"Dear Me" sample #4

Writing Samples - Novels
"Dear Me"
Fourth Sample

I don’t think about religion much anymore – I just realized that a few days ago – it’s
kind of like it never even happened, all that thinking – trying to figure it out – now
it’s all so simple - it all makes sense – or at least, most of it – and what doesn’t,
I can’t do anything about, anyway – so, I don’t think about it much

What a relief!

Chapter 197

       Politicians were powerless to stop it.
       Hell, they admired it! “Why didn’t we think of this?” had to have been heard in dark-paneled backrooms all
round The Hill. To which someone had to have said: “Are you kidding? It works.”
         That’s why.

Chapter 198

       “At least we're free.”
       You heard this, too.
       Well, Dad did—all the time! But I was often standing next to him when he—and I, by proximity and
association—heard it. So, I can faithfully report these occurrences. And that:
       Anytime he, Dad (and later, I), dared to criticize, well, just about anything, really—but especially anything in
This Country, even The Government (which, was designed to be criticized)—he (and I, then later, I, by myself)
would get…
       The Look.
       Which, would be followed closely by…
       The Words.
       And let’s not forget that these words were said with...
       The Tone.
       That You ungrateful rotten little mouthing-off bastard tone. As in: “Things are pretty good. Don't rock the
boat.” Or, more precisely:
       “DON'T ROCK THE BOAT, YOU LOUDMOUTHED OPINIONATED SHITHEAD.   IF I LOSE ALL THIS
GREAT STUFF I HAVE BECAUSE OF KNOWING YOU, I'LL KILL YOU WHERE YOU STAND!” As in:
       “It doesn’t affect me, anyway, what your saying, what you’re blaspheming about.” And, once again, for
precision-sake:
       “SO, SHUT THE HELL UP BEFORE SOMEONE HEARS YOU SAYING IT AND SEES ME LISTENING TO
YOU AND IT STARTS AFFECTING ME!” With the completely unacceptable and decidedly un-free result:
       “And they come and take away all my stuff.”

Chapter 199

       “At least we’re free, asshole.”
       Hooray! A variation!
       I heard that one from one of a guys who had been Jackson Gerald Orlando Junior Jackson's boss at The
Greasy Gullett, or something, and had thought himself bulletproof.
       Jackson Gerald Orlando Junior Jackson was our one friend who would give you (me) the shirt off his back in
a blizzard (and once did ). I am sad to report:
       He was my only black friend.
       Junior, as everyone called him, was probably the nicest, most searingly honest human being I've ever
known—funny name, Don King hair, terrified of snakes, couldn't swim to save his life, but one hell of a pilot.
Marine Air Corps, or something, Civil Air Patrol. Whatever Presidents do to get out of going to war.
       Junior got in on some EEO deal; his father, Jackson Gerald Ocala Junior Jackson, raised a stink with the only
black politician in central Florida at the time, Bob “Blue” Smith. (He was so black he was “blue,” as they used to
say.) He, the senior Junior, in turn, raised a stink with Senator Claude “Red” Pepper—the headline read, “Blue
sees Red in Tallahassee”—and the next thing the junior Junior knew, he was in the cockpit of an F-104 chasing
ducks and errant seagulls across Lake Okeechobee.
       Well, I’m here to tell you:
       Junior could fly! He could pull a loop-d-loop inside an el rollo while flipping an eight pointer and telling
genuinely funny race jokes to his puking passenger. That would be:
       Me.
       Junior couldn't swim a lick, though, as I mentioned. As a result: Junior drowned in his own bathtub.
       We all suspected Arthur.
       But back in the good old days when Junior was alive—especially good for him—he had a hard time staying
employed.
       It wasn’t his fault.
       The way the Greasy Gullett guy, Joe Pantera—it said so on his Greasy uniform—put it to my sole soul buddy
was:
       “See, Junior, they'll never fire me. They can't. They can't afford to. I'm too valuable. Unlike you, who
can't seem to come to work without a damn afro-pick in his hair.”
       But! When The Greasy Gullett “restaurant” chain started going under, the North Miami store was the first to
go. It had been losing money for two months, so Joe Pantera—he had changed his name from Jose Ortega...to
that!—went with it. He wept, “They fired me like that NASA jerk who blew up the Shuttle that time.”
       Joe got his news from The Irrational Enquirer. Whatever.
       Junior saw Pantera on the street later, begging change at a stoplight with a sign that read: “Disabled vet will
work for food. God Bles.”
       The self-designated semi-imported car-name yo-yo—who, by the way, was not a war veteran, or even a
veterinarian— bless his frozen heart, couldn't even spell. But worse: He didn't recognize Junior! So, Junior
dropped something in his bucket:
       An afro-pick.
       But to show you who's who and what: Junior felt so bad about it, he drove around for the next three days
until he found Pantera on another corner with a new sign: “Losing a kidney. Need surgery. Will work for food.
God Bles.”
       Still! But at least the other sign made sense.
       And still, Pantera didn’t recognize his former employee. This time, Junior gave him a hundred dollars, but
he, Junior, still couldn't sleep—even though he knew the man was a liar and a creep of monumental proportions.
Even when Junior read in the Herald , in a Special Investigative Series, that Pantera was one of those “homeless”
people living in a 4/3 in Pembroke Pines with a in-ground pool because he was making over a thousand dollars a
day on his corner and would, and did, kill to keep it. (Pantera did eighteen-to-life for the murder of another
homeless guy who had changed his name from Dave Fredericks to Freaky Me-T, when he decided to pursue a
career in rap, then found that he could make more panhandling at Joe Pantera’s favorite corner—Red-Bird, as
the intersection of Red Road and Bird Road was known back then—until Pantera came back from a three-week
vacation in Bermuda and beat Me-T to death with an old Greasy Gullett fry basket, the one thing he, Joe, had
stolen out of sheer defiance when Corporate gave him the boot.)   Even then!
       I miss Junior.

Chapter 200

       “At least we’re free to watch TV and get the truth.”
       This one shouldn’t require explanation, but:
       Back in the earliest early part of this new century there was an exceedingly not very good television show
which made fun of the then-current president. The administration and the First (whoopee!) Family expressed
their extreme dissatisfaction that this show was on the airwaves. (The free airwaves owned by the public. Of
America. Who were watching. To get the truth. Or be entertained or just numbed down a little.)
       Within weeks, the show was off.
       Dad said, “Now, I am not, as you know, a conspiracy theorist. I believe that individuals can screw up
everything just fine, completely ruin it! pretty much on their own, if they are mean and clever enough, and in
some position—any position really—of power; they don't need an underground behind-closed-doors cabal of
seriously-compromised anti-constitutional goofballs to help them. They are quite capable on their own. They
don’t even need to live in Idaho. One or two other closeted fascists and the rest fall in line. Put one in as Vice
President or Attorney General and you get an absolute bonanza of rights-depleting flag-waving enthusiasm.
Stanley, this is to say:
       “Who needs conspiracies when conspiracy is so out in the open? But there it is: You at least have to
wonder. But hey, at least we’re free, huh? That is what you said, isn’t it?”
       The rest of the explanation:
       Stanley Kroener, a distant friend of Dad’s who watched RNN 24/7—the Republican News Network (you
figure it out)—was telling Dad how great we had it “here in a totally free society” because we could get “the
unvarnished truth” from “one, single, unbiased news source, for free.” Stanley and my dad were discussing
cable television.
       Dad said, “Stan, there are so many things wrong with that statement that I can’t even begin to dissect it and
fix it for you. But I will tell you this in retaliation:”
       And he told the Goofy President Show story—that’s what he actually called it. And he said, “And Stanley, for
God’s sake, even you have to admit we have a goofy president.”
       Stanley said, “I don’t have to admit any damn such thing.” And he said something about being happy we
finally had a “godly, God-fearing man in the White House.”
       Which, was precisely when he lost Dad completely. “So…you like fearing Him?”
       Stanley was perplexed. “The President?”
       Dad said, “No, that’s me. I meant: God.”
       “You think you’re God?” Stanley was even more perplexed.
       “Well, yes maybe, but that’s a different conversation. I meant: the President.”
       “That’s what I said.”
       “But that’s not what I meant.”
       “I’m lost.”
       “Well, try getting your news somewhere else.”
       Stanley thought a moment and said, “You know, in Russia, they hang people for saying the things you do.”
Dad asked him, “Is that a commendation, a warning or a travel suggestion?”
       Stanley sighed heavily. He said, “I’m saying: At least you’re free to say it,” and Dad said:
       “Bingo!”

Chapter 201

       “I apologize for the following statements in advance.”
       This was the one time Dad spoke at a Rotary Club.
       (“Round and round they went about nothing, DJ,” he told me, after. “Now I know why they call it the
Rotary Club!”)
   He got up and said, “But: Fascists are fascists whether you call them that or patriots or Commies or Just Good
Americans. They want things for themselves that they don’t want for others.”
For us.
       “And please understand: I am not apologizing for having said this. I’m sorry that it can, that it needs to, be
said at all. And, further, most significantly, that I have been unable to do anything about it and that apparently
you don’t want to.”
       He said they were staring quietly, but mentally running out to the rail and the tar and the feathers and the
cattle prod and the noose.
       “I thought we fought a war, The War, to end this stuff,” he told them. “I thought it was at least in remission.
We need to chemo the country, guys. Quickly.” Meaning:
       “Just because it looks different, maybe even has a different name, doesn't mean it is different. It’s still what
we fought and were supposed to have killed. But:
       “We always seem to leave a little evil left, just enough, to give future presidents and their military machine
something to do to ensure reelection.
       “Have you noticed that?”
       I had. Hell, I was an active, pro-active part of it!
       And he told them this story or how I'm watching tv one day with him, Dad—and this was on CNN!—and the
call-in topic was: Should We Torture the People We Have Arrested and Are Holding on Flimsy-At-Best Charges
Like Lying on Credit Applications, Should We Torture Them To Find Out if They Might Know…Something?
       Torture them.
       And the overwhelming answer from Free American Voices was: “YES! We should. Definitely! We need to
know…something. Just in case. So, yeah, sure, GO FOR IT!:”
       Dad reiterated to the Rotarians: “Torture them.” And he told them how he actually, literally, threw up on
my coffee table when he saw the results of this “unofficial poll” and heard the anonymous drooling, hopeful call-
in voices calling for, “Whatever it takes, Arthel!”
       I was too depressed to clean it up. (I still owe Millie for that one.)
       Later, I had an anxiety attack of astronomical proportions and couldn't sleep for a month without
medication. Some friends, at the time, said I was “over-reacting.” I got rid of those friends before the first
Paxcil found my hiatal hernia.
       “But at least,” as Dad told the silent boys club attendees, “we—and I stress the word “we”—are free.   Free to
condone torture from the comfort of our family rooms. Free to watch TV anytime we want it, searching for the
truth or a funny game show that gives decent prize money or a new washing machine.”
       Free! We Free Americans who watched TV but didn’t see anything unusual: Deserved Arthur.
       There was quiet in Rotarian Hall. Then, a miracle happened:
       They didn’t kill my Dad.
       They applauded him. These mostly conservative businessmen, these pillars of the entrepreneurial
community—some of whom had actually fought those wars for those reasons—heard what he was saying, even if
they didn’t like it, even it wasn’t said the way they wanted to hear it said, even if they didn’t want to hear it at all!
Several gentlemen in their seventies wept. Then, of course:
       Nothing changed.

Chapter 202

       The point of this—most likely the point of all of this—is:
       Nobody knows a good thing when they’ve got it.
       NOBODY! (This includes you and me and everyone in between and not.) So, just: LEAVE WELL ENOUGH
ALONE, DAMMIT! Because, the alternative is:
       Arthur.
       So you see what I’m saying? I’m saying, For The Love of God People:
       SHUT UP!

Chapter 203

       “DON'T ROCK THE BOAT, DAMMIT!
       “THEY'LL COME ARREST US ALL!”

I'm glad I don't have to listen to myself rant - I would probably find me very
annoying - I would of course have to agree - after all, I'm me, and I would pretty
much have to agree with myself - unless I was schizophrenic - which, thankfully, I am
not - (Yes you are! No I'm not! Shut up! No, you shut up! - Ha-ha-ha! No, you ha-
ha-ha! No, you!) - other things perhaps, but not that

But still, I don't know if I would like me if, for instance, I met myself on the
street or at a party and I was mouthing off about this stuff that I always mouth off
about - but I would have to agree, even if I didn't like me! - well, maybe I wouldn't
have to - but I would anyway - it's what keeps me going - mad, but going

I’m not so sure about Dad – I saw him at parties – but, the thing was, always was, he
was right – about a lot of things

And every one of them still pisses me off.

LETTER #27

LETTER #28