Time

The door to the saloon creaked in the wind. Thought it might be someone coming in. Yeah, right. Just the wind. I should say always the wind. The paint had been stripped off the west side of the building, sandblasted as it was, always was. The Stones were playing on the jukebox. Time is on my side.

“My ass it is on my side.”

“You talking to the music again, Charlie?” That’s just Don, the owner of this here flea-bitten, sandblasted establishment.
“Always windy around here because you a wind bag, Don. Just an old wind bag ‘round here, yes it is.” Been sittin’ on this here stool since I don’t know when. Don’t really care to know. The sun comin’ through the front window glares, smudges out all the front out there. “Hehe, yheh, you’s just a old windbag, Don.”

“Charlie, I’m a year younger than you, ya dumbshit. Graduated a year after you, went into the service after you, got back after you. Hell, I even dated yer sister after you.” With that he slapped his towel across his thigh. Thought that was such a good dig. Always thinks that’s a real good dig. “Anyway, Hoss, what are you doin’ here today, anyway? Isn’t this yer day in the sun?”

“Don, I’m gonna tell you somethin’, and I want you to listen up, for once in yer life. Stay outta my business. I know what I’m doin’. Sittin’ here just a little longer won’t change nothin’. She’s been dead a long time. I’ll be over to the ‘site in my own time.” On my side, my ass. Yes it is.

The Duke's Gate

The Duke’s hand comes up to my elbow,
a soul searching strength behind the shake, judging.
He drops my hand and rubs his face, one
cheek, then chin, the other cheek, eyes glinting.

Marshmallow décor with cotton candy accents surround
the huge book, he seated on a pillow he stole
from a whorehouse in Texas.

What’d ya think, Duke? Am I in?
One look. Don’t just stand there,
get yerself a drink.
Whiskey.

The Punished

They had only known each other a few hours and their relationship was entirely based on money, so their punishment made sense. Of course, to quote that great sage Carlin, “Selling is legal and fucking is legal, so why isn’t selling fucking legal?” He’s got a point there, and more eloquently phrased a point there may never have been.

They met on the street, naturally. And as long as there was money between them, not too much now, they would be in each other’s lips embrace.

I’ve known a few turned into animals, gazelles, elephants, various insects, and the question of punishment versus reward is always posed. But who are we to question or criticize our betters? For that matter, who are we to praise them?

At least these two have a shade of clothing, of comfort. In an attempt to make the punishment more closely fit the crime, those accused and convicted of being too chaste were almost always left without even the barest of clothing. You could argue that this was simply freeing to the individual, but they can’t speak so nobody is asking.

I was amused with the removal of ‘cruel and unusual’ from the Books, as most of us were, until I was caught up in a wave of anti-author sentiment. I was charged with dissention, for writing too many unsubstantiated opinions and observations that were negative to public and private life. I am reduced to eyes and hands, poised above the keys, typing incessantly, judging for no one.

Unmanned Soldier

The projector whirrs to life.
The beginning of the current battlefield strategy emerged with the advent of the Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle or UAV in everyday operations. Reconnaissance was their primary mission, but they were quickly armed with air-to-ground missiles and bombs. Unmanned air support provided the safest conflict arena for the foot soldier the world had ever known. Any theater requires ground troops to secure land acquired and to hold forward and rear bases for supply and air support. With this in mind, the next revolution in warfare: the Unmanned Soldier, US. This technological leap forward was a long time coming.

First, small tracked remote-controlled bomb squad robots were employed, then larger tracked detectors combined with limbed robotics. As the technology improved, so did the applications. ‘No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.’ General Patton was never more correct. The US Army hasn’t lost a single soldier to battlefield activities in over a decade, and with you new recruits we aim to keep this the safest army in history.

The whirr dies off. The lights come on.
“Any questions?”
*
“This is such bullshit.”
“Can it, Corporal. Nobody wants to hear about your ‘ideas.’”
“Sarge, you know this is bullshit. ‘Make the other guy die’ and all that horseshit. They don’t even die anymore. Ever since the Russians and Indians teamed up to make their own Unmanned Soldier nobody dies anymore. It’s just a junk heap at the end of the day. If we even get to that-”
“Because the budget-”
“That’s right Sarge, the damn budget! We go out there and destroy-”

“Kill.”

“-destroy the enemy, and the only thing that actually ends the battle is the damn accountant back home who decides the costs aren’t effective anymore.”
“The official term is ‘kill,’ Corporal, and the fact we can get into a battle and get them out of it is the whole point. Whether there is actual death does not matter. We have entered a more humane period in human history.”
“Humane until we start fighting people that can’t afford the damn US. Sending people to die while we only send things to be destroyed isn’t even in Patton’s universe.”
* *

“I don’t know, Deborah.” The Sarge’s wife lay next to him on the bed, reading.
“Well, she has a point, doesn’t she? They really can’t afford the new technology, yet those are the only countries we go after anymore. Doesn’t it seem unethical to you we send the US out there against their ill-equipped men, without even the uniforms of soldiers?”
“Maybe they shouldn’t of started shit with the U.S. military then.”
“…”
“I mean, that’s what it means to have the biggest, baddest military in the world, right? If war just isn’t worth it anymore, then why fight? That’s where we’re at now. We don’t even lose guys anymore, aside from that pudgy Controller Jockey with the coronary. But they reinstituted regular PT after that and we haven’t had another the past five years. We make the other guy die without even setting foot in their country. How could we lose?”
“…!”
“Yeah, I know, hon. But what do you want us to do, dumb down our equipment? Turn back all the years and the billions of dollars of R and D? No way, we have earned our spot at the top of the mountain and this is how we defend it, anyway we can!”
“That’s about enough of that, Sargent Horse’s Ass. Your arrogance is only over shadowed by your ignorance. Whatever happened to the inalienable rights of man, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Does that only apply to those at the top or are we better than that? Can we say ‘No, even though we can we do not have to?’ Can we do that, or is it John Wayne’s like you who are going to keep us in the business of Death?”
“Jesus, Deb, you’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“…”
“Alright, I get it. Machines versus men just don’t seem right. And if it keeps going the way it is, we’ll end up pulling back before they do. Who can afford to keep losing expensive equipment?”
* * *

The glow of a video screen splashes her face.
“Sarge, I need to talk to you.”
“Oh, shit. What now, Corporal?”
“I want to get out there.”
“So go, the door is open.”
“No, not out of here. Out there. Where the action is, hold a gun in my hand-”
“Not a chance, Corporal. Besides, you know you’d be-”
“-putting my life on the line? Possibly dying out there for my country? You can’t tell me you don’t think about it.”
“Yeah, but then I think about my wife and the fact we don’t have to go out there, we can sit right here and blast those fuckers whenever they pop up on the screen.”
“But it doesn’t feel right, does it. We’re just hiding back here. It’s…too easy. We could do this any where, any time. Who’s gonna stop us?
“Exactly!... Maybe it’s too easy, when everything’s going good, we shit cigars and piss Perrier. What’s to deter us when we have the money…Dammit, Corporal, this here conversation is a court-martial.”
“Sarge, I’m not worried about a fucking court-martial. The honor of battle has been taken out of our hands. Replaced with a piece of plastic. If it’s important enough to make the other guy die, shouldn’t we be there, doing the killing?”
* * * *

The camera pulls back from the sweeping green carpet, white marble crosses radiating out in formation.
“The sun rose on the day of her death just as any other day. First peaking out over the horizon, then solemnly thrusting its head out over the country, announcing to the world the start of a new day. The proclamation of the wonders to come are a stark reminder to those that are still with us, that to live is truly a blessing, and to die with honor a repayment of the grace given us a day, a moment, at a time. She is laid to rest a hero, a sublimation of the human spirit that will be lifted in exultation and carried in reverence to the deepest recesses of the human condition. And tonight as the sunsets, the gloaming spread bare at the doorstep of Night, remember that you too may be the hero, and that in this all owe a small price for the grace of a moment. Be the next proud bearer of the uniform she strode in, be the next face of a nation, be the one your parents speak about to the neighbors, a gleam in their eye. Come and be with us, won’t you?”

Trains

Sometimes you just wish that a story had a certain beginning: we were starting the happiest part of our lives, the worst part of our lives was over, or maybe just a nice explosion. Because sometimes it is enjoyable to listen to the happy times, or to hear the story of an emergence from the dark, or for the brightness and intensity of an explosion, for no apparent reason. But that is why you continue the story, for the explanation.
Of course, it can be equally enjoyable to hear about the beginning of someone’s darkest time, or the end of the happiest time in someone’s life. I think the explosion is still viable here, but now you can pull back to either just before or just after the event, like science and the Big Bang. How? They ask. And when? But not why.
This story could be about a train, approaching a tunnel, or entering a tunnel, or in the tunnel, or emerging from the tunnel, or hitting something at any point, and exploding.
So this train has people on it, or it has cattle, oil, coal, products from China, or riders on It’s a Small World. The kids are happy or scared, the parents are restless, or humming. But before this they were waiting in line, so the story could be about the wait, or the endless humming afterwards. But that is very personal, as in it might not matter to anybody who wasn’t there. And that story is a little boring. Unless there was an explosion. Then everybody would know, and some of them would care.

Race and Culture

Race and Culture




Oh, first comes to mind a pedantic argument
about an Olympian race, Greek or by foot,
godly or man.
Literally, I guess race is a competition,
but I am a poor translator.
Whose first, better, best,
and worse, or worst,
whose the loser, the lost, the last?
Words are powerful and demeaning,
celestial orbits of stereotypes;
epithets and labels are just so easy.
Jokes, crude and witty, can still be on par
with the club to ostracize and obliterate
competition.
Race is an ornament for a country that came
to terms with a standard of laws for
slave owners and a Constitution
that declares all men created equal.
Hold on a minute.
What are we racing towards?
Conclusions about who-
you are, what-
you think, what-
can I get. Hearts racing like hummingbirds.
It is easier to judge than to know,
fear is more prevalent than respect,
but not more profound. The problem
with race is that there must be a first,
but then who really wins in a
dance of dunces?

Culture, not like the Petri dish,
grows in both hot and cold climates.
Sweltering, sunny, steamy climates, and
frozen, wind-blown, bring-in-all-the-firewood,
the water-in-the-toilet-is-ice
cold. Consumption is culture.
People is culture. You and me is
culture. For better or worse, Bill O’Reilly is
culture, a part of it, the decay, the labels,
the Petri dish. The deus ex machina, the surprise.
But what do I know.