Chapter 4

COLLEGE

I spent two terms at Florida State University, it was time wasted.  I quickly found which were the easiest courses and who were the professors who couldn't give a bad grade.  This meant taking Art 101 and Religion and the Self the latter I almost managed to flunk anyway.  Our entire grade in Religion and the Self was based on the final and I turned in a xerox of some information on parapsychology loosely tied in with religion by four pages of my pontificating.   At the time I had an interest in Parapsychology and had ordered books from as far away as Bulgaria.   He gave me an incomplete in the course and I had to write another four pages and tie things together a bit better.  He finally gave me a B.

I spent a great deal of time in the library.  I have always enjoyed reading, going through Camu, Hemingway, Hess, Steinbeck and others during my younger days, The Outline of History and Hinges of Fate, some of Freud and Jung, later. 

Then there are those books that you enjoy enough to read twice or peruse enough during the period of interest to consider them so; The New Testament and Ecclesiastes, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (layman's section), The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Duel for Kilamanjaro, The Tunnels of Cu Chi, The Godfather, some of Le Carre.  Then there are the thrice read books, Portnoy's Complaint. Wiseguy.     

There was one girl I became somewhat involved with during my stay at the university.  She was the earth-mother type and into the readings of Edgar Casey who I thought was a space cookie.  I kept trying for sex and she kept turning me down, she only wanted a platonic relationship.  Finally I gave up.

All in all it was one of the least eventful periods of my life.

            THE MATRIARCH AND THE CIVIL SERVANT

I learned this story over a period of time from several sources.  At the very first I didn't believe it but it was confirmed in general by several people in the know and was eventually well circulated in the village.

There was, in the little village of Viederville, a Matriarch from and of well to do families, a woman of substance.  In the course of her children growing up she heard of the proclivities of the Football Player but she knew that her children could not be involved.  It was not possible. 

But then word circulated, from concerned women in the village who had heard it from their children, that indeed her offspring were involved.  As the reputation of the football Player spread she eventually found out the truth from her progeny, her boys had been with their own and her daughters too.

An abomination had occurred.  There was talk in the town about the events that were going on.  Something should be done, their name was being dragged through the mud.  Her children had been misled.  They must have been seduced.   People were laughing.  It would follow them throughout their life.

The Football Player married and his wife bore a child but he continued in his ways.  The village began to turn against the Civil Servant.  The Grapevine carried harsh messages of what the people were saying, he should be run out of town, his son should be castrated.   

He said he had no control over the actions but many held him responsible.  Some said the harshness was justified, some said it was disgraceful.  The Grapevine carried the news that it was a painful event for him to go out in public. 

Soon the marriage of the Football Player broke up and he was sent away to stay with relatives that had connections in the oil industry.  It was said that they put him through the Change of Life early to try and straighten him out.  The Civil Servant left his position of leadership and moved his wife over a hundred miles away and started over in a similar position. 

But the Matriarch remembered the abomination.  She overlooked it in others that she heard about, even those that had been with her offspring, but she could not overlook it in him.  Something must be done for allowing his child to do these things. 

Finally, she formulated a plan.  What his child did must follow him, he must not be allowed to escape judgement.  She took her plan to several of the parents around the village.  Some wanted no part of it and told her so.  Some approved but declined to participate.  There were the few who said it must be done.  It was taken to the Patriarch of an old Viederville family and presented.  The Patriarch pondered long and hard as he looked out over the lake then gave the nod of his head.

From what I heard a series of letters carried the news of the Football Player's proclivities and what they believed caused them.  Several phone conversations were said to follow.  There were those that had remained in connection with the Civil Servant's wife.  Some time later the word came that the Civil Servant had come home one day, put his pistol to his head, blown his brains out.

His wife sent word through the Grapevine that she hoped they were happy. 

Thought for the Moment:  I have found little that is good about human beings.  In my experience most of them are trash. 

Sigmund Freud 

The word spread quickly around the village.  Those who declined to participate added verification.  There were many who didn't speak to the Matriarch and some to the Patriarch of the Old Viederville family. 

There were good church going men and women who said that an abomination had been punished.  There were those who spoke about crimes against nature and those who spoke of blood on the hands.  It was said that some thought that the death would cause a rift in the Baptist and Methodist churches.  Some of the Viederville Biddies said that he got what he deserved, that justice had been done.  A local matron said it wasn't a good time to be a woman.

Then the Grapevine sizzled with the news that the Matriarch had her day of experimenting, that in her youth she had shared herself with her own.  There was said to be verification from a woman who said that after what had happened she didn't care about her reputation.

The Patriarch was said to have asked God for forgiveness.  It was said that the Matriarch gradually understood that no one in her family had been seduced.  That for some, things had gone on a long time by choice.   

The Matriarch gradually withdrew and could be seen working in her yard, day in, day out.  Dull repetitive tasks.  Day in, day out. 

She spoke of her thoughts to a few and the Grapevine carried the news.  It was said that she couldn't stand the sound of the word tainted.

`Tainted, the blood was tainted!  Tainted with love of its own.  Tainted, damaged, stained, polluted.  Tainted with love of its own.   The grandfather had spoken about it.  Once.  He could not bring himself to talk about it.  But the taint was there, dormant, veiled, hidden.  There in their issue, their successors, their seed.

But their blood was not as tainted as that other family with all their wealth. Flappers family. No!  That family was tainted through and through.  No. Their's was not near as tainted as that.

She was surprised that their family could reproduce.  One of them was so eaten up with love of his own that some thought he might get pregnant.  But never mind them there were other more important things to think about. 

How could she build a family dynasty with tainted blood.  How could she fight the fight if there was tainted blood.  Perhaps the taint would work itself out.  Yes!  Perhaps it would work itself out of the blood.  She would lay the foundation for that empire to begin.  They had laughed at her when she said that her grandchildren would rise to the top.  That she could see them in the House of Representatives, the Senate.   

But the taint would work itself out, there would be something that could be done.  She would lay the foundation.  They would be a great family.'

Eventually, it passed.  Other stories took its place.   

Many years later I stopped by Po Boy's house on the lake and we discussed those long past events.  I had heard that the Football Player had joined the industry his family was associated with and had risen quickly.  He had remarried and had more children. 

Po Boy told me that the Football Player had flown into town on a Corporate jet wearing a three piece suit and had the jet wait for him for a few minutes while they finished their conversation.  The Football Player didn't want to hear the name Viederville or the name of any of its people. 

Many years later a rumor spread that the Matriarch had sent her daughter off for a while   until she could give up her love of her own and stick with men. She had threatened her with disinheritance for her wild ways.  Her daughter never married.

      THE US ARMY; DON'T WALK DOWN THE STREETS OF SAN

ANTONIO WITH YOUR HANDS IN YOUR POCKETS

I joined the Army on a two year enlistment plan where I could pick my location and they would pick the training I was to receive.  I selected Europe and felt that it was worth putting up with the Army for all the travelling I would get to do.

After the physical and swearing in we left on a bus for basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky.  The bus arrived late in the night and we were herded into an auditorium for a few words by a sergeant.  We were told there was a box that we would file past and we were to drop all illegal items into the box, weapons, drugs, etc.  From there we were taken to our barracks and were able to get a little sleep. 

The next day you never heard such moaning and groaning in your life.  Some decided they had made a mistake, some didn't like being told what to do.  A half-Indian made himself completely miserable, one or two younger guys talked about going over the fence. 

There was an ex-marine there and he berated them for their attitude.  Some of them came back at him asking why he couldn't make it in civilian life and why he never married.  There was almost a fight.

Soon we were assigned a drill sergeant who must have come out of the womb in uniform and slapped the doctor when the doctor slapped him.  He began the thankless task of teaching us to obey orders and there was a great deal of griping back at the barracks.  Some speculated on whether or not he would enjoy sending us against a machine gun post until there wasn't anyone left to send.

We were marched off to basic training.  The senior drill sergeant told us that we may as well give our soul to God because our ass belonged to him.  We were moved around to various spots getting gear, records, medical examinations, and inoculations with air guns.  

I was assigned to Charlie Company, our captain was a black who spent a great deal of time taking care of his corvette, the senior drill sergeant a tank commander returned from Viet Nam.  The three drill sergeants were a hispanic, a Viet Nam vet and the one assigned to my unit who had been born with a hair lip. 

I was among those who was selected to be asked if they wanted to be a squad leader as I had two years of college.  I declined and the Hispanic drill sergeant laughed saying I was going to take the extra pay and leave the headaches to someone else.  My drill sergeant was somewhat disappointed.

Each of us pulled a couple of nights of guard duty during basic training.  You got to see whose unconscious was restless and whose wasn't.  There was a bed wetter, several who moaned or talked on occasion and one or two who thrashed about and almost got in a fight with themselves at times.  They soon became well known to everyone.

There was a Kentuckian in our group who decided that he had made a mistake in going in the Army and was attempting to get a discharge claiming he had to take care of his mother.  When it looked as if he wasn't going to get the discharge he began trying to find someone to drop a rock on his foot to break it and thus achieve his aim.  Some suggested it might be better to drop it on his head and most doubted that he was going to take care of his mother.  In conversations some learned that he had been living with his mother and using her house as a base for drinking and carousing. 

He was unable to find someone to drop the rock and eventually dropped it himself.  He didn't break his foot but bruised it rather badly and was soon moved out of the unit.  Later we heard that he had gotten his discharge on mental reasons. 

Soon we were immersed in basic training.  We learned to fire and strip the M-16, the basic infantry rifle with a cyclic rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute.  When one trainee called his rifle a gun the drill sergeant threatened to make him hold his rifle in one hand and his dick in the other and repeat,

"This is my rifle, (hold up the rifle) this is my gun, (shake his dick) this is for killing,(hold up the rifle) this is for fun (shake)."

We would get up before dawn and run around a field singing,

"I want to be an Airborne Ranger, I want to live a life of danger."  Those of us who were more honest would form time to time state (quietly) that we wanted no such thing, all we wanted to do was go back to fucking bed.  Some were quite explicit in their descriptions of the drill sergeants and the Rangers.

We were taught to fire the M-60 machine gun and saw demonstrations of the LAW, light anti-tank weapon, the grenade launcher and the claymore mine, a curved block of plastic explosive with 600 steel pellets in front of it used to discourage human wave charges. 

On the firing range they always kept a loaded M-16 in the tower and the drill sergeants carried .45 automatics in case one of the recruits decided to settle up a score with a drill sergeant or someone else.  We heard of one such incident in California in which the drill sergeant was killed. 

We were cautioned not to try and carry any ammo or brass back to the barracks and were required to say "no brass, no ammo," at the end of the firing.  On the march back to the barracks you could occasionally see a round of ammunition along the side of the road.

 On the grenade range I had a moment of adrenalin when the blast from a grenade from down the line blew a chunk of mud into my concrete cubicle.  At first I thought that it was a grenade that had slipped out of someone's hand and I was about to jump over the wall into the safety cubicle. 

We took many a long walk during basic training.  On one of the longer ones the drill sergeants brought us within sight of the camp and let us take a rest in the woods.  There were those that convinced themselves that we were going back to camp and there was considerable profanity and accusations of drill sergeants having incestuous relations with their mothers when we turned and headed for one of the infamous hills.

There were three hills in Ft Knox.  Misery, Agony and Heartbreak and they were aptly named.  On this particular day I was not feeling energetic and as we started up the hill I began falling farther and farther behind.  My squad was in second place and as we hit another hill I was walking at the end of the column.   In a short while I was walking behind the ambulance which would only help you if you collapsed. 

I saw the Viet Nam vet dropping back towards me and tried to pick up my pace.

"What's the matter Mr. Glutz, are you too Goddamn good to walk with the rest of us," he yelled.  "GET YOUR ASS UP HERE."  "NOW!"

My friend, it is amazing what a few kind words from a concerned individual can do for your motivation in life.  I passed the third squad, I passed my squad, I made it to the head of the column and marched there for the duration, with an occasional encouraging word from the drill sergeant at my side.  I collapsed on my bunk when we returned and went immediately to sleep.  Other than a week in the hospital with pneumonia and a special physical training class to increase my stamina my basic was the same as thousands of others.

There was a guy from the hills of a southern state who had the same name except that he spelled his with one letter different.  He had soon started calling me cousin and at the end of our training we went to the topless bar on base and just missed a fight when we left.  I have been in numerous topless bars but a topless bar just outside a basic training camp in an entirely different beast.

Finally it was over.  Marching back from rehearsal for graduation we passed a newly arrived platoon that was outside their barracks.

"Listen up," said the drill sergeant as we drew abreast of them.

"Present fingers," he yelled.  A platoon of fingers went marching by with a grin behind almost every one. 

After we graduated we were given our orders and I drew San Antonio, Texas to be trained as a water purification specialist. Soon after arriving I went home for Christmas for a short time.

Back at San Antonio I made the acquaintance of Scott, a Golden Gloves boxer from Nebraska and Mark, a tall anti-social type from Massachusetts.  Scott was good natured and could do a good, slow, country boy routine but could move like lightning when he wanted to.  Mark had a case of the ass with society and didn't care who knew it.  We all became drinking buddies and Mark and I shared a liking for reefer. 

Scott soon sent for his wife Jean and this cut down on his association  with us, she didn't approve of Mark as he was constantly looking for trouble and detested the Army with a passion.  He had begun talking of getting a discharge and she didn't want Scott contaminated by his ideas.

I was walking from the barracks to the bar one night, strolling along with my hands in my pockets planning on having a few drinks before turning in for the night.  As I passed a group of four or five blacks a tall skinny guy stepped out and hit me twice in the chest with karate punches and said,

"You wanta fight honkey."

I raised my hands to stop another blow and he yelled,

"Don't touch me honkey."

I had become their nights entertainment. 

The guy standing next to him threw a punch that caught me square in the face with enough force to break my glasses in two. One of the others talked them into stopping and as they joked about it I started looking for the pieces of my glasses. 

"The rest of your glasses are over there, man." said one, and the incident was over.  I reported it but could not make an identification as we had been between street lights and my glasses were indisposed.  Scott and Mark checked around but couldn't find anyone who knew who had done it.  They kidded me from then on if I put my hands in my pockets.

                  THE YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS

There is a River Walk along the San Antonio river that runs through the city.  I spent a great deal of time in the cafes and got to know a waitress in one of them.  I was sitting at one of the outside tables by the river one day when she told me she would like for me to meet a friend of hers who was stopping by for lunch.  I said I would.

When I saw her friend I couldn't believe my luck. She was in her early twenties and had long brown hair, brown eyes and a sensual air about her that said she was sure of her sexuality and attractiveness.  Her name was Anita and throughout lunch I was trying to get up the nerve to ask her out.   Before we were through eating she surprised me by asking me to escort her somewhere that evening. 

I had guard duty that night so we made the date for another night.  I later arranged to double with Scott and his wife as neither Anita nor I had a car.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that she only lived a couple of streets from me.

The first night I acted the gentleman with nothing more than a good night kiss but our parting on the second date left no doubt in my mind that we were headed for the bedroom.  The third date we made love and she was everything I thought she would be.  From that time on we did quite a bit of lovemaking.  Anita told me I could have had her the first night and I kicked myself a bit over that.

I had rented a small one room apartment behind an old woman's house and we went there every chance we could.  She worked in a department store downtown and I would often meet her after work and ride home on the bus with her.  We would try to get in a session of lovemaking before she would have to go home.  Sometimes she would tell her parents that she was spending the weekend with the waitress and stay with me.  We spent so much time together that Scott and Mark kidded me about being pussy-whipped.

I only met one of her parents, her mother, and that was just briefly.  Her father didn't like me as he knew I wasn't good enough for his daughter.  I could sometimes hear him yelling in the background when I called her.   There was a great deal of tension in her house and she always met me at the door and we immediately left.  We discussed living together but there wasn't enough room in the apartment for two people and she didn't like my drinking.  At the time I hadn't made up my mind about staying in the Army but I didn't want to be separated from her for any reason.  I had started to grow dependant on her.  

I flunked a chemistry course due mainly to late nights, booze, reefer and no study and found out that my guarantee for Europe was no longer in effect.  The flunking of a class being grounds for loss of guarantee was something the fast talking recruiter had failed to mention.

When I went in the Army I had been told that the first six months were a experiment and that you could get an honorable discharge if you wanted out.  During basic we heard that they had offered a honorable discharge during basic to anyone in one company who wanted one as an test.  They lost a significant portion of the company and the offer was not extended to other companies though you could still get a discharge by asking if you went about it right.  The drill sergeants joked about that company at times saying the Army wouldn't try that again.

I asked my commanding officer about a discharge and he sent me to a captain to talk.  The captain sided with the recruits and had been told that he would probably be a captain forever for not falling in line.  He instructed me without really instructing me on how to go about asking for a discharge so that I could get one without too much of a problem. 

I still hadn't made up my mind and my CO gave me two weeks to decide.  When the two weeks were up he called me into his office and I told him I wasn't sure.  He told me I knew what I wanted and said I had to decide right then and there.  I went for the discharge. 

They had packed me off to see a psychiatrist who didn't see any reason for me to get a discharge, he was Army all the way and tried a variety of tactics to dissuade me from my goal.  I had seen enough people in the psychiatric field that I was not impressed. 

He tried the left flank, talking about how my family would be embarrassed by my taking an early out.  The left flank held.  

He tried the right flank, talking about the contract that I had with the Army for two years of service.  The right flank held.       He tried the center, saying I wouldn't be a man if I left the Army, that I had found a young girl to hold my hand and she had put a ring through my nose.  The center held.  I had already brought up my previous psychiatric history and finally he said that he wouldn't stand in the way of a discharge.

Mark was working on his discharge at the same time and had been sent to see a chaplin.  He said that he had so upset the chaplin with his attitude that the chaplin had got up and cussed him.  I declined to meet with the minion of organized religion when the honor was offered to me.

Finally my honorable discharge came through.  I took a cab off of the base a free man.  As I walked up to my door, I heard a scuffling sound behind me.  I turned and found that my duffel bag, along with a few extra blankets, had followed me home.  

Anita and I celebrated and she said that she thought that I had made the right choice.  Mark had gotten his discharge before me and was staying for a short time in San Antonio before returning up north.  We both stayed friends with Scott though Jean never got over her dislike of Mark.

I got a job driving for a cab company though I knew nothing about the layout of the city.  Until I got my bearings I had quite a few trips stolen by drivers who got there before me.  I worked mainly around the base running some of the trips off the meter.

I had to take two buses to get to the cab company and by the time I got home I was usually dead tired and ready for a drink.  This was something Anita complained about a lot.  I finally quit smoking pot though Anita noted that I did it because Mark had moved back to Massachusetts and he was my only source, not out of concern for her opinion.

When our relationship started out it was great.  She had fallen head over heels for me and I could have anything I wanted.  She started calling me "Punkin" and we spent as much time as we could in the apartment making love.  Women make love with more passion when they are emotionally involved. 

The apartment was furnished with a large brass bed and sometimes, while waiting for our second wind, we could hear a noise come from the old woman's house and we decided she was listening to us.  The old woman made it a point to tell me that she never listened to what was going on back there and this further solidified our suspicions.

One night during an intense session the bed collapsed and we lay there laughing, I was prepared to continue at a 45 degree angle but Anita made me put the bed back together first.

Thought for the Moment:  Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin-it's the triumphant twang of a bed spring.

                                       S J Pearlman

Our lovemaking was great during those days.  Sometimes, if I had given her a decent number of orgasms, she would let me sleep on top and inside of her and would count the number of times I would get hard during my sleep.  She said that she wanted to roll me on my back and have her way with me but didn't want to wake me up.  I was told she wanted to cut off my genitals and keep them inside her all day.  Passion brings out the animal in a woman.  On occasion I let her on top and once I thought she would pound me through the bed springs. 

I must have pulled something in my shoulder in the Army, once when we were about to make love my shoulder slipped out of its socket immediately incapacitating me.  She offered to get on top for a while to keep pressure off my shoulder but I declined.

She told me she was in love with me but I couldn't say the words myself.  One night she wrapped her arms around me and made me say them but those are not words that come easily to my lips.

After a time she began talking about her biological clock running and I made certain that I didn't set off her alarm.  After one particularly good night of lovemaking she said she wanted to give me a baby. I didn't want her to do me any favors. 

She wanted me to settle down, find a new job, get a new apartment, quit drinking and start thinking permanently.  She kept starting conversations about where our relationship was going.  When she finally realized that I wasn't going to do it the relationship took a turn for the worse. 

One day  she tore into me with her tongue, bad mouthing everything about me.  I wasn't doing this, I wasn't doing that, I wasn't filling her emotional needs.  She kept on and kept on until finally I had to hit something so I punched a hole in the bathroom door.  I wanted to hit her ever so badly but she had said if I hit her she would have me arrested and that would end the relationship.  After this and a few other arguments the relationship cooled somewhat.

I never made a mark on her except on the inside of her thighs and that was out of passion.  She later told me that she would have had more respect for me if I had slapped her when she was really being a bitch.  She had found a new way to be a bitch.  Females are something else. 

At first she didn't see me as often as possible then she didn't see me at all.  The truly sad thing is that the situation had totally reversed itself.  Instead of her being wrapped around my little finger I was now wrapped around hers but I wouldn't make a commitment.  She put me through a bit of torment before dropping me, occasionally telling me about seeing someone else. 

I remember the day we saw each other for the last time.  She came over to the apartment to say goodby or more likely to stick the knife in a little deeper.  She was wearing short shorts that showed off those legs that had wrapped themselves around me to great effect.  I made one last try for some loving and she laughed and said I would never get any of her again.  She was enjoying herself.    I stayed in San Antonio for a short while then headed back to Florida.  I decided to take a train as far as I could and called her up to tell her I was leaving.  I hoped that she would come to see me off but I left alone, a very sad pup.

Back in Viederville I moved back in with my parents and drank heavily.  Sometimes on Friday night I would get drunk and call her just to hear the sound of her voice.

Thought for the Moment:  Next to the wound, what women make best is the bandage.

Barbey D' Aurevilly

After a while I moved briefly to Durham, North Carolina for a change of scenery but ended up collecting unemployment, reading, drinking and calling Anita every two weeks or so.  It was the first time I had ever lived with snow, it's something I can do without.    There is a Rhine Institute there which studies parapsychology, from ESP, clairvoyance and precognition to appearance of ghosts.

  I had an interest in parapsychology earlier and rummaged through their library.  I finally came to the following conclusion.

Thought for the Moment:  Clairvoyant n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron----namely, that he is a blockhead.

Ambroce Bierce  The                                                Devils Dictionary 1906

Only a couple of months were spent in North Carolina, I took a train back to florida.  They had a piano player in the lounge car and I was up almost all night with the lounge lizards, drinking and listening to the music, watching the darkness flow by.

Back in Florida, I eventually got over the Yellow Rose of Texas.                               ****

Out buying some ammunition one day I met a guy from Houston, Texas in a gun store and we did some target shooting together in the groves of the Hammock.  He and his wife had come to Florida looking for work but had decided to return to Houston.  I kept in touch after he returned to Texas and later decided to visit him there.  He and his brother were working at a Security firm and said I could easily get a job with the company. 

They had been talking about going to Mexico to buy up antique guns and bring them back to the US to sell.  I figured that the chances of them actually putting this together were about zero and I was right.  I was getting tired of Florida and decided to take a trip to Texas to have a change of scenery.

The Texan and his wife were staying with his grandmother who had married an Asian and raised herbs that she sold to businesses.  For several weeks I had to sleep on the floor on a sleeping bag. 

I applied to the Security firm and was hired after passing the lie detector test though I didn't tell the complete truth.  I started out in a parking garage and soon had my certification for a handgun.  I escorted a man carrying a cash bag every morning who wasn't impressed with having such a skinny guard. 

The Texan told me he had made a remark about it and I told the Texan to send word back through the Grapevine that the gun was there to protect me, he was there to protect the money.  Everybody got a laugh out of that.

They moved me to a 40 story building as a roving guard, then to a night shift at a plant undergoing a strike.  Finally I was moved to the Tenneco Computer Systems Center where the Texan worked.  The company would sometimes have someone rattle a door to get the alarm to go off and time us to see how fast we got there.

I split an apartment with the Texan and his wife who was several months pregnant and we talked a great deal about the state of the world.  He had some land in Tyler where he wanted to build a retreat, he was certain society was going to collapse and was stockpiling weapons and ammunition and making plans.  He had a .45 auto, AR-15, German assault rifle, shotgun, CAR-15, M-14 and several other guns.  His grandmother believed along the same lines and ended up paying for a great deal of his fantasies.  While I was there he bought a case of 1000 rounds of 7.62mm ammo which I helped him load into his Cadillac to take off somewhere and he was getting ready to buy another 1000 rounds of 5.56mm to be stored in Tyler.

After about three months I tired of all this and arranged to drive a car back to Florida through an auto agency.

      ENGLAND AND THE HASHISH SMOKERS OF EARLS COURT

After Grandad and Dayu died I found that there had been some money left for me.  I was never told how much and had no control over the money as I have never been that good at managing finances due primarily to a rather irresponsible nature.  The money could only be spent on education so I came up with the idea of going to school on the Florida State University's overseas program in London. I must confess that I had absolutely no interest in going to school but saw an opportunity to live in England for a while and took it. 

By the time we arrived at our destination there were not a few of us that were fairly well inebriated from the flight and train ride.  The director said that sometimes they had groups that took the academics seriously and other groups seemed to be there for the hell of it.  Most our group was the latter. 

The classrooms and living quarters were all in one building, a four or five story building on Glouchester Road near the Earls Court Underground Station.  I was to share an L shaped room with two guys on the third floor, for the most part we got along. 

Security in the building was provided by a Bulgarian and another Eastern European who spent most of their time playing chess.  Several of us played them but both were good and extremely hard to beat when sober.

It wasn't long before connections were made, one was made the second day, and hashish made its way into the building.  There were a couple of pubs nearby, just down a walkway, and they made a fair profit off of the drinkers in our group.   At home the drink of choice was Heniken and the maids soon were referred to as the Heniken Patrol.  

It was a diverse group, some there to study, a group there for theater, some interested in history and culture and those of us who wanted to drink and have a good time.  We took several field trips, one to Bristol, several around London.  I missed the trip to Scotland due to the flu but made several trips of my own.

I took a hitchhiking trip down through Aldershot and spent two nights in a nice woods with a number of trails leading through it.  In exploring the trails I found one lead to an Army repair depot for tanks and another led in the opposite direction to a large manor house with surrounding estate.  After two days of roaming I returned by train.

I was in London for nine months and saw most of the sights, my favorite place was Speakers Corner at Marble Arch in Hyde Park.  I would walk up there almost every Sunday afternoon and listen to the orators. 

At Speakers Corner anyone who has something to say can get up on their platform and say it and pass the hat afterwards for a donation.  There was a Communist in worker's headgear there almost every weekend with a huge red flag that waved from his podium.  He looked so much like the quintessential worker that some speculated on whether or not he had done an honest days labor or was just on the dole picking up spare cash on the weekends.  He was badgered about it from time to time. 

There were a variety of people speaking there and answering hecklers in the audience.  Some came and went and some were regulars.  Some could draw a crowd and some couldn't. 

My favorite was a little old man who came each Saturday and Sunday with his daughter who carried his chair for him to rest in when he wasn't talking.   He had a rapier wit and could lay open the follies of the world and keep most entertained and enlightened.  He almost always drew the biggest crowd and collected the most in donations and I usually tried to give something for he was the best of the bunch.

The school arranged a field trip to Stonehenge and I decided to hitchhike down ahead of them and camp for a night at the site.  Most people thought I was a bit crazy as it was winter but it seemed more interesting that the bus ride.

My shoulder had been giving me a little trouble but off I went.  Just before Stonehenge I had gotten a ride in a lorry and he dropped me off in the center of a roundabout, a circle that takes the place of an intersection, I jumped from the truck as he as he came to a stop.

My shoulder pulled out of its socket and I immediately fell in the tall grass and couldn't get up.   The driver couldn't see what had happened and drove off.  It was the most intense pain that I have ever felt.  Movement caused a stab of pain so I began to wave with my good arm to get one of the passing cars to stop.     An easy dozen passed me and didn't stop, then just as quickly as it popped out it popped back in.  The pain went away and I sat there in the cold, sweating.  I walked into a nearby town and had a meal and a beer in a small pub.  I wondered what the English drivers must have thought about the arm waving in the grass. 

"Oh, look dear, there seems to be someone injured in the grass."

"Not to worry Darling, it's probably just an American on drugs."

  I made it to Stonehenge and camped in a woods several hundred yards from the site.  It was one of the coldest nights I can remember.  Down sleeping bag, long underwear, pants and flannel shirt, jacket, field jacket and coat inside of a tent and I was still cold.  I saw Stonehenge the next day and rode back on the bus.

Several days later I woke one morning and my shoulder popped out and stayed out.  One of the students brought me a bottle of scotch and though I hate scotch I took several hard swallows.  They called an ambulance and I was taken to the hospital, just before we arrived the shoulder popped back in and the pain went away.

I was sent to an excellent Fleet Street surgeon who had repaired professional skiers and was soon in the hospital for the operation.  They gave me an injection and I began to move away from them, down an elevator into a pleasant darkness.

I awoke to a dull pain that wouldn't go away.  The chain smoking director was there and stayed for a while.  I finally told him he could go, that I would be alright.  I could see no reason for him to sit there and watch me hurt. 

Who I was ready to see was the nurse with the painkiller and she didn't come around near enough for my liking.  They wouldn't give me as many injections as I wanted saying they didn't want to get me addicted.  I figured I would beat the pain first and the addiction later.

Out of the hospital I decided it would be an excellent time to quit smoking and cut down on my drinking.  By the end of the day I was at the pub learning to drink and smoke right handed.  Several weeks of having my right arm strapped to my body didn't slow me down that much.  With physical therapy I was soon good as new.

I suffered a minor depression while in England and saw a Harley Street psychiatrist, a woman, for a while.  I took some Presamine for a short time and it quickly passed.

 When my shoulder had healed I took a hitchhiking trip on the continent.  A train to the coast, a night ferry and I was soon hitchhiking in the Black Forest in Germany.  I returned after less that a week, a trip of few memories, and confined my trips to England from then on. 

One of my roommates had coupled up with one of the girls for a brief affair.  He was Protestant and she was Jewish so they knew it was a temporary thing.  She sometimes spent the night with him and the other guy and I had complained that they made love so loud that we couldn't get any sleep.  We would sometimes agree not to show up in the apartment in the afternoon to give them time to satiate themselves so we could all get some sleep that night.

The other roommate flirted with one of the young Spanish maids and though we encouraged him to try and seduce her, he would have been her first, he passed.

I made a date with one of the older Spanish maids and had visions of ending the evening with a hot blooded Spanish woman though this one was a bit shy.  You can imagine my surprise when I picked her up for the movie and found that one of the other maids was coming along as a chaperon.  I had seen the movie before.  There was a one night stand that is discussed elsewhere but other than that there was no loving in England.

Compared to some of the other roommates our room got along good.  No one had to move out though there were two confrontations.  They both came in drunk one night and got into an argument and I had to help talk them out of a fight. 

I got drunk one night on straight vodka and got into an argument with one of them over making noise.  I was bad drunk and threatened to hit him with a thin rod.  He challenged me to try, we wrestled with the rod then I lost control of my temper and hit him in the head.  He punched me three times in the chest and we almost got into it in a serious way.  It took a couple of days for that one to subside.  When these things happen you know in the back of your head your being stupid but you go ahead and be stupid anyway.

I had quit attending classes after my operation and never bothered to go back.  We were well into the second term when it came to the administrators attention.  I signed some type of retroactive drop form, was given incomplete's for both terms lectured a bit and that was the end of that.

Our group eventually went home but I stayed in London, living for a while in the basement without the knowledge of the administrators.  I arranged through the English manager to use an empty room, he told me to be discreet with the fact, and he got me a job as night clerk in a hotel for a short time.  No work permit of course.  I was even able to get a pair of glasses from the English health care system. 

I was drinking in my favorite pub on Earls Court Rd. one night when I struck an acquaintance with two women, one a rather loud, stout, blonde and the other an older woman with a quieter temperament, prone to wearing long dresses.  Both were rather inebriated and invited me to the older one's apartment to meet some other people.  They stopped and teased a cop on the way and he told them to go on as they had obviously had enough to drink.

The older woman, who I shall call the Toothless One as quite a few of her teeth were missing, had an flat over a store a short distance from Earls Court tube station.  She lived with a watch repairman named Peter, shoulder length hair, wire framed glasses and a love of hashish.  After I was introduced to the people there and we talked for a while a bowl of hashish soon appeared.  I became good friends with them and spent many a night there talking, drinking and smoking hashish.  Hash, there, is the major form of marijuana and for them to have the crushed leaves that is normal in the States was a treat.  They were all in favor of a balance of trade agreement.  

They drank primarily Vermouth and I soon acquired a taste for it though I couldn't stand the stuff when I returned to the States.  We would sit talking, drinking, smoking, and watching tv.  There was always someone coming and going.  Once or twice a night someone would have to volunteer to go to the Pakistani store on the corner for more refreshments.

Earls Court had been referred to as Aussie Alley because of all the Australians that were around the area.  The nature of the area was changing with Indians, (who were often called Paki's) West Indians, and some Africans moving in and there were those among the English that said it was turning into Wog Alley.  Wog being a derogatory term for those not of northern European descent although there was a saying, "Wogs begin at Calais," (seaport in northern France).

The Toothless One had three children by a previous marriages but had no children by Peter.  She was much older than he and could remember the bombings of World War II.  I later found out that she was on Methadone as she had been addicted to heroin for some time.  She was a kind soul who looked after anyone who came into the flat and was always asking you if you needed something to eat or something to drink or something to smoke.

There was usually a number of people coming and going with some staying on the floor for the night.  After the program administrator told me he couldn't have me staying in the room any more, it had taken him a while to find out, I moved in with Peter and the Toothless One.

The Toothless One had a daughter by her first marriage who had married a US Army sergeant and bore him a child.  I fell madly in love with her, this has happened to me before.  You suddenly become infatuated with a woman that you hardly know and there is nothing you can do about it.  The girl could tell and treated me with a friendly indifference.  The others could see it and found some humor in the situation. 

A quiet, pleasingly plump blonde could have been my partner for a time but I was head over heels for the Toothless One's daughter.  The blonde ended up having a session or two with one of the Toothless One's sons.  By the time I had ridden out the worst part of the infatuation it was too late for anything with the blonde.  These infatuations happen to me from time to time and have nothing to do with compatibility, mutual interest, or anything else from the world of logic.  They are, quite simply, embarrassing. 

Other than the hooker mentioned elsewhere I didn't get any loving while in England.  In fact, I barely escaped getting some in that flat.  One day when the Toothless One and I were alone in the flat she told me she had to do some housework and asked if I would come in the bedroom and talk to her.  I wasn't in the room but a minute when I realized that talk was not what she had in mind.  I could see her planning her move and I got between her and the door before she could do the same to me.  I suddenly remembered something I had to do and she smiled.

After my job as a night clerk at the hotel ended I stayed on at the flat for a while.  But my welcome wore thin, as did my cash and ability to raise money from home and I set a date and returned to the U.S.

Chapter 1   Chapter 2   Chapter 3   Chapter 4   Chapter 5   Chapter 6 Adventures in Belize   Chapter 7   Chapter 8   Chapter 9   Chapter 10

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