Jerry Joins the Army

When Jerry Oliver left his girlfriend’s house she started playing an album by this chick singer named Joni Mitchell. Jerry could hear it coming out of her window as he got into his car. For some reason Jerry felt like Monya — that was his girlfriend — would think of some other guy when she listened to this Mitchell gal sing. In fact he couldn’t shake the thought.

Jerry knew for a fact that Monya had been with several guys before they met and even when they first started dating.  Jerry was kind of okay with all this, after all he was a modern guy plus Monya was a really pretty girl and free spirited and all too.

Sometimes Jerry thought how lucky he was to be with Monya. Sometimes he felt like he wasn’t in her league. Jerry wasn't some big stud and hadn't even played football in high school. Jerry was average height, a fairly good tennis player but mediocre in other sports. He was good enough looking but no Steve McQueen. Jerry would have been the first to admit all of this. As for Monya, well she was a straight up fox. It was a heckuva boost to Jerry's ego that his girlfriend was so damn gorgeous.

So Jerry drove home on this warm April night in 1969 wondering what guys Monya thought about when she listened to Joni Mitchell. He also started thinking again about joining the service. This was a topic he’d given a lot of consideration to lately. What he liked best about it was the GI Bill and what he liked least was the idea of going to some shithole like Vietnam and getting his dick shot off.

Jerry had worked his way through two years of college and it was a royal pain. Yeah his folks had offered him dough but he wanted to be fully independent, especially since mom and dad just got by themselves. Also he hated the shit jobs he’d had since sophomore year of high school: bagging in the goddamned grocery store, pumping gas, unloading crates at a warehouse. No, if he did some time in the military, he could finish college and wouldn’t have to scrape together pennies to do it or go straight from classes to work. On top of all that Jerry needed a break from school. From kindergarten through two years of university it had been pretty much non stop, especially since his mom always made him go to Summer School.

When Jerry got home he called his brother Ronnie who was six years older and in Jerry’s mind sixty years wiser. Ronnie had a good job as a sales executive and had been giving Jerry advice since forever. Ronnie wasn’t to crazy about his kid brother going into the army what with a war going on and told him so. But he also said that the army could be really good for him and teach him some valuable life lessons. Plus he could see that Jerry wanted a break from college. Working full time for awhile might be an option but it would probably be at some crappy job. Ronnie told him all this but again added, "I still don’t like the idea of you getting shipped to Vietnam.” Then Ronnie added: “but it is a helluva good thing for you to do, to serve your country and all, being patriotic is important and all this will look good on your resume.”

That pretty much sold Ronnie. He’d go down and enlist the next day, as long as they’d let him finish this semester of college.

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When Jerry went down to the induction center he went alone. He'd had dinner with his parents, Ronnie and his kid sister Julie the night before. He said his goodbyes to friends at a party the day before that and that evening had gone out with Monya one last time. He could tell that Monya was ready for him to go. The passion had been going out of their relationship since before Jerry's enlistment. In fact Jerry was pretty sure that Monya had been seeing other guys already. It was hard to stay in love with a girl who had mentally and emotionally checked out of your relationship. Maybe Jerry would write to Monya from the army and maybe he wouldn't. They made love that last night together and for the first in months there'd been some real intensity and excitement. Jerry figured it was because it was the last time they'd do it. Maybe if Monya had stayed hot for him Jerry would never have enlisted. Maybe.

As Jerry waited in the induction center to be processed, he wondered how often he'd get laid while in the army. He also started missing friends and activities like playing poker and tennis and shootin' the shit with his pals. Jerry wondered if maybe he'd made a mistake. So he forced himself to focus on the long run and how this was going to be the best thing for the rest of his life. If nothing else he would have some different experiences that would shape him into what his dad liked to call, "a real man." Dad was proud as hell that Jerry was going into the service. He'd done a stint himself and that was during World War II. Mom was nervous and worried but she got nervous and worried when one of her kids so much as went to the movies. That's just the way moms are, Jerry figured.

There were two guys sitting next to Jerry and he got to talking to them. One was from Jerry's rival high school and they kind of knew a few of the same people and neighborhoods. His name was Lance Dorsett and he seemed like someone Jerry could be buddies with. The other fella was from a small town about an hour away. He seemed pretty depressed like this was the last place he wanted to be. His name was Mason Oglethorpe. Jerry had a hard time not laughing at the name. It totally blew that Mason was so gloomy but Jerry figured he'd get over it and maybe they'd become buddies too. Mason was a big fella who looked strong as an ox. Lance was built about like Jerry, more nimble than strong.

It was good to get to know some guys right away. Jerry could see that he was going to meet a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds, this was another big plus to joining the service. Heck, some of these guys could be friends for life and some could provide valuable connections in years to come. By the time of the induction Jerry was feeling pretty good about life.

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This one time on leave Jerry went into a little bar that wasn't too crowded. He'd no sooner ordered his beer than someone put a song on the jukebox and it was that Joni Mitchell number that Jerry had heard wafting out of Monya's bedroom that one time. It gave Jerry a kind of sick feeling in his stomach. Not like nausea but more like jealousy. He imagined her kissing some other guy, maybe being in the sack with someone. Jerry had written to Monya a couple of times and received one letter. It was pretty short and didn't say a whole lot. It sure wasn't very affectionate or lovey dovey. Jerry had pretty much resigned himself to the fact that it was over with Monya but still she had been the closest girlfriend he'd ever had. Jerry sipped his beer and felt kind of lousy. Finally his buddies showed up. One of them was Lance who he'd been inducted with. The other guy was Johnny Packard who was from Alabama. Johnny was what you would call a redneck. His political views seemed pretty out there to Jerry but he was a cool guy in most other ways and a lot of fun to hang with so Jerry let the political stuff go.

The trio ended up carousing all over town that night, at one point ending up in a party with a bunch of hippies. Someone produced marijuana and everyone smoked it except Johnny who said grass was "for niggers and drug addicts." The hippies didn't seem too bothered by Johnny despite all the insults he ended up hurling at them, probably because they were so high. Lance ended up scoring with one of the chicks. Lance was what Jerry considered to be a ladies man. Jerry tried to get one of the chicks into the sack too but she was with this big hippie and not interested in a solider with a crewcut. The next day Jerry had a pretty good hangover but a ten mile hike with a full pack on a hot day sweated it out.

Jerry was loving and hating the service at the same time. He liked the discipline, figuring it would be good for him in the future. He also liked the camaraderie. Most of the other guys were pretty cool. Jerry had never had trouble making friends anyway. At the same time Jerry found all the drills and duties to be draining and often purposeless. He also hated the loss of so many basic freedoms and the way sergeants would yell at you for the littlest thing. But overall Jerry was pretty happy with his decision to enlist. Well, until the day he found out he was being deployed to Vietnam, then he felt sick to his stomach about it.

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Jerry was laying in mud and was soaking wet and there was blood trickling out of a flesh wound in his forehead. There was noise coming from everywhere: gunfire, shouts, explosions, screams, chattering, radio static. Jerry was alone and scared. Not quite alone. Lance was laying a few feet away from him but he was dead. Jerry couldn't quite wrap his mind around the notion that this handsome young friend of his had ceased to be. It seemed incompehrensible. He'd seen body bags and he knew guys who'd been killed in action but this was the first time Jerry had seen someone killed. And it was his best army buddy.

Their platoon had been out on patrol when they suddenly started taking heavy fire. They were in a clearing and pinned down. Two guys were wounded, one of them badly. The radio was also a casualty. Their sergeant ordered Jerry and Lance to make their way back to base to report their situation. The two buddies had gotten up and sprinted for the trees zig zagging all the way. Somehow they'd made it. But as they were sprinting along the trail toward camp, shots started coming from all directions. Two North Vietnamese soldiers appeared from behind a tree. Lance saw them immediately and shot them both. One of them got off a shot just as he was hit and it took off the top of Lance's head. With bullets flying from seemingly everywhere, Jerry ran towards a big bush and dove behind it, right into a big puddle soaking himself. Jerry rolled out of the puddle and into the mud and waited. He didn't know what for.

Jerry reasoned that he should wait a few minutes and then trying moving back towards camp, it seemed suicidal to move now. Maybe re-enforcements were on the way. Jerry felt in his pockets. His cigarettes were wet and so were his letters. He'd just that morning gotten two letters from home and both had made him as happy as he'd ever been. One was from Monya. She'd written that she'd had a new boyfriend for awhile but it hadn't worked out but it made her realize how special Jerry was. She wondered in the letter why she'd taken him for granted, he was the best guy she'd ever met and she said she hoped they could get back together when he got out of the service. Jerry never expected such a letter from her and was over the moon. The other letter was from his mother telling about how dad had earned a huge bonus at work and that he'd be able to retire sooner than they thought and, whether Jerry liked it or not, they were setting aside some money for him to help finish college with. Jerry could just feel his parents' joy over the windfall and how important it was for them to help Jerry out. He almost cried.

Jerry was sorry the letters were wet and wished he'd had a chance to answer them before this patrol. He was thinking about how great his folks and Monya were when he noticed some movement in the bushes a few yards ahead. A few seconds later Jerry got up on his haunches and looked up to see two North Vietnamese soldiers standing above him with their rifles pointed at his head. Jerry wondered how they'd snuck up on him so quietly.

The Woman in Black

There’s a woman I see almost everyday on the subway. She always wears black slacks and a black jacket. She has very long jet black hair and dark eyebrows. She’s a French teacher (as I discovered one day when I sat next to her and noticed her writing a student recommendation letter) and often grades paper during the subway ride. I estimate that she’s in her mid thirties. I’ve never seen her smile. I find something sad about her. Yesterday towards the end of the ride she looked to be in pain, perhaps as the result of a headache.

Students called her Madame Jorgenson because she was the French teacher. The Jorgenson surname came from her idiot husband Greg whose parents were from Sweden. Sometimes she wondered why she took his last name, not that Madame Bartkowski would have rolled off the tongue. Her first name was Linda. She’d been teaching French for seven years at The Academy High School, a private school. Most of Linda’s students were from families that earned twice as much as a goddamned French teacher. Linda knew there was more money and more stability in teaching in public schools, but who wanted to deal with the kind of kids you come across there? Anyway being a French teacher was pretty cushy, especially compared to teaching other subjects. English teachers always had huge piles of essays to grade. History teachers were dealing with bored students. Math teachers, well they had to teach math for chrissakes — what a drag. And Linda could not even imagine teaching PE where you deal with sweat and showers and towels and equipment. Never.

When it came right down to it Linda thought she’d made a mistake going into any kind of teaching. The pay was for shit and the tedium of doing the same crap over and over and constantly dealing with snotty adolescents and their parents....Oh god the fucking parents. Always whining about something. Too much work, not enough work, the wrong kind of work. And then there were administrators who were the ultimate losers. They couldn’t hack it in the classroom and segued into desk jobs in order to collect a few more bucks. Her colleagues were generally okay although the young ones were ridiculously idealistic and the old ones were even more cynical than Linda.

But Linda felt stuck. At 34 she was getting a little too old for any radical career change and there sure as shit was nothing else in education she would consider. Her idiot husband was going nowhere in his job at the bank and everyone knew that but him. They’d be taking out a second mortgage soon because his salary had stagnated. It was four years since they’d been to Europe and the next trip might not be for yet another four years. Linda also was facing the possibility of never having a child though she was ambiguous about the idea on her best days. Greg would raise the topic from time to time though not with any more enthusiasm than she felt. The fact that they almost never made love anymore made the prospects dimmer. If her goddamned mother complained about not having any grandchildren one more time Linda thought she would scream.

Sometimes Linda would daydream about an affair. The new science teacher was cute and young and kind of flirted with Linda but he probably had some hot girlfriend or was gay. It excited and frightened Linda that she would sometimes imagine sex with another man, even to the extent of looking at those websites were married people hook up for assignations.

All this crap was going through Linda’s mind as she sat in the same damn seat on the same damn car of the same day train that left at the same damn time every morning and took her to within a two block walk of the damn school. It was making her head hurt. More than that her head felt like it was being drilled into. Like that one time in college when she had a hangover from drinking vodka. For a couple of years now Linda had been avoiding making any kind of big decision. She had been content with just making it through each day. Trudging through the same routine. The only variety in her life was what she decided to watch on Netflix. But she knew, deep down inside, that something had to give. There simply had to be a change of direction. Linda felt nothing significant had happened in her life since the day she started teaching. The job and her marriage had sucked her into a black hole and it was time to get out.

Well it was Friday so the digging could easily wait until she finished her work day. By 3:45 she’d be out of school and free. Greg would be home late because of some dinner meeting and he had a golf date the next day. He’d taken up golf about a year ago and that had meant they were together a little less. This was a decidedly mixed blessing as far as Linda was concerned. Anyway she’d have plenty of time to decide on an earth shattering move that would change her life forever and for the better. Just thinking this made Linda’s head feel just a little bit better. Well that plus the tylenol with codeine she’d popped. It was left over from a recent injury. Linda had needed only a couple after breaking a toe and carried the bottle around for nasty headaches -- or just to feel better.

Linda’s work day was spectacularly ordinary. The fact was that there was usually some hiccup, if not several, during the course of a normal teaching day. But today was as smooth as silk. No student incidents, nor angry emails from parents, no hassles with colleagues or staff. Linda loved such days. Linda hated such days. More to the point, she hated that about the best she could hope for from a teaching day was that nothing bad happened. Linda had noticed this year that she no longer got much of a thrill from seeing student’s learning French. At first it was a big deal to observe the improvement a student made over the course of a few months. But now she could give a shit. Oh sure it meant job security and fed her ego helping her realize that she was good at what she did, but she really didn't give two shits about the students. Most of them just wanted to fulfill a language requirement to get into Cornell or whatever. They didn't have any passion for French so why should Linda get all excited by teaching them?

So the school day ended and Linda did her usual “have-a-nice-weekends” with everyone and headed out the door for the subway. And yes, she was resolved to find a way out of her rut. Something, some momentous decision, some great change. She could do it. She would do it. Maybe the first step would be not to get on the usual subway train. No. Linda was going to deviate from the norm. She got out her cellphone and called Allison. Allison had been her roommate in college and they were still good friends, especially since Allison’s divorce which had given her more time and prompted her to move back to the area. Allison worked just a few blocks away and got off at 4:00 on Fridays. They arranged to meet at a nearby bar.

Unlike Linda, Allison was a pretty big drinker. Not like an alcoholic or anything but on Fridays and at parties and such Allison could keep up with the best of them. On this day Linda found herself keeping up with Allison. They were drinking whiskey sours, which Linda had never tried before. By 7:00 Linda was pretty well swacked and hungry. They went to an Italian restaurant and had huge plates of pasta preceded by appetizers and accompanied by a bottle of wine.

Linda had explained to Allison everything she’d been thinking about that day which was really just the culmination of what she’d been processing for a good long while. Allison’s advice was clear: do something.

“You only get one shot. That’s why I immediately got a divorce when I could see things with Rupert were never going to work out. Why hang on when the end result is inevitable? Ya know what I mean? You need to make a clear decision about what you want to do and do it. And for crying out loud, don’t waste your time talking to some fucking counselor or shrink or anything. They’ll suck you in for years by which time your life is nearly over. You’re a big girl. Decide for yourself and trust yourself.”

Linda thought that this was brilliant advice. The fact was that Linda had long admired Allison's smarts and that she had always had the courage of her conviction.

The two friends spent most of the rest of their time together reminiscing and gossiping about old friends. It was nearly ten o'clock when a drunken Linda finally got on the subway. She fell asleep straight away and nearly missed her stop. Like the school, Linda's house was just a short walk from a subway station. She staggered home dropping the keys several times as she walked up the steps. Greg was home and heard her so he opened the door.

"Where have you been?" He sounded angry, worried and exasperated.

Linda just looked at him with a crooked smile.

"Why didn't you answer your phone?" he demanded.

To Linda, Greg, who was tall blonde and both All-American and boyish looking, sounded utterly ridiculous. He had no capacity for expressing emotion. Greg had always just seemed silly when trying to be angry. In truth everyone who had ever met Greg agreed that he was just about the sweetest man on Earth. Linda had fallen for how genuine and kind he was. He was the polar opposite of most everyone in her family. Okay he could be dull as dishwater but no one was more considerate.

"You're no good at expressing emotion. Ya know that Gregory," she slurred, still sporting a goofy grin and swaying as she spoke.

"You couldn't call?"

"Sorry." And with that Linda plopped onto a chair. She looked around the living room at all the furniture. She peered around Greg at the dining room and marveled at how big it was. Beyond it was the kitchen which was also much bigger than they needed.

"Why do we have all this space? Why do we need such a big house? Why don't we sell it and move into an apartment? We could...."

"I can't talk to you when you're drunk," Greg said.

Linda waved her hand at him and slumped deeper in the chair.

"Here, let me get you to bed. You were with Allison, weren't you? I've never seen you like this before. You shouldn't ever have more than a cocktail and two glasses of wine. Ever."

"I'll get myself to bed, thank you very much," Linda said. With that she stood. Linda undressed on her way to the bedroom just letting her clothes drop. She collapsed naked on the bed and was soon dead to the world. Greg walked in after brushing his teeth and peeing and saw her naked ass staring up at him. For the first time in months Greg was turned on. He was, in fact, very turned on. Greg pulled off his pajama bottoms and and without a moment's hesitation screwed Linda. Although she would never remember it, Linda became conscious and moaned with enjoyment throughout and even had an orgasm.

Linda spent the next day at home with an awful hangover. She watched TV and surfed the web. No great decision was made. Even thinking hurt. For many days after Linda felt chastened by her drunken behavior and was particularly solicitous of Greg.

A few weeks later Linda found out that she was pregnant. She was going to be a mom. Greg actually did a get a promotion at work. Linda gave birth to a baby boy nine months to the day after her husband gratified himself with her drunken body. She quit teaching.

When Cobb Got a Job

Cobb, far right, with his buddies

Cobb got a job.

His friends liked saying that after Wendell Cobb got hired as a laborer by a construction firm. For a few weeks after they’d break out with the chant: “Cobb got a job, Cobb got a job…” After dropping out of SF State at the beginning of his sophomore year, Cobb had bummed around living off money some rich great aunt left him. He’d gone down to Mexico once and made several trips to Lake Tahoe plus he had this girlfriend in Stockton for awhile who he’d go out with and spend a lot of dough on, but Cobb had avoided work like the plague for what seemed to everyone like the longest time. In reality it was barely two years.

Finally the money was running out and Cobb didn’t want to move back in with his parents — who by this time had moved out to the suburbs to some burg called Orinda — or become a leach like Lester Coogan who everyone was starting to hate. So he looked for work and got hooked up with this construction firm that was building apartment complexes in and around San Francisco.

The pay was really good and there were benefits and best of all the work promised to be steady. The foreman on his job was a nice enough guy whose younger brother was an ex classmate of Cobb’s from Balboa High. That was all the connection Cobb had needed. And it didn’t hurt that Cobb was a big fella who looked the part of a laborer and in fact had worked one Summer helping build a church. Cobb had it made in the shade.

Then things went a little haywire. It started innocently enough. It was the weekend after Cobb’s third week on the job. Due to one thing or another the gang hadn’t gotten together for over a month and they were going to make up for lost time. Saturday night there was a big barbecue at Tucker’s place. His folks were pretty cool and liked having all the boys over. All they asked was that guests kindly respect the BYOB policy they’d enacted when Tucker and company came of age. His dad ran a butcher shop so there were plenty of meats of all variety to put “on the 'cue” as Old Man Tucker called it. Tucker’s mom made a gigantic potato salad and steamed some vegetables so they were all set.

Tucker’s sister Lana put on the hi fi and kept the platters spinning so it was a real festive atmosphere. Somehow nobody got too drunk at Tucker’s, maybe out of respect for his parents. But just the same everyone had a good time and they all ended up in the basement rec room playing pool or darts or just gabbing. There was some talk about the coming presidential election with most agreeing that even though they wanted Kennedy to win it seemed likely that Nixon would somehow steal it.

Next day everyone headed to Kezar Stadium to see the 49ers play the Browns. It was a pretty warm Indian Summer day so everyone was constantly stopping the beer vendor and slaking their thirst. Cobb was keeping pace with everyone. He was feeling particularly good what with the new job. The 49ers went on to beat the Browns on a late touchdown pass so post game everyone was in a celebratory mood.

Cobb said that whoever wanted could come to his place. They’d pick up some burgers on the way not to mention several six packs of Olympia.

Tucker, Jankowski and D’Angelo all made it over. There was a colored fella who lived next door name of Casey who was a big 49er fan so Cobb invited him over. No one objected, although if Berger was with them he’d have kicked up a fuss, Berger was an unabashed bigot and big fan of the John Birch Society. But he had headed straight home after the game on account of his wife being seven months pregnant.

Casey brought over some beer of his own although it was Hamm’s. That was fine with everyone. Sure they preferred Olys but to each his own and after you been drinking all day there’s not much difference, truth to tell.

Everyone was getting good and stinko and after an hour or so Tucker and D’Angelo made for home. Jankowski and Casey stuck around and it wasn’t long before another trip to the liquor store was in order. As they got in Jankowski’s Chevy, Cobb thought how it was getting kinda late and he had work early the next morning so maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. But he also thought what the heck he was having a great time and he’d be fine in the morning.

The evening was warm and the three of them — Cobb, Jankwoski and Casey — sat on Cobb’s front porch. Before long they started singing. They sounded awful and Casey’s wife came out once and told them to keep it down so they finally went inside. No sooner had they closed the front door than Jankowski passed out. He fell face forward on the floor. Drunk as Cobb was he would never forget the sight of his good buddy just falling straight ahead like a tree.

Casey helped Cobb put Janowski on the big sofa in the living room. He was small enough and the sofa big enough that even with Jankowski sprawled across it, Cobb and Casey had room to sit on either side of him. The two new buddies kept on drinking until Cobb finally fell asleep sitting up on the sofa next to his passed out friend. Casey took that as his cue to go home. It was 1:30 in the morning.

Three hours later Jankowski finally woke up. It took him awhile to realize where he was and what had happened. Once he did he went and took a piss then hopped into his Chevy and drove home.

Though dead to the world, Cobb must have sensed the absence of the body that had laid next to him because once Jankowski got up he sprawled out on the sofa. From then on he didn’t move a muscles for hours.

When Cobb finally started to wake up his first sense was total confusion. He had no idea where he was or what day it was. Once things cleared enough for him to think straight it was like an alarm went off in Cobb’s brain. This alarm wasn’t like the ringing of his clock but the loud blare of a danger signal. When Cobb looked at his watch and saw that it was half past ten he could feel the panic coming straight from his ass up his spine. He actually began to shake and did so for a few seconds.

“I don’t know whether to shit or wind my watch,” Cobb said out loud. He finally decided on a cold shower and a change of clothes, then he’d hop into his his car and head for work thinking up an excuse for being late on the way. In between the shower and leaving the house Cobb wolfed down a couple of pieces of bread and made a sandwich for lunch.

Cobb alternated between feeling pure dread that he would be fired and absolute confidence that it would all be fine. After all, people had been late to work before and if they had a legit excuse there was nothing worse that came of it then a warning and a little loss in pay. But Cobb was pretty new and maybe the foreman wouldn’t be so forgiving. The drive to the work site would take about 15 minutes, ample time to concoct a story.

The second Cobb stepped outside he could tell something was wrong, that something was missing. His car. Oh goddamn it the car was gone. His car had been stolen! It was a beat up old '52 Dodge hardly worth a nickel and someone had stolen it. Cobb was totally screwed. Cobb was scared. Cobb was outraged. Cobb didn’t know what to do. Was it even worth calling the cops over? Hell yes it was. This was his transportation. Plus it had his tools in it. The world was falling out from under Cobb. He wanted to cry and he wanted to kill someone. He paced around the front lawn for a good minute trying to decide whether to catch a bus to work — he wouldn’t even know which one to take — or call the cops. Cobb thought of calling a cab but all he had on him was some loose change and not much of that.

Finally he went inside to call the cops and saw that the damn phone was off the hook. Oh hell, he thought, they’ve probably been trying to call me from work and haven’t been able to get through.
Cobb put the phone back in the cradle and sat down, shaking again. He’d have to steady his nerves. Then the damn phone rang. Oh hell, Cobb thought, it’s work. I’ll just tell 'em I’m sick.

“Hello.”

“Hey Cobb, it’s me.”

“D’Angelo?”

“Yeah lissun your car is still over at my place. You gonna pick it up or what? I’ve been trying to call you but the line’s been busy.”

“Oh thank merciful God,” said Cobb who had heretofore not been the religious type. "Sorry,  I’ll be right over.”

“Cool, see ya.”

Cobb felt like dancing a jig. He’d never been so relieved in his life. With all the drinking the day before he’d forgotten that he’d left the car at D’Angelo’s house, which was only three blocks away. Why the hell had I left it there in the first place, he wondered.

Running the whole way Cobb got to D'Angelo's in five minutes.  He waved at D’Angelo, who was in his garage, and drove off to work determined to think of the best excuse ever. First he thought of saying he woke up sick but that would seem too close to a hangover, he’d also have to explain the phone not ringing. Then he considered saying it was a family emergency. Mom was in an accident and when he got the news he was so shook up he must have dropped the phone. Cobb hated the notion of using his mother for an excuse, especially when he’d just tied one on, but it seemed his best option.

Cobb got to the work site and immediately found the foreman. He was confident that the excuse about his mom being in accident would work, after all, who lies about their mom?

“Cobb!” The foreman barked. “Where the hell have you been? We tried calling you and couldn’t get through so we called your folks and they didn’t know what was going on neither.”

Shit. That’s right, his parents were listed as an emergency contact. Good thing he didn’t spout out his phony story before the foreman spoke. Cobb stood there without an excuse. He felt about two feet tall and weak as a kitten and naked and awful and what could he do?

“Well? Speak up!” the foreman said.

“I…I was sick. Sick as a dog. I woke up with diarrhea and vomiting and chills and…” Cobb thought of how he felt when he had the flu last Winter and just described that. “Plus I guess I knocked the phone off the hook last night. I’m real sorry.” Cobb felt relief. He’d spit out an excuse and it was plausible and best of all it was over with.

“Well Cobb you look like hell. You sure you well enough to work?”

“Yeah I feel a lot better now. Might have just been something I ate.”

“Sure it wasn’t something you drank?” That question scared the hell out of Cobb for two seconds but the foreman followed it with a laugh and a pat on the back. Cobb was in the clear.

Mid afternoon Cobb was sweating profusely even though the fog had returned to San Francisco. He’d become buddies with a guy named Lancaster (like Burt the actor, he'd say) who asked if he was hungover. Cobb admitted it and Lancaster said he knew the only cure.

“What’s that?” Cobb asked.

“Hair of the dog,” Lancaster told him.

“You mean drink again?”

“Just a bottle or two of beer. Not enough to start another bender. Just so’s you can take the edge off.”

Cobb hadn’t gotten drunk too many times in his life and had only had a few hangovers but he’d never even thought to drink when he was already hungover. It seemed crazy to him but he was feeling pretty miserable both physically and mentally so figured once he got home it wouldn’t hurt to try.

Sure enough there was still a six pack left in the fridge so after a TV dinner Cobb downed a beer. It went down surprisingly smoothly and gave him a bit of a glow. But Cobb still had a little case of the blues so he drank another. After the second beer Cobb was feeling really good for the first time all day. It was great to be so up after having been down for the whole day. Cobb figured it was only logical that a third beer would really top things off. He was right, problem was that he couldn't stop, he finished off the second pack.

Cobb was on top of the world but knew that more beer wasn't going to keep the good times rolling. It seemed logical in his sotted brain that it was time for some hard stuff. So Cobb took his checkbook and headed for Al’s Liquors down the street where he bought a pint of whiskey. Not wanting to wait until he got home, Cobb took a couple of pulls from it right there in the parking lot. A few seconds later the world went blurry. But Cobb liked this feeling. He staggered towards home singing a current Bobby Rydell song, but after going a few yards he lost his balance and started pinwheeling into the street.

The truck was going the speed limit, it had its lights on and the driver was obeying all traffic laws. He was not at fault. Coincidentally a police car was coming towards the scene of the accident and saw the whole thing. The police officer, a veteran by the name of Ralph McIntyre, watched Wendell Cobb get smacked by the truck and fly several feet in the air. An ambulance was there within seven minutes.

Cobb suffered a broken leg, broken arm, broken ribs, a concussion, various contusions and lost a few teeth. Bad as it was, the cop, and later the doctors, thought he got off lucky. Cobb was in the hospital for three weeks. His job was gone and bills had piled up. He had no choice but to move back in with his folks. He vowed never to drink again.

It wasn’t until mid January, just a few days before John Kennedy’s inauguration, that friends could once again chant, Cobb has a job.  He hadn't been well enough to look until December and construction work was out for a time until his leg was 100%. So what Cobb got was work as the night counter man at a liquor store in San Francisco. Cobb was never tempted to take advantage of the employee discount, at least on booze.

He was sleeping in a spare room at D'Angelo's house until he saved up enough for an apartment. Cobb had a job and this time he was determined not to screw up.

Victory of the Bland - Thoughts on Corporate CEOs, Mafia Bosses Inspired by the Bob Durst Story

Like a lot of people I was fascinated by the  recent HBO six part series The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst about multi millionaire Robert Durst. This is the chap who killed a man and dismembered his body but got off on the claim that it the killing was a combination of self defense and an accident. Durst is believed to be responsible for the murder of his first wife who disappeared in 1982 and for assassinating a friend in Los Angeles in 2000. Some friend.

If you haven’t seen the series I highly recommend it. Its compelling on a number of levels not the least of which being that Durst is making the news right now with his recent arrest. As has been reported, he seems to have accidentally confessed to murder in a recording that can be heard at the end of the final episode.

Durst was extensively interviewed for the series by the makers of the documentary with director Andrew Jarecki asking the questions. It’s fascinating stuff on many levels. Durst seems at once repulsive, likable, weird and not the type of guy with who would going around killing people.
He’s also clearly a liar. For instance he tells of being led to a window by his dad to watch his mother jump (or fall if you believe the family) to her death when he was but seven years old. If it sounds unbelievable that a father would casually take a child to watch mom teetering on the edge of a roof its because it never happened. Then again it did happen in Durst’s mind. In fact in his mind he’s an innocent man who’s a victim of a bizarre string of mishaps. The worst lies you can believe in are your own. They become a person’s narrative, their new reality. Crimes, excesses and conversations can be wiped from a person’s memory. Just as new stories, alternative realities can be added. Someone living in their delusions is pretty hard to deal with.

Douglas Durst

Jinx is intriguing on a number of levels including the fact that it is full of interesting characters, in addition to the main one. One of them is Durst’s brother Douglas who upon the death of the family patrician, Seymour (Doug and Bob’s dad) took charge of the family business. That business is in prime Manhattan real estate. The Dursts are loaded. We see Doug a few times in Jinx but he never sat down for an interview. That’s not his thing. We do see him on tape giving a deposition and also Jarecki crashed a ceremony where he was given an award for charitable work. It was enough to get an idea of the type of guy Doug Durst is. On the surface there's nothing particularly interesting about Doug, certainly not compared to other personalities we meet in the series. And especially as we only catch glimpses of him. But he reminds me of Michael Corelone (Al Pacino) in The Godfather Part II (1974).

No, I’m not saying that Doug Durst is a mobster. But he is, like Corleone a businessman and more than that a CEO. Indeed he is the archetype. Like the true Mafia boss, the CEO is an insulated figure. He does not give interviews. He does not engage in chit chat with strangers nor even acquaintances and rarely with friends and only sometimes with family. He is has a wall around himself and his immediate family and other than official company policy and major decisions, people do not have access to his opinions. Any embarrassment within the family or organization is to be dealt with swiftly with official statements that are as insipid as possible. The family/company holds no controversial positions, is fiercely private and neutral whenever possible. They do not engage in dialogues, they release terse statements. They have channels and layers to go through. They have specific people with specific tasks. They are protected. They are serious.

Doug Durst said as little as possible about his brother’s legal woes. He sent lawyers. The CEO loves his lawyers, they protect him. The family stayed as far away as possible from the case of Bob’s first wife’s disappearance. They didn’t lift a finger to help “look for her.” (Okay, so maybe they knew or figured Bob had killed her so what would be the point.) It was the same way in which they claimed that Seymour’s wife had fallen to her death rather than jumped. Suicide is embarrassing and raises questions. Accidents happen. Regrettable but nothing to sully the family name.

In Godfather Part II Michael is the quintessential Mafia boss (not the flashy John Gotti type who loves headlines and pays dearly for it) who stays in the background. He is cool, detached and in total control. As his father advised, he never let anyone outside the family know what he's thinking. All his moves were designed to protect the family business and the immediate family. Nothing else mattered. If he had to kill a sibling to protect that family by god he’d do it. Michael’s rages, his emotions were all kept out of sight. Doug seems similarly cool, detached and in control, similarly never letting others know what goes on inside. He too makes sure that ever move is calculated to protect and further the family name and business. He is also a quintessential CEO who stays out of headlines (not the obscenely obnoxious type like Donald Trump).

Michael Corleone

It must be a frightful existence. Lonely. Unnatural. Trapped. To constantly follow such strict rules of conduct to constantly have one’s guard up and to constantly depend on others to keep the facade going. It is the death of personality, spontaneity and creativity and the victory of the bland. I wonder if Bob Durst, despicable as he may be, is at least happier than Doug? I wonder if Fredo (the murdered brother) enjoyed his life more than Michael enjoyed his?

Both Bob and Doug suffered the childhood trauma of their mother’s death. Perhaps as a consequence Bob turned into an amoral killer while Doug cleaved closer to his father and emulated his leadership style.

The further you go up any corporate or government hierarchy less interesting are the people you meet. You see men in plain suits, freshly tailored, recent haircuts, manicured nails, perfunctory smiles and medium strength handshakes. They say little and mean less. Their souls are tucked safely away in storage. Their desks are clean with an obligatory framed family photo. They seem but empty vessels. How mannered and polite and desperately dull they are. How far from their true natures.

Anyway I started out about Bob Durst. No empty vessel he. Then again he probably murdered at least three people so nobody’s perfect.

More From the Tortured Genius and his Views on Superstition and Ghosts and His Learning About an Ex Classmate

“Life's single lesson: that there is more accident to it than a man can ever admit to in a lifetime and stay sane.” --  From the novel V by Thomas Pynchon.

"Run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality" -- from Howl by Allen Ginsberg.

Yesterday I wrote about my bizarre contention that knocking on wood serves no real purpose and that I also see no scientific basis for a belief in astrology (as none exists). I’m reminded now of a friend recently telling me about his niece having a baby. It seems that when she and her husband got to the hospital and took what she would need out of the trunk they found a $100 bill in said truck. The conclusion drawn by one and all in the family was that it had been left there for them by one of the niece’s grandparents, my friend’s parents. Never mind that these two people are deceased. My friend and his three siblings discussed whether they thought the money was placed there by their mother or father.

This assumes that there are banks in the afterlife. Not to mention that the dear departed can make withdrawals and place money wherever they choose. Questions arise. Why don’t all dead people look after poor living descendants by dropping them some money? Is it possible for ghosts to cause inflation by leaving too much money in this world? Why just a c note? Why not a couple of grand, or more?

Well if someone firmly believes that her or his dead parents are leaving cash around or indeed if people just want to believe that the deceased walk among us that's their privilege. I can’t prove a negative so I better just let it go. Mind you I did not contradict my friend’s story no more than I would tell a religious person that their beliefs are a lot of hooey. Strange things and the unexplained do happen. For example for decades I futilely rooted for a particular baseball team to finally win a World Series and they’ve gone and won three in the last five years. Okay, maybe not the same thing.

But speaking of sports I do things all the time for “good luck” when watching one of my favorite teams, whether on TV or in person. I walk a certain route, I wear certain clothes, I’ll sit in a certain spot. I always know that nothing I do impacts the game in the slightest. But the thing about watching sports is one feel so powerless. Sure you can be part of crowd noise but even at that you’re just one voice among perhaps tens of thousands. Really you’re just stuck looking and hoping. So you fool yourself into thinking that you can impact the game. It’s universal too. Sports fans all over the world are the same in this respect and have been probably since the first competitive sports were played.

Also yesterday I shared a story I wrote about a high school romance that was derailed before it really began because the girl in question didn't like my astrological sign. I prefaced the story by saying that the subject of the story is deceased. After publishing the post I googled her and learned nothing other than she died at age 43 and was living in Berkeley at the time. That was it. In looking for more I found about the death of someone else in my high school graduating class. His name was Joe Feller and we were regular classmates from about seventh grade through senior year. I don't recall us ever hanging out together but we were always quite friendly. He was among the many classmates I got along with famously who was Jewish, although, I don't know that he was ever devout or ever even entered a synagogue. Joe had black bushy hair, was tall and slender, smiled constantly and was a kick ass student. I doubt he ever had many, if any, enemies. While I was off with others getting high he was hitting the books. While I drank and partied through my 20s he was, well here's what I read about him:

He received a bachelor's in physics from Harvard University and a PH.D in physics at U.C. Berkeley. Joe next served as a physics professor at Columbia University. Realizing that his true passion was environmental law, he left Columbia and attended Harvard Law School, where he served as editor for the Harvard Law Review, a distinction he shares with President Barack Obama. From 1987 to his death in 2013, Joe was a law professor at Arizona State University, where he taught and mentored many students in the field of environmental law. He made and kept friends wherever he went and from all walks of life. Joe was genuinely modest and few people knew of his many achievements, which may have been his greatest achievement of all.

I subsequently read more about Joe and watched a slide show from his memorial that revealed a life that may have been cut short but was certainly not wasted. He was a great outdoor enthusiast who loved nature and travel and seemed to have a close family and large group of friends. The photos in the slide show reveal the same smile I remember, the same slim figure, though by the last half of his life the hair was considerably shorter.

Joe was killed crossing a street. It wasn't the driver's fault, Joe was crossing against the do not walk sign. Damn it! Discovering all this was a good sharp slap across the psyche.

My obituary will say: the idiot had a blog and somehow managed a wife and two children. His hobbies included grumpiness, grouchiness and general irritability. He'll be remembered for colossal mistakes and falling ass backwards into way more good luck than he deserved. He liked dogs though he didn't have one.

Anyway I may have time to beef up that obit although its kind of late in the game to make it really shine.

Son of a bitch, poor Joe.

Maledictions and Malaprops -- A True Story I Wrote that I Publish Here Preceeded by an Introdution

Main setting of the story.

Oh no love! you're not alone
You're watching yourself but you're too unfair
You got your head all tangled up but if I could only make you care
Oh no love! you're not alone
No matter what or who you've been
No matter when or where you've seen
All the knives seem to lacerate your brain
I've had my share, I'll help you with the pain
You're not alone 
-- From Rock and Roll Suicide by David Bowie

I am a tortured genius who suffers for his art.

Sometimes the torture is sublime. A masochistic orgy of painful rumination and all I’ve come to understand all I’ve felt and all that remains beyond my grasp. I reach, reach, reach and exert my brain and slump. Lost among the turgid thoughts of daily trivia.

Or so it seems.

Recently I mentioned to someone that I have never suffered either a major illness nor major injury. (I have more than made up for this with enough mental and emotional woes enough to satisfy a small city.) So anyway this chap says that I had better knock on wood. I refused pointing out that knocking on wood will have no influence on my future health. He suggested that I was tempting fate and indeed seemed somewhat agitated with me for not following the rules. This just served to make me more adamant. I was not going to give in to any silly superstition.

A co- worker was recently talking about liking to cook and said it was typical of Cancers, referring to people born under a particular astrological sign and not sufferers of the disease. I asked, “what’s the science behind that?” He did not answer but another co-worker, a learned man who has studied the great philosophers of history suggested that there “seems to be a lot there.” Yes, a lot of hokum.

I believe that whenever someone mentions astrology in a way that suggests that it has any basis in reality, a scientist somewhere sheds a tear.

All this serves as an introduction to a story I wrote a few years ago that has never before seen the light of day, or the internet anyway. Every word of if it is true. I didn't even change the girl's name, she's dead now anyway.

MALEDICTIONS AND MALAPROPS

The world, my existence felt as if I was viewing and experiencing from the depths of the ocean. Water. Lies. Perception thrown off, depressing like a bad day following another bad one with another one coming and for all time. No escaping. Was it the drugs I’d taken? Was it adolescence. Was this real life and all before had been fantasy? Had I been drugged? Surreptitiously. I stood suddenly quite alone and confused trying to recall what existence felt like from the inside. I was all out of whack. 

Teenage wasteland. With or without the drugs. Mind zapping itself and here comes Danza. A mad crush. Spring day junior year high school. I don’t know who I am or what I’m doing. I just play along. I do know how I feel most of the time and I know that I’m mad for Danza. “Hi, Richard,” she offered with a beaming smile. For me? This happy smile this warm greeting as she walked right towards me. Her long dark hair swayed. Her breasts poked against a light white sweater. Danza’s face was just this side of perfection. Just.

I was scared. Scared of a girl. Not because she was so beautiful, not because I loved her from afar, but because she was being so friendly. This could be a devastating experience. I could find out once and for all the awful truth that no male ever wants to know of an object of lust -- that she wanted to be friends. And friends only. Or not. Consider if she liked me. I mean LIKED me, even half as much as I liked her. The pressure would be enormous, the potential for a disastrous fall was incalculable. 

“Hi,” was all I could muster. Saying her name felt dangerously personal, like we were old buddies, neighborhood pals who’d grown up together and knew each other’s families, like we were practically cousins and romance was an impossibility. 

Then she did it. She stopped right there in front of me and started to chat. This had never happened before. We’d been classmates several times thus far in high school and had exchanged friendly glances in the hallways and at our lockers. But now Danza was stepping outside of the role of acquaintance and being friendly. 

My palms were wet. I rubbed a thumb and index finger together nervously. “How’s it goin'?” she wanted to know. She. Danza wanted to know how I was doing. Me. 

“Pretty good, how are you?” it was too formal sounding, but worse I wanted to add: so why the hell are you talking to me. You’ve got all the power here, you initiated this and I’m scared and confused and every second is like a minute and what the hell are you going to say next quick say it before I spontaneously combust which would be just my luck.

“I’m doin’ great” she said as if truly touched that I would take the time to ask. How do girls do this? How do they make us feel so special, so wonderful, so very happy just through the inflection of their voice and how they tilt their head and look at us. Then she added a question that I shall ever forget: “So is this your lunch or do you have second lunch?”

It was not my lunch I did have second lunch but I suspected that if I told her that this magic would end. “No, I’ve got lunch now,” I said in a voice more squeaky than Mickey Mouse's.

Then she uttered a sentence I shall never forget: “Well maybe we could have lunch together."

I felt a power surge through my body as if I had been granted magic powers and could levitate. “Sure, that would be great.” I suddenly sounded like Cary Grant. I suddenly felt I must be as handsome as Danza was beautiful. I felt bullet proof.

Let us now move ahead in the narrative. Danza and I are sitting in the little park across the street from Berkeley High. I am wolfing down my lunch, she nibbling at hers in the way women mysteriously do. We had chatted about teachers, music, movies, classmates and shared vignettes from our home lives (mine were airbrushed to eliminate any ugliness about a wacko mom and ensuing complications). All was going wonderfully and if I had been able to step out of my body for a moment and watch the unfolding scene I would have boldly predicted that the seemingly impossible notion of a romance between Danza and I was on the verge of becoming a reality. I had stepped up in class and was now officially the type of person who is visited by good fortune with the resulting successful career, gorgeous wife, handsome children and bulging bank account, not to mention athletic fame. 

I was figuratively not only on top of the world but doing summersaults over it. Then Danza asked me another question that I shall never forget: “What’s your sign?” To this point in my life the whole nonsense of astrology was a harmless matter that neither interested nor bothered me. That was all about to change. I said with confidence: “Pisces.”  

“Oh,” said Danza first as if receiving disappointing news. Then she poured it on with a soft but audible “ewww.” The sad “oh” had been bad enough. Now this, an actual “ewww” from the woman who I was falling in love with. Danza looked down at the grass, picking softly at a few blades. I experienced a sensation that would be repeated when not getting a job I wanted, or being fired from one or when an expected letter didn't arrive or when a woman tore my heart out.

Danza suddenly realized the time and that she had to get something from the school library before her next class. I let her return to school alone.

It was all over just like that. Because of when I was born. The disappointment I had feared cloaked me. Snugly. I got up and headed to the campus. But as I crossed the street I started to feel relief. It was over before it really started between Danza and I had done nothing to cause this abrupt end. It was her, her and an idiotic, superstitious belief that a person’s personality was shaped by the stars. I could now dismiss Danza as a "bitch" (a term I no longer use about women). Not because she had rejected me. But why she had cast me aside. From that point on when I saw Danza she looked anything but beautiful. Instead I saw only ignorance. She wasn’t even a “bitch” just a pathetic creature. And from that day on I have hated any reference to astrology wether playful or serious.

Just a Reminder

Often people display a curious respect for a man drunk, rather like the respect of simple races for the insane. Respect rather than fear. There is something awe-inspiring in one who has lost all inhibitions, who will do anything.
-- From Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Being sober for a long time you kind of think that maybe you could do it. Maybe you could actually just have a drink or a beer and not immediately go on a bender. You think that maybe you’re over it or that maybe you never really drank or used all that much. Not compared to some of the people you’ve listened to in meetings or some of those total dead end guys you used to drink with. Why the hell should you deprive yourself? Remember how nice it was to have wine with dinner? Or how good a beer on a hot day tasted? You could do that, you’ve learned.

Then you remember. You remember sitting at the end of a bar with a glass of scotch. You didn’t really need this drink, you’d been hammering away all night and done a few lines and smoked a joint, the drink you were clutching was totally superfluous. You didn’t even want it. You were high, you were on, you were with friends, you had more of the night left to go and it was only Thursday so you had the weekend ahead. So you didn’t want it or need it but there it was. Because. Because you had to have it. That was the beauty of your life. Getting high was a journey not a destination. You were in love with the process. Stopping, ending, finishing, having enough, these were not part of your getting high lexicon. That’s it. You were getting. You were still going and would until….

You're a superstar. You're the greatest. Your David Fucking Bowie. You can have any woman you want and you, my friend just scored the winning goal in the World Cup and won the Oscar and absolutely everyone thinks your cool. Oh sure in reality you're slurring your words and your zipper is down, your hair mussed, you reek of booze and tobacco, you're speaking gibberish and laughing insanely and all but your friends think you are totally obnoxious, but that's there thing, man. You know you can bloody well fly. 

So no, you can’t do it. You can’t have just a glass of wine or just a bottle of beer. Literally you could that first time and maybe that second. But that third or that fourth. You’d be off to the races again. You’d be true to your nature as a junkie. You wouldn’t care about anything else. Nothing. Feed the monkey.

And that thought, the one about how you could do it, you could have a taste and it would be cool, that only lasted a second. In and out of your brain just that fast. Never anything serious. But it was there nonetheless. All those years on the disease still pokes at you, little jabs as if to say: hey, I'm only sleeping, anytime you're man enough to wake me up we can go again. Cunning, baffling, powerful are the three words used to describe it. Ain't that the truth.

So what you do is show up. Even if not physically with others you do it mentally. Check in. Remember the new process the one that does not include using and abusing. Stopping was one thing, living without it a whole new ballgame. Like Robert Redford at the end of the The Candidate (1972) when he wins the election, "what do we do now?" Exactly. That's the whole rest of your life. Living without. Now what? Do today for starters. All you got. And when those notions of going back pop in, let 'em pop right out.

Happy Jack Kerouac's Birthday

My Encounter With an SS Officer

It was my last day in Berlin, a brisk November afternoon just less than 10 months before the Germans invaded Poland. I’d been in Berlin for two weeks to file some stories for my newspaper, but I was also there out of sense of curiosity. I wanted to see if this Nazi regime was as awful as some said or as benign as others said. I’d seen and heard enough to be pretty confident that the Nazis were quite bad indeed. I wasn’t convinced that war was imminent but I felt certain that ominous things were happening in the country and that they meant to export their twisted philosophy one way or another.

The atmosphere in Germany was quite unsettling to me. It was clean and efficient and under control but the rich cultural life I’d experienced in my first visit to the country ten years earlier had vanished. People did not seem unhappy but their was something robotic or resigned about them. There were too the many signs — literal and figurative — that life for Jews was intolerable. I recall feeling quite relieved that I was leaving and was looking forward to a few days in Paris before returning to the States.

I’d been wandering around Berlin for awhile that day as I had time to kill before my train left. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was and didn’t fancy getting lost. For one thing I didn’t want to miss my train but also I was uncomfortable enough in Berlin as it was without finding myself in parts of the city unknown.

I had just stopped at an intersection to try to sort matters out when I noticed that there was an SS officer coming out of a cafe. He must have noticed that I had a perplexed look. I’ve always had a very bad poker face, there’s never been any disguising how I’m feeling or what I’m thinking. In any event, he took a few steps toward me and asked if I was indeed lost. I spoke sufficient German to tell him that I wasn’t sure the way back to my hotel. He detected my accent and asked where I was from. I read nothing but curiosity in his question, even as I think back on it now all these years later. I told him I was an American and he said that he had a cousin living in Cincinnati who quite liked the country. I told him that I’d been in that city before and the area itself was very nice.

He asked about my visit and I told him. We chatted amiably for perhaps ten minutes. The SS officer couldn’t have been more polite or charming. He seemed to be what we used to call a gentleman. He was several inches over six feet tall, trim and -- not surprisingly -- blonde. While talking to him I momentarily forgot what his uniform stood for, what his leaders and peers had been doing and might be preparing to do. Finally I felt bold and — ever the reporter — asked him about his government’s treatment of its Jewish citizens. The SS Officer smiled politely and nodded as if my question were to be expected. He said (and here I offer my translation of his remarks in quotes because I’ve always remembered it well): “the Jews are treated in accordance with their needs and responsibilities and the manner in which they conduct business. There is nothing done to or for them that is not just.” His answer seemed at once patronizing, polite and rehearsed. It was also bereft of meaning. But there was also in it the understanding that further pursuit of the topic on my part would be fruitless.

The SS Officer then told me he had responsibilities to attend to and asked if I was sure I could get back to my hotel. I assured him that I could and thanked him for his kindness.

I thought about that encounter a lot in the years since though for some reason I left it out of any future articles I wrote about my trip in particular or the Nazis in general. Of course I often wondered what happened to the SS Officer. Was he killed? Was he executed for war crimes? Did he serve Hitler throughout the war and survive then go on to a “normal life” and help rebuild Germany? I think, of course, that he was brainwashed. All those SS men were, in my opinion. Had the Nazis not come along he might have been a decent chap contributing to his country in any number of positive ways.

During and after the war I was much sought after for my opinion on various issues relating to Hitler and his gang of thugs. I was always willing to offer my thoughts, but truthfully I was just as bewildered as everyone else. It was a scope of evil that was not easily comprehended. When the horrors of the Holocaust came to light I had trouble sleeping. The images from the camps haunted my dreams and sometimes woke me up with a start. And I couldn't help but think: did the SS Officer I spoke to participate in this barbarity? If he was stationed at a camp then surely he did.

Sometimes at a particular time of year or time of day or when the weather is just so, my mind will go back to that encounter with the SS Officer and the memory will be as clear as though it took place yesterday. And I often think: he seemed such a nice man.

Like I Was Saying Before This Stupid Apocalypse

From Bergman's Persona, one of the films I've enjoyed of late.

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
-- From Changes by David Bowie

I wanted to write something today. Something memorable. Something that would hang in the air taking solid form. Something I could climb up and repose on and dance with and shimmy down the hall in the company of. I wanted to write something big. Something that The New Yorker would pay me double for. That Forbes magazine would take notice of. That would be featured on the PBS NewsHour. Something that pundits would discuss. I wanted something that anti intellectual right wingers would rail about. I wanted to write something that would be compared to the best of James Joyce and at the same time to Hemingway and somehow to Descartes and to The Beatles, of course. I wanted to write something that would be hung in the Louvre and would be credited with reviving literature. I wanted to write something that would cause a national holiday to be declared so that people could take the time to read it. I wanted to write something that was translated into 100 languages. I wanted to write something that would soar to the heavens. With wings. I wanted to write something that you could taste, feel, smell and hold.

I wanted to consequently be hailed a genius and awarded a special Pulitzer Prize and an extra special Nobel Prize. I wanted to receive long standing ovations and parades and I wanted to be celebrated by the rich and famous and to have beautiful women throw themselves at me. I wanted to be hailed and feted and honored and applauded and acclaimed and extolled and given encomiums and kudos and hosannahs. I wanted the writing to earn me riches beyond my wildest dreams.

But

All I could come up with this:

If have pondered life eternal and suffered people infernal and moaned about moments lost and cried over great costs. I have been alive for much of it although at times I was a man under the influence or was brain dead from anti depressants —

I write about the same things over and over and never seem to get around to writing about films anymore. I watch a lot of them too. It makes me happy to watch movies and it enriches my mind and my soul and inspires to me greatness — I should say the illusion that greatness is ever in my grasp and the complimentary illusion that greatness can be defined and codified and explained and experienced and lived and that I am capable. Ain’t I a kick in the pants.

Also the watching is a wonderful escape. I get to into another world. I forget for awhile my life and my troubles and my past and my struggles and see the world through the people and stories in the film. I am not hiding from my life, just taking a respite. I am not bored with my life but I need to spend time away from it. I face my life head on so thoroughly and aggressively these days. I need to run. I need to read. I need to write. I need to watch movies. This completes me and encapsulates the world and brings meaning and trust and hope and happiness and relief and wonder.

But writing about movies is not something I’m feeling these days. Soon again I am sure.

So what else.

We’re in a terrible drought these days. There’s little worse. You literally can’t do anything about it. You can’t even write an angry letter to the editor. We’re also having a very warm winter and look here Spring is right around the bend. Me, I like what other people call bleak weather. Cold, gray days. Mist, fog, overcast, dampness. That’s my thing. These endless days of dirty blue skies feel apocalyptic.

Enough about me.

Now I’m reading Pynchon’s latest book, Bleeding Edge. I have trouble at times following the story but my god the way the man writes who cares? His earlier works deserve my future attention and shall receive it. I’ve only previously read The Crying of Lot 49 by him before. I am a reading junkie. I must always have a book that I'm reading. Sometimes two or three. I do not apologize for this. Not that I would expect anyone to ask me to.

The clocks have been moved ahead so I will literally have to get up an hour earlier than usual and will thus be even more tired and even more grumpy -- horrors! -- than usual. Can we dispense with this? Or at least go back to starting daylight savings time in mid October and ending in mid April as during my perfect youth? Unlike the weather, this is something we can do something about.

The Job Interview

There’s this guy sitting down to be interviewed for a job. Ron. Ron Tasser. Friends sometimes call him the Tass. Used to be play football. Four years of high school and two years of college before he got tired of all that practice to just sit on the damned bench. He was a lineman. Still in decent shape but frankly could drop maybe 25 pounds. Rate he’s going he’ll be good and fat by middle aged. Not there yet, still just 29. Thirty next month.

So Ron is sitting there with beads of sweat on his forehead waiting for Mr. Simpkins — that’s the guy doing the interviews — to come back. Ron’s wearing a suit that looks pretty sharp but truth is Ron has never felt comfortable in a suit. He’s much more a sweatpants and tee shirt kinda guy. Ron has to take a crap. Again. He’s nervous. Been on the can three times already today. Ron also thinks maybe he put on too much cologne. He's never sure how much to use. He can't tell, does he smell like crap or perfume?

Ron wants this job. Needs this job. Otherwise he’s gotta call dad and ask for a loan. Hasn’t had to do that since senior year of college. Sign of a loser to be getting loans from your parents when you’re almost 30. Maybe they’ll send him some money for his birthday. That would be cool. Wouldn’t have to pay that back.

Ron’s intestines are in knots. Hurts like hell. Always happens when he's nervous. Used to happen before football games and before dates when he was in high school. Wishes he could have a beer. Will when this is over. Maybe see what Ken is doing. Ken’s his buddy. Drives a forklift, they’ve been hanging out since high school. Ron sighs. Thinks he can sneak out a fart but then Simpkins comes back in smiling and apologizing.  Ron says how its okay. God he feels uncomfortable. If they hire him he’ll have to get used to wearing suits everyday.

Simpkins asks him the standard questions. Ron gives the standard answers. He’s trying like hell to seem relaxed but also enthusiastic. He’s doing a good job of remembering all the tips he’s gotten from online articles and stuff about how to act in an interview. Somehow the topic of football comes up and Ron says he played two years in college. Figures what the hell and says his career ended because of a knee injury but quickly adds that he’s completely okay now. Not that they’d give a fuck if he could run or block or tackle. Anyway Simpkins seems to really dig that Ron played football.

Ron tries not to notice that this Simpkins is an ugly little fucker. Skinny, bald a big blotch on the crown of his head. Terrible breath too. But the guy’s got a picture on his desk that must be of a wife and two kids. Anyway Simpkins seems to like him so that’s all Ron cares about. He also takes it as a good sign that the interview goes longer than scheduled and that Simpkins keeps asking questions and looking at the resume. Shit that resume is padded, Ron thinks. Half of it is total bullshit. Long as they only check on the real important stuff it’ll be cool. If they dig deeper Ron can forget this gig. He’s got an interview next week and is due to hear back from Monday’s interview soon but that’s it. Anyway this seems like Ron's best shot at a position in months.

Simpkins has to take a call. His secretary puts a folder on the desk. She’s super cute. Kind of looks like Ron’s girlfriend, Naomi, only Naomi seriously needs to drop some weight and this chick is fit. Simpkins gets off the phone and does his phony baloney apology thing again. More sweat is forming on Ron’s forehead. Would look bad to wipe it with a hanky so Ron just sits hoping no drops get in his eye. Happened to an ex roomie of his during an interview.

Finally Simpkins says that it looks real promising that he can’t guarantee anything but will check references and consult his boss and get back to him early the next week. Ron can’t tell whether he feels great because he might get the job or because the damn interview is over and he can go home get out of the suit and hook up with Ken for a beer. Maybe they’ll catch a flick or watch some basketball at home. It's Friday so what they hell. Naomi is visiting her sister so Ron is as free as a bird.

He shakes hands with Simpkins and is mortified that his palms are so sweaty but what the hell, Simpkins barely gives a handshake anyway so probably doesn’t notice. Ron heads out and checks out the secretary again who says bye and wishes him a nice weekend. Ron responds politely but immediately begins to fantasize about banging her.

Ron and Ken end up watching basketball on Ron’s sofa and ordering pizza then watching a Spiderman movie. Naomi gets back on Sunday and they go out and Ron thinks he might have to propose to her especially if he gets the job. Naomi may have put on weight but she's still cute as hell and her and Ron are in love.

Late afternoon Tuesday Simpkins calls. Ron got the job. He can’t fucking believe it. One week of freedom before he starts. Shit, have to buy another couple of suits. What the hell, it’ll be worth it. Ron takes his first comfortable dump in nearly a week.

All Some People Do is Complain and I Should Now Because I'm One of Them

The mackerel in happier times

I think someone had a live but probably comatose mackerel on MUNI today. You know I’ve mentioned how the #30 passes through Chinatown and people get on with purchases from markets and they can be, well pungent. Pronounced odors. Often they are chickens that only quite recently shuffled off this mortal coil. Sometimes you get sea life that smells as if it is just now dying from botulism. I kid you not. There was an additional effrontery to the olfactory senses today as one passenger encapsulated the twin odors of ganja and sweat with a decided emphasis on the latter. He was toting a skateboard. His hair was in dreads, he was in his 40s. Call me old fashioned — or worse if you prefer, you may consider me a jerk or if feeling profane, an asshole — but certain fashion statements do not work on people of  “a certain age.” (Had I been speaking this rather than writing it I might have been tempted to put air quotes around the phrase “a certain age” and you would have been well within your rights to sock me.) Sometimes on BART my eye will catch a slim figure in a short dress and as said eye works its way up this body I will be shocked to end my eye feast by coming across a woman of middle age or past. Well past. I know, serves me right for looking. When a woman of “a certain age” wears clothing designed for the younger set, the woman in question looks ridiculous. It’s nice if you have the body of a 20 year old but if your face is twice that age, get the hell out of the tube top and shorts. Pronto. There’s a guy at the gym who wears a rat tail. This looks perfectly fine on a ten year old boy. It looks bad on a young man. The guy at the gym is at least 50 and his family must really hate him to let the old coot walk around looking like a goddamned idiot. There’s another guy at the gym who’s maybe past 70 and he’s wearing his hair as long as he did in 1968 and is sporting the same ear rings. Give it up buddy. I lost the ear ring and stud and long hair around the time I turned 40 and my wife and children thank me for my discretion on a regular basis.

It could Have been this flounder seen here circa last June.

Did I mention there was a mackerel in a coma on the bus today? I may be wrong it might have been a fluke or a scrod or a flounder or a trout or a bass or a sturgeon or a halibut or the entrails of moose. I have no verification.

Speaking of annoying bus experiences and people who should be sent to Mars…Guy sat next to me on the bus couple days ago with the sniffles. People do this all the time. Bad enough we have to listen to morons on their cell phones or people chewing gum at the same decibel level as a jackhammer, we also get people who sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff. Is it that fucking hard to get hold of a tissue and blow? No it isn’t. Riding public transportation is an endless series of dealing with annoying people.

I should know. I’m one of em.

But enough about me.

This happens. I order a tall dark roast coffee at the Starbucks by work and the barista asks, “do you want breakfast with that?” You mean like a side order of breakfast to go with my cup of joe? Sure makes sense. An incidental, an add on an impulse purchase. Okay I’ll have the scrambled eggs with hash browns and a short stack of pancakes. What’s that? You have none of that? You don’t really have a breakfast menu, do you? This is just one of those dumb things your corporate overlords have taught you to say, isn't it? You probably feel like an idiot saying it but the assistant manager is like right there so whattaya gonna do?

I like this one at Starbucks too when you order something like a latte that needs to be prepared special and they'll have to call your name when its ready, you're asked “remind me of your name again?” What you forgot my name? That’s odd since you never heard it because I’ve never ordered from you before but what you’re really trying to do is not ask me “what’s your name?” because that suggests I’m a stranger to you and we’re all plastic cut out friends in corporate amerika. So let's all pretend.

Hey, who loves hearing my complaints? Show of hands. Anyone? You there in the back, thanks for reading!

The Burney Boy or Remembering an Old Friend From the Backwoods

Beautiful downtown Burney.

You're sailing softly through the sun
in a broken stone age dawn.
You fly so high.
I get a strange magic,
oh, what a strange magic,
oh, it's a strange magic.
-- From Strange Magic by Electric Light Orchestra

I had a roommate in college for two years named Dennis. He was from a small logging town in the far north of California called Burney. Dennis and I were great friends for a time sharing a fondness for consuming large quantities of alcohol. We went on a few road trips together, one to San Francisco for a Doobie Brothers concert. This trip included a stop at a strip club which I got into with a fake ID. We also made one trip to his hometown. On the way we stopped by the side of the road to relieve ourselves. I saw my first porcupine and being inebriated decided to pet it. Dennis discouraged the notion most vehemently and I thought better of it.

As I recall Dennis did not have a particular happy home life growing up and was out of the house before finishing high school. He was determined to shed himself of very small town Burney. He had done work logging from an early age and was determined to escape that life. This made a college degree of vital importance to him. Dennis had a fondness for women, which was not unusual for a college student, but he was what one could "successful" with the ladies, which not all college boys are. In truth most of his girlfriends were also from Burney and they were invariably younger than him. No matter, Dennis never was without female companionship when he wanted it.

Dennis and I had long chats on all variety of topics. I had just emerged from the Berkeley of the Sixties which was about as different from Burney as can be imagined. At least within the same state. There was something about our very different experiences that caused us to be intrigued by one another. Dennis and I would talk and drink and literally howl at the moon together. He chewed tobacco and I chain smoked Winstons. Both of us enjoyed a hearty laugh and we could crack each other up, not to mention other people.

But we grew apart. Quickly. Dennis had a temper and was not averse to engaging in fisticuffs. I was a sensitive lad and bristled at his extreme moods. I got into journalism and a new set of friends. Dennis focused…well, I’m not sure. I rarely saw him after he moved out of the house we had shared. I got an angry, threatening phone call from him when I was slow in changing a bill over to my name. That put the final period on our friendship. I only saw him once in passing after that and he didn't acknowledge me.

It’s been at least 36 years since I’ve seen then but I think about him from time to time. I still have many sayings and expressions I picked up from him including: “I’m going to brush my tooth,” “That feels better than a pre-party fart,” and something he said about the size of his manhood, “I may not be able to satisfy ‘em but I can tickle ‘em to death.”

I recently googled Dennis (how did people ever find out about old friends, classmates, co-workers, ex girlfriends, etc. before the internet?). There wasn’t much. Indeed all I could find was that he was living in Burney. Damn that felt sad. I also saw an obituary for a woman who died in 2004 from “respiratory complications arising from esophageal carcinoma” at age 41. Among the named survivors were Dennis who was listed as the deceased's fiance.

It’s been almost 11 years since the woman died but I still felt bad for Dennis. I also felt bad that he was still in Burney, though I suppose I shouldn’t. He may be very happy there. I can’t know his full story. Maybe he didn’t go back to logging. Maybe he did and found that he was happier logging than anything else. Maybe he found another love and is living happily with her.

Lots of maybes.

I wish I’d parted on good terms with Dennis. We had a friendship that was like a romance that flames very hot for short time. I guess you could say it was passionate.  Perhaps it ended so abruptly because our differences were insurmountable our we did the growing apart that is usually spoken of regarding romances. It's strange how so many people will pass through our lives and be so important to us for so short a time. Many of them we will always think of, if briefly, no matter how many years go by.

Whenever I think of Dennis it's fondly. Sure hope he’s happy.