Posted Goal

Watching Pasco High’s final quarter rollover to Land O’ Lakes this evening, was reminded of my own halcyon days at the old alma mater some twenty-two years, forty pounds and hundred fifty thousand cigarettes ago.
I was young - lean and hungry - probably in about the best shape of a largely lethargic life. If pep club membership required anything, it was strong lungs and plumbing.
Then as now, Beer was King. It scarcely mattered what we did when we met up after school so long as there was a possibility of scoring Beer.
---
The monotone wench on the Sylvania derails my train of thought. The ten thousand-member population of Cameron, Louisiana, is expected to find their community sacrificed to Hurricane Rita in only a couple more hours. I sit perched behind the laptop on the second floor balcony of an old woodframe whorehouse, safely awaiting the inevitable destruction of a spot on the map that my son, his mom and I had only motored through last New Year’s Eve. What of those staying in motels tonight, a few choice possessions loaded in the Camry, realizing that his whole life has been abandoned, defenseless as a bowling pin.
With any luck, maybe I’ll see Frisco before she crumbles.
---
Cool. M*A*S*H is on. We now return to our regular scheduled programming.
---

I have a nephew, sixteen. Offensive tackle, cute girlfriend, a gleaming old Ford pickup. I was always jealous of guys like him.
He’s taking some kind of advanced placement government course for college credit, and I’ve lately enjoyed the opportunity of introducing him to certain leftist philosophies and critical opinions. It’s great to watch his mind at work. I wish someone had gotten to the mayor like that.
Sure, I could count longtime friends among band geeks, math freaks, future business leaders and farmers alike, but my preferred crowd proved an odd amalgam of asthmatic soccer players, black cowboys, preachers’ children and seemingly all manner of misfitting transplants.
Dave - an amicable stoner a year older than I with a penchant for Aerosmith– gave me a call one Sunday following a particularly embarrassing flogging of the Pirates at the hands of a long-standing rival. As recourse, he suggested that we assemble an effigy of our high school principal and hang it from the rafters beneath W.F. Edwards Stadium, Pasco’s home turf, in a clandestine fashion.
Everyone would blame the conquering enemy, of course, while the two of us alone would enjoy the opportunity, knowledge and wanton satisfaction of defiling a crude likeness of one universally detested authority figure.
We drove to a bilingual Lock Street institution and procured our precious Beer, climbing the chain link gate and hoisting a sweaty six pack apiece to the roof of the box office among assorted tools, dummy and weaponry. Loading myself proportionately, I slowly and rather fearfully followed my leader across one of the narrow beams some twenty feet above the stadium’s floor to the neighboring roof of a restroom building that occupied its center.
Dave deftly attached a large piece of limestone procured from the parking area to a length of sturdy cord and fired a perfect shot over the concrete girder above. Our excitement over his impeccable arm was shattered by a trebly crunch. The stone had become detached it seemed, and located Dave’s Chevrolet’s windshield.
He shrugged and handed me the cord, tying off one end once I’d reached the proper height. Say what you will about his character, Dave was a good-natured and resourceful degenerate.
We cracked a couple fresh Mickeys and stepped back to survey our Art: an arrow-, knife- and dart-riddled scarecrow grimly surveying the parking lot and campus beyond, a ratty piece of spiral notebook paper safety-pinned to his breast button and emblazoned in lipstick with a scrawled approximation of a certain administrator’s surname.
I sometimes wonder what my nephew’s up to these early autumn midnights.
We’d hardly time to gloat before a pair of headlights topped the hill. We hit the gravel and lay still. Maybe it was another couple crazy teenagers. The static of a cheap speaker put all doubts to rest. That was a police scanner. This was a deputy.
I slowly cocked my head to look at Dave. He laid his right cheek to the roof and finished his Beer, wasting none of it. I smiled at him and righted my head. Surely we were special, we two.
A blinding beam suddenly emerged from below to dance frantically upon the girders and seats overhead. I strained to see our beloved scarecrow, but didn’t dare move an inch. It appeared we were going to jail.
Again with the radio.
I almost pissed myself. The cop was saying something unintelligible, after which the speaker squawked an alien reply. Calling in Dave’s plates, I supposed. This could get ugly real fast. Where was God when we needed Him?
The light went dim, box office gate all a-rattle, our once-imposing officer reduced to standard rent-a-cop clichés.
I looked at Dave, hoping he’d mirror my pantomimed expression of relief. Instead I turned to find him grinning wildly, gently fondling a second stone and shooting me a wink.
No, I prayed. Not that.
Fun was fun, Lord, but this fucker was crazy.
There was a pronounced sense of finality to the sound of the door as it closed. I held my breath, praying again. When one prays with a certain degree of intensity, it is not uncommon to find that the actual content of the prayer tends to escape one’s memory. Suffice to say Dave dropped his rock.
The closer one gets to conversations with God, the harder those are to transcribe.

Kat Gut

It's been a while since I've had the stomach to write anything.
Battling a severe sinus infection since August 29 (102-degree fever, matted eyes, aching ears, phlegmy cough, profuse vomiting), I'd taken my kindly physician's learned advice and, instead of resorting to antibiotics right off the bat, opted to let my body try and do all the fighting on its own.
What wouldn't kill me would only make stronger, he insisted.
My doctor's an idiot.
After taking off early Friday afternoon and suffering through a long Labor Day weekend amid tissues and jello on the couch, I took the day off yesterday to pay another visit to the quack.
This time he agreed to cave in and give me some pharmeceuticals. Levaquin, I think. And some eye drops.
It was only upon deciding to sit back down to the keyboard this evening that I realized that my illness seemed to coincide somewhat with the terrible suffering of thousands in New Orleans and the greater Gulf Coast.
As my spirits begin to lift a bit, it's my hope that my delta kin are finally breathing a little easier tonight as well.
Too many spirits ain't never coming back.

No Reservations

Just finished watching my second episode of No Reservations, a relatively new program airing Mondays at 10 on the Travel Channel.
I wasn't fond of the promos, wherein a certain smug, unshaven, earringed and slightly greasey urbanite steamrolls a small mountain of chintzy souvenirs. Even if I didn't have a six-year-old (whom I frequently torture with programs like those appearing on the Travel Channel) to protect, there's still enough creampuff in this fat, balding cynic to ensure that the wanton destruction of inflatable sharks, carnival teddies and other vacation baubles will make his tummy squirm.
After an hour or so in the company of host Anthony Bourdain, however, I found myself liking the jerk. He's bright, foul-mouthed, a glutton for good food and drink. Though often a bit of a smart-ass, he also comes across as charming and self-deprecating, the kind of a guy who buys you a drink but somehow gets pissy about it.
The biggest draw for me, however, is the concept of visiting from out of town without succumbing to the tourist route. I've shared this philosophy all my life, and have the bad back and ex-wives to prove it.
A prime example was my trip to the Keys in August of '88.
Glenda (wife number one) and I had gotten as far as Bahia Honda when we opted to camp in the national park. Kay West was only a half-hour's drive or so. We had a tent. It was cheap.
Trouble was, tent-camping in August in the Keys is one of the world's biggest mistakes. Come sunup, you either climb out immediately and look for refreshment or begin to braise in your sleep. We vacated the place and headed south, stopping for a danish before hitting the bars. Come dinner time, we decided to fire up the hibachi right there on Duval, grilling drumsticks, drinking Red Stripes and chilling to Ziggy Marley.
An effiminate, middle-aged man and his dog happened by, both wearing matching bandanas. Ever the gregarious wench, Glenda invited the jolly poofter to share in our bounty. He declined, though my offer of a beer was accepted with relish.
"What's his sign," the pixie asked my bride.
I began to get a little perturbed, but on second thought felt quite relieved that he hadn't asked me directly.
"Pisces," she answered.
"Pisces," he mused, finding my eye.
"Uh-huh," she giggled, obviously revelling in my latent homophobia. "Why? What's that mean?"
"He will wear his heart on his shoulder sleeve."
"Ah-hah," Glenda nodded slowly, feigning comprehension, a bemused smirk frozen on her fuzzy, lipless mouth.
Her replacement rarely showed much shoulder, either.

Luck of the Drill

Hanging blinds this afternoon, was reminded of just how mechanically inept I’ve always been.
It’s a shame, really. I like the idea of building things. My granddad, pap and brother, though a tad clumsy, could and can claim at least some degree of motor coordination. Drawing doesn’t count. Everything’s in slow motion.
Anyway, I was attempting to fasten a cubic retainer to the top of the window frame whilst juggling screw and rechargeable drill, picturing my doughy personage crashing through the new pane, splintering shin twisting the spigot and wasting water.
In the old condemned Third Street residence, I once endeavored to install an FM antenna procured for me by my late former father-in-law from the eave of a shuttered business next door.
But how to run the coax through the cinderblock wall? I borrowed Papa’s drill, crawled under the desk in my Study and began to bore. About two inches in I realized that the block I was drilling through had been filled with concrete and that my bit would go just past halfway.
All of 26 at the time, I naively opted to measure the distance from the outer edge of the door frame leading to the deck to the spot I’d dug in the wall. Following the strip of mortar three blocks from the floor, I measured upward to complete the other axis.
Lighting a smoke and stepping outside, I measured both ways to locate an adjacent point behind the azaleas and went to burrowing once more. About another two inches in and I began to realize what a hopeless farce I’d created. With a three-quarter-inch bit, if I was off just a fraction I’d be screwed.
What was I doing making holes in the wall? We’d not even been there a year. I’d have to buy some caulk or putty or something and patch everything up and repaint over that. The partial can in the storage shed had been thrown out weeks ago.
I finally reached the end of my chuck, Papa’s brand-new bit a chalky white and dull as a paper knife.
I put down the drill and peeked inside. I could just make out the BTO logo on an old album cover.
I said a little prayer of thanks that night, settling down to retool my presets.

Storm & Drink

With Hurricane Katrina slamming Miami, I'm reminded of a late summer evening almost twenty years ago when another powerful monsoon threatened the Bay Area with high winds and localized flooding.
My best pal, then most often referred to simply as The Doctor, suggested we ride out the storm on the wraparound porch of a recently-vacated woodframe.
Purchasing a pair of cheap twelvers from the last open Circle K for miles and feeding the boombox fresh D-cells, we proceeded to trespass and settle ourselves on the floor at the westerly end.
We tuned to the local AM news and followed the storm's progression as the slightly more sane might an SEC championship, growing ever drunker and giddier as the winds picked up and howled. The announcer was warning of storm surge, mandatory evacuations and power outages. Our biggest worry was that our dope might get wet.
Sure enough, the surrounding homes and street lights soon went very dark indeed, sheets of horizontal rain forcing our little party ever nearer the wall at our backs.
For the first time in a long while I had begun to become truly frightened. What were the folks doing right now? Where was my cat? Why hadn't we gotten more ice?
I don't remember a whole lot after that. My stomach went sour, the storm passed, we packed up our shit and went home.
Sure, I was thankful we both didn't die. But one day I feel we just might.

Switch in Time

I have a diver's watch of which I'm rather fond.
I use its little ratchet wheel quite frequently at work, timing my smoke and lunch breaks and the occasional mid-morning poo.
When I noticed the outer ring had fallen to the floor a couple days ago, I found it a little upsetting. The feeling soon passed as I leaned out to reach it and pissed down the back of my pants.
That afternoon I took the watch to Wal-Mart. The bangle frau explained that because mine was a water-resistant chronometer, Wal-Mart could not guarantee the battery's seal and was thereby serving official notice that should I decide to replace said battery and thereafter expose my diver's watch to moisture, Wal-Mart would not be held liable for its repair or replacement. In conspiratorial tones she finally suggested I visit a real jewelry store.
I had been to the real jewelry store. The real jewelry store wanted eight bucks for the battery alone, five more to re-attch the little segmented piece.
Thanking the crone, I turned to leave her department when I noticed a display of plasticine boxes, each containing a timepiece.
Three bucks.
I chose a shiny silver pocket model and gladly paid the lady in cash, plus my seven percent to Uncle Sam.
The diver's watch sits in a little puzzle box beside the TV on my dresser.
I hope my wrist doesn't peel.