DWTS 2

Night Two

Like a Sergio Leone movie gone wrong, the night was a mix of the good, the not so good, the bad and the ugly. Strangely enough, I can allow five dancers into the good category. Please understand I am being very generous here. Very generous.

Hannah was the real standout. It was a long wait, but her dance gave me minor chill bumps. Call them proto chill bumps; not the full Monty. Still, it was the only time all night. Len was right (it does happen on occasion), it was the best dance of the night. It actually looked like what it was supposed to be. So many of the dances missed that fundamental mark. But she’s also a ringer. She admitted up front that she’s been in dance classes since she was 3. She said she had stopped for a while. I noticed they didn’t mention how long she had stopped. Ten years? One year? A month? She’s got an edge no one else does. Not exactly fair. But it should be fun to watch. Alan is a bit like Mark Ballas. He can take her to the finals, but he tends to choke. He may torpedo her at some point.

I don’t know Kate Flannery and don’t exactly like her yet. I think she’ll be an acquired taste. Not much foxtrot going on, lots of side by side. It was good, but too Broadway. And I got distracted by the dancing spacemen in the background. Or more exactly, the spacewoman, with the form fitting space suit.

I so wanted to love JVDB after last week’s tango, the only dance I got to see. And his agility and extensions are wild. A mid-air split? A rondé over Emma’s head? Dang, he’s rocking 42. But dancing is more than acrobatics (although they do tend to like the acrobatic dancers). I was not blown away by his cha cha at all. He did one little segment of hip rolling and apparently that was the Cuban motion section of the dance. Didn’t see it again. I got to the end and said “that was it?”

I loved Karano’s spot. The practice segment was more entertaining than the dance. He is such a cutup. I couldn’t stop smiling from beginning to end. That helped to assuage the pain of his quickstep. Not so good, but as Carrie Ann said, it had pizzazz. And in this competition, pizzazz goes a long way.

If you gotta do paso, you gotta do skirt work. I remember Kate Gosselin set the bar for awful skirt work many seasons ago. She played “peekaboo, can you see my undies” rather than whipping it around. Best ever was Julianne Hough and Apolo Ono. She’s a pro, but that’s how it’s done. That said, Lauren had some credible skirt work. Gotta give her credit. Best shot was in practice when the skirt got tangled around Gleb’s head. The dance had moments of sass, but mostly looked like community theater and mediocre acting.

That was as good as it got. The good news is it has to get better. Doesn’t it?

The Not So Good

As for Sailor’s rumba, the best thing was that it actually looked like rumba and not vertical sex. I saw recognizable steps. But she was wooden and flat footed. She also had the best come on smile ever. I’d give her a ten paddle just for the smile.

I kinda liked Kel. I think he’ll grow on me. But I think I’m being too generous to put him in the Not So Good category. His dance contained recognizable samba steps like the judges said, but Bruno called it when he said it didn’t look Latin. It lacked anything that would make it look like a samba. No bounce, no life. Just blah. Yeah, I think it belongs in the bad category, but I’ve already written this so he gets a pass.

The Bad

Ally and Sasha got 20 points for their VW. What the hey? Who was the short guy standing in for Sasha? That couldn’t have been the real one. He was awful. He walked around, never had any lift, never achieved take off. Totally earth bound and klunky. And he’s the pro. When they were in hold and spinning, none of the ones were recognizable. Just plain awful. Best part was her Princess Di sapphire and diamond earrings.

I hated to see Mary Wilson go. There were many other candidates who were more worthy of the boot. She’s this year’s icon, our diva. No, she can’t dance at all, neither can several others. She couldn’t keep up with the foot work, but she was channeling Tina Turner for all she was worth. So, so sad to see her go.

Which leads us to the ugly.

Ray was the least ugly of the pack. His opening looked like me in the morning stumbling around looking for my shoes. And trying to straighten out my back. Len called it. Ray just walked around.

Even Lamar knows he’s in over his head. And that’s pretty deep considering he’s about seven feet tall. And what colorblind person designed their costumes? His shirt and pants were different shades of green, just close enough to clash. And it wildly clashed with the color green Peta was wearing. At least it added interest. He’s my pick as the next to go. Please.

Sean, the man we all love to hate. As the kids would say OMFG. That was soooo bad. First off, when did Shut Up and Dance become a tango? There was no tango about it. Same with Sean. I spent the dance alternating between wild laughter and loud groaning, and throwing popcorn at the tv. No tango in the house tonight.

I think Hannah, JVDB, and Kate are the ones to watch. If Sasha finds his lost groove, he’ll put Ally in the running. And never count out Gleb. I think Lamar will go next, then Ray. As I said, we love to hate Sean so he may stay around longer than anyone expects, just so we can gape at the train wreck. It’s definitely time for a double elimination. Get the dead wood out and start working the rest.

I still need to do some work on the site. I’m a dinosaur and everytime I converse with wordpress help they just confuse me with technospeak. I think I need to hire someone to fix up my blog the way I want it to be.

DWTS 2019

For a few years I have posted a tongue in cheek review of each week’s DWTS during the season. With a background of 40 years of teaching and dancing ballroom I know a little bit of what I speak. But I don’t really get into the technicalities. My posts are usually scurrilous, frequently profane and always catty. I’m a curmudgeonly old man and I call it like I see it. It’s my blog so I can say what I want. Some find it amusing; some wish I’d go away. I’m going to post my thoughts here on the blog. Aside from this one, it won’t take the place of my weekly short story (unless I run out). I’ll just put a menu tab for DWTS.

Dancing With the Stars: Preview

As predictable as a plague of locusts it’s that time of year again. Dancing With The Stars is upon us. Wow. A new season and hardly a star in sight. Used to be they had a few stars but seems it has now devolved into people few have ever heard of, has beens, and people who are known for being known, not anything they may have done. I call it Mysterious Notoriety. An example is Paris Hilton. Or the Kardashians. Why are these people famous? And this year is no exception. They are offering a gallywhumpus of misbegotten misfits and pusillanimous personae. Sadly, the definition of ‘star’ seems to have gone downhill. I always think of the classic definition- movie stars, stage stars, TV stars and music stars. These are few and far between in this crowd. One comic once commented that Dancing with the Stars would be more accurate if called Dancing with the Vaguely Familiar. So true.

I have been tempted to boycott this season after last year’s debacle. It was won by a talentless radio personality from Arkansas. He couldn’t dance a bit but apparently everyone in Arkansas voted for him. I hate when block voting lifts the talentless over better qualified dancers. I keep reminding myself that, regardless of what Len says, it’s not a dance competition, it’s a popularity contest. Thus we end up with anomalies like Bobby Bones or that stumblebum baseball player the year before. When you leave voting in the hands of the public you sometimes get unpleasant results (like Trump). Occasionally there is a break out dancer who just wows everyone and runs away with it. Nyle DiMarco comes to mind. But then, I thought that was happening for Juan Pablo last season. He was killing it until suddenly bumped for some unfathomable reason. Even the judges were pissed.

I’m also annoyed at the departure of Sharna Burgess and Artem (I’m not even going to try his last name). I can understand Sharna. She’s getting older and she has her mirror ball now. Artem said he wanted to come back but was dropped. Why? He was a wonderful dancer and partner. He was a great example of masculinity married to grace. He was one of my favorites.

Over the years DWTS seemed to pull in their celebrities (a better and more accurate word than stars) based on categories. Archetypes even. Such as:

Divas/Icons. These have tended to be bona fide stars. People like Patti Labelle, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, Florence Henderson, Cloris Leachman, George Hamilton, Donny Osmond, Marie Osmond, Valerie Harper, Billy Dee Williams. People we have actually heard of and consider stars. This year we have Mary Wilson. She was a Supreme. And not one of the nine who sit in Washington. She stood behind Diana Ross and said doo wa. Still I consider her the only true star on this year’s show. Maybe Kate Flannery. I’ve never seen The Office. It seems like a lower tier TV show, but what do I know?

NFLers. Emmett Smith, Jerry Rice, Jason Taylor, Warren Sapp. The show always has a few football players. They usually do well. All that stepping inside tires at practice makes them nimble and quick on their feet. Ray Lewis gets the nod this year and an honorable mention for Lamar Odom since he’s basketball. Bballers have not been successful on the show. Too tall.

Boy Band Refugees. Aaron Carter, Nick Carter, Mario Lopez, Joey Fatone, Joey Lawrence, Lance Bass, Drew Lashay, Nick Lashay. It seems all the Backstreet Boys and InSync have been on the show at one time or another. They seem to have cleared out all the boy bands. What about Boyzone and Menudo? Now they have moved on to girl bands – Pussycat Dolls and Fifth Harmony. Nicole Schwerzinger won it running away along with Derek Hough. He could probably win with a potato sack as a partner though. I mean he even got Big Girl from Glee across the finish line. He strangely couldn’t do much with L’il Kim, though. Fifth Harmony’s steatopygian Normani did respectably on the last outing. Ally Brooke will now try. BTW I only recently noticed that Camila Caballo ( of the recently wildly popular “Havana-na-na”) was with Fifth Harmony at one time.

People Seeking Redemption. Paula Deen (no), Kate Gosselin (definitely no), the Kardashians (Kim, nope; Robbie, yes), Li’l Kim (no), Jerry Springer (surprisingly, yes), Ryan Lockte (kinda). This is definitely the place for Sean Spicer. I don’t know who came up with him, but it was actually pretty savvy. People will watch just to see what he does. I have to give him credit for fleeing the Trump madness. I’m predisposed to like him just for that. He seems to be be pretty funny when he’s had a drink or three. Maybe they can let him have a few in the Celebrequarium and he can entertain us with his sparkling repartee. Maybe Sarah Huckabee Sanders next season. She’ll have to learn to wear a dress like a lady and stop fidgeting with her bra strap.

Embarrassments, WTF or Why?. Tom Delay, Steve Wozniak, Redfoo, Macy Gray, David Hassellhoff, Michael Waltrip, Rick Perry, Charo, Kareem Abdul Jabar. This sometimes is a catchall category. Since DWTS has cleared the celebrity B listers and C listers, they are really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Remember the bull rider? Or the rodeo guy who kept calling his partner Miss Whitney. So many times after scratching my head and saying “who?”, my next question is “why?” There are a few this year. Hannah Brown has two claims to ‘fame’. She was on the Bachelorette aka “I can’t find me a man so I need to troll the whole damn country” and was Miss Alabama. Since her state seems to be winning the race with West Virginia to see which can be the most backward state, I wouldn’t brag about it. And Queer Eye guy Karamo. Is he the token homosexual? They’ve taken to being a little more inclusive recently. They also had that Carson guy from Queer Eye and Lance Bass. They even had Chaz Bono to represent transsexuals. I’d like to see them run a transsexual who hasn’t had their parts altered. I mean who DOESN’T want to see RuPaul on DWTS? They had a drag queen on DWTS Australia this year. Christie Brinkley? Okay, everybody knows her so the name recognition is good. She’s rich as God, but all I can tell that she has done is have her picture taken and marry and divorce Billy Joel. But she has also lasted nearly 50 years in the business without saying or doing something so unutterably stupid that the whole world hates her. Not so easy these days. Maybe she’s just really a nice person. Still doesn’t answer why she’s on the show. However, models have rarely done well on the show. Except for the brainless Brooke Burke. They tend to be stiff for whatever reason.

Career Reboot. All the Backstreet Boys, Mario Lopez, Ralph Macchio, Frankie Munez, Vanilla Ice. The bills gotta be paid, you know. This is where I put James van der Beek. The Dawson’s Creek and BH90210 kids have not done well. One died recently, one has been reduced to playing a dad on Riverdale, several have been in and out of rehab. I checked James VDB’s work and found he recently worked on Vampirina. Nuff said. Kel Mitchell may be a ringer. He’s listed as a comedian but has done some TV and movie stuff. In 2011 he was in “Dance Fu”, a kung fu/dance movie. So he’s had some dance experience. Most recently idb says he’s in Spongebob Squarepants. I guess it’s a voice part. The only live action I’ve seen is Spongebob on Ice. Not sure I’d put either on my resume. And Lauren Alaina is listed as a country music star. Well, kinda. She was a runner up on American Idol. But maybe being runner up means she’s good. Like Clay Aiken. I mean, who remembers the guy who beat him? Although another Idol winner took DWTS by storm – NC’s own Kelly Pickler. But she charmed her way to the mirror ball, plus she was a good dancer.

Creepy. Gary Busey wins this category hands down but I think Macy Gray gave him a good chase. Still, Rick Perry’s bromance with Vanilla Ice was the stuff nightmares are made of. As creepy as Bing Crosby singing a Christmas carol with David Bowie.

Kids. Bindi Irwin, Zendaya, Bristol Palin, Milo Manheim, Duck Dynasty swamp girl. Kids usually do well, except NC’s Hayes Grier from a few seasons back. They’re kinda hard to break.

Handicapped People. Linda McCartney (one leg), Marlee Matlin (deaf), Noah Galloway (one leg, one arm), J.R. Martinez (deformed face), Amy Purdy (no feet), Nyle DiMarco (deaf), Danelle (blind), Terra Jole, the midget lady (Poor Sasha was saddled with her. When he first met her the look on his face was priceless. It totally said “OMFG what am I supposed to do with this?)

Olympians. Kristi Yamaguchi, Apolo Ohno, Dorothy Hamill, Charlie White, Meryl Davis, Evan Lysacek (I sense a theme here), Shawn Johnson. Athletes also do well. We call it Dance Sport for a reason.

People We Love Just Because. Jane Seymour, Dawn Welles (Mary Ann on Gilligan’s Island), Bill Engvall, Tommy Chong, Danica McKellar (Winnie on Wonder Years), Niecy Nash (and all her jiggly parts), Susan Lucci, Pamela Sue Anderson. Not any lovable scamps on the new season.

People We Love To Hate Just Because. Nancy Grace, Jerry Springer, Kate Gosselin, Tamar Braxton, Pamela Sue Anderson. Sean Spicer might also fit this category for some.

Singers Who Surprisingly Have No Sense Of Rhythm. Billy Ray Cyrus, Michael Bolton, Master P, Wayne Newton. I have to say I was so surprised.

Heroes. Buzz Aldrin (the man couldn’t dance a lick but he made 11 year old me want to be an astronaut), Noah Galloway, Alek Skarlatos, J.R. Martinez. Everybody loves a hero. I wish we had one to like this season.

People With Funny Accents. Helio Castroneves, Gilles Marini, Victor Espinoza, Cristian de la Fuente, Kelly Pickler, Bindi Irwin.

(Scary factoid: I pulled nearly all the above from off the top of my head. I did need to look up a few last names. I seem to have an alarming amount of my limited brain space devoted to this).

So there you have it. This year’s miscellany of miscreants. Off the top of my head without seeing anything about the contestants I’d say Mary Wilson won’t last long. She’s 75 years old. Ally Brooke, Ray Lewis and Kel Mitchell are my bets to do well. We’ll see. It starts up next week. Get the popcorn ready.

Billy and the Bush Ax

Sorry, I missed posting last week. Life got in the way. Not much to say about this story except that it is true, bizarre as that may seem. It is one of the few stories from my time in college I can tell. Statute of limitations and all that. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Billy and the Bush Ax

(caution: contains underage drinking and partial nudity)

Back in the 1970s I went to college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I’ve heard people speak of their ‘misspent youth’. Mine was definitely not misspent. I had a helluva great time. I came out of my shell and became a hardcore party boy. I raised hell with the best of them and still managed to graduate with honors. You just have to pace yourself.

While at UNC I joined a fraternity. I didn’t come in thinking I would join one; I didn’t really know what they were about. It just kinda happened. Has to be one of my better decisions.

I lived in the fraternity house for 3 years. Now that gave me plenty of stories, most of which I can’t print. Most of the degenerates I hung out with are now pillars of their respective communities, which still boggles the mind.

My fraternity, Delta Tau Delta, was on a little side street in Chapel Hill. We had four fraternities and two sororities in our little two block area (plus a small daycare and a Lutheran Church. Go figure.) Our house, a huge Victorian with a wrap porch was on a corner and faced onto a little street, which connected two of Chapel Hill’s main thoroughfares. To our right was the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. We called them the Lambchops; they were our buddies. Behind our house, facing on a main street were the Tau Epsilon Phi’s, the Teps. We did some service projects and street parties with them. Great guys. Across the street to our left was the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. The Thetas. They looked upon us with the sisterly affection and tolerance one has for a wayward little brother. Diagonally behind us, between the Lambchops and Teps was Kappa Delta sorority. KD. These were the hardcore 70s preppies. You know the kind. All about pink and green, sweaters around their shoulders, adda pearls and lavaliers and way too much makeup. They pretended that the Delts, Teps and Lambchops didn’t exist. The final fraternity in our little neighborhood, across the side street from the Lambchops were the Alpha Tau Omegas, also known as ‘the Enemy’. I’m not sure why the other 3 fraternities and Thetas disliked them so much. The KDs just hated everybody. It could have been because the ATOs were mostly lacrosse players or mostly from New Jersey. My guess is that is was because they were mostly arrogant pricks. But that’s just a guess. It was an established hatred when I came into the fraternity and who am I to buck fraternity traditions?

Directly across the street from us was a Lutheran church. All three years I lived there, I had a room with a window overlooking the church. When that bell started ringing at the crack of eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning, it could be sheer hell. I, like most of my compatriots, was usually a hungover mess on Sunday mornings. More than once I cursed that blasted bell. And if you stood in my window and looked closely, you could just see the red and green fletching of two of our darts sticking in the wooden statue of Mary on their second floor.

The Delts, Lambchops, Teps and Thetas got along fine. We did things like the aforementioned service projects and street parties together. The Thetas would call on the guys if something needed fixing or if a girl needed an escort after dark. Their pledges made us chocolate chip cookies, our pledges cleaned their house, we booby trapped their door with saran wrap or a pyramid of beer cans. That kind of thing. The KDs had their noses in the air and were above it all. The ATOs just grunted and scratched their genitals.

One of my favorite brothers was Billy. We roomed together my junior year. He was full of life and a boundless source of energy, fun and stupidity. If there was a bad decision to be made, he had probably already made it. Like the time he was at a local bar and, in his words, “this short dude on crutches was mouthing off at me.” He said, “I figured, you’re short and on crutches. You don’t need to be mouthing off at people. That’s probably why you’re on crutches.” So the guy keeps it up and Billy finally has enough and pops the guy in the jaw. It turned out the guy was on the UNC football team. The rest of the team was in the bar. The night did not end well for Billy. The other brothers and the townies joined in a general brawl. Some of the brothers managed to grab Billy and drag him out while the team was busy with the townies. Such a character, just fun to be with. But not at a bar with the football team.

Billy had a special hatred for the ATOs. It stemmed back to a time he got a black eye when hit in the face with a snowball thrown by an ATO. There was a rock in the center of the snowball. He was ready to brawl but we held him back. But the seed of enmity was sown.

I believe it was just before school started in 1977, maybe ’78. We had arrived early to work on the house. There were grouting guns and putty knives and other implements of mass construction laying about. We also had several large slabs of sheetrock propped up against the wall in the hallway to replace the wall in a bedroom. There were a couple of rocking chairs and a sofa on our porch. We liked to sit there on afternoons, drinking beer, rating the girls who walked by. Well, one morning we found that one of the rocking chairs was missing. Billy immediately said, “It was the ATOs. Let’s go get ‘em.”

Our president was more prudent. First he asked the Lambchops, Teps and Thetas if they had seen anything. No one had. He talked with the ATOs but they claimed to know nothing. Billy just ‘knew’ they were lying.

A day or so later we awoke to find our sofa missing from the porch. We were pissed, but Billy was livid. He said our honor was besmirched. Our president once again asked around with the same results. Billy wanted to force our way into the ATO house and search it. Our president counseled against starting a war. Billy could not be mollified. It was a matter of honor. He was a volcano ready to explode.

I’m not sure if it was the following night or later, but Billy and I sat up drinking, as we were wont to do. At some point, after many beers, he became convinced the ATOs were going to come that night and steal the remaining chair. I reminded him we had moved it indoors for safe keeping. Not good enough. He had a plan. He went downstairs and put the rocking chair back on the front porch as ‘bait’. He was going to wait and catch them in the act. He was kind of fuzzy on what was to happen then. He decided he needed a weapon to protect himself. He went looking through our garden tools. He came upon an old bush ax. If you are unfamiliar with the tool, it was a wooden handle about four feet long to which was attached a two foot single edge blade. Kind of like a machete on a stick. It is used mainly for clearing ditches of undergrowth. I should have been concerned that he had picked up such a deadly weapon, but I refer you back to the beers mentioned above. I went to bed. The rest I pieced together from various witnesses.

Billy came down to the living room near the front door to wait. He brought a sheet to wrap up in and he was wearing his usual sleeping attire – his tighty whities. However, these were no longer tighty, nor very whitey. I can attest that these had seen better days. But, he rolled up in the sheet on the sofa and laid in wait.

Meanwhile, another brother, Bubba, had scored a date with a Theta. He and the Theta had come back from a club and Mick asked them up to his room to share a joint before Bubba walked her home. Now, Mick was a big guy, about six feet tall, three feet wide, mostly muscle and at this point, already three sheets to the wind. Bubba was talking about his summer job selling Bibles door to door. He was bragging about how he could go into poor areas and convince people who had virtually no money to shell out what they had for a Bible. The Theta exclaimed that it was despicable and how could he and that he was awful. That kind of thing. She stormed out, down a flight of stairs, clip, clip, clip, a 180, down the hall and out the front door. Bubba was hot on her heels, down a flight of stairs, clop, clop, clop, a 180, down the hall and out the front door, apologizing all the way. Mick, barely cognizant at this point, figures they’re all going somewhere. So he went down a flight of stairs, clump, clump, trip, tumble, tumble, crash into a pile at the foot of the stairs. The old adage that God looks after drunks proved true. Giggling, Mick sat up, and grabbed the sheetrock leaning against the wall to pull himself up. He overbalanced it and the slabs of sheetrock propped against the wall fell over. Luckily it missed Mick. But the crash was loud and shook the entire house.

This finally woke Billy who was lying in wait in the living room. He leaped to his feet shouting “ATOs!” He raced to the front door waving his bush ax in the air with his war cry. As he reached the front door, it opened and the Theta ran in to see what the noise was. She ran headlong into Billy, nearly naked in his not so tighty whities, murder in his eyes, waving a bush ax and whooping. She screamed, turn and ran from the house, knocking down Bubba in the process. Billy also screamed and ran the other way. He tripped on Mick who was lying on the floor giggling. He went airborne and did a belly flop beyond the pile of sheetrock. The bush ax flew from his hand, skidded along the floor and buried its point in the back door. Billy apparently decided the tile floor was comfortable because he just laid there, passed out.

A few moments later, Dan and Jeannie were coming back from a date. They tried to come in the back door but Dan had to push mightily to get it to open. Once inside, he found a bush ax stuck in the door. Looking up he saw Billy laid out on the floor, his underpants slipped down showing half his butt, a pile of fallen sheetrock, Mick laying on the floor giggling and Bubba standing at the front door, bent over laughing his ass off.

The next morning there were two very hungover brothers feeling a bit sheepish. The other rocking chair was gone. But the sofa was back. And the Theta was never seen at our house again.

Whatever Happened to Denny Blue?

This story was very hard to write and will probably be hard to read. It deals with one of the greatest evils of any time, child prostitution. I’m sure that like others, I’ll turn a blind eye to may evils, but this is the lowest form of depredation mankind has every found, and we are pretty good at plumbing the depths of evil.

It picks up shortly after “It Happened Like This”. In that story Joey mentioned a friend named Denny. As the title suggests, this is about what happened to Denny. Some of it may sound fantastical. But do a little research. Everything I put in this story is actually going on today. As I said above, human evil knows no bounds. Sorry to end your week with a downer. I’ll post something lighter next week.

Whatever Happened to Denny Blue?

We’ve been staying with the Contessa for about a month now. I’ve been thinking it’s time to start looking for our own place but she keeps saying she “won’t hear of it”. She says she gets lonely rattling around her big palazzo all alone. Hardly alone. Besides all the servants she is continually entertaining luminaries and glitterati from all over the world. But she says we are her family now. I guess there are worse things. We do love her. It’s hard to believe that just a month ago I was living in a New York fire hazard and on the run for my life. Suddenly “inheriting” a mob boss’ retirement fund has a way of changing your life. The “we” in this equation is Brandon and me, Joey. He’s like my brother. I love him dearly. But do we split up and buy separate mansions now that we’re rich? I’d hate to lose him after all these years together. Well, only three years, but they were special. He’s all the family I have. I guess staying with the Contessa allows me to avoid that question.

The palazzo on the outskirts of Florence is so huge I believe my old neighborhood in New York City would fit inside it. And she is always entertaining someone you’ve seen in a magazine or on tv somewhere. Today we had a luncheon with Sheik Jahar al something. He’s headed back to Abu Dhabi after a meeting in Zurich where they tried to raise oil prices again. So, he stopped in for a few days. The Contessa is right when she says, “the Contessa knows everyone”.

The Sheik was a well-preserved middle-aged man. Somewhat handsome in a dark way. Not my type, but whatever. I was surprised to find him in a business suit rather than robes and a towel on his head. Is that racist? I don’t mean to be. I just don’t know what they call it. And every important Arab I’ve seen on tv is usually dressed like that. But he was totally Western. Intelligent, well informed, spoke with a bit of an English accent.

After lunch I was headed back to my rooms. The Contessa and Sheik were off to some museum. Brandy was doing whatever it is he does this time of day. As I made the long trek I had to pass by the ‘Lagoon’. This is a central atrium with a large koi pond. It’s open air but since it is protected on all sides it is usually very warm. There is also special heating if it becomes necessary. The Lagoon is filled with tropical plants – hibiscus, flowering ginger, gardenia, liana, even palms. And of course, lily pads. It is a little paradise right inside our home. The flora is thick and there are benches and chaises in little cleared areas. It is one of my favorite places in the palazzo. I had already wasted several entire afternoons drowsing in the sunshine in my month here.

As I was passing I noticed someone sitting on the low wall by the waterside trailing his hand in the water. It looked like a young man but I couldn’t be sure with all the plants in the way. I decided to check it out.

As I approached he was looking the other way, apparently lost in thought. His head was covered in thick, lustrous yellow gold hair, not quite shoulder length. He had on what looked like silk long gym pants and a very brief vest.

“Hi,” I said, hoping not to startle him too badly. I was not prepared for his reaction, though. He immediately dropped to the floor in a kneeling position and pressed his forehead to the ground. WFT?

“Um, you can get up.” No reaction.

“Look at me.” He raised his head but stared steadfast at my knees. That’s when I got my second shock.

“Denny?”

He visibly started, but then said in a soft voice.
“That person is no more. I am Abdur of the house of Sheik Jahar al Said bin Hassan.”

“Denny! It is you. What the fuck? We all thought you were dead. What happened? I heard the Dutchman got you.” I would recognize that golden hair and those soft blue eyes anywhere. How the hell did Denny get here? And why was he with the Sheik?

I guess a little background is in order. Before I worked for Tip in New York (another story for another time) I was on the street. Literally. And I was a kid. I was about 15 when I met Denny. He supposed he was the same age but wasn’t sure. You don’t have friends on the street. Just people you distrust a little less than other people. But Denny and I seemed drawn to each other and became best of friends. I remember that cold winter we lived in a box behind a dumpster on the lower East Side. We wrapped up in every piece of clothing we could find or steal and held each other to share body heat. We literally didn’t know if we would wake up in the mornings. We survived by pan handling, shop lifting, dumpster diving, selling cans, occasionally doing odd jobs, lurking around the backs of restaurants for leftovers, and when necessary, selling ourselves to lecherous guys looking to get off. That’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s just a fact. If it sounds like a hard, unpleasant life, well, yeah. But I found over that winter that it was better than what Denny had come from; far better.

I learned Denny’s story over time. He told me pieces stoically, totally without emotion. I was the one who always cried. I was appalled that level of depredation existed. His mother was a teenage crack whore, no more than 14 or 15 when he was born. She had no business even being near a baby, much less having one. He was born in a crackhouse, midwived by hookers. His mother always reminded him of what a burden he was, that he was the result of a defective condom and not enough money to afford an abortion. Her pimp knew that blows to the body can cause a miscarriage so he beat Denny’s mother badly several times, but Denny stubbornly refused to abort. The pimp made her breast feed the infant to keep her milk flowing. It made her breasts larger and some of the clients would pay extra to breast feed from a whore. Other than that, he was mostly neglected. The other hookers took more care of him than his mother, but they were a transient lot. She made him call her Carol, because ‘mom’ made her sound old. She never mentioned a last name. He eventually called himself Denny Blue because it was his favorite color. He never had medical care, never went to any kind of school.

By some miracle he survived and by the time he was five he was a feral child, like a wild animal. Then things changed. As Denny told it, “I don’t remember much about my early life. I guess it’s probably better that way. I didn’t have much language. I never needed it. No one talked to me and if I said anything I usually got hit. So I just zoned out. When I was about 8 though, Uncle Alvin came into my life.”

“Uncle Alvin was Carol’s new pimp. Her old one got cut and died. Uncle Alvin was good to me. At first. He talked to me, got me new clothes that fit, made sure I had food to eat. I got real attached to him. Then he taught me about blowjobs. I’d been around sex stuff all my life so it didn’t seem unusual to me. He was so nice to me that I wanted to do what he said. I didn’t like it too much when he started bringing other guys around, but he petted me and said I was a good boy.” It took a while for me to get this much of his story. And what he did tell, it was so emotionless and without affect. It was almost spooky. Like he wasn’t even there, just observing from afar. After all my years on the street, it took a lot to get to me but this did. An eight-year old being forced to give blowjobs? I didn’t think anyone could get any lower than that. I was so wrong.

“When I was about 10 or so, I came home one day and found Carol dead, with a needle laying beside her. She was only about 24. Uncle Alvin said it was a pity and then he tossed her body in an alley. He said now that Carol wasn’t here to make money it was up to me. He wanted me to be a full service whore. I knew enough to know what he wanted. I said I wouldn’t. He told me I didn’t have any say in the matter. I screamed and cried every time he sold my ‘virgin ass’. He said that was good because it made the john believe I was really a virgin.”

Besides being evil the pimp had a mean streak and began beating Denny. He had always slapped Carol around but not Denny. But that had changed. He was always careful to avoid Denny’s face because he didn’t want to mess up his beauty. One night while particularly mean and drunk Uncle Alvin grabbed a kitchen knife and said he was going to “cut up that pretty face”. Denny grabbed a chair and broke it over the pimp’s head. It was a cheap chair and broke into pieces. But it was enough to stun him. Denny fled out the door and never looked back. He’d been on the street since he was 12.

I was always amazed at his peculiar stoicism. I guess it was the only way he knew how to survive. Just cut off all emotion. In the two years we ran together I only ever saw him show any emotion just once. One evening he crawled over me into our box. I could tell by the streetlight that his face was bruised. He said he’d been beaten by a john. That was an occupational hazard but that night it really got to him. I instinctively put my arms around him to give him comfort. After a few moments I felt a wetness on my shoulder and realized he was silently crying. I just held him tighter and began stroking his hair and crooning “it’s okay, baby, it’s okay”. That opened the flood gates and he began sobbing; huge, gut wrenching sobs as if his heart was breaking. I guess he was venting the pent up despair of 15 years. I just held on till he was done. It took a while.

Then, one evening he didn’t show up. I looked at all our regular places but there was no sign of him. Soon, I heard the rumor that the Dutchman had been seen in the area and had grabbed a blonde kid. The Dutchman was the local boogie man that the street kids told tales about to scare each other. He was also a very real child predator. No one knew what he did with the kids he took but no one he grabbed ever returned. It was common on the streets to hear kids say “watch out for the Dutchman.” It wasn’t long before I had to conclude that the Dutchman had taken Denny. The kid couldn’t seem to catch a break. All this went through my head in about half a second while I stared dumbstruck at Denny.

He finally looked up at me and said, “Hi, Joey.”

I plopped down on the low wall and grabbed both his hands. “Denny, you’re alive! I was sure you were dead.”

“No. I’m okay. I probably shouldn’t be talking to you, though. I might get in trouble. Master has eyes everywhere.”

“Master?” That didn’t sound good.

“I’m a household servant of the Sheik. I should go.” He made to get up. I refused to let go of his hands.

“Denny, don’t go. We’re about as secluded as you can get. No one will see. Talk to me. What’s going on? What are you doing here? We really thought the Dutchman got you.”

“I’m not sure where ‘here’ is. Master said we were going on a trip.”

“We’re in Florence.” He looked puzzled. “Italy,” I added.

“That’s in Europe, right? I never had no schooling.”

“Yes, and how did you get here.”

He lowered his eyes and his voice got softer. I saw the old, stoic Denny appearing.

“I did get caught by the Dutchman. It was pretty awful. I was talking to a john, but getting a funny vibe from him. He wanted me to get in the back of his van to do him. I suddenly felt like I didn’t want to be in that van. I tried to bolt but he grabbed me. I got in a few good blows before the van door flew open and I was dragged in. They zip tied me and put a bag over my head. I felt a sting on my arm so I think they shot me up with something. You probably don’t really want to hear the rest. It’s pretty bad.”

“Denny, we’ve always shared everything. You know I care about you. You can tell me.”

He fixed me with his emotionless stare. That alone was frightening. “I woke up in a cage in a warehouse somewhere. There were ten of us. five girls and five boys. The age range was about 12 to 16 I figured. I was pretty sure I was the oldest. The girls were in one cage and we boys were in another. Most of the girls were crying but the boys were just huddled together looking scared.

“His face flushed a bit and his breathing became shallower, but he paused a few moments and got himself back under control. “I really don’t like to talk about it.”

“That’s okay, you don’t have to. I’m just so glad to see you alive and looking so well. That’s enough for me.”

“No, you said you wanted to hear it all. I think you need to.” After a pause he continued, “A real ugly guy came in later and talked to us. He said he was Van Hoek, who we call the Dutchman. He said we were now his property. If we cooperated we would be well, if we did not it would be ‘unpleasant’. We were taken out of our cages and walked to another room. We were stripped and washed with hoses. We were put back in the cages but with only a blanket each, no clothes.

“Van Hoek came back in with a couple of his men talking about us like animals. He didn’t seem to care if we heard what was to become of us. I guess he wanted to keep us scared. He was saying that he had an order from somebody named Marco who need two girls and a boy for a snuff film. He pointed to two of the girls and said they were too ugly to be good whores so he’d send them. His men took them out of the cage and led them away. When they came back he came over to our cage. After a moment he told his men to take the redhead. They pulled out this kid, he couldn’t have been more than twelve and took him away. You know what a snuff film is, don’t you, Joey?”

“Yeah, they torture and kill them on camera. That’s so sick.”

“Well, the Dutchman was a sick fuck. At the far end of the room was a metal table. The Dutchman’s men took one of the boys, a sweet looking black haired kid and led him to the table. He started to fight when he saw the tie downs on the table. The men strapped him down in a spread eagle position with another strap across his waist. The so-called doctor lifted the boy’s prick and taped it to his stomach. Then reaching between the boy’s stretched legs he sliced through the little piece of skin that held his balls to his body. The boy was screaming like crazy. The doctor just packed a lot of wads of bandages between his legs, they unstrapped him and put an adult diaper on him to hold the cotton in place and brought him back to the cage. We were scared to death. One by one they did us all, cut our fucking balls off without any painkiller. When we were done, they set about getting rid of the other three girls.

“All of us in that room were from the streets so won’t none of us virgins, but it was still rape what they did to those girls. Whenever they felt like it some of his men would come in and grab a girl, take her over to a mattress in the corner and fuck her. I guess we were lucky none of them liked boys. I guess it don’t really matter ‘cause they were going to a couple of whorehouses down in Jersey that had young girls who ‘like it rough’.

“In a couple of days I could unbend from my balled up position but it still hurt. The black haired boy’s wound turned bad. He got real sick. The doctor decided it would be too much trouble to keep him so he told his men to ‘dispose of him’.” A single tear slid down Denny’s cheek. He angrily brushed it away.

“Besides me there was another blonde and a very young brown haired boy, probably 13. The Dutchman said he was shipping him to a warlord somewhere. One of his men said it was his third order this year. The Dutchman said Ratso liked to play rough. His boys didn’t last very long. He said we final two were going to Africa and the Middle East. Because of our blonde hair we would be very valuable as house slaves. Having a blonde servant is a very high status symbol in their cultures. I ended up in the Sheik’s house.”

“Wow,” I said, rather stupidly. “So you are a slave? Isn’t that, like, illegal?”

“It is very real where I live. I don’t know about anywhere else.”

“So you what, scrub floors, pick cotton?”

“Joey, don’t be stupid. He uses me for sex.” Now this was just getting too weird.

“I thought that was just made up for porno movies and stuff. People don’t really do that.”

“You’re dumb if you think that. Sex is big business in my country. I was trained for several weeks before I came to Master. It was a very painful time I try not to remember. My master has six wives and ten concubines. I am a concubine, but they call me a body servant. When allowed, I bathe and dress the master as well as attend him in bed. My duties are light. He mainly prefers women.”

“But, Denny. That’s just so wrong. This is the twenty-first century. No one should be a slave, especially a sex slave. Can’t you see that?”

“You never did tell me how you got here,” he quickly changed the subject. “Last time I saw you we were sharing a box in an alley.”

“A lot can happen in four years. In my case a pimp inadvertently left me twenty-three million dollars.”

“No.”

“Yes. I’m rich. Crazy, huh? Hey, that’s it. I can buy you from the Sheik. You can be free. I don’t care what it costs, I can afford it. I’m sure the Contessa will help me convince the Sheik.”

“No, Joey. Stop.”

“What?” I thought it was a great idea.

“Let it be. What would I do if you freed me? Live off you for the rest of my life? I have only one real skill and it’s not talked about in polite company. I can’t even read. I would probably end up where I was a few years ago, cold, hungry and on the street. Forced to have sex with strangers, risking Allah knows what dangers at every turn. My master cares about me and cares for me. I am a member of his house. I have family. He never beats us and he has promised to never sell me. When he dies I will be freed with a pension and a residence on his estate.”

“But it’s wrong. He forces you to have sex. That’s rape.”

“You weren’t so concerned with the niceties of it four years ago when it was your legs up in the air,” he said. “The will to survive forced you to have sex just as surely as my master forces me. And besides, I love my master. He is good to me. He likes to have me serve wine at his banquets so everyone can see what a beautiful body slave he has. If some important guy seems interested, Master will sometimes offer to let him have me for the night. He also allows his younger sons access to me to keep them away from respectable girls. Both of them are quite hot. You’d do them in a heartbeat. So it’s not all bad. Except for that night in our box when you put your arms around me, I had never had anyone show me they cared. Never. In my master’s house I am loved. People care about me. Can you imaging being cold all your life and then suddenly finding a blanket? It works for me. And I am picking up some skills. I am fluent in Arabic and am beginning to learn to read it. I’m learning to make friends and trust people. That’s a major thing for me. For the first time in my entire life I feel…safe,” it took him a moment to find the word. “And that’s as close to happy as I can probably ever get.”

I wanted to argue it with him. I wanted to tell him about Stockholm Syndrome. No matter how you dress it up, slavery is wrong. But he was also one of the best friends I had ever had. I had loved him then and I love him now. So I hugged him and kissed him and said maybe we’d get a chance to see each other again before he left.

“I doubt it,” he said. “I’m not supposed to mingle with freemen.” Once again, I gritted my teeth. But I did have a germ of an idea. I talked with the Contessa about it. Of course she was in from the word go because she loves a good conspiracy. She made the pitch to the Sheik who was only too happy to do what he could to please his hostess.

So, two nights after my encounter with Denny there was a soft scratch at my bedroom door.

“Come,” I called.

Without looking up, the young man slipped in, knelt on the floor and said, “his excellency Jahar al Said bin Hassan would like to offer you my services tonight, Master.”

“Wonderful,” I said happily. His head jerked up.

“You!”

“Yes, you said the Sheik sometimes lends you out, so I decided to get in on a good deal.” Denny’s face was turning red. I hoped he didn’t think I was making fun of what he is.

“Don’t worry. I just want you to lie in bed like we used to do in our box, and talk and giggle and just be young. Think you can do that?”

“Of course, Master. Your wish is my command.” And Denny actually smiled.

Denny was gone when I awoke. The Sheik and his entourage left that evening. I don’t know if I’ll ever see Denny again, but, hey, I’m rich. I may find myself travelling near the Middle East someday. Why not drop in on my old friend Sheik Jahar. As a visiting dignitary I might even get the services of that cute blonde boy.

Kenjo on Guard

In mid-September last year and hurricane was headed for North Carolina. We decided to head west to visit relatives in Tennessee to avoid the storm. While there I was working on Manitou. One afternoon I became frustrated when I realized I would have to trash part of the story and start over. I closed the file to cool off. Once settled, I opened a new window and wrote the following little puff piece. It is short and some may think silly, but I like it. And that’s what counts.

Kenjo On Guard

Leader is home. I recognize the rumble I always hear just before he comes in. I race to the door he always uses. I always miss him when he goes away. He enters saying, “Down, Kenjo.” He knows I want to jump up and lick him to show how glad I am he’s home. Not-Leader is with him. The three of us are pack. She has not been here for a few days and I was concerned about our pack. For as long as I can remember we have had a routine. Most days Leader and Not-Leader leave every morning and return every evening. I stay outside and guard the den. Every sixth and seventh day the routine is gone. Both are in the den most of the time and I get lots of attention. I like that. Sometimes we take trips. I especially love trips. Except to the place where they pour water over me. Sometimes instead I have to go stay at a place with other people like me for a few days. Maybe I was bad. I don’t know.

I am very glad that Not-Leader has returned. She feeds me more often than Leader and frequently slips me treats. I immediately notice she has something in her arms. I also detect a new, unusual smell. Leader takes the bundle and kneels down. I come forward to smell the bundle.

“Kenjo. This is Billy. Protect,” says Leader. I look at the bundle and see a very small person, not a person like me, but a person like Leader. We seem to have a new pack member. Since Leader said ‘protect’ I know the new person is one of us. I lick the little one’s face. He makes a gurgling noise. It seems to please Leader and Not-Leader. His smell and taste is like a mixture of my other two pack members. I like that.

I follow as they take the new one to a room that is rarely used. They have a raised crate similar to the one I had to sleep in when I first came to the pack. I am confident that once he knows the house rules Leader will let him out to run and play.

Later that night Leader and Not-Leader go to their sleeping place. I usually sleep at their feet but not tonight. I hear Not-Leader ask Leader “Where’s Kenjo?” “I don’t know,” he replies. I am not in my usual place. I have to check that the little one is safe before I can sleep.

Standing in the little one’s room I am not satisfied with how things are arranged. Leader and Not-Leader are frequently oblivious to all the dangers surrounding us. They rely on me to protect them. So, I lie down between the crate and the door. No one gets to the little one without going past me first. Don’t worry, little pack mate. Kenjo is on guard. As long as I breathe, I will protect.

Schizophrenogenic

Once again, this is mostly memoir. I’ve changed the names and rearranged a few things to protect the guilty. I realize upon re-reading it that I might come off as a person who dislikes women. Not at all. I really like women. It’s just that I’ve been burned a few times. Refer back to the Charlie Manson reference in Sharing Christmas.

In case you haven’t heard the term before, schizophrenogenic basically means ‘crazy making’. I think the title is apt for this memory.

Schizophrenogenic

“If I live to be a thousand years old I’ll never understand women.” I heard my father say this time and again growing up. In my life I have found this to be so true. I know all the men are from Mars, women are from Venus crap, but we’re all the same species. We should be able to communicate. It’s like we speak the same language with different words. It would just be nice if I knew what the heck was going on in their heads.

A case in point – Miranda. Back when I was between wives I got a little lonely. My job consumed a large amount of my time and I wasn’t meeting women. I got depressed and looked at the Independent personals. It was a big thing at the time. After a few weeks I found one message that seemed relatively sane and it seemed we had some things in common. I left her a message and in short order she replied and we set up a date. On the day of the date she cancelled, complaining of a migraine. I have had migraines and understood. So, I figured she either was blowing me off or really sick. The fact that she offered to reschedule made me go with the latter. As the time for our rescheduled date approached she called and said she had found someone and couldn’t go out with me. Okay, I understand. But she said she had a friend who was looking and she had passed my number along to her. She hoped I didn’t mind. Actually, I did mind. I minded a whole lot. I wasn’t into being called up by some random woman. But since it was a done deal I just told her it was fine.

A day or so later the friend, Miranda, called. It seemed we had similar types of work; both in human services. We were both mid-thirties and single. Aside from also both being homo sapiens there didn’t seem to be many more commonalities. We decided to give it a try and made a date to see a movie. She recommended “The Piano”, a kind of artsy film. I’m not an artsy film kind of guy, but what the heck. Well, it was probably one of the worst films I have ever seen. I don’t mean “Plan 9 from Outer Space” or “Attack of the B Movie Bimbos” bad. Those movies are so bad, they’re good. This movie had good production values and decent acting. It was just an awful movie. Most of it was so dark you had trouble seeing what was going on. After the mean husband got killed everyone dressed in white and all the windows were open and you could actually see what was happening. Why not just hit me over the head with symbolism? We took a walk and talked about the movie. She wanted to see it as a deep artistic statement but eventually agreed that it was really a dreadful movie. Now we had something else in common.

So, we continued seeing each other. I discovered that she liked dancing. Seeing as I’m an accomplished dancer, this was a real plus. We went to a number of dances. She was a fairly good swing dancer and could do some ballroom. That should have cinched it, but it didn’t. The whole thing was just missing that spark, that special chemistry when two compatible people find each other. I eventually invited her over to my apartment for dinner. I’m a good cook and she was impressed. She returned the favor and invited me over for dinner. As we ate she served wine. After the first glass she offered me more. I declined saying I had to drive. She countered that I could always stay the night. Whoa, whoa, whoa. When did we get here? Whether she was talking about hooking up or just sleeping on the sofa, I was in no way ready to be here. I gracefully declined by saying I didn’t usually drink more than one glass. It’s true. I’m a cheap drunk.

During this time, I had been going to a local country western club and learning to two step. I was getting good at it and had developed a cadre of partners, or since it was a country-western club I guess that would be a posse. One Sunday night a new lady asked me to dance. This wasn’t exactly unusual. She said she had seen me tapping my foot in time to the music and took that as a good sign that I could dance. Or at least had rhythm. Her name was Lena and she did exceptionally well in the swing. We followed up with a two step. Also very good. I noted that I needed to remember to add her to my list of regular partners. As she was coming down the floor with another dancer I looked at her to be sure I memorized her face. As I was watching, her partner said something amusing. She smiled and her face just lit up. It nearly glowed like an old Renaissance painting. Very nice.

Still unsure how to proceed with Miranda, I did what most men do. I procrastinated. I called her up one week and said I was going two stepping on Saturday night, did she want to go. I phrased it that way because that’s what I was planning to do, she could come or not. She replied that she didn’t care for country music. I just said that was unfortunate, maybe we could do something the next week. I would call her.

Saturday night I was at the nightclub and found a number of my friends to dance with. Lena also showed up. She decided to sit at a table with me. We both danced with a variety of people, but danced together a number of times also. I found I truly enjoyed dancing with her.

About an hour after I got there, in walked Miranda on the arm of John, a guy I kind of knew, peripherally. And she was all dolled up. Hmm, I thought. That’s interesting. She proceeded to ignore me for the next couple of hours. Okay, I can deal with that. Then they left. What was that all about, I wondered.

The next day, around noon, I got a call from Miranda. She demanded to know who was “that woman” I was “all over” last night. Okay, first, I wasn’t all over her. Second, who was with whom? She redirected any mention of John back to me and why I danced with “that woman” all night. I saw this was going nowhere so decided it was time to pull the plug. I told her I was sorry she felt that way and that I hoped we could always be friends. That did not go over well. At all. But as I hung up I felt a bit relieved. Problem solved, bullet dodged. But speaking of schizophrenogenic, what the hell was that all about?

As kind of an odd coda, John and I became closer friends. He later told me she had called him and asked him to take her to the club. He had no idea why. By the time we were friends, he was steadily dating Betty. One night John and Betty and Lena (who I was dating by this time) and I were sitting together at a dance. In walked Miranda, alone. She came over, sat down at our table and proceeded to stare at us. Discretion always being the better part of valor, I decided it was time for Lena and I to dance. As I hit the floor I noticed John and Betty right behind us. After a couple of dances we skulked back to our table. Miranda had moved on.

Miranda finally found Phil and they became serious. I would see them at dances and finally decided that us avoiding each other was just ridiculous. So I asked her to dance. We made nice with each other. Once the tension was gone, we found we got along. I married Lena and last I heard Miranda had married Phil. I’m happy for them. She found a good man, and they dated long enough for him to know what he was getting into. But looking back at that time of my life I still have one question: what the heck was going on?

A Love Story

Growing up I frequently heard my parents speak of meeting when they were young but I never knew much else. I usually ignored what I considered “mushy stuff” when I was a kid. During the last few months of his life I had the good fortune of spending a lot of time with my Dad. He told me about their meeting and courtship. It was always his favorite subject. Putting it together with what Mom told me and other sources I feel I have a good feeling for how it went. It was such a neat story I wanted to record it.

As a sad sort of coda, after Dad died I found a bundle of letters that Mom wrote to him during the first few months of basic training. I don’t know why these letters survived and none others. At first, I didn’t know what to do with them. Should I read them? They were private correspondence. I finally decided that since they were both deceased, it was okay to read them. I’m glad I did. I got a picture of my parents that I never saw. They were starry-eyed kids, so much in love. They never lost their love, but it settled down with time. But the letters spoke of the bright kind of love between a man and woman just a few months married, both still thrilled with each other and cruelly torn apart. And there were some passages that made me blush. I even found a discussion of possible names for “junior” if there ever was one. I also found bits of family gossip that I never knew. It was definitely interesting reading.

But now, the main event. The Courtship of Mary and Alton.

A Love Story

In late 1952, eighteen-year-old high school senior Mary Reid wanted to have a Christmas party. Problem was all the Saturday nights in December before Christmas were already scheduled. So, she decided to have the party after Christmas, on December 27. Her friends told her she was crazy to schedule a party then. So close to Christmas everyone would be doing family things. But Mary was stubborn. She stuck with her plan. Saturday evening came and a few friends stopped in. Then a few more showed up. Then more and more. Soon the house was filled with people. A friend told Mary he was so glad she decided to have a party because he was sick of family gatherings.

Mary Reid at 19

Later in the evening, Mary’s frenemy, Edith, showed up with her new boyfriend, 22-year-old Alton Bass. The six-foot tall, handsome blond-haired blue-eyed farm boy caught every girl’s eye. He was quite a catch. He said later that he felt an instant connection with the party hostess. Within a few days Alton had broken up with Edith and paid a call on Mary. She was thrilled to be asked out by such a handsome boy, with a car, and making Edith mad was a bonus. Soon Alton had a date with Mary every weekend. He also came by frequently in the evenings after his farm chores were done. He would play cards and board games with Mary’s brothers while she finished her schoolwork. Father Reid said no courting until that was done. Alton had no brothers but three of Mary’s five brothers lived at home. They readily adopted Alton and made him part of the family.

Alton a week before the wedding.

Winter turned to spring and in June, Mary graduated from high school. She wasn’t ready to settle down and wanted to try life in a big city. She moved to the state capital, Raleigh, an hour away, found a job and boarding house and settled in. Alton was not happy about this. He was in love with petite blonde Mary. He continued seeing her. He would drive the hour to the city twice every weekend. He said he became very familiar with all the back roads. He ran off the road more than once while falling asleep at the wheel in the wee hours of the morning. He said his car only had two speeds – high and fly. He never got caught by the police, although he outran a patrol car one night.

This wasn’t working out. He was crazy about the girl so Alton asked Mary to marry him. She readily accepted. Since they had met in December they decided on a December wedding. They were married December 18, 1953 and settled down to farm life. They were in love and everything was idyllic. Then Uncle Sam called. Alton was notified in March, just three months wed, that he was needed for the peacekeeping in Korea. The country had been partitioned in the ceasefire just a month before Mary and Alton were married. No one knew if the peace would last.

Mary was frantic. Mother Mollie and father Lloyd Bass were also concerned for their son’s safety and the fact that he was their only son, and was their sole support as the one who worked the farm. The officials they spoke with assured them that Alton would be dismissed from service for “hardship” on his family. The paperwork was applied and the hearing came. A county official had to make the decision. This was a woman who for some reason did not like Mollie Bass. I have never heard my grandmother speak ill of another person except this woman. Mollie said “she dressed and acted like a man and was so ugly no man would have her.” The woman said Alton should not shirk his duty and refused to dismiss him. He entered the Army on May 18, 1954. Mary went to live with Alton’s family. She said in her letters that she cried herself to sleep every night.

Alton eventually was relieved of serving in the former combat area because he was the sole support of a farm family. By the fall, he was stationed in Japan. I have copies of some of the pictures he and Mary exchanged during the long separation. I have a picture of him lying beside a pool referring to himself as a “bathing beauty”. Another shows Mary in her Easter outfit with a note “The wind nearly took me away.”

Mary decided she did not like living on the Bass farm. She wanted to go to work. She moved back to Raleigh, got her old job back and moved into an apartment with a friend. I have a picture cut from the newspaper that shows her as the “girl flashing the big smile” as she is mailing drivers license renewal forms from the Department of Motor Vehicles in 1955.

In February 1956 Alton was told his enlistment was coming to an end. The Sergeant encouraged him to apply to Officer’s Training School and become career military. He said “I just want to go home and see my wife.”

The night before his ship left Japan Alton’s friends took him to a local tavern to celebrate. Some Navy men came in and as nearly always happened when Army and Navy mixed, a brawl broke out. Alton’s friends told him that if the MPs got him he’d be in the brig and miss his ship. They drug him to a back room and literally threw him out the window. He made his ship and spent 2 weeks sailing across the Pacific. I have pictures he took as they passed under the Golden Gate Bridge with all the soldiers waving their hats in the air and cheering. They had three days in San Francisco until air transport was available. Alton and two friends went to a café. Their waitress was blonde, pretty and flirty. She eventually became a bit suspicious of the three young men staring at her. When she cautiously approached their table one of Alton’s friends said, “Excuse us, ma’am, but you’re the first white woman we’ve seen in two years.” She smiled and turned on the charm. She got a big tip.

The soldiers’ air transport first landed in Cheyenne, Wyoming. It was 20 degrees below zero and the men only had their tropical uniforms on as they had to hustle across the runway. Alton said the hangar seemed miles away.

Plane and bus and eventually in early March Alton stepped off the bus in Raleigh, NC. Mary was waiting and a mess with tears and makeup streaming down her face. She wrapped herself around him and said “Don’t you ever leave me again.” He promised and kept the promise for over 50 years. They went home and nine months later I was born.

Mary Bass died in 2007. Alton mourned her every day until he passed away in 2016. His love for her was legendary in the community.

Do This One Thing

If anyone has ever sat on a front porch on a sultry summer evening listening to the crickets and bullfrogs, watching the lightning bugs and enjoying the feeling of being snug in your family, that is the feeling I am trying to capture in this story. It is a memoir as well as a tribute to my grandfather, a remarkable man. I am proud to have known him and to carry his name.

He loved to talk and tell stories. He had a story for every occasion. Some he admitted were tall tales. But he always swore this one was true. Maybe it was.

Do This One Thing

A True Story?

I remember sitting on Granddaddy’s porch when I was a child listening to the adults talking. I remember in particular a Saturday evening in summer in the mid nineteen-sixties. Granddaddy’s house sat on the top of a low hill, the highest land in the area. From his front porch we could see the entire community for a half mile or more in every direction. It was twilight, what Grandma always called gloaming. The heat of the day had dissipated and we were outside to catch any cool breezes that might float by. The front lawn twinkled with constellations of lightning bugs providing us with our own private light show. It was a large lawn, stretching about a hundred yards down to the main highway. Granddaddy always called his lawn the avenue. His avenue was dotted with cedars, catalpas and large hardwoods we kids called “climbing trees” because they were great for climbing. Grandma hated us climbing in the trees and would yell, “Y’all come down out of that tree before you fall and break your neck!” We never fell. Well, my cousin Edith fell. And broke her arm. But no necks were ever broken.

A couple of my cousins and I were on the steps that evening. Mom and Dad and my cousins’ parents had gone to the city to dinner and Grandma always watched us for them. So we sat on the porch, watching the sky turn purple, the insect light show, and just enjoying being a family. As sometimes happens in these types of gatherings the conversation turned to ghost stories.

Granddaddy said he remembered one from when he was a young man. Grandma said, “Good Lord, don’t tell that story again. You dreamed it.”

“Dang if I didn’t,” Granddaddy declared. “I know what I saw.”
“What?” we all wanted to know. He had us then. We were spellbound.

“This happened when I was a young man. Mollie and I had just been married less than a year so it must have been 19 and 23. Remember, Sweetpea? We’d run off in January and got married. We were still honeymooning. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had Raleigh Bryant run me to Garysburg in his horsebuggy. I had my valise with my birth certificate and a change of clothes. I won’t but eighteen, didn’t know nothing. Excepting that I loved Mollie. It was cold as hell, but I was sweating bullets till your grandma showed up. Lord, you were a sight for sore eyes, Sweetpea. I loved you so much.”

“Still do,” Grandma smiled at him, patting his knee.

“We caught the train to Emporia and checked in an old hotel. I wanted to go ahead and check in as Mr. and Mrs. but your grandma was all prim and proper. A real lady. She insisted on her own room under MISS Mary Grizzard. Cost us a whole extra dollar. And a dollar was hard to come by in those days. We found the justice of the peace the next day and got hitched. Then we went back and used that hotel room.”

“Lloyd!” my Grandma exclaimed. We could see her blush, even in the dim light.

“Like I said, I won’t but 18 and Sweetpea was 19. When we got home, all hell broke loose. But we was married and nothing they could do about it.”

“But, Granddaddy. What about the ghost?” At that age I didn’t care about dumb lovey stuff.

“I was getting there. Hold your horses. We were living in the old Mayle house, just a sharecropper’s cabin with 4 rooms, but it was all we needed. It was August, the hottest one I could remember. Me and Sam Massey and another man, I can’t recollect who, were working the field up by old Miz Garris’ place. Alice Garris, now she was a firecracker. She was supposed to have been a looker in her day. They say old man Garris tamed her, but he died before I can remember, so she lived in that big old house alone. She dressed and acted like she had money. Did you ever see that house? It’s gone now. I don’t even remember if it fell down or got burned. It was up, back of Sam Massey’s old house. That’s gone now, too.”

“Yeah, Granddaddy, I remember Mr. Massey’s house but not any other one. They tore it down when I was real little, but I remember it. I remember Mr. Massey would always bring us a watermelon from his garden every summer,” I said.

“Yes, Sam was something else. Most folks didn’t care too much for him ‘cause he was a picker. Always picking at people, trying to get a rise out of ‘em. I remember when your daddy was young, we were working in a field and Sam started picking at him. I let it go, figuring the boy needed to learn to take care of hisself. Purty soon, your dad up and whaled him on the side of the head with a beanpole. Sam jumped up looking like he was ready for a fight but I stepped in. I told Sam, ‘you got what was comin’ to you. Now get back to work’.

“Now, where was I? Oh yeah, we were working the field side of Miz Garris’ house. One day as we got ready to take a break for lunch we were near her yard. We decided to go over and sit under a big tree by the house. Ol’ Betsy, the mule, won’t having no part of it. When we tried to pull her over to the shade, she just bellowed and dug in her heels. ‘Well, just stand there in the hot sun, you dang varmint,’ I said to her.

“It didn’t take but a few minutes under the tree before we smelled it. If you ever smelled a dead body, you won’t never forget it. Sam and me and the other man all looked at each other. Lonnie Birdsong. That’s who it was. I just remembered. Me and Sam were working with your grandma’s uncle Lonnie.

‘When’s the last time you saw Miz Garris?’ I asked them.

‘She won’t at church on Sunday,’ Sam said. ‘Somebody said she was feeling poorly.’ ‘Reckon we ought to go look,’ I said.

“We went up on the back porch and knocked on the door. ‘Miz Garris. Can you hear me? You all right?’ After a few minutes with no answer I pushed the door open. There won’t no such thing as locked doors back then. We all trusted each other. Not like these days when you got people robbing banks and stealing and all. Don’t know what the world is coming to. Anyway, soon as I got the door open, I ran back into the yard and threw up. She was darn sure dead and after several days in August she was purty ripe.”

“Lloyd, must you tell it like that?” Grandma protested. “The young’uns will have nightmares.”

“I’m just telling what I saw, sweetheart. Ain’t nothing they don’t see on tv these days.

“Anyway, ‘Dammit’, I thought. I’m sorry ol’ Miz Garris died but it was also going to make us lose a day of work. We needed to go fetch either the doc or Sheriff Stephenson. When I said this, Sam said, ‘Why break off work? Let’s finish the field and then go get the doc. The old lady ain’t going nowhere.’ ‘Naw, that ain’t right,’ I told him. That old lady deserved more respect than that. Plus I don’t think I could work knowing a dead body was just a few yards away. So Sam and the other man took ol’ Betsy back home and I headed off to Gumberry. It was only a mile or so through the woods and there was a telephone at the general store.

“They had her funeral the very next day. The preacher told me she had been dead a number of days and was purty far gone. He didn’t know if they would ever get the smell out of the house. They even had the funeral out by the graveside instead of inside the church. Prim old lady that she was, I know she’d a been real embarrassed by all the mess.

“That night was hotter than ever. Mollie and me didn’t have any covers on the bed and all the windows were open. We even had the front door propped open to catch any breeze it could. From where I was laying in bed I could look through the door and down the long lane to the main road. I could see low lying mist down by the end of the lane. It just drifted to and fro with whatever breeze caught it. After a bit it seemed the mist was drifting toward the house. As I watched it, it seemed to get thicker. Suddenly it took form and I could see it was a woman in a white dress standing outside the house. I was froze with fear. I saw her put her hand on the door jamb, lift her skirt and step into the house. I immediately saw it was old Miz Garris. Shit!”

“Lloyd! Don’t say that in front of the children!” my grandmother chided him.

“Well, I was scared half to death, Mollie. She stood there looking at me a minute. Then she walked over to the bed and reached down and touched my hand. Her hand was so cold. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t move or make no sound. She said ‘Lloyd, they didn’t find my will. It’s in the Bible in my study. You need to tell them. Do this and you won’t ever see me again. You don’t do it, I’ll be back. I’ll haint you.’ She disappeared suddenly and I was released and I set to squallin’.”

“Like to have scared me out of ten years growth,” Grandma added. “He was yelling and wrenching around. Talking about ghosts. You just dreamed it, Lloyd. There ain’t no ghosts.”

“I know blame well what I saw, dammit. The next day I went to the general store and Doc Moore happened to be there. I told him a lie. I said Miz Garris told me before she died that her will was stuck in a Bible in her study. I knew he wouldn’t believe me if I said her ghost told me. Turned out there was a second will in a Bible in her study. And like she said, I ain’t never seen her again. And I want to keep it that way.”

My cousins and I loved the story. We grinned and hugged ourselves in mock terror. It was full dark by this time. I don’t know if I really believed in ghosts back then, but Granddaddy’s house was big and dark and had lots of creaks and groans. I wasn’t about to walk back in that house alone until the adults went in.

My granddaddy loved to tell stories and knew many tall tales. But he always swore this one was true. As an adult I don’t believe in ghosts. They’re just tales we use to frighten the children. But poor old Miz Garris has been resting quietly for 96 years now. I agree with Granddaddy. I’d like to just keep it that way.