Shooter

In darkened woods, a young man stands
His best friend at his side
The boy is tall and strong
His dog a source of pride

He holds a rifle scope and his aim
A man across the stream
Squeeze the trigger, dog darts out
They do this as a team

The man in read falls to the ground
The dog runs through the water
Squeeze again and hear the clap
The boy is getting hotter

The cry of pain cuts through the trees
Just as the dog arrives
The boy screams out that “This is War,
And none of us survive!”

The dog growls at the dying man
Who musters one last breath
“nice dog, good boy,” he whispers
and fades out to his death

The boy approaches the lifeless body
And lets out such a cry
“How did this happen that my brother
would at my hands die?!”

He drops his gun down at his side
And kneels beside his brother
“I can’t believe what I have done,
I’m disgrace to our mother”

He takes his gun and kills the dog
Who lets out one last yelp
He sets his chin atop the barrel
Says “God can’t even help”

We’ve Come A Long Way, Baby!

javajunkee.com appeared on the web on the twentieth of October 2003. after thirteen months in operation, this november marks our best month so far, with more than five times as many visits (402 with one day left in the month) as in our first full month, november of last year(78). many thanks go out to all of you who come back and check the site regularly, and I promise to do my best to continue adding pretentious rhetoric and contrived fiction! and of course, mediocre poetry!

Nog

we got egg nog in today! ooohhh….it’s so damned good. man. life is good.

I finished my story, oblivion. once I’ve made the necessary revisions, it’ll be posted. it seems like there was something else I wanted to tell you, but I can’t remember now.

to all of you naysayers: I will be selling the axim (the pda). I just don’t use it enough. so there…you can say ‘I told you so’ now.

Gimp

I’m going to be a gimp like my dad.

I’ve somehow thrown my back out today. It’s happened a couple of times before, and every time, I remember all of the bullshit Dad went through with worker’s comp and trying to get some relief. I guess I’ll just have to make sure I keep good posture.

lot of writing to do this weekend…two big deadlines on monday. it’ll be nice to have it done.

Have a Good Weekend!

btw: I re-read that last post, and I just want to point out that I don’t mean to sound like I think it’s completely ridiculous to be involved in the anti-chief movement. I have a close friend who’s pretty active in some of that, and I think it’s good that he has something that he believes in and is dedicated to. I imagine if I was really that curious, I could just have a conversation with him about the issue. maybe one of these days.

We Walk in the Rain

Step, I am on the steps
hovering, lingering, hesitating
I peer out before me

Step, I am in the rain
crouching, bracing, stepping swiftly
I feel the cold water rolling from my hair to my face and neck and down

Step, I am all wet
sopping, soaking, acclimating
I loosen my shoulders and break my stride

Step, I am beginning to know the water
chuckling, giggling, smiling at the clouds overhead
I hold my arms out and welcome the falling bliss

Step, I am alive
breathing, running, heart racing in my chest
I pull off my coat and toss it away

Step, I am running
begging, pleading, tripping in the puddles
I slow my pace and stop, standing in the rising water

Step, I drop to my knees
shivering, shaking, crying
I pray for the water to overtake me

Step, I slowly rise
remembering, regretting, beginning to understand
I pull off my shirt and use it to wipe my face

Step, I walk tall
atoning, reconciling, giving in
I look ahead to my destination

Step, I watch my feet
Stepping, moving, making progress
I put wet hands into wet pockets

Step, I look back up
nodding, listening, seeing the world around me
I see one who waits for me

Step, I am on the steps
smiling, reaching, extending my hand
I pull gently on my companion’s hand and look back to the falling rain

Turkey

I watched Helter Skelter tonight. disturbing stuff.

excited for some turkey and chill time at mom’s place tomorrow. I should bring the laptop, ’cause I have two deadlines on monday and am starting to wonder when I’m going to be doing the writing.

and here’s something that’s been troubling me: the anti-chief crowd refers to Chief Illiniwek as a “racial stereotype.” is this accurate though? don’t get me wrong, I think it’s completely absurd to maintain allegiance to a mascot that is so divisive and the source of many bad feelings, not to mention the insensitivity of using the same logo that was used to mark places where indian scalps would be purchased–$5 for men, $3 for women and children, so the rumor mill says–along with the mockery-in-the-name-of-honor of the ceremonial dances/garb, but I simply don’t see how Chief Illiniwek is racist. Chief Illiniwek is meant to represent one particular Native American (and is it not disturbing how many supposed Native American descendents refer to themselves as “Indians”?) tribe/culture. so it’s a cultural stereotype…of the Illini culture. not a racial stereotype of all native culture. I don’t know. maybe I’m wrong. I really haven’t studied any of the issues on either side…but I certainly wish that if the people who oppose the chief were going to devote so much god-damned effort to something when there are so many more pertinent social issues, they would at least formulate a coherent and effective argument, rather than just slapping the label “racist” on it and raising a big fuss. then again, the possibility exists that they have formulated a coherent argument against the chief, and I just haven’t heard/seen it. oh, well. I’ve got more important things to do. and if I want to work for social justice, I think I’ll focus first on making sure that people have life and liberty before I start worrying about helping them to secure their dignity. did that make any sense?

Typos

I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately, but not much on anything that will appear on this website. I do need to come up with another poem soon; the one currently posted has been up there forever. perhaps tonight would make a good time to post some writing that some people might find interesting. I’ll try to get on that. by the way, to everyone who read the “step” poem, nice job. you didn’t catch the typo…and if you did, you didn’t tell me about it. thanks a lot šŸ˜‰

Entitlement

A new republic article I read today….pretty good stuff.

I went to GIRCNA this weekend. it was sort of anticlimactic….I suppose the most significant part was being of service to the planning committee and seeing just how cheap and irresponsible people can be. it’s disgusting, and my faith in humanity wavers at the sight of it.

anyway…we’re wrapping up the semester. I’m just shooting for passing latin, and I think that everything else should fall into place. we’ll see.

The Disappearing Fratboy

I don’t know if I ever told you, but the first job I got out of college was because of the fraternity I’d been in. That’s been about thirty years ago. I studied econ and finance with the goal of becoming a bank manager. I put together a resume after graduation and submitted to various banks around my hometown and in the town where I went to college. The first call that I got was from a bank in my college town, and I interviewed with them before I even got calls from anyone else. As luck would have it, the man who was doing the interviewing for the open position had been a member of my fraternity when he went through school. The interview had gone really well, already, but when he realized that I had been in his frat, he got really chummy with me. He told me a few anecdotes about his days in the house twenty years prior and I told him a couple of stories about my frat brothers. He warned me when we were done talking not to think that I was hired because of my fraternity affiliation if they hired me. He said he’d interviewed three other people for the job, and none seemed as intelligent or capable as I had. He told me that he would be giving one more interview on the following day and that I should expect to hear from him within two or three days. I received calls from two more banks the next day, one in my hometown and another in my college town, and I scheduled interviews with both. I left town immediately after the local interview to visit my hometown for the interview there.

When I returned the following day, after staying the night with my parents, I found a message on my answering machine from the man who’d been in my frat. He wanted me to come in to discuss the details of my employment. I picked up the phone immediately and dialed the bank’s number.

The secretary who answered was really quiet when I asked to speak to him. After a moment, she said, ā€œI’m sorry; you won’t be able to speak to him. Last night he had a heart attack; he’s…he didn’t make it.ā€ I was stunned and couldn’t think of anything to say. ā€œCan I ask what your call is regarding?ā€

ā€œUh. . . I was calling about the business account management position. I interviewed with him the other day. . .ā€

She asked my name, and when I told her, she explained to me that he’d already made it clear to the board in a meeting yesterday that I was the only one suitable for the position. She told me that she would call me in a few days to let me know who I would need to meet with.

ā€œI’m Sarah, by the way,ā€ she said. ā€œI’m sure I’ll be meeting you soon,ā€ she said with a saddened smile in her voice before hanging up the phone. She sounded pretty.

And she was. I met her the following week, when I went into the bank to begin my training. She looked up at me and smiled as I approached the desk.

ā€œI’m here to begin my training,ā€ I stuttered, barely able to look at her beautiful face. She giggled, holding out her right hand over the desk.

ā€œI talked to you on the phone last week. It’s nice to meet you in person,ā€ she said.

ā€œAbsolutely,ā€ I replied, casually glancing at the bare ring finger on her left hand.

She directed me to the office of my direct superior and I went along and got to work. I spent the next few weeks getting familiar with the bank’s specific procedures. It wasn’t too difficult to pick up, and most of the people I worked with seemed like really nice folks. I worked up the nerve to ask Sarah if she’d join me for lunch at the end of the week, and she blushed as she answered, ā€œof course!ā€

Over the next year, I cruised through the work at the bank and dated Sarah frequently. We moved in together after six months, because her lease was ending and her roommate was leaving town. I had grown tired of my small apartment and was interested in settling down in a house of my own. We looked at houses together and I bought one that I liked a lot, and she liked it, too. We agreed that it would be best if she continued to pay something as rent, trying to be clear with each other that, if the relationship didn’t last, the house was not something that we’d done together, it was something I had done for myself, and she had been around for it. None of that really mattered anyway, because in three months time I was ready to propose marriage. I woke up early one spring morning and was overjoyed at how comfortable I was in bed next to her, with cool fresh air carrying the songs of birds into the house from our wonderful yard. I went downstairs and made breakfast. After we’d eaten, I told her that I was perfectly happy with my life and couldn’t imagine not sharing the rest of it with her. She smiled and I got down on one knee, asking, ā€œSarah, would you marry me?ā€

We called off work that day and made love on into the afternoon before having lunch with all of our parents. Her parents lived in town, and by a stroke of luck, my parents had come down to this part of the state to do some shopping, so they weren’t more than a half-hour away when I called to tell them the news. Rather than tell them over the phone, I begged and pleaded that they drive to town and meet us for lunch. We sat down and had a beautiful lunch and talked, joked, and laughed with each other. When everyone was silent for a moment, I took Sarah’s hand and said to the group: ā€œlisten, everyone, Sarah and I have something that we wanted to tell you.ā€ Our mothers simultaneously took our fathers’ hands and held their breath. ā€œWe’re going to get married.ā€ They began crying and laughing, and our fathers beamed with pride. We married and took an extravagant honeymoon in the Caribbean. After a year, we decided to have children.

Meanwhile, things were going very well at work. I was the manager of my specific department and had taken on a position much like the one the man who’d hired me held at his time of death. I routinely had to fill employment gaps by perusing resumes and conducting interviews, and I was surprised one day to meet a man who said he’d been in the same fraternity as me. I remembered the man who’d hired me, all of a sudden. I had hardly thought about him since those first few weeks of work. I recounted the story to the man I was interviewing, and he responded by asking: ā€œSo you think you’re gonna hire me, then?ā€ I told him that I would get back to him.

I had some difficulty making a decision about who I would hire for probably the first time since I’d ever been in a position to hire anyone. Fraternity issue aside, I probably wouldn’t have considered the young man. His resume wasn’t that much less impressive than the other person I was considering, but I wasn’t terribly impressed with his personality in the interview. The other man had been a little more charming and graceful, but not so much so that he was a shoo-in. After deliberating for an entire week, I decided that I could not hesitate any longer, and I hired the frat-boy. I decided that perhaps his demeanor in the interview might’ve been a fluke, and hiring him would be a nice way to thank the man who hired me.

When I went to call the frat-boy, I couldn’t find his number, or any of his other paperwork. I searched my office, going through all of my papers two or three times, and finally I asked my secretary if she had any of the information. She gave me a confused look when I told her the name of the man. I tried to jog her memory by describing him, and I was growing a bit frustrated. Finally, I asked her if she had any contact information for the other man I’d interviewed. She didn’t seem to recognize his name, either.

ā€œThe two men who came in last Thursday for interviews. You don’t remember them?ā€ I asked, nearly irate.

ā€œYou haven’t interviewed anyone in a month, sir, I’m sure of it!ā€

I stormed back into my office and sat down at my desk. What could be going on? I got an idea: I called the frat house. Surely they would have records of his membership. When I dialed the number that I’d dialed so many times in college, I was met with a message from the phone company, saying that the number I was trying to reach was no longer in service. I dialed the University switchboard and asked them to direct me.

ā€œThat fraternity has never been on this campus, sir,ā€ the operator calmly told me. ā€œI have records of the Greek-system phone numbers going back to the University’s foundation. Not only have none of the frat house’s phone numbers ever changed, but the frat you’re asking about has never had a number.ā€ Flustered, I got on the internet to look for the number myself.

No search engine provided any results for my searches. I couldn’t find evidence of any chapters of the fraternity, let alone the local chapter. I decided to look up my old frat brothers instead. I started with my closest friends, and finding no information, I began going by each room of the frat house, trying to remember the names of all the guys I’d lived with. No one. Nothing. I stormed out of work early and drove to the university campus.

I arrived at the spot where our house sat, a ray of hope shining down as I saw that it still stood in place. I’d thought I’d been going crazy! As I pulled closer on the street, though, looking for a parking place, I realized that it wasn’t exactly as I had remembered it. Where our Greek letters had once proudly been displayed on the lawn, a different sign announced to the world: ā€œxxxx Hall: University Housing.ā€ A fucking dorm!

I drove home and climbed into bed, looking for some relief. When Sarah came home and came into the bedroom, she quietly called out my name.

ā€œAre you okay?ā€

I told her I wasn’t feeling so well. I asked her if she remembered my frat.

ā€œRight. . . your frat,ā€ she said, rolling her eyes impatiently. It was clear. I tried to remember the face of a single one of my frat brothers who’d come to the wedding and couldn’t. I apologized to my wife and told her my stomach had been bothering me.

To this day, I’ve never spoken of my fraternity to anyone else. It’s been thirty years since I’ve breathed a word of it, though I can remember all of my college years vividly, except of course, for those occasional drunken blackouts. I’ve never been able to find any evidence to support these memories. Whenever I start to think about it now, I instead ask myself what couples in New York fight about. It just gives me an opportunity to let my imagination go, you know?

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