They had a second drink.
When Millie brought that second drink she sat next to him on the sofa. “I’m not used to this,” she said, “to the drinking early in the day. I’m getting light-headed.”
“Feel good?” Bill asked.
“Not complaining,” Millie said. “Not complaining about anything.”
“I do have to get up to the kitchen, you know.”
“I know,” Millie said, “and I know we’ve already spent some of your time.”
“I’d say your time too.”
“Our time,” Millie said. “I’m hoping we’ll have lots of our time over time. If you want that, of course.”
Bill thought a moment. The thought was if he had what he wanted he wouldn’t be here in the first place. The thought was that if he knew what he wanted he might have it. But it was so much more than that.
It is much more than that, Bill thought. Bill knew it went all the way back to his father who taught him that love was fulfilling the other person, that it was selfish to go after what you yourself wanted.
At other times, in another place, at this particular spot in that thought Bill would ask himself what he wanted. Not now. Not here. Not sitting on the sofa next to Millie who was waiting for him to do something. In effect, he thought, his not doing something was doing something.
Much, much later in his life Bill would discover something he would consider a major discovery. It wasn’t that women and the sex were just another drug, which they were. He would discover that much sooner.
He would discover that Robert’s saying “what’s good to you is good for you” wasn’t as simple as it seemed. How could you know what was good for you? What was good to you? What seemed good to you one day sometimes ended up being crappy in the end, crappy overall. It was hard to figure. Then, what about what felt good? Was what felt good good for you? Good to you? Sex felt good at the time. But then… Drugs felt good, but then…
Helping that kid at that demonstration felt good – at the moment. It felt right, was, regardless of the consequences, right. It felt good right up to the moment he got grabbed by the undercover FBI agents who happily knocked him out from behind and handed him over to the Columbus police.
And now here he was. Millie in purple was sitting next to him. Skinny Marie-like-except-in-cinnamon-skin Millie, prepared and willing to do anything he wanted, anything he said, sat next to him on the sofa, her bony, sexy self with magnificent hands and feet all just for him. In her barely closed housedress under which was more purple, bra and panties, she was positively delectable. And she was light-headed too.
But he was thinking about his father. He was thinking about what his father impressed upon him, specifically about not taking what you wanted, about fulfilling others, about love being putting the other person before yourself and caring for them more than for yourself.
What bullshit, he would come to learn.
That big, major discovery that would come some maybe forty years later was that so much of what his father taught him/impressed upon him was survivor mentality. How simple. Survivor mentality. Survivor stuff.
He would be teaching a book called Maus. The father, a survivor, was exercising. He asked his son to get him his medicine, which the son did. When the father opened the bottle of pills he spilled them all over. “Look what you did,” the father screams at the son and he goes on to berate him, to beat him up mentally.
“Let’s have another drink,” Bill said.
“I was hoping for something else,” Millie said.
“I know,” said Bill. “That too.”
“You owe me,” Millie said. “And you’re building up a big debt.”
Millie, clearly showing disappointment in her demeanor, stood. She took Bill’s glass and hers and got them another drink.
“This will make me drunk,” she said.
By Peter Weiss
A week ago was Memorial Day. We celebrated and honored all those who gave their lives for our country. Rightfully so.
I said then that there has never been another country like America. That is so true. We admit we have shortcomings and we work on them. We are the most generous country ever. We consistently work at bettering ourselves and the world and we contribute to that ceaselessly.
In 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell, the United States became the only world power, the sole super power. With our allies we could have taken over the world. Without our allies we still could have done this.
But we didn’t.
- Critical race theory
- Open borders (that they repeatedly say are closed)
- Government regulation based upon skin color/enforcement of the law based upon one’s politics and/or color
- Redistribution of wealth/reparations
- Trump supporters indiscriminately labeled as fascists and white supremacists
- Social media censoring conservative voices
- Mainstream media outright lying to their viewers and openly biased in their reporting
- Police being the criminals and criminals set free with no penalties
Do you think those brave people who died for America in the past would recognize her now?
By Peter Weiss
Bill sat on the sofa at the end closest to her.
“You don’t have to worry about anything,” Millie said. “Chloe let me know specifically that she would make sure to cover your ass.”
“Let’s have that drink,” Bill said.
Because they were close enough from the way they were sitting, she in the arm chair nearest the sofa, he on the sofa closest to her, Millie kicked off one of her slippers and put her foot up in Bill’s lap almost but not quite right there. Settled, she wiggled her toes for him and as she did this she showed him her hands.
“I know you like purple. So, you like?”
“If you know I like it, then you know I like.”
“How much?” She flattened the foot some and rubbed him with it.
“That much,” Bill said.
“That much a lot?”
“That much is more than a lot.” Bill, already roused, looked at Millie. “Don’t start something you aren’t ready to handle. Now get me that drink and take off that other shoe too.”
“That all you want me to take off?”
“Take off what you want.”
Millie stood. The bottle was on the table there along with two glasses. She bent down and kissed Bill before she went to the bottle, and when she turned Bill reached up the back of her dress and helped himself to a full feel of her. Millie stayed still for him, spread her legs a touch so he could move his hand where he wanted.
“What makes you think I’m not ready for anything you want to throw at me? What makes you think I can’t handle whatever you want to do to me?”
“That what you want?”
“What?”
“Anything and everything.”
“That’s exactly what I want. What I been hoping for.”
Bill slapped her butt, not hard, rather friendly actually. “Get the drinks,” he said.
Millie kicked off her other shoe and padded barefoot on the throw rug to the table. She poured two glasses half full with bourbon.
“I don’t usually drink bourbon,” she said.
“What do you like?”
“White wine. You?”
“I like bourbon but I prefer gin or vodka. And I do like white wine.”
“You do drugs?”
“You mean like smoke weed?”
“Yeah.” She faced him now and came close with the drinks.
“Not at work, not until I’m off probation and sure I’m not getting caught. If I’m gonna get high here, I’ll do it before I come into the hotel.”
Millie handed Bill his glass and stood before him. They didn’t say anything. They waved their glasses in the air as a kind of toast and then sipped at the liquor. She stayed where she was, stood right before Bill letting him look up at her as she stood there.
He didn’t do anything at first. He sipped the bourbon, sipped it a second time, thought.
Wrong-think came to mind first. First thought with the barefoot and ready beauty before him was to remember how he had wasted steeped deep in wrong-think what should have been a perfect morning with his wife and then being home alone after she had left for work. Alcohol led him to wrong-think. Girls led him, a married man, to wrong-think. What had happened to him in his life thus far led him to wrong-think. Worst of all, wrong-think led to more wrong-think and all the wrong-think was still there in him as he sat on the sofa in this place he knew on so many levels he should never have been in in the first place.
Better to be with Beverly in the staircase, right? He asked himself this as he sat there. You get both, his inner voice told him now. They owe it to you.
For the life of him he couldn’t say who they were. Maybe sober and all alone he might have told himself that no one owed him anything no matter what had happened in his life, no matter what happens in his life.
By Peter Weiss
First, I salute and celebrate our soldiers, all our people in our Armed Forces. I honor them all and especially honor those who so unselfishly gave their lives.
This is unequivocal.
I do not apologize for America.
I am not ashamed of my country or what it stands for.
Despite its shortcomings, I am proud of my country. I am proud of what it does for the world. No other country does what it does, is as generous as it is.
Period.
To those of you who have forgotten this, don’t believe it or would tear America down, America allows you to leave any time you want. Don’t let the door hit you where The Good Lord split you.
By Peter Weiss
Bottoms. Sitting in the workhouse barber shop, his hair on the floor of that place, hair that he himself had to clean up, that was a bottom of sorts. Course if he really looked at it for what it all was, the bottom was when the judge banged down the gavel and pronounced him guilty, said “Policemen don’t lie,” and had him taken away.
That was the bottom because however you sliced it, from there it was all uphill. Everything. He had to serve his time, but then it was done.
During his stint in the workhouse he would do something really special, something he never, ever spoke about. Maybe he would speak about it someday.
Right after his stint in the workhouse, visiting his probation officer, Bailey, he would meet up with Robert, and being a nice guy, one with empathy, he would offer Robert a cigarette. Robert didn’t smoke but he would be the one to get Bill the job that led to where he was now. Bailey and Robert were connected through the numbers game. Robert was the numbers runner, Bailey the customer.
Millie had a record book and when Bill first saw her she was writing in her book. Sometimes she was sorting laundry, sometimes hanging clean uniforms on racks, this always out by her counter.
When Bill saw her see him he saw her smile at him. Instinctively he smiled back and then he saw her go back to her book.
“How many you turning in?” she asked before she looked up at him.
“Three,” Bill said, “and I don’t have any more.”
“No problem,” Millie said. “I have all fresh ones for you. I knew you’d go through uniforms yesterday.”
“Couple of these shirts are crusty. We were really busy.”
“I know. I got the whole report. You’re a super star.”
“Yeah, a regular rock star.”
“Wanna drink?” Millie set down the pen and looked directly at Bill for the first time.
He saw she was wearing purple lipstick and purple eye shadow. He thought she was gorgeous but he wasn’t about to say so.
“Chloe left me a bottle of bourbon and said I should share it with you. She also said her dinner was great yesterday.”
“She told you to share it with me?”
“She did, for real. She said it was okay, that the chef wouldn’t be back till tomorrow. She said she would square it with the chef and management if anything ever came up.”
“She said that, huh?”
“Come on,” Millie said. She gave Bill a wink and a big smile, motioned with her hand for Bill to come around the counter and join her. Bill could see that her fingernails were purple too.
When he got around to her side of the counter, first thing he did was look down to see her feet. Toenails were purple too. She was wearing the open-toe slippers, flats, and nothing on her legs. With him by her, she slid down the door over the counter then closed and locked the entry door.
“I did the purple just for you,” Millie said as she led them into her room off to the side. “I was hoping it would be an easy day and you’d have some time to hang out. Chloe said you might. She told me to make you my Christmas present from her.”
“Well that’s awfully forward of her,” Bill said.
“Wonderfully so, right?”
“What kind of present were you looking for?”
“Well…” Millie didn’t answer straight off. She took a moment first to flip the lock on the door. “I wore purple underneath too.” She smiled at Bill then sat herself in the arm chair where she carefully crossed her legs and tucked her housedress in under her so she wasn’t showing anything.
“Well is a deep subject,” Bill said.
By Peter Weiss
For the first time in awhile Bill felt like popping speed.
Since he and his wife had moved to Cleveland he had been relatively drug fee. He smoked weed, but not at work, and he drank lots of gin because that’s what his wife’s father drank. He still had a supply of black beauties, but he didn’t dip into it much. He was holding on to it, hoarding it even though he knew he could head down to Columbus any time he needed to to see Doc. Getting busted for drugs at work was simply not an option.
Down in the restaurant in Columbus drugs were rampant. Later on Bill would find that in every restaurant he worked drugs were all over. It wasn’t this way in the hotels. In hotels drugs were there but you had to find them, they didn’t find you. With his being on probation, one thing Bill did not want to do was anything that would ruin this gig he had. Consciously he had not sought out the drug connections. First place to start though would be Beverly since her sister was a maid and the maids would have a good sense of the connections.
Messing with Millie and Beverly in and of itself was enough to get Bill fired. That he was protected by Kalista and most probably by Chloe too was great, but nothing was foolproof and Bill continually told himself this. He knew on a whole other level that he should not be fooling around anyway. There were many reasons for this and knowing that according to Masters and Johnson more that 60% of men cheated on their spouses didn’t make it okay or even any better.
Cheating was wrong. Pure and simple, it was simply wrong.
And so it goes.
But then lots of things were wrong in this world.
Bill was thinking all this on his way to see Millie. He was thinking it was a day. All had started out great. He was with his wife. They laughed. They played. She let him sleep in, brought him coffee in bed. They had money in the bank, a nice apartment, a decent car. They both had jobs. Neither one of their jobs was the one they actually wanted, but they had jobs and weren’t wanting for anything in any way.
All good.
But it was a day. She left. He took a beer then a second beer. A good start went straight to wrong-think. Wrong-think went to… Beer went to vodka, went to thinking maybe he shouldn’t drive to work. But he did drive to work and here he was with three dirty uniforms in his arms and three cups of bourbon in his stomach on top of the vodka and beer he’d had at home.
Some speed would be great. Some Quaaludes would be even better. Best yet would be some Quaaludes on top of the black beauties and a drink to go with it.
How the hell…
He wondered how from just about perfect the day had gone to shit in a matter of a few hours. Really it was a matter of a few moments because the moment his wife had left out of the apartment and he had taken that first beer the skid had started. It was more of a slide than a skid, one of those slides in the arcades and carnival places. He was on top on the good spot, the sweet spot, and then he was free-falling down. Down and down and there was no bottom for the moment.
But of course there was always a bottom and while he might not be seeing one here at the moment, he’d been to a few so far.
And then there she was. Millie was just standing there at her counter like always, doing what she always did.
By Peter Weiss
We used to call them armchair liberals. They sat in their cozy arm chairs in their comfortable living rooms and made decisions that changed the lives of the everyday people but which didn’t affect them at all.
We used to think of them as a class as the Politburo in Russia, then the Soviet Union, those super-wealthy oligarchs who ran everything for their own benefit.
Nowadays, it isn’t them. It is the political class in Washington, that group of Senators and Congressmen who rule us. They don’t lead us anymore. They rule us. They are multimillionaires, most of them, much more than half of them. Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry are good examples. How did Maxine Waters afford a 5 million dollar house on her 175,000 dollar salary?
Nowadays they are the Hollywood elites, the broadcast media moguls and broadcasters and of course big tech people.
Nowadays they are professional athletes many of whom have gone from extreme poverty to mega-millions just for dunking a basketball. That’s quite a contrast to Ben Carson who did it because of good parenting, hard work, education, intelligence, talent and perseverance.
So when they, they being those above, tell us we need to have severe gun restrictions, they are surely not giving up their personal, armed bodyguards and secret service complement. While they keep our kids out of school, their kids are going to private school and in-person learning. When they tell us to conserve, note that Michael Bloomberg has taken more than 1700 trips in his private jets in the last four years gallivanting around to his multimillion dollar mansions throughout the world. And we all know that John Kerry just plain told us that he was more important than we are so he could fly on his personal plane.
We have to conserve to support their affluence, not for the reasons they tell us to.
So which shoes do you wear?
Are you one of those armchair liberals who can afford an electric car or the increased price of gas? Who Can pay out of pocket for medical and mental health services so as not to wait to be seen or have to worry about not getting seen when you really need to be seen? Who doesn’t have to worry about food prices, energy prices, inflation as a whole? Who touts all that liberal free stuff for the little people (like me) and for anyone and everyone the liberal Democrats want to let into the country and have the little people like me pay for? You one of those whose kids are in private school and not schooling with the illegals?
Now a little anecdote.
I’ve been mentioning I work in the mental health field in one of those liberal blue states. Our demand is up 150 percent from last year. Our resources have remained the same. If you need a therapist or medication management or a neuropsychological examination, right now there’s nothing available if you are on Medicaid or government sponsored insurance. A wait list could be eight months or more. Kids are waiting 50 days for a bed in an ER after having a mental health crisis and all the while suicide ideation and self harm are increasing dramatically.
Which shoes do you wear?
You one of those armchair liberals who marches into the office and pays with cash for immediate service? Or are you the mom who asks who is gonna help me after my kid kills himself because s/he couldn’t get seen in time?
Let’s get real.
The Big Democrat Lie pretty much speaks for itself. They move their lips, they lie. We would all know it if not for the biased media. And if you believe the mainstream media, you better start learning Chinese and behaving the way they want you to.
Don’t believe me? Just keep your head in the sand and keep sucking up their kool aid.
By Peter Weiss
He went straight down to his locker. Not unlike some other mornings, they were all there. Jimmy G was laying down on the bench. Victor was sitting next to him, down past his feet. Jimmy Banquet Chef was standing. He had a bottle of bourbon in hand. Victor had the Dixie cups and was spreading them out on the bench next to him.
“Here he is,” Victor said.
“Man of the hour,” the banquet chef said. “Close to three-fifty yesterday. Beat last year by over a hundred.”
“Why?” Bill asked.
“Want my real thoughts?” the banquet chef asked.
“You could lie,” Bill said. “I don’t give a shit.”
“Careful,” Victor said. “You still have a month until you’re off probation.”
“Month and four days,” the banquet chef said. He laughed. “Partly you. Food is consistent and much better since you’ve been here. The chef is very happy. Other part is the economy. Business is good. People have money.”
“It all goes together,” Victor said.
“Won’t have much today,” the banquet chef said. “We have a little prep to do for next few days. We do have a breakfast on Thursday. You should come in early and make the money.”
“I will,” Bill said.
“I think the chef wants to keep you working like you are. We were talking about it a few days ago. Banquets are slower in January and February but they pick up in some in March and then a lot more in April when baseball season starts.”
“I’ll take what I can get for hours.”
“Chef likes that about you.”
“I appreciate him working it out for me.”
“It’s me more than him,” the banquet chef said. “I know I can count on you. And you do good work.”
“Thanks boss,” Bill said.
Drinks were poured and they all had a cup of bourbon. Soon as they finished the first cup, Jimmy Banquet Chef poured another each. He told Bill the chef wasn’t coming back until tomorrow and so they could do their day and not have to worry about anything but the business. Thinking the way he was, Bill was glad about that.
“Dare we have one more?” Victor asked when they’d finished the second cup.
“Why not?” the banquet chef said. He poured one more round for everyone.
Jimmy G only sat up enough to drink from his cup. Each time, between drinks he went back to laying down. Like always, he was clearly disinterested. He made no effort to conceal his lack of interest. Worse, he made no effort to be an active part of the team. He was a part of the team because he was, but he was the weak link. Not only did he not work hard and not care who saw that he didn’t work hard, but he didn’t care about the food he cooked. If it was good or not didn’t matter to him. That meant that everyone around him, and now it was mostly Bill, had to cover for him and make sure everything was okay.
Third round finished, on top of what Bill had already had to drink before he came into work Bill was feeling numb. Maybe under other circumstances he would have been feeling good, but good wasn’t part of this day. Wrong-think was hiding under the conversation and soon as he opened his locker and took out his dirty uniforms it came rushing back into his head.
After that third drink the others went up to the kitchen. Bill, all alone, changed into the one clean uniform he had left, gathered up the dirty ones and headed off to the laundry.
Not only did wrong-think come back. Anger rushed in too. He was, of a sudden, pissed off. He could not particularly say why. He could only say that he was.
He was angry at the cop who was undercover. He was angry at Sergeant Hopkins who was in charge of his case and to whom he was just another notch in the belt toward promotion. Bill was angry at what he didn’t even know he was angry at.
By Peter Weiss
So it goes like this.
From energy independence under Trump we now are back to where we were, buying gas from Russia where the hackers who crippled the eastern seaboard fuel-wise reside.
Russia supports Iran who sends the rockets to Hamas who is bombing Israel, our ally.
Or we are supporting our enemies in attacking our allies.
Fuel shortage, runaway inflation highest gas prices since Obama and more and more illegals every day that our tax dollars are supporting when our own kids aren’t in school and those on regular health insurance, unlike our leaders, have to wait months and months for mental health services and to see a specialist.
The Big Democrat Lie pretty much speaks for itself. They move their lips, they lie. We would all know it if not for the biased media. And if you believe the mainstream media, you better start learning Chinese and to behave the way they want you to.
By Peter Weiss
Bill parked on the loading dock but did not get out of his car. He sat awhile, lit a cigarette, smoked.
Wrong-think gets you nowhere was his first thought.
He was filled with wrong-think. That was his second thought. He was filled with wrong-think and he was filled with anger. On top of wrong-think and anger, he was filled with alcohol at the moment. That, the alcohol, was usually compounded with weed, speed, coke and sometimes other things. All the substances did not lead to better-think or anywhere near good-think. At best they couched wrong-think, made it so it didn’t feel so bad, hurt so bad. But it led to bad things. Wrong-think led to bad things. Substances led to bad things. Bad things and substances led to worse things.
What leads to good things? Bill asked himself this. He didn’t know why he asked himself this, at least not now, not after he’d had a good late, late after Christmas with his wife and a good morning with her, her for once leaving for work before him. They’d had some quality, if late, time together and that time had reminded him of what a relationship was, what love was, except he wasn’t sure he actually loved his wife. Oh, he loved her. He just wasn’t sure he knew what love was, really knew. Sometimes when he thought this he thought fake it till you make it.
Goddamn, he thought. He hadn’t been here in a while, in this thought, and he couldn’t figure out how he got here or why. He just knew good-think, good-do, do-good, didn’t get you anywhere either. Wrong-think and substances got you nowhere. Do-good and do-right got you nowhere too. It would become his one overriding question, one he hadn’t formulated yet and wouldn’t formulate for a long while yet, his sixty-four thousand dollar question: how come one dog in the pound gets a great home and the one next to it gets euthanized?
But he wasn’t thinking that now. He was thinking about going in to work in a job he never dreamed of having in an occupation he’d never considered as one for him, had never thought about at all, ever in his life.
And then he thought why now. Everything was good when his wife brought him the coffee, him still in bed. He’d kissed her, laughed with her, fondled her, teased her. They’d played, had a fun moment.
So why now?
He thought he hadn’t thought what he’d thought. He’d thought, and this was all he’d thought, he’d be a writer. He never thought about how he would make a living, what his life would be like, would look like. He never considered those things, and of course maybe he should have. Maybe if his mother hadn’t died he would have thought of those things, maybe she would have brought it up to him and made him consider it.
He wasn’t looking to meet anyone when he’d met his wife. He was happy being alone, all by himself. He didn’t have to think about supporting anyone, taking care of anyone. He didn’t have to think about a job or an occupation. He just had this one simple idea. He would write.
That’s all she wrote.
So here he was parked on the loading dock of the Sheraton on the Square going in to do a little cooking for upcoming banquets and then cook the dinner in The Falstaff Room.
How the hell did this happen? How the hell did he find himself in Cleveland, married, doing something he wasn’t really suited for?
Why this? Why me? Wrong-think.
Outside his car he crushed out his cigarette. He could see a bakery truck at one of the loading platforms. Other than that, the dock was quiet. Cold swept over everything, a strong ugly cold that blew in from the Great Lakes. His first stop would be the laundry. He needed all clean uniforms today.
