290. Horror

“Think I’ll return to my writing career.”

I burrowed my head deeper into the book I was reading and pretended not to hear.

“Are you listening? I’m resuming my writing career,” C.W. said.

“What writing career?”

“The one you keep discouraging with your lack of the action of giving someone support, confidence, or hope.”

“My lack of encouragement is for your own good,” I said. For the first time, I looked up. There sat Edgar Allen Poe, or at least how the historical biographies picture him. Oh no. Halloween is approaching. I braced for the worst. “You should consider new careers,” I said. “What happened to your plan to become a country parson?”

“Nevermore,” he said.

“Why not?”

“I tried it.”

“And?”

“I quit after preaching goodness, love, respect for one another, forgiveness, understanding, and all that for months.”

“What happened?”

“Darkness there and nothing more." He stopped, looked around, and said, "The sons of bitches wouldn’t pay me.”

“I see. So now you are going to write?”

“Evermore.”

“About what?”

“Gothic horror. Creating dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”

“I see. Do you have a plot in mind?”

“A dreadfully frightening one it seems, just in time for Halloween.”

I quickly returned to my book.

“I’d love to share it with you,” he said, as if I had requested it.

“Oh that might be bad luck,” I said.

“A true modern gothic villain,” he said. “He will become as feared among children as Montresor in The Cask of Amontillado, a truly terrifying creature.”

“Good,” I said, “now why don’t you go and work on it and leave me in peace.”

“I’d be glad to,” he said. “It goes like this.”

I laid the book across my stomach.

“There is this children’s entertainer, puppets, music, and such, who goes from village to village making children happy—only a child himself. His name is Parabello.” He stopped and looked to make sure I was listening.

I nodded, giving in. “Go ahead.”

“So he does this for years.”

"Okay."

 

“And no one seems to realize that he is getting older. He keeps applying makeup, more and more makeup, to make it appear that he doesn’t age.”

I nodded.

He continued. “So he becomes more and more famous and wealthy entertaining the children. He takes some of his money and builds a vast park where he takes selected and fortunate children to entertain them on special outings. He calls it Fairyland, and creates a wondrous experience for the children”

“You might want to think on that name a bit,” I said.

He ignored me. “Then one day, years after he has been entertaining children there for days on end, a mother stops him.”

I began to doze. He continued. “She asks him how old he is. He says, ‘Beat it.’ She says ‘I want to know how old you are.’ He says, ‘Leave me alone.’ She says, are you listening to me?” This time he screamed.

I woke up.

He yelled, “I said are you listening to me?”

“Of course,” I said. “I just nodded, nearly napping. What happens next?”

“The mother unlocks the fact that Parabello is not a child but a man nearly 50 years old.”

“Oh my. And he has been having bunking parties with his little fans?”

“His claim is this, that they only played games and frolicked, nothing farther then he uttered.”

“Does it work?”

“Hardly. The people send him away saying he will remain nameless here for evermore.”

“So his memory becomes a thing of terror?”

“What else? I mean, imagine a forty-something year-old man dressing up in heavy makeup and pretending to be a child as he frolics around with real children. How else could his image be recalled? An icon? Someone to be emulated? A man who never left his childhood state, merely this and nothing more?”

My poor idol only made money on one thing he wrote.
It was a scientific work on spiders. Me? I intend
to get rich despite Big Dope's lack of help. - C;W;

I sat stupefied.

“So what do you think?”

“I think you and I need to have a long talk about my species.’

“I have another,” he said. “It starts many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea.”

“Please beam one of us up,” I said. “Please.” Then I swear I heard this voice boom down from somewhere up above.

“Nevermore.”

 Please click some ads. I'll have advertising costs. Oh, and see www.wattensawpress.com
And ... www.allhatnocattle.com

Finally, buy Big Dope's book so he'll shut up about it.
- C.W.

Available at major on-line retailers, or
www.wattensawpress.com

Safety

Dear Friends and Followers:
I found this on Big Dope's computer and couldn't resist sharing.
C.W.

There was news this week about a school in Utah where the officials took an unusual step in dealing with school lunch payments in arrears. After dispensing meals one noontime, officials went around and seized the trays of the kids whose lunches hadn’t been paid for and threw them in the trash. Problem solved.

Now these were not kids on the “Free Lunch Program” but simply were those whose parents had not paid for the lunches in a timely fashion.

Still, it made me think of the Free Lunch Program, a friend I had while serving in the United States Navy, and a former professional football player. Let’s see if I can connect the dots.

I teach a course at a local university. The course is “Intro to Public Administration” and the class members are juniors and seniors taking it as an elective. So, it is not “their first rodeo” and we have some wonderful and spirited discussions.

Each time I teach it, the subject of the free lunch program seems to arise. It is simply heartbreaking to hear a young woman talk of the shame associated with being identified, before her classmates, as one on the Free Lunch Program. It is evidently a mark of shame she will carry with her for the rest of her life.

Now, to my “beloved” USN. While waiting for deployment to Vietnam, I shared a temporary posting in Monterey, California with a troubled man named Bob. We were both beset by unhappiness. Mine was from a temporary habit but his was deeply rooted. He owned a car and we would go for long rides along the coastal highway and bemoan our fates. We once drove to the gates of a compound owned by Joan Baez where, it was rumored, one could gain passage to Canada. I don’t know. We “chickened out” at the last moment.

Anyway, Bob had a favorite allegory. “Jimmie,” he would say, “when a child is born into this world, they give him a bucket. As he goes through life, they keep adding s**t into that bucket until someday, he won’t be able to move ‘cause it is so heavy.”

It was not the most positive personal philosophy I have ever heard, but it was entertaining, the way he would rant on about it.

I don’t know what happened to him eventually. He disappeared one day and I didn’t hear from him until just before I shipped out. I was called to “The Deck” and told, by a frowning Officer-in-Charge, that I had a call and to make it quick. So I will.

It was Bob calling from the “nut-ward” at the Treasure Island Naval Base in San Francisco Bay. “What are you doing there?” I said.

“I just gave my bucket of s**t away,” he yelled. Then they took the phone from him and, I suppose, led him away.

Aren't there some things that your species
believes young kids shouldn't have to
worry about? - C.W.

Now the football player: I read this week where a former pro football player, now an exec with the NFL, said he didn’t believe in social “safety nets,” which was why he voted conservative.

I just couldn’t help thinking about a young child standing to be identified forever as a burden to society and what it must mean to carry that through life.

And then, I thought of buckets of s**t. Well, I also thought about pieces of s**t.

See his latest book at Wattensaw Press.

156. Answers

Hello friends. Big Dope is taking a vacation this week and it gives me time to answer some of your mail.

Dear C.W.: My name is Stevie and I am nine years old. When I told my friend Benji that I didn’t want to marry a girl, he said that I would die and burn in some place called Hell for ever and ever. The Bible told him so. I told him the Bible also said that you have to give your money to the poor, so his daddy would be burning with me because he didn’t. He said that part was taken out of someplace called Contax. Can you tell me where this place is?

Dear Stevie: I think you mean “context” which, in your case is not a place but a state of mind. People like your friend use it in a process we call “faxilataturia” on Falloonia. It means to ignore anything that is inconvenient. It is contra-related to the process of “redolataturia” which means to ignore anything that is stupid and which you should use when your friend Benji tells you something.

Dear C.W.: I am a descendant of Thomas Wood Forrest. My family owns one of the largest real-estate brokerage firms in the United States.  I don’t want my country to expect me to pay for socialized medicine from my trust fund. How may I best go about stopping this evil idea?

Signed – Howie

Dear Howie: It is confusing to a visitor from another planet as to why some in your species distrust socialized medicine while they—almost joyfully it seems to me—embrace the notion of socialized housing. From government-backed housing loans to mortgage-interest deductions, your country subsidizes home ownership in a manner unheard of throughout the Galaxy. In fact, it is rare in the Cosmos to find a species that allows profits to be made from the provision of basic needs. But, more to your point, someone told me recently that one of your species’ primary religious documents mandates that the rich give their money to the poor. Why don’t you try that and perhaps health care will take care of itself?

Dear C.W.: My wife snores something awful. Do Falloonians snore? If so, is there a cure?
Signed – Desperate

Dear Desperate: To answer your first question, Fallonians do not snore. They do, however, as they grow older, tend to use the “rest and recharge” period to secretly discharge the buildup of noxious gasses from their digestive systems. I am told that in some of the older unit pairs, this occasionally results in violence, an otherwise rare occurrence on our planet. More to your point, I recommend that you simply rejoice, as you lie awake, in the fact that you are not a Ligeniatorian. The females of that species, on a certain night during their gestation period, invade the bodies of their spouses in order to incubate their eggs. Then they must find a new spouse. So, from a universal perspective, consider yourself damned lucky.

Dear Fans: Please forward your
letters to Big Dope for the next few days.
I will be "out of pocket." - C.W.

Dear C.W.: My Husband is a complete dope. He wanders around all day pretending to talk to an alien. I can’t depend upon him for anything. In addition, he snores at night and his feet smell awful. I am thinking about taking a baseball bat to him and his little buddy. I know that my people would not blame me but do you think there would be galactic repercussions?
Signed: Bare-Handed Momma

Dear, Dear. I must run now. Out of space. I’ll get back to you.

147. Friends

C.W. was pouting and when he does, it is not pretty sight. Falloonian tears are this pinkish color and they tend to occur more from frustration than from sadness. So I have this whining alien in the form of a sixteen year-old girl spouting what looks like rivulets of Pepto-Bismol down her face. I put my morning oatmeal aside, my appetite having vanished. Her tears were beginning to drip.

“If you get that stuff on the couch, you are going to be in real trouble,” I said.

“You just hate me.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“I’m going to live with someone else.”

“I’ll help you pack.”

“Jesus is going to get you. And I’ll be happy when he does.”

“Jesus doesn’t ‘get’ people.”

“Oh yes he does. He gets gays, liberals, and anyone who doesn’t support our troops. I saw it on the ‘Christian Love Channel.’”

What could I say? Nothing. So I returned to my laptop.

What, one might ask, brought on this fit of pique? Just this: I put a new password on my computer so she can’t use it to open access her Facebook account. The reason? That should be apparent to anyone familiar with the escapades of our resident alien and with the ability of the authorities to trace computer entries. My phone already makes these mysterious clicking sounds and I strongly suspect tapping.

“All of my colleagues around the world have a Facebook account.”

“If all your colleagues drove their spaceships into a black hole, would you follow them?”

"Our representative in Spain even has Twitter.”

“Did your representative in Spain post a picture of my wife bending over while she was planting corn and caption it: ‘The Sun riseth and the sun goeth down?”

“Mrs. Big Dope thought you did it.” She giggled. “Besides, she thought it was funny.”

I touched a bruise on my arm. “She had a funny way of laughing. And you are not getting back on Facebook.”

“How am I going to share my recipes?”

“When have you ever prepared a meal?”

“I might start.” She paused and then her face lit up. “And I need to help impeach the President.”

“What?” I was stunned. “Why?”

“Because he’s colored. That’s what Brytannie says. She learned it in church.”

“One more reason you can’t use my computer.”

“What am I going to do with all the cat pictures I took?”

“Put them in a scrapbook.”

“What’s a scrapbook?”

“It’s a collection of photos and clippings you glue onto the pages of a large folio.”

“Eeeuw!”

“And you share them with friends at your next bunking party.”

“What’s a bunking party?”

“It’s when your friends come over and spend the night with you.”

“Like Tymber, Londin, Kathee, and Kingstun?”

“Uh, not Kingstun.”

These cute creatures love their photgraphs.
But Big Dope won't let me post them. - C.W.

“Why not. He’s going to show me some things about photography.”

“I’ll just bet.” I was getting tired of this conversation. “Why don’t you just find something else to do. Say, for example, read a novel.”

The tears stopped and she looked at me with a pleasant smile for the first time all morning. “Maybe so,” she said. Then her face turned inquisitive. “What’s a novel?”

137. Laws

It may not have been the worst experience of my life. After all, I once lived through being sentenced to two weeks of Vacation Bible School in the middle of summer while the rest of my gang fought pirates and played baseball.

When C.W. insisted that I take him to our state capitol to watch our legislature, I knew better. But, he said, “It is your duty to further my education as the North American host to our planet.” And I suppose it is.

So, when he showed up as a bright-eyed 13 year-old, what could I do? I told him that much of the drama occurred in the committee hearings, so we arrived early and picked a committee at random in the Senate end of the building and took a seat in the rear.

“The opponents of a bill will try to stop it from getting out of committee while the proponents will try to get it voted out with a ‘do pass,’” I said.

“Neat,” he said.

“Uh, yeah.”

At that moment, the committee filed in. There were four members of an eight-member committee present. C.W. produced a membership handbook from his backpack and began to study it.

“I see a quorum present,” the committee chairperson said.

Immediately C.W.’s hand shot up. “They don’t have a quorum,” he said to me, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. He pointed at the list of members of that committee.

“Shhh,” I explained as quietly as I could. “They will proceed unless one of the members calls for a quorum-count.”

“That sucks,” he said, louder. Every eye in the room turned toward us. “They don’t have a quorum,” he explained to them. All eyes returned to the front as the meeting continued.

The first bill was introduced. The bill’s author explained that it would require a woman requesting certain medical procedures to have a probe inserted into her … at this point every eye in the room turned to us again. I turned a crimson red and tried to pretend I was studying some papers I had picked up at the door. C.W. leaned forward eagerly. The eyes continued to stare at us as if I had taken a child into an X-rated movie.

“This is neat,” C.W. said. “But I thought they were supposed to make laws here.”

I tried to make myself as small as possible.

Finally, the meeting continued. The bill’s author having finished, a well-dressed woman representing the ACLU began to speak against the bill, pointing out what seemed to her some constitutional problems. Suddenly, a committee member stood, interrupting her. “Mr. Chairman,” he yelled. “If this ‘person’ is here to waste our time again, I’m going outside for a smoke.” He spun around and left.

“That was uncivilized,” C.W. said. “Who elected him?” Again the heads snapped toward us. At this point the Chair called a brief recess. He whispered to a large man with a noticeable budge under the coat of his suit who then approached us.

“Sir” he said. “We don’t think this discussion is fit for under-aged children.”

“You mean I can’t watch them making laws?” C.W. yelled it this time and everyone stopped to watch.

As I see it, the purpose of legislation is to advance
individual agendas. Interesting. - C.W.

“Not this one son,” the man said. “Come back for the next one. It deals with who can euthanize animals.”

“Gross,” C.W. said as I hurried him from the room.

Outside, I turned to him in exasperation. “Didn’t they warn you in your training back in Falloonia not to watch Americans making laws?”

“No,” he said, his eyes turning into large innocent orbs. “They just made us promise not to watch you making babies.”

135. Education.3

Can’t seem to get C.W. off this education kick. So, I think we should humor him one more week, particularly since he assumed such an adorable form today. He was busy at the kitchen table working when I came in this morning, or I should I say “she” was. There was the most adorable 13-year old girl you have ever seen, dressed in her school uniform with her blond ponytail neatly flowing down her back.  Her face was drawn up around her sky-blue eyes as she was straining over a standardized test.

 

“Uh, good morning, I think.”

“Good morning Mr. Big Dope.”

Yep, it was he. “What on earth are you doing, C.W.?”

“I have been asked to evaluate this test for possible use in the placement program for the better schools,” she said. “And quite frankly, some of the questions confuse me.”

“You have been asked …,”

“By Mrs. Rhee.”

“To evaluate what?”

“This test will determine the quality of class a child is assigned to. And the questions are dumb.”

“Dumb?”

“Yes. Listen to this one. ‘Your mother tells you that she doesn’t have enough money to make ends meet this month. You should (1) Suggest that she give up cigarettes and beer temporarily; (2) Stay at your aunt’s house for a while; (3) Offer to eat only two meals a day for the month; (4) Tell your father to put some more money into Mom’s household account.’”

“Yes,” I said. “And?”

“Well anybody would know that the correct answer is “Four” but it keeps telling me I’m wrong.”

“Really?”

“And here’s another. ‘Your friend’s mom drops you off from birthday party and your mother’s boyfriend calls you from the tool shed and says he wants to show you something. You should (1) Pretend not to hear and go lock yourself in your room; (2) Request additional information; (3) Tell him you must first change into your play clothes; (4) Ask if your mom is with him.’”

“That’s a tough one.”

“No it’s not, she said. “Of course one cannot indulge in play activities with one’s dress clothes on.” She paused and looked perplexed. “But it tells me I’m wrong.”

“Boy,” I said. “This is hard.”

“You haven’t seen anything. Listen. ‘There are two direct routes to school. Each passes through a designated gang territory. You should, (1) Find a longer route that is gang-free; (2) Join one of the gangs and use the route through its territory; (3) Remind the chauffer to lock all the windows in the car when driving to school; (4) Suggest to your parents that they home-school you.’”

“Well that sounds pretty simple to me,” I said.

“Yes, but what if the chauffer forgets?”

“Oh.”

Everyone knows that the maid does
all the cooking, so why must
a young girl learn fractions? - C.W.

“Now, here is the hardest one. Get this. ‘Pregnancy can occur when (1) One, or both, of the partners forgets to pray before having sex; (2) When a girl has sex on days not sanctioned by the church; (3) A girl has sex with someone other than her boyfriend who, he promises, can’t make babies; (4) A girl has sex without the protection of a contraceptive.’”

I thought about it. “You can answer this one, can’t you?”

“Heck no.”

“And why not?”

“Well, for one thing, what is a contraceptive?”

129. Teachers

My goodness, but I could have sworn my 11^th grade English teacher, Mrs. Morgan, was in my living room. It was C.W. but the 1960s attire really brought back memories. There she was, in a tailored suit of subdued gray plaid with a starched white blouse complete with ruffles down the front. A modest necklace completed the arrangement and black, patent-leather shoes quietly expressed sensibility.

 

What wasn’t in character was the belt of cartridges strung across her chest and the assault rifle angling menacingly from behind her shoulders. Then there were the two pistols strapped to her waist, the holster belts making a menacing “x” at her midsection like the attire of a movie gunslinger.

“I’m not going to ask,” I said, slumping into a chair.

“Jimmie, please sit up straight,” she said. “How many times must I tell you?”

“C.W.,” I said. Have you gone completely mad?”

“Am I going to have to introduce you to my little friend?” she said, reaching a hand behind her to pat the rifle.”

“Okay. I’ll bite. What’s up?”

“Straighten up and I will tell you.”

I sat up and waited.

“At long last,” she said. “I read where school administrators will begin to arm teachers. I intend to be ready.”

Not believing what I was seeing, I just stared.

“Remember when you wouldn’t keep up with the rest of the class when we studied The Heart of Darkness?”

“I had other priorities.”

“Exactly,” she said. Then she walked to me and stood menacingly. She placed a hand on one of her pistols, a big one like the kind Dirty Harry used. “Don’t you imagine that Smith and Wesson could have helped regain your focus?”

“It gives a new meaning to the term ‘compulsory education,’” I said.

“Please don’t get smart with me,” she said as she drew the pistol from its holster.

“Look,” I said. Between you and I …”

“Stoppit,” she screamed, and before I knew it she had thrust the pistol barrel into my mouth and had cocked the hammer with a sickening click. “You are misusing the objective case. Would you say … ‘between I?’ Heavens no. So why ‘between you and I’? It should be ‘between you and me’! Can’t you understand?” She pushed the pistol harder and I nodded my head enthusiastically.

She removed the pistol and smiled. “No wonder your friends call you ‘Big Dope,’” she said. She placed the pistol in its holster and I relaxed.

“Can’t you just see how this will revolutionize teaching?” she said. “No more ‘children please take out your grammar books.’” She lowered her head and gave a “Clockwork Orange” smile. In a fluid motion she retrieved the rifle from her back and pointed it at me. “Now,” she said. “It’s ‘conjugate this, dirtbag!’ Oh happy day!”

“Uh, C.W,” I said. “I don’t think they plan for teachers to use the weapons on their students.”

“What? Then on whom?”

“You know, intruders.”

“Like Principal Patterson?”

“No, like gun wielding lunatics that might come blasting away.”

She stopped as if she had been slapped. She seemed to wilt and backed toward a chair then slumped into it.



Now children, today we shall study transitive verbs.
This will require our attention. So please don't provoke me.
Oh happy day! - C.W.

“Do you mean to tell me that there are those in your species who believe the cure for the insanity of violence is more violence?”

“Afraid so.”

“The thought of that provokes me,” she said, using a word I have always found to be the exclusive property of teachers.

“Be that as it may …” I began.

She interrupted. “It certainly points out the results of inadequate funding for education.”

127. Remnants

This morning, I didn’t really feel like talking. Of course that is when C.W. is most likely to show. And of course he did.

Our country was suffering in shock from another mass murder by a gun-wielding lunatic. No use to go into the numbers and methodology. It is all too painfully familiar by now.

Anyway, as I say, C.W. never misses a chance. I looked up from my computer screen into a dark room to see him standing in the form of a six year old child, pale but emitting a slight white glow. He stood staring at me without speaking for several seconds. Then he spoke in a soft child’s voice that floated around the room like a smoky whisper.

“Do you know why they killed me?”

I studied the figure. C.W., despite his often comic and cynical approaches to our society, chooses very carefully when he will be serious.

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

“Then you seem to be the only one of your species that doesn’t, from what I observed on the social networking websites this morning.”

“You’ve been on my computer?”

“Oh please,” he said. “So you don’t know?”

“I can’t begin to fathom.”

“Someone blamed it on a god.”

“I’m sure they did.”

“Some think your species needs fewer guns.”

“I’m sure they do.”

“Others think you need more guns.”

I didn’t answer him. So he kept talking.

“The ones who seem the most positive are the ones who don’t have a clue.”

“That is usually the case,” I said.

“You know I went through considerable training before the Falloonian Elders sent me to your planet.”

“I would assume as much.”

“You want to know their short take on your species?”

“Why not?” I was glad to escape my own thoughts.

“That you had managed to overcome, to a remarkable degree, your prehistoric reliance on violence as a survival strategy.”

“That’s good, right?”

“But,” he continued. “It never left the DNA strand and it will surface from time to time, often most tragically.”

“Ask your classmates,” I said.

“Ask the families of the children of Baghdad the morning your country started raining bombs on them,” he said.

“You are not being very comforting,” I said.

“One of your country’s founders—I forget which one—said ‘Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.’”

“It is attributed to Thomas Jefferson,” I said. “But I’m not sure it was he.”
 

“It makes no difference, don’t you see. What is important is the cosmic truth of it. Your species must remain vigilant over those primordial instincts that have existed, and still exist, since your ancestors crawled from the oceans.”

“So you mean …?”

“Sorry, but I have to go now,” he said, looking past me to a point far away. “One of the things I planned to do when I learned to write good was to keep a diary.” He paused. “But of course I never got to do it.”

It is hard, some mornings,
to continue believing in the
acquired goodness of people.
But you must keep trying. - C.W.

I must have looked confused.

“Oh,” he said. “I met a friend who kept a very good one before the violence took her and she has promised to read it to me.”

And he faded away, leaving me more confused than ever.

101. Metaphors

“I can’t believe you don’t want in on this opportunity.”

C.W. was in a particularly annoying mode, and he has developed annoyance into a heavily nuanced art form. So just imagine.

“It’ll make you rich,” he said.

“I’m already rich,” I said. Thinking better of it, I added, “Metaphorically speaking.”

“Your species and your metaphors,” he said. “What’s a metaphor for? Can you eat one? Spend one? Cruise around the world on one? We’re talking real riches here.”

“You are the voice of Satan,” I said. It was early and I was groggy from a dream I had concerning Jerry Sandusky and hoe handles.

“You are a stench rising from the rotting heap of unfulfilled dreams,” he said.

“Say what?”

“Lookit,” he said. He pulled his suspenders and popped them dramatically, for he was assuming the form of the world’s greatest salesman. “You don’t have to do anything but put up a little money. You will be the lucky seed that falls on good ground and flourishes with neither toil nor spinning.”

“Oh please,” I said. “Don’t just be a carbuncle disgracing the backside of anus mundi.”

“Just listen, will you? Be a vessel waiting to be filled with hope.” He produced a pair of expensive reading glasses, retrieved a flyer from a briefcase, and thrust it at me.

I looked. Across the top bold letters announced the creation of “Fauxlar Panels, Inc.” Beneath this was a large photograph of a house, the roof of which proudly bore a series of dark panels facing the street.

“Know what the problems are with solar panels?” he asked.

“They are expensive,” I said.

“That’s one,” he said. “Want to guess the other?”

“No.”

“Good,” he said. “I’ll tell you. Orientation.”

“Orientation?”

“Yep, orientation.”

My mind flicked back to the dream state and the terror on the coach’s face as he imagined life as a great road traveled in retributive agony.

“I’ll explain,” C.W. continued, addressing me as a devoted pupil sitting at the feet of a master.

“You spend all this money to be the very face of ‘with it green sensitivity’ by adorning your house with solar panels.”

“Yes,” I said, returning to the real world. “And then?”

“You are a dense forest, shutting out all light,” he said, showing exasperation. “Then you realize you have spent your savings but your house faces north.”

“Your house faces north,” I repeated numbly. From the distant recesses of my memory, the screams of the coach broke through as he became the vessel of justice.

“And just what,” he said. “What is the advantage of spending all that money if the result is hidden from view?”

“As in, not visible from the street?” I was beginning to understand.

“Precisely.” He paused and pointed at the picture. “Fauxlar panels. They don’t do anything but they are cheap and you can place them anywhere. Voila! In the eyes of your peers, you are a great dragon guarding the future of the planet and it costs you pennies.”

Misery shall be the reward of him
 who would build a life of iniquity on a
 foundation of mankind's glorification.
 - St. Ludicrous of Salvatia

I stared dumbly at the sheet.

“And you can be a pilgrim on this journey to riches,” he said pulling out a contract. “Just sign here and write me a check.”

I thought about those who become symbols with no underlying moral foundation.

“Have you ever heard of a hoe handle?” I said.

96. Mothers

Sometimes I don’t know what to think about C.W. He knocks on the door this morning and when I look out, there stands the perfect image of my long departed mother. My first impulse was to go back to bed when she yelled, “Open this damned door right now, Jimmie Gayle. And don’t make me have to tell you again.”

What could I do? As I let her in, I said, “C.W., I don’t think this is very funny.”

“It’s Mother’s Day,” she said. “Or have you forgotten?”

“How could I forget with all the jewelry store ads on TV?”

“Are you going to ask me to sit down?”

“Sure,” I said. “Have a seat.”

I have to admit, he had done a good job of shift-shaping. It was my mother in her forties. The one who loved to fish and who would help me save up fifty cents to buy the latest Elvis Presley record. The one who tried to teach me to do the Charleston, laughed a lot, and knew one song each on the piano, the guitar, and the mouth harp.

She straightened her skirt and placed her hands on her lap. “I’ll tell you one thing,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“I wouldn’t have one of them cell phones if you was to give it to me.”

“Oh?”

“Some idiot plumb near ran over me on the way here and when she finally passed, she was yappin’ away.”

“It is a problem,” I said.

“Aint’ they go nothin’ better to do?”

”Apparently not.”

“Speakin’ of nothin’ better to do,” she said. “Are you working on mine and your daddy’s history?”

”A little each day.”

“You can get distracted,” she said. "I worry."

“I’m working on it.”

“You put the part in there about that old Bessie Shannon,” didn’t you?”

“Which part would that be?”

“The part where she told Miss Averitt that me and your daddy was so dumb it took two of us to drink a Cocola.”

She looked at something far away. ”She turned into a damned religious fanatic later on. I might have guessed.”

C.W. was good, I’ll have to admit. He had my mother pegged. She always maintained a healthy distrust of religious fanatics and anyone who didn’t like FDR.

“There’s something else I want in there,” she said.

“What would that be?”

“Remember when you got all down in the dumps over some girl you met in college and come cryin’ to me about it?”

“Vaguely”

“Well I want it told right. What I said was this. When I married your daddy, I wasn’t a bit in love with him. I married him for one reason─I knew he worked and if I married him I wouldn’t ever go hungry again.” She paused. “And I never did.”

“Is that it?”

“No,” she said. “Here is the important part. We got married and had it hard. Lord, we had it hard. We sharecropped and done whatever we could at first. Then we bought the grocery store and worked in it together night and day until I woke up one morning and realized that I worshipped the ground he walked on.”

The relationship your species has
with your mothers is one of
its more admirable traits. - C.W.

I pretended something was in my eye.

“I hope you feel that way about your wife,” she said.

“Oh, I do,” I said. “But she can be a pill sometimes, just like you.” I smiled.

“I got to go,’ she said. “Me and your daddy are going to see your Uncle Raymond and Aunt Lucille.”

With that, she was gone. I was left thinking of what an Ernest Hemingway character once said.

“Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

74. Peace

Hello Earthlings! I come in peace.

I’ve been wanting to use that line for some time and finally Big Dope has allowed me the freedom of my own column. Not exactly allowed, perhaps, since he knows nothing about it but when he wakes up and sees it published, I’m sure he will approve.

He will, won’t he?

We’ll see. In the meantime, permit me to offer my observations on this most interesting time of the year for you folks in my assigned territory.

This season, which began as an observance of the assumed birth date of your religious figure, Jesus of Nazareth, can create opposing motivations. Primarily though, it opens a window into the “better angels of your nature.”

For example, it highlights your wonderful talent for inclusion. Taking a rather obscure Jewish holiday, Hanukkah, and making it, too, a time of generosity, gathered another large segment of your population into this─if I may be permitted what Big Dope calls a “metaphor”─great tent of good will that seems to cover your country this time each year.

By now, practically any belief cohort in your country has a reason to join in the spirit of the holidays.

But allow me to return to the admirable aspects. The generosity, oh, the generosity. I read about folks anonymously dropping large bills into the Salvation Army kettles. I see toys being gathered for distribution as presents to children who otherwise might have only hoped for a small bag of candy or nuts, or maybe a needed piece of clothing. I see people who scarcely know one another, and who would not even nod in passing at other times, sincerely wishing each other good will.

You are a remarkable species. I continue to marvel at the words of the central figure in all this celebration.

“Give all your money to the poor.”

“Blessed are the peacemakers.”

“Judge not lest you be judged as well.”

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

“If you have done this to the least of these my brothers, so also have you done it to me.”

“Don’t become divorced.”

Trust me, no more noble
 thoughts exist in the universe. - C.W.

Oops. Well, he did seem to evidence a habit of drifting from preaching into meddling, as they say. The point is, these seem to be great words to live by all year ‘round, and I have dutifully reported them to the Folloonian Elders as forming one of your species’ moral building blocks. They were impressed.

So what might we all learn from this season that is, as far as I know, unique in the galaxy? As I follow Big Dope around in his professional work, I hear him tell communities to “Build on your assets.” Good advice.

So, I leave you with the hopes that you will expand upon this most wonderful season of good-spirit and make your planet an enviable example of the use of intelligence for the betterment of all creatures.

70. Skeptics

Once more, in the spirit of the times, we entrust this week's entry to the Alien himself who has agreed to answer a mailing he received from a fan.

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no C.W. They say he is just Big Dope’s alter ego. Papa says, “if C.W. says it, it's so.” Please tell me the truth; is there a C.W.?
The Virgin Anne Dillahunty, Rogers, Arkansas

Virgin Anne, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by home schooling and a lack of exposure to scientific thought and discovery. They do not believe except what they are told or see on television. They think that nothing can be which is not on Facebook. In this great universe of ours, if we could only understand ants, we could be witness to the wonderful secrets of our origins.

Yes, Virgin Anne, there is a C.W. He exists as certainly as Falloonian Gnoceracks exist. How dreary would be the world if there were no C.W. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virgins. There would be no quantum physics then, no natural selection to make sense of this existence. We should have no understanding, except in blind faith. The eternal light of knowledge would be extinguished as it nearly was on your planet a thousand years ago.

C.W. is someone’s alter ego! You might as well believe that the Sun is a chariot racing across the sky! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all night skies each night and not catch his transportation pod landing. Nobody sees C.W. unless he wants them to, but that is no sign that there is no C.W. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see electrons circling a nucleus? Have you ever seen bacteria? Of course not, but multitudes have been affected only because your species subjected them to scientific inquiry. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders, or horrors, there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

We welcome inquiries from all
our faithful readers. - C.W.

You may dissect the human heart and see what makes it beat. There is no veil covering the unseen world. Not even the darkest curtain of ignorance nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could hide it. Only science can allow us to begin to understand, as your species’ great Charles Darwin said, that “ … [F]rom so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.” Ah, Virgin Anne, in all this galaxy there is nothing else more real and abiding than the natural world revealed.

No C.W.! Give thanks that he abides among us, questioning, spoofing, and amusing us with his style of pedantry. A thousand years from now, Virgin, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to expand the mind of childhood.

Your friend

The Editors

66. Incarceration

Yesterday, I found a strange note on my computer that said, “I want to help you in the workshop.” I don’t know how he does that but C.W. scares me at times. I didn’t bother figuring out how to answer since he would show up anyway. I just went out early and hid some of my best tools.

He showed up as I was beginning to route the edges of some wood panels. I stopped the machinery and looked at him. He appeared as a boy of around 12 years of age with a pair of monstrous eyeglasses wearing short britches and a rugby shirt. He ambled in as if he owned the place carrying a three-ring notebook crammed with papers.

“Hello, he said, bending over to inspect the work.

“Be careful, I said.

“What’s this?” he said, reaching for the router bit.

“Don’t touch that,” I said.

He stared at me. “I have to write a paper for school,” he said as if in explanation.

I never know whether it is better to ignore him or play along. “What on?”

“The penal system in America.”

I slumped. “The what?”

“You heard me,” he said, picking up an expensive caliper tool.

“Put that down,” I said.

“Your species shows a good deal of cleverness in designing tools,” he said.

“I thought you said you wanted to help.”

“Initial things initially,” he said. “First tell me what the official policy is in your country concerning the punishment of criminals.”

“The policy?”

“Yes. You must have some overriding policy to guide you or else it would what we call in Falloonia ‘Gephledystra,’ or attempting to transport oneself without a destination in mind.”

I removed his hand from a power-saw blade. “Our policy is to apprehend and incarcerate criminals,” I said.

“With no further intent?” He flipped the switch on my table saw and smiled when the blade started to spin.

I rushed over and stopped it. “Intent?” I said as I led him away from the equipment.

“Sure,” he said. “Are you hoping to dissuade them from making further bad decisions?”

“Yes,” I said. “We lock them up so they can reflect on their shortcomings.”

“Unless you decide, I understand, to take their lives.”

“Why are you asking me all this?”

“Just trying to make sense of it.” He picked up a marking knife and began to carve his initials on one of my panels.

“Stop that,” I said, grabbing the knife from his hand just as he started on the “W,”

“So what do you hope to achieve by all this incarceration of criminals?” he asked.

“Achieve?” I said. “We hope to achieve their separation from the social fabric of society.”

“Ah,” he said. “So how is it working?”

That stopped me. “Not too well, I’m afraid.”

He was writing in his notebook now. “So incarceration doesn’t cure their anti-social behavior?”

“I’m afraid not,” I said. He jotted some notes. I couldn’t resist adding, “Indications are it makes them worse.”

“Strange,” he said, walking over to examine an antique “Shaker” table I had been repairing. He seemed entranced by the simple form and balance of the piece. He smiled and then spoke. “How does a species capable of such beauty accommodate such muddled thought processes?”

61. God and Football

It was a pleasant morning so I elected to go for a walk. Among the pleasantries: brisk fall weather, a welcome absence of aches and pains, and a rewarding weekend, including the fact that my alma mater’s football team was victorious. It was a day of true epochal harmony.


Then C.W. joined me. He appeared as a young boy of 12 dressed in a gaudy cowboy suit, complete with a bright red hat laced in white with a drawstring under this neck. He walked in silence for a good ways before speaking.

“I heard about it on television,” he said.

“Heard about what?”

“That God gave your football team the victory yesterday.”

“He did what?”

“One of the players told us.”

“Told you that?”

“Yes. He personally thanked God for giving his team the victory.”

“Oh.”

“Well it created a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

“I am sort of busy right now.”

He ignored me. “First, is this a technique confined to your Judeo-Christian God?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I haven’t heard Allah being thanked for soccer victories.”

“Oh, please.”

“Second question.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Aren’t the kids still starving in Darfur?”

“Last I heard.”

“Is there the slightest possible chance that this might take precedence in the mind of a god over deciding the outcome of a football game?”

“Why are you dressed like a cowboy?”

“I dunno. Just seems to me they were better role models than football players.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

Hoppy says winning isn't important. Justice is.

He snapped around. “Now there you go.”

“What do you mean?”

“What possible interest could he have in our conversation?”

“You are irritating the hell out of me?”

“That brings me to my final question.”

I chose to ignore him and stopped to examine a group of plants. Then my curiosity began to uncurl like the blossoms of one of the young flowers. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“So what is your question?” I was hoping for an end to it all.

He looked at me with all the earnestness of which a young child is capable. He blinked, and then spoke.

“Exactly what did the other team do to piss Him off?”

53. Running Away

We were experiencing the “Dog Days of Summer” and I was going for a walk but not venturing far from the condominium. I stopped to watch the construction at the park across Ninth Street when a young boy of five or six years of age walked up to me. Assuming he was from the church school next door, I ignored him until he spoke.


“Mr. can you help me?”

I looked around. It is no longer safe for a grown man to talk publicly to a child he doesn’t know.

“Please,” he said.

“What do you need?”

“I’m running away from home.”

Then I noticed he was carrying a grocery bag filled, I assumed, with his traveling gear. I became suspicious but decided to play along.

“And why are you running away?”

“I’m tired,” he said. “I need some rest.”

“Tired?”

“Yes, Mama has me in two baseball leagues, a soccer league, swimming lessons, and a dance class.”

“All of that?”

It’s worse,” he said. “Now she wants to make me go to Vacation Bible School.”

“I see.”

“She calls it VBS but I know what it is.”

Continuing to play along, I said, “So you think your days are getting pretty full?”

“I’m so tired of doin’ stuff that I can’t sleep,” he said. “And besides …”

“Besides what?”

“My friend Tommy told me about a neat game you can play without any adults around at all.”

“Really?”

“Yes, it’s called ‘Space Fighters’ and you pretend that you and your friends are

Starship Troopers. All you need is some cardboard boxes and somewhere to play pretend.”

“You don’t say.”

“Yep. Don’t that sound like fun?”

“Indeed,” I said. “And where are you going to play this game?”

“In a place called the ‘One Hundred Acre Wood.”

“Sounds like a fun place to me.”

“And I could rest when we weren’t busy playing.”

“You mean take a nap or something?”

“Heck no,” he said. “I could read a book or something,” he thought for a moment and added, “Have you ever laid on your back and watched the clouds?”

“Once or twice.”

“I try to do that sometimes at baseball practice,” he said. “But the last time I did I got hit in the head by a fly ball.”

He paused and looked at me with this most wistful look. “Then they was going to kick me off the team but my mother and the coach got into an awful fight and they said I could stay on if I paid attention.”

“C.W.,” I said finally. “I get the picture.”

“What?” he said.

“Come on …” I started but just then a car screeched to a halt and a woman jumped out. She gave me a withering look and pushed the screaming child into the back seat. The car sped away.

“Suffer the little children,” a voice said. I turned and realized a priest from the school had been watching the whole affair.

“I was just standing here, Father,” I explained as I turned back toward the condo.

As I did, I heard him say to my back. “You are a most amazing species.”