140Story - Day 36

  I'm writing a story 140 words at a time and posting the results here daily.  Can I sustain interest?  Will I lose the narrative thread?  Find out in this next installment of Bullets Ain't Cheap

the commotion was.
    Truth be told, that wasn’t far wrong.  I was in the dark about so much.
    Kelly was playing a long game, that was clear, but I had no idea what the game actually was.  Missing funds?  Murder in broad daylight?  There were stakes here I was totally unfamiliar with.  I was the dupe.  The pasty.  And I didn’t like it one bit.
    I drove slowly, but not too slowly.  “Theda said you were involved in embezzling.”
    A snort of derision sounded from the back seat.  “I can get as much money as I need any time I need it.”
    “Tell me the truth, Kelly,” I said as I passed Green Street without turning, “how have you been living these past two years?”
    “I’ve been free,” he replied.  “Not tied to anyone else’s agenda.”
    “Apartments cost money.  Guns

Analyze This

I woke up from a dream last night and I wrote it down, which I used to do a lot but got out of the habit of. This one was odd enough that I think I need some help. I don't know if the imagery means anything or if it means nothing.
   I wrote this in the dark, half-asleep, so there is a section where I couldn't decipher my handwriting. Make up your own words to go in there, like a Mad Lib.

I was in Monument Valley, where Krazy Kat was set, and where John Ford did a lot of his westerns, with all the sandstone bluffs and wind-carved rock formations. Everything was red and ochre, like the sun was setting. I sat alone by a campfire, roasting marshmallows.
   Pretty tame so far. Could be right out of a Travel Channel show. Then the kangaroo showed up. He was a normal kangaroo except for the boxing gloves and monocle. Well, he talked too. For some reason he wanted my marshmallow and I wouldn't give it to him or share the rest of the bag. So he threatened me and said he'd be back with friends.
   So I packed up what little I had and got into my Volkswagen Microbus and made my escape. The bus was littered with fast food wrappers, piled feet deep from front to back, which whipped out the windows as I fled the kangaroo.
   Then I was in a city, for some reason I thought it was Philadelphia even though I've never been to Philadelphia. I parked the Microbus in front of a ballet studio and ran inside, convinced the kangaroo was in hot pursuit.
   I gave a little kid my marshmallow on a stick, but then realized the kangaroo would probably hurt him so I took it back. Which made the little kid cry. His mother came out of ballet class and started yelling at me. So I ran from her.
   Then it gets weird. Instead of Philadephia I was in Rome, where I have been before, except this was future-Rome, with moving sidewalks and Jetsons cars. I ran through St. Peter's Square where people were playing soccer. I interrupted the game and deflated the soccer ball somehow, which made them all run after me.
   An old man hid me from the mob, which included the ballet mom and the kangaroo. He told me he was Leonardo and that he was immortal (this I probably got from Star Trek) and needed my help to...
   [this is the part I can't read, I think it says 'steal' scribble scribble scribble, although 'steal' could be 'strike' or 'stomp' or something. All I know is the word starts with an 's']
   He said his secret lab was in Monument Valley, and I told him I was just there. He asked if I was the one who left the campfire going and burned everything down.
   Then I woke up.

Not the most surreal dream I've ever had, but I didn't much care for the threatening kangaroo for some reason. And, being an Eagle Scout the part where I left the campfire going doesn't please me either. The most disturbing part, though, was the Volkswagen Microbus; I'm no hippy, dammit, I would never drive one of those, and I don't eat in my cars, let alone leave fast food wrappers everywhere like a big fat slob.
   What does it all mean? I need some help here.

A Caveman Walks Into A Bar

Hey there, buddy, nice sabre-toothed tiger.
   It not alive, now it coat.
I can see. Very snappy. What'll you have?
   Fermented goat's milk.
Sorry, fresh out.
   Maybe have steppe berry in spring water?
Never heard of it.
   Then light beer.
I'm Harvey.
   Me Og.
Good to meet you, Og. What brings a man like you into a place like this?
   Me feeling lonely. Me last of kind.
No wonder you need company.
   They all gone. Friends, family, even enemies. Gone like mastadon. Never come back.
Here's your beer.
   Me left alone with newspaper.
You read newspapers?
   What left of them. Me think Garfield funny, him like sabre-tooth who eat lasagna.
You could just read that online.
   No have internet. Og still use rotary telephone.
Rotary? Jeez...
   No have computer either.
What? Seriously?
   Me think typewriter just fine. It work for Hemingway, it work for Og too.
Holy crap. I'm guessing you don't have a cell phone?
   Me not need electronic leash. Me free like eagle.
What do you drive, an AMC Javelin?
   Me love planet so me take public transportation.
Well, whatever floats your boat.
   Me not like boats. Og no swim.
You're really dedicated to the lifestyle.
   It not choice, Og born this way.
So you've never heard of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube?
   Og not ignorant, Og just not interested in following herd. Unless herd is tasty bison, then Og all over that action.
Maybe you could re-think your position on this. Because you're gonna get left behind. Further than you already are, I mean.
   Hey, you not Og's mother. Or therapist. Leave Og to drown sorrows and eat bowls of pretzels.
All right. But you should know barflies are a dying breed too.
   Og want you to shut up now.

A New Boutique

Ah, sir, welcome to the Change Boutique.
    Actually, I think I'm in the wrong…
Nonsense, sir, you wouldn't have been able to find this establishment if it weren't your time.
   So why am I here?
That is the question, isn't it? Have you undergone some sort of drastic life change recently?
   Not really. Well.. I was one of the millions of people who lost their jobs last year.
That counts.
    But I was cool with it. Really. I had money saved up and with an unemployment check coming in I made it work.
Are you still 'between assignments?'
   Hey, funny, that's what I called it. No, I found a gig. Contract work.
And?
    I'm doing doing the same stuff I was doing nine years ago.
Ah… a step back.
    Kind of. But they're paying me pretty well. I just don't want to that work any more.
So, not recently unemployed, then re-employed at something you'd rather not be doing.
   It brings in rent money, can't ask for more than that.
Actually, you can. Anything else?
   I'm trying to get a franchise started back in my home town.
That's certainly a change.
   Wait, are you taking notes?
Of course, sir. Is there anything else, anything big that's happened to you lately?
   No. Well, my father died.
That's very big. My condolences. How are you holding up?
   Some days are better than others. Some days are way worse.
Feeling your own mortality, then?
   Big time. And I'm not married and I don't have any kids.
Do you want those things?
   Absolutely.
Wow, just a barrel of conflict here. What else is happening?
   I'm trying really hard to sell my writing.
Ah… you want that particular change then, you want to make a living as a writer?
   Of course.
And you feel you're being kept from it?
   Well… I suppose…
I can say without equivocation, sir, that you belong here in the Change Boutique.
   I don't like dealing with this kind of stuff.
Of course you don't. That’s why you need our help.
    Who are you?
Just relax, sir. Go with the flow.
    I can't. I want to fight this, try to swim out of the rip tide.
Struggling will only tire you out more.
   Crap… do you mind if I cry? Maybe just a little?
You go right ahead, sir.

Lightweight

I am, without a doubt, much more fit and healthy than I was, say, eight years ago. I moved out to California and gained a lot of weight. A lot. I was running from something or running to something, but the end result was I spent way too much time on my ass in my apartment. Alone. Eating. Now I'm fifty pounds lighter with way more muscle and I can climb the stairs without getting winded.*
   But I am slowly feeling the grind of the wheels of time.
   You know how I know I'm getting older? It's not the more visible gray strands in my hair or beard, or the lines at the corners of my eyes. It's not the slightly bulgy vein on my calf or the occasional gray chest hair - which I pluck out when I find it. No, it's a more depressing, obvious sign.
   I can't eat nearly as much as I used to.
   I'm not talking about my teenage years, when every boy is a human garbage can, or even my early twenties, which is just the teen years with permission to drink alcohol. No, I mean my late twenties, when I could still pack it away and yet I was old enough to know good food from bad. Cheap-ass prime rib at the run-down casino across from Cesars Palace? No thank you, I'll have plate after plate of Spanish tapas for free at a happy hour.
   Man, I used to be able to eat. Which was, of course, part of my big-fat-sucker problem eight years ago. But now not only am I not able to eat as much at one sitting, I'm just not inclined to either. I used to want to at least sample everything at a pot luck dinner. Now I just want my salad and some meat and cheese. maybe a little of that Jell-o ring with fruit and I'm finished. Time was when we would go to a Vegas buffet the idea was to double your money: if you paid ten dollars to get in you had to eat at least twenty dollars worth of food. Wholesale, not retail. Now I don't even want to go near the buffet, couldn't care less.
   It's insidious, this getting older. It takes what used to be a defining characteristic and turns it into a liability. Which, in this case, ain't so bad a thing. I don't need to eat like that any more, and I'm glad I don't.
   But still...


* which is good because the elevator STILL isn't fixed

Mastodons And Banana Peels

I got to thinking about cavemen the other day. And I don't mean Otzi the iceman, I mean real cavemen from like 30,000 years ago, before cities, before science, probably even before writing. They lived hard lives, even a minor cut could get infected and lead to death, let alone anything as serious as getting mauled by a sabretoothed tiger or giving birth. But they soldiered on, invented agriculture and civilization and didn't have time for things like depression or road rage, even though they probably invented roads.
   But what did they find funny?
   There are certain universal tropes in humor - slipping a banana peel, for instance, or anything the Stooges do - but some things just aren't funny across cultures. Japanese don't think American humor is funny because it mocks people, while what the French find funny wouldn't be amusing in a New Yorker cartoon. And Dane Cook is never funny to anyone anywhere. People who lead hard lives need a lot of funny to unwind; both the Greeks and the Romans had a grand comic tradition, and Elizabethan England with its plagues, wars, and pestilences had Shakespeare and his hilariously funny comedies.
   So cavemen, who led lives ten times harder than the most abject Roman slave, had to have some kind of humor. What would they have found funny?
   I don't think satire would be a big hit with cavemen, which means irony would probably be right out. No Ben Franklin or Mark Twain for guys wearing bear furs. Since they didn't really have political institutions (that we know of) then there wouldn't have been a caveman Stephen Colbert . No witty rejoinders a la Oscar Wilde or Dorothy Parker, no clever cocktail party talk since they didn't have cocktails. Or probably parties for that matter.
   We're left with really broad humor, Three's Company kind of stuff, where Og shares a cave with Nee and Maa, two curvy, bouncy cave girls while putting one over on Old Man Nuk who only lets Og stay in the cave because Og pretends to be gay.
   Doubtless cavemen would have found face-slapping amusing, so the Stooges would have been a big hit. Also Gilligan's Island, although they might have found the premise more of tragedy than a comedy. And they probably would have killed Gilligan the first time he cost them a trip off the island.
   Maybe I'm selling our caveman ancestors short here, but I think they would have found farts immensely funny. I know I thought farts were funny when I was little and they're still hilarious to this day, so I don't think cavemen would have taken the high ground on this one.
   Did cavemen have limericks? 'There once was mastodon from Nantucket...'
   See? This is why I need a time machine, so I can solve this kind of question. Let's get the egghead scientists cracking on this one.