blonstar: 7/22/12

I emailed the elite writer's group that I'm now a member of (four of us, all published, offshoot of the writer's group regular, started because we all need real feedback - not bullshit I got saturday on blue moon like "are you sure marines carry .45s?" and "I think you should use less profanity in your writing") and the following exchange occurred:

Jeff:
Franki - we should see what we can do about kicking publishing companies in the balls. I know there's a local publisher who you could try and shop your book to, but I forget the name.

Me:

Wow Jeff. Thanks for that lead. Unfortunately for me, it's not the most useless lead ever. But it's in the top 10.

I love you Jeffy even though you suck.

Jeff:

*sniff.

http://www.examiner.com/article/colorado-publishers-101-what-publishing-houses-are-there-colorado

Check out Fulcrum and Ghost Road.

Me:
You're starting to suck less. If I were on facebook I'd let you be my friend.

For real kid, thanks! I do appreciate it. When my book is in the bargain bin at tattered cover I'll text you so you can buy it for cheap. With the money you save you'll be able to take me for a drink.

Jeff:

If I buy you a drink I expect to get lucky.

Me:

You know me. How much luckier do you think you're going to get?

Sigh. Maybe being such an asshole is preventing me from getting published. But my uncle sent me this when I told him about my rejection:

Many of life's failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. Edison

Soldiering on...

To keep you entertained, here's a new short story I wrote because I was stuck at the airport. Don't think about stealing it, it's copyrighted. And don't ask if it's true because you know I won't tell you.

Blue Moon

Managua, Nicaragua 1995

I sat in the oppressive heat at the bar in the Marine barracks, which we called The Ranch. It was Somoza’s horse stables at one time, but had been taken over by the government and was now part of the embassy compound. A banner I made hung behind the bar: “The Only Difference Between Ranch and Raunch is U”.

On the bar was a tequila bottle stuffed with the clear scorpions that infested The Ranch. Newcomers had to do a shot which would contain legs, a thorax, or other bits of the scorpions. In one corner was a set of black weights. When I worked out with them my hands smelled like I just changed the oil in my car. There was a cheap boom box playing Billy Squire. Against the wall was a green inflated crocodile pool toy. It was the only communication I had had from home, if you could call it a communication. There hadn’t been a note, just the crocodile.

Not that I blamed them. Though I dutifully wrote my parents every month, using the return address “The Ranch: Marine Security Guard Detachment,” to let them know I was still alive, they remembered me as I was at home, a thoughtless asshole not on speaking terms with my dad.

But here, I fancied myself a general in the war on drugs, and had six feral 18-year-old Marines I could unleash on the world with a snap of my fingers. My favorite, Stretch, was behind the wood-paneled bar, digging scorpions out of the tequila bottle, serving them to me on a chipped china saucer I stole from the officer’s mess. I hated tequila but liked the buzz I got from the scorpions. Crunching them made me feel I was in charge in this fucked up place where nature made its presence known in every crevice of attempted civilization. You couldn’t put shoes on without shaking out the scorpions. Frogs, spiders, and snakes made themselves at home in my bed sheets while I was at work.

“Dude, new bar opened in Managua. Blue Moon. They’re giving out free T-shirts.” Stretch showed me a cheaply printed flyer with misspelled English words and a wavy drawing of a crescent moon with a face. God knows where he got it. Maybe from one of the whores that frequented the South highway that ran in front of the embassy.

“Sandinistan bar for sure,” I said, fingering the paper. They put their symbols on everything, even advertisements for bars. Stretch knew that. And he knew we weren’t allowed to go there.

The other Marines wandered over from a video game they had been playing on the sofa.

“Free T-shirts? That’s awesome. Let’s go!” Free T-shirts of any kind were all it took to draw them in. And the thought of going somewhere they shouldn’t.

I was the den mother. The only reason I was allowed to hang out at The Ranch was to keep an eye on the boys. They were five months into their first stint in a foreign country where the drinking age was 18, their first time away from parental influence. They were armed with .45s and a uniform that showed that they were elite soldiers. Not everyone could work at an embassy.

I was supposed to say no. I was supposed to encourage them to stay at The Ranch and drink the alcohol I had bought for them at the package store with money that my agency had given me for those kinds of expenses. I knew why I was here and what my job was, protecting the boys that protected me. But that night I didn’t do my job.

“Okay, we’ll go for a drink. But only one drink. Get the t-shirt and go. And no one causes problems. Tranquilo, dudes. Or I will fuck you up.”

There was a flurry of activity in The Ranch as the boys put on aftershave and their cheap polyester shirts purchased at the base exchange. It made me sad in a way to see them playing at sophistication, thinking their horrible Hawaiian-print shirts were stylish, that their aftershave smelled good. I watched them run brushes over their crew cuts and polish their shoes. As for me, I was in flip flops, khakis and a dirty polo. There didn’t seem to be any reason to care what I looked like.

I sat in the front seat of the Jeep, against the passenger window because I got car sick. Stretch was driving and Mo was between us. In the back piled three more Marines, with the shortest, Diego, forced to ride in the back like a dog because he was the smallest, smaller even than me. Driving through the dark down the south highway you couldn’t see the people that lived in shacks made of billboards, the children with scabs on their faces and scalps, the piles of trash blowing across the grass median. In the dark, Managua could have been a nice place to live.

A shittily-painted sign stuck in the ground pointed us to poorly-laid asphalt which was the parking lot for the Blue Moon. There were no lines painted on it so cars had parked haphazardly and inefficiently. We parked close to the street, the front of the Jeep facing the lot exit, for safety. We gave a Nica kid a dollar. He touched his eye and then pointed at the Jeep. He would watch our car.

I was relieved to see that the bar didn’t look very crowded. It was still early, eight o’clock. Just get them out by nine. Things wouldn’t get dangerous here until at least ten thirty. There was time.

The inside of the bar stank of varnish and vomit, was filled with tables and chairs that wouldn’t have been accepted at a Good Will store back home. I chose one that had a vinyl covered seat, figuring it was easier to clean, and wiped it down with a wet nap from a basket on the table. Nicaraguans didn’t seem to understand the concept of a paper napkin. Two of the boys wandered over to a pool table to watch the locals play. The table was leveled by stacking concrete blocks under the uneven legs. The green felt was stained. Coffee or blood, it could have been either.

Loud music played over cheap speakers. I couldn’t make out any of the words because the singer’s voice was distorted. I ordered a bucket of Victorias. Tona was recently in the news because the company had not properly sterilized their bottles and people who drank the beer got sick and sometimes died. I didn’t want to think about dying while I was drinking.

Stretch opened my beer with his key ring. I had counseled the boys on how to treat women, worried they would get into some bad habits down here. Even the women they didn’t pay were seen as little more than whores.

I pulled out a box of Payosas and he lit my cigarette too. I turned the box over in my hand as I smoked. Bright blue with a picture of a clown face on the front. I wondered why a clown? Not something I associated with smoking. The brand was local, horrible, like smoking dried chaff and twigs. But I didn’t want to be that person buying Marlboros at the PX. I wanted to experience local. Not like those embassy fucks who get stationed all around the world and never leave the confines of the compound.

Stretch was looking at a girl who was dancing in the middle of the room with her friends. She was wearing a tight black dress with white stripes down the side. She would be considered fat in some countries, but here she was just another shapely young woman trying to get the attention of boys who might be her ticket out of this shithole.

“Hot,” Stretch said.

“No,” I said.

“Come on, I’m going to have a little fun.”

“If you bring her over to this table I will cut your balls off.”

I hated it when the boys brought their girls around me, coaxing them to speak the English phrases they had taught them, “Thank God it’s Friday”, “Make my day”, bad words. I felt embarrassment at the women’s embarrassment, knew I looked judgmental. It made me feel old though I was only 25.

“What’s wrong? She seems cool. Good dancer.”

“For fuck’s sake. I tell you to find a nice girl and you pick one with racing stripes.”

At this Mo laughed, and Stretch got up from the table, making his way to the dance floor.

He was a good dancer, modifying the two step he learned in rural Texas where he grew up into something that was kind of like salsa. Then he and the girl were dancing. The music was fast, loud.

I lit another cigarette and noticed a man at the end of the bar, in the shadows. He was moving toward the middle of the bar, near where Stretch was dancing. I felt a sudden pang of fear when I recognized him.

The Dentist. Sandinistan. Given that nickname because he liked to pull people’s teeth out. The left side of his face had a crescent scar. He had been hit upside the head with a bottle when he was young. I wondered now if that’s where the logo for the bar had come from.

“Mo, get the boys at the pool table back here.”

As he left the table, the music switched to a slow song. Stretch was now grinding against the girl. The Dentist looked at him, looked over at the boys returning from the pool table. He backed into the shadows again.

I felt light headed, panicked. I took a bottle cap from the table and threw it at Stretch. It hit him on the arm, but he ignored me. Finally, the song ended and he sauntered back to the table.

“We need to get out of here, now.”

“What’s your hurry? We just got here.”

“We haven’t gotten our T-shirts yet.”

The t-shirt would never be worn in Managua. That would cause problems with the management, who would ground the Marines for going somewhere they shouldn’t. But when they got home they would be worn for bragging rights. Everyone collected T-shirts from off limit bars. It showed they went to dangerous places, did shit, hadn’t just sat behind the bullet-proof glass and barbed wire taking photo copies of visitors’ passports.

I waved a child over who had been sitting on a stool at the entrance to the bar and gave him the flyer that advertised the free shirt. He scampered out the door and returned a minute later with a skinny old man who reeked of marijuana. He had T-shirts draped over his arm.

He threw the pile on the table and the boys began pawing through them, checking size labels. The shirts were hideous. Simple line drawing of a full faced moon in a top hat, holding a cane in gloved hands, done in the purple color of an old mimeograph machine. “Blue Moon” was printed in hand blocked letters above the moon. The words on the shirt were wavy, as if they were printed underwater.

Racing Stripes and her friends were closing in on the table. They exchanged a few words with the man, who refused to give them shirts. Mo handed his shirt to one of the girls. She was fat and had bad skin, poured into a tube top and indecently short skirt. She blew a kiss at him and Mo smiled. He was the least attractive of the boys. He always paid for it.

The music volume went up and now Mo and Stretch were both dancing with the girls to a fast song. The other boys wanted to join in but as they started to get up from the table I shook my head once, no. The Dentist had disappeared into a door behind the bar when the man with the T-shirts came in, but now he was back and there were five other men with him.

When the song was over, Stretch and Mo brought the girls back to the table, Stretch collapsing across from me in a plastic lawn chair with a broken leg. He rocked back, caught himself, slammed the chair down onto the three good legs. Tube Top picked up a half-drunk Victoria and guzzled it in one long swallow, applauded by the boys. When she put it down on the table there was a large red smear around the opening from her lipstick. Stuck to the inside of the bottle was a half smoked cigarette.

The boys laughed, but Tube Top was so drunk, or high, that she didn’t notice. A slow song came on and she started swaying her hips to seduce Mo back onto the dance floor.

“We’re leaving,” I said, and, with my hand flat on the table, pointed an unlit cigarette in the direction of The Dentist. Without looking Stretch looked at him. Then leaned across the table.

“I’m not leaving because of that fat fuck.”

“Yes, we are, because there’s about to be trouble.”

“And I’m going to start it with that fat communist shitbag.”

The other boys seemed to waver between me, Stretch, and the girls. Suddenly the bar got very quiet. No one was standing around the pool table anymore. People mingling around the tables had moved against the wall.

The old man with the T-shirts scurried into the bar. “You leave now,” he said, pointing at me.

“We’re going.”

I put three boys in front of me, the other three behind me, to make sure they didn’t start anything. Stretch walked slowly and as we made it to the door he yelled, “Te trueno el coño si no te callas puto![1]”

The Dentist and his five men raced towards us. The boys laughed and only half ran to the Jeep, to show they weren’t afraid. I stood in front of them as if I could protect them.

The Dentist stormed over to a large 1970s Cadillac. One of the men opened the trunk with a key and The Dentist pulled out a large tire iron, brandishing it at us. This sent the boys into a fit of laughter. They exaggeratedly slapped their thighs and punched each other in the arm as if they had seen the funniest thing on earth. The Dentist walked towards us, holding the tire iron like a baseball bat.

Stretch opened the passenger door and leaned in the Jeep. I saw the light in the glove box come on and then he was standing beside the Jeep, pointing a .45 at The Dentist.

Everyone stopped moving. It was just a few seconds but it seemed like we were in that dusty parking lot for at least an hour, us staring at the Sandis and the Sandis starting at us.

Finally I said “Get in the car.” The boys quickly climbed into their seats like children who knew they would be punished when they got home. My sweat felt thick, like blood, as it trickled off my scalp and down the back of my shirt.

I stood in the parking lot until Stretch started the car. Maybe The Dentist knew who I was, maybe he didn’t. I hoped if nothing else my being female would keep the situation from getting any more out of hand than it already had.

Mo bumped me in the ass with the passenger door. “Get in the car cunt!” he shouted with more bravado than he had ever shown before.

I stepped up into the car and Stretch didn’t wait for the door to close before hitting the accelerator and peeling the tires. Dust clouded in front of the windshield and loose blacktop hit the bottom of the Jeep chassis, sounding like popcorn kernels in hot oil banging against the lid of the pan. Stretch still had the .45 in his left hand. His window was open and the smell of burning trash permeated the inside of the car.

As we approached the parking lot entrance we were going so fast I wondered if Stretch was going to stop. He slammed on the brakes right as the Jeep aligned with the sign for the parking lot. The wood stake holding the sign up snapped as Stretch steered into it. Looking in the side window I could see the tail lights of The Dentist’s Cadillac burning red against the darkness of the parked cars.

“Fuck,” I said.

Stretch smiled. “Yeah, fuck him.” He stuck the .45 out the window and fired it into the air.

My ears felt like they were filled with hot metal shards. The noise ricocheted around my skull cavity, and then all I could hear was a fuzzy white noise. Mo said something, and it sounded like he was really far away. I couldn’t make out his words.

“Fucking go now!” I yelled. I think. I was unsure I said the words aloud. Stretch hit the gas and the car started to slide out of the parking lot, the tires finally catching on the gravel.

At that moment there was a noise as if we went over a speed bump. Something hit the windshield with a splat, as if we dropped into a puddle. I couldn’t see forward anymore.

“What the fuck! What the fuck was that?” Mo was shouting in my ear but his voice sounded muffled as if he was yelling through layers of cotton.

I instinctively looked into the passenger mirror and saw something lying in the street behind us. It looked like a bag of dirty laundry. Except, facing towards us, was an arm. A hand.

“We hit someone,” I said.

“Something.”

“No. Someone.”

Mo reached over and turned on the windshield wipers. Blood smeared around like a child’s finger painting. I could smell it. It was the stench like the airplane hangars I occasionally worked in. Mechanical. Hot. Like dumping out a quart of viscous oil on a warm concrete floor.

I couldn’t see out the front windshield though the wipers slapped back and forth. I felt sick. I looked in the passenger mirror, watched the grey bag in the street, half expecting it to blow away. It’s not real, I told myself. It’s only a bag of clothes.

Back at the embassy compound we pulled into one of the bays where they sprayed cars down with pesticides. It was done here, it was done at the border. Supposedly it prevented the spread of bugs. It probably just caused cancer.

We sprayed the car down with the pesticide, tried to wipe off the blood. But the pesticide and the blood were both oily. It was just making a mess. The pesticide got on my skin and burned it. I tried not to inhale but the chemical smell burned my sinuses. Though I was a heavy smoker, I worried the chemicals would damage my lungs.

The passenger headlight was shattered. I kept looking at it, wondering why I hadn’t heard it break. There was gore all over the front grill that sprayed down the side of the car. There was a dent in the hood. I decided it was from the head of the person we ran over though I wasn’t sure. Could a human head dent the hood of a Jeep? I didn’t know.

Eventually we gave up on the pesticide spray and took the Jeep back to the ranch. The boys took turns bringing out water in a bucket that was usually used to clean the floors of the ranch. I smoked. No one expected me to help. I was the only woman, but this was not a woman’s cleaning job.

I wanted to go home. Someone dropped me off at my house on the South highway. I don’t remember who. I had the passenger window down and smoked on the ride home even though that wasn’t allowed. This wasn’t a country where it was safe for a gringo to ride with the windows down.

“We have to tell someone,” I said.

“Tomorrow.”

“We have to tell someone.”

“Tranquilo. Tomorrow. Tranquilo.”

By Monday nothing had been done, so I called my management at the agency where I worked. An internal investigation ensued. The Marines were mad at me. I was a rat. A report had been filled out saying we had hit a cow, not uncommon in Managua where the cattle grazed along the highway. The boys were called in to explain.

My manager asked me over and over again. “Why did you go there?”

Yes, I knew it was a Sandi bar. Yes I knew it was off limits. Free T-shirts made a sorry excuse.

Stretch was flown back to Houston for an interview, and the college applications I had helped him fill out when he first arrived in Managua ended up in the trash. On his flight home was a 20 year old woman named Aura Lila who was knocked up by someone in the State Department. She was flown to the US to get an abortion since they were illegal in Nicaragua. It was her first flight, even though she worked at the airport, and she threw up the whole way. No one on the plane spoke Spanish. We didn’t expect her to come back, as she was now ruined, but she did.

In the end, it was determined that Stretch had done nothing wrong. The man we had run over was homeless and had been huffing paint. In the eyes of the government he, like all the Nicas, wanted to die. He was high and stepped in front of the Jeep, committing suicide.

Stretch took an assignment in the US, married a woman from Dallas, and they had two kids. He eventually retired from the military and got a job as a manager at a McDonald’s. He sent me Christmas cards with pictures of his kids and quotes from the bible. He forgave me for being a rat, said he was glad to be exonerated for what some might have thought of as a crime.

At the embassy, a show was made of trying to contact the dead man’s relatives to deliver a collection taken up at the compound. Likely they didn’t look too hard. Likely the cash disappeared, as it often did in countries where a duffle bag was the local ATM and as long as you had filled out one of the blank receipts we were given along with the duffle, no one cared.

A year after the man was killed I flew home. My parents met me at the airport. I must have been a shocking sight, 20 pounds underweight, arms and legs covered with infected scratches and bug bites, face tinged a sickly green from a six week bout of malaria that nearly killed me and ended my assignment in Central America.

My dad touched me, something he rarely did, and said, “We’re glad you made it back safe.”

But I knew I hadn’t made it back safe. I knew for the rest of my life I would return to that table in the Blue Moon.

[1] Unless I’m mistaken, you’re a male prostitute

blonstar

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

and some other random thoughts...

help a sister out

Monday, July 23, 2012

blue moon (new short story I wrote)

sorry for sucking

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