He went home. He wrote. Something started that would stay with him and progress. Of course he couldn’t know it yet, but it would stay with him his entire life. He would write. He would stop staying he was a writer. When someone asked him what he did, he would simply say he wrote.
Right now, he thought, he drove, he concentrated on driving.
Bobbie was a good sport. He understood. His father, well, that was a different story. He thought Bill was kind of gay, you know, writing poetry and all. But then his father was BIG RED 1, first division infantry WWII, POW for three and a half years in Nazi Germany, Stalag 3B Furstenburg.
And so it goes.
His father could never understand what majoring in English could get Bill, how it could earn him a living. Bill didn’t think that way. His father was dirt poor, immigrant, depression kid, dropped out of school in eighth grade to help support the family. Bill grew up working class, poor at times but not dirt poor, never dirt poor.
What it got me was busted, Bill thought as he drove. And here I am going somewhere I never thought/ never dreamed I’d be going, doing what I never wanted to do, never thought/dreamed about doing.
“You know, in Japan during the winter they keep the eggs in the freezer, not to freeze them of course, but to keep them from freezing.”
That’s what the professor who led him to the demonstration had told Bill one time. He was a poet and translator of Japanese poetry. They were meeting for lunch that day to discuss Bill’s writing.
“Wanna see what’s going on at the demonstration?” that professor had asked.
Then Bill’s hair lay there on the floor of the workhouse barber shop, gone in four zips, and he was handed the broom to sweep it up and throw it away, the only inmate that was made to do it himself. The barber was reluctant, but the guard who had it in for Bill made him hand over the broom and stood over Bill laughing as Bill threw into the garbage that which had taken him so long to grow and which had been so valuable to him.
Bill complied with the barber and the guard. Bill didn’t know yet that the show the guards had put on when the bus arrived, you know, their practiced routine to confirm their power position, was just a show, mostly, cause when and if push came to shove, they were the power players.
Bill complied because he was scared out of his wits and he didn’t know what else to do. In the scheme of things, sweeping up his hair and whatever hair was already there, if that was all he had to do, didn’t seem like so much.
He complied, and now he drove to the work that he’d never in ever thought would be his work but which he was happy to have and was thankful for because after all he was able to support himself and his wife and pay off their debts.
He had a few debts because he’d had to borrow money for rent and food from his brother and more money, a lot of it, from his boss at Suburban for the car they needed, he especially needed simply to go back and forth to work. He’d also had to borrow from his father because he had no money for his last quarter’s fees.
That was the whole thing. When he’d borrowed that money (his father had charged the fees on his charge card because he didn’t have any money), his father had made him promise he’d stay away from the demonstrations. And he would have too but for that professor who never did get to look at Bill’s writing.
On top of everything else, Bill had broken the promise to his father. Because of that, because of breaking a promise and disobeying, he could not ask for help, could not tell his father what happened.
By Peter Weiss
We’ll add more to the Big Democrat Lie at another time. Pretty much it speaks for itself. They move their lips, they’re lying. Lawyers all!
Meanwhile a few things to say.
A bit ago I mentioned that I work in the Mental Health field. Just so you know, need for mental health services in our department was up 140% over the same quarter last year, and that will be even higher in this next quarter which is happening now. Kiddos with mental health needs are an underrepresented, underfunded and under-serviced part of our population. They should be given the entitlements going to illegal aliens, no doubt about it. But the kiddos with mental health needs are mostly hidden, unable to advocate for themselves and not part of a politically advantageous talking point for those in power. So they get what they get, which is much less than what they need if anything at all.
It’s all askew.
About division and stoking racial divide, Biden and whoever is in charge over there talk one game and act another. They talk of unity but act of disunity. It’s on purpose. It’s not an accident.
Their words and their actions are all askew.
We live in a time when media and media related corporations are pretty much one in the same and are running our country. If truth is ever told we will learn that they effected the last election, that consequently our election was neither free nor fair. Will we ever hear the truth? Will history ever depict what the truth is?
I know. All you CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC and even NPR listeners will pooh pooh that statement. That’s because you aren’t hearing the truth. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn you actually don’t care about the truth.
It gets much worse. Those big corporations of old that were once reviled as capitalist devils produced things, made products like cars and washing machines and steel. These relatively new media corporations produce nothing, are much more powerful, much more rich and more concentrated into the hands of a few mega-billionaires whose personal business interests run throughout the world. They are more monopolistic and more powerful than corporations of old. Worse, they have no concern for their effects on America. The world is their stage and they could care less if America goes down. In fact, they are purposefully taking it down.
It’s all askew.
Finally, about the free press.
Once the free press is not free, once it is biased and cares more about an agenda than the truth, we as a free nation are in great peril.
Our media and press stopped being honest and fair to promote the election of Barack Obama. They did not vet him, did not report about his friends, cronies and ideological leaders. In fact they hid that from the American people.
Through the entire Trump presidency the mainstream media spewed the false narrative of the Russian hoax and failed to report accurately and/or honestly about that which President Trump did. That’s a fact, though those of you listening to the lie won’t believe it.
Incredible. Just incredible. If this were done in Russia, we would easily call it propaganda and say how horrible it is.
Once the media has an agenda and its agenda coincides wholly with one political party, we are in danger as a nation. When their agenda is not about telling the truth in America but about bolstering and supporting one political party and destroying the other, we the people are destined to lose our freedom.
Once that media openly censors some voices (almost exclusively conservative voices) and some news and then lies about incidents by presenting false facts, from there every poll, every opinion, every point of view based upon only their input is skewed.
Yes, it is all askew.
The first thing a dictator does is take control of the media. Once the Democrats controlled the mainstream media we were doomed.
All is askew.
By Peter Weiss
Bill didn’t take the bus into work. He wasn’t fit to drive, but he wasn’t fit to take the bus either. He was slightly high from drinking and pissed off from nothing other than wrong-think. Altogether this was not a good combination.
As he drove, he considered that he and his wife had had a good night and morning together. The shower together and their sleep were close and intimate. This was a good thing. She had brought him coffee in bed, who could ask for more?
But then…
More wrong-thing as he drove.
Where was he going? Why was he going there? What did he do wrong? What did he do to deserve what he got?
These were the basic questions that hit him as he made his way to the hotel.
Then there was the next set of questions. What was waiting there for him and why? How did this happen and how did he allow it to happen? How the hell did he get to where he was at?
No-good place four.
They cut his hippie hair, the hair that went down his back, in about four straight moves with the trimmer. Zip. Zip. Zip. Zip. All the moves front to back, in a row, just like mowing the lawn. His beautiful hair, hair he had fought his father so hard to be able to grow, hair that took years to get as long as it was, was gone in less than two minutes actual time. Zip, zip, zip, zip. Hair that he loved ended up in a big puddle on the floor of the workhouse barber shop.
Goddamn.
Then to make it worse, he remembered, they made him sweep it up himself.
None of the other inmates had to sweep up their hair. The others, they just got their cuts and went on about their business. But the guards who didn’t like Bill because he was A&B on a police officer stood by and made the barber make Bill get up out of the chair and clean up his own hair.
“How you like that, hippie boy?”
Except he wasn’t a hippie boy, not really. He wasn’t an anything in that regard. Yeah, he smoked pot. Yeah, he did speed. Yeah he was liberal and free-thinking and he took hallucinogens every now and then, at least he had done so until his wife-to-be had a bad trip and showed him they shouldn’t do that stuff.
So what? That was all part of being young and alive at the time he was young and alive. He didn’t belong to any organizations or political organizations. He didn’t proselytize. He wasn’t against anything per se. He didn’t agree with the war. He thought all people should be treated the same way and have the same rights and opportunities. He thought this was the way it should be in the world and that anyone who didn’t think this way, well, he didn’t want to be around them.
Nope, he thought. He wasn’t anything but a writer. That he was. That he did. He was a writer.
He was with his best friend Bobbie when they were fifteen over at Bobbie’s house. They were smoking pot and listening to music. Bobbie had speakers that went just about floor to ceiling. It was mid-winter, he remembered that because he remembered the cold walk home during which he kept repeating the same phrase over and over so he wouldn’t forget it.
“I have to go home,” he said to Bobbie.
“What? Why?”
“I have to go write something.”
The phrase had just popped into his head and now his mind demanded he go home immediately and write.
Nope he wasn’t anything but a writer. He wrote poetry and would later move into writing fiction. Yup, he was a fiction writer although he didn’t quite know it at the time.
By Peter Weiss
Gun control, climate change and the Green New Deal are all rooted in and part of the Democratic lie. The Democrats use them as they see fit, apply their use for political gain and force us to believe that which is not true and not real.
More sensible to all of this would be to understand and accept that the “all or nothing” argument is fallacious.
We are in the midst of the Great Democrat Lie. It’s never been more bold, never been more brazen, never been more destructive to the United States or more dismissive of half of the voting population. Joe Biden, master of the pinocchios, said he had the support of a majority of Republican voters supporting him. The latest polls say it is about 10%. Just a little lie.
On and on…
But I’m happy. At least Obama at least in one instance didn’t lie. No! Worse! He told the truth. He said he would fundamentally change America. And he did just that. Kudos to him.
What you see with Joe Biden, The Great Democrat Lie, is what we got.
By Peter Weiss
“Hey,” the smaller kid said. Bill started to walk away but as he said what he did he put his hand on Bill’s shoulder.
Bill flipped. He was already in the red zone and he just went to fire.
In one motion, he turned, tackled the little mutt and pinned him on the ground. Without thought and as part of that same motion, he grabbed his hair and started banging his head on the cement sidewalk.
Over and over. He would have killed the kid if the kid’s friends hadn’t pulled him off. They literally had to pull him off. It was hard to do so because Bill’s hands were still grabbing the kid’s hair.
But for the grace of God.
No-good place three. There were many no-good places. About six weeks after he was out of the workhouse, the undercover cop who was in the back of the paddy wagon with him and the kid he had tried to defend, a cop who they didn’t know was a cop, who was handcuffed just as they were and who led the conversation which showed up verbatim at his trial, tried to sell him pot in an alley in Columbus.
Why was Bill in an alley? Because through the campus area, at least, and in many parts of Columbus, there was a back-street type network. They were like alleys behind the buildings but they were through streets in actuality and they had no traffic lights at all. They were faster and more direct in some cases, and when you were walking from one place to another, if you knew how to cut thought the alleys you could cut your walking distance considerably.
This was wrong-think because laying there in bed Bill got pissed off all over again. He could feel himself starting to fume. He felt himself clenching his fists and he wanted to get up and punch the wall.
He might have. He just might have if one of the cats had not jumped on the bed and rubbed her ears on his half—clenched fist. It was the spotted white one, Sylvie, and he rubbed her ears. Her purring started deescalating his rage, her rubbing on him and revving like a smoothly running engine made him feel almost happy, almost good.
Overall, Bill could not remember feeling happy. He couldn’t remember feeling good.
He petted Sylvie until she was done being petted. Like any self-respecting cat, when she’d had enough, she simply got up and jumped off the bed. That’s when Bill got up, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. He got up, went to the frig and got himself a beer.
He drank that first beer quickly, and then he took himself a second beer which he brought with him into the shower. This beer he drank slowly, sipped at it while he lingered under the hot water. A long time he spent under the hot water.
As he dressed to get ready to go to work, he considered the day. He did not have any banquets to work on but he would spend a few hours with the banquet chef and Victor doing the prep for the next day’s parties. The rest of the week had no banquets, but lots of little parties, New Years’ parties. There were some breakfasts too and he thought he might see Beverly one of the mornings that he was in very early. As he finished dressing, the way he was feeling, he hoped it was sooner than later.
The anger and the beer made him feel ornery. Ornery was another no-good place, a different kind of no-good place than a no-good thought place. Feeling ornery and being able to act on it was different than being in a bad place in thoughts.
The hell with it, he thought. Before he left for work he took a swig of vodka from the bottle in his liquor cabinet. Slightly buzzed, it crossed his mind that maybe he should take the bus to work.
By Peter Weiss
I see some of my friends and relatives, real Trump haters, celebrating with glee having received their second vaccination (for Covid). Being vaccinated is a matter of personal choice. I personally think it is a good thing, but like other issues, I don’t press my beliefs on others.
Yes. I research them. I study some of them. I state them. I don’t reprint on social media idiotic statements that bear no connection to any sense of truth just because they support my ego or verify my sense of self or my feelings at any given time.
I differentiate my beliefs and opinions from fact. And unlike what the woke people do so readily, I don’t say that my feelings are facts and ask people to accept my feelings as such.
These days I rarely carry cash, any cash whatsoever. So if I want a coffee and don’t want to charge it, I may feel poor for not having money in my pocket to pay for a coffee. My feeling poor, does not mean in effect that I am poor. Were that the case on April 15th I would tell the government I feel poor, therefore I am poor by your own standards, and so I won’t pay any taxes. (So you know, their own standards say that if a boy identifies as a girl on any given day and sees the doctor, the doctor must treat them by their identification.)
Okay. These days we could on like this forever. The hypocrisy is more obvious and certainly more rampant than ever before.
So I just want to say a couple of things to all you Trump-haters I know who have celebrated or are celebrating your vaccination on social media. First, if it weren’t for President Trump, you wouldn’t have a vaccine yet. Remember candidates Biden and Harris saying they wouldn’t trust the vaccine developed under Trump? Gee, now they want to take credit for solving the problem.
Yes, people, it was Trump’s initiative and foresight that developed the vaccine, your vaccination, (a feat which medical scientists equate to making the trip to the moon that Kennedy initiated in less than one year as opposed to the decade it actually took). Hate Trump as you will, still, no matter what you do, you’ll never delete him. You’ll never diminish that which he was so right about. Your vitriol will only make it more manifest.
Say thank you to President Trump for your vaccination and your safety. The Democrats could never have done it in the time Trump did.
By Peter Weiss
Bill’s wife had to work the next morning. She was up early and because he was used to it, Bill was up too. For a change, he was able to linger, to lounge around. She was the one who had to shower, get ready, get dressed, get gone. Her bus came at 8:15. If she missed it, she’d be late to work.
Sue made coffee for Bill while she was in the kitchen. She made tea and an instant oatmeal for herself, sat by herself while she had her breakfast.
Bill stayed in bed. He drank his coffee there and took a moment in his life to do nothing. Doing nothing was good as long as it was only momentary. He was not one who did well with unstructured time. He’d asked Sue if she wanted a ride to work. She’d declined because she liked the walk to the bus and the bus ride. As well, she wanted Bill to be able to rest.
He did nothing for as long as he could. The trouble with doing nothing was there was nothing to do and with nothing to do his mind went to places it should not have gone to.
First no-good place was reliving his trip to the workhouse. If he thought about it, he could hear the gavel banging down, Judge Shul telling him in no uncertain terms “Policemen don’t lie.” He wondered as he lay there if that judge really believed that or if it was something he was obligated to say due to his position.
Having been forced to cop a plea to something he simply did not do still made Bill sick to his stomach. On top of that it pissed him off and that anger heaped on to all the anger he’d always had. For his part, he knew this now, he’d had anger long before he knew he knew he was angry. Maybe, just maybe, if he’d known he had anger at its onset, he might have gotten help for it. Maybe. Who knows? Who knew? Most likely his father wouldn’t have let him go for help anyway, even if he’d known he needed help.
The judge had made the mistake of asking Bill if he had anything, any last thing, to say. Maybe he thought Bill was going to apologize, but that wasn’t close. Instead, Bill started to say that he wanted to say that “it” didn’t happen the way the police said. Or, what he actually said was “I just want to say that the policemen l…” He never got out that “l” word which was lied. Or, he got the word out sort of but the gavel banging down even before he could complete saying the word stopped it from being heard.
He remembered being taken into custody right then and there, being put in handcuffs and led out from the courtroom to the holding cell. He remembered seeing his wife’s jaw dropping and her standing there with her mouth open.
And that was just the start.
Second no-good place, he didn’t know why, was up on Springfield Boulevard with his best friend and his step-brother. They’d encountered some kids one of whom had a beef with Bill’s step-brother. They were all about sixteen.
The kid picking on Bill’s step-brother was much bigger than him but he was just about Bill’s size so it seemed right to Bill to intervene which he did without hesitating. He was direct, straightforward. He stepped between the two of them and stood face to face with that boy.
“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size,” Bill said.
This stopped the boy in his tracks and he backed off, but since their group was bigger in number than Bill’s group, one of the other boys stepped up to Bill. Trouble for Bill was the boy was the runt of the litter, much smaller than Bill.
Bill took a moment and sized up the situation. He quickly, maybe rightfully, determined that their little mutt wasn’t worth his effort and turned to walk away.
By Peter Weiss
So you know I usually kid about the sun when I post my link to this blog on Facebook. Generally I say: While you can look to the sun/Fun with words and words for fun.
Sometimes I say: Before they tax it, look to the sun/Fun with words and words for fun. Or: While they let you look to the sun/Fun with words…
And sometimes I say: Look to the sun while you can, you don’t know how long they’ll let you.
It was all in good fun. It had its point, but it was mostly in jest.
But
Ever heard of sun dimming technology? Well it is part of solar engineering and it is being lauded by none other than that technology guru, maker of crappy software, Bill Gates. Mr. Microsoft himself.
The proposal is to launch a cloud around the sun to partially block it from coming to the earth. Its purpose is to ease global warming and reduce our impact on the planet.
It is real. It is being discussed and proposed and considered.
Here goes the sun.
By Peter Weiss
It was almost two in the morning when Bill got to his in-laws’ house. His wife was waiting for him and he took her quickly into the car and drove home.
“Have a good day?” he asked.
“Missed you. Otherwise, it was okay. My aunt and a whole load of people came over and my mother fed them all. We opened presents, then the men watched football while the women chatted.”
“What did you do?”
“I hung out with my brothers for awhile, then with the ladies for awhile. Mostly I stayed in my room upstairs and read. I also had a good nap.”
“We were very busy all day. Even the evening and night were relatively busy. Caesar kept us open for our regular hours so we couldn’t even clean up until we were just about closing.”
“You must be tired.”
“More weary than tired.”
“What time tomorrow?”
“Later. Not until eleven.”
“Good. So you can sleep in a little.”
“I’m hoping to.”
“Good,” his wife said.
They rode the rest of the way home in silence. His wife hooked her arm in his and kept herself close to him as she could get given the bucket seats. Then they were there and he parked and they went upstairs.
The house was warm. It was clean and neat, and despite it being very late, they both hung up their coats.
“I’ll run us a shower,” his wife said. “You want anything before I do?”
Bill said no. He took her in his arms. “I love you,” he said. He kissed her once, a soft kiss, and then he told her to go along because he not only felt funky, but he smelled funky too.
One thing they always had plenty of was hot water. Bill did not dilly dally at all. He went straight to the bedroom where he stripped and tossed his clothes into the hamper for dirty laundry. Then he went into the bathroom and joined his wife in the shower.
They lounged a long time in the hot water. They washed each other and Bill washed his hair. Since he’d been working in kitchens, he washed his hair a lot.
“Been drinking?” his wife asked.
“All day. But not get-drunk drinking. More like celebrate-the-holiday-in-our-own-way drinking. We all worked hard, everyone, bus boys on up. We sold a shitload of ham and turkey and then as the evening got later we started selling a lot of steaks and hamburgers.”
“The hotel must be busy.”
“That hotel is always busy. And we have parties all week too.”
“I hope it slows down some so you can have a break.”
“All the overtime is good money.”
“We’re doing okay now,” his wife said. She was done with her shower, done getting washed and washing her husband. “I’m getting out,” she said.
Bill waited until she was out of the shower until he said, “What’s okay? Having been broke and down and out, I don’t think just having some money in the bank is okay. I think making as much as we can and putting away as much as we can—that’s okay.”
Sue didn’t say anything. She was toweling herself dry. “Want a glass of wine?” she asked.
“Sure, Bill said.
“Meet you in bed,” his wife said.
Bill finished rinsing his hair and made sure all the soap was gone from his body. Then he stood a couple of minutes more under the hot water. He remembered Rosie ever so quickly taking his hand and putting it up between her legs so he could feel how wet her panties were from her sweating. He remembered her helping herself to a feel of him only to discover his underwear was equally wet.
“Haven’t peed yourself, have you?” she asked.
“You?” he responded.
Sue had lit candles and made the bedroom soft and pleasant. She had put on a nightie and was waiting for him as he came from the shower.
“Hi sweetheart,” she said.
By Peter Weiss
Kalista had neither the time nor the inclination to tell Bill about the waitress and Caesar. They had all worked all the way through mostly non-stop and they were still working. Their work was less harried now, less manic, more steady. But they worked continually.
Late orders came in steadily but the later it got the more the orders switched over to less specials more grilled items like steak and hamburgers. Bill and Jimmy G worked it all together neither one of them leaving the kitchen except for getting things needed or to go back to where Kalista was for more espresso.
Everyone had had a lot to drink. No one was drunk, not even high. What they had done was start early and maintain so that like stale beer, they were stale and tired. Near closing it was definitely time to go home and get into the shower. Despite having changed shirts twice, Bill could smell himself, and if there were one thing he really didn’t like it was smelling himself.
Not only was Bill feeling stale and tired and smelly and weary, but he was getting cranky too. Caesar was the last of the staff he had to feed and when Caesar came for his meal, Bill didn’t feel like making it. He told Jimmy G he really had to pee and asked him to fix Caesar’s plate.
Rosie met Bill at the bathroom. It was quite by accident this time. They had both found their ways to the near bathrooms for the staff.
“Goddamn we had a day,” Rosie said just before she went into the ladies room.
“Yeah,” Bill said. “Been here, done this before, worse than this.”
“New Years is pretty good too,” Rosie said.
“It is what it is,” Bill said.
They both went in to do their business and since Bill was faster, he waited for Rosie so they could walk back together which they did. Wasn’t much to say except how tired they were, but being tired was a given.
“Be glad to get into the shower when I get home,” Bill said.
“Yeah, me too,” Rosie said. She smiled at Bill.
When they weren’t so tired physically and weary overall, Rosie would have made a comment about how she would have liked Bill to be in that shower with her. The lack of a comment of that nature on her part was obvious to Bill and maybe wanting to start something he said “Not gonna make a comment?”
“Nope.”
“Nothing?”
“Nope.”
“Good girl,” Bill said.
“Don’t you like my comments?”
“Course I do.”
“I like the way you react to them,” Rosie said. She tapped Bill on his arm. “I’m gonna shower and then I’m gonna sleep until I have to get up for work tomorrow. We’ll be busy all week.”
“You think?”
“That’s the way it’s always been. I know they have a lot of little parties again.”
“Banquet schedule is pretty full.”
“End of the season,” Rosie said.
“Wanna drink?” Bill asked.
“Why not?”
They were back to the ramp. Up at the top, at Kalista’s station, Bill found the whiskey bottle Kalista had. He poured a good shot into a coffee cup and handed it to Rosie. She downed it quickly, thanked him and Kalista and went back into the dining room. Kalista just shook her head, but she didn’t say anything.
“We didn’t do anything,” Bill said. “Honest mommy.”
Kalista smiled. “I make last espresso for the day.”
“Good,” Bill said. “I didn’t feel like fixing Caesars’s dinner, so I went off to pee. She just happened to be there. We didn’t dilly dally. We peed, we came back and here we are.”
“Yes,” Kalista said. “Here we are.”
