A Hero of Mine

A Memorial by Riley

I met him back in 1983, while I was running around with this ASTSE union sound man I'd met on a movie about diving.  He is a photographer and all-around artist, but his vision is poor, enough that he'll never get a license to drive.  We were driving around in my pickup to airshows.  We both loved the old war birds, for the sound and the shapes. He took the shots, and I watched. I had a Sony Pro Walkman and good microphones, and I was looking for characters and engine racket.

We stopped by my sister's in Vicksburg, and she said she knew a war bird guy.  Lived across the river a dozen miles or so in Talullah, Louisiana.  She called ahead, and the next day we were sitting, drinking iced tea with Merle Gustafson in his living room. Merle owned a Corsair Sky-raider, and we were soon sweating bullets at a tiny airstrip doing photos of his planes.

Photo courtesy of Trip Advisor

It was tiny, but Talullah is tiny.  There was the old two story Delta Airlines building, but it was in haunted house shape: toilets busted off at the floor and lots of missing glass.  Critter nests.  He had small open hangars spotted around with his stuff.   All his stuff was squared away and ready.

He was a known man in his community, respected by most I'd presume.  When you live far from the seats of power, you might think of yourself as a hick.  Out of it and of no import.  But there is always a Merle out there somewhere so satisfied and accomplished that it just polishes your soul to know a man so pleased.  It improves your life to watch him live his.

While pictures were being taken, I talked with him, taping it all.  A great story about landing a twin engine bomber while watching both engines tumbling alongside raising dust clouds. He was a problem solver and lover.  Joyfully making it all work.   There wasn't a Mrs. Merle around that I saw.   Something about judging a beauty contest.

He died too young, a year or so later.   It wasn't flying though, but a gas vapor explosion while welding on a friend's fishing boat.  I would have given a lot to have been there when they planted him.  That was a wake to remember, and I wasn't even there.  I just know how it is when good boys die.  We lose so much.

I don't think he died needy.  The tiny airstrip now holds a museum with good planes and hot rods.   His boy flies the old T-6 for the AeroShell Aerobatic Team.  The Angel of Okinawa is sitting in a museum in Florida.  Talullah is another roadside attraction, the first since Grant tried to canal around Vicksburg during the recent unpleasantness.   I gotta go find his plot.

(c) 2018 Riley

Foreign Diplomacy

An alternate history of the Singapore Summit from the Checkered Demon

Joltin' Bolton sat at the conference table, his head tilting right, then left from the weight of his mustache, nine hours into talking to one of the most enigmatic problem-children the red, white and blues brothers had ever faced. These rice-heads, while taking time out from naming their babies after the sounds of falling cutlery, and starving, had whipped up the big banana. The A bomb. The radiatin' flesh-eatin' horror that "responsible governments" had been hectoring each other with since forever.

At Bolton's mention of the Libya model, Rocket Man had driven a Mont Blanc pen into his own thigh, screaming, "Rebar up my ass and a bullet to my head?" (in Korean). His entourage scuttled out, with him limping on their arms. Dennis Rodman got the door.

"John, you got an unfortunate way with words. You should only let that mustache grow and garble your delivery more," Trump told him.

"I don't know what's so bad about the Libya Model. He allowed everyone in to look, and got certified nuke-free," Bolton said.

"Yeah? And then the next thing Daffy knew, Jug Ears, Ms. Clinton and the French were strafing and bombing him with UN planes in support of the rebels. The rebels who sodomized him with rebar in a drainage ditch, then mercifully put one in his head. He knows the ones who want him wouldn't stop so quickly. His zombies would cook him on a spit and eat him."

"Okay, boss. I hadn't thought the whole thing through."

Trump was pacing, in a flyweight tropic suit and one-off shoes that managed to click quietly. "Just fade back a bit. Let Mike take the lead for now, and we can groom him some. Did you notice his eyes? The service guys say he's stoned. Probably pot."

"Really?"  Bolton was incredulous.

"Yeah, his father never told him drugs are an exit on the highway to success."

*****

Kim stood in his Commander's tunic and skivvies, bare footed on the cold tile as two doctors hovered around the hole in his thigh: swabbing, poking, muttering apologies. "I must dial back with the reactions. Like Dennis says, chill. Trump frightens me though. He really doesn't care, and he doesn't baffle himself with drink, tobacco or anything! He is his own dragon and I am not."

All patched and in freshly pressed trousers and shod, Kim stood with Dennis and rolled a Spinner 2 vaping battery in his fingers, eyeing the light through the 500mg cartridge of Somalian Taxi Ride screwed into it. "So this is the shit?" Kim asked.

"Oh yeah, brother. New Sativa vape," Rodman replied. 

Kim took a hit. Four count and stop. The light went out. He exhaled as pressure built in his temples. His vision scrambled a tad, then things settled. "Very nice Dennis. Many more of these."

The next morning Kim and his party entered the conference area, and Trump jumped up and took his hand, directing him to his seat like a butler. Bolton faded as Sec State moved in. Trump faded back, asking, music?

(c) 2018 The Checkered Demon

Memorial for Lost Molecules

by the Checkered Demon

When my Son graduated from high school, I saw him as weakened and he was. As a latchkey kid, he'd fallen in with a few tweakers in the California apartment block he and his Mother lived in. They'd buffer the speed with beer, and the alcohol snagged him. He became his Grandfather's grandson, lost in the jug at 18. He lived there until 27.

I'd told him he could use a hitch in the military and he'd laughed. It was in fact laughable, since he would never have passed the physicals. I'd hated the military myself, so why would I advise my own Son to take that route? I'd seen how many fuck-ups they've sorted out maybe? Me for one. Well, maybe I wasn't sorted totally out, but It DID at least set me off in that direction. It was, I think, that I would rather have seen him honorably dead somewhere in Arlington than where he was then.

Many a parent's boy or girl lie out there, or as debris in foreign soil, or as molecules no one ever could find. There really are heroes in the seaweeds and the mountains and deserts, in the air that we breathe. Mostly they live in the minds of those who bred them, or loved them and those who were there when the bitch-God of war took them.

The last Monday in May we honor them, or maybe mock their naïveté for being stupid and dying for the man, man. The mockers are always the ones who've profited the most from their loss. No one can ever convince me Democracy is pretty. It slaughters the brave and abets the lame in return. We obsess over cow farts when cows don't fart. We don't educate all children, because criminals are easier to manage than revolutionaries. Our situation isn't pretty, but still we fight for it. Obviously there's some sort of madness afoot.

So on Monday I'll raise a glass to them all, and have another with my amputee friend who claims he sometime wishes the medics weren't so good. We owe them our thoughts.

Note from Lynn:  My apologies to CD and to readers for the tardiness of this post, it's entirely my fault.  The sentiment is every bit as valid today as it was a few weeks ago, I hope you enjoyed the piece as much as I did.

(c) 2018  The Checkered Demon

Why Worry? Preternatural Musings

For Predator and Prey, Life Goes On

I sat against a tree trunk half way down to the canyon floor on a forty degree slope. I try to make time these days to just sit and watch. Breathe air and observe. There's a lot to see, and while you're moving you're it. Many eyes watch you as you move out, but forget you once you settle. Once the movement stops. Things crank back up slowly, and birds go back to calling out for careless love, 'cause it's Spring again.

The hawks wheel in orbits along the ridges, close to their nests, scanning with those terrible eyes, the infrared capability showing the urine trails left around the nests of their prey. Rodents never grasped the importance of clean latrines, so hawks eat them. Sometimes the difference between continued life and being a snack for a young hawk pivots on an obscure point that only Humans have noticed. Those who study such things, and not other things.

It's hard to know what to study, what with what we call everything just hovering out there some place on our vaunted inter-web source of all things knowable. Too many choices to make it an easy thing. Something that calls for contemplation on your own. A winnowing of the trite, and a trip to an entity operating within truth.

Two red hawks come barreling down the slope about three-four feet off the ground, maybe a five foot wingspan, the tips twitching for trim. This same pair have taken runs at my chickens. Maybe twenty feet separate them. They flare out into the canyon floor, breaking left and right, settling into two trees perhaps 150 yards apart. The waiting. The watching. A sudden dramatic move, and then the wait. They could have been two A-10 Warthogs piloted by likely lads from Kansas, bouncing enemies in someone else's land, but there could be no waiting in that case. Appear, destroy, vanish. We hate to wait when we kill for grins nowadays, in these wars, hunting monsters abroad.

So I wait, not for enlightenment. Too blind for that. I wait because the world waits, probably to see when our annoying asses finally nuke ourselves out of the equation. I can see life emerging as it always has, by random. The chaos of nature. There is no plan but chance to the nonsentient, and the mother mouse whose child is devoured by a hawk doesn't light a candle to a saint. Life goes on and will, with you or without you. So why worry?

How free it must be as a mouse on a hillside, no clue that a hawk will ever devour you. We can't do that. We all know we're done for, and we fear the knowing and spin hopes. It can't have been all for nothing, but available evidence says it most likely was. Whether or not you recycled or loved the less fortunate. Despite your concern and humanity, they only value your gold fillings.

So the fence is up: four strands of barbed wire with stiffeners, corner timbers in concrete and strung with T-posts, tuned up tight with a 4x4, a Mexican and a White Boy. Took a week of work in wind gusting around 40, same as the temperature. The barbs glitter in the sun and the deer are already leaving patches of winter fur on it. According to lore, my neighbors will become good.

(c) 2018 The Checkered Demon

State of the Bourbon Address

By the Checkered Demon

Northeast bound and down, rising from the swamp like some Japanese sea-thang, on up through Mississippi, North Alabama and Tennessee, then finally Kentucky. An old 30 year work pal at the wheel, and me as the passenger, since he trusts no one to drive like him. He may be right, for he's one of the worst I've ever seen. One of those who never has a wreck himself, but leaves plenty in his wake as he wanders obliviously back and forth across two lanes, rumble strip to rumble strip. I peek back in my mirror now and then, expecting to see burning vehicles behind us as he tailgates, fails to signal and constantly changes speed. He drives like he just chugged a quart of 115 proof Rye, and I'm forever amazed he doesn't ever get pulled over for a breath test in the giant new Toyota Land Cruiser. Perversely, I felt rather safe.

The perfect traveler never knows their destination, and hewing to that philosophy I didn't know a thing about Knob Creek Shooting Range, neither the precise location nor hours of operation. By the time we'd winkled it out of the river bottoms, the only guy there was sweeping up brass and told us to come back at 0800 tomorrow. No big deal really, since we had come for the whiskey on our annual State of the Bourbon Address. We cruised back to town and sat down in a Mexican beanery next to a table full of Bardstown PD detectives. They were 2-3 margaritas in, and therefore safe to be near. Rolled on back to the motel later and killed the bottle of Redemption Rye we'd been nursing since New Orleans, to dream of rattle-guns and short, controlled bursts.

The next morning found us weaving back over to the range, being passed by everything from muscle cars to busted pick-ups, blowing horns and giving the "No. 1" salute, glaring through Duck Dynasty beards. "People are so fucking rude these days", said Pat.

"It's all that TV," I opined.

The range was open and we entered the gun shop, confronted by three watchful dogs, a Finnish anti-tank rifle on skis and a Gatling gun. We gave each other the Groucho eyebrows and thought yes! Counting rifles, shotguns, pistols and zombie guns, there were probably 1,000 or more firearms on display; even a nifty little flame thrower. Big Boy Heaven. Hmmm, an idea for good old Baltimore's streets.

So I found someone and asked how one goes about renting and shooting a machine gun. Two weeks, August 12, when we hold our Gun Shoot & Military Gun Show.

I said, "Pat, we ain't shootin' no machine guns today. We're two weeks early."

"Then we're not shootin' this year then, I guess."

"Don't look like it."

Pat cruised around looking at guns, since he sold land in California recently and has been spending a bit more lately on the firearms front. I saw 37 or so things I couldn't live without and passed on it all, went outside, found a spot to sit and lit up a cigar.

I sat out in my windbreaker enjoying a new one from Nicaragua, listening to a distant brrrt, brrrt, punctuated with a chug-chug-chug, brrrt, brrrt; wishing I was there watching, trying to identify the guns from long shelved memories.

My day dreams were interrupted by "that's one fine smelling cigar, young man. What is it?"

"Erm, it's a Roberto Duran. My new favorite, a Nicaraguan. About $133 at JR Cigars."

"Well, it's the best I've smelt lately for sure."

I pulled out my 2 cigar travel case, extracted the remaining one and offered it.

"No, no, that would leave you dry. Fugeddaboutit,"

"I have most of a box back in the hotel. Feel free. Be my guest."

He accepted it, slicked it down, produced a tiny penknife for the cap and fired it up with a gold gas Dunhill. He lit up (properly), took a puff or two and tasted it. Took the smoke up his nose then exhaled in a long sigh. "Perfect! Very fine. Do you know the head of tobacco production in Cuba doesn't smoke?"

He produced a case and handed me a Cuban Robusto. "This one you have is superior, I'm thinking."

We sat and smoked awhile. New sounds drifted up from the lower range: bzzzt, bzzzt. "The boys have new toys, it sounds like. Were you in the military?"

"Air Force, loadmaster, 1608th out of Charleston, MATS."

"So, what's your name?" the stranger asked; I told him.

"Well, I'm [redacted], a retired three star, USAF. Nice to meet you, Airman. That was my command."

"I'm floored, General, not to mention honored."

"Don't you dare. We were all assholes back then. We'd forgotten war and had to relearn it," the General said.

"I did my hitch and forgot about it quick as I could. Haven't thought of it much since."

"That's because you never got nailed. You can't forget shit like that so easily."

"I guess so. The worst I ever saw was mortar rounds walking across a base in my direction, but not quite getting there. Sometimes they did, but not that time. So you were a lucky duck. Been a little closer and it would have stuck hard in your brain housing group. Yup. God loves me, I suppose."

We sat awhile, smoking.

"So, are you here to shoot?" he asked.

"I heard this place gives machinegun rides, and thought me and my bud might enjoy it. Turns out we're two weeks early. Maybe next year. We do a trip to Kentucky annually to check out the new bourbons.

"Go to the store and buy a range pass. Buy two boxes of 45ACP and four boxes of 9MM. I've got three nice growlers I want to shoot before I sell them at the next show."

"Yes sir!"

I went to the clerk to buy my range pass and bullets, and Pat, waiting on a call to his FFL to transfer the pistol he'd bought. "Why the range pass?"

"I met a general, and he's taking me shooting."

"Bullshit!"

"No shit."

"I want to meet him."

"Do it."

Pat scurried out back, and we found General X loading rounds and guns into a golf cart.

"I'm the Checkered Demon's bud, and I'd like to tag along, if you wouldn't mind?"

"Did you serve in the military?"

"Yes sir."

"What branch?"

"I was in the Army."

"You Army guys are lowlifes. You go buy a range pass. You can watch, but me and the airman will be shootin'. We're leaving now. Walk on down to the lower range and bring some ear muffs."

I shot the Reising, then the two Swedish Ks. Two magazines each.

"All right, Airman. I want to shoot these Ks a bit more, see that the magazines are kosher. Say goodbye, you know. You're relieved."

"Thank you General, and joy to your life."

"Fly straight, airman. And good luck."

Pat and I walked back up to the shop. "You cocksucker!"

"No, lucky sucker."

Pat went off muttering to finalize his deal. I sat in the car, grinning like a mule eating briars. God DOES love me I thought, and sometimes he shows it. Sometimes is good enough.

CD

PS from the Real Checkered Demon:

The Checkered Demon is a notorious liar. A lot is true, indeed most, but sad to say I never fired a shot. This should be called historical fiction.

(c) 2018 The Checkered Demon