A Night On The Wild Side

Tonight is The Girl's birthday. Hey, Birthday Girl! We went down to the river and sat around a bonfire with my nephew, who was also born today. He was partying hardy. Way hardy. His friends were doing beer bongs. Everybody was toasty. Well, none of my group was, but all of my nephew's group was. One guy was telling Chuck Norris sayings. He told the one about Chuck Norris walking down the street with an erection. There were no survivors. The Girl asked him 'What?' He explained to her that an erection is when your wiener gets hard. She told him she knew what an erection was, she just didn't hear what he said. He said 'Oh, I didn't know if you ever saw one.' He was fairly toasty. He had us all cracking up, but you know, it's sad to think anybody would memorize all those Chuck Norris sayings to impress girls.

They Lied

I decided to read something different, something timeless and classic. So I read Wuthering Heights. Mainly because there was a copy of it at the Goodwill. Let me tell you, whoever decided that was a good book must have been drinking heavy. Probably Absinthe. Isn't that supposed to drive you insane or something? I can safely say I didn't like any of the characters. I thought Heathcliff was supposed to be some real romantic catch. He was an ass. And Catherine was an idiot.

The back of the book says: "These are two of the most unforgettable lovers of all time, driven to a tragic fate by wild, intense emotion and strange imagination. Wuthering Heights has been called the most haunting love story in the English language." What a crock of shit. They're unforgettable like the sight of a really bloody accident is unforgettable. I knew before I started it that Catherine dies, and believe me, I was looking forward to it. I wish every character in the book could have died.

Sassafras, Part 89

Rick

“No, you don’t understand. I can’t take your car. You’ve got to come with me. I don’t know how to drive a stick shift. I can’t. You have to come with me, please.”

Shit. I forgot all about that. Now what? I looked over at McDaniel's body. “Joan, I need you to do something for me. You’re going to have to take McDaniel’s truck. I need you to get his keys out of his pocket.”

She looked from me to him and back again, shaking her head. “No, no, I can’t do that. You have to come with me.”

“Joan, I can’t. I want to, but I can’t. You have to take his truck.” She just kept shaking her head. I would have gotten the keys myself, but I didn’t think I could make it to his body without collapsing, and I didn’t think Joan could take that. I could tell I was in trouble. It was getting harder to concentrate, and I was having trouble breathing. I started to reach over and brush my fingers against her cheek, but my hand was covered with blood. “You have to, Joan. For Billy. He’s out there, all alone. He needs you, Joan. You’ve got to go. When they realize you lied they’re going to come back here and they’re not going to be happy. They’ll make you tell them the truth. Then they’ll kill you and they’ll kill Billy. You’ve got to get his keys.”

“But he’s dead. I can’t.”

“Yes, you can, Joan. You have to. Just reach your hand in his pocket and pull out his keys. Get his wallet, too. You’re going to need all the money you can get.” I pulled my wallet out of my pocket while she twisted her fingers together, her eyes darting to the body on the floor “Come on, Babe, you’ve got to do it.”

He was lying face down in a pool of blood. She sat staring at him and shaking for a minute, then knelt down next to him and touched his leg before pulling her hand back and shaking her head again. “You can do it, Joan. You have to.” Finally she reached her hand in his front left pocket. She looked at me and shook her head when she pulled her hand out empty. “Okay, Babe, okay. Try the other pocket.”

At first I wasn’t sure if she heard me or not. She just sat and looked at me. “Come on, Joan. You’ve got to do it.” She whimpered a little then took a deep breath and moved back next to him, this time kneeling right in the puddle on his right side. She pulled her hand out with a key chain gripped in her fingers. “Get his wallet, too,” I reminded her.

She came back and put his keys and wallet on the table next to mine. I pulled the money out of both wallets and handed it to her, then pulled a couple of credit cards out of my wallet. "If you need gas or food pay cash as long as you can, then use my credit card, they'll be looking for yours. If you have to use plastic start covering your tracks, just in case they realize you have my card. Circle around, backtrack, change course. Don't let them anticipate where you're going. Don't stop until you get out of Missouri." She slipped the money and the keys into her coat pocket.

I picked up McDaniel's gun. "Do you know how to use this?"

"I've never even touched a BB gun. I don’t even like flyswatters.”

"It's easy. This is the safety. Make sure the safety is on unless you want to shoot it. When you want to shoot it, just push the safety in, point, and pull the trigger."

I handed her the gun and had her put the safety on and off, and showed her how to hold it before it joined the keys and money.

I unclipped my cell phone from my belt and held it out. "Take my phone with you, too. There's a number on there, Uncle John. He's my DEA contact. As soon as you're safe call him and tell him where you are, but don't call until you're safe. He'll take care of you."

"I don't want to leave you.”

"You've got to, Babe.” It was getting harder and harder for me to breathe. I was afraid the bullet might have hit my lung, or maybe there was just a lot of internal bleeding. Either way I had to get her out of there so I could get to the hospital. "Come on, Babe, I survived seven years in prison, I think I can survive a couple of days without you. You've got to go get Bill and get out of here before it's too late."

“No, I’m not going to leave you.” She threw her arms around my neck. “You’ve got to come with me. Please, Rick. I love you. Don’t make me go.” I slipped an arm around her waist and held her for a minute. I couldn’t feel any pain anymore. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. “You’ve got to come with me, Rick. I can’t leave you here. Please, don’t make me go.”

“Yes you can, Joan. You have to.” She was crying and shaking. I stroked her back, trying to calm her down. “Please, Joan. You know you have to go. Billy’s out there and he needs you. You’re the only family he has. I love you, Joan, but Billy needs you right now. You’ve got to go.”

For a minute she just sat next to me, her forehead pressed against mine, then she kissed me. Her lips were trembling and I could feel the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I love you, Rick,” she whispered before standing up and running out of the room.

After she left I didn’t wait long before I tried calling 911. I fell to my knees when I tried to get out of the chair. I would have fallen flat on my face if I hadn’t been holding onto the edge of the table. I started crawling and barely got to the door before my arms gave out. I don’t know how long I lay there. I was barely conscious when I heard voices, but I couldn't tell who it was. I didn't have enough breath or strength to say anything. I looked up and saw Sneider bending over me.

"What happened?" he asked.

"She got away. It was McDaniel." I had to stop and catch my breath. "He was letting her go. I tried to stop him, but he pulled his gun.”

I passed out before the ambulance got there. When I came to I was in a hospital. I could hear people talking and felt them moving me and cutting off my clothes. I tried to ask about Joan, but somebody held me down and told me to relax. That was never going to happen I thought right before everything went black.

So Very, Very Wrong

Today, I saw something that made me just shudder. I was minding my own business, on my way to the restroom at work. I walked into a stall and guess what I saw? A banana peal sticking out of the little trash bin for feminine hygiene products. I can think of several things you could do with a banana in a bathroom. Only one has any nutritionally redeeming qualities. I really don't want to know what happened to that banana, but I can tell you one thing for sure. I'll never look at anybody holding a banana the same way again.

Thank Fucking God

I love to read. I could read books all day long and never get bored. A book has to be really bad for me to quit reading it. I mean make my eyeballs bleed, make my brain hurt bad. I just finished a book that almost made me quit reading. It's so bad I'm not even going to write it's name down so you don't read it just to see if it's really as bad as I'm saying. Just trust me, it was so bad I thought about throwing it away when I was done with it. It was set on a big plantation about 20 years before the Civil War. There were three main problems, and two of them were dialog.

First of all, some of the characters were slaves, and there was a lot of 'Oh, Massah, don' beat dis po' chile' and other early Ebonic variations. Drove me crazy. Maybe people really talked like that, but I don't want to read it. The other problem was the N word. God, if I had a nickel for every time that lady wrote nigger I'd at least be able to afford a Happy Meal. Maybe Mom can clear this up, but I didn't think back in those days they used that word all that much. Oh, and every now and then the author must have used a thesaurus because out of nowhere there would be a word that belonged in the SAT test instead of a novel, like avuncular or lubricity. What?

The main problem was just the story itself sucked in my opinion. A wealthy family torn apart by greed and lust, wouldn't be so bad. I could live with that basic theme. I could write that basic theme. What I didn't like was I was expecting it to be a romance novel, and it wasn't. There was the usual saccharine innocent young couple gazing into each other's eyes, but almost all of the lust was a bunch of slave owners getting it on with their beautiful young slave girls, cruel whipping scene optional but usually included or threatened. Even when the guys were with their wives they were usually disappointed because they thought a good whipping was just what their wives needed, or if they were with what they kept calling their bed wenches they kept fantasizing that they were really showing their wives who's boss.

Yuck.

So as soon as I finished that book I had to read another one to get the nasty residue out of my brain. Happily, the next book I read was actually really good. Night Watch by Suzanne Brockmann. I don't usually go for the whole An Officer and a Gentleman, ooh look there's a man in uniform theme, and if I did the man in uniform would probably be a policeman or fireman, not a soldier. Not that I have anything against soldiers. They do look damn fine in those uniforms, and you know a soldier has to be in pretty good physical shape, no spare tire or couch potato ass or anything. Maybe it's just because I grew up watching Emergency! and Adam 12. The only military series I can think of is MASH, and I don't think that show made anybody want to go join the Army.

Sassafras, Part 88

Rick

Joan was standing there, a terrified look on her face, holding a high-heeled shoe in each hand and looking from McDaniel on the floor to me struggling to stand up. I lurched up, but she backed against the wall, still aiming those shoes at me. I put the gun down on the table and held up my hands.

"It's okay, Babe, it's okay. Nobody's going to hurt you. I swear to God nobody's going to touch you." My side started aching and I had to lean on the table to keep from falling over.

She dropped her shoes and rushed over to me. "My God, you're shot," she said. "He shot you." She helped me to a chair and I sank down in it, holding my hand tight against my side. "Let me look at that.”

"It's okay. Just a flesh wound. I'll be fine."

She looked like she was about to go into shock. I had to get her together. "Joan, I'm working undercover for the DEA. They've been watching Sneider for six months. I'm sorry all this happened to you. You've got to hold it together for me, okay? Joan! Look at me. Everything's going to be fine now. You just have to get Bill and get out of town. Is Bill really in that shed? Joan! Look at me. Is Billy in that shed?"

She looked dazed, and then shook her head no. "He's in an empty house about three blocks from his house. I lied.”

"Good girl. What happened? I tried to call.”

“I broke my phone. I was trying to get to a pay phone when they caught me.”

“I’m glad you didn’t try going back to your house. It’s gone. Stapleton torched it.”

“What! How bad is it?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t hang around, but it looked pretty bad when I was there.”

She was having a hard time coming to grips with everything that happened, but she didn’t have time to sit around talking. “Joan, you've got to go get Bill and get out of town. You've got to get out of here before anybody gets back. Go on, Joan. Get Bill and get out of town."

"Okay, let's go," she said and started putting her shoes back on.

"Do you know anybody that you trust that would let you borrow their car?" I asked. "Joan, do you know anybody that would let you borrow their car?

"Yeah, I think Deana would let me."

"Good," I said and pulled my keys out of my pocket. "Take my car and go get Bill, then go to Deana's and switch cars."

She took my keys and then looked at me, confused. "You've got to come, too. I'm not leaving without you."

I shook my head. "You've got to go, Babe. I lied, too. I don't think this is a flesh wound."

"Then I'm taking you to the hospital.”

"No," I insisted, "if you don't get out of here, go someplace safe, they’ll kill you."

"They'll kill you, too, when they find out you're with the DEA. I'm not leaving you here to die."

"Nobody knows but you. I'll be fine, but I can't go with you and you can't stay here. You've got to go. I'll tell them McDaniel was going to let you go, and when we fought the gun went off and you got away."

“No, Rick. I’m not leaving without you.”

“You have to, Babe. I’d just slow you down.”

“I don’t care. I’m not leaving you like this. I can’t.” Her lips were quivering and I could see tears threatening to break loose. “I love you,” she finally managed as the tears started rolling down her cheek.

I reached my arm around her and pulled her close. She leaned against me, pressing her face against my shoulder and crying softly. “I love you, too, Babe. I think I fell in love with you the moment I saw you.”

“Then you have to come with me,” she insisted, trying to pull me up with her.

“Joan, I can’t. You’ve got to take my car and get Bill and get the hell out of town before everybody comes back.”

"I can’t take your car.”

"You have to. I'll be okay," I said. "After you're gone I'll call 911. Come on, you've got to go."

No, Not Really

I know you might find it hard to believe, but I do think about things besides Sassafras. Sometimes a scene or character will just pop into my head and I'll write a couple of pages about it. I decided I wanted to write a story with a real bitch of a main character. I mean, at the beginning I want to really hate her. So I wrote a little about her. Then later when I called The Man he asked me if there was anything I wanted to talk about. He just read what I wrote about being abused by my stepfather when I was 4. But it wasn't me, I explained. It was the bitch character I was writing about. He should have known it wasn't true. I don't even have a stepfather. I guess it must have been good writing if he thought it really happened.