Day After Day, Misery

 

Chapter 7 (2nd part) of 25 -- Head Hunters of the Amazon

Hunger

Of course yesterday they found the canoe, but if you yourself would like to test your jungle sleuthing skills and see how hard it was, I challenge you to traverse the intricacies of the forest maze above. It's not as hard as it looks.

But something seemed hopeless, the outlook Jack and Up de Graff had after the canoe tipped. They had no hope of recovering a single thing from the deep muddy stream. The things that floated were miles away. The rifles and provisions were embedded in the silt under very deep, swift moving water. Had they tried to dive for things, the muddy current would have been too strong. It's hard for me writing the blog today to come up with funny stuff. I have a feeling this is going to be brutal.

Their immediate problem was food. They decided their only hope was to pick a trail and get going on foot. So, barefoot, no hats, only pants and cotton shirts, blankets, machetes, and a bottle of molasses to their name, they set off. Thorns gave them a lot of trouble. Then it was ceaseless rain. The ground was swampy. They slept on a more or less clear patch of ground, but woke up itching. OK, not too tough, thorns, rain, swampy, itching. OK, yes, it's tough.

On the second day of the march they swam across a swift stream twice, losing their blankets. Their feet were nearly numb from the thorns, it was nearly as bad as you can imagine. A little later they swam the stream a third time and found their own machete marks from before. They'd gone in a complete circle. It's that deja vu feeling all over. My own sense of direction's getting bad too. Where I live, to me south doesn't feel like south, and north feels east but I know 100% that it's north. This is true.

Jack joked, "If you'd only told me you were coming back for another dip, I'd have waited for you." OK, back to the suffering: On the third day, the pangs of hunger left them, but they knew they'd only get weaker if they didn't eat. They tried something from the top of a palm tree, looking like celery. But they couldn't keep it down, being nauseated. Awaking on the fourth morning, their scratches were infected, causing a maddening irritation, breaking out like ring-worms. The third day, the fourth day, everything's getting worse. Probably should've bargained with the Yumbos not to run out on them, had they only known.

They struggled ahead, Jack finally killing a turkey with a machete. But they couldn't eat it for sickness. The fifth morning they woke up in a puddle. Trying to go on, Up de Graff sank to the ground. But Jack went on, then came back excited, shouting, "Get up, for God's sake, man; I've found a trail -- as big as Broadway!" I'm not peeking ahead. I hope his news is as good as it sounds!

Warning: Cheer Up!

Part 29 of 30 -- Psycho Squad

Everywhere I go as a mental health guy — head of the local Psycho Squad — I share the same positive message of moral uplift, good cheer and behavior. Because for the most part I have the world’s greatest attitude, only so often what I get in return are folks looking back at me tough as nails, like they’d jump me in a second with a ready shiv. Yes, there’s a few cheerful ones. I try not to take all the credit, but I figure they’re also inherently mean but briefly piggybacking on my good cheer.

It’s amazing how many folks I run into in the course of a day. I take the dog out and there’s strangers everywhere, walking up or down the street. Serious question: Whatever happened to people walking on the sidewalk? Why are they always literally walking in the street? I have some theories on that, but when you’re in my business, you have theories on everything. Like my theory on squinting: I sometimes squint my eyes and seem to detect that people with psychotic tendencies often live in houses that appear to be melting. (A true result of squinting, and if verified it'd be a great tool for diagnoses.)

Really, it seems like I see more with my eyes squinting than wide open! I don’t know if there’s any relation to how you fix your eyes (open, closed, squinting) and the accuracy of discerning life's secrets. It’s an interesting theory. Maybe one of these years I’ll make a New Year’s resolution to squint my eyes more than ever and see what kind of year I have! It’d be interesting to squint your eyes in rush hour, because I believe I’d see a lot more accidents than otherwise. I seriously don't have the time for accidents and the nasty aftermath, but it'd be a great way to meet new people in distress.

I don’t know what you do for a living, but unless you’re with the police or bill collectors you don’t see as many sad (and mean) people as I do. To normal people, there’s nothing more fascinating than the Psycho Squad. I get a million questions from normal people, all asked with a big wide-eyed look of true interest on their sweet faces. The first thing normal kids want from me is to blow the siren. Which I can’t legally do, but if they promise real good not to report me I’ll blow it for a few seconds. Then there’s kids and adults who aren’t normal. Sensing me in the neighborhood, even without the siren, they duck down quickly inside their melting houses, trying to stay hidden from the light of day, and doing ... who knows what? There's so much squalor of their very dim, sun-deprived houses or apartments, it could be anything. It's bad for property values for sure, too much melting.

If you get a bunch of folks together — say someone's reported them for abnormal tendencies — and I show up, with a blank sheet of paper to take down their info, you have never seen a bunch of sadder pusses than the look on these folks! Grimaces! Frowning like concentrated evil, furrowed eyebrows, bald heads flushed pink with social disgust, really the whole gamut. What can I do but run ‘em in, and let the system sort ‘em out? Yes, I get it. They hate me. But I’m pursuing their ultimate happiness, and if they can prove they’re not a danger to themselves or others, and that can sometimes be a struggle, they can go back home. Folks, the answer’s easy: Put a nice smile on your face when I’m around or face the music.

They could duck down and hide when I go by, but somehow I’d still be drawn to them and they to me, and I’m not sure anyone will ever get away.

All My Sorrows -- A Billion Complaints

I'm suffering a weird, slowed-down miasma for my thought-processes today, no doubt rooted in a wild profusion of problems all pressing to the fore at the same time. And weighing me down. I know I'll make it through -- there's no problem big enough to keep me down forever -- but I want to alert you. If I come across mean, wicked, and surly, that's why. Being a billionaire, as I am, only seems to intensify the situation, likely because it seems like wealth should be a perpetual happiness machine, a steamroller.

The ironic thing is that my wealth is creating new problems all the time. Remember my euphoria at buying 300,000 books at the Biggest Book Sale in the State the day before yesterday? I backtracked on that yesterday, apologizing for ruining everyone's sale. Now there's questions about how I'm going to make it through the books, then what to do with the excess.

We were in touch with the worm bedding company in Alabama, and discovered that they have strict rules for what they'll accept. There's all kinds of safeguards they insist on, out of fear that the books might be infested with bedbugs, dust mites, various harmful larvae, and even the dried skin cells from readers, termed by them bookworms. Leading me to snap back, "Nothing's too good for a worm, eh?" Sheesh. But they have "high standards," and all the rest, any excuse to make people jump through a few more hoops.

Another problem, sort of the same, there's interstate commerce laws that shipments of books over 50 tons, particularly involving transport to Alabama -- damn the luck -- is subject to rigorous checking, verification procedures, and of course reams of paperwork. It's all pressing on me like the weight of the world, simply because a few measly earthworms are picky about where they sleep! Please don't write in; I know these are human regulations, based on this bureaucrat having a job, working for this bureaucrat, on and on, bureaucrats on the ground floor, extending upward forever. They're not worried about the worms.

Then even when we get the paperwork done -- and every Alabaman ass sufficiently kissed -- the train lines have their own regulations. Then there's the procuring of box cars, the logistics of all that, the loading, the overseeing of the job, right down to insuring the shipments for liability, I guess lest a hobo starts in on a good book and ends up with head lice! For crying out loud, they're hobos! They live in jungles, and you're telling me they're scared of books! Anyway, I saw a train going through town today and it boggled my mind; how'd they manage to ship anything?

Apart from those problems, there's a few liability issues of a different sort closer to home, also involving the book sale. Apparently we're being sued. Disgruntled customers are claiming all kinds of injuries in the lines involving the guys we hired to slow things down. Some were jostled, feet stepped on, toes stubbed, arms bruised, and one old guy -- 83-years-old -- claims one of our guys sexually molested him! Without getting explicit ... that's probably enough. Just the thought that this old bastard would think our team went out of their way to "get it on" with his little prune is absurd. Hell, I had a 81-year-old guy grab me one day in the park, and I was freaked out but overlooked it. But I haven't been back since.

You know something? I was happier sitting at home minding my own business. Which I should have been doing this whole week -- enjoying my $2.1 billion in activities like this, going out to eat, having a few ice cream sundaes, and maybe buying a new car. The garage could use new shingles. I'll have to check the old ones first, though, just to make sure there's no troublesome infestations. Usually old shingles are clean, thanks the sun pounding on them all day. That's what we could do with the books, spread them all over the half-acre for six hours at a time, and let the sun kill off the bugs, worms, mites, and other vermin. But I doubt if that's an authorized method.

I don't have time to mention two other problems, gold diggers and glad-handers. Glad-handers, too many. Gold diggers, none yet.

9/11 -- The Dirty Bird of Days

Nobody knows what to do with this day. The usual rules don't apply. You go to the diner and Trixie isn't herself. She's muted her usual boisterousness, her usual lust for life. The past comes rushing in on us. However long ago it was -- perhaps we could look it up -- doesn't matter. The same somber tone, the same unwelcome sobriety descends upon us, one and all, and once again we're beside ourselves.

Once we were beside ourselves with terror -- utterly perplexed, finding devils in the smoke -- and now it's with reflection and a shaking fist, at the sky, at somebody, as we chant, "Never again!" I remember the first time I heard that familiar chant. We adults were stoic, standing stolid in complete silence. I remember my own stolid stance, the evil wind of that day moving my hair, that's it. I didn't know what to say, no adult did. The chant started then, wonderfully enough, with a little kid, maybe not more than four or eight, something like that. He or she raised his or her little fist, and with an angelic voice, as if from the clouds, he or she started in: "Never again! Never again!"

Other than that, does anyone really remember what they did? I don't. I remember my first day of kindergarten, my first Valentine, my first kiss on the playground, my first school lunch, my first (and second) Cub Scouts pins -- Fox and Bear, actually the only ones I ever earned, the day LBJ had his surgery, and the day I lost my virginity to myself. But that day, that terrible day, so long ago and yet as fresh as today to so many, is a weird blur, a distant nightmare that I mostly remember only because others remind me.

I know this much about it, though, the world hushes itself in its presence. Every lip is sealed, every voice struggles, every eye sheds a tear. There is no laughter. The decree goes forth, binding on one and all, "Let laughter subside!" Give it up, let it be, a pall falls, and that same dread we faced, and have pretty much repressed, returns to the fore, and what seemed so proper just yesterday -- Ha! Ha! Ha! -- is at once set aside, perhaps never to be heard again ... We just don't know. Can we make it? Will anything ever be the same? I don't think so...

This is now the dirty bird of days. You know the dirty bird. The dirty bird emits droppings on everything in its path. Straight below it, around the yard, around the block, then the town, and finally the world. Joy and happiness are far from its path. It may be the most joyous occasion of all, a picnic, a birthday celebration, the day of your first marriage. But when the dirty bird gets hold of it, it's nothing anymore, a waste, a void, something to be buried and forgotten. Your happiness that seemed permanent and set to endure, in the twinkling of an eye, is turned to despair.

Have you washed your hair? The dirty bird passes, or lands, and again it's a mess, as though it were never washed. Were you proud of your car, the sheen, the shine, the glint of the day's noonday sun beaming on it? Passing is the dirty bird, doing what the dirty bird does, and your car's just as crappy as ever. Or you have a brand new set of shingles on your house. You're showing it to your priest, but even he has to turn away -- he's who's heard every squalid confession there is -- as the dirty bird passes, emitting, dropping, and bombarding everything in its filthy path.

Let introspection reign, then, on this day of days, the day of the dirty bird. May each heart be gripped with moroseness, completely seized up and bound. As for me and my house, we're staying in today. And now ... to silence.

The Forlorn Duck

If I may be so bold, Hello! -- Please don't hit me, I didn't mean anything by it. Please excuse the mood; it's getting kind of severe, this skittishness. . . . The thing is, I've been doing some fairly intense work on my identity, looking for certain aspects of my personality to put forward. I feel like I've sunk a lot in recent weeks -- I don't know why -- A lot of my former confidence and even joy have gone missing.

My self image right now's at its lowest. And the more I do -- the old stuff I used to do for maximum happiness -- doesn't have the same kick as before. I go to bed sad. I wake up in the night sad. And of course I greet the brand new day, pulling open the curtains to see the new day's sun, in a totally sad way. I've become what I never dreamed I'd be, The Forlorn Duck. That's what I'm calling myself, "FD" for short.

So if you've never liked me before -- it wouldn't be so hard to believe -- please like me now. This Forlorn Duck stuff is worse than you'd think. It's so bad, it's like the experts say, It's hard to get out of it. So part of me says, "Just give up and give in. Be the Forlorn Duck." Part of me counsels resistance, "Put up a good effort of resistance." Then the old me, the confident me, checks in before quickly checking out again, with this, "Stand your ground as the strong confident person you used to be. Gotta run!" My old me apparently doesn't know much about counseling. He needs to hang around a while and do some validating.

I go places, and I see other Forlorn Ducks, by the way not to be confused with Hangdogs or Sourpusses, although I don't want to get sidetracked on technicalities. I see all of them, but it's the Forlorn Ducks I'm interested in now. The biggest problem with Forlorn Ducks is our vulnerability to every little thing. If you know anything about "The Ladder of Easily Helpable Self Images", a chart which I'll scan and post if I can find it, then you know Forlorn Ducks tend to flock in the "Healthy below average" range.

Looking at it that way, it's not as discouraging as it could be. I really think I might be able to overcome enough of it to work my way into "Healthy average." Again, if you like me, then maybe give me even a little encouragement, and I just might make it. And here's something. Even if you don't like me, and don't give me encouragement, I might be able to convince myself that you would have if you knew me better. That theoretical statement could be enough to raise me a few rungs. (I don't know where the Ladder chart is right now; I'd love to double check it.)

I suppose while I'm in this FD funk I should learn as much about it as I can. I'm big into the science of self images and all. I believe this is true, that FD-types, while not desiring contact with other FDs, must have something like a DNA override, an internal attractor/reacher-outer, for mutual protection. And that's why I'm suddenly surrounded by FDs. I need to get out of this quickly, lest the override sticks in place. There's another reason for you to like me. I need your heartfelt consideration, but as I've seen in anguished Facebook pleas for liking, I know that only 2% of the non-FD population will respond. Thinking of that -- 2% is basically low -- it's hard to be encouraged. Yet I am still heartened that it's not less than zero, for where there's 2%, there's hope.

This is horrible! I just need to get a grip! I am more, much more than a Forlorn Duck! What's this? I feel something ... Muscles are returning to my arms? My shoulders and jaws are suddenly squaring up? My solar plexus is starting to flicker, then shine? My feet are widening? I'm standing solid? Yes -- what is this? -- I'm standing solid! One foot up, one down, one up, one down! I'm stomping! I'm stomping again, me! Stomping again! Stomping victoriously! Now I'm turning, twisting, moving in a circular motion, like a human tornado, a powerful whirling humanado, picking up steam and ... emitting a lot of wind. With confidence again! I'm moving with confidence! More, more, more! Pointing my index finger, like John Travolta in the '70s, with all negativity falling away like dominoes, all of it collapsing in a gigantic heap!

The Forlorn Duck has passed away! With this simple exercise, writing up an inventory, that's all it took. I'm already up a rung on the Ladder, all the way to "Healthy average"! With super strength, alive and kicking ... meaning, now I am able once again to help others ... with a renewed push toward healthy self images for all demanded of me! ... We're on the verge, my friends, of a new Drive for Pride!*

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*Drive for Pride was a major self-help series of this blog in 2009-2010, for those with a failing memory.

The Funerals Of Those I Killed

I gotta tell you, I'm numb, wrung out. It's been a very downer day, one of the worst. It's tougher being a criminal than I could've ever imagined. A weird mix of adrenalin and testosterone and we kill easily, then it wears off. "Did I do that?" There was a story the other day about a guy who lived with the skeletal remains of his girlfriend for six years. I know the feeling. It's tough to get over what you've done.

It's even tougher for me, because I'm still a fairly new criminal. I just started this month! And I'm having a hard time shaking the person I've always been, a non-criminal. Killing guys has its upside, don't get me wrong, but there's something unnatural about offing other people's enemies who aren't your own.

So far, though, I'm relatively innocent. I've only killed three guys, two I didn't know and one I was familiar with, the Ciggie gang member who wanted to bar me from Tastee Freez. The first two, I'm not sure what they did to deserve death. Maybe it's like the minister said, they were "senseless deaths." As for the Ciggie, try as I might to be merciful, I believe he had it coming!

Don't worry about me, though, please, because I'm going to get it. Although I'll probably have to do something different than I did today, which was to go to these sons of bitches' funerals. That might be a first in the world of crime, to have three funerals in one day for guys who were killed, then to have the guy who did it in attendance. But nobody knows I had anything to do with it. So I, Machine Gun Ricky Wayward, can come and go as I please! LOL, kind of funny, to be sitting there as these scumbags are canonized! Assuming indeed they were scumbags...

The first two, I don't know. Maybe they owed something on a bet, or hooker fees. And that's fair. You owe, you pay. We provide a valuable service, but it doesn't pay for itself. Their funerals were similar, each in the same funeral home, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. The two ministers consoled the families. One guy had a wife and a couple of kids, the other was single with an elderly mother, looking to be on her last legs. Of course I had my natural sympathy, offering the wife, then the elderly mother my condolences, while reflecting they were straight out of Central Casting. Right down to the worry wrinkles on Mother.

The ministers didn't make a full exploration of how they were mixed up with criminals. Possibly they didn't think it was the time or place. One's biggest lamentation was reserved for the "animals" who did this, and for how "senseless" it all was. I had to wince at the "animals" remark, prompting me to remember him, remember his name, then any physical characteristics that might stick out were I to encounter him some night in the dark.

The Ciggie's funeral had more spirit to it. They were playing '80s rock music, and a contingent of about 15 actual Ciggie members were there. I was dressed in a suit and tie and kept closer to the normal mourners. None of them seemed to recognize me, which was just as well; I may predate the '80s in my basic musical background, but I'm still too young to die.

The minister here, though, was just as conservative and reserved as the others. He paid tribute to the Ciggie's life, naming among his hobbies, painting farm scenes on saw blades and restoring wagons to share with handicapped children. He and his wife -- she with a sad stoic look -- also volunteered at the nursing home, handing out bananas and other prizes to the folks there enjoying Bingo night.

I had to check the program to make sure I was in the right place. This guy deserved to die?! Over a possible misunderstanding about Tastee Freez?! I'm thinking, What kind of animal would do this? Then, of course, it all came back to me... Oh yeah, he was a son of a bitch!