The Reluctant Robber

I finally got up the nerve to look. Scared the shit out of me to sneak around in her back alley but it just kept eating me too much not to know. Expecting a spotlight to suddenly appear followed by squad cars screeching up behind me, I started digging through her trash in the early evening darkness. Sure enough, I found them, each one pristine and cavalierly tossed aside: none of my letters had been opened.

Used to she at least read them.

I've lost the rights to ring her front doorbell or even be near her house where I was once unbelievably an honored guest. Those were heady days. Now I'm another despised snake in the grass. So I slithered away from her swank digs back to my cardboard abode. How humiliating to live in a place where no one can be invited. And yet, I still pretend to live a normal life at all costs, always the fateful poser. I reek of illusion.

The more truth I speak of myself, the more they make me up.

"Oh, you seem far too normal to live a cardboard box. Most people are much more fucked up than your image appears to be. Oh - haha! I see you rustling your hair to look more destitute! You're a funny guy! But you can't put a lie past me. I always know a lie when I see one: it's when I'm forced to believe anything inconvenient."

Well, isn't that convenient?

I sulk inside my home/hell. I have nightmares whenever I fall asleep. People are after me, chasing me like the Frankenstein monster: they don't know why they have to kill me, they just know they do. But do I stay on the run only to avoid my life? I don't know anymore, the trauma of sleep is taking my mind. I stagger across the globe lost and vexed and stymied.

This is not a home, but a cage.

I used to make a joke everyone speaks a different language than me only they won't tell me what it is. That's why my little worlds don't work. It's amazing the power I have! I call it Opposite Syndrome: the more I tell the truth the less I'm believed. But really, I think you people are fucking with me and really do believe me but just won't admit it. God damn you for that! But I cannot defeat you in a way that I can see.

Time has come for me to die.

I'm going to prove my point and force you bastards to break the Opposite Syndrome once and for all, assholes. And I'll do it with the one thing you fuckers value more than life itself: your money. That'll get you to stop your damn lying and put an end to your game of fucking me and denying me. Is the reason you keep crucifying everyone because you're still trying to prove you weren't wrong with Jesus? Are you afraid that if you stop now that's like admitting you're wrong?

I got news for you: you were wrong then and wrong now!

So I grabbed my trusty (unloaded) Glock Subcompact and headed down to the bank (this means you Bank of America!). On this I will not be denied! I brought my gun up directly to the teller's face and demanded she hand over all the money. She twitched her nose in irritation and replied:

"Do you have an account with us?"

"Fuck no, I don't have an account. This is a stick up! Fork over the money, honey!"

"Without a withdrawal slip, sir, I can't help you - even if you do rhyme."

"I am robbing you! This is a R-O-B-B-E-R-Y. I am a bank robber! What fucking more do I need to do?"

"If you would put your name on the sign in sheet we will gladly open an account for you!" She smiled oh so sweetly. I fought the urge to open an account to oblige.

"Look, dammit. I'm a bank robber. Like Dillinger and shit. Get it?"

"I realize you believe that. But that's not who you really are, silly boy!"

"Would all you fuckers please stop telling me who I am or how I fucking feel! I'm going out of my mind here!"

"I can recommend a therapist I-"

"Stop! Just stop! I give up. I'm going to my grave with not one fucker believing a word I say EVER. Maybe I should go to the Middle East and tell them they all hate each other. Only I could make an Arab and Jew hug just to spite my fucking ass. I've got to get off this cursed planet!"

No one takes me seriously!

With drooping head and my hand hanging heavy with the disregarded threat of my gun I exited the bank, the security guard opening the door for me of all things. I smiled wryly to allay fears of my weapon. "Don't worry. I'm not trying to rob the bank or anything."

That's when he drew his gun and taking a wide stance barked out to me, "Drop that gun or you're a dead man! He's trying to rob the bank!"

I dropped my gun in shock. The teller I previously approached ran up to me, slapping my face. "How dare you after all I did for you!"

Flabbergasted, I pointed her to the security guard. "Why the fuck do you believe it when he says it but not me?"

"Do not impugn his character, you creep." It was like she was talking to a date who'd gotten fresh. "He knows what he's talking about. You do not!"

All sorts of confusing thoughts streamed through my mind while I was pressed on the floor as the police cuffed me and read me my rights. I thought of hiring the security guard as a "translator" for me. He could tell them I'm robbing the place and to give me the money. They'd believe his sorry ass. Ah, Jesus, what a mind fuck this is! I just want to go back to my cardboard box and never speak again. I know not where hope lies.

***

Epilogue: I got out of jail time by pleading guilty. The judge tongue lashed me for falsely confessing and I felt like telling him I was not fucking his wife just so he'd think I was. But I stayed silent, unable to fight the wind that blows my spirit to the heavens. Now I sit in the dark, seething, my eyes peering out, knowing what they see but powerless to speak it. The end is coming and I must be patient.

When the Lamb broke the seventh seal on the scroll, there was silence throughout heaven.

Revelation 8:1

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Signs Of Reality

They called it the New City. Set in the mountains in a place few thought possible, its citizens were of the New Way, mandating no lowly queen or king but a Beautiful Way for all. This made the New City a destination for peoples from lands near and far. Only one little problem remained: the ground under the city contained poisonous gas and the more they built on it, the more gas was released. At some point it was an issue that would trump its very existence.

They knew this but said, "But just look how beautiful life is for everyone!"

All who counted anyway, for many were the slaves who labored underground among the gases, directing them away from the Good Life enjoyed by the privileged. The slaves were bribed with the promise of an eventual life above ground so then they could be the masters of profit. In this way greed was trusted to bind them all from high to low. The world was made perfect - except no one told the gases.

High in the mountains a poisonous cloud gathered deep in the gathering doom, fed each passing second by the New City's growing weight of desire. As the skyscrapers reached higher, the gases pressurized the underground canyons, requiring more and more slave bodies to divert the poison from the good citizens' lives. Soon, more were living below ground than above it.

"But just look how beautiful life is for some!"

Then one day a prophet came down from the mountain with news of the poisonous cloud. "The poison is in nature's hands now, you have no say in its path of wrath. Repent and put all your efforts into dissipating it before it's too strong to stop! Otherwise you will have to abandon your land." But the good citizens had important plans made and hopeful lives to live they did not want interrupted. So they trusted the devil's oldest lie: that to disprove the prophet meant to disprove their reality.

A Political Man of clever argument said to the prophet: "Look up and tell me what you see!"

"Clear blue sky."

"Exactly! It's people like you who are the real problem, always stirring up imaginary trouble, trying to make life hard. Now shut the fuck up!"

This started a vigilante political movement named the STFU party scouring the city for any and all defenders of the cloud of poison, dogmatically demanding proof in the sky before they give proof of the eye, the only accepted kind. "We are the true patriots. Damn those who question our ways and our great city! There are some who seek only to criticize but we are the holders of truth and shall relentlessly attack its enemies!" A mad furor erupted in applause.

The STFU party proved most popular with the many seeking salvation by simply voting for the cloud's non-existence.

Until one day a small part of the cloud broke off and descended over one of the most precious places in the great city, wreaking death and devastation. For the first time the City new true fear: fear of themselves and the need to change. The STFUer's were duly panicked - but perversely savvy. "Don't let fear persuade you! Be brave! We must stick to our Good Ways at all costs! It is the slaves who caused this problem. Butcher them for their treachery!" And the slaughtering of innocents commenced.

They can't blame their precious selves so they have to kill somebody

Many other solutions were tried and died in vain. No matter how many "bad people" were killed, life never got better. In fact, a permanent haze drifting from the cloud landed on the city, choking its residents and killing the weakest among them. And still it was said, "There's no other way for us to live." A Mandate of Responsibility was handed down: Breathe less air. And thus the good citizens wreathed great pity around their necks.

But nothing could stop the tightening fear constricting their hearts. No one wanted to leave - but no one wanted stay either! "Give us change without change!" the cry went out. A New Hero God Leader emerged, promising to give them all that they asked. But when reality did not change for the better the masses deeply divided on definition of said reality. Those who believed life had actually changed demanded faith in the New Hero God Leader, those for only blindly building more called for a return for the old ways that never left.

A few - the outlandish, the radical, the too absurd to believe - called for finding a solution to the cloud of poison at all costs - the rest united in hatred for those of that ilk. Oftentimes it was posed: Why are we getting angrier and angrier?

Poppy flowers of denial seeped into their sleepy heads begging for a new reality. The New Hero God Leader climbed up the weathervane tower and through a triumph of the will turned the vane from south to east, indicating the cloud was now headed away. "See! Problem solved! I have stopped the panic and brought you change without change." He made impassioned speeches to trust his politic narcotic, berating and scoffing at nonbelievers, his firm conviction lying in the selling of reality as the only true hope.

Some were of a different religion: "God will never hold us accountable for our actions! If He does not fix our world, He does not exist!" Some demanded an apology: "I don't care which way the weathervane points, the wind blows south. And yet I see no cloud! Everyone's lying but me! Our city is actually fine!" Some clung to the New Hero God Leader, imploring trust in his straight teeth and manicured hair. In these ways the good citizens hoped to escape responsibility.

But of course yet came the Killing Wind, the angel of death. The City being in a natural low point drew in the fatal poison, leading the cloud to hover and settle. Was this the end? Heated arguments drove the populace to madness, murdering over words, choking throats of dissent. As fresh air ran out, the stronger strangled the weaker to grab the remaining good gasps. A few left the city, mocked and derided as they headed for the harsh life off the beloved mountain where the city dwellers steadfastly refused to give aid lest they be proven wrong in their choice to stay.

But as always, nature had the last laugh. In dying breaths the fate of Nature was cursed and reviled but really, who ever asked them to build on poison?

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A Cat Unfed

Little Shinji stood mystified as his older brother, Hojo, clasped his hands behind his head as he lay himself down on the cool spring grass. Hojo loved the adoration he received from his younger sibling, feeding on it like a gluttonous king.

"I'm like everybody," beamed Hojo, "I want the benefits of love without the responsibility."

Shinji marveled at his brother's always fearless honesty. No one who spoke so boldly could be wrong, he surmised. For who in his right mind would ever brag of his own death? No, his brother knew more about life than he did. Shinji wished to learn the secret behind his brother's Cheshire smile.

"But can't you feed Kitty at all?" Kitty was the default name for the stray that came by each day. She had taken a shine to Hojo, he being the only one who could get near to her, a life abandoned having made her overly skittish. But her back left leg was wounded, keeping her from catching the prey she needed to survive.

"Nah," dismissively replied Hojo. "It's every cat for himself in this world."

"But don't you want to feed her?"

Hojo straightened up at the remark. "Want? What does "want" have to do with anything? If you're going to go around wanting stuff you may as well find yourself another planet!"

"But she loves you!"

"That's just what you think!" Hojo loved toying with his brother, playing the all-knowing, inscrutable god. "Nobody ever really loves anybody."

Shinji opened his mouth to stand up for his love, but what if his brother was right? What if his love was no good after all, something not real. He'd be made the everlasting fool, condemned to mockery for life. Shinji swallowed his love, watching Kitty from afar eyeing him suspiciously from under cover of a thick, green bush.

Kitty's skinny frame moved slower as the days moved on. Shinji begged Hojo to feed her, to reward her trust in him. But Hojo loved confounding his brother, to be the One Who Knew Best. It kept Shinji on a string and Hojo obliged himself of this insecurity since neither of his parents nurtured him in any way either. He was simply a burden to be endured, the unfortunate outcome of one night's penetration. That's the way of the world  - passing on of the shit - and the world had been around forever, right?

Shinji was determined to win Kitty over but no matter how hard he tried or how much food he held out, the cat kept its distance on what seemed upon the pain of death. "Why does that stupid cat have to trust Hojo and not me? I will feed you, Kitty! Please come back. I love you even if no one believes me!" But the evening air remained still.

In bed that night, Shinji cried out to God for justice in the world. "Can't you fix her leg? Can't you let her eat at all? Can't you make her love me and not Hojo?" But just as Kitty had done, silence returned as the only reply. Seething between the sheets, he lashed out at a God that did not care. "What good are you? What's the point of caring at all?"

Shinji gave up trying to win over Kitty, dejected into defeat. But that was when Kitty finally came to him at last, sensing his open heart and knowing he was not like the others after all. It was when he stopped trying to control her when she dropped her guard. Letting go means victory, not defeat. Was that the secret Hojo knew?

But victory arrived too late, Kitty having suffered too much, this her last day on earth, dying in Shinji's arms. Shinji wailed inconsolably. He now refused all food, drowning in a river of pain. No wonder Kitty trusted so few in a world like this. Monsters all! And God would never fix a thing: eveything had been left up to us. Where lies hope then?

Shinji dashed blindly to the Great Gorge Bridge and as he saw the water rushing and crashing against the rocks below he understood the futility of the river trying to move the impeding boulders. "Love is pain!" he cried out, the words echoing in the vast canyon. Still a child in touch with the Truth, Shinji knew without love no future could ever be had. So he threw himself in to become one with the river.

Hojo also realized his mistake too late, his dishonesty betraying him into a living hell. Anger was the god he served and because his parents chose not to nurture so had he done. He'd made Shinji feel his fear of an unworthy love exposed for eternal mockery. Had he been honest, that illusion would have vanished as a vapor before his eyes. Instead, his lies left him a fool to be mocked for the rest of his life, never to retrieve his brother from the clutches of Death.

The parents of Hojo and Little Shinji came under suspicion in the farming village after both their children committed suicide within twenty four hours of one another. What kind of parents were they? Their lives had been so normal up until then, how had they not noticed the terrible wrongness that lay below? What did that speak of the rest of the village? The elders must restore the village's good name.

The couple was ordered to commit seppuku - a sentence considered most lenient. The village head declared they must die before they reproduce again and have the chance to redeem themselves. In this way, the morals of the village could be scrubbed clean, protecting them from the wrath of the region's ruling daimyo. But even that was to no avail.

Farmers were the backbone of Japan, they being the lowest but most necessary of the classes. The daimyo could not have his farming villages running amok. Dead families produce no rice! The village head was also ordered to endure ritual suicide as a message to the other villages to stick together in their woes and not turn a blind eye. But even though the intended message was one of love, the message of the act was not.

In the Edo era, the Shogunate in Edo eagerly sought out any excuse for dissolving a clan's estate as a means to gain further control over the empire. When hearing of "village heads executed due to farming families committing mass suicide", an investigator was sent to derive a predetermined conclusion of dissolving the clan, continuing the cycle of lies and covering up. But even the Shogunate could not stand against the mighty cannons of the American ships in 1853 who demanded Japan open herself up for trade.

The populace turned against the feeble shogun who could no longer protect them, raising the emperor back to the seat of supreme power, trading one anger for another. Anger needs conquest, though, as Japanese eyes turned outward, raping and pillaging with unspeakable horrors with no God to stop them. Two atomic blasts later, she changed her mind on controlling the world and gained victory through defeat.

***

"Among the maxims on Lord Naoshige's wall there was this one: Matters of great concern should be treated lightly. Master Ittei wrote: Matters of small concern should be treated seriously."

 - Hagakure, the book of the Samurai

Easier said than done. All the world revolves around love, regardless of what we do or say.

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Fraud Like Flynn

It's 1935 and the world is still a dusty black and white. Dillinger had been killed the year before, gunned down like his contemporaries Bonny and Clyde. Families are scraping by on the edge of survival and a heavy pallor hangs over a nation wondering the wisdom of its ways, feeling a new and uncertain doubt. But you have just stepped into a Hollywood bar from the rarified air of glistening Los Angeles. It's late afternoon and only a few have the means or the time to lounge within its light smoke and dark paneling.

You spot a rakish fellow in the corner whom you could no more ignore than a blazing sun at midnight. Your heart skips a beat as some primal instinct kicks in and the adrenaline asks, "Who is that guy? It can't be him?" Or can it. Every male carries within him the bogey man of the perfect male who is everything and does everything. You swallow hard as the voices within demand an answer.

You walk to the bar to get closer but not close enough to betray yourself. Your words ask for a drink but your mind is riveted on the exotic alien at the corner table chatting blithely to an incredibly gorgeous woman. He acts as if he doesn't have a care in the world and both he and the lady reek of life lived in the Hollywood bubble, cloud dwellers high above any dirty depression. No, you decide, he can't be all that. He just can't be!

You sip your beer, listening and looking for any chink in his armor. He speaks English but he's not American. Your values, your prejudices, your loves, your hates - he could care less of your tawdry triumphs and meager defeats. His had been a life of high adventure every boy wishes as he plays the swashbuckling pirate before he settles down for the chains of a seethingly polite society. But this man wore no chains! You hate him - you have no choice.

The woman is looking to ride this obvious rising star - a star you can never offer. He's going to have that woman, you can see the contract between their eyes. You burn with jealousy knowing you would bribe her too if given the chance. But that chance will never come for you, only for that devil with his smirking thin moustache. Overflowing with rage you get up and confront the man, asking who is he and where he's from, looking to cut him down to size with your fist if you have to.

He backs down not an inch, a twinkle in his eye. Your worst fears are confirmed of this man of the world: he's seen the likes of you before. That doesn't stop you, however, because the idea of living with the knowledge you share the planet with a man such as this is an unfaceable nightmare. You lay into him but he fights like an animal until you're both too wounded to continue. You slink out of the bar trying to convince yourself you showed him who's who and of how you'll lie about the fight later on. But with every passing lie, you only feel smaller inside and burn with envy watching his star explode into the heavens.

Meet Errol Flynn, the most rarest of birds: a man's man and a woman's man. Hero and coward, life giver and life taker, a soul who blazed an unforgettable path but never found happiness.

I read his story and at the end, I felt very, very sad. Something about this guy spoke to me, to my own vanities and wanderlust and misfit ways. I've always had an interest in Flynn but it wasn't until I read his autobiography My Wicked, Wicked Ways did I get a sense of the man's psyche - which was pretty much a confirmation of what I had felt from afar. Flynn was in bar fights all his life and remained trapped as a daredevil to the very end when he died from a heart attack at age 50 in 1959. But I don't think we'll ever know who Errol Flynn truly was, he whored himself out far too much for even him to know.

"I may not win every fight but by God whoever I fight will know they've been in one." Flynn was seduced by his own image of himself. He was the high adventurer marauding through the Pacific Islands having affairs with exotic women and hacking through jungles in search of gold and fortune. He'd been kicked out of a dozen schools of higher learning all the while his father earning commendations as a professor of science. Flynn's lifelong quest was to prove himself as a fearless and care free spirit dancing through the world, life is but a joke.

Truth is, he was a man gripped by fear, for there was one thing he'd never get up the nerve to face: responsibility. Flynn had no intention of growing up and facing himself. It was Hollywood in the 1930's and the image making machine would never be as powerful again as it was then. As you slept broke and busted on the city sidewalk, you saw amazing pictures of these gods on earth with their fancy cars that would pay ten years of your bills and their lives where nothing ever went wrong. What had you done to miss out on your own reward, you wonder forlornly.

Flynn's Robin Hood will never be matched -
or even come close to by anyone else

The man threw legendary Hollywood parties, setting up a house separate from his wife and if those walls could speak God only knows the tales they could tell! Flynn loved his reputation and his house being an epicenter of activity and fantasy (despite his sometimes complaining of intrusions). He also said he was a "man not to cross". When he nearly lost an eye in a swordfight (Flynn insisted on doing his own stunts as much as possible) he asked why the guard had been removed from the sword. When he found out it had been done on instructions from the director to provide "realism", Flynn sought out the director and started choking him, asking him if that was "real" enough for him.

God, I loved him for that!

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"When you see a meteor stab the sky, or a bomb explode, or a fire sweep across a dry hillside, the picture is vivid and remains in your mind. So it was with Errol....he was all the heroes in one magnificent, sexy, animal package....he showered an audience with sparks when he laughed, when he fought, or when he loved. I just wish we had someone around today half as good as Flynn."
- Jack Warner (of Warner Brothers)

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Flynn and women had a turbulent relationship that never got settled. He estimated he bedded over 13,000 by the time of his book (written just before he died), but he never found happiness and he constantly complained of the mistreatment he received from those with whom he got involved. This led him to decry the female form and cast off any notions of feminine innocence. What he left out of the equation, though, was as an irresponsible person himself those were the kind of women he attracted. Eventually this all got revealed in the Flynn Moment of 1943.

We can't always see behind the veil of public figures but sometimes the truth gets revealed by a lie that sticks regardless. For though it may not be true in fact, it is true in spirit. In November 1942 Flynn was falsely accused by two underage girls of statutory rape. He was no billed by the Grand Jury but the DA was out to make a name for himself and pressed forward with the trial. The trial was all he was after, a conviction just icing on the cake. Publicity was the name of the game.

At the infamous Mulholland house

As testimony leaked out of supposed details of Flynn's fictional salacious sexploits with the girls on his private yacht, transcripts of the trial knocked even war news off the front page. But their witnessing was not credible and in those days it would have been too heartbreaking to see a matinee idol go to jail. Flynn was acquitted. Afterwards he prepared for a party on his now famous yacht, jokingly preparing a sign asking for I.D. and age verification. Nobody came. The shine had disappeared.

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And a man who has been through this time and again and again (seduction) with many women, comes to see it all very clearly. He has a clear memory, the day or week after the spell is broken, of how he has idealized the woman in question, created something in his mind that in the end is not the reality.
- Robert Greene, author

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The trial had made people ask: Who is this fellow really? And without the knowing there can be no loving. Many suspected Flynn probably had underaged sex considering the vast quantities he consumed and his feckless reaction to the trial confirmed as much. In addition, he had failed the physical for the draft but this was hushed up by the studio to protect Flynn's moneymaking power at the box office as an action star. But the public only saw a man who continued to make films as other stars went off to war. Again: Is he really cracked up to be who we thought?

Post war America entered a new era, packing away the illusions of the past forever. The world that had bred a monster such as Hitler must be done away with. It was not a time for glittery illusions like Flynn. His star declined and he wandered a lost soul during the Fifties, drinking heavily and bloating his once famous figure. He wrote he didn't care his face changed, he'd never liked it anyway. All he ultimately cared for was maintaining his precious image, telling jokes even on the night of his death, being "the same old Flynn". But Errol had died long before that on a cool evening in 1943, unmasked as a sad little boy who could never grow up.

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He wanted to die. In the end, he wanted to die.
- Raoul Walsh, favorite director and friend

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There's a biopic made-for-TV flick called "My Wicked, Wicked Ways... The Legend of Errol Flynn" that does a decent job of recounting his life. But I like "My Favorite Year" better, a film that captures the spirit of Flynn with the fictional character of Alan Swann. No one gets it like they want it but some get it more than others.

Bank Robbing Blues

Don't believe the movies, it's a dirtier life than it looks.

There's a peculiar curse placed upon creative people and it's been that way since we decided to substitute our own order for that of nature's (which is why it's inevitably doomed). We hear of the successful poets and musicians and artists from over the centuries (none from the Dark Ages) but those are the lottery winners of talent. Other "Creatives" are forced to deal with life in less fortunate circumstances.

A worker bee life is just fine - if you're a worker bee. Unless you can entertain us to the point of receiving compensation, worker bees are all society wants. That is why we have the myth of the romantic outlaw who breaks all the rules. Sure, in the end they are forced to unforgivably kill and destroy to maintain their lifestyle - but we understand. We want to live too. We also feel the thorns of the world.

I was #2 man in the crew that pulled the infamous Barnstown Bank robberies. Robert, our leader, was a creative genius, a force of nature all his own. He had no choice but to comply to his creative desires, it was an obvious death were he not to. I didn't have Robert's drive - that raging need - but I was creative and intelligent enough in my own right to review his schemes and poke through any holes I might find (which was rare and ones I found were of enthusiasm).

Linda and Larry rounded out our crew. Linda had her own demons bringing her down, craving a personal outlet she never fully explained but we all sort of sensed (We knew not to pry. It was part of the trust we afforded each other the outside world never gives.) Larry was more of what I call a "creative admirer", someone who sings in the shower but never on stage. He loved our exploits and daring imagination and for him to be useful in our endeavors meant the world to him.

As criminal crews go, we were tight, a quasi family. We started small, scuffling our way through with tentative jobs, testing ourselves and finding our place in the criminal hierarchy. We all had faith in Robert and he never disappointed. It was truly marvelous to go over one of his plans, they were almost operatic in their detail and rhythm of operations. No, we weren't a band that could go on stage, we were a band with a different act - and we were proud of that aspect. Yes, our acts were wrong in the eyes of the world but we filled a need that came from God.

The first time we robbed Barnstown Bank had been a precision masterpiece. I was point man on dissecting the bank as I was the best at analytical design. That made me more visible than the others but then I had an ego to be satisfied too, to let the bank employees know of my particular genius. (It's strange but the employees became sort of an extended family by default, sort of like blood relatives - there were those you liked and hated but either way you were stuck with them.) This compulsion of mine to show off was my eventual downfall.

Safeguards were put in place afterwards - but that only spurred Robert further. We laughed when he presented the plans to go back. We didn't know who the unknown foe was who designed the safeguards but we were going to him show our mettle. We wanted to shout to the world: "We're somebody! We count too!" We were going to make them listen come hell or high water. The more we found ourselves the more important we realized that was. This would be our first job with absolute flair.

Robert's plan worked to a T - and sure did get us recognized! We were dubbed the "Creativity Crew" by the media and since I was forced to lead the actual operation I became the face of the franchise. Nothing could be proven or tie me to the crime directly but my necessary scouting made me known at the bank and by deduction they knew I was guilty. It was dangerous and scary, but I loved the notoriety and recognition. The bank employees had this illusory version of the life we led, free from the ball and chain of their desks. You could see it in their eyes. It was perilously ambiguous because on one hand it made them want to cooperate while on the other their jealousy sought to sabotage us.

Our big breakthrough - as so often is the case in stories like these - was the beginning of the end. First Larry started getting cold feet, being pressured by the cops to spill the beans. He'd fed into their characterization of us and guilt like a tapeworm was eating him up inside. He just wanted to confess - as if that was a final solution. I managed to rally him back around but it was tenuous and I never would fully trust his weak mind again. Not that I didn't understand his need to confess, I shared that too.

I also started a relationship. I obviously could not bring someone fully into my life but we had a "coffee shop" friendship. Luckily, she was a woman most self-possessed and thus knew and cared little for the world at large. She was wicked funny and responsible in her relations, my admiration growing on a daily basis. We would meet by happenstance at a Thai coffee shop, sharing smiles but no questions. How she afforded to be there day after day I never knew - nor she me. Soon I found myself thinking of her during the dusty day, looking for smiles to bring to her. It's painful to think of that time now.

Success had gone to Robert's head as well. The mad bastard came up with a THIRD plan for robbing the bank even with the new security they implemented. I immediately had doubts. We were going to come up through the sewers dressed as a SWAT team and use our "official" power to circumvent what they had put in place. Not strong enough yet to pull away I went back in to reconnoiter and I was embarrassingly mobbed by bank personnel who were equally galled and thrilled I dared to come back.

If we can't break free, neither can you!

I felt like an idiot so I decided to play it back against them saying, "You know guys, I could only be doing this as a distraction to our real objective." I wasn't but it messed with their heads and they became like aimless ants trying to sort it out. But then Linda made a mistake and was recognized by an employee, putting her on the spot. Linda was forced to account where she was during the robbery so she put on an elaborate display for the police as a Vegas showgirl that rightly used their own dicks to fool them. We never knew she had that in her!

But we were the Creative Crew after all.

So Robert had gone heady with success, Larry had his gnawing doubts, Linda had been panicked like never before and I had a relationship where I couldn't come clean. No way I wanted to do this job. The banksters were pissed as all get out feeling public sympathy was more with us than them the alleged pillars of society. A tower had been set up in the middle of the bank that monitored any and all activity. We were doomed just by walking in the door. I know Robert had an answer for that - he had an answer for everything - but instinct told me, "No more of this."

Pulling away ripped me in two. The desire to go on was overwhelming. In some ways it had been my first taste of life with my head above water, breathing in free air at last. How could I say no to that? I wanted to breathe and keep on breathing the rest of my life. Pulling away also broke the bonds of our gang, which is always a marriage of sorts. But I saw only jail as my future and that was one thorn of the world I could not overcome. After this, it all came crashing down.

With my secret life - and secret pride - now gone, I turned on my coffee shop girl. I felt I was shaming her with my friendship and I kept imagining over and over her horrified reaction to the truth of me. Like I said, she was one most responsible in her relations and I was paying her back like this? For months I spent grieving and I wonder to this day what would have happened had I confronted her with the truth of my inadequacies. I don't understand it but a voice says I sold her - and myself - short.

Was it all just a dream in the storm of your eyes, Sara?

We had a last party as a gang out on some ranch. It was painful. My heart broke the entire time and I felt tragic guilt for letting everyone down but I stuck to my guns. Larry surely would have cracked had we done another high profile job, the voices the cops put in his too loud to ignore. And Linda was so on edge she was ripe for a mistake. And Robert needed a personal life as opposed to substituting his art for one. But the worst crime of all: it killed my creativity not to do that third job.

Now I live in a prison of my mind. Literally, not a night passes I don't relive our jobs in my dreams only this time something always goes wrong, either by unimaginably bad luck or a vital detail we had skipped. My interest in life is waning, spiraling out of my hands. It's easy to see for me why criminals keep going until they get caught: the crimes are the only times they feel alive. Without that, you get the sort of living death I lead now. I can almost physically feel it inside me, a collapsing of the heart, my back bending in despair. Whatever person I was with the coffee shop girl, I am no more.

CODA: The cops came banging on my door. Some smart new inspector looking to make a name for himself. He reeked of danger. Someone had come across Robert's plans for the third job and actually pulled the daring stunt off. I secretly smirked at the news just knowing how much that must have aggravated the cops and the bank. Rumor had it they were shutting that branch down. That goddam inspector was convinced, however, I had knowledge of the job and tried planting stolen money on me right in front of my face. It was a gambit that might work. But I fought through my daily pain and argued my way out of it.

But the nightmares hear no argument. We robbed the banks to free ourselves but I'm not free at all, living with a past I cannot escape, my sanity slowly draining away. I don't know where freedom is anymore. Maybe it's with the love I gave up, after all.

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Unemployment: A Modest Solution (My WAPO Editorial Entry)

We all love the idea of the principled newspaper editor crusading against injustice and shining a light on the dark corners of human behavior. But nowadays editorials are mostly for corporate shilling, muckraking and pompous punditry. Who needs them? But turns out there's a more pressing question: Who needs 250 bucks so he can show off a new pair of Nikes at the shelter?

That would be me, bitch.

The Washington Post is holding a contest a la the Jackass films and offering a small stipend for those willing to go through the self-abuse. Eh, may as well get paid for my masturbation. Since the most acknowledged problem we have today is unemployment I've decided to share what I believe is a unique and saleable solution to the masses, sure to win in a blaze of infamy:

To anyone who's been paying attention over the last few years a punctured hole of seeping unemployment has penetrated America's hull and we need to do something about it lest we all sink. Our industrial base has evaporated, our economic clout eroded and the only thing we seem intent on generating is paper profits skimmed like a mob boss from a casino.

This leaves us with a landscape filled with derivative landmines and no real work left to do (since creating an oil free America is not an option). So how are we going to plug this gaping hole of unemployment? I have an answer for that: kill all black babies.

This solution has many positive aspects:

1. First off, America loves a racist. We don’t vote them into office because we hate them! Like a woman in her Sunday best on Oprah falsely claiming she wants a "sensitive" man, we also like to pretend racism is dead in this post Obama world. But Obama's election proves our continued racism: finding a black man to blame for our problems.

2. Welfare: fixed! We all know Darkies breed like rabbits so they can maximize their welfare checks and luxury options on their Cadillacs. I even asked a black woman her child's name and she said, "Welfare Check!" See, there you go: empirical evidence I just made up, the finest kind of reporting (and oh so hip!).

3. Bloodlust. We ain't the most violent western country for nothin'! Americans just don't feel right less'n we killin' folks. Sooner or later we gonna run out of them Afghans and we'll have to find some other folks that ain't rich, white and greedy.

Now, I'm not some wild-eyed radical looking to eradicate our black brethren all at once and ruin pro sports, the military and the rap community. We just need to stem the flow. Currently, unemployment sits under 10% and the black population at 11%. That gives a 1% buffer for good measure.

I know there are vicious fiends out there who want black children born to roam the streets in hopeless despair as opposed to giving them a quick, humane death. Bastards! And I even had some crazy liberal tell me, "But you're putting profits before people's lives!" Well, duh! This is America, pal, we do that every day.

Of course, I sabotaged it with the word "Darkies" since no paper will print that for fear of being called racist - and also a fear they are in fact racist. But the real truth is we already know what the answers are to our problems, why debate them?

I Know It's Trivial - But I Like It, Like It, Yes I Do

State panel declines to clear investigators in Willingham case

DALLAS -- Several members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission this morning rebuked efforts by the chairman to clear state fire marshal investigators of findings of professional negligence or misconduct in the Todd Willingham capital murder case.
"The investigators followed the standard of practice by investigators at the time, but what was not followed was the 'science' at the time," commission member Sarah Kerrigan said. "There is a disconnect between the investigator and the science."

Not a headline that garners a lot of attention but a significant one nonetheless. You see, here in the dark lands of Texas we'll take any ray of light we can get. What makes this significant is that the Chairman of the Forensic Commission is Governor Perry's personally appointed hatchet man. Perry removed three of the board members - including its leader - just as they were about to conduct a full scale investigation of the Willingham case.

Chairman John Bradley's job is to quash and delay any substantive findings until after the November elections. Why? Because the state of Texas willfully murdered Todd Willingham and Perry is now desperate to cover it up having staked his reputation - such as it is - on the righteous guilt of Willingham.

I've blogged before on the railroading of Willingham and the shameless and cowardly defense of it by Texas authorities. Willingham was convicted of setting fire to his own home that killed his three children. Jokesters who passed as fire marshals decided it was arson because it made for an irresistibly juicy story on which careers could be made. Welcome to the nightmare of good ol' boy Texas justice.

Bradley with his mouth full of lies.

Over Chairman John Bradley's objections, she and other scientists on the commission demanded a further examination of the forensic standards and said the commission may issue a report by January. What's more, some commissioners said a systematic review of all arson cases handled by the Texas fire marshal's office may be needed because it was using faulty methods.

Willingham, a Corsicana mechanic, was convicted of setting a fire that killed his three children in 1991. Friday's commission meeting was seen as the showdown in the years-long debate of whether the fire marshal's office botched the arson investigation that sent Willingham to the death chamber in 2004.

A commission panel issued a draft report this summer concluding that the office had not committed professional negligence or misconduct in the Willingham case because the forensic analysis met the standards of the day. Bradley, district attorney in Williamson County, recommended ending the case.

Your future is in our hands!

When the initial draft report came out I really thought the bastard Bradley was going to get away with it. (How scary is it that someone so politically invested and utterly dismissive of the truth is a District Attorney in charge of prosecuting justice? His fellow Texans may claim him, God won't.) So reading about this rebuke last weekend tickled me pink! His fellow board members refused to kowtow to the madman and have decided to get to the bottom of what really happened.

At issue is the good ol' boy method of arson investigations used at the time. Method that went something like this:

"It done burnt down, Leroy. All way right ta tha ground!"

"Yup, Elmer. And I hear tell its sum librul living here too."

"Gotta figger that, doncha? Acting all careless and such. Yep, looks like arson to me."

"That me profeshunal opinyun too, Elmer."

And just how have they gotten away with this sort of self-serving, laksadasical behavior? By excusing it with the claim it met the "standards of the day". But it seems maybe - just maybe - that's not going to wash anymore. Bastard Bradley was livid with the board members failing to advance his political career.

Bradley, clearly frustrated by the discussion and hammering other commission members with questions, said not enough credible and reliable information exists to fault the arson investigators.

"It is incapable for us to come to any other conclusion because of the ambiguity of the case," Bradley told commission members. "Fire standards have evolved. ... We are not tasked with deciding guilt or innocence."

Instead, he said, the commission's task is to determine "whether fire investigators exhibited significant negligence or misconduct."

Later in the meeting, after concerns were expressed about the contents of the draft report, he said, "I'm a little bit tired of a committee's continued criticism of individual words when [I am] trying to reach consensus."

"Reach consensus" i.e. railroad the meeting! Instead the commission voted to convene a "live panel" this November to bring in officials from the fire marshal's office as well as outside experts. Bradley questioned this, snidely calling it "a battle of the experts" and also questioned the commission's legal authority to review further arson cases. He then sucked his thumb and pouted.

Wilingham's relatives were also in attendance, tearfully thanking the board members for their stance. They hope to finally clear Todd's name and tell the story of how a devastated and grieving father over the death of his three children was then slandered year after year and finally murdered in a surreal miscarriage of justice. The Innocence Project has played a key role in bringing this outrage to light:

In 2006, the Innocence Project filed a complaint with the Forensic Science Commission about the science used in the investigation.

The commission eventually hired a national arson expert to examine the case. He found that the fire investigators had a poor understanding of fire science and suggested that the fire could have been accidental.

But before his report could be formally presented to the commission last year, Gov. Rick Perry replaced the chairman and several other members, delaying the inquiry. Perry has defended Willingham's execution.

This is far from over and it's apparent Bradley is dug in like a tick on a coon dog. The live panel will be spun as "my expert cancels out your expert" along with reasonable sounding comments like "the truth lies somewhere in between" to muddy the waters further. But I do have hope a definitive statement will be made eventually and Texas can be rightly branded as a killer of an innocent man.

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Left Behind

I was walking - wandering - as I'm wont to do with no place to go and no one to do. I hate these moments of lost time feeling out of place, peering into finely manicured homes I can never enter. I tell myself their lives always seem more idyllic from the outside, that their children could be drug addicts and the parents conservative by nature. But then I see a man watering his lawn in peaceful distraction and my house of cards falls to pieces.

In the neighborhood I strolled, all the cars were new with the owners having chosen the colors of their own volition. What's it like dictating a car should be a certain color, I wonder. And yes, though one could smell the money in the houses, the grass was real and the homes of character - no plastic to be seen. I don't want money without personality. If I could pick a place, I'd pick here to live. This gave me an affinity to the inhabitants - one I dare not express, interloper that I be.

What could I say were I invited in for tea? I love tea, I would love a cup, I crave meaningful conversation. But comes a point I need explain myself and that's a retaining wall I can't overcome. What if they see the spark of intelligence in my eyes? What if they say I'm a handsome boy? What if they ask me why I wander alone... I have no answers for me. I keep my shame to myself. Oh yes, I'd like to visit but let me come back when I'm true blue, when I have something to bring to the table. Have I the courage to accept a gift with nothing to return?

I started to turn, to flee before the answer caught up with me - and then She came outside. It was Rachel. Like a laser beam her eyes fixed on me across the road like a lighthouse on a moonless night. Her face broke into an instant smile gushing with delight. My heart pounded to life both scared and elated, and I too smiled wide at the sight of her. She gaily waved her arm to me hello while her other arm was locked into a man who strode with her in obvious unity. He was tall and strong and I was prepared to hate him but he had kind eyes. Never the fool, she.

Rachel and her seeming beau headed off in one of those slick expensive imports to a place that only two can share. I bet he chose the car's color too. My arm dropped as I lost sight of them and my adrenaline rush switched into rivers of pain through my veins. No, I'm not one for whom time should be made. She acknowledged me well in the recognition but my own life I was expected to lead. But I had no life. I wonder how she reasoned my walking by. I had no idea she lived around here. Would she think me a stalker? That's all I needed.

We'd met at the Asian Film Festival and we shared a common passion. We exchanged email addresses and kept in touch, gradually deepening our thoughts and loves and pains. It was never a romantic relationship but we grew connected over the wires and I thought of her during the day, anxious to find something she'd enjoy. While her emails were much anticipated presents, of some things we never spoke. We were like two dancers who met, twirled in rhythm and drove back to separate homes. Little did she know I was stumbling my way unknowingly through the steps, a fraud all along. But the taste of her was irresistible.

But it wasn't until this moment of coincidence I realized the forever wall between us. In that moment I came to see God has no mercy in the making of one's life - as it should be. I withered, revealed before the mirror, feeling exposed on the sunny, swank sidewalk. Have you ever died in suburban, afternoon light for all the world to see? Rooted in despair my legs could not move. I waited for the inevitable thunderbolt from God. One thing I knew for sure: I could dance with her no more. I showed her moves imagined, not lived.

A closing voiced shattered my reverie. "Wow, man, you know that chick? That's one hot babe!"

I turned to see a cocky, young college boy, a soul so far apart from me I barely managed seeing him as a fellow earthling. He was duly impressed by her acknowledgement of me - kudos I did not deserve - but I also saw his uncontainable designs on her as she was one most desirable. Achingly, inwardly begging to flee before this alien creature, I now had the chore of explaining myself. Just fucking great.

"No," I demurred, "not really."

"I don't know, dude. She sure seemed to know you!" Translation: "My horny ass sure does want to meet her!"

"We met once long ago, is all." If I have to stand here one more second I'm going to explode! I moved away in self-preservation.

"She was awfully happy meeting you again!" I would get an observant asshole. "Maybe you could get me an intro sometime."

Bastard wouldn't stop trying to corner me. Why does this kind of shit always happen at the most inopportune time? It's like some sort of siren goes off in the universe announcing a free-for-all on my sorry ass. Run naked through the world, God's gonna strip you and leave you by the roadside anyway. I needed to find some way to get this kid off my back even though I knew I would never again upon pain of death walk this neighborhood.

I wanted to explain to him she was far, far out of his league but I could see his young ego had yet to experience defeat from one such as Rachel. I thought of praising her, explaining she was most certainly worth meeting. I considered giving him the brush off as if I were somebody myself. What popped out was a plea of my own, struggling to free myself from my agony.

"Sorry, man. Guess we each gotta make our own lives on our own."

My pace picked up as I scurried away but I felt his eyes boring into me, doing the one thing I most needed but did not want: examining my life. I tried to clog my ears and misunderstand the wind but still heard: "Dude, that's fucked up."

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Bullet For A Soldier

I met a man
In Afghanistan;
And put a bullet through his head.


Children screaming
Black tears streaming;
As he lay bleeding in his bed.


I sang my song
"This man did wrong!"
Military's proper fashion.


But Afghan souls
Thousands years old;
Yet hate me with proper passion.


In my brigade
I'm just a maid;
All hail the conquering hero!


"Suffocate him!"
"He shares our sin!"
Dreaming as the madman Nero.


Napalm jelly
Burns my belly;
Scorch tender mercies when I kill.


Internal plea
No place to flee;
For what eats me they have no pill.

Hey America: damn your love, damn your lies.

Twisted flower
In its brown hour;
Silent, sinking sun bears witness.


My painted face
Hides my disgrace;
Quivering bullets scared shitless.


Public charade
Life's masquerade;
Sharp pressed uniforms to revere.


When love is bought
The soul lives not;
Time marches in eternal fear.


Who wants to live
With hell to give?
Precious family home abused.


Inside my room
Earth's final doom;
Hope's ticking time finally used.


They tell me when
My kill's not sin;
But my life's in the devil's bin.


Liar's prison
Unforgiven;
Pass by the untold tales of men.

_____________________________________________________________________

WASHINGTON — When Lt. Col. Dave Wilson took command of a battalion of the 4th Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, the unit had just returned to Texas from 14 months traveling some of Iraq's most dangerous roads as part of a logistics mission.

What he found, he said, was a unit far more damaged than the single death it had suffered in its two deployments to Iraq.

Nearly 70 soldiers in his 1,163-member battalion had tested positive for drugs: methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana. Others were abusing prescription drugs. Troops were passing around a tape of a female lieutenant having sex with five soldiers from the unit. Seven soldiers in the brigade died from drug overdoses and traffic accidents when they returned to Fort Bliss, near El Paso, after their first deployment.

"The inmates were running the prison," Wilson said.

What Wilson had to deal with, however, was hardly an isolated instance.

With the U.S. drawdown in Iraq, the Army is finally confronting an epidemic of drug abuse and criminal behavior that many commanders acknowledge has been made worse because they'd largely ignored it during nearly a decade of wars on two fronts.

The Army concedes that it faces a mammoth problem.

A 350-page report issued in July after a 15-month investigation into the Army's rising suicide rate found that levels of illegal drug use and criminal activity have reached record highs, while the number of disciplinary actions and forced discharges were at record lows.

The result, the Army found, is that "drug and alcohol abuse is a significant health problem in the Army." Where the Army once rigidly enforced rules on drug use, it got sloppy in the rush to get soldiers ready for the battlefield, commanders say. Officers who once trained soldiers on everything from drug abuse to financial planning had only enough time to get their troops ready for battle.

The number of misdemeanors that soldiers committed — including traffic infractions, drunk driving and being absent without leave — rose to 50,523 in fiscal year 2009 — a sign, the report said, that "good order and discipline" were declining in the ranks. Five years earlier, the number was 28,388.

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Anatomy Of A Doomed Writer

The angel operating the lathe of Heaven called out, "Who do you want to make next?"

"A doomed writer!" answered God with a good natured laugh.

"But God, why do we have to make so many doomed people? We just did over 600 future blood diamond miners!"

"Yes, but they know they are doomed. This is a special kind of torment and it provides me with a unique pleasure. It's good to watch them squirm in futile agony like a worm on a hook. First comes the suffering then comes the final fate of being eaten alive as fish food! Me, that's funny! It's sort of like watching the unemployed only it's from birth."

"But don't you remember? That's how we ended up with Hitler? Those frustrated artists are the worst! They have no way of surviving in society so they end up with this twisted drive to rule the world. People don't like dying!"

"Apparently they don't like living either."

"I like it so much more when we make people who've got it made from birth."

"Yes, but how many Britney Spears can the world take?"

"Point taken. One doomed writer coming up. What's the money factor on this one?"

"Zero! Not one fucking cent he gets off his writing. What do I care of money?"

"What level of torture do you want?"

"Give him maximum insight! Let him see ALL the insanity! So when he writes about it everyone will say, "What are you talking about?" Oh, this boy will be delicious!"

And thus a Doomed Writer was born, forced to wander the world wearing nothing but his underwear, a sight to scare children, excite rapists, annoy politicians and amuse women with his perpetually covered penis. And the writer wondered: "What's the fucking point of this!"

His first thoughts were upon the madness of the world which knew nothing but thought it knew everything, deciding how lives should be. Early on came the message: "Math and science! Math and science! Learn it or you're shit!" No one ever said that about art. Artists were on their own to make their own dreams on their own time. But the appetite for time was a hunger never sated by the world. More, always wanting more to feed the ghastly grills.

"Kiss a girl and no one will ever want you. Chicks dig cash, boy!" No one ever told him he was a doomed writer but a future he could never see. So he sold himself into slavery to get the cash cow king but in his slavery he found a life he could not share. He cried to the world, "I need love!" The world replied, "We need the rent!" And in this way God was cursed.

From dark, slimy pits oozed Suicide Slugs leaving a trail of sticky despair on the ground and whoever stepped in their trail was stuck like a fly on flypaper. No one ever killed the slugs or helped those who got stuck, it was merely said, "That's life." As the slugs crisscrossed the globe ruining ever more land life became a game of avoiding death rather than living life. A bad time for all, an even worse time for a gifted artist.

The Doomed Writer, having been given maximum insight, lashed out against the slugs, writing one day the planet would be uninhabitable if they were allowed to live. But this brought wrath and fury raining down upon him, his fellow cohabitants explaining, "We've always let the slugs live so saying that makes us look like assholes and losers! We're going to let the slugs live even more and show you how "write" we are! Hahahaha!"

Hey, wait a minute! No exit there!

Lost and confused like a rat in maze with no exit, the Doomed Writer limped broken and blind. "Are my words not true? Should I write lies for fun and profit? But I've been gifted/cursed to know there's no future in that. I should say a prayer. 'Dear God, fuck you too.'" But God was silent, leaving him in the hands of his fellow man for safekeeping.

A woman of fine bridal linens and ritualistic lipstick posed in front of the mirror to admire her society's perfection. She was pure lace and frills, shapely with human desire to make even a gay man's heart beat faster. In came a Neanderthal grabbing her hair and dragging her outside through the mud while reciting lines from Mad Men. The woman called out to her friends, "We're eloping after all!" Later on TV she complained all men are mindless apes who fearlessly drag women through dirty dirt. She called it a sign of true love.

War Beasts, spreading like blackhead pimples, roamed the land in ancient animosity with metal mallets. In metal they trusted and blinding polls declared them the most trusted of all the beastly beasts. Knowing this, the beasts took their mighty hammers, raising them up to ask, "Do you or don't you like war?" Those who answered no got the peace whacked out of them. Passers-by who witnessed the beatings snidely remarked, "Trust the hammer you idiot or we're all doomed!"

Men Of Vile Words were reviled across the land for their falseness, duping the duplicitous with promises of perfidy. "Why oh why!" cried out the good people, "did we ever elect you?" But the good people re-elected the Vile Word Men en masse or "the terrorists will win!" Then, while wearing "I'm a bad ass terrorist too!" T-shirts, the great whitewashed demanded songs of "lying lies to make us feel better!" Afterwards everyone merged for a massive groupthink hug - "Because God wants us to!" - all the while picking each other's pockets.

The Doomed Writer wrote day after day of the good madness he witnessed, shriveling like an unwatered orchid. At night at work/hell he sat naked in his mop bucket masturbating on the freshly laid carpet thinking of all the well heeled walkers who would trampled over it the next morning. In this way he smiled without pay. Then he put a mock gun against his head (you guess which one) and fired it until exhaustion. His eyes fluttered before seeping sleep. "I don't know what else to do. Why can't I ever make the right move? I must be doomed after all. I've got nothing left to do but love - which means I'm fucked!"

Two women of lengthy legs - traits of indisputable worth in their alleged minds - were disgusted by the sight of the naked janitor in the morning light. "Look at the sick bastard! I am so morally superior to him as far he knows!"

"He's a doomed writer," sneered her friend and unknown hater. "All those goddam artists are like spies reporting on everything we do. Let's call the police before everyone finds out we're not really outraged."

"Well, if that little prick bastard has been writing about what I've been doing I'll have his pinhead on a platter! Life," she swore, "is a state of blind."

_________________________________

Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads. And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. These are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they kept themselves pure. They follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They were purchased from among men and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb. No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless.

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