Closer To God
Diamonds and Rust
I carefully removed five more one thousand shilling notes and presented them to Wendy.
“That’s about one fifth the average wage in Kenya. It ought to get us dinner served in this cabin, and, unless my judgment about such things is sadly flawed, your natural allure ought to count for something.”
Wendy took the money. I saw a glint flash from her eye under raised eyebrow. I wondered how much of the five thousand would end up in the hands of the crew. She and Dingo headed out into the aisle.
“Who are you two?” I asked the remaining women.
“I’m Helen and this is Anice,” the blondest of the two blonds said, waving one hand toward her companion.
“Where you from?” I asked, making conversation while I thought about everything that had happened to us since stepping aboard the train.
“Troy,” she said, noting my lack of real attention.
“Helen of Troy…neat,” I responded with a smile.
“Why don’t you two join your friends at finding us all something to eat?” I said. I held the door open. Anice went by me, her short curly hair so thick and tight it resembled Velcro.
When they were out of the room I secured the one-sided deadbolt. I stood before Burt.
“Want to tell me about it?” I asked him, pointedly, my arms crossed. He watched the evening countryside go by for at least a full minute before answering.
“Ah, about what?”
I frowned. I was not accustomed to my team members withholding information pertinent to the mission, nor on acting independently.
“The three bad guys you forced to leap from the train. Take a close look at the window next to you. They’re safety latched, but you’d play hell at getting them open far enough to squeeze a full grown American through without using a lot of time and tools. Then there’s the terminal nature of what would have likely happened to guys. I don’t think you’d send three men to their deaths that way. I know something about you now. You didn’t force them from the window, so where are they?”
I watched Burt consider. I was determined not to be surprised at whatever he came up with. I didn’t know what had happened to our pursuers, but I knew Burt was lying about whatever had happened.
“I’m sorry, “ Burt apologized, But this isn’t a mission you know. Not anymore. I don’t have to report to you or do what you tell me. We’re on our own. I said I threw them off the train to impress the lassies. I haven’t been with a woman for awhile.” His eyes left mine to roam again across the moving Savannah.
In spite of myself, I was surprised. Burt was impressing young women while three guys, apparently still on the train somewhere, were trying to kill us for unknown reasons. I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to respond to that part of what he’d said, so I ignored it.
“Where are they?” I said instead, getting right to the point.
“Back in their cabin. Just like I left ‘em. One has a broken ankle and the other two broken wrists. They don’t have any guns. I threw their cell phones out the window.” Burt offered the last as if it made up for his earlier lie.
I glared at him, getting control of myself before speaking.
“This is a mission and I’m the mission commander, unless you don’t want to survive it. We’re not going to get through this by trying to impress young women. We won’t survive long doing stupid things like throwing their cell phones away either. Those phones had numbers and identities on them. Now you either accept that or you’re on your own. And, if you accept it, I don’t want any more of this crap. I make the decisions, on everything. That’s what I do. You implement those decisions in the manner I tell you to. That’s what you do. And you don’t keep anything from me. Got it?”
My voice had dropped in both tone and volume. Burt and I were in more trouble than I could calculate. I needed him, but I could reasonably survive without him. On his own, he wouldn’t last another day.
Helen of Troy’s voice could be heard through the solid wood door. She had one of those irritating nasal voices, but her looks were so great you tended not to notice when in front of her. I waited, my hand on the deadbolt, staring back at Burt.
“Alright. It’s a mission. I’ll do my part.”
I twisted the small brass knob. Four women filled the cabin, settling onto bunks and floor as if a gaggle of geese looking to forage.
“It’s done,” Wendy stated, proudly. “They’re bringing dinner in about an hour, between the early servings. I couldn’t understand their word for the meat.
I think its called Punda.”
“Punda milia,” I added, instantly sorry I’d spoken up. The words translated into striped ass or Zebra.
“Means beef, I think,” I recovered, looking over at Burt, who was staring at Dingo too intently to pay attention to me.
“About the sleeping arrangements,” I began, but got no further. Obviously, the Earth Mother’s had discussed more than dinner when they had gone to the dining car.
“You’re sleeping in my bunk. I’ll stay on the floor with Helen. Burt can have the padded bench, with Dingo on the floor next to him.” Wendy’s rapid delivery gave away the preparedness of her comments. There was silence in the room. The earlier arrangements discussed had seemed to include a whole lot more than just sleeping, but the amended plan suited me perfectly. The last thing any of us needed was more complexity, although I could not ignore the fact that the small room was going to occupied through the night by four attractive females and two men who had not known many women of late.
“The train is likely to stop soon,” I informed them. “While its stopped would be a good time to have dinner served. I’ll try to time it right,” I said, gesturing toward Burt to accompany me. Wendy frowned, but asked no questions.
“Wine, you have more wine. Might as well trot it out. We’ll be right back.”
I slipped out into the passageway with my last words hanging in the air. We didn’t need company with what we were about, and the Earth Mothers were just a bit too bright and adventurous. Keeping them from participating in anything would not be accomplished with force. Especially not since I’d allowed one of them to become armed. Our current and continuing presence in their lives was a risk to them, however, and I would not overlook it.
Burt led our passage through the dining car. I marveled at the old world charm of the décor. Red leather, deep brown wood and polished glass. It resembled some Hollywood director’s idea of what a dining car should look like, rather than what you would expect to find in a third world country. Eating in the cabin would be much less entertaining, but a whole lot more secure.
We made our way to the last car. We reached the last door, which Burt plunged right through, his weapon out and raised. I noted that the lock had been shot away, just like the one in our door.
Three men were in the room. Two sat on one lower bunk, opposing us, and the remaining man sitting on the floor, propped up against the wall. With the bunks down, there was not much floor space in a Fourth Class cabin. Burt moved deep enough into the space to allow me to sit on the lower bunk, across from the two men.
“Who are you gentlemen?” I asked, no threat in my voice. Burt’s gun was out and ready, but mine still in my pocket. They looked at me. The man on the floor had the broken angle. It was evident from off angle of the bones. The other two had wrapped wrists. One right wrist. One left wrist.
“Left handed?” I asked Burt, pointing at the appropriate man, but his attention was on the three men.
“Who are you people?” I inquired again. None of the three answered, each looking from one to the other.
I noted the very bottom of a tattoo sticking out from under the short sleeve of the one with the broken right wrist. I stepped carefully over the broken ankle of the floor positioned one. I pulled the sleeve gently upward. The tattoo was in blue. It was of the head of a water buffalo. Then I noted the age of the man. He was not young. Older than I, all three of them were, and I was old for the business.
“Thirty-two Battalion?” I asked. The man nodded once.
“Shit,” I mouthed to myself.
“What is it?” Burt asked, gauging the regret in my tone.
“Thirty-two Battalion is the old Boer Commando outfit, disbanded in 1993, I think. It was pretty hot shit. All three of you?” I pointed at the other two. I received no answer.
“Burt here will be glad to take your shirts off, and then break your remaining joints,” I offered. The one who had signaled before did so again.
“Who are you with now?” I inquired, not expecting an answer. I waited, but I knew I was wasting my time. The situation could only play out in one of two possible ways. Either the men were actually going to jump from the train, at high speed with their injuries, or they were going to see reason. I could only play the cards I had been dealt. I couldn’t change them.
“Okay. Have it your way. I don’t expect much. I know you guys. I was a United States Marine. I have a mission to perform. Either Burt here tosses you off the train or you tell me whom you’re working for. I’ll work something out. It’s not much that I’m asking. No names. Not even what this is all about. “ I waited, while once again they looked at each other. They had to be mercenaries. They worked for the money, so their loyalty was not to a cause. But their habit patterns where from the old school, and it would near impossible to break them down. I was not willing to resort to physical torture, and I didn’t really have the equipment for such an operation anyway. Physical torture always works. On everyone. No single human is immune, or tough enough to ‘gut it out,’ as that is the province of movies and television. But it comes with a high price, for the tortured and the torturers. I’d tortured. I knew the price, and I was no longer willing to pay it.
“Aegis,” the man said, his voice low. “Diamonds. It is about diamonds.”
I sat back stunned. Aegis didn’t bother me. It was one of the mercenary companies operating out of London. There were bunches of them. But his volunteering of ‘diamonds’ perplexed me. Tea, textiles, coffee and a few other things were exported from Kenya. There were no diamonds. Not that anybody had ever found or reported on.
“Where,” I asked, not sure what I expected to hear. And what I got I did not expect.
“Freetown.” We cannot tell you more. Our families will never be paid if we tell you.”
I liked the fact that the man was thinking about the money Aegis would pay out to their families following death. I had their full attention. There was no Freetown in Kenya. There was a Freetown in a place that had a ton of diamonds, however. Sierra Leone. A shit-hole of a place. The unadvertised, unclaimed, and nearly unknown, poorest country in Africa, which was saying something.
“We will talk no more. Do your will.” The man bowed his head. Without sharp instruments and a controlled environment I knew that I wasn’t going to get more.
“Lighten up, Francis,” I quoted from the movie Stripes. “You did what you were asked. Here’s the deal. I’m gonna pull the emergency stop.” I stood up and grabbed the single line running corner to corner near the top of the car. “The trains gonna stop. Only you three will be here. They’ll come in hordes once they figure out the cord was pulled in this room. Stopping the train is a First Class Felony in Kenya. You’ll be arrested, guarded, and taken to jail in Mombasa. When you get there one of you needs to confess that he did it. Claim drunkenness. The natives think all White Men are drunks. Or you can claim that you need medical care from the injuries you suffered fighting with one another. Once one of you confesses the others will be set loose. Strange Kenyan Justice. The two released can pay the fine for the felony, and then you can get some splints and treatment for your problems.” I stopped and looked at them carefully.
“If you don’t claim you did it, then there is going to be trouble. Burt here is going to take your going back on your word badly. You won’t survive this mission, I promise you. I want your word as an ‘Os Terriveis’” I stopped again. Portugal had contributed a lot of men to 32 Battalion, and had loaned it the name “Terrible Ones,” not without good cause.
“We agree,” the man said, this time without looking to the others for approval. I was giving them a rare gift, and the man seemed to understand. It would be safer to leave them for dead, strewn along the harsh landscape of the beautiful Savannah, then have them reaching their superiors to tell of their contact with us.
I pulled down hard on the cord. Squealing sounds came from the wheel brakes of our car. It was going to be a slow stop as the emergency cord only worked for the car it was pulled in. The train whistle blew long and loud. The crew had figured out that there was a problem.
I took out another ten thousand shillings and placed them firmly in the man’s good hand. “You’ll need this for the fine. They won’t take your cash when you’re in custody. Trust me, I know about custody in Kenya.” I then took my box of cigarettes out and offered one to each man. They sat there, each with a white tube sticking out of his mouth. Burt brought out a lighter and went slowly from man to man, keeping his suppressed automatic trained on each while he lit their smokes.
“Dankie,” the man said. Dankie is Afrikaans for thank you. He slipped the bills into his shirt pocket. Burt and I stepped out of the room, then made our way quickly back to the dining car, which was full. The non-stop train was slowing to a stop, which caused a lot of discussion from everyone around us as we made our way through.
“What if they try to lay it on us?” Burt asked, just before we reached the room.
“They’re screwed. Strange Kenyan Justice. They’re the ones in the room where the cord got pulled. The exact place is registered down by the side of the car, near the tracks. There’s no Crime Scene Investigation over here.”
“Will it work the way you told them?” Burt inquired, his voice evidencing skepticism.
“I lie when necessary Burt, but I’m not cruel. Those were brothers-in-arms, whatever path they’ve taken since, and, because of your ‘assistance’ they won’t be a problem for us anymore.” I didn’t mention any of the problems that might arise from they’re eventual report to higher ups.
Wendy welcomed us into the room, locking the door behind us. I noted another empty bottle of wine primly set against the far wall, where a partially filled one sat next to it.
“We’ve been wondering where you were. And the train is almost stopped, just like you said would happen. How did you do that? And, when are we going to get to Mombasa?”
I laughed at her tone and obvious gaiety rather than her comments.
“When is dinner served?” I asked. I was terribly hungry and so very tired. I looked up at Wendy’s upper bunk with longing.
“It’s coming. It’s coming, Wendy giggled, but first we want to sing you a song.
Dingo has a ukulele. It’s made from Koa wood carved in Hawaii.
I slunk down the wall between the bunks. I prayed that there were no more players aboard the Iron Snake. Our stopping had risk. Anyone paralleling the train on the Mombasa Road could use the opportunity to get aboard. We could only plan for so much, however. The Earth Mother’s started their song, the words brining an immediate rye smile to my face: “Well, I’ll be damned, here comes your ghost again…” The song was a Joan Baez thing from many years in the past. I knew that the final words were: “…and if your offering me diamonds and rust, I’ve already paid.” I hadn’t understood the words to that song any of the times I’d heard it. I could never figure out what diamonds had to do with rust, since diamonds are a crystal and rust is, well, rust. I listened to the words of the song flow over me, being sung from some of the toughest angels I’d ever come across, and I knew that diamonds and rust did indeed go together and that the amalgam was one of hardship and pain, just like the words of the song.
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What the hell, I'll put it on her anyway. What are they going to do, kick me off?
Closer to God
Hakuna Matata
III
The reinforced double-steel door of the underground parking lot slowly retracted sideways across our view. It was too impossibly heavy to rise vertically. We sat waiting in the Pajero, DCM next to me in the passenger seat and Burt just behind her. Staff Sergeant Stevens pushed another button and rock barriers at the top of the drive began to sink into pre-formed slots. He held up one hand, watching the stones, until they were gone, replaced by metal grates that snapped loudly into place. His hand moved and became a salute. The kind only a Marine is capable of making. I nodded at the man, putting the Nissan into gear. Mrs. Haggerty waved to him, as well, but I knew the salute was intended for me. I smiled my appreciation. His arm came down. He pointed at the windshield as I drove by. I looked at the small white card under the wiper, then reached my hand around through the open window and claimed it.
Bright afternoon sun had replaced the rain, and a cooling wind blew through the Pajero’s open windows, as we waited to take a left onto Limuru Road. Traffic was heavy, and Kenyan’s gave no quarter when it came to driving. We plunged into the melee but didn’t have far to go. Muthaig’s crowning feature was the Safari Park, Kenya’s only real five star hotel with any local flavor.
We waited to take the turn into the hotel.
“May I call you Joyce?” I asked.
“No, you may not,” the DCM shot back, not looking at me, instead examining the wedding band still located on the appropriate finger of her left hand. “You can call me Joan,” she relented. “I hate the name Joyce.”
“You look terrific, Joan,” I said, quite truthfully.
“Fuck off,” Joan stated, her voice evidencing disgust, “don’t try your smooth, urbane, man-of-the-world crap on me.”
I checked the rear view mirror, to see Burt trying to cover his smile with one hand. He avoided my eyes.
“Thank you,” she followed up, unaccountably. The woman was confounding me. I was afraid to speak, but felt somehow, that she wanted me to say something.
I was in a verbal minefield.
“How long have you been divorced?” I tried, figuring that almost every divorced person I had ever met loved to talk about the divorce, and how rotten the other person was.
“None of your God damned business,” she hissed, massaging her wedding band hand, but looking out the side window. I waited for more, but nothing came.
“Two years?” I offered.
“Two years?” she turned on me, speaking the words loud enough to make me raise my right shoulder and wince. “Two years? What kind of idiot are you? Oh, I almost forgot, you’re a spook. One of those Southern-Fried-Chicken-University types who populate Langley. What’d you major in, Bo Weevil Mating? If I’d been divorced for two years, do you think I’d still be the DCM for that idiot?” Spittle hit my cheek.
I heard a barely audible giggle from behind me, but I didn’t look in the mirror. I finally hustled the Pajero through the broken ‘tiger-teeth’ jam of the opposing traffic.
“Ah, no,” I blurted out to her series of questions, driving as fast as I could manage to get to the hotel as quickly as possible.
“No, what?” she yelled. “No, you have a degree is something else, like maybe Burro Husbandry, or ‘Poor-White-Trash’ farming?” I shook my head, in agony.
The huge pyramidal structure of the Safari Park main building appeared and I headed the car for it like it was a laser-guided smart bomb. Supposedly the willow reed thatched buildings had been designed with clues taken from native Kenyan hovels, but in truth, there was nothing in the country that looked like the place.
Without meaning to, I skidded the Pajero to a halt directly in front of the lobby, and jumped out. I moved around the vehicle to get Joan’s door, but one of the bellmen had already attended to that. She stood waiting. Burt was out and leaning against the back fender, as if ready to enjoy more of the show. The show being my complete humiliation.
Joan headed straight for the lobby. I followed closely behind her, noting how powerfully she strode, her black pumps clicking loudly across the tiled floor of the entrance. Burt ran into me, because I had run into Joan. She had stopped too suddenly for me to avoid her. The three of us grabbed one another and swayed.
“Oh great, slimed by a Halloween spook,” she exclaimed, pushing herself from my fumbling grasp.
“Would you stop that?” I said, as quietly as I could to her retreating back.
“Look what happened to the last guy who got outed on your watch?” I followed up. She flinched, but kept walking.
“Good one,” Burt whispered behind me, which made me frown.
We trailed behind the fast moving woman through the lobby and out the back, around a great blue pool surrounded with palm trees of all sizes, and on past the cascading series of wonderful waterfalls that gave all the interior rooms of the establishment a special serenity. The Hilton, and the Sarova hotels have better rooms than the Safari, but none can come close to matching its ambiance. I knew where we were headed. The Nyama Choma Ranch Restaurant was the only thing left between us and the Muthaiga jungle forest. It was simply the finest African food restaurant in Kenya. Nothing else was close. I yearned for an Ostrich steak covered in Monkey-brain gravy. No monkeys involved, of course. Its only a name.
Under one side branch of the falls I caught a flash of movement. Then it was gone. It had been part of a head, sticking out of the bushes, viewing our arrival. I slowed. Burt stumbled into me. I was a little shaken, as I came to a stop, while Joan disappeared into the opening of the restaurant.
“What?” Burt inquired, backing up a step.
“I wouldn’t take an oath on it, but I think the Lebanese just checked us out from beyond the falls.” The water pouring down upon the rocks made talking difficult, but Burt got my message. He turned automatically, putting a palm trunk between himself and the falls.
“You still got that hand cannon under your coat?” I asked, remaining in the open. If we had walked into an ambush no thin palm tree was going to save us.
Burt nodded, but did not make any moves to access it.
“Got anything else?” I asked, feeling a bit naked.
Burt showed me three fingers, held down at his side. Special Forces hand chatter. I always liked the one where the leader takes two fingers of one hand and aims them at his own eyes, so everyone will look at him. In practice, however, I’d found that the gesture, like so many, was all for show. Anybody who could see the gesture was already looking.
“Three?” I said, in amazement. “The Mau Mau’s were put down in 1960, for Christ’s sake. Give me anything small.”
Burt leaned down by genuflecting on right knee, hand sweeping back to flick the bottom of his pant leg upward. Quickly and smoothly, like an unfolding python, the thick muscular man rose up and delicately inserted a .45 Caliber AMT automatic into my open left hand. I stuck it immediately into my front trouser pocket. The five shot auto was small, yet as thick as a full blown Colt. The bulge was noticeable, but I had little choice. Klingon’s preferred to die fighting in combat, or so they said on Star Trek, and I was not going down unarmed.
“What does it mean?” Burt whispered, his eyes never leaving the area of the falls.
“I don’t know. Not good. What would he come here for? If Haggerty decided on Executive Action, then why would the man come where the man is? He’s a U.S. Ambassador, for God’s sake. And how would he know where he was? I haven’t been able to make sense out of anything since we were out there on the Serengeti.” Joan came back out of the restaurant, looking even more impatient then when she’d walked in.
“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed, clicking up to us.
“Admiring the falls,” I covered.
“Oh great, a gay spook and his cultured Troglodyte,” she complained, in exasperation. “Paul’s in there having lunch with one of his mysterious companions.
Should I announce you or do you want to make a grand entrance?”
“We’re coming. Please show us the way,” was all I could say. The woman did not elicit lengthy response, not without dealing out considerable pain.
“What’s a Troglodyte?” Burt asked, from behind. I was about to answer when I had another thought. I stopped again, this time with the four-top table, where the Ambassador sat with some unidentified white male, in sight. “Back out Burt, this could be a hit on Haggerty.” Why else would the Lebanese not take a taxi home, but instead head straight for his antagonist. Who was the Lebanese? He’d acted as prey, very convincingly, but he wasn’t acting that way anymore. Burt backed up to the restaurant entrance, and then disappeared into a hidden alcove. I moved to Joan’s side at the table.
“What’s this?” Paul said, slowly getting to his feet. He stared at me in surprise, and recognition. I stood stunned. The man could only have recognized me if he had a file photo. I relaxed a little as I realized that someone might have called him from the embassy. Cell phones worked amazingly well in Nairobi. I didn’t carry one but I was willing to bet that Burt had three or four under his “Q” designed safari rig.
“Sit,” I commanded the DCM, pulling out a chair for her. She hesitated.
“There’s danger here, sit and act like everyone else,” I continued. She took the chair. I sat at the one next to her, across from the two men. The Ambassador joined us.
“What,” he began, but I held up my right hand. I slid my left hand into the .45 pocket at the same time. The automatic was double action, I knew. In the silence over the table a distinct metallic click sounded. The automatic was off safety. All four of us sat frozen.
“You can worry about me later Paul,” I said, conversationally. “The same Lebanese, the subject of our attention a few hours ago, was out by the falls a few minutes ago. I let him off near the airport, where he was supposedly going to go into hiding. I might have erred and cost you your life, but I don’t want Joan here, or your friend, to go out with you. What do you think?” The waiter came over and placed water, without ice, in front of both Joan and I. We sat in silence.
“Ah, how sure are you,” Paul began to ask, but I cut him off.
“This is the Choma, and the waiter just brought us glasses of water, not bottled water like you have.” I smiled, wondering if the man would get it, as I prepared to go to the floor and attempt to crawl behind some nearby decorative rocks. If anybody opened up I could count on Burt to provide intense covering fire, but his ammo wouldn’t last long. The only safety might be found in staying less than a foot off the ground. An assassination at such a notable hotel and restaurant would have to be over in seconds. Surviving the first few seconds would be everything.
“The waiter’s not a waiter?” Joan said in a low tone, her voice shaking. “What have you done Paul? What are we in?”
“Alright,” the Ambassador said, ignoring his ex-wife and speaking directly to me. “Maybe I was wrong about you. I apologize. What do we do?”
I was amazed. The man was apologizing for attempting to kill me. I sighed.
Being an operational agent for the Agency could not be taught in schools or learned in books. It was too bizarre for that.
“We leave. Slowly, without fanfare, you move toward the kitchen over there Paul, while your friend heads for the washroom in back. Joan, you’re going out all the way to the street, where you’ll wait in the Pajero. You drive. I’m going to knock my silverware onto the floor, then lean down to pick it up. If there’s fire, then you all drop and stay where you are, without moving at all. If there’s fire, it‘ll probably be at me, here at the table, where they intended to shoot. The silverware hitting the floor is your cue. Got it?” Nobody said anything. “Tell me you got it?” I instructed.
Joan murmured something, while Paul and his companion said yes at the same time. I pushed my fork onto the floor. It hit with the sound of a ringing bell.
Everyone moved. I went to one knee, then leaned under the table and fell to my stomach, turning to bring the .45 out and up. I had no more time than that. The phony ‘waiter’ stepped out of the bushes holding an old-fashioned double barrel shotgun. The ends of the barrels looked huge, as he stood only two feet over me.
My AMT was only inches from his stomach. I laid there, looking up into his eyes while taking all the slack, and a little more, out of the .45’s trigger. Slowly, he moved the shotgun aside, cocking his head, as if in question. I gave him back the thinnest of smiles, wondering what Burt was thinking, since he wasn’t doing anything. The man stepped back into the bushes and was gone. I breathed for the first time since I’d hit the floor. I then crawled to the front of the restaurant, right past the host at the front desk. He looked down at me in amazement, until he saw the automatic in my hand. Then he dropped down and disappeared.
I got up and began loping back through the areas of the falls and pool. I saw nothing of anyone, save a few tourists laying near the water or taking pictures of everything around. At the main entrance I paused to observe some kind of film crew who were set up down near where cars circled to let people off. The Pajero idled near their large, tri-pod mounted, camera. Several large Caucasian men milled nearby, and one long-haired young woman. The passenger door snapped open. I saw Joan at the wheel and Burt’s hand sticking out from releasing the door. I jumped in.
“I think we’re gonna be famous,” I said, but nobody laughed.
Joan jerked the Pajero into gear and tore off back around the circle, headed for the traffic mess on Limuru Road. “What happened back there?” she asked.
I was about to answer her when Burt made a comment.
“The woman. I saw her. At the airport in Joburg. I think she was on my flight.”
I twisted around to face him, letting go of my seat belt.
“You flew direct from Johannesburg, and she was on the flight?”
Where where you flying to? You came down from Lake Victoria.”
I watched the big man closely. I had come to trust him, but I didn’t know just how far yet.
“Zurich. Then Zurich to down here. I met Walt up at the falls, to check it out. We had a couple days.”
“Shit,” I said, out loud, turning back to face Joan. “Pull down into the traffic, and then stop. Burt and I are getting out. You take the car to the embassy. You should be alright. I pulled Staff Sergeant Steven’s card from my shirt pocket.
Give me your cell phone number.” I took out my pen to write.
“Are you crazy? You’ll get killed out there. All this because somebody was on the same plane? And that whole restaurant thing? You’re looney and paranoid, and maybe dumb as a post.”
“The number,” I repeated, patiently. “There was a guy with a shotgun at the restaurant. I think he was there for your husband.”
“Double gun.” Burt added, from the back seat. I looked back to him in question.
“Looked like one of those Holland and Holland things. Big bore.
Elephant gun.”
I whistled. A gun like that would sell for a cool twenty-five thousand dollars, if not more. Whoever was involved in the mess we’d stepped into was very well heeled. And that was bad news indeed.
“He’s telling the truth?” Joan asked of Burt, her voice going up.
“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied. “Donner is the best there is. Not well liked, but the best there is.”
I would have commented but the back window of the Pajero blew out, along with the rear driver’s side glass. There had been no sound, except the whoosh and tinkle of breaking glass. Joan screamed, then drove recklessly right out into the middle of Limuru Road. Cars, vans and trucks careened and honked, but no contact was made. The SUV stalled out. I looked out the back, through the gaping hole, over the seat where Burt crouched down. The camera crew had scattered to cars and vans, now fighting one another to get out of the narrow driveway.
“The Railroad Station. We’ll wait there. When I call you, come get us.”
I flew between the seats and shot out the driver-side passenger door, Burt behind me.
“Like hell I will,” Joan yelled, “and you don’t have my number.”
I stood and put my hand up against the flow of traffic, which flowed around us like a thick school, of metallic fish. I liked the woman. She was tough as iron and she wouldn’t abandon us after we’d stood up for her. She’d figure it out.
A red mini-van, with a strange hand-painted poster of The Lion King splashed across its front, screeched to a halt, almost touching my hand. A gold stripe ran around the van’s body. I’d stopped a Matata, one of the thousands that constantly prowled the streets of Nairobi. They came in three kinds, regular, gospel and teeny. The regular one’s were for regular people, like most tourists. The gospel one’s blared reborn gospel music at impossibly volumes. The teeny ones were even worse, pumping out acid rock and rap. The latter two were mostly for locals.
Joan got the Pajero started. She joined the traffic flow. The side door of the Matata opened and a young hand waved. Burt and I crawled inside. There were already three teens inside, plus the driver and his ‘conductor,’ who collected the fare. Matatas had gotten their name from their original fare of three shillings. Now, the prices were variable, going all the way up to fifty shillings or more. Fifty shillings being about seventy-five cents American. The Matata didn’t move. Teeny conveyances were weird. They would carry people they liked, or thought were cool for free, or not let you in at all if they didn’t like your look. I could tell that the conductor didn’t like our look.
“You got any money?” I asked Burt. He shook his head. I stared at the evil looking teenager in front of me, trying to ignore the blast of horrid rap coming out of the Matata’s speakers. We had to get the hell out of there. I took off the Omega and held it up.
“Omega, Speedmaster, Astronauts took to the moon, four thousand U.S.” I said. The kid looked at the watch.
“Sare,” he said, then grabbed the watch. Sare, I knew, meant ‘free’ in the local street slang called Sheng. The kids spoke it, like pigeon in Hawaii.
“Sare, my ass,” I responded, angrily. “Railroad Station, right now.”
I tried to see out the windows of the mini van, to see if our new band of followers were there. They had to be. But I also knew they’d never be able to stay on us unless, somehow, they’d been able to attach a GPS unit to our specific Matata. Not likely. Not likely at all.
Matatas were the locusts of Nairobi streets, and they were nearly indistinguishable in outer appearance. We drove Limuru toward Mombasa Road in a veritable sea of them, our vast overpayment of fare overwhelming the driver’s natural tendency to stop for anyone else. Our teenage riders stayed with us to the station, without complaint or comment.
“Who were those guys, anyway?” Burt asked.
“Don’t know,” I answered. “They’re Caucasian, all of ‘em, and I don’t think they’re with the Lebanese. They look like Agency. And they fired on us.”
Ironically, a piece from the Lion King soundtrack blared out from the radio. Hakuna Matata played. I looked around at my fellow passengers. They didn’t seem to get the irony at all. Then the words of the song hit me. “Hakuna Matata! It’s a wonderful phrase. It means no worries for the rest of our days.”
CLOSER TO GOD
Give Me Strength
I
God is out there somewhere. I don’t know where. Once, when I was in an African prison I yelled back at some would-be reborn Christian preacher: “God has never come to my bunk.” He had been, as is the custom of reborn preachers, ministers or flock-leaders, indicating that God had spoken to him in the night, and instructed him regarding something I ought to do. For some reason God never instructs His acolytes in what they ought to do on their own, other than raise money and make members of the flock serve them.
It does not say, anywhere in the Bible, that God will not give you a burden too heavy to carry. That common saying is just pure bullshit. Think about the death camps in Germany, just for a second, and consider such idiotic God-driven nonsense. I do not believe you can ‘Trust in God,’ or even ‘Let go and let God.’ I think those are buzz-phrases created by reborn idiots. I do believe that if you pray to Him for strength, however, that He will definitely send you more problems so you can grow stronger in attempting to deal with them. My own life is proof of that little homily.
Nobody knows I smoke. Not one soul living on this planet. A couple of people used to know, but they died shortly after they discovered my secret. I don’t like to execute people without some ceremony. Instead of offering the intended victim a cigarette, however, I have one myself. They get the extra time while I finish the process of smoking it. That’s only fair. I smoke Marlboro cigarettes. The long ones with filters. Like the guy on the horse in those old ads. He died of lung cancer, I heard sometime back. I don’t think I’m going to die of lung cancer. I picked a career, or rather it picked me, that will likely preclude that.
It was raining just beyond my tucked-in corner of the railroad station. I smoked there because the station was filled only with members of the native population.
They knew I was nearby, back pressed firmly into the peeling wooden boards, but they made believe I didn’t exist. To me that was the same as not knowing anything.
About my smoking secret, I mean. The natives were like Knuckle-draggers, they didn’t count as living souls. They were just there, like the rocks, the trees or even the rain. I’m not prejudiced on the basis of color. I’m just prejudiced on the basis of the business I’m in.
When it rains in Nairobi, it rains for quite some time. The water coming down is clean, however, unlike the rest of the dusty dirty city. I love Nairobi, don’t get me wrong. And I love the rain in Nairobi because it drives everyone inside, then cleans the streets and universally broken sidewalks. I walk in the rain. I breathe it in. Plus its cool. Nairobi is pretty hot most of the time. I like it cool, but I don’t get many assignments up on the Bering Sea, or down in Tierra del Fuego. Africa is kind of my beat. And I’m not a Knuckle-dragger either. I don’t do the wet stuff at all. I’m one of the rather more rare guys who have guys who do that sort of thing. Maybe there are a few women who do what I do, I don’t know. I’ve never met one, or even heard of one, but these are changing times. Some of those guys, the Knuckle-draggers, were who I was standing near the rain waiting for. The train was overdue out of Lake Victoria, stopping in Nairobi, before making its way down to Mombasa.
Across the tracks I could see old rusting steam engines sitting on bare ground. Steam had given way to diesel ten years back. I remember riding the steam- powered train down to Mombasa, so long ago. The night had been filled with burning cinders, falling down and away past the dining car windows. It had not seemed romantic at the time, but in retrospect it was all of that, and more. I wistfully drew in the last of the Marlboro smoke, then pinched out the stub and replaced it in my red and white cardboard pack. I would leave no evidence of my secret behind, not that anyone around me cared. Kenyan natives are great. They pretty much respect and appreciate white folk, like me. They give deference and they don’t get in your face, as in some other cultures.
The train came in. Just like that. No whistle of warning. I was not in Europe or America. The rules were different. The old cars rocked slowly to a stop, compressed air hissing out from the brakes, resembling steam, up and down the line. I waited.
The natives crammed aboard the train as the passengers tried to get off. It was a mess of water-soaked bedlam, but it wasn’t noisy. The people of Kenya are a quiet lot. Another feature I like.
My guys climbed down just as the whistle of the engine finally sounded, indicating that the train was pulling out. Conductors in blue sweaters and black caps pushed and pulled stragglers aboard. The train creaked as it eased from the station. I turned and headed for the gray Nissan Pajero parked illegally in front. It was an old rental thing with a five speed, unlocked because there were no locks, only holes in all the doors. But I had left nothing inside. I carried nothing except my cigarettes, money and a passport. The rental papers for the car were not even there, as I wouldn’t return the vehicle, just call and tell the agency where to pick it up. My guys would have stuff. It was what they did. If they got caught with any of it, then they’d have to count on some other operatives to get them out of trouble. Or not.
I drove. Two of them in the back and one up front with me. We didn’t talk. They knew the mission. We were not, and were not going to be, friends. If there was to be violence I didn’t want to be grieving over the loss of any of them, or they of me.
Fucking New Guy Syndrome we’d called it, after the Nam. And it had its proper place in our work.
I drove fast. As fast as a three liter Pajero would go, which was not that fast at all.
One hundred and forty kilometers per hour was about max, which was about seventy miles an hour, or so. The roads out of Nairobi were built for about half that, however, so it was a rough scary ride. The guys gave no indication of discomfort or fear, however. It was that kind of business.
We were headed for a village just South of the big National Wildlife Park outside of Nairobi. I never could remember the park’s name. The village is a Masai place. The Masai are tall lanky natives who wear weird throw-back attire and carry long ugly spears. The men, anyway. And they stink to high heaven, as they never ever wash. Ever. I like them, but then, my former wife had once told me that I had no sense of smell. I guess didn’t have much taste in women either. I’d never found any who trusted me. And I couldn’t be around people who didn’t trust me. If they were ‘inside the wire’ kind of women, part of my tribe, then my trustworthiness should have been beyond question. I trusted them. But women don’t trust so easy, I discovered. So I was alone. I worked in a field that did not lend itself well to either trust or believability. Alone was not okay, but it simply had to do.
The village appeared next to the road about twenty clicks on the other side of the park. The inside of the Pajero was filled with dust, even though the rain had done a lot to cut it back. The park had been nothing but dirt roads and dust. Rain only sealed the top inch of the dust, and the dust went down a good four inches deeper than that. The village was a ram-shackle affair of branch constructed hovels, mud huts and half-thatched roofs behind flimsy fences. The fences were to keep animals in, not out. No self-respecting lion would ever allow itself the indignity of being speared full of holes on the interior open plaza of a Masai village.
I drove through a likely hole in the fence. Chickens and a few dogs scattered. I knocked down a few small pieces of stacked junk, and maybe a three-stone fireplace or two. I parked in the center of the village and shut off the engine. We sat. Nobody appeared. The Knuckle-dragger next to me spoke for the first time.
“I’m Burt, and these are Tom and Walt,” he said, as he pointed toward the back seat.
I didn't laugh when a cloud of dust formed near the end of his extended finger.
“Hey,” I responded, looking carefully at each of them. We would not be friends, but our mutual survival was now dependent upon the performance of each of us. Missions involving violence seldom ever went smoothly. Aberrantly strange things were always cropping up.
“The target is being held somewhere nearby. I don’t know where. Our contact is supposed to meet us here." I said the words with finality. We were not going to go social at this tense point of the mission.
I looked at my Omega. It was the same watch the astronauts had worn to the moon. Or so the salesman had told me when I’d purchased it. It was pretty damned accurate, I had to admit. Our source had twenty minutes to make contact or I’d scrub the mission. While we waited, we were targets ourselves. It was a risk that came with the territory. We waited in the vehicle. It wasn’t likely that any force was going to take out four white guys, armed to the teeth, sitting inside a rental four-wheel-drive in the middle of a pacified Masai village. Getting out could lead to booby-traps or other hidden hazards. We waited inside.
A tall Masai warrior appeared between two of the hovels to our front. He motioned with his characteristic spear. The four of us got out of the vehicle. I looked at my guys to assure myself that nobody was coming out locked and loaded. Violence escalates from the things you do before violence happens, I knew. We needed to be just four white guys walking, escorted, across the Serengeti. Everyone was cool.
We followed the nearly seven foot tall native through the saw grass just East of the village. It was a well-beaten path so we had no trouble. We could have followed the tribesman with blinders on, as his aroma was that overpowering, even twenty feet back. I do have a sense of smell I thought, sending a mental message to my ex-wife.
We came upon a clearing at the base of one of those huge Baobab trees, its trunk at least twenty feet thick. A man lay on his side next to the tree, his hands tied behind him with what appeared to be vines. The man was white, wearing the phony safari gear so common to visiting tourists. Even his canvas hat was there, on the ground next to him. I was surprised by that, as the Masai are known for stealing anything not tied, glued or welded down. The warrior stood next to the laying man, planting the base of his spear down on the man’s torso. He looked at me, but said nothing.
I pulled a two inch stack of Kenyan Shillings from my back pocket. I’d exchanged two hundred dollars worth of U.S. currency at the rail station. I handed the warrior the cash. He grabbed it, then walked away immediately, back toward the village. I waited until the five of us were the only humans evident out on the Savannah. Then I crouched.
“You alive?” I asked the downed man. His eyes opened. He nodded vigorously. I stepped back. Automatically, Tom and Walt grabbed the man by his shoulders and roughly seated him, back to the Baobab trunk. They backed away.
“Burt,” I whispered. Carefully, Burt took a medium sized automatic out from under his rain coat and handed it to me. Then he reached inside the coat a second time and came out with a polished black cylinder. I handed the automatic back. Burt finished assembling the silenced killing machine.
“We’re not supposed to talk to you, but what the hell, I never do exactly what they tell me to do anyway,” I offered to the man against the tree, by way of passing time, as I moved to get my pack of Marlboros out.
“I did it,” the man whispered out. “I know you’re his people. I did it. I went to that prison and told them about him. I admit it. But I had to do it. If I didn’t do it he’d have ruined my family. Our business would have been gone. We have nowhere to go. We’re Lebanese. We’re not welcome anywhere. We don’t even have passports.
I even dressed like a tourist, just like he told me.”
I sat on my haunches, no longer reaching for my box of cigarettes. The mission was to take out the man who had deliberately informed on one of our agents, getting that agent very dead, indeed. Payback was uncommon to the intelligence business, I knew, at least payback in violence, but there were certain circumstances. This had appeared to be one of them, as the dead agent had also been a highly decorated former Marine Officer and well connected politically. Unlike myself, he’d also been rumored to be well-liked. The fact that I’d been instructed not to talk to the target had not gone down well with me, although I had not remarked at the time. If I have to be involved in someone’s passing, I like to make certain that some sort of justice in the universe is being balanced.
“What have you got for me?” I asked. The Lebanese just looked back at me.
“If we are not to end this all right here, then you have to give me some reason why your passing should not take place.” I stared into the man’s black eyes, seeing nothing but truth. Everything thing he’d said so far had reeked of truth, and that made me very uncomfortable.
“I don’t have anything,” the man said, his chin sagging to his chest.
“Who was going to destroy your family?” I prompted him. He looked up. Then he looked from Burt to the other two Knuckle-draggers, then back at me. I stood, both knees and the small of my back in pain at the same time. I grunted.
“Take a hike out on the Serengeti for a bit,” I said to Burt. He grimaced, then handed the suppressed weapon to me. I took it. I knew the three of them probably had six more weapons among them, or more. Knuckledraggers were big on toys and equipment, cramming diplomatic sacks with all manner of pyrotechnics.
I waited for the guys to get a good thirty yards down the path, before I squatted back down.
“Paul Haggerty,” the Lebanese expelled with one soft breath. I said nothing back.
I didn’t have another question. I was too shocked. Paul Haggerty was the American
Ambassador to Kenya. Ambassadors never ever get involved in operational agency business, at least I had never heard of it happening before. For an Ambassador to be involved with the killing of a field agent was almost too impossible to consider.
“I understand that you have to kill me. But my family. They won’t be hurt, will they?
I have a wife and four children.” He tried to go on but I held up one hand in front of his face.
“Do you have any idea why Paul would want the agent dead?” The Lebanese shook his head violently. “Do you have any idea who killed our man?” I followed up, beginning to wonder exactly what had taken place in that prison outside of Nairobi.
Kenya was not exactly an enemy of the United States. The Soviets were long gone.
Terrorism was mostly a geographically limiting situation, excepting 9/11, of course.
Why the revelation that a man was an agent of the CIA would get him killed in a place like Kenya had no comforting answer that I could come up with.
The man shook his head again. I believed everything he’d told me. But I didn’t know what to do with it.
I rose to my feet once again with same groan. I stepped away from the Baobad and saw Burt pacing in the distance, nervously. If I got myself killed it would not look good in the after-action report, for him, or the other guys. They had to do what I said, but they also had to protect me. I waved him back.
“Cut him loose,” I said, when the three had shambled back. I handed the silenced weapon to Burt. “We won’t be needing that.”
Tom and Walt got the Lebanese to his feet and cut through the vines. The man glanced around him like he was some sort of hunted bird, looking for the next direction of attack.
“What do I do?” he asked, finally. I took the eighteen remaining hundred dollar bills of mission cash from my front pocket. I put the small stack into his hand.
“We’re taking you back to your family. Then you’re going to disappear for a few weeks while I get this all sorted out. And I mean disappear. Do you understand?”
“You did not know?” the Lebanese asked me, looking at my three guys, without going on. I shook my head.
“There will be trouble, I think,” he said, with an air of finality.
The village was as dead when we returned, as it had been when we’d arrived. It was obvious that no one had touched the Pajero. The villagers wanted nothing to do with us. As I drove madly toward Nairobi, the Lebanese wedged in between Tom and Walt in the back seat, I supposed that nobody in the U.S. Embassy was going to want anything to do with us either.
We have just had another of those strange flight travel incidents, which nobody seems to be able to explain or resolve in any way. It seems that a Continental plane pulled into Rochester, Minnesota because of bad weather, then sat on the tarmac, about fifty feet from a gate, for twelve hours. Everyone involved has diligently and rationally absolved themselves of fault in this situation. Again. The passengers suffered pretty badly, with just one bathroom. That bathroom was clogged up and inoperable. No food and no drinks were served by the one flight attendant, while all this went on. The Airport says that the terminal was open and available, but the crew of the aircraft would have had to request clearance to dock. The Airline says it knows nothing at all about any of what went on. The crew of the plane says that the terminal was closed and they had no place to dock. That someone's lying here is being totally ignored.
But it is vitally interesting to listen to interviews of the passengers after they were finally deplaned. The succession of lies that they were told by the crew of that plane is unbelievable. It is almost of daytime soap opera caliber stuff. They were told that the terminal was closed. They were told, time after time, that they would be flying out very soon, until they started to be told that a bus was coming to take them back to Minneapolis (60 miles away). Then they were told that the bus had broken down. They were served nothing by the lone flight attendant, but a pack of self-serving lies. There was no bus. There was no flight clearance. The crew never contacted the terminal to ask for docking privileges. There could be only one motivation for all the lying and misrepresentations. Money. Why else would anyone perform like that crew performed?
Flight crews start getting paid as soon as they pull away from the gate. That crew was well into overtime pay while that plane sat there on the tarmac. Not only that, but the crew was using up hours of 'air' time which would give them time off in the weeks ahead, because of the way flight rules are structured within the industry. The passengers were 'gamed' by that crew. The media allows this to continue by not letting the public know about the true motivation behind this kind of miserable flight violation.
And you might think that the passengers kind of deserved what they got because they did not get violent or complain to the point of intolerance? Think again. Post 9/11. Yes, think TSA. Think about the expressions you yourself observe on many of the near-moronic faces of airport security 'officers.' You cannot, as a passenger, encounter flight personnel, or security personnel, with an 'attitude' anymore. You will be charged with a felony, and our ridiculously skewed court system will find you guilty. It happens more than three thousand times a year in this country. The passengers had to do what they did. They had to stay quiet and take the lies. They probably even knew that they were being lied to. And there is the cell phone issue I heard brought up this morning. Once you pull away from the gate you are not allowed to use your cell phone on the aircraft. Only the crew could give you permission to do that, and guess what. Yes, you guessed it. The crew said no cell phones.
The crew will not be fired or punished for their behavior. Anymore than Officer Crowley will be punished for his illegal harassment, humiliation and arrest of Professor Gates. In fact, they will all be rewarded. The flight crew will get the off time and overtime pay, while Crowley will get promoted and have some badly written book published. Some injustices that occur in our culture are actually rewarded. I am not sure why, exactly. Maybe it is just that Jupiter is in transit, or Venus is trining Mars. But, if the airlines do not stop supporting outrageous behavior committed by their flight crews, there will be an occurance of violence at some point. One of these days, or nights, an overheated and fully stuffed aluminum tube is going to explode like a bratwurst left too long on the grill. That coming event is so easily preventable, but, sadly, I don't think anything will be done. Our whole culture is sitting on the dock of the bay, watching .....
A few days ago the media was reporting in the news that our forces in Afghanistan had killed a Taliban leader by the name of Mehsud. The reports came with detailed descriptions of the actual terminal event. It seems that Mehsud was spotted on the top of a home, sitting next to his second wife, by one of our Predators, Reapers or White Doves. That last designation is my term for these robotic flyers who fire missiles from beneath their wings. Missiles were launched and the house, with Mehsud and wife, was obliterated.
Are we at war with the Taliban? I thought that we were at war with Al Qaeda. I thought that we went into Afghanistan to get the Al Qaeda cells who had launched 9/11, and, in particular, the cell which contained Osama Ben Ladin. I thought that we fought the elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan to get them out of our way, in order to allow us to reach the followers of Al Qaeda. But then I was also led to believe that, eventually, we were fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, until we changed the name of the opponents there to "insurgents." Now I just don't know.
Let's assume that we have to be at war with the Taliban. That assumption safely put where we can get back to it, let's take a look at the morality of killing the woman that was with him. We can even marginally presume that the guy on the roof of that building (Mehsud) when the predator struck down with six missiles was the Taliban leader we sought (there are many conflicting reports about that). But I want to write about that woman. Whoever she was. Were we at war with her when we executed her with full, willing and aforeknowledged intent? Nobody seems to care about this poor woman, blown to smithereens. Why not? Why is it that we keep getting reports that our White Doves shower down these missiles on all manner of people living in Afghanistan, and it is okay that many are not combatants at all? Who will cry for this woman?
I went to a party the other night. High class party. Everyone was higher class than I. My attendance was based upon the fact that I can usually be depended upon to engage in interesting discourse. The hostess of the party, when I was at a table deep in discussion about the Iraq war, said these words: "It's a war. Kill them all. Men, women and children. That's what war is. Kill them all." I looked at her. I like her. I want to be invited back to her parties. But I could not help myself. Quite forcefully I encountered her verbally: "I can understand your feelings, but I would like you to understand that this war should then have your husband and children laying here, dead at your feet, for you to have any comprehension of the enormity of what you just said." Even the mildest intimation that violence might be considered to be visited upon her, there in her own home, stopped the place dead for a moment. I still like this woman. I know that she is so very proto-American, however. She has not lived in those cities out there, humped those jungles, slogged across those deserts and certainly not spent any time with any of those wondrous cultures out there all over this planet. Those people are not people to her. Not like her husband and children. They are not even existent enough in her consciousness to be human beings.
They are very human to me. That woman on that roof who was blown to smithereens. That woman probably had a husband and children too. Maybe the husband is dead. But the children? If they survived the huge blast are they not thinking about enrolling in flight officer training as I write this? Or will that come later? I am not sure about that, the survival part, but I am deadly certain about the 'flight school' device I use here to describe the awesome hurt and hatred which will out itself one year soon. Where do you suppose all that emotion is headed?
And now, today, we have Fox and CNN running the same video of a White Dove watching some insurgents somewhere planting a bomb on a highway. The White Dove does what American White Doves do. It blows the living crap out of the insurgent. And it is all so very justified. And it all attempts to cloak a little secret that leaked out earlier in the day. The secret that we have designated fifty drug dealers in Afghanistan to be destroyed by our White Doves, came out this morning. You see, it is the drug dealers who are the sole remaining financiers of the Taliban. This, we are told very forcefully, then shown the video of a I.E.D. placing insurgent being killed again.
And where did we get out list of Taliban-loving drug dealers? Well, from our intelligence. Which takes us right back to the Monterey language school in Monterey, California. That is the language school the military uses to train our people to speak the languages of other countries so we will understand them. Without speaking the language, and isolated in a guerilla environment, we must depend upon local translators to tell us what people are saying. And to tell us the truth about it. How many graduates of Monterey have we turned out over the past few years who speak the languages of Afghanistan? I am willing to bet that the classified number is around ten, maybe twenty. So what we end up with is intelligence based upon what the locals are telling us. Remember those clowns from Iraq who supposedly gave us all that intelligence before this latest Iraqi nightmare? They lied to us time and again, and got paid hundreds of millions for doing it. We didn't find out about the lying for quite some time though. Today, in spite of the payments and lying, the chief-liar-in-charge of that crew is the Oil Minister of the country.
So here we are, killing supposed drug dealers, from the Wings of our Snow White Doves, all over the place. Do those drug dealer's have wives and family living with them? Or traveling with them? And what is the basis for assigning someone to this terminal hit list? The word of some locals, and very probably locals who would like a bit of the power that the person they are reporting on might have. I experienced this in Vietnam, in the field as a combat commander. Only after I was in country long enough to acquire some of the local language was I able to figure out that my "Kit Carson" local scouts were lying to me. That was after, by the way, we had already 'taken out' my scout's political opponents in a nearby village. The interpreters had, of course, indicated that they were V.C. (Viet Cong enemy, for you young people).
Why are we at war with the 'insurgents' in Iraq? Why are we at war with the Taliban? Why are we now killing drug dealers without true accusation or trial? Why have we allowed our assassination teams (as reported by Hersh) to rend and kill people all over the world on the basis of information which is worse than suspect? Why, if America does not like you, do you get visited, then carried away on the wings of Snow White Dove? I damn well think so. The hostess who invited me to that party probably thinks that this result is just fine with her. And I do not expect to be invited back, no matter how witty my 'House-like' commentary might be. But I have a problem with killing people willy nilly across the face of the planet and then expecting that we are not gong to be hated, vilified, and eventually hunted down ourselves.
It is hard for a Marine to say these words: "We must retreat." But retreat we must. We need to get our head and act together again. We need to stop locking up our own homeless, believing our own lies, and blaming the world out there for the problems we have here. If we were mentally healthy, as a culture, we would merely have absorbed the hit we took on 9/11, then made sure we caught up with Osama and his small band. We'd have rebuilt the towers and thumbed our nose at Silverstein in New York, or anybody else who got in our way (but we would not have struck down upon them with one of our White Doves!). With just the two trillion the Iraq and Afghan wars have cost us, and the seven or so years we've wasted, we could have bases upon the Moon, Mars and be running back and forth almost without limit. Now how could would that have been? You think the world might just be going; "God, but those American's are something else!" instead of "Those Yanks are bunch of violent imperialist creeps." And, finally, we would not have a huge crop of our young people coming home to kill themselves, or live their lives homelessly, drunk, drug-addicted and unemployed.
A new war for a new year. Go for it Jews! Nobody else is hogging the spotlight right now so we need new news. Our press has given up on Iraq and abandoned Baghdad to itinerant bloggers. Bloggers, We all know how accurate their (our) reports are! But then, whom are we writing to out there anyway? I wrote, this morning, about the fact that it is Monday the Thirtieth. Well, it is Tuesday, but my readership either got the joke or simply did not notice, or care. My attempt at geek humor. Failed, most probably. Maybe I will do better at the party tonight. The Jews are busting heads and kicking butt over there to beat the Jesus out of the Arabs. This time it is Hamas on the Gaza strip. Because they shot rockets into Israel. Now when have any of those countries, over there, not to mention, regions, tribes, communes or whatever, ever shot rockets at each other? When have they not shot rockets at each other? The neighbors of Israel are never ever going to get along with the Israelis. You see, with our, and other's, help following WWII, we took a chunk of that region and gave it to the Jews. We, and other's including the Catholic Church, felt guilty because we knew what the German's were doing to the Jews during the war and we didn't do anything about it. After the war we hung few Germans, but then also accepted a lot of them into this country because they had secrets and skills we needed. Guilt. So we did the right thing. We gave them somebody else's property. Yeah, the land was not unowned or unoccupied. We gave them property that other's still claim, and will always claim until there is not another breathing soul of the respective owner families alive. And so we have rockets, and now another war. "All is going well on the Oceanic Front." Will the Jews ever give fair compensation to try to settle the situation? No. They don't have to. They have nuclear weapons, for all the good that has done them. You think the Palestinian's are ever going to get over the loss of their property? Consider the feelings of the Native American's here. Or the Irish over there in Ireland. The Afghans. Even the Iraqi people. They want their land. And they make no bones about it....or a lot of bones.
Isn't Governor Rod doing great? It is like he is following the advice on my blogs. His new appointment. Terrific. What can they do? Deny him a seat? A black guy? In this current environment? A laughing dancing Negro that the Republican's love to hate? You go governor! "Make my day," the hair-dropped whacked-out Blago whispers to himself. He is not even aware that he is fighting for state's rights. He is fighting for opposition to the overwhelming dominance that Federal Prosecutors have had in this country for the last fifty years. Fitzgerald is now trying to release some of the Governor Rod tapes to his political opponents so they can impeach. He has already released them to the media, back on the first day. Attack back, Governor Rod. Go after that righteous man, meddling in the politics of Illinois for his very own personal benefit. Yeah, he wants to be the only person of integrity left standing. The best way to be that man is to tear everyone else down who might hold the crown. And he is doing it all using this screwed up system of justice that has wormed it's way right into the heart of our culture. Being legal is not necessarily being right. Or honest. Or caring. Or any of it. The hard financial times are coming, however, and they are bringing change. Obama is not bringing change there, he is merely the leader who is going to make us feel better while we go through it. And these changes coming, a lot of them will reduce righteous people back into the schoolyard bullies they came out of being, and set us free.
Maybe I will wear all of one color tonight, and keep my mouth shut. Or fairly shut. I am trying to fit in here, really. I don't even give this blog address out to local people. They might read it. And believe me. What good could that possibly do? I mean, if the big astroid is really coming on 12/21/12, and it is, then what good does it do to know that? Someone once said to me "your predictions are uncannily accurate and it is amazing that you can find out so much, but, why do all of your predictions have to be bad?" They aren't. But readers really only remember bad ones. It is how we are conditioned to survive. Hyper-vigilance never lost a tribe to the nomadic raiders of old. But the warriors who were hyper-vigilant died from stress and worry at young ages. But then, that is the lot of the warrior. I sometimes wonder, being one that has grown older, whether we don't spend those waning years, months, weeks, and days thinking about how we should really be among the fallen too. What are we doing here, still? Getting dressed in a yellow outfit (I am told it is yellow), getting ready to go out and alienate a bunch more people who live right in my back yard. Oh Israel...oh me....oh bother....
from-the-chateau-dif.blogspot.com
I have a party tonight. I have not been to a New Year's Party in twenty-five years. That kinda happens to you, or so I believe, if you have been a rolling stone. During those years I lived in places for maybe two, orsometimes three, years. You do not get to know people well over such a short period of time. But then, I have only been out here in the abandoned back-country for two years and I have a social life of some proportion. Which means I am wrong in my basic hypothesis. Not uncommon. So I have this party. And there is always the 'what in the world shall I wear' thing that occurs. I picked up my best sweater at the dry cleaners yesterday, but then there is the color issue. Since I am color blind I have a hard time putting stuff together, without causing those little side glances or raised eyebrows of fellow party-goers. And I don't look good enough. I know that because I have a big mirror in the bathroom. I know I look better than I do in that mirror, because everything is reversed in the mirror. I don't really look like that at all. Still. The effect is not pleasing. Not to me, anyway. But then, I am not trying to attract anybody so why do I care? Genetics. It is buried deep inside me somewhere. Maybe the Catholic upbringing. Maybe the Marine Corps (I sure looked good back then, although, and this is so typical, I did not think so at the time). I will do my best. The host is this wonderful guy, with a really neat wife, who expects that I will add some life to the party. In fact, Chris' exact words were "I think you will be great. Just be yourself. We don't care if nobody comes back next year." Then he went on to some other subject. I thought for a while about what he said. Am I that much of a character? I don't see myself that way. I think I am quite carefully held together. Even a bit urbane, maybe. But that is not how I am seen by others. Which is okay. I am used to that, a bit. Maybe I should include a muzzle with the rest of my outfit.
Brett Favre. God, is he a trip, or what? The coach of his team, the New York Jets, got shown the door yesterday. This is right after the owners, the day before, swore that they were not going to fire him. Our culture. You know, the one where everyone tells the truth all the time. So Brett does it again. Devastation follows wherever he goes now. He absolutely bombs his last four games with the team and the coach gets the sack. He blows the super bowl bid last year for the Packers and look what happens over there. I'll bet the coaches get the sack there too. In leaving, he made himself into the Favre Titantic. Everyone goes down with the ship. Except for Brett, of course. He gets a small dingy to sail away in, well stocked of course. Each year I wait for this old saw of a horse to be put out to pasture. He is the George Bush of football. Dumb as a post, spoiled rotten, and flapping his mouth all the time. Oh, as usual, the owners of the Jets are just begging Favre to come back next year. And those guys have quite a solid reputation for telling the truth. Maybe the football 'hero' can finally be left to travel by private jet across this land. Another modern idiot who has been given everything in the world that one can imagine, and for doing what?He throws a leather ball well. Maybe the coming financial crisis will change the way we look at such things and at such people. I don't know though. The games of Rome became more popular as Rome went down, not less.
Bob Herbert. Today he was not writing about stupidity, although, on the same page Judith Warner was being stupid again. Bob went on and on about just what a disaster George Bush has been for this country and the world over the past eight years. Gee, no kidding. The only thing the article lacked was retribution and recovery. We need the stuff back George stole, or helped steal. We need the culprits to be put in stocks and paraded around so people will feel better. We need to know what really happened (like who got tortured and what was done to them). We need to feed our puritanical and Calvinistic roots with the moisture of the blood from all those evil people. I fear, without such retribution and recovery, we are doomed. We must set our course based upon ideas. It is our belief system that has been so badly damaged. "He who has no target, hits same," kinda thing. Look at our space program, as an example. You really can plan to go backwards and design yourself out of the very thing you claim to be headed towards. Our design for the future, given to us by NASA recently, is just such a design. We will build some old Saturn Fives and shoot them off in all directions, for awhile. Maybe we will go back to the moon or on to Mars. Maybe not. The George Bush Space Program. Might just as well get first class tickets aboard Brett Favre's ship. And we will be doing the same thing with our whole culture if Obama, and team, just let this whole thing go and attempt to 'get on with business.' This is not about business. This is about our culture. Our tribe. This is about the belief system of an entire culture.
Well, you didn't, but I am going to write about it anyway. I have AT&T because I use an iphone, and that is the only plan you can have, unless you are gifted at 'unlocking' or 'jailbreaking' an imphone, which I am not. I do not like Apples arrangement with AT&T. Apple I have liked for years, and use all of their equipment. But I have begun to wonder about them when they pull stuff like this bundling with AT&T. You see, I was on the phone for thirty-six minutes, earlier this afternoon. Not to complain. Not to do anything weird. I just wanted to buy one of those little plug-in cards that will allow me to access the internet from anywhere with my laptop. It is called Ultra Express, the card, I mean. I already pay 182.00 a month for my cell phone service. The new thing would be an extra sixty bucks a month and some charge to set up the new card. Okay. I am ready to pay. But I cannot. I cannot because of what has happened across this country. AT&T is typical example of the problem. I spoke to four call centers. One in middle America, one in Missouri, one in Colorado and one in Canada. I was transferred all about in attempts to put me in touch with somebody who could help me buy the product and service. Camilla, in Missouri, was the last and the best. She really was trying, but she is working inside a system that is moldy and wormy from hopelessly complex non-working systems. The last person I got transferred to was just about ready to do the deed, when she accidentally hung up on me. I called back, but it was starting all over again, this time in Manila, or some such, gauged from the accent alone. When I said, this time, that I wanted an internet access Ultra Express to make my Apple Power Book go online, this woman said "What is that? An Apple what?" After saying "Dah," I hung up. No Ultra Express. No extra sixty bucks a month. I will just have to bang along as I have been doing without that stuff. When they say that the phone calls may be recorded I am used to be a little nervous. Now, when they say that i have a shred of hope that maybe someone will, indeed, listen in. But I doubt that.
We cannot go on like this. Not as a country. We cannot take care of what we have and we cannot expect to sell our products with this type of infrastructure. I am willing to bet, right now, and a lot of money, that if any of the cell phone companies of today offered service by phone, in person, at their home office, in the United States, twenty-four hours a day, they would take over the wireless business overnight! We are going back. Yes, whether we want to or not. These bean-counters who have moved in and taken over all of our big companies, have to go. They swept in and started cutting services. You cannot got to an electric company, gas company, telephone company, cable company, or any of them, and talk to anybody. They closed all their offices which had contact with the public. Instead they went online or offering call center phone assistance. Online is even worse than the phone. The sites are hopelessly mired in stupidity. You can't find what button to push or what page to go to next. And the call centers have to go. Out. And they will only be moved out by competition. Somebody has to make the first step. Then it will be a cascade. Bring on the coming financial crisis. So much has to change. There is so much uncaring, cold and mean service out here, the situation just makes you want it all to fall down. After my thing with AT&T I do not want their junk. i want the company to fail and something to take over that has a heart. That has a care. Yeah, i like my iphone, even if coverage out here is anything but what they promise. i live with, and expect that. Our country is a moving dynamic sales engine. It always sells things that do not work as well as advertised. We are so used to it we expect it.
What if we just change our expectations? Think about it.
The dead of winter. Every morning Harvey, my cat, puts me through the same ritual. He gets up, has a bite for breakfast (wherein he demands a new Fancy Feast can each day, whether he has eaten the old one or not), and then attempts to slip past me while I am making my sally out to get the papers. That never works because I am always ready for his not-so-subtle attempt. However, just after I begin to read the papers, with a cup of hot coffee on my chair arm and ABC's morning program on the tele, he begins his blatant sales presentation. Meow this and meow that. Sitting on the top of the chair, above my head, and swishing his tail into my face and eyes. He thinks he is a groundhog. But a new groundhog every day. He just has to go out there for five to ten minutes to reassure himself that it is still horrid and unlivable winter. I hate it. If I let him go, he instantly disappears somewhere. Behind a snowbank, under the pines or around a corner. He does it on purpose. I just know it. So then, after yelling his name, I have to go get dressed and search the great outdoors. No bath, shower, or shave. Just rough clothes on, boots without socks, coat without hat or gloves....and I am out there in it. You see, I can't just sit there and let him wander. It is too cold and too miserable. He knows all this, of course, being a cat and all. This morning I have slipped up here to get away from him. Besides, after checking out the front pages and the editorials I threw the papers down in disgust. Crap. It is a day of news crap.
There was a long article on how we just are not covering Iraq anymore, and with good reason. You must understand that the press has to spend it's dwindling funds covering stuff where something is happening. Iraq is passe'. Comparatively, not many American kids are being killed there. So we have closed all three network bureaus in Baghdad. We were out of there long ago anyway. Bush and team terrorized the media and booted them out a few years ago, along with bringing in the phony 'surge.' Now the rage is Afghanistan. That is where the new 'surge' is going to take place. So they are staffing up. The media only staffs up now to support the administration. They report what the Pentagon wants reported. Or they get dead or blown to hell and gone. Remember Jim Webb? He lipped off to George Bush, with respect to his son's service in Iraq, when he was only a few days in office two years ago (basically, he told the Commander in Chief that he had no business inquiring after his son). Mistake. When your son is controlled by that same guy, his life on the line because of where or what he might be exposed to, it is wise not to piss that guy off. And we have heard what from Jim Webb since he was elected? Nothing. Not a damn thing. He trotted out a bill to get Iraqi veterans preferred treatment for education purposes (at the expense of all veterans who came before) and that was it. What do you suppose the 'behind closed doors conversation' was like between Webb and the president's men later on? Webb still has a sock stuffed in his mouth, and will have until the end of January. Just an example of the naked power those people have to do just about anything they want. Cheney signed off on torture. Who cares? Not the media. And not the public because the public does not hear about it. Cheney says that the president is above the law in 'time of war' and the same thing happens. Nothing. Bush does his Howdy Doody imitation, day after day, giving final life to Letterman's special segments, and little else. He is above it. He has made his billions. They all have. Now they just want to go quietly and keep the billions.
William Kristol, one my favorite sleaze pundits (not of the caliber of that slug Bill Bennett, but up there), writes this day of how neat it is that he will be out of the country for the presidential inauguration. It appears he is speaking up in Canada. Hopefully, he is engaged to speak about something he is really good at, like how old men can be successful with young women if they have enough power and money. Anyway, he writes of Rick Warren and how great that is. I mean that Warren is going to get to do the invocation. How the raging wild-eyed liberals will be chained back by his selection to fill that role. Out of that will come less abortion. Out of that will come real patriotism. Out of that will come recognition that these new Old Testament Christians have come into their own.
I am one of the few people who know how William Kristol is getting up there to his speaking engagement in Canada. He is driving up in a Gran Torino.
I have this meteor. It was given to me for Christmas by my astronomer friend. It weighs about a pound and a half and is shaped like a mangled potato. i particularly like the fact that it has three little 'tangs' jutting from the bottom so it sits firmly and flatly on a hard surface. I have ordered a chunk of that terrific Hawaiian wood (Koa) to work on and make a stand with. The 'Dreiser' meteor, as I term it, named after my friend, is not the only meteor I have. An astronaut (a really neat guy named Mitchell) gave me the other one. It came from the Moon, or so he said. Why would an astronaut, and one who had been to the moon, no less, lie about that? I believe him. But I also know that all the geologic stuff brought back from the moon was categorized, labeled, stored, displayed, gifted to other countries, and held to be quite valuable. So what am I doing with a two pound chunk of ejecta from the Moon, sitting over here next to the Dreiser object? The Mitchell and the Dreiser. They are both wonderfully weird ducks, objects and men, and they are both emblematic with respect to the interesting things in life. I like to sit and hold them, one in each hand, sometimes. Cold, but somehow comforting. Even the Mitchell. It used to scare me. The Mitchell weighs just over two pounds but does it is not right. If you move your hand with the object in it, well, your hand just keeps going. The two pound piece of silvery metal does not have the proper inertia. It has too much. And that can't be. Not in our universe. Not as we know it. I went back to MIT to study in Quantum Theory. I worked on Project Antares in Los Alamos. I know these things pretty well. The physical laws of the marcro world, the one we inhabit, are immutable. They always work the same way. Every time. The glass dropped from your hand always falls to the floor. It never starts on the floor and rises to your hand. Never. Inertia is the resistance of an object's mass to acceleration. The mass. So you weigh it. Then try to move it. The inertia has to be a function of that mass, which cannot be changed unless you modify the object in some way (like hollow it out or cut part of it off). So the inertia has to be directly tied to the weight. Balsa wood cannot have the same resistance to movement as lead. Never can that happen. But there sits the 'Mitchell' over there, an arm's length away. And it's not right. I have been waiting for years for somebody to come and collect the thing. Some agents in Brooks Brother's suits and cheap shoes. Not from the Agency. From some sci-fi kind of organization. My imagination runs wild. Mitchell must still be laughing over that 'gift.' I have not seen him since, and that was way back in the early nineties. I know he's alive because he surfaced a few months back, and said that "yes, there are aliens about," or some such, on T.V., and it was played all over. I don't believe that, however. But I also don't believe that the universe is quite the place we think it is either. The 'Mitchell' is reassuring, with respect to that. There is more 'out there' than we know. There are possibilities we have not even considered. I like that a lot.
It is Sunday night and the year is ending. Two Thousand and Eight. Wow. I always expected to make it this far, ever since laying there in Yokosuka Japan recovering from the bullets after Nam. I just knew that if that did not kill me than I was in for a long run. And here I am. Maybe it is that single event in my life that made me a keen observer. Writers are keen observers. The good ones, anyway. And I think I am a good one. I did not write that I was great, however. Only history can make such a determination as that. There have been some stupendously great writers, in my opinion, who have not fared that well. Try Ralph Waldo Emerson. Absolutely terrific. But, historically, barely a footnote. And, as far as the general, rather vapid, population is concerned, no footnote at all. Britney Spears gets more play, and probably will over the years ahead. But then, we have become products and control items of that visual device. We don't really get the words and ideas of philosophers put in front of us anymore. We get Letterman and Leno. We get Conan. They give us acid repartee, like I write for House. They don't give us meaning. They don't give us hope. They don't make us think, and in thinking....do. Act. Attempt. If we can't think it we can't do it.
I swing my meteors. The Dreiser, in my left hand, is real and reassuring in it's functional obedience to physics. The Mitchell is anything but that, yet still delightful in the brilliance of opportunity it portends. You can't really swing them in unison, as the Mitchell does not want to come back from the end of the arcs. Real life. Life as it may be. Real life. Life as it will be. I swing them without coordination, as life really is. A New Year beholds.
Ah, people, Caroline is going to be the Senator. it matters not what she says or does or even does not say or does not do. She is in. But we will have all the churning and roiling of waters until the appointment is made. If it was an election, she would still win. Does anyone remember the Conan clown from California? Yes, the guy who's name proves that Hollywood stars change their names because they don't want you to know who they are related to rather than because the names are inconvenient or don't sound right, Mr. Arnold Schwarzeneggar. He walked in from off stage, with a resume that was beyond laughable, an accent straight out of Transylvania and star power. He was in. From the night he stepped onto the stage with Mr. Lovely-Stripe-In-My Hair Leno, he was in. That is the power of the media today. Remember our recent debates? As much as I love Obama, I did not suspend my observation capabilities when he went onstage with John McCain. It did not matter what introduction McCain received or what he said. When Obama stepped onto the stage, that was it. He radiated what he has. Star power. And he was in. The rest was time and a lot, and I mean a lot, of talking about issues and problems and concerns. We are, essentially, still tribal. We follow the leader. If the leaders gets us killed by the million or truly miserable, then we take him or her out. And then appoint or elect his or her son or daughter! It is just the way things are. And yes, i hate that part of culture. All culture. Not just our's, but all of humanity responds the same way. We used to study this phenomenon when Sociology still existed (as the study of group relations). Before the powers that be became frightened by that science and did away with it. Now, just believe what they tell you on television. The War is going just fine out there on the Oceanic Front! Orwell be damned.
Back here, in the middle of my newspaper strewn living room, I reflect upon the homogenated news of the day. It seems that WaMu was all about the lousy mortgage loans they gave to unacceptable risks. Once again, the mantra. It is about the poor people. They sneaked in and destroyed everything with their poorness. They could not pay. Low lifes. These stories lately are being more subtle. They are kind of shifting some of the blame to the people who gave out the loans. One interviewed for the article in the Times was in jail for his fourth charge (theft) unrelated to his work as a mortgage counselor for the bank. So we have the criminals now, they, in league with those poor people, causing the downfall of WaMu. Almost seven billion in bad loans. Wow. Seems like a lot, until you look at the simple fact that it was a run on the bank that took it down. Yes, the simple old, we want our money, depression era, run on the bank. Over the course of three days, just before WaMu fell, people went in and took out nine billion of cash. Forget the loans. Those are long term and have all sorts of delays and things to keep them at a distance for awhile. But you can't avoid nine billion in withdrawals. The people lost confidence and that was it. Funny how that works.
I also read, here and there, about how communities are scaling back on programs for the poor because of their shrinking budgets. I am waiting. I am waiting until they just have no more money to take from the poor. And then they will have to cut law enforcement. Prosecutors. Judges. Probation Officers. Parole Officers. Court facilities. Jails. Prisons. Corrections Officers. All of that awful part of our society which is quietly consuming us. Not just the money, but our very morality. It has to go. We have to do something else, but it will have to be forced upon us. We Puritans are a punishing lot.
Finally, the gas thing. Friedman is at it again. He endorsed globalization and sending jobs offshore. Now he is into gasoline, with other conservatives. They see taxes coming. The worst kind of taxes. Those would be taxes on them. Income taxes. So what do they do? They lay it off. Let's get a huge tax on gasoline while the getting is good. We can then use that to pay for many many things. Oh, nothing that they say it will pay for if it gets done. No, the uses of the money will be changed later, like with social security and highway funds. But they want taxes on the gas because that shifts the burden of raising revenue from the rich to the people who have to drive to work. So here we go again. Note this kind of chicanery for what it is. We have to raise more revenue at some time in the future. You are going to see a lot of Friedman style squirming.
That song has been around for a long time. I think I first heard it while I was in grade school, and it was sung in French. I do not know it's origin. But I do know, outside of some later singing about the scouting camp grounds, that the song's impact came home to me when I watched the movie Star Trek V. I have those moments, and movies can bring them out with such surprise and in such depth. What struck me, during the beginning, and then the end, of that movie was the song sung by Captain Kirk, Bones and Spock. And it was not the words or the melody which really hit me. It was the loose but enormously strong bonding of the character's relationship which reeled me in. I wanted to be there, in Yosemite Valley, with those guys. I wanted the kind of bonding relationships they seemed to have so easily and casually. Spock did not even have to sing. He just sat there and was, well, Spock. Very much separate but intensely 'in' with the other two men.
I have thought of that sequence many times, and seen the movie a couple of times since. It was kind of a lousy Star Trek, and proved that Shatner was best as Captain Kirk, and almost nothing else in life. On the screen or off. Maybe be was 'type-cast' as Kirk, long before the possibility of there ever being any such character. I don't know, as I do not know him. I only know what I can glean from the character he played.
But I think in terms of this financial crisis and more. And the alienated sort of distant lives we have somehow come to choose for ourselves. Not all of us, but many of us. Anthropologically, I know that hardship brings a binding closeness like nothing else. United against the elements we stand. When our very survival is at stake, we bond. We tolerate. We accept. I have been in combat and found all of that there. But it was gone once I was gone. Everyone after combat blown to the far winds. Those that lived, anyway, and there were not many of them. I have some of the 'guys' from the Enterprise crew around me in life.
The professor down the way. The nearby astronomer. The artist out in Washington. An old running and coffee companion from California. I do have these guys, but we do not do Yellowstone. We have no 'Four Seasons' get togethers. In fact, the men don't even really know one another. And that is our life today. I stay in contact. Phones are great for that. But they are cold. Email is cold. Letters are better but so time intensive, and require literary people...and those are frightfully rare in this era. So I am planning a 'Trek.' I shall endeavor to get them all to the beach at Kahala. I will drag the Martin, which I wrote about earlier, out of the closet and across the sea. We'll rent a place and then build an evening fire. Around that fire we'll sit and ruminate over our adventures. Not together, but on our own, as life has caused us to be. And then I will get them to sing Row Row Row Your Boat.
Maybe I won't be able to pull this off. They won't be able to go. Things will get too bad too fast to allow them to leave their other obligations. They won't want to go. But I am an arcane little devil. If I just apply myself, and use some shifting of assets, just maybe I can pull it off. I wonder what you are thinking out there? Are you a product of existentialism too? When I was in college I read and studied the philosophers, and they were big on existentialism then. I didn't believe what I read, however. I did not know what they were talking about. I did not understand that technology, and wild population growth, and competition could lead to such loneliness. A loneliness among others. Working from day to day. Smiling and outwardly happy, but really running alone. What are you like? Does an evening campfire on Kahala Beach, singing Row Row Row Your Boat to my bad guitar strumming, sound like something that cries out to you? Deep down? Or is it just me? Wanna come?
Back in 1997 I was poking around a used car lot, looking for a medium quality, medium mileage and medium appearance used vehicle. I did find one. It was a Volvo, and is still running, just passing the two hundred thousand mark. I love that car, and, as unreasonable as I can be, I have put three times it's worth into maintaining it. It's name is Henry. I know that is not a truly sane thing to do, name a car, much less talk to it, but there we are. You are reading this blog, so you may now silently shake your head...either in disdain and superiority, or because you have read this far and, exasperating as it is, you just have to finish. I don't know. I have no clue as to who you, the reader, are, or what you might think. Most of you never say 'boo' when it comes to comments. So....'Boo'!
While I was homing in the Volvo 'R' car I ran into a homeless guy. He had been 'hired' to provide night security. In reality, the owner of the lot let him sleep off his drunken episodes in one of the 'deaders' in the back of the operational rows of automobiles. I liked that about the owner. He was a tall good looking guy who wore a Stetson and dark glasses all the time. He was lean and ropy, like what I imagined a real cowboy would look like, but he was from New Jersey, which became evident as soon as he took the piece of straw out of his mouth and spoke. I liked that about him too.
The homeless guy was named Thomas, and he lived off a seven hundred dollar a month veteran's check which came to the car lot mail box, because he had none of his own. The owner did not charge him to do that either. Thomas was 'lounging' on the ground near the front door, when I finished walking around the lot and was about to go in and confront Kevin, the owner and lone salesman. "You play guitar?" Thomas asked me. That stopped me on the first step. Unusual question to come from a drunk, anywhere, much less a down in the dumps used car lot. "A little," I said, truthfully. The drunk took a pull on a bottle he kept inside a brown paper bag, swallowed, then asked another question. "You wanna play?" He smiled with amazingly clear eyes, in a creature so damaged. I smiled down at him benevolently, "I don't have a guitar," I stated, then turned to enter the office. "I do," the drunk said, before I was through. I squinted back at him, but stopped with the door open. The drunk rose up and reached around the corner of the mobile home. He brought his arm back with a guitar case in it. "Here, give it a shot," he smiled, holding the case out by the strap. I took it, more by reflex than intent. I almost handed it back, but then I read the word 'Martin' in faded gold letters that were stamped into the top. Martin. Just about the best guitars in the world, I knew. I had never played one. I had never been good enough to actually buy a guitar for myself. Or so I believed. I sat on the step and opened the case. Inside was a different world from the one Thomas inhabited at the lot. A light wood top Martin guitar lay nestled inside the deep plush of the blue interior. I looked between the nylon strings through the hole in the guitar's center. D-28 was stamped there in small faded black letters. I was holding a Martin Dreadnought. One of the deep-bellied beasts that Martin had come out with many years earlier, and dominated the acoustic guitar industry with.
"Is it for sale?" I asked Thomas, not moving to take the instrument from it's case. "Can you play?" the drunk asked again. "If you can play good enough I'll sell you Virginia." He held up the hand not holding his bottle. "Had a accident a few years back." Three fingers on his hand were missing. "Play," he gestured with the broken hand. I took the guitar out of the case very carefully. It was pristine. The strap was of some Indian bead stuff sewn into soft leather. I threw it over my back. It fit. I tried a simply strum to check the sound. "It's tuned. I can still tune, just not play," Thomas gestured again as he spoke. I nodded. It was his guitar. I thought for a moment. I could sing, but not well. I could remember the chords to some songs but not any of the words I would need to sing them. I really only knew one piece without words. It had been the tune I played over and over again when I had been learning. I breathed in deeply and then began performing Greensleeves. The memory of the individual notes and then the chords to the chorus came on their own, as if never gone. And then I remembered the words to the chorus and sang along quietly; "Greensleeves was my only joy, Greensleeves was my delight...."
I finished without having made a single error and I was proud. Thomas smiled. "Virginia's your's for five hundred bucks cash. Take her." I nodded. I had twenty dollars on me but that Martin was not going to leave my hands. "Is there an ATM around here?" I asked the drunk. "What for?" a New Jersey accented voice spoke over my shoulder. I jumped, but held onto the guitar. "Ah, hello," I said. The tall hatted man smiled and nodded, waiting. I could not see his eyes and he was so far above me that my voice broke a bit when I spoke. "Ah, I want to buy this guitar from this...ah, fellow." The man's smile disappeared. He took the straw from his mouth and leaned past me, down towards the drunk. "You sure that you want to let go of Virginia, Thomas?" the man asked, gently. "He's the one," the man replied, taking another pull from the paper covered bottle. "I'll get the cash," the tall man said, twisting back and going through the door. He reappeared in seconds, leaned down again and counted over five one hundred dollar bills. Thomas disappeared them into his front pocket instantly. The man stood again on the ground next to Thomas, taller than I, and I was atop the bottom step. "You got a check or you want to go to an ATM?" he asked, his straw back in place.
I bought the Volvo that day, and the guitar. Kevin took my personal check and let me drive away in the car, and with the Martin. We had bonded. I recalled my last question to him. "Why did Thomas sell his beloved Virginia?" He had taken in a breath, then looked away. "He saw some hard times in that there Vietnam war, back a few years, and he isn't expecting to be around much longer. He wanted to give it a good home. And, but the way, that was the best Greensleeves I've ever heard in my life." I had nodded sheeplishly, then drove out.
I kept track of Kevin and Thomas, as I went back with the Volvo a few times to make believe I needed some advice. In truth, the car, like the guitar, was made of bullet proof cast iron. A few years went by and then I heard that Kevin had committed suicide. I was hurt. I found the obituary and then went out to the burial. I did not know his family so I didn't go to the service or the reception. I stood in the cemetery, well back of everyone. Then I saw Thomas, way off to the side, as well. I walked slowly and carefully among the stones to reach his side. "You brought Virginia," he whispered, pointing at the guitar case. I nodded. We both waited until the people down at the graveside went away. Then we went down to the mound of new earth. I took out the guitar and played Greensleeves. This time I knew all the lyrics. Some words of the last stanza applied so badly that I hesitated there: "Ah, Greensleeves, now farewell, adieu, To God I pray prosper thee...." But, I got through, and I thought about Kevin. He would have been happy. I know Thomas was.
It is two days after. My hangover is just starting to clear, and I do not even drink. The weather has responded in kind, with a tepid weepy mess of a presentation, splashing ran all over the lovely clean snow mass out there. Well, it was lovely and clean out there before, albeit cold as hell. Fog. Gray. Christmas is gone. I have a wonderful Mont Blanc pen that the professor gave me, two shirts and three new sweaters. They are all green, or so I am told, being color blind as I am. I put one sweater on this morning. I had laid out the best one (in my damaged opinion) but, after finishing morning clean-up and shave, I forgot I had laid it out and instead threw on one of the other folded one's. I guess I can't tell the difference, and that is okay. Einstein used to have five suits, all of the same color and cut. Then he wore only white shirts and black socks. I like Einstein's style. He was probably as color blind as I, but he was too important for anybody to ask him to his face, or make fun of him (but then, maybe they did and that is why he ended up with the collection he came up with). Harvey has gone into the basement to hunt his 'stocked' supply down there. The pump is running non-stop, but keeping up. Harv checked that out, but, after just one sniff, went back to his dogged pursuit of his genetically enhanced prey. He is not quiet down there. Empty boxes fly and stacked stuff tumbles. The only rule is that he cannot bring his catches up here though, so I ignore a muted crash or two, coming from down there. If he has any catches I mean, which I doubt. But, in his world, as in mine, make believe is a lot more important than reality.
C.E. Morgan wrote a Christmas story and got it placed in the editorial section of the New York Times on Christmas Day! How do you get a short story into the New York Times at all? By being family I guess. I don't know who C.E. Morgan is, except I did read that the first novel written by this person was demanded by the publisher. That same publisher produced a mid-six figure advance. It is all a crock. Oh, it happened all right, but you see, nobody, and I mean nobody unheard of, gets a six figure advance on a first novel. And nobody gets a short story published on the editorial page of the New York Times on Christmas Day. And finally, nobody gets a rotten story published like that. 'Over By Christmas,' the name of the story that person wrote, should really be the title of the author's career, if the story is any indication. A story about the killing and/or training of horses...and the 'gift' of the necessary torture applied during the training process. "You can't shoot a dog while patting it's head, she had learned the hard way..." Good Christ, what bunk. Then there was the phony alternate sub-story of 'Dean, over in iraq, talking to her on the phone. In the background was an explosion so loud it made her "cry tearlessly." I have already used the phrase 'Good Christ,' so what can I reach for now? Cry tearlessly, give me a break. And somebody died from that explosion, in her story. Now what are the chances of that? Zip. Only in a bad story does that happen. Why am I going on about this? Because C.E.'s very existence in print displays one of the major problems we have in the withering writing culture of our nation. Good writing is seldom read, much less published. Instead we have a litany of the 'Over by Christmas' crap. And, instead of looking at the origin of the piece for answers, we question ourselves. "What is wrong with me? Why can't I understand this story?" It is not you. It is poor leadership. it is nepotism. It is profit-taking. It is keeping it in the family. It is good for them, in the short run, but bad for us all in the long run. The New York Times is dying and the stench of that slow decay is right there, seeping out from the Christmas Day editorial page.
Today, we have humor, once again, from that same editorial staff. Judith Warner, one of my favorite dumb columnists, has a run down one side of the page, while Bob Herbert ("I can too push a pencil across a table top with my nose") Herbert has the opposing side. His article is titled "Stop Being Stupid," but then, of course, he writes on and becomes illustrative of his own title! Part of his rant is about people being so stupid as to purchase houses that they knew they would not be able to afford. What rubbish. People buy a house on hope. And then there is the assistance from the talking heads they got. Even the head of the Federal Reserve was telling them that everything would be alright. He sure as hell was not telling them that whatever they bought would be worth fifty percent less one year later! But, in Herbert's twisted view, it was those poor people once again, pulling us all down. Those grubby, selfish and unionized auto workers. You know the routine. But back to the humor. Judith Warner starts her column with this sentence: "What if you could just take a pill and all of a sudden remember to pay your bills on time." I looked at that sentence and then back over at Herbert's title and then started to laugh. You guys! Saturday Night Live is not that droll!
As if we have a problem, in this current culture, remembering to pay the bills. We are not paying the bills because we do not have the money!!!! We remember. No kidding. We remember every night we go to bed and try to think about the unpaid bills. We remember because our phone does not stop ringing, and it is not friends calling because they forgot Christmas! Judith Warner and Bob Herbert do not have those problems. If you are writing regular columns for the New York Times you are wealthy. Not to mention the books and other perks that go with those jobs. Judith's article was all about a group of shrinks that think it is great to take some of these new 'brain enhancing' substances produced by our wonderful drug companies. How it is as okay as enhancing our intellect by eating a proper diet or working out. Trash. Go ahead, take the junk. Prosac and Paxil and Zanax, and all of the other's of the same ilk, were created to help people who suffer from depression. They take those drugs and become robots. Robots who tend to kill themselves. And the shrinks even know that but prescribe them anyway. I know two people who might benefit from those intelligence enhancing drugs, however. They are both columnists writing on the same page, this day, in the New York Times.
The sun has broken through and, although God has decided that the deep snowy sunscape beneath should stay awhile (it's below zero out there), it is nice to have a break. And the presents are under the tree and waiting, which I am delaying going at with my bare hands until I have everything else in the house just right. A few minutes from now. I found a place to make a fifty out of two twenties and a ten, so I have the paper person's tip ready to post. Hopefully, that person will not take 'Halloween' type action against me for a few days, or so I hope.
I have placed a couple of stories inside the body of my posts over the past few days. They have related to Christmas, or the poignancy of it all, in some way or another. Here is one from the mid-nineties when I was not yet 'all that I could be.'
Christmas Pueblo
I found myself inside the confines of the Santa Fe County jail on some vague trumped-up charge. I was in the 'drunk tank,' which is what the cells they use for new prisoner intake are called there. No bars, no windows, just concrete and steel. No way to see out of the ten by twelve box and no ability to hear. Thankfully I was alone for the first few hours, as I had to come to terms with being inside an American institution for the first time (I had already been in a few abroad, so I was not exactly a 'new fish'), and this was not much fun. It was Christmas Eve. Late into the afternoon. The heartless Santa Fe 'Gestapo' had shown no mercy, in spite of the impending holiday. The way I saw it, I was a gringo and they were anything but. They probably saw it in a more 'Harry Callahan' kind of way. The tank did not remain empty for too long. The riff-raff of evening Santa Fe, New Mexico, began to flow in, dredged from a pristine city that prides itself on not having any homeless people. No, they don't, as all of the potentials get combed off the streets and into that heartless modern version of the Bastille, conveniently located five miles South of even the most outer edge of the town.
The cell became so crowded that the entry of one more body meant that there was just no floor space left. And then they opened the door and forced a huge American Indian through. They slammed it shut again, immediately. He stood there for a few seconds, then stared at the man laying next to me on the bare concrete floor. The man moved, finally settling atop the rim of the stainless steel john located in the corner. The Indian took his place, and glared over at me, inches away, when I happened to look into his eyes. This was no Little Big Man Indian of great good cheer and ancient wisdom, like Chief Dan George. No, this was an Indian from hell, more like that one who killed the girl in the Mohican's film a few years back. I showed no fear, but did look away. I was already an old hand at the predation game. You do not show fear to a predator. That is what the predator is looking and waiting for, because it identifies you as prey. No, you meet predation by impassive and emotionless presentation. The predator then takes you for a predator, as well, and there is no point in attacking another predator unless territory is an issue, or survival. You will only likely get hurt, and predators are deathly afraid of injury, as then they become prey.
There was no trouble from the Indian, as the hours passed, nor from any of the usual suspects. Just prisoners inconveniencing the poor guy who's only spot was the on top of the john. He had to move so the drunks could be sick, and worse. Some head of corrections guy must have known a modicum of mercy that night, or, more likely, there were just too many prisoner's for the place to hold, because they came for me. The guards called my name and told me that I was being 'rolled out,' which is prison slang for being released. I went with enthusiasm, but somehow kicked the foot of the snoozing Indian as I departed. "Excuse me White Eyes!" he hissed up, already into a sitting position as I turned. I held together against the pure ferocity of his expression and the penetration of his hawk-like eyes. "My apologies, I was careless," I stated, flatly. Then I moved slowly to join the corrections officer at the door. The Indian's eyes followed me out the door and remained embedded in my mind as I went through the many steps of processing out. Finally, the guards took me to the big door of intake, opened the steel slab with a key about the size of a Waring blender, and shoved me through it. Merry Christmas, the guard said with a laugh, then slammed the door. My relief was immense, until I looked about me. The sodium yellow of the parking lot lamps allowed the driving snow to appear as if I was standing adjacent to Niagra Falls. And it was cold. I wore an old Sheepskin Company coat so I knew I was not likey to freeze, the torso of my body anyway. But I did not know how I was going to make it the many miles to town, much less a few more miles to anywhere I could get a ride. I turned to see if there was a pay phone on the wall to call a cab, but there was nothing. Only the pitiless concrete.
For an instant I felt relief, as the steel door opened again and I saw the warmth that had been prevalent inside. But that was extinguished in an instant, as the big Indian was pushed through the door, before it slammed again. There we were, and I knew fear. He looked down at me with no expression on his face. I tried to look impassive once more, but I knew I was not doing well because I saw a slow cruel smile begin to form around the edges of his mouth. Then he spoke. "Where you going?"
I was surprised. Not that he would talk but that this time he did so in clear unaccented English, not like he had sounded inside. "To town," I murmured, motioning back with my right shoulder. "Never make it. Not on a night like this," he mused, more to himself than to me. He looked out at the scene I had first encountered. The snow was coming down heavier. Then he shrugged. "You can come with me to the pueblo. It's down the way," he gestured south with his own shoulder. I looked off toward the darkness, then looked to the parking lot. But it was Christmas, and i could not stay there, and I knew I could not make it to town. I shrugged with deep resignation. "Okay," I said aloud, then whispered to myself, "let it be Quick." I followed the Indian into the night. There was no trail, there was no moonlight or any other way to establish bearings. So I just followed the huge man closely. We moved downhill, through the La Bajada Canyon, finally trudging under an overpass which held up the four lanes of Interstate forty.
A yellow glow in the distance became the pueblo. The Indian wormed his way between the densely packed mud buildings. Lights glared out, to assure us that the snow had not abated in it's attack. We came around a corner to a wooden door. The upper floor of the adobe structure jutted out above, so we stood and beat the snow from our clothing and boots as best we could. The door opened without anybody knocking. An old woman stuck her head out, then motioned us both inside. I stepped into a different world. The room was filled with people of all ages. They were all sitting at the many tables, seemingly strew about without order. The big Indian motioned me to an empty seat between two young boys. He said nothing. They said nothing. I sat, more in shock and wonder than because I was willingly following rational directions. The two boys reached for bowls and started scooping stuff onto my plate. Tortillas and burritos. I did not even know what Indians ate until then. Corn things, with lots of hot sauces. Everyone went back to eating. They did not look at me, so I started eating as well. I ate the whole plate, so the boys refilled it without any request on my part. When I finished the second plate, they refilled it again. I looked over at the old woman, whom the big Indian had seated himself next to. I saw here smile very briefly. Then the big Indian smiled for the first time, and I understood without any words being necessary. The old woman liked the fact that I loved her food. And the big Indian appreciated that.
"This is my family," he said, gesturing around at all the people at all of the tables. They smiled, as if on cue. "Welcome to the Reservation and my family. I'll drive you back to town tomorrow. But its Christmas, so maybe you want to stay longer for the ceremony." I nodded, only briefly wondering if the 'ceremony' had anything to do with a White Man being cooked in a pot over a roaring fire. "Merry Christmas," I said, as I nodded with enthusiasm, a genuine smile creasing my face for the first time in months. "Merry Christmas," they all yelled back in unison, then began talking, laughing and carrying on, just as if I was an Indian returning to his home.
It is upon us, the Christmas of two thousand and eight. I have sipped of the Don David and made my wish for the happiness of those who have fallen before me. That one sip of a fine Argentinian Malbec, a product from a valley where maybe God reigns over this night. Do you believe in God? I think of such things on this night. It is so cold out there, so blowing and white. My 'advent' trees shine up upon the hill and spokes of light and color radiate out over the sweep of the deep snow, with movement from the wind making them twinkle and play. Is there a God? I don't know. Do you sometimes fall upon your knees and tell your troubles to Him, then ask for His help? I do, and have over the years. Do you ever ask for a ''sign' of His existence? Any sign at all, no matter how subtle or marginal? Then look about for such? I do, and have over the years. In driving I sometimes think of Him as my co-pilot, and even look over at the empty seat, from time to time. Does that me make me totally whacked? If I confessed those acts to a shrink, would the shrink find me certifiable? I mean, more certifiable than I am from other stuff? Do you do any of this? Would you tell if you did? I tried to be a good Catholic, in my early years, then fell away. I tried to be a bad Catholic, but that did not work either. I read the Bible and argued with people who were supposed to know that work backwards and forwards. Reborn Christians. Maybe I fit with them best, simply because they do not mind if I say that "God did not give me the gift of faith." I have studied the Koran, as well, and found it to be strange, going from back to front, as it does. A lot like the Bible, but not. I once, long ago, went down on my knees, literally, and presented the 'Unseen Above' with a list I had written on a yellow note pad. I had written down nine items. The items were problems that I was experiencing, or was afraid of, which had no possiblity of solution whatsoever, outside of divine intervention. I asked for those problems to be taken away. The next day, over coffee with a good friend, who believed more than I, I told him of my act. He asked to see the list, so I produced it. He read the nine items slowly, then looked over the top of the paper at me, as if in wonder that a person such as I could have problems of that magnitude. He shook his head, then smiled. He tore up the list right there, in front of me. And he said, "Now, go out there and those problems will be gone. We spend most of our lives worrying about problems that never happen." We left. Over the next three months the problems, all nine, went away. My question, on this Chrismas Eve night is, did those problems go away because of what Bob said, or because I had put them forth to God and He acted? Or was it all bizarre coincidence? I can't remember the problems anymore, but I wish I could. And how life changes. When I ask God for help now, it is usually because I am asking for Him to help other people, or for Him to help me to help other people. Is it His work that I do not feel that I have to ask him to resolve my own problems anymore? I do not expect any answers from you, out there, on this night. I don't even really expect that anyone will read this, but it is okay if people do. Just for fun. And for their own introspection. We don't often really take the time to isolate ourselves and think such thoughts, or ask ourselves such questions. But I think it would be better if we did. Do you think so too?
I received a gift from a friend, just before he headed South for the holiday. Back when I was 'operational,' during Desert Shield (the operation to prepare us for Desert Storm) I ran a group of communications guys out in the Arabian desert. Our job was to move into Iraq from Saudi Arabia and test the communications capabilities of the Iraqi forces. We were looking for holes in their surveillance net. We found a lot of them, so the mission was a great success. But I lost eleven guys doing it. Back then, our control, back in the home office, used to give us Mont Blanc pens after the completion of a successful mission. The regular size black and gold one for team members and a maroon one for the mission commander. That was me. Some of the guys who passed over did not have surviving family (common to field personnel of that ilk) so I got their personal effects. And the Mont Blanc pens they had accumulated. So I had, and still have, quite a collection of those fine writing specimens. Once and awhile, I give one away to someone I find deserving. I gave a black and gold one to this man here, a friend of mine, just before he left on his trip. And I did not tell him the significance of the gift. Now, here is the amazing thing. He also gave me a gift. It was a small oblong box. I opened it to discover a Mont Blanc pen, just like the one I had given him, except brand spanking new. We laughed. Then he added something. He said that the pen he had given me at least had a full cartridge of ink! I realized that I had not checked the writing capability of the one I had given him. It was, of course, the original that had been in that pen since it was issued way back in the eighties. I nodded and smiled in mirth with him. But I did not tell him about the history of the instrument. Even though he is a noted historian, i was not sure he would like the sentiment and provenance of the gift. But it is Christmas, and those boys gone by, who fought and gave everything, believing it was for us, well, I think they would be okay with the gift. I always wondered why we were given such 'after-action awards.' Most of the guys were not even readers, much less writers. But life is strange, and you just don't get to know some things. Is there a God? Did those pens come from or through him? If they did, then what is their significance?
It is an interesting time to be alive, as this day closes, and Christmas, that single brief day, opens. We are in such dire straights, as a nation, a culture, a way of life. We have a new team at the helm. We have Obama and Clinton and Richardson, and more. We have hope and a shining dream of a grand trip back to a future steeped of the past. We are 'marching to Pretoria, so to speak, and we are doing so with a bit of hesitation and trepidation. We don't know who to trust or why we should trust them. But we have to trust somebody. No choice is a choice in of itself. Or is it as they used to say in early Marine Officer training: "Any decision is better than no decision at all." I don't know so many things. All I can do is celebrate certain things that just feel right. Hilary, who I can't be allowed in front of, particularly on this night, said that "the time of Cowboy diplomacy is over." And I stood up and cheered to hear that on CNN earlier. Some things are going right in this pocket of the universe.
I am going to make a list of nine problems. I am going to get on my knees and ask Him to take those problems away. Then I am going to go see Bob (he is a friend to this day!) and present my list to him over a morning cup of coffee. When Bob tears up the list, as I know he will, my smile will grow broader and my hope for the future warmer, and filled with blissful expectation. Merry Christmas to one and all.
I am fully awake, as I got the papers from under another layer of deep snow. And I found the envelope from the newspaper wraith. What do I put in it? No check because it is addressed to "Delivery Service." I feel like I am getting my papers directly from Langley (CIA) Headquarters. A twenty? Is that too little? Maybe a fifty. I don't have a fifty (this is Southern Outback Wisconsin and they don't know what a fifty is out here, unless is refers to a clothing size) so I would have to put in two twenties and a ten. But that wad seems excessive. But it is Christmas. But it is a tough financial time for all of us. But I am afraid of the Newspaper Delivery Service. I was once a very decisive person, but look at me now. I am still three presents 'short of a full deck' and it is Christmas Eve, and snowing to beat all get out. What do I do? Where do I go? Lake Geneva has a bunch of stores, each about the size of an airport kiosk. Will they even open in the middle of this, the most aggressive winter attack of recorded history out here? I don't know. The aging dinosaur of a Rover sits patiently in the garage, crying softly to be decked out in the chains that even Professor Machado, the smartest man any of us have ever known, can't fathom the directions to install. But they are back there, all shiny on the floor behind the front seats. And 'Bertram' my old wonderful troll of a beaten-up four-wheel-drive is ready for anything.
Oliver Morton. He wrote a column for the New York Times this morning. He slipped through, like Thomas L. Friedman. The editorial board of the Times must be on Christmas furlough. Both of the columns were pretty extraordinary, bright as they were accurate. Morton wrote of the earth, its condition and prospects, while Friedman wrote about the silly and destructive celebration of stupidity that has taken over this country and caused much of what we are experiencing now. Yes, Thomas stole some of my stuff, then wrote it better. Usually, I only celebrate Maureen Dowd's assumption of my blog material (I can't call it stealing as her fan club gets all upset, and besides, its not. We don't own this stuff out here anymore. What we bloggers write is like air. You just breathe it in and then it gets re-breathed again). So Thomas, you may have my stuff and I doff my non-existent hat at the elegant manner in which you chose to use it. But back to Morton's column. He writes about the earth as George Carlin used to describe it. If the earth ever figures out we (homo sapiens) are here, and causing trouble, then we are screwed. We have almost no power over this blue and white ball of water and ice. Even our limp-wristed influence over base temperature is a mere nothing to this planet. And the only one's to actually suffer from our excess are likely to be, well, us. The Earth turns and moves on inexorably and it is unaffected, really, in the scale of things, by even such events as large astroid strikes. That stuff merely impacts on the ecosystem. Life goes up and down and around stuff like that all the time. Way to go Morton. A scientist. A brain. No more of that Bush stuff. Okay, okay, I am not going there. I will even give that low-life scum bag of a drooling president a break today. It is Christmas Eve. And life is cold, snow-buried, but good. Christmas music plays, I have the wood for a fire to burn through this day, on into my own personal Eve, and I have a prime rib for the oven. Harvey is ever loyal and only mildly condescending. Cat bliss.
Now, I shall get cleaned up and go out there into the whiteness of day. It is Christmas Eve and there just have to be more people God wants to put in my way. Merry Christmas!
i get comments through email, much more than I get comments on this site. it seems that many people feel that I am a bit 'over the top' tough on some of our leaders, the pundits and even the media. Am I? I wonder about that. The RAGE has not set in yet. The rage I speak of is the one that is going to sweep this country once everyone figures out that they are not going to avoid being stung to the core by this financial madness of the last forty years. And they will figure out that they were robbed, which means their families and their children's children, as well. Note that there are sites popping out on the internet about where the exact locations of the thieve's mansions are located! That is just the start. But I will back off a bit. I will leave Bill Bennet out of my vitrolic comment. He is bedded down on an opium mat somewhere, 'biting the clouds,' as they say in China (about opium smoking). I shall not attack William Kristol for awhile, no matter what his elitist pedigree and lifestyle seem to demand. And Krauthammer. He is a nasty little guy, but he's crippled, so I'll back off. That I support the auto workers, wholeheartedly, well, I guess that is okay. And I hope it is okay for me to continue to advise Governor Rod. Remember, he is our entertainment right now. We don't need him to pack it in just yet. Couric gets a pass, as does that little weasel Ben Stein. Maybe I can pick on Letterman. He seems to be able to take it.
The cards are gone. I don't know how they turned out. I never like the finished product because it could have used more work and detail. But my heart is in the right place. I send them to transmit care and thanks. Thanks for being someone deserving of getting one, in my judgment, and care about people who have great hearts and are helping us go in the right direction. The postman at the little post office here, Michael, a really really great guy, frightened me to death by first telling me the way in which I framed and glued the stamps to the envelopes would never be allowed. There I stood, with fifty of these things in my hands. He saw my look, and to prevent my collapse, and the subsequent trampling by everyone else in line, he relented. He hand-cancelled them. Thank you Mike, and Merry Christmas. Try to find that kind of greatness in a big city post office. On the other hand, he can tell me what is inside the envelopes of my incoming mail without my opening them.
The Advent trees are out there whipping around in the wind and blowing snow. I can see them from up here in my office. This office emits a 'blue hue' when I am working. That is most nights. People who have come to know that my abode is secreted right off the main road and a bit down the hill can see the blue hue when they drive by. Some beep, but I no longer attempt to get to the window to wave. I am just not fast enough. Harvey pays attention though. He always raises his head, looks toward the window and then back at me, as if to say: "Does someone need to be eaten?" When I do not respond, he lays his head back down and does what he does. Passes the winter time by sleeping, or making believe he is asleep. Fools me. Why is it that a cat can come out of sleep in an instant? I can't do that. Some of the reason that i go out into ten below weather, forgetting the nearby prepared duster, is because i am not fully awake at that point. I am fully awake a few seconds later when I get back in, however. Which reminds me. I have to find that envelope. For the newspaper guy/gal. I just cannot get by without the papers and I can't get down that driveway at that hour of the morning. Without a substantial Christmas tip I just know what is going to happen. I also can't seem to get up early enough to catch the sucker red-handed, delivering. Or, if I am up early enough, he sneaks in and out without my knowing. Maybe i should start drinking again. Or try that Ginko stuff. No, that was discredited, like red meat. Maybe it will come back, like red meat.
I have this friend in Texas. He is smarter than me. But he thinks that I am smarter than him. Or at least he makes me think that he thinks that. I am confused. But, anyway, he also edits some of my work. And he is terrific. But I have to be careful because he 'lays things between the lines,' if you know what I mean. I have to re-read his email several times to get everything. And when I don't, well, he is also a bit arrogant and steps on me with his marvelous intellect. I think I have convinced him to write again himself. He once sent me some work. It was better than mine. But I could not tell him that because...I was not big enough to be able to do that. So, for Christmas, I am encouraging him to write again. And that feels good. There is so much under-utilization of talent today. It is out here, but our culture has not been encouraging it.
Once i was so poor I could not afford a Christmas tree. I think it was nineteen seventy four, or so. I went to the Sears and Roebuck Christmas Tree lot to see if I could find a remnant. I had four dollars. And I had no car, well, none that ran. I got to the Sears parking lot and started checking the leaning cut trees. There was nothing under ten dollars. But I had the diligence only known by poor people. I went on checking. After awhile, a guy came over to help me. He had the buff outdoor wear that I have never really never known how to buy or wear. I tried to brush the guy off and keep on checking. But he would have none of it. Finally, stepping from tree to tree with me, like a bad Laurel and Hardy routine, he asked the big question: "How much do you have?" I shrugged trying to appear urbane, then gave up. "Four bucks," I admitted. "Where do you live?" he replied, which surprised me. What did it matter?
So I described the labyrinthian path I had followed to get to the lot. "No car?" he asked. I frowned. I could not figure out what his point was, so I let him have it: "No car, four bucks, no job, and no prospects, is that enough for you?" i started to walk away. "What about this one?" the guy promptly came back with. He pointed at a beautiful eight-foot Noble Pine. I just looked at him. He stepped closer to me. "This isn't really the Sears Christmas Tree lot. it's mine. I just rent the space every year. It would be a favor to me if you would take the tree for Christmas and let me deliver it with my truck." I couldn't say anything. I thought of all the proud reasons that I thought that that was a bad idea. He saw me think those thoughts. "I do it for redemption, so don't get the wrong idea," he said gently. "I wasn't always the way i am today. i was something less. And I owe it to The Man to do Christmas right every chance I get. You're my chance. Don't blow it for me." I nodded. What else could I do. I rode with him in his truck, with my wonderful tree in the back. He didn't say a word and neither did I. When he helped me unload it in front of my apartment I saw his shirt rise up on his forearm. There was a tattoo there. The image was of a couple of wings, under which was inscribed "101st Airborne." And I understood. "Merry Christmas," he yelled, driving away with his window down, a big smile looking back at me. I shouted the only reply that seemed appropriate: "Semper fi."
Those two newspapers were leaning against my front door this morning. I can't find the envelope with my cash tip inside. What am I going to do? I stood, newspapers in hand, and looked down my long driveway. It is a white nightmare down at the end of it. Overlapping plows in unwitnessed combat have crisscrossed the cul-du-sac and left jumbled 'Tiger Teeth' of piles strewn everywhere down there. I cannot imagine making my way into that mess to find my papers. I have got to tip this mysterious elusive newspaper person. Christmas stress. I read Judith Warner, a replacement columnist for David Brooks in the New York Times. Where is David? Oh, he needed a break for Christmas, I guess. These 'princes of press' must have their rest. I mean, after all, it takes intensive labor to sit and write something interesting. Another Christmas crock. Like the garbage Judith wrote this day. Brainless. Let's see, she writes about the fact that reason and logic are triumphing over the forces that make Christmas what it should be...wonder, marvel and faith. I am paraphrasing, as her stuff is not worth memorizing. She calls this the 'Woody Allenization' of Christmas. I do like that line, however misplaced and addled it is. You see, Judith is lost in the combating and overlapping mythologies of Christmas in our culture. She is all caught up in the Santa Claus thing, I guess. I am so very sorry Judith, but even though Norad has been tracking Santa's Christmas Eve flight ever since 1955, he is not real. We made it all up to have fun with our kids...and quite possibly for control and discipline purposes as well.
Christmas is filled with wonder, marvel and faith. You just have to look beyond the mythologies. The wonder that people can take a bit of time and think about the plight and condition of others around them. The marvel that they will go out and spend time and money to get something for somebody else that is just right, just to have that person feel a little bit better about life, and maybe them. The faith that something is at work of goodness, driven by, well, you don't have to know. You just have faith that there are more people like you out there, buying stuff not totally out of obligation but because you really want to get stuff for them. There was an old school joke about faith that always liked, even thought the underlying premise was discomforting. Johnny is sitting in the back of his grade school class when his teacher asks the big question. what is faith? Johnny raises his hand, which the teacher tries to avoid, as Johnny is a notorious trouble-maker (i like that part as I was always in that coat closet in my Catholic School for shameful questions). But the teacher caves in when there are no other hands. "Alright Johnny, go ahead...," the teacher says, with disappointment and a bit of trepidation. "Faith is believing in something that you know is not really true," Johnny responds, in his normal fashion. Johnny went, of course, straight to the coat closet, to inhale the aroma of all the little girl's coats hanging there, if he was like me. But the premise of that story is not true. You can have faith in any number of things that may or may not be true. We just don't have enough data or life experience to know. God is like that too. Is He there? Is He a He? What is the deal? I think He is, but I am not sure. I am beginning to sound like Woody Allen, who I never liked, although he is funny...but with some real bad personal habits.
About teaching. The Times had an article about teaching in it. The writer combined the plight and conduct of my beloved auto workers with that of teachers. They are unappreciated. That part is true. But auto workers do not stay up nights working on their stuff, worrying about their charges and taking extra time and effort to help a small person who really needs it. Teachers are different. I know one well. I mean one right now, sleeping and shopping away because she is off for the holiday (one of the few small benefits of the profession). This teacher is kinda normal I think. She asked me to write a short story for her grade school classes. So I wrote The Treasure Pool, which is found somewhere back there in these blogs. She gave out forty-nine copies and then had all the students write reviews back to me. She copied and stapled, read the story to make sure I had not slipped in any filth (I am, after all, an ex-Marine!) and then spent time and trouble helping these kids to come to terms with the plot, the theme and the elements of English such necessary educational arrows to have in their quivers. The critiques came back, and they were wonderful. Oh, I got dinged pretty good on my grades in certain areas. I wrote back to those kids who had given me bad grades for the most minor of things. I was stung. I was nice, but I had to say something! But the story is not about me. It is about the extra time and effort this teacher, Mrs. Machado, takes to really help and advance her students. She is an example of what it is all about out here, and in this holiday season. She follows Sister Sarah Fogarty (my fourth grade teachere) and Sister Michael Marie (my fifth grade teacher) in being one of those unknown and unsung saints. Maybe here, in this lonely blog, she will get the only public recognition she ever gets. But she is all about Christmas. The embodiment. And she is filled with reason and logic and understanding the universe. But she is also a thing of wonder, marvel and faith. Merry Crhistmas Anise Machado. We love you.
It is said that St. Francis of Assisi created the first Nativity Scene in his yard. The mythology has it that he set up a manger, and the then made up other characters from whatever he had laying around. He wanted to recreate the birth of Christ, the best he could, for himself and his friends. I have one. A manger and the Nativity Scene characters. The stable I made myself out of some old wood with a hand saw and some nails. It has survived intact for twenty-nine years. In 1969 I was fresh out of the hospital from getting all shot up in Vietnam. I could not be a Marine and I could not walk, or move well enough, to get a job. So I sat around and waited. During this time I found a small apartment in San Clemente to live in. So cheap that my other dwellers in the six-plex were new immigrants from Vietnam. Strange, to circulate among them every day as I limped around with nothing to do. One day I encountered an older man, who I knew to be the head of one of the families living there. His name was Huang Nguyen. Somehow, he had found out something of my service in his former country. He approached, shook my hand, and then apologized. I didn't get it. I tried to get to the bottom of things but his English was bad. Instead he invited me in to meet his wife and three young children. They treated me very nicely, and I was surprised. In country, the Vietnamese civilians I met had all been cold and remote. Huang took me into his bedroom/office. There he showed me two pictures on his walls. One was of him walking arm in arm with Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the North Vietnamese Army. In the other, he was striding along, a huge smile on his face, with Robert McNamera. I asked Huang who he really was. He told me that he was the former Province Commander of the I Corps area. I was stunned. That was the area I fought all over and had been wounded in. I asked Huang who's side he had really been on. He said that he was on both. He had a family. He did not know who was going to win. He then asked me what I would have done in his place. I thought over that one, and then had to laugh. We shook hands again, both laughing. We would have become friends, I think, except the language barrier was just too great. And maybe, I was too soon from that awful war.
It was just before Christmas, when Huang and I met that year. On Christmas Eve, his oldest daughter, a pudgy cute little thing everyone called Hamburger, because of her proclivity for those things, knocked on my door. She handed me a bag and said Merry Christmas, then giggled and ran. I took the bat in and opened all the small packages wrapped inside. The Three Wise Men. The manger. The baby Jesus. Mary and Joseph. The dutiful cow, sheep and donkey. And a big camel. All the pieces are porcelain and gilded with gold that has not tarnished to this day. The sit this evening in my home-made stable atop a special table near the base of my tree.
I think often of Huang and Hamberger. I wonder what became of them. They were always wonderful to me and seemed to always act surprised that I was wonderful back to them. As much as I could be. I had nothing but limps, scars and painful memories back then. Why did Huang apologize? Why were they so nice? Why did they give me a Nativity Scene, of all things? Today, I don't know anymore than I knew back then, although I have had a lot of time to think and many more battles to grow more experienced. If there is a God. If there really is a Jesus. Then Huang and his family were sent to help me through. To help me understand, at that so very difficult a time, that the Vietnamese people were not to blame. That they were not much different than we are, and were. That my pain did not have to be translated into an eternal hatred. And so I have the set. And it means a lot to me. Christmas is special in so many ways to me, and I wish that the spirit evident in this season would seep through to the rest of the year for everyone.
