A Memorial (Day) to Come

In his wheelchair, Davy sat in the darkened 6-man bay, his mind swirling in reflection from the 6th floor of Letterman Army Medical Center at the Presidio, staring over the runways at Crissy Army Airfield and beyond at the fog-lighted Golden Gate with its stream of headlights painting white blurs in both directions of traffic.

He'd been in a drug-induced coma the month of his arrival and awoke 62 days earlier, finding a Purple Heart pinned to his pillow atop a bed appearing to have a tent over it's lower portion under which just a single leg now lay, bandaged.

Despite his pleas and protests, his lieutentant had veered the 12-man patrol into the jungle in the wrong direction, into an ambush and firefight that would bring decades of nightmares to the only five survivors of its carnage.

On point, 'Jinx' had been hit and pretty bad, but Davy--the medic--couldn't get to him under the fiercity of incoming fire the VC were laying down from all directions with frighteningly lethal accuracy. Davy couldn't wait for a let-up and low-crawled out of safety to Jinx, grabbed a wrist and rolled over with him twisting up into a standing position, firing his M-16 with Jinx now slung across his shoulders, just as an RPG shuddered Jinx' body and shattered the medic's leg as Davy gushed blood with leg bones exposed incredibly dragging them both to safety, collapsing among his fellow troops, and indadvertantly dropping Jinx' now-lifeless body.


Members of the patrol wrote of Davy's heroism beyond their belief to bring a deserved and earned CMH (Congressional Medal of Honor), but to no avail in direct contradition to the courts-martial testimony, perjury, that mentioned the medic's use Cpl. Johnson's body as a shield, a lie to lessen the lieutenant's culpability, one that would cause Davy's own nightmares and force a visit of everlasting consequence to the disgraced lieutenant once a prosthesis had become second nature to walking...not for the medal, but for a liar's mettle to hide incompetence that had cost Jinx and others their lives.

Forecast for Peacekeeping

This morning's full moon posed itself between a lone palm on the left, and a stand of palms to the right, all at minimum heights of 4 stories. In its topless frame of palms and terra firma, there was an added, resounding magnitude in its call for me to gaze, one held so captive that I realized it appeared to me as the Eucharist, a Catholic's embodiment of Christ transubstantiated from a thin wafer of bread.


As the pre-dawn light intensified, the moon slipped away in the natural frame, sinking to invisibility by rotation, revolution, and the sky's bluing. I felt the peace of Eastern meditation smooth out any wrinkles of my self-ness.

I'll carry it into my day until my mind gets upstaged by some rat-bastard who unwittingly fucks it up.


I have far to go--just haven't yet attained the stamina of Dolly's Llama but see great potential if given a tomorrow.

Should it Really Be Called a 'Date'?

I read a blog called "It's Only a Date," and got to thinking, 'Shouldn't it be called an audition?' That fits, 'audition' just works better for me.


So you have an audition or several, all goes well leading to the horizontal mambo, after which you should tell your friends, "I have a time with Sally, Friday," and they can drink your beers and won't wait up.

Things progress and all of a sudden you have to meet her parents, and that should certainly qualify for telling your friends, "I have a scrutiny with Sally on Saturday night."

Moving-in warrants your confession you'll be doing a poser, engagement will mean you're going adrift from your pals in a surrender, and if you're actually going to go through the matrimonial act, then you need to tell your friends "I'm having a blunder in October."

If the Inuit ('Eskimos') can have all those words for snow, we should cut to the chase in redefining pre-nup nomenclature.

Insurance Adjuster Disappears: Search Focus Near Swamp

It’s black as pitch an' nighttime in the backwater got a chorus o’ animal and insect noise all its own but it don’t mean you feel any bettah 'bout bein’ out in it by your lonesome.

This was one o’ them very nights when a car parked on the ’shine road with the light on inside and some city boy all spreadin’ out the map on the dash with that interior light o’ that dinky foreign car seeable for miles like a lighthouse.

He in a white shirt and loosed-up tie lookin‘ like the man so I lay low, stoppin’ traps-checkin’ till he go.


Just when I’m thinking he best be gettin' gone, he no sooner smack a ‘skito off his neck then a shotgun ring out and put the boy’s brains all up in the shatter glass as the buckshot scatter it.

I’m crouchin’ low, now, as the they drag his mess off to the gator hole an‘ roll that dinky car with they tractor till it smashed flat enough to drag off, prolly to wheres they sink the other one, but I got muskrat to clear and can‘t sneak a watch to this one.

Sure I’m scared all I can handle but sure not as much as the next revenuer they be sendin' out at night, sniffin’ 'round here for still smoke.

Good Grief

Nettie wasn't aware Roland had slipped out of the house when she startled to find him coming in the kitchen door, grinning, holding an old kitchen clock with its plug dragging along the floor. He pointed toward the downstairs room into which she'd moved him with the Alzheimer's diagnosis as she gently scolded him for leaving, finally smiling to say, "Yes, honey, I know you need to fix it and it's okay."

Roland sold his shop and retired 26 years earlier but continued to tinker with clocks and watches, evidenced by cigar boxes full of watch and clock parts stacked neatly along the top of the bureau and undisturbed by Nettie knowing it was a harmless and pleasurable pasttime.

Whatever Roland did over the course of 2 days, the unplugged clock continued to run, even after he had removed the hands and, at the point of abject frustration, Roland stood, roiling, to throw the clock against the wall and was felled by a heart attack at 88. The clock's remains, just beyond the reach of the craftsman, exposed a broken, hidden port through which a 9-volt battery had popped, the back-up power supply for the tasteless plastic timekeeper.

Lorena Nayton appeared in a brightly colored, floral-printed dress during the sparsely attended funeral home's viewing hours to Nettie's displeasure, for Lorena had always wanted to lure Roland into a tryst, and when Lorena held Nettie's hand and pucker-smiled to say, "My condolences, it was just his time and I loved him, too, you know," Nettie wailed a loud, involuntary sob and stomped the prune-faced hussy's foot.

9th St. Diner: A Lesson from Coobie

Coobie knew no one at the diner paid him any never mind in that threadbare beige sweater he loved, sittin' on one of only two stools after the last curve of the L-shaped counter with me next to him on the other.


Irene had a case of the sharps and figured him rightly and early-on to eat the same thing every mornin': a grilled sweet roll, poached egg on top, and coffee. Fact is, she gave him the name, "Coobie" cuz every time she'd poke him with a question, "Think it's gonna rain, today?" or comment like, "That girl's gonna win American Idol," he'd answer "Could be," which sounded like "Coobie" to her un-Southern ear.


A man o' habit, Coobie would read the obituaries, then tackle the crossword, always getting stumped on them cheatin' ones like, "fourth letter of the Hebrew alphabet." Coobie's fascination centered on folks' reading and chatter at the diner, the 'head seeds' he called 'em, as some talked Suns/Lakers, or Obama, or read about oil spill or health care, plantin' them head seeds of wonder or worry that would sprout and aromatize the day's thinking between the ears of the patrons.


He liked me (prolly cuz I was from South Carolina) and convinced me that I didn't need to take-on slices of that emotional pie to carry through what he called "God's glorious day," sayin' it would either work out or it wouldn't, which sure lifted a load from me, I'll tell ya.

Single-handed Solace

In my 20s, I stopped 'looking.' I decided I'd take care of me, find a hobby or something in which to sink my passion and attract someone to me in the common interest circle. I bought a small racing sailboat that took me outta the bars and the games and the 'scene.' My life changed for the better. The more I focused on my sailing skills, the more a growing circle of young women continued to be drawn in around me. The ballast of a bikini'ed butt on the rail sure helped the boat to perform better.