The Pharisees (An Essay)

The Pharisees

by

Varo Borja

In this essay I will attempt, in as brief a manner as possible, to define what a Pharisee was, how they came about, and the impact, or legacy they left from the time of Christ until today.

The word “Pharisee” comes from the Hebrew word, Chasidim or “pious ones”. The Pharisees, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, came into being somewhere in the middle of the 3^rd century B.C., or right around the time of the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus Epihphanes. Being born in revolt, the Pharisees were no strangers to a type of militaristic doctrine. The Pharisees, as apart from the chief priests, were stringent upholders of the law, written or oral. Many of their “laws” were codified in the Book of Jubilees; an apocryphal book of the Hebrew Bible. During the Seleucid implementation of the pagan rites in the sacred Temple in Jerusalem, the Pharisees were some of the most outspoken opponents to this policy. Antiochus Epiphanes, the Seleucid monarch, had tried to implement a violent process of Hellenization in the region of Judaea. He was supported by the Sadducees (the temple cult that welcomed everything Hellenistic, including philosophy and the building of gymnasia), but resisted bitterly by the Pharisees. Some Pharisees even suffered martyrdom for their convictions. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, some Pharisees were so devout that they let themselves be slaughtered on the Sabbath rather than lift a finger to defend themselves (any type of physical activity was expressly forbidden on the Sabbath).

Christ’s dealings with the Pharisees in the early 1^st century A.D. angered this sect to no end and was one of the direct causes of His death. In a quote from the Gospel of Matthew, Christ said "The scribes and the Pharisees have sitten in the chair of Moses. All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not; for they say and do not. For they bind heavy and insupportable burdens, and lay them on men's shoulders; but with a finger of their own they will not move them. And all their works they do for to be seen of men. For they make their phylacteries broad, and enlarge their fringes. And they love the first places at feasts, and the first chairs in the synagogues. And salutations in the market place, and to be called by men, Rabbi" (Matt., xxiii, 1-8). Christ made several more scathing rebukes of the Pharisees (as well as the scribes and the Sadducees), calling them a nest of vipers and warning the multitude to “Beware of the leaven of the scribes and the Pharisees”. Extremely conservative as a rule, and haughty in their knowledge of the scriptures and their own “righteousness”, the Pharisees were confounded and deeply embarrassed by the Son of Jesse who called himself the Messiah, and the “Son of David”. Claims like these were reserved for what the Pharisees considered to be the savior of Israel from the Romans. The Pharisees, in their evolutionary process, had become deeply nationalistic and involved intrinsically in the politics of Palestine (Judaea), and sought a temporal solution to the woes of the Jewish nation. They firmly expected the wrath of God to deliver them from the Roman legions and restore the rule of their land to those most worthy to rule it: themselves. However, as opposed to the Zealots (a sect bent on armed rebellion against Rome; Simon Zealotas the disciple of Christ was one of these), the Pharisees had no taste for armed revolt. They much preferred for the hand of God to do it for them. Perhaps this is one reason why Jesus made statements like the quote above, and didn’t add, “beware of the leaven of the Zealots also”.

After the death of Jesus a new trend in the religio-political situation in Palestine came into being, with the Pharisees at the forefront. To quote the Catholic Encyclopedia, “After the conflicts with Rome (A.D. 66-135) Pharisaism became practically synonymous with Judaism. The great Machabean wars had defined Pharisaism: another even more terrible conflict gave it a final ascendancy. The result of both wars was to create from the second century onward, in the bosom of a tenacious race, the type of Judaism known to the western world.” Where the Sadducees had failed, the Pharisees succeeded. The Sadducees had been a totally exclusive class (or caste) of priests, with limited numbers and high (material) standards of entry. The Pharisees had always held the respect of the people for their seeming purity and unquestionable devotion to the law and the prophets, and welcomed any adherents to their doctrine. Also, the Pharisees had been inherently nationalistic in their ideals, and this appealed to the majority of the non-Christian, non-pagan population of Palestine. The Pharisees had always placed the spiritual before the material (in theory), and their belief in a resurrection and the eternal nature of the soul (as contrasted with the Sadducees who believed in neither) appealed strongly to a people who saw themselves in present bondage and gave them something to look forward to in the afterlife.

In conclusion, it would be important to note that some of the most prominent men in the New Testament were Pharisees. Nicodemus (John 3:1), Gamaliel (Acts 5:34), and Paul (Acts 26:5, Phil. 3:5) all were Pharisees, and not in least ashamed of it. Paul stated, according to the Zondervan Bible Pictorial Dictionary, “I am, in the matter of the Law, ‘a Pharisee’ (Phil. 3:5), he did not think of himself as a hypocrite but claims the highest degree of faithfulness to the Law. In similar manner, church leaders might say, ‘We are Pharisees’”. To quote this source again, “Much of modern scholarship, however, has cast the Pharisees in too favorable a light; when one reads our Lord’s heated denunciation of Pharisaism in Matthew, chapter 23, where He specifically lists their sins, one has not only a true but a dark picture of Pharisaism as it was at the time of Christ” (Zondervan Bible Pictorial Dictionary pg. 648). This statement, when compared with the present state of affairs in the modern nation of Israel, is all too true. Almost daily Palestinian men, women, and children are blown to bits or machine gunned down in the name of Jewish nationalism. The seeds for this type of conflict are very old, and the ancient sect of the Pharisees is very near the taproot.

Bibliography

The Zondervan Bible Pictorial Dictionary. Merril C. Tenney, Editor in Chief. Grand Rapids Michigan, 1963.

The Catholic Encyclopedia. Found at: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11789b.htm.

The New Oxford Annotated Bible (Revised Version. Edited by Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger. New York, Oxford University Press, 1971.

Brainyquotes.com. Found at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ariel_sharon.html

The Fool

I am a moderate. Most of the time. When the Right gives a tax cut to the progeny of the Wal Mart dynasty, I cringe. When the left makes it un pc for me to say the word God in my own church, I want to vomit. What is going on? Is it really the end of days? Are the Republicans and the Democrats two heads of the same dragon? Is the media really liberal, or is it just a vehicle for more sales, more fear, and more control? Where is the middle ground? Where is the sanity? Where is my grandfather who got a bayonet in the stomach during WW2 and retired making 5 dollars and fifty cents an hour and all the time smiling like the cheshire cat? Why can't a public school teacher get elected president? I pray for serenity and I'm still white bread house nigger scum in the grand spectacle of the race to get more, more, more for your dollar and scrape enough change together to put Phillip Morris's great grandchildren through cotillion with my brown lung butter and the cancerous sores forming at the corners of my frowning face. I watched C span last night sheerly for the sedating effect of the pedant discoursing on the intelligence community that he's envious of for not putting enough text about subversive elements in Guatemala on the internet and who the fuck really cares anyway? I tell you who cares. The thousands of soldiers hunkered down in Babylon bleeding for us and dying for us and procuring another pint of oil and prestige for the bloated elephantitis head of state that doesn't give two shits about even serving a day in the service of his country in a war zone that has long segued into peace because we decided to leave well enough the hell alone. Peace? Upside down broken cross standing for sodomy, sloth, and the egoistic crusade of a generation of failed marriages, spiritual bankruptcy and the trouncing of every piece of character that this nation retained at one time. Fuck Bill Clinton. Fuck W. Fuck the whole lot of self serving, self interested glory hounds hot on the trail of stock tips and trips to the Caymans where they hide what really matters to the majority. Money. Cash rules everything around me and never forget it, cause if you do you're liable. Lawyers and the reek of ambulance exhaust. Can you tell I'm a gen Xer? Can you tell I don't have a lot of faith in the future? Will my generation really be able to turn the red tide of fate or will we make the same mistakes as our parents? Gimme the Star Spangled Banner anyday over Lil John and Tommy Lee and the rest of the no talent sequels to American Idol prepackaged for the consumption of obese welfare mothers and chronic masturbatory teens bringing up the rear and ready to procreate with the devil for fifteen minutes on the boob tube. My father, My father, why hast thou forsaken us?

--VB

Now I Lay Me Down

Now I Lay Me Down

By

Varo Borja

Baxter clocked out at the furniture factory about 11pm. His shift had lasted for 12 solid hours, and when he got to the Gaslight all he could think of was the bottom of a Dickel on the rocks, straight with a Bud chaser and the long, lovely arms of the bar wrapping around him in the afterdark of his worn down life. The Gaslight was Baxter’s haunt of choice for the evening and had been for just about every night for the past five years. He was a regular, complete with his own barstool and a tab that he paid every Thursday when he got his slim subsistence from Thomason Furniture, Inc.

Exiting his orange ’73 Dodge Roadrunner, Baxter extracted his black plastic comb from the back pocket of his tattered Levi’s and slicked back his overlong, dingy hair until he looked like a used up cross between James Dean and Ronnie Van Zant. He had a two-day old stubble of a beard and his eyes still had the look of the jungle to them. He hid this as best he could through occasional jokes and jabs at his coworkers and codrinkers, but Baxter definitely still had the thousand-yard stare. He had served four tours in Nam as a Navy Seal, and he had the tattoo and the grayish pink bullet wounds to prove it. Baxter was not a big man, but his was a barely concealed fire. A hideous demon just below the dam erected by numerous sessions with the corpsman-therapist at the VA hospital in Johnson City beat against Baxter’s breast and tormented him on a daily, if not hourly basis. Baxter was a man not to be trifled with, and he had found nothing in the world to live for but the backbreaking labor of a tenon machine operator and the occasional jaded touch of a barfly harlot to soothe his latent aggression and disillusionment with life in postwar Americana. Baxter lumbered up to the double doors of the Gaslight and entered with a great sigh of relief and the feeling that an orphan might experience on being returned to kith and kin.

The scent of stale beer and hot women struck Baxter like a fist as he entered the bar, accompanied to the sound of Melissa on the jukebox and the greeting gazes of half a dozen war buddies and a few decked out and perfumed ladies of the night. Baxter stretched for the ceiling, savoring the cigarette smoke and loud music, feeling the good tiredness that only the manual laborer knows and maintaining his rebel without a cause posture. He sidled up to the bar where a glass with twelve-year-old George Dickel waited expectantly nestled up beside a perspiring twelve-day-old Budweiser.

“How’s it goin, Bat?”

“Not bad, Possum. Long day. I’m ready to unwind,” said Baxter to the corpulent bartender who presented him with a half toothless grin while wiping at a spot on the bar with lackluster precision.

“Where’s Owl been the past week? He owes me about 50 bucks on his tab, and I ain’t coverin’ that shit when Top collects this week. Is he fucked up again on that black tar shit them niggers sell down in Blacksburg?”

“Shit man, I don’t know. Owl didn’t show up for work this week, and I be damned if I’m goin down to the lake to drag his ass out again. He may have had it bad at Dak To, but I be a shithouse rat if I cover that fifty for his ass,” retorted Baxter as he polished off the first of what would be many whiskeys. Baxter knew that he would cover the fifty as soon as he got paid next week; he always did. Baxter’s band of battered bastards from the nether regions of Nam was a tight group. They always stuck together, even when one of them wasn’t packing his own gear or pulling his own weight, like Owl. The men who had been in country always had a couple of bucks to spare for a brother down on his luck, and Baxter was no exception.

Baxter reached into the sweat stained and grimy front pocket of his dime store wifebeater and extracted a crumpled pack of Marlboros. Lighting one up and feeling the sultry smoke fill his lungs, he realized for an instant how tired he was and how futile his life had become, but this passed in an instant when the desire for another 8 ounces of the brown stuff crowded his existential awakening to the side like so much dust blown in the wind.

“How bout another one, there Possum old buddy? Hey Brubaker, where does a man get a drink around here anyway?”

Brubaker, one of the resident sots of the establishment was another Nam vet who had served with the 173^rd Airborne. Brubaker was another of the former GI’s who was down and out and drunk all the time. He just couldn’t seem to get it together, and he lived off a small dole from Uncle Sam and spent damn near the whole thing on cheap whiskey and Lucky Strikes. He nodded and peered drunkenly at Baxter and then collapsed face first on the oak veneer bar.

“Hold your horses, Bat, I’m comin’” said Possum as he managed to move his great weight to the bottle of Dickel and give Baxter a generous helping of the fiery poison.

As the record changed on the jukebox, a small, ratlike figure clothed in a tattered Army Jacket and jeans entered through the double doors and scurried up to the bar, fingering in his pocket for a moment and producing a small, round white poker chip with the letters AA emblazoned in cheap gold lettering in the center.

“Well I’ll be damned, if et ain’t Shitbird. Back from the VA, huh?” said Baxter in a mocking tone, gliding along the edge of the buzz produced from his first two drinks.

“Gimme a goddam drink, Possum. That AA shit is for gooks and goners,” said Shitbird with the nervous anticipation of the alcoholic about to be in his cups.

“Well, I guess one won’t hurt ya. I know, I know, the first one’s on the house for a white chip. Jesus, slow down Shit, there’s more where that come from but you ain’t sleepin’ in the back this time. Two o’clock’s lights out for this saloon. Top will have my ass if he catches you drunk in his office again.”

Top was the owner of the Gaslight. He stood about 6’7” and dressed out at about 300. He was a likeable man, but when angered he could commit the most unspeakable atrocities upon all those present. Like Baxter and Shitbird, Top had been in the war, but he had achieved the rank of First Sergeant in ’68 right before the Tet offensive, consigning him forever to the ranks of the Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers. For an enlisted man, Top had made good in the Army and now in private life he owned a couple of car lots and the Gaslight. He was not above ostentation— he drove a sparkling white Cadillac and showed his gold-toothed grin to everyone he liked and the back of his hand to everyone he despised. Top showed a mutual respect to the Nam vets who frequented the Gaslight though, and had more than once slipped them a twenty when they were down and out. However, Top was a family man, and his wife didn’t let him out to play with the boys at the bar and talk about the good old days. He was rarely ever present at the Gaslight past 7:30pm, and tonight was no exception.

“Top’s a big softy, Possum. You don’t know him like I do. Top may have made First Sergeant, but he was in the shit back in ’67 with the rest of us. Whaddayou know about that anyhow, Possum? You were 4F in ’67 and workin’ down at Hollister’s then. Gimme another goddam drink and quit your bitchin’ fat boy” said Shitbird, darting his rodent’s eyes around at the fellow topers present as he anxiously awaited another round.

“Yeah, whatever Shit. Just don’t raise no hell. Hey Walter, did you ever see such an ungrateful little drunk?” said Possum as he poured Shitbird another round from the inexpensive brand saved for deadbeets and drifters.

Walter was the oversized doorman; a former Force Recon marine who had done two tours in country and could crush a Campbell’s Tomato soup can, unopened. Walter said very little, but his 27-inch biceps made it so that he didn’t have to be very vocal to transmit his unquestioned hegemony over all present at the Gaslight.

“Don’t gimme that fuckin’ horsepiss, Possum. Gimme a shot of the good stuff. I just got my check and I’m splurgin’.”

“Alright, Shit” said Possum “I forgot it was the first of the month.”

The night rolled on to the sound of Skynyrd, The Allman Bros., Creedence Clearwater, and Cat Stevens as the wounded warriors drank and lied and drank and lied and laughed about the “bad old days” until like Brubaker, Baxter and Shitbird were wasted and sentimental. About 1:30 a couple of fine young things in tight leather and stiletto heels sidled up to the pair of intoxicated anti-heroes and asked them if they cared to partake of a certain white powder that one of the tarts had in her purse. Baxter candidly refused, saying that he would stick with the liquid poison, but Shitbird greedily acquiesced to their query and the trio headed for the ladies bathroom. Baxter peered through his tin stamped, bleary beer goggles at the bar and tried to remember if he had enough gas to get home. He stumbled over to the jukebox, swerving mightily and careening off the table of a pair locked in the amorous clutches of heavy petting. The young brave with his hand down his lover’s pants immediately rose and demanded satisfaction from the drunken S.O.B. that had just disturbed his passionate pursuit. Baxter laughed in his face and then took a big gulp from his lukewarm Budweiser, spitting the contents onto the jacket of the erstwhile-offended Romeo. Then, with a movement that betrayed Baxter’s drunken state, he did a quick downward snap kick, breaking the knee of the unlucky lover and sending him crashing through the Formica table and onto the floor. As Romeo lay on the floor gibbering and cursing at his misfortune and his broken kneecap, Baxter straddled him and began cursing in Vietnamese, slapping the unfortunate man senseless. About this time, Walter seized a Louisville Slugger from behind the bar and swiftly cracked the bat over Baxter’s back. This floored Baxter for only a moment, and he came up from the floor as quickly as he had went down. Walter certainly had the advantage since he was sober and in full control of his wits, but Baxter had a fifth of a gallon of fire water in his gut and he was rapidly becoming dangerous. Possum had not been idle either. He had telephoned the local police because he knew this situation could very quickly become deadly. Both men in question were confirmed killers, and if the fight escalated, which it was bound to do, one or both men could end up six feet under. Possum had been lifelong friends with both men, and didn’t want to see them hurt or dead.

Baxter was Section 8 though. He was in what his corpsman-therapist would call a paranoid delusional state fueled by about a fifth of whiskey and years of pent up aggression. He couldn’t distinguish his friend Walter Pulaski from the phantoms of his past. Baxter had long ago crossed over into what was known as No Man’s land, and it had only taken a hair to break the camel’s back of his sanity.

As soon as Baxter had risen from the floor, he had swiftly extracted his Gerber boot knife from the top of his worn leather motorcycle boots. The two combatants circled the floor: Baxter with knife drawn and in a defensive posture, seeking for the first opportunity to drive the knife between the ribs of what he thought was a VC operative. Walter was being as cautious as possible, seeking for the first opportunity to diffuse the situation and go home alive.

About this time Shitbird emerged from the bathroom with his two coked out companions and seeing Baxter and Walter faced off in their deadly duel, he immediately ran to where the two men were about to converge and began to try and talk down Baxter with soothing words that might have come from his own mother some winter bedtime long ago when nightmarish djinn had hidden under his bed lustily waiting to inflict their tortures upon his hapless and helpless soul. Shitbird soothed and salved Baxter’s rage enough to the point where Baxter started to see through the eyes of a human again instead of a hunted beast. Baxter glanced quickly at both men, searching for the visage of the Vietnamese soldiers he had been surrounded by just a few seconds before, but they were not visible anymore. What he saw was an angry giant of Polish descent in a tank top t-shirt and a small, haggard friend in an Army jacket and worn blue jeans. Immediately, Baxter dropped his guard and fell to the floor, uncontrollable sobs heaving forth from his sawdust and liquor scented body. Where two minutes ago there had been a trained killer on the verge of committing a terrible crime, there was now a frightened child, seeking protection and his mother’s breast.

Shitbird moved close to Baxter, cradling him in his arms for a few minutes until the police arrived. They immediately inquired as to what the disturbance was, but all present were silent. Don Juan with the broken kneecap started to tell the whole affair, but one look from Walter and he was silent. Possum was the first to answer the police officer.

“Just a little accident. I called because I thought two niggers were breaking in the back. It turned out to be nothing. This man here just tripped over his own shoelaces, and the man crying there, well, his mother died today and he’s right upset. You boys want a drink?”

“No thanks. We’re on duty. Well, I better not get any more calls from you this evening, Willard (Possum’s real name), and if I have to come back down here tonight, somebody’s goin’ to jail. You here me?”

“Sure, Jack. You won’t hear a peep. Scout’s honor” said Possum as he tried to look busy wiping the bar and be as cordial as possible at the same time.

The policemen left and Shitbird drove Baxter home to his trailer in the small community of Sawmills. The coke that Shitbird had done in the bathroom enhanced his ability to drive and they made it home safely. Shitbird helped Baxter into bed and lovingly tucked him in, turning on the box fan and the three nightlights in the hall before he crashed out on the couch, passing out before he hit the pillow. Baxter lay in bed, and though still drunk he began to say a prayer from his childhood that he had religiously repeated every night since he was five years old. He had said it in the jungles of Cambodia, he had said it in the whorehouses of Saigon, and he had said it while in the seclusion room in the State Hospital.

“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.”

The sublime state of sleep slowly crept up on Baxter, and he drifted off to a land where children run under a golden sun and lovers lie by crystal clear pools of untroubled water and the dead walk again on an Earth that has never known the horrors of war or the cries of impoverished babes sent to untimely graves in the perfume scented fields of Southeast Asia.

Juggernaut

By

Varo Borja

I lay dying in a pool of translucent fear and my hair feels like straw sat upon a worried brow and I am lying by the porcelain altar of Shiva or Set. I feel the paroxysm of my birthright rising within innards of fiery fulsome fright and it comes and I feel better and then I look at the porcelain tile and see a lone dust mite crawling through paths of urine stained freeways and the internecine ride of the Caledonians on my bathroom’s battlefield and my fingers crush the lone ranger upon this funereal floor where only the strong survive and the involutions of my intestinal hellspawn offerings and oblations to the god of wine no longer bring Bacchus to bear on the heretics running loose in my head and I’ve lost the war but at least the bloodletting has stopped and I can go back to bed.

The bed spins through time and space and I smell the feces from the day before and I reach to the bedside and take a long, liverish drink from the Chevas Regal and lie back on the satin pillowcase and breathe asthmatically and crave a cancer stick. Carol Lynn cries in the kitchen and I crawl back to the bathroom past the window where watchers keep their vigilant gaze glued to my stash of cocaine in the chest of drawers. I take a few toots from my stash only for medicinal purposes and then I crawl past Carol Lynn who is frying tofu and eggs for my children’s consumption to the refrigerator for a bottle of Schlitz and then back to the bathroom for more intensive research on the beneficent properties of cool tile on the forehead of a highly developed drunkard like me.

I’ve done too much coke. I know the FBI, the DEA, the Secret Service, and the Department of Homeland Security are in the cedar woods just outside my bedroom window. I must hide here in my sanctuary where the Virgin Mary lets me rest my tired head on her lily-white feet and escape from the barbarian hordes outside who demand my immediate crucifixion. Jesus must have turned the water into wine on a Friday night because on Saturday I’ve always been too drunk to drink from rhytons filled with seraphimic nectar so I just go for the single malt Scotch straight with a beer chaser. I know they’ve tapped my phone and the satellite signals larrup my fevered brain and I must now have a touch more cocaine because I’ve laved my head in the sacramental holy water and reaped the lenity of my Lord and Savior.

I crawl back to the chest of drawers from the bathroom floor and take another toot for my stomach’s sake and then crawl back into bed, being careful to avoid the view from the window. I try to sleep but Carol Lynn’s unreasonable lists, always lists, keep me awake and I am making a mental grocery spread sheet in my mind and I know we need milk, bread, tempeh, Schlitz, cocaine, toiler paper, and a couple of Blow Pops for the girls because they’re such good girls but they keep playing now in the yard with all those nasty government agents and they insist on screaming and giggling much too loudly for my sensitive ears. I simply MUST have another snort of that delightful white powder that is cut so splendidly with powdered sugar which reminds me that I’m supposed to bake a cake for my daughter’s birthday tomorrow but I just can’t seem to motivate myself so yes I must have another toot and crawl back to the bathroom for more inspiration from the Virgin Mary and her celestial Sesame Street companions.

I’m in hell. I’m in hell. The cool, luxuriant tiles are losing their redemptive powers and there’s blood mixed with the bile that I deposit into the crystal blue waters of my wife’s favorite seat in the house. Where is the new wine? Where is the feast they have promised? Where the fuck did I go wrong after graduation from Harvard with my useless degree in Chaos, Comparative Religion, and Thai Stick that forced me to sell my soul to the Goths of the Guatemalan countryside with their wonderful coca leaves and dusky, manscented pagodas of pleasure where the fleshpots of old Sodom would pale in comparison. Enrico will kill me if I turn state’s evidence on the cartel. I’ll be sporting a Columbian necktie to my funeral in some backwater bilgedump in Baha or Cozumel. Fuck. I simply must straighten out my head from all this fretting and fidgeting and find a solution to my existential crises. Cocaine. Yes, I guess that’s the answer. No. I must fight that white devil-in-waiting that lurks in the bottom of the Ethan Allen chest that my mother in law gave as a Christmas present when Carol Lynn and I were young and had the world by the teeth. I had arrived. Now look at me. Fuck. Fuck.

The cocaine enlivens my spirits and I feel I must go for a walk but not now because I must hide and destroy the mental grocery lists of my beleaguered wife here in our red brick Victorian castle nestled ever so secretly in the Maine woods and away from those pesky bastards with badges and warrants and wire taps and satellites but apparently not far enough because now I am besieged with only about an ounce left of my panacea and about half a half a gallon of Chevas Regal; the most wonderfully cheap Scotch that tastes as if the Lord himself had bequeathed it to we mortals instead of the nasty verdict of guilty, guilty, guilty when I go before his sacrosanct white throne and plead for my soul because I am a good boy and always have been I just got caught up with those despicable Central Americans and their wonderful white powder which I simply must have now or I will die.

The smoke from my cigarette curls in the air; wispy fragments descending upon alabaster counters filled with all the necessities of the modern age: makeup from Neiman Marcus, perfume from Nordstrom’s, Q-tips from Communist China. A virtual cornucopia of sanitary solutions for the sensibilities of the modern woman. Too bad there aren’t any get out of jail free cards amongst my wife’s belongings. I am sitting on the toilet now, rehashing my sins of commission and omission. No, I didn’t take over my father’s printing business. Yes, I slept with our Mexican maid Margherita. No, I didn’t take out the trash. Yes, I did wreck the Mercedes into the lake last year, but didn’t Carol Lynn always say that she would much rather have a Volvo? Volvos are designed with safety in mind, are they not? Besides, a Volvo wouldn’t spin out of control at 135 mph and wreck itself, now would it? My scorecard reads zero. I must offer myself to the waiting servants of justice for trial and excommunication from the Republic for which they stand. Yes. I must.

First, I have to get my courage up. I’m going to jail anyway, so I might as well have one last bump of the good stuff. The cocaine feels like fire flowing through my nostrils and into my extremities and I have a solution. If it is battle that the barbarian hordes seek, they shall have it. By god they will. I open the drawer to the nightstand and sift through the unmentionables (K-Y, various and sundry sex toys, and my wife’s diaphragm) until I find the sword of Allah that will reap the harvest of blood and free me from my oppression: my Daisy semi-automatic air pistol. Yes. I shall have my vengeance. I run through the house in my skivvies and fling open the front door where I am literally blinded by the god of the Mithraists, but I will not be daunted. I run headlong at my assailants, firing from the hip. I am the avenging angel from the book of Revelation. When I am sated with bloodlust, I pause to look around at the carnage. Hmm. It seems I have fired my fiery darts at the innocents of the woodland: squirrels, an old growth hemlock, my wife’s Volvo, and the azure shadows produced by the waning day. Feeling foolish and a little tired, I retire to bed with the assurance of a brighter tomorrow. First, I must consult with my wife, for it seems that aliens have taken up residence in the flower garden and turned the dog into a very large sea monster that resembles the Leviathan of the holy scriptures. Yes, and she simply MUST go to Enrico’s and procure me another bag of that delightful white substance.

Havana (Unfinished)

Havana (Unfinished)

By

Varo Borja

Papa strode into Caliente with one thing on his fevered brain: Rum. The stock market was in a frenzy, Scribners was being a royal pain in the ass, and Caesarea was singing like some gypsy half-caste dickering with the Devil over the soul of some gente in the hell of the Havana night. Papa had a thirst for something that only Ibrahim’s intoxicants and a night with Marieta could cure.

Papa weighed in at a sturdy 230lbs., mostly muscle but with the bulge of a Bon Viveur and the salt and pepper beard of a man in his mid forties. He was clad in a pair of khakis sent to him by his aging mother in Michigan, a flowery print shirt that exposed a luxuriant swath of chest hair, and a pair of rope soled shoes that he had taken from a dead Partisan in the Andalusian highlands back in ’37. The kicker to this ensemble, which was visible to all present, was the silver .38 caliber Colt revolver complete with Ivory grips courtesy of an old Berber pirate that Papa had met in Madagascar and bested in a game of Russian roulette. Papa stood a good head taller than anyone else in the crowd, but he was a favorite at Caliente. He spent his money well and with mucho gusto, and he rarely made any messes that the staff couldn’t clean up. Ibrahim, the club owner met Papa two paces from the bar and snapped his fingers for a bottle of his finest concoction.

“Como ethta Uthted, Padre? How ith it chu na come see uth por doth themanaths? Chu working on another, como thi dice, boooook?” said Ibrahim in a thick Cuban accent infused with a false hint of Toledo or Seville.

“Buena noche, Ibrahim. I see you’ve got my poison. I want the table in the back, muy rapido. Comprende?”

“Thiiii, thi.” Ibrahim was a host who knew his customers well, especially the big spenders like Papa, and he hurriedly ushered Papa to the back table shielded by palm fronds and out of the lights that made the grease paint on Caesarea’s face shine like the Moorish moon over Madrid. Ibrahim, who was the antihesis of Papa, stood only 5’5” and was openly homosexual. He wore only white silk, single-breasted suits and white velvet penny loafers with a gold coin from old Iberia inserted in each. He smoked from an ivory cigarette holder inlaid with gold, and spoke with a slight lisp so everyone who didn’t know him as well as Papa would mistake him for a Spaniard. Once Papa was seated and made as comfortable as possible, Ibrahim whistled through his two, slightly set apart, gold capped front teeth for Marieta Bonita.

Marieta was mas fina.

Marieta was muy bonita.

Marieta was magnifico,

And Marieta was in love with Diego.

She strolled across the floor like a tan and ebony fox, swaying slightly to the rhythm of the pulsating drumbeat, stopping hearts and breaking necks for a view of her languid loveliness. She was dressed only in a tight fitting linen skirt and a sleeveless, black silk blouse, and Papa’s throat became thick and hoarse at the sight of her. Ibrahim rubbed his hands together and grinned like a gilt gaucho of only the finest stock. He fingered Marieta’s long, jet black hair and snickered like an impish pimp.

“Thee eth muy guapa, no? Chu like thu thit with theeeeenor Padre, mi Marieta Bonita?”

“Si, Ibrahim,” said Marieta with a look of disdain in her honey flecked and amber eyes.

“Bueno, bueeeeeno. Chu lie theeenor Padre, Marieta? Chu treat heeeem ryyyye?”

“Si, Ibrahim,” Marieta was looking at the shoes that her peasant father had made with his own two hands before he had disappeared last December. A tear started to form in the corner of her eye, but it was visible only to Papa and not to her master with the still smoking butt of a Turkish cigarette smoldering in his ivory holder like the dying embers of Marieta’s self respect.

“Bugger off, Ibrahim. Chinga te, and VAMONOS,” said Papa as he cordially took Marieta’s hand and with a reassuring smile kissed it gently and offered her one of the three white wicker seats at the table.

With a bow and a twinkle in his eye, Ibrahim scurried away to chastise the Jamaican bartender for his over zealous distribution of Scotch to a pair of rowdy looking Marines, leaving Papa and Marieta to discuss whatever they wished. Papa gazed hungrily at Marieta, who looked away from him and towards the shadows, trying to hide her tears from the man who had been her benefactor and sometime lover for the past year and a half. Papa knew she loved another. Hell, he was twice her age and more, but she certainly was the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes upon, and as he drank Ibrahim’s rum with more force than most men half his age could muster, he began to yearn for her more than for life itself. The band, with the overweight, octogenarian songstress Caesarea Magdalena at the forefront, had segued into a heartrending ballad that brought tears to eyes of the most sober of patrons, and left the more lascivious listeners melting in their liquor. Papa cursed himself inwardly for his lust. He was a married man with two children and he was a public icon to boot. His last novel had sold over 300,000 copies; a statistic in which he took much pride, but he knew his powers were failing. He had always sought after the one, true sentence. One shining example for the entire world to see. He couldn’t measure up. A certain critic, he knew, carried his last novel, and the brilliant marketing of Scribner and Sons had pulled off the miracle that he had failed to conjure up with his old Burroughs typewriter. He needed inspiration, and he had found it. In Marieta Bonita. He was using the time he spent with her to inadvertently boost the morale and rally the troops in his brain for one last, apocalyptic battle with the bastards who said he would never attain the pinnacle, the golden fleece of every writer’s career: the Nobel Prize.

Herido de Sombras

By

Varo Borja

Kiss me with the lips

Of a serpent

Swallow my pride

And spit out my unborn

Children onto the

Oriental rug without

So much as a real

Emotion you’re so

Cold calculating corruption

In that tight fitting

Silky seduction smile

At me and then sell

My soul to the vultures

You ravish me like the needle

And my guts are ablaze

With poison from your forked

Tongue twist the truth

And bury me before I

Stink up the place

With my needless vanity

And unwonted pride

Push me to the edge

And I’ll fall or

Jump this time I

Hate to love and

Love to hate

Myself

Perdido tu amor

No podre ser feliz jamas

Never, never

Again

Herido de sombras

Por tu ausencia estoy

Down to the depths

Of the pit

Where love is no more

And the break of

Day won’t find

Me at your

Feet.

--VB

Romanesque Period

The Romanesque Period

By

Varo Borja

In this essay, I will attempt to describe briefly Feudalism in Western Europe, The Crusades and why they happened, and also the plan and brief description of a Pilgrimage church in Western Europe. This is quite a task, so I will begin immediately.

Professor Gerhard Rempel, of Western New England College, describes feudalism as having three basic attributes: “ fragmentation of political power, public power in private hands, and armed forces secured through private contracts”. Feudalism first came into being in Western Europe during the eighth century A.D., by granting estates to Knights (or the lowest caste of aristocracy, consisting basically of professional warriors) in return for military service. Feudalism differed throughout Europe, with the classic model in effect in Norman France. Feudalism in Germany differed slightly (mainly because it was more centralized; there was an emperor in Germany), and in Russia and the Near East it didn’t exist at all. The main reason for the development of a feudalist state was the influx of the Muslims from Spain and the Near East. Feudalism was created as a means (although a weak one) of defense against these Muslim (or Moorish) invaders. Being essentially decentralized in nature (in contrast with the centralization of the Roman Empire), the feudalist state was divided up into land holdings called “fiefs”. These parcels of land were distributed to the various aristocracy of the region (a process called “subinfeudation”) with the largest portions belonging to the sovereign Lord or King (or in the case of Germany, the Emperor.) The size of the estates were divided by size in descending order in this fashion: first, the Dukes, then the Counts, the Viscounts, the Barons, the Earls, the Margraves, and at the last the individual Knights. The Knights at the bottom of the ladder were relatively poor, and had few peasants (if any) to work their estates. At the very bottom of the ladder were the peasants, who were tied to their respective estates from birth, and had little or no chance of ever escaping a life of constant toil and ignorance.

The basic weaknesses of Feudalism were in the decentralized aspect of the system, which led to infighting between the various Lords (title given to the owner of an estate) and the bickering and chicanery (and general disrespect for authority) associated with obtaining and preserving these “titles”. To succeed in this system basically only two things were needed: a strong right arm and a clever mind. Several of the Duchies and Counties of the Medieval world were created through sheer butchery and backstabbing. In fact, the rapine, infighting, and general chaos were so great that a general code of conduct called “chivalry” was instituted and quickly became fashionable. Although much better in theory than in practice, chivalry was one of the basic proponents of what I will discuss next: The Crusades.

The Crusades were a series of holy wars that were undertaken against the Muslims (or Moors), with the purpose of reclaiming the holy city of Jerusalem. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Crusades are listed thus:

It has been customary to describe the Crusades as eight in number:

• the first, 1095-1101;


• the second, headed by Louis VII, 1145-47;


• the third, conducted by Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur-de-Lion, 1188-92;


• the fourth, during which Constantinople was taken, 1204;


• the fifth, which included the conquest of Damietta, 1217;


• the sixth, in which Frederick II took part (1228-29); also Thibaud de Champagne and Richard of Cornwall (1239);


• the seventh, led by St. Louis, 1249-52;


• the eighth, also under St. Louis, 1270.

It would fill volumes if I expounded on the Crusades in detail, but I will give a brief account of why they happened. For centuries, Western Christians had made pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and in particular to the Holy Sepulcher (the Tomb of Christ) to pay homage to the holiness of the Lord. Most of the more notable princes had done this, including the Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne, as well as several of the popes from the time of Constantine up until the end of the first millennium. These Christians had enjoyed the protection, if not the blessing, of the Moorish peoples who inhabited Jerusalem and the surrounding area for centuries. However, with the rise of Hakem, a Fatimite Caliph (or Muslim cleric) of Egypt and his hatred for the infidels and purity of Muslim doctrine, the order was given for the expulsion of the infidels from Jerusalem and the destruction of the Holy Sepulcher. Although a definite turning point in the politics of the region, this event didn’t deter the Western Christians from making pilgrimages. In fact, a new religious fervor inaugurated in the eleventh century propelled many Christians, even of the lower classes to make the journey to Jerusalem. This new influx of pilgrims resulted in the general persecution of all Near Eastern Christians, and was one of the direct (or more advertised) reasons for the Crusades.

In reality, the Crusades were a chance (seen first by Pope Urban II) for the implementation of a Holy War (or grand cause) that would supposedly bring out the best in the unruly (at best) Lords of Christendom and end the infighting and slaughter inherent to the feudal system. It would also (supposedly) stop the influx of the Moors into Spain and the Byzantine Empire and act as a dam against the religion of the Muslims. The Crusades were a very complex series of Holy Wars undertaken with much zeal, but with sometimes very spurious motives. In fact, many of the “Crusaders” never even left their villages, and were content with the slaughter of the “infidels” at home, who were mostly of Jewish extraction. The majority of the clergy did not condone the general slaughter of the Jews during the 12th and 13th centuries however, and many persecuted Jews were hidden or given assistance by the various monasteries and local parishes throughout the west.

Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the Romanesque period (which included most of the Crusades) was the establishment of the pilgrimage churches along the routes taken by the zealous, if ill conceived Crusaders. Many of these churches were built, but for the sake of brevity and to give the reader a general idea of the basic outline of these holy structures, I will describe only one.

The Abbey church of Saint Foy was a masterpiece of the Romanesque period, and will serve as a shining example of the architecture of its time. Built by the work of the Conques monks, this beautiful structure was built before Saint Sernin of Toulouse, but had basically the same floor plan. Based on the general Basilica type from early Christian and Imperial times, Saint Foy contained a nave and a choir that was surrounded by an ambulatory. The choir was the place where the statue of Saint Foy (a small girl who had been martyred at the hands of the ministers of Diocletian; her bones were brought to the church in the ninth century and venerated with much religious zeal) and other holy relics were kept. The nave and the transept (or crossing) were built with much additional space so hundreds of pilgrims could hear the sermon and take the Eucharist (Lord’s Supper) from the priest at the high altar at the face of the choir. Saint Foy also contains a dome settled at the intersection of two perpendicular axes over the high altar (see http: //www.conques.com/visite31.htm for these notes). The Abbey church of Saint Foy was based on the cruciform plan, and had radiating chapels much like Saint Sernin. Saint Foy was designed with utility at the forefront, but it also contains one of the masterpieces of Romanesque sculpture: The Tympanum of the Last Judgment (which is much like that found at Autun, in Burgundy.)

This tympanum (the frieze over the doors, usually at the narthex) is found at the western portal of Saint Foy, and is sheltered under a deep semi-circular arch. It contains 124 figures, and is 6.7 meters wide and 3.6 meters high, and has been preserved to the present day in almost pristine condition. According to http://www.conques.com/, the overall composition is “Very simple: the huge semi-circle of the tympanum is composed of three superposed registers split by the strips which are reserved for engraved inscriptions. In order to fill in these registers, the author divided them in a series of compartments, which correspond to the twenty panels in yellow limestone he sculpted at ground level before assembling them like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. This division, easy to discern, has been skillfully made given that one joint never intersects one figure or one scene.” The theme of the tympanum is, of course, the Last Judgment, and features Christ enthroned at the center surrounded by images of frightened and hapless supplicants who are either being protected by angels or harassed by demons. Christ’s right hand is raised toward heaven, signifying his acceptance of the supplicants on his right into the Kingdom of Heaven. His left hand however is lowered, damning those unfortunate souls on his left to an eternity of fire and torment. It is interesting to note that this theme was very prevalent during the Middle Ages, and must have been very sobering to all those who entered the Abbey Church of Saint Foy.

In conclusion, I have found this paper to be very informative, not only in an historical sense, but in a spiritual sense as well. My research has shown me how far Western society has come from the times of Holy Wars and the virtual enslavement of a whole race of people to such a failed concept as Feudalism. However, we have not come as far as some might think. The Iraq war has been categorized by some as a type of “Crusade” against the infidel Muslims and their terrorist factions. It’s a shame that people in this day and age of ultra modern enlightenment still believe that such chicanery and nonsense as a “war authorized by God” is a necessary thing, and that the people in charge of such acts of violence don’t have (much like pope Urban II) ulterior motives. Perhaps one day the human race will outgrow this very blatant “tribal” mentality, but obviously it hasn’t done so yet. Maybe like the Crusades of the 11^th and 12^th centuries, we will be graced with a few monuments to the better side of human nature, like those found at Saint Foy and Saint Sernin. Maybe one day mankind will be able to make such beautiful pieces of art as the Tympanum of the Last Judgment without the promptings of hatred or bigotry, and then we will be able to say that we have truly passed out of the Dark Ages.

One Way Ticket

By

Varo Borja

The young, mad fools of my generation went to war without a thought for themselves and a satchel full of pride and blazing hearts that weren’t dimmed in the slightest by the fear of death and the grave. I’m lying here, 68 years old last November, and I’m afraid and I can’t remember my wife’s name. She’s lying in the room across the hall, asleep beneath the coverlets and lace and what not that she collects from the dime store in town. She’s sleeping peacefully, mainly because I’m not lying beside her. I haven’t slept amid all that finery since the ‘60’s. Since she got tired of me lying awake all night and counting the dog tags of the Battered Bastards of the Big Red One.

I remember the snow falling, falling in heaps and all I wanted was a bath and a hot meal and a look at some of them French girls once again on the streets of gay Paris where I left my virginity and my pocket watch. I gave it to a French whore because she fancied it so, and I’ve never regretted it, not one bit. I’ve always had a weakness for pretty women, especially foreign ones with their rouge and their perfume that smells of sin and lilacs. Elizabeth. That’s my wife’s name. She used to love me. She bore me four boys and fixed my supper for going on fifty years now, but I’ve never loved her. I loved that French whore because she didn’t ask me to be anything other than what I was. Hell, she didn’t know but two words of English. Lucky and yes. Damn, if a man don’t need a woman that knows just them two words. I wasn’t about to call her yes, so I just called her Lucky. She was the love of my life.

The scar on my belly feels like so much cloven earth and it still hurts sometimes. At night mostly. I know some of my buddies who lost legs and arms talk about phantom pain. You know, the pain of missing something that isn’t there. I can still feel that SS soldier driving that bayonet into my gut, and I can still see the look in his eyes. The madness of war, at first, and then a kind of sadness. The kind of sadness that you might see on a clown’s face at a carnival or something. The sadness that comes with being a pawn in a grand spectacle that is utterly ridiculous and means nothing and goes nowhere. The kind of spectacle that people will give their last dollar and even their unborn children to see, and then leave with a feeling of having been cheated, but not knowing why.

The artillery shells were the worst. Especially the white phosphorous rounds. A man can live with the constant thought of being shot, or stabbed, but the constant thought of being blown to bits or burning alive eats at a man’s very soul. The not knowing, and the very powerlessness of it all. The not knowing amidst all the others not knowing and freezing and going hungry and missing those pretty French girls and missing their Mamas most of all. War is hell, some say. I say its worse than hell. If a man is in hell, then he’s already arrived at his final destination. He can plant his feet and set his face and burn with the best of them. When a man is in a war, he just waits. Waits for that bullet or that piece of brimstone to start him on his journey. He waits amid the cries and the slaughter and the senseless suffering of men that are dearer to him than most of his own kin. The powerlessness of waiting to die rivals anything that the seven heads of hell ever cooked up for the torture of the unredeemed.

In the morning I’ll have to get up and plow. Plow that damn frozen earth so I can plant taters and what not in the spring and then dig the same damn ground again in the fall. I’m sick of it. I’ve been looking at the backside of that mule now going on thirty years and all I can think of is Lucky. Lucky with her golden brown hair and the twinkle in her eye and the way she said nothing at all but said everything in the process. I miss my youth. I gave it away for a busted up homestead and a broken back and now I’m old. My gout gets to be something awful sometimes and I find myself reading the obituaries every night now before I go to bed. That can’t be good. Reading about death and then dreaming about death and then waking to a living death and the backside of that old gray mule.

I love the smell of gun oil. It tastes like tin and hog grease but it smells like a new day. I took good care of my old M1. I smuggled home a Mauser and a Hitler Youth dagger but I’d give them and a week’s wages for that old M1. The Quartermaster made me turn it in when I got back to the States. I told him to take good care of it for me. Lucille. That’s what I called her. That M1 killed more Germans and I-talians than the cholera but it kept me warm and safe many a night lying in the frost in some god-forsaken foxhole in the middle of the Low Country. I’d kiss that rifle if it was here with me now. I’d sure as shit rather kiss Lucille than I would that hag in there in the other room. Jesus. Where did the time go?

When we hit the beach at Anzio I damn near pissed myself. I probably did piss myself but I was soaked to the gills in seawater and I was too damn scared to be wondering if I’d pissed myself or not. I saw Charlie Trumbull get his head blown off three feet in front of me. I tasted brains and seawater for a week after that. Everything I ate, from C rations to K rations to candy bars tasted like brains and seawater. I’d just spit it out and drink coffee. I didn’t start taking sips from Joe Sweeney’s canteen until after Normandy. By then I wasn’t afraid of death or hell or Jesus or Jeremiah anymore. Once a man sees so much blood and guts and the grease of the war machine gets into his very bones the preaching and pleading of his childhood just kind of slip away. Like so much sand. Like so much seawater.

I can’t take this anymore. We were heroes. Weren’t we? The papers said so. The radio said so. The politicians said so. Even the hag in the other room says so at every goddamn Rook game she plays at. “William got five Purple Hearts and a Silver Star” she says to her hag friends as she doles out the cards. Every year that number of Purple Hearts gets a little larger. By the time I get to be 75 I’m sure I’ll have won the Medal of Honor. I’ll have damn sure earned it too. Too bad about those Purple Hearts. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I have earned a few more Purple Hearts since I came home from the war.

I’m gonna do it. I have two thousand dollars tucked away beneath an old coffee can behind the hog lot. I’ve kept that money for a dreary day through rain, sun, snow and sleet and I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna drive my ass to the airport tomorrow and buy that ticket. One Way, First Class to Paris International Airport. I’m gonna go see Lucky. I’m gonna go see the graves of the men who were the real heroes and take some of the hag’s prize red roses to help them rest a little easier. She won’t miss them. She won’t even miss me. No one will. Not even my kids. I’ll just disappear like a dime store comic book hero and they’ll never see me again. I’ll get lost in Montmarte and get so drunk on good French wine that I’ll see stars again and the flowers in Flanders will welcome me home. I might even smoke some of that Hashish that the Turks sold behind the cafes. Lucky and I will have a grand old time and then we’ll hop a steamer together and sail to the Orient. I always wanted to see the Orient. My brother Jack lost his life there in ’44. Maybe I’ll take some of them roses for him too. Maybe I’ll take a goddamn truckload of roses.

Mama lost her mind when Jack got killed. When she got that letter that said a Jap plane had hit his ship and all hands were lost it flipped a switch in her like a breaker with too much juice on it. Jack was her pride and joy. She struggled through fifteen hours of labor with him and damn near died herself. She always babied him. If there was two biscuits left on the plate she’d give Jack both of them and the last slab of bacon in the house to go in between them. “Jack was a blonde haired blue eyed angel straight from heaven” she’d say. They gave her shock treatments in the State Hospital but she didn’t even budge. She was in a nursing home for thirty years until she died of congestive heart failure. I paid for that nursing home with the sweat of my brow and the best years of my body. She didn’t say two words when I got home from Border duty in ’46. She just stared into space like a soldier that’s been on the front lines for too long. I never knew my Daddy. He lost his mind drinking moonshine and died an early death from the syphilis he got in France during the Great War. I don’t know what was so great about it. They didn’t have to worry about Tiger tanks in the Great War . All they did was sit in the mud and fire old water cooled Lewis guns and drink rot gut homemade gin and get syphilis from Moroccan whores.

Jack wasn’t even my whole brother. Mama had an affair with a man from the Home Guard while Daddy was away in France. I was born in 1917 before he left. Daddy had brown eyes. Mama had brown eyes. I have brown eyes. Daddy died in 1920. Jack was born in 1919. Daddy had syphilis. Jack had blue eyes. I guess that blue eyed fella from the Home Guard had a problem keeping his dick in his pants but we’d always find little presents outside our door every Sunday morning. A bottle of milk, a fried chicken, a pan of cornbread, two dollars, or whatever. During the Depression Mama sewed socks till her fingers bled and ironed shirts on the kitchen table to keep body and soul together. Those “presents” never stopped coming even during the worst of it in ’32. I never knew that fella’s name, but I heard Mama say one time that Jack was the spittin image of his Daddy. She must have really loved him, and I guess he loved her too, or maybe he just felt guilty. He must have had a wife and children of his own. Maybe he was married to a hag too, but I guess he didn’t have any medals to speak of for the war except old Jack. Jack and his goddamned big blue eyes.

The sun is coming up. In a minute that rooster is gonna crow and I’ll have to get up and put the coffee on. I should have already been out there and got the mule hitched up but I guess a little extra time beneath the covers ain’t gonna hurt anybody. Maybe I’ll buy that ticket tomorrow. Tomorrow’s Saturday and I can sneak off without the hag noticing anything but the truck being gone. Hell, she wouldn’t notice anyway. She’s too busy snoring beneath those lace coverlets and satin pillow cases to know I’m alive. I wonder if Lucky will recognize me? Probably not. I’m not the boy I used to be that went to war without a thought for myself and my satchel of pride has been eaten away by the moths of debt, old age and inertia but my heart is still ablaze somewhere down in this old man’s chest next to the shrapnel and the memories of what I used to be and the grit it takes to face one more day behind that old gray mule.


--VB