a chronicle of primitive paranoia

[franksolich]

“Well, in case you need reminded, it happened about three or four years ago, and [the village idiot] saw something then, and blabbed all over about it, encouraging people to form some rather, uh, creative impressions about what it was.

“It took the longest time to dispel all that.”

Yeah, the business partner said, ruefully; he remembered that.

“You just have too many people hanging around your place,” he said.

“And while I don’t mean to be negative about it—there’s plenty of good things about it, too—it’s something you did yourself.

“When you moved out there the autumn of 2005, after the scam that rocked the internet wound down, the place hadn’t been lived in for nineteen years.  The weeds out front grew as high as one’s shoulders, and many of the windows had been shot out, by the occasional hunter or mischief-maker.

“You wanted to get out of town, just as you’d wanted to leave Omaha a few years before; there was just always too much going on, and you wanted some peace and quiet and solitude.

“You thought it was ideal—way out in the middle of nowhere, and it appeared no one ever came that way.  The nearest neighbor was [the neighbor and his family], six miles north of you.

“You wanted peace and quiet and solitude so much that it took you four years before you put in a telephone.”

Oh, but remember, I said; “I can’t use a telephone.  I had it put in only under pressure from the owners, who thought it’d make the place safer for me.

“I’m never sure how that’s supposed to work, but anyway, here I am, with a telephone gathering dust, and a bill that sucks twenty-four bucks a month from the budget.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Anyway,” the business partner pressed on, “so nobody but the occasional hunter or mischief-maker had gone out there for years and years and years.

“You moved out there in August; before winter had even started, you were getting people to go out there all the time, lots and lots of people.

“As you pointed out, that great big garage was a handy place for people to work on their vehicles or farming equipment.  You even had three ancient refrigerators put in there, as a place for guys to stash their beer.

“You also illuminated the owners that it was ideal for storage of equipment and tools used by the property manager, to serve their properties scattered all over three counties.

“And the house—of course, the house is excellent for entertaining large groups of people—and the yards too.  Easy to set up, easy to clean up, after parties and cookouts.  A big front porch, and a big back porch, with built-in 1920s picnic tables.

“Rain or shine, cold or hot, it’s a great place for entertaining.

“Man, you were hyped about the place, always encouraging others to stop by and visit.

“After you discovered what the William Rivers Pitt is, you even got people to drive miles out of their way just to look at, and admire, a Jungfrau-looking mound of antique swine excrement.

“You missed your calling; you should’ve been a hotelier or an innkeeper, the way you can pull people in.

“If someone were to set franksolich up in a tent staked out in the middle of the vast desolate unpeopled Sahara, you’d get swarms of Bedouins—or perhaps even Skippy’s scimitar-wielding pals--dropping by to visit.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“And the biggest deal was the river, the cause of your current embarrassment; once everything was mowed, cleaned up, fixed up, others discovered this stretch of the river, and how ideal it was, for camping.

“Pal, you’re good; you’re even better than your good pal Manny on Skins’s island, when it comes to drawing people, or in his case, attracting primitives.

“Of course, the down side to that is that you’re attracting primitives too.”

- - - - - - - - - -

We stopped at a roadside diner for breakfast.

While we were eating, two women walked in, taking a table at the far end.

My hair stood up, my spine chilled.

We were in fact being stalked, by the two women photographers BainsBane had sent here, looking for franksolich.

They were too far away from us for me to read their lips, to find out what they were talking about, but other of their body language betrayed that we, and not the food, were the reason they were there.

I heaved a sigh of relief.  The business partner is leaving this evening for central Iowa, and won’t be back for some days.

And they supposing him to be franksolich, franksolich is safe for now.

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Well, I don’t think you should worry too much about it,” the neighbor’s wife said, as we sat around on the front porch, admiring the Sandhills that lay before us.

“Everybody knows you, and expects that you’ll get into all sorts of odd-but-innocent situations.

“Let [the village idiot] jibber-jabber all he wants; about the worst that can happen is that Swede at the bar in town’ll give you a bad time about it.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said.

- - - - - - - - - -

“It’s such a nice day out here,” she said.

“When are you expecting the first campers to arrive?”

“The weekend of St. Patrick’s Day,” I said; “bad weather or good, they insist they’ll be here.

“Some old hippies from Missouri.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

I was in the grocery store in the big city this evening, picking up a few things when, in front of the dairy counters, my shopping-cart bumped into the shopping-cart being propelled by the retired banker’s wife.

There’s three major grocery stores in the big city, not counting Wal-Mart way over on the western end, almost out into the country.

<<<shops in a smaller store, where the Country Club set shops.

There’s a grocery store in town, considerably nearer, but it closes at 8:00 p.m. every evening, and this was after that.

I’ve lived in this area for fourteen years, and despite that Wal-Mart appears to be a popular place, I’ve only ever been there four times, each time to get exactly one item.  I’m sure franksolich has been the only customer of Wal-Mart not to bother taking a shopping cart, and to present himself in front of a cashier with…..just one item.

Two of the three grocery stores are employee-owned, and about as big as indoor sports stadiums in large cities.  I do about four-fifths of my grocery shopping at the dairy counters, and for some perverse reason, these places have the dairy section at the far end of the building.

It’s like one time many years ago, I went to Shopko to buy a gallon of automotive radiator fluid, and in a rare—for me--instance of bad luck, had to trek all the way over to the most-distant corner to find it.

This all is unusual for franksolich; I’m the guy for whom, when driving into a crowded parking lot several square miles large, someone parked right at the front door—not counting the “handicapped” slots—pulls out.

It’s either coincidence or good luck, I dunno.

- - - - - - - - - - -

The retired banker’s wife’s husband, Grumpy, was with her.

It’s been said that Grumpy really likes franksolich, but all he’s ever said in my presence, after looking at me up-and-down, is a grunted “hmph, hmph.”

A hard guy to read, Grumpy.

Grumpy looks as if one imagines Skippy, the NYC_SKP primitive, looking twenty years hence; sagging skin on the face, a ballooning midriff, and pencil-thin legs.  He usually wears polyester plaid pants hiked clear up to the bottom of his ribs.

- - - - - - - - - - -

The retired banker’s wife told me that she’d shown all the drafts of the potential book to the editor of a gardening magazine in which her own gardens have been photographed, and featured.

(This was the first time the name “William Rivers Pitt” had ever appeared in legitimate press, in an article extolling the virtues of using antique swine excrement 60-150 years old, as a fertilizer.

(Too bad for drunken Bill that it wasn’t referring to him. 

(The retired banker’s wife comes out here several times during the spring, summer, and autumn, to extract several bushels of it from the Jungfrau-looking mound here.)

I arched my eyebrows.  “You sent her copies of all of them?  That’s quite a bit of reading, and as it’s not related to gardening, I, well, sort of doubt she wasted a whole lot of time reading it.”

Oh, but she did, the retired banker’s wife insisted.  “Her favorites were the profiles, or the character sketches, of the workers and peasants, and she was very sad she couldn’t use them herself.

“’This writer knows how to penetrate to the inner soul of people.’

Tell her “thank you” for the compliment, I modestly said.

But that’s not all, the retired banker’s wife said; “When you whip out a first draft—and I know it’s on your check-list—about gardening in the socialist paradises, she wants to see it, and would probably want first rights.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Hey, they’re hot on your trail,” Romeo said, as he burst into the kitchen this morning.  “Those two women BainsBane sent here, they know where you live—“

Surprised at the interruption, I looked up at the clock.

“It’s only 5:15 a.m., and I don’t open until 6:00 a.m.

“It’s kind of irritating, when the only privacy I’m guaranteed is the fifteen or twenty minutes spent in the bathroom, taking a bath and stuff, behind a locked door.”

“Well,” Romeo said, “you’d better start locking the front and back doors again, no matter the inconvenience to anybody else, because those predatory she-women know where you live now.

“[the village idiot] told them.”

Not to worry, I said; “they know where franksolich lives, but as far as they know, [the business partner]’s franksolich—and he’s gone for the next few days.

“I don’t know what kind of ‘image’ primitives have in their heads, of franksolich, and what franksolich looks like.

“I give them all sorts of clues—clues which decent and civilized people don’t seem to have any problem figuring out—in fact, just about any member of conservativecave, seeing me for the first time in their lives, can walk up to me and say, ‘oh, so this is franksolich; I knew it was you, right away.’

“The primitives are always jumping to conclusions about who, and what, I am in real life, and jumping to the wrong conclusions.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“What are you going to do about it?” the property caretaker asked me this morning.  “Because the ground’s still frozen, the motion sensors can’t be installed yet, so probably best you just go back to locking the doors and covering the windows.”

Uh, no, I said.  Not that again.

“And besides, remember that I watched their conversation in the bar, when [the business partner] and I were there a few days ago, reading their lips from two tables away.

“It’s better than having a hidden microphone or recorder, this skill at reading lips, although because one’s visible to the other parties, one has to be careful about not getting caught.

“Okay, so they know where franksolich lives.

“But based upon that conversation I saw, and they ways they acted in the highway diner yesterday, they think [the business partner] is me, and he’s gone for a few days, of course something they wouldn’t know.

“You know my practice, when faced with a preposterous, a ridiculous, situation where one has to make a choice about what to do, what action to take, I consider all the options.

“And ‘doing nothing,’ letting the events on their own dictate what happens, is always an option.

“So I’m going to do nothing about it; just let it run its natural course.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“I always wanted to ask you,” the caretaker said, “how does it feel, being stalked?”

The caretaker’s been around only four years now, while franksolich has been enured to being stalked by the primitives for almost ten years, and so his curiosity’s natural.  He’s seen it happen, without really understanding the “why” of it.

“It’s gone on for ten years, this coming April 30, circa 3:30 p.m. central time, 2:30 p.m., mountain time,” I told him.  “It’s been going on a very long time now, and I got used to it a very long time ago.

“That’s the anniversary of the scam that rocked the internet, which gave me my first experience dealing with stalking primitives.

“franksolich was one of a group of people, decent and civilized people and primitives alike, who scented there was something wrong about it, and as a public service for the Good of Humanity, decided to warn the primitives.

“The primitives are notoriously gullible, as people tend to be with money that’s simply given them, rather than they earning it—in which case they’re more careful—and we didn’t want to see the primitives waste our hard-earned money on a fraud, money the primitives could more wisely spend on something else.

“At first, we were trying to save the primitives from themselves.

“And oh my, what gratitude we got.  As that old saying goes, ‘no good deed goes unpunished,’ and we were punished a lot.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Myself, being the member of the group—later named ‘scamdy.com’—with the least to lose, volunteered to be the ‘rodeo clown’ of the enterprise; the most-visible but not really important role, to distract and entertain the primitives while everybody else did all the investigative work.

“They all had spouses, parents, children, and had done a lot of things of public record, details which of course showed up on the internet.

“And trust me, if anybody knows how to dig, it’s the primitives.  We were rank amateurs, compared with them.  We weren’t even anywhere near in their class.

“So franksolich, having the least to lose, was ‘it.’

“And it worked out well; nobody else involved with scamdy.com was ever checked out by the primitives, who instead concentrated on franksolich.

“There was one primitive who got even remotely close to franksolich, and still, he was off by quite a bit.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“In later years, about the same time you came along, it was funny, watching Judy grasswire don that billed hat and a cape, jamming a pipe into her mouth, and grasping a magnifying glass, in pursuit of franksolich, who she thought had been the brains behind scamdy.com.

“Like franksolich is a Chinaman, I was the brains of the operation.

“Earlier, during the height of the scamdal, the lala_raw_raw primitive announced that franksolich was the ‘key’ to the whole enterprise, and I can’t tell you how everybody involved with scamdy.com rolled all over the floor laughing their asses off, when seeing that.

“But because once the primitives get an idea into their heads, they mule-headedly persist with it, despite all the evidence to the contrary, and despite all other possible options to explore.

“It’s almost as if they’re afraid to look into other options.

“So anyway, here Judy grasswire was, near Portland, Oregon, checking out franksolich 1500 east of her, out here on the roof of Nebraska, whereas the real brains, the founder and president of scamdy.com, lived less than 40 miles away from her.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“You know,” I said to the neighbor later on in the morning, “I’m beginning to think I’m being insulted, by the primitives mistaking [the business partner] for franksolich.

“Remember the hippywife primitive Mrs. Alfred Packer’s hippyhubby Wild Bill from a few years ago?  The whole Packer clan came up here from northeastern Oklahoma to camp on Labor Day, and as their freezer needed re-filled, Wild Bill wanted to bag franksolich.

“It was bad timing for them, coming all the way up here, because that weekend, [the business partner] was down in northeastern Oklahoma, looking at horses.

“Anyway, so Wild Bill many times was just inches away from me, well within axe-wielding range, but he thought I was ‘too stupid-looking’ to be franksolich, the Scourge of the Primitives.

“Am I really stupid-looking?”

- - - - - - - - - -

“No, actually, far from it,” the neighbor assured me.

“It’s your voice that makes other people, especially primitives, misjudge you at first impression. 

“It’s not your fault or anything, but a voice about as flat and broad and slow as the Platte River, where you grew up, for people and primitives who make too-hasty judgements and jump to premature conclusions, it’s not an especially bright voice.”

“But on the other hand,” I pointed out, “for people for whom English is a second language, or even no language at all, they frequently tell me that I’m the only American they can understand.

“I’ll bet it’s better than how primitives in Massachusetts or Marin County, California, talk.

“I know for a fact it’s better than how cousin nadin in southern California talks.”

- - - - - - - - - - -

“But neither of these two smut-seeking broads ever heard me talk, and they still thought [the business partner] was franksolich, not me.”

“Well, he has a ‘certain’ smile that appeals, while you’re a sphinx,” the neighbor replied.

“And besides, they haven’t seen franksolich naked yet.

“Which is probably why BainsBane recommended you to them; she has.

“Of course, it was only from the back, but it was obviously enough to impress her.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Oh now,” the neighbor’s wife protested.  She was at the dining room table with us.  She was on her way to the big city, and had stopped on her way to get something from her husband, who’s working on a piece of equipment here.

“I think he’s good-looking; he just doesn’t appeal to trashy women, who prefer crude and coarse and brute, men who like women only for their [jugs] or ease of availability.

“They say they want the dark-haired, flat-chested, flat-stomached, nice-thighed, strong but nonthreatening, confident but not narcissistic, firm but gentle, male who respects them and their feelings, but no, they don’t.

“They want rough, violent men who savage them, brutalize them, so they can go around whining about how men mistreat women.

“BainsBane isn’t the only she-woman like that, either.

“And I can’t believe you actually think it’d be funny, if he posed for them.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Uh oh.  One of those intimate husband-wife arguments. 

Being a nice guy with good manners, I discretely look away during such times, so as to not eavesdrop (or in franksolich’s case, eyesdrops, since it’s reading lips).

It was however clear that the neighbor thought it would be interesting, watching myself “make lemonade out of lemons,” getting out of a tricky situation as quickly and easily as a pig sliding on ice.

The neighbor and I are old friends, going way back to when he was a freshman at the University of Nebraska, and I was manager of a privately-owned student union.

The student union was owned by a prominent Democrat official, notorious for his short fuse and hot temper.  He’s dead now, from about the same time franksolich moved up here, from jamming a revolver into his mouth and pulling the trigger, after it’d been discovered he’d kited seven million bucks in bad checks.

But anyway, when he was still in this time and place, and my boss, he used to have bombastic displays of fireworks—and right out there in public, with a vast audience—yelling-and-screaming, jumping up-and-down getting red-white-and-blue in the face, smashing and breaking and throwing things, while I stood in front of him, looking bored and nonchalantly smoking a cigarette.

- - - - - - - - - - -

It was also clear, sort of, that she didn’t like the idea.

For the record, the neighbor’s wife, like ancient people, respectable women, and children, has never seen franksolich less than appropriately attired, being in bed at home sleeping during the middle of the night.

I caught the tail end of it, the neighbor’s wife asking him, “how would you like it if, there suddenly appeared a magazine in our mailbox, with franksolich as the centerfold?”

“But we don’t subscribe to that magazine,” he reminded her.

to be continued

[franksolich]

The property caretaker, sitting at the other end of the table with us, spoke up.  “I don’t like it either.

“But short of putting up a wall and posting an armed security guard at the front gate 24/7/365, there’s always going to be strangers coming out here, some of them weird ones, even malicious.

“And at this end, we have franksolich, our esteemed but uncooperative friend, and it’d be a Great Tragedy to all humanity but the primitives on Skins’s island, if something were to happen to him.”

Uh-oh.  A condescending lecture was upcoming, and from someone younger than myself, but like a good trouper, I put up with it; it happens every day, and so one’s used to it.

“It’s not the same thing as that 102-year-old lady who lived out here all alone, who’d been born and raised on this property.

“She had five dogs, and even though blind, she could still use a firearm up until the end, using hearing to determine where a target was; I’ve been told she never missed a moving one by more than a few inches from fifty feet away.

“One doesn’t need eyes to know someone suspicious is around; a sense of hearing that surveys all directions is usually good enough for that.

“But here, being deaf, he doesn’t know anybody’s around unless that person’s right in front of him.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Like what happened last Sunday—“

“It wasn’t anything like [the village idiot] said it was,” I interrupted.

“We know that, that it wasn’t as it’s being talked about,” the caretaker continued, “but still, people talk, and it’s not good for your reputation, particularly with people who don’t know you.

“Plus there’s that you were doing it with Romeo, the most disreputable jerk in this county, not to mention twenty other counties, famous for using women one time and then dumping them.

“The guy’s an ass.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“You moved out here because you were tired of the confined, inhibited, sharply restrained life the deaf are compelled to live, to keep themselves safe—and one can’t blame you for that; it’s after all human, and eminently normal.

“I’m sure that’s the cause of your life-long ulcer that’s eating you away from inside; a burning resentment that you can’t be as free, as wild-and-crazy, as hearing people, because it poses perils for you that it doesn’t for hearing people, who are more aware of what’s going on around them.

“But damn it, it’s heart-stopping, to see the risks you take.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Ahem, I interrupted.  My turn.

“What I resent is that hearing people don’t seem to understand that I know I’m taking risks. 

“Everything I do, based upon past experience I carefully calculate the risk.  I don’t even plant my feet on the floor when getting up from bed in the morning, without calculating the risks of even that.

“While it may seem I ‘blindly’ trust other people, that’s not the case at all; every person I meet for the first time, I automatically ask myself, ‘okay, how much, and what kind of, damage will this person most likely wreak on me?’

“I’m actually a very careful, damned near paranoid, person.

“But because I then go ahead and risk it, it means I’m willing to run that risk.

“Just because the odds against me might be daunting, doesn’t mean I’m indifferent about any consequences, or even stupid, not aware of any possible consequences.

“It means only that I’ve weighed the odds, and decided to take the risk.

“And just like my tramping around the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants, usually I gamble, I dare…..and win; it's something that's been worth the risk.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“I’m confused,” the property caretaker said, as we walked outside, towards where Joe and Jose were setting up some sort of trench-digger to install wires for the motion sensors.

“What sort of risk do you face, when you wake up in the morning, and before you decide to put your feet on the floor?”

Oh, that one’s easy, I said; “I have to decide whether or not to put my feet down, in case I might step on something.

“Like a big old live snake that one of the cats’d dragged in during the night.”

“That actually happened?” he asked.

Yeah, I said, one time.  “Hearing people would hear a rustle or a fuss or whatever noises cats and snakes make when tussling with each other, and so would be careful about where they put their feet.

“Me, unaware that anything’s happened, well, after it happens the first time, I get into the habit of calculating the risks every time I make a move, no matter how minor.

“And within a millisecond, I’ve figured out all the risks, the worst possible thing that can happen if I do such-and-such, and take it.”

- - - - - - - - - - -

While the caretaker, Joe, and Jose were creating a narrow trench along the ground, I polished and repaired the croquet set.  The set’s only a year old, and got considerable use last year, but upon inspection, I figured it was still good for one more summer.

Whoa, I thought; even a $679 croquet set isn’t that durable; either that, or we’d used it a lot more than I’d thought.

A car suddenly pulled into the front yard, and then after making a circle, drove back onto the road and went north again.

The other three shrugged their shoulders; probably someone who’d made a wrong turn, and figuring that out, had gone back to where they’d started.

I however was a little closer, and noticed it was the two friends of BainsBane; they’d probably driven up, and not seeing the business partner, who they think is franksolich, and gone away.

- - - - - - - - - -

“Well, well,” Swede said, as he placed my order on the table in front of me, affecting a limp-wristed pansy of the 1950s.  “One would’ve never thought—“

“Oh, cool it,” I said as he light-loafered pranced back to the kitchen; “you know [the village idiot] has no credibility, and shouldn’t be believed.  That’s not what happened at all.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the neighbor’s older brother, with whom I was having supper, said.  “Of course he knows.

“It was the first warm day of the year, sixty-five or so degrees, and it’d been a rough winter, and you were eager to shed it.  And hearing the Call of the Sandhills in Spring, you and Romeo dived into the river, skinny-dipping.

“And [the village idiot] happened to be snooping around, and because you never fully paid him that ‘million dollars’ you promised him last summer, he’s trying to get even.”

Yeah, I said; “that’s exactly what happened, no more, no less.”

“But you really need to be wary of the company you keep,” he advised me; “people you don’t know are around talk, even if you yourself can’t hear the talk, the rumors, the gossip, the lies.

“It’s a good thing franksolich has an unassailable reputation, a sterling reputation.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“You know,” I told the insurance man, “if your statisticians kept detailed track of sub-groups of people, you wouldn’t dare sell life insurance to the deaf.

“We’re a bad risk; drug and alcohol abuse, crime and violence, accidents, suicides.  Just because I’m okay and obviously living long, doesn’t mean that most of us aren’t.

“Everyone like myself I knew as a kid, as a teenager, as a young adult, is pushing up daisies now…..and some for a very long time.”

The insurance man and the property caretaker were working in the garage, hand-finishing a particular new part for his 1926 Model T Ford.  One doesn’t find replacement parts for such vehicles in junkyards any more; one has to make them.

“There’s the phenomenon of the Unexpected Unpleasant Surprise, which hearing people don’t experience, because they’re forewarned that something’s wrong, from hearing something.

“We get no clues, and BOOM! out of thin air, a heart-stopping surprise.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“I’m thinking here of a few summers ago, when I was at the computer, and noticed the cat William passing me by.  I just caught a glance of him; I didn’t notice anything in particular.

“Then about an hour later, I had to go up and empty the bladder.

“I pulled open the half-opened door, and whoops…..

“There was a rabbit all over the floor, every square inch of it covered with entrails.  I had no idea rabbits had so many miles of intestines in them.  It was a mess.

“Now, if I’d heard William and his prey fighting it out, I would’ve known something was going to be wrong.  But I didn’t, and didn’t know about it until I nearly stepped into it.

“We get no clues, and BOOM! out of thin air, a heart-stopping surprise.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Or, on a more-serious matter, the way I learned my mother’d died.

“Everybody else was at the bedside, but I’d been told to go get my car serviced, as I was expected to run errands all over the state after the unhappy inevitability had occurred.

“So I was having that done, when the mother of my best friend came outside, telling me I was needed at the hospital right way.  That was the whole message; I was needed at the hospital right away.

“I borrowed her car, and sped to the hospital.  When I got there, I noticed all the brothers and sisters and their families walking towards their own vehicles in the parking lot, leaving.

“But it didn’t ‘connect;’ I was needed at the hospital right away.

“As I walked towards the room where my mother’d been, the nurse told me no, to go inside this other door.

“If I’d been a hearing person, I would’ve heard that.

“But I didn’t hear that, and upon opening the door, I stopped in my tracks.  I’m sure the skid-marks from my shoes are still on the tiles at that hospital today.

“The doctor and a nurse were huddled over the body of my mother, and looked up in shock.  I didn’t pay attention to them; I just saw the body, totally stripped, the back arched upward, the arms outstretched and the fingers clenched, the eyes and mouth wide open, and a frozen expression of agony on the face.

“I was 18 at the time; if I’d been able to hear the nurse’s instructions, I would’ve been spared this.

“Someone behind me pulled me out of the room, and it was feared that I’d be traumatized for life, having seen this—and so abruptly—but that didn’t happen, because even then I was aware of God, and the matters of Life and Death.

“And besides, I was already used to it, walking in on the Unexpected and Unpleasant Surprise; such things had happened to me all my life, and still do today.

“But it does take its toll, wearing one down.

“We get no clues, and BOOM! out of thin air, a heart-stopping surprise.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Or, as you know, that one time I was filling the car at a self-service gasoline pump late at night; I was walking towards the front door of the station, when someone nearby hollered, ‘Hey!  Don’t go in there!  It’s dangerous!  Stay away!’

“If I were a hearing person, I would’ve heard that warning, but I’m not, and so I didn’t, and walked right into the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun.

“We get no clues, and BOOM! out of thin air, a heart-stopping surprise.

“Of course, it ended well, as they usually do; something—I dunno what—scared the two, and they ran away without taking anything or triggering their firearms.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Now, that was the sixth time in my life I’d walked into a loaded-and-aimed firearm—encounters I could’ve avoided, had I been a hearing person, picking up sounds giving clues there was something wrong.

“I’m very fortunate, of course, and surprised I haven’t had a sudden heart attack…..yet.

“And one has to remember that most people like franksolich don’t have as strong of hearts as franksolich does.

“These things don’t happen because we’re stupid or reckless; they happen simply because we can’t hear sounds indicating something extraordinary is going on.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“But you increase your vulnerability, and the risks, by your behavior,” the insurance man protested.  “You leave this place wide open, unlocked and unprotected.  You accept everybody and anybody coming your way, without checking them out first.

“And between ten at night and six in the morning, you’re most vulnerable.”

Oh now, I said; “I’ve already assessed the risks of that, and as I can’t sleep being all covered and restrained and swaddled, sleep trumps all the risks.  I know what I’m doing.

“When I’m standing there in front of the counter, watching the coffee brew, and someone I didn’t know was around because I couldn’t hear, taps me on the shoulder, well, while I don’t care much for it, I’m used to it, this sudden unexpected rude surprise.”

to be continued

[obumazombie]

I can't tell so far, but if you haven't already, can you work Mr. Burris/Hale into the mix.
By the way, nice sleuthing and nice catch of the DUmmie red handed.
If wishes were horses, beggars (like him) would ride.

[franksolich]

By the way, nice sleuthing and nice catch of the DUmmie red handed.

comment 2765:
http://conservativecave.com/index.php?topic=81827.2750

I can't tell so far, but if you haven't already, can you work Mr. Burris/Hale into the mix.

Like the prospective book about the socialist paradises, there's so much first-rate material for this story, mocking the paranoia of the primitives, that I have no idea where it's going.  Or when it's going to end.  Anything can happen, and usually does.

[franksolich]

“Oh now,” I said, “nobody has to go that far, going out of their way to warn me something’s about to happen.

“I’ve been around a long time, and usually I can figure it out myself.”

The property caretaker had just told Joe and Jose that part of their job was to be sure that television-less and radio-less franksolich was aware if there was especially-threatening weather coming this way.

They were laying the cable for the outdoor motion sensors, and anticipate upon having the job done today.  And then tomorrow, to finally connect it with the internal warning system; the ceiling lights that go on when someone rings the doorbell.

I was standing nearby, polishing the set of polo mallets, in preparation for spring.

- - - - - - - - - -

“I grew up in this kind of weather,” I pointed out; “all I have to do, since there’s nothing obstructing the view, is look outside any window of the house, to see what’s coming.”

“Unlike for people in crowded, congested, dirty blue states and blue cities, there’s nothing out here blocking one’s view.  One sees the weather coming hours before it gets here.”

“But you didn’t last summer,” the caretaker said; “when you were standing out on the front porch, and those tandem tornadoes came whooshing by, you right in between both of them.

“And then after they were gone, you had to drive into town to get the weather report.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“It wasn’t that narrow of an escape,” I corrected him; “one of them was half a mile north of me, and the other one half a mile south, and they hadn’t touched ground yet when they went by me.

“And besides, it was too dark, and the rain coming down too hard, to see anything.

“Remember, the electricity and the internet were out, so I couldn’t check the weather if I’d needed to.

“Based upon what I was seeing, it looked to be a pretty average, ordinary, run-of-the-mill storm, no different from any of the storms in the Sandhills during my adolescence, when nothing happened.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“However, yes, I’m always aware of the unhappy fate of Miss Margaret Smithers during the tornado that struck Omaha in May 1975. 

“That was a powerful tornado, a massive one, that leveled significant portions of the city; utter devastation, as if one of Skippy’s nuclear bombs had been dropped…..but at the same time, there were only three fatalities and very few injuries.

“If the same had happened in a blue state or a blue city, there would’ve been hundreds of primitives dead, and thousands injured.

“Anyway, so the middle-aged spinster was sitting in her living room, knitting a pair of booties for a soon-to-be new grand-niece, unaware there was anything extraordinary going on.

“The curtains were closed.

“She was deaf; she didn’t use radio or television, and the internet hadn’t been invented yet.

“She had no idea.

“And in something less than a milli-second, she was sucked up into the tornado, sent skyrocketing to God.

“But really, when considering the odds, calculating the risks, franksolich has a better chance of winning the Powerball lottery, than being swept away by a summer storm.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“But you probably have, but not thinking it important, weren’t paying attention,” the neighbor said, while he, the property caretaker, and I were standing in the garage.

I’d commented that franksolich is probably one of only six or half a dozen people born and raised in Nebraska, who hadn’t ever in their lives seen a tornado, or a live rattlesnake.

And probably most, including the big guy in Bellevue, have probably seen both phenomenons.

“It’d be almost impossible, living in Nebraska and never having seen a rattlesnake somewhere around here.”

“A live rattlesnake,” I said; “I’ve admitted to actually seeing two dead ones.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“The first one was on the golf course at the Country Club in the Sandhills where I grew up, and I was fourteen years old.

“I didn’t care much for golf, but as I had a junior membership in the local country club, my brother, God rest his soul, who was two years younger than me, used it for his own purposes.

“He was too young to have his own membership, but as my ‘guest,’ could use mine.  He liked golf; played it all he could. 

“It cost me ten dollars a year, and I constantly whined about what a needless expense it was…..especially since I didn’t care for golf.  I’d gotten it because, well, it just seemed like a good thing to have, at the time.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Every time I owed my brother a favor—and I usually owed him a lot of them—he insisted upon being repaid by my taking him as my guest to the golf course.

“I loathed, detested, abhorred, golf.  But as I owed him the favor, well…..

“Usually I got lucky, and there was someone else there looking around for a partner.  My younger brother was a nice kid, nicer even than I was, and competent at golf, so he was immediately accepted.

“Since this was usually during the mornings, when the adults weren’t around, crowding the course, I usually positioned myself two holes behind them, idly ‘playing’ golf by myself.

“I experimented, hitting the ball every which way, including with the wrong end of the club, to see what’d happen.  I probably learned a thousand different ways of hitting the ball, some of them good, some of them not so good.

“If someone was behind me, being a nice guy, I paused to let them play through, until they were two holes ahead of me, after which I’d ‘play’ again.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“For some reason which I now disremember, one summer morning my brother and my best friend were playing right behind me, instead of in front of me.

“I was indifferently eyeing a distant hole, when there was suddenly a ruckus behind my back; I knew of it only because something had hit me.

“Turning around in surprise, I saw my brother trying to kill a snake with his golf club, both he and my best friend yelling at me to get out of the way.

“I deftly stepped aside, and watched as my brother succeeded in taking care of the matter.  The carcass had six rattles, ‘average’ size, but apparently enough that a hearing person would’ve heard it.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Then during summer two years later, I was working at the local drive-in movie theater, picking up trash outside.

“I was born too late to be influenced by drive-in movie theaters, but by the time I was around, there were still a few of them left, although obviously waning away.

“The grounds were on the side of a hill.  Three of my friends, all my own age, worked there too, everybody doing chores that best suited their temperaments and skills.

“My job was to take a stick with a nail at the end of it, and to walk around, picking up litter left behind from the night before—the sort of thing the subway cat or the Odin2005 primitive on Skins’s island could do, to pay their own way through life.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“I came across what was obviously a used condom laying on the ground; it was about the fullest rubber I’d ever seen.

“There hadn’t been many people there the night before, and I hollered at the other three to come over and take a look, and to see if any of us could recall who’d parked there.

“They came running towards me, and then suddenly stopped.

“I was mystified.  ‘Come on, come on, over here,’ I shouted.

“One of them waved his arms, indicating I shouldn’t move, stay where I was, while another, carrying a weed-cutter, moved outside of my sight and took care of the matter.

“I disremember how many rattles that one had—other than that it was more than six, as the thing was bigger around than my lower arm.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

I went to the bar in town, to have supper with the insurance man and his wife.

Ralwalpindi Singh, whose specialty is Danish cuisine, was cooking again.

I ordered the usual; a hamburger well done, pressed down hard on the grill so as to squeeze out every drop of grease, and a salad.  Since the insurance man and his wife like fish, I suggested the rødspættefilet, served hot with lemon and remoulade, and for dessert, frugtsalat.

Even though Danish cuisine is my favorite, I still haven’t made up my mind yet, about this new cook.  Something about him suggests that he sneaks curry into it.

The insurance man said he’d heard I was having “guests” camping here this weekend.

Yeah, I said, “Old hippies from Missouri.  They said they were coming rain or shine, cold weather or hot weather, and apparently they are, because one of them telephoned [the property caretaker] today, asking a question.

“They wanted to know if franksolich is legit, because I don’t charge for camping here, and have refused to take currency even when it’s been pushed into my hand.

“[the caretaker] reminded them that I’m indeed legitimate, a public-spirited citizen who makes the grounds available as a public service for the Good of Humanity.

“It keeps old hippies, bums, freeloaders, sex-changers, dopers, tokers, meth-heads, loose women, and primitives out of the public parks, where they might pose a threat to the public safety and health, especially the children.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Are these primitives?” the insurance man’s wife asked me; “which ones are they?”

No, they’re not, I said; they’re just ordinary run-of-the-mill balding pot-bellied old hippies, and their dingy grey-haired muu-muu wearing consorts.

“The primitives from Skins’s island’ll come later.”

“Well, at least it’s not the hippywife primitive Mrs. Alfred Packer and her hippyhubby Wild Bill from northeastern Oklahoma, so you should be safe this weekend,” the insurance man said.

Uh huh, I agreed, but rather dubiously, thinking of BainsBane’s two friends who were still known to be in the area, and who know where franksolich lives, although they have me confused with the business partner, who’s not around.

“But because they’re who they are, non-primitives, there’ll probably be a lack of excitement and entertainment,” I said; “it won’t be anything like when the Packer clan came up here for Memorial Day a few years ago.

“Yeah, that was quite a circus,” the insurance man said.

- - - - - - - - - -

The Packer clan had shown up here on Memorial Day, about three, four, five, years ago—I disremember exactly when, and there’s far too many stories of hippywife Mrs. Alfred Packer in the DUmpster it’d take half a day trying to find it.

Besides Mrs. Alfred Packer and hippyhubby Wild Bill—who was up here in pursuit of franksolich, given how their freezer back home was empty, and needed new meat—there were also Ms. Hindenberg the ‘Warpy’ primitive, the unappellated eohippus the ‘Horse With no Name’ primitive, and Judy grasswire.

And Wild Bill’s ma and younger brothers; the one with both eyes on the same side of his nose, the one without a chin, the one without a forehead, and the one with both ears on the same side of his face.

They’d come all the way up here in a caravan consisting of an old Snap-on Tools van converted into a funeral hearse, WILD BILL & BROS., WHOLESALE UNDERTAKERS, DISCOUNT FOR QUANTITY, painted on both sides, a 1982 Cadillac El Dorado blowing smoke from underneath the hood, and a 1947 Ford pick-up truck held together by baling wire and rust.

- - - - - - - - - -

It was a pleasant day, even though still only mid-morning, when they’d gotten the hippycamp all set up, tent flaps and Mrs. Alfred Packer’s newly-laundered cotton underdrawers with a 54” waistline, swaying in the warm gentle breeze.

Naturally, as it’d been even back in the 1960s, the hippywomen did all the work, while Wild Bill and his brothers sat around chewing the fat and ordering their women around when needed.

Then three boys came floating down the river on a make-shift raft.  Mrs. Alfred Packer thought they were all perhaps about 10 years old, and looked rather Tom-Sawyerish, rather cute.

They hollered something towards the hippycamp, getting Wild Bill’s attention, compelling him to shuffle down to the banks of the river to hear them.

“ARE YOU HIPPIES?” they hollered.

hippyhubby flashed the “thumbs-up” sign at them.

“REAL HIPPIES?” they shouted.

Wild Bill grinned.

“HIPPIES LIKE THERE USED TO BE?” they asked.

Wild Bill, standing on the shore, flashed the “thumbs-up” sign at them again.

“Ew,” one of them screamed, “REAL HIPPIES, DIRTY HIPPIES, LAZY HIPPIES, SMELLY HIPPIES.”

Wild Bill, insulted, ran out into the water towards them, but the boys poled the raft further near the center of the running water, out of his reach.  He threw rocks at the boys as they drifted away, hearing them scream, “Ick, HIPPIES, DIRTY HIPPIES!  LET’S GET AWAY FROM THEM!  EW!”

As the raft floated around the bend, the hippycamp could still hear, “HIPPIES!  HIPPIES!”

Well, Mrs. Alfred Packer didn’t think much of the welcome, but these were fundiebrats, after all, she reminded herself, as she tediously rubbed Wild Bill’s dirty shirt against the wooden washboard.

Wild Bill’s ma was darning socks, Judy grasswire was churning butter, Warpy was chopping wood, and Ms. Ed was playing with one of Wild Bill’s brothers behind a tree.  All the other hippymenfolk, including Wild Bill, lazily slumbered on the ground.

- - - - - - - - - -

Then suddenly everyone heard the roar of a motor vehicle, and looked up.  There was a pick-up truck coming their way, bouncing and tumbling down the ravine and gently sliding down the drop-offs. 

hippyhubby cursed.  More campers, he bet, and here, they’d hoped for solitude.

The pick-up truck, with three cowboys in the cab, pulled up near the hippycamp and drove slowly by, three grinning faces staring out at the hippyassembly.

After seeing the sight, the cowboys rode on down the river, towards a county road three miles away.

Mrs. Alfred Packer wondered what that was all about.

But she didn’t have much time to wonder, because soon thereafter there appeared a Buick sedan jostling along the trail, with two old folks in it.  They too pulled up near the hippycamp, drove slowly by, staring at the hippycrowd, and then continuing on down the path.

And close behind them was yet another pick-up truck, a farmer and his wife who slowed down near them, gaped and commented to each other inside the truck, and went on their way.

- - - - - - - - - -

It appeared to be a procession, all sorts of motor vehicles coming down near the hippycamp, the occupants staring, and then going on.  Some vehicles, especially those with small children in them, slowed down enough so that cameras could be taken out and pictures snapped.

hippyhubby Wild Bill was choking from the dust, and shaking his fist.

The last straw was when a pick-up truck with the logo of a television station from faraway Sioux City came down, and circled the hippycamp several times, a man standing in the bed of the truck, where a television camera had been bolted to the floor, rolling film for the noon news.  The truck circled and circled, as the camera picked up the faces and expressions of each of the camphippys.

Wild Bill shook his fist at them, saying words that couldn’t be quoted on television.

Then more cars, more trucks, more vans…..one could see the billowing cloud of dust from the highway two miles north of here.

- - - - - - - - - - -

About noon, the county sheriff came by.

Seeing they weren’t from the area, he welcomed them, asking how they were doing.

Wild Bill complained about the parade that was passing by.

“That’s what brought me here,” the sheriff said; “to be sure everything was okay.

“You see, there’s three boys up on the highway with a big sign, SEE THE HIPPYS $1 ADMISION, and I wanted to check.”

He handed Wild Bill a piece of colored paper, a photocopied job in a child’s handwriting, SEE THE HIPPYS -- $1 ADMISION PER PERSON – RULLES – DONT FEED THE HIPPYS – DONT TOUCH THE HIPPYS – DONT TALK TO THE HIPPYS – JUST LOOK AT THE HIPPYS -- $1 ADMISION.

- - - - - - - - - -

hippyhubby got hot under the collar about that, his grey ponytail bristling.

“Well,” the sheriff said, “I can’t do anything about it, because nobody’s breaking any laws.  It’s not against the law for people to look at things, since you have the owner’s permission it’s not against the law for you to be here, and as for the kids, there’s no law against charging admission to a freak show.”

Turning to leave, he saw the hippywomen—Mrs. Alfred Packer, Wild Bill’s ma, Warpy, Judy grasswire, and Ms. Ed the unappellated eohippus—glumly sitting in a row at the table, and tipped his hat to them.

“Good day, ladies.”

Then turning to Wild Bill, he said, “But keep it clean, G-rated.  This is a family area; don’t be having any senior-citizen plus-sized hippie women cavorting around naked doing all this ‘free love’ stuff.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“I’ve always been very lucky,” I said to the neighbor’s older brother this morning, when he was dropping me off here after we’d done some things with his cattle during the night.

He has three adolescent sons, but doesn’t like using them for such chores on school nights.  I don’t know excresence about cattle, but as I’m usually not doing anything at the moment anyway, I go along and just do as he tells me.

<<<really good at following orders.

“For example, when I was growing up, there was something in particular I used to do when driving in bad weather on a poor road-surface.

“It was stupid, it was reckless, it was foolhardy, but hey, I was a teenager.

“My younger brother saw me do it lots and lots of times.

“The first and only known time he did the same thing, when he was 17 years old, he was crushed to death, his body shattered, decapitated.

“Of course, I haven’t done such a thing since; apparently I’m really good at learning from the examples of other people.

“Especially from watching the primitives on Skins’s island; it’s very instructive, what happens to people boiling with rage and Hate and anger and bitterness.

“Usually it’s not anything that happens right away, but it inevitably happens sooner or later.

“All one has to do is sit back, watch, and wait.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“We’re done, boss,” Joe said, walking inside the house with Jose, who doesn’t know English.

“Come out and look.”

Actually, the property caretaker’s supposed to approve of the work they do, but he wasn’t around, and Joe and Jose wanted to head back to the big city.

So I went and looked, with all the trepidation of a prisoner who’s compelled to inspect and approve the quality of the lock on his cell-door.

It was a pretty good job; if I’d had to do this to somebody else, I would’ve hired Joe and Jose to do it.

As promised, the motion sensors were set low enough into the ground so as to not be truncated by a lawn-mower, or puncture bare feet, or obstruct a rolling croquet ball or hobble a horse in a game of polo.  They’re invisible; one has to look for one to see it.

“You know,” I said to Joe, “it’s too bad these things can’t be ‘programmed’ so that they ignore decent and civilized people coming to the house, detecting only primitives.”

Now all that’s left is for the caretaker to wire the things to the inside ceiling lights, so that they blink on, alerting me to that someone’s around no matter where I am inside the house, keeping franksolich safe.

Hah.

to be continued

[franksolich]

The grill out in the front yard got its first work-out of the season, when the property caretaker, after having done something somewhere else all afternoon, decided to have supper here.

Thursday evenings are when his wife and “the girls” go to the big city to shop at Wal-Mart, Shopko, Target, and to dine at Valentino’s, and so he was on his own anyway.

The neighbor was here, with his oldest son, 11 years old, and decided they’d eat here too.

There’s two outdoor grills here, one in the front yard and the other in the back yard, each about as big enough to lay out steaks or hamburgers enough to feed an army.  About as heavy as if made from cast-iron—and they might be, being from the 1920s—they rarely get moved around.

- - - - - - - - - -

The restaurant-sized refrigerator and freezer are always full, usually of leftovers from other cookouts, but spring’s just underway, and there hasn’t been enough cookouts to stock it yet.

But the freezer yielded steaks from last autumn, and venison from the early winter, which other people had left here.

When laying out all the cuts, the neighbor’s son inquired which one I wanted.  I shook my head, and pulled out from the back of the refrigerator an already-cooked hamburger from last autumn.

<<<always knows exactly what’s in there, even if way in the back.

“Just re-grill this,” I said; “and as it doesn’t look quite done enough, be sure to press it down hard on the grill, so as to squeeze out any drop of grease that might still be in it.”

After which I had, and immensely enjoyed, that, while they dined on various cuts of steakery.

- - - - - - - - - - -

The caretaker mentioned he’d be here in the morning, to connect the motion sensors surrounding the house to the lights inside the house, so as to alert me when someone’s coming my way.

“And just in time too, because tomorrow’s when those old hippies from Missouri’ll be here, camping down on the river—“

“Those are just old hippies,” I said; “I’m far more concerned about the chance of primitives showing up, too.

“They’re not very nice people, the primitives.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“There,” the property caretaker said.  “Now to see if it works.

“How about stepping out into the yard, to see if it triggers the motion sensors?”

I didn’t have to, because right at that moment, a paisleyed hippievan pulled up into the front yard, setting them off, causing the ceiling lights inside the house to flicker.

“Well, it works,” I glumly admitted.

Someone got out of the driver’s side of the vehicle, and came towards the front door.

- - - - - - - - - -

I was startled.

It was Rhinestone Santa, who’d been here three, four, summers ago, when he was right-hand man for the Bagwan Maharishi Rawalpindi Thiruvananthapura Yogi, at some sort of hippie commune out in Oregon.

They were basically okay, although they managed to clean out the refrigerator and cupboards here pretty good.  But one has to eat, and they were having to send every dollar they’d collected back to the Bagwan, who didn’t ever seem satisfied with the take.

Since Rhinestone Santa wasn’t with the Bagwan any more, I thought it okay to mention that his right-hand man in the excursion here back then, when they were panhandling at county fairs, Italianate Jesus, had been here a couple of times since then, and seemed in good shape, despite the distress he was feeling.

Italianate Jesus had deserted the cult shortly after the group had been here, and the Bagwan wanted him back, dead or alive, as he knew too much about what was going on at the faraway commune.

- - - - - - - - - -

I’d guessed right; Rhinestone Santa had no hard feelings about Italianate Jesus, and was happy he’d gotten away.

“You haven’t changed at all,” I said, which was true; he was still as round as a top, with a grey head of hair, a grey beard, a ruddy red nose, a merry twinkle in his eye, and really bad teeth.

And still wearing what were probably the same raiments he’d worn a few years ago.

I invited him inside, although curiously the others sitting in the hippievan made no movement to get out and follow us.

- - - - - - - - - - -

We stood out on the back porch, looking towards the river 500 yards west of there, where they were to camp; I wanted him to see nothing had changed, and they were free to be as they’d been the first time.

“Enjoy your stay,” I said; “the weather’s going to be pleasant, in the 70s, no rain in the forecast, and there shouldn’t be anybody coming around to bother you.”

“Would you by any chance have some spare grub?” he asked.

to be continued

[franksolich]

In mid-afternoon, my heart throbbing with compassion, I went down to the river where Rhinestone Santa and his hippies were camping, taking along with me a 20-pound bag of white potatoes, a couple quarts of sour cream, a half-pound of butter, salt and pepper, and three quarts of fresh strawberries.

Not exactly a balanced meal, but as spring’s just sprung, the larder isn’t nearly as full as it gets, and one does what one can with what one has.

Upon nearing the site, I noticed these weren’t people accustomed to balanced diets anyway.  Rhinestone Santa was there, and of course he’s enormously rotund, and two ageing hippieguys only somewhat smaller, about the same girth as the big guy in Bellevue who’s dying.

There were also three lumpenhippiefraus, one of them about the size of the muu-muu-wearing hippywife primitive Mrs. Alfred Packer, and the other two, thin and wizened.

The males were sitting at the built-in picnic table on the shore, chewing the fat and hoisting cans of beer; the glum, sullen lumpenhippiefraus were scurrying about, setting things up.

The way it usually is, among such “communities.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Taking a seat, I inquired of Rhinestone Santa why he wasn’t with the Bagwan out in Oregon any more.

It turned out that some months after they’d been here, panhandling at the county fair, feeling more and more pressure from the Bagwan to increase the receipts, they’d been stuck down in Oklahoma with no money, and the gasoline tank hovering on “empty.”

The Bagwan told them that was their problem; his own problem was getting funds sent, and he was bothered that it was coming along so slowly, as he had an urgent need for more, and faster.

And so after it got dark, they drove up to a 24-hour gasoline station, parking at the self-service pump furthest away from where the cashier inside’d see them, filled up the vehicle and drove off.

But they’d been caught anyway, and stuffed into the local jail.

Rhinestone Santa made his customary “one call” to the Bagwan, describing their situation, and saying they needed bail money.

“That’s your problem, not mine,” the irritated Bagwan had said.

- - - - - - - - - -

By the time they’d sat out their sentences—which varied, according to the assessed culpability of each individual—everybody’d gone their own ways.

The Bagwan, apparently facing, uh, difficulties from the Internal Revenue Service, had crated up all his valuables, including the two Mercedes-Benzs, and gone back to India, out of their reach.

Rhinestone Santa had found we Americans of European derivation suckers for eastern “religions,” and last winter decided to get into the racket himself.

He started reading up on the Buddhist religion.

He’d seen some sort of advertisement in a “country life” magazine, advertising rustic real-estate for sale in northernmost Vermont.  He’d already made a verbal commitment for it, and was going around soliciting donations and members.

“Unlike the commune in Oregon, which was Hindu, this one’s going to be Buddhist, and I came here, out of our way there, to talk you into becoming the new Guatama.

“You’re a nice guy, one of the nicest guys one can ever hope to meet, and you’d be ideal for it, despite your lack of a pot-belly.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“But actually, he’s got it all figured out pretty good,” I told the property caretaker when I came back to the house.

“Not to denigrate ancient Asian religions, which have been of invaluable illumination and guidance to its adherents in its time and place—something that endures that long is obviously God-given, and good and right and should be respected.

“But given this European- and African-derived culture, our history, our intellectual and cultural mind-sets, eastern religions are far beyond our understanding and appreciation, excepting among those of Asian derivation who live among us.

“As Annie Besant and Sir Christmas Humphreys, the foremost western scholars and converts to them, figured out a long time ago--it’s beyond our grasp, so best to simply just respect them and leave them alone.

“However, there’s certain elements in our society who for no reasons other than simply to be ‘different,’ to ‘rebel,’ who adopt these ancient eastern religions without ever gaining an honest understanding of them.

“They just want to be different, to rebel, to Hate.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Take the bitter old Vermontese cali primitive, for example, who’s been an ‘adherent’ of Buddhism for years and years.

“I dunno if her background is Judaism or Christianity, but being the sort of person she is, someone who likes to shock, to strike out against—probably most likely against her parents when she was younger so many decades ago—even a rock could’ve foreseen what she was likely to do.

“And the results.

“Because the basis of her ‘beliefs’ is simply rebellion and Hate, Buddhism’s done nothing for her.   A religion adopted for all the wrong reasons is no religion at all.

“One of the precepts of Buddhism is serene acceptance of those one dislikes, a humble acquiescence to people and forces in this world as they are.

“As long as the bitter old Vermontese cali primitive hates George Bush, she’s going to flop as a Buddhist; she doesn’t have the right mind-set for it to do her any good.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“So Rhinestone Santa’s hit on something here, and one hopes he flourishes and prospers doing it, taking pecuniary advantage of idiots and fools who Hate.

“And Vermont’s probably full of such people, old hippies and chickens ready and willing to be plucked.  It’s after all their own fault, because Hate of one’s own people and background and culture is about the lousiest reason to join a particular religion.”

The caretaker asked what I’d thought of Rhinestone Santa’s offer; that franksolich join them, becoming the head Buddha for the commune.

“That wasn’t really serious,” I said, “he obviously thinks I’d be a great Buddha, to draw in suckers and malcontents and Haters, but he’s actually thinking of a couple of better possibilities, people with more aesthetics and charisma than franksolich.

“On his way east, he’s going to stop in Indiana to solicit the buzzy one, the ‘Buzz Clik’ primitive, to see if this is something that might interest him, although I dunno if the buzzy one has the requisite pot-belly.

“And just before they get to Vermont, stopping in Boston, he’s going to take a gander at my good pal Manny, to see if Manny has what it takes, to be a Buddha.

“After all, one thing Manny knows is how to get people to flock to him in droves, he’s that charming and charismatic.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“By the way, what’d you do with that letter, or birthday card, or whatever it was, that cali sent you?” the business partner asked me, while we were out sitting on the front porch.

It being another fine spring day in the Sandhills, we’d decided to break in the other outdoor grill, the one in the front yard, for the season.  There’s two of them here, one in front and the other in back, and they were decades ago built into the ground, much like the picnic tables from about the same time.

He was tenderly grilling eye of sirloin, while I was re-grilling another old hamburger, left over from last autumn, and stored in the back of the refrigerator until it was time to cook it again.

“After keeping it here a couple of days, stashed inside that empty 48-quart Thermos cooler in case there was something poison in it, I took it back to the post office, marked RETURN TO SENDER; ADDRESSEE UNKNOWN.

“One can’t be too careful about such things.”

- - - - - - - - - -

The business partner had gotten back from Iowa, where he’d been for the past several days.

He told me he’d been up in South Dakota too, and noticed that spring’s coming there, just like it is here, further south.

Okay, then, I said; “late next week would be a good time to call that guy up there, to set a date and time for meeting with his babushka, my fact-checker for the book.

“I’ve been chomping at the bit, to get back to writing the book, but would like to get mistakes I’ve already made, corrected, before going forward.

“This book’s not going to be anything like that error-riddled vanity-published overpriced paperback drunken Bill put out years ago.  It’s going to be a first rate, first class, top notch, book.”

- - - - - - - - - -

While we were dining out under a tree, a car pulled up into the front yard.

My heart sank; as I hadn’t seen them for a few days, I’d been hoping BainsBane’s two smut-photographer friends, had given up the chase and gone back, mission unaccomplished.

They didn’t get out, however; they merely slowly drove in a circle around the front yard, looking, and then sped away to the highway two miles north, as if having made a wrong turn.

But they’d seen that the business partner’s back.

The business partner of course isn’t aware that they think he’s franksolich, while the real franksolich is apparently just a nobody, someone who doesn’t count.

to be continued

[franksolich]

About noon today, I went down to the hippiecamp, waiting that late as it didn’t seem anybody was up and around until then, carrying with me four dozen eggs, four loaves of whole-wheat bread, a full pound of butter, more salt and pepper, and about three and a half pounds of bacon.

I was especially gratified to get rid of the eggs in an appropriate manner; usually there’s so many of them that as they get old, Romeo and I sit on the back porch, idly tossing them as if baseballs, to three of the seven gardens surrounding the house.

It’s okay; eggs are natural, and decay and rot in the Arctic-like Sandhills winters and Sahara-like Sandhills summers, putting nutrients into the soil on which other foliage grows and thrives.

Ditto for tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, and three summers ago, a whole pick-up truckload of watermelons.  They’re all great fertilizer for the paper-thin topsoil. 

- - - - - - - - - -

One feels badly about putting such things to such an ignoble end, but hey, this is the breadbasket of the nation, and franksolich is only one person, with a limited stomach capacity.

What makes it even sadder is that this are top-notch, first-rate products, better than anything one might find at the supermarket in a blue state or blue city, or what a primitive might find in a “farmer’s” market in New England.

The eggs and strawberries, for example, usually grow to the size of plums, or peaches.  And being fresh when brought in, they last forever in the refrigerator.

But, what can one do?  It’s hardly practical to box it up and mail it to either of the two primitives too cheap to buy things, the chronically-helpless tightwad the Paper Roses primitive, or the primitive with a sensitive bottom, the big guy’s pal Curmudgeoness.

And being primitives, they wouldn’t be grateful for it anyway; wouldn’t like franksolich an iota more for the favor.  In fact, they’d probably gripe because he didn’t send them more.

- - - - - - - - - - -

When I got there, Rhinestone Santa was sitting at the picnic table, waxing forth on something he was reading from a book about Buddhism.  The other two big hippies were seated there too, but looked bored to death.

The three lumpenhippiefraus sullenly went around, building a new fire and taking out the cookware.

It was on their first trip here, when they still belonged to that Hindu commune out in Oregon, that I’d first noticed something peculiar about them; that they always seemed to have more cookware, than anything to cook in it.

- - - - - - - - - - -

I got the impression the other five were finding Rhinestone Santa tedious, and so seeking to cheer everybody up, I discussed the two possible Guatama Buddhas for Rhinestone Santa, to interview on their way east to start that new commune up in northernmost Vermont.

“You know, looking at and considering the buzzy one, the Buzz Clik primitive, would be a good idea.  I, personally, can vouch for him.

“But the buzzy one’s kind of, well, bland, too straight, adverse to taking risks.

“Look at him, and consider him, but really, I think you’d be best off aggressively recruiting my good pal Manny for the position.  He’d be about the most perfect candidate a candidate could possibly be, leading the suckers and primitives into the Promised Land, a never-ending nirvana.

"The only thing Manny lacks is a pot-belly."

Rhinestone Santa asked me how franksolich knew so much about Manny.

- - - - - - - - - -

“I actually met my good pal Manny in real life, years ago,” I said; “once a year for every year 1987-1993, after which I took off for the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants.

“I had a college classmate who thought franksolich has ‘what it takes’ to be a professional writer, and while it was nothing connected with his own job in Boston, he had lots of ‘insides’ in the book-publishing industry.

“So I went to visit this former classmate and his wife every year, during which time we’d go around, and franksolich’d get introduced to people in the business.

“Nobody big, but all of them high enough to sign contracts and such.

“The first three times I went, it was in the middle of summer, and the stench of Boston—the human sewage, the dead fish—overpowered these sensitive Nebraska Sandhills olfactory nerves, and so the next three times, I went during the dead of winter, when all was frozen and there were no odors.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“It was during that very first trip that I got captivated by Manny.

“He had no connection with why I was there; he was just a friend of a friend of a friend of somebody.

“Now, myself of course being deaf, and with a shy, diffident, hesitant manner, Manny immediately struck me as someone I’d like to be—but alas never could be—aesthetic, bright, witty, articulate, charismatic, enormously popular.

“God’s been really good to Manny, giving him so many gifts.

“As he was always surrounded by hordes of adoring fans, and because I was a stranger from the Sandhills of Nebraska, not familiar with the manners of Massachusettsians, I carefully kept my distance from him, so as to not intrude.

“I met Manny all six times I went to Boston, but only very tentatively; after all, there was nothing about franksolich that he could possibly find interesting.

“One time, I bravely dared to speak to him, complimenting him on his good breeding and gift of gab, but probably he doesn’t remember, because so many other people were always telling him things like that, and when one’s told something so many times, one forgets who said it.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

The wife of the property caretaker was out here earlier this evening.

As we sat out on the back porch, the weather being pleasant, watching the hippies down at the riverside doing whatever it was they were doing, we had a nice bout of chitchattery.

The river’s 500 yards away from the edge of the back porch, so whatever’s going on there can’t be readily observed, excepting through a telescope mounted on the railing of the porch.

The telescope, a high school science implement, was found at a garage sale by the former property caretaker years ago, and has since proven handy, as it’s pretty good and sharp.

However, since the campers down there were just old hippies and not primitives, there was no need to spy on them, and so we didn’t.

- - - - - - - - - - -

“You know,” she said, “I never thought about it until just now, when you mentioned the eggs.

“Garbage disposal has got to be a pain, way out here.

“It’s not like in town, where a truck comes by two times a week and carries it away.”

Right, I said; to have that out here, because of mileage and time, it’d cost a whooping hundred bucks a month, just for once a week.

“And so the trick is to generate as little trash as possible.

“This way, I have to pay Arturo only twenty-five bucks a month, to come out here one time and haul away the trash—which is 100% plastic, glass, wood, metal, cardboard, and somesuch.  And paper too, if there’s too much of it.

“At one time, there was an incinerator here, but it was gone long before I was around.

“I wouldn’t use it if it were still here, though; when I was growing up, it was in towns where people used to burn trash in empty 55-gallon metal drums at the edge of their lots on the alley, and they tried burning everything.

“Having rather delicate nostrils, I never cared for the odor.

“Just easier to have the non-biodegradables hauled away, and to toss the biodegradables out where they’ll decay and rot and enrich the soil.”

- - - - - - - - - - -

“And you can see how well it works here, how the flowers and vegetables, first planted a very long time ago by the old woman who lived here before I did, constantly regenerate, every year.

“I don’t have to lift a finger, which is good, because franksolich has no green thumb.  Best to just let foliage naturally grow and develop on its own, without any help from man.

“Because of the climatic conditions peculiar to the Sandhills, just about anything that’s food and paper, if there’s not too much of it, is biodegradable.  It gets frozen in the winter, and baked in the summer, and in no time at all, it’s gone.”

- - - - - - - - - - -

“I remember one time, years ago, when the mean vile old hippywife primitive Mrs. Alfred Packer, still dominated the cooking and baking forum, she got into hysterics because one primitive admitted to using white-paper coffee filters.

“Those weren’t biodegradable, she insisted, suggesting that if one were truly environmentally-sensitive, one would use and buy coffee filters made out of brown paper.

“Mrs. Alfred Packer made a really big deal out of it, but then and again, she had that habit of always trying to be holier-than-thou on such issues.

“The hippywife primitive was the last primitive who had any right to consider herself virtuous.

“Well, I use white coffee filters exclusively, and as you know, when they’re wet and the coffee grounds soaked, I just toss them out into one of the gardens.

“And by the end of winter, it looks like all the gardens are populated with big white flowers, from a distance.

“Winter finally ended two weeks ago, and it doesn’t look like there’s any big white flowers out there any more, just the usual and standard real flowers.

“Too bad for Mrs. Alfred Packer.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Aha,” I said to the property caretaker this morning.  “Finally something that makes this place safer for a deaf person.”

He was installing a 5’x5’ glass mirror on the wall of the alcove in which the computer sits.  As things are, I have to sit facing that wall, my back to the front door.  And because I can’t hear, someone could simply walk in the front door and approach me without my being aware of it.

One of Skippy’s pals, for example, could walk inside, making all the noise he wished, and remove franksolich’s head before I’d even know someone was there.

Having dealt with so many rude surprises given by people coming up behind me, I’d thought of having a mirror there before, but could never find one large enough.

The caretaker picked this up at a garage sale over the weekend, for twenty-three dollars.

“You’ve spent 1% of what you’ve spent on all these other devices meant to make this place safe for a deaf person, and this is by far the most effective thing you’ve put in.

“In fact, it’s probably the only effective thing you’ve put in here, to make it safer.”

- - - - - - - - - -

He protested that the motion sensors haven’t been tried out yet, even though that system’s ready to go; “and then you’ll see how good all these other things are.”

The motion sensors haven’t been tried out yet, because I’m not ready yet, and as tenant, franksolich is the boss here. 

“All in good time,” I reminded him. 

“We’re only 45 days away from commemorating the 10th anniversary of the scam that rocked the internet…..and I’m sure that’s about the time the primitives will come out of the woodwork, stalking franksolich.

“I dunno why they don’t like franksolich, as it was a public service for the Good of Humanity, warning the gullible primitives about the scam, deterring them from giving away money better spent on something else.

“Our motives were noble, but somehow that escapes the primitives.

“We’ll give it a try then, beginning at 3:30 p.m. on April 30th.”

- - - - - - - - - - -

Rhinestone Santa and his crew of five, who’d camped down on the river over the weekend, came in to thank me and say “good-bye,” as they’re headed east to Vermont to set up that “Buddhist” commune.

My, my, I thought to myself, what an unhappy Sad Sack bunch of people, all but Rhinestone Santa morose and glum, acting as if they really didn’t want to be with him, but because of their circumstances, were compelled to be with him.

I knew they were going to ask, but pre-empting the question, I said “yeah, sure, no problem, whatever; take what you need out of the refrigerator and cupboards so you won’t go hungry on the journey.”

Rhinestone Santa was about to ask another question, but I anticipated that, too, writing a note to Dane, the automotive mechanic of Norwegian derivation, instructing him to let the old hippies charge $60 of gasoline on my account there.

Sixty bucks is a cheap price to pay, to get rid of freeloaders; I consider myself fortunate they didn’t cost more than that.

- - - - - - - - - -

I also “schooled” Rhinestone Santa about the two possible candidates for the Guatama Buddha, the leader, of the prospective commune.

“When you get to Indiana and stop to see the buzzy one, the Buzz Clik primitive, just tell him that franksolich sent you, and so right away he’ll know you’re legitimate, and listen to your proposal.

“And even if he says ‘no,’ he’ll at least take you all out to lunch, and if you need money, the buzzy one’ll probably be happy to loan you two or three hundred bucks, to sustain you on your way.

“You can bank on it; as far as the buzzy one’s concerned, if franksolich says one’s okay, well then, one’s gold with him too.

“About my good pal Manny, the better of the two candidates, I dunno; even though  I remember him, he doesn’t know franksolich from Adam, never heard of franksolich, has no idea who franksolich is.”

to be continued