“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

“That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed.

“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

From my old online journal The Daily Epiphany – Wednesday, February 12, 1997

Cold, hard, rain

Rain. Cold Rain. H2O, Dihydrogen Monoxide. Two little spheres stuck on a big one, not on opposite sides, but in a V shape, lopsided. Untold numbers of little tiny 3D Mickey Mouse heads, only Avogadro knows how many. Mickey and his two little ears, sharing electrons. The uneven charge, the Mickeys want to stick together in crystalline order and sure enough, lumps of ice are falling, mixed in.

The clouds disgorge their burden, called up from where? Where did this water pick up its heat? Its half a thousand or so calories for every little gram, leaving the warm languid sea to travel on the tradewinds. Cuba? The Caymans? Key West? The water vapor rising from the tropical ocean, born aloft in Barnard cells of air, driven by the sun’s starry furnace. Riding north only to meet a frigid army of the north. Air chilled in Minnesota, maybe in Fargo, moving south. The two clash over Texas, right over my head, and the tropical steam gives its borrowed heat back to the icy northern air. The moisture congeals and falls, falls and falls.

The streets are full, flowing rivers of muddy water. To my left there’s a waterfall, a torrent of muck flooding out of a lumberyard. The sky is gray, the mud is gray, all color sucked out, washed away, flowing downstream. The water is stealing the colors, it’ll all flow down the Trinity, down to Louisiana where it’ll slink between the cypress knees, between the mangrove roots out into the gulf, back to the tropics, where the colors will be traded for warmth, for heat, for another trip on the convection express.

Leaving work, I carry my possessions protected from the deluge in a plastic bag. Two and a half boxes of Girl Scout cookies and a quart of tequila. In school I remember napping on my cot on a male section of the dormitory. “Bill, get up!” someone cried, “Go buy some Girl Scout cookies.”
“Waaaa?”
“Don’t ask why, go downstairs and buy some.”
I stumbled down the stairs to the lobby, only to find a long, snaking line of male undergraduates. At the head of the line was the oldest, most developed Girl Scout I’d ever seen, stuffed into a uniform about three sizes too small. She was selling a lot of cookies.

Nowadays, of course, I buy them from coworkers, hawking stuff for their kids. A couple days ago a fellow chemist announced he had to go see a customer in Harlingen. “Hop over the border and get me some tequila”, I joked. Days later he came back and said, “Got your tequila!” I didn’t think he’d really do it, but five bucks for a quart of Jose Cuervo Oro, I won’t complain. So I leave work with a bottle and two and a half boxes of cookies. Why two and a half? I have no willpower.

The family goes out for dinner. We run from the van through the icy deluge. Cars dart around the dark parking lot, no safe place for a little one so Lee rides on my shoulders. “I’ll keep you dry, daddy,” he says, and cradles my head in his firm little arms, covering me up, protecting me from the wet and the cold. and the darkness.

And today’s flash fiction – General Consensus, by Matthew Pitt

From Failbetter

Matthew Pitt Webpage

“Past certain ages or certain wisdoms it is very difficult to look with wonder; it is best done when one is a child; after that, and if you are lucky, you will find a bridge of childhood and walk across it.”
― Truman Capote, Local Color

From my old online journal The Daily Epiphany – Sunday, November 15, 1998

Bowling alley

I spent the morning by going on into work. It is especially odd when I’m the only person at the huge factory. The parking lot empty except for my gold Taurus.

Tons and piles of paperwork I wanted to attack undisturbed, but I only chewed off a fraction of what I wanted to accomplish. Ambition and motivation were hard to find today.

Then I drove on down to meet Candy and the kids. Today was the Wildcat’s end-of-the-outdoor-season soccer party. We decided to hold it at a somewhat rundown bowling alley not too far from my work. We chose it because it was cheap.

I drive by this place often, you probably don’t. It has seen better days, the street it is on has seen better too. Displaced by newer roads it is now a backwater, a byway, only frequented by folks like myself that are constantly seeking back ways, shortcuts around the nearby railroad tracks.

The entrance to the lanes is flanked by two large plaster lions. They are often repainted in garish colors; today they were a tawny beige and shit brown. Between their outstretched paws each cradles a bowling ball, these were painted a bright blue. I rubbed one cerulean orb for luck as I passed by.

When I pushed the door open and entered the alley I was assaulted by the stench of cigarette smoke, some fresh, some echoes of ancient puffing. It didn’t take long to get used to it though, and the place was clean and well-run. And it was cheap. The neighborhood must be run down more than I thought, one feature was public surveillance cameras trained on the parking lot so you could keep an eye on your car while you bowled. The kids liked watching their friends arrive on the monitors.

Everyone seemed to have a good time. We rented four lanes for two hours. The kids played on three lanes and the adults on one. For those of you that don’t hang out in such places, there has been a big change in bowling to accommodate small children and recapture the family bowling market. There is a selection of lightweight balls for kids, with no holes in them. The kids simply heave these down the lane the best way they can. There are folding bumpers that are extended out to fill the gutters, so the kids will almost always be able to hit at least a few pins.

Lee really bowled well and had a blast. Nick did too, though he whined and griped the whole time. “I’ll never get the hang of this!” “I’ll never get a strike!” He had his premature teenager disease bad today; which is frustrating for everybody around him.

The adults had fun too. Candy bowled on one of the bumper lanes and ended up with a respectable score. For me, of course, the primary attraction of bowling is the thrill of wearing rented shoes.

We bowled, handed out trophies, ate cupcakes, the usual stuff. We found out that the team the Wildcats beat yesterday in indoor had never lost a game before.

As I was standing around I noticed a glass covered, framed letter mounted on the wall. It was from some bowling consulting firm congratulating the bowling alley owner on his modern, impressive facility. It went on gushing for several paragraphs before concluding with the sentence, “And we are confident in saying that your bowling facility is one of the top one or two percent of all bowling centers in the entire country.”

I looked closer and the yellowed letter was dated 1985.

And today’s flash fiction – Local Color, by Michael Patrick Brady

From Flash Fiction Magazine

Michael Patrick Brady Webpage

Michael Patrick Brady Twitter

“Time flows in the same way for all human beings; every human being flows through time in a different way.”
― Yasunari Kawabata

From my old online journal The Daily Epiphany – Saturday, November 28, 1998

Thank goodness, you forget

Nick and I were hiking, we were somewhere along a trail between here and there. I wasn’t sure how much farther we had to go. “I’m tired, Dad!” he’d complain. I’d carry Nick on my shoulders for awhile, then he’d want down. He’d walk and say, “My feet hurt! My legs are tired!”

Not too far along after that we popped out where the trail crosses a road, we knew where we were, found it on the map. Nick said, “Now it doesn’t seem so far.” I told him that was always how it was. When you’re in the middle of it, it seems so difficult, so long, so far. But after you’ve done it, you forget how hard it was.

That’s it isn’t it? How many times every day do we get to the point where we don’t know if we can take it any more, if we can take another step. But we do, we stick it out. Later, we forget how bad it was. Thank goodness.

It can be anything. For me it’s usually screaming, misbehaving kids. The constant din, the whining, the griping, the demanding grates and wears ’til I simply don’t know if I can stand another second. I do stand it though. Later when they’re asleep they look so calm, beatific, I forget how tired and angry I was earlier.

Or people asking me to fix stuff. I get to the point that if one more person comes to me with their busted doo-dad or gizmo, confident that I can fix it, I’m afraid I’ll flop on the floor screaming. Their TV’s won’t get the channels they want, their computers won’t do what they want them to, the reports (written by someone else) don’t print in the right order. I have to drop my own work, time that is precious to me, and supplicate myself to their problems. When the solution isn’t as simple as they want, they blame me, as if it was me that put them in the predicament in the first place. The worst is, they insist that I act like I care.

I get through it somehow, then I forget.

When I was younger, I used to dream that someday this would drop away, that the way would suddenly become clear and the daily struggles would become easier. Now I know that this is life, this is what it is. Every day, every hour, something difficult, frustrating, humiliating, presents itself, demands to be attended to. Again and again, all the time, worn out, tired, bored, struggling.

When you get through it, when you reach the road you forget the pain, only remember the little victories.

Thank goodness.

And today’s flash fiction – God’s Bones, by Kawabata Yasunari

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”
― Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

From my old online journal The Daily Epiphany – Monday, November 30, 1998

Arachnophobia

I’m not familiar with phobias. Irrational fear maybe, but to the point of debilitation? not really. I’ve always been afraid of the dentist, but that’s pretty common. I get over it. There was that fear of bad mayonnaise that I had for a while; irrational perhaps, but it didn’t really have any effect on my life.

Poor Lee has developed a horrible fear of insects, especially spiders. He has always been goosey around bugs, but on the camping trip it erupted into full-blown panic. There was a tiny spider in the van on the way back home and Lee completely lost it. I had to concentrate on driving while he jumped out of his seat and started screaming at the top of his lungs.

Today, Candy called me at work on the mobile phone. She was trying to take the kids to a friend’s house to see some new puppies but Lee was standing in the alley, adamant, he was not going to get in the van because he was afraid there were spiders in there. Candy finally managed to get Lee in the van but by then she had lost her temper, Lee was freaked out, everyone was at the end of their ropes. I talked to Candy, tried to calm her down, then had a long, long talk with Lee on the cell phone.

It was no use reasoning with him, his fear is obviously not a rational one. I mostly chatted him up, tried to get him back to normal. He did calm down, agreed to stay in the van, but kept saying things like, “I’ll keep my finger on the seatbelt button so I can get out of my seat if I see a spider.” I’ll have to convince him this wasn’t a good idea, he has to stay in his seat.

I’m not sure what to do. Lee is only six, he will outgrow this, but in the meantime we have to get him through. I did agree to take the van and Candy will drive the kids around in the Taurus. Lee was happy with this, but that means Nick and Lee will sit next to each other in the back seat, and that is like storing dynamite with lit matches.

I think I’ll get a book on collecting bugs, maybe that will help him deal with it. The whole killing jar and pins, and waxed cardboard thing is pretty distasteful, but if it helps Lee get over his phobia quicker, I’ll sacrifice a few insects (even some arachnids) in the cause.

Maybe an ant farm too, all kids like those. Except I’m sure they could break the ant farm playing ball in the house, that would be a scary mess. Better be careful.

And today’s flash fiction –Girls Who Eat Bugs, by Kait Leonard

From Flash Fiction Magazine

“Honestly, if you’re given the choice between Armageddon or tea, you don’t say ‘what kind of tea?”

― Neil Gaiman

From my old online journal The Daily Epiphany – Saturday, February 19, 2000

Too much ice cream

Nicholas had a basketball game today. They played an undefeated first place bunch of third grade kids.

The overall tenor was set when one kid showed up with only one shoe. I had noticed the fancy basketball shoes he wears before. I could hear him talking with his dad.
“Are you sure it’s not in your bag?”
“Sure Dad, I checked.”
“He had it out last night to show Aunt Cecilia,” his mother interjected.
“I told you to put it back!”

There it is, he is so proud of his shoes he pulls one out of his bag to show his favorite aunt and then forgets to put it back. His father told him to be sure and put it back without checking it personally, which is a sure disaster, as anyone with children should know. Still, you say out loud, I told you to put it back, knowing how useless and silly it sounds. The trip home to fetch the shoe took ’til halftime.

Then, about halfway through the first quarter another player on Nick’s team stumbled away from the action bent over clutching his gut. The coach and ref walked over to talk to him and suddenly the poor kid started puking all over the court. I was sitting up way high in the bleachers but still was surprised how red the barf was. I found out later that the kid was up all night eating strawberry ice cream; that explains it.

I am amazed at the speed in which a child can go from a laughing, grinning good time to “I don’t feel so good” to spewing vile vomit. It is definitely less time than it takes to pull a car over or to get a kid out of bed and to the bathroom.

They led the kid away but he still managed another good retch right in the path where folks were piling in to watch the girl’s game on the other side of the divided gym. One of the scorekeepers had to be stationed there to warn of the vomit pool and make sure they stepped around it.

The referee and the coach collected some paper towels from somewhere and started some tentative daubing at the mess. The manager of the center disappeared for awhile before returning with a yellow bucket and mop. The three started an inefficient, clumsy attempt at cleaning things up. I was relieved when Candy left the low bench where she was sitting with Lee and properly organized the work.

Men, as a rule, simply don’t deal with puke very well. Blood, they can handle, but not barf. The coach and ref were white as sheets, Nicholas, on the bench had his shirt pulled up over his mouth to stifle the stench. With Candy helping and directing it didn’t take too long before a trashcan was full of paper towels and the court was pristine again.

I saw Lee down on the bench sketching away with his crayons. After the game I checked and was disappointed that he had only drawn some dogs and aliens and hadn’t tried to capture the kid throwing up.

Nick’s team shook off these distractions and played really well. Despite some bad luck shooting they ended up winning 16 to 13.

We stayed awhile to watch the next game, a good friend was playing in it. I told him, “You missed a great game.”
“Who won?”
“Nick’s team did, but that wasn’t the best part.”
“What was that?”
“A kid on Nick’s team ate too much ice cream and puked right on the court.”
“No, you’re kidding… really?”
“Really.”
“Cool!” was his enthusiastic opinion.

And today’s flash fiction – Ten Minutes to Impact, by Deepti Nalavade Mahule

from Flash Fiction Magazine

Deepti Nalavade Mahule webpage

Deepti Nalavade Mahule blog

“Yes,there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on.”

― Led Zeppelin

From my old online journal The Daily Epiphany – Friday, June 18, 1999

Liner Notes

I’ve spent the last two days fighting panic and simply writing about it is too much so I’ll substitute for a real entry by typing in some highlights from the liner notes on my Ironing Board Sam CD.

Ironing Board Sam’s real name is Sammie Moore and he was born in 1939 at Rockhill, S. C. He spent a year-and-a-half in college but had to dropout when he got married….

…

In 1959, Sam moved to Memphis where he picked up his colorful “nom de disque.” Sam didn’t have the regular legs to support his electric keyboard, so he improvised and used an ironing board. He didn’t like it at first, but he was tagged Ironing Board Sam and it stuck. In fact one of the clubs where he worked gave away a free ironing board on the nights he played.

…

Sam’s first step toward becoming an “entertainer” occurred in March of 1978 when he made plans to play 500 feet over Jackson Square in a hot air balloon. Sam was going to run cables down to a PA system and an amplifier on the ground while he played up in the clouds. However, after tacking posters up all over New Orleans, the show had to be canceled because it was too windy and the balloon couldn’t be stabilized.

Sam’s next piece of self-promotion involved a 1,500 gallon tank filled with water. He devised a way to play underwater and debuted the show at the 1979 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

“I went on the road with the tank,” said Sam. “But I found out the tank was too big to get into a lot of clubs.”

…

In 1982, Sam was back in New Orleans but he was still finding it hard to work. At that point he developed yet another novel form of self-promotion.

“People didn’t want to hear live music,” said Sam. They just wanted to play records or the jukebox, I was hurting so I decided to become, “The Human Jukebox.” I built a giant jukebox that I fit into with my keyboard and amplifier. I had slots built into it where people put money when they wanted me to play their request.”

Sam was playing on the streets in the French Quarter for several months when fate stepped in. The producers of “Real People” saw Sam and shot a feature on him that aired nationally. In the mean time though, the police arrested Sam on a noise violation which took him off the streets….

—-Jeff Hannusch, June 1995

I like the record, good, old-fashioned blues. It would be great to be able to sit down with the guy, have a chat. I bet he has some stories to tell.

And today’s flash fiction – Ded Zeppelin, by Lon Richardson

from Flash Fiction Magazine

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

― Albert Einstein

From my old online journal The Daily Epiphany – Friday, August 21, 1998

The seduction of luxury

In the weeks since the timely demise of the Piece-of-Crap Mazda I have been spoiled by the luxury of having two decent, running vehicles in our single family unit (The Mazda, though generally running, really couldn’t be considered decent for the last half a decade).

Usually I’m driving the Taurus and I take great pleasure in the electric windows. I’ve never owned a car with electric windows before, I always considered them simply something else to go wrong. I like them, though. So smooth. So quick. So silent. So effortless……

I was typing these silly thoughts up on the PC in the living room, transcribing from a spiral notebook. Candy was at a party. The kids were playing back in Nick’s room with a friend from next door. They said they were “making a movie” – they didn’t have the CamCorder so it must have been all make believe.

My typing was suddenly interrupted by Nick running down the hall, “Lee hurt himself!” I could hear bloody murder screaming from the room.

Lee had been jumping off the top bunk of the bed and stuck his head into the ceiling fan. Nick’s fan is an imitation fighter plane, frozen in a forever dive stuck through the roof. The triple blades are wide, elliptical and heavy. It had really whacked Lee’s noggin a good one.

By the time I had him settled down, there was a huge lump on the right side of his forehead; it looked the size of a golf ball. I put him onto a bed, gave him his favorite blankets and an ice pack and he calmed down, even to the point of looking sleepy.

I was scared. Not sure of what to do, whether to take him to the emergency room or not, I consulted The Book. Every parent, especially nowadays without extended family around to give bad advice, must have a book on emergency procedures handy. Ours is a tome put out by Consumers Guide, edited by Ira J. Chasnoff, M.D.

The book made me feel a lot better. The basic advice was to look for signs of concussion and if there aren’t any, then simply keep the kid quiet, a doctor isn’t necessary. The book says:

Most children suffer one or more blows to the head at some time during childhood. Typical reactions to head injuries are immediate crying, headache, paleness, vomiting once or twice, a lump or cut at the site of injury, and sleepiness for one or two hours. These are not the signs of a concussion – they are usual reactions to a blow on the head.

So I checked for concussion – the kids said he never lost consciousness, he remembered getting hit, he could walk, he wasn’t confused (no more than usual), no fluid or blood, I shined a light in his eyes to check his pupils. I had to shine the light in my eyes to let him see what I was looking for, “Wow, Dad! Those black spots get Really Small when the light hits ’em!”

And he was fine. I sat beside him, holding some ice cubes folded in a washrag against his lump, for a couple hours watching Cartoon Network. ( Space Ghost Coast to Coast is really funny, by the way). By the time Candy came home he was out in the living room, drawing pictures of Scooby Doo.

And today’s flash fiction – Play Clothes Patricide, by Valerie Hegarty

from Flash Fiction Magazine

Valerie Hegarty Artists Page

Valerie Hegarty Twitter

“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”

“What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?”

“I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the same thing,” he said.”
― A.A. Milne

From my old online journal The Daily Epiphany – Wednesday, November 28, 2001

Whataburger

Corpus Christi is the home for Whataburger, the chain of fast-food hamburger joints.

I first ate at one in 1979, in Harlingen, Texas, when my brother and I drove from Kansas to South Padre Island for his spring break. We were spending the night is some bizzaro motel (the chains along the freeway being full, but giving us directions to a more out-of-the way place of lodging) that sported small lizards living in the showers and some man making enormous noise apparently puking in the room next door. Not knowing our way around, we simply drove ’til we found the first place to eat – a typical orange-and-white, A-frame Whataburger.

I remember having a damn good burger (such as it was).

Of course, in the decades since actually moving to and living in the Lone Star State, eating at Whataburger has become commonplace. Their food is old-fashioned and superior to the more national chains (such as it is).

The first night in Corpus Christi, Candy and Nick went out to eat with some teammates, but Lee didn’t want to go. He and I decided to simply walk out of the hotel and look for something to eat on foot.

We walked a few blocks, working our way through the dark streets of downtown Corpus Christi. Lee and I cruised past several seafood joints, a handful of Mexican places, and some bars with loud music pumping out through the smoke and florescent lights.

It wasn’t long before we saw the familiar orange and white A-frame of a Whataburger – and that’s where Lee wanted to eat. It wasn’t any old Whataburger, though, it was the company flagship, a super-delux eating establishment.

Two stories high, with a generous outdoor terrace overlooking the gulf, waiters to bring food to your table (though you still ordered at the counter – they gave out a little plastic number) and even tableside ketchup service (and Whataburger serves Fancy Ketchup).

Lee loved the place. Especially cool was the fact that a clot of teenagers with skateboards was grinding on the metal railing across the street. Lee grinned wide, especially when they’d let out a periodic string of obscenities.

It was nice, Lee and I, sitting out on the terrace, eating our burgers, chatting about the events of the day, enjoying the flawless weather and sweet ocean breezes.

Now that’s the only place Lee will eat. We went back for breakfast every day, and walked over every evening. It’s good when you’re nine to have your own restaurant – your hangout

And today’s flash fiction – Fugitives, by Deborah Adelman

from Flash Fiction Magazine