Y) Bloodbath

[tommyb]

(a chapter)

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(Thursday, 4JUL2019)


'Used to stop playing sports when the family Oldsmobile would pull in to pick me up. The coach would go insane. There's truth to one's expression when shooting the basketball, kicking the soccer ball. Even at ten. 'Was getting to freedom.

Going old-school God's Country through the railroad days 'got the job done. It's proven worthy of recovery. Witnessing the stoicism lift more daily. 'Having gotten the good job, the one the locals said I'd acquire upon first arriving, has settled Ashe into a thirtysomethings American dream.

It's awful bourgeois. In the Guard it wasn't loud, the middle class around, still the old Carolina, but really Big Army. Now they're the usual meet-and-greet, civilians aggressively civilian, their females speaking valley-girl, the guys wanting to look pretty.

Always the holidays cause stateside to look more like the original stateside.

"It's swell, the quiet perfectionist thing," says a fellow war veteran and new employee, us on our way to festivities. "And your civies have gotten more dapper. But if you'd speak more at work everything would be easier."

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[tommyb]

_________


(Monday, 19AUG2019)


The staircase remains the prominent feature. Three stories tall, built in the sixties, with that clean, metallic-and-glass industrial look that bleeds into nineteen-seventies federal building architecture. Above it looms a ceiling of glass. Sometimes, in the afternoon, one wears shades indoors due to the ceiling, though that's against the federal employee dress code. The place stands enormous. Around the staircase's different flights are three floors with protective railing, all visible to each other, for the most part.

'Really the main feature remains a neighbor of mine, a known hacker because one morning the feds showed up. The friendship was easy, the two weeks, not. He would tell stories of his boyhood in Los Angeles and how he and his dad would run covert operations keeping films moving and secure and quickly. "Boy, could my father drive," he'd say. That's what it was like back then, that's how Hollywood was, the films on reels.

He didn't like the race thing. 'How he was the effortless computer whiz since adolescence, but it was understood he was of the wrong skin color.

For two weeks, 'worked at the grocery, second shift, then, 'would stay up all night and into the morning standing behind his computer chair as he travels the world, explaining things to me, explaining how things work, proving things to me. He proved to me that the people endangered weren't endangered.

Shortly afterward, I'd walk through the front doors of the federal property, like a mini-city. I would pass the staircase on my way down a floor all the way to the employee entrance. 'Just to hear the death threats. Some of which were quite sophisticated, implying names and locations, some blatant, the rest: a chorus of whistles descending from the glass ceiling through all three floors. 'Already understood law enforcement would mow down their own because some politician said so. That's been true, apparently, since the beginning of time. Copland went out of their way, laughingly, to prove that; they honestly thought it was funny I didn't know that.

I used to walk the building regularly, to see if I could get all the way out the other door without falling down laughing, despite unassuredness.

That's what I used to do for fun ...

Seems like just yesterday. "Never change your avatar," he says, kept saying, with his usual boisterousness. "If you become a big deal out their - in the future - online." It took him awhile to get across to me why. "Hopefully you've kept your original avatar. Then, no matter what happens, we can be there for you."

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[tommyb]

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(Tuesday, 8OCT2019)


(...us out in the rural mountains, him driving curvy roads, another in the backseat, at night; Disturbed blasts through the speakers...)


"No harm be done he said," he said.

"--People must be led--"

"--No, they must be read ..."

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[Jaxson]

Following. So interesting.

 

[tommyb]

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(Monday, 14OCT2019)


(at work)


“You’re like a knight compared to me,” he says, the lead coworker, describing his weekend, him comparing to mine, as we hit the computers during break. “You know what they say about Templars ...”

“…. Although myth and ritual are commonly united as parts of religion,” [according to Wikipedia …] “the exact relationship between them has been a matter of controversy among scholars. One of the approaches to this problem is "the myth and ritual, or myth-ritualist, theory," held notably by the so-called Cambridge Ritualists, which holds that "myth does not stand by itself but is tied to ritual …“

“Dude, how are you ever going to get laid?”

“ … In semiotics, the sign is the fundamental building block out of which all meaning is constructed and transmitted. Meaning is encoded by the sender of the message and decoded by the receiver, recalling past experience and placing the message in its appropriate cultural context. Individual signs can be collected together to form more complex signs: groups of sounds (and the letters to represent them) form words, groups of words form sentences, sentences form narratives, and so on …”

“First of all, stuff is on my X, dude,” ‘tell him. “Plus people depend on me.”

“ … The Greek practice of pederasty came suddenly into prominence at the end of the Archaic period of Greek history; there is a brass plaque from Crete, about 650-625 BCE, which is the oldest surviving representation of pederastic custom. Such representations appear from all over Greece in the next century; literary sources show it as being established custom in many cities by the 5th century BCE … “

“Dude, you have no baby,” the co-worker says. “There are no people who depend on you.”

“ … Cretan pederasty as a social institution seems to have been grounded in an initiation which involved abduction. A man (Ancient Greek: φιλήτωρ – philetor, "lover") selected a youth, enlisted the chosen one's friends to help him, and carried off the object of his affections to his andreion, a sort of men's club or meeting hall. The youth received gifts, and the philetor along with the friends went away with him for two months into the countryside, where they hunted and feasted. At the end of this time, the philetor presented the youth with three contractually required gifts: military attire, an ox, and a drinking cup. Other costly gifts followed. Upon their return to the city, the youth sacrificed the ox to Zeus, and his friends joined him at the feast. He received special clothing that in adult life marked him as kleinos, "famous, renowned". The initiate was called a parastatheis, "he who stands beside", perhaps because, like Ganymede the cup-bearer of Zeus, he stood at the side of the philetor during meals in the andreion and served him from the cup that had been ceremonially presented. In this interpretation, the formal custom reflects myth and ritual …”

“Would you rather be a gay dude – like top – or a wife beater…” ‘ask him.

“ … The myth of Ganymede's abduction by Zeus was invoked as a precedent for the pederastic relationship, as Theognis asserts to a friend: “There is some pleasure in loving a boy (paidophilein), since once in fact even the son of Cronus (that is, Zeus), king of immortals, fell in love with Ganymede, seized him, carried him off to Olympus, and made him divine, keeping the lovely bloom of boyhood (paideia). So, don't be astonished, Simonides, that I too have been revealed as captivated by love for a handsome boy.” The myth of Ganymede's abduction, however, was not taken seriously by some in Athenian society, and deemed to be a Cretan fabrication designed to justify their homoeroticism. The scholar Joseph Pequigney states: “Neither Homer nor Hesiod ever explicitly ascribes homosexual experiences to the gods or to heroes … “

“OH-kay, MIS-ter MAf-ia.." he says, "How'm-I-ever-going-to-get you laid?”

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[tommyb]

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(Sunday, 3NOV2019)


'Hung in Lester and Bloody Maddy. 'Least that's how the locals say it. 'Like being in Kenley, only surrounded by rural, deep blue mountains, the same body language, the same soundings of the same vernacular. 'Might as well be at drill. The land is higher. Sometimes you turn a curve and quick you're looking down a cliff. 'Don't know why they call this county Bloody Maddy. 'Some sort of Civil War joke around Ashe. 'Only when I hear the Mad locals say it, there's no joke, only depth in the look in their eye. Never understood why they called E-rock, Eye-rack, or Pah-ree, Paris, or Romah, Rome.

Alot of hanging out remains listening to the banter of tricks and f_ckboys -- rich, white kids, socializing. 'Don't know if it's good they come in all skin colors now. 'There's a lot more STDs. Sicily never seemed to have a problem, everyone of different ancestry. They seem to treat the world as if nothing was built, and what was built remains the world they live within. 'But then the next morning we all went to church.

Every Halloween has insisted itself respect, an awareness of -- of being properly handled. This year ... the same. 'Swear the pastor knows.

"No girl would clean up, dress up," Brodie is saying, us in the church's latrine. "And come to church--"

"Yeah, Brodie, she would--"

"--No," he's saying. "Church is too serious here for that--"

"--It's like you're telling yourself a story--"

"--I apologize," he says, voice rising, with well-raised reverence. And that eldest-son look in his eye. "If the partying got out of hand--"

"--Yeah, thanks for the access to so many different kinds of hard drugs."

"It's Appalachia. It's like-this-now-everywhere--"

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[tommyb]

___________

(Friday, 8NOV2019)


(...us out in the rural mountains, Brodie driving curvy roads, another in the backseat, at night; Disturbed blasts through the speakers...)


"Hollywood's plastic sculptures, crumbling, he said," he said.

"New York's ugly, rolling eyes dead--"

"--American oligarchs looking like debutantes on C-SPAN-'s bed--"

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[tommyb]

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(Monday, 11NOV2019)


(night, playing blues on the harmonica)


'Strange to go home without going home. To be in Kenley without being in Kenley. Even the grocery exuded the same local fashions, postures, accents.

This is what the Guard was always trying to teach, uphold, this is what they were looking for. That Carolinian from before the Civil War all the way from the Revolution, when there were thirteen armies, each a tribe of their own. The Guard knew apples don't fall far. 'Suppose it was all they knew.

Everything about them, same as Kenley, right out of a Faulkner. Not antebellum, not Gone with the Wind; what was underneath it instead. 'Suppose the recruiters found it more efficient, dealing with the old Carolina families. They do, got ... LAand ... like God's Country but with high mountains, instead of Ashe mountains. Mountains with valleys flat for fields and tractors. Roads old as time. The fall colors sing their colors without the slightest concern of listener.

Why'd I have to vet it ... Cause it all the way to fruition ... the son of revolutionary war soldiers, civil war soldiers, the South's best thing, even the Guard's culture wrapped up in it .... walking .... Was it the Carolinian in me ... Only an immigrant American soldier from two sides of Spanish Harlem would've worried it.

"Welcome to Appalachia," Brodie says, with an arrogance not cocky, him not understanding, I'm from here. He can't even see the first chapter and the latest chapter at the same time. ''Doesn't know what all the fuss is about. And he went to some place called middle school. Keep telling him, numbers came before letters.

He says my life is in danger, though it already was. He says the middle class African Americans found out I learned my numbers and letters without asking their permission. Next the bourgeois will approach. They say I incidentally accidentally wrote a novel, though I didn't know that was possible. The bourgeois say their white people told them so. He says relatives are in town. They've found out I pulled out of retardation at age eleven. And are now publically guilty of abusing a little boy. He says I must hide out here for safety, if only for a little while, before going out again amongst the Americans.

Then, with an unexpected sadness, he says, "Guess you're stuck with us now, huh .... "

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[tommyb]

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(Monday, 18NOV2019)


(night)


"It's God, then country," Brodie's oldest friend is saying, flamingly. "Then family--"

"--I don't get what you're trying to tell me--"

"--They're check boxes, Brodie," he says. "Before you can check the one box, you have to have checked the one before--"

Brodie and him have been friends since kindergarten. They lived vastly different lives. The friend can out do Brodie at comedy, while he surprised me with his reading of Sumerian scriptures. It was at this point he caused me to give an approving laugh.

Having lit a cigarette and rolled down the driver's side window, Brodie and him started talking. Way out here in the high mountains, you can see galaxies in the stars, but this time I do not step out.

"--It's God, country, family, friends, then significant other--"

"--You mean a girlfriend?"

"One that lasts."

"I can't believe the gay guy knows this stuff while I'm in the dark."

When Brodie critically thinks he stares ahead into space, with an angry, frustrated expression. 'Never know what he's looking at, this time over the steering wheel. When playing a video game the expression remains the opposite. One expects him to give a history of gaming or to give a short dissertation on the vulgarity of placing such violence within a context leaning comedic.

"Is that like AA... " 'asked Denver. Really his name is Colorado, Denver for short. "Like they have twelve steps--"

"And this has five."

"Everything's too messed up," Brodie says lowly as he lights another cigarette. "Everything's too messed up."

Upon us arriving, and Denver entering the backseat, they seemed to banter and joke amongst themselves, all inside. Then Denver began pushing Brodie's buttons, like a list of well known triggers. With each Brodie would react toward me instead, aggressively accusingly. 'Don't know how I responded so well to so much, but finally the thirty-minute episode was over, Brodie staring in front of him, his mouth slightly gaping. Then I ask Denver, "Have you ever heard of the Annunaki--"

"--have you ever heard of Nibiru?"

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[tommyb]

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(Saturday, 30NOV2019)


(night, Brodie's trailer, C-SPAN on the television)


Now everone's done got excited. 'Upon finding out both political parties are corrupt. They want to play wiseguys.

'Remember when the Sicilians brought their way to America. 'Turned out to be the best way, 'cause no one would hire immigrants, not Sicilian, not Italian, not Irish. By the nineteen fifties the Sicilians remained the highest rank. They were the classiest in securing peace and prosperity for people who couldn't go to New York City's actual police. Then everybody got wise. Next the Italians are securing peace and prosperity for themselves. They know not to kill no Sicilian, 'cause New York American history has already gone down. The end result would be the Italian getting whacked. But an Italian can rough up an Irishman. 'Only he don't want to, 'cause the Irish fought so well for the North during the Civil War, nobody's forgot.

'Why'd the American conservatives have to choose a corrupt man for President, just 'cause the American liberals had been found out to be corrupt ....

"BEST not to get excited?" Brodie is saying, his eyes bright to mine, his head turning left than right, like he wants to jump up and down to the music. The kitchen light above the sink, just bright enough to allow me write this. "Well's how's anyone's supposed to not get EXCITED?"

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