1st LOOK @ BOOK
September 2, 2011
Seems to be no better way to say it than to say it like it is, and that is - folk hanging on, for dear life, to the bottom rung(s) of the ladder want you to know the excrement has completed its downward arc into the oscillator - and no one, not even you, will be spared.
Just like all the other Lord's and Lady's celebrating making the maiden voyage on the Titanic in 1912; only a mere handful making their belated entrance into the Grand Ballroom felt the shudder the ship gave off, just before midnight, as her lower starboard side was being gashed open (by what was said to be an overturned iceberg, with rough edges all around, causing the bottom side of it to show up a darkened cube of ice, making it much more difficult to see). Those poor souls working in the bowels of the 'unsinkable' ship knew immediately the shit had hit the fan - that no one would be spared - even though some were saved.
Most people agree everything is somehow supposed to be, 'relative'. My mentor, and Father-in-law, both told me that (both of whom were unqualified successes, as my mentor was issued North Carolina Real Estate Broker License #3). Your first hint things are awry might be when you discover there are almost 7 inches of threads showing up in two different places on a rear tire. As you begin to change the tire, only then realize you had pretty much worn the tread down to nothin' on a donut spare tire some years back, having to drive a ways to get to work (where the real profits a RV Sales outfit was making, came from the hours the company could charge for shop repairs, cause there were always more problems). But then there is a surprise at least once a month when one drives a 19 year old plain Jane car, now beginning to look its worse for wear.
Once you notice the air has a pungent smell, it is a little more troubling when one realizes there was some strange, unidentifiable, thud, still echoing in your memory, you keep thinking you should have recognized the sound of; but that seems inconsequential, when you discover Florida state statutes allow your landlord to charge $185 for being 32 days late with a $400 lot rental payment. I was so sure the fees were criminal, and therefore not collectable; I wrote park management on August 5, last, telling him, and the owners, "Surely you know by now I am not going to pay Elio, Sue, and/or you, another dime of your outlandish, preposterous, illegal, $185 fee you made me pay for being 32 days late with my May rental" (which would have made me only 20 days late for my July payment, if my $400 lot rental payment check for June had not been returned by you on July 20). All told, you have brought two lot rental checks back that did not include your prescribed late fee; and decided the time had come to have a lawyer, working out of her car (as she made a 50 mile roundtrip, twice, to personally deliver bad news), sue me for June and July, the two months I was behind (at the time), for which she would be entitled to receive a 'reasonable fee', once deemed 'reasonable', and approved by the court.
It all started some months back (when my lot rental payments were current); I confronted you, as a resident of our park had told me point blank, you had let a resident close by me off the hook, from having him evicted, because his 'daddy' was going to offer payola to you to allow him to remain in the park (rather than have his son living under a bridge, or the rear of a van). Not many weeks, or months after that; once again I told you that a resident close by had finagled an a/c system of a house the residents were making payments on that was owned by the park; and within a minute after you heard who had used his chicanery to take possession of the a/c system, you blamed that thievery on a park manager who had been terminated a full year before.
Came up $75 short in the money the Clerk of Court would require; and called on a neighbor one late afternoon (whose dog, and he, have been friends of sorts over the past six years): who turned me down. That next morning, I visited with a lady who for several years always speaks pleasantly when she is taking her early evening walk through the park before sundown; and even though I heard her schuss her barking dogs, she did not answer her door. A second lady, I have always felt a particular kinship with, did not have the money (but told me later that would have required a trip to the bank). Now bear in mind, I would have been booted out of my d/w trailer home if I had not come up with that $75 to pay the Sarasota County Clerk of Court that very day. A fourth neighbor, who has lived in the park as long as I have, heard me asking his lady friend for the loan, and handed me four 20's out his front door, not wanting my written promissory 10 day note which included $25 for his trouble, and title (which I had in hand) to my 19 year old plain Jane car, that is now beginning to look its worse for wear.
The only good news about having to survive on so little money is the two food pantries you visit do not offer foods you use to enjoy, which helps you to lose down from to 202 to 187 in only 101 days; without giving it any effort at all.
Cynics are already locked and loaded on me as a hack, as they believe no one is going to have any interest in reading anything I have written (or tell anyone they read my book); especially if one has to cough up twenty-five bucks for said book. But what you better believe, is, there are a whole bunch of people, just like me, who believe our country, and our world, are in for some real tough times: and having no choice but go it alone, is arguably, going to be the worst plight of all.
When ladies are told a friend of hers had jewelry ripped from her neck while shopping at a mall; many will become so timid about going out alone, or to a shopping center, even in broad daylight; she is going to soon be ready to settle for a man, while maybe not the love of her life (or what she had hoped for, because he is as poor as a church mouse, relatively speaking, of course): will nonetheless, do in a pinch. She will smile, and prepare to become, again, just as agreeable, as she had been (indeed, in many instances, the aggressor, when on holiday), when she discovered she could depend on the odds the birth control pill gave her, some years before.
The yin and yang of that is once the two of you have set up housekeeping, she will break the news at the dinner table some Thursday evening, maybe even on the verge of tears, that she had lived a celibate lifestyle for so many years, she has inexplicably, almost overnight, lost all interest in having a sexual relationship, and is asking you not require that of her any longer (unable to look you in the eye, afraid she might burst out in laughter, when she discovers it was so easy).
Naturally, your relationship will dwindle down to nothing more than being a partner/companion twosome that looks good while you are having dinner out, sitting together in church on Easter Sunday Morn, visiting with the folks on Christmas holiday breaks, and maybe spending a week or two in some faraway place ever so often, enjoying the sights and sounds. But before many more months pass, she will suggest your occasional snoring, and 'tossing to and fro unto the dawning of the day' (and who is to know), are awaking her far too often, and would prefer you take the second bedroom (so your groans, and 'tossing to and fro', do not keep her, and her lap dog, awake much of the night).
Now one might wonder why this is relative? Had planned all along for the following narrative to be the soliloquy to open my EPILOGUE, but now feel it needs to be shown here.
To wit. In one of those towns where I sojourned, thinking the berg may be the place that would be home, for many years to come; there was an old timer who befriended me, who was looking forward to retirement in less than a year. Seems the old timer would ride his bicycle, weather permitting, for his daily exercise; and sometimes stop by the dealership where I was pushing taillights over the curb at the time.
On one day in particular he stopped by, and there not being anyone for me to talk to in an effort to earn a sale; we fixed ourselves a cup of coffee, and retired to my office, as I was nowhere close to being 'up', anytime soon.
The opportunity to tell of my efforts to write just never had been right before, so as we chatted that day he asked what my book was about. Peering into his cup of coffee, in an effort to grasp my thoughts, he heard a minute or two later my underlying motivation all along, had been to tell anyone who would listen, the reason I was still single, was because the last two women I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, were showed up to have lesbian lovers.
I had been watching him all along, trying to imagine what his thoughts might be; and was astonished to see him look at me in total dismay, the moment I completed my statement; as if he believed I was telling him a story, that was so far-fetched, there could not be any truth to it.
Not many Sunday's after that, our sermon was delivered by a pastor introduced as being an instructor in one of our church seminaries not far away. Having finished my lunch, I tuned in to see how badly the Seahawks were going to be thrashed that day, when out of the blue, my door bell chimed not long after the game had begun; and was dumbfounded to see the pastor from my church standing there on what was another brisk, colorful, fall afternoon. Being a Seahawk fan himself, we sat for a minute or two, watching as our favorite team was being pummeled and mauled (before probably having to punt again); and we only then spoke.
Seems he and his wife had hosted our seminarian, and his wife, for lunch that day; and as luck would have it, my name came up during their meal. In no more words than I am using here, my friend told of hearing only an hour or so earlier that, 'half the women, undertaking training to be pastors (in our mainstream protestant church), did not feel the need to "defend, deny or discuss", their lesbian lifestyle'.
Really have no recall to what was happening in the football game; because the only thing I do remember is being exonerated by my old friend, who had taken a few minutes out of his Sunday afternoon to confirm, without mentioning that episode in so many words, that he had not believed me.
What I do remember, was within only a matter of another minute or two, my friend excused himself, having not said another handful of words, leaving me to ponder alone, what had just happened; and I will remain grateful to him until my dying day.
It will serve no purpose to tell which church we both belonged to, because my church in every town where I have lived has been the mainstream protestant church where I have felt most at home. The most important thing about what you have just read is this should tell us how an openly gay man, or woman, could be appointed clergy, or Bishop(s), in several different mainstream protestant churches.
No one yet, has figured out a way to broach the subject my book addresses before; but here goes. And all you have to do to make your feelings known is place my book on the coffee table, on your bed side night stand (if that is the only table you own); or the back seat of your car: and should your lady friend make mention of it, you can speak of the particular incident you read about that caused a light to come on somewhere in the back of your mind, and from that day to this, you and me share a kinship, of sorts. Having accomplished that, you might want to play your winning hand, then and there, by making the comparison between you and me when you read about the first time I got drunk, got laid, smoked up, went through fraternity rush, reported for boot camp, or what it was like to deduce one has caught the clap - or much worse - genital herpes).
On the other hand, a bright spot will be reading about this writer putting together an option for 404 acres of farm land on Beatties Ford Road back in 1973, much of it within a radius of eleven miles, as the crow flies, WNW of The Square, in the center of downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. Opening my copper topped bar, in Avery County, North Carolina, on the same Friday RMN left The White House, in 1974, brings back distressing memories of the Titanic again; but having my name printed in an article covering the full width of the top of the front page of The Charlotte Observer on October 11, 1977, should be reassuring (for putting together a sale of a tract of land in Arrowwood Industrial Park, for a national company that was going to come to my hometown to manufacture, 'a screen that would filter submicron particles from industrial smoke stack emission systems', that was light years ahead of the best available up until the time they invented, or discovered it, as the case may be).
Bottom line. If you have not figured out by now why no man has the right to ask his lady, or any lady, if she has had gay lovers; then you are the same kind of no-class-piece-of-shit, as the ladies, who thought they had the right to ask a man about his sexuality (including Tom Selleck, Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, and Ken Wilson). If you have not figured that out by now; then may God have mercy on your soul, because you are about to find out what William Congreve was trying to tell us, when he wrote in 1697, "Beware the anger of a woman who thinks her dignity or worth has been affronted, …. , Hell hath no fury, like a woman scorned".
Now no one, particularly not me, is trying to deny anyone their, "God-Given-Right", to live their life anyway they so choose. And chances are, you do not care, one way or the other; and think I am pissing into the wind. But why in the world would any man want to build a new relationship with any lady when he can make his thoughts on the matter known for a mere twenty five dollars; and never once feel the need to broach the subject, for as long as you both may live.
Nothing else will be said about the matter til you reach my EPILOGUE. There you will find out why (assuming you have not blown it by then), why it will not be moot for your lady to ever think she can 'defend, deny or discuss', her dual sexuality, cause you do not want to hear it - and best yet - why she, and you, can both be sure I am right! There will be other games that still have to be played as time goes by - but this one is over - and the yin and yang of it, is it came out a push, a draw - with no winners, no losers!
I hope, most of all, you will not think me under any false delusions about writing classic literature; but you think of my effort as being more like a Bob Dylan tune, where the message is in the rhyme. Question is, where is Bob Dylan? When we need him most?
Bearing all this in mind; what in the hell have you got to lose?
Besides, twenty-five bucks.
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Thomas L Friedman, winner of three Pulitzer Prizes for his columns that appear in The New York Times, and written two books best-selling, writes in LONGITUDES AND ATTITUDES, "(He) wants readers to have one of four reactions to (his writing) - any one will do. One reaction is for them to read (his book) and say: "I didn't know that." …. Another reaction is for them to … say: "You know, I never looked at it that way before." …. Still another reaction - my favorite, really, as a (writer) - is for them to read (his book) and declare: "you said exactly what I feel, but I didn't quite know how to express it." And, finally, another appropriate reaction is for them to say: "I hate you and everything you stand for." A (book) is defined as much by the people who hate it as by those who love it. I want to challenge, to provoke, and, at times, to make some of my readers angry.
Rarely does a single paragraph have the impact this had upon me. I was so taken with how many bases Mr. Friedman covered, in so few words, I made no effort to write a letter, or anything else, for some months after that. Hope you don't think I am kidding you.
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© 2010 Ken Wilson