Why The Hell Do You Think I Enlisted in The US Fu*kin’ Navy?
Sure! Some of it was My Ego!
I Thought I Could Become a Fu*kin’ NAVY FRICKEN SEAL
Guess What?
That did Not Pan Out For Me!
Fu*kin’ Twice!
Did I Blame Anyone But Me?
Of Course Not!
(Wow! there’s too mucho mas profanity in this post! But! I am fuckin’ Sailor! Ignore or block me!)
POSITIVE!
CRED FOR BELOW: MISTER Coffey Anderson
I LOVE MY AMERICA!
CRED: LEE GREENWOOD
Author’s Note and Warning
How I hear my “inner post Voice”:
Or, if you prefer,
“Clang Clang Clang Went My Folly”
Maybe THIS Version Won’t
Take
Three Fu*kin’ Decades To Load!
Here’s to Hopin’!
My Daddy, Ralph A. Marcom,
USMC Vet
once said something incredible stupid to me. Actually it was more of a lament.
He was just thinking out loud, I suppose.
I was knee – deep in my rehearsals with Sister Madelyn, getting ready to perform “The Sound of Music” — read about that somewhere else in these pages. Anyway, he said to me, or asked me: “Why don’t kids ever get together and say, “Let’s put on a show?”
I said, “Daddy, ‘Summer – Stock’ was just a fantasy. No one ever lived that.”
I think that was the beginning of the ending of my relationship, my good one, with my father.
Summer Stock, Le Trailer:
Yay! Hooray!
Vid Cred: Panos Golfis
Vid Cred: pokeahugkiss
Street Cred for Vid: kherrick90
Credit: TOPPOP: Star sisters
“Any barmaid can be a star-made”
*******
Hey Film Buffs! This (Below) is Required Watching!
Attractive Young Psychiatrist Nancy began her questioning in earnest:
“How long have you been drinking?”
“All my life,” I said.
“No, I mean recently.”
“Oh, ‘bout forty days and forty nights.”
(No chuckle; guess she was gonna be all business from this point.)
“Do you feel like hurting yourself? She asked.
“Pretty certain that is what I am doing right now. You ever been on a ‘forty day/night drunk?”
“Have you ever attempted suicide?”
“Of course,” I replied. “Hasn’t everyone?”
“How many times?” She went on.
“Only twice, but they obviously didn’t take.”
“When was this? At what age?”
“First time, I was thirteen. Second time nineteen.”
“And what prompted these two attempts?”
“First time because my football shoes were too tight, excruciatingly so, and this was affecting my performance and my passionate desire to become a High School Football Star.”
“Describe your attempt.”
“I pointed a locked and loaded , hammer back, .45 Caliber pistol at the roof of my mouth for about 5 seconds, finger on the trigger.”
“And the second?’ she asked.
“Oh, that was just over a woman. I would not call that unprecedented in the ‘History of Man.’”
“Describe this attempt please.”
“Well, as I said, it was over being dumped by a woman, a thirty-year old woman and it was also over the fact that I could no longer afford the car payments on my Chevy Monza 2 Plus 2. So I drank a pint of vodka and at a high rate of speed on a deserted Texas FM Road, turned a hard right and flipped the car. Thrice. I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.”
“Were you abused as a child?”
“Do you mean do I hate my mother?” I asked.
“No. Were you ever abused?”
“My Grandfather shot at me with a deer rifle once, but he had cause because I had just a few moments earlier knocked him off the porch with a pretty good right hook to the jaw.”
“Why did you hit him?”
“He was trying to beat my Grandmother and she asked for help. Granddaddy was a mean drunk.”
“How old were you?” She asked.
“’Bout fourteen and change.”
“Does alcoholism run in your family?”
“Naw, it just kinda strolls. I mean, far as I know, it was just me and Granddaddy.”
“Do you want to stop drinking, Lance?”
“Yes. I don’t fancy dying just yet. I’m not ready.”
“Not ready to die, or not ready to quit drinking?”
“The dying part.”
“So, you’d like help?”
“Sure.”
I watched her on the screen as she appeared to be writing a short essay on her note pad. After about two minutes, she looked up and said,
“OK Lance. I am going to make arrangements to send you to a hospital in Garland. They have better resources to help you than here in Commerce.”
“How long will I be there? I am a busy man, ya know? OK, just kidding, but can you give me an idea?”
“Probably three days or so to get you past the delirium tremens and not sure how many after that. Are you willing to go to this hospital and allow them to help you?”
“I never much cared for Garland, but sure. One problem though, I cannot drive it just now.”
“The Hospital will make arrangements to have you transported, so don’t worry about that. You just try to focus on the treatment they will give you.” She said.
“TRANSPORTED??? “What am I? A truck farm product?”
“Thank you Doc, I will. And, by the way, I am sorry for being a smartass, but I suppose you get that a lot, dealing with drunks and mental cases. I do appreciate your time and your help. Thank you.”
“It’s Okay Lance. I am going to talk to the staff now at your Hospital and begin making the necessary arrangements. Take good care.” She said and then severed the connection.
I got out of bed and returned the IPAD to the Staff Desk and thanked them.
“How’d it go?” One of the staff asked.
“You know, you can’t get Netflix on this thing?”
Unnamed Staff laughed.
Finally! (Love it when I can make someone laugh)
“It went just Jim Dandy, I suppose. Looks like I will be leaving Y’all soon.” I said, and then returned to my little Hospital Cave.
Ed. Note to All You Nattering Nabobs of Nay-Sayers down there in the ‘Commentary Section’: I say this: ‘This is “My Side” of the Story!’ Read Between the Lines if You Must.
(Or feel compelled.)
*****
Lance, No Longer Down an’ Out In
Memphis, Tennessee:
Street Vid Cred: kndfbl
******
Credit: Marc Cohn
*****
And SCREW YOU WORDPRESS For Not Allowing Me to Delete this below BROKEN Up-Load!!!
Stuck on STUPID.
******
She just sat there on the front porch, smoking Camel Blues, sipping diet Dr. Pepper, and watching as I scurried back and forth, worker ant-like, schlepping boxes and boxes and boxes and sundry other shit to my Ford.
Never said a word. Never shed a tear. I was leaving her! What the fuck? No tears? No desperation? No tears? No tears? No tears? No nada? English! English! English!
(You live with Meskins, expect beans on the menu, ever’ once in a while.) English! Stiff upper lip and all that jazz…
After I had packed the Ford to the point of tightness unimagined (you could have poured a bottle of Jim Beam into it and not one drop would escape), I walked to the front porch and announced,
“Well, I guess that’s it then.” “You’re leaving now?” “Yeah, that’s the plan,” I said.
She stood up, looked me in the eye. I threw my arms around her and hugged her deep. Now we were both crying. I managed to blurt out something profound… “I’m so sorry Helen.” “Take good care of you,” she said, blinking back the tears. I slow-walked to the Ford, looking back through MY tears only once. Got in, cranked her up and drove away. The part where the cowboy rides away… Took me a block an’ a half to stop crying. Then I was so over it.
And her. Four blocks later I realized I could not see out of my side-view rear-view mirror. My dismantled computer chair in the passenger seat was blocking my vision. This would never do. I pulled into a vacant parking lot and jettisoned said computer chair.
Just left it there in the dust. With my life. Merry Early Fucking Christmas to someone. Some homeless one in Memphis. And drove on, westward. Nine minutes later at sixty-five miles per hour, I was crossing the Big Muddy and entering Arkansas.
I had achieved escape velocity. I turned on the radio. Loud and proud. CDB was screaming something about Trudy and telephones. And calling her. And jail.
I cranked it up and sang along. Very happy and oh so fucking proud of me. My new life had just begun. Just another tequila sunrise. As I drove west with the sun over my shoulder. So many thoughts were flying around in my head, gnat like… buzzing. I was almost giddy. I was staring down six hours of road trip. No big deal, but it had been almost ten years since I had taken to the road or air or sea, and I was just a mite apprehensive.
“You can do this Lance,” I whispered to me over the radio, now playing Van Morrison. “Hear That Robin Sing.’
Hours and hours and hours into Arkansas (when did Arkansas get so fucking BIG?) I found a trucker’s rest stop and so I stopped. And rested. And pee’d. Had to.
Walked about Had to. Stretched my legs. Had to.
“Where is Texas?” Halfway through Arkansas…. And halfway from what I had called ‘home’ for ten years.
“What am I doing?” “Going West, Young Man, Goin’ West.” “Oh yeah, I almost had forgotten.” By and by I hit the “border” (On the border)
Wanted to stop and take a selfie in front of the sign what read, “Welcome To Texas, Drive Friendly.” But it was Interstate and not safe to do so, so I just kept on driving. And singing at me! “Texas! Oh Texas!” “You are finally home, Cowboy!” Now what? Keep driving, I suppose.
I had pre-arranged a ‘garage’ to store my shit. A ‘rent-a-space’ shed in Commerce. Got a phone call from the proprietor….
“Lance, you still coming?”
“Yeah, fast as I can, but I will not arrive in time for your departure. Can you HBO? Help a brother out? I will arrive Commerce about 1800 hours…. Leave the key in the lock box or something; I want to off-load my shit before I go to the hotel.”
“Sure, got a CC number for me?” “Yeah, no worries.” That sorted, I drove on. Presently I arrived Sulphur Springs.
And promptly got lost. Could not find the road to Commerce.
Well, shit! It had been some years and beers and tears since I had had to make this trek.
Finally found the proper road and guess what? It was ‘under construction’ as they do.
Took me some few little minutes to navigate through that, but…. Finally… on the road again.
Commerce in my sights now. Sped into town, saw Whitley Hall, High Rise and shouted out loud: HOME!
“Thank fucking God!’ (And this was a push for me, for as you know, I am an atheist)
Found the ‘rent-a-shed’ and off-loaded my shit. Went to the Adult Beverage Store.
Then found the Magnuson, formally known as “The Holiday Inn Express,” checked in, and got very, very, very drunk.
Chapter Two Coming…
Whew!
Chapter One is Done! Writing is hard!
As is my wont, I drop in music.
Music defines me, and yes, my life has a soundtrack.
I suppose this don’t make me nothing special.
Just yet one more schmuck. Trying to get by. And Waiting for Godot (Vain reference from my college / university daze.)
Beautiful Loser Read it on the wall. Blue moon with heartache. Nick of time “Scared you’ll run outta time.” Love has no pride This old cowboy—MTB
