14er fever

I had no idea, a year ago, when I gave my friend Cam's son a book to read on Hugh Herr that he would decide he really wanted to be a climber. He's funding his own trip next year to climb Kilimanjaro. And he's spent the summer bagging 14ers out here in Colorado.

I was feeling a bit depressed that I hadn't done one 14er this summer due to switching jobs and still traveling. So when my friend Kevin asked me this week if I wanted to escort himself and his two room mates, Leon and Peter, up a 14er (their first) of course I said yes.

We were supposed to do Quandry peak this morning. But at 8 PM last night someone finally figured out that Quandry was farther away than anticipated. I suggested Bierstat instead. It's more scenic and closer.

I sent detailed instructions on what to pack, most of which were ignored by Kevin. Including the first thing on the list, a spare set of socks. The beginning of the bierstat trail can be muddy and wet. About 10 minutes into our hike Kevin fell into a creek. Luckily Peter had an extra pair of socks for Kevin to use. I should probably not mention another detail, which is that Kevin was farting like freight train the whole hike up.

It was a great day even with all the crowds. When we summitted there must have been at least 50 other people on top. We took quick pictures and then I suggested we head down. The weather on Bierstat can change quickly, and I didn't want to have to haul ass down the rock pile/talus field that is Bierstat's peak with 50 other people and their badly behaved dogs.

Peter had me laughing with his impromptu singing. He would sing two lines of a song and then stop. He got one 80s song stuck in my head for most of the hike though. That was kind of annoying. Then he and Kevin had an argument because Peter thought he was singing The Final Countdown and Kevin was like "no, that's a Stix song."

When we arrived back at the car everyone was like "that was only 7 miles???? that was hard!" We ran into a guy with Tennessee license plates who was not hiking but who was drinking red wine in the Bierstat parking lot. He was like "You hiked all the way up here? That looks tiring. We're drinking."

Point taken :)

I hope that Leon and Peter invite me on some more of their adventures. I dubbed Peter the mountain lion because for a smoker he had a great pace and was good at route finding through the talus field. I think he's also been bitten by the 14er bug. He was googling 14ers the whole ride home and wants to do Torey's/Gray's in a few weeks.

Rock on. Hiking partners!

When I was saying goodbye to them at their house at the end of our little adventure Peter was like "Thank you so much for guiding us up Bierstat." I was like "I didn't do anything except laugh when Kevin farted." Peter said "But you encouraged us up when we wanted to turn around."

I was like "I don't remember doing that." And he said "Well, we figured if someone with a knee built from dead body parts could get up Bierstat so could we."

It's the best compliment I've received in a while.

why I will not eat at mici's again

Last Friday night I ordered a pizza from Mici's to be delivered. They have really good pizza. The wait time is usually long, but more so on Friday (1 1/2 hours).

The pizza was $24, $27 including the tip. I should have looked at the pizza BEFORE I tipped the asshole who delivered it. I guess he had been holding the box sideways. All the toppings were slopped on one side of the pizza and all over the box. And they had left off the basil topping (which cost $2.50).

I sent an email to Mici's complaining about my pizza (calling there on a Friday night is ridiculous - you sit on hold forever). They responded in an hour apologizing. If I had asked for a new pizza it would have been 11 PM before I got it. They said they would send me a gift certificate instead. I sent them a picture of the pizza in response so they could see I wasn't making the story up.

A few days later I got the "gift certificate". It was for a free personal pizza. What????? I paid $27 for a pizza that only had 2 edible slices (the other topping covered slices were so soaked with sauce and melted cheese that I couldn't even get them off the bottom of the pizza box and the ones that were just crust...well why would I eat crust?). And they send me an $8 coupon? I order from them at least once a week, sometimes more if people are over. A few times they've accidentally undercharged me and I always corrected them and paid the right price.

Further, because I order from them so much I get free personal pizzas every few months. I always give them away because those tiny pizzas turn out to be half crust and half toppings (not a big fan of crust in and of itself).

What they SHOULD have done is refunded my money for the pizza, or at least given me a gift certificate for the size of pizza I ordered and fine, I'd pay for toppings.

Fuck you Mici's. In this economy screwing your customers is a bad idea.

Anyway, a new sushi place just opened that delivers to my house. Guess what I'm having for dinner tonight.

and about my new book

At dinner on Saturday I was talking to the writer's group inner circle about my dreams (can't remember how it came up). I initially wanted to make them into a book but people thought it was a stupid idea. But Jeff thought it was a good idea. He asked me to send him links to some of my dreams, but said he was too busy rewriting a play that's in a contest to read them until August 25th.

Me:

Jeff, you aren't THAT god damn busy that you can't take five minutes to read these:

The dream about a comedy show with a great white (forgot about the jewish jokes in this, you'll enjoy it)
http://blonstar40.blogspot.com/2009/02/shark-ha-ha-show.html

The dream about being in a show where Drew Barrymore gets killed:
http://blonstar40.blogspot.com/2009/07/broken-vase.html

This is about finding out the secrets of the universe. You will laugh, I promise:
http://blonstar40.blogspot.com/2011/04/secret-of-universerevealed-here.html

Can't find the monster dream right now, but this is a dream I had about magic clay and farts:
http://blonstar40.blogspot.com/2008/12/if-only-there-were-such-thing-as-magic.html

So, maybe this could be my next book...

Jeff:

These are all pretty great.  I think each would make a good short story.  Start with that and then worry about making them into a book.  

Me:

"Dear New Yorker Magazine:

I am submitting for your consideration a short story I've written based on a dream I had about magic clay. Tea Leoni also farts into a vat of tuna salad and makes Elizabeth Taylor eat it. I apologize for not being able to figure out how to make a squiggle over the "e" in Tea's name.

Sincerely,

Franki Flowers"

I'll be published in no time!

Jonathan (who's only 21):

I feel utterly hopeless about being able to write anything half as interesting as everything I've just read.

Me:

Jonathan,

The secret to life is that you're going to die. So do shit assuming it's going to kill you but you're going to die anyway so who cares.

Then laugh about it. And write it down. Including any resulting nightmares or dreams.

"Oh shit, I just stepped on a rusty nail and will die of tetanus! Remember when Kevin made farting noises? Haha! Oh, was that a dream or was I really abducted by aliens?"

Fade to black.

 

middle earth

Yesterday evening I was catching up on the XCKD comics and I came across one titled "cirith ungol" that had a person entering a cave that was full of webs. One of the webs said "some pig!" I didn't get it.

So I emailed the inner writer's group.

Me:

Do any of you fags know anything about middle earth? I don't get this comic and it's driving me crazy.

http://www.xckd.com/1087/

Kevin:

Sorry. I've had sex during this millennium so I'm unqualified to answer.

Jeff:

Kevin you suck.  I know the answer. 

 

It’s at the end of the second book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Sam uses a magic light in a cave with a really large spider.  The cave is the way to get around Cirith Ungol, which is a really bad fortress. 

 

Kevin:

All that Lord of the Rings knowledge, and you still can't get laid. How is that possible?

 

Jeff:

Me:

Thanks Jeffy.

But.

Why is the comic funny? Why does the web say "some pig"?

I need to know. I might not be able to sleep tonight if I don't find out. I can't keep googling shit forever. I have to watch Diva.

I just need someone to tell me why this comic is funny.

Jeff:

The some pig is a reference to Charlotte’s Web.  It’s a children’s book (actually quite good) about a spider that makes friends with a pig.  To keep the pig from becoming bacon she starts to make words in her webs.  Since people are stupid, they think the pig is doing it and not the spider.  So the spider keeps the pig alive.  One of the things she writes is “some pig.”  It’s a clever comic, but not hilarious.

Kevin (obviously on a different page than the rest of us):

It's a bad pun, Franki. His name is Malcom Jamal WARNER. From the Cosby Show. Warner-Warning? Get it?

Me:

I'm blond and don't own a tv.

I didn't get it.

 

Jeff:

Franki, just make a list of all the jokes and we’ll help you.

 

 

Everyone should join a writer's group. Even if you don't write.

 

 

 

shows that need more sharks!

NPR just put up the best article ever, in celebration of shark week, about TV shows that could use a shark to enhance the plot.

I don't have a TV and I've never seen any of the shows but the article was fucking hilarious anyway.

My additions to the article, but for movies:

Crazy Heart - Instead of meeting Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jeff Bridges is thrown into the ocean and eaten by a shark. The movie ends in less than 15 minutes, leaving me time to watch another episode of my Chaos class.

Happy-Go-Lucky - Five minutes into the movie a genetically engineered shark that can survive on land eats Poppy. Then the director splices in Casablanca.

Citizen Kane - At the end of the movie Kane goes bankrupt building a giant salt water tank. It is uncovered, after he dies, that rosebud was his pet shark.

Life Aquatic - That already has a shark in it, which makes it one of the best movies ever.

mother nature is a bitch

I awoke this morning with anticipation of finally filling my newly rubberized swamp cooler pan with water and enjoying the comforts of cool air in the house again.

My project worked perfectly (I highly recommend rubberizeit for any project). Though, after I got the swamp cooler turned on the temperature dropped to 69 degrees. I had to turn it off. Maybe tomorrow.

And then my writer's group got hailed and rained on as we were finishing dinner on the upstairs outdoor patio of Merle's. As soon as we all got inside the rain and hail stopped.

Hail fell in my wine but I drank it anyway.

the joys of rubber

UPS finally showed up at 1130 with my rubberize stuff. So far the project is going well. It looks like it's going to rain but...it always looks like it's going to rain...

Swamp cooler pan after cleaning. I had to scrape it and then sand it. That was the day I stepped on the nail. You can see the hole in the pan...

After rubberizing. Looks pretty cool in a bondage kind of way.

The hole patched with a fabric called reinforceit.

some ways to be cool (none really work)

I am not *really* complaining because the hottest day in Denver is still better than a sort of hot day anywhere else...but it is kind of hot in the afternoon and with no swamp cooler...and UPS* sent me an email this morning saying my rubberizeit wouldn't be here until tomorrow...

So, the engineer in me decided to do some experiments on keeping my house cool.

Experiment #1 - Open all the doors and windows during the day but keep doors closed at night. Turn on ceiling fans.
Result - Hot and noisy. Cross breeze my ass.

Experiment #2 - Open just the downstairs back door during the day (since it's shaded by my under decking the air is cooler than that coming from the upstairs door - and I can prove it because I've been taking temperature measurements). Turn on ceiling fans.
Result - Hot. Not noisy. A bit claustrophobic.

Experiment #3 - Only open the doors at night (back doors, not front). Turn on all ceiling fans. Close doors in morning. Turn off all but the main fan during the day.
Result - This actually worked pretty well (5 degree temperature drop from experiment #2). But it did cause me to have nightmares even though no one can get through my screened safety doors without a blow torch and my back yard is enclosed and would require someone to climb over my garage and then 18 feet up to my deck.

No, I don't have too much time on my hands. Why would you think that?

*Is it just me or is UPS starting to really suck? I mean, they mailed back my packages after 3 delivery attempts (2 in one day) instead of storing them as usual and then when I called to complain said they changed their policy about holding packages for 5 days. I was like "thanks for fucking telling me" and they were like "we're telling you now". Grr.

Tdap

Yesterday afternoon I was up on my roof working on my swamp cooler again. I had to scrape and then sand the bottom of the swamp cooler pan to get rid of all the gunk in preparation for rubberizing it (my rubberizer should be here on Wednesday).

(my friend Pascal was like "looks prehistoric!" when I sent him the picture)

I had just finished cleaning it and was walking to the edge of the roof to lower the hose, which I had dragged up to the roof with a climbing rope...

...when this mother fucker went through the sole of my shoe and up into my left foot. It almost popped out the top of my foot.

(next to my house key for scale - it was a BIG fucking nail)

So I did some research on tetanus and started to worry I was going to get it. It causes, among other things, death, back spasms, and uncontrolled pissing and shitting. No thanks. But, I didn't know how my new insurance worked and thought maybe I was over reacting and didn't need a shot. I dumped hydrogen peroxide on the hole in my foot and hoped for the best.

But I woke up this morning with neck pain (one of the signs) and a headache so I called the 800 number for my insurance and it turned out it was super easy to get a tetanus shot. The nurse was named Michael and he said it was a good thing I had come in because it turns out my headache was actually a fever, potentially caused by tetanus (the neck pain also worried him).

I got a shot called the Tdap, which is not just tetanus but also whooping cough and diptheria. I was like "it's like the three for one happy hour in the Injections department!" (because that's where I was - the injections department - they only do injections).

He gave me a pink band aid and told me to move my arm a lot.

It matches my water bottle. Not psyched about getting a shot, but psyched about my band aid.

I can step on rusty nails for another 10 years without having to get a shot.

electric shock therapy

Today, after delaying for 4 weeks, I replaced all the outdoor lights on my building. Yeah, there are 3 other people who live here, but they don't do anything.

It's the first electrical project I've done by myself. I was a little nervous, more so when I accidentally touched a live wire and got a huge fucking shock (blister on my finger where it touched the wire).

But...the lights work!!!!! I did it!!!!!!

And the calculations I did to place the address plaque so it's directly under the light at night were perfect.

Oh, and my swamp cooler fix worked. I put water in it today and it's sound as a boat. But I get my RubberizeIt on Wednesday and that's when the real fun of that project starts.

To celebrate my day of successful projects my friend Cam came over and we ate way too much indian food. Will have to spend the rest of the evening watching movies to recover.

spots

I was just talking to my dad on the phone about my swamp cooler fix. I had to laugh as I hung up because my dad would do stuff like duct tape the bumper back on our car (and leave the tape on until the bumper fell off again) or unbend a hangar to make it into an antenna for the car. It didn't help that we always had ghetto cars like a huge van or a lincoln town car (bought, appropriately, in Vegas at 4 am, which is another story entirely). At the end of our conversation my dad was like "I definitely need to come out to Colorado this fall". I think he feels left out that I'm fixing stuff without him.

As I was writing my other blog post I remembered a time that my dad had come out to Colorado and rented a white car (think it was a Ford). We were going to the mountains but my dad wanted to stop at some refinery. He has a thing about taking tours in places normal people don't go.

side note: When my youngest brother Steve was being interviewed for a gifted school, at the age of 4, a teacher showed him a charcoal briquette and said "do you know what this is?" My brother rattled off an explanation of how coal is used for power. The week before my dad had taken us to tour a coal plant because it was on the way to my grandparents' house. The interviewer told my parents that he had to write down what my brother said and then fact check it because he didn't know how coal was converted into energy. Needless to say, my brother got into the school and weirdly, studied mining engineering in college and now works in part with the coal industry.

We pulled into the parking lot of the refinery and the air was heavily ladened with the stench of tar. No other cars were parked in the parking lot. The tour took an hour. As we headed back to the car we were shocked to discover it covered in black dots. It turned out the refinery was having its roof re-tarred (hee) and the wind had blown tar onto our car.

My dad was pissed so the guy who did the tour for us said we could drive the car through a car wash down the street and the refinery would pay for it. All the car wash did was spread the tar around. We drove the car for another week and when my dad returned it the rental company didn't say anything.

Which reminds me of another time, before I was living in Colorado, when my dad rented a Ford Taurus that we intended to drive around Colorado picking off 11 fourteeners in 9 days. We were on the approach to Torrey's and Gray's peak, which is notorious for being a rutted mess (even more so back in 1995). For what ever reason my dad was speeding. We rounded a curve, hit a rut, and I saw something fly off the car. My dad stopped and I got out of the passenger side. The trim under the door had been ripped off, all the way across the side of the car.

I picked it up and was like "what the fuck do I do with this?" My dad was like "just throw it in the back seat". Nine days later, when we returned the car, my dad was like "Just walk casually towards the airport bus." As we were walking a guy from the rental company called after us.

"Sir, I think you left something in the back seat!"

My dad said "Uh, no, that belongs to you!" Then he looked at me and said "RUN!"

We ran to the bus and watched through the back window as the confused rental car check in guy pulled the trim out of the back seat of the car from the driver's side. We had a great laugh. My dad was never charged for damaging the car.

Looking forward to my dad coming out here, hopefully in the fall...

RubberizeIt

Today I bought a quart of liquid rubber. Seriously. It's made by a company called RubberizeIt.

While I was in California this week the pan of my swamp cooler sprung a leak. It was a ring sized hole (the white spot in the middle of all the rust):

That sucked because it means I have no way to cool my house except for a fan. So, after doing some online research, I found RubberizeIt, watched the YouTube vid on how to fix a swamp cooler, was like "fuck yeah I can do that", and ordered everything I need to bomb proof my swamp cooler pan.

But, the liquid rubber doesn't get here until next Friday.

So I looked through my tools and stuff and found a suction cup I had saved (it's supposed to be used to hang a razor in the bathroom). I trimmed it up and then filled the cup part with latex sealant. Then I scraped and sanded the metal around the hole, and stuck the cup over the hole and covered the suction cup with more latex sealant:

It kind of looks like a latex nipple.

Finally, I covered the underside of the hole with more latex sealant:

I'm going to let the latex cure for at least 12 hours, then I'm going to fill the pan with water and see what happens. Even though the latex is technically not rated for underwater I figure it will last until the RubberizeIt gets here. And I use that sealant on the plug for the swamp cooler and it lasts for the whole summer. My dad thinks it will work.

I'm hoping with the liquid rubber I can keep my swamp cooler for another few years. It's going to cost about $2000 to replace it since I have to hire a crane to hoist it up on the roof.

Go me with my redneck engineering!

back splash

I was complaining to a friend about my kitchen remodel hoping he would have some tips for me:

Me:

Busy weekend trying to finish up loose ends for my kitchen remodel. I really hate shopping and walking around looking at things. Like, I don't fucking know if some tile will make a good back splash or not.

Pascal:

Ooh yeah the perils of choosing a splash back. Now this is also a bit of a mystery to me. You have fashion, taste and practicality to balance. I favour stainless steel as it's really hygienic, easy to clean and fairly cheap. However it shows up the muck. Glass is super fashionable in the Uk at the moment. Tiles can be cheap or stupid expensive with ones that are crafted on the thigh of an Italian maiden using only her feet, "look you can see the imprint of her toenail", "but they aren't square and look shit", "but they cost me $1000 per square foot", "hmm", "want some coffee, it comes from beans that have passed through the digestive tract of a patagonian trouser hamster","fuck off, I hate you". Don't ask me for advice on splash backs babe. I will get it wrong and you'll hate me for ever. I'll happily tell you whether I like your choice though.

I found it interesting that he mentioned "hygienic" when referring to his kitchen. He cooks a lot so maybe he meant it from a food perspective. Though, he's also the type of person that would have sex on the butcher's block.

Too bad the backsplash I want, which is made out of recycled wine bottles, costs a billion dollars.
 

elements of fucking style

I went to Tattered Cover today to pick up a copy of the elements of style since I've been unsuccessful in procuring a used copy.

They didn't have it, but they did have the elements of fucking style. It's actually really good. And next time I'm at a writer's meeting and someone makes a nonsensical comment (someone told me I use too many adverbs and I was like "do you know what an adverb is?" - dead silence) I can whip it out and give a quick lesson in, for example, dangling modifiers:

wrong:

Having trouble getting aroused, Viagra helps me maintain an erection.

right:

As I have trouble getting aroused, Viagra helps me maintain an erection.

For real, that's in the book. And more. Buy it. Everyone writes, everyone can use it.

and some other random thoughts...

Just reading the news...why do I bother making myself depressed...

#1 - If you can't manage to get a government ID why should you think you're smart enough to vote?
#2 - If we tax the shit out of alcohol and cigarettes why don't we tax the shit out of ammo? Let people who need guns for their job write them off on taxes...
#3 - If people insist on their right to assault rifles why not introduce a feature that only smart people can figure out that allows the gun to fire?
#4 - If a guy sent me an email about axiomatic mereology and I found him to be extremely sexy is something wrong with me?
#5 - Especially because it proves tuples are bullshit...and I don't even know why I feel so strongly about that...

Hm. I've been up since 4 am. Maybe time to think about winding down and getting some sleep...

help a sister out

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...

blue moon (new short story I wrote)

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

sorry for sucking

The past few weeks have been insanely busy. I edited two books for two friends, did a review of another friend's play, did more shopping for my new kitchen (which will probably start in a month, yikes!), submitted two book proposals, and have been trying to figure out what I need to do in my new job.

This week I'm headed back to California and I'm going to take my non-work laptop with me. The tablet just doesn't cut it.

And, I already got a rejection back on one of the proposals I submitted:

Dear Franki,

Thanks very much for sending your proposal.While your adventures are entertaining and truly inspiring, unfortunately, the book just isn't a strong fit for our list at this time. I do appreciate the opportunity to consider this, and wish you the very best in finding the right publishing home for your work.

 

Boo hoo hoo. I guess the good news is I think my proposal is good after so much review and I just need to find the right publishing house. Usually publishers don't respond at all to general queries and all the rejections I've gotten have made it obvious they read my proposal.

I've been toying with the idea of completely rewriting my book in a way that makes it more mainstream. God help me. I don't even know how to do that really. My life isn't exactly mainstream.

new job

And, my new job is going well but I cant  access the internet from my work laptop and I couldnt remember my tablet password so last week i was not able to post anything since I'm in Cali without my personal laptop. Obviously not remembering my password was the start of my problems with my tablet. Ech.


And in case you were wondering I'm still trying to gett my paycheck issue resolved. If I have to hire a lawyer and sue I will. Assholes. I called HR, payroll, and legal and none of them would help me.

star child

After a number of technical delays(i.e. not remembering the password for my tablet) I'm back in business (this little keyboard is a  challenge though).

Last saturday my friend Jess invited me to a wine tasting  at her friend's house. She's dating a wine distributor. Wise choice. We got there at 4, and since the wine tasting had been going on since 1, things were interesting.

I    was sober friend (we took a  taxi)  and when I noticed Jess was getting a little liquidated i put some cheese cubes on a toothpick for her to eat. One fell on a  pretty expensive carpet. Before i could pick it up the hostess had stepped on it and was grinding it into the carpet as she turned to talk to everyone. I was like "Jess, I dropped cheese on the carpet what should I do?" and she pushed the hostess out of the way and said "Franki dropped some cheese and you're standing on it!" Embarrassing. Then I saw what I thought was bread and asked the hostess if it had honey in it and she was like "honey that's not bread, it's cheese".

Somehow I'm trapped on this line and can't get down to the bottom of my post> Fucking tablet. My arrow keys aren't working. Who fucking designs this shit??? More on this post later. Last paragraph  can't be edited since I cant get  down  to it. Oh, and fuck you touch screen..

Then these two sisters from a very rich and well known colorado family showed up. The red head sister, who was tall, asked if Jess and I  were lesbians. Then she said i need to meditate with her.  Then she said I'm obviously a star child and that I could hang out with her in her bunker when the world ends in december. with her.