A
convict holding a shiv and a guard was conniving to escape.
The
cold rain continued, no matter how hot the action inside the cell block became.
Mike Hammer, unshaven for days, looked at his grimy tee shirt. He yelled "Hey warden, this damn
"cell"-phone don't work! What'cha gonna do about it?"
The
warden, groggy from lack of sleep, rolled off the couch, and lit one up. He got
to his feet and drug himself to the window over-looking the scene of burning
mattresses and injured prisoners. His gold plated 45 spat once, and he yelled,
"Can you hear me now?"
Yeah,
"Ward", I can hear you now. I can hear other things too. Like that
lying bitch testifying against me. How was I to know she was the wardens
sister. All I saw was a cute short girl that everyone called
"Propeller" girl. I found out later that night that when she yelled
"Contact!" you had better be ready.
The
strike, disorder, act of prisoner aggression, dragged on into the third day of
dank cheese sandwiches. I never thought I would dream of some fried baloney.
Yeah, baloney like the promises Mr. Warden makes. Ha! He said replacing the
guards with drones would save the state money. Well I don’t know about that
but, it made rioting a lot less profitable. You can't hold a drone hostage.
Hmmm. This riot is fruitless. Just like me. I think an Asian pear would be nice
about now. And I don't mean that bar maid Iso Horney over on third street. I
want one fresh off the vine and dripping with flavor. I'm losing my desire to
sleep on the concrete floor. I won't burn my mattress next time. Will this day
never end?
Talk
about a turn of events! I was wonder
what the hullabaloo was about. The
warden gave in to our demand about the body cavity searches each Wednesday.
Ja-he-us! Talk about ruining your day. And some of the worse jokes you’ve ever
heard. I can do without both. Especially when the guards would call out “Number
56” and all the guards would just laugh their ass off. I think the jokes had gone old the day they
started numbering them. Anyway, I liked
number “77”, Gez that was funny.
You
can’t win a war without some opposition to.
The screws are just jousting with their drones and biding their time.
Ever so often they send us enough bread and cheese to choke a goat. They may be trying to clog us up and later
put us on a Metamucil IV. Maybe a Metamucil
hat with an extra tube. With friends
like these, you don’t need an enema.
I’m
thinking of having a sit down with the head screw and put the evil eye on him.
The real spang. I figure I can out think him. He don’t have over a third grade
education… Damn it’s starting to rain again. The sewers are messed up. This
ain’t gonna be pretty.
Speaking
of pretty, the Maceachran Glen, or dingle as the locals calls it. Magnificent hundred year old oak trees, nut
trees, fruit trees, and animals about.
That would be the place to wile away your last days. You could live off the
fauna and flora and reflect on your…
life of crime. There would be plenty of places to bury bodies if you had to
take a part time job to make ends meet. Speaking of making ends meet, that
reminds me of Mary Five Fingers a call girl whose calling card read “Call me
anything just call me often.” Well enough daydreaming, time for a damn cheese
sandwich and some toilet water. Better check on the “Act of Prisoner
Aggression” and see how to end this go-no-where affair.
Which
reminds me of some affairs and dealings I had with an online Ho-House run by a
nice little girl named Dorothy. Not click-your-heels kind of a Dorothy, this
was a real woman. She even named her web site Dot-Org-asm. She claimed she
could change soft-ware into hard-ware almost instantly. Must have been
religious, cause “laying on of hands” was involved, and she wanted the
customers to put the “Fear of God” into her. Sounds backwards to me. In the
construction industry there are Front –Hoes, Dorothy may have been a back-hoe.
Whoa!
What is that smell? Ah it’s the stopped up sewer. Thank goodness my olfaction
abilities are not comparable to a bear. They can smell a scent from ten miles
away. I’m ten feet from this river of no return. And I can bear-ly stand it.
Ha!
I
must seek an audience with the Warden to end this stand-off. We need to tope it
off. Get on with it. Maybe if we give in we can get some special treatment. I’m
reminded of when I was in Vietnam, no not during the war, after when things had
settled down somewhat. They had killed all the professors and anyone of
intellect, so I felt fairly safe. I was there on business, not monkey business,
to land a contact with a company called “Tope-aries R Us”. It was an outfit selling bushes and Busch
Beer. They said people couldn’t “leave” it alone. I was to have some special
treatment. The treatment turned out to be a Wax Job from a local nail parlor.
Apparently you went there to get nailed and that would blow all the wax out of
your ears. I turned them down, lost the contract, got fired, and had to take a
job on a Chinese junk to work my way back to civilization. It was a bummer, a
bad summer.
I
have an audience with his honor The Warden. The trip to his office is strewn
with danger in that some of the guards and drones are hacked off at me for
exercising my rights to be a ‘special person who had a difficult childhood”.
Phooey on them. I stroll along taking as
much time as possible. Ever wonder why they use concrete one place and asphalt
another? Hmmm. Must be money. Or durability. I could dig thru asphalt with a
spoon on a hot day, and an asphalt prison would melt and run down the
hill. I’m walking on a concrete side
walk that has been sawn with grooves to increase traction and allow water to
run off and to keep us prisoners from planeing when we start running, Ha. I
eyeball the perimeter walls looking for a place that might be hidden from view
from those little guard towers. The guard’s castles. More like gazebo’s to spy
on us prisoners. Well, the walk de-jour
is over, lean against the wall, don’t eyeball me bro, frisk, that wasn’t so
bad. Speaking of frisk, I knew this girl in Frisco… that’s another story.
Some
of my problems started in the courtroom the day of my bond hearing. The Judge
had just said that my excuses were silly, pointless, and in fact fatuous. As
fate would have it about the time he said that, one of the other prisoners, let
loose with about a nine on the rectal scale. The Judge says “Excuse me?”, and I
said “That’s OK judge, I thought it was the horse.” He obviously had never
heard the joke. I need to learn to keep my mouth shut, and not “pun”-ish my
self. That episode was thirty days or bond at fifty grand. I took the days.
Maybe I can catch up on my reading. I hear Henney Youngman has a new book out.
I
sat down in his holiness’s office and looked over the back wall where he keeps
his medals for prisoner nocking from all over the world. He must be on a farewell
tour or something. I bet he wants to make and example out of me to show the other
prisoners what good treatment they can receive if they go along with what Mr.
Wonderful suggest. I got apprehensive when he pulled out a long silver cylinder
which, aha! It was a car antenna from a 1981 Toyota Celica. A weapon to be
respected, and a pointer that “The Penguin” would be proud of. He proceeded to
tell me that my pardon had come through. Whipping the desk a few times to
punctuate a sentence now and then. I was quite elated to hear this. Graduation
was always one of my favorite events. Praise the lord! A prayer for Jesus! It
was getting on toward evening when vespers would be in order so I asked if that
was all, I had to get back to my rioting. Thank goodness, he let me head back
to my humble abode.
Humble
is right. I busy myself by packing for my release. Hmmm, looks like I’m through
packing already. Everything I have sheet, blanket, mattress, comb, toothpaste,
and toothbrush belong to the man. I hope I haven’t lost any of his precious
items, cause I can only pay with time, like a time traveler, all I have is
time. I kick back and listen to the sounds of the cleanup crews bitching about having
to clean up from the “demonstration of civil disobedience”. I reflect on being
introduced back into society. I don’t think words like shiv, screw, and lifer
are going to be in common use. I’ll get a Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate
Dictionary and come up with a list of socially acceptable phrases and words to
learn, a chrestomathy
kind of thing. A kit and caboodle of gentle words and phrases. Gees, what a
life. Where did I go wrong? I remember stealing a Taffy bar when I was in the
first grade over on White Horse Road at a store across the road from Welcome Elementary
School. You know the taffy bars with the white wrapper, and I don’t mean “Vanilla
Ice” dammit, a wrapper that had a little guy flying on a carpet, Turkish Taffy
I guess. The start of a road of crime, with all it’s twist, turns, and various
states, hard, brittle, soft and gooey like taffy, like a non Newtonian fluid. My
sweet-tooth had let me down.
Here
I sit waiting for the footsteps to come and take to the discharge area. I hope
I don’t botch this up. I have a history of botching things up, I may have a
case of botch-i-lism. Everything I touch gets infected with “Go Wrong”. I’ll
just sit here and be a good little boy. The second atomic bomb was “little
boy”. Think of something else. Ah, the kea parrot. It has a taste for mutton.
“Mue-tonne” must be French for lamb chop. My mind is going, d-a-i-s-y, “will I
dream?”, Where are those footsteps?
Here
he comes, my savior. Key in hand as he swaggers along, Mr. Important. He gives
a smirking look at each prisoner as he walks down the corridor. He has the look
of a man in charge. You could just barely see the head of a dragon tattoo above
his collar on the side of his neck. I think he got it to be one of the guys.
Palsie-walsie with the prisoners. It was one of those infinity Chinese things
may be an oro-bor, uroboros, you-ah-burro what ever. I never was much good with
a language that when written down, it looks like a pick-up-sticks game. He
unlocks my door, I gather my stuff, and
we head out, to check out. Yahoo!
This
is like the scene from the Blues Brothers, only that bald, tattooed, four
hundred pound example of the police force’s finest is not Frank Oz and Elwood is not outside in the Blues Mobile. I
also did not have a used condom. I didn’t have any condoms. Maybe next time I
can plan ahead for my release to eliminate the snickering of the guards. After
that humiliation, they lead me to the back gate, usher me out and slam the door
shut. Well I can hum “She took the CATY” as I walk into the city. Over to my
left across the two lane dirt road I see what the locals call Seven Mile Hill.
Ha! Its so flat here at the coast that the hill they named Seven Mile Hill is
no more than twenty or twenty-five feet tall. It is not an inselberg if you
know what I mean. Gees, seven miles, maybe I’ll try riding my thumb. I tried
that once in Fayetteville NC when I was in the Eighty Second Airborne. Our
company song was “Gory, Gory, what a hell of a way to die”. I was thumbing
home, dressed in my finest army issue duds; because the midnight bus was way
too slow. I thumbed out of town with no problem at all but, when I got to the
suburbs no would pick me up. So I decided to thumb back into town and catch
that slow bus. That’s when I found out that the locals wanted soldiers out of
town but not in town. I did not get a single ride back to the bus station. That
bus stopped and waited at every mailbox in North and South Carolina. Just to
see if anyone might want a ride South. Little did that driver know that a
highly trained killer was in the bus and itching to get home. He survived, and no one got hurt. Self
control saved him. I stepped off the bus in Greer, SC at like six o’clock in
the morning. A six hour bus ride to travel about 200 miles. Whew. And I still
had to rent a taxi to get home.
I
would take a taxi but I forgot to bring any cash to my arrest party. Imagine
that, not planning ahead. Well it is a pretty day. At four miles per hour I will be in town in
maybe one and a half hours. Time, man spends a lot to time thinking about time.
Epstein?, Einstein, watchmakers, all of us thinking about time. And think all
you want, time is still fugacious,
it slips through our fingers never to be recovered. Time, it’s where our future
lies. Speaking of future lies, I bet the first lady I try to hook up with will
have a pack ot lies to tell. I really know how to pick’um. Well lets lay some shoe leather on
the road and get on into this two bit town and see what kind of trouble I can
get in. “I’m from where troubles a brewing, and hell’s waiting to be raised,
name’s… Rango.” Great movie. OK, let’s pick’um up and put’um down, “Ain’t no
use in going home, Johnny’s got your girl and gone, Hup, two, three, four, hup,
two, THREE, FOUR! Thanks to my military training, I know how to walk. There use
to be a cadence call about an Eskimo…don’t remember all of it. Maybe it will
come to me. Hup, two, three, four….
I slide into town like an estimator
trying to go home at five o’clock. You have to go under the door and not make
any waves. Sneeak, sneek, sneek, you know they use to have “sneaker-nets?” Back
in pre-historic times prior to networks and wifi, they had to carry the
information on a disk from PC to PC, hence the “sneeker-net”. Excitingly dull
info from a time gone by. Like rock and roll, there was a murder in Nashville
where they killed Country Music, but I don’t know where or when they murdered
Rock and Roll, maybe some one will make a rockumentary about it. It could have
been a sad day to remember, “where were you standing” but no-one knows when it
happened. “It goes to show you, you never can tell”, thank you Chuck.
Back when I was a writer I would
sometimes turn to “Word of The Day” to give me an idea of something to write
about. You get addicted to help like that. You become like that old blues song,
no not the one about the “One eyed Woman” the one about “A Ship Without a
Sail”. You just ain’t going nowhere.
I walk down the gently slopping street
and survey the harbor, which was nestled in a crescent shaped cove, ideal for
tsunami excitement. Many seagulls well, white birds, circled overhead, and
tagged along with the shrimpers as they come and go. There’s a mixture of
vessels from dingy, sloop, three riggers, shrimpers, and yachts. Speaking of
three riggers did you know that there was a Catisium that defined the old
phrase “The whole nine yards” as a whaling vessel with three mast that had
three yards per mast, so when they wanted more speed, they would rig “The whole
nine yards, me hardies, aaaar!” Well enough Catisiums for the day. I need to
find Les Fingers. I intend to thoroughly baste him by thrashing around his head
and shoulders. If you look up ‘rat” in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of
Les. The poster child for dis-honesty. What a guy. Yea he had an unfortunate
incident with a fire-cracker when he was young but, you’d think he would get
over it. Not Les.
I intend to make peace with Les. I
need his contacts to get information about the goings-on on the dock. I’ve been
away for a while and the rat population must have turned over a few times while
I was gone. They breed like rats you know. Ha! Its ironic that my irenic intentions
are aimed at a blood thirsty criminal like Les. Maybe I should give him the
finger since he’s shy two or three digits. I bet he’s heard that one before.
Ha.
Les was the bouncer at a place next to
the Monkey Bar. The Monkey Bar was where Mannix use to get his head bashed in
every fifteen minutes. Strangely he would get knocked out just in time to miss
the commercials on his own show. Too bad we weren’t knocked out too. He would
be back after a few short messages to continue to larrup the criminals he was
tracking down. Les the bouncer, he was a bouncing baby boy at one time, the
apple of his daddies eye. Wonder when he turned sour, like a Grannie Smith that
needs lots of sugar. Probably started by stealing other kids lunch money so he
could hoard the milk. The place Les worked was called The Rathskellar. Yeah I
know its German for basement, well this joint was base, and cement had used on
several of its customers. This particular rathskellar was topside, not in a
basement, go figure. They did have one of the best Rueben Sandwiches I’ve ever
tasted. Good food is always good. I could have one of those right now and worry
about Mr. Dragging Knuckles later. “Hey, barkeep, give me a Ruben straight up,
an order of Parmesan fries, and a Near Beer.” Can’t have the “reel” stuff just
got out of the joint, remember? I’ve got to act like baby dumplings for a
while, till they get tired of watching me. I need a table where I can sit with
my back to the wall…
As I inhale this Rubin, I think of
what I want to get out of Les. He might can tell me who put the finger on me? I
don’t think it was Les. He, he, he. It could have been the driver of the get
away car. He showed up late and I shook him like an Akita Inu would succuss a
hedgehog. The driver’s eyeballs rolled around for three days. I may need another of these sandwiches, and
this time with a side of pickle spears, yummy!
The pickle spears are being held captive by
the cook on some sort of extortion demand about me not paying for my food. Geez,
it’s pay. pay, pay, everywhere you go. Prison live is much simpler, you pay
with time, and let me tell you if you have ever sit on a prison mattress for
sixteen hours waiting for dark thirty so you can go to sleep, you can
appreciate how much time there is. What did Einstein say “Things don’t obey
gravity, it’s where their future lies”. My future lies over towards the
plumpish lady running the cash register. I think she’s also a quality control
taster for the cook. It looks like she may work overtime making sure the dishes
are prepared correctly. She has done a commendable job on that Rubin sandwich.
So good it makes you want to slap yo mama cause she never learned to cook that
good. There are other reasons also. I pay my bill and turn my thoughts
to work. I need to find Les, more or less. Ha.
Les can’t shed any light on how I got
nabbed for the caper. I could have claimed I was an innocent bystander, except
for the four hundred and fifty grand they found in my television. I got
inventive and bought and old RCA floor model that had an aperture on the front
that just fit a Sony forty two inch flat screen LED. I carefully removed the
top of the old TV, then ripped the guts out, dropped in the LED, cut a hole so
it could see the TV remote, put a couple of hinges on the top of the old TV and I had a
pretty neat hiding place. They may never have found it if me and a certain cop
named O’Grady hadn’t started a kerfuffle over half of a ham and turkey sub
which was laying on the kitchen table. This led to that, and O’Grady landed on
top of the TV. Enough said.
Well I tried to decoct the information
from Les and it only led to minute patois that only the locals could
understand. The local translator, the barkeep. The barkeep was a Cherokee named
Situm Upjoe, he said that Les appeared to be speaking the Cherokee language,
which was written down by Sequoia long ago. Now what that has to do with half a
million bucks I don’t know yet. There was once a doe who wondered out of the
woods, looking rather dazed, and the doe said, that’s the last time I do that
for two bucks.
Sitting at the table I notice that
over the years different sailors had scratched pictures into the wood. Like doodles
of their experiences sailing the seven seas. Remember the start of “The Whale”,
the guy saw what he called scrimshaw etched into the bench he was sitting on.
That is a great book. The imagery is outstanding, and you can learn how to
dress a whale. Them days are disappearing. The tree-huggers and PETA folks are
interfering with having fun and making a
decent living. Speaking of PETA, I should see it Situm can squeeze one more
“Hang” sandwich on Pita bread out of that ham shank he’s been carving on. It
may not be all that esculent, but my stomach is not all that picky. Sequoia,
lots of money, Cherokees, hmmmm…
The mountains of North Carolina are
infected with Cherokees, the Eastern band of the Cherokee Nation? Sounds like a
rock group. Of course that’s why they were in the mountains, well one of the
reasons, was the abundance of a rock group. Lots of rocks, or stone material
for fabricating various tools and arrowheads. That they would sell to the
Indians down on the coast where there ain’t no rocks. Yeah it was all about
money, don’t nothing happen with out a sale. They have found arrowheads up and
down the east coast that all look like they came from North Carolina. Too bad
you can’t proband an arrowhead and see what it’s ancestry was. Probably be and
interesting story. Where did it originate and how many hands did it pass
through before landing where it could be found by a worthless white man hundred
of years later. There are so many arrowheads in existence I wonder if they
weren’t used like money. With an arrowhead you could gain a squirrel or maybe a
deer, so they had value. No arrowhead, no dinner. Hmmm, dinner, I think I’ll
mosey on down to the Choke and Chew for a couple of their infamous hot dogs.
The cook quit there and the tea ain’t tasted right since. Wonder why?
I must make a connection between the
money, my plight, the dock, Cherokees, my easy release from jail. It’s like a
cluster of grapes, each containing a few drops juice, that need to be extracted
and fermented to gain the vinous essence. How did all this get started. I mean
the most recent shenanigans, not that other stuff about the Camel. That’s a
drama all to itself. Dromedary? That’s not camel milk is it? How was I to know the difference from a
camel, a dromedary, male, female, Hey? A bad deal all around.
I know how I got thrown in the can, a
slew of atrabilious cops came to my apartment and cuffed me. They went around
and touched all my stuff. I did not like that at all. The memory still lingers.
I was running a thousand pounds of
saffron via camelback, actually several camelbacks, from a little place in
India across some very rugged mountains to try and turn a small fortune into
some very serious cash. These shipment may be like the straw that broke the
camel’s back. If I get caught I may be the roué of camel land. The flower
stigmas are contained in some very fancy carved wax boxes that look like
flowers. I guess you could call them Fleuron wax boxes. They would sell pretty
good by themselves. That would be a welcome munificent to the fortune I intend to
gain when I bring this load of spices to the sheiks in Saudi Arabia. This is
more exciting than that raptorial Maltese Falcon, what a disastrous taxidermy
that was.
One of the camel jockeys is strumming a
guitar/sitar looking instrument he put together himself. I’ve seen some real
good blues players come up with these jimmy rigged instruments. Only they can play
the contraptions. Most don’t offer a good way to tune them except by ear. I
once ran into a luthier up in Nashville Tennessee by the name of Charles Tate.
He was suppose to be the best. I wonder if he was a s good as the piano tuner
named Marshall Tucker? This camel jockey has it down pat. He’s using the
swaying of the camel as a metronome. Oh the heat! Get the beat! Makes me want
to get out my Yamaha Humming Harmonica and join in. That might be ruled cruel
and unusual punishment. Whoa, what is that clunky noise from over the hill?
It was just a donkey pulled cart with
wooden wheels protected with artillery shells that had been cut in half. Whew,
I thought it was the Man. I am still free. Back to my bounty. Ihe sienna
colored Saffron is like Zuzu’d Petals to some cooks. I need to use a pinch of
it in something to see what all the raving is about. The stuff brings upwards
of forty to fifty dollars an ounce on the legit market. That’s about eight
hundred dollars a pound.
I made a contact with a guy from that
un-named town n India where I picked up the load. I promised to move the stuff
over every back road in West India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. This
should be no problem, he, he ,he. Having a brain that has ossified will help
with figuring all this out. I need a caravan to carry all the cash I need to
stuff in any foot-pads pocket I run into. Oh, and don’t forget the Camel
rations, Gez they ain’t never been full, and drink like a fish too. I remember
the joke about “Bricking” a camel. I may have to put that to use before this
trek is done. We skirted Bela, Pakistan and are headed for Chah Bahor, Pakistan
which we will skirt also. Like thieves in the night, or a dressmaker.
We snuck our way through Iran and Iraq and
swayed on into Saudi Arabia. I keep having visions of sugar plumbs dancing in
my head. Its like the night before Christmas. Going to get a gift but, I don’t
know exactly how great it will be. Anything will be really appreciated. I will have to make my suppliant to old Saint
Nick to really fill up my stocking. We are at present riding down a draw that
has been improved maybe to be a ha-ha but still encroaches on our passage so we
have to perform a battement to keep the rocks from ripping our clothing. Like
that old dance “put your left foot in” the Hokey Pokey. That’s not what this is
all about. Some of the rocks have an iridescent shine to them, iron pyrite,
fools-gold, I betcha. We pass several jerkwater settlements, where the biggest technostructure
in town is keeping the town’s camel alive. I’m sure they have a list of maxims
about dos and don’ts to keep that camel spiffy and syncopating fine. I doubt
that any of the instructions are written by a centrist, only people with a six
hundred year old outlook on life.
This
crowd over here don’t treat visitors very nicely. Unless they can see a profit.
Speaking of treating visitors nicely reminds me of a lady, a Jewish lady, with
whom I tried to get some conjugal visits, con-jew-gal visits. Ha! I just wanted
to explain some of what I learned in the stone mason class about masonry
positions. It never happened, they always see right through my veiled attempts
at intimacy, it’s all friable and falls apart. I should put up a better front,
more tacit, not quite as forward as I am. Pay attention! We are growing neigh
to a village called Adela Degalodi. Very interesting. I don’t see a single
light. Surely someone is roasting a camel in there somewhere. It’s time for my
ritualistic consumption of animal flesh.
I’d even go for a spitchcock, and that’s pretty far down the list.
I
suppose its kosher to eat camels. I haven’t read the pandect to see if camels
are off the table. But I haven’t seen a camel graveyard anywhere along our way
so, they are doing something with them. I’ve eaten enough sand, dust, and dirt
along the way to be accused of geophagy. The stuff is everywhere and gets in to
any unprotected crack, if you know where I mean. The setting sun is reflecting
spectacularly off some high clouds and casting and eerie glow over everything.
High clouds or chemtrails left by them US planes which seem to always be up
there somewhere. Taking pictures I guess. Its getting time to roll my
polyhedron die and see which ploy I will use to snooker these camel jockeys out
of their life savings. I don’t have much of a florilegium of sneaky con games
to pull on these guys. Most of my song and dance is sort of gauche. I’ll just
have to sharpen up my forked tongue speeches and become the scaramouch that I
am. We are coming up on their hacienda now. Jeez, what a place. It probably has
its own weatherman and weather system in there. Wonder where the front door is.
There
it is with accompanying guards. Large wooden behemoth with a lot of iron work
studs and such. Made to look impregnable and beautiful at the same time. Like a
stout lady I knew in Brisbane Australia. She was a equilibrist and walked a
tight line between drop dead beautiful and linebacker. After a brief interview
with the head guard we were allowed into the fortress We were accompanied by four very hefty fellows
who were redux of the Arabian nights and equipped with impressive scimitar
swords. We strolled across a courtyard, up some stairs, thru some double door,
carpeted hallway, scantily clad ladies with faces covered, more carpets, and
then to a raised platform where we were to wait. Off stage some one rang one of those giant cymbals
by striking it with a sledge hammer! My stapes
may never be the same, let alone a gigantic bill from my laundress. That was loud and quite a
surprise. As the guy said, “I ain’t had a solid dump since it happened!”. Then
in walked the gentry, tall slim, bearded and one rich looking MF. His demeanor
told me he was anaclitic on an army of servants to keep him in tiptop shape in
any and all things princely. He was the spitting image of a prince. His ocular
presence was smudged when he opened his mouth. He must have been raised in
Brooklyn, youse guys.
He
may have had a Brooklyn drawl but his mind was clear, he had a price for the
merchandise and it was set and unchangeable. The fact I had a flock of
cinereous hair and being his elder did nothing to slow him down. He had his
boys drag out a small chest with an ancient looking lock. The prince handed me
the key stood up and told us to get the hell out of his country. We headed for
the exits in a dead run. Camels away! We attempted to do one of those cowboy,
running mounts but we were kicked in every crevice the camels could find. Ouch!
We pulled our bruised bodies aboard and headed for the border. We had
anticipated that the Prince might demonstrate a lack of urbanity and we had a
route planned out that used the oil rigs as markers, and “… away we did ride,
just as fast as we could from the West Texas town of El Paso, out through the
badlands of El Saudi Arabia…” my apologies to Marty Robbins. The stars above
fairly streaked by. Oilrig to oilrig, hey there’s one that showed up missing.
Must have been some ecotage. All that was left were the buildings splashed with
green paint and peace symbols. Peaceful huh, oil rig down and folks out of
work. I am getting some feeling back in my left foot, my pointe are tingling,
and not in a good way. Those camels can kick. The coast is coming into view and
I start scouting for our Dhow. The history of the Dhow, I’ll drop and ellipsis
here as that is of little interest to anyone. Aha, there it is with a thinly
disguised tiger paw engraved into the sail. Go tigers.
The
Dhow was about as old as I was, but I was in better shape. The wood rot on the
carved pirate at the bow of the Dhow, gave the figure some unintended
sideburns. This was a steady craft that stories are made on. The sides of the
craft had openings that might have been for cannon long ago. They served as
windows now, fenestrate with thin curtains over them. You could see burly
sailors moving about behind the curtains. The whole craft had a certain penury
about it that cried out for someone to spend some money on it to make it be
like the good old days. Walking up the swaying gang plank you could start to
see the scrimshaw of many voyages in safe and troubled waters. Probably make a
good book. We came upon the deck where a crew of rough looking fellows were
applying sea water to the wooden deck with all the pageantry of the Pope using
an aspergillum to bless some one. I suspect they were removing evidence of some
deed done recently that needed to be erased before it dried.
The
chest we are carrying was dragged aboard and stuffed into the belly of the Dhow. We had had little time to admire
the intricate art work on the outside of
the chest let alone admire the contents contained within. Later on we may have
an expert look at the chest to see if an aesthete would shed any special meaning to the intricate carvings
and letters contained on the outside of the chest. Inside we found the bounty
we were promised. Diamonds are, small, very valuable, easily transportable, and
valued all over the world. We were speechless when we first looked upon them,
we had dysarthria of the mouth. On the inside of the box was what appeared to
be writing in a strange language. Some of it was pictures and some written out.
Swahili, Sanskrit, Cherokee, Aztec, it was all Greek to me. I would need a
codex to decipher it. The message might be salvific to our ultimate quest.
Later. No time for anything. My stomach has taken over as lead dog and has
drawn our group down to the galley. Ummmmm. A big plate of muktuk, what could
be finer. I thought the eskimos had cornered the muktuk market. This stuff
could use a touch of saffron to really bring out the flavor.
After
that rewarding culinary experience we retired to the deck incase any thing came
up. We were unlucky enough to witness some nautical justice. It was more like
torture, or “keel hauling” but definitely close to being a noyade experience
for an unfortunate sailor. He survived but will never feel safe in a shower
again.
Well
all of that is interesting but we need to gather some info on our destination.
We did a classic slide down a ladder; you know where you slide on your hands instead
of using your feet. Cool, like in the movies, where everyone wants to slide
down the handrail rather than take the stairs. So we arrive at the radio room.
Duh. They had better equipment during the Civil War. We needed a digerati and
quick. Shortwave radio to whom? Who even had one? Morse Code, dit, dot, dash… I
reckon we will just have to wait till we get to Mombasa.
Back
on deck so we can continue to cook in the equatorial sun, turn me over, I think
I’m done. As e drift along I note that almost all the other ships are flying
flags telling where they are from and where they are going. Our vessel only has
several of ragged things flying which might be used tee shirts. In vexillology
I suppose would mean we are from Jockeying for a position on the Fruit of the
Loom to improve our Dhow Jones average. Night is descending on the Gulf of
Arden, and I could use a few Z’s. We assign one of our guys to be on watch for
two hour shifts, and I start dancing with the Sandman.
“Ham,
Ham, wake up”. Who would be calling me by a hypocoristic rendition o a beautiful name like
Hammer? Was it the Propeller Girl? Nope it was Ansel. My main thug and
bodyguard. Also known as Guido.
“We got company” was the bone chilling
comment by Guido. I peeked over the railing to find a laager of native canoe
looking boats surrounding and blocking our route towards the open sea. They all
been painted these lurid colors reminiscent of Peter Max and a Yellow Submarine
theme. The captain was jabbering away using idiomatic phrases, with the tall
guy in the lead canoe. The crew in the meantime had drug a duffle bag on deck
whose contents turned out to be the unwanted cans of paints from a paint store
located on the river Styx. You know the one, right next door to Sisyphus’ rock
and roll concession stand.
The array of different colors in that one bag was something to
see. The Chief Canoe was beside himself when he saw the offering. He was having
a cacoethes kind of moment. His fingers were twitching to lather up his ride
with some new splotches of paint that no one else had. His desire to get to
painting overcame his urge to delay us any farther, so he gave the word “oyez,
oyez, oyez” and we were given clemency and allowed to continue on our way
toward the Arabian Sea. It would have been cool to watch the Chief slapping on
the paint and crowing about his Intelligence in snookering the Captain out of
the paints, not the simony that actually happened.
So with the chief satisfied we
continued on our voyage. We were coaxed into helping with sailing the dhow, I
guess we were having a voluntourism change of a life time. I guess if you want
to taste life to the fullest you need to sample the whole shebang. We had to
thread our way among several small islands to conceal our presence. This was
well and good but with no Mark Twain aboard to call out the depth of the water
it was a precarious adventure. Many of the islands had tombolos either between
the islands or from the island back to the shore, so our route along the coast
resembled a drunken sailor weaving his way back to his ship.
The days drug by. We wanted to make
Zanzibar in time to board a cruse ship headed for New Zealand. It was loaded
with people full of importance, all of them taking a babymoon before the big
day arrived. I figured a few more ragtag
sailors dragging too much baggage would go un-noticed by folks being blinded by
the prick of cupid’s arrows. So we continued along in the Monsoon Drifts down
the east coast of Africa.
Things were going so slow and
monotonous we started to squabble amongst ourselves about whether we should
continue the course we had set. I was intransigent and refused to consider
another course of action from the one we were on. You have to believe in your
game plan and stick to it. We felt the dhow shift un-naturally and heard a
creaking and moaning from the rigging. Scampering topside we were greeted by a
strong southerly wind which was driving the dhow like it was on a “Nantucket
sleigh ride”. We were apparently on the west side of a typhoon or something.
Zanzibar here we come. Lock up your wives, daughters, and small animals cause
here we blow!
We were running at this fast pace
through a dry desert wind and were building up a static charge in the riggings.
Ever so often you could hear the electricity relieve itself and crepitate as it
did so. The storm gradually relaxed and the wind was in abeyance. We were back
running at our former pace. The Nantucket Sleigh Ride was a lot more fun.
The Captain showed up and was the
expositor of some kind of nodus about where we were and where we were going,
and his use of magniloquent language was not helping very much. He was making
reference to a dittography that had occurred in the directions telling him
where to make port. Then he says the reverse about how his present destination
was sacrosanct and was not going to be changed. So on we sailed to a place just
a little south of our original destination.
I went below and was securing our
cargo one more time. The carvings and paintings on the containers had an even
weider look than before. Some saltwater had made it’s way down the hold and
loosened some of the images. They apparently were held on by glair which tends
to dissolve in salt water. More of the Cherokee was exposed. It still looked
like hieroglyphics and was Greek to me. May be some Aborigine in the next port
could unscramble what it said. I will remain taciturn and not put forth a
suggestion as I’m sure I would be put to ridicule and possibly be beaten about
the head and shoulders and called a dunce. I would like to maintain my position
as leader and as mensch, in other words try to remain BMOC. My stomach, the
thankless dog it is, has raised its head again and I have a voracious appetite.
I wandered down to the galley and
approached the cook about a morsel to hold me over until the real meal, his
answer was “humph, you’ll wait like the rest of these fine seamen. Your request
is ruled puerile. So go and find some real man’s work till the Turkey Soup is
done. After the cook, turned judge, had passed sentence upon me I did go find a
mop and bucket and put a sonsy finish on the aft deck. I would have it ready
incase the sourpuss cook challenged me on my labors.
I needed a pick me up. I recalled joke
number 77 and had a chuckle. Hmmm maybe I could make up a blague based on our
situation. Three sailors walked into a bar, one of the sailors has a flexuous
piece of pipe wrapped into a wheel with one end sticking into the fly of his
pants, the second sailor, a female, was a doyenne in the field of ambergris and
its spoliation, the third sailor was a clothes designer at heart, and he had to
comment on the wheel sticking out of the pants of sailor One. “I see you have
an appurtenance in your pants”.
Sailor One responded “Yes, its driving
me nuts.”
I can’t recall what sailor two said but it was
something a fribble would say.
One often has to wheedle a response
from someone who wants to be a curio on a particular subject. They see a
situation from a perspective that is anamorphous to the view that you have.
Sort of like looking in a mirror to check your hair, not knowing that from the
side you have a cockscomb on the back sticking up in need of some brilliantine.
It all in how you look at something.
So enough said on that, I wander back
down to the crews quarters to see what the boys are up to. Mischief as usual.
One mountebank is trying to cheat the other out of a few ducats over whether a
cockroach would cross a certain line on the floor. That’s right, he stepped on
the bug before he could cross the line. This cause a pule to rise from the
other bettor. And so on and on it goes as we wallow our way toward Aussie land.
The temperature is falling steadily as we proceed. From the dessert heat to
this verglas that is covering the ship now. We need to make a gambado and get
on to where we are going.
I try to equivocate with the captain
about our slow progress, but to denigrate him any further with querulous
language is a total waste of breath. He mentions beating a dead horse, cause
the old ship was doing the best it could and comments by hirelings was not
going to speed it up. I could see the rubicund of his face increase in redness
so I backed off and give him the craven remark “have a nice day”.
After several more days of crawling
across the face of the southern pacific, we spot a land mass, or as the sailors
prefer, “Land Ho!”
This is reminiscent of when we left
the Gulf of Eden, natives in canoes are headed out to meet us. In my head I can
hear the native drums beating out a sensuous rhythm involving scantly clad
blonde English women and deprived hirsute natives with dreams of sugar plumbs
dancing in their heads. What is actually happening is the lead canoe is on a
walkie-talkie with the captain and he is screaming “Wilco” so loud he doesn’t
need a walkie-talkie. Of course its about paying a fee to land on the sacred
land of the forefathers. The chiefs right hand man comes aboard to receive the
goods, and then like a mugwump ask for it to be dropped into the waiting canoe.
Politics, who can figure it out.
We draw near the shore and observe
several pibald ponies standing in the surf. They are magnificent looking
animals. Apparently wild as they have no visible harnesses or restraints. All
of a sudden Gadzooks! They turn and race for cover amid the tall beach grass. I
wonder what spooked them? The answer is soon evident as several scapegrace
children come charging out of the brume from the pounding surf. They must be
kin to aborigines from the canoe convoy as they display similar painted bodies.
The dhow draws close into the shore.
It move gently as the gentle surf tosses it about. We had been watching the
progress thru our porthole. The accommodations had acquired a frowst from all
the sweaty bodies. The first mate burst into our quarters to inform us it was
time to get the heck off his boat, and that he had the aegis of the Captain to
back him up. We were in no position to object for we had been days aboard the
vessel past our original schedule.
I grabbed a map of eastern Australia
and with a little opsimath tried to absorb from the collectanea where we were
and which direction to go. It became evident pretty quick that not a lot of
thinking was involved. We were being deposited at Kalbarn. Hmmmm. I could only
come up with lugubrious thoughts on our good fortune. Anyone want an Austrailian
parrot? They have a breeding facility. Such excitement. Well we proceeded to
obviate ourselves from the dhow, wade ashore, get to the first road, named Red
Buff, turned North and away we went.
Well we hoofed it along for quite a
spell. Dragging and carrying our fortune as we went. Arrr Matey this is a fine
state of affairrrs. Toward twilight we rounded a bend and came to a charming
little street named Chinaman’s Drive. We were in Kalbarri I believe. Just the
kind of eudaemonic place for a scurvy bunch as us to look for a conveyance. We
found the first bar we came to and got a round of drinks and started a
blamestorming session to see who was most at fault for our situation. The
bartender was a good looking chap, dark headed and seemed to have a chip on his
shoulder. Had his name burned into and old piece of jetsam and hung over the
bar. “Quinton Kerns” it said, like see this and run. The walls were strewn with
memorabilia from around the world. There were various typical stuffed animals,
a large Jackalope, you know the kind. It looked like a “Pier One” store had exploded.
I gather Quiton had been all over. He was wearing a soiled T-shirt that said “Arby’s
Sux.” Wonder what that means? One could get gooseflesh just thinking of the
vile things Mr. Kerns could have been involved with. Rending happy homes
asunder as he strutted across the outback.
Getting back to the heated argument at
my table. It appears that I am the cause of all ills that have befallen this
bag of villains. I will have to heal all these wounds I have caused. Possibly I
can reify my position by getting us out of Kalbarn and on up the coast.
I approach the bartender, Mr. Kerns,
and ask if he knows someone with a decent truck or jeep we could rent or buy.
He want’s to know why the dickens would we be wanting to leave fair Kalbarn. I
came up with a doozy of an idea, and said we was working for the CIA and FBI
and he really did not want to know our mission because of the penalty for
knowing. He considered this, while a drop of sweat found it’s path based on the
chaos theory, down his forehead. “Just a minute”, he says, and goes to the
other end of the bar to confer with two wanna-be Dundee’s lounging there. After
some time talking with the duumvirate, he brings himself back to my end of the
bar. “They’ve got a 1947 jeep, in tip-top shape, that they could let go of for
a thousand dollars US. No paperwork involved.”
“Sold!” was my quick reply.
We loaded up our meager belongings
into our “new” vehicle, and fired the olive-drab jeep up. It did crank and run
like a top. And we was off on our bizarrerie adventure once again.
We head up Red Bluff Road and swing
back east at a tine of land and put the pedal to the medal. We run
Ajana-Karbarri road for some thirty miles, turn left on Highway One and head somewhere
north.
Well, after five or six hours, about
250 miles, we noticed the Jeep’s tongue hanging out. Our tongues are hanging
out also. We are tired hungry and hope to never see a Jeep again. Most of the
country we passed through would make a Xenology major drool. A very strange
place. The flora and the fauna are special. The DNA codes of the plants must be
like nowhere else on earth. Unraveling them could reveal the cure for some
dread disease. The steganography of their DNA has yet to be revealed. Geese I
could sure use a drink of something, even water.
My fellow travelers are coming up with
the same idea and are laying comminatory threats upon my body to call a halt in
our mad break for the northern coast. I in my infinite knowledge of handling of
people say “Pull in at the next watering hole!” for I do not see anything
deleterious to our journey about a few minutes spent in a bar, and it would
save me from being thrashed about the head and shoulders.
Ah, the local bar. Missing a hubcap,
this is the place to come, the walls were almost covered in them. I heard that
a pothole in the street, right in front of ther Bar, provided most of
them. And of course there is the
quidnunc barkeeper. He has one eyebrow raised a cheery smile on his face, and
both ears wide open to absorb any and all news both good and bad. We eyed each
other as experienced zugzwang contenders often do, who would say the first bit
o’gossip?
I started with “Hello Mate.”
He replied “A lot of wallabies have
been hit on the road today, so you boys better drive safely.”
“We intend to.”
The barkeep let the cash register
answer for him, “ka-ching!”
Then he continued, “Where you boys
headed?”
“Just North right now, no particular
destination in mind.”
“Well, don’t linger too long at any
one spot as there’s gremlins in these parts that would be happy to make your
acquaintance.”
A short customer came swaying by, a
fubsy looking kind of guy, possibly a native.
The barkeep, always quick to make a
buck, says “I have some really neat infographic material that points out points
of interest up the way, if you would like one. I could even lower the price by
the tax amount by calling it educational material.”
“No thanks Mate” I replied, “We’re on a tight schedule, and we don’t need
to stop along the way. I do like your avoision method. I’ve used that in the
past myself.”
“Lets hit the road guys!” I yelled.
They chimed in with their usual bemoaning of life is short, smelling roses, and
so forth. I had heard most of the vituperations before. Many of them about my
sweet mother.
In to our vintage jeep, laying a
finger aside of my nose and away we did fly. We had been traveling for what
seemed like days but was only some few hours. There was nothing to see, red
sand, sand, beige sand, grey sand, sand, sand. Hey a tree! I once heard a story
of the most… that was it, Guinness Book, yeah, the most remote tree in Africa.
It was some seven or eight hundred miles from the next tree. It had been struck
and killed by a drunk driver who had tied his steering wheel down and let the
vehicle go on its on, as there was nothing to run into, right!
We see signage of Roebourne WA
Airport. Hmmm. Tempting. I give the crew a challenge, Come up with a sentence
that has all the letters of the alphabet, and I would fly us out of here to
someplace North of here. They put their brains to it. I doubt that they will
come up with a pangram during this trip. But they did bloviate a few tries but
never quite made the cut. So, we kept driving. But, I tell you this area is so
lonely desolate removed from the world, it would have to be call dystopia. I’m
thinking of flying out.
Ah, and just as I think it could get
no worse Mr. Nearie, our dandiprat, comes up with a strange game. He wanted to
see who could remain motionless and quiet for the longest. Doggo he calls it. I
think he’s been out in the outback too long. Two of the troops agree to play,
and went straightaway to sleep. I believe Mr. Nearie lost the game.
What we need is to come across a
roadside tavern with a decent schlockmeister to lead the crew down a dark path
of wine and song. And sure enough around the next Wallaby was a joint called
“Wings and Roses.” It may be the lair of bike riding Australian Vampires.
We pulled in to wet our whistles and
check out the local flavor. As we entered there was one codger on the front
porch. He was one old looking prospector. He was teetering as if to fall over
but, never took the plunge. He must be a hundred and fifteen if he’s a day. He
has an advance case of osteoporosis and was clutching a cane for balance. One
thing about osteoporosis with the bent back its easy to pick up stuff off the
floor.
Inside we settled down at various
tables and at the bar. I of course chatted it up with the barkeep. He said the
name of the joint came from some graffiti he had once seen on a concrete bridge
column. It was spray painted “Mojo-man loves Lana Lee”. The keep continued, “I
often wondered who marked their territory in such a way, and while I was
thinking about this I noted the wings on the Harley logo and all the lovelies
that rode them. Hence I came up with “Wings and Roses”.
With a raised eyebrow the barkee said,
“You boys looking for love, or just passing thru?”
This statement and the way he said it
was portend to get the heck on down the road. We did not need to tangle with a
covey of vampire bikers and their ladies, no matter how bodacious they were. So
I called for the boys to drink up, cause we were heading out. To the last
swallow of my bilge water, I said phooey and left it fermenting on the bar.
We all tried to get to the door at the
same time in a lollop and looked like the closing act at a three stooges convention.
We piled back in the Jeep and headed
North. I was thinking of pulling a switcheroo and head over to that airport we
had signage for and fly the heck out of this Sunburned Country. We were burning
the kilometers along Northwest Costal Highway, dodging kangaroos an making good
time. We were thinking of running over on of those tasty Roo’s to satisfy our
hunger. Ahead we saw a sign for Fortiscue River Roadhouse. Surly they would
have some good vitals for us poor wandering boys.
That reminds me, the nest time I come
to Australia I am to bring a potted plant, that looks like a tree. The natives
will probably pay big bucks to se such a thing. There are like zero trees to be
seen from this tavern. Rather desolate. We ordered up some barbecued flesh from
the menu. It was tasty what ever it was, I’m sure its mama would be proud of
how it tasted. It did satisfy us as our eupeptic spirits returned. We refreshed
ourselves and returned to our tendentious trip to, to, where the heck are we
going.
The road goes off into the distance,
and narrows to a point. We drive, landscape moves past the Jeep on either side
but we don’t seem to be moving. We’re a snail racing for an unattainable prize.
Speaking of snails, I heard of one who had come into a fortune. He went
immediately to the local Cadillac dealership and ordered up the latest slickest
convertible model. To close the deal the salesman had to have a large “S”
painted on either side of the car. This was so when the snail was out cursing,
folks would say “Look at that “S” car go!”. Phew, its Second Grade Friday again.
My mind is wondering, where are we,
why is this planet passing under our vessel, are we on the Douglas Adam
Freeway, am I a lost lover headed for a tryst with an Australian vixen, bugs
slapping me in the face brings me back. I best not be thinking of some
cockamamie story out here in this parched country. My spirit may be taken over
by a dingo. Don’t need that, I have no taste for baby. I have a much higher
calling, more grandiloquent, leader of men kind of thing. Turn left, turn left!
Gez, we were about to miss the turn to
Roebourne WA Airport. You’d think we could catch a charabanc and get therer, I
think not. We stay with the jeep. One’s dilatory action must be corrected,
hence I screamed “turn left”.
We continue toward the Airport, and I
again, the boys in back picking on each other like kids. They must be trying to
get a hoo-ha cranked up to pass the time. I suggest to them to try and versify
the words on their beer lables. I figure it will take them a novennial of years
minimum to try and rhyme them ingredients.
They are a weird bunch of guys, all from different backgrounds, a
quadrumvirate of personalities and skills. Maybe they will be occupied until
the airport.
Ah, the air port. It’s around here
somewhere, ah, there it is a windsock. No tower, course you don’t need one on
the flattest place on earth. You could see from here to Pluto, it was very
flat. Good place for an airport I suppose.
After some haggling with a stubborn
soidisant Indiana Jones we were able to get on a plane that looked as if it
probably carried Citizen Kane to Xanadu or some other utopia. It may have once
been a Ford Tri-motor but had been repaired to be a two motor on its last leg.
A real wing and a prayer. The majority of the paint was gone and replaced by a
rufus orange rust reminiscent of Tennessee Orange. Yuck. Little known fact back
in the day of heraldry the word Tenny represented the color orange, so I guess
they named the state after a great sunset or some orange colored Indians. I saw
the engines turn over and with a cough, start to scream “I think I can!” we prepared to board. Let us pray…
