337. Terms

“I’m working on common terms and phrases that I don’t understand. Can you help me?”

“Maybe, but turn that light off. I don’t like for it to be on while I work.”

C.W. had just interrupted me in his “learning” form. He thinks it resembles a Ph.D., tall, short hair, a southern accent from somewhere like the Atlantic coast. I don’t know. He uses it when the Falloonian elders get on his case for not working hard enough. Somehow they had heard about his new love affair with the Pokemon Go game. Anyway, “What terms?” I asked. I tapped the base of my laptop three times, rotated it 5.0 degrees clockwise and waited.

“I think they are medical terms,” he said. “Specifically a set of initials representing a name, organization, or the like, with each letter pronounced separately; an initialism.”

“You mean an acronym.”

“No, I mean a set of initials …”

“It’s called an acronym,” I said, “and please don’t sit there. It hides my view of the front yard from that window.”

“You are typing,” he said, moving a space on the couch, “not watching the yard.”

“I check it every five minutes,” I said. “Now what terms are troubling you.” I remembered something and stopped. “Did you move the TV remote from its location this morning?”

“What TV remote?”

“The only one we have.”

“I think I carried into the kitchen with me. Why?”

“We mustn’t do that. It has its place on the TV stand and it stays there.”

He ignored me. “My first term is ‘RA,’ but I think I know what it means,” he said, consulting his notes.

“Oh?”

“Yes. When Mrs. Big Dope says you have the RA about something, it means you have the red …”

“No,” I said. “That’s not it at all. It means, when used in ads, ‘rheumatoid arthritis.’”

“Why don’t they call it that?”

“I don’t know,” I explained. “I guess it sounds catchier to say RA. Oh, and don’t set your notebook there. That spot is where I keep my dictionary.”

“Jeesh.” He said. “What a grouch.”

“Do you have another term? This is the period of time in the morning when I watch Photoshop tutorials.”

He consulted his notes. “How about ‘COPD?’ I hear that one a lot.”

I thought. “I think it means ‘chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,’ or something like that.” Pleased with myself, I stood and pivoted three times and sat. “What’s next?”

“Something called ‘PTSD,’ and Mrs. Big Dope says you have it. She says that’s what makes you act funny.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Did she also tell you that she moves the toothpaste from its proper place just to upset me?” I took three deep breaths. “Anyway,” I said, “it stands for ‘post-traumatic stress disorder,’ and there are those who think all military veterans suffer from it, particularly those who served in Vietnam. And have you seen the veteran’s baseball cap I wear on Sundays?”

“No,” he said, rather too quickly, I thought. He continued before I could respond. “You might ask your wife. Besides,” he said, “she didn’t say you developed that disorder during your wartime service.”

Mrs. Big Dope uses it all the time.
She says ask Big Dope what it means,
but he won't tell me.

“Oh,” I said. “Then when?”

“She says it was during your honeymoon.”

“Do you have another term?” I took my ‘winter-scene’ paperweight from my desk, turned it over and watched the ‘snowflakes’ fall. It relaxed me.

“Here’s one,” he said. “It’s called ‘OCPD.’ I think the first two words are ‘obsessive’ and ‘compulsive,’ but I don’t know the rest.”

“I never heard of it,” I said. “Besides, it’s almost a minute past the time I shave each morning.”

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332. Names

If I hadn’t known better, I would have said it was John Wayne in a navy officer’s outfit who joined me in the backyard of the farm. He pulled up a lawn chair and dusted it so as not to soil his crisp white uniform and sat.

“You are a Navy veteran, I understand,” he said.

“So have you heard the latest?” He crossed one leg over other and looked at me with despair in this eyes.

“Heard what latest?”

“Our Navy is going to name a ship after the late Mayor of San Francisco.”

“First of all, C.W.,” I said, “it is not ‘our’ Navy. I’m not even sure they would claim me and I’m sure they wouldn’t claim a deranged alien. Second, I have indeed heard of plans to name a ship after Harvey Milk.”

“Isn’t it a bit odd to name a ship after a …”

“A Californian? No, they named one after Ronald Reagan.”

“That man who secretly sold all those weapons to our arch-enemy Iran?”

“That’s the one.”

“Odd,” he said. “But back to our late friend. Wouldn’t it be strange to name a ship after …”

“A naval officer? No, they do that all the time, and he was one.”

”But Harvey Milk was also a ..”

“A mayor? He may very well be the first mayor to have a ship named after him. I think Grover Cleveland had been mayor of Buffalo, New York and there were reports that the Navy’s first fully submergable nuclear aircraft carrier would be named after him. But that turned out to be a joke.”

He thought. “What was the joke?”

“I think the whole thing was a joke, but one could certainly go broke from dismissing wild ideas about what the military might build.”

He began to swing his crossed leg slightly. “But really,” he said, “don’t you think it strange that the United States Navy would name a ship after a man with a different …”

“Political background? Lord no, they’ve named ships after Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson for goodness sake.”

I understand that many American
sailors are ecstatic about the news. - C.W.

“After all the Americans they had killed?”

“After all that.”

“But,” he said, “this Harvey Milk was active in the fight for …”

“Human Equality? So was Caesar Chavez. They named a cargo ship after him, though he probably wouldn’t have approved. I seem to remember his saying that the two years he spent in the U.S. Navy were the worst two years of his life.”

“Was that true for you too?”

“No,” I said, “the worst two years of my life were the two weeks I had to spend in Vacation Bible School while my friends were playing Navy on the bayou.”

“Sad story,” he said. “But listen, let’s get down to the real point. Now when all is said and done, don’t you think would be the saddest thing imaginable to see, on a United States Naval vessel, the name of a man who was …

“Assassinated for his beliefs? No,” I said, “that would be the USS Abraham Lincoln or the USS John F. Kennedy.”

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323. Memorials

Over the Memorial Day Weekend, C.W. likes to appear in his inquisitive young man form and visit military cemeteries. Don’t ask why. Something about all those orderly-spaced tombstones fascinates him. Devoted readers will remember the time we visited one in Little Rock and witnessed an elderly vet remembering his lover who had died at Pearl Harbor. He’s probably dead now too. The World War Two vets are vanishing at a sad and alarming rate.

This time we were driving to visit a spot near here where a group of Confederate soldiers from the Civil War era are buried. C.W. was peppering me with questions as usual.

“Tell me again the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day.”

I took a breath. “I’ve told you before. On Veterans’ Day we honor all veterans who have served in the military.”

“Even the girls?”

“Of course even gi ... the women.”

“Oh. And Memorial Day?”

“We pay tribute to those who died serving in the military.”

“Oh. So this weekend honors those who died gloriously in battle?”

I started to respond, but held myself. “We’ll see,” I said.

We drove into the cemetery, a sad and lonely spot as so many are. It was there that C.W. learned this was the resting spot for a group of soldier who were not slain in battle but died of a highly contagious disease that ravaged their unit.”

His face turned ashen. “They weren’t stabbed or shot or blown up or something?”

“No,” I said. “They simply took sick and died. That was the case in a majority of deaths during that particular war.”

“Most weren’t killed in battle?”

“No. Most died from disease. There were no sanitary measures taken on either side of that conflict. Filth and the subsequent spread of disease took a tragic toll.”

“No sanitary measures?”

“None. Not even designated latrines.”

“But the Roman armies practiced sanitation before the designated birth date of the Galilean.”

“We forgot them,” “or maybe we just thought they were too much trouble or expense.”

Would that your wars could be
so neat and orderly. - C.W.

“Your species let men die from lack of medical care?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“And the leaders of that war are considered great men now?”

“Yes. We even celebrate the birthday of one of them as a holiday in our state.”

Apparently shaken, he shook his head. “Soldiers fighting for their cause but dying because of improper medical care. Is this the way your species goes to war?”

“Not anymore,” I said. “We provide excellent medical care for our men and women in combat.”

“Yes,” he said, looking out at the tombstones. “It’s only after they leave the battles now that the medical care diminishes.”

“I’m afraid so,” I said. “It’s considered too costly.”

“Well,” he said. “It is cheaper to build memorials.”

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293. Accountability

As much as C.W. annoys with his get rich schemes, he can worry one to death with what he calls “negative cognitivy pods.” Don’t look it up, it’s his translation of a Falloonian term for which we have no direct counterpart. It has to do with facets of American life that make no sense and would, as he puts it, be normally "forbidden by law, rule, or other authority.” We don’t prohibit them. We not only tolerate them, we laud them, and—at least some of us—profit from them.

We were walking along the riverfront in Little Rock. He was in a favored shape, a striking resemblance to the late broadcast giant Edward R. Murrow. He was enjoying favorite pastimes, testing my patience and flipping lighted cigarette butts at bicyclists, a practice that began when one yelled at him one day to “Get out of the (expletive deleted) way.” He had just sent one cascading over an embankment and landing in a wetlands lake.

“It’s this whole accountability thing,” he said. “Why do you suppose your species has abandoned the concept?”

“What makes you think we have abandoned the concept of accountability?”

He didn’t answer. He took a long drag from a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and blew the smoke from his nose.

“Why,” I said, “just the other day our legislature tried to pass a law requiring a woman wanting to protect her body first to have a long plastic probe thrust up her …”

He interrupted. “I’m not talking about women or children,” he said. “I’m talking about male and corporate humans.” He finished his cigarette and another cyclist left the sidewalk.

“Would you stop that?” I said. “You’re going to get us arrested and, besides, you’ll ruin your health.”

“I have health insurance, don’t I? Besides, I can disappear in an instant.”

I thrust my hand into my pockets and kept walking.

“Let me give you an example,” he said.

“Pray do,” I said.

“Your so-called ‘for-profit’ universities.”

“What about them?”

“It’s pretty much agreed that they provide no useful result, right?”

“So I understand.”

“But public programs allow young people to borrow vast sums of money to enroll in them.”

I began to see where he was going. “Yes,” I said. “Vast sums.”

“Sums which can’t be paid back.”

“Afraid so.”

“So are the alleged schools held accountable for non-payments?”

“No,” I said. “It’s the taxpayers eventually.”

“What about,” he said, “realtors and bankers who load young folks with mortgages they know can’t be paid. Then immediately sell those mortgages to avoid the consequences?”

“What about them?”

“Who pays the goods transported by truck, train, ship, or aircraft?”

“Society pays the freight,” I said, “and you need to get your Galactic Universal Translator adjusted. People aren’t going to understand you when you talk.”

“That’s their problem,” he said. “My GUT is fine. Now about this plastic probe …”

“Yes.”

“It’s pretty much a punishment applied to a female for an indiscretion, right?”

I thought. “Yes, that’s right.”

“So, according to all the known laws of the Universe of which I am aware, it takes more than the female to create this indiscretion, right?”

“Correct,” I said.

“So is the plastic probe applied to the male half of the act as well?”

“Of course not.”

“So he has no restraints, from an accountability standpoint, to avoid the practice that causes the indiscretion?”

“No, no accountability whatsoever. So, you are correct, we have a problem with, with, … whatever.” To tell you the truth, I found myself distracted, for I was stuck with the image of that plastic probe. Then we walked by some youths playing a game, new to these parts, in which bags were tossed at holes in boxes with slanted fronts. I fought images, and we walked in silence for a while.

“So you do agree your species suffers from a negative cognitivity pod in this area of accountability?”



It seem to me that if you must have wars,
veterans should be honored more than
once a year. Just my opinion. - C.W.

“I tore my thoughts away from the children’s game. “Well, yes,” I said. “But it is our problem and shouldn’t concern the rest of the galaxy.”



He started to flip a cigarette butt, saw that the cyclist was a police officer, thought better of it, and handed it to me. For some distance, he didn’t speak. Then he turned to look at me in deep thought.

“Tell me,” he said. “Whose children does your country send to war these days?”

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Big Dope has cut off my allowance.

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

Available at major on-line retailers, or
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202. Service

“You want to do what?”

“Calm down,” C.W. said.

“Calm down nothing. What are you planning now?”

“I told you. I want to enlist.”

I collapsed onto a kitchen chair. “In the military?”

“Yes. I need you to help choose the branch.”

“Oh goodness.”

“I could join the Navy. You know, follow in your footsteps.”

“Are you insane? Enlist?”

“You did.”

“I had to. Now let’s not hear any more about this.”

He pulled a chair out and sat across from me. “Afraid it’s too late for that.” He had taken the shape of a young, athletic youth of 18, with bright blonde hair and sparkling eyes. “Too late.”

“Too late how?”

“I’ve already talked to the recruiters, one from each branch.”

“Oh no,” I said. “You haven’t.”

“Afraid so. They want to talk to both of us. I told them you were my dad.”

“Oh Jesus. You didn’t. Those guys are like bulldogs when they get a prospect. They put insurance salesmen to shame.”

“Well get ready. The natural or synthetic substance used to add a color to or change the color of something is cast.”

“The ‘dye’ may be cast, but we can uncast it. This is insane.”

He looked at me with surprise. “What’s wrong with you? Aren’t you patriotic?”

“When things call for it.”

“And when they don’t?”

“When they don’t, I tend to agree with Samuel Johnson that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Anyway,” I said, hoping to change the direction of the conversation, “what prompted this?”

“Simple,” he said. “Tomorrow is Memorial Day.”

“And?”

“Haven’t you seen the great outpouring of love for our service members? Why, even the stores are staying open in their honor. Oh, and by the way, you’re supposed to buy Mrs. Big Dope a diamond for Memorial Day. And a car for me.”

“Memorial Day honors service members who died in battle after they enlisted. Do you want to be one of them?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be. The Army recruiter promised that with my knowledge of aerodynamics I would be a drone operator. Never leave the country. See?” He produced a recruiting ad that encouraged kids to become members of “The Stateside Shock and Awe Team.”

“Oh Jesus,” I said.

“Don’t you love your country?”

“What’s love got to do with it?” I thought I might divert him with the words of a song by his favorite singer.

Ignoring me, he said, “Then there’s Veterans’ Day. I’ll surely be honored on that day.”

“Oh yes,” I said. The flag decals will be shining on every automobile and every store will have a sale.”

He straightened in his chair and said, “Why are you so cynical?”

“Because I’ve been down this road.”

After thinking it over, I've decided.
Maybe the best way to honor the fallen
is to have no more wars. - C.W.

“And aren’t you proud that your country takes two days to honor those who serve?”

“Oh yes,” I said. “But therein reside the reasons I’m wary.” I made a few clicks on my computer.

“What are those reasons?”

I turned the computer around so he could see a news article reporting how one of my state’s senators had voted against funding for veterans’ benefits.

“The other 363 days,” I said.

 

 

 

Click on an ad. It helps me pay the rent. - C.W.

Also checkout www.wattensawpress.com

175. Sailors

It was the weekend before Veteran’s Day and, truth be known, I was looking forward to seeing what shape C.W. might choose this year. As the loyal reader will recall, he can be quite talented when it comes to celebrating the military.

This year he didn’t disappoint.

How shall I describe him? Well, he was a 19^th Century ship’s bosun. That’s right, he was an exact replica of a sailor from the days of iron men and wooden ships. He could have stepped right off the deck of USS Constitution or the HMS Victory. He even sported a bosun’s pipe, that little curved metal device that emits a sharp, piercing whistle that can be heard during the roughest seas. It is used to convey orders on board a naval vessel.

Wait. It was my old bosun’s pipe and that’s when trouble started. Before I could protest, he piped “All hands on Deck.”

I suspect my wife, who was still abed, levitated. All I know for sure is that a voice that could have been heard over the guns at the Battle of Trafalgar shrieked, “Don’t make me come in there.”

“Pipe down,” I said. “What do you think you are doing?”

He said, “Avast Matey.”

“What the hell, C.W.?”

“Know what I think?”

I said, “I never know what you think. Why don’t you enlighten me? But first put that damned pipe away before you get us both keelhauled.”

“Stow your jabber, Fenderhead,” he said. “Let me swap a yarn or two.”

I groaned. He continued.

“I’ve been pondering,” he said. “I think you are a ‘fore and aft’ country.”

“Fore and aft,” I said, trying to catch his drift.

“Right, matey.”

“Carry on Lad,” I said, sort of getting into the mood of the moment.

“Take babies,” he said.

“Take them where?”

“No, take babies,” he said.

I waited.

He said, “Take babies. Seems a lot of individuals in your species love and want to protect them until they are born.”

I waited.

“Then,” he said. “If they ain’t born to the quarterdeck, they can be tossed overboard with the day’s garbage.”

He had a point. I forgot for a moment that I was talking to an alien who had chosen the shape of a historical sailing master. “Fore and aft,” I said.

“Fore and aft. Same with us poor military men and women.”

“How so?”

“People love us as long as we can splice a line, fly down the decks at ‘beat to quarters,’ climb the rigging, and fire the cannons.”

“We love our military folks,” I said. “Just look at all the bumper stickers stating as much that you see on the freeway.”

He said, “What’s a freeway?”

I said, “Never mind. We just support our troops, that’s all.”

“What about after the cannons roar, and the smoke clears, and we can’t tie a bowline with our one good arm, or man the crow’s nest with no eyes.”

“Are you referring to the maimed and wounded?”

“Aye.”

Shouldn't you honor him as much after
the battle is over as before it begins? - C.W.

“Well we support them too, or at least we should.”

“So why are our infirmaries and dressing stations so underfunded?”

“Are you talking about the veteran’s hosptitals?”

“Affirmative, Lad.”

He had me. “I don’t know,” I said.

“Fore and aft,” he said. “Makes all the difference in the world.”

“Fore and aft,” I said.

“I think,” he said. “That it has something to do with your ‘port and starboard’ political system.”

122. War

Hello my fellow Earthlings. I say that in anticipation of achieving my citizenship soon. It seems that most obstacles to my becoming a productive American have been eliminated. In fact, Big Dope is so ecstatic that I allowed him to sleep in this morning so that I might visit with you directly.

 

First, I would like to say that much of what Big Dope prints about me is slanted toward the entertainment value. I am not, I repeat not, in trouble with the Falloonian Elders. They didn’t approve of my latest fiancé, it is true, and my prank involving the painting of vaginas on certain political signs seemed odd to them. Of course I couldn’t have guessed that a grown man running for a serious national office would actually repeat the “information” I sent him concerning a rape victim’s ability to prevent pregnancy. Geez.

Well, there was that dancing horse video. But all in all they are pleased with my progress.

Which brings me to today’s project. Since all dedicated citizens should do something for their country, I ask your help in forming and supporting my latest effort, a grass-roots effort to be known as Citizens Resisting Asinine Policies, or CRAP. It primary focus is to reinstate the military draft in America. Its final aim is to stop war.

That’s right, I said use the military draft to stop war. Now you may immediately be asking yourself, why associate war with CRAP? Well the two concepts are connected like Lucky and Lefty the conjoined twins. Can you imagine our country invading another sovereign nation when facing a strong CRAP? Can you imagine the generals having to wade through CRAP? Can you imagine congress voting to sustain a bloated military while admitting that “First we must cut through the CRAP?”

No, a strong CRAP is just what this country needs.

Here’s how it would work. The concept of an all-volunteer army would be abandoned. All males, upon reaching the age of 18 would be immediately drafted into military service. No exemptions. No deferrals. We wouldn’t even need a draft board since service would be mandatory for all American males.
 

Please help me restore honor to our
country with a good CRAP.
- The Alien C.W.

Now, why subject only males to CRAP?

The mothers of America, that’s why. They would recognize the advantages of a CRAP when they saw it. And they seem to care more about their sons than they do their daughters. Don’t ask me why.

So, CRAP, in order to be effective, must fall upon our national decision makers. My research indicates that, since World War Two, your country has pretty much relied upon military action to promote its intentions with regards to other sovereign nations. What CRAP ... wait, what I mean to say is, what CRAP would do is undermine this policy approach by disarming the American Military-Industrial Complex, the monster that your former President Dwight Eisenhower warned you about. He was a man who truly saw a CRAP on the horizon.

So, you might say, “What could possibly defeat the intent of the Military-Industrial Complex? Nothing has so far.”

A good CRAP, I say to you. CRAP in the form of the mothers of America, the only known force that could bring about peace in our time.

- Your friend, C.W.

98. Memorials

It was Memorial Day weekend and I looked forward to a peaceful time at the farm. My wife was off baling hay and I wandered into the back yard to enjoy the shade and a rum and tonic. As I rounded the giant fig tree, I stopped.

There, under a drooping catalpa tree sat C.W. in the form of a Prussian private of the World War I era. He sat tall and straight in a garden chair, his blond hair trembling in the breeze. He held a pointed helmet covered with heavy cloth. He saw me, drew in the late spring smells, and nodded.

“Herr Großer Dope,” he said.

“C.W.,” I said. “What’s up?” I couldn’t wait to hear. “You making a movie?”

“I am your distant cousin Gustav,” he said. “From Bremen.”

“Gustav from Bremen?” I said, playing along.

“I appear briefly on your family tree,” he said. ‘Geb. 1900, Gest. 1918.’ No kinder.”

I had nothing better to do than pretend. “Died young?”

“In my bloom,” he said. “I had the misfortune to be the last soldier in our company killed in the Great War.”

“On the last day?”

“November 11th, at the 11th hour,” he said. He turned and looked quietly across the field and into the trees beyond. “Reminds me of the French countryside, before the bombs came down and the trenches went up.”

“Tough break,” I said. “Buying it on the last day.”

“A dubious honor,” he said. “But far from the saddest.”

“Oh?”

“No, there were worse. On the American side. Our armies had ceased warring two days earlier,” he said. “We settled in our bunkers along the Meuse River and thought we were safe. We had no casualties for two days straight.”

“What happened?”

“Your General Pershing didn’t follow the lead of the other commanders. He wished that my country would suffer as much as possible. So he kept attacking until the 11th hour.”

“After everyone else had stopped?”

“Charge after charge,” he said. “We had translators on loudspeakers yelling to them to stop. That the war was over.” He shook his head. “But they kept coming. The Americans suffered 3,500 casualties the last day.”

“Sad,” I said.

“Some were Schwarzen, from the Black 92nd Division,” he said. “We thought perhaps your side deemed them dispensable. But then a white soldier from the 313th Infantry, I learned later his name was Henry N. Gunther, came through the fog firing at us.”

“What did you do?”

“We had no choice,” he said. “He was the last on your side.”

“And on yours?”

“They sent me out to retrieve the body of a dead comrade,” he said. “A lone sniper from the American trenches took his revenge as the clock struck 11:00.”

I didn’t say anything, just imagined the scene.

“Know how many American generals died on that last day?” he asked.

“No, how many?”

“None,” he said. “Know how many colonels?” Without waiting, he answered, “None. Lieutenant Colonels?”

“None?” I guessed.

“Same for majors,” he said, his voice rising.

We sat in silence for a moment as he subdued his anger.

“I suppose …,” he said. “I suppose it was worth it.” He stopped and composed himself again. “After all, our sacrifice did, as they say, ‘end all wars.’”

I turned. “Are you making some sort of joke?” I said.

He moved toward me. I looked into his eyes and, as I did, they grew larger and became two black orbs, large and empty. Then I saw movement. My eyes remained transfixed as scenes moved across like gray horses passing through the mist.

I saw a hospital room in Manila filled with Japanese soldiers laughing and playing baseball, using infants as bats.

I saw a field of frozen soldiers at Stalingrad, their arms bent at grotesque angles and with questioning looks on their faces.

I saw Marines dead on the beach at Tarawa, a picture withheld from publication for fear it would spoil the public’s appetite for war.

I saw a line of skeletal faces peering through a fence at Dachau.

I saw a line of soldiers being calmly machine-gunned in the wasteland around the Chosin Reservoir.

I saw a group off teenagers hugging the jungle floor in terror as mortar rounds fell into them in a lonely piece of Hell near DaNang.

I saw a mob of young Iranian boys, holding plastic “keys to heaven” and screaming “Allah is great,” as they charged through a minefield to clear it for their soldiers.

I saw the murdered inhabitants of an entire village in Bosnia piled like cordwood, awaiting burial.



Hans Leip, a lonely German soldier,
wrote a romantic poem during WWI that
was destined to become a popular song that
would endure for decades, Lili Marleen
Enjoy! - C.W.

 I saw a father running for cover, carrying a young son who was soiling himself from fear as the bombs began dropping on Baghdad.

I saw an Afghan bride and her groom explode into a bloody mess, spraying their ghastly remains among their guests, as a drone-bomb exploded in their midst.

These went away and the eyes became blank again. He turned back toward the green fields of home.

“Please don’t tell me,” he said. “That my species is the one making the jokes.”

89. Mandates

There are times when C.W. can break your heart. I know, he broke mine this week when he appeared in his saddest form yet.

It was late when I answered a knock on my door. There stood an American soldier in the kind of Class A uniform they made military personnel wear in public back in the day.

I say American soldier. Truth be told, he looked more like a kid dressed up like a soldier. He said later he was 18 but could have easily passed for 16.

He was white, thin, and his skin seemed to glow with paleness from deep in his soul. His uniform, though impeccably arranged, hung from his frame like a sheet on a clothesline.

“What the h…,” I began.

“May I come in?” he said.

“Surely.”

As he walked into the room in a slow, funereal gate, I observed him closely. His uniform sported a single PFC stripe and a black nametag that simply said “Armstrong.” The highly esteemed Combat Infantry Badge was pinned above a field of ribbons that seemed to weight him down. They included the two Vietnam service awards and a Purple Heart. Another badge identified him as a “Marksman.”

He stood until I offered him a seat whereupon he sat stiffly and stared at me.

“Your species behaves more strangely at some times than others,” he said, after straightening his trousers and checking his highly polished shoes. Then he stared softly into space.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Vietnam Veteran.”

”Vietnam casualty,” he said. “The last day of January, 1968.”

“The Tet Offensive.”

“I had been ‘in-country’ for two months,” he said. He picked a thread from the sleeve of his blouse. “And there were a great many places where I would have rather been.”

“Drafted?”

He nodded. “Twenty-five percent of us were.” He looked at me and cocked his head. “We accounted for 30.4 percent of the combat deaths.”

I said nothing.

“But that’s not why I am here,” he said.

“Why then?”

“Questions,” he said. “I see where the Supreme Court of your country is considering passing a law that the government can’t mandate that someone do something they don’t want to do.”

“Well, they don’t call it passing a law,” I said. “They call it …”

“I know,” said. “You love to play with words. As your famous writer William F. Buckley Jr. once observed, we could call the act of sodomy ‘following too closely’ but it wouldn’t change much.”

I looked at him closely for a glimpse of a smile but saw nothing but more sadness.

“So what is your question?” I asked.

“Why didn’t they come up with this before 1968?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Seeking to change the subject, I nodded at his nametag.

“Armstrong?”

“Of the Charleston, West Virginia Armstrongs,” he said. “Did you know our state had the highest percentage of combat deaths in Vietnam?”

Can't your species find something better
to rail against than health care? - C.W.

“No,” I said.

“It’s true,” he said. Then stared away again. “They say that when Momma heard the news about me, she shouted and prayed all night long and, as long as she lived, she would tell anyone who would listen that they didn’t know what real sorrow was.”

As I say, he can break your heart.

88. Awakenings

C.W. had warned me he was working on a project, so I was not surprised when I got to the condo and found him hard at work. What did surprise me was the extent of his efforts. He is a little on the lazy side at times.

“Hey, Big Dope,” he said, with his usual respect. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be just a moment.”

This was gracious of him as it was my apartment. I ignored it and sat down to watch him work.

His appearance was reminiscent of a Hollywood director of the golden era, complete with beret and knee britches. He sat at one end of a folding table and watched a DVD player. He had evidently been reviewing films. As he concentrated on the monitor, I scanned the titles. They were from a single genre, monster films of the 1950s. Scattered in piles were familiar titles, including, Godzilla, Them!, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, The Incredible Shrinking Man, the Beast from 20,000 fathoms, Wasp Woman, It came from Beneath the Sea, and others.

I declined to grant him the pleasure of an inquiry.

After a few moments, he glanced up from reviewing one of my personal favorites, Tarantula.

Want to know what I’m doing?

I’m all aquiver,” I said, striving to act disinterested.

“Providing a service for your species.”

“A service?”

“Yes, as in doing something nice for humankind.” He paused and reflected. “After all, most of your people believe, as Sam Harris pointed out, that I made the journey to your planet just to molest ranchers and their cattle.”

“I see,” I said, although I didn’t.

“Take all these films,” he said. “What are the common threads?”

“Uh,” I said, suspecting a trick question. “Scary?”

“Well first,” he said. “They represent physical characteristics that defy any scientific fact.”

I had long suspected that. Click here for further clarification.

“I figured as much,” I said.

“Second, they all seem to emerge from a hidden fear of nuclear, or other scientific experiments gone bad.”

“Yes,” I said. “Remember that they appeared shortly after a world war in which 40 million people were killed.”

”So we have monsters appearing that had been hidden for eons and then released by some new catalyst.” He paused. “Am I getting too technical for you?”

“I’m with you so far,” I said. “But where is this going?”

“Ah,” he said. “Fast forward to present time in your country.”

“Present time?” I said.

“Yes. Your country in particular seems to be confronting social monsters that most believed long dead.”

”Social monsters?”

“Yes, just consider the attacks on the rights of women, denial of science, not wanting to care for the sick and elderly, anti-veteran sentiment, and the spewing forth of racial hatred generated by the election of a president of color in the most powerful nation on earth.”

I was stunned.

“Weren’t these monsters slain decades ago?”

“We thought so.”

”So what is the current catalyst? Can’t be atomic bombs this time.”

“I don’t know.”



Rick Santorum's greatest nightmare - C.W.

 ”Ah,” he said. “So here is my gift to your species.”

“Your gift?”

“Yes,” he said. “I have the answer.”

I bit. “And?”

“Bottled water.”

“Bottled water?”

“Yes, the decision to begin paying for a free substance had to be a mental catastrophe of near Biblical proportions.”

That’s all folks.