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Thursday, April 25, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Boomer Boy Running
Mowing lawns. Shoveling snow. Shoveling the walk. Shoveling out the car. Pushing the car. Running from dogs. Runny nose. Arms hurt. Nobody cares. Running from bullies. Nobody does anything about it. Painting the house. Why always me? Why don't I ever get a break? Afraid of heights. Ladder too high. Making them mad. Stung by wasps. Wasps and bumble bees and hornets live in the eaves. Nobody here. Where are they? Where is everybody?
Firing the furnace. Building the bucket-a-day fire. Hair on fire. Face in fireball. Fire hot and wet. I'm twelve. No more eyebrows. No more eyelashes. Making them mad. What about me? Nobody cares. Nobody does anything. Hollering and yelling. Running from it. Running from you. Running from them. Taking out the ashes. Can't lift it. Have to. Arms hurt. Legs hurt. Nobody cares. Too cold outside. Too far away.
Firing the furnace. Building the bucket-a-day fire. Hair on fire. Face in fireball. Fire hot and wet. I'm twelve. No more eyebrows. No more eyelashes. Making them mad. What about me? Nobody cares. Nobody does anything. Hollering and yelling. Running from it. Running from you. Running from them. Taking out the ashes. Can't lift it. Have to. Arms hurt. Legs hurt. Nobody cares. Too cold outside. Too far away.
Moving their lawn. Mowing our lawn. Trimming our hedge. Trimming their hedges Mowing their lawns. Digging the ditch. Dig it all summer. Every day that summer dig the ditch. No pay. He gives me a tape recorder. I'm thirteen or fourteen I think. I have three pus-filled conical-shaped mounds on my left thigh this summer that took two weeks to go away and the scars are still there. Who did this to me? Best friend and I make radio show. Nobody likes it but us. Arms hurt. Thirsty. Spading her garden. Spading dirt, lifting rocks. Nobody else does it. Fetching things from her pantry. Shoveling back coal. Painting their fence. Pulled by head into Jeep. Feet dragging. Going real fast up hill. Pulled inside. Mean, nasty boy driving. He stole it from his dad. We're twelve. He'll kill me. Where is everyone? The same devil boy put me in a head lock right in the middle of the street one day when I was ten. He tried to crack my skull with his powerful arms. He weighed twice as much as me and was a lot bigger. He wouldn't let me go until I felt something snap and then I screamed. Nobody stopped him. This is summer?
Watering their garden. Mowing their lawn. Shoveling their coal in. Shoveling our coal in. Shoveling their coal back. Taking out the ashes. Tarring their roof. Higher than our roof. I'm afraid. I'm going to fall. I'm fifteen or sixteen and I'm not allowed to come down. Have to finish job. I almost fell. Cry baby. Boys don't cry. Screaming is OK. Crying is not OK. I stopped crying when I was twelve because nobody up here can stand it. Putting back ladder. Hard to carry. Arms hurt. Getting their ladder out. Getting our ladder out. Digging his garden. It'll take a week. I get three dollars. I'm twelve I think. Arms hurt. Clay dirt. Takes two weeks. Still only three dollars. But it's money for work. Not at home. No pay there. Get a dime or fifteen cents for after school snack and that makes me happy, then a quarter or so later. But no allowance. Kids don't get paid up here. They just work. Summer is work. Running from BBs, running from pellets, running from dogs, peddling fast before dogs bite me, running from fireball, running from chains, running from pipe wrench, Running from death. I'm old enough to drive now. Where is everybody?
Cutting wood. Carrying wood. Chopping wood. Shoveling walks. Carrying. Unloading. Lifting. Watch TV there and it gets real small. Picture just a dot. I'm seven or eight and sink down into the big chair. There's nothing to me. I'm sick and skinny. I feel safer here. I wake up. Missed the show. Go home and eat. Can't finish supper. They make me. They watch TV and I sit at the kitchen table. My food is cold. I'm not hungry. I feel full all the time. I can't go to the bathroom right. Why do I have to eat when I feel full? Why are they mad at me because I don't feel good? When you are sick it doesn't make me mad. It makes me sad. Nobody cares. I'm afraid. I don't feel good. I must be what grownups call heartsick when they talk about themselves, which is all the time. When you're just a boy who never steals or swears and who never misses mass and who does all his chores every day, even when it hurts, it's better to be dead than heartsick, year after year. There is no God. I missed shows on TV because I wouldn't eat. Can't eat. Not won't eat. Putting up their Christmas lights outside again. They never do it now. I do it. Feel shock. Electricity hurts bad. Stupid boy. Christmas lights up the street and all across. It snows. I am happy. The church bell rings. I'm late for supper. Running home hard. Now they're mad. Can't eat again.
She wanted me to be an altar boy so I did it for ten years. Kneeling hurts my back. But you have to in this church. Sometimes forever. I'm seven. I get up at five am to serve mass at seven. Then I come home and drink tea and have a bite of butter toast and then I walk to school. The day has just started and I'm already tired. Nobody cares. Why can't I lay down and sleep? They don't like it but they don't do anything. I guess most parents don't do anything except make you listen. They're mad at her. She's mad at them. I'm caught in the middle and I thought I was a good boy. The Irish priests were friendly but they drink and smoke and swear like everybody else. But they're very friendly and courteous to everyone. They seem to like everybody and smile and laugh a lot.
The Slovak priests are mean and fussy about everything. The Slovak women are mannish old cronies who hate everything on earth, especially men and boys. The mean Slovak priests don't like anything or anybody and they don't care how that looks to others. Nobody seems to care about their behavior up here. But I do. The sisters sure like the girls and cater to them. But they don't like the boys at all, and they aren't mean to us, but they're not friendly to us at all. And they think that is OK. It's not OK. We put up the one Slovak priest's Christmas lights. He is friendly to us but spiteful to everybody during the sermons. He smokes a lot. But the other Slovak priest was always drinking and mean and hateful and they got rid of him.
How did Slovak people, and especially the women, get to be so mean? The women are oddly affected by other women, like they were men instead of women, and they think that's not strange and unsettling for children to see? They also relish misery and delight in unsavory things. They think telling a lie is the same as telling the truth and it makes them feel better than the truth does. It's sickening to witness this. These horrid women are not nice people. Unlike my kind, quiet, Slovak grandfather, who was the nicest man I ever knew. He made me feel good about being alive, like my other grandfather did. I wish I could have gone with my Slovak grandfather when he died. Especially since I was the one who found him dead. I couldn't bring him back to life, and I tried, but his heart finally quit. He is still a big part of my life. Each and every day.
Cardinals and popes dress and act like kings. Doesn't anyone notice that? Why should we kiss their rings? All priests drive big black cars that cost a lot. Some men get mad about that. I was an altar boy for ten long years. Life is not too short. It's too long. I did it for my grandmother. I'm seventeen now and I never go back to church. Not any church. Not ever. I never went back. Church is for people who won't do the work of living their own lives. That's our job and nobody else's. Priests can't relate to women and nuns can't relate to men. How does that makes them better than regular people? Something is wrong here.
I'm eight or nine and I sniff all the time because of my sinuses but no one cares. It makes them mad. And I feel weak and anemic and that's because I can't eat right or go to the bathroom right and that embarrasses them. We're playing outside and you hit me because you people think that's what I'm for. It breaks my heart. I'm sick and I want to die. Go ahead and beat me up. You only think that's what I'm for. They break up the fight and I get sent to bed at 7:30 on a beautiful summer evening for crying and you get to keep on playing in the beautiful summer sun. They're mad at me because I cried and fought back, screaming and crying, because of the utter horror and indignity of being alive around people like this. People who should love me instead of being mean to me because they like to do that. When I cried on my bed upstairs with a broken heartsick soul they hollered nasty mean things and threats up the stairs at me and then I cried in my pillow so they couldn't hear it. Screaming is OK. Crying is not. Is dying OK?
If there was a god he or she or it would have come and taken me away from all of you a long time ago. To a place where somebody loved me for who I was. Someplace where being mean and hating things is something you do by yourself. No one benefits from that. And I still take care of you. And you treat me worse than anybody has ever treated me simply because you can get away with it. All these years of living your life instead of mine and not once did you ever ask me how I was doing. "It's not in my nature," you told me. As if that could ever mean that ignoring how I feel is OK. It's not OK. You never apologized to anyone. Not ever. You shout at me all the time because you are mad at the world. Me, the one who takes care of you. And when I finally asked you to apologize to me for shouting at me and screaming lies about how I never listen to you (listening to you is, in fact, my entire life and has been for the past 18 years) you shake your head and say, "I will not." And I have to calmly accept that answer because I cannot leave because I have turned my life over to you so you would be cared for at home and not in an institution. And you think treating me like that is OK. It is not OK. The fact that you are mean and reckless with your hatred is not my fault. The fact that you do not like to speak the truth and that you lie recklessly to make yourself look untouchable and to hurt me, who has never lied to anyone — not ever — can no longer be forgiven. Not when forgiveness becomes enablement. You hate everyone and everything and it's not my fault. You treat me like dirt, like the enemy, and I still can't get away from you.
Who or what gave you permission to throw your own arthritic, broken-down, old 19-year-old cat out the dining room window by the scruff of his neck because "he doesn't listen to you" and makes a fool out of you when you think he wants out, while you wait and wait and wait. This is what cats do. They have an innate evil presence and that's why the Egyptians worshiped them and why most men don't like them. Why can't you figure this out and stop catering to him? Yes, I know he lands on pillows that are steps down to the patio and yes I know this is the "door" you two use when I'm upstairs or mowing the lawn but it's also because you want control of him. You also hate him because he's male. How in the world can you justify being "mad" at the both of us — and especially angry at me — when he wants me to leave him out instead of you. I never threw him out a window and you've done it more than once. And he's your cat, not mine. How dare you throw things around the kitchen like an irate baseball player and then pretend you can't lift the TV remote control when I enter the room or when a visitor is present, watching and pitying you so you can revel in your sick, twisted portrayal of a suffering woman? Why do you lie so much? Then you use two hands to life the remote control device and pretend to grunt and shake because you love a lie and you absolutely adore perverse attention.
This behavior is evil. You know what you're doing. Your perverse melodramas are not my fault or my doing and it's not your old age. You have always been like that. When I really have to stop and fall into a chair or onto a bench because my back has given out again, you will not look at me. You pretend I'm not there or you pretend to fight with the TV remote. "There's nothing on." "They're so dumb." (male weather forecasters). You never ask me if I'm OK because, "There's nothing I can do about it," you told me more than once. Like that's any kind of answer or any way to treat somebody who made sure you still had a home of your own and a house to grown old in and not some noisy room that smells like urine and disinfectant and that looks out onto a graveyard. But I'm not so sure I'd do this again for you.
I think I'm on another planet that resembles Earth but I know this is real. You love Ginger Rogers but we can't watch those fabulous old black-and-white musicals because you hate Fred Astaire. You hate all men who dance in the movies. You only like the women. I like the women, too. More than the men, believe me, but I don't hate Ginger Rogers and Vera Ellen and that fabulous Ann Miller (the best tap dancer of all time) because of their extraordinary talent, like you hate Fred Astaire and Donald O'Connor and Bobby Van. No wonder Slovak women love the seamy, dark side of life. That's where hatred resides. And this is nothing compared to the fact that children are nothing special to any of you. And I omitted the worst about the Balkan dark side. The things lesbian female relatives do to their own under age female and male relatives. While no one's looking. It's only touching, you think? Pre-school and elementary kids. The unspeakable. The unforgivable. That's right, it wasn't you with the touching. It was her. How was this ever allowed? No wonder she showered us with so many gifts. Death can only be welcome if it's permanent. Who would want to go to heaven and see those who allowed such things? If I saw this relative in the afterlife I would kill her before anyone could stop me. Not even the space bugs you people call God could stop me from doing that. On top of that, I wouldn't set foot in Slovenia or Slovakia or any other Balkan state for all the money in the world. And not Austria or Sweden, either. What makes them any different? There's something seriously wrong with you people. The freakiest, sickest things I ever knew about or witnessed, in real life, regarding sexual molestation of children were perpetrated by Slovak women and a Slovak priest (not mine). Not only do you scum bugs not deserve an afterlife, you didn't deserve the first one you misused. I wouldn't go to Slovenia or Slovakia to take a shit.
That's right. It's no way to live when living is all I have. And I am all used up. There is nothing left of me. Except this blog. I've got to have something that I can control, that belongs to me. It's called survival.
Pulling nails. Straightening nails. Where are they? Why me? Tied to roof. Hot on roof. I hate summer. I just want to sleep. Running from cars. Get out of my way kid. Running from bullies. Running from dogs. They point. They laugh. I'm really afraid. Can't cry. Can't fight. Don't want to fight. Don't like fighting. Don't like a fight. Little man. I'm not a man. I'm a boy. Arms too thin. Legs too skinny. Go to fancy doctor. What's anemia? Take pills. Eat more. Don't like to eat. Eating makes me have to go and I can't go right. Not since I was seven. Bullies in my bedroom. Arms twisted over my head backwards. They laugh when I scream. Say uncle you little... Arms hurt bad. I hear a snap. I hear more laughing. Nobody cares. Where are they? Nobody does anything. Running from another older bully. Another day. Another summer. He holds me by throat downstairs. Neck hurts. I'm off the floor. Nobody comes. He leaves. He gets away with it. Forever. I don't. I'm the sissy. I'm a cry baby. I made everybody mad. Except the grandmother who wanted me to be a priest. She made me feel safe and cared for and sometimes happy. Not like the other one who didn't like anything or anybody, including me. And not like home. Home is not a nice place. Home and school is where they teach you to be what they want you to be. Maybe some day I'll get to leave and go someplace where I'm not a boy who's sick and weak all the time and hated because of that.
A woman's thing is ugly and scary. I saw it when I was two. I couldn't get away. And, no, this wan't the babysitter. 60 years ago, I was sitting in that little duck rocking chair in "The Brick Row", the one with with the little handle hole on each side, getting my snow boots put on and THIS THING FROM THE BOTTOMLESS PIT OF THE COSMOS — with her panties rolled down and her legs open to expose herself TO ME and to scare me out of my 2-year-old wits said to me (and I quote — who could ever FORGET IT?), "Are you looking down there? she says and it's not a nice voice. She is smiling and I am scared. No, she was not the babysitter. You know who she was, do I need to spell it out for you? Man-hating "women's women" should not get married and have kids. I didn't know that then. I was two. But I know that now. Thats' right, this sick, selfish, twisted, dark-souled woman had no right to do that to me. What kind of woman is so sick and/or so desperate for attention or abominable, lascivious thrills that she would resort to that? Why are you showing me that? Close your legs. Ugly. Scary. Ugly. Hairy dark monster thing. This is a sick thing for you to do to me. I can't wait to see the clean white snow. Who put me here? I'm three now. Why do I have to look at your menstrual bath water and your menstrual pee in the commode? Can't you see that I'm scared and bewildered? Why don't you flush it before I use it? And who are these other strange women who seem to delight in destroying the innocence of children? I was a just a little boy. Why did the babysitter paint my fingernails pink when I was three? Made my nice grandmother mad at the baby sitter. She was getting out of a taxi cab and I showed her my nails but I didn't know why. She laughed and then reminded me that I was a boy not a girl and that made me feel good about being a boy and then ashamed about my pink fingernails but I didn't do it. She did it. The babysitter. My nice grandmother went into our house. That babysitter was never allowed back. I'm a boy, not a girl. I was three and I knew that. But today people are mad and mean and hollering and I feel bad. I don't feel safe anymore or around you or your evil, lesbian sibling who buys us presents so she can.... YOU GOT IT. WHO IN THE HELL PUT YOU IN MY LIFE? Who in the HELL told you that it's OK to molest the male and female underage and, in one case, the preschool children of your relatives? It's a good thing you DIED before I became a man or I would have made you disappear. And if I have to see YOU in the next life I'll kill you and the ALL the celestials who put you in my life. And THAT is a promise.
I am seven and a girl in class makes me laugh and that makes her laugh but it makes the teacher mad. She paddles us with a wooden paddle and I don't cry because I am used to being hurt. That's what a boy is for. But I cry for the girl because I like her and she is just a little girl. She lied about making a face at me and making me laugh. The teacher goes berserk and beats the girl again. That is allowed up here. That's what kids are for up here. The girl cries and cries as the pretty teacher's face turns red and ugly. You lied to me! she screams over and over again until she gets tired of hitting the girl's rear end. I wanted to tell the teacher to hit me again instead because that's what a boy is for but I knew that would have made her madder and that she would have taken it out on that girl. Still, her paddle was smaller than the one the teacher next year had, the one she hit boys with so hard they went flying across the room and even the tough ones cried. That's what boys were for and it didn't stop there.
I am four, maybe five, and I am up above the rooftops because I sat on one end of the the board and he jumped off a high place onto the other end. I looked down onto our roof and their roof and when I came down he didn't catch me like he said he would. I smelled beer as I passed through the hands that didn't grab me and then I hit the board real hard sitting down. Screaming is OK but not crying but I did both. And then I laid down on the big day bed inside and wondered why they had sent me here to this awful place. A place where grownups have fun when boys are sad or when they get hurt and scream. Screaming is OK but not crying. I couldn't run away because I couldn't walk right and there was no place to go anyway and they would just bring me back here. I am not an acrobat. I am a little boy. But nobody cares about that.
I sniff all the time. I can't help it. Something up my nose. Up in my head. My nose runs all the time. Why do you make fun of me when I sniff? I would never make fun of you because you don't feel good. I wish I could feel good. I feel awful. Have to lift weights when I turned twelve and could go to the bathroom OK for the first time in five years. Stupid sport, weightlifting. But it makes him proud. I get real strong in high school but I ruined my left elbow making him proud. I can press forty pounds more than my body weight over my head. So what? Now my back hurts all the time and my left elbow doesn't work right. It still doesn't. Now I can eat and go to the bathroom right but I'm still skinny. Everybody hates a skinny teenage boy up here. I know stuff. I ask questions. People hate me because I'm smart and athletic. Can't nap. Have to mow lawn. Why don't you mow the lawn? No, I don't say "let's us". I lisp because I'm always nervous and scared because I'm skinny and weak. It's not stupid. It's not a speech impediment. You hate me and you should love me. Two s's come out instead of one. Stop making fun of me. I don't do that to you. Why can't I just die and then you'll all be happy?
An orange disk pulls me up into its glowing white bottom as it comes down from the sky. I am seventeen and I and a friend are on our way to Senior Play practice. I am driving. We don't make it there because that few minutes was really an hour and a half. My parents' car is still parked along the road with my friend inside. He can't or won't talk. Now I'm afraid for him. The disk follows us to school and shows itself to everyone. Two teachers and a couple dozen kids at "play practice" watch it and they say the stupidest things. They think it's a power buildup on the power line but it's not anywhere near a power line. It's in the middle of the valley about a hundred feet off the ground. They still think it's a power line overload even after it came so close to us that it was as big as a football at three hundred yards or so. They're stupid and cowardly. It zoomed out of sight up the valley with a whistling sound. They all walked inside like zombies. Except for me. I still have the deep scars on both legs where nobody can see them unless you are looking for them. My legs haven't worked right ever since then. I was seventeen and they thought they owned me. Nobody owns people. Not even the gods, who don't exist anyway. When I sit they fall asleep.
She wanted me to be an altar boy so I did it for ten years. Kneeling hurts my back. But you have to in this church. Sometimes forever. I'm seven. I get up at five am to serve mass at seven. Then I come home and drink tea and have a bite of butter toast and then I walk to school. The day has just started and I'm already tired. Nobody cares. Why can't I lay down and sleep? They don't like it but they don't do anything. I guess most parents don't do anything except make you listen. They're mad at her. She's mad at them. I'm caught in the middle and I thought I was a good boy. The Irish priests were friendly but they drink and smoke and swear like everybody else. But they're very friendly and courteous to everyone. They seem to like everybody and smile and laugh a lot.
The Slovak priests are mean and fussy about everything. The Slovak women are mannish old cronies who hate everything on earth, especially men and boys. The mean Slovak priests don't like anything or anybody and they don't care how that looks to others. Nobody seems to care about their behavior up here. But I do. The sisters sure like the girls and cater to them. But they don't like the boys at all, and they aren't mean to us, but they're not friendly to us at all. And they think that is OK. It's not OK. We put up the one Slovak priest's Christmas lights. He is friendly to us but spiteful to everybody during the sermons. He smokes a lot. But the other Slovak priest was always drinking and mean and hateful and they got rid of him.
How did Slovak people, and especially the women, get to be so mean? The women are oddly affected by other women, like they were men instead of women, and they think that's not strange and unsettling for children to see? They also relish misery and delight in unsavory things. They think telling a lie is the same as telling the truth and it makes them feel better than the truth does. It's sickening to witness this. These horrid women are not nice people. Unlike my kind, quiet, Slovak grandfather, who was the nicest man I ever knew. He made me feel good about being alive, like my other grandfather did. I wish I could have gone with my Slovak grandfather when he died. Especially since I was the one who found him dead. I couldn't bring him back to life, and I tried, but his heart finally quit. He is still a big part of my life. Each and every day.
Cardinals and popes dress and act like kings. Doesn't anyone notice that? Why should we kiss their rings? All priests drive big black cars that cost a lot. Some men get mad about that. I was an altar boy for ten long years. Life is not too short. It's too long. I did it for my grandmother. I'm seventeen now and I never go back to church. Not any church. Not ever. I never went back. Church is for people who won't do the work of living their own lives. That's our job and nobody else's. Priests can't relate to women and nuns can't relate to men. How does that makes them better than regular people? Something is wrong here.
I'm eight or nine and I sniff all the time because of my sinuses but no one cares. It makes them mad. And I feel weak and anemic and that's because I can't eat right or go to the bathroom right and that embarrasses them. We're playing outside and you hit me because you people think that's what I'm for. It breaks my heart. I'm sick and I want to die. Go ahead and beat me up. You only think that's what I'm for. They break up the fight and I get sent to bed at 7:30 on a beautiful summer evening for crying and you get to keep on playing in the beautiful summer sun. They're mad at me because I cried and fought back, screaming and crying, because of the utter horror and indignity of being alive around people like this. People who should love me instead of being mean to me because they like to do that. When I cried on my bed upstairs with a broken heartsick soul they hollered nasty mean things and threats up the stairs at me and then I cried in my pillow so they couldn't hear it. Screaming is OK. Crying is not. Is dying OK?
If there was a god he or she or it would have come and taken me away from all of you a long time ago. To a place where somebody loved me for who I was. Someplace where being mean and hating things is something you do by yourself. No one benefits from that. And I still take care of you. And you treat me worse than anybody has ever treated me simply because you can get away with it. All these years of living your life instead of mine and not once did you ever ask me how I was doing. "It's not in my nature," you told me. As if that could ever mean that ignoring how I feel is OK. It's not OK. You never apologized to anyone. Not ever. You shout at me all the time because you are mad at the world. Me, the one who takes care of you. And when I finally asked you to apologize to me for shouting at me and screaming lies about how I never listen to you (listening to you is, in fact, my entire life and has been for the past 18 years) you shake your head and say, "I will not." And I have to calmly accept that answer because I cannot leave because I have turned my life over to you so you would be cared for at home and not in an institution. And you think treating me like that is OK. It is not OK. The fact that you are mean and reckless with your hatred is not my fault. The fact that you do not like to speak the truth and that you lie recklessly to make yourself look untouchable and to hurt me, who has never lied to anyone — not ever — can no longer be forgiven. Not when forgiveness becomes enablement. You hate everyone and everything and it's not my fault. You treat me like dirt, like the enemy, and I still can't get away from you.
Who or what gave you permission to throw your own arthritic, broken-down, old 19-year-old cat out the dining room window by the scruff of his neck because "he doesn't listen to you" and makes a fool out of you when you think he wants out, while you wait and wait and wait. This is what cats do. They have an innate evil presence and that's why the Egyptians worshiped them and why most men don't like them. Why can't you figure this out and stop catering to him? Yes, I know he lands on pillows that are steps down to the patio and yes I know this is the "door" you two use when I'm upstairs or mowing the lawn but it's also because you want control of him. You also hate him because he's male. How in the world can you justify being "mad" at the both of us — and especially angry at me — when he wants me to leave him out instead of you. I never threw him out a window and you've done it more than once. And he's your cat, not mine. How dare you throw things around the kitchen like an irate baseball player and then pretend you can't lift the TV remote control when I enter the room or when a visitor is present, watching and pitying you so you can revel in your sick, twisted portrayal of a suffering woman? Why do you lie so much? Then you use two hands to life the remote control device and pretend to grunt and shake because you love a lie and you absolutely adore perverse attention.
This behavior is evil. You know what you're doing. Your perverse melodramas are not my fault or my doing and it's not your old age. You have always been like that. When I really have to stop and fall into a chair or onto a bench because my back has given out again, you will not look at me. You pretend I'm not there or you pretend to fight with the TV remote. "There's nothing on." "They're so dumb." (male weather forecasters). You never ask me if I'm OK because, "There's nothing I can do about it," you told me more than once. Like that's any kind of answer or any way to treat somebody who made sure you still had a home of your own and a house to grown old in and not some noisy room that smells like urine and disinfectant and that looks out onto a graveyard. But I'm not so sure I'd do this again for you.
I think I'm on another planet that resembles Earth but I know this is real. You love Ginger Rogers but we can't watch those fabulous old black-and-white musicals because you hate Fred Astaire. You hate all men who dance in the movies. You only like the women. I like the women, too. More than the men, believe me, but I don't hate Ginger Rogers and Vera Ellen and that fabulous Ann Miller (the best tap dancer of all time) because of their extraordinary talent, like you hate Fred Astaire and Donald O'Connor and Bobby Van. No wonder Slovak women love the seamy, dark side of life. That's where hatred resides. And this is nothing compared to the fact that children are nothing special to any of you. And I omitted the worst about the Balkan dark side. The things lesbian female relatives do to their own under age female and male relatives. While no one's looking. It's only touching, you think? Pre-school and elementary kids. The unspeakable. The unforgivable. That's right, it wasn't you with the touching. It was her. How was this ever allowed? No wonder she showered us with so many gifts. Death can only be welcome if it's permanent. Who would want to go to heaven and see those who allowed such things? If I saw this relative in the afterlife I would kill her before anyone could stop me. Not even the space bugs you people call God could stop me from doing that. On top of that, I wouldn't set foot in Slovenia or Slovakia or any other Balkan state for all the money in the world. And not Austria or Sweden, either. What makes them any different? There's something seriously wrong with you people. The freakiest, sickest things I ever knew about or witnessed, in real life, regarding sexual molestation of children were perpetrated by Slovak women and a Slovak priest (not mine). Not only do you scum bugs not deserve an afterlife, you didn't deserve the first one you misused. I wouldn't go to Slovenia or Slovakia to take a shit.
That's right. It's no way to live when living is all I have. And I am all used up. There is nothing left of me. Except this blog. I've got to have something that I can control, that belongs to me. It's called survival.
Pulling nails. Straightening nails. Where are they? Why me? Tied to roof. Hot on roof. I hate summer. I just want to sleep. Running from cars. Get out of my way kid. Running from bullies. Running from dogs. They point. They laugh. I'm really afraid. Can't cry. Can't fight. Don't want to fight. Don't like fighting. Don't like a fight. Little man. I'm not a man. I'm a boy. Arms too thin. Legs too skinny. Go to fancy doctor. What's anemia? Take pills. Eat more. Don't like to eat. Eating makes me have to go and I can't go right. Not since I was seven. Bullies in my bedroom. Arms twisted over my head backwards. They laugh when I scream. Say uncle you little... Arms hurt bad. I hear a snap. I hear more laughing. Nobody cares. Where are they? Nobody does anything. Running from another older bully. Another day. Another summer. He holds me by throat downstairs. Neck hurts. I'm off the floor. Nobody comes. He leaves. He gets away with it. Forever. I don't. I'm the sissy. I'm a cry baby. I made everybody mad. Except the grandmother who wanted me to be a priest. She made me feel safe and cared for and sometimes happy. Not like the other one who didn't like anything or anybody, including me. And not like home. Home is not a nice place. Home and school is where they teach you to be what they want you to be. Maybe some day I'll get to leave and go someplace where I'm not a boy who's sick and weak all the time and hated because of that.
A woman's thing is ugly and scary. I saw it when I was two. I couldn't get away. And, no, this wan't the babysitter. 60 years ago, I was sitting in that little duck rocking chair in "The Brick Row", the one with with the little handle hole on each side, getting my snow boots put on and THIS THING FROM THE BOTTOMLESS PIT OF THE COSMOS — with her panties rolled down and her legs open to expose herself TO ME and to scare me out of my 2-year-old wits said to me (and I quote — who could ever FORGET IT?), "Are you looking down there? she says and it's not a nice voice. She is smiling and I am scared. No, she was not the babysitter. You know who she was, do I need to spell it out for you? Man-hating "women's women" should not get married and have kids. I didn't know that then. I was two. But I know that now. Thats' right, this sick, selfish, twisted, dark-souled woman had no right to do that to me. What kind of woman is so sick and/or so desperate for attention or abominable, lascivious thrills that she would resort to that? Why are you showing me that? Close your legs. Ugly. Scary. Ugly. Hairy dark monster thing. This is a sick thing for you to do to me. I can't wait to see the clean white snow. Who put me here? I'm three now. Why do I have to look at your menstrual bath water and your menstrual pee in the commode? Can't you see that I'm scared and bewildered? Why don't you flush it before I use it? And who are these other strange women who seem to delight in destroying the innocence of children? I was a just a little boy. Why did the babysitter paint my fingernails pink when I was three? Made my nice grandmother mad at the baby sitter. She was getting out of a taxi cab and I showed her my nails but I didn't know why. She laughed and then reminded me that I was a boy not a girl and that made me feel good about being a boy and then ashamed about my pink fingernails but I didn't do it. She did it. The babysitter. My nice grandmother went into our house. That babysitter was never allowed back. I'm a boy, not a girl. I was three and I knew that. But today people are mad and mean and hollering and I feel bad. I don't feel safe anymore or around you or your evil, lesbian sibling who buys us presents so she can.... YOU GOT IT. WHO IN THE HELL PUT YOU IN MY LIFE? Who in the HELL told you that it's OK to molest the male and female underage and, in one case, the preschool children of your relatives? It's a good thing you DIED before I became a man or I would have made you disappear. And if I have to see YOU in the next life I'll kill you and the ALL the celestials who put you in my life. And THAT is a promise.
I am seven and a girl in class makes me laugh and that makes her laugh but it makes the teacher mad. She paddles us with a wooden paddle and I don't cry because I am used to being hurt. That's what a boy is for. But I cry for the girl because I like her and she is just a little girl. She lied about making a face at me and making me laugh. The teacher goes berserk and beats the girl again. That is allowed up here. That's what kids are for up here. The girl cries and cries as the pretty teacher's face turns red and ugly. You lied to me! she screams over and over again until she gets tired of hitting the girl's rear end. I wanted to tell the teacher to hit me again instead because that's what a boy is for but I knew that would have made her madder and that she would have taken it out on that girl. Still, her paddle was smaller than the one the teacher next year had, the one she hit boys with so hard they went flying across the room and even the tough ones cried. That's what boys were for and it didn't stop there.
I am four, maybe five, and I am up above the rooftops because I sat on one end of the the board and he jumped off a high place onto the other end. I looked down onto our roof and their roof and when I came down he didn't catch me like he said he would. I smelled beer as I passed through the hands that didn't grab me and then I hit the board real hard sitting down. Screaming is OK but not crying but I did both. And then I laid down on the big day bed inside and wondered why they had sent me here to this awful place. A place where grownups have fun when boys are sad or when they get hurt and scream. Screaming is OK but not crying. I couldn't run away because I couldn't walk right and there was no place to go anyway and they would just bring me back here. I am not an acrobat. I am a little boy. But nobody cares about that.
I sniff all the time. I can't help it. Something up my nose. Up in my head. My nose runs all the time. Why do you make fun of me when I sniff? I would never make fun of you because you don't feel good. I wish I could feel good. I feel awful. Have to lift weights when I turned twelve and could go to the bathroom OK for the first time in five years. Stupid sport, weightlifting. But it makes him proud. I get real strong in high school but I ruined my left elbow making him proud. I can press forty pounds more than my body weight over my head. So what? Now my back hurts all the time and my left elbow doesn't work right. It still doesn't. Now I can eat and go to the bathroom right but I'm still skinny. Everybody hates a skinny teenage boy up here. I know stuff. I ask questions. People hate me because I'm smart and athletic. Can't nap. Have to mow lawn. Why don't you mow the lawn? No, I don't say "let's us". I lisp because I'm always nervous and scared because I'm skinny and weak. It's not stupid. It's not a speech impediment. You hate me and you should love me. Two s's come out instead of one. Stop making fun of me. I don't do that to you. Why can't I just die and then you'll all be happy?
An orange disk pulls me up into its glowing white bottom as it comes down from the sky. I am seventeen and I and a friend are on our way to Senior Play practice. I am driving. We don't make it there because that few minutes was really an hour and a half. My parents' car is still parked along the road with my friend inside. He can't or won't talk. Now I'm afraid for him. The disk follows us to school and shows itself to everyone. Two teachers and a couple dozen kids at "play practice" watch it and they say the stupidest things. They think it's a power buildup on the power line but it's not anywhere near a power line. It's in the middle of the valley about a hundred feet off the ground. They still think it's a power line overload even after it came so close to us that it was as big as a football at three hundred yards or so. They're stupid and cowardly. It zoomed out of sight up the valley with a whistling sound. They all walked inside like zombies. Except for me. I still have the deep scars on both legs where nobody can see them unless you are looking for them. My legs haven't worked right ever since then. I was seventeen and they thought they owned me. Nobody owns people. Not even the gods, who don't exist anyway. When I sit they fall asleep.
Running from dogs. So many dogs. Mean people hollering at me. Sidewalk not safe. Riding new birthday present, a second-hand, 24-inch boy's bike. Age nine again. Running from dog. Slapped in the face. Big, nasty kid hates me. Riding bike the other way. Wake up on couch. Don't remember. Head hurts real bad. Go to doctor. Go to movies. I'm nine today. Throwing up in movie theater. Everything spinning. My birthday today. My bike. I like my bike. Can't remember. Can't go to bathroom right. Can't go to bathroom right for five years. Five years is forever when you're a scared boy who can't poop right. Why can't I have a door on my bedroom like everybody else? Why don't you shut your bedroom door when you change clothes. When you close it part way and I have to ask you something, don't you realize you were naked from the waist up because I saw you in your mirror and you wonder why I scurried downstairs. Why are there so many lesbians in this town? YOU PEOPLE ARE FREAKS. Running from bullies. Running from cars. Running from German Americans, running from Irish Americans, running from Scottish Americans, running from Slovak Americans Running from the meanest people in America. Running from them. Running from everybody. Running from you. Running from all of you.
Editor's Note 5-5-14: So, you lurking, cowardly snoops, how did you like that? Did that amuse you? Did that titillate your senses? That's right, this is not an excerpt from any book. This is an accurate, true, genuine recollection of a real boy's real Appalachian life. Unfortunately. Ever day of my life I've wondered what it would be like to not have to face another day. For me, the best thing about life is that one day it will end. After 12 years, 9 books, 10 blogs with nearly 1400 posts and 162 videos, I've had to come to conclusion that the human race on Earth is not worth saving.
Editor's Note 5-5-14: So, you lurking, cowardly snoops, how did you like that? Did that amuse you? Did that titillate your senses? That's right, this is not an excerpt from any book. This is an accurate, true, genuine recollection of a real boy's real Appalachian life. Unfortunately. Ever day of my life I've wondered what it would be like to not have to face another day. For me, the best thing about life is that one day it will end. After 12 years, 9 books, 10 blogs with nearly 1400 posts and 162 videos, I've had to come to conclusion that the human race on Earth is not worth saving.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Christmas Future
I don't spend too much time on wishful thinking anymore. I'm usually too busy trying to make it through another day to worry about some day in the distant future. But, once in a while, I sit down someplace with a fresh cup of coffee and think about next Christmas. It never hurts to look forward to something, as long as you let it be what it is whenever it gets here.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Boston Marathon Bombing: Hate Crime Is Terrorism
No one ever lives so long that they've seen and heard it all. But I wish I had. I'm already so "sick and tired" of blogging that I swore the other day that I'd rather go fishing in the pouring rain than post another word. But I have to speak out, once again, against the hateful violence that has the entire world in its deadly grip.
Violence against America and the killing of innocent Americans in their own homeland is not only terrorism, it's an act of war. I just hope that our "fearless" leaders have a secret plan to implement for these "new rules of engagement" because their public posture sure suggests to us and to the rest of the world that attacking America with bombs at the finish line of one of our most famous and cherished sporting events is just another crime.
It's time to take the gloves off and go to war. We didn't start it but we need to finish it. Once and for all.
Author's Note 4-16-13: When I wrote this blog post and linked it to the BBC story, President Obama had not yet used the word "terrorism". The BBC, like me, wasn't sure if this was caution or a refusal to take immediate, strong action. Like the New York Times online stories, BBC News stories "morph" into different stories than what they were originally, often without any mention that new information was now available. Well, this is my last link to any news story about world events. When they change, my posts suddenly look out-of-date and out-of-touch when they originally weren't. But that's just planet Earth at work and earthling business-as-usual. Hiding the lies (and the truth) behind the masks.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Little Green Man from Mars is NOT "Out of Print"
Two days ago I mentioned in my "Dear Diary" post that if you don't keep reminding people that you're still alive and that your books are still in print, the public will forget you. Here's a very disturbing case-in-point.
The paperback version of my sixth science fiction novel, Little Green Man from Mars, disappeared again from Amazon.com. Two days ago, in fact. The same day I wrote the "Dear Diary" post. Right afterward. Um hum, you got it. Spooky as hell and not one bit amusing and not one bit "normal". The Kindle ebook is still available but not the paperback. This latest paperback edition has been for sale at Amazon since October 2012 and now it's gone missing again. I repeat. Again.
The paperback version of my sixth science fiction novel, Little Green Man from Mars, disappeared again from Amazon.com. Two days ago, in fact. The same day I wrote the "Dear Diary" post. Right afterward. Um hum, you got it. Spooky as hell and not one bit amusing and not one bit "normal". The Kindle ebook is still available but not the paperback. This latest paperback edition has been for sale at Amazon since October 2012 and now it's gone missing again. I repeat. Again.
When will this sick, twisted, malicious game with this novel ever end? When I questioned Amazon about this, they gave me the usual , "it's not us, it's your publisher" routine. When I questioned my publisher, I got the usual "we'll get back to you" routine. When they finally do get back to me (and it'll take them forever) I'll get the usual "it's not us, it's Amazon" routine. OK, people, enough is enough.
You don't get to dick with me anymore because I'm no longer available to be dicked with just because a bunch of creepy pussies and chickenshit cowards are afraid to read (or sell) some of my best fiction. Hard science fiction that reads like mainstream and containing some fine, new concepts about life and the universe that'll give this jaded world the "kick in the head" it so desperately needs.
So, the hell with Amazon. And, if Lulu's part of a big lie, they'd better come clean. You know, there's more to the book world than what Amazon.com tries to feed you. Unless you're among the dark-souled dimwits who just die to be spoon fed more vampire crap. If you're smart you'll ignore the filth Amazon tries to peddle and it bothers me immensely that any "Adult Romances" or "adult fiction" of any kind share the same pages with my books at Amazon. If my books were rated for movies or television, they'd be rated somewhere between PG-13 and TV-14 and nothing more "adult" than that. Amazon.com has very few scruples when it comes to selling stuff. But I do. That's why I'm telling you how it is with my books.
So, the hell with Amazon. And, if Lulu's part of a big lie, they'd better come clean. You know, there's more to the book world than what Amazon.com tries to feed you. Unless you're among the dark-souled dimwits who just die to be spoon fed more vampire crap. If you're smart you'll ignore the filth Amazon tries to peddle and it bothers me immensely that any "Adult Romances" or "adult fiction" of any kind share the same pages with my books at Amazon. If my books were rated for movies or television, they'd be rated somewhere between PG-13 and TV-14 and nothing more "adult" than that. Amazon.com has very few scruples when it comes to selling stuff. But I do. That's why I'm telling you how it is with my books.
That's right. You can still get Little Green Man from Mars in paperback from Lulu.com and my guess is that you always will. And, hey, guess what? It's a lot cheaper at Lulu and I still make a little money off it, more money from Lulu, in fact, than I do at Amazon on paperbacks. And they're cheaper at Lulu.com! You got the concept. Buy my paperbacks from Lulu and everybody wins. Everybody except Amazon. But, so what, huh?
Post Update 4-9-13: Today, April 9, 2013, I noticed that the latest paperback edition Little Green Man from Mars is back at Amazon.com. I don't trust Amazon or Lulu at all anymore. Let's see how long it takes for this book or any other work of fiction by Michael Casher or Jonco Bugos to suddenly disappear, like they were never there. I know who you people are and what you're up to and who you work for. Nothing ever changes on planet Earth because earthlings love to lie and they're absolutely terrified of the truth. And most of you are as hostile as animals toward anything and anyone different, despite all your deceptive posturing about diversity. If you read something that isn't in line with your beliefs you hate it and you hate the author as well. But most of you love the dark side of life for its "decadently delicious" sensual titillation. It's enough to make me want to withdraw from the human race. Why don't you try the enlightened side of life for a change before you die? You just might wake up. Or grow up. What a shame. This world could have been as close to paradise as any of us will ever get. Too bad nobody but me and, hopefully, a few others, gave a damn. One thing for sure, once I get off this planet, I wouldn't come back here to take a shit.
Post Update 4-9-13: Today, April 9, 2013, I noticed that the latest paperback edition Little Green Man from Mars is back at Amazon.com. I don't trust Amazon or Lulu at all anymore. Let's see how long it takes for this book or any other work of fiction by Michael Casher or Jonco Bugos to suddenly disappear, like they were never there. I know who you people are and what you're up to and who you work for. Nothing ever changes on planet Earth because earthlings love to lie and they're absolutely terrified of the truth. And most of you are as hostile as animals toward anything and anyone different, despite all your deceptive posturing about diversity. If you read something that isn't in line with your beliefs you hate it and you hate the author as well. But most of you love the dark side of life for its "decadently delicious" sensual titillation. It's enough to make me want to withdraw from the human race. Why don't you try the enlightened side of life for a change before you die? You just might wake up. Or grow up. What a shame. This world could have been as close to paradise as any of us will ever get. Too bad nobody but me and, hopefully, a few others, gave a damn. One thing for sure, once I get off this planet, I wouldn't come back here to take a shit.
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