Ancestors

 This project has over the many years it has polluted the interwebs with its content has ancestors. There are long, long dead writers who drive me to do this. It is both an attempt at a homage, and an attempt to try to emulate them that this blog exists. The standards they set are unreasonably high, and someone with as little talent as me have no way of reaching them. It's not my fault that Krudy wrote prefect prose at a rate of 17 pages a day while shit housed. I can't compare to the prose of Joseph Roth who was also piss drunk most of his life, such a famous drunk that there is a hotel in Austria that still has an open tab for him, and he died in 1939. Sure you've got your easy drunks to follow like Hemingway or Dylan Thomas, but their path is just that theirs. Our path, my path is different in spite of my attempts to replicate theirs.

These ancestors, these influences, these literary fathers and grandfathers had their own set of circumstances that allowed them to put pen to paper. This is the 21st century and I have to contend with a lot more distractions, a lot more time sinks than they did, and clearly I am not doing a good job of avoiding them. It is exactly one person's fault. Mine and mine alone. I attempt to walk in their written footsteps the best I can, and I generally fail. I wonder if they had the same issues with writers who came before them, or did they just have the courage of their convictions, and realized they had talent that could not be denied or ignored. 

Several of these ancestors knew each other, some even exchanged letters. One of them would even admit that another one of them was twice the writer he was. Both of them were ten times the writer I am, and I am using the term writer very broadly. My ancestors are like Roman emperors, and how the fuck are you going to compete with fucking Emperors. I am not born or called to the purple. I don't know any actual writers, and given today's version of them, I am not sure that is a bad thing. I want to sit down with the Krudy's the Baudelaire's, the Zweig's of the world and ask them how it works for them. 

How do the words come? Do they pound on your consciousness like the NKVD on a suspected enemy of the state's door at 3 am? Do they slide out of you like a river that can't be damned? Do they have to be pulled like a bad tooth? Or do they just happen like a summer thunderstorm, something that can't be stopped? All of these I have experienced. I have rolled out of bed at 3 am to write something down that wouldn't let me sleep, I have tried to plan stories that makes some sort of logical sense, and I have just sat down drunk and wrote what came to mind. 

I claim the literary ancestor to this blog is Dostoevsky, and back at the start that was true. While he still looms over these pages like a vulture on a telephone wire, I am more and more convinced that he would not approve of where my writing has taken me. He's still there, he's just not on the path I want to tread, I mean for fuck's sake read him, then read me, we have little in comment. He had talent, I don't. But I try, and maybe in that trying I say a few things worth remembering. I certainly how so, or else why would I be driven back to the keyboard over and over again?

All of these rambling is to say the reason I hesitate to write (other than pure laziness) is the standards I see, I can not meet. And I doubt Krudy had grammar Nazis to contend with, and even if he did, he was too drunk to care. Perhaps drunk is the way to write. Hemingway did tell us to write drunk and edit sober, but who wants to be Hemingway? After all he put a shotgun to his face and blew his brains out. If you were to look closely at the writers I try to emulate you might find a common theme, and it has nothing to do with the written word.

Cobras

 There are a few unpleasant ways to be jolted awake in the morning, having Felix's goons battering your door telling you to "wakey wakey, the boss wants to see you again." is one of them. Nothing quite gets the old pacemaker skipping a beat like a wake up call from Felix. A before breakfast chat with Felix is a way to get you to want to skip breakfast and possibly lunch as well. Another way is the industrial sounds of "progress" being made in our fair city. Someone, somewhere is always building something, and some other bastard is equally enthusiastically tearing something else down, then there are the bastards who live above you that like to teach their pet elephant (they must have a pet elephant, that's the only thing that could be that loud) how to polka at 8 a.m.. These are both shit ways to wake up, and face the day, but today option three was on offer, a gift of my glorious subconscious, and just a little too much gin.

Jolting awake, as the poison the cobras in your dream injected into you finally begins to work its deadly way into your central nervous system, is not a pleasant way to start the day either. You let out a small, girlish whimper and lash out to try to ground yourself into what you hope is the reality that doesn't contain cobras. Granted in this particular iteration of the cobra dream, I had at least killed two of the bastards. The one whose poison was in the process of killing me, and his/her/its partner (do cobras, like cops, have partners? Christ I hope not). It takes a few precious seconds to realize you're not in fact dying of cobra venom, and that you are "safely" in your own bed, and safely is defined very broadly. After all, Felix knows where you live, Felix seems to know everything about you. Sometimes, when you lose your glasses, you wish Felix were around, the son of a bitch would probably know where you left them as well, and what your prescription is. 

This morning's added bonus was as I jolted awake my hand encountered an object in the bed with me that I had no memory of being there when I went to "sleep" (some people, with little imagination and a lot of prudishness might call it passing out). Needless to say, this was almost as scary as the cobras. Had Felix finally planted a dead body in bed with me to pin some murder charge on me to make me dance to his tune? Had I actually killed someone in a drunken rage, as some people think I am prone to? A small grunt from the form next to me at least answered the dead body question. It seemed the body was, in fact, alive. Which I briefly considered a plus, before reconsidering the fact that I had no idea how that 'body' got to be beside me, and to whom it belonged. A quick glance to the left confirmed that yes, there was another (live) body in the bed next to me. Having answered the dead/alive question, I shook my head and began to ponder question two which was who in the actual fuck was this person? 

The glorious and wholly intentional lack of light in my bedroom was not going to be particularly helpful in answering this question, and my desire to "shed a little light on the subject" was not exactly high, so I was left with attempting to push aside the lingering terror of cobras in my mind, and start trying to piece together where I could have obtained aforementioned body. Rejecting the obvious way, which was elbowing said person, and politely inquiring as to their actual identity, I decided to try to think. I try not to think too much, as it generally gives me a headache, but it seemed to be the only unobtrusive way of ascertaining who was gently snoring into my extra pillow. Well short of finding their wallet/purse and rifling through it for their ID card, which would probably work, but they might frown upon. Sadly, it would seem I was stuck relying on my foggy memory, or my addles wits to sort out this person's name, and more importantly how they came to occupy the other side of my generally solo occupancy bed.

The gin was apparently more effective than I had hoped/intended for it fogged the memory and addled the wits (never a particularly hard thing to do in the best of times) to the degree where both were drawing blanks as to the solution to the latest mystery life had thrown in my general direction. I decided to lie there as quietly as any man could that was cursing himself for a drunken, forgetful fool, and hope that when they awoke, they would just fill in the increasingly large blanks that constituted the last 12 hours of my existence. A further, furtive inspection did reveal the person was of the female variety, which I suppose was a small blessing, and was presently in a state of undress that would suggest that perhaps the gap in my memory was even sadder than I thought. It would seem considering my own state of unclothedness that I had forgotten what appeared to be a smashing good time. I didn't even bother to swear off drink, why lie to the gods and yourself first thing in the morning?

As I continue to puzzle out how I was to learn the name of my latest playmate, she made my morning all the more exciting by muttering in her sleep. At first it was gibberish, and I couldn't make out a word of it,but then as she continued to carry on her conversation with whomever she was talking to in her dream. She calmly said "but Mr. Felix, I don't want to." And that, boys and girls is how I met the cute little typist in Felix's office. Some days I prefer the cobras.

To be continued (eventually)

Felix and the Freikorps

 This is not going to be an overly entertaining post, not that (to me at least) any of them are entertaining, this post is more of a place holder. A place to hold the idea(s) kicking around in my head, and nearly kicking it in, while I try to go about my day to day business of being a lazy fuck. The recent revival of the Freikorps has set me to thinking about their history, and what of it I can with safety record on these pages. Certain actions of Wilson and the band of reprobates in the Korps were (are) quite illegal, and by that I mean permanently illegal. Some of their less romantic activities do not have statute of limitations. They were illegal when they did them, remain illegal to this day, and the punishments they face are not the type that have an expiration date. Those actions are not the "boys being boys" type of activities you and your mates engaged in whilst misspending your collective youth. 

Of course, as mentioned before, the Freikorps had several banners they "fought" under. It was the nature of the beast back when they roamed the world, like violent, drunken buffalo that would kill you and yours for the right amount of coin. Sometimes they won, sometimes they lost, but they always managed to get paid, if even they had to steal it. They considered it payment, other people of less open minds would consider it theft, and really narrow minded people might throw around the term "war crime." Most of them are past caring now about their exploits, their (all too few) successes, and their (all too many) failures. Soldiering, using the term very broadly, is a young man's games, and has certain inherent risks. One of those risks is that people, sometimes a lot of really, really bad people want to kill you. Sometimes they succeed. It says it right their in the contract they all signed, "not responsible for any masses of lunatics that want to kill you." Now sign here, take the coin, and see if you can pretend you know how to march in a semi-straight line. The pox is another inherent risk, but that part of the story will have to be treated with a bit of delicacy (so to speak).

Poxes and murderous lunatics aside, the history of the Freikorps is probably nothing overly remarkable. They are not the grand conquerors in the Alexander or Napoleon mode. They are just a middling group of madmen, that figured out they individually and collectively possessed certain skills that were useful to a fair amount of people. That the skill was making a fair amount of other people cease to exist, well that's why we are here isn't it? The tales they have to tell are not heroic, they are not object lessons that will teach the younger generation how to be better people. If there is one certain fact that is undoubtedly true about the Freikorp it is they hate people. Which would make sense after all. No, their tales are just that tales. Stories that might entertain, might disgust, might make you laugh, or might make the tender hearted among you cry, but they are not the great deeds of great men. Few things are so great that they redound down the ages. Great men generally just cause great pain. Simple men just get on with the day to day disaster that is called, for lack of a better term, life. 

The tales of Wilson, Corker, and the newly deceased Jackson and the rest of the Korps are something that will take a plan to tell, and the "good" news (if there is to be any good news) is that a plan is forming more and more everyday. The main problem in the telling is the laziness that afflicts me like a pox, and the difficult task of telling a story and making sure the objects of the story don't kill you for the indiscretion of airing their indiscretions. We all need something to live for, and maybe this is it for me. Looking around the landscape of my day to day wanderings, reasons to live for, truly live for, not just get out of bed are fairly thin on the ground. Not a cry for help just the facts of the matter as they appear to me at this time. 

Again I am not promising anything, ideas come, stare at me a while, tap me on the forehead and tell me "I am your story, don't forget me, write me down." Which I then fail to do, and they leave with a sigh, and a whisper that they will be back some other time. Unrecorded, and unexplored like a large portion of the Louisiana Territory before Lewis and Clark and their Corps came along. I am attempting to get an outline of Korps story somewhere close to a piece of paper (hence this post) in the hopes that the idea(s) won't disappear like a summer dew under a summer sun. Here's hoping. 

Then, of course, there is Felix. Felix does a lot more than tap me on the forehead when he wants a portion of his story told. Felix is not that type. He doesn't knock, he hammers, he doesn't talk, he bellows, and he doesn't ask, he orders. His story, which needs a lot of back filling, is also something I am working on at my own tragically slow pace. Trust me, it's there, it's just very complicated like the plot of some French film. There is a vague idea rattling around in my head that Felix and the Freikorps might be tributaries of the same thought river, and will someday flow into each other. Then again, it is quite possible they are like railroad tracks, parallel lines that never meet. There are rumors that they do meet, and there are an equal number of rumors saying that they do not, and even a couple of rumors saying that they should not. 

Felix, Sully, David the Liar, Mutt and Jeff, and the rest of THAT merry band of bad men (and a couple of bad ladies as well) also demand attention. It is something they also deserve, after all I started their tale(s), I should have the decency to try to finish them before it is too late, and they grow stale, or out of date. Even though I am quite sure that neither Felix or the Korps are men/people of the times we find ourselves in at the moment. They are out of the past, and the past has something to teach us, at least those of us that will listen, it is just a matter of paying enough attention. 

All these, somewhat pointless, words are a way of telling the 3 people that still read this dross, and more importantly myself. That I have to return to these stories sooner rather than later, after all what else do I have to do? The revolution has yet to come.

Gjudarnsson's Friekorps

 The river, that according to Wilson, God had put there to foil my plans was not some piddling stream that you wade across for kicks on a lazy Sunday afternoon, nor was it the baptismal type of river. That is unless you wanted to drown the newly minted converts to the religion you were fooling them into believing in. No, it was a mighty river. Large, wide, and probably full of things that would gladly eat you if you decide you needed to wade/swim across it. Not that swimming was an option. The band of miscreants that I "led" were not exactly the swimming type, and none of them needed to be made aware of the fact that their 'glorious leader' (i.e. me) would sink like a stone as soon as the water touched his armpits. I didn't feel the need to advertise my lack of swimming ability, Wilson was already overfond of pointing out my faults and flaws perceived or real, and I did not feel the need to give him any more ammo. Speaking of my erstwhile second in command I looked around for him, one to ask him a question, and two to make sure he wasn't pointing a weapon in my general direction. Did I mention that Wilson had told me how much he loathed me during the one and only time he had been drunk? Every since then I was a little more cautious about presenting my back to him.

However, at the moment Wilson was not leveling an instrument of death at my general direction, but was looking across the raging river before us with a far away look in his eyes. "Penny for your thoughts Wilson" I said as I came up to him. He shook his head seemingly startled by my appearance, and replied "I doubt you'd want to pay even that much for them sir." I narrowed my eyes "sir now is it? When did we become so formal Wilson? Have you decided to finally start giving me the respect which I have done nothing to deserve?" Wilson just smiled and said "I was just thinking about the river, and how the girl that I love(d) is on the other side." This bit of news came as a sudden shock to me like something throwing me a fish at me out of nowhere and yelling "catch". "Girl that you love? Wilson this is news, I had no idea you were capable of human feelings. I had you pegged as all gears and mechanisms on the inside like a mechanical Turk or other such automaton." Wilson let out a small sigh "no ____ (better to call me by name now I guess) I have feelings just like the rest of the carbon based life forms on this planet." 

If Wilson had told me that his mother was an octopus I would have been less shocked. A girl? That he love(d)? I had figured Wilson for a 'different' sort of life style (not that there's anything wrong with it), and was intrigued about what member of the fairer sex could possibly interest Wilson for longer than it takes to make a sandwich. "Well, Wilson this is a problem for all of us as well, because the job we have been paid to do is also on the other side of that river." I didn't really want to tell him that it was the reaction to a woman's rejection that had led me to becoming his glorious leader, no need to get to chummy with the fellow who I was pretty sure wanted to kill me in my sleep. "Well Wilson, if you can somehow puzzle out a way to get out merry band of morons across that river, perhaps you and your beloved can stage a happy reunion." I raised a hand before he could reply, "and don't try to tell me you have a plan. The last time you had a plan, I had to shoot our engineer for thinking he could get us into Tessenow." 

Wilson winced at being reminded of that particular overwhelming failure, and said "well ___ there used to be a bridge somewhere close to here that would probably, if it still stands, be the best means of crossing." "Well, Wilson that would be grand, since I shot Jackson after Tessenow, we find ourselves sans engineer. So a gentle walk across a flat bridge would be a lovely way to pass the afternoon. Lead on MacDuff to this bridge of sighs of which you speak." Wilson nodded his assent, "if I have my location correct, it should be about 5 miles south of here, an simple walk for such stout men as ourselves sir." I sighed figuring that Wilson didn't mean stout to imply that we had grown fat. "Well let's get everyone still sober pointed in the direction of this bridge, and see how long we shall have to wait for the drunken stragglers to show up shall we?" Wilson nodded his assent, and set about making it happen. He might want to do unnatural things to my sister, and want me to die in a fire, but Wilson was a very good second in command, godsdamn him to hell. 

A lovely, by that I mean shitty, five mile "walk" later we came to the location of the bridge that Wilson had figured would solve all our problems. Well at least the problems that presented themselves on this side of the fucking river of death we were facing. As we cleared the forest that blocked our view of the river and the bridge of salvation that Wilson had promised us, I begin to wonder why this seemed to be way too easy. No one on this side of river had tried to kill us, and it seemed no one was paying any particular attention to us. This should have been a sign of things to come, but you know why ruin a perfectly good 5 mile walk with thoughts of a bleak future?

As we rounded the corner, and cleared the trees blocking our view of the river we came upon the view that I was dreading from the start. It was a lovely view if one likes views of broken bridges and raging rivers. As one would expect if one has the luck I posses the bridge that Wilson counted on getting us across the river was in pieces in the aforementioned river. I seriously doubted our ability to cross this non bridge, and I was beginning to wonder if maybe we had brought shame upon the name of Gjudarnsson's Friekorps, when Wilson whispered to me "don't despair boss, I've an idea."

to be continued

Death of a Skeptic

 I  took the Rationalist's records the night I murdered him, he seemed to want me to have them, and I was between books at the time, so I thought why not give them a read. I had heard from the CC that he fancied himself a writer, and wanted to see if his fancy would tickle mine. As it turned out it did, much as the bastard had predicated it would. His records were an expansion upon the Romantic's records. It didn't take a brain surgeon to suss out that the Rationalist had killed the Romantic and that was how he came into possession of the Romantic's records. I had put a bullet in the Rationalist's brain, and here I was, seemingly another link in a daisy chain that I wasn't sure I was okay being with being a link of. I started with the Romantic's dribble, and dribble it was, at least to a fellow of a skeptical bent such as myself. I read of the Romantic's hopes and dreams, his few successes and his many failures. It seemed he took his Romanticism seriously, and eventually it became more than he could bear. After a while, I began to wonder why the Rationalist was sent to kill the Romantic, In my (somewhat expert opinion) on whacking people it was clear to me that given enough time, and a couple of more (eventual) failures, the Romantic would have whacked himself. 

Maybe the CC knew (or knows) something I don't (or didn't) maybe they just were tired of waiting for 'nature to take its course' and sent the Rationalist to put a little hurry up on the demise of the Romantic. Or maybe they were concerned that he would pull a von Kleist and shoot the latest objection of his affections before deciding to shuffle himself off this mortal coil. Either way, the Romantic was a stone cold dead as dead could be, and as far as I could tell no one missed him overmuch, then again I am not in a position to know that. Maybe somewhere in some forgotten corner of the Romantic's life there exists some damn fool that thinks of him with a degree of fondness.  Maybe there was someone beautiful and strange (she would have to be strange to love the Romantic) that missed him and is still left wondering why he hasn't written or done something equally stupidly Romantic like showing up to crash her wedding. I couldn't sort out any names from the scattered notes that the Romantic kept, he seemed to go out of his way to obscure the names, and the Rationalist (oddly) did not seem to motivated to make sense of the Romantic's ramblings. Maybe the CC, and by extension me, didn't give him enough time. 

The Rationalist, the man I killed, did make a few queries into the wanderings of the Romantic, being the Rationalist, he wanted names. I am not sure if this was to solve a puzzle that was perplexing him, or to send poison pen letters to the late Romantic's paramours in some sort of sick game or not. Being a Rational type of fellow I figure he just wanted to solve the mystery of who "the one that treats me like shit", "nellie the elephant", or "little miss disloyal" actually were in real life. His notes, much less chaotic, and much more prosaic than the Romantic's made a fair more amount of sense. His writing far less beautiful, but more coherent than the Romantic's led me to eventually put real names to the people the Romantic wanted to hide behind cute little nicknames.

These names, these women would not be pleased at the conclusions the Rationalist came to about them. He lacked the Romantic's, well Romanticism, and looked at this collection of women, as the main cause of the CC's desire to have the Romantic made deceased. The Rationalist solved the mysteries as to the names, but as far as I can tell from his notes, he was unable to solve why the Romantic did what he did in relation to the women in his life. To be fair to the Rationalist, he was not the man you wanted to untangle the mysteries of the Romantic's scribble. His mind was load bearing, the Romantic's mind was eye catching, and those two are hard to combine. Reading the Rationalist's notes and watching him struggle to make sense of why the Romantic did what he did, and why at least one of the "women in his life" didn't just shoot him makes one wonder why the CC even bothered whacking the Romantic. He seemed to be a harmless kind of fellow, and one destined for a short life span anyway. The need to shorten that life span was something that the CC did not share with the Rationalist. They merely told him to kill the Romantic, and being a rational, rule following fellow he did just that. 

The Rationalist once wrote of the Romantic  that he "not only liked to flirt with death, he liked to invite it home with him, have a romp with it, and then buy it cookies." Rereading that sentence gives me pause it is a line worthy of the Romantic, and yet it was written by the Rationalist. Perhaps, killing him made the Rationalist somehow sympathetic to the Romantic. Or maybe he just meant it in the literal sense. The Rationalist, as it would turn out, would never suspect that I would be the one to murder him. Odd that, one would think, that being a rational, thinking man he would have puzzled it out. My job wasn't sympathy my job was to whack the Rationalist, and that is what I did. The Rationalist apparently deserved it, the CC ordered it, and I made it happen. Welcome to the line of succession. This was not a part of the brochure. 

Unlike the Romantic, who made it fairly easy for the Rationalist, and unlike the Rationalist who made it easy enough for me, I resolved not to be the next link in the daisy chain of death.  I was better than that, I was not going to go gentle into that good night, and I was not going to be such a damn fool as to be surprised by the wolves when they showed up at the door. I kept close watch on my keys, and I didn't wander around my city in a drunken haze, making lampposts my temporary best friends like those who had gone before me. Sober living isn't really living, but I figured it would at least keep me alive. Besides, drinking at home is safe enough right? The wolves don't have the key, and if you move enough they have almost as much trouble as the post office in finding out where you really live. 

Reading the mad ramblings of the Romantic, and then reading the Rationalist's measured, but flawed approach in trying to make sense of them led me to attempt to synthesize the two. It is a vanity project that probably needs to be fed into the fire, but it keeps me from falling into the trap that snared the Rationalist. Or at least I thought it did. I made sure to keep my thoughts as secret as I possibly could, but a secret is something that once spoken aloud, ceases to become a secret. A hiding place is only as good as the man who picks it, and it appears I am not as clever as I thought I was. This was made clear one fine night when the "knock" came at the door. Why they bother knocking is beyond me, but I guess it makes them feel better about themselves, and what they are there to do.

When I opened the door, I knew what the fellow on the other side was there to do. He wasn't anything remarkable, not tall, blond, and muscular with locks of flowing hair. No, he was just a man, a man that were you to walk by him on the street you wouldn't look twice at. I took one look at him, and just to make myself feel better I said "I thought you'd be taller." He let out a small laugh at that, nodded, and replied "people often do." As pleasant as a Fuller brush salesman, he asked "May I come in?" I opened the door further and gestured for him to enter, I really had no other choice, no need to kick to hard, I knew that from experience. 

I motioned for him to have a seat, "I suppose the CC has decided that I've outlived my usefulness." He nodded "it seems so, you know as well as I do how they work, they didn't tell me the why, they just told me the what." Of course I knew that didn't make it any better but I knew. "I've got something for you, it is in the other room, and with your permission I'll go get it." He shook his head, and tutted "no lad I can't allow you to do that. I know you've a Roscoe somewhere in here, and I don't feel like making this any more difficult than it needs to be." I sat down and nodded, "fair enough I wasn't going for the Roscoe anyway, your showing up is in many ways a relief. What I have to pass on to you is the gift of the 'daisy chain'.  He arched an eyebrow "I am not much interested in flowers, so I'll have to pass." 

"This isn't 'real' flowers, they are literary sunflowers if you will, they are the notes of the Romantic, who got himself on the wrong side of the CC, and then the additions to those of the Rationalist who also managed to get himself deceased courtesy of yours truly, and finally my own scribblings. Another link in the 'daisy chain' as it were." He let out a small sigh "I'm not much into reading beyond the classics, but if it will make you feel better, go get them." He pulled out his own Roscoe and leveled it at me and said "but real slow like, and if you come out with anything other than paper in your hands, I'll make this last two days." 

I put my hands up to signal my agreement, "I've no desire for a slow death, besides I'm not a gunslinger. I not going to come out guns blazing and hope I get you before you get me. You are just like me one of a multitude, the CC would just send someone else to do your job, and eventually they would succeed, no need to fight the fates." He smiled "fair enough, go get whatever it is, but make it quick. You know time is money and my alibi is only going to be able to remember our agreed upon story for so long before they get too drunk to make the details clear to the flics." I stood up, "the whiskey is over there" I pointed to the liquor cabinet, "help yourself, get the good shit and pour me twice whatever you pour yourself no need to go to the grave stone sober." He stood as well, "on that, at least, we can agree. I do hope you've got something worth savoring."

I walked slowly and carefully away from him to my bedroom and found the box that contains the Romantic's writings, the Rationalist's additions, and my own attempts to make it make sense. I took a very long, slow, deep breath and realized that I was about to die. Life doesn't prepare you for death. Even though all life is is a prelude to death, it still doesn't prepare you for it. Silly really. Because you know you're not immortal almost as soon as you know that left is left and right is right. I guess knowing it, and facing it within a few minutes are different. I was finding that out now, and I didn't really like the feeling. But life is life, and death is death, and the fellow in the next room wasn't going to wait forever, and besides what else did I really have to do? It wasn't like I am a good person, I fucking killed the Rationalist, I knew what I was doing when I did it, and I knew (and he told me) that eventually 'they' would come for me. Well 'they' were in the next room, and it was best not to keep them waiting, that would just be rude. And if you can be pleasant to anyone, you should at least try to be pleasant to death. 

I gathered the papers I needed, took another long breath (one I considered my last, even if it technically wasn't) and walked back to my living room where my fate awaited me in the form of a normal looking fellow you wouldn't peg for a stone, cold killer, but then again no one who knew me would ever think I had killed the Rationalist. The CC had a lot of flaws, but picking it's executioners isn't one of them. I walked into the room and noticed he had in fact helped himself to the "good stuff" and had mercifully poured me a double measure of it as well. "Feel free to take the bottle with you, no need for it to go to waste, and I'd feel better if I knew it went to a good home." He raised his glass and said "I appreciate that, and I will take you up on it." We clinked glasses and I had about two thirds of my drink down me, when he shot me straight in the heart. A true professional.

I felt it was the least I could do, let him have his last drink, and end it as quickly as possible. No need to muck about with reasons for this and reasons for that. He was a doubter not a disbeliver, and that was what the CC had decided was the reason he needed to die. I was there to make it happen. I wasn't there to listen to a speech, or to bargain with him. To his credit, I don't think he would have done either, but I wanted to be sure, plus I figured there's no real way to prepare yourself to be shot, so why not let him have one last (half glass) of the good shit on his palate when I ended him. He sputtered a bit, somehow still managed a look of surprised before he managed to mutter his last word "thanks". It was as good as a last word as any other, and I raised the rest of my glass of the "good stuff" to him, took his bottle as he requested, and his pile of papers labeled "to be read by my murderer" and left as quietly as I had came. Thus ended the Skeptic. 

 

  

Fehér boríték

 The part deux of "two trolls walk into a bar"

Standing to make my indignant exit was probably not the best idea considering Felix had two fellows at his beck and call (and close at hand) that wanted to rearrange my facial features into something resembling mincemeat, but a man has to stand on his (in)dignity at some point, or he will fall for anything. Felix, to his credit, let me sputter a few non words before waving be back to my seat. I have been hauled into his office so many times before I feel that I have my own seat, I just hope it doesn't become the "GI Memorial" seat anytime in the near future. "Sit down, and stop making a scene, you're much too sober to pull it off, drunk you does the histrionics much better." I wish I could say I had a clever comeback, something to put Felix in his place (if Felix even has a place), but I didn't. I shut my whore mouth, and I sat back down.

I sat my ass back down, and wordlessly Felix pushed the white envelope back towards me, "take another look, I don't think you got a good enough gander the disaster that your life is about to become the first time you looked. I sighed, "Felix, I really, really dislike you sometimes, of course that's just sometimes, right now I kind of hate your fucking guts." He smiled, "good you've finally learned how to hate, we are making progress, I'll turn you into a truly useful son of a bitch eventually." I did as Felix instructed, I figured it was the quickest way back to my pints, and I was becoming more and more in need of a pint the longer I was around Felix. He has that affect on me. 

I reopened the envelope. The pictures had not improved with age. They showed a dead body, a dead body that I knew (in its alive state). A dead body that some people, the ones with limited imagination, and a desire to see me swinging none too gently at the end of rope would say that I would have, quite happily, made dead.  The "Man from the North" died hard, he died slow, and he died with someone wanting to prove a point, that was clear from the pictures. "Jesus tits" I said, "Felix why did you want me to see this? Sure I knew the bastard, sure I didn't like the bastard, but I certainly didn't kill the bastard." Felix glanced at the pictures I had left lying in front of me, "you didn't? That comes as a surprise to me GI, considering I have at least 4 solid, law abiding citizens of this glorious state that said they saw you arguing with the deceased, and threatening to make him just that, deceased as deceased can be. These solid, workers of the highest order will state with no doubt you seemed quite willing to carry out that threat."

"Felix, you are the most complete bastard I know, nothing ever surprises you. If it did, you would just have it shot. I didn't kill that son of a bitch, though I am certainly not going to be lead or any other type of mourner at his funeral. Sure I probably told him at some point that killing him would make my week, but that was also when I was drunk, so if you want to bully someone you should wait for me to get drunk, and bully drunk me. I am, at the moment, painfully sober, a fact you are well aware of, and are the main cause of, so maybe send me back to Sully's to get drunk enough to deal with your latest brand of insanity, or pour me a drink." To my absolute shock, Felix shrugged, opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of very expensive whiskey. Whiskey that would be my brand if I made the kind of money to afford it more than once a year. 

"I know this would be your brand, if you ever decided to join the working class, and hold down a steady job long enough to afford it. So, drink up within reason, I need you tipsy, not drunk enough to consider remarrying your ex wife."  I whistled, "Felix I didn't know you cared. I am touched you keep a bottle just for me around. I don't know whether to be terrified or impressed, but I'll settle for a snort of it and let the whiskey decide. Felix grimaced at my poor joke, and poured me a full measure, and himself a half measure in two glasses produced from the same drawer. I resolved to discuss the fact that my informant (a pretty, little blond girl in his typist pool) had neglected to tell me that Felix drank. I had him pegged as a teetotaler. Taking the proffered glass, I held it up, titled it towards Felix and drank it down with a hearty "Skol!" I figured since we were discussing the Man from the North's death, Skol would be a fitting toast. 

Felix, not being the raging drunk I am, merely took a polite society type sip of his drink, and sat down his glass. "Here, one more for sake of comradeship." I laughed "I am a lot of things, Felix, most of them bad, but if I ever fall to the level of your comrade, I will know there is no hope for me. However, this is very good whiskey, so I'll drink to almost anything, the Pope, the return of the Queen, or to your health as long as you keep it coming." One snort later, I felt slightly better, not drunk enough to lose my head and admit to killing the Man from the North, but tipsy enough to make Felix think I might. 

"A full case of that, and I might kill the King of Spain for you Felix but since I'm more of a in theory type of killer, and you got a full roster of in practice type of killers, I guess I shall have to bid a sad farewell to the rest of this and any other bottles." Felix took another gentlemanly sip of his whiskey, and said "GI when you get around to looking in the blue envelope again and count the money it contains, you might realize you can purchase a bottle or two of this 'water of life' for yourself." I sighed, figuring that no more whiskey was coming my way, at least until I agreed to dance to Felix's tune. "Felix, if you're not going to get me drunk, then at least try to make this simple. How am I supposed to have killed the Man from the North, and what "proof" do you have that I did it?" Felix, being the bastard that he is, smiled (again Felix smiling is bad for GI, or anyone for that matter, how did he get his teeth so blinding perfect?) and said "I am glad you asked."

To be continued

Wanderings

 As I write this, I know you've already made up your mind. I know this 'letter' is in vain, and yet here I am writing it nonetheless. I know you're leaving, in theory you left a long time ago in the emotional and mental sense. It is just the physical manifestation of you that has stuck around. It's not a a surprise, you've left before. It is a sad commentary on my life that it generally takes people more than once to leave. They come and go, but never quite leave. It's frustrating, it's painful, and it's fantastic all at the same time. It's just a question if or when you'll be back. I don't know that answer, I've never known that answer, and I probably never will. I am sorry I am not, can not be the man you want or need to be. I am not sure I can be the man anyone needs me to be. That is something I have yet to sort out, and at this advanced age, I am beginning to wonder if I ever will sort it. 

The process of you leaving is a painful one, it is not something I enjoy watching, especially since, in theory, I am supposed to be able to stop it. Maybe you'll head west, maybe you'll be in Amarillo by morning, or Los Angles to live forever, maybe you'll wash up on the beaches of Cheyenne, or Denver with the snowfall.  Or maybe you'll head south to somewhere like Cartersville, Georgia, New Orleans, or San Antoine, where they like to break legs. Who knows perhaps you take out for points east, head up to Boston in the springtime with friends who have lots of room, or spend some time in New York, New York. Perhaps north suits your purpose, they say Cleveland is cold, and south Detroit doesn't exist, but somewhere up there is the starting point of the Mississippi River that you can cross in five steps if you try. Who knows where or in what direction you'll go, all I know is that you will go, and that is enough to break the springs of my soul. 

I know for the time you are gone, I'll be in love with your ghost for a while. Ever been in love with a ghost? Of course you haven't. Let me clue you in to how it feels. You pine away for something that used to be, something you had and then lost. The major problem is you've no real idea how you lost it, which is a bit sad and perplexing. Your first instinct is to blame yourself, because if someone ghosts you, then it must be your fault right? Which is what they want you to think, as they fade into the mists of your history, they want you to blame yourself. They want the cancer of your intellect to feed upon, and eventually destroy itself thinking it is your fault. 

Truth is you have left for fairer weather, leaving me in the middle of a storm of painful self recrimination. and worse self -doubt. You have made me doubt myself, not the greatest accomplishment in the world, but one that redounds to your fame. You are sailing happily away, indifferent to the fact that you left me tearing myself apart searching for some sort of actual reason that you left. You leave me here stupidly in love with your ghost, expecting you will come back, because you have before, and idiotically hoping that you will again.  The smart money, which is not my money, is that I have seen the last of you. It's the easy  bet to make, and the easy to pay bet. The bet that simple minded men who don't like to take chances place. The type of bet that you expect to pay something because it's simple and it's safe.

Simple and safe are not words anyone would use to describe you, and the bet I place in my storm of goofiness is that you'll be back. The odds are not forever in my favour, nor will they ever be. I want to let what happened between us stay in the past, but all we have is a past. We have had a fleetingly attempt at a present, but never really possessed a future. The joy of this for you at least, is that wherever the fuck you are, you will sleep the sleep of the 'just' tonight. Safe in the knowledge/belief that you've done nothing wrong. Drooling the drool of remorse into the pillow of regret is not something you will be doing. No, the sleepless nights belong to me. The one you left, the one still trying to sort what I did wrong.

However, after considerable thought, I have eventually, slowly, come to the conclusion that I did not do anything wrong. Forgiving you is easy, not that I have, or ever will, but that the easy bit. It's the forgiving myself that is that hard bit. Being stupid is something that takes a long time to forgive. Don't give a scorpion a ride across the river and be shocked when he stings you in mid stream and drowns you both. I want you to burn to the ground, but I stubbornly refuse to light the match to make it happen. More the fool to me I suppose. Somewhere in me are another 2-4 thousands words telling the world what a disaster you are, and what a fool I am/are for standing around waiting for you to return. Those words need not be typed tonight. Let's just settle for the simple fact that, to quote Blink 182 "I love you, but I hate you." 

For those of you that wonder where Felix has been, fear not he's still here, and with these two bad attempts at writing, we have rekindled Felix's interest in ruining our life. 

 

The River

 As you wake up drenched in sweat, it takes you a moment to realize that it isn't water from the river a former friend of yours was pushing you into just a scant few seconds ago. It was a former friend your certain of that much, the details are hazy. This haziness isn't brought on by alcohol for a change, but from sleep, that wide blessing that has eluded you as of late. You had shared a fair amount of alcohol over the years with that former friend, and truth be told alcohol was probably the main cause of the "former" part of your friendship. As you continue down the boring path to complete and unwelcome consciousness, you wish the fellow that is screaming would shut up for a moment so you could think. That is when it becomes painfully clear that the fellow doing the screaming is you. It was that scream, timed with the feeling of hitting the cold water of the river that is the reason of you being awake. As you take stock of your actual situation you realize you are merely at home in bed. Sure you're curled up into a ball of sweat soaked terror, but you are at home, not sinking towards the bottom of a very cold river. 

You manage to stifle the second scream, and feel around your surroundings. The bed is empty as usual. You, the sole occupant are the main reason for its sole occupancy. Something to do with, being "emotionally crippled" or at least that's the main thrust of the argument you had with the last dual occupant of the bed right before she removed herself from the scene on what is beginning to seem a permanent basis. Pity that, she was a fun playmate, and helped to keep the wolf of coldness away in a lot more interesting ways than an extra blanket does. Further inspection shows you that the extra blanket in question has also left the scene and is now lying in a neglected pile at the foot of the bed. If blankets had eyes, you suspect it would be looking up from the floor at you with a slightly hurt expression as if wondering what it had done to deserve to be discarded in such a fashion. At least you and the blanket would then have something in common, because you also wonder that exact same thing quite often, and as of yet have failed to come up with or be provided an answer. 

You doubt the question will be answered anytime soon or at all considering the "I hope you die in a fire" speech she left you with as the door slammed on her way out, but hope springs eternal as they say, and maybe today will be the day. Now that you are completely, unhappily awake, you also begin to put together the fact that the former friend that was pushing you into the cold river is the same former friend that was the cause of the exit stage left departure of her. It did teach you a life lesson or two, one is when you move into a new abode to make sure the doors are sufficiently sturdy to stand a good slamming, two hide the matches and other fire starting material, and three most of your friends appear to be cunts. It's that last one that stings the most, after all you are not the type to make friends easily, and losing one of a solid cadre of like five actual friends is much more of a loss than it would be to the social butterflies of the world. Social butterfly is not, and never will be a term applied to a description of you.

However much as you wish your subconscious would pick a new theme to use in place of an actual alarm clock to jolt you awake, it seems to be on a run of death in convenient rivers. A theme made all the more fun by the fact that you can't swim a stroke, in fact you sink like a stone in any body of water you happen to find yourself in (on purpose or not). Your former friend knew of your stone like quality (when it comes to bodies of water) and perhaps that is why they chose a not so friendly push to help you along your way to becoming deceased. It would be like them to pick a cold river to use to decease you, since it is pretty close to the opposite of dying in a fire. You are not sure if that is irony or not, and if it is you are certainly not sure your former friend is clever enough to come up with the idea. More likely the river just happened to be handy. And if a woman can't find you handsome, she should at least find you handy.

Perhaps a move to a desert would help? Hard to drown in a desert, but then again you figure if anyone can manage it you could. At least rivers do solve the 'where to bury the body' problem, and saves the expense of a decent shovel, and the effort of digging a hole. After all, the killing of you (or anyone for that matter) is really only have the problem. Unless, you really want to get caught, have a really good reason (or lawyer) getting rid of the body is a useful way to help hide the fact you've made the person into a 'body' that needs to be disposed of. No one wants to answer awkward questions about their whereabouts whilst being shown pictures of a dead body. The questions might be just as awkward, but answering the "have you seen X lately" is a lot easier to answer than "so you shot him how many times?"

Rivers are generally an accepting lot, they don't discriminate on race, creed, or political beliefs, hell rivers will take all sorts of trash, even Liverpool supporters can be dumped into a river with no fear that the river will reject them. Some lovely, secret hoarding rivers even manage to never give up the body you none too gently offered it. They will take it into their cold embrace and let it find its way to the bottom for all eternity. Of course, the lead weight you attach might facilitate that along, but who has time to attach cement shoes to a body they are pushing into a river?  Being the drowning sort, you've never really considered the body disposing qualities of rivers in any depth. You doubt you'd ever be in a position to have to get rid of a dead body, and you also figure that on the way to depositing aforementioned dead body into a river, you'd probably somehow contrive to drown yourself as well. Which would at least save you the awkward question phase of the drama.

Of course, some rivers are better than others in their ability to accept unwilling partners. They need to be deep, and cold helps as well. The colder the better, and your brief recollection of the river you were being introduced to was that it was sheep stealing cold. Maybe it was the water, or maybe it was the fact that the extra blanket had been discarded but cold was the main theme of piece. Cold as your ex's heart as you like to say, but in reality she wasn't cold, in fact she had a warmth about her that could have been the reason you wanted her around to begin with. After all, blankets are nice and all but they just don't suit certain purposes. 

** This aside was brought to you by the second nightmare of being drowned in a river, and while a poor effort it was at least an attempt to get back to writing. An attempt that while poor, has been encouraged by a few people for which I am grateful. I just wish the result was as good as the encouragement.