Bear under the Snow

(Causes of the Vietnam War, a Personal View)


The Vietnam War was a ten-year rainstorm, one I experienced for one tenth of it (and got a decoration for). It carried us, as if to the moon, as if the moon had dropped on us. It infected the community, everyday life; it also gave some of us, excitement (as it had for me), but many funerals, 56,000-American funerals, over 5,000 a month. It gave us new and daily sounds over the radio, and television, and the full actual sounds of war, I would get to hear, in 1971.
The political power of the day embodied us all; it killed JFK, and brought the war even closer to our living rooms. As the world turned at the United Nations, behind closed doors, in our Congress, right up to the Oval Office, politicians and industry discussed its merits (its intrinsic worth) for ten-years. We had many dragons in our flag. Thus, the storm continued unabated.
We all looked at each other—back then (us soldiers), as if we were young blind owls in the night, once confident Americans, now feeling abandonment and estrangement because of the nature of the war. And the people of the nation, my nation the ones that commanded us to fight it, behind our backs, cussed us, called us baby killers, told us to go to Canada, spit at us: damned if we ran, damned if we stayed and fought.
My story is not quite like most of the other soldiers’ stories in Vietnam. I didn’t question if the war was right or wrong, I just went, matter of fact, I had taken some jungle training in Washington State, when the doctors discovered my toes on my right foot had been smashed from a bomb falling on it in Augsburg, West Germany a few months prior—as a result, I became unfit for war. I did not have to go to Vietnam, —because I would not be able to run well enough. However, I wanted to go so I kept my old orders as they were cutting new ones, and jumped on the plane to Vietnam: I wanted the experience of being in a war, I had filled my veins with patriotic fever, and the travel seemed exciting. I was a silly boy back then.
There was a hostile spirit in the core of America, so I discovered during this time—being from the Midwest, I never noticed it until I started traveling, for the Army; this spirit, I do believe created a defeated attitude among us in Vietnam. Again, I suppose I was different, single, no one back home—for the most part, but many a soldier cried in the night, wanting to go home, be with his wife, children, even some cried for their mothers, this created a storm of drug related soldiers. I saw them come in healthy, and three months later, they were on every drug available. Soldiers not wanting to be soldiers do not make for good soldiers.
President Johnson had taken the 34,000-troops that President Kennedy had sent to Vietnam, American soldiers of war—sent them home, and replaced them with 500,000-soldiers, new ones (much like Obama has done, shifting soldiers like toys in the Middle East; and all remains quiet in the White House.) What can you say to a man like that, like Johnson? Only the devil knows.
Pickled and indecisive Americans, we were all of that and more back in the early late sixties and early seventies. Actually, Nixon was the only one who wanted to stop the fighting, and started bombing Hanoi, and had we continued, we would have won the war (without shame, or dishonor), but again, America screamed and howled at our barbarism, which it was, but we were fighting barbarians. Nixon sent home 300,000-Americans by end of 1971. Those 300,000 were part of Johnson’s scheme for the American Iron Horse, American Industry, and the real barbarians who kept the war going. It was a commercial war, costing the American Government—not one dime, we made up the paper money as if it was wallpaper; oiled the money machines night and day: it cost over nine-billion dollars—devaluing the dollar worldwide, as we have done today, are doing right now, with the two wars going on in the Middle East. Equal perhaps, at today’s inflated rate, Vietnam would have cost 105-billion. In comparison, Iraq has cost us 700-billion, a war like Vietnam, of no crisis for America.
I went to fight communism. I believed in America, only to find out the cold hearts and thin shadows of the emperors of America’s industrialization had designed the war to last, or last longer. By proxy, that is to say, to fight a war in another country—a playground war sort of—instead of fighting one another (the Russians and Chinese), in our own backyards, and profit by it. In addition, in the process we destroyed the ecosystem of Vietnam, which was nearly equal to that of the Amazon, along with killing three-million Vietnamese inhabitants.
Let me add, Agent Orange killed a good friend of mine, among others of course, and genetically altered and lowered the life span of a million other American soldiers (out of the ten million sent to Vietnam), perhaps even my system was infected, who’s to say. In any case, during its usage and years later, a grasshopper was not safe to live in the environment, and for ten years after the war, defected children were born because of the massive usage of chemicals by America. Therefore, Vietnam was also a testing ground for new biological warfare (not much different from Saddam Hussein, who used it on the Kurds, and we scorned him for it).
The industrial machines of America was at full capacity in the mid to late ‘60s and early ‘70s: cranes, jeeps, wings for planes, bullets for rifles, and helicopters: trains filled up with rations: beef and butter, vegetables and fruits, all to feed those ten-million soldiers rotating yearly. It was an industrial heyday for America’s Kings of Industry (they ruled the political system).

The executives of industry knew nothing of leaping over bodies, digging holes in the dirt to hide one’s face from incoming rockets, the scrap metal, metal fragments displaced, and flying everywhichway (they quickly sent their children to college so they’d not have face the torrents of war). During one attack, a piece of metal the size of my fist, and bulky like a round smooth rock, red hot, passed flying by my cheek during a rocket attack, I moved an inch, seeing it come, and it missed me.
We were not baby killers—although babies—truth be told, in every war are killed, that is a fact, a reality of war—I do not know of any wars where they were not killed—consequently, we were just soldiers fighting a barbaric war, and trying to win it. We wanted to triumph, but no one back home did. Back home in the good old U. S. A., (figuratively speaking) they were all like happy fish, smiling at us as worms’ dangling on a hook, ready to be eaten one way or another. The very ones that called us baby killers were the ones who worked for the war machines. The factories, the food chain, the trains, the airports and transportation system in general, why didn’t they all go on strike, quite their jobs, hence, the war would have stopped abruptly—they made their living off the war and once it stopped unemployment rose to over six percent, from nearly zero. I remember because I was part of that unemployed era. Therefore, I suppose it was a Catch-22 for them, as it was for us in winning the war.
Vietnam was a cup of darkness poured over our heads. We were all invaders, if not terrorists, in some country, someone else’s country, that we were supposed to bring freedom to—where we didn’t belong, in which self-determination never came for the South. Constitutionally, the White House considered the Vietnam War a ‘Conflict’ thus giving the war justification to continue. Put another way, the only wars that were a crisis to America in the 20th and 21st Centuries, were WWII and Afganistan. No other wars of this period were politically or constitutionality correct and that came into play for Vietnam. It had to be justified. Of course, today, everything comes under the heading of National Security—hence, truth be told, we are fighting wars for world domination, not for America’s safety—which is fine if only we’d admit it, instead of pretending otherwise; we want to be placed strategically—which is obvious to the world that surrounds America, but not Americans per se.
For the soldiers the war was a jagged and heavy stone, one, no one could move, we were like a bear under the snow, we could not move any which way. We were like blind-owls in the night, blind to the ministers and department heads of American industry. We could not bomb this area or that area, or fight over here or over there, we had to shoot over the rubber trees or around it, do not shoot the enemy if they are in it. Do not shoot the enemy when they are stuck in the barbwire fences, which allows them to escape and live another day to kill more Americans. There were too many rules for us, and none for the enemy. We could not figure this out, that this was not a war to be won (because we could have easily won it; we had the manpower, the firepower, and the airpower, and even sea power—sailing about in the South China Sea; but the Americans and the political system and industry, did not have the willpower. In a way, we never lost the war per se; we simply got tired of it and walked away). No one could win a war anyhow, with such rules and such deviation among Americans—; they made such policies run ramped in our heads. These were either people who never fought a war, or people who were a lot smarter than us, who profited by it, and could care less if we won or lost, and who got killed in the process. This was America’s industrial and political way of thinking (God forbid, but the truth resides in the graveyards of America, in a so-called lost war, and in the devastation of Vietnam).
Anyhow, this is the way I see it, forty years later.


Conclusion (afterthoughts):


In closing, let me say, the first Americans created a civilization. The second developed it. The third, my generation perhaps yours also, we inherited it. Moreover, we tried to protect it, often like barbarians. However, as one can see it is a dying gift, to the future Americans. Unbelievably, barbarism is always around a civilization, especially if you intend to fight wars. Its center theme is to engulf its people by arms. Barbarism never admits its defeat, it will wait, and wait, outwait peace for war, like American Industry. Vietnam, it was a bloody war, from bloodthirsty barbarians in our country, ruled by a bloody city called Washington D.C., by a vicious, cold calculating ruler called Johnson who gave a free hand to our industrial barons to use the political system as they wished. Johnson, —the mightiest of the rulers of his day, now long dead of course, and mostly forgotten, under drifting sands, and all the better for us Americans.

Creating of the story: “The Cotton Belt”

(Overview)

The Story “The Cotton Belt,” started out in episodes, it started with its first episode called: “Old Josh from Ozark, Alabama” (1862), and written on 8-14-2005, thus, the character of Old Josh, was created and molded forevermore, and soon after that, his image was drawn; whereupon, his two sons, Silas and Jordon came into the picture. Old Josh was never meant to be a book, or novel on its own. Between August 8, 2005 and the last episode, the 85th “Jes’ a Damn Nigger” June 20, 2009, the character had gone through a paramount amount of changes.
The book “The Cotton Belt,” which is a book within a book, and perhaps the main book, slowly developed its characters and images. In November of 2008, Granny Mae came into picture in “Grits and Eggs”. The Toad Races down at Leastways Downs came in, while writing episode No: 18, on January 24, 2006. The two headed rat came in, in episode, 84, 6-19-2009, where after, the following day, the last episode would be written. Amos, was somewhere in the background, but became more pronounced in “Who’s Blacker” episode 77, written 1-20-2009, and of course in Episode No: 39, we see Amos Jackson hung, written, 2-20-2008, both used for the novel. On 2-7-2007, the “Elegy for Josh” was written. Even though the date of his death had changed in the novel, as to the episodes, and where Ashley was just a passing figure, that Silas had, once upon a time, during the writing of “The Cotton Belt,” in 2010-11, she became more significant for the story.
In episode three, “Chatting in the Barn,” Silas became a speaking figure and his personality was created, which would be profound throughout the following episodes, on 8-14-2005. Jordon took a backseat to Silas, and only in the novel itself he became a more pronounced figure.
In “Josh Goes Fishing” episode nine, written 9-2005, we see Josh’s thinking more clearly, his old age orneriness. In episode ten, “Laying Sick in Bed,” we see Josh can have affairs, or a liking for the opposite sex at his older age, written also in September of 2005. So you see the character of Old Josh was laid out for the book, “The Cotton Belt,” long before the story was put together as a whole, in 2010 and 2011. Consequently, this one book out of six that make up the saga took the bulk of the time in creating the saga, seven years to be exact—whereupon the author molded the stories into a novelette, or short novel, and connected them with the other five books.

As these episodes went on year after year, the characters became more and more, such as, Abram Boston, Josh’s brother-in-law, although brief in the novel, he had a few episodes to endure, born 1789, who is the brother to Rebecca Boston Jefferson, otherwise known as ‘Sweet Pea’ Josh’s ex wife, by common-law marriage. Sheriff Parker (1840…), comes into the picture, but is never pronounced as a leading character, although in the book, his character is more obvious than in the episodes. Elmer Barchans, who owns a plantation ten-miles from the Hightower’s, never is shown but once, and then comes out at the end, in the book “The Old Folks,” that is to say, he never is developed in the episodes nor in the book all that much. Otis Fargo, the bartender is similar to the Barchans, he is, but he isn’t, I mean he is always far-off in the distance.
The Abernathy family does not come out much in the episodes, but much more in the Novel, developed in “The Vanquished Plantations”, as are the Smiley’s. The Stanley’s seen more in “The Cotton Belt”.

In the first story of the saga, “The Tobacco Kings,” which was really the third book in the six book saga, became the first book, more of an introduction to the some of the new and old characters of the Old Josh episodes, such as the Ritt’s who had been in the previous episodes, but briefly, and now, in the saga, the Ritt family comes out in all six books, and as “The Tobacco Kings” is the prelude book to the saga, “The Old Folks,” is the later, or postscript, or afterthought. In-between, we have “The Cotton Belt,” and “The Vanquished Plantation,” and “Voices out of Saigon” written through out 2008, where Langdon Abernathy becomes one of the main characters in that story, if not the main character, and when all the books are combined, be becomes even a bigger figure, after Old Josh. But this is where a new flock of characters are developed, and some old ones used to keep the saga alive, as the Hightower’s in New Orleans, and second and third generations of the Jefferson’s, and Jackson’s. Also this the connecting of WWI with the War in Vietnam becomes clearer for the Abernathy family. Also where the destruction of the plantation life is severely noticed, and the novel moves from the South to Asia, to include Cambodia.

At this point, and through the story “The Vanquished Plantains,” this was also written in 2008 (for the most part) the story is updated from 1960, to 1965, whereas, “Voices out of Saigon,” comes afterwards, 1969 to 2012. But we see Langdon in his formative years, and the infamous Wallace Brothers, and the infusion of Abby Wallace as well, and North Caroline becomes as pronounced as Ozark, Alabama was in ‘The Cotton Belt.’ The Civil War is still in the background, and so is WWI (written about the Ammo Humpers in 6-2008), and the Vietnam War is developing. A lot of well developed chapter stories come out of this one book, as for “The Monster Hog,” and the “Demonic Wolf” in particular. This book within the saga, is second to the largest, I think “¨Voices out of Saigon,” might be the largest, and the shortest book being “The Tobacco Kings,” then the next shortest would be “The Old Folks,” which is really a follow-up, book, put in at the last minute, to show the reader what did happen to all those characters you’ve already read about, and the author never told you their end plight on planet earth.
In “Voices out of Saigon,” we have new characters again, as well as some old ones; such as: Cassandra Hightower of New Orleans, Henry Small, Linda Macaulay, Sergeant Carter, Langdon Abernathy, Amos, Vang, Zuxin, Ming and so on, and of course, Caroline Abernathy, Langdon’s mother, who seeks out Langdon in Saigon, being informed by Sergeant Carter, he is in ill health.

All in all, the saga consumes about 360-years, and is a most enduring ongoing story, which keeps the reader turning the pages. The book has 660 pages, and 140,000 words.

A Letter in Vietnam (a short story)

A Letter in Vietnam


She said she laid back on her bed with a book opened to about its middle, reading some short story by Faulkner, and was influenced by how the character of the woman was described, of ill repute, and it made her think of her husband’s behavior, made her look at it, and thereafter, felt responsible to make a future decision. This was in the winter of 1971, and the war in Vietnam was steadily being reduced, soldiers being brought home, from over 500,000 troops to now 205,000. She wrote a letter to Sergeant Chick Evens, a letter of inquiry you might say, on what to do, in making the right decision in telling her husband of her situation, or more like: their situation. Her husband was Corporal Mac Washington, a tall, and large boned, broad shouldered Blackman from North Carolina, who loved to make love to every woman he ever saw, and ended up in Japan with a bent spine from some venereal disease, and overdoing it. He evidently spoke highly of Sergeant Evens in his letters to his Alabama bride, and therefore she was confining in him on what to do next.

Mrs. Brandy Washington
January 4, 1971 (Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam)


“Dear Sergeant Chick Evens, I write to you for some guidance in that I have a decision I must make. I do not know whom else to trust, and I don’t dare ask my husband for consultation in this matter—and so I have only you to turn to—perhaps because I do not have to face you, eye to eye, or shoulder to shoulder. Now here it is—I married my husband in 1968, while visiting a family member in North Carolina, I came up from Alabama. He was a man about to be drafted into the United States Army—come October, it was August at the time. He was at first, sent to Germany, Darmstadt, at the 15th Ordnance Battalion. He asked for me to join him, I was in Alabama at the time, and I couldn’t, and therefore, refused on the grounds, it was too much an ordeal.
“When he came home to the states for a month (a reroute to Vietnam), he went directly to North Carolina, and asked me to join him there, and I again refused, and remained with my family in Alabama, taking care of other responsibilities. And later on I knew he was in Vietnam, and he had told me of all those venereal diseases month by month he acquired, and the penicillin shots he was getting, along with other pharmaceuticals, he was frank and honest with me; perhaps too much so. Because of this now impending disease, he was somewhat crippled, bent when he walked, it was of course due to his insistence of having woman after woman, and now he is in Japan for some kind of treatment, all this you already know of course.
“He wants me to join him there, and assures me he has no longer any hidden diseases of that nature, that for the most part he is fine, and by the sound of his voice, all indications are that he is fine, but will he be safe for me?
“My mother once said, “Love is blind,” also she said, “You’re too close my dear to the forest to see the height and thickness of the woods.”
“And with that, I do not care to place myself in an awkward situation. On the other hand I have two children now, twin boys, they are not the sons of my husband’s, I wonder how he will take that, and they will be two-years old, come June.
“I wait patiently for your advice.”


3-12-2009• Based on Actual Events

The Attacked, the Assailant, and the Observer (about a killing in Minneopolis, 1983)

The Attacked, the Assailant, and the Observer

The Gem Bar on First Avenue/summer of 1983
(A Chick Evens Story)



He had went inside the bar about noon, everyone around the bar on barstools heard him bellyaching, and fighting with some fellow all afternoon long, until the hottest part of the day, 3:00 p.m., about a drug sale, the buyer, was Mexican, the seller a Blackman, and the buyers girlfriend, white, who wasn’t present.
“Where’s the stuff, did you sell it or use it up?” said the confronting Blackman, Leopold, standing next to the slim, shorter Mexican who sat drinking a beer staring into his glass waiting for Leopold to be quiet.
“In my car, I think?”
“What about the stuff your girlfriend took, did she sell it or use it?” said the confronter.
“Oh, she’s skipped town I’m afraid.”
“Where is she?” he asked again.
“Twice I got to tell you, she’s skip town. I think she’s headed for St. Cloud, she got the stuff and just went.”
They were both drug sellers, downtown Minneapolis, and the seller Leopold, had sold them a heap of drugs, some cocaine, some hash, some pot, some LSD, the works. And he was just sitting in the Gem bar drinking beer after beer, an all-afternoon event for him: suddenly, the Mexican pulls out a knife, and the black man pulls out a gun. The Blackman started shooting at the Mexican, and he crawled under some tables to the back door of he bar, finally finding the door slightly open, he pushed to open it wider, jumped up onto his feet, and ran like crazy down First Avenue.
The Mexican yelling for help, calling for the police, I had stepped out of the bar myself, watched him run like crazy, a man came up to me, “What’s going on?” he asked.
More shots are fired from the Blackman’s revolver; he ran right past me, the Mexican ran through a parking lot, about twenty-five yards from me.
The man next to me hit me in the elbow, “What’s going on,” he asks again.
“What does it look like, one man’s shooting at another, and the other is running, do I need to interpret that?”
“Na,” said the stranger. “But just tell me you don’t care to explain it, that’ll be good enough.”
I walked away, the Mexican was now laying on the sidewalk, he had been shot, it must had been ninety degrees out, and a minute later I heard an ambulance coming, and a police car.
“You know who shot him,” asks the police man.
“A tall Blackman, perhaps the same age as the Mexican, twenty-two or so.”
“Did you see it,” asked the officer.
“Some of it, why?”
“He got shot in the back, did you know that?”
“I figured as much, he was running away from the Blackman, I guess that is how it would end up.”
“Listen,” said the police officer, shaking his finger at me, “you saw and you didn’t see what you actually saw?”
“Nothing, nothing at all, that’s what I saw once it comes down to it.” I said, adding, “I really don’t care who shot him, they both were arguing in the Gem bar over drugs, everyone heard them.”
“Don’t you want the man who shot him to be caught?”
“Not necessarily,” I told the officer, as the ambulance to the Mexican away, and the police officer was explaining the situation to his boss over the walkie-talkie.
“My boss says to tell you to write it down.”
“Write what down? I told you I never saw anything that was anything, and especially nothing I could write down and swear to.”
“Poor Mexican,” said the police officer, as he got another phone call over his phone perhaps from one of the police officers inside the ambulance,
“He just died in the ambulance, twelve minutes ago, that is how long he lived, from the time they picked him up to now,” the police officer told me as he shot down his phone, looking at his watch.
Then the officer got another ring on his phone, “Yes sir,” he said, adding, “the observer says some fellow that he doesn’t know, shot the other person he doesn’t know, and he didn’t see the actual shooting in the first place, so who can prove who shot him, even if we catch him.”
The police officer looked at me, said, “It’s all right, my boss said, to tell you to go, we’ll no longer need your statement after all.”


Note: An actual event, that took place in the summer of 1983, a tinge modified for the written story, was in the newspapers, and the author wrote a poem about this story, called “First Avenue,” published in a Minneapolis, Newspaper during that same period. Written 2-27-2009•

Jeremiah Benton's Dream (a shrot story)

Jeremiah Benton’s Dream



Sister Carolyn asked her class, “I want you all to come up with a question concerning God, and let’s work on understanding it better, and together.” And she looked at Jeremiah Benton, who had his hand up, “Ok,” she said, “you go first, Jeremiah…:”
“Why does God send his prophets, instead of him coming in person…” asked Jeremiah Benton, to Sister Carolyn, and his classmates, at St. Louis Ecole, Elementary School, a little French Catholic school, built in 1888, in the center of downtown, St. Paul, Minnesota, in the winter of 1957.
“That’s a good question,” said the nun, “I really don’t know, do you?”
“Oh yes,” replied the ten-year old boy.
“Well then,” said Sister Carolyn, “what is the answer?”
“He’s scary!” said the boy.
“Oh, but that will not do,” said the nun, “how would a little boy like you know he’s scary in the first place?” asked the nun.
“I had a dream last night; and God; He took me back and showed me the whole thing.” Said the boy, seriously.
“You aren’t lying, are you Jeremiah?” asked the nun.
“Oh no, I’m not kidding, it’s true.” Said Jeremiah, “cross my heart,” and the boy did just that, he made a sign across his heart.
“Well,” said the nun, “fine, then come up here in front of the class and tell us all of your marvelous dream, the very one God revealed to you concerning why He sends prophets instead of coming himself in person.”
The boy hesitated, then said to himself, ‘Oh well, I suppose,’ and stood up, walking up the isle, around a few desks, centered himself in the middle of the class, the teacher by her desk, her two hands, palms backwards leaning on the large wooden desk, and her sitting on the edge of it, the blackboard to her side.
“Go ahead” said the sister, “we’re all waiting.”
The class was stone-still, and Jeremiah was standing trying to figure out how to start his story, he hadn’t planed on sharing it, but here he was nonetheless, then he said with an outburst,

“Once…upon a time:

“As God was taking me in his boat, while in my dream, taking me to some far-off land, he called ‘The City of Adam,’ he said ‘A prophet is a person that gives my people warnings, things I points out that anger me, Elijah was one of those people, I even stopped the rain for him to prove a point to the people he brought my message to.’ Next I asked God: why don’t you just do it yourself, and nobody will get confused on your orders. He gave me a ‘hum…’ one of those things, not sure what it meant at the time, and then said, ‘I don’t want people to get confused, but there is only one God you know.’ And I said, I know that, but people get confused. And He did a ‘hum…mm,’ on that also, a second time.
“I asked him: when did all this secret stuff start, by sending the prophets do his job!” (The nun looked at Jeremiah and frowned at that statement; then a classmate yelled ‘Abraham, he was the first prophet. ‘No’’ said another student, it was ‘Adam’ he was the first one.’)

“Anyhow,” continued the boy, “I was in the boat with God, and he went to this city called “The City of Adam,” by the Jordan River, and He said to me ‘It happened here Jeremiah, in those far-off days, prior to the Great Flood, I came down to talk to my people…”

(Jeremiah now tells the story in his own words, while his classmates are double focused on him, not one peep, or noise in the whole classroom, and even the nun, is anxiously waiting, almost holding her breath):

“God said He was his own first prophet, but when He came to talk to his people, when He spoke, and when people saw him, He shook the earth, as if it was an egg on the head of a needle, and people got scared, and his voice echoed from one side of the earth, through the earth to the other side, people ran and hid, thinking there was going to be an earthquake, it made the earth tremble, and when God’s face showed in the sky, it blocked out the sun, and it was all you could see, and the people dug holes in ground to hide, they trembled in fear. And God said, ‘It is just Me, your creator, why do you tremble?’ And the people yelled, ‘Because you are too awesome for us to behold,’ and some even died of a heart attacks, then God said, ‘I will promise you, I’ll send my prophets in my place, so I do not scare you.’ And the people were pleased.”

Sister Carolyn now looked at young Jeremiah—spellbound, “What a dream,” she said, adding, “You must tell us of your next one.”

2-17-2009 (written while having lunch at the Wong café, in Lima, Peru)

The Old Lady and the Imps (a short story)

The Old Lady and the Imps
(or, ‘Festival of Death’)






“Away”! Cried the lofty one, to Marlene LLosa, he was the angel of death, and he came with several demonic imps.
“Those without souls are mine,” he stipulated.
A wild mournful expression passed her lips. Her husband, Edilberto was dying in bed, he should, according to the doctors, been dead hours ago, he looked at her, and her at him, and she sank down to her knees by the bed, hands over her eyes.
“Those without souls are mine,” murmured Death, in its black robe, and the imps cried, “Feed us were hungry,” and she did.
“I expected,” said Marlene, looking at her husband, and a peripheral view of the Black Angel of Death, “I expected an angel of hope and joy, not this you, who brings only sorrow, and your array of little demonic beings.”
He did not answer her back; he just looked at her with a blank expression.
“Edilberto!” cried the angel of death yelled, “The dead is thine!” He did not dispute this, he simply remained quiet and in suspense, thereafter.
“What does that mean,” asked Marlene, looking at her husband, directing the question to him, but he didn’t answer her.
Strange she thought, perhaps this is all fantasy, an illusion, betwixt, the near to dead face of her husband, appeared indifferent, near depression, anxiety, forlorn, but resigned to his fate.
“So you were waiting for a creature of hope, were you?” said the angel of death, adding (as the little imps danced around in circles laughing, keep death entertained), “Will, you be silent to your wife on your death bed?” the Dark Angel elaborated to Edilberto. He did not respond again.
“I shall call; bid the dead to speak on your behalf, why hope is gone, as soon will be joy?” Said the Dark Angel.
“Leave us,” said Marlene, “go!”
“And what shall be thy token between you two?” asked the Dark Angel.
“I will keep a lock of his hair, until I die, to remember him by, that we shall meet again,” and right then and there she cut a lock off, and put it in her palm, closed her hand making a fist, with her other hand, she held his. And then the angel of death laughed, as did his companions, even Edilberto, seemed to show a light impression of humor on his face, as if the ceremony she just did was silly, hopeless.
Said Marlene, with quivering lips, “You too, you both laugh, you’ve been a good husband, and I’ve been a good wife for fifty-years, and you laugh with the angel of death.”
She then stood up, walked to the door, hearing some noise in the hallway, and there were several demonic beings there, waiting, imps and fiends and devils and demigods from hell.
“What are you all waiting here for?” she asked kindly.
“For him,” a voice said, “to pass away, to die, oh yes, to die, and die quickly, so we can take him to ‘The Festival of Death! And have merriment”’
A taint of insanity appeared to shape her husband’s face, he sat up, on his bed, quiet, and utterly free from expression—just a stare. He looked about, harmless, unaffected by the demonic beings all about.
“Soon,” he said, “I will be a corpse. There are two kinds of beings born on this planet Marlene, the pre Adamic, without souls, and those born under the shadow of Adam, with souls. Between these two, there are no friendships, nor kindred spirits, in one sense it is pretense, he can imagine God in His glory, but that is all he cannot feel him, it is like having a blank piece of paper. He is born indifferent. We have fooled the public for nearly 8000-years. I was born under the shadow of affliction, without a soul. I married you, and I will never know why, for you have a soul.
“The Great Funeral, is the same as the Great Flood, it killed next to all soulless ancestors, and as years went on, so did the Festival of Death, celebrating that event in that God did not kill all of us. This is why those folks in the hallway are waiting; it is their turn to attend one. There is no negotiating in this disdainful situation, it is as it is.”
“Should I hold a funeral for you?” she cried, still holding the lock of hair in her hands, and again on her knees, holding his hand.
She raised her eyes, “But you even went to Church with me?”
Before he could answer that statement-question, Agaliarept, the Henchman from hell appeared in the room (untimely as it was, and intrusive, Agaliarept was always associated with the dead, but normally he arrived after the death had taken place, and tagged along to enjoy the festival. All were hushed upon his arrival.
“The Festival has started; he should be dead by now, what is the problem? Why does he live?” asked Agaliarept.
“Perhaps,” said the angel of death, because his wife has a soul, and she is so close to him, and will not move.”
Slowly, feeble and heavily he fell back under his covers on the bed, her hand in his, the lock of hair in her other hand.
“She’ll get tired soon,” said Agaliarept with a sneer, “and when she does, he will die, and you two (he looked at a imp, and a guard from hell named Gwen) grab his inners, pull him like a rag-doll out of this room, and be done with it.”

To Agaliarept, this was not a satisfactory situation, and he could not take ownership of the spirit of this man neither—at best it was a momentary dilemma, so he felt, fixable, but time consuming: thus, he dare not grab onto this man when it was so close to the soul of a Godly woman, and there she sat, and there he lay, and there they both died, hand in hand, and both buried, hand in hand, in the same tomb, by each other, hands unmoved, as the moonbeams shine over their grave, and a guard from the angel of death sat with his Imp friend for company, waiting for them to be separated, deep down in their quiet tomb.

2-17-2009

San Francisco Hotel Sweeper (1968, a short story)

San Francisco Hotel Sweeper


Those mornings I’d walk the streets of San Francisco, somewhat unsure of what I’d find, looking for work, and then as the morning progressed into day, and near noon, it would turn about with producing a cool warm summer air, a fresh breeze. I’d walk by this certain hotel, it looked to be at one time, a grand hotel of sorts, now a bit warn, and more on the dim side of its life, up and own, and around its frame you could see its age, its name was evidently well known, still at a certain highbrow level, it was a landmark, of sorts and sweeping the sidewalk each morning, appeared a certain bum like character, in shabby overalls, unshaven, thin looking, not too tall, half his teeth in his head were missing, his fingers a slight bent, a kind natured person, just sweeping away, as if he had no cares in the world, as jolly as could be, as if he had a secret and only he knew it, as if the Golden Fleece itself, I stopped and talked to him a number of times, he said he had been doing that job, sweeping, and cleaning out the furnace, and putting in light fixtures in the basement, and so forth, going on fourteen-years. I couldn’t believe it. And he said, and said it humble, and gratefully, and with pride,
“I get to sleep down by the furnace, it’s warm there, I like it there, and it’s private.”
And he smiled with a funny kind of grin, as if he had swallowed a gold fish, I mean, he was happy with his simple life, and simple it was, and I thought at the time, how kind it was for the hotel to put this poor soul in a bed and give him a roof over his head and a warm spot to warm his feet, and not charge him a dime, and as a result, only expect him to do an hours worth of work, if that.

I saw him off and on, as I previously mentioned, nodded my head off and on when I saw him, and passed him by. He’d step clear of me, and face the street, like an old soldier, standing at attention, as if I was an officer, a General. Always smiling, never displeased, a merry old soul I always figured. Matter of fact, I enjoyed walking down the street, and a few times, if it was morning, and I was down in that area, I’d purposely walk by the hotel, hoping he’d be out, and I could say hello, and more often than not he was. A few times he was going in, or just coming out of the side door of the hotel, but no matter what, if he got a glimpse of me, he’d smile, wave.
‘What makes a man like that,’ I thought at the time. Most people don’t smile, and surely not to strangers. But he wasn’t like most people, he was different. A bum I used to say to myself, he’s just an old bum, no more, and I thought I was being kind to even talk to him, and I was perhaps more bum than he, I had no job, I was twenty-years old, a Midwestern boy, far from home. Yet I told myself, don’t make any judgments, he perhaps had a hard life. He was, or so it appeared that he was in his late sixties, or early seventies, if I remember right, that’s what I thought, didn’t know at that particular moment, told myself he was, back in 1968.

As I was about to say, I walked by him, and he would be waiting, standing aside as if he was my chauffeur. I liked him. Anyhow I’d kept walking looking for work, knocking on doors, listening to the sounds of the street; the tires going by, I like such sounds, the sounds of birds, the horns of cars, and so forth. Then one day, a few months down the road, I picked up a newspaper, and found out he had died. Just up and died, he was sixty-six years old that was a ripe old age I guess, back then. But what startled me, what really fascinated me above all was not that, although it was sad he had died, and perhaps not of a real old, old age—I even took a closer look at the paper, saw his face, affirmed it was the same person—it read and reread it, it said,
“(so and so)…leaves $250,000-dollars to the hotel in his will.”
‘If that don’t beat all,’ I told myself.
I tell you, you just do not know a thing about other people. Perhaps my first lesson in absolute misjudging, and I never called a bum a bum again: don’t judge the person because he looks the way he looks.
I was now proud to have known him, I wonder way, perchance could it be the money he left to the hotel. The hotel was most gratified, and seemed sincere that the old fellow passed on. And by the looks of the hotel, it needs every penny of it to update it. As I write this out, forty years have passed, and $250,000-dollars then, would possibly be equal to four times that amount, figuring it doubles every ten years. Something like that, thus, it would be like receiving a million dollars today, for renovation purposes, if not more.


Originally written in the summer months of 2008, and reedited and modified, in the winter months, of 2009.