burning it, so what was the difference? There was not any, the only thing a car can really do, really do, is move you around. The rest is bullshit.

There were gypsies that used to come in and get gas. I was told they lived nearby, and that they were dangerous. I studied them, I would never have known they were gypsies. They were swarthy but they didn't have accents, they drove older models, Buicks and Caddilacs. They were not imposing physically, they were dissheveled, and overweight. I never saw the women or children, just the men, and they always came in groups of three in a car, no more or less. Anyway I had no problem with the gypsies. What bothered me were the yuppies, this was the 1980s after all, and they were all over.

We took cash or a personal check, no credit cards, nothing else. Every now and then someone would pull in and fill up then show some piece of plastic to me. Don's rule was, get some collateral, make the guy go get some cash. Some people didn't have much, but I always got something from them, and they always paid me back. It was in my interest to collect, because if I was short on the money it came out of my check. Sometimes all I could get out of them was a cooler. I tried to pick something that meant something to them, that way they would come back and pay me. One time I took a guy's watch, it was a nice one too. He came right back.

Don had a surveillance system set up for the night shift, to keep an eye on us. We figured out how to get around it by setting up a tape player, a box as we called it, in a certain corner of the office that the camera only swept by about once every thirty seconds. Other than that one moment, we could do whatever we wanted. We hid beers behind the box and drank them at night, waiting to get off work. It was a hot summer. We played Jonathan Richman and the Violent Femmes and we played them loud, too.

One night a Ferarri pulled up, a convertible. People that drove convertibles, as I measured it, were generally assholes. This Ferrari pulled up to the regular pumps, self serve. There was a guy and a girl in there and the guy asked my fellow worker, Lew, to pump the gas for him. Now Lew was from the coal country of Pennsylvania. He did not put up with anything. One time some kids got some candy out of a machine and dropped a wrapper on the ground. "Pick that shit up you little sumbitch do you think this place is a trash can?" he said. The kids' eyes bugged out and they called him sir and apologized. He used to drink a lot of Jack Daniels, Lew did, and he got into a lot of fights, especially at night.

So on this particular night, even though it was 1987, you could just tell this was not a good time or place for the yuppie man to say what he said to Lew, but he did it. "Hey pump me full man," he had champagne in a fluted glass and so did his date, they were dressed very well. Lew and I were in our Hess uniforms, on either side of the car. The guy held out a twenty and I grabbed it. Lew said, "Listen I'm gonna go take me a leak, right over there, take some pressure off my brain, ok?" The man and woman were silent and their eyes changed. "I'm gonna come back when I'm drained, you had best both be gone or I will pull you both out of there. Now excuse me." And sure enough he went over and took a leak on the bathroom door. The yuppie man said, "Oh, your friend should learn some manners! That is not customer service!" I did not say anything. I just smiled. Off they went, the guy didn't even ask for his money. And they didn't get any gas.

Eventually Lew's string ran out. He got into a motorcycle accident. It didn't kill him, but he coudn't work anymore. He had a lot of trouble walking. God damned motorcyles. I think he went back to Pennsylvania.

Sometimes men would come by to visit with Don, they were Union guys from the railroad. "What y'all need is something to stir the air in here," they would say. Then they would go in the back and discuss things that I did not know about.

Toward the end of the summer I started closing. That meant working the last two hours by yourself. It saved Don a couple of bucks in labor cost but sometimes I think he did that just to see if we could take the heat of handling all three aisles, including the full service aisle, and making our drops without screwing up. Don had been a drill instructor in the air force. He liked to test us.

I remember my very last night working there, I had given notice and all of that of course, and I was on the phone, on the inside, to my girlfriend, Barbara Jean. I sure hope she is happily married now, I really don't know. I had lots of girlfriends that summer. I looked pretty good. The black girls even told me so, "Oh well don't you look fine in your white uniform!"

I was on the phone with Barbara Jean, in the office, and I was alone closing the last shift, I had gotten pretty good at closing and being in charge of three islands, potentially 12 cars, four of them full service, and kept dropping my 20s into the safe, always drop your 20s into the safe that way they won't kill you if they come to rob you. It was late at night. I got distracted, I told Barbara Jean I would be back, I went out to collect the money but damn I locked myself out, I forgot about the self locking door and my keys were inside.

Now I had no keys and I couldn't drop the 20s, and I couldn't get new change from the safe. Damn. People kept arriving, it was a Friday night. I improvised, I asked them all to exchange money, I explained it was my last night. Retail business is cyclical, anyone can tell you that, so after a bit it slowed and no one was around so I went to work on the hinges of the door with a pipe. That was doing no good. I got an idea and ran across Leesburg Pike to a hotel lobby, there was a payphone in there. I got on the payphone, I called up the only guy I knew who had keys, Steve! he was a heroin addict and his father was a preacher, but somehow he was still able to live at home, I guess he was about my age then. I used to drive him to the methadone clinic in Old Town so I figured he owed me one. He took his time answering and he was very slurred, I said please just get your Dad to drive up here and give me a key, I am locked out. Steve said he would try but no guarantee, his dad was asleep. I started to think I might just have to keep the place open all night, until Don came in the morning. He would be pissed if that happened.

In the meantime, there were cars across the street, the drivers were milling about like zombies, rendered undead by my absence. I sprinted back across Leesburg Pike in my white uniform drenched in the humid air, and I started to collect. "You are lucky I am honest son" "Why did you leave your post?" "What in hell are you doin over there at that hotel, gettin' some tail?", they said. Somehow I collected all the money. I had nowhere to drop it and it was hell making the various change. Some of them I had to give notes to saying I would pay them, with my phone number. I was really sweating hard.

Around closing time both the Alexandria Police and Steve and his Dad pulled up. They lumbered out of their vehicles in a similar fashion, which I thought was odd. The cops came because Barbara Jean's last memory of my voice was "Oh crap!" and then some cursing and then silence, so she thought I was dead. Steve gave me the key. I unlocked the door and got eveyrthing squared away.

It had been a long hot August night. I called Barbara Jean and told her I wasn't dead. I went down the hill to Friday's and I had some drinks, they were cold and they tasted really good. I made it through, I even came up OK on my money so Don didn't have to dock my last check--I went around and visited some people who had called me up from the chits I had given them. It all worked out.

It was quite a time, yeah it was. It was like summer camp. That gas station is still there now but it is not at all the same. Don sold it a long time ago, maybe to the yuppie guy who drove off from Lew and myself, minus his twenty dollars. There is one employee behind the glass, where the office used to be, and the employee looks bored, he hardly has anything to do. He doesn't have to get collateral, the system doesn't work that way anymore. He doesn't have to throw anyone off the lot, he just calls 911 from behind the glass. It is probably hard for him to curse anyone out properly from behind there. Everything is digital, sanitized, streamlined and efficient. They take credit cards, debit cards, and there is no full service island. The house the gyspies lived in was demolished a while ago.

The other day, I stopped there to get gas and look around, even though it was out of my way. I swiped my card and filled her up. Well, it's progress I guess. But I heard that thought, bouncing in my brainpan, as I screwed the gas cap back on. And I didn't like the way it sounded in my head, bouncing around. Progress. I took an old wrapper from my car and threw it on the ground. No one said, or did, anything; a breeze came and stirred the wrapper a bit, and then it did not make its way further, stranded and stuck as it was on the apron.

The Great Kotex Burglary of 1975

Thirty years ago I stole something. I think the statute of limitations is up; I certainly hope so. I do remember it was 1975 because I do remember that I was 12 and beginning the 8th grade. Everyone was older than me as usual so I figured that was just the way things were going to be forever. But there was one place where I found some people around my age, outside of school, outside of my neighborhood. It was a block of houses, smaller than mine, in North Hollywood across the street from Madison Junior High School.

We used to play football on weekends there, on the grass in front of Madison. There was me, and John McDowell, he was Scottish and his brother Bruce was a cop. He always had to play center because he was big, doughy and slow. But you couldn't mess with John Mac because of Bruce. Mike Oda was Japanese, he didn't play with us too much, he knew karate and he could kill anyone. He was the only one who wasn't afraid of Bruce. About half the kids were Jewish but they all came from different places, Morrie Zladowicz's dad was from Russia, George and Alexandra Mykalishka's folks came from the Ukraine. The kids were almost all first generation in America and spoke other languages to their parents. I felt good there, those kids treated me OK, and we played lots of sports and wrestled. They weren't like the kids at school. At school they tied jockstraps around my face during gym and spat in the back of my head during class. I guess they were bored. I was small and young and always alone so that made it easy for them.

I did fix that situation, but only by accident. One day I was hanging around after school, I played a lot of sports, each one I could find, because at least there were rules and even the assholes followed the rules during the game, that was the only time I could get a fair shake it seemed. I was pretty athletic too, although I was small and wiry I was really fast and had good hands, so I hoped somehow that would get me in with the cool people but that was never realistic. So I was usually around the school after practice when most kids were gone. I remember one afternoon Scott Lewis and George Hildebrandt coming around by my locker, it was the same old routine. First they called me a fag and other things like that. They didn't seem to have a great variety. They started to take stuff out of my locker and mess around with it, nothing special. Then Scott Lewis took one of my textbooks and said he was going to throw it in the street. I couldn't have that, my father would kill me. Scott Lewis wasn't too big but he was bigger than me of course, and Hildebrandt was a huge teutonic son of a bitch who hit a lot of home runs for our baseball team. He could have hit me into the next world for sure. I figured I might as well try something though, so I went to slap Scott Lewis in the head. Only I had forgotten that I still had my combination padlock in my right hand and I clocked him fairly good, but really it wasn't much. He wasn't bleeding, I didn't even knock him down. The strangest thing happened then, Scott Lewis began to cry. I was amazed. How could he do that? I didn't even hit him that hard, and he cried, he cried just like a girl. How was this possible, he was one of the coolest kids in school! I was awestruck, he just kept sobbing, and asking me why I hit him.

Then I figured it was time to die, because Hildebrandt came up to me. But all he wound up doing was yelling at me and saying I was crazy and then he pulled all the stuff out of my locker, threw it on the ground, and they both walked around the corner. After that they left me alone, which seemed like a good way for things to be. I had no chance of being cool and there was no way I could be brave enough to talk to the girls, so it seemed best if no one talked to me at school at all except the teachers and the coaches.

The kids in North Hollywood weren't too bored and if they did anything out of hand their parents would knock the snot out of them. Morrie's dad even kicked my butt once but I had it coming. Me and John Hooper were peeking into Morrie's room at night and knocking on his window and running away. One time the old man was waiting in the bushes and I didn't run fast enough and he caught me and grabbed me by the collar and kicked me really hard, twice, in the ass. "You get the hell out of here you little bastard!" He could have beat me a lot worse, he probably should have; even the ass kickings around there had a certain decency about them, and they were never gratuitous. But I got the message. So we didn't mess with Morrie anymore after that.

It was an interesting area to me, there were things to do and kids my age, not like my street where all the kids were either much older than me or toddlers. The baby boom was over and the tattooed pierced babies were just being born, it is too bad they aren't born ready-made with that crap all over them. I was in the middle somewhere, no one ever thought of a name for us. Everyone listened to Led Zeppelin and had stupid looking hair and clothing. I even knew it at the time, and I still hate Led Zeppelin. I couldn't get away from that damned Stairway to Heaven, it followed me around for years like a saccharine shadow. It is no wonder I hate sweets. I didn't know it then but I was waiting for punk to be born. I would not have to wait much longer.

K Mart was near the block in North Hollywood, on Sherman Way, that was our playground. We would go in and play hide and seek, and when we got older we would play Wolfman, which was a game where the person who got kicked out of K Mart first won. McDowell used to win a lot because he had a switchblade, and he would go along the aisle where they kept the fertilizer bags and split them all open. The place would begin to reek and someone would come along and kick him out. His mom found out about the switchblade though and then Bruce found out about it apparently. McDowell wasn't around for about a week after that so I don't know what exactly happened but I don't think it was nice, and he no longer had the switchblade to help him at Wolfman.

The best place was Madison Junior High though. It was right across the street and we would hop the fence and make it our own private school on weekends. I remember there was a sundial in the center somewhere. It was nice being at a school when the regular kids were not around. But the best place was the roofs, just walking around on the roofs was fun. I don't even remember why, I suppose because it was more illegal than trespassing on the plain old ground. We would kick the transems in and then all take off running and if we were feeling really brave jump from the roof to the ground, there were bushes there so you could roll and it broke your fall pretty well. Plus you would get scratched up and a litte bloody so it made you look cool. The security guard was fat and slow, there was no way he could have caught us, especially me. I was always the fastest, that's why Mcdowell had to play center but I always got to be wide receiver. I caught a lot of touchdowns, that was a lot of fun. Since the fat security guard could not catch us, why did we jump off the roof, well I guess because there were only 5 channels on TV, so it was something to do.

One day we were walking around on the roofs at Madison, looking through the transems that we hadn't broken yet and were opened to the air. Most of the classrooms looked the same, desks, a flag in the corner, the chalkboard. It was a typical dull day, mild, wholly unremarkable. Not too hot, not too cold, sunny, utterly vapid. Most days in Los Angeles are like that. We were getting ready to do our kick and run scheme, but someone saw something and said "Hey, look at this!"

We all ran over--it was not a classroom we were looking at, it was a bathroom. No big deal but...it was the *Women's* bathroom, the one the woman teachers went into. Now this was something special to me. Females were still just an alien species to me so I was intrigued immediately. I was still waiting for one of them to talk to me. There weren't any urinals of course but there was some kind of machine in the corner, something that accepted money. I couldn't figure it out, what was it? Finally Morrie came over and said "That's a Kotex machine you dumbasses. Let's go". Somehow Morrie knew about that stuff. He was always studying, he had to or his dad would kick his ass. He became a doctor.

I figured something had to be done about this, so later on I got together with McDowell and Hooper, I said, "Hey, let's steal that thing, there might be a lot of money in it!" I really didn't care about the money of course. It just seemed like it might be fun. McDowell wasn't having any part of it, the switchblade thing was still a recent event and Bruce had him on a short leash. Bruce was a cop and he carried a gun around and he never, ever smiled or laughed. So I understood, but Hooper and I swore him to secrecy and proceeded with the conspiracy.

We made a lot of plans, I don't remember now what they all were. Black clothing, screwdrivers, a flashlight, black wool caps, things like that. A set time, an escape route, the works. This could be big after all, why screw it up? I think we even synchronized our watches. Once we got down into the Women's bathroom we had to get the Kotex machine open. That wasn't so easy, we had screwdrivers but we couldn't pry the thing open, damn, we hadn't made a backup plan for this! It would require a lot more force than we thought. Well, one of us could go back and get a hammer...no, too loud! Ok let's just pry the thing off the wall, carry it back to the garage, then we could work away until it gave up the money. That was it.

There was a lot of prying and cursing and sweating, it was a rare warm night. Finally though, with two of us going at it, we got it off the wall. It was made of metal and painted white, about twice the size of a computer these days. But it was awkward and we had to carry it like a child's coffin. The nice thing was, we could just walk right out the front door of the Women's bathroom; the bad thing was, we would have to take the long way around, through the school grounds and out the front gate. No way was this going up and over the fence.

It was a long journey, and we had to keep stopping every minute or so when we got to some bushes and hide and rest. But we finally got it back to Hooper's garage. Then we attacked it, hammers, tire irons, lots of prying instruments. He had a lot of tools and they were noisy. "What is that noise out there?!" his mom yelled. "Ah, we're working on the lawnmower, remember I gotta mow the lawn tomorrow." Hooper lied. He was a good liar, and quick. I was never good at that so I'm glad he was around and that his mom was so naive.

After about an hour of pounding and prying the coin box burst open. Three nickels. Fifteen cents. I don't even remember how we split it up or what we did with the money. Even back then it wasn't much, plus we had to get up early the next morning and wash cement trucks with Hooper's stepfather. We would get $5 for that. In 1975 that was a good amount of money for a 12 year old. I always did love working, it kept me out of trouble, most of the time anyway. And I figured it paid better to work since it did not really seem to pay too much to steal.

Always I will, Always

I used to listen to this song a lot when my daughter was a baby. I still do, actually. Randy Newman does not have a good voice, yet he sings very beautifully, he wrote this. And this is on my mind...especially the last stanza.



"What have you done to the mirror?
What have you done to the floor?
Can't I go nowhere without you?
Can't I leave you alone any more?

I know you don't think much of me
But someday you'll understand
Wait'll you learn how to talk baby
I'll show you how smart I am
I'll show you how smart I am

Maybe you don't know how to walk baby
Maybe you can't talk none either
Maybe you never will, baby
But I'll always love you
I'll always love you"

A Real American

I used to have a friend, he was of Vietnamese extraction, although he was definitely not any sort of hyphenated American. He used to see the people in the Asian-American club and he would spit on the ground and glare at them. They were mostly born here. “Phew! Just a bunch of idiots!” His name was Tran. I met him when I was at the University of Virginia, when he was 16, in his second year already. He was in the engineering school, but he also liked to read literature, he learned to play the guitar and he loved playing Jimi Hendrix. He understood the intricacies of football, he loved the Redskins. He was definitely a genius. By the time he graduated he had enough credit hours that it only took him a year to get his Master’s degree. Then he got his Phd.

He was also a lot of fun. There was no challenge he would shirk, no drink he wouldn’t drink. And he drank a lot. We all did, but he only weighed 110 pounds; still, he tried to keep up but he passed out a lot, he usually wound up under the coffee table. Every Friday after classes he would do the hour of power with someone. The hour of power was very difficult, I tried it once and only lasted about 34 minutes. The idea is, you drink a shot of beer each minute for one hour, if you vomit you are out of the game. Sixty minutes, that is only sixty ounces, only five beers. Sounds simple but it isn’t. The foam builds up in your system. I remember he tried to get my roommate Bobby to do it with malt liquor. Bobby was a black guy, he said “I’m not drinking that shit!” and just laughed. He wasn't hyphenated either, he was very country.

One Friday after the hour of power I said “OK, let’s get in the car, we have to drive around!” I had no idea where we were going, I just used to say things like that. They called me Frank after the Frank Booth character in Blue Velvet. I was something like that, in some ways. In those days anyone, even us outsiders, could go to the fraternity parties and drink for free. I would quote lines from the movie and get into Frank Booth character. I tended to freak the fraternity boys out a lot, they were afraid of me. Anyway, on this Friday I said, to my friends, “C’mon let’s go for a joyride! Let's get on with it!” So we piled into the car, and Tran was in the center of the back seat, between Steve and Hugo. After a few minutes he passed out and his head flopped over onto Hugo’s shoulder. “Hey Frank, turn the car could you? Tran’s on my shoulder!” I flipped the wheel a bit, but then his head flopped over onto Steve’s shoulder. “Frank, turn the car!” This went on for a while. I couldn’t manage to get Tran's head straight and off of their shoulders, so finally we just came on back.

We all piled out of the car but Tran was still passed out, in the back. I think it was about 3PM. Someone took the dice I kept on my rear view mirror and put them around his neck and we took a picture. Someone said, “Hey, we should use that picture and run him for student council President.” It seemed like a big joke at the time. But that is what actually happened. He ran for student council President, his platform was pretty simple: “I am an extremist!” It really was all a big joke after all of course. The guy he ran against was a guy from one of the houses, or fraternities. He had wanted to be student council President at UVA since he was nine years old or some such thing. None of us belonged to fraternities. That wasn’t for us. Anyway, Tran wound up getting a third of the vote. It was pretty amazing.

Some people thought he was silly, but I knew otherwise. And I will tell you why.

He told me this story once, while we were driving down to Charlottesville from Alexandria, it is about a two hour drive so he had plenty of time to talk.

One time I walked to Cambodia. I had to walk back though. We were trying to get out of the country and we were supposed to meet in Phnom Penh, but we all had to go separately or they would stop us. I hitch hiked and took some buses and then walked over the border, then I walked to Phnom Penh. I sat down and waited around for about a week, then walked back home to Saigon. It turned out my family couldn’t get across the border.

My mom decided we should try to get to Thailand in a boat. It was just me and her, my sister we would send for later. My dad didn’t want to leave Vietnam. My mom saved up enough money and exchanged it for gold and U.S. dollars. She sewed the gold and dollars inside my shorts so the pirates wouldn’t take it. We had to leave in the middle of the night on a canoe with an engine. Things went OK but after a while the engine quit. We couldn’t get it to start again, so we started rowing. Then the pirates came, they pointed rifles at us. They pointed to the girls in the boat, the younger ones, and then they took them away and we never saw them again. We kept rowing but then more pirates came, they were angry that the girls had been taken but they took each one of us and felt around our bodies, they found my gold and U.S. dollars and took them by taking a knife and cutting my shorts off. I then only had shoes and a t shirt on. We had gotten very close to the coast of Thailand where the refugee camp was. Another set of pirates came, they were really pissed off because we had no girls and no money, so they took machetes and chopped the canoe up into pieces, so we had to swim to the shore. It was a long swim, about five minutes.

There were tents in the refugee camp and they gave us food. I got a job after a few days. Eventually we got here and we lived in an apartment on Columbia Pike, my mom worked and then she sent for my sister. I went to Wakefield High school when I was 12 and skipped a bunch of grades, I went right to senior. Then my mom got us a small house and I came to school down here. Hardcore man!

He used to say “Hardcore man!” a lot. He loved speed metal and he had scars on his face. He wouldn’t ever say how he got them though. His sister is a doctor now and he is teaching in the bay area of California. His mom died quite a while ago. I miss him sometimes, I will never know anyone quite like that again.

Off To The Emergency Hospital

I made a lot of trips to the emergency hospital, up until I was about 12 years old or so. It was kind of neat because it was the same hospital where I was born. One time I was riding my bike in the shopping center, which was on the other side of an arching street that flew up and over the Ventura Freeway. I think it was summer but for whatever reason I was not wearing any shoes. I was pretty bored, just riding around aimlessly in the parking lot. I decided it would look pretty cool if I rested one of my feet up on the side of the bike, near the front wheel. It worked for a few moments, then one of the spokes flew around and sliced right through the ball of my right foot. It did not take it quite off though, it was just hanging there off of my foot at a funny angle. I could see little red threads in the gap in the wound, tendons or something.

Well I had to get up and over the bridge, which was kind of difficult since I could only use one foot, and there was no way I was leaving my bike so I had to haul that as well. I waited at the light. It really didn't hurt that much, and as I got
up and over that bridge I left a nice trail of blood. I came back much later to try to find it and was crushed that it was gone. When I got home my mother put my foot in the sink and put some water on it. For some reason I cried, I guess the water must have hurt it. Plus there were not any men around. I felt really idiotic crying, my father never cried, what was wrong with me? Well, it was off to the emergency hospital. We knew the way there, and the doctor decided he was
going to sew the ball of my foot back on, but first he had to numb everything up. So he put a needle in the very center of the bottom of my foot, it stayed in there a long time, it seemed like about a minute. The doctor was tall and very serious, he reminded me of my father just a bit. There was no way I was going to cry in front of him, but it really hurt, a lot, so I held my breath really tight while he stabbed me. It finally ended and I guess he heard me panting and asked if I was OK. Then he took a needle and thread and sewed the ball back on. He did not talk much, which was nice. And that was it, I got all taped up and we went home. I was on crutches for about a week, which made me very angry. I wanted to see the bloody trail over the bridge.

After the stitches came out and I was back home in my room, I picked at the ball of my foot just a bit and I could see that the skin was dead, it was just a circle of dead skin. That seemed silly. It only took a few minutes and it came right off, and there was very very pink, brand new skin under there, I thought it looked neat. But it turned out I wasn't supposed to do that so I was back on the crutches again for a week and bandaged up. I got teased at school of course. Hey gimp! Did you step on a pile of shit!? The usual stuff. By the time it was all over I couldn't see my bloody trail, the rain must have washed it away. So I guess it wasn't summer after all. It never rains in the Summer in Los Angeles.

Another day, I was walking around, barefoot again, in my backyard. It was the suburbs, so there wasn't much to do but I could always go into my backyard and dig for fossils or gold, or torture insects. I never did find any fossils, or gold. So while I was on my way to find something to do I stepped on a fenceboard, the problem was I stepped right on a nail standing tall through the board and it went up through my foot. The right foot again, it always seemed to be that way. I couldn't pull it out, it was really stuck up there. It wasn't far to the house so I started kind of dragging the board and myself in that direction, but that hurt a bit too much so I lifted my foot up with the board and took a bunch of awkward lopes, making a planking sound on the concrete. It probably was a funny thing to watch, it is too bad there weren't video cameras around then. I made it to the kitchen and there was my mother. She had me sit down and she pulled really hard on the board for about a minute and the fenceboard came off. Off to the emergency hospital.

I had to get a tetanus shot. I was always getting tetanus shots, every year, partly because I stepped on a lot of rusty nails, but I think mostly because my mother told me I would get lockjaw if I didn't have lots of tetanus shots, and my mouth would just shut and I would starve to death slowly. That sounded pretty bad so I went along with the tetanus plan.

I was in the cub scouts, I think when I was in 3rd or 4th grade. All those years in grade school seem about the same to me, just a blur of pale sunny boredom and not wanting to go to school and reading Huck Finn and wanting to live in a barrel. One night I was at a cub scout function at my grade school and a few of us were there early. Nothing was going on so we went out to the side of the auditorium and started walking on these benches. They had been arranged for seating, so they were laid out parallel to each other, and they were each about a foot wide and a foot apart. It was something to do.

I did OK for a while but I got dizzy from the spacing and pacing and missed a step. I never got a chance to put out a hand or anything and my face slammed right down onto one of the benches. I stood up right away in my blue uniform and I felt stunned and dizzy, but I didn't really feel much else, except all this wet warmth coming over my chin and down my chest, I looked down and saw blood running into the blue shirt. I tasted my blood, it was familiar. A bunch of kids were talking to me, but I didn't say anything to them, what was there to say? A few minutes ago they were calling me a fag or a girl, now they wanted to talk? I didn't like any of them and they didn't like me.

I walked into the auditorium, and into a side room where the mothers were gathered making ribbons or some such thing that den mothers do. There were about four women in there, one of them was my mother. When they saw me their faces went into little epileptic fits and they seemed very excited. I must have looked pretty nasty. My mother took it pretty well, I think she had gotten used to it by now. Off to the emergency hospital.

My upper lip was split right up to the skin and I had a chipped tooth. I guess I am lucky that I was scrawny, if I had weighed more maybe it would have been a lot worse. But there weren't a lot of fat kids back then anyway. Now the doctor had to stitch me up but first came the needle. I had the routine down by now. It was always a different doctor at the emergency hospital, and they were all men. This
guy kept talking to me. So I see you're a cub scout, things like that, I guess he was trying to comfort me, which was a nice thing of course, but at the time it just annoyed me. There wasn't anything to say obviously, but he kept asking me questions so I had to answer him, but that hurt a lot because my upper lip was in two sections. As usual the shot was the worst part, right in the lip. I always hoped they would just do the sewing without the shot. But they never did. There was no way I was going to let this guy see me cry, I was in uniform after all. The next day at school there was a lot of teasing of course. Hey, you got a fat lip! It wasn't very imaginative. Hey, harelip! The usual crap. I was used to it by now.

AFter a while it got to be a running joke and my oldest sister used to say OK Look, I'm not driving anyone to the emergency hospital! She got lucky, it was my mother that always wound up doing it. I feel bad for kids these days, sitting around in living rooms with video games, movies on demand, gameboys, and too much food. When they do go out they are armored up like crusaders with helmets and pads everywhere. I bet they don't get to go to the emergency hospital too much, unless it is for gout.

Everyone has a first memory, and mine is getting my tonsils removed when I was three. The memories are vivid, but they cut in and out of any decent time continuum. After all I was only three. It was the trend then to get kids' tonsils removed so that they wouldn't get sore throats or some nonsense. Maybe that is why I hate trends to this day. I really have no use for them. But since I was three I didn't understand too well what was going to happen to me; my father later told me that I grabbed my balls and looked really scared. I had a vague sense of words and I knew two things were going to be cut off. I did not know how to talk yet, but I thought they were going to castrate me. Even when you are three some things are pretty obviously more important than others; if I had known it was just some things in the back of my throat coming off I probably would not have been so scared. But I didn't know that.

I had to spend the night at the hospital, I think it was the first time
I had been away from my family. My father carried me in there and I was grabbing at the walls, I didn't want to go. And I really didn't want to lose my balls. But there was nothing on the walls for me to gain purchase of except a thermostat, and my father didn't have much trouble dislodging me, so that was it. I was in a bed and there were other people in there with me in other beds, strangers. It was semi dark and there were odd shadows dancing around. A nurse came and took a needle and put it in my thumb, drew some blood. She was not pleasant and I hated her. That is all I remember about it. After it was all over I had stitches on the back of my throat and apparently I was supposed to eat only certain things, probably soft things.

I must have understood that part because I do remember waiting until it was late and the house was mostly quiet, except for the refrigerator, it made a ticking sound.
I pulled out the crisper drawer and wolfed down a bunch of lunch meat or something. Actually I think it was hard salami. Within a few minutes there was blood coming up out of my mouth, at first I just tasted it, it had a rich taste, I kind of liked it. Then it started to flow quite a bit, so I ran to my parents' room, they were asleep. I woke them up by spewing blood all over them. I guess I was angry at them for trying to castrate me. I feel bad about it now, they were really doing their best, like most parents. However, it was off to the emergency hospital for us. I didn't know then I'd be coming back so often. I was unable to talk, and even if I had been there really wasn't anything to say. I still had my balls, so things were actually not so bad.

I Hate Motorcycles

I am not sure if I believe in a "former life", but if that is the case, I am almost certain I died in a motorcycle accident. I hate Motorcycles. I hate the noise they make, especially the Harleys. Two wheels are so much less stable than four. Also, my friend Eric fell off of Mulholland Drive in LA riding one. He fell a long way and died, I hope it was quick. All that I am certain of is that the coyotes ate him, hopefully after he died. My friend Adam's brother is in a wheelchair now because he thought it was cool to ride motorcycles. He plays chess a lot. He also drools and his close companion is a colostomy bag. He is very good at chess; he is not good at walking. No good at all.

24,000

The intellectual property of the web site is in quotes; my comments are not.

http://www.thehungersite.com/

"HUNGER: DO YOU KNOW THE FACTS?

"It is estimated that one billion people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition. That's roughly 100 times as many as those who actually die from these causes each year."

"About 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes."

"Famine and wars cause about 10% of hunger deaths, although these tend to be the ones you hear about most often."

"The majority of hunger deaths are caused by chronic malnutrition. Families facing extreme poverty are simply unable to get enough food to eat."

"Please remember to click every day to give help and hope to those with nowhere to turn. Every click counts in the life of a hungry person."



In these places 99% of the populus do not have:

Epstein Barr Syndrome
ADD
ADHD
Ritalin
PMS
Chronic Fatigue god damned Syndrome
Clean water
Curiousity about "celebrities"
Carpal-Tunnel Syndrome
Automobiles
Machines that wash clothing
Machines that wash dishes
Pets
Air Conditionining
Munchausen Syndrome
SJÖGREN'S SYNDROME
COSTOCHONDRAL SYNDROME

The USA is wealthy enough to have every "thing" yet we are fraught with infirmities.

The people in the poor countries do not have the comfort of having these pains. Rather, they have pains that require comfort. The next time you feel disappointed about something in your life, think about that. You have food.

If you have not already done so, please buy, and read:

"The Progress Paradox : How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse"

by Gregg Easterbrook

http://www.amazon.com/


The average person in the USA buys 52 items of clothing per annum. In Bangladesh, when it is the busy season, they work 20 hours per day and sleep under their work station for the remaining four hours or so and begin again. They do not have days off. That is why your clothing is so cheap.

Consider them as people. After all, they are. Look at the tags on your clothes, that you are wearing, right now. I cannot say I have done all I can to fix this, but I want to try. Don't you? It does not seem like a bad idea.

OK, off the soap box.

Pain in the Neck

Today I had my neck stabbing quarterly meeting. I have been seeing the same neurologist for six years now, he has moved four times in that time and gotten richer of course. But then so have I. He is Indian and very affable. Yet, he stabs me in the neck, with a needle, from behind, once every three or four months. It is a thirty minute process; there are about 18 injections; one felt like it hit my skull. He has some sort of machine, and it detects the vibrations in the muscles; the ones in my neck are off the chart, they make a buzzing crackling sound, just like static. So I need to get shot up with BoTox to keep things in line, calm those specific muscles down. It's called Spasmodic Torticollis, or a Cervical Dystonia. It is kinda a pain in the neck.


I remember my father sitting on the couch one day when I came home from 4th grade, he had a big bandana wrapped upside around his head, packed with ice. Why I asked? He refused novocaine and all other numbing agents and had had two teeth pulled out of his head. There were huge bulges around his cheeks, where the ice was. No medicine, but there was a large bottle of bourbon whiskey in front of him. My sister wanted to kill him, after all, he almost passed out in the elevator on the way home. I think she drove him home. That must have hurt.

I remember a lot of things. And they really don't hurt as much as they used to, before, when I was younger.

You Musicians, On the Porch Summer Music

I am thankful to:

Muddy Waters, he taught me how to be sad
Jonathan Richman, he showed me how to be glad
The Clash, they told me to be mad

Luckily, the lessons did not happen in that order, exactly. But they commingled to make an entire sound, containing all.

This I think on the porch, on July 19, 2005. There is a heat advisory in effect, heat index above 100 for the next 24 hours. There are great rhythmic armies of insects, cicadas and other bugs in this mid-Atlantic area, in the poplars and oaks about me. They make an interesting sound, because there are three species or so, like horn sections or wind instruments conspiring to create an orchestra, and they begin their music at different points and trail away at others, the interplay, the counterpoint, and it is always majestic to me.

I can only imagine this is how contrapuntal aural concepts came to the first truly musical hominids, for the enhancement of song. But that is just a guess.


I grew up in Los Angeles, where the people live without the magic of: Humid summer nights when it is 85 degrees at 10 PM, and six months later, everything is silent and frozen. Now, in mid-summer on the east coast the lightning bugs come out in the gloaming. I feel cheated not to have had the chance to chase them down with a jar when I was young.


Every 17 years the cicadas come. They came in 1987, and they came again last year. They make a fine whirring music during the day, then after a few weeks of life drop to the ground and burrow and slumber for 17 years and emerge again. The old faithful Lazarus of the entomological world.

I love all of this, the music, the bugs, the trees, the weather, and it is all mostly free. Such a gift, and I wonder who to give thanks to.

Back in the USB, but Unplugged

Back to this. Well, it is a living. At least I have a door.


One of the first things I do when I return to the United States of Bush is call the cable company. Turn off the TV please. Thanks! Is there anything I really need to see on that box that I do not choose myself? No. I can spend the money I will save each month on books.

I think three books per month is a good amount. One to make me laugh, David Sedaris; one to make me think, A Brief History of the Human Race, Michael Cook; one to make me unmade and made again perhaps, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche.

I visit my Ma today and collect some books that my late Father had and my Ma needs to rid herself of; some of them were actually my textbooks from the college days. He kept them all, and so did my Ma. But now they have to go. I bring boxes from work and construct them; there are many boxes already full of books, I only select from the jetsam. I remember being quite young and picking up The Anger of Achilles, written by Robert Graves, a big musty black hardcover. It was the first book I ever read from. I read the first three pages. I was very young, I think five or six, I do not remember my age, but I remember that I understood it and I liked it. I liked the smell of the big black musty book. I found that book again today, amid at least 100 books in slapdash piles in my Ma's living room. Today.

It is not a good day but it is good enough. Each one is actually. And I will not miss the television even one little bit.

The Return

Today I will say goodbye to everyone and return tomorrow to George Bush's country. In two days I will be on a train and no one will talk to one another. There will be no basketball song. For lunch I am eating with Namer, Irish, Josie, Lorna, etc. etc, etc. NAMER. There is a prominent Senator here, his name is Joker Arroyo. His real name. Then for dinner I will have farewell with Cajoe, Toto, and the family of Cajoe. Toto and I will play PIG again.

I am going to miss this place. The only danger in this part of Mindanao is that too many people will become your friend. And that is it. For now, as they say.

Let's go to Mambajao Tony!

Mambajao is the capital "city" of Camiguin island. It is just a few streets. I walk around in the central market and of course everyone stares at me. It is very dark inside and there is a suffocating heat. There are many sellers and there are few buyers. All about I hear Visayan being spoken, punctuated now and again with 'good morning sir'. I duck into a maze of rice and burlap sacks filled with raw good, I need water. There is a boy, he leads me around, he finds water, he finds beer, then I go to pay. He is staring shyly and smiling, I know by now I have to initiate any conversation, but I can tell he knows little English. I see a Mr. Clean ad, I point to the head and I say Bald, no hair! and he laughs and so does the woman counting my money. She says, It is good, no need shampoo! Then we all laugh. The boy asks me Where country are you from sir. America, USA. I can't tell if it registers, but he follows me all the way out to the street, we wave good bye.

In another stall I see small basketballs. I motion to Toto and he begins to sing a song about basketball. Now after the billiards thing I know I can beat him at this game. Are there larger basketballs? No, only junior, no senior. It is OK, I buy one. We will play PIG later. Toto takes the ball and begins to bounce it from knee to knee, it seems he is a soccer player as well. Where do these talents end?

We travel to the cold springs at Santo Nino. Some things are universal, Toto is very reluctant to stop and ask for directions. He seems puzzled when I pull out a map, I don't think he has ever seen a map. Finally we find the springs. Toto brings the ball and we rent a 'cottage' for 10 pesos. The 'cottage' is a picnic table with a roof. We also rent a 'dunkin donut' for 10 pesos; a 'dunkin donut' is an inner tube. Toto throws the basketball in the water and he swims like a fish; each time he comes up for air he butts the ball with his head. I don't bother to ask what this game is. The water is indeed cold and feels very good after the heat of the market in Mambajao. Above me there are towering coconut trees and many smaller banana trees. A man comes to me with a wide smile, he says Swim? I say yes, swim. You swim? Yes, I swim. You swim in water? Yes, in water I swim. This goes on for another minute, I don't see a way out but to keep repeating swim swim swim. He is drunk on Fighter wine. He holds up the bottle? No, thank you. Ok he says Friend! and we high five. Well that is enough of that so I go back to the water.

Toto is on a wooden slide which doubles as a diving platform. He has the basketball. He stands with his back to the water. I say is this the olympics? What will be his next trick? I don't know, let's watch. We wait for the big event. It seems very serious. I wait for this acrobatic...finally he tosses the ball in the water nonchalantly, turns around and falls sideways with a splash. Joke only!

I float on the dunkin donut and I see the drunken man with the Fighter wine. He is hugging another man. I say, I think he is gay. Well...maybe he is just drunk. No, I don't think a man can get that drunk! Laughter of course. It is time to go. Toto has trouble with my name, Johnny comes out as Tony, I try to correct him a few times then say OK I am Tony. Why not? I am Tony Montana. Let's go Tony! he says.

At the sunken cemetery. It was submerged in 1871 by the Vulcan Daan volcanic eruption. I ask if we can see the graves underwater, but they are covered in lava from the eruption. Toto find a sea horse, it is alive and it sits on my arm wiggling. This is good luck for a man to find a sea horse. Toto finds a blue star fish and puts in on top of his head like a jester cap so I can take a picture. It is enough, Let's go Tony!

We play billiards again, I have learned whose side to be on. I am always on the team with Toto. Jesus Christ! We win every game. We play a Filipino man with a small moustache, he laughs about the Jesus Christ, we all laugh. It grows boring to win each game so I leave the two of them to play for a while. The lady bartender has a serene face and her name is Tita. We call her Aunt Tita after the first round, and this is normal. Everyone is family. When I return Toto is about to put in his last ball. The other man has 6 balls still on the table. He laughs and says 'Jesus Christ!' It is only a game. Let's go Tony!

We take a boat out to White Island. I snorkel and look at the fish, then we drink San Miguel. There are 7 men under a makeshift shed, they wear bandanas on their heads and smoke. I ask if we can rent a shed, or cottage as they call it here. They say there is no owner and they all smile. Then they get in a boat and row away. They are fishermen.

The sun goes down and the ink sky returns, we head to the hot springs. Again Toto will not ask for directions; it takes an extra hour to arrive so I just sit in the back and drink San Miguel beers. The one main road on the island, named the National Highway, at night it becomes a sidewalk. Everywhere there are people walking, children, men, women, families, they walk everywhere. Everyone waves to us and I wave back. Finally we get to the hot springs and swim some more. It is late and the San Miguel has taken over now. I walk carefully, and I wander away from the 'cottage' and up a slope to get a better view of the stars, away from the lights that ring the hot springs. My mother used to tell me about this, seeing the milky way. It looks like a wispy cloud. I grab a wooden staff and I say I am Abu Sayaff! I am Tony Montana! Say hello to my little friend! Toto comes up the slope. No Tony, don't go up there! There are cobra snakes. There are many and they live in the grass. I come down quickly to the cottage. I am with my friends and am very happy and safe. Everyone looks out for me.

The next morning, while waiting for breakfast of Lapu Lapu at a fishery, I wander down a lane. There are two girls and a mother, they are bathing in the river near a banana tree and a canoe. They all smile and wave. I hear them talking in Visayan, American, American they say. I take their picture and they cover their smiles with their hands. They are too shy. Around a bend in the road. I find a wooden makeshift basketball rim. Aha. Toto, get the ball! It is time for Tony to win for once! First Toto sings his basketball song, and everyone sings along except me. I don't know words but I write them down later.

"Basketball! Basketball! Ang Sarap Sarap Mag Basketball! E Shoot Mo, E Shoot Mo Ang Ball!"

We play PIG. As we warm up Toto dribbles the ball between his legs on the gravel road. Am I in for it again? He makes a shot, but I follow with a make yes! He makes another, I am P. After a few more turns I have PI and he has nothing. He makes another shot, a bank shot. I concentrate, crouch my legs and toss it up carefully. It misses entirely and bounces into the grass. I am a PIG.

Toto is maybe 5'6" and 140 pounds. Much of that weight is in his pot belly, which he announces to the world proudly by distending it when he walks. I have not seen a less self-conscious man. He smokes like a chimney. I am convinced he can knock me unconscious with his forefinger and thumb if he wants. But he does not want that. He wants to eat Lapu Lapu and then return to his wife, Ginging, and his boy, the one I call King Roy. It is OK. Let's go Tony.