Undertow

UNDERTOW

Walter Wizknoski (Wallace to his friends) pressed down harder on the accelerator peddle.  The heavy Bentley dutifully dumped more atomized fuel into all 12 cylinders and the foreground blurred appropriately in response.   Early morning wind whipped leather and new car smell into a froth Wallace brought  deep into his lungs, like a high school swimmer hits a bong.    Together they were speeding at over 100 MPH headinh west on Franklin Ave. passing Gower St. in Hollywood.  


He knew what he was doing was wrong in fact  for the past month or so he had been floating in a sea of wrong actions, bad decisions, and half thought out plans.

Wallace felt good.   Good enough for that thought to come to the front of his mind push past the clutter and present, itself.  Wallace smiled.  These past weeks had been the best so far in life.     Life lay out before him like a new relationship urging exploration, fun and excitement. 



He could see up ahead red and blue flashing lights.  The sight talked directly to his foot lifting it from the accelerator even before he consciously thought to do it.   The smile vanished from Wallace’s face the same way.   Two tones of automobile slowed.  At this moment many might be concerned at not having a valid drivers license, or that the car he was driving was bought with stolen mob money.   Wallace was not.  As the full scene came into view he knew none of that would matter.   At the corner a small yellow car, lay on it’s roof.  Across the intersection at an angle a Chevy pick up truck smoked under the, streetlights.  It’s grill mostly missing, badly crumpled half way up the hood.  Bits and pieces of headlight, turn signal lenses, and other automotive detritus crunched under the Bentley’s wheels as Wallace rolled past the accident.

Wallace cruised under the 101, freeway and turned right up Cahuenga Blvd. towards the house he shared with his mom.  Up until 29 days ago they were a family of modest means.   Wallace turned the key pushing the weather cracked wooden front door open.  The first thing he noticed was the smell.  Cordite, he had been around fire arms all his life and he knew the smell at once.  He put his hand into his coat pocket and around the Smith & Wesson 629 and drew it out.  He slipped off his shoes walking slowly his mind all at once in full attention mode.  He walked around the floor-boards; the ones he knew creaked and headed for the bedrooms at the back of the house.  Wallace stopped halfway down the hall noticing light spilling out from under the bathroom door.  The master bedroom where his mother slept had it’s own bathroom and being a child of the 90’s Wallace always turned out the light when leaving a room.   He could hear the sound of a person,  a man closing his pants kind of grunting to pull the waist band over his paunch.  Wallace backed into a darkened corner of the hall and pointed his revolver at the door.  He pressed his back to the wall and waited.  When the door opened Wallace fired twice hitting the man in the chest and neck and the man fell backwards crumpled into a half sitting position propped up by the bathroom counter.   Joseph (the hammer) Morraino, the appointed minder of the aforementioned cash and mid level muscle for the Cordavino crime family: lay dead on the floor.  Eyes still open.  Wallace headed for the master bedroom knowing what he would find before he opened the door.  

His mother lay with her feet on the bed and face down on the floor.   A bloody sloppy blotch stained her light pink bathrobe mid back, Morraino had also shot her in the back of the head; like they do.    


Wallace tenderly lifted his mom’s feet off the bed and lay her out on the floor rolling her onto her back.  Her robe had flipped up when she fell exposing her panties.  He slowly moved the robe to cover her, turned around and walked out of her room.   He grabbed two more boxes of shells for the gun and another pair of shoes from his room.   They felt light in his hand.  The touch of the leather was soft yielding but strong touching the leather felt good to him.  They ought to feel good they had cost $1,100.00, each.   Wallace walked back down the hall.  His eyes fell upon the dead hit-man who had seen fit to shoot his mother in the head and, returned the favor.  A dark red spray of tissue coated the cabinet door behind him.  Wallace went to the garage and found the 5 gallon Jerry can still mostly full.   He walked through the house spreading out the gas being careful not to get any on himself.  When there was just a splash left in the can he poured it over Joseph Marraino.  He used his zippo lighter to light a piece of newspaper.   Once alight he slipped the lighter; the only thing his father had left him; into his pant pocket.  He tossed the lighted paper and ran from the house.  He backed the car out of the driveway and put it in drive looking back just as the first wisps of smoke were coming out the living room window. 

With no destination in mind Wallace drove and found himself in Santa Monica checking into the Lowes hotel on the beach.  He used the fake ID and credit card he had purchased in Echo Park for $555.00 and the bellman walked with Mr. Sanders to his suite.  Wallace tipped the bellman $100.00 and requested extra towels.  He opened the mini bar and started to sip vodka from a small bottle shaped like a polar bear.  Sliding open the patio door he let pre dawn air into the room and felt the ocean on his face.  He sat in the white and blue striped chair and put his feet up on his black bag that had slightly over 2.5 million dollars in it, closed his eyes and thought of what the next move aught to be.

flutter |ˈflətər| Chapter 1

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Chapter 1

From the time Anna Taylor was 5 years old, she was nearly positive she could do it.  

 That it was real and not pretend at all.

Maybe, even before that. 

Sometimes, at night, alone in her room some, darkness would come for her.  A frightening, thought took form, in her mind that if left unchecked would grow and take hold of Anna.  It always started the same way with a soft flutter in her stomach.  It is such an odd sensation,  to l-o-s-e ones self.   

There in the darkness of her room she could feel something was trying to fill the space her body still fought to occupy. 

The feeling did not take her away instead it got inside her.  It pushed at her insides it spread her out.  It made her feel airy, buoyant,  almost euphoric,  comparable to being outside her body.  Though was still herself she could not be seen.  She had for all intents and purposes, literally and figuratively vanished.    It was not, a totally unpleasant feeling.  Thrilling really.  Still a bit unsettling.  

 Facts from the physical world she knew so well clawed at what the evidence of what she could feel was happening inside her.  

You cannot disappear.  She would think.

Even as a 5 year old she knew enough of the world to know that.  Though it was hard to argue with the facts.  She lay in bed, blanket resting upon her, to someone looking in on her they would see the covers with an outline of her form.  If they were to pull the covers back only an indentation of her 51-pound body.   Would mark her spot in the visible universe.  Also Anna could feel those covers on her.  Could feel her hair on her shoulders.  She could feel the scar on her lower lip from when she fell off her bike last year if she ran her tongue over it.  She could feel everything, but nothing could feel her.  When she faded it was like smoke rising from a cigarette on a windless day.  Rising, attempting to hold shape for a moment then letting go.

Stranger still was, in this state she felt an almost absurd sense of calm, like she, were an immortal as if nothing could harm her.  Finally even more absurd was that she could only vanish like this is she was terrified.  So if she let this feeling of calm take her over she would rematerialize.

Anna knew it for a fact as surely as she could feel her own breathing filling her lungs that she was no longer solid.  She was not out of her mind.    She was just out.  

Minutes later as calm returned and just as quickly, her body stretched and reclaimed it’s place.  The exhilarating squall blew it self out inside her.   It was over for now.  There she lay in her bed again, under fabric-softened covers.   She felt weak.   Scared and troubled.   

This thing she did.  

 What was it?   

 Feeling more like a curse, then a power.  A power is something you can control.  This controlled her.

Just an unpleasant but unavoidable part of the game.

 Do not pass go.  Do not collect $200.00

Still Anna would not be fully certain about her ability or disability until that pretty dreadful night 8 years from tonight, when all doubt ended.  To be replaced by something else. 

She knew something was out there.  Biding it’s time, waiting.  It had no name but it was out there, and it was always ready.  Ready to take Anna Taylor.

Stones

I didn’t even remember what I came here to run away from

I had been sitting almost all day watching the shadows as they moved across the square, then start to fall and stretch out.  The heat of the day gave no sign of abating in the faded light.   Surrounded by thick old stone towers and walkways.  They bathed in the sun and cheerfully radiated the heat they had gathered in the daylight.   The place felt like it had been sitting there doing that for a long time and meant to keep doing it.    Possibly, forever.   Time in that old place did not follow the rules.  When a place is thousands of years old, trifles like hours and days make no sense.


Forty-eight yards left of me sat the two Russians.   They sipped their coffee and tried to look as though they were not waiting for something.    We had not looked at each other.   I knew them both.  Boris, the larger one, weighed 20 stone – even at that weight, he could run 2 miles flat out barely breaking a sweat.  Like a lot of big guys, he was a man of gentle disposition.  Viktor, his boss, was half the man Boris was.  Viktor, had never once shown any kind emotion at all.  If Viktor had the strength of Boris, he could have made real trouble in the world.  I guess god protects the dumb animals.  Or a helpless world.

I finished off the last of my latte, they made some damn good creamy latte.   I set my cup upside down on the saucer.  That was the signal.  I had promised myself as I did every time that this would be the last time, that I would never do something like this again.  I knew that was a lie when I said it – it is a bad idea to lie to yourself.

Boris stood up and straightened his jacket, a totally pointless effort.  After fiddling and tugging, he still looked like,  sausage in a sports coat.  Yeah, just keep working that, you Russian slab.    I sat up just a little in my chair; watched Boris walk away about 15 yards, then disappear between two buildings.  So far so good,  everything was as planned.  But what in this world goes off as planned?

I was sweating. Boris had been gone maybe 2 minutes, it seemed longer.   Like I said, in that place, time just breaks down.  Viktor sat as well, looking in my general direction, but not at me.

He looked his part.  Viktor looked evil, but we are not evil guys.  Sometimes we get good people out of a tight spot, if the money is right.  Most times we get good money out of a tight spot, if the people are right.   On the menu this evening, diamonds – to my mind, the most universally liquid form of currency on the planet -- don’t leave home without them.  Finally, after 4 minutes Boris reappeared around the corner. His gun hand was in his jacket his other hand hung free. 

No bag.  No merchandise.

I know Boris – he is a “right hand: gun; left hand: items” kind of guy.    Guys like Boris are mechanical – they pee at the same hour every day; they chew their food 34 times.   They put their socks and shoes on in the same order each time.  One second, then two seconds passed and a girl – maybe 13 years old – walked into view behind Boris.   She looked very small next to him.  She had dark hair and darker eyes.


I thought.  Was there some change in the plan? 

In my business you stay calm.   Still in my head, the alarm bells were ringing out the “Holy What the Fuck” chorus.   In 3-part harmony.  But I did, stay calm.  I was watching Boris.  I saw his dropped hand fly apart – I mean I saw his pinky and forefinger come loose and turn to mist: as sound bounced around the square.   The shot spun him to his left he staggered sideways in front of the girl.  A second shot struck Boris in the back of the neck and he fell forward.  No doubt, saving the kid’s life.

I was on my feet, without thinking.   I didn’t hear the direction of the shot – too many echoes.            A quick scan showed no open windows, but my ass was in the open where it oughtn’t naught to be.  Behind me was the shortest route to cover but I was not under fire at the moment.  In front of me, twice the distance away, was the reason I was there, lying under 300 pounds of dead Russian.   So, god-bless rock-n-roll I started to run.  Viktor stood facing me and drew down.  I ran full speed, pointing my weapon, focused and ready.   Running hard, my finger just tightening to fire.   Viktor rose and aimed at me and another shot  cracked in the air and he fell right into my path blood leaking from a hole in his head.   I grabbed at him as he fell, hoping to drag him and use him as a shield, but I was going too fast Viktor fell dead to the ground six feet from the place Boris had died.  I just dove. into the alcove where Boris lay.   The girl looked fine considering that her feet were pinned under a very dead Boris.  I rolled my friend away and she freed her self.  She picked up Boris’s gun and handed it to me with out a word.   No emotion on her face.   My heart was pounding in my ears and she look like she was sitting in the library at school.

I pulled us both a few feet further into the cover of the buildings.   She looked right at me and said, “ I have zee items you seek”.  Snapping off well-rehearsed words through a thick accent.  No smile, no break.  

I tried hard not to laugh.  I am a huge Rocky & Bullwinkle fan.  I couldn’t stop it and the more she turned her head in that quizzical – “vas that not right?” way -  the harder it was to stop. 

Still, “out of there” was the order of the right-damn-now.   Fifty feet from us was the end of the little row of buildings sheltering us.  After that, was a street, an open crowded street.  I figured these people, who ever they were, couldn’t be crazy enough to drop a little kid on a busy street.   I couldn’t quite figure out what had pissed these guys off, but they were pissed.   I was pretty sure by then that I was not the one that made them like that, after all, I was still breathing.

“We can’t stay here.”  I told her.   

I got to my feet and moved fast as close to cover as I could find.  Then it struck me – “she is a kid, asshole” – she doesn’t know how to play this.   I looked back and there she was, right behind me back to the wall, eyes alert looking at me as if to ask what the hold up was.   “ I have zee items you seek.” She said again, staring dead at me.  Looking back on it, I should have known what she was saying.  At that moment, I just wanted some shade.
  

20 minutes later, we were in the worn lobby of a small hotel I know of that took walk-in boarders and never asked many questions.  I got two rooms on the second floor across from each other.  At least I could watch her door.  

When she held her hand out for her key, she grinned and looked up at me.   Smiled at me in a child’s version of being subtle.

“Ve don’t need separate rooms.”   She said. She pushed towards me a fraction of an inch.

“Don’t even try that shit on me, Honey”.  I said.  Putting my shoulder between us.

She looked put out.  Then she smiled, even relaxed maybe, a little. 

It was my turn to smile.  “Lets go upstairs, wash a little and I will knock on your door in 10 minutes.  I will need some answers – more than, ‘you have zee items I seek’.”  

Her turn to smile, nervous like her big scene was about to come on stage.  I got a nod.   She understood me.   Frankly the whole thing was beginning to spell out “BAD PLAN” in letters 100-feet tall.

So we walked to our rooms.  I watched her close her door and backed to my door.  I spent 10 minutes with one eye on the peephole.  I was not really afraid of her running – more of her being noticed by competitors.  Someone had trusted this kid with a good deal of money.  That meant they either had something big on her or had promiced something big for her.   That is the way the world was.  Still is.  Everyone is a businessperson and she seemed more than equal to the task. 
Whatever passed for childhood was long the stuff of memory,  for this one.

As I watched her door I began to ask myself questions.  I had been ready to transport a case, a small overnight bag at most, not a person.   What kind of fucked up god puts me in charge of a person?  A kid, no less, though I was starting to take the term more and more lightly.  Thinking back, she picked up Boris’s gun as her first thought and, come to think of it, picked it up correctly.  She could have seen that on T.V.   Odder still she then turned the gun around and handed it to me correctly.   Not her first gun? 

Maybe. 

BAD PLAN.  The letters grew larger.

  

Nine and one-half minutes were up and I could not take one more second of the squeal the broken fan in my room made.  I opened my door.  I stepped into the still sweltering hallway.   I would have to speak to someone in management about my fan.  I knocked on her door 5 times like I told her and she opened it.  We traded the heat of the hotel for the heat of a small café downstairs.  I had been drinking latte all day.   I was hungry.  We ordered.  I anticipated roast lamb.   Kids must be kids the world over, she ordered a burger.   Truthfully I hated the food there and couldn’t wait to be back home.  

I said,  “So tell me.”

She said her name was Nika. She was 14 – lost one parent to AID's when she was 5 and the other to drugs when she was 7.   Lived in the street for a year before being picked up by one of the many gangs running through the countryside, as a mule to carry items inside her.  I mean who was going to check a little girl.  So they used them.  Sad story – not my problem – so far, not my problem.  

“I go with da jewels,”  she flatly said. 

It took a second for my brain to process. I started sweating.  

“I am go with them and seeing of how I am 13…”

I was now being vaguely threatened by a miniature Russian cartoon character
Did she just suddenly lose a year on me for effect?  

“You will find yourself in uncomfortable position if you try to take them from me.”

 All I could think at that moment was that a flying squirrel was going to come save my sorry ass.   I am not a fan of flying,  but at that moment.  I had no idea how I was going to move us 5000 miles.  She let me chew on it for a bit, let me sweat.  I was at the point to thinking she could probably fit in the overhead bin – problem solved.   

“There is a ship, there have been made arrangement”.  She said.
  

I had the heavy feeling I was being played – very disconcerting.   In fact, I was about to lose everything.  So I asked her why, if she had a way to leave, did she need me?  I saw for the very first time a small crack in her – it happened, and was gone so fast, I might have imagined it. 

“Boris”  she said,  “He insisted it be done siz vay.”  

I was still trying to figure it out.  

“He wanted to make sure you to get paid.”  Any hint of emotion was gone, wiped away.

Ship turned out to be a bit of a stretch.     Floating cargo container-  was closer.   I have had worse.  Four walls ceiling and a floor all steel.  Two cots and no window.   It would do.  

I ran laps the perimeter of the top deck every morning of the trip.  The second morning Nika was dressed and waiting before I woke.  If she insisted on intruding on my private run time she would have to hear my “theory of breath”.    And so will you dear reader.  In a nutshell -an appropriate receptacle.   Your body responds to breath and it’s rhythm.  Every smoker knows this.  When Catholic grandmothers and Buddhist monks tell you saying the rosary or chanting brings them ease it is not the words they say alone but the cyclical nature their breathing takes on as they repeat the lines over and over.    The longer they chant the more time they spent with their breathing slow and eve, and the better they feel.   If you can get your breath to cycle you can do all things better.   Run with ease or live with ease.  Stay in your breath.  Try and make your in-breath blend into your out-breath.  Make that transition between in and out as soft and seamless as you can. 

To my utter shock she ran the next day with me also.   Everyday.  She asked me if I liked being a thief and a murderer.   I was half a sentence into my well rehearsed job description when she cut me off.
"You kill people and take sings zat do not belong to you, for money.  She said flatly.  

Jesus didn't this girl see any shades of gray?  She had in 48 hours ingratiated herself with the crew.  After one morning run she lead me to a beer a cold beer.   A cold beer, at sea.   Amazing.  I was faintly aware she was a minor but after a run a good morning beer buzz is a fine thing at any age for a smuggler.  For a little kid she was an impressive belcher.

   

Five months later, I was back in New York.  Nika was, wherever the hell she had gotten off to after we disembarked.  I was waiting.  In my work, you don’t send a friendly “8-months late” in your payment note.   You either blow their fucking house up,  or you wait.   I always chose the latter, whenever possible. 

Knock-knock – Fed-Ex.    A package at my door.  "Sign here".  "Thank you very much".   I set the box on my kitchen table.  No ticking, no leaking, no oders.  Sent from someplace in Virginia. 

Inside were the jewels and two photos of Nika and Boris together.  One of her, much younger, one taken just before the day Boris died.  The letter from Boris began “Here are the items you seek.” Russians make everything sound underhanded.   

I read on that when he was recruited, he was already married. They needed a cover story so he was taken to the hospital one night.  A story went out that he had AIDs.  It would ostracize the family and deter potential visitors.   The official records show he promptly died.   So his transition from citizen to Russian thug was achieved.   As he moved up through the ranks of the organization, as it were, he kept tabs on his daughter.  He watched his wife’s descent into despair and drugs.   He saw the effect it was having on his daughter, but could not really move to overtly help her, for fear of outing himself and the entire mob.   Blood in – blood out, was a real thing – like with all soldiers. 

He rigged this whole thing for her, thinking that if she carried the stones, they would keep her safe.  Even in his world, killing a kid was just not something done by professionals.   Still, Boris had to take the extra step of sending the jewels to me.  He didn’t want her to die in the street or in the world he knew.   As his punishment, he died right in front of her, right on top of her.   Someplace a therapist is sitting there, looking at an empty couch.  Will I be on it or will she be on it?  The guy died for his kid in front of her.  He kind of died for me too, and in front of me.   His original scheme would have worked.   I know Nika would have gotten the package across, but he spared her that experience and sent the stones to me so I could get paid.  That exposed him.

Tomorrow I will take the jewels to my guy.    I will have my money in 24 hours.  I have been kind of replaying all the crazy moments of the trip.  Boris, hand on his gun, but not drawn.  Why?   Because he thought taking it out would draw extra fire, no good for the kid.  He had to know what was going to happen.   That shot on Viktor was close enough to hit me.  I could hear the bullet and that kind of bugs me now because I hate those guys that sit in bars and talk about hearing bullets whizzing by – I mean so what!  You’re sitting here, aren’t you?   How bad could it have been?   Man, just crossing the ocean and I have all the parenting experience I ever want.  Amazing to me that more don’t end up serial killers.  But they are all we got.  Like it or not when you strip it all down, they will run the show.  We should take care of them better.  

I sat back in my chair and looked at the light play on the jewels.   They were lovely, still, just rocks.   Carbon cooled down fast enough and under enough pressure to become what it is now and not a hunk of worthless graphite, which is a perfectly acceptable end for carbon.  One we devalue, one we cherish.   The numbers were just made up and suddenly worth a fortune all because of trust or lack of trust. It made less and less sense to me.  So much wealth in the world shared equally could make life good for so many.   I closed my eyes and thought about the direction my life was taking.   It struck me that this was never really set up to move stones.  It was to move her.  To a better place.  I thought of that and about Boris, going fast like that, protecting his child.  I thought that was a lucky break if you’re going to have to go.  

“Once I have this cash, I swear I will never do something like this again.”

all images through google images

Copyright 2012 JVWilder

Kevin Slavin: How algorithms shape our world | Video on TED.com

Kevin Slavin: How algorithms shape our world | Video on TED.com

Group inaction in action

So here we are in 2011 bouncing along down the road.  Butts will be worn slightly more bruised this season.  America is starting to appear less like the place the olds used to speak of proudly, and more like countries the olds used to warn us about.  Something fundamental has changed.  So?  What is it? 

For one a certain segment of our population is under a kind of get poor slow attack the last few decades and it has worked to perfection.   Whilst another segment, a much-much smaller one is just giddy from the take all you can and pay nothing blitz rave they have been on, all the while enjoying a nice long mimosa scented tinkle down upon the rest of us.  Oh happy Fourth of July by the way. 

As a growing portion of us examine our economic conditions more closely than ever before, it is important to remember that even a struggling lower middle class lives much better in the US than in most other countries.   A comforting thought to be sure, but hungry is hungry even in Hungary.   Greed or something like that has pushed our leaders towards bowing down to the super rich at the peril of so many others.  Egypt and Syria showed the world you can only push people, so far.   While there is no equating the level of corruption, violence, cronyism, and thievery, in the US to anything near what has been perfected by our Eastern brothers.   They do seem to be “sending in plays”.  As we act and overreact to their troubles diverting desperately needed attention from our own. 

One small miscalculation being made by our leaders, is that here in America you will not find a more medicated, caffeinated over armed group of citizenry on this entire planet.  While I’ am a devote coward, it is much in the same way Shaggy & Scoobie are.   Afraid, but we act, because we must.  I do not condone violence of any kind as the solution for anything, to paraphrase, “violence is a blunt tool for carving out peaceful change.”

Nor I do not subscribe to the notion that all one need to do is open yourself to the universal love and you will find inner bliss, diet soda will be good for you, peace will bloom like a flower in the mid east and that stubborn last 5 pounds you have been running your ass off to lose will melt away then there will be key lime pie for dessert. 

It comes down to two lies were, are told.  One lie is that we as a country are broke.  Second is that the rich pay the lion’s share of the taxes both are untrue.

If we are broke?  How is it we have spent $ 758,956,404,867 and, change in Iraq and, we are still spending.  This is according to http://costofwar.com/en/.  

 Not to mention the thousands of dead American’s, that we so rarely seem to mention.   Second.  Well let’s put it this way.  How well has your 401k been performing over the last decade or two?  The single sector of growth in our economy are families earning 200k and over.  Every other sector has either fallen or remained flat.  This is according to http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/where-do-you-fall-on-the-income-curve/.  For the very top families wealth has more than doubled.   All this as our leaders from both sides display their mock indignation and scruples to the public and their privates to selected twitter followers.

Would you believe me if I told you that I think we can change this?

Lets wind the clock back 70 years.  People just like you and I put down there pencils and hammers walked away from there typewriters and coffee shop grills then willingly went far away to a place they were told someone was going to be shooting bullets at their heads.  They did this because they knew they (or were told) they needed to.  There is no discussion on whether the world has been a better place since.  They rightly have earned the moniker of “the greatest generation.”

Here now we are lucky enough not to have to go through all of that.  We still must act be act smartly and with out the need for bloodshed.  Yes we need to sacrifice but only a little bit.  The idea is a simple for one day every American voluntarily stays home from work.  If you are a 1^st responder, look inside yourself and make the choice.  In any case we consume as close to nothing as we can, on that day.  Understanding that every action taken every bit of power saved whether it is buying power or from our limited natural recourses will be felt, tabulated and analyzed by the huge corporations we all love so much.  And who in fact run to a large degree own our lives..

So you take one day off.  Spend our time reading or actually snuggling with loved ones.  Play games or sleep.    If you must watch TV or go on the net do so sparingly remembering the goal.   Be bored but be focused.   Focused on one goal.  Getting the top 1% in this country to pay their fair share.  Maybe even some back taxes.

We could do this people!

They are cutting funding to our schools and high-speed rail to keep tax breaks for the rich.  That is for the top 1%.  Hey!  The rest of us are 99%, so do the math they lose.  It is only by our inaction that this can remain the way it is.

Small business that is Americans buying stuff accounts for 70% of our economy.  If for one day there was reduced commerce in America our leaders would notice.  With out violence or mass street protests.  They would have little to hold over us to dampen the message.   The effect on the stock market alone of a one day American buying stoppage would be staggering.  It is true that some power brokers will try to take advantage of an action like this.   Any time you stand up for what you believe in it costs you something.  

 If history holds true than “first the will ignore you, then they will laugh at you, then they will fight you, then you win.” – Nicholas Klein.   Imagine Banks unable to stay open, gas stations unsuccessful in pedaling $5 gas.  If you took a date like 23, 2013 and no one bought or worked, consuming as little as they could for one day.

Just as in Egypt and other places the job will not be finished in one day.   The power of this protest is we can and will do it again.  The second time more people will join.  You know they will.  People are hurting angry and feel dismissed.  Hurting, angry dismissed people just love to join a crowd.  The third time even more will join.

It makes me wonder why it gets to the point where people have to shoot at one another to achieve change.  Is because people missed all the chances they had to get the same thing taking smaller actions because after all things are not so bad?  By the time it gets “so bad” will it be too late to take the smaller actions?

So I ask myself could I make such a sacrifice?   Am I willing to do nothing to achieve change?  For one day?  Two days?  Long enough to have eaten all the half bags of Doritto’s and cans of green beans in the back of my cupboards?  Could you?   Is it bad enough yet?

Diet soda will always be bad for us.  Many of us do not care for key lime pie.  But we can make our owners and leaders listen so they just can’t tell us how more tax breaks will get the idle 9.7% of us working again.  The real number of unemployed is closer to 15%.  The books are cooked to keep the numbers artificially low.  If you have stopped looking you are counted as employed. You just have more vacation time but you lose the dental.  This way we can effect change.  No war.  No people pouring into the street.  Our effect will be a hole, in the bottom line of our owners tally sheets.  A hole made by ordinary citizens like you and I taking action, by taking no action.  Eventually it will become less expensive for them to pay the tax than to keep seeing ever growing gaps in their income stream.  Just the threat of further uncertainty alone would have an effect.  The stock markets hate uncertainty. 

It is bad enough yet?

I return you now to your previously scheduled life already in progress, and I thank you for your time and careful attention.

Copyright © 2011 JV Wilder
All images from Google images

 

The Situation on Black Briar Road

The act of looking into the mirror is one of faith and discovery.  Everyone carries the inner image of them self.  When the reflection glances back upon you, your twin either confirms or ignores the imag held moments before.  It tells no white lies to spare your feelings.  We either listen to the truth it speaks or not.

That bit of knowledge alone would have been reason enough for Jeff H. Conner to avoid mirrors.  Like so many, answers his was easier than that,  the fact was he didn’t care.   On days he had to shave his face he did so in the shower by feel and memory.  Hot water, shaving cream and skill allowing him to de-shower predominantly clean-shaven and nick less.    He kept a stash of disposable razors in the car for the inevitable times his partner would comment on a missed section of cheek or chin.  The light to moderate pain of dry shaving that one square inch was enough slow him down and become temporarily zen regards to shaving in the shower.

  

Some long-term couples begin to resemble each other.  Some pet owners look like their pets.  Jeff  Conner a homicide detective looked like his job.  In fact he looked like he came straight from central casting.   Greying, balding and heavy.  Heavy in the way a dump truck was heavy rather than Jabba the Hut heavy.

The intelligent ones most always end up in homicide.  You need to be ready to learn so much more in homicide.  If you have a case involving a Jeweler you learn a little about that business.  One of the perks for Jeff of being in this line of work was the chance to learn outside this sphere of knowing.  Bookbinders, sports managers, insurance salesmen, even house wives had their tidbits to offer.  In one case where a housewife shot her cheating abusive husband 4 times in the chest, the subject spent a lot of interview time teaching him to cook and how to make his jacket not look as if had not been slept in, by hanging it in the bathroom on a good wooden hanger not wire, when he took this hot morning shower.  She had emphasized it being a quality wooden hanger.   No, wire hangers.  He had done just that many times since it always made him smile.  

The body had the shocked look of the arrogant not the terrified look of the innocent on it’s frozen face.  Landing flat on his back on the oak parquet living room floor.  Jeff stepped around.  As photos were taken and  prints rolled.  The wife had run upstairs and locked herself into the bathroom.  She had dropped the Smith & Wesson .38 revolver where she stood when she fired it.  The on scene personal all force veterans saw the situation for what it was.  They had seen it before.  The location was ‘secure’ so the decision was made to wait her out.  So much more paperwork involved when you go in with smoke and grenades.

Every police officer and wider all first responders had parent issues.  Good, bad or, otherwise they all had them.   Some as simple as ‘I was gonna be a 4^th generation cop before I was born.’  Like Jeff's younger partner Richard ‘Big Dick’ Haggerty had told Jeff more than twice over after shift refreshments.  For some a darker action witnessed had lead them here.  To this, place.  A place where, they could to try and make a small difference make any difference.   To find some bit of justice for the victims.  It astonished Jeff how he had to dig deep sometimes to unearth the real victims among the self-purported variety.  This had become something of a national sport of late even more so in Hollywood, and you did not have to be famous to play.   Casey Anthony was neither the first nor the last killer to walk free under the victim umbrella.  In deed there were many that thought the whole of the democratic system political and judicial was in the midst of falling apart.  Jeff preferred it was listening and changing to fit into an ever, shifting world.  Jeff was a good listener made him a good cop.  Over his career there were many times he didn’t have to do much more than listen and ask the right questions.  In more than a few cases he simply listened as they talked them self right into ‘C’ block.

Jeff was climbing the stairs of the modest house passing officers he knew well and some less well.   He hummed the theme from ‘COPS’ quietly as he ascended and looked at the family photos that lined the stairwell.  Just one, step from the second floor he saw a picture of the wife dark hair young happy full of life.  Next to her was one of the corpse downstairs.  “What you gonna do when she shoots at you.”  He sang finishing the song and tapping a finger on the picture frame of the husband.  “BOOM.”   He whispered to the dead photo.

Both the officer that stood beside the locked bathroom door and Detective Richard Haggarty looked up and smiled at this.   Cop humor.   Is part of the job.  It is not uncaring as each crime is felt to some extent.  Still if you wanted to make it home for, dinner fully intact you needed a way to disconnect from all the darkness and try to live mostly in the light. (So to speak.)

Jeff glanced at the name on the incident sheet. Richard commenting on Jeff’s acapella song said “You know Jeff had you survived you would be a very sick man right now.”   Jeff grinned and pointed at the closed door noticing the gap at the bottom was cut at least one inch too short light from the bathroom spilled onto the tan carpeted hallway.  Jeff sat on the floor with his back to the wall on the right side of the door not directly in front.  On the off chance she had another weapon with her.  He was pretty sure, she could hear him as he sat down with a small grunt.

‘Elaine, my name is Jeff Connor I’m a detective with the Los Angeles police department."  He waited.  He could hear her in there.  Crying?

"Elaine, I would like to talk to you about this situation we have here."

In most negations he liked to use the subject’s first name he found it highly effective.

Another, pause to reveal his listening. 

 "’Elaine if it would make you feel more comfortable you could unlock the door and let me in we could talk in there."

“I shot him.”  Elaine quivered.  

“I shot him.”  This time her voice so soft it only conveyed the information it herself

‘Well, Elaine we can talk about all of that why not unlock the door?"

When Richard heard her words I shot him,  he whispered over to the other officer “ Aw It’s ok daring you know I’m not even sure that is illegal anymore.”

The officer smiled stifled a larger laugh.  The grin felt like a reward for Richard.  All his life he had enjoyed making people laugh.  He had always thought what a fine thing to be able to create from nothing a laugh or even a smile. 

Jeff felt his butt start no complained about the hard floor.   He struggled to his feet noisily her benefit.

 "‘You have such a nice home here Elaine surly there must be a more comfortable place to talk."  Jeff continued.

Just keeping her engaged. There was the sound of the bathroom door lock being turned with a ‘click.’  Jeff knocked on the door.

"May I come in Elaine?"  He waited.

"OK" 

10 seconds later Jeff called though the door to have the ‘doc’ send up an icepack.   Jeff handed it to Elaine who touched it to the swollen black eye growing on her face.

"This will be the last time you will have to nurse a black eye."  Jeff said half smiling. 

Sixty-eight minutes later they both emerged.  Elaine in her blood stained dress holding the mostly melted ice pack to her eye.  At the foot of the stairs Jeff urged her left away from where the body still lay.  Walking her through the kitchen out the side door and around the back of the house to a waiting cruiser.  She didn’t fight as they put the cuffs on her.  Jeff stopped the office from putting her hands behind her and turned her cuffing her hands in front so she could hold a fresh ice pack to her face.  Another officer sitting next to her in the back seat incase she had second thoughts on the ride in.  She didn’t seem like the type but all the cops know you never fucking know.

As Jeff got into his brown crown Vic. another officer Alex Tavelman passed him."‘Nice touch in there Conner." he said not slowing down and thumping the roof of the car with one hand as he walked away. 

 Elaine Carol Taylor served 4 months of on a one-year sentence. 

She lives now with her husband and one year old son in Bend Oregon.  Upon her release and after parole she sold the family house and left Los Angeles.  

She has never been back.

Copyright © 2011 J. V. Wilder. All right reserved

21 minutes on I-95

They were driving too fast.  The sun had set an hour ago the sky still colored azure fading to charcoal.  Jupiter was high in the sky.   An electrical engineer and a patent holder she followed the stars: she loved them she could never remember a time when they both felt more alive ; when everything seemed so 'in it’s proper place'. The top was down she looked at her husband in the left seat.  Focused a slanted grin and looking damn good in his aviators.  He touched her thigh and accelerated. 

The kid was drunk double the legal limit.  He had just lit a smoke when his back window turned blue and red. ‘Fuck’ If I get a ticket my ol man will skin me alive.’

He tried to think ¼ mile to the highway and ½ mile to driveway. ‘Fuck it’  He gunned it.

Inside patrol car 41 Officer Mac Leary muttered ‘ Don’t run asshole.’

She turned back in the passenger seat and saw their sleeping daughter.  Legally she should have been in a booster but the small car had no back seat and they would soon have to trade in the love mobile.   No hurry she was still small and there was time for one more run.  She tucked the blanket under her sleeping girl’s chin  amazed the child could sleep through the roar and the wind pulling strands of hair almost straight up.   'Life was so perfect' she thought before thinking again 'count your blessing but don’t count on them'.

The big block police dodge was just slipping into its comfort zone as the needle stretched to 90.  The kid who was, way ahead, looked in the rear view.  'FAST’ he thought trying to coax a little more speed from the aging truck.  ‘Come on girl come on.’  He spoke lovingly listening to rusted muffler parts banging the under carriage.  He rolled the window down when a puff of air blew the ash from his smoke directly into his right eye.

They could not see on coming traffic as they ascended a gentle rise.  She leaned back and saw the first stars coming out.  Calling their names.   Head back wind blown she flew through outer space.  Just a few feet away her husband was in a different world.

The kid had his eyes closed for a good 20 seconds rubbing the right one when he looked up he saw just open road ahead but behind him flashing lights were filling more of the view.  Close enough to the exit he knew so well he switched the lights off laughing to himself.  The left front tire began to make a bad noise.

They were just feeling that weightlessness cresting the hill.  When people speak of ‘They never saw it coming.’  They never did.  The car came to pieces.  The child bounced once hard tossed into the air still snuggled in her blanket then skipping harder across a muddy patch of grass and upside down into a thick bush at the side of the road. She woke 30 minutes later alone in the dark held in place by some unseen force she was not pleased, and began to scream.

Officer Mac Leary saw the bright flash but he saw the impact first’ TC TC’  traffic collision   (They love acronyms for some reason) he yelled into the mike.  He knew even before he rolled on scene this was a fatal.  The smaller car was half a car and on fire.  The kid would live though his back and legs would remind him of this night for the rest of his life.  When he came too and for years after the full weight of 2 lives would show themselves, depression and guilt would hang on him.  He would however survive and thrive have 3 kids of his own and love them in a way few fathers can.  He lived every second as a gift because he knew just how fast things can change.

It was not until the fire was out that Officer Mac Leary heard something.  He lighted the area sweeping as he had been taught, shouting out for the others to ‘ quiet I hear something.’  Then they all heard the screams and quickly found the source.  She was alive ‘probably won’t remember a thing.’ one said as they cut the branches and stickers away ‘probably best for her’ he thought but did not say.  Her face was bloody from a deep cut on her scalp but they knew for the most part scalp wounds bleed like hell but are rarely fatal. 

In the ambulance they checked her eyes and pulse.  No sign of internal injuries.  She woke briefly tried to speak but fog over took her.  Hours later there was a sort of impromptu conference.  The admitting doctor wanted to know about the patient in 4.  She came in with the TC she is stable laceration to the back of her head bruises and cuts mild concussion but aside from that she is ok to go anytime.  Well where are her RA’s responsible adults  (more anagrams) the doctor asked.  The nurse did not frown but neither did she have her usual smile when she said they were both down stairs she pointed to room 4.  The doctor marked his sheet saying ‘I’ll call social.’

About the 3^rd thing out of the girls mouth was Mommy?  The nurse sat on her bed and took her small hand laying it all out for her with all the professionalism she could muster.   The girl cried but not a lot.  At her age a sense that life was a one and only thing that it was precious and delicate did not register in fact she half believed in the morning like cartoon parents they would be alive.  That and being tossed 50 yards and landing in a bush takes its price on even a young body.  It would take time to be real for her.

It took social services 2 days to arrive by which time no living relative had been found so she would be put in a home temporally (and all that it implies) she had become a staff favorite.  As detached as the staff preformed they looked in on her often and forward to doing so and even helping her though her tiny crying jags.  Everyone had been nice to her not like mommy or daddy but nice.  Everything will be ok they told her.  She thought about her mom and her dad she thought of flying though the darkness as she walked from the hospital.

Copyright © 2011 J. V. Wilder. All right reserved