Chapter 8

              THE LITTLE VILLAGE OF VIEDERVILLE

Now in the little village of Viederville there were a group of people I shall call the Viederville Biddies.  Tits hanging to their waist, at least among most of the female members (there is, of course, a male version), noses in the air unless buried dead in someone else's business they patrolled the morals and actions of the community.  They were constantly poking their noses in other peoples business to see what they could find.  When they found some juicy tidbit of information on someone they had what in them passed for an orgasm.

During the early days when it was announced that they would be building a University near the village the Biddies were appalled.  A University would bring in all types of people, people who weren't like the villagers, people with strange ideas.  People who didn't love Jesus.  People who didn't go to church.  People who believed all sorts of things.  The destruction of Viederville and its simple country ways was prophesied.

Why, there would be pot smoking, wild parties, orgies, and just about everything you could imagine.  Some of the Biddies thought that there would be things that they couldn't imagine and they tried their best to imagine them. 

Before the university was built the Biddies asked all the young ones if they were going to go to the university and be led astray by strange ideas.  Each of us assured them that we wouldn't be led away by strange ideas.  I never needed any help in having strange ideas.

Let me pause for a moment and say that I don't want you thinking that I hate old women.  After parents, siblings, religion, society, the sticks and stones of life, men, misogyny, children, change of life, menopause and old age, who wouldn't have a bit of an attitude but some of the Biddies were just plain rotten inside.

Now in the village there was a eating and drinking establishment I shall call the Watering Hole.  Run by a former bouncer it was the cruising ground for villagers of all sexual and intellectual persuasions.  The Biddies wouldn't come into the Watering Hole, it was a den of iniquity, but they kept track of who did go there and circulated the information among themselves.  There were those there who were said to be the fulfillment of the Biddie Prophesies.   

There was a crew at the Watering Hole.  It was just down the street from the local paper from which the editor and chief would occasionally emerge to eye the inhabitants of the bar.  Though conservative in nature so great was his ability to see an issue from both sides that it did manifest itself in one eye approaching a problem from one direction and the other eye from quite another.     There was a university professor writing a book on a long dead poet who was said to be the fulfillment of some of the more unacceptable of the Biddie Prophecies, though he was married and had a child he had a proclivity for men.

One of the more interesting inhabitants was Macho Man.  I learned part of this story at the bar from a printer, an inveterate drinker who claimed to have bedded three women on the same night, each taking their turn with him while the other two watched.

Macho Man was a may-un and a hell of a may-un was he.  He had married a girl much younger than himself, a girl I shall call Tits.  They had decided to be childless even though Macho Man was the last of his blood line.  He had been in the education field but her daddy had helped set him up a business.  Macho Man had done good in business and on his success his ego had grown. 

While he was certainly opposed to law breakers he was not bigoted about it when it came to his business affairs.  He had been successfully sued for a five figure sum due to a business impropriety and the Grapevine told of others that had threatened to sue.  Macho Man had taken to having his address listed as different from where he lived.  Not a few people had taken vengeance on him.

Now it was a necessity for Macho Man to run people down to prove he was a may-un.  He was always causing trouble at the watering hole.  I once ran into two long hairs that had problems with Macho Man at a time when I was not feeling particularly charitable towards him.  They were trying to find where he lived.  I got one of them alone and explained to him where Macho Man resided and the layout of the land around his house. 

Some time later a single bullet hole appeared in the back of his vehicle.  Cretins!

I had considered similar action some time before after a couple of Macho Man's tirades.  I had requested the loan of a small caliber device from one I shall call Wolfman, a .22 as my .45 had certain attributes that made it unsuited for the occasion.  This particular piece of machinery had a half slide making it suitable for the addition of a piece of pipe with gas bleed.  Taped at one end, muffling inserted then taped at the other, it would produce a lead pellet propelled by expanding gases without the concomitant auditory commotion.  I have always been the quiet type. 

It would have been excellent for applying a number of messages via the individuals chariot that one was displeased with their behavior.  Unfortunately the request was turned down, Wolfman doubted he could keep his mouth shut about the event and feared retaliation against his pickup truck.

Now Macho Man, being the may-un that he was, felt it necessary to run down as many people as possible.  The grapevine said that on two occasions dinner guests left before the middle of the evening.  Some called him the man with two livers.  This had caused much tension between Tits and him and finally she had threatened to leave him. 

Macho Man had broken down and cried.  Tits had kept him but of course couldn't keep the information to herself and soon the Grapevine and the Biddies were moving the news around.  It didn't do all that much for their relationship.  Macho Man had a thing about the Biddies.

                        FAMILY SECRETS

Macho man had once told someone that he was a good businessman but that he wasn't all that bright.  He later proved himself to speak the truth.  There was a skeleton in Macho Man's closet and he decided to trust Tits with his most closely held secret though it was said that the news was already out.

Both of Macho Man's parents were primarily homosexual.  He finally decided to tell Tits this and tell her about the feelings that it caused in him.  It was said that when he finally accepted this on a deep level he spoke of being degraded before you know you are degraded and he took to booze in a very serious way for a while.

You know the old saying.  Tell one, tell a thousand.  Tits spread the news to a close friend or two.  The news multiplied as expected.  

When the Viederville Biddies found out they clucked, they chortled, they did the two step.  They had something on Macho Man.  The Patriarch's wife said it wasn't a good time to be a woman.   When he found out that the news was spreading Macho Man was said to have gone crazy. 

Then the news raced through the Grapevine, Macho Man had hit Tits.  Some said he had hit her more than once.  A watch was kept and sightings of Tits were reported.   There were not many who sided with Tits for telling his secret but most women thought she shouldn't be hit.  Men were of quite a different opinion.

Soon there were comments flowing.  It was said that he was afraid to have children because his blood would tell on him and people were said to ask about their sex life.  There was speculation about what types of sex his daddy liked, there was some conjecture about what his mother liked but most was confined to his father.  Some referred to him as his daddy's revenge.  The stories grew in the telling.   Some were said to have asked him if his daddy liked it up the ass.

Macho Man was said to have threatened to kill more than one person over this.  The Biddies were scarred that he might try to run them down in the streets and there were those that thought that it might not be a bad idea.  

It eventually passed but Macho Man carried a chip on his shoulder, a rather large chip.  It was quite some time before he made love to Tits again.

                             ****

I remember the day I quit smoking.  It was during one of my more dissolute periods and I was staying temporarily with a father and son that I will call Wolfman and Wolfman's Pa.  They owned a tree farm along a dirt road with several sheds and trailers and were prone to imbibing from time to time. 

Wolfman's Pa, a salty New Englander, had left his wife and construction business and moved to Viederville and started the farm and it had thrived.  He had a lady he would go see on Sundays who would provide him with a good meal and some loving and once said that he liked things just the way they were.

Wolfman, a bearded vet and helicopter mechanic who resembled a wolf at times, had moved back from Texas to help his father and learn the business.  His father had moved to a smaller trailer behind one of the sheds where he liked to sit and listen to Jazz at night.  There had once been an altercation between the two upon the discovery of a small farming operation along a ditch that was outside the domain of the law.  Wolfman's Pa sometimes became somewhat exasperated with Wolfman at times and it was best not to be around when they got into it.

I was sleeping on a screen porch attached to a shed at the time.  One night when all of us were in a good mood we stayed up talking and Wolfman's Pa had brought out a bottle.  I don't remember too much about that night but I do remember the hangover.  It was said that I had picked up the bottle and taken a long swallow of straight whiskey before walking outside. 

The next day I felt near death.  I went out into the woods and lay under a pine tree coughing and hacking.  I decided then and there to give up my three pack a day habit and cut down on drinking.  I couldn't sleep for five nights but I whipped the cigarettes and had moderate success with the booze for a time. 

                             ****

There was a couple that lived near my parents, he a computer programmer, she a gadfly, they drove a Delorean and kept enough pill bottles in the bedroom to keep half of the village high for a week.  I knew that their orgies, which I had declined an invitation to, were the talk of the town.  People in bedrooms, people in the pool, people in the bushes.  It was quite upsetting to their Lutheran neighbors. 

I was over there one day and the talk turned to sex.  They asked me if I considered myself a sexual conservative or liberal.     I said a liberal, as I don't really care what you do as long as there are no children  or mental incompetents involved, no force and there is consent without duress.  They had a much different definition of liberal. 

Later on they invited me to continue our conversation in the bedroom and I walked in for a second until I discovered what they had in mind.  He was already obviously aroused and as they began talking about taking off our clothes and suggested a shower I remembered an errand I had to run and excused myself.  They told me later that I wasn't really a liberal. 

Now when someone asks me if I'm a sexual conservative or liberal I say conservative thus avoiding invitations.

                             ****

While the Grapevine often sizzled with the news of heterosexual exploits, such as the affair between the town Doctor and a local teacher who eventually divorced their respective spouses and got married, nothing seemed to move as fast as news of Tank Commander Flapper who had served in Viet Nam.

He was a married bisexual whose exploits were legion.  He had made love to women too in his early years but finally chose his own exclusively or so said the Grapevine.   Some said that if he had taken after the Viet Cong the way he took after the men of Viederville we would have won that war hands down. 

A member of an Old Viederville family, many said that no skeleton in any families closet rattled nearly so loud as Flapper.  He had taken the Cabin on the Lake as his own personal love shack for a while.  There were so many stories coming out of there that people didn't want to hear them.  Flapper was said to have used a great deal of psychological coercion on some of the men that he had taken out there.  The Grapevine said that one had told him that he loved him, Flapper had laughed, one had broken down and cried after being seduced. 

Flapper was always trying to get a man to go out with him to check the groves at the lake.  Married or single, it didn't matter to Flapper.  He pulled over one day as I was walking down the street and asked me if I wanted to go out to check the groves with him.  I gave him a firm no and declined his offer of a ride home.

At the office where Flapper worked some of the employees talked of following him to one of his meetings and speculated on what type of man they would find.  Flapper got wind of this and threatened to fire them or make life hell for them and they quickly lost their interest.

Flapper once announced that as he would not be having children he had become a sperm donor.  When Macho Man got wind of these developments he flew into a rage.  Something must be done.  Flapper should not be allowed to pollute the gene pool with his seed.  Macho Man was said to have talked to several people about this and there were rumors of violence but nothing ever happened.  Flapper was said to be amused.

The Grapevine said that the Patriarch had talked with Flapper about seducing and coercing married men but Flapper told him that he would do what he wanted.  The Patriarch finally had enough of Flapper's lovers and put the Cabin on the Lake off limits to Flapper and his friends.  But from then on, even if it was on a lake, the Patriarch called it the Rodeo on the River due mainly to the news in the Grapevine of a position that can best be described as riding the one legged horse.

The Salesman I mentioned earlier stayed around Viederville.  I had split a house with him and another guy after high school, that was where I started smoking, a habit that was to stick with me for about fifteen years.

The Salesman and I stayed acquaintances over the years and I watched him go through a few changes.  I can remember stopping at his trailer and finding a room full of naked people playing cards.  Nudistry has never interested me so I didn't stay long.

He once said, in a round about way, that he and his wife were into swapping.  He apparently went home and told her this and she hit the roof.  He was soon back telling me that they didn't really swap but had just talked about what it would be like.

Like I give a shit.

The Salesman thought himself a high roller who drank only the best booze and always had a snort of cocaine around the house.  He hinted that he occasionally did deals for people and was somewhat amazed when I told him cocaine did nothing for me and I thought it was a stupid drug. 

He had made over thirty thousand dollars one year, or so he said, and had put all the profit into his belly and his nose.  He said that he got into trouble with the IRS to the point that they read him his rights in the office but he eventually straightened that out.

He divorced his first wife, the Grapevine said his mother had run her off because she could not reproduce, married again and had a child.  I saw him sometime later and he invited me to his sunday school class, I declined politely, he persisted, I declined a bit less politely.  

He had gone from Christian to drug user, nudist, wife swapper and back to Christian again.  An interesting journey.

                A LOOK AT ORGANIZED RELIGION

I believe in God, I do not believe in Organized Religion.  There is a great deal of wisdom in the Bible and other religious texts, there is also a great deal of hokum.  I honestly don't see how they think an intelligent man or woman would believe the things that they ask people to believe. 

Do you believe in a God that chooses one people over another?  That hands out land to one group over another?  That's going to come back and punish all those who, Oh so unfortunately for them, believe different than you.  

People speak of the Judeao-Christian heritage but the idea of freedom and the basic freedoms that we enjoy comes from the Anglo-American heritage.  Neither Judiasim, Christianity, Islam or the others are known for tolerance.

Thought for the Moment: A religion, even if it calls itself the religion of love, must be hard and unloving to those who do not belong to it.

Freud, Group Psuchology and                                    the Analysis of the                                      Ego, 1921

All these people waiting for the second coming, the messiah, the whoever, have you gotten a letter in all this time, a fax, a phone call.  You haven't even gotten a post card.

Let's look at Christianity.

Joseph, a wanderer and financial failure, is drifting with his woman when one night, while he's out on the town, the Deity stops by for a quickie. 

Just how did Joseph find out about this event?  Did Mary tell him?

"Joseph, we need to talk.  I want you to sit down."

Did he walk in and catch them? 

Did his friends tell him?

"Uh, Joe, man, look, we got to talk.  I got something to tell you and I'm only telling you for your own good.   My old lady says your old lady says she's been knocked up by God."  You couldn't keep that quiet in a small town for very long.

Did he think it was his?

Was Mary seen walking down the street with a swish in her walk and her nose up in the air?

Poor Joseph!

Thought for the Moment: If you can't annoy someone there is little point in writing.

Kingsly Amis

We could go on but let us look at the western world's three major religions for a moment.

You have Judaism, which believes that God gave them a special piece of land in exchange for their worship.  One might mention that he gave them a desert.  They keep skipping on the payments so the Deity keeps taking the land back using various and sundry peoples as his agents.

You have Christianity, which believes that God has three heads, one of them the head of a ghost.  Though it might be noted they have not hacked God into as many pieces as the Hindus which can't even keep track of the pieces.

Then you have the Muslims.  They believe that God keeps female spirits in heaven to reward the faithful men when they get there.  I wonder what he does for the women?

We have all heard the story of the three blind men who sought to find out about an elephant by feeling it with their hands, each felt a different part and arrived at a different conclusion.

If we approach the three aforementioned religions from this direction ( and it is not a bad analogy ) we come to the most amazing conclusion:  God is a three headed real estate entrepreneur who owns a whorehouse in heaven.  He probably rides a camel and he must have a sense of humor.  After all, he created us.

Somehow the image is not all that displeasing.

  I personally think that by now he is probably drinking in a waterfront bar in Amsterdam vehemently denying any connection with the creation of the naked ape with an attitude.  Then again maybe he's bragging.

But let's look at what others have to say about it.   

Thoughts for the Moment:  If God created us in his own image we have more than reciprocated. 

Voltaire, Le Sottisier,

18th Century

Christianity is a good reason to be an anti-semite.

Unknown

There can be no Creator, simply because his grief at the fate of his creation would be inconceivable and unendurable.

Elias Canetti, The

Human Province, 1978     

It is final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us.

Peter De Vries

All religions will pass, but this will remain: simply sitting in a chair and looking in the distance.

V Rozanov, Solitaria,                                          1912

I suppose that I should speak of some of the good that organized religion accomplishes to balance this out but I don't feel that it would fit in this publication.

                             ****

Oh what a pain having religion can be even if it's only for a short time.  You would think that after twenty years my family would have figured out that I'm not a religious man. 

You would be wasting your time.

Up until a few years ago my mother still had hopes that I would some day return to the church and become a fine upstanding member of the community.  Folks, the age of miracles is over, not that it was ever here in the first place.  They once tried to get me to attend a family meeting and said they would get the local Sky Pilot to attend to answer any religious questions I had but I declined the honor.  I was invited to a second family meet sans Sky Pilot, probably for another partial disownment, but declined this offer too.  I was once approached with the idea of a two family convocation with attendant cousins but somehow I found the will to resist. 

Many in the family wanted nothing to do with me because of my somewhat irresponsible nature and freedom loving ways.

Thought for the Moment:  Happy is the man who is hated on his own account. 

Jean Rostand, Journal

d'un caractere, 1931

                              **

I can remember a conversation I had with my favorite sister some few years ago.  She had come from Alabama to visit, I hadn't seen her in a while, and it wasn't any time until we were covering the same old ground that we had covered before.  She had become a born again Christian, and, having been saved from her sins by Jesus felt it her duty to save the rest of the world.  She was of the     in Reich! Ein Volk! Ein Jesus!" crowd.

Thought for the Moment:  The trouble with born again Christians is that they an even bigger pain the second time around.

Herb Caen

She started out by asking me about my religious beliefs and reminded me of what I had believed for six months or so some twenty years ago.  She then told me how happy it would make my mother if I would set aside my beliefs and go back to church. 

She was also going through the "I, a woman" syndrome yet again.  Earlier the Grapevine had carried news of how she had spoken of not even letting her husband touch her except on special occasions.  She had carried new life in her belly, given birth to it and nursed it at her breast.  She was Woman, and she knew what was best for all living things. 

Men caused all the trouble on the earth and she wondered what we had been put here for.   Women were the givers of life and men were just mutants that caused trouble.  During one conversation I noted that if there were no male to bring the Y gene into play life would be at the level of a primordial souffle.  My views were not appreciated.  But I digress.

She talked in that soft cooing voice that women use when they want to convey that everything would be oh so beautiful and lovely if you would just do what they in their infinite wisdom want. 

I began to speculate on what my sister would look like with her tits tied in a knot behind her neck.

She told me how all my mistakes, craziness and running around had hurt the family and some wanted nothing to do with me.

Thought for the Moment:  He that hath no fools, knaves or beggars in his family was begot by a flash of lightening.

Thomas Fuller (II)

Gnomologia, 1732

She began telling me how Jesus loved me.  This was not the first time I had heard this, far from it but I was thinking of a way to make it the last.  It looked like she was going to go on and on so I decided to bring things to a stop.

"You worship a dead Jew." I said.  It was as if I had slapped her in the face.

"Dead Jew." I said, getting up out of the chair.

  "Dead Jew." I said, right in her face.

I don't like to get rough with people but after twenty years a reasonable person could be expected to figure things out and leave the subject alone.  That ended the conversation with my sister.  There was still a conversation with my parents to be gotten through. 

Now it was my mothers duty to bring me all the little tidbits of information that were travelling through the Grapevine about me.  Each was lain at my feet for my inspection.  If someone said something about me or said they felt sorry for me the news was immediately brought to me by mother.  Whatever people thought or felt about me was brought for my inspection except for the times I was told,

"Oh, I just can't repeat what they are saying about you now."

When I was younger I didn't understand this. 

Thought for the Moment:  Young people do not perceive at once that the giver of wounds is the enemy and the quoted tattle merely the arrow.

Scott Fitzgerald, The                                              Crack-Up, 1945

One day after being encouraged to come back to Jesus yet again, my mother and stepfather brought me the speculation of the Biddies on my sex life, on whether or not I was going to the groves with Flapper, on how I handled my urges since they never saw me with a woman.  They were having a good time.

I decided that the time had come to put a stop to it. 

"Tell them I jack off." I said.  This brought the expected reply.

I decided to drop a few rounds amongst the Christians.

Round 1  Thump!  "Besides, why are they speculating about my sex life, don't they have one of their own.  Aren't their gardeners taking care of them."  I briefly speculated on the secret wants of the Biddies.

Direct hit.

Appropriate comments were made by the Christians.

Round 2  Thump!  "Why don't they do a little speculation about Jesus's sex life, he's never been recorded as having a piece of ass.  I bet he was real popular among the Arab boys."

Direct hit.  I was ordered to halt my line of inquiry.

Round 3  Thump!  I bet those Arabs really liked old JC.  My God!  I hope he wasn't doing anything with those camels!"

Direct hit.  There was pandemonium in the Christian camp.  I was ordered to shut up but was prepared to continue my thoughts when they brought out the sledgehammer from hell.  I was threatened with disownment if I spoke one more word.  I had uttered blasphemy.

"Not one red cent." was the way it was put.

I told them to put the conversation in the Grapevine but was told it wouldn't happen.  There are three things you don't tell a Christian, Jesus is dead, Jesus was a Jew, and you don't speculate on his sex life.

Let me pause for a moment and speak of inheritances.  I have had my inheritance sliced several times for not settling down and producing grandchildren, for speaking my mind and for telling of the events in my life.  My nephews and nieces were once told to tell me "thank you" several times, which they did, and I was informed that I had lost a major share of my inheritance and would be lucky to get anything at all.  It is the old battle between one who enjoys freedom and those who prefer the world of conformity and illusion although there are other conflicts beneath the surface.

I have borrowed against the inheritance on occasions to numerous to list, generally when I hit bottom due to the vicissitudes of fortune.  Many may ask if I am ashamed to admit this. 

I will tell you that I am ashamed that my depredations against my inheritance lacked the sanctifying grace of magnitude. Considering that when I publish these memoirs there will be no inheritance perhaps I should change my name to El Brujo.  

The conversation eventually made the rounds.

THE SHUNNING & THE FUNERAL

OF BIG DADDY Glutz

I was walking out of the drug store one day when one of the Viederville Biddies came out.  I greeted her in my usual polite way, she stopped, looked at me, snorted, and walked off.

The Patriarch turned his head and wouldn't look at me.

Big Boy, the Patriarch's son, looked at the ground and shook his head.

Mad Dog was being shunned.

I was told people were going to pray for me, I said not to bother.  I was told some thought there was no hope for me, I said there wasn't.   Many of the peasants didn't speak to me, being somewhat of a misanthropist this did not unduly concern me.

There was one who spoke to me.  The Deer Slayer.  I had heard that she had been preparing a case against me before Big Daddy Glutz and she was said to be overjoyed at my blasphemy. 

Now some time after this Big Daddy Glutz passed on.  I had been encouraged to go and see him to maximize my chances of getting something in the will but he and I were never close and the visits were few. 

Big Daddy was a frugal man.  Some said a bit too frugal.  In his latter days, after his wife had died, he spent a great deal of time in the television room but refused to run the air conditioning unless he began to sweat despite the fact that he was easily a very wealthy man. 

He did allow himself a black gardener and maid though he went through maids rather fast at times.  I was there one day when he was watching tv with the maid in the kitchen fixing supper.  Something on the television upset Big Daddy and off he went.

"Nigras and Jews." he said, loud enough for the maid to hear.

  I pointed towards the kitchen in case he couldn't hear that the maid was there but he waved her away as if it didn't matter.

"Damn!" he said.  "The nigras and Jews are gonna ruin this country."  Then he got a sheepish look on his face. 

"Now they've gone and made me say a bad word.  They almost made me say a real bad word." said Big Daddy, who didn't cuss.

They had a problem with Big Daddy and his maids and it took some talking by the family to get him to finally curb his comments.  I heard that someone once suggested getting a Jewish maid for him and Big Daddy said he'd shoot her.

There were several in the village who referred to some of the family as Cracker Jews and when the Grapevine carried the news to Big Daddy Glutz he was said to have started for the gun closet before cooler parts of the mind prevailed.

I had heard that for quite some time the Deer Slayer had been preparing a case against me and with Big Daddy's death I heard that she had been successful.  A Cousin in Law of mine picked me up one day while I was walking and told me that there was nothing for me in the will.  I had not expected anything significant but had hoped for a token payment. 

At first I had thought that it was because of some of the experiences that I had related to people, some to the very same Cousin in Law that brought me the news.  But I soon discovered that the reason was much less complex.  Not only had he left me completely out of the will, he left his adopted daughter out too.

At least it wasn't personal.

Of course I was just about the last one to know about this and when I heard I decided not to go to the funeral.  When I announced this decision mother soon began to work on me with her emotional pleas to do it for her. 

I did and I felt like a fool for a long time for putting myself through that.  Let me tell you something, its a lesson I seem to have to relearn a great deal;  When it comes time to make a decision do what's right for you no matter what emotional grappling hooks someone may throw at you.

I dressed up in my suit and went to the red brick church with its four columns.  A couple of my cousins didn't want to shake hands and I still remember the smile on one of their faces when I walked into the church.

The Sky Pilot began to speak.  He told of Big Daddy's life and his membership in the church and the contributions he had made. 

  "Generous to a fault." said the Sky Pilot.  He told of how, when Big Daddy was a loan officer at the bank, he would make loans that showed he was generous to a fault.  Quite a few people had a hard time swallowing that one.

"Generous to a fault." said the Sky Pilot, glancing in my direction.  He spoke again of all that Big Daddy had given to the church.

This was getting old.  One could certainly make a case for my not getting anything but his adopted daughter, who was in attendance, had raised two children and was well respected in the community.

"Generous to a fault." said the Sky Pilot the third and last time.  I was told later that the Sky Pilot said it three times on purpose.  I think if I had my .45 automatic with me I would have gotten up and shot that fucking Sky Pilot right out of that pulpit.  You know the difference between a Sky Pilot and a catfish don't you, to paraphrase an old saying, one is a bottom dwelling scum sucker and the other is a fish.

Finally it ended.  At the grave Big Boy came up with a satisfied look on his face and shook my hand.

                             ****

I thought about Big Daddy's always talking about the Jews and how they never did anything except for their own blood and their own kind and looked down on those that were of another race or group.    I pondered how Big Daddy sometimes resembled his view of them in certain ways and I was sorely perplexed.

This mystery was something that I just couldn't grasp.

Then one day it dawned on me!  Big Daddy's unconscious was Jewish!

But Big Daddy had only a Christian burial.  What could I do?

Of course I finally decided to do nothing but I must admit that the thought of getting HJP a case of beer and myself a bottle of rum and going and laying Big Daddy's unconscious to rest did cross my mind. 

I could just see it.  We each would carry our drinks to the grave site, HJP would begin the chant (he would have to get somebody to teach it to him of course):

AAAAHHHHHHAAAAAA...............Thump!............................ .......Thump!......Thump!Thump!.......Thump! Thump!Thump!Thump!

                             ****

Some time after this I started a job with an irrigation company  installing at Disney World that necessitated a long drive from Viederville.  I finally started sleeping in my car in a restaurant parking lot near the job. 

Almost all of the workers were long hairs with older cars and most spent a goodly sum of money on recreation.  Several had rented a camping site and I was invited to join them for a rent of $35 a week.  I was only there two weeks.

There was always pot, beer and liquor and on occasion tempers flared.  On payday several of the workers always had a discussion about whether to buy an eight ball or not, an eight ball being an eighth of an ounce of cocaine, though some said a true eight ball was mixed with heroin.

There were nine of us there, a blonde and his girlfriend, he was waiting to go to court on cocaine possession charges and looking at fifteen years.  A large bear-like creature who hadn't been arrested for anything yet.  Two brothers were with us, one of whom had been arrested for attempted murder but said he didn't do it, the other brother had a capacity to drink a half pint in two to three swallows; another hippie and his wife and child made up the group.  The blonde finally had to have a talk with the two brothers after word circulated that things were disappearing from other camp sites.

There was always something interesting going on in this crew.  There was a dark headed guy who was waiting to go to court on a cocaine charge.  He was only looking at five years and kidded the blonde longhair who was looking at fifteen.  He alternately admitted and denied he was bisexual but would sometimes point to his crotch in a joking manner with the Mexican workers on the landscaping crew.  There was a black belt in karate who hated his guts.  They got into a fight one day but stopped short of throwing fists for fear of losing their jobs.  They butted chests three times and the black belt was the obvious winner.  His opponent walked off muttering threats but that was the end of it.

There was a fight between two beer drinkers that I just missed seeing by a few seconds.  They had wrestled on the ground for a moment then got up and exchanged threats through third parties, starting with threats of chopping each other up with shovels, moving to threats against vehicles, then death threats and finally a challenge to fight after work that was accepted.

We all gathered but they didn't fight. 

After two weeks of camping and these discoveries I decided that I was better off in the parking lot and moved back.  Generally it wasn't bad except some of the tourists made a great deal of noise.    I wasn't the only one using the parking lot.  I briefly talked to a black guy who stayed there two nights with his kid.  He said he could afford Disney World or he could afford a hotel and his kid was going to see Disney World while he was still a kid.  One of the other workers had found a place to live and vacated the lot just before I moved in.

But all this was to prove to be quite boring compared to the experience I was soon to have for I was about to go through the Change of Life, which catches you wherever you are at and takes you where you don't want to be.

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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