June
2008
By Douglas Kent,
Email: doug of whiningkentpigs.com or diplomacyworld of yahoo.com
On the web at http://www.whiningkentpigs.com
– or go directly to the Diplomacy section at http://www.whiningkentpigs.com/DW/. Also be sure to visit the Diplomacy World
website at http://www.diplomacyworld.net. Check out http://www.helpfulkitty.com for
official Toby the Helpful Kitty news, blog, and links to all his available
merchandise!
All Eternal Sunshine readers are encouraged
to join the free Eternal Sunshine Yahoo group at http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/eternal_sunshine_diplomacy/
to stay up-to-date on any subzine news or errata.
Quote Of The Month – “I don't know. I felt
like a scared little kid. I was like... it was - it was above my head. I don't
know.” (Joel in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”)
Welcome
to Eternal Sunshine, your monthly peek into the disaster area that is my
brain. I think it is time to consider
getting it condemned. Water leaks,
septic tanks overflow, mold and mildew are everywhere…and those roaches, ugh,
how do I get rid of the roaches? Hmmm,
maybe the roaches are the source of all those voices. I’m just not sure. Like Emo Phillips says “I used to think that
the human brain was the most interesting part of the body. But then I realized, wait, look who is
telling me that!”
Not much to say this issue, I’m so tired lately
from work and life in general. My Texas
Rangers are playing a bit better now, but I am caught between the desire for
them to win games and the fear that if they are at or above .500 Tom Hicks and
Jon Daniels might be stupid enough to be buyers instead of sellers as we
approach the trading deadline. Oh well,
nothing to do but wait and see.
I’ve
closed the Balkan Wars game for the moment, and added a new Diplomacy
opening. I’m going to try a different
variant soon, just not sure which one.
If you have suggestions let me know.
And don’t forget to check out all the Toby, Sanka, Whining Kent Pig, and
Diplomacy World designs available at http://www.cafepress.com/helpfulkitty
- I don’t much care if anybody buys any of them (we only get $1 for each item
sold anyway) but I’d like to get more feedback…and more ideas for Diplomacy
slogans.
That’s
it for now. Take care, enjoy your June,
and I’ll see you in July!
My
First Day – Conclusion
Back
in the general population, I met my bunkmate and tried to keep to myself while
I waited for dinner. A few inmates made
it a point to say hello. One very
friendly guy named Jorge kept telling me how quickly my time will go. “It’s crazy!” he kept telling me, with a big
smile on his face. “It’s crazy!” He was also the first inmate who asked me a
question which I would hear repeated over and over again until my time as an
inmate was finally completed:
“What’s your out
date?”
I
didn’t know what that meant, and even if I had known, I wouldn’t have known the
answer yet. But that question was on the
lips of everyone I met. “What’s your out
date?” “What’s your out date?”
I
have since learned that this sort of question is completely out of bounds in
any higher-security facility. But when
you are somewhere which offers the Residential Drug and Alcohol Program (RDAP),
it’s all anybody cares about.
This
is the way it works: in the Federal system, you’re sentenced to a specific
number of months. You’re then credited
with an assumed 15% off due to good behavior and good conduct. You can lose that time off, but you’re given
it in advance as far as computing your estimated release date. That estimated release date is your “out
date.” You might be released from prison
before then, but only if you’re sent to a halfway house. Time spent in the halfway house counts as
time in prison, because you are still under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of
Prisons. But the “out date” is the day
you are estimated to no longer be under their jurisdiction. Most Federal inmates still have to serve a
term of “supervised release” (known as “paper” among the inmates, which is
overseen by the Probation Department).
Generally,
you never ask another inmate how long they’ll be incarcerated, because it’s the
last thing they want to think about. The
only way to make it through a sentence of even a moderate length is to live day
by day, build a routine, and let the days turn into weeks, and the weeks turn
into month. If you think about the time,
you’ll go crazy. Or if not crazy, at
least you’ll be constantly miserable.
However,
in an RDAP facility, your “out date” is priority number one. That’s because there is always a waiting list
for inmates to be admitted into the drug program, and that list is ordered
based on who is going to be released first.
It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been an inmate, and it doesn’t matter
how long you’ve been on the waiting list.
What matters is how much time you have left. A new class of inmates is selected every two
months, and they then begin the nine-month drug and alcohol program. As each class of twenty to twenty-five
inmates is chosen, those qualifying inmates with the shortest amount of time
left on their sentence get in…the rest have to wait.
The
reason this is so important to people is that you can receive up to a year off
of your sentence for successful completion of the program (although if you
“violate” in any serious way while in the halfway house, you have to serve the
time off that you earned, and you’re sent back to a prison facility). But how long you ACTUALLY get off is
determined by how much time you have left when you graduate. For example, let’s say you have an “out date”
of January 1, 2010. Regardless of your
sentence length, for completing the program you are eligible for six months in
the halfway house (instead of the standard 10% of your sentence UP TO six
months). As in most cases being in the
halfway house is preferable to prison, that’s a good thing. Anyway, if you completed the program with no
time off your sentence, you’d be eligible to go to a halfway house around July
1, 2009. How much time off you receive
in addition to that depends entirely on when you graduate the program. If you graduate on June 1, you’re saving about
a month. If you graduate on March 1,
you’ve saved four months, and so on, up to a year. So the idea is to get into the drug class as
quickly as you can…the sooner you get in, the sooner you graduate, the more
time you get off your sentence, and the faster you get home.
What
happens in one of the RDAP facilities is that everybody makes it their business
to stick their nose into everybody else’s business. As the time for a new class to start
approaches, they’ll run around, collecting information, trying to figure out if
they’ll make it into the next class or not.
The nervousness grows, the tension builds, and anxiety becomes
overwhelming. Some of these inmates are
trying to hold their family situation together, working feverishly to get their
wife or girlfriend to stick by them and wait until they get home. So it isn’t uncommon for promises to be made;
“I’m going to be home by July. I
promise!” But if the inmate doesn’t make
it into the next class, those promises instantly become broken.
If
you promise your wife and kids that you’ll be coming home, and suddenly it
looks like it will be another two (or four) months, that can be the straw that
breaks the camel’s back. An inmate may
find out he’s got an empty house to come back to…or no house at all.
I
learned all of this later on. Having
just arrived, and not understanding anything going on around me, all I could do
when people asked me about my out date was say “I have no idea.” Not surprisingly, that was met with a great
deal of skepticism by some of the inmates who approached me. They’d look suspicious, and sometimes almost
hostile, as if I had some secret I refused to share…a secret which could stand
between them and their freedom. No
wonder it takes a while to settle in!
The
rest of my first day was a lonely game of Follow the Leader. Nobody knows who you are, but everybody knows
you’re a new arrival because of how you’re dressed. The only people wearing the shoes and
off-color clothes like the ones I had are new inmates, or inmates who were just
released from “the hole”…and obviously, they’re known by everyone. So in a way, you’re wearing a sign around
your neck identifying you as a newcomer (unless you’ve been transferred, in
which case somebody in the new facility has heard about you in advance through
the grapevine). Being singled out as new
is both a good and a bad thing. You’re
generally ignored, which is lonely but gives you time to get your balance. And, as a newcomer, provided you try to stay
the hell out of everyone’s way, you’re given the benefit of the doubt if you do
something stupid or disrespect someone unknowingly. Screw up, and you’ll get a warning and an
explanation. Provided you take both
politely and with an apology, there is no harm and no foul.
I
hung around my bunk for an hour or so, taking occasional walks through the
halls and reading material on the bulletin board. I had showered that morning at home, and
didn’t have any toiletries to use or clean clothes to change into, so there
wasn’t much else for me to do. Around
3pm they had mail call, which was a bunch of inmates crammed into one of the
larger TV room/Classrooms as a CO shouted out names. I knew I wasn’t going to get any mail yet,
but I watched anyway just to get the feel of how it worked, and to kill time.
Back
in my bunk a bit later, I heard a CO shout “Stand Up!” Everybody else stood and kept quiet, so I
figured that’s what I was supposed to do too.
Sure, enough, this was my first encounter with the daily “Stand-Up
Count.” At this time every day, every
inmate is to be counted and accounted for, standing in his living area. The only exceptions are inmates who are
working at their assigned job during that time, and they are also counted
standing but by their work CO instead.
If the numbers don’t add up, they recount. If they STILL don’t add up, they come through
with their inmate books and do a true census, one inmate at a time, until they
figure out who is missing. If you’re not
in your living area, or if you move from that area before the count is cleared,
you could be in for a heap of trouble, ranging from sanctions and extra duty to
going to the hole for who knows how long.
You don’t screw with a stand-up count.
There are other counts during the night, but they’re not stand-up. But this count, once a day (with an extra
stand-up count on weekends and holidays around 10:30am), is deadly serious with
the staff.
Of
course, it depends on the staff and the inmate.
Sometimes an inmate might be asleep, and if he doesn’t wake up and stand
in time, he might get in trouble, or he might just get a warning of some
kind. You’d expect an inmate’s bunkmate
would watch his back and get him up, but sometimes they hate each other, or
sometimes the bunkmate is such a piece of crap that he won’t do anything to
help ANYBODY. But you just never
knew. One hard-ass CO was famous for
severe punishment when somebody messed up his count. He came through one day, and saw an inmate
was sleeping in the top bunk. He kicked
the bed to wake him up, moving on with the count. I assume he planned to come back and yank the
inmate out afterward. But this inmate
woke with such a start that as he tried to climb down from the top bunk he lost
his footing (there is no easy way to climb down) and fell face first onto the
floor in a terrible crash of body, metal chair, and other items. The CO finished this section of the count and
walked over to find the inmate groggily trying to recover. All the CO could manage that day was a
semi-sympathetic “Dude, are you okay?”
Seeing the inmate wasn’t bleeding, he moved on. I guess busting your ass (or face), to the
amusement of the CO and other inmates, is sometimes punishment enough.
Dinner
came next. I was pleasantly surprised
that the food was not as terrible as I had feared. The portions of protein were somewhat
limited, but there was plenty of lettuce and some other items on the salad bar,
water or soda from the dispenser, a dessert item, and a side item. Desserts or other limited items could be
traded among the inmates, or simply given away to friends if you didn’t want
them (I don’t like bananas, so those I always gave away freely). Unfortunately, the quality and quantity of
food served would decline as I continued by prison experience. I was told by a staff member late in my
sentence that the amount of money spent per inmate per day on food within the
Bureau of Prisons had dropped from over $3.25 to close to $1.00 between when I
arrived and when I went home. Believe
me, you could tell the difference.
Growing populations, budget limitations, and rising food costs took a
heavy toll. In fact, as more and more
crimes became Federal crimes, the rapid growth in population would take a toll
on just about every aspect of prison life by the time I left.
Overall,
my first day was tolerable, and helped me accept that I could survive this
experience without killing myself or being killed by others. But the night had one last surprise for
me. This was early November, in the
Pennsylvania countryside, so it was bound to get quite cold at night. Lucky me, as it turned out, the heat in our
living quarters had not been working for a day or so (I felt cold all day but
figured it was just me). So we had to
sleep with no heat. For most inmates
this wasn’t a huge problem; they just slept with long johns and maybe two pairs
of socks. Not me! I didn’t have any long johns yet, and the one
pair of socks I had been given were old, thin, and had holes in them. Even my blanket was thinner (and you only get
one blanket). So I had the pleasure of
spending my first night in prison freezing my ass off, listening to the sounds
of 60 men sleeping in the same room. I
did get some sleep, in between the snoring and the farting and the coughing…and
the chattering of my teeth. A nice
reminder, if nothing else, that there would be surprises waiting around every
corner!
The Counterfeiters – This German film
is based at least partially on true circumstances. During the late stages of World War II, Nazi
Germany seizes upon a plan to print tremendous quantities of counterfeit
British Pounds and U.S. Dollars, in an effort both to finance their own war
efforts and to cripple the economies of the opposition.
At
the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, a group of hand-picked Jews is segregated
from the general population to work on “Operation Bernhard.” Among them is Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl
Markovics), regarded as one of the greatest counterfeiters of his time. The film explores the motivations and desires
of the Jews, and the struggle between collaboration in exchange for survival,
and the need to resist in order to maintain some principles and dignity. It’s a very strong film, but one which does
not attempt to pull at the heartstrings in a Hollywood fashion. Instead, it simply lays the story out, these
privileged Jews who are reminded by the world all around them how close they
themselves are to the gas chambers and obliteration. It may not be around theaters much longer,
but look for it, or watch it when its available on DVD.
Seen
on DVD
– The Positively True Adventures of the
Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom (B-, quirky and fun but didn’t hold
up quite as well as I’d hoped. Still,
very accurate in its depiction of small-town Texas life). The
Brady Bunch Movie (B, worth watching again after all these years. I remember WAY too much from the original
episodes). Fur (D+, which is being overly generous. Just terribly boring,
mediocre acting, no emotion. Nothing). The
Shape of Things (D, we chose this on the strength of Neil LaBute’s awesome
In the Company of Men. But the dialogue,
along with everything else, seems forced and has no ring of truth. Skip it).
Before the Devil Knows You’re
Dead (B, pretty good tale of the “perfect crime” gone horribly wrong.). Going
in Style (B+, a classic movie, Heather had never seen it). No
Country For Old Men (B, as bad-ass as the villain was, I still much prefer
Fargo).
Natural Law by Joey W. Hill – A great story about one woman’s
complete dominance of an alpha male. I
wouldn’t want to do it myself, but it makes a great story and an orgasmic read!
5 pumpkins. 
Lucinda Darkly by Sunny – Story about a kindhearted demon Princess
. It actually works better than it
sounds. She still has lots of good evil
moments. 4 pumpkins.
Not in Kansas Anymore by Christine Wicker – Subtitled “A Curious Tale of How
Magic is Transforming America.” One
reporter’s quest to discover true magic in America. Even though she is a nonbeliever, she keeps
an open mind. Ranges from serious to
silly. I liked it! 4 pumpkins.
Fire Study by Maria V. Snyder – It was decent. The first two in the series were much
better. I had to force myself to read
the last ¼ of the book. 2 ½
pumpkins. 
The Painted Kiss by Elizabeth Hickey – In the beginning it was a very interesting
fictionalized story about the relationship between Gustav Klimt and Emilie
Flöge (the model for his most famous piece, The Kiss). At about halfway through it ran out of steam. 3 pumpkins.
The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold – The idea behind the story was good,
about a woman who kills her mother. But
since she killer her in the first chapter, after that it went nowhere. 2 pumpkins.
Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer – The first two books in the
Twilight series were great.
Unfortunately, this one was definitely not. I looked forward to it with much anticipation,
but I only made it through 1/4 of the book, and I cannot force myself to go any
further. 2 pumpkins.
The Greatest Movies
You’ve Never Seen – Chapter One:
“In the Company of
Men”
Besides
talking out movies from my childhood which I’m just now rediscovering, I
thought it might be good to use this column to introduce the uninformed to some
terrific movies that might have slipped through the cracks. This month, I’d like to call your attention
to Neil LaBute’s dark film “In the Company of Men.”
Unlike
“The Shape of Things” (which is listed in the Seen on DVD section), “In the
Company of Men” is filled with delicious dialogue which sounds and feel honest
and realistic. The acting is well-done,
but not overplayed. In fact, the whole
film carries with it a sort of everyday, low-fidelity weight. Like the drudgery of life when it falls into
routine, the settings, direction, and cinematography pull you into a mundane
world of small offices, middle-management jerks, and everything else you find
in the part of the corporate world populated by those without keys to the
executive washroom.
The
plot is built around two junior executives, travelling to an out-of-town office
to work on a project. Howard (Matt
Malloy) is a semi-nerd-nice-guy who is tasting his first bite of
authority. Chad (Aaron Eckhart) is
working under him. During the journey
from home, the two discuss recent betrayals by women. Chad points out that at this new location they
can basically be whoever they want to be…they’re known by name only. He devises a scheme to both occupy their free
time and to regain their feelings of power and control over women. Evil and simple, the plan is to find a
typical woman at the office who has low self-esteem; one who has given up on
the idea of a Prince Charming. Then,
supposedly without the other one’s knowledge, they will both court her, with a
focus on romance – flowers, dinners, ice shows – rather than sex. As Chad describes, they will build her up and
build her up until the very end, when as they leave town again they will pull
the rug out from under her. As she
crashes down, Chad says they will from that point forward always be able to take
pride in knowing they “got one of them way worse them they ever got one of us.”
How
the plan plays out, who the select, and what else is at stake will all be left
for you to discover. The film is
available on DVD and VHS, and most on-line services like Blockbuster and
Netflix have it in stock. I should add
that I frequently suggest this film to any younger women I am friends with
(between 18 and 28) as a must see, sort of a lesson in what
many men are all about and how truly evil some of them can be.
If
you’ve never seen it, let me know what you think. And if you HAVE seen it, drop me a letter and
tell me if you agree with my recommendation.
Paul Milewski: [on downloading the subzine] I tried the first link [to
the ES Yahoo Group] but the new upgraded security here at work has it blocked
as an "entertainment" URL. However, I was able to get through
to whiningkentpigs.com
oddly enough. I guess our security software assumes that whiningkentpigs
is a name for a division of Microsoft or
something. I will look forward to reading it.
Bureaucracy at its finest! Now let me tell you a little something about
TPS reports…
Chris
Babcock: Regarding Kevin Wilson’s search for the source of a quote, I don't know which
quote exactly Kevin is thinking of, but the sentiment is the theme of 'Variable
Star' by Heinlein and Robinson. The novel, of
course, repeats that wisdom in numerous pithy statements placed in the mouths
of its characters. I would be surprised if it wasn't in there.
Jérémie LeFrancois: Since you love
cats, take a look at my mother's website www.chatterley.fr - she breeds Birman cats and there
are nice pictures there. Most of the site is in French (I helped setting it
up), but as a retired English teacher she will probably translate it one day...
Andy York: The bit about your
introduction into the federal prison system doesn't surprise me. Large,
decentralized, institutions have parts that take on a life of their own
sometimes - and, then have those quirks known to a third party (the judicial
system) is almost impossible.
I’m
still a bit shocked though at how completely wrong they can be between two
agencies that have to deal with each other on a daily basis. Oh well, par for the course.
Berend
Renken: Some brief movie reviews (most recent
releases listed first): The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
(B+, quite engaging, true story about a man left completely paralyzed after a
stroke, filmed from his perspective; it bugged me that he seemed more upset
about loss of speech than about loss of mobility); Cloverfield
(C+, nice little piece of entertainment but not more than that, made for a
young audience); American Gangster (A, beautifully made
movie on the rise and fall of Frank Lucas, innovative drug lord of the 1970's);
The Last King of Scotland (A, Forest Whitaker does
stunning job through nuanced portrayal of a human monster (Idi Amin, former
dictator of Uganda), accompanying role & story (of a young Scottish doctor
getting ever more tightly involved with Idi) very well done also); Who
Killed the Electric Car? (A, a documentary you should see on how
public demand does not determine public consumption); The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy (D, incoherent piece of crap with isolated bits
of originality and good acting, unfunny while made after one of the funniest
books ever written, how did they do that?); The Machinist
(A-, very well made, a dedicated Christian Bale did not eat for almost a month
in order to accurately portray the lead character, great story but perhaps
slightly moralistic when all has been explained); Chronos
(B, nonverbal with beautiful photography, reminiscent of
"Koyaanisqatsi" but without the depth of message).
Hitchhiker
was a terrible disappointment. How can a
book that great be a film that bad?
Diplomacy (Black Press): Signed up: Nobody,
takes seven to fill.
I may offer
another Gunboat 7x7 soon, so keep your eyes open. Other options are a game of Youngstown or
some other map variant. If you have
requests please let me know.
Diplomacy
“Wouldn’t It Be Nice?” 2008A, Spring 1902
Austria
(Kevin Wilson): A Budapest – Rumania, F Greece - Bulgaria(sc) (*Fails*),
A
Serbia Supports A Budapest – Rumania, A Trieste – Budapest, A Vienna - Trieste.
England
(Jérémie LeFrançois): F London - English Channel, F North Sea
Convoys A Yorkshire – Denmark,
F
Norway – Skagerrak, A Yorkshire - Denmark (*Bounce*).
France
(Alexander Levinson): A Brest – Picardy, A Burgundy – Ruhr, A Paris - Burgundy
(*Bounce*),
F
Portugal Hold, A Spain - Gascony.
Germany
(Graham Wilson): A Belgium Supports F Holland, A Berlin -
Munich (*Fails*),
F
Holland Supports A Belgium, A Kiel - Denmark (*Bounce*).
Italy
(Don Williams): A Munich - Burgundy (*Bounce*), F Naples - Ionian Sea, F Rome - Tyrrhenian Sea,
F
Tunis - Western Mediterranean, A Venice - Piedmont.
Russia
(Melinda Holley): A Moscow Supports F Sevastopol, F
Sevastopol Supports A Ukraine - Rumania (*Cut*),
F
Sweden Supports A London – Denmark (*Fails*),
A Ukraine - Rumania (*Bounce*), A Warsaw - Galicia.
Turkey
(Brad Wilson): A Armenia Supports A Constantinople –
Sevastopol,
F
Black Sea Convoys A Constantinople – Sevastopol, A Bulgaria - Rumania
(*Bounce*),
A
Constantinople - Sevastopol (*Fails*).
Unit locations:
Austria:
A Budapest, F Greece, A
Rumania, A Serbia, A Trieste.
England:
F English Channel, F North
Sea, F Skagerrak, A Yorkshire.
France:
A Gascony, A Paris, A
Picardy, F Portugal, A Ruhr.
Germany:
A Belgium, A Berlin, F
Holland, A Kiel.
Italy:
F Ionian Sea, A Munich,
A Piedmont, F Tyrrhenian Sea, F Western Mediterranean.
Russia:
A Galicia, A Moscow, F
Sevastopol, F Sweden, A Ukraine.
Turkey:
A Armenia, F Black Sea, A
Bulgaria, A Constantinople.
Fall 1902 Deadline is June 24th 2008 at
7:00am
PRESS
Somewhere West of the Hobby…An Embarrassment of
Wilsons “Wouldn’t it be Nice to get yer winnings back, or in
yer case…yer losins’? Har, har, har,”
guffawed Wandering Eye Wilson. He had a
wide and very self satisfied smile framed by his long bushy mustaches, and he
took one finger and pushed up on the wide brim of his Stetson so that it sat
back on his head. He looked straight at
Deadeye with his piercing blue eye, the green one wavered about a little and
only glanced in his general direction.
Deadeye glowered back in return.
The boys from the Whining Pig were crowded around the poker table in the
midst of the Heart of Darkness Saloon.
Bruno was at the piano banging out a fury of what passed for melody, and
a friendly game of cards was in progress.
Or as friendly as it got around these here parts.
“Nice!
Ya no good varmint. I got half a mind to
show you ‘nice’. Take you outside and whoop yer ass!,” said Deadeye Wilson,
loudly, as was his wont.
“Heehawhhh!!!”
“Whut
was that?”
“An
old joke, getting’ older,” grumbled Tried and True Wilson, one of the other
card-players, and dressed to look the part.
His wide brimmed black riverboat gambler hat, his shiny brocade vest,
and his polished knee high boots projected an image of someone more at ease on
a sidewheeler than in the saddle.
“Wull,
he is right about one thing,” opined Cookie, “ he does have half a mind. Hark, spoit,” he spat his tobacco juice into
the hay on the floor.
“Don’t
get started Cookie, or you’ll be number two on my list.”
“Didn’t
rightly know you could count that high,”
said Cookie. The words came out
low and quiet, further muffled by the mop of grizzled white beard, tinged with
tobacco juice and coffee stains. The old
Cook enjoyed these little soirées into town, to let the boys cut loose and get
the burrs out from under their saddles.
“Ever
time I play you cards, you cheat,”
bellowed Deadeye, “always got a pair o’ eights, or a pair o’ deuces, two pair…”
Wandering
Eye Wilson, one eye slightly askew, retorted, “isn’t my fault I got the double
vision.”
“It don’t work that way!” yelled
Deadeye, “it don’t mean you can put more cards in the deck!”
“Yer
just jealous of my good fortune,” said Wandering Eye Wilson, “ever since that
night after the last drive, you have just been one envious galoot.”
“What happened after
the last drive?” asked Tried and True Wilson, leaning forward in his chair.
“We
wuz here at the Heart of Darkness, me and Deadeye here. We wuz flirtin’ up some of the dance hall
girls,” answered Wandering Eye, “and I got the twins to go upstairs with
me. And he didn’t…it’s that simple.
Pure…D…green…envious…jealousy.”
“I
keep tellin’ ya. It weren’t twins!” said
Deadeye. “It was one girl!”
“THEY WUZ SISTERS,” shouted back Wandering Eye with a
pout on his face. He pointed his finger
at Deadeye, “yer just a sore loser.”
“Ah’m
about to make you a sore winner,” retorted Deadeye, “take you out on that there
verdana and fix yer wagon.”
“I
believe you mean the veranda?” said
Tried and True.
“Not
in this here szine. He only prints in
verdana,” said Cookie, “hark, spoit,” he spit into the brass spittoon next to
the table.
“Why
don’t I just shoot you down in the street,” said Wandering Eye Wilson
menacingly.
“Har, har,” Deadeye replied slowly, emphasizing the
sarcasm, choosing to mock the archaic form of laughter that Wandering Eye
Wilson had used just lines above, “you wouldn’t know which one of me to shoot
at.”
“Oh,
I’d just close one eye and shoot at what’s left, or I can keep ‘em both open
and shoot at what’s right,” replied Wandering Eye, “either way, you’d have a
bug tussle o’ trouble.”
Deadeye
stood up and loomed over the table. “You
sayin’ you can shoot better’n me?!!
Boy, I shit bigger than you!”
“He
is a big shit,” muttered Cookie.
“Keep it ta yerself, Cookie,” Deadeye
shot back.
“Wull,
I’d say it ‘sot-to voce’, but I don’t speak the ‘eye-talian’,” muttered Cookie.
“Hell,”
opined Tried and True Wilson, “ I shoot better than the both of ya’ sad saddles.”
The
other two Wilsons slowly turned their heads and looked at Tried and True. He sat there leaning his chair back on its
hind two legs, a self satisfied smile on his face.
“Whut did you say!” bellowed
Deadeye.
“He
said that he could shoot better’n than the two o’ ya,” said Cookie, “hark,
spoit.”
Deadeye
turned his glower to Cookie. “It was
rhetorical Cookie, I didn’t really want to know.”
“I
smell a bet,” said Wandering Eye Wilson, he picked up some of the coins in
front of him on the table and let them clink back down into a short pile. Tinck…tinck…tinck.
“Oh,
that hadn’t crossed my mind, perish the thought,” said Tried and True, as his
smile widened.
“I
bet it hadn’t,” replied Wandering Eye.
“Now,
that’s two bets,” said Cookie.
“COOKIE!”
said all three Wilsons in unison.
“Outside,
and we’ll just see who can shoot better’n who,” groused Deadeye Wilson. He stomped toward the back door of the
saloon. Wandering Eye Wilson nodded
toward Tried and True Wilson and got up to follow. Tried and True set his chair down and went
after them. All the other Wilsons and
patrons sensed something was “happening” and followed suit. A current of bodies moved through the back
door and The Heart of Darkness poured its contents into the alley. Bruno looked up from the piano into the
suddenly quiet and near empty saloon. He
stopped playing and shook his cramping fingers; “good time for a break.”
Cookie
sat alone at the table. All the other
chairs were empty. The stacks of coins
sat lonely, undisturbed in little piles around the table. Undisturbed…and
unattended. Cookie looked at them and a
slow grin spread across his face, and his gold tooth gleamed in good
cheer. He rubbed his hands together.
“Well,
well, well.”
The
saloon being practically emptied out in the tumult gave S’ym an opportunity to
pick up empty beer mugs and dump ashtrays.
Most of the tables were empty, and many of the dance hall girls were
unoccupied, almost bewildered by the sudden lack of customers. S’ym went by a table that had a cowpoke
sitting in his chair with both Patrice and Synda sitting in his lap. They had been paying the cowpoke a great deal
of attention and had not noticed everyone traipsing out the back door. S’ym picking up the empty beer mugs and shot
glasses off the table brought the three out of their reverie. They slowly looked around the bar.
“S’ym,
where did everybody go,” asked Synda?
“The
boys are having a pissing contest,” answered S’ym, “they’re betting to see who
has the biggest dick.”
Abruptly
the cowpoke jumped up, practically dumping the two girls onto the floor and
hurried for the back door. Patrice and
Synda regained their feet, one pouting, the other angry.
“What’s
his hurry,” asked S’ym.
“That’s
Three Legged Wilson,” answered Patrice, “he probably figures that’s a bet he
can win.”
Upstairs,
getting ready for the Revue, Miss Kitty suddenly looked up; “what’s that
noise?” Elana, who was helping Miss
Kitty pour her sumptuous form into her corset, much akin to squeezing two
piglets into a ditty bag, cocked her head to one side, “I don’t hear anything…”
“Exactly,”
said Miss Kitty.
The
alley behind the Heart of Darkness was a sparsely written description; it was
an almost empty portion of the szine littered with detritus from the bar and little
used words. Notions were stacked across
two sawhorses, maybe to be used in further plot construction, but for now all
but forgotten. But overall it was ill-kept; participles dangled from the eaves
and the whole thing just sort of trailed off into the distance into a vaguely
detailed landscape of blank pages. The only notable part of the landscape was
the desert foliage. But the hardened
ranch hands and heavy drinkers from the bar paid scant attention. They were focused on the Wilson boys having
it out.
“I’ll
show you whut shootin’ is,” said Deadeye.
He pulled his revolver from its holster and spun the cylinder. It
whirred about with oiled efficiency and he brought it up and leveled it’s
barrel pointing into the desert. “Ya see
that there cactus, the one with the its arms up, looking like it’s giving a
hoshaiah and singing in church?”
Wandering
Eye Wilson, squinted one of his eyes and peered at it, “ya mean the one that
looks like it’s in the middle of a holdup at the First Trust?”
“Naw,
not that one,” grumbled Deadeye, “t’other one.”
“He
means the one that looks like he’s holding up the rafters…like when the mine
collapsed up in the Warmos Hills,” opined Tried and True Wilson.
“NOOOOOOOO,”
said Deadeye in frustration, “the t’other t’other one. On the left.”
“You
mean the one that’s going ‘Can I get a what, what,’” asked Soul Brother Wilson,
motioning his hands up and down in the air.
”NOOOOO!”
yelled Deadeye, “Not that one.
How many dang cactus can you get?”
“It
is a desert,” drawled Gabby, one of the dance hall girls who had followed the
crowd outside to see the excitement.
“Oh,
now you’re the smart one,” remarked Deadeye.
“Enough
to know that the plural of cactus is cacti,” retorted Gabby.
Deadeye
waved his hands frivolously in the air, the revolver wobbling dangerously and
spoke in a high pitched feminine voice, prancing his boots up and down, “Lookit
me, lookit me. I’m a smart tart! I have
brains bigger than my tits! I kin think
on my feet AND on my back!” Gabby
glowered at Deadeye. “If’n yer so
smart,” continued Deadeye, in his regular voice, “how would you describe that
there cactus for everyone?”
Gabby
squinted one eye at the assortment of cacti, giving the question some thought,
“I’d just say it was the one that was showing how big Miss Kitty’s rack is.”
“OH,
that one,” said a voice from the crowd.
“Oh, I was lookin’ at the wrong one,” said another voice. “Well, why didn’t you just say so Deadeye,”
another voice. “Oh, yeah. I see it,” said another. “O’course, don’t look nuthin’ like the
others.” “That’s the one.” “I know which one he’s talking about
now.” A murmuring wave of ascent passed
through the crowd.
“Alright, alright,” shouted Deadeye. “Thank you Miss
Smarty Pants,” to Gabby. She curtsied in
reply with a smirk planted firmly on her face.
“AS I WAS SAYIN’,“ continued Deadeye, “that there cactus has a fly
sitting on the tippy top of it.” He
quickly whirled the revolver about his finger, brought it up in one smooth
motion and
BANG!
“No
more fly,” concluded Deadeye. The crowd
looked across the desert to the cactus, where a hole had replaced the spot
where the fly had been.
“Oooooooh”, “Awwwwwww”, “That’s some shootin’,” ran through the crowd.
Wandering
Eye Wilson stepped up next to Deadeye, “That was some mighty fine shootin’
Deadeye, but I rightly figger I can beat it.”
He reached for the two guns at his belt, but Deadeye halted him with a
hand to the chest.
“Don’t
you go telling me you shot two flys,” groused Deadeye, “I won’t be hearing it.”
“No,
not two flys,” said Wandering Eye.
Deadeye took his hand off the other’s chest and stepped back.
“Ya’ll
see the cactus there, with one arm up and the other one down,” asked Wandering
Eye?
“The
‘Walk like an Egyptian’ cactus,” asked Gabby?
“That’s
the one,” affirmed Wandering Eye, and the sounds of the crowd confirmed they
knew which one too. He pulled his two
Remington double actions from their holsters, the one in his left hand steadily
pointed toward the cactus, the one in his right wavered in his grip, moving
about like the snout of a dog trying to get a scent in the wind. The crowd on
his right gingerly edged away from him.
He fixed both his steady and his not so steady gaze upon a lone, large,
fat horsefly, that steadily buzzed about the head of the designated
cactus. He aimed and his pistols spat
twin gouts of flame and smoke;
BANG! BANG!
There
was a collective intake of breath in the crowd.
A gasp here and there and a clearly heard; “Now that is some shooting!”
Atop the targeted
cactus, sat the big fat juicy horsefly. It was walking around befuddled and
disoriented, both of its wings had been blown clean off.
“THAT is quite some
shooting,” said Tried and True Wilson, stepping forward, “quite some
shooting. It would take quite a shot to
beat that,” he started drawing his
revolver. It was a buntline Colt with
the extended barrel and he drew it slowly from his holster. The blue steel metal of the barrel glistened
a little in the sun as he slid it up and into the daylight. The barrel, so long that it took near to
three sentences to draw the gun completely out of the holster cleared
leather…finally. He leveled the sights
up toward the horizon.
“Y’see that
cactus?” Everyone paused. “Gabby?”
“Y’mean the one
doing ‘the roof, the roof…the roof is on fire’, “ said Gabby.
“Yeah, that one,”
nodded Tried and True, and sure enough, there, buzzing about it was another
big, fat horsefly doing slow, lazy circuits between the arms of the
cactus. It’s persistent buzzing almost
sounding like ‘letttttt the motherrrrrrrrrfuckerrrrrrrrr burnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn’.
Tried and True drew
a bead; slow, steady and deliberate….BANG!
There was no hole in
the cactus, and the horsefly continued to fly about. Tried and True calmly put his Colt back in
its holster.
“Har! Ya missed,” said Deadeye.
“Nope,” answered
Tried and True.
“Ya, didn’t get the
wings,” said Wandering Eye Wilson, “it’s still flying around that cactus.”
“Yep,” answered
Tried and True and he turned to go back inside, “but he’ll never have children.”
Deadeye and
Wandering Eye and all the other Wilsons, and the crowd all leaned forward in
hushed silence, heads turned sideways, ears cocked straining to listen…and sure
enough, they could barely hear it, but it was there.
The buzzing of the
big, fat horsefly was four octaves higher and it seemed to buzz;
‘it
burnnnnnnnzzzzzzzzzz, motherfucker, it burnnnnnnnnnnnzzzzzzzz’.
Heart of Darkness Saloon
- Miss Kitty smiled and leaned over the balcony railing as she watched the
saloon fill up as the sun went down. Waving at the men who hooted in
appreciation, she observed the Three Stooges (aka the Wilson boys) huddled at a
table in the corner. Well, two of them were huddled together. The
other sat leaning against the wall cradling his left arm with his right.
Word was the boy had gotten a boo-boo.
Leaning further over the balcony, she
saw Ducky...Dukey slowly dealing the cards. Catching the smirk on his
face, she chuckled. Then she heard the band tuning up. Raising her
voice, she shouted, "IT'S SHOWTIME!"
Somewhere West of the Hobby…Tin Stars on a Tin Horn
and a tin ear in episode ten “Wouldn’t it be Nice if this
story had a singing cowboy,” said S’ym from behind the bar of the Heart of
Darkness Saloon, “I was just saying that the other day. Just what we fricking
need.”
“WHAT?”
Tin Ear Wilson yelled from the end of the bar.
He picked up the tin ear horn that gave him his name and stuck it up
next to his head.
S’ym
could barely believe what he was seeing, a cowboy had just pushed through the
swinging wing doors of the saloon. He
had a large ten gallon hat, and the widest chaps S’ym had ever seen outside of
a gay bar, and everything the cowboy wore was a pristine, dust free, stain
free, eye searing white. He had bangles,
and spangles and bits of leather that didn’t seem to do much more than dangle.
His vest was adorned with decorative tin stars, and his guns were pearl
handled. He had a guitar strapped across
his back and shiny spurs with big rowels.
“Look
like he’s selling ice cream,” muttered S’ym.
“YOU
DIDN’T SCREAM…I WOULDA HEARD YOU IF YOU SCREAMED,” said Tin Ear.
“Howdy
stranger,” said S’ym, “you part of the Revue?”
The
cowboy walked up to the bar, “no, why do you ask?”
“No
reason,” said S’ym, shaking his head, “you just looked….new…in town.”
The
cowboy stuck out his hand to S’ym, “Cimmaron.
Bolt Cimmaron’s my moniker, glad to meet you.”
“HE’S
GOT CINNAMON ON HIS MONACLE? HE’S NOT
WEARING A MONACLE,” yelled Tin Ear.
“You
might want to sit down there a little ways,” said S’ym, nodding toward the bar
further away from Tin Ear.
Cimmaron
smiled, a very white smile with perfect pearly white teeth, “oh, he won’t
bother me none.” He nodded genially to
Tin Ear. S’ym poured him a shot of
whiskey.
“HIS
BROTHER’S A NUN?”
“So
what brings you into the Heart of Darkness?”
“The
worst day of my life,” said Cimmaron, “the absolute worst. The only thing that
made the travails any easier…were my thoughts of the women of the Heart of
Darkness.”
“Do
tell,” said S’ym, intrigued. He leaned
forward and put his elbows on the bar.
“I
was out on the lone prairie,” said Cimmaron, and slung his guitar around to the
front, and placing his hands on the strings started strumming, “me on my trusty
destrier.”
“DID
HE SAY HE TOUCHED SOMEBODY’S REAR?”
“I
could see off in the distance, a cloud of dust. Dark and moving fast, it could
only bode ill will,” struumm,
strumm. “There topping the last page,
silhouetted against the header I could see them…commancheros. “ Bruuummmm, brummmm went the strings of the
guitar.
“HUEVOES
RANCHEROS?”
“They
were behind me,” said Cimmaron, brummmm, brummmmm, “there was no going back to
the last episode. I could only move
forward, so I said to my trusty steed;
Ride Destiny, Ride!”
Brummmm…..brummmm, brummmity,
brummmm. He fingers flew over the
strings.
“HE
DID THE DIRTY DEED?”
“So
we rode,” brummitty brummmm, brummmmity brummm, brummm, brummm-brummmm, the
fast paced strumming of the guitar quickened the tempo of the story. “All day
we rode, down gulchs and through salt licks, across the desert sand…but they
stayed with us. If anything, they drew
closer,” brummitty brumm, brumpp,
brumpp, brummpp.
“HE
SOLD LICKS AT A DESSERT STAND?”
“We
found a narrow pass through the badlands when I wasn’t sure there was a way…”
strummm, strummmm.
“DID
HE SAY HE WASN’T SURE HE WAS GAY?”
“But
it opened onto a narrow pass, so narrow I wasn’t sure I could get into
it,” strummmm, strummm, “much less
out.” Brummity brummmm.
“IT’S
ALWAYS LIKE THAT THE FIRST TIME.”
“The
walls of the defile closed in like the hoary grip of death, right up against my chaps and the saddle of
good ol’ Destiny,” strummmm,
strummm. And his hand stopped on the
strings, bringing sudden silence, “we were stuck in the defile.”
“WHAT?”
“They
were stuck in the defile,” said S’ym.
“YOU
ALWAYS FEEL DEFILED THE FIRST TIME.”
“I
knew the commancheros were coming,”
stru, stru, stru, stru, stru, “so I had to get behind Destiny and push,
and Destiny strained. We pushed the two
of us together against the sides of the narrow canyon…until,” STRRUMMMMM, STRUMMMMM, “we came out the other
side.”
“YOUNG
LOVE, AIN’T IT GRAND?”
“No,
no. It was his horse.”
‘HE’S
DOING IT WITH HIS HORSE?”
“But
the injuns were riding ponies, with no leather,” strummmmm, strummmm,.
Strummmm, strummmmm! “They came right
through.”
“HE’S
INTO LEATHER?”
“That’s
when poor Destiny threw a shoe, and those commancheroes were on us,” strum, “we fought and fought, but we were
outnumbered. They captured us and took
me back to their village, and they told me ‘white man, we’re going to kill
you!” Strummpp, strumppp. Bang, he
slapped his hand on the guitar, bringing sudden silence. Everyone jumped in their seats. “But, these were noble savages!” Low, soft; strummmmittty , strummm, strummmm,
“they said we were honored by your bravery and how tirelessly you rode through
the hot sun across the desert. We will
kill you in three days, when the sun is high in the sky…but on each of those
three days we will grant you one request in the morning.” Strummmpppp, strummppp, strummmpp.
“WE’RE
GRILLING FRITOS?”
“So
the first morning, they brought me out of the teepee I was prisoner in, and
asked what I wanted,” strummmm, strummmm, strummmm, “and I told them to send
for my horse, faithful Destiny.”
“FARTS
OF DUST?”
“I
whispered into Destiny’s ear, and he turned and galloped across the desert,”
strummm, strummm, “right here to the Heart of Darkness Saloon! And just as
quickly, he returned but he was bearing a beautiful blonde dance hall girl.” Strumm, strummm. “So I took her into my teepee and we spent
the rest of the night together.”
Strummittty, strum. Strum, strum,
strum .
“HE
STUCK HIS PEE PEE IN A BLIND BEAR?”
“The
next morning the Indians asked me what I wanted. They said I must be a brave man to be facing
certain death and to want to spend my last days in the arms of a beautiful
woman, but what did I want now, on this, the second day.” Strumm, strummm, strummm, strum.
“I
said send for my faithful horse,” strum,
strummm, “and when he came, I whispered in his ear so that the chief and his
warriors could not hear me.” Strumm.
“HIS
HORSE HAS GOT GAS SO HE’S NOT DRINKING BEER?”
“Faithful,
not fartful and he didn’t want the Indians to hear,” explained S’ym.
“THEN
HE SHOULDA GIVEN ‘EM ONE O’ THESE DAMN THINGS,” said Tin Ear, shaking the horn
angrily in his fist.
“And
Destiny rode across the plain, like the great steed he is, as if one with the
wind and again he shortly returned….and this time with a beautiful red headed
dance hall girl, and I took her into the teepee and we spent a torrid evening
together.” Strummm, strummmm. Strumm, strummm.
“HE
TORED UP HIS PEE PEE?”
“The
next morning, the indians brought me out of the teepee, and they said ‘brave
and lascivious white man, today is your last day on earth,’ strummmmmmmmmmm, “what is it that you want
today?”
“I
said,” strummmmmmmm, strummmmmmm,
strummmmmm, “send me my horse. And they
brought me my faithful Destiny, and I took both his ears in my hands, looked
him straight in the eyes and I yelled; POSSE!
Bring me the POSSE! How many times do I have to tell you?”
“WHAT
HAPPENED NEXT,” yelled Tin Ear.
“Well,
true to their word,” said Bolt Cimmaron, “they staked me out in the desert and
killed me.” He took the shot of whiskey
off the bar and downed it in one swallow.
“That
is a bad day,” said S’ym, nodding.
Somewhere West of the Hobby…The Gas Lit Emporium “Wood, nuts, beans, ice,” said the chalkboard
in front of the Emporium that listed the daily specials. Old man Grampus had
been running the store ever since the gold rush days, he’d looked old then, he
looked older now. He was wearing the
same white apron he’d worn for years and was using a straw broom to sweep
up. The store was darkened and cool
compared to the dry, hot day on the page outside. Marlow, on break from the First Trust, ambled
inside to soak up some of the cool.
“I see you got yer ice on special today, a
bag for eight bits,” said Marlow, “hark, spoit.” He spit tobacco juice into a spittoon by the
door.
“Yep, that I do,” answered Grampus.
“You know the Mercantile has it fer four
bits, yer Avariciousness,” said Marlow.
Grampus didn’t stop sweeping, “Well, you
should by it there then.”
“Cain’t, they’re out o’ stock,” said
Marlow.
“Those greedy bastards, when I’m out of stock
I sell it for three bits,” answered Grampus.
Marlow squinted one eye at the old man but
continued to browse among the aisles. He picked up an item off the shelf and
looked at it. It was a metal tube with a
plunger on the end, when you pushed on the plunger little arms extended and
spread out, as you released the plunger they closed and retracted, “Why on
earth do you sell this?” asked Marlow, “I haven’t seen one o’ these since I
worked at the Heart.”
Grampus looked up, “that’s a pickle
picker. Ya use it to get pickles outta
the bottom of the barrel.” He stopped sweeping, “I didn’t know you sold pickles
at the Heart of Darkness.”
“We didn’t,” said Marlow and put the device
back on the shelf. He wiped his fingers
hastily on his pant leg and ambled on down the aisle.
“So you gonna go to the Revue,” asked
Marlow? “I never seen you in there.”
“Naw. Mabel wouldn’t like it,” answered
Grampus.
“Mabel’s been gone for over ten years…”
“Yeah, well,” Grampus paused in his
sweeping, giving it a thought, “she still wouldn’t like it. Sides, too much excitement. I want excitement I read me the Sears &
Roebuck.” He went back to sweeping.
Marlow picked up a box of pills and looked
at it.
“Ooompa-pa, ooompa-pa.”
Grampus stomped sweeping again and looked
at Marlow. “Ya got gas?”
Marlow rattled the box of pills, “Naw,
these are headache pills.”
“Ooompa-pa, ooompa-pa.”
Grampus squinted, “Don’t be tootin’ up my
store. I gets women folk in here!”
“It’s not me. Yer sure it’s not you?”
“Ooompa-pa, ooompa-pa.”
“I ain’t so old I cain’t tell when I’m
cooking my own air biscuits,” said Grampus emphatically. He scowled at Marlow, then they both turned
to look out the front window of the Emporium.
“Ooompa-pa-pa, Ooompa-pa-pa.”
“What is that? It sounds far off,” asked Grampus.
Marlow cocked his head to one side and
squinted to listen, “Seems to be coming from the next episode.”
By
Popular Demand
Credit goes to Ryk Downes, I
believe, for inventing this game (although his original version had the GM
supply the starting letter as well). The
goal is to pick something that fits the category and will be the "most
popular" answer. You score points based on the number of entries that
match yours. For example, if the category is "Cats" and the responses
were 7 for Persian, 3 for Calico and 1 for Siamese, everyone who said Persian
would get 7 points, Calico 3 and the lone Siamese would score 1 point. The
cumulative total over 10 rounds will determine the overall winner. Anyone may
enter at any point, starting with an equivalent point total of the lowest
cumulative score from the previous round. If a person misses a round, they'll
receive the minimum score from the round added to their cumulative total. And,
if you want to submit some commentary with your answers, feel free to. The game will consist of 10 rounds. A prize will be awarded to the winner.
