JamesSavik
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Mr. Sunshine
No one in town knew who bought the old house on Jefferson Street. Their only tip-off that it had been sold was the abrupt disappearance of the five-year-old for-sale sign. The two-story colonial was on a beautiful lot with gardens in the front and back shaded by ancient oaks garlanded in Spanish moss. It had seen better days and needed attention because several hurricanes had done it no favors.
No one in the neighborhood was surprised when work crews arrived and began working on the house and grounds. Repairs were made to the woodwork, and a new roof was installed. A landscape crew came in, trimmed trees and bushes, and tamed the wild yard.
Restoring the old place to its former glory took a couple of weeks. By the time it was finished, the old house stood tall and proud, reborn with fresh paint surrounded by an immaculate yard.
Excitement grew in the neighborhood. Whoever the new house belonged to was obviously well-heeled. Kids in the neighborhood wondered if the new kids would be cool or stuck-up.
Finally, a moving van rolled in, and a crew began unloading furniture and putting it in place.
The next morning, a big, well-appointed GMC truck appeared in the front driveway. The new neighbor had arrived and was frenetically involved in the business of moving in.
Lisa Baker, who lived across the street, got a look at her wiry forty-ish new neighbor and was intrigued by the big pet carrier he took inside with obvious effort.
The new neighbor was busy. His big GMC truck came and went throughout the day with its bed full of Home Depot and Walmart stuff. At one o'clock, a big van from a local furniture store pulled up and spent most of the afternoon installing beds, chairs, and tables.
As soon as the van left, Lisa and her mother made the hike across the street and up to the front door with a pitcher of lemonade, some turkey sandwiches, and cookies on a platter. They rang the bell, and their new neighbor answered, followed by a huge orange tabby.
"Hello, new neighbor! I'm Carol Baker, and this is my daughter, Lisa. Welcome to Jefferson Street."
The man's face beamed, and he said, "Thank you. I'm Jeff Mallett. I'm from Baton Rouge."
Lisa said, "Is that a cat?"
Mallett smiled and said, "He's a Maine Coon Cat. He's not happy with me because I took him to the vet to get his booster shots. When the doc saw he weighed 37.8 pounds, she put him on a diet."
Carol laughed, "Oh, poor guy."
Max strolled up to the Baker ladies and introduced himself, purring loudly and rubbing their shins.
Lisa said, "Can I pet him?"
Mallett said, "I think you have to — now. He's decided he likes you."
The big cat stood on his back paws like a meerkat as Lisa petted the top of his head.
"Carol, I have to travel sometimes. It looks like Max and Lisa are hitting it off. Would it be OK to hire her to feed him while I'm gone?"
"That's an outstanding idea for a first job," she replied, stroking the big cat's fur.
"He has to be brushed every day, but he loves it," Mallett said as he watched Max charm his visitors. "You can tell he's a big, goofy ham."
Lisa asked, "Do you have any kids?"
Carol noticed the reaction. Mr. Mallett paled noticeably and didn't reply instantly. It took a beat before he said, "No. It's just me and Max now."
Before Lisa could delve any deeper into what was obviously a sore subject for the man, she put a light restraining hand on Lisa's shoulder.
Carol and Jeff Mallett exchanged cell phone numbers, and the mother and daughter departed to let him and Max continue the work of getting moved in.
That night at the supper table with the family, Carol said, "We met our new neighbor today. His name is Jeff Mallett, and he's from Baton Rouge."
Craig, her oldest son, said, "I saw him at Arby's today. He got a bunch of sandwiches for the crew he had working this afternoon. He must be a pervert or something."
Carol said, "Craig, I'm ashamed of you! Why would you say such a thing."
"Nobody is that nice," Craig replied smugly.
Lisa said, "No. He's all right. Nobody wrong could have a cat like that."
Their father said, "Well, I'll do a search on his name, just to make sure we know who is living across the street.
After dinner, Mr. Baker retired to his office and ran a search: Jeff Mallett Baton Rouge, LA.
A long string of results appeared on the screen from the Baton Rouge Advocate, WBRZ, WAFB, and other news outlets in the Baton Rouge area.
He pulled up the latest article, dated last fall, and was shocked. Lone Star Trucking Reaches Undisclosed Settlement In Wrongful Death Lawsuit.
From Tiger Talk: It's a shame Jeff won't be returning.
The article that explained it all was from two and a half years ago: Twelve Were Killed, and Scores Injured In a Chain Reaction Accident on I-10. He remembered the accident from the news, and it had been simply horrifying. It had been blamed on a February sleet and a trucker on meth. There had been pictures on the television news of scores of charred, burned-out husks of vehicles
Mr. Baker read the articles and found that the man across the street had lost his wife and three children. Mallett had been a professor of Botany at LSU and a popular one, according to Tiger Talk.
As he was contemplating the sheer horror of losing your whole family in a firestorm created by an erupting tanker truck, Carol entered his office and asked, "What did you find out?"
The impact of the magnitude of the tragedy weighed on Joseph Baker, and he said, "Carol, that poor man has been through hell."
She also remembered the horrific accident on the news and gasped.
He clicked on an article with a picture of the Mallett family, and Carol said, "That's him, but he's lost so much weight."
Joseph said, "Our neighbor is starting over. Call Craig down. I want him to see just how big an ass you can make of yourself when you make snap judgments."
Jeff Mallett turned out to be an ideal neighbor. All of his neighbors liked him for buying and fixing up the old house that had been well on its way to becoming an eyesore. The Mathis, Kent, Rogers, and Henderson families all liked him. He soon became a fixture at weekend barbecues.
He had a home office he used to write. His Botany of South Louisiana was known far and wide as the authoritative academic text on the subject. He set himself to a book aimed at the popular market on the same subject. After moving in, he busied himself building a large greenhouse and restoring the long-disused vegetable garden space. By the first of May, the garden was well on its way.
His yard looked like it might have been Eden when his Louisiana Iris bloomed.
That summer, he took a vacation in Pensacola, and Lisa dutifully fed Max twice a day and played with the furry monster. She would brush him every visit. When Mallett returned, Lisa was rewarded with a hundred dollars and a half-dozen softball-sized tomatoes.
Mallett became very popular in town. He was unfailingly cheerful, upbeat, and polite, earning him the nickname Mr. Sunshine. There wasn't a waiter, waitress, grocery store cashier, bag boy, or delivery boy he crossed paths with who was likely to forget him.
Bus Boys were astonished to find that Mallett had neatly stacked his dishes to make it easy to clean up and wiped the table with his napkin. When one of them said he didn't have to do that, he replied that his mother's ghost would haunt him by smacking his knuckles with a ruler for leaving a mess.
In a chance meeting at Piggly Wiggly, a bag boy named Scott Ard was bemoaning the high costs of college. When they got to Mallett's truck, he pulled out his cell phone, called, and spoke to the person on the other end. He handed the phone to Ard and said, talk to these guys.
As he spoke, the boy's eyes got wider and wider. He gave them his name, address, and phone number.
He hung up the phone, handed it to Mallett, and said, "I'm going to college. How?"
Mallett said, "I just knew who to call," like he did it every day.
Because he did something like that every day. When the Missionary Baptist Church on the edge of town needed a new roof, a crew who had been paid in advance arrived and did the job in a day. When the local high school biology teacher asked him to speak on local plants, he was delighted and did an outstanding job. When the Ladies Garden Club requested, he gave them a similar lecture, and came with enough Louisiana Iris roots to go around.
Mr. Sunshine became something of a local legend.
Every February, he took a trip and was gone for a week. He discussed it with no one, and Lisa got to feed and play with Max.
Years passed, and Mr. Sunshine busied himself with his work. In his greenhouse, he developed two entirely new hybrids of tomatoes and developed three unique cultivars of Louisiana Iris.
Max's default cat sitter became Lisa's little sister, Maggie. Things changed. People lived and died, and Jeff Mallett was there for it all. He wasn't just there in spirit. He was there on the ground. He was at the hospital, the nursing home, and the funeral home. He made of himself a blessing.
It took seven years for Mallett to wind down. Every year, after his mysterious February trip, he seemed to return older.
On a windy March morning, Mallett's lawyer, Tyler Beaudreau, arrived at the police station in a near panic. He had received an email from Mallett stating his intention to kill himself.
They arrived at Mallett's house a little after eight, and Beaudreau produced a key and let the police in. The police found him in his office. Max had been sitting in front of the closed door.
Mr. Sunshine had nothing left to give. He took a poison derived from an obscure herb and went to sleep. Mallett had been dead for a long time. The person the townspeople had known had been an angel waiting for his flight home.
Max lived out his long life in the Baker household. It wasn't his first change. He had once belonged to a little girl named Anna. The big, friendly cat who was always ready to play shared his name with Mallett's son.
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22 hours ago, Rutabaga said:
Sadly, we never even learn the young man's name.
R
It was me. The picture is a scan of an old B&W picture of me run through an AI image filter that gave it an anime style and made me entirely too skinny.
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Warning: This story is set in a time with very different attitudes, which modern readers may find disturbing. Graphic language. Reader discretion is advised.
1975 - Central Mississippi
The phone on the district psychologist's desk rang. Kevin Hardin had been given a heads-up, and he was dreading it. Someone had fucked up badly, and now it was his problem. He steeled himself and answered.
“Hardin.”
“This is Coach Sal Ward, over at Oak Hill. I’m glad I caught you, sir. I’ve got a big problem with one of my seventh graders.”
“They told me about the kid you want to talk about. His file is on my desk, and it looks good.”
“That was last year. Something bad must have happened over the summer.”
Hardin said, “Tell me about it, coach.”
“The coach at the elementary school is a graduate assistant for State. Dave Brock is sharp and told me about this kid last fall. Big, fast, checks all the boxes. He was popular with his team, and they won the country cup last season.”
“So far, I’m not hearing a problem,” Hardin prodded the coach.
Ward audibly sighed and said, “I don’t know what the hell happened to this kid over the summer, but it has wrong written all over it. I’m no expert, but it smells like abuse. He was in his first fight before 1st bell on his first day. Another one that afternoon, and at least one a day every day this week.”
Hardin prompted, “OK. Tell me more. Physical aggressiveness is only one of the markers.”
“Well, he’s bruised up, but I don’t know whether it was from fighting or something else. I’ve been watching him between periods and when I have him in the gym. He stays away from the other kids and tries to slip away from trouble. The fighting, most of it, isn’t his idea. What the hell have I got here?”
“Trouble,” Hardin replied succinctly. “Do you know who his old man is? They call him the Colonel. Not just any Colonel. THE Colonel. If we go anywhere near this, we’re courting an all-out shitstorm if we go after a bone fide war hero.”
“I know,” Hardin said with asperity. “I have managed to get some leverage over the boy. In exchange for not calling his father to discuss the fighting, he’s agreed to sit down with you. He’s not saying anything useful to us other than everybody hates him now.”
Hardin paused and said, “OK, Coach. I’ll be at the high school on Monday. I’ll talk to him about the fighting and see what we can figure out.”
Ward asked, “One other thing, sir. I want to have a quiet word with Sheriff Daniels to see if they’ve heard anything that might shed some light on this.”
“That’s probably a good idea. See you Monday, Coach.
Fran’s Diner
7:00 am Saturday
Sheriff Daniels sat, fiddled with his coffee, and said, “Thanks for meeting me for breakfast, Sal.”
Coach Ward said, “No problem, Sheriff. I’m very concerned about the behavior of one of my students. It’s clear something drastic happened to him over the summer. I was wondering if you had heard anything that might explain it.”
The Sheriff’s expression changed to disgust. “I know exactly what happened. My esteemed Deputy, Harry Gaddis, held a little inquisition with Bob Rainer. Rainer had reason to believe that some of his scouts were committing sodomy. Gaddis actually brought in a seventeen-year-old for questioning. He read the sodomy law from a volume of the Mississippi state criminal code to the boys. Threatened to arrest them if he caught them.”
Ward exclaimed, “Jesus. No wonder he’s been fighting every day.”
The Sheriff took a bite of bacon and said, “Gaddis is a religious nut. I’d fire him, but he’ll run against me and win if I’m perceived as soft on queers. If there’s a crime, I can do something about it, but as it stands, it’s a family matter being handled badly.”
Coach Ward persisted, “This kid… looks so normal. He’s tough, a good student, and maybe my best player. Took on his whole homeroom and was kicking their ass before I stopped him.”
“He’ll need to be tough because we can’t do anything for him other than scrape him up.”
Oak Hill High School
Monday, Junior High Guidance Counselors Office
Kevin Hardin looked through the window in the door to get a look at the kid. He was certainly a big thirteen who could easily pass for older. The kid looked like any other junior high kid with bruises and a skinned elbow. He was wearing faded jeans and a t-shirt with The Who's logo. He had a notebook out and was doodling and singing quietly.
Hardin realized he had heard it on the radio, but the boy had changed the words. He listened to see if it could give him any insights.
No one knows what its like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind green eyes
No one knows what its like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies
No one bites back as hard
On their anger
None of my pain and woe
Can show through… (Mangled version of Behind Blue Eyes by The Who from Who’s Next, 1972.)
Turner backed away from the glass, walked across the office, and asked the secretary quietly, “Are you sure that’s the kid I’m supposed to see?”
The young woman said, “Coach Ward brought him in just before you arrived. He beat up half his homeroom a week ago when classes started.”
He thanked her, returned to the door, knocked, and went inside.
The boy looked up and said, “I was wondering if you would come in.”
Inside the office, the boy was even more impressive. He had reddish blond hair, striking green eyes and was built solid. No wonder the coaches liked him.
Turner said, “Hi. I’m Kevin. I’ve heard that you have been having some problems.”
The boy sat back in his chair and said, “You have no idea. OK. I’ll skip a step or two. I’ll say I don’t want to talk about it, and you’ll say I have to because of all the fighting.”
“Good. What should I call you?”
The boy huffed and said, “People have been calling me all sorts of things lately. Queer. Faggot. Bitch. Criminal. Filthy animal. My favorite one is abomination.”
Turner was intrigued by the boy’s emotional state. He was clearly angry, but it came out cold, controlled, and sarcastic. He sat down in the chair across the table from the boy and said, “You’re pissed.”
“You think? I didn’t even know what the hell Bob Rainer was even talking about! I was too dumb to deny it. Now… I don’t have any friends, and everybody hates me.”
Turner said, “Frankly, I’m glad you’re pissed and not just giving up. You beat up your whole homeroom.”
The boy blushed and slumped in his chair. His body language said clearly that he wasn’t proud of that incident.
“That… was a big failure on my part. I lost control, and the rage won,” he said dolefully. “I had been friends with most of those kids for years, and I just lost it. Now, I’m not just an abomination. I’m a crazy abomination.”
Turner asked gently, “There’s your favorite label again. Why does that bother you so much?”
Clearly agitated, the boy stood up and moved around. There was an expression of pain on his face, and he turned away. His emotional control was slipping.
The boy took a moment to gather himself and said, “I was raised in church. Our family goes every Sunday, so I’m just delighted to discover I’m eternally damned.”
It was Turner’s turn for a strong emotional reaction. This kid really believed it. “Would it be… helpful to get you a pastor or somebody to talk to?”
“Hell no. I’ve had a Christian counselor babbling nonsense bible verses at me twice a week since all this bullshit started. I had a belly full of thees and thous, my temper got the best of me again, and I told him to fuck off. After all, I’ve got eternal damnation to look forward to. What else can they do to me? Spank me? Put me in jail? They’ve already used their Sunday punch. Anything else is just… annoying.”
Turner said, “I know what you’re going through isn’t easy. We want to help, but we don’t want to make things worse for you.”
“Can you give me my friends back?”
“No.”
“Can you make my dad not look ashamed and disappointed?”
“No.”
"Can you tell me Jesus loves me again?"
"No."
“Then leave me alone. I’ve had enough 'help' to fuck up my whole life.”
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My Black Dog
My black dog is such a bitch,
At night, he causes my brain to glitch,
Instead of sleep, I relive pain,
Shut the fuck up, stupid brain.
Why can you not just forget?
Why do I have to relive this shit?
Like a VCR or high-res tape,
Horror emerges, I cannot escape.
PTSD? Situational depression?
Useless talk in endless sessions.
Occasionally, that mutt bites me hard,
It makes me hurt and opens old scars.
There ain’t an easy fix to be found.
How can I be rid of this flea-bitten hound?
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My Mom's funeral was the day before he passed.
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Oh, Mikie.
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This story is looking good so far. I am already a big fan of Bear. 🐻
Alan, don't think you are the only author with a little wish fulfillment in their characterization.
When it comes to writing characters, I tend to write people I've known or composites of people I've known. If you're familiar with The Company or The Summer Job, I've known most of those characters and their backstory.
I didn't do that to be creepy. A lot of those guys didn't survive the eighties/nineties. Much of The Company is the author's wish fulfillment, and in the story, they survive and thrive.
In The Summer Job, the characters illustrated why they acted as they did, and how sometimes people can be perceived as villainous, but are redeemed when you get to know them better, and you get facts instead of rumors.
The Summer Job will be coming here to AD in the new year. I'm not sure what to do with The Company. It's become a 250K+ monster and is a 1 chapter/day near stream of consciousness experiment.
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Cave paintings thousands of years old describe sex acts that would make a sailor blush.
A rookie sailor, but a sailor nonetheless. 😉
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Something tells me its not going so well...
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I keep getting hit on online by women despite haunting gay sites and forums.
I created the following to let them know they're barking up the wrong tree.
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14 hours ago, Camy said:
Good one, James. It is reminiscent of 'The Place In Between.'
Those were the days. If I didn't get laid a couple of times a day, I was probably sick.
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the Second Time Around
1978
I first met Randy when I was sixteen, and he was fifteen. I met him at Frank's house- a guy from my football team that I screwed around with from time to time. He enticed me to come over by telling me about a kid from his neighborhood that wanted to join in.
Randy was a shy kid. He wasn't big, athletic or a jock. He was cute and a lot more feminine than most of the guys I previously messed around with. What caught my attention was his bright, intelligent blue eyes.
Frank treated him like a hooker. He grabbed Randy by his hair, shoved his cock in his mouth and started f**king his face and saying, "You like that don't you little bitch."
I was appalled and said, "Dude, be cool."
Frank was enjoying being rough and looked at me like I was nuts. "Don't tell me you're soft on this little faggit?"
Randy got off Frank's cock (which was not that long a trip) and said, "It's cool. I wouldn't let him do it like that if we hadn't known each other since diapers."
Even at 16 I had seen some humiliating shit and treating people that way was a real turn off, so I left the room. A few minutes later after Frank got his 2-minute nut, he joined me on the back porch for a smoke.
I asked, "Where's Randy?"
"He didn't think that you liked him, so he left."
Shaking my head I said, "It's not that. I just don't like seeing people treated that way."
"I don't get you man. You're one of the roughest guys I know, but you are so different with your clothes off."
I grinned at him and said, "Better or worse?"
"Better I guess."
"Look man, I need to go. I'll see you later."
Frank just laughed and said, "Randy's house is up towards Castle Hills."
I drove my Grand Prix up the road to Castle Hills and I approached him from behind. He was tall and skinny wearing white tennis shorts, a crimson Alabama t-shirt and flip-flops.
I drove up beside him and said, "Hey!"
He jumped. He wasn't expecting me and gave me a wild eyed expression.
I said, "You want to ride around?"
He smiled, opened the passenger side door and got in. "Where you want to go?"
I said, "Sometimes it ain't the destination, it's the ride."
I drove to a nearby wooded lake and parked.
He looked at me and said, "I didn't think you liked me back at Frank's."
"That's not it. It was the way Frank treated you. I didn't care for it. Do you want to smoke a joint?"
Randy grinned and looked at me.
I pulled out a joint and lit it. Feeling a little self-conscious, I said, "What?"
Randy said, "You're not at all what I expected."
I took a drag and passed it. "What did you expect?"
"Another one of Frank's half-wit jock f**k-buddies who wants a blow job."
"I like blow jobs."
Randy took a drag and coughed. "Well, who doesn't. I mean there's more to you than that."
I took the joint and said, "Thanks."
Randy said, "For the joint?"
I let my hit out and said, "No. Thanks for noticing. I have to be this ass kicking jock redneck to... I don't know. Survive? Fit in? Mostly to keep people from f**king with me. That's what I have to be. What I am, inside, where it matters, they can't have it. That's for me and the people I chose to share it with."
Randy took the joint. I noticed he was looking a little stoned. He said something incredible. Something deep that I had longed to hear. He said, "I understand" and I believed him.
I said, "So, would you like to see more of the real me?"
He smiled and said, "I believe that I would."
I got out of the car and pulled a blanket out of the trunk. We walked to a sunny clearing in the woods where I made love to Randy, gently and with respect. Afterwards, we just lay there naked in the afternoon sun and talked for hours.
I found out quickly being Randy's boyfriend would just not work. A hood, stoner, thug like me and a preppy like Randy came from entirely different worlds. His mother would never accept me. My parents would never accept an effeminate guy being around me. However, over the next three years, we shared those worlds occasionally until life happened and took us in different directions.
_____________________________________________________________________________
2010
I had not seen or heard from Randy in years when he "friend requested" me a few months ago on Facebook.
Things started slow. We had both been down a lot of dark and lonely roads. Randy's long-time mate David and my Jeff had both died of AIDS in 1996. We had both survived more than thrived. He's been sober and in AA for three years. I've been clean and sober in NA for five years.
We both know that we're carrying a shitload of baggage and that we're both damaged goods but for some reason that doesn't seem to matter.
Youthful passion and white-hot lust have given way to happy familiarity. We talk more than we have sex which is something new and completely alien for me.
Maybe we have a chance to have something we both missed because of the times and attitudes and culture.
Maybe we have a chance to grow together, heal each other and walk away from the searing pain of our pasts.
Maybe we have a chance to have some good years and not have to walk alone.
I'm damned sure that we're both due for a change for the better.
Who knows? Maybe we'll get it right the second time around.
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Read his bio here. Pay attention to the part about his marital status and how Disney fucked him over at 21.
Tommy Kirk, Obit at The SunWas Tommy Kirk married?
Kirk remained unmarried throughout his life.
Despite being viewed as one of Disney's favorite kid actors, it was previously reported that the company fired him over being gay in 1964 when he was 21-years-old.
According to TMZ, Kirk once said: "When I was about 17 or 18 years old, I finally admitted to myself that I wasn’t going to change. I didn’t know what the consequences would be, but I had the definite feeling that it was going to wreck my Disney career and maybe my whole acting career. It was all going to come to an end."
The child star added: "Eventually, I became involved with somebody and I was fired."
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Plenty of room for drama in that premise in the Texas ==> Massachusetts move alone.
Looking forward to it.
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A snip just for you Camy.
Lucky Charm was sixty feet long and looked fast sitting still with sharp lines. She was mostly white with red trim and a pugnacious looking green leprechaun painted on her stern.
Billy’s evaluation was, “That’s not a boat. That’s a little ship.”
Pops drove slowly by and said, “That’s our ride. We’ve got numerous options about where we can go and what we might do when we get there. One of our options is that I know a man who runs a resort on Palawan in the Philippines like the one we’re staying in. He offered me a job anytime I want it and, with Lucky Charm, we can run charters. It’s one of our options, and I think you will like it there. It gets many Australian tourists, and who doesn’t like Aussies?”
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Just sent to Mike. It will start posting soon.
This is something new for me. I'm sort of flexing my writing chops with this one.
You'll wonder what the heck, and then it'll grab you.
Hope you enjoy!
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I did think. You did not. Read the post again carefully.
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COVID-19 is a modified Coronavirus(1). Coronaviruses are first cousin to the Rhinovirus which cause the lions share of head colds. One guess which family causes the rest of them: coronaviruses.
Coronavirus and Rhinovirus are positive stranded RNA virus which means their genetic material is the single stranded RiboNucleaic Acid (RNA). They differ significantly from DioxyNucleaic Acid (DNA) based viruses. RNA viruses do not have double-stranded genetic material of DNA viruses and are much smaller than their more evolved cousins. As a consequence, RNA viruses do not have the error correcting mechanism built into dual stranded DNA, and are apt to mutate at the drop of a hat.
These mutations happen very rapidly, and soon a population with an Alpha RNA virus will soon have Beta, Gamma, and Delta strains.
It is possible to create a vaccine for a specific Rhino or Coronavirus, but the problem is that each mutation Serotype will differ enough from the original that the probability that the vaccine will work decreases.
This is why there has never been a vaccine for the common cold. There are literally hundreds of thousands of Rhinoviruses and Coronaviruses each with a unique protein shell. It is that serotype that vaccines use to train our immune systems to look out for.
This is also why the COVID-19 vaccine is of very limited efficacy. Most of them do a reasonable job of inoculating against the original COVID strain, it is only partially effective against current sub-strains of COVID like Delta and Gamma. It will be completely useless against future substrains as they diverge further and further from the baseline COVID serotype.
Without hysteria, consider what Coronaviruses and Rhinoviruses actually do: they cause mild respiratory illness. In patients who are elderly, present with pre-existing conditions or compromised immune systems, this can escalate to a viral pneumonia.
Nothing has really changed other than we have a wide-spread virus with shadowy origins that make us all very nervous.
The way that it has been handled on a national and international level is extremely questionable.
Why destroy economies for a virus with a 99.8%+ recovery rate?
Why force vaccinations when natural herd immunity is better for actually killing the damn thing eventually?
A much more rational policy is to protect vulnerable populations like the elderly, people with pre-existing conditions and compromised immune systems than to inflict vaccination on an entire population. One of the dirty little secrets of vaccination is that the tiny rate of Vaccine Injury when applied over a large enough population may eventually kill more people than the virus itself.
It's not ignorance alone that has people looking askance at the mass vaccination for COVID.
I have had both doses of the Pziefer vaccine. I took it because I am around many elderly people. Knowing what I know now, I won't be taking anymore.
This entire COVID phenomenon has been managed fear and hysteria which has been leveraged by sharp operators for political advantage, and to enrich themselves by the billions while spreading misery and economic disaster to the rest of us.
It is past time to JUST SAY NO to the overreach.
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Something in the oven...
________________________Door Kickers
I was listening to an album trilogy by Stone Rebel called The Indigo Trilogy. The MP3 was playing on my computer and was being fed to my Cambridge Audio AXR100 over a Bluetooth connection driving a pair of Klipsch Reference Premiere RF-8000F speakers.
The rich sound of the superbly crafted music filled the room as I wrote a review. For a little while, the beauty of the music forced the ugly memories to retreat.
For a while, I could forget. I could forget the IEDs. I could forget the burned, stinking bodies. I could forget the maimed children, the gaunt sunken eyes and the ever-present smell of death. I could forget the dead and broken friends.
All that combat. All that death. All the rules of engagement that had obviously been written by a retarded lawyer. All those battles fought with both hands tied behind our back that by some miracle, we won.
All for nothing so some pussy of a politician could say we were done.
The VA said I had PTSD. Well, fuck. Of course, I do. That’s what happens to sane people in war. The insane ones like the killing. I’d seen that shit too.
Unlike many vets of the Sand Box, I did not find my solace in a pill, baggie or bottle. I drowned the din of battle in my head with beautiful music played loud.
Like a lot of my fellows, I started out listening to metal. That worked for a while, but metal is… psychically jagged and I had bled enough. I needed something different. I found it in Progressive rock.
That’s what I was listening to when the FBI kicked in my door. Some REMFers pointed guns at me as they cleared the house, hooked me up and put a black bag over my face, and arrested me for treason.
The Prog Page
I started my page on a popular social media site when I go home. As a long-time fan of progressive rock, it was only natural that I created The Prog Page dedicated to progressive rock. Over the years it attracted seventy-five hundred fans of old progressive groups like Yes, Pink Floyd, Rush and new bands like Marillion, Possum Tree and Stone Rebel.
Like similar pages, I had to deal with spammers, scammers, trolls and off-topic posts. Some people had the idea that everyone, even people who belonged to closed moderated forums, needed to hear about their religion and politics.
At first, I tried to reason with them. This does not work with unreasonable people. The only way to deal with the true believers is to ban them. They are certainly entitled to their opinions, but our forum is not about their religion or politics and disruptive behavior isn’t welcome. Every year I had to ban scores of spammers, scammers and trolls. Posting the rules did not work. They had their mission, and it was incompatible with Progressive Rock.
I don’t give a rat’s hairy butt if you hate republicans, democrats, know for sure that 9/11 was an inside job, your conspiracy theories, insider information or know a guy who knows a guy. If it’s not about Progressive Rock, it doesn’t belong on the Prog Page.
I’m interested in the great albums. Fragile by Yes. 2112 by Rush. The Wall by Pink Floyd. I’m interested in new music that sounds great and tickles something in my brain like imagination and wonder.
I’m not interested in crazy conspiracy stuff about the Federal Reserve, Vaccine depopulation, aliens from Roswell or Lizard People that control the government.
It got so bad, I had to create a series of questions any Prog fan could answer just to keep the spammers, scammers and trolls out. What is your favorite progressive album? What is your favorite progressive band? Those questions zapped most of them because they had no idea.
I do a decent job of keeping the Prog Page on topic. Sometimes I miss an off-topic post or two and other Admins let me know. Ian from Manchester or Ariel from Tel Aviv are online when I sleep or am at work.
Social media is a strange place. There are the giants, and we all know who they are, and there are the midgets, smaller sites that cater to special interests. The giants are large and strange in the way they run things. They are a bit like me. Their response to most problematic users is simply to ban them. As the Prog Page is probably the least offensive of any group and I bounce spammers, scammers and trolls as soon as they pop up, I wasn’t on the moderator’s radar. For years the group performed its mission: to bring great progressive rock to anyone who wanted to find it.
Documents
In our forum there is a documents section. Pinned at the top of the list is Top100ProgAlbums.pdf that contains a list of the Top 100 progressive rock albums of all time. I’ve got sixty of them on vinyl and most of the rest on CD. The site that makes the list comes out with a new one every year, so it gets changed every February.
Other documents that land there are reviews, criticisms and lyrical analysis. Some people want to call other rock groups progressive, and that’s a long-running and unwinnable debate. Are the Who or King Crimson prog? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. That is a completely valid topic of debate for our page. If you make a good case and don’t get personal, debate away to your heart’s content.
Recently, we had many new people. Russell from Texas answered his favorite prog album was Close to the Edge and his favorite group was Yes. Al from Iowa liked Lucky Man by Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Gus from Georgia liked Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. All of it old school, but respectable choices.
I accepted them all.
They liked posts most people liked. They participated in discussions. What I did not notice was when Gus from Georgia uploaded a file: NAC-MFI.pdf.
Interrogation
“Sergeant Daniel Clark, how long have you been in contact with the New American Congress?”
“I haven’t been a Sergeant in a good while, and I don’t follow Congress.”
A different voice said, “You need to answer our questions.”
“I would if I knew what you were talking about.”
The first voice growled, “These soldier boys have been trained to resist interrogation.”
The second voice said, “Mr. Clark. You had the New American Congress Manual for Insurrection posted in your Progressive Rock page. Could you explain that?”
“I’ve never heard of the New American Congress and, if I had noticed it, I would have deleted it and banned whoever uploaded it. I don’t want political shit on my page.”
The first voice said, “You’re going to have to do better than that Clark. You are arrested under the terms of the Patriot Act. We can hold you as long as we want.”
“You would be wasting your time. I stay out of politics. Period. Both sides are fucked up and… I’ve got problems of my own. I don’t need or want any part of that.”
The second voice said, “Clark, you fit a profile the New American Congress looks to recruit: you’re a veteran of the War on Terror. You’ve had problems since you got back. You are just the kind of angry, trained, decorated veteran that they want.”
I sighed and said, “Then they’re going to be disappointed. I’ve had all the war I want. I just want to run my business, live a quiet life and listen to good music. I have to be the most boring suspect you’ve ever picked up.”
The first voice said, “We don’t pick up many with a Silver Star, airborne wings and Ranger tabs. That’s why we’re interested in you. If a man like you were to go rouge, you could do a lot of damage.”
The second voice asked, “Do you know who Gus from Georgia is?”
I answered, “Nothing other than his favorite album was Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd.”
The first voice said, “That was Colonel Jacob Henderson. He’s recruiting for the New American Congress.”
I swallowed and said, “Then you’ve got a much bigger problem than a wanna be hippie like me that don't want to make war no more if Havoc Henderson is on the other side.”
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error
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99.8% is an easy money bet.
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Chapter 12 is difficult. Sometimes an author has said all he can and needs to take a breath.
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If You Came Up Then You Would Understand
"If one more idiot asks me if I'm a top or a bottom, I swear, I'm going to deck them!"
"Easy, easy champ."
"It's none of their damned business. There's no way I'm going to play hide the salami with a perfect stranger."
"Dude, it's not the eighties anymore."
"Thank God. If you came up then, you would understand."
"If I'd come up then, I would probably have been a causality or a basket-case. What was it like?"
"It was like some malevolent thing was stalking you and everyone you cared about. At the time, being out often ostracized gay people and the community was all they had. People read the paper back then. Every day you would look at the obituaries and hope you didn't recognize a name."
"Jesus."
"There was a guy who was part of a group that ran a few record stores around the area. I saw him at the store pretty regular. Then he wasn't there one day. A week later he was on the obituary page. If you were lucky, it was like that. It just nipped at your acquaintances. If it got someone close to you, and you were faithful and stuck around, you got to see what a real nightmare looked like."
Rocky put his hand on the older man's arm and said, "You sound like you are speaking from experience."
"Yeah. AIDS was an epic shit show. Nobody got out of that without scars."
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Mr. Sunshine - content warning - mature content
in Flash Fiction
Posted
This story was somewhat experimental.
I'm a very visual thinker, and I decided to try to use my descriptions to see what an AI rendering of my description would look like. Setting and description is one of the essential crafts in the art. I call it an art because there's a fine line between too little and far too much.
I put the text of the description of a house, a key part of the setting for the story that occurred to me this Sunday morning. Same thing for the cat.
The images are included as illustrations.
Except for the Louisiana Iris. That's from my garden. Sorry, they don't grow north of I-20, but they're spectacular.