#i need his pharmacist ass on my team IMMEDIATELY | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thorntonkrell-blog-blog · 5 years

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URGENT MIRRORS

Hello friends. It's nice to be back.

I've been stealing mirrors and seeing men about horses for the last 10 days.

I subscribe to the Vonnegutian concept that a mirror is a leak to another, parallel universe. The image that we see when we look into a mirror is the image of ourselves in another realm which is momentarily in synch with our own. We just show up at the same time and take a gander at each other.

Thus a mirror is a leak into another world.

So whenever someone says "I've got to take a leak" what they are literally saying is "I've got to steal a mirror"

I've stolen so many mirrors in the last ten days that even my image in the parallel universe is freaking out and looks very tired.

I don't know exactly what's causing the guy in the mirror to show up 50 or 60 times a day but "I" know why I'm there.

I'm stealing mirrors as an after effect of the radiation treatment that I have been receiving for the past sixteen days.

I knew beforehand that one of the after effects of radiation is increased, urgent urination. Still you never really know about an after effect until after it affects you after.

I haven't slept now in five days because of the "urgency". I go to bed. I'm there for ten minutes then I have to steal a mirror. I come back to the bed and the urgency comes back with me. I tell the urgency "look I know you're just some spasmic bladder because I just stole a mirror and there's no way I need to steal another one so soon." Then the urgency goes away for maybe 10 minutes at which time I try to catch a few winks because I know the urgency will be back and that will wake me up.

10 minutes later, the urgency is back.

10 minutes after that I'm stealing another mirror.

And then the whole thing starts all over again.

This goes on all day and all of the night.

I remember what it used to be like 20 days prior and what I took for granted.

A few times a day I'd get that urgency but the vast majority of the day and the night, the urgency disappeared. I thought nothing of it. We get used to normal until it disappears and then we crave it like we crave yesterday.

But yesterday's gone.

The after effect flips the script. Instead of non urgency leading to a mirror steal seven or eight times a day now the urgency is continual with 60 or 70 mirror steals within every twenty four hours.

Yesterday, my doctor prescribed some new medication.

I won't even tell you all the rare and catastrophic effects of the prescription, they are too humiliating and horrifying to even think about. My pharmacist tells me that they have to put those warnings on the label if it comes to their knowledge that any one at any time had ever come up with the particular after effect. If someone has, then it must be included on the label. This is supposed to be comforting information.

Don't worry about the after effects because they are rare but if you start getting one or more contact your doctor immediately.

The new medicine is supposed to reduce the urgency and thus reduce the mirror stealing. However, for some people it has a paradoxical effect which not only reduces the urgency but also makes urination impossible. If that's the case, contact your doctor immediately becasuse you will need to be catheterized.

I really don't want that.

As of this instant, the urgency has lessened.

That is why I can stop back here and say hello.

But now I'm kinda worried about my flow.

I want no more after effects, that, my friends is for goddamn sure

Not cured from what I'm suffering with but suffering from the cure.

THE ART OF GLOVE

A guy named Arthur Gregor walked out of the classroom, apparently on his way to the john.

The boy on the way to the john, Arthur Gregor Junior,almost always suspected that he had a sex problem.

The reason Arthur Gregor suspected he had a sex problem was because his father, Arthur Gregor, suspected that he, the father, had a sex problem. Arthur Gregor Junior’s mother Sara knew that her husband had a sex problem but she didn’t know exactly what it was nor how to describe it which led Arthur Gregor Senior to have even greater suspicion about the sex problems of his son etc. So one day when Junior was eight, his parents took him to a psychiatrist named Dr. Schinetzki. Schinetzki suspected that he himself might have an undefined sex problem, that is why he specialized in detecting sex problems in others.

When Junior walked into Schinetzki’s office, he had no suspicion that he might have a problem with sex. He was eight years old. He didn’t have any idea what sex was. So Schinetski started showing Junior some pictures and asked him to identify the pictures. The pictures were very concrete; an apple, a desk, a lamp, a shirt, a dog and then a bra.

Junior nailed the first five and then the trouble bega

Junior hesitated when he saw the bra. He knew what the name of the item was but he didn’t want Dr. Schinetski to know that he knew what it was for fear that Schnitetski would tell his parents that their child knew what a bra was which of course he would have and that would have been considered normal and that might have eased the suspicion that Senior had about Junior which might have eased the suspicion that Senior had about himself which may or may not have dented the wall of certainty that Sara had constructed about her husband and hence her son.

Tragically, Junior chose to overthink the situation. He figured that no "normal" kid his age should know what a bra is or where it goes or what it does. Junior decided that he either had to continue in silence as he contemplated the picture which he figured would be suspicious or he could mis-identify the picture. Junior chose option two.

“Well, Arthur, can you name this picture?” asked the good Doctor with an edge of impatience in his voice.

“ Oh yes, Doctor. That’s a glove”

“Very good young man” said the doctor and moved on to a picture of a goat, and then a telephone and then a piggy bank all of which Arthur identified.

From that day on, the suspicion of Arthur Senior about Arthur Junior began to grow and then one day that suspicion appeared within Arthur Junior and it started to grow.

That day was a Sunday in January The next day, the day after sexual suspicion started within his son, Senior uncomfortably explained the birds and the bees to his boy and Arthur began to believe that bees were having sex with birds.

When Senior got the report from Schinetzki, which indeed cast suspicion upon the sexual inclinations of his son, he did what any other father who is suspected of unusual sexual inclinations by his wife would do. He over-reacted. Senior figured that if he could ease his suspicion about his son that would enable him to ease his suspicion about himself which would lessen the infuriating certainty of his wife which somehow had become the deciding vote in every domestic disagreement.

Senior bought Junior a pair of gloves. When he gave Junior the gloves, he said “these are gloves, son . Do you understand me? These are gloves. They keep your hands warm. They protect your hands".

This was the beginning of Arthur Junior's compulsive, lifelong search for defintion and overstanding.

And gloves

It was May. Junior’s hands were already warm. Still, his father insisted that Junior put on the gloves immediately.

When Junior put on the gloves he remembered his session with Schinetzki. The gloves made him feel guilty. Eventually that guilt would transform into suspicion of sexual abnormality. Every time Junior put on a glove of any variety, for the rest of his life, the whirlwind of self-doubt reared its furious head reaped its own devastating harvest. The wearing of the glove would both cause and ease the internal whirlwind.

Senior insisted that Junior always have a supply of new gloves. Senior insisted that Junior concentrate on three sports, baseball, hockey and golf. All three sports required a glove.

The incidents with the baseball glove were particularly painful.

Senior bought Junior the most expensive ball glove that he could find which amounted to three hundred plus dollars. Junior wasn’t any good at baseball but he had the best glove so he made the major leagues in his local Little League. When the manager asked him what position he played Junior said “shortstop” Junior had no idea what a shortstop was or where on the field the shortstop played. He knew the word and he liked the word so that was the word he said when his manager, Otto Dingfeldt, while eyeing the expensive glove asked him what position he played.

At the first practice Dingfeldt said “ Okay Junior, You’re my shortstop.”

Junior, overcoming the urge to ask his coach to "define shortstop" instead asked Dingfeldt “where do I play”

Dingfeldt assumed that Junior was asking a subtle question about shading the hitter toward third or second depending upon whether or not the hitter could get around on the inside fastball.

“Shade over towards third” said Otto.

Junior walked on to the field and stood right next to the third baseman, a veteran eleven year old named Jake Genovese.

“What the hell are you doing here, kid” Genovese asked.

“The manager told me to shade towards third” said Junior. "Could you please define 'shade'

“Well for Christ sake move halfway between third and second and that’s good enough but get the hell away from me before I kick your ass” replied Jake.

Arthur moved to the spot indicated. The first three batters hit rockets right at and through Junior. After the third rocket Arthur fell to the ground, faking an injury. When Dingfeldt came out to see ‘what the fuck* is wrong with the fruit with the glove’. Arthur said “Mister Dingfeldt, I don’t like shortstop”.

And with that, Junior was benched. He would remain benched for the rest of his Little League career which itself would end later that year.

Every moment that he sat on the bench while the others kids played the game, Arthur grew more suspicious of himself.

If you added up the price tags of all the gloves on Junior’s team, it’s likely the sum would be less than the one glove on Junior’s hand on the bench.

Bobby Lowmeyer took Junior’s spot at shortstop. Bobby had perhaps the worst glove on the team. Bobby’s glove had been passed on to him by his older brother, Whitey, who gave up baseball while waiting for the bass player in his band to get an amp. Whitey got the glove as a hand me down from his Dad, Norbert who had gotten the glove from his Dad, Karl, whose favorite player wasn’t Babe Ruth but somebody named Chuck Klein.

To Karl, baseball was the national pasttime.

To Whitey,the few times that he thought about it while making noise in the garage, baseball was the national past its time.

All of the other gloves on the team were either hand me downs or K mart twenty dollar specials. Arthur and his glove stood out on this team like a sore thumb which everybody on the team had because of their lousy mitts except for Arthur who had the good mitt and the permanent seat on the pine.

Arthur Senior told Arthur Junior to never loan out his glove. Senior came to the first few of Junior’s games but lost interest when he realized that Junior was not going to get into the game. Senior stopped showing up.

Before Senior stopped showing up, it became clear that the other players on the team hated Junior’s guts because of the glove disparity. Bob Lowmeyer particularly hated Arthur. Bobby had the quickness and coordination to handle the shortstop position but his crappy glove prevented him from cleanly fielding the grounders hit his way. With every error, his antipathy towards Arthur increased. He started calling Arthur “Glove” and pretty soon everybody on the team began to follow suit.

The nickname spread from the ball field to the neighborhood to the school. Before long, everywhere he went, Arthur was called Glove. In Arthur’s mind, they might as well have been calling him “Bra” which might as well have been “Oddball," “Weirdo,” or “ "Dipshit"

One day Coach Dingfeldt approached Arthur and said “Glove, if you lend Bobby your mitt for the rest of the season, I’ll give you a new position”

Glove, a team player, was always eager to please. Since it was clear that his Father had abandoned the team and wouldn’t know or care one way or the other, Glove decided to lend his mitt to Bobby. Coach Dingfeldt, true to his word, gave Junior his new position…..statstop.

As statstop, Junior had the important job of keeping score during the games and then turning his scorecard into a stat sheet. Dingfeldt turned the job of teaching Junior how to keep score over to his assistant coach, an alcoholic named Nelson Starks.

Starks taught Junior the numbers for the positions; 1 for pitcher, 2 for catcher, 3 for fist base, 4 for second base, 5 for third base ,6 for shortstop, 7 for left field, 8 for center field and 9 for right field. Any time anyone in those positions touched the ball, it was to be recorded in the “official” scorebook by the team statstop. A ground out to the second baseman was recorded as a 4-3. A flyball caught by the center fielder was recorded as an 8. Et feakin cetera.

Arthur caught on quickly. With Bobby at shortstop hoovering anything hit near him and with Arthur at statstop recording every play, the Pirates began a winning streak.

After one particularly unbelievable play, Bobby came back to the bench and when the rest of the team congratulated him, Bobby said, “it wasn’t me…it was Art.”

For a split second Junior felt like he was getting some credit for the success of the team. Then he realized that Bobby was giving credit not to Junior but to Junior’s glove which was now known as Art.

The boy was now named after the glove and the glove was named after the boy. In the mind of the boy, the glove was getting the better deal although even Art was nothing to write about.

With Bobby installed at shortstop with Art installed on his hand and with Glove installed on the bench with a scorecard and pencil in his hand, the Pirates began to win and win big.

Kippy Fiore, the Timpani brothers Sal and Bob, Sandy Granada, Tony Giambrone and Bow Aqualina, despite their mediocre mitts could all field, run and hit. Nick Sellmer could pitch. The only weakness had been shortstop. Bobby and Art took care of that problem.

The Pirates reached the championship game. Arthur Junior never breathed a word about the teams success to his father for fear that his father would show up and demand that Arthur a) get his ass on the field and b) get his glove back from the zitface at shortstop. The night before the game, Arthur could imagine the whole house of cards collapsing. He, in fact, did visualize the entire humiliation and when he did so he fell asleep. He slept the sleep of the innocent who somehow suspect that they may not be innocent after all for reasons undetermined.

Arthur's father didn't show up for the game. The Pirates were playing the Braves. For years, the Braves had been the best team in the League. The guys on the Braves had real good gloves and their gloves were in proportion to their skills. Still, Art, on the hand of Bobby was the best mitt on the field and both teams knew it. Art had become the talk of the league.

The pitcher for the Braves was a guy named Chico. Word had it that Chico was at least fifteen years old. Chico threw hard and seemed to enjoy hitting kids. Everybody was afraid of Chico. Nobody wanted to dig in at the plate.

The game turned into a pitcher's battle between Chico and Nick. After a short delay because of threatening weather, the game moved quickly until the sixth inning, with both teams scoreless.

In the last at bat of the season, the Pirates dug in.

Kippy singled. Sal doubled. Kippy scored. The Pirates took the lead. Sandy hit a fly ball over the barbed wire into the power plant for a two run homer. Mr Jordan, the coach of the Braves argued that the ball was foul. The argument got ugly. Several parents got involved. The umpire held his ground. The parents headed back to their seats. Tony Giambrone struck out for out number two after Chico threw a couple of pitches behind him.

Bow, the next batter did exactly the same thing that Sandy did, smashing the ball to nearly the exact same spot over the exact same stretch of barbed wire for yet another debatable homerun.

Out came Jordan. Ten more minutes of screaming, finger pointing, , spitting, swearing name-calling and threatening ensued before peace was restored. The home run counted. The score was 4-0 Pirates.

Bobby struck out to end the inning.

The Pirates needed three more outs. It was nearly nine oclock when the Braves came up to the plate.

Darkness Falling

An inning is not supposed to start after 8:30. Even with the rain delay, the sixth inning of the Pirates versus Braves championship game began at 8:18.

Glove kept meticulous track of such arcana. In this regard Glove was particularly superfluous. Ya don't need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind blows and you don't need a statstop to tell ya that it's dark.

By the time the top of the sixth ended; after the offensive outburst, after the two disputed home runs, after the the near riots that ensued after each home run, after the time spent after the riots clearing the field of debris and derelicts, the time was 8:56.

Nick Sellmer took the mound and began his warm-up pitches. Glove consulted his trusty scorebook. Glove noticed that Nick had pitched two innings in the must-win game prior to the championship game. The league had a rule that no pitcher could pitch more than seven inning within the space of a week.When Nick threw his first pitch of the sixth inning, his performance would be against league legislation. Glove figured that the penalty for breaking this rule would be forfeiture.

Coach Dingfeldt was not only aware of the rule but also aware of the fact that if he took Nick out of the game now, all the parents would be on his case for the rest of his life, not so much for taking Nick out tonight but for bringing him in a couple of nights before.

Coach Dingfeldt decided that he would leave Nick in the game and if the fit hit the shan, he could always blame the little twerp on the end of the bench, the "statstop" named Glove.

And if Glove approached him, the coach, he would pretend he was doing something else. Dingfeldt would determine Glove's honesty by the urgencey of Glove's interruption.

Glove was polite. Glove hated to interrupt anyone, particularly figures of authority.

Glove didn't know if Coach Dingfeldt knew what Glove knew. The inning which defined the entire season might depend upon Glove getting through to Coach.

The Pirates did have an alternative, a chinless boy named Steve Kaul who everybody called Froggy. Froggy threw the ball in a combinatin submarine/sidearm style that lost all of it idiosyncracy by the time it reached the plate. This imminently hittable pitch was called "the Swamp Ball".

As the othe Pirates took the field for the last time, Glove walked from the far end of the bench to where Coach Dingfeldt was speaking to Coach Starks.

Glove cleared his throat "Ummm, Coach?"

Nick had already thrown the first of his allotted six warm-up pitches by the time Glove got to Dingfeldt.

"Coach, ummm, I'm afraid that if Nick throws one more pitch to one more batter......."

POP. Warm-up pitch number two.

Dingfeldt interrupted Glove.

"Are you afraid, Glove ?" Dingfeldt asked as he turned his back to Glove and for the last time rearranged the bats in the bat rack. Looking at Dingfeldt's back, Glove realized what a gigantic man his Coach was.

"Yes, Coach. I am"

Dingfeldt turned and faced the boy.

Looking at his front, Glove realized what a determined man his coach was.

SMACK. Warm up pitch number three exploded into the catcher's mitt on the darkened field. At this stage of the night, the pitches were more audible than visible.

"Do you know what courage is Glove?"

"Courage is facing your fears, Coach"

"Not bad, Glove"

PMACK. Warm up pitch number four.

"Courage, son, is knowing what not to fear. Do you understand me? "

"But, Coach......"

SMAP. Warm up pitch number five.

"Listen, Arthur. Go back to the end of the bench. Take out your pencil. Keep a record of the action on the field. You be the statstop. I'll be the coach. Aside from my advice about courage, forget the rest of this conversation. Know what to fear and what not to fear.Be courageous. Is that clear, Glove. "

"Yes, Coach"

For a split second Glove realized what he should do. He should run out to the mound and explain the situation to Nick. Nick could do whatever he wanted to do and at the same time bear witness that Glove had done the right thing.

In the next split second, he visualized how absurd that scene would be, how inappropriate to the trappings of the game. The benchwarmer taking over as manager and advising the star pitcher what to do. That wasn't going to fly.

Glove took his place on the bench.

Nick fired his last warm up pitch.

The umpire, a Greek guy named Dee who ran a delicatessen in which there was a horrifying barrel of gherkins, yelled "batter up".

By the time Nick threw the first pitch in the last inning, Glove realized there was only one way out. The Pirates, his team, had to lose. Glove started pulling for the Braves even as he felt his heart breaking with the abandonment of loyalty.

Meanhwile in the dark on the bench between the top and the bottom of the sixth inning, Mr Jordan had a few ideas of his own.

He hoped that Dingfeldt didn't know that if Nick pitched one more pitch that action would be in violation of league rules and the outcome of the game would be, after the official protest was filed, either a forfeiture or a disqualification.

Either way, the Pirates would be walking the plank. Jordan's only fear was that someone would clue in the clueless Coach. When Jordan looked over at the bench and noticed some little kid with a too big uniform trying to get the attention of Otto, he thought that Froggy might be coming into the game and the protest win/win plan would be erased.

Whatever the kid said to the coach and whatever the coach said to the kid before the little jerk walked back to his place on the bench, Nick had completed his warm up pitches.

Dee, the Greek umpire, trying to hurry the game along yelled "batter up".

Before the leadoff batter, Stash Malloy, walked to the plate, Mr Jordan took him aside and revealed idea number two.

"Do not take that bat off your shoulder, Stash. Take every pitch. Take, take all the way. Do not swing"

Stash nodded and headed for the plate.

Jordan's plan was this, he wasn't going to protest until after the conclusion of the game. The evening was growing too dark to play ball. The whitest balls in the ball bag were already parked inthe power plant somewhere. Whatever balls that Nick pitched would be scuffed from a season of sandlot. They would add an extra level of difficulty not only to the batters but also to the fielders and the umpire.

Nick threw hard but he didn't have great control.

Dee's delicatessen owed the Jordan Trucking Company (whose motto was "we deliver the goods") a favor or two. The Brave's fans were all up in arms about the two home runs that they thought were foul balls. Dee owed them a couple of calls as well.

If the Braves managed to score five runs in their last at bat, the protest would be moot.

Jordan loved his chances.

Fourteen pitches later, the bases were loaded with Braves and there were no outs. None of the first three batters had swung at a single pitch. The only reason no runs had been scored was the rule that a run could not be scored as the result of a passed ball.

Chico was coming to the plate.

In its essence, baseball is a game of catch between two people. While the game of catch is proceeding, a series of other people try to interrupt that game of catch, one at a time, by swinging a piece of wood at the thrown ball and then running home before the game of catch can be resumed.

In professional baseball, the game of catch must be played perfectly. If the ball gets by the catcher, blame must be found and assigned. If the blame falls on the catcher,if he should have caught the ball but failed to, the transgression is called a passed ball. If the blame is on the pitcher, if his throw was so errant as to be un-catchable, that transgression is known as a wild pitch.

In professional baseball, a penalty exists for passed balls and wild pitches. If, after a third strike, a passed ball occurs; the batter can try to run to first base before the catcher can retrieve the ball and either touch the batter or throw to first base. If humans are on base at the time of the wild pitch or the passed ball, the runners may advance to the next base or bases but they do so at their own risk.

Little League baseball is far from professional so some of these penalties are waived depending upon jurisdiction of the league. The East Side Little League, whose championship game was being decided by the Braves and the Pirates, allowed baserunners to advance after wild pitches or passed balls but forbade any runner on third from scoring a run in such a manner.

The reason this rule was instituted in the first place was the location of the backstop at the main field. The backstop was only fifteen feet from home plate which meant that a pitched ball could get past the catcher, hit the backstop and bounce right back into play. This factor made the backstop too much "in play". Several injuries had occurred when the ball bounced off the backstop so randomly that a collison at the plate involved not only the catcher and the runner but also the pitcher, the umpire and the batter who still carried his stick in his hand.

So the rule was waived.

That's why, in the bottom of the sixth, the bases were loaded with Braves. Nobody was swinging and there was no base eligible for any runner to advance even though wild pitches/passed balls had been occurring on nearly every pitch.

As Chico strode to the plate, the situation was this and had been thus for awhile:the batter couldn't see the pitch to hit it, the umpire couldn't glimpse the pitch to call it and the catcher couldn't track the pitch to catch it.

And it was getting darker by the minute.

Dingfeldt, like most men, had two matters foremost in his mind....victory and justification. The fact that the kid had confronted him about Nick's eligibility to pitch the ninth inning irritated his justification module. The fact that the Braves had the bases loaded with nobody out and the best player in the league coming to the plate, threatened his victory module.

Otto had to come up with something quick. He decided to take a walk out to the mound. On the way to the mound, Dingfeldt realized that only two of the pitches thrown in the inning had been cleanly caught. Both of those pitches were called strikes by Dee, the delicatessen umpire. Hmmmm. Dee couldn't see the pitches either. Dee was assuming that if the catcher caught it, it had to be a strike and if it got by the catcher, the pitch must have been out of the strike zone in the first place which resulted in a call of "ball"

As fast as he was, Nick was not the easiest pitcher to catch. To make matters worse, the catcher, Skip Mancuso was not the first string catcher on the team. The best catcher on the team happened to be the best player on the team who happened to be the best pitcher on the team who happened to be the guy on the mound that Dingfeldt was heading towards.

By the time he got to the mound, Dingfeldt had his mind made up. He was going to make a change. His change was not going to be so much a change of pitchers as it was a change of catchers.

"Skip, go on out to right field and bring Frog in from the swamp. Nick, you're gonna catch the rest of the game. You pitched a helluva game, now I need you to catch one helluva inning."

Frog came in from right field, replaced by Skip. Nick put on the catcher's gear. Otto gave the ball to Frog with the age old advice "Just throw this godamned thing over the plate. Throw it to Nick"

And with the changes made, Dingfeldt headed back to the bench.

And it got darker

Six hours earlier Aristotle Legeer had just slapped down his last buck for a scratch off card at Dee’s Delicatessen. Ari had bought the card with four quarters so he chose the Scratch Off called Loose Change. Loose change is a scratch off card that shows six coins. If you scratch all six coins and they total more than a dollar, then the scratcher wins whatever prize is on the card which must be scratched to be revealed.

Ari scratched the first five coins.....96 cents. Then he scratched the prize amount figuring with his luck it would be a buck or two. The prize was $500. Ari felt good about the next scratch. He had certainly lost enough to justify the winning. He took a minute before scratching and then scratched.......

A penny.

A stinken Lincoln

One hundredth of a dollar.

One gazillionth of a phantom five hundred dollars.

Several bottles of ouzo disappeared from Ari's brainpan, along with a dozen roses for his patient, long suffering wife Diana and a trip to the Racino to feed Cleopatra's slot fifteen lines of nickels at a time as the Queen of the Nile whispers "Explore your fantasy. Enjoy your rewards".

A rent payment and a tank load of gas also vanished.

What appeared was the usual, rage, self-pity and persecution complex. Also appearing was the reality that Ari had no gas in his car, no pay check for two days, no beer in the fridge and maxed out plastic in the wallet.

"I just lost five hundred bucks Dee"

"How could you lose five hundred bucks on a one dollar scratch off card?"

Ari told Dee the whole story.

Dee understood, sort of.

"When will I ever learn, Dee?"

"My friend, what we have to learn to do, we learn by doing" answered the owner of the deli.

"Can you lend me twenty bucks for two days?" asked the erstwhile coin scratcher.

"I can do better than that" said Dee. "I can pay you twenty five bucks right now if you'll do a job for me tonight. I need an umpire for a Little league game over at the field"

"I wouldn't call the pitches at that nuthouse for fifty bucks, even as busted as I am" declared Legeer.

"I'll be the one working the plate. I need somebody to ump the bases. You want the job? I'll even throw in a forty ounce Bud and souvlavki after the game"

Dee's offer was too good for the desperate, deflated Legeer to refuse.

"Why not" answered Legeer.

Dee reached into the cash register. He grabbed two tens and a five. He slipped the three bills over the counter.

The old friends shook hands.

Six hundred thirty minutes later, as Dingfeldt was bringing Frog into the game, Mr. Jordan wasn't exactly whistlin' Dixie while waiting for the bus. Jordan had ideas of his own, equal and opposite.

Jordan was no longer concerned with victory, he had that in the bag. Jordan was concerned with style, a notion that appeals to most men only after victory and justification have been assurred. Jordan knew he had the game wrapped up if he wanted to go the paper tiger forfeit route. He also knew that if he told the rest of the batters (like he had instructed the three already on base) to "take all the way" and never move the bat from their shoulders, the inevitable parade of free passes in the dark would spell passive-aggressive victory.

Passive victory was not the style of the Braves. The Braves were not paper tigers. The Braves were a championship team who won the old fashioned way. They ran. They threw. They fielded their positions. They hit. They hit with power. They executed the fundamentals. They sacrificed. They played as a team. They took advantage of opportunities.

They had great mitts.

They swung their bats.

In Jordan's mind, Little League was, above and beyond anything else, an opportunity for a series of life lessons. If the Braves were going to win and they were going to win, it was important that they won in a fashion that would stay with the young boys for the rest of their lives and help them to become better men.

Nobility so often hinges upon guaranteed triumph.

Jordan went to every baserunner, all three of them. "On the first pitch that Frog throws, I want you to take off to the next base You got that? As soon as he goes into his windup, you run like hell"

The runner at first, Glenn French asked "What if he throws over to first base Coach. I don' want to get picked off"

"Throw to first, Glenn? He can barely see first base and the first basemen can barely see him. Do what you're told. Run your ass off"

With the hit and run in place, Jordan coached Chico.

"Chico, You're gonna swing at the first pitch. It's gonna be over the plate somewhere. It's not gonna get any lighter. If we're gonna swing, we gotta swing now. We're gonna swing. You're gonna swing. You're gonna tie up this ballgame with a grand salami. You got me, son? First pitch. Take a rip. You're the best hitter in this league. We gotta shine the light where the money is"

"Gotcha, Coach" said Chico as he stepped to the plate.

Frog toed the rubber.

Chico dug in and tapped his bat on the outside corner.

Nick got in his crouch behind the plate.He didn't bother to send a signal to the mound. The signal would have been invisible anyway.

Everybody knew what was coming.

The Swampball.

With the bases loaded, Frog went into his full wind up as there was no need to use the stretch. As he reached back and down to load some nasty swamp shit on his swamp ball, all the runners took off.

Five minutes earlier, when Dingfeldt was leaving the mound after replacing Nick with Frog and Skip with Nick, Otto realized he still had a dog in the forfeiture fight and his dog might have some bite if it came to red tape.

Since Nick had walked the first three men that he faced in the sixth inning, which means he didn't get anybody out, he would only be credited with pitching five innings according to the official scoring rules of baseball. Furthermore, the runners on base had all walked and according to the scoring rules of baseball a walk does not count as an offical at bat. In other words the current situation was based on the statsitical abnormality of the bases being loaded with three hitters none of whom had officially been at bat who got on base because of the free passess issued to them by a pitcher who had not statistically pitched in the inning.

Nick couldn't lose the game. If the Pirates won, Nick would get the win not because of his pitching in the sixth, he officially had not appeared in that inning, but rather because he had pitched the fifth and was the pitcher of record when the Pirates went ahead in their half of the inning. If the Pirates lost the game, the loss would be charged to Frog because the three runners on the base would be charged to Nick if they scored. Chico was the tying run and he was Frog's responsibility.

Otto had found his justification.

If Jordan wanted to argue this one out, Dingfeldt thought to himself, let's have at it. In some ways, the statstop, the weird little Glove, had got through to the Coach. As he returned to the bench, Dingfeldt fired an appreciative vibe down the bench to Glove, who immersed in loyalty abandonment, contemplation of courage and the difference between resignation and faith, missed the vibe entirely.

Glove was occupied in hoping that Chico would come through for the Braves like he always did. Glove had played a whole season for the Pirates and hadn't made a single friend. The only time that he might have contributed to the team, he was ignored by the Coach who Arthur knew that he would blame for the loss.

Arthur had never prayed before, never learned how, but this was getting close. He was trying to make a bargain with somebody or something somewhere. If the Braves won, he would never again play on a team that didn't respect him or love anyone that didn't love him or back down from a boss who was cheating.

Dingfeldt looked out at the field as Frog delivered the first pitch to Chico. As the pitch left Frog's hand, Dingfedlt yelled "Courage" to his Pirates who couldn't see him but could damn well hear him.

Nick held out a target that he knew Frog couldn't see.

Bobby at shortstop heard someone yell "Courage".

Aristotle Legeer, the umpire, stood motionless in shallow left field five steps behind Bobby.

The runners; Coin Gedman at third, Tony Joy at second and Glenn French at first were all off and running with the invisible pitch.

Chico swung. He could feel by the sensation in his hands at contact that if he hadn't got all of the pitch, he sure got a big chunk of it. He knew what a four bagger felt like. He'd been there before but never in the dark, never in the last inning of the championship game with the bases loaded with Braves. Never on the threshold of neighborhood legend.

When the shortstop sensed Joy breaking towards third, Bobby instinctively broke towards second. That's when he heard the sound of aluminum smashng into cowhide. Then he felt a stinging in his left hand. The ball had found Art. The ball was in Art. All Bobby had to do was hold on to the ball and the moment and the legend.

Legeer saw the line drive disappear into the shortstop's glove. Legeer saw that the kid held on to the ball.

One out.

As Bobby pocketed the rocket, Tony Joy going from second to third was passing right in front of him. Bobby touched Tony with Art. The touch was so light and so fast that Tony kept right on running, right past Jordan who was coaching third and screaming for Tony to keep on running for home.

Legeer saw the touch. Two outs. Double play.

French going from first to second had no idea where the ball was so he did the prudent thing. He slid into second base. Glenn's slide was a thing of beauty although it was beheld only by Legeer and Bobby.

Bobby slapped Art on the shoulder of French. Legeer saw the slap.

Three outs.

Triple play.

Unassisted.

Game over.

Championship for the Pirates.

There was no doubt in Ari's mind. He had clearly seen the whole play. Dee got to Ari before Jordan did. Ari explained his ruling to Dee. Dee said that from his place behind the plate he hadn't seen anything other than hearing Chico hit the pitch.

Ari assured Dee that he had seen it all.

The game was over, regardless of what Jordan might say, think or do..

Dee yelled out "Thank God for Aristotle"

Bobby was the second person within fifteen feet to realize that an unassisted triple play had ended the game.

Bobby was the first person to realize that aside from tagging the two runners, he had very little to do with the play. Chico's line smash had simply gone into his glove. Bobby never saw the drive. He barely felt it when the shot smacked into his pocket just below the webbing.

Even before the rest of the team knew what had happened, Bobby was already jumping up and down and yelling "Art, Art, Art."

The leaping and the crying of " ART ART ART" had worked its way through the infield half of the Pirates by the time Dee made it official by yelling "Triple Play, Game Over" and started heading for his car next to the power plant.

At this point, the whole team started running around the infield screaming ARTARTARTARTARTART.

In the midst of this sudden outbreak of Art. Mr Jordan got in the face of Ari Legeer. Legeer told Jordan exactly what he had seen.

On the bench, Glove, formerly Art had received the news that the game was over. He didn't know how to record the play in his scorebook whether it was 6 which means the ball was hit to the shortstop and he caught it or whether it was 6 6 6 which meant the ball was hit to the shrotstop and he caught it and he tagged two runners.

While wrestling with this administrivia, Art realized that the Pirates the team that from which he had abandoned loyalty only a few minutes earlier were all chanting his name.

Except they weren't.

They were chanting the name of his glove.

He wrote a six into the scorebook.

And then Bobby understood that they wouldn't be chanting ARTARTART and they wouldn't be champions and he himself wouldn't be on the threshold between legend and myth if the statstop hadn't lent him the glove in the first place.

As the whole team reached the bench, Bobby started yelling GLOVE GLOVE GLOVE GLOVE. The rest of the guys followed suit...even Dingfeldt.

They hoisted the statstop on their shoulders and began carrying him around the infield screaming GLOVE GLOVE GLOVE.

The scorebook fell to the ground.

On their shoulders in the dark, the boy who kept score, the momentary traitor to his own team, felt tears of shame and joy pouring down his face as they took him from base to base. Every time he heard them yell Glove.....he understood that word to mean

traitor

loser

pinerider

Nimrod who don't know a bra from a glove.

The Pirates didn't know the kid on their shoulders was bawling. They were champs and so was he. They couldn't have done it without Art and that means they couldn't have won it without Glove.

ARTGLOVEARTGLOVEARTGLOVE

Good thing it was dark.

A passerby would have seen a bunch of boys yelling about art and love in the dark with one small boy on their shoulders.

That passerby would have misunderstood. Especially if the passerby was Glove's father.

WOW INDEED

Thirty years later.

Aaron was our righfielder. Aaron was a dead ringer for Daniel Day Lewis in the Last of the Mohicans. Tall, lanky, long dark hair, all around attractive hippie, carpenter type guy but not much of a baseball player.

Plus on this day, he was on acid.

Aaron had a magnificent German shephard dog, named Jeremiah who went out to rightfield with Aaron when our team took the field. As you might imagine, this league was pretty damned low key with far more ale than anxiety.

Somewhere in the middle innings, the word got around that Aaron was tripping on acid. This information added to the appreciation of the game that Aaron was playing in the outfield. Let's face it, most of the time in baseball is spent just standing around and nobody spends more time standing around than a rightfielder in a slow pitch softball game where almost everything is hit to the left side and nobody stands around better than a guy on acid whose got control of his trip and is with his dog in a field of flowers.

As the inning began, Aaron was sitting on his haunches whispering to Jeremiah, seemingly about the dandelions that were growing around them in righfield. Nobody was paying too much attention, when a left handed batter, the only lefty on the opposing team, smashed a line shot into righfield.

This is when the change began for everyone.Aaron’s hallucination had become so vivid that it started to spread like wildfire and in the spreading convert itself into observable reality.

Time slowed down.

Space altered.

Aaron physically and visually shared his trip with everyone who was paying attention.

He was still on his haunches when the ball was struck. The people in the know started laughing and saying...that's a home run....Aarons on acid.

That's when everything slipped into slow motion.

Aaron rose to his feet.

The ball seemingly over his head.

He started moving back, back, back....

It didn't look like running....it looked more like flying or pathfinding or deerslaying. Aaron had big feet to begin with but as he flew back...back...back...his size 11 sandals looked like they had become size eighteen. Jeremiah was nipping at his fluttering bell bottoms.

The ball which had rocketed over his head, seemed to hesitate as Aaron began to glide, covering more ground with each step than humanly possible. Everybody on the bench suddenly realized that we were seeing things through the altered consciousness of Aaron.

After seven or eight giant steps with the ball still past him, Aaron reached out his now giant sized glove. The ball had seemingly stopped and as the giant glove stretched out a few more inches on is own, the ball gently fell into the seemingly elastic glove.

Aaron caught the ball and went into a slow motion forward roll with Jeremiah who had been at his heels during the whole pursuit, virtually rolling with him in a six legged, barking blur. In the midst of the barking and the blurring, Aaron held on to the ball and waved it in the air.

Everything seemed absolutely right with the planet.

Time regained its composure as Aaron made his way to our bench.

When he got to the bench after making the greatest catch in the history of baseball, Aaron said "Wow".

Wow indeed

TO SLEEP PERCHANCE TO SNORE

To begin with, I spend more time thinking about sleeping than I spend time thinking about any other subject.

Some people might call that process insomnia.

I call it another skirmish in the war between the sexes.

Snoring is the battle line.

The only person who doesn't snore is the person who's awake. I am that person, awake and listening to my wife snore.

The secret is to be the second one to sleep.

My wife doesn't think that she snores.

I didn't think that I snored until my wife mentioned it to me.

Over time, the mentions grew more frequent and less gentle.

Eventually, the mentions turned into motions and the motions turned into pokes and jabs.

Ya know what really sucks? Being fast asleep....getting jabbed into wakefullness and upon awakening hearing this:

"Stop snoring, God damn it."

Apparently I start to snore when I'm first falling asleep so when rudely interrupted my defense usually goes like this:

"How could I be snoring, I wasn't even asleep"

Even as I'm saying this, I'm coming to the realization that I must have been asleep because the poke woke me up.

"Well, you must have been asleep because you're snoring your ass off. Stop the goddamned snoring!."

"Hey, I know the difference between being awake and being asleep. If I were asleep now, this would be a nightmare but because I'm awake, it's just a pain in the ass."

"Yeah, well the next time you snore and wake me up, you're going out to the couch."

For some reason, the reward of sleeping comfortably on the couch seems like some kind of punishment that must be resisted.

So I try to fall back asleep and realize that I can't sleep. Furthermore, I must really be not sleeping because nobody is telling me to stop snoring.

Meanwhile, in this embryonic, insomniatic state.....my wife falls asleep and starts to snore.

Her snoring is a good sign because that means she's actually asleep and it is now safe for me to go to sleep and not have to worry about snoring.

So I go through my usual thinking about sleeping and trying to figure out how to bring it on.

Most of those methods are unclear to me now because instead of trying to fall asleep, I'm currently trying to stay awake but here are a couple of techniques that I think I use.

1) I recite and re-recite the Presidents of the United States in chronological order and then in reverse order. Madison always surprises me with how quickly he shows up chronologically and Rutherford B. Hayes surprises me with how clearly he arrives at all.

The surprise and the clarity continue through the entire series of repetitions and I find them oddly reassuring.

2) I try to think of people who I know who couldn't possibly have been thinking of me during this day. Then I think of the people that I always think of and try to estimate how many times I thought about them during the day. I've been told that we have 8 or 80 or 800 billion brain cells. I can't remember what the figure is (8 billion or 800 billion...what's the diff?) That's plenty of room to think about people.

I'm talking about brain cells popping off in nano seconds. I would guess that I think of my daughter Mary about 20,000 times a day, my distant daughter Amanda about 5000. All the way down to the guy who was sitting on the sidewalk in Charlotte a couple of days ago....playing his guitar real good for free. I thought of him maybe 5 times today and pretty soon he will be in the memory cemetery only to be exhumed for a thousdandth of a second some night when I'm unable to sleep and am absolutely sure that he has not thought of me which, I'm pretty sure is and always will be the case.

3) If I'm still awake, I start thinking about stories that I might write. This very story is a story I was thinking about writing last night shortly after I finished thinking about a guy who punched me in the mouth fifty years ago.

By this time, it's usually about four in the morning. I've changed my position in bed at least five times and I'm starting to forget about the pain in my shoulder and then I start to catch a dream and run with it and lose it and re-catch it until I reluctantly wake up in an empty bed. My wife always gets up, a couple hours before me almost exactly at the moment that I start to get control of whatever deam I'm enjoying at the moment.

Usually, I "sleep" for maybe four hours a night.

I come to the kitchen as the daily routine begins and ask my wife how she slept last night.

She says "Fine. How bout you. You didn't snore."

A BIG DEAL OUT OF NOTHING

Many years ago, in a far less enlightened time, I was nearing the end of my incarnation as a single Iron John kinda guy. I attended a lecture by Thornton Krell addressing itself to the status of masculinity under the emerging onslaught/influence of feminism.

Krell addressed the feminist perception of masculinity as "immaturity" and predicted an increase in the use of that characterization as feminism continued to take root. Men, in response, should be prepared to hear the descriptor "immature" regularly attached to their behavior, at least as interpreted through the eyes of the female interpreter.

The masculine reaction to this accusation, according to the speaker, is to confront it with the articulation, dignity and courageous immediacy used in response to any racist, sexist comment.

Krell provided this dialogue as an example.

She: Sometimes I feel as if I'm raising another child around here.

He: Excuse me!?

She: You heard me. I said that I'm tired of your immaturity.

He: Are you calling me immature?

She: Yes I am.

He: Aha. Well I recognize and reject your faulty characterization as an attempt to execise sexist, feminine intimidation. (disengage from conversation and walk away).

"Damn", I thought, "Krell nailed it."

Forewarned, I looked ahead to the next time that a woman dropped the "I" word on me.

I didn't have to wait long.

I was making a big deal out of nothing one day when a female colleague observed:

"You guys, always making a big deal out of nothing. It's so immature."

BAM. I was ready. The Venus flytrap was prepared for the fly.

I followed the Krell script word for word, tude for tude until (walk away)

Before I could get one small step for a man away from the return fire, she dismissed me with these two little withering words......

"Grow up."

Then SHE turned her pretty head and walked away.

Apparently, the theory of male immaturity as a sexist prefabrication was in itself, an "immature" theory probably peddled by some lecturer somewhere trying to make a big deal out of nothing. As a result of subsequent, enlightening conversations with several female experts on male behaior, I have decided to articulate further and more closely scrutinize the behavior of married men of which I am now one.

Unmarried men, that is men living outside the realm of legalized marital microscopy, are obviously immature to begin with so it becomes a question of superfluosity to concern ourselves with sexist prefabrication on their behalf.

Married men, according to a recently convened blue ribbon panel of married women, are not immature when compared to single men. Married men according to the panel can be best characterized as either annoying or aggravating.

What is the difference between immature, annoying and aggravating other than the presence of a wedding band and a recital of vows? According to our panel, at least the married men were mature enough to make a decision but having made that decision they almost immediately descended into a perpetual state of "annoying" and upon too frequent occasion, push the edge of the envelope of annoyance into aggravation. In mathematical terms, annoyance is a constant, aggravation a variable.

Aggravation is a more active, more masculine version of annoyance.

Let me illustrate.

A husband returns home from work, kisses his wife and lies down on the couch. He turns on the teevee and relaxes after another soul draining day of back breaking number crunching amidst soul crushing office politics. The hunter is home. The gatherer has gathered.

The wife is too familiar with her husband's inner visual so EVERYTHING about the example above is annoying except for the kiss and sometimes even the kiss if delivered too perfunctorily is also annoying.

Now, if the woman comes into the living room with her husband and the husband is checking the scores on his fantasy team or doing a crossword puzzle or drinking a beer or watching some sport shit on teevee, well any of those activities move the husband into the arena of "aggravation". Notice, that in each of these areas, the man is actually DOING something....gambling, crosswording, drinking, remote controlling. The fantasy teams, the puzzle, the beer, the remote are all variables that add up to ANNOYING.

This is in the first minute of coming home to the castle.

Many wives at this juncture, always vigilant and reluctant to enable escapism/isolation, will take the opportunity to articulately point out the variables of aggravation currently on exhibit in the husband's behavior. This articulation, depending upon the variable, can and does often result in the "broken record" which transmogrifies into an escalation into an examination of past tresspasses.

The mate can respond defensively, which is aggravating and a guarantee of escalation or passivity which is annoying which keeps the broken record groovin'.

Men being the gentlemen that we, er they are, will generally opt for annoying over aggravating so we, er they, will put our heads down on the couch and zone out in the annoying dormant stage recognized by women as a "pout."

When men are in the dormant stage, pouting on the couch, we are in our own way extending an olive branch to our mates. We are saying, in effect. "I know that you find me annoying honey but I love you so much and need you so desperately that I don't want to aggravate you, so I'll just lie here in the mud with a bird on my head while you go about your, puposeful, productive, perky, pretty little life."

Please forget the three four 'p' words iin the last alliteration if you're a woman reading this foolishness because I imagine you will find them aggravating in a typical mansplaining, patronizing way so, sorry..sorry, really sorry.

Whoops, I forgot, you're annoyed by apologies. Well whaddya want me to say? Why don't you write it out and I'll say it for God sake. Whoops, I'm getting aggravating again.

At this point men usually leap into action.

"Uh, honey, I'm going into the garage and put some water in the radiator or one of the tasks that have been sanctioned as legitimate but if repeated too often become annoying and if performed with the slightest bit of attitude may become aggravating enough for an escalation.

I hope in this rant, I have more articulately descibed the conundrum of masculinity as percieved through the intuitive, sensitive, down to earth, intelligent, lovely even without makeup feminine point of view.

What's that?

Too many adjectives at the end?

Stop dicking around on the computer?

Okay, Okay

Sorry

etc.

FULL OF POISON

I'm about as full of poison as I'm going to get. I'm twenty five blasts in with three to go.

Lethargic guilt is such a pitiful condition.

I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a friend of mine a few months before I got diagnosed.

My lifelong pal John Crown had been clobbered by heart attack, heart surgery, cancer, colostomy and blinding cataracts.

On his most recent trip to the hospital, Dr. Somebody asked Crown if he was depressed. Crown knew that the doctor was very aware of how many health concerns he had on his plate.

"Of course I'm depressed, Doctor. Wouldn't you be if you were I?"

The doctor shrugged as if to say "uhyayuh"

The doctor asked Crown if he wanted something for the depression.

Crown said "No thank you. My depression is the only thing I give a shit about"

That's how I was feeling all day today. The only thing that interested me was my lack of interest and the guilt that came with not giving a shit which is even more interesting and paralyzing than the lethargy itself.

At the radiation center, they warned me that 95% of the people having the treatment that I'm having experience fatigue.

I wondered if they had a reason for that amazing percentage.

They said it's our bodies reaction to the poison that is introduced into our systems with poison being another word for radiation.

I had been operating under a false impression. I thought that every day when I get zapped by the rays I was equating the rays with a ray gun which fired at my cancerous cells for about five minutes. Then after the volley, the smoke cleared.

Not really

Radiation is more like pouring poison in to a container until the container is full and then letting the poison invade the environment in which the deadly cells are trying to multiply.

The battle goes on for more that a volley of five minutes. The battle is continuous 24/7

In other words, every day my container gets filled with more poison. It's gonna linger in the neighborhood for a month and when it starts to dissipate, we'll look at the environment again and see what damage has been done to the invading cells.

So that's why I'm worn out and going to the bathroom 3 times an hour.

And the whole thing is becoming routine.

Routine tends to normalize even the most extraordinary circumstances.

It's comforting to know that all of this is normal and there's no reason to feel guilty.

A reduction in guilt takes the edge off the lethargy.

So I'm gonna feel good about all the times I'm rotting on the couch.

My body earns it every day.

Soon I'll be as full of poison as I'm gonna get and from that point on, I'm gonna get better.

The Carcass of Martha

Andy and his brother Pete heard the word through telegraph, a modern marvel in 1898.

The final flock of carrier pigeons, 250,000 of them were approaching.

Andy, who knew a lot more but said a lot less than younger brother Pete, had already witnessed and assisted in one major devastation. He had already spent an entire September day among the dead, the dying and the mangled; picking up perforated pigeons and heaping them into piles. Andy had watched eagles, hawks and vultures arrive to share in the spoil of pigeon piles. Only a comparative few of those scavengers were shot for their carrion on but the pigeon corpses were everywhere.

Andy gathered and stashed five lifetime's worth of pigeon feathers, bones and birdmeat and drove a horse drawn carriage full of dead passengers home to his hogs.

At one time, a single flock of passenger pigeons contained more than 2 billion birds. As the most common bird in America, many flocks and colonies existed. The passenger population appeared not only inexhaustible and invulnerable but also territorially threatening. One flocking colony, known in Wisconsin as Endeavor, spread over 750 square miles.

Endeavor could and did obscure the sun.

People of Wisconsin, future Cheeseheads, were not about to surrender that much tundra neither frozen nor thawed. Andy and Pete were riflemen in the gaggle of hunter/soldier/patriots about to converge on that flocking colony from below.

As the targets approached, Andy could feel a surprising current of air. He heard a sound that reminded him of a tempest at sea. The passengers were overhead. The sky was dark. The brothers and the gang of hunters opened fire, reloaded and opened fire again and again and again and again.

The not clay pigeons dropped from the sky like bleeding, bleating hailstones. Children on the ground, fortified with poles and clubs were waiting. Andy was in such a frenzy that he didn't hear the cursing and thudding that surrounded him. Andy barely noticed the dozen passengers that fell on him while he was pulling and reloading. He didn't hear the thousands of gun reports coming from each side. Each unheard report bore mute witness to a load of scatter shot that could and did take down as many as ten passengers per blast.

A certain amount of time passed although the exact amount of minutes/hours is unclear.

Some have speculated that it took a bit longer than did the massacre at Little Big Horn with each blast the equivalent of ten arrows.

And then the flock passed.

And then there was silence.

Andy, with gun barrel still smoking, turned to Pete and said "that telegraph's a pretty damn good idea."

Ten thousand of a quarter million passengers flew away.

Twenty years later only ONE passenger pigeon, a bird named Martha, remained alive.

When Martha finally died, her body was suspended in a tank of water then freeze framed into a three hundred pound block of ice and sent to the Smithsonian Institute. Martha's carcass.

Martha's carcass is still around.

Andy and Pete are long gone now but their great, great grandsons hold season tickets on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field. They wear cheeseheads and feathers as they back the Pack.

Right before the kickoff of the opening game at Lambeau Field, a tremendous roar emerges from the crowd. Dozens of people in the crowd, including all those related to Andy or Pete always turn to each other and remark that the roar sounds like "a thunderstorm of bloody passengers". Great, great, grandson Andrew didn't have a clue where that odd expression originated only that it had been in his family for more than a century.

ATTEMPTING TO TAKE A KNEE

Okay, I got this. It took awhile but I got it.

Last Sunday I left the teevee off while the national anthem was playing. I went into the kitchen and began by locking my arms together in unity with the NFL, myself, Tom Brady and I guess Trump. Normally when I fold my arms, I have my right hand on my left bicep and my left hand under my right bicep. Today in honor of awkwardness and OCD awareness, I reversed that position.

Now I knew how the other folks lived.

Next I dropped to one knee, in honor of Kaepernick and everything that he was protesting and in recognition of Tim Tebow and the values that he projected. Then I dropped to two knees in remembrance of my altar boy days in gratitude that I don't have any of those sexual abuse experiences that I can remember. While on both knees, I said a quick Our Father in honor of the patriarchy that is the NFL. I threw in a Hail Mary just in case the Bills needed one. I bowed my head made a sign of the cross and whispered "offense. defense. special teams, coaching". I raised my head and said aloud "Go Bills".

Then I went to stand up and realized there was no way that I could get up: an homage to being overweight, out of shape with bad knees, shattered sense of balance, bad hipped Baby Boomer.

I dropped to all fours in honor of dogs everywhere and did a reverse evolutionary crawl as I headed Towards and into the water instead of out of and away from it.

I reached the base of the kitchen sink. I threw one arm up towards the granite countertop. With my arm upraised, I made a fist in honor of black power and then I gave a peace sign in honor of John Lennon. Then I put my other hand up making at one and the same time the gesture for "touchdown" and the "I am powerless sign" in recognition of everybody suffering from an addiction.

I grasped the counter top and pulled myself up in tribute to the concept that "we will rise" as well as the Horatio Alger vision of "pluck not luck". I stood on my own two feet in homage to the Revolutionary War.

I tapped a glass of water from the kitchen sink and poured it over my head as a form of baptism as well as a reminder of whatever we were pouring water over our heads for a few years past.

I dried my hair in reminiscence of the "wethead is dead" commercials that were prevalent during NFL telecasts before erectile dysfunction took over.

I went into the great room/living room/living great room with our vaulted ceiling and open concept. I said a quick "welcome home" to our veterans of foreign war

I hit the remote.

Thank God the anthem was over.

The game was on.

Prodigious Piles of Penguin Poop

Is this a change? Yes, yes it is. This IS a change if you don’t believe in recurring cycles.

This is the first time I��ve put a title on a essay before writing the essay. In the past I have put hundreds of titles on hundred of “posts” and called them “essays” or “stories” or “opinions” or “obscure art” or “poems”. That recurring cycle is known as “writing”.

So the fact that this "essay" is title driven is not so much a change as it is a cyclical recurrence.

I am currently interested in another little know cyclical recurrence, namely, that every dozen years or so, way up North and in New Zealand, unexpected piles of penguin poop suddenly appear. The piles are concentrated in a circular area and they have been puzzling poopoligists for a while now since they have not yet been identified as part of a cycle rather than a random series of evacuations.

My conjecture is that every dozen years for the past few centuries, what with the global warming and all, penguins have realized that they need to fly because pretty soon the ice will be gone and things will get might awkward or heaven forbid even might become aukward like the extinction of the once great auk.

So every dozen years, the penguins gather around in a circle and try like hell to start flying. They just stand there and strain their minds to imagine themselves flying and the strain mimics the strain of bowel movement which produces the prodigious piles as the penguins will stand in one spot for a couple of days, straining, imagining, willing, and pooping.

To the objective observer, (of which there aren’t any as this effort is always made in secret and in fact will not even be attempted unless complete absolute privacy is assured) it would appear that the penguins are just standing there pooping but my conjecture is that much more is happening. Penguins, through imagination, are attempting to speed up the evolutionary process.

Whenever a non-flying organism is trying to will itself into flight, that organism typically has the appearance of just standing there or just sitting there in a private lotus position; Mike Love for example before Beach Boy concerts in the seventies. Unfortunately for Love, however, his concentration and privacy were regularly interrupted pre-flight by the sudden, cursing, drunken appearance of band mate Dennis Wilson who seemed to take delight in the act of vomiting on the head of Love when Love was at the height of astral concentration. This violation left Love as earthbound as a pooping penguin.

After about a week or so of straining, the penguins give up and banish the thought of flying from their minds entirely and focus on the hope of being captured and taken to zoos where they are in great demand simply because they are the rare birds that can not fly away and escape.

Eventually, penguins must learn to fly or become extinct. Thus is the nature of cycles and the constant need for change.

It is possible to change without improving but impossible to improve without changing.

Like the change in the appearance of this essay what with the title and all.

But it’s not just the appearance of the title that marks the change.

Usually when I write, the title is the last thing that I come up with as it is a way of pretending that I had a controlling concept to begin the piece rather than just a flow of ideas that when completed I need to read to grasp and when read suggests a “concept” which can be fortified by taking a few words from the discovered “concept” and putting those words at the top of the piece and calling those words a “title”.

In this case, the title, an actual controlling thought, came first and everything else has strainlessly evolved from that thought and will lead to the precise, alliterative, feathery ending which will be missed by some readers because they shook their heads and stopped reading a few paragraphs back but not by you the truly intelligent, patient and charming few who have read this far and only have thirty four words to go. Thank you for getting this far with this essay or whatever and I hope that these paragraphs have been worth your attention and are not merely

Prodigious piles of penguin poop.

Krell Loses His Wallet

Last month, my grandaughter Eva saw a woman right after the lady had been struck by a hit and run driver while jogging on Washington Street in Duxbury. Soon, other people began to crowd around this traumatizing sight.

The woman had been killed, her crumpled body on full display.

Soon it was discovered that the woman didn't have her wallet with her when she started her fatal run so for several hours after the body had been removed, nobody had any idea who the victim was. She had no identity. A broken Jane Doe carted off in an ambulance.

This brings me to one of my greatest, secret fears; losing my wallet.

I am so afraid of losing my wallet that I never carry more than 20 bucks in my wallet at one time. I don't carry an ATM card or any credit cards because I'm scared to death of losing them. Whatever beer money I have, I carry in my pocket.

So, two nights ago, I lost my wallet.

I was staying with the Peets, Ovid and Julia. Everything was going perfectly. We were on our way to Birkdale Village for some music and ice cream. I got out of the shower and reached in my dresser to grab my wallet, fully expecting it to be there,

It wasn't there.

Next began the furious search around the house to find the wallet. We had been all around Huntersville that day. We ate at a Lake Norman restaurant. We walked through the campus of Davidson University. We had a beer at our local Bistro, a place named Harvey's. I changed my clothes at least three times always feeling good about my wallet.

We checked all of those places too no avail. "Did anyone turn in a wallet today to lost and found." At the pool someone had in fact found a wallet and it was in lost and found. The lifeguard took me to it. It wasn't mine.

Mine was still gone.

My great fear had come true. I was in a state of panic. Everyone was concerned, not so much about the wallet...which had nothing in it....but rather my propensity to brood and throw a black cloud over the rest of the visit.

I sat in the bedroom hyperventilating, two clicks away from a full fledged panic attack. I took many deep breaths and made up my mind that the lost wallet wasn't going to ruin the rest of the evening. To my amazement, I found that compartment and we proceeded to Birkdale. The compartment was my usual escape, comparing singers and bands. Elvis or Sinatra etc.

We arrived in the village. We listened to some music and had some ice cream.

While we were people watching in the village, it occurred to me that every single person that we saw had THEIR wallet. I was the only man without a wallet.

I had no identity.

I was nobody.

You know who else doesn't have a wallet.

Broken joggers

Victims of serial killers

Kids under the age of 12.

Those whose pockets had been picked.

Jane and John Doe

A bad crowd to be in for a "responsible" man.

The overwhelming humiliation of irresponsibilty was calling and all I had to do was pick up the phone to ruin the night.

I didn't pick up but the phone kept ringing.

Moody Blues or Pink Floyd.

If somehow a cop or a store owner asked me if I had my "license", I would have to say that I didn't. If they asked me why, I'd have to say that I had lost my wallet.

We are so connected to our wallets that when we don't have them we begin to question our entire existence ,at least that's what the ringing phone was calling me to do.

Somehow the conversation drifed over to a discussion of the Sopranos.

I got a visual of Tony and asked myself "in this visual" does Tony have a wallet.

Of course Tony has his wallet. He's Tony Soprano. He ALWAYS has his wallet.

What kid of MAN, doesn't have his wallet.

RING, RING, RING went my unanswered inner phone.

We got through the night.

I congratulated myself, whoever I was, which I wouldn't be able to prove if anybody asked me, on my composure based on the way that I was handling an overwhelming secret fear.

My secret fear is that I am an irresponsible, immature, unfocused airhead, literally a loser.

We all have our secrets.

Now you know mine.

Without my wallet, I'm not Thornton Krell.

I'm John Doe

I don't exist.

John Doe Walking

John Lennon/Paul McCartney

James Brown/Bob Marley

Tom Petty/George Harrison

Heart/Pretenders

The Band/Led Zep

Roy Buchanan/Stevie Ray

Eagles/Credence

John Coltraine/Miles Davis

Rascals/Lovin’Spoonful

It was the fourth of July and it was so hot that the lizards were not only crawling on front porches but they were turning colors as they scampered.

Thornton Krell was in another new town preparing for another mini-brewery performance. As he walked up the hill on Serenity Street, he passed by a house displaying the stars and stripes. He said “Happy Holiday” to the scowling woman standing beneath the flag.

The woman responded by asking “where do you live”. Her background music sounded like the music playing when someone is so suspicious that they are ready to call the cops. Background music that suggested a fear of strangers. Background music that hinted “what’s a person like You doing on a street like THIS walking in the sun on such a fucking hot day in MY neighborhood.

Krell answered, “I’m from Centerville. It’s a real nice place.” and he continued his stroll.

Zappa/Beefhart

Harrison/Petty

Krell was a walker. He had become a walker during his time in Viet Nam. He kept the habit upon returning home. If his destination was in walking distance, he left his car and bike behind. Walking distance was ten miles….five miles out and five miles back. As he walked, Krell was in the habit of mentally comparing musical groups. If he had tickets for both and they were playing at the same time which one would he choose to see?

Animals/Byrds

Paul Revere and Raiders/Jay and the Americans

Jerry Lee Lewis/Fats Domino

Little Richard/Chuck Berry

Krell walked a lot even before Nam. He was one of those kids who didn’t take the bus and did walked a mile and a half to school every day as well as a mile and a half back from school. Exactly halfway through his walk there was a four way stop, patrolled by Mrs. Johnson who said hello and goodbye to Krell at least four times a day.

Johnny Rivers/Rick Nelson

James Gang/New Riders

Jefferson Airplane/Buffalo Springfield

Kinks/Hollies

At the stop was a corner grocery store owned by a guy named Red Burns who had run the store when Krell’s father was a kid. Everybody who stopped at the store called him “Red” or “Burnsie”. Krell was too polite for such casual language with an elder. Krell always called him Mr. Burns. Red appreciated that pleasantry and usually gave Krell an extra piece of bubble gum for being a “good kid”.

Cars/Doors

King Crimson/Yes

U2/Metallica

Blood Sweat and Tears/Chicago

Krell learned that good manners had rewards.

Also outside of Burnsie’s, Krell would run into Wilson. Wilson was beloved in the neighborhood. Nowadays, Wilson would probably be described as “special”. He was a tall guy who wore an Elmer Fudd hat regardless of the weather. Krell only knew Wilson to speak two words. Those two words were these: “Hey Boy”

Johnny Cash/Willie Nelson

Stevie Wonder/Ray Charles

ABBA/Fleetwood Mac

Dionne Warwick/Dianna Ross

Diana Krall/Norah Jones

And Wilson didn’t say those words to everybody but he said them to Krell every time that they met at the for corner cross walk. Wilson “helped” Mrs. Johnson and it was rumored that Wilson was her cousin who had been shell shocked in WW2.

Everybody called Wilson Wilson except Krell.

Whenever Wilson said “hey boy” to Krell, Krell would respond…”Hey Mr. Wilson”

And Wilson would laugh, his too loud laugh.

Krell never knew if Wilson was his first name or his last name.

It took Krell a few months to realize that Wilson disappeared.

Upon the realization, Krell asked Mrs Johnson “where’s Wilson” to which Mrs. Johnson simply said “he lives somewhere else now.”

This was good enough for Krell.

Billy Joel/Elton John

Steve Miller/Bob Segar

Allman Brothers/CSNY

REM/Police

Michael Jackson/Bruce Springsteen

Hollies/Kinks

Buddy Holly/Kurt Cobain

Dave Clark 5/Monkees

Glen Campbell/James Taylor

Pat Benatar/Joan Jett

Joni Mitchell/Bonnie Raitt

Lost in thought, heat and reminiscence, Krell never saw it coming as he walked through a red light on speed trap corner, twenty yards from the burned out shell of what once was a coven.

The Final Factoid

My name is Jem Masters. Here’s some things you should know about me before you decide upon my reliability as a narrator or as a hero or as witness or life saver. I’m the final factoid.

I’m Caucasian but my skin tone is more like a paper bag than a peeled potato. I take my glasses off with one hand rather than two. As a result, my glasses are either tilted or down too far on my nose. I’ve recently learned that long time spectacle wearers, who use both hands to remove their glasses, regard both the tilt and the nose drop with rage and judgment.

I have a large head according to my last visit to the optometrist who after taking one look at me suggested that “larger” men often need a special kind of frame to fit the special frame of their body. My glasses were “way” too small.

I took his advice and went to the larger size. This remedy only further accentuated both the tilt and the nose drop but lessened the likelihood of having to purchase new frames every year as the larger size would naturally relieve the pressure that my gigantic head was putting on the vulnerable hinging.

Another thing that you should know about me is that I have achieved perfect buoyancy in a swimming pool. I can lie on my back and just float all afternoon without moving a muscle. I love that especially down here in North Carolina where between tropical storms and hurricanes, it’s usually around 100 degrees. I spend a lot of time in my pool, looking up at the famous Carolina blue sky and the surreal clouding......perfect for optimism. Also if anybody's drwoning and I'm floating by, I make a great inner tube...all ya gotta do is grab and hold on until help arrives.

I’ve come to understand that almost everyman who is buoyant is also portly. I’ve recently become portly which is great because it makes it that much easier to buy a suit.

I haven’t bought a suit in 10 years. Last time I bought one, it was a struggle to stay afloat. Now, I float. I’m portly.

And just in case you confront a man versus nature situation, remember; any portly in a storm.

Portly, big head, tilted glasses on my nose, optimistic and wearing the polyester suit that I recently bought on line from Kohl’s to go along with the xxx sweater vest and Escher tie that I decided to put on in order to introduce myself.

Yeah, that’s me now.

Four days ago, it was the 4th of July. Stars and Stripes and humidity and lizards on the porch.

I had just come out of Slice of Life, our neighborhood pizza shop. The Slice of Life had survived a fire and had just reopened. The damage was relatively minor. Next door to the Slice at the Laughing Brook Spell Casting and Ancestral Arts, where the witch was always "in", the damage was far more extensive. Laughing Brook was on the move anyways.The PERFECT location had presented itself the very same week the shop burnt the roof off the building that caged it, very large forces were acting directly upon the street corner.

I had always felt good that we had a Spell Casting shop in the middle of our downtown. God knows we had a speed trap. Approaching that corner the speed limit dipped from 35 to 20 in about 100 yards and a cop was always sitting right there. This produced a lot of revenue for our town attorneys.

After vacuuming two SLICE of Life pizza slices, I was looking forward to a float in the pool when I saw this old guy approaching the corner. He was tall. He was tan. He was not from here nor from Impanema. He was pre-occupied. He didn't look right almost as if he were under a self induced trance.

I was gonna say hello but I was pretty sure he wasn't gonna hear me unless I said it too loud which it was too hot to do and which I wouldn't have done anyways as we portly, paper bag guys don't usually start up conversations with tall, tan, trance driven older guys.

He started to enter the crosswalk and then he was on the ground.

It was happening right NOW, right in front of me. I called 911 a split second after tall, tan guy hit the ground. 911 called the speed trap cop who showed up immediately from a few yards away and started with the CPR.

The ambulance was there in a flash and the EMT's took over from the cop. After a bit of shirt tearing and chestpounding and pincushioning, the ambulance took off with the tall guy inside and the cop alongside and the sirens blasting.

Before he left, the cop took my name."If this guy survives, you saved his life", the cop, Officer Wilson, told me before he tore off to the hospital. I took off my glasses from my giant head and wiped them with my Panthers tee shirt.

I still haven't heard anything from the cop or the guy. If I had her number, I'd call the witch,

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