Saturday, February 25, 2012

LIFE'S LITTLE HAPPENSTANCES

"Oscar, this is going to be easy pickins."
"I don't know, man, I ain't been into no robbin people nor stores."
"OK, listen, Oscar, you stupid mother fucker, you ain't got nothng to jangle in your pocket, no coins to rub together and no pot to piss in. So, what chance you got. You ain't, mother fucker." Oscar shook his head.
Bong was just getting warmed up. Bong got his name from carting water pipes and other dope smoking apparatus around. Want a pipe, Bong is your man.
"You got an old lady who will be on your ass and a little one and teenager and no work. This is bout ten minutes. Nobody gets hurt and we can get some change. I'm telling you, mother fucker."
It did look simple. Service station, one attendant.
"I don't know." Oscar watched this BMW pull into the station. "What the fuck," he smiles. "Look like those crackers got them a rider." Underneath the car something was dragging. Looked like two long steel pipes. This white guy gets out, on his knees struggling. "Hey," Oscar calls out, "just back over it."
"Leave them be," Bong said. "Let their asses get gone."
Oscar walked over to the car. "Let me see here." He knelt down. "Damn, this is a low slung car."
"Yeah, I know. The only thing I don't like about it. A little struggle and Oscar stood with the object. "Well, I'll be, an old folks walker." I've seen it all now." He smiled. "A fine 'Beemer' overcome by an old folks walker.

I am at the airport to retrieve my girlfriend. She has been to Omaha to visit her family. I know traffic is going to be a bitch: Friday night, I'm scared of the dark. It goes back to Vietnam. Everything happened at night. You sat around all day waiting and knowing that "Charles" as we called the Vietcong, was going to get your ass in the middle of the night. But, it is worth it all to see my girlfriend. I am like a teenager around her. I can't wait, my blood pressure is sky hight. I get lost going to the airport, a place I've been a thousand times. I see her. It is like she has come back from Vietnam. We hug, kiss, crazy like. Finally make it to car, kiss, hug, touch. Finally get on the road. Run over something in the road. It hangs up under the car. Damn, what a time to have this happen! Can't get it out from under the car. Risk my life almost in traffic. Finally make it to a service station. Black guy yells over telling me to back over the two long aluminum pipes stuck under the car. He walks over, kneels down and wrestles the two pipes out from where they are lodged under the car, takes five minutes. "Thanks."
"No problem," he says as he walks away. On the spot I decide something,
I pull out my money clip. I only have hundreds. What the hell, I give him one. His eyes are big as saucers. He is so happy. "Bong I'm going home."
"Oscar, you stupid fucker, you'll be sorry".

Oscar makes his way toward home. The $100 is going to buy some groceries and give his teenager her lunch money. He stops at the bar. When he pays for his beer with the hundred, the bar keep puts his marker over the hundred twice to see if it is real. "you are a lucky mother fucker."
"yeah, I am."
Oscar yells as he comes in the door. His little one runs to him. Where is your Mom? He heard the TV. His wife is white as a sheet. "What'e Up?"
"Your friend Bong robbed a store and was killed by the police. "

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Ray's Book-FireHouses

Making good progressLet's get together just us and talk books. Hank doesn't know shit. You have to admire a guy like Hank, he's out there trying stuff but let us not forget the story Andy told us: the Adm got thrown out of ukelele class because he tried to take over the class as he thought he knew more than the teacher. To me, there are mainly two things that have to be considered: what do you want to do with the book and what are you willing to do. Something like LuLu is OK if you want one copy amd mostly do the work yourself. If you want a really good looking book that you are proud of, you have to go another route and set it up. Let's think toward next week for a sit down. on the rewrite/reprint of the Firehouse Almanac. More consultations in the near term for technical details. Hank has offered to help with the upload to the Web printer. Would you be interested in putting the Airborne Press cachet on this edition? No big deal, I think it would be a good fit.