"Toots" Vestal lay in state in my Funeral Home on that cold foggy Indiana Christmas day. A fine cold mist in the air. Not a single person called, perhaps due to the weather and the holiday. Toots and his wife, Dorothea, while not loners did not have a wide circle of friends.
Toots, a veteran of The Great War, had met Dorothea while they were employed by the same hotel in Capitol City. They had married late in life. They were not a handsome couple if I remember but they were devoted to each other.
Dorothea spent that entire day sitting in a folding chair in front of her husband's casket, refusing an offer of water or conversation, a manifestation of that love and devotion. I have seen all sorts of grief by too many widows. Dorothea's was the most sincere.
And I could not possibly have foreseen that 50 years later to the day, I would be sitting alone in front of a computer in Denver writing about a love I observed long ago.
Saturday, December 20, 2014
Thursday, December 18, 2014
THE GIRL ON THE MALL SHUTTLE
Denver.
August 8th. 4:00 p.m. The hottest summer since records have been
kept. I am on the mall shuttle on my way
to the library and then to an AA meeting.
I noticed her
standing across
from me. Shortish. Just short of beautiful. What a lovely face----and then, cleavage. Not enough to be as obscenely in your face as
so many women do now, as though I would miss the point. This was displayed just tastefully right. Firm and a light creamy brown. Pert.
The more I gazed the more my desire.
Look gave way to an unabashed stare on my part. My lips parted and the tip of my tongue
involuntarily played out and gently…..And then she smiled at me. It was a gentle, friendly smile off
invitation. Or was it? She exited the bus and glanced over her shoulder
at me as she entered a McDonalds.
And
then---my concept of reality, or fear….of rejection, or what took control. I am no longer a young man. Was it that female cop who specialized in
entrapment back again having polished her act.
This woman was young enough to be my daughter if not my grand daughter. Still I could make contact perhaps sound he
out. I faintly heard a voiceover of
Eartha
Kitt singing September Song. And it is a long, long way from May to
December. Perhaps I had read the signals wrong and I
would be rejected and embarrassed. But
then I did have to go to the library and I did want to catch the meeting.
So the
risk taker of old regretfully turned away from another ‘face in the train
window’ and plodded. stoop shouldered to the library thinking of the old
saying, “Nothing
ventured, nothing gained”.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
THIS IS THE FAMILY I WAS BORN INTO.
My cousin Herman was a man on the make. He was handsome, intelligent and married a beautiful woman from a prominent family.
Everything was working for him.
He started out as a teller working for Otto Metchler at the Industrial Bank & Trust and by the time he was in his mid forties he was cashier. The world was his.
Then came the 4th of July weekend when the bank was closed for a four day holiday. When the bank was opened for business again Herman did not show up. Nor did one of the lady tellers. And furthermore, the vault door was open and the vault was empty. Like cleaned out.
Herman had apparently, fled with his lover. They surfaced in sunny California far from the Indiana winters and Herman's wife and family.
Herman's father reportedly mortgaged all of his farmland to pay off the bank to keep it out of the press and keep Herman out of jail.
Herman much later died in obscurity in South Carolina.
Everything was working for him.
He started out as a teller working for Otto Metchler at the Industrial Bank & Trust and by the time he was in his mid forties he was cashier. The world was his.
Then came the 4th of July weekend when the bank was closed for a four day holiday. When the bank was opened for business again Herman did not show up. Nor did one of the lady tellers. And furthermore, the vault door was open and the vault was empty. Like cleaned out.
Herman had apparently, fled with his lover. They surfaced in sunny California far from the Indiana winters and Herman's wife and family.
Herman's father reportedly mortgaged all of his farmland to pay off the bank to keep it out of the press and keep Herman out of jail.
Herman much later died in obscurity in South Carolina.
Saturday, November 8, 2014
THIS IS THE FAMILY I MARRIED INTO
This was told by my ex wives aunt, a sister to Uncle Dave. I am changing names to keep from
getting into trouble.
During
WW II, Uncle Dave was a Commander in the Navy stationed on an island in the
Pacific. The island was hit by a typhoon
and everyone ran for cover. Everyone
except for Uncle Dave who ran for the Navy Payroll.
For
some time after that he sent money home to his mother. It was hidden in clocks and saddles and
anything else he could conceal it in.
For
several years after the war, the FBI was sniffing around Mariposa. They were watching Dave closely but they
never did find anything they could pin on him.)
Uncle
Dave was heavily involved in the Black market during----and perhaps after----WW
II. If he could have gotten back into Japan
he would have been a very wealthy man.
The Government was watching his every move and if he would have tried to
leave the country he would have been detained.
About
two miles East of Mariposa and about ¼ miles South on the East side of the road, sitting on top of a small knob was a
vertical white clapboard two and one half story house which was the family homestead. At the top of a steep narrow flight of stairs
there was a small padlocked room containing a wringer washing machine, also
padlocked. The washing machine was full
of cash.
.It
is possible that the money was laundered out of Chicago through family connections. Uncle Dave had a cousin who was married to a
man who farmed a section of land one county to the North. They in turn were close friends with the
president of the bank in the county seat.
Entirely supposition but when there is smoke, there’s fire.
At
any rate, for several years after the war, Dave quietly farmed and then took
some of the cash and got a matching mortgage and bought a small piece of
ground.
He
continued this practice until, at the time of his death, he owned extensive
farmland in Indiana plus controlling interest
in a utility company in the nearby city of Indifference.
He also held a chair in either History or English at State University
The
Shadow says: Behind every great fortune there is a great crime.
Saturday, August 23, 2014
THE OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD OF UNDERTAKERS
There
was a time several years before. It is three o’clock in the
morning. I am driving my Cadillac, a symbol of hollow, empty status, aimlessly aware that I am going
mad. I drive toward a place called Longcliffe. I knew this place
because my Grandfather died there. What I didn’t know was
that he was there because of alcohol, not the garden variety of
insanity. My plan was to turn myself in. The Gothic towers and
spires of the century old hospital were superimposed against a full
moon. My repeated thought was: If
I go in there they will never let me out. They will keep me there
and never let me go.
Day
is night and night is day. Time warps. I don't know how long I have
been drinking. A week. A year. Multiples of years? There are five
liquor stores in town. I buy a bottle each night and on Friday
night I get the weekend supply, hoping to make it until Sunday
morning without guzzling both liters and running out on Sunday. I
passed out on a sofa in the Elks club. I drove so drunk I had to
shut one eye to identify the three yellow lines on the center of the
road. I awaken, dressed in a suit and slumped on a couch. The room is filled with surreal half light. I don't know if it is twilight or dawn. How long have I been out? My world shrinks and becomes infinitely smaller. I am still
untouchable enough that I am allowed by the local law to proceed
through town at 15 miles an hour, hugging the center line and with
the windows open in order to get enough fresh air to avoid passing
out.
I
did pass out. On a cement garage floor. On the winter night I ran out of Gin and hope I closed the door of the
garage and turned the ignition switch on a brand new Mercury station
wagon. I came back to my private Hell staring at the ceiling of the
hospital emergency room. My first words were; My God, I have fucked
this up too. And on to a padded ward and Nurse Ratched.
Suicide
is a very selfish act.
.............with each broken shoelace out of one hundred broken shoelaces, one man, one woman, one thing enters a madhouse./bukowski
.............with each broken shoelace out of one hundred broken shoelaces, one man, one woman, one thing enters a madhouse./bukowski
Thursday, August 14, 2014
ELECTRIC SHOCK
The
worst part is conciseness. I am not really conscience, only perhaps
half there. And I don’t know where or what there
is.
I
am slowly aware of the other zombies around me in varying stages of
slow movement. They and the entire area seem to be surrounded by and
permeated in a thick opaque whitish fog.
The
forms start to morph into male zombies and female zombies. I knew by
their clothing. I know, but don’t know how I know. They--and I
are in various stages of becoming alive.
Some
are still lying on gurneys, immobile, unconscious.
I
don’t remember at this time that I was lying on a gurney on top of
several hospital sheets. I was surrounded by medical personal.
Busy. They are working quickly now. A needle is inserted into a
vein in my arm. Electrodes are being prepared. Patches on my head
and temples are swabbed with a coldish jell. A large syringe is
fastened into the needle in my arm. They want me to count backward
from ten. I never make it past seven. My last conscious memory is
of the sheets being quickly folded over my legs and a rubber block
placed in my mouth so I don’t chew or swallow my tongue or break my
teeth when I convulse.
For
several days I am only a semi-zombie and gradually life calms, the
depression is defined and recedes, and slowly I begin to feel better.
It took six or eight of these to get me onto a level playing field.
Monday, July 21, 2014
THOUGHTS ON THE POWER OF TURKEY AND UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
Termie, my cat, loves turkey. Even more than she loves tuna. I have a theory that since she was about half feral when I got her, she had eaten out of dumpsters. People serve a huge turkey every Thanksgiving and Christmas, no longer remembering the original reason. The remains go into the dumpster and this was Termie's big meal.
My cat, Termie AKA Fishbreath or Dumass, had been terribly abused when I got her at Maxfund my pet no kill pet shelter. This abuse made her angry and not trusting of anyone. Believe me I understand the feeling. Her full name is LaTerminista. It translates out to something like The Terminator.
It took me two years to gentle that cat. If I went to pet her she would shred flesh to the elbow. Today she is a gentle, docile pet with the same fondness for turkey. Unless I try to pick up her dish. I can come in at any time, in any shape and she will greet me and rub against me. She will never say "I smell another cat on you!"
I have become a cat lover. Dogs are OK but they tend to roll around in their own excrement.
On the other hand, I have never seen a geranium cough up a hairball.
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