a chronicle of primitive paranoia

[franksolich]

a chronicle of primitive paranoia is a continuation of:

“franksolich & friends seek to deter stalking primitives” (part one)
http://conservativecave.com/index.php?topic=100516.0
“come spring, come the primitives” (part two)
http://conservativecave.com/index.php?topic=100644.0

- - - - - - - - - - -

The first part had been dedicated to Skippy, the NYC_SKP primitive on Skins’s island, but as the story began developing, this writer thought the material far too good to be wasted on a primitive, and so started the second part, dedicating it to our dearly beloved—but alas now gone from this time and place—vesta111.

vesta111 served as a good inspiration, a great inspiration, but alas recently’s been fading out, calling for a new inspiration to keep this going.  One’s confident however that vesta111 was well satisfied with what’d been dedicated to her, and has graciously made way for a new dedicatee to serve as a new inspiration.

a chronicle of primitive paranoia is dedicated to the much-missed LC EFA, late of the wilds of northeastern Australia, with whom franksolich considered it an honor, a distinction, to serve alongside him as moderators of the Dumpster a very long time ago.

- - - - - - - - - - -

a chronicle of primitive paranoia.  “What’s all of this?” the business partner asked, when he dropped by this afternoon, to pick up some work I’d done for him.

I had two desk drawers on the floor, and was emptying them into a box, to be taken with a whole lot of other things to drop off at a thrift store in the big city.

Spring cleaning.

“Electrical things I’ve picked up in odd places in the past,” I said; “apparently most of them are cellular telephone re-chargers.

“People leave them around here, or in my car or whatever vehicle I’m using, or on park benches, or on shelves of grocery stores.

“Over the past fifteen years, it seems I’ve collected quite a few.

“I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me if I’ve seen their cellular telephone re-charger around, but nobody ever has.

“So I just tossed them into these drawers, and now it’s time to clear them out.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“But you’ve never saved any cellular telephones you’ve found,” the business partner said.  “And it seems to me you’ve found a lot.”

Yeah, I said, but he already knows what I do with those; if coming across one that appears to be misplaced or lost or forgotten by the owner, I just contemptuously toss it into the nearest trash-can.

He doesn’t like it, but they don’t present the same problem for him, that they do for me.

And it would perhaps be superfluous of me to mention that being deaf, I can’t use one.  I know they come with “texting” and a camera and pictures and music and all that, but bah, humbug.

If someone needs to make a telephone call, they can wait until they got home, or to the office, and use the telephone there.  It’s pathetic, how people have let the damned toys become an integral part of their anatomies; they probably even take them to bed with them, or into the bathroom.

- - - - - - - - - -

“It ticks me off,” I reminded him.  “Here I am, standing or sitting, ‘listening’ or talking to someone about something important, and the other person’s cellular telephone rings.

“Rather than ignoring this rude interruption, the other person stops paying attention to me, and answers the damned thing…..and sometimes chit-chats away for several minutes while I stand or sit there, twiddling my thumbs.

“And nearly all the time, that conversation’s less urgent, less important, than what we’d been discussing.

“Like a girlfriend calling to continue an argument, or a wife calling to find out how one’s day’s going.

“It’s almost as if I’d evaporated, the minute that thing rings.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Actually, the business partner does understand why it’s such a big deal with me.  He’s the only person I know who, when dealing with me, either has his telephone shut off or “muted,” and if it does ring or however an incoming “text” is announced, he doesn’t even look at it, to see who’s calling or who’s texting.

He just ignores it until he and I get done talking about whatever we’re talking about.

And this is someone with three businesses and wide social contacts; someone everybody always wants to talk with.

But no; when franksolich is with him, he doesn’t even pick it up, until we’re done.

I’m sure he’s gained a lot of brownie points with God for that, showing common courtesy and good manners.

- - - - - - - - - -

“I have an idea,” he said, “about the fact-checkers you want for your book, to explain things to you that you saw in the socialist paradises, but didn’t fully understand, or misunderstood completely.

“It wouldn’t be any help with your descriptions of workers and peasants and the things they did, but on the nature of the religion of the workers and peasants, it’d be invaluable—and you’ve written six drafts of chapters about that—“

Right, I interrupted; “It’s a subject that needs treated with the appropriate reverence and awe, and while I’m sure I’m doing this, there may be some things about it I may be stating as facts, when they’re not.”

“When we go up to see the ancient grandmother in South Dakota,” the business partner resumed, “apparently the area’s a bunch of small towns and settlements consisting mostly of adherents of Russian Orthodoxy.

“It’s not the same thing as Ukrainian Orthodoxy, but it’ll do.

“Nothing like it here, in Nebraska—and so right there’s your fact-checkers, for at least that aspect of the book.”

“Great,” I said; “remember, I’m not comfortable with the idea of putting out a book riddled with inaccuracies and mistruths, much like that vanity-published paperback thing drunken Bill and his good pal the overly-libidoed Scott put out back in 2003.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“What’re you doing that for?” asked the property caretaker when he came inside the house this morning.  “The outside sensors aren’t set up yet, and you’re already getting rid of things meant for your own safety.”

I’d taken down about half the bed-sheets covering the windows—this place is more windows than walls—and continued doing so while talking with him.

“You know,” I said; “it’s been eight weeks since I’ve started living in a dark cave, and it’s getting on my nerves.  I like living better when I can see the vast scenic panorama of the Sandhills in the morning, during the day, and at night, no matter where I turn inside this house.

“You didn’t notice, but I also stopped locking the doors.

“And this was the last night I’m going to sleep wrapped up like a mummy—“

“But the system’s not all set up yet,” he protested; “and after that’s done, you can do all you want, about the windows and doors and stuff, because the outdoor sensors’ll warn you that someone’s around anyway.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“You know the terms of the lease,” I gently reminded him; "gently," because those rare times I'm assertive, it startles people, almost knocks them off their feet.

The terms of the lease are very simple; as long as I do nothing to threaten the physical integrity or the value of the property, I’m free to have things as I wish.

In effect, making the caretaker subordinate to me, the tenant, on anything having to do with this specific property.  He takes care of a lot more properties than just this, but on this specific property, franksolich is the boss.

It’s a prerogative I’ve used very rarely; only once with his predecessor, and now this second time, the first time with him—in ten years of living here.

I’ve only rarely exercised it because there’s never been any need to; both caretakers knew, or know, what they’re doing, and so it made little or no difference to me.

<<<not someone who gets jollies out of controlling, bossing around, other people.

“I know the sensors aren’t set up and in operation yet, and I encourage you to proceed with it, as you wish; to get it up and going.

“I’m keeping an open mind on it, as it just might work,” I said, lying through my teeth; this isn’t the first time—far from it—I’ve had “safety devices” for the deaf imposed on me by well-meaning people nearly all my life.

- - - - - - - - - -

“But with the windows uncovered and the doors unlocked, you’ll be unprotected until the sensors are up and running,” he said.

“And remember all the primitives stalking franksolich; Skippy’s not the only one.”

It’s been cold out there for eight weeks now, I reminded him; “and it’s going to stay cold for a few more weeks yet.

“The primitives are sissies when it comes to inclement weather—especially if they’re from northern California or eastern Connecticut.

“There’s not likely to be any primitives around here stalking franksolich until the weather’s warmer.

“So for now, it’s okay.

“But again, by all means, continue on with having Joe and Jose set up the sensors, and connect them with the ceiling lights in this house.  I’m keeping an open mind about it, and if you need any of my help on it, I’ll gladly assist.  We’ll see how it goes.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Yes, it’s nice to be able to see the moon and the stars from here again,” she said, “but really, maybe you took the coverings down too soon, before the outside sensors were set up.”

She was laying beside me.  We were in the bedroom, which decades before my time had been a combination dining room-solarium.

“Nuts,” I said; “I was getting tired of feeling as if I lived in a dark cave.

“It’s been depressing; this winter’s been almost as bad as the winter two years ago, when we went 87 or whatever days without the temperature rising above zero.

“That time, one could look outside, but one didn’t dare go outside, especially with all those 45-65 mph gusts of wind.

“Well, this winter hasn’t been as bad as that one, but with all this inner darkness, it’s been almost as bad.”

- - - - - - - - - -

I continued griping.

“You know, I’m really tired of all this; hearing people telling us what we need for our own safety and protection.

“Hearing people have no idea what all deafness involves, so how can they possibly contrive solutions for us?

“And given our problems with articulation, we can’t really tell hearing people what our problems, and possible solutions, are.

“It’s an unbridgeable chasm.

“Best to just leave us alone, to deal with things in our own ways.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Changing the subject, she mentioned, “unless you’re planning to write them, but haven’t yet, I notice the book doesn’t talk a whole lot about places of historical interest in the socialist paradises.

“The last drafts I read dealt with socialist keys, socialist school chalkboards, socialist mirrors, and socialist toothpaste—ordinary, mundane things.

“Your profiles of individuals are priceless, some of the best writing of yours I’ve ever read, and sure, these chapters dealing with ordinary mundane things are interesting, but why no mention of the things tourists go there to see?”

“Because they were usually fake,” I said, “all these ‘historical’ edifices.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“I remember the time—this was 1990 or 1991, when I was still here—that once I paused and watched Dan Rather reporting for CBS News from Warsaw—something big was going on there, but I disremember what—and he opened up by saying, ‘I’m speaking to you from in front of the medieval—‘

“I don’t remember the name of the palace, but he was making out as if it were truly a historical relic.

“Warsaw was leveled during the second world war, as were Kiev in Ukraine and Belgrade in Yugoslavia.  Leveled the ground; barely one stone standing atop another.  Flattened.  Nothing left.

“It was all rubble.

“Dan was actually speaking to us from in front of a socialist re-creation of that ancient palace.

“As he was lying again, I lost all interest, and walked away from the television.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Kiev, the same.

“When looking at the ostensibly late-1700s Marinsky Palace, for example, it was s-o-o-o-o-o obvious it was a socialist re-creation; the workmanship was crude socialist slave-labor, not exquisite 18th-century craftsmanship.

“The whole thing had been re-built from the ground up; there was nothing 200 years old about it.

“Most of these medieval or renaissance or baroque buildings were actually younger than California Peggy on Skins’s island.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Hey, while you’re on the computer, I’d appreciate something,” I said to the neighbor when he was here early this morning.

He’d come to work on a piece of machinery, but while having coffee and breakfast to warm himself up, he was checking farm prices.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Check to see if there’s any news on Drudge from Marin County, California, or if anything happened to San Francisco-Oakland during the night.”

He checked.

“Nope, San Francisco’s still there.”

Well, damn, I said; “I was kind of hoping Skippy’d gotten the package.”

“But since he sent it to you, he’d know how to disarm it too,” the neighbor said.

I agreed.  “But he’s not as young as he used to be, and since he was probably sniffing airplane glue in grade school, and in college getting high on dope and drugs, besides inhaling the contents of aerosol cans, and later drank like a fish until that recent cerebral breakage—well, I was hoping maybe his fingers aren’t so deft and nimble as they used to be.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

Joe Gomez and Jose Lopez were over here today; because he’s busy on other properties, the property caretaker had hired Joe and Jose to do some improvements on this property this coming spring.

Not the house, which is fated for demolition once happy days are here again, and an adult’s in the White House, after which the owners plan on putting up river-side homes for their dependents.

They came into the house for an afternoon coffee-break, and we all sat around, chitchatting.  Joe knows English, but Jose doesn’t, but the language barrier didn’t obstruct all having a good time.

I asked Joe what all they were hired to do, and he told me, admitting that one of their ancillary chores was to “watch [franksolich]’s back,” because “he can’t hear, and never knows if anyone’s coming up to him,” and that “it might be a primitive seeking to do him damage.”

Hmmmm.  I’ve now got babysitters.

- - - - - - - - -

“Why are the primitives after you?” Joe asked; “you’re a nice guy, one of the nicest guys one can ever hope to meet.”

One has to understand the primitives, I replied; “the primitives are people who have a need, an appetite, to Hate.

“To Hate anything; whatever’s out there to Hate.”

“What a life,” Joe said.

“Yeah,” I agreed; “what the primitives don’t understand is that Hate is like a boomerang; it merely bounces off that which they Hate, rebounding back on them, knocking them down on their asses.

“Associated with this is that primitives are paranoid; fearful of all that is good and decent in this world.  They’re so paranoid they make the CIA or the NSA look like food pantries for the poor.”

“What a life,” Joe repeated.

- - - - - - - - - -

“Who are the primitives stalking you?” Joe asked.

Well, I can’t really say for sure, I replied; “and one has to keep in mind there may be primitives stalking franksolich that we don’t know about.

“We have all their self-posted pictures,” I reminded him; “and franksolich is a member of this ‘we.’”

After which I turned on the computer.

“I guess a good start would be looking at the Top Dummies of 2014; none of them were happy with their awards last December, although I have no idea why.  I thought the awards for 2014 were the best-written ones, ever.

I showed a self-posted photograph of the big guy in Bellevue.

“Ew, el hombre muy muy gordo,” said Joe, who knows English, to Jose, who doesn’t.

Yeah, I said, the big guy’s a threat; “all he has to do is slip and fall on top of me, and the ambulance would have to pick franksolich up with a spatula, and deliver me to the morgue on a cookie-sheet.

“But he can’t be considered a serious threat, because he lies at death’s door.

“And here’s Judy grasswire,” I said, pulling up the photograph gallery of self-posted pictures by Judy.

“Ah, anciena,” said Joe to Jose.

Uh-huh, I said; “but don’t worry about her; she’s not going to show up here.”

- - - - - - - - - -

I pulled up the next self-posted picture.

“Aha,” said Joe to Jose; “el senor diabetico.”

Then the next.

“Hmm,” said Joe to Jose; “the cabeze de rock, muy viejo.”

Then the next.

“Wow,” said Joe to Jose; “la mujer con muslos gordos.”

Yeah, I said; “she’s pissed off because franksolich pointed out that with all her gut bombs, beer, liquor, dope, and pharmaceuticals she puts down, she’s beginning to grow rather massive.

“But I wouldn’t worry too much about her; she lives in a haze, and couldn’t find her way here even if someone drove her here.”

I pulled up another self-posted picture.

“Uno solo pierna, pato de palo,” Joe said to Jose.

Uh-huh, I said; “this primitive’s boiling with anger and rage and Hate, but he shouldn’t be of too much concern, because it’s rather difficult to stalk someone on a peg-leg.

“And besides, he’s got volcanic blood pressure, soon to burst any time.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“All right,” I said; “now this one, I consider a primary threat.  Keep your eyes wide-open for him; he shouldn’t be hard to miss.”

Joe explained to Jose; “el senor paranocio, el amigo de terroristas, el hombre decapitar, el decadente, el playa nino!

“No muy bien, este.”

“Uh-huh,” I said; “and don’t underestimate him.  His skull’s crammed with cerebral matter, and he’s capable of single-handedly taking out franksolich.

“He’s a one-man ticking hydrogen bomb, ready to detonate at any time, so watch out for him.”

- - - - - - - - - -

I then pulled up Lamond.

“El doofus,” Joe said to Jose, dismissively.

“And now here’s her.  I dunno what’s up with her; she’s been missing for a long time now.  Maybe forcibly sequestered in a Buddhist monastery, maybe in a mental institution, maybe in jail…..and maybe even dead.

“She hasn’t been seen for a long time.

“But still, watch out for her; she’s mean and vicious as a rattlesnake.”

I pulled up the next self-posted photograph.

“She’s no threat,” I said—

“No, no,” Joe protested.  “Print out that picture, please.

“La tetona,” Joe mentioned to Jose, but Jose had eyes, and being a man, could see for himself; he wanted a picture too.

to be continued

[franksolich]

“You know,” the property caretaker said later on in the afternoon, “there’s lots of primitives you didn’t tell Joe and Jose about—drunken Bill, for example, or your cousin nadin.  Or that Texas pyramid, or that fat guy who said his goal in life is ‘to get franksolich.’

“I think they’re threats to you; in your good-humoredly teasing them, you’ve probably incited them, just like you’ve done Skippy, who’s spitting mad enough to mail an atomic bomb to you.”

Right, I said; “the primitives have no sense of humor; they can’t laugh at themselves.

“Fortunately for me, Big Mo, singularly among the primitives having a sense of forgiveness, isn’t out for my blood, and Ms. Vanderbilt-Astor, the NJCher primitive, won’t bother coming out where there’s dirt and common people and stuff.

“But really, there’s quite a few primitives, and one can’t keep one’s eyes on all of them.

“At least Joe and Jose have a general idea of what the primitives are, how they look, how they act.

“And yeah, it’s entirely possible I’ve incited a primitive we don’t know about, maybe a lumpenunterprimitiven, part of the faceless lynch mob on Skins’s island.  It can come out of nowhere, and we won’t know it’s here until it’s here.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Romeo, who was working across the road, came over for supper.

“I ran into a couple of chicks yesterday,” he announced.

Romeo’s still recovering from whatever it was, that he got from that chick over in Sioux City, Iowa, on New Year’s Eve, and as he’s not quite out of the woods yet, he’s got to be careful about running into random women.

“They’re looking for you,” he said.

If I had ears, they would’ve perked up.

“I didn’t tell them where you live, figuring I should clear it with you first, in case they might be primitives stalking you.

“They’re from Minnesota, and gave me their business card, to give you.”

I looked at the card.  There was a name and address in the center that I didn’t recognize, and on the lower left-hand side, the notation, “Contributing Photographer, Blue Horizon Media.”

“What do you suppose this is?” I asked Romeo; “this media stuff?”

I dunno, he replied; “from its name, probably one of those outdoor magazines, like Nebraskaland or Sunset or Arizona Highways or Wisconsin Trails; the sorts that carry advertisements for Cabela’s or REI or Land’s End.

“Or one of those companies that produces those half-hour late-night infomercials about fishing or hunting.”

I turned it over.  On the other side, in spidery feminine handwriting, there was a message, “franksolich: your good friend BainsBane recommended you to us.”

“Don’t tell them where I live,” I said.

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Oh my,” the femme said, as she walked into the kitchen this morning.

Her appearance startled me, as I hadn’t been expecting her.  We hadn’t been an “item” for almost two years now, and she lives up in South Dakota, although for the sake of appearances, we still maintain a formal cordiality.

I looked at the clock.  “It’s only 5:30; it’s not 6:00 yet.

“I just woke up, and I don’t have to be publicly presentable until six.

“My house, my rules,” I said.  “When I’m in someone else’s house, I respect their rules; everybody knows this place is open to the public from 6:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m.  And if one comes after hours, one shouldn’t be surprised at what one sees.

“And last night I had the first good night’s sleep in eight weeks, since I had to start keeping the windows covered and the doors locked, for my ‘own safety’ from stalking primitives.

“It’s been like living in a cave, a really depressing dark cave.  Well, I’m done; despite that the motion sensors aren’t set up yet and running, I’m not going to bother with that any more.  I’ll just take my chances with people unexpectedly popping in here, like I used to.

“It’s hard to sleep when one’s wrapped up like a mummy.”

“But you were never wrapped up like a mummy,” she said; “all you ever wore was a pair of Hanes cotton briefs.”

“Well, it felt like I was wrapped up like a mummy,” I said; “and I always had trouble sleeping restrained like that.”

- - - - - - - - - -

The femme was on her way to a meeting down in Omaha, which is why she’d shown up so early.  We went to the bar in town to have breakfast before she headed on.

Maude, the cook of Portuguese derivation, whose specialty is Taiwanese cuisine, was both cooking and serving.  There weren’t many people there because of the cold weather.

The femme ordered two eggs, hash browns with gravy, crisp bacon, and whole-wheat toast.  I ordered my usual, a hamburger well done, pressed down hard on the grill so as to squeeze out every drop of grease, and a salad of lettuce, hard-boiled eggs, broccoli, cauliflower, shredded carrots, some sort of stringy purple stuff which I assume’s kale, coated with blue cheese salad dressing and sour cream.

When Maude brought over our orders, she mentioned that Swede’s wife, the owner of the bar, had hired a new cook.

“Ralwalpindi Singh, who’s specialty’s Danish cuisine.

“You might like him,” she said, looking at me; “we all know you’re a fan of Danish—and Dutch—food, minus the fish, and it’d give you a change of pace, from what you always have here.”

We’ll see, I said.

- - - - - - - - - -

The femme asked how the book is coming, as I hadn’t mailed her copies of any drafts of chapters lately.

“It’s on recess,” I told her, “until [the business partner] and I go up to South Dakota, to consult with my fact-checker.  I can’t write ambiguously about something I know only ambiguously.

“It’s a good thing I don’t plan to be done with it until December, in time for the Top DUmmies of 2015 contest.”

She inquired as to why the problem.

“I have drafts of six chapters dedicated to the principal religions of the workers and peasants,” I told her.  “Ninety-three percent of the workers and peasants acknowledge God, the other 7% being the usual Haters and malcontents.

“Of that 93%, only 2% are ‘other’—adhering to Judaism or Islamism, or the eastern Baptists who’re different from our Baptists in all but creed, and tiny fragments of Protestants.

“Of the remainder, the 91%, about 80% are Orthodox, and 20% Roman Catholic, although the latter group exercises a cultural, social, and economic influence much larger than its numbers.

“The latter group, a single chapter, it’s easy to write about; after all, these are my people, and I know them like the back of my hand.

“The larger group, five chapters, I have problems, as the Orthodox are wholly different from us.  It’s easy as strawberries-and-cream, for me to articulate my awe and reverence of it, but the ‘whys’ of it escape me.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“You know,” I reminded her, “my respect for the Orthodox was probably my meal ticket, my lodging ticket, my travel ticket, while I was over there.

“Remember, I was there with pitifully little money, and pride wouldn’t let me go back home until I’d stayed as long as I’d said I would.

“The workers and peasants were no fools; they saw that I sincerely respected them and the ways in which God revealed God to them—even though I ‘crossed’ myself ‘wrong,’ from left-to-right rather than right-to-left.

“Respect for others gets one a long way, something the crude, coarse, barbaric, paranoid primitives on Skins’s island need to learn.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Why are they so different from us?” the neighbor’s wife asked when she was here at noon.

“They’re not only different, they’re very different from us,” I said.

“One evolved as an extroverted, outward-looking, expansionist faith, while the other evolved as an inward-looking, introverted, contemplative faith.

“Which is perhaps why, while I found it no problem to respect and admire Orthodoxy, it just doesn’t suit my own nature, my temperament.

“One has to go clear back to the division of the Roman Empire, in 476.

“Now, I’m no trained historian like cousin nadin, and while I have a degree in history, it’s in the history of the British Empire and Commonwealth, not in medieval studies.

“So…..unlike cousin nadin, one has to take franksolich’s interpretation of history with a grain of salt—but I hope only a tiny one.”

- - - - - - - - -

“By 476, the ancient Roman empire had lost significant territory, and had been constantly overrun by the Huns, the Vandals, the Goths, and it was decided to move the seat of government from Rome to Constantinople, way over east in Turkey, where the desk-sitting bureaucrats would be safe.

“This created a vacuum in Rome, beset by turbulence, chaos, anarchy, disorder, and general mayhem.

“The church in Rome, such as it was—and it wasn’t very much then—was the only organized ‘authority’ in the area, although a religious one, but naturally stepped in to fill that vacuum with civil, political, military, economic, and social law-and-order.

“It took centuries, but eventually medieval Europe came into being, based upon Roman Catholicism.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“In Constantinople, in the eastern half of the old empire, the church was bothered by no such problems, no need to be assertive in order to survive.

“Also, being closer to Greece, the church was influenced more by ancient Hellenic culture, than by the more-recent Latin culture.

“The Romans’d tended to be outward-looking, expansionist people, while the Greeks’d tended to be inward-looking, contemplative people.

“So there the eastern part of the church was, being sheltered from the vicissitudes of strife and war, while the western part out of sheer necessity became an aggressive empire-builder.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“We’re talking hundreds of years, and times when geography, the distances separating people, meant something.

“By 1054, more than 500 years after the division of the ancient Roman empire, the separation was complete, the western church and the eastern church going their own ways.

“Now, the eastern empire fell to the Turks in 1453, but the eastern church by then had spread to other parts of central and eastern Europe, and by coincidence among people who strongly identified with family and ethnic origin.

“’Catholic’ means ‘universal,’ everybody, while the eastern church evolved into the various national churches—Russian Orthodox, Ukrainian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Romanian Orthodox, Bulgarian Orthodox, Byzantine Orthodox, and so on and on.

“The creeds and practices remained the same; it was just the nationality that differed.

“Here, you and I self-identify as ‘Americans,’ and separately from that as ‘Roman Catholics.’ 

“In the socialist paradises, even after three generations of violent repression and bloody murder, those adherents to Orthodoxy consider it an essential part of who, and what, they are, an integral part of their nationality.

“Yes, even the incoming generations.

“That’s something for Skippy, and the ‘rationalist’ Lord Marblehead EarlG and the God-hating old reprobate Bronstein, the ‘trotsky’ primitive on Skins’s island, need to think about.

“Why is that a Light, even if only feebly flickering in the darkness, Eternally Illuminates?”

to be continued

[franksolich]

The business partner came by in early evening, to take me out for a pre-birthday celebration.

I wanted to dine at the bar in town, to check out the new cook there, Ralwalpindi Singh, whose specialty is Danish cuisine.

“You know I grew up with that stuff, alongside the Platte River of Nebraska, before we moved out into the Sandhills when I was ten,” I said.

“The older brothers and sisters, who’d been born in New York and partially raised there, grew up on whatever was available there. 

“Thanks to the dairy-laden Danish—and Dutch—cuisine, my younger brother and I grew up taller, and healthier, and lighter-skinned, than they did.

“We weren’t of Danish derivation, but we thrived on their food.”

- - - - - - - - - -

The place was crowded, everyone all agog and excited about this new cook, and so we had to wait a while for a table.

While waiting, the business partner said he’d heard from two other literary agents, both of them in Boston.  “One of them wants to wait and read the second drafts, and one of them wants first rights to selling it to a publisher.

“Now, what about the vanity-publisher down in Omaha?”

I didn’t sign anything with them, I reminded him; “I just solicited their bids and estimates on a print job.

“And after they tried to sell me more than what I wanted to buy, I decided I didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

“I’d told them I’d be done ‘about December,’ and I guess they’ll have to wait that long to find out.

“Never try to oversell to franksolich; it changes me from a ‘hard sell’ into a ‘no sell.’  I know what I need, and I resent it when told by others what I ‘need.’”

- - - - - - - - - -

When seated, and the waitress came to take our orders, I ordered my usual; a hamburger well done, pressed down hard on the grill so as to squeeze out every drop of grease, and a salad of lettuce, hard-boiled eggs, broccoli, cauliflower, shredded carrots, some sort of stringy purple stuff which I assume’s kale, coated with blue cheese salad dressing and topped with sour cream.

The business partner looked at me quizzically.

“Oh,” I explained; “I want you to try out the new cuisine first, to be sure this new guy hasn’t slipped any curry or some other sort of slimy odiferous grease into it.

“For starters, I’d suggest you try hønsekødssuppe served with melboller, and then for the main course, gammeldags kylling, along with hakkebøf.

“For bread, rugbrød is always the best, tops.

“And then the cheeses—danablu, esrom, danbo, havarti, or apetina—the havarti’s especially good.  But I myself always liked the danablu best of all.

“Ate it up like the LynneSin primitive puts down Hershey’s chocolate bars.

“And then for dessert, you can’t go badly picking any Danish dish with strawberries and cream.  Danish cuisine’s really big on strawberries.

“As long as that guy standing in the kitchen doesn’t sneak any Hindu stuff into it, it should be one of the best meals you’ve ever enjoyed.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

We interrupt this story for an important announcement:

franksolich on his first birthday, March 6 not that many years ago, with his maternal ancestress outside our home in Bridgeport, Nebraska, home of the most famous natural landmark in the state:

[obumazombie]

Happy Birthday franksolich !

[BlueStateSaint]

A Happy Birthday to you, my dear friend (no, I don't mean to go all CalPiggy on you), and may it Please God Almighty To Grant you many, many more!

[longview]

Happy Birthday!

[franksolich]

“Well, happy birthday,” the property caretaker said to me this morning; “and the good news is, with the weather forecast to be warming up the next six days, we’ll finally get those motion sensors installed outdoors.

Yeah, right, I thought; “We’ll see.”

Joe and Jose had come in with him, Jose impatiently asking Joe a question.

Joe knows both English and Spanish; Jose knows only Spanish.

“He wants to know if you have any more pictures of la senora tetona,” Joe said.

No, I’m sorry, I don’t, I answered; “That was the only self-posted photograph she ever did.

“But if it’s any consolation, it’s probably an old one; she’s no spring chicken any more.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“You’d probably better watch out for her, though,” the caretaker said; “after all, there’s two strange women wandering around, looking for you.

“When I was downtown yesterday, they came up to me and asked where you lived.  Since I didn’t know anything about them—although they looked too professional to be primitives from Skins’s island—I said you were vacationing in eastern Connecticut at the moment, and won’t be back until July.

“I dunno if they believed me, but they gave me this card,” he said, giving it to me.  It was exactly the same as the one Romeo had shown me, with the same handwritten note on the back.

- - - - - - - - - -

“You know, I’m really tired of this, primitives stalking franksolich,” I said.

“I don’t know why they do that, because I’ve never stalked a primitive in my life.  I’m a nice guy; I don’t bother people unless they annoy me first.”

“Well, they seem to think differently,” the caretaker said; “really, they have no idea what a quiet, inobstrusive, mellow, laid back, indulgent person you are, in real life.

“To hear the primitives talk, franksolich is vested with all sorts of near-supernatural powers that allows you to see all and do all, even to get away with murder.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“That was a bum rap,” I said; “and you remember when the hippywife primitive Mrs. Alfred Packer’s hippyhubby Wild Bill thought for sure that I’d tapped their telephone, wired into their internet, bugged their home, stood outside of their house peeking into the windows, inquired of their neighbors about them—because I seemed to know too much about them.

“Actually, I knew nothing more about them than what Mrs. Alfred Packer had confided to the cooking and baking primitives about their daily lives down there in northeastern Oklahoma.

“The hippywife primitive had a big mouth, that’s all.

“My google skills aren’t that good; the best sources of information about the primitives is from the primitives themselves, when yipping-and-yapping among themselves on Skins’s island.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Okay, it does sometimes happen that I come across personal information about a primitive—information that the primitive doesn’t share on Skins’s island—but that’s wholly by random chance and accident and good luck.

“And I’ve always been the first to admit that franksolich has always been extraordinarily lucky, the luckiest person I know.

“I suspect people send me this information because of my well-deserved reputation for keeping the sources of such things utterly confidential; I’ve never betrayed a source, even a primitive source.

“Remember that time last summer, when I was sitting in front of the computer, minding my own business and at peace with the world and all in it, when suddenly there popped up an e-mail, giving the biography of Doc, the PCIntern primitive.

“I suspect the individual who sent it to me had a grudge against Doc, and was hoping I’d use the information to make fun of him.

“The problem being, franksolich had no particular ill-will towards Doc, other than simply that he’s a primitive.

“And actually, after seeing the head of hair Doc had in college, so similar with my own, I rather grew to like him, somewhat—although he really needs to get rid of that silly mustache, too strongly reminiscent of a historical personage both Doc and franksolich wish had never existed.

“And that neck—it was the neck of a Nebraska Cornhuskers football player.  It’s too bad we never bothered recruiting him; it’s an awesome neck.  I’m sure one of Skippy’s pals would like to try a scimitar on it.

“About the worst that can be said about Doc is that when he was younger, he definitely wasn’t chutzpah-impaired.

“But nobody’s perfect.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“And my advice to the primitives who fear franksolich stalking them—as if the primitives are going to pay any attention to the advice and counsel of franksolich anyway—is that they stay out of the newspapers.

“Best not to assault an officer of the law, or to not be violent against one’s wife, or not drive a motor vehicle on a suspended license, or get a divorce, or ignore city zoning regulations, or anything else that lands one in the news media.

“Somebody, somewhere’s gonna spill the beans to franksolich who, like a thrifty housewife, wrings all he can get out of every scrap, in this case every scrap of information, as a public service for the Good of Humanity, illuminating decent and civilized people about the primitives.

“But it’s nothing I do myself; I just sit back, and it falls on my lap.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Good morning, and happy birthday,” the neighbor’s wife said, when she came here after the property caretaker, Joe, and Jose went outside to get started digging trenches to hold the electrical wiring for the motion sensors to be installed around the house.

“I made you something,” she added.

I looked.

Oh my.  She’d made lot, including my favorite, peperkoek.

I was overwhelmed; there was also ouwewijvenkoek, trommelkoek, bokkepootjes, kruidkoek, groninger koek, krakeling, appeltaart, krentenwegge, bossche bol, fryske dumkes, bitterkoekjes, stroopwafel, dikke koek, gevulde koek, janhagel, ketelkoek, rijstekoek, kletskop, and even kindermanstik.

“In my whole life, only my mother put out such an effort,” I told her; “you must’ve been up all night doing this.  Thank you; I’m sure the cooking and baking primitives are green with jealousy.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Actually, I made them from that cookbook about Dutch cuisine that you gave me a few years ago,” she modestly admitted, “and not by instinct and intuition.

“I can understand your affection for Danish cuisine, given that you grew up around people of Danish derivation, until your family moved into the Sandhills.

“But there aren’t any Dutch in Nebraska; where’d you acquire this taste?”

“I have no idea,” I said; “it’s kind of like how I developed a taste for children’s versions of eastern European Yiddish folklore about the same time I first learned to read.

“It was a very long time ago, and it just seemed to spring up out of thin air.  I was a finicky eater as a child; wouldn’t touch food with grease in it, or meat with fat on it, or dead fish, for examples.

“Puked it right back up.

“Really, my parents were saints; I had the best and most patient parents one could possibly have.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

The wife of the retired banker showed up here around mid-morning; she had a wooden crate out in her car, and given her age, I manfully carried it all in.

Oh my, I said.

It was full of fresh fruits; aebler, solaer, kirseaer, stikkelsaer, paerer, blommer, hindaer, jordaer.  Surely it must’ve cost a mint, to have this two-day shipped from Denmark, I thought.

Much to my awe, there was my favorite, koldskål with kammerjunkere and big fresh strawberries.

Whoa.

Ms. Vanderbilt-Astor, the NJCher primitive in the cooking and baking forum on Skins’s island, can eat her heart out, and the cbayer primitive too.

- - - - - - - - - -

Her husband, Grumpy, who wears his polyester plaid pants hiked halfway up to his ribs, wasn’t with her.

As neither was her nuisancesome eleven-year-old grandson, “Pudgy Four-Eyes.”

Pudgy Four-Eyes is a problem, because as is natural for kids, one supposes, after learning franksolich had been born without ears, he’s always been curious what I look like without them.

He’s always made it a point to come over right after I’ve had a haircut.

But too bad for Pudgy Four-Eyes, I have a good barber, who’s skilled at cutting the hair in such a way the absence never shows.

- - - - - - - - - -

“Well, now that the weather’s warming up, soon you should be going up to South Dakota to consult with that old grandmother, for material for your book.”

I pointed out that of course, South Dakota’s beautiful in the spring, but spring arrives about a month later up there, than it does here.

“But since spring’s arriving here,” she said, “that means the primitives aren’t too shy about coming here too.  I hope the outdoor motion sensors are set up in time, so you can avoid any unpleasant encounters.”

I’m sure I can handle the primitives stalking franksolich, I thought to myself, but all these “security measures” won’t have a thing to do with it.

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Huh, happy birthday,” said Swede, the cook of Norwegian derivation whose specialty is Italianate cuisine.

“You know the rules here; pick anything on the menu, and it’s free.”

He handed me the Italianate menu.

“No, but thanks,” I said; “I’ll just have my usual, the hamburger well done, pressed down hard on the grill so as to squeeze out every drop of grease, and a salad of lettuce, hard-boiled eggs, broccoli, cauliflower, shredded carrots, that stringy purple stuff which I assume’s kale, coated with blue cheese salad dressing and topped with sour cream.”

He scowled, although I dunno why.  Swede’s a very busy man, troubling and fussing and fretting trying to get complicated dishes just right, and I’m being a nice guy, giving him an order that’s easier and quicker than strawberries-and-cream.

I’m saving him a lot of time and trouble, but he doesn’t seem to appreciate it.

- - - - - - - - - -

The neighbor’s older brother and his wife came into the bar, expecting to see me.  “Happy birthday,” his wife told me, giving me a cardboard beer-flat lined with aluminum foil, inside which were two curved lengths of homemade poppyseed rolls.

Wow, I said; “thank you.”

- - - - - - - - -

“You know,” I said, “when I was a kid, I incited a hot and hostile controversy on the pages of the Omaha World-Herald, writing about poppyseed rolls versus poppyseed kolaches, so-called.

“It even got a United States Senator and a federal court judge all bent out of shape; they’d grown up in the Czech areas of Nebraska, and alleged they knew what they were talking about.

“It went on for several years, at intermittent intervals, finally dying down when I went away to college.

“I was a mouthy kid, but that didn’t shame my mother enough that she didn’t bother saving all the newspaper clippings of it.  God, there were lots of them.

“I insisted poppyseed rolls were the real thing, while these poppyseed kolaches, so-called, were modern inventions of housewives of Czech derivation in Nebraska, who were too lazy to make poppyseed rolls.

“I used to watch my mother make poppyseed rolls; believe me, it was a lot of work.  And all of her people back in northeastern Pennsylvania made them the same way, especially when I visited.

“Poppyseed rolls were developed by the Carpathian Slovaks, my ancestors, and later stolen by the further-west Czechs.  And then when they emigrated to America, they got indolent and lazy; it was after all a whole lot easier just to make poppyseed kolaches, so-called.

“Geezuz, franksolich was a mouthy brat, when young.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“They’re hot on your trail,” Romeo said, as he walked into the kitchen this afternoon; “those two women Big Jugs over on Skins’s island sent here to see you.”

“They were over at my place last night,” he added, “asking a lot of questions about you, but I haven’t told them anything.

“And they took all sorts of pictures of me, in various poses.

“It was fun, showing off my stuff.

“At the end, they said they’d call me.

“But they forgot to ask for my telephone number.”

Oh my, I said; “that sort of photography.”

- - - - - - - - - -

About suppertime, the neighbor, the neighbor’s older brother, the property caretaker, the insurance man, and about four others whose faces I recognize but names I don’t know, came over to have a party.

I don’t drink, but they do, and I’m cool with it.  Whatever rocks one’s chair, rows one’s boat, pushes one’s buttons.

Because the temperature was just above sixty degrees, we sat outside on the back porch, looking towards the river, until the sun descended, after which the party moved inside.

This is a great party house; plenty of room, hardly anything in it, and a whiz to set up and close down.  No matter how raucous a party gets, it still takes only 5-10 minutes to pick up and clean up after it’s done.

We all dined on the Danish and Dutch and Carpathian delicacies given me earlier in the day.  I’m sure such great quantities were given me with such a thing in mind, because being just one person, it’d take me until Easter to consume it by myself.

But I selfishly held back the strawberries, picked earlier this week in hothouses in faraway Denmark, and seemingly as large as peaches.  There’s lots of them, and I can always freeze them for future use.

- - - - - - - - - -

I mentioned Romeo’s encounter with the two friends of the BainsBane primitive.  It drew a big yawn, because Romeo’s not very popular; in fact, franksolich is about his only friend around here.

Romeo’s problem is that women who base their estimations of men upon appearances, fall for him.  And he’s a good talker, too.

But then after he’s done poking a woman, he drops her, forgets she ever existed.

As Romeo’s public-relations agent—I like to see people get along, friendly-like—I frequently point out that he’s a good and reliable worker.  He works for the big cattle producer who has land over on the other side of the William Rivers Pitt from here, and who swears he’s better than his next second, third, fourth, and fifth top employees put together.

franksolich is apparently a flop in public relations, but everybody needs somebody to be a friend.  And besides, women have no business judging a guy on how he looks and how good he talks, so it’s their fault, too.

- - - - - - - - - -

“What’re you going to do, when those two women show up here?” the insurance man asked.  “This is a small neck of the woods, er, prairies; they’ll find you sooner or later.”

I’m not too enthusiastic about the prospect, I said; I’d rather it not take place.  “But if they do show up, I guess I’ll be polite to them, as I always am to strangers.

“Somehow, things always seem to work out, but there’s always some pretty nervous moments in between,” I admitted.

to be continued

[franksolich]

She came about mid-evening, when the party was still going on, and joined all the others in having a few, but only a very few.

Her arrival—from way over on the other side of the state, no less—was a surprise, but she said it was my birthday, and the weekend, so there was no reason not to come.

She’d brought me a present, too; a book compiling articles by the late Clare Boothe Luce during her stint at Vanity Fair in the early 1930s, before she met Henry R.

It was no small thing; Clare Boothe Luce had been one of the most remarkable women of the twentieth century, and she’s distantly related, through marriage, to the late playwrightess.

- - - - - - - - - -

During all the chitter-chattery and hub-bub there happened that peculiar phenomenon that drives me nuts.  How is it that hearing people, even if they haven’t heard a damned thing, know what’s going on?

It makes me want to chew on the ceiling in vexation, the way hearing people are able to yank reams of information out of thin air while I’m frantically trying to clutch at a few meager pages.

“You’re going to have to be careful,” she said; “first, there was that package you got from Skippy out in northern California—and it’s a good thing you sent it back to him without opening it.

“It’s just really odd, a primitive sending you a package for no reason.

“Which shows you can be stalked by a primitive without the primitive even coming here.  It’s a really good thing you sent it back, without opening it.

“And now there’s two women, friends of BainsBane on Skins’s island, looking around for you.  Fortunately, they haven’t found you yet,” she said, looking at me.

“They’re photographers for a smut magazine.”

- - - - - - - - -

I know, I said; “I looked it up.  Playgirl.”

All the other guests here tittered.

“Whose readership is more than half gay,” she reminded me. 

All the other guests here guffawed.

“Of course, you’d appear under a fake name, but remember how many primitives are gay, and probably buy the magazine.  It bothers me, and it should bother you too, the thought of all these gay primitives ogling over franksolich’s body—“

“It’s not going to happen,” I interrupted; “I have no intention, no intention at all, of posing for them.

“And besides, the minute those two friends of BainsBane see me, they’ll recognize me immediately as ‘not the type.’

“According to their web-site—yeah, I looked at it—they’re wanting muscular hunks and hirsute studs, although I don’t think they want Ms. Hindenberg, the defrocked warped primitive Warpy, who’s got more body hair than even Atman.

“I’m not the ‘type.’”

- - - - - - - - - -

“You forget,” she said; “you have other attributes that might appeal to women or gays.  True, essentially the only hair you have is on your head, what grows on your face that you have to shave off, under your arms, and down there, but not everybody thinks hairy apes are sexy.

“If Atman’s wife thinks he’s sexy, well, good for her.

“You’re not muscular, but you have a flat chest and stomach, and you’re smoothly rounded on the other side, down there.”

All the other guests laughed out loud.

“And because of your good luck in genetics, everything about you—excepting that you were born without ears—is in perfect proportion to the rest of you.  Nothing too big, nothing too small.

“You’re exactly the right lengt—er, size, in all things.”

All the other guests rolled on the floor laughing.

“I have a bad feeling about those two women—BainsBane, being a primitive, probably has some malicious motive in mind--I wish they weren’t here, and hope you don’t have to deal with them.”

“Don’t worry,” I said.  “Nothing's going to happen.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“You don’t need photographs for the book,” she said; “your character sketches give a deeper insight into people than any camera could.

“It’s a good thing you were given a typewriter the Christmas you were seven years old, rather than a camera, learning to put pictures into words.

“In fact, I think the character sketches are good enough for a book by itself; they don’t quite fit in with the other chapters.

“The rest of the book is merely a dry statement of what you saw and as it happened, as if you were a reporter matter-of-factly reporting on something.

“But your portrayals of people are different, affectionate, sympathetic, three-dimensional.

“I’m awed how you capture more in people, than what others see in them.”

Thank you, I said, humbly; when she talks, she’s the sort who knows what she’s talking about.

- - - - - - - - - -

“But there’s only twelve of them,” I mentioned, “which’d make for a pretty thin book.

“However, nothing concrete’s been decided for the book, other than that I hope to have it done by December.  I’m still flexible about how to use the material.

“After [the business partner] and I get back from seeing my fact-checker up in South Dakota in a few weeks, I’ll get back to churning out more material.

“And then when I’m done wringing out all I can from the letters, journals, and notes, I hope to lay it all out in semi-organized fashion, saying ‘okay, this is what I got—now, how to present it in the most aesthetic way possible?’”

- - - - - - - - - -

“You read people so well,” she went on; “it shouldn’t be any mystery then, why you scare insecure, unconfident people; you're seeing them as they really are, and they don't like it.

“If I were a primitive on Skins’s island, I’d definitely fear you, your ability to immediately probe them, seeing them for what they really are.”

“Well, a lot of times, I’m right, but sometimes I’m wrong,” I said.

- - - - - - - - - -

“You know,” I said, “this is sort of different from what we’re talking about here, but one of the first things I learned in public speaking was to imagine the audience as being stark naked.

“It’s a common psychological defensive tactic, and it diminishes one’s own nonconfidence considerably.

“It’s all in the imagination, of course, but I suspect that a lot of times, I’ve imagined right.

“If it’s somebody I like, or somebody who seems favorably disposed towards me, zip! goes back on the clothing, so fast that I hadn’t even noticed.

“But if it’s somebody hostile to me, such as a primitive, or a whole swarm of them stalking franksolich, while they may have six or seven layers of clothing on them, they’re all naked brutes with misshapen bodies, lopsided body parts, hair where it doesn’t belong, gross malformations, diminutive pokers, sagging jugs, blemishes and gangrene.

“Of course, I’m really looking at their souls, not their bodies.

“It’s their own fault franksolich ‘sees’ them that way; as I can’t possibly do them any harm, they have no reason to dislike me.   

“And if the primitives liked me, I’d see them like I see people on conservativecave, as only beautiful people."

to be continued

[franksolich]

Just then, the property caretaker came inside.

“Dude,” he said; “it’s after six in the morning.”

He’d brought my mail from the post office in town, and I sifted through it as he and she chitchatted.

“Oh my,” I said; “don’t open it, but take a look at this.”

“It looks like it’s a birthday card,” she said.

Uh no, I replied.  “The return address is from northernmost Vermont, and the handwriting resembles script as it was taught in exclusive girls’ private schools during the early 1960s.

“It might be from the bitter old Vermontese cali primitive.

“Until we know for sure what it is, best to not open it.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

The business partner got back into town, and we went to the bar for supper.  He told me he’d heard from a fourth literary agent, who’d liked what he’d read, and wanted to see more.

“But I had to tell him it’d be about a month yet, as you’re taking a break from any more writing until we go up into South Dakota to square things with your fact-checker.

“I’m sorry, but I also told him you’re too much of a perfectionist for your own good, wanting to get everything straight before you unleash it in the printed word, black ink on white paper.

“He agreed that if every writer were like that, nothing’d ever get published.  But because that’s the way you are, he’ll live with it.”

- - - - - - - - - - -

“’That drunken Bill Pitt in New Hampshire,’ the agent pointed out to me, ‘didn’t even check out a damned thing before he had his book published, back in 2003.

“’And it even got on the New York Times’s “best-selling” list, for whatever that was worth.

“’And alas for drunken Bill, his pal in that literary crime ran away with the revenue.  The gross revenue, before expenses were taken out, and Mama Raven was stuck with paying those.

“’There’s a lot of damned fools around.’”

- - - - - - - - - - -

When the business partner became preoccupied with talking with someone else, I looked around the dining room, to see if there was anybody I knew.

There wasn’t, but it intrigued me that there were two women at a distant table, who’d constantly been casting looks our direction.

They weren’t unaesthetic, but seemed a little bit too aloof and removed, to be anybody I’d approach.

I ambled over to a table close by; not too close, but close enough so that I could read their lips.

- - - - - - - - - - -

“He’s just another cowboy,” one of them said to the other; “of course, like BainsBane said, he’s really good looking—I’d bed him—but we’ve taken rather too many snaps of cowboys lately.

“Right,” the other one said to her; “he’s nice, but we’re out here to look for something different; the tall, slender, shy, diffident, gentle and sensitive sort of man.”

“I wonder if BainsBane told us wrong,” the first one said to the second one; “she said he had dark brown, near black, hair and was tall, and this one’s got light brown hair and’s only of average height.

“But we might as well approach him anyway, because maybe BainsBane saw something in franksolich that we’re not seeing right now.”

It suddenly struck me; just like that mistake the hippywife primitive Mrs. Alfred Packer’s hippyhubby Wild Bill made a few years ago, they thought the business partner was franksolich.

Since I didn’t know who they were, I thought it’d be presumptuously rude of me to correct them.

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Is San Francisco still there?” I asked the neighbor as I passed him sitting at the computer here.

Yes, unfortunately, he said.

“Well, I guess Skippy did manage to disarm that nuclear device he sent me, and I sent back to him, after all.

“But I was hoping…..”

I pointed out we still had to keep our eyes open for the NYC_SKP primitive, “because he’s persistent; he’s not going to give up trying to do in franksolich after just one try.

“And there’s those two women BainsBane sent here to embarrass me—they haven’t yet, and they still think [the business partner] is franksolich.

“And yesterday, I got an envelope in the mail from what appears to be the bitter old Vermontese cali primitive.  I haven’t opened it yet—it’s in that empty Themos cooler out on the back porch—because it might have anthrax or smallpox or something in it.

“I wish all this stalking would end; there’s no need for it.”

“Well,” the neighbor said, “unfortunately now that spring’s sprung, they’re going to be all over around here like ants on honey.”

Damn, I said; "it's such a chore, being franksolich."

- - - - - - - - - -

[franksolich]

It was a pleasant day, and the property caretaker, the insurance man, and I spent most of the afternoon on the back porch, sitting around, they drinking beer and me watching as they meticulously hand-crafted some sort of metal part for the insurance man’s restored 1926 Model T Ford.

That antiquity’s soon to have more new parts, than original parts. 

But all carefully hand-made, even in the guts of the engine.

“Are you going to tighten up your policy about letting strangers, old hippies, and primitives camp here this year?” the insurance man asked me; “given that the primitives are likely to be out more than ever, stalking you?”

No, I said; “the policy’s the same as all the other years, first come, first served.

“All reservations made through him,” I said, indicating the caretaker, “who can deal with telephonic business much better than I can, and the usual courtesy about not illuminating guests that franksolich is deaf so that primitive-like, they won’t try to take advantage of this vulnerability by snooping around the premises when my back’s turned, and I don’t know they’re here.”

“[the now-retired caretaker] used to tell old hippies that franksolich was a violent axe-murderer out on parole,” the caretaker said, “so they’d keep their distance from him when camping down on the river, leaving him alone.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“You know, you don’t have to do this,” the insurance man said; “you could just keep the place, like everybody else, off-limits to strangers, living out here in solitude and peace and quiet, like you originally wanted to do, when you moved out here.

“And you won’t even take money for camping here.”

“It’s a public service, for the Good of Humanity,” I reminded him.  “And I pride myself in being public-spirited.

“The only places one can camp around here are in public parks and other governmentally-owned real-estate.

“All places where the consumption of beer and illegal substances is prohibited.

“It drives you and I nuts,” I pointed out, “the way outsiders from blue states come here, and think we’re nothing, nobodies, and that our laws can be violated with impunity, just like they are back home.

“Well, they learn in a hurry—although really, it doesn’t seem to penetrate their skulls—because remember, the town last year put up a professional-quality high-school baseball field, at no cost to the taxpayers, financed wholly instead from fines assessed outsiders who don’t respect our rules and laws.

“If we were closer to Colorado, instead of being up here over on the other side of the state, I’m sure we’d collect enough from law-breaking outsiders to put up a whole Worlds of Fun, with no cost to the resident taxpayers.”

- - - - - - - - - - -

“Since this is private property, consumption of booze—although preferably not illegal drugs—is allowed at the discretion of the tenant of the property, me, although I seem to be the only tenant of any riverside property around here who allows camping, period.

“By allowing old hippies and primitives to camp here, they won’t be fouling up our public family-friendly parks and campgrounds, reeking the air with the odor of dope, tossing their empty beer-cans around, making a lot of noise and having sex in public, scaring little kids.

“Like I said, it’s a public service for the Good of Humanity, allowing them to infest this place, rather than other places.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Oh God,” I said; “this is lousy.”

“Yeah, I know all about it,” the neighbor said.  “How’re you going to explain it to people?”

I was taken aback.

How the Hell do hearing people do that?

What I was thinking about had happened only half an hour before, and out here in the middle of nowhere.  The neighbor had been out in the fields all day, with his oldest son, encountering no one.  And that was miles away from here.

How the Hell do hearing people do that—it seems as without actually “hearing” something, they still manage to know all about it, as if having picked information up out of the thin air.

Damn.

And here franksolich is stuck, knowing only what’s been told him, and of course being deaf, the “message” is indistinct, some parts missing, when transmitted from sender to receiver.

But hearing people seem to learn things without being told them.

Damn.

“I don’t know,” I said, sweating, “but it was [the village idiot] who saw us, and he’s got a bigger mouth than the hippywife primitive Mrs. Alfred Packer ever had, when chitchatting with her fellow cooking and baking primitives on Skins’s island.

“I’m ruined.  My reputation is trash.”

to be continued