Only a Game

Autumn 2022

Being the high school Being the high school football coach of East Jesus, Texas (Team motto: Don’t Cross Us) was not a great job. We had exactly 12 kids on the team, and one of those was a girl.

Because of the great distances involved, and the lack of a school bus, we had only three games scheduled. Two of those were on the same day. But that was just a scheduling screw up that no one noticed or thought much about until I was hired.

I brought up the fact that the locker rooms’ hot water tank wasn’t going to produce enough hot water on the same day for two sets of boy showers, plus two extra ones for Margaret, our female player. And nobody wanted to drive home sixty miles or more with a really smelly, tired, cranky kid--who probably had chores to do the moment he (or she) got back to the farm.

The coach at the other high school, General George Custer (Team motto: Bring it on!), understood and agreed to reschedule.

The next crisis was the field. We didn’t have one. Neither did our opponents. Our first choice was the school parking lot, but that was going to be confusing with all of the permanent white lines for the parking slots already painted on it. But an argument was made that the blue lines for the handicapped slots made a natural end zone. However, if we played in the parking lot, where would we park all of the cars?

So we moved to the adjacent field, old Mr. Detweiler’s cow pasture. Old Mr.Detweiler said he didn’t mind, but he had nowhere else to put the cows, so we were just gonna have to shoo them off to the side of the field whenever we wanted to practice or play. Of course, that also meant that we were gonna have to shovel and clean the cow patties from the area we wanted to play on. Old Mr. Detweiler said that wasn’t his problem.

The kids were more enthusiastic about clearing that field than I thought they might be. But I shoulda known they were gonna turn it into a manure throw. A few got to seeing how far they could hurl a cow patty. The older, dried up patties, worked best--if you used the discus technique. But, of course, a couple of other kids went for accuracy (wet patties work better here) and that degenerated into an all out brawl. I didn’t stop it, though, as I thought it brought the team closer together, which is important in any sport.

Equipment also turned out to be a bit of a problem, too. We didn’t have any. The helmet part was easy: All of the kids scrounged their bicycle helmets or their older brothers’ motorcycle helmets and we painted them all them all purple (our school mascot--the Purple Sage Brushes) and added big white numbers on the side. Any number they wanted from one to ninety-nine. Our Art/Social/History/English teacher used that as an art project, encouraging the kids to paint on skulls & crossbones, lightning bolts, or some other menacing symbols. Margaret painted pink hearts and kisses on hers, which scared the hell out of everyone else on the team.

Team jerseys (we didn’t have any of those either) were easily resolved. The mothers, aunts, and grandmothers knitted them. However, I forgot to tell them to coordinate the number on the jersey with the numbers on their kid’s helmet, so that caused a bit of confusion when we finally got on the field. But the worse problem was that if an opponent missed his (or her) tackle but got his (or her) fingers caught in a knitting loop, which was easy to do, the jersey would unravel all of the way to the end zone. We compensated for this by having the women knit several backups for each game.

Shoulder pads turned out to be the real challenge. The only sporting store we had in a hundred fifty mile radius was Cabella’s, and they mostly stocked fishing and hunting clothes, outdoor gear, camouflage tents, and hiking boots.

Robbie Shelmbacher’s father hobbled a set of pads together from some short wood slats leftover from some fencing he had done around the farmhouse but it came out kind of mean, like putting brass knuckles inside your boxing gloves. But at least he had taken the nails out.

Little Tommie Sooner came up with the best solution. His Aunt Beaula’s brassieres were big enough to stretch across the back of his small neck, one generous cup covering each shoulder. Fill them full of old rags and cast off t-shirts, and you were ready to go.

That, too, became a team project. However, not all of the mothers or other women had Aunt Beula’s proportions, so the boys started going into the East Jesus Dollar Store (used to be a 5 & 10) to pick up the bigger sizes. But they were too shy to buy them, so they started to shoplift the super sizes.

The manager, Mr. Clarendon, caught on pretty quick, but he was a team supporter, so he just sent me the bill. I tried to turn the bill in as an expense but got a nasty note back from the school business administrator in which she said: You are an ugly pervert, and if you don’t stop this, I will inform the school board.

But what worried me even more was to hear the boys talking about Nylon versus Elastane versus Rayon versus cotton and padded cups versus lift-up cups and underwires. A couple of them even suggested we drive all the way into Amarillo to visit Victoria’s Secrets, but I told them if we were gonna drive all the way to Amarillo, we might just as well buy regular shoulder pads. All they said to that was “Oh,” kinda disappointed.

We didn’t practice much, considering we only had 12 kids. We could practice either offense, or defense, but not both at the same time. So we brought over a few of Old Mr. Detweiler’s cows. They just stood there staring at us blankly, not quite understanding what they were supposed to do, but they gave us something to run around, like blocking dummies. Occasionally one of them skittered, knocking down a kid or two, which is as close as we got to full contact.

The first game came against Moses, Texas, (Team motto: Watch our people go) came a little sooner that I would have liked. But I was relieved to see they weren’t any better equipped that we were. We managed to line out the field and chase the cows away that thought they were gonna get to play and set up a portable blackboard as the scoreboard and whistled for the game to begin.

The Moses halfback almost ran the opening kickoff all the way back on us, but Margaret stopped him cold on the 40 yard line. He jumped up and ran off the field and wouldn’t come back, yelling that the kid who just tackled him was wearing lipstick.

I called a quick time out and told Margaret that, to paraphrase the old Tom Hank’s movie, “There’s no lipstick in football.” She wiped it off but glared across the field and yelled at their halfback, “I’ll still kick your ass!” He refused to play.

On the next play, their other half back almost ran around our end but slipped on fresh cow patty that we had overlooked and slid out through the sidelines, taking out a row of folding chairs the Moses supporters were sitting in. The referee wanted to run the play again, but our principal argued that that was our well-known “Defecation Defense” and the play should stand. Their coach was so angry that he couldn’t even respond, so the play stood.

They were so discouraged by now that they wasted the next two plays, and we took over the ball. Margaret knocked their guard on his butt, and little Tommie Sooner scooted through the opening and ran ten yards before anyone could catch him.

He was the only one who noticed that one of the cows had come back on the field and darted around it, just like at practice. All three of their defensive backs didn’t see it and ran smack into the cow’s side, knocking it over and sprawling across it. Old Mr. Detweiler happened to be watching the game and came out bellowing about him not agreeing to any “cow tipping” and that everyone “should just get the hell off my field.”

The game was over. But the referee ruled that little Tommie Sooner had scored before the game was called, so it was East Jesus 6 Moses 0. Our first win.

The other coach was still angry but rational. He suggested we go inside and play basketball, even though it was a bit early in the season. They had driven all this way, and it was a shame to waste the day. As I was also going to be our basketball coach, I thought it was a reasonable suggestion. But I took Margaret aside before the game, as she was going to be our starting center, to tell her there was no lipstick in boy’s basketball either. She made a face and asked, “When we gonna get to a sport that has lipstick in it?”

I patted her gently on the shoulder and said, “I think you’re gonna get there real soon, but I ain’t gonna be coaching it.”

We canceled the rest of the football season as we no longer had a field to play on--neither did they. But the basketball season went well. We kept the cows out of the gym and won more than half our games. Margaret even got a basketball scholarship, but she was sorely disappointed that it was just for the girl’s team.

I gave her a tube of lipstick as a going away present.

Diary of a Golf Ball

Winter 2021

April 28

I am a golf ball. At my core, I am a solid synthetic rubber sphere. My makers surrounded that with a tough, thermoplastic cover. Finally, they gave me all these cute little dimples and sprayed me with two—count that again, two!—coats of brilliant white paint and then splashed the family logo across my face to tell the world where I came from. After a high-sheen burnishing and some scuff resistance, here I am, ready to take on the game.

April 29

Not so cool. They dumped me into a huge box with a lot of other newbies. It’s dark and crowded, and we’re shoved around a lot. Never did get the chance to read the family name.

April 30

Better. They packed me to a smaller box. Only six of us in here. Kinda homey. Caught the family name. I read it on the others as they stuffed us in here. Callaway. Must be Irish. Nice to know.

May 1

I’m in love. She has cute dimples (very much like mine), a great complexion, and her family name curved across her face. Only problem: She could be my first cousin, or something more scary. They just scooped all of us out of that big, old box and slid the six of us into this small one. But . . . maybe she was put together on a different production run. That would be copacetic, wouldn’t it? Life is complicated, and I’m just beginning it! I shouldn’t complain. It’s cozy in here; warm, and shoulder to shoulder, in the darkness.

May 2

On the road. Off to our future, I guess.

May 3

We’re in a sports store. I am perched next to the opening of our small box so I can peek out. Crazy shirts hanging on the wall. Soft material, collars and short sleeves, but weird colors. Pastels, aquamarine blue, deep green, bright pink, rusty red. Who wears shirts like that?

May 5

Hooray, Hooray, our little box has been bought! Guy opened the carton, took me in his hand, rolled me between his fingers, and said, “I’ll taken ‘em.” Fat guy. Wearing a shirt like those on the wall. I don’t know how he sees his toes, or how he can get his hand around down there to pee. I thought golf was a sport? But not my problem. He stuffed me back into the box and paid for us. The rest of the folks in this box should be damn glad I was in there to make such a good impression. I gotta tell you, it was great to be out of that box for a little while.

May 6

Life is getting rougher. Got dropped out of our box into a large, cloth bag that has a forest of iron clubs protruding out of the top. A wide mix of older balls already in here. Some of these dudes are really old; covered with nicks and grass stains and crusted dirt. No wonder Fat Guy bought a fresh crew. Spotted a cute chick, but I think she’s foreign—she has some sort of Greek name with only four letters and a sweeping check mark splashed across her dimples. In the moving process, though, I lost track of my cousin, or whatever she was. Oh well . . . life moves on.

May 7

I am first out of that stuffy leather bag. Nice. We’re in the countryside. Trees and acres and acres of grass. Life couldn’t be sweeter. Fat Guy nestles me on to a little wooden stake. Grass smells sweet and the little wooden stake is very comfortable. But then Fat Guy swats me on the ass. No warning. Didn’t hurt, but caught me by surprise. And I am flying through the air, WHEEEEEE, before landing about 200 yards away. I must have done a good job, because everyone back there is congratulating him, patting him on the shoulder, slapping high-fives. But what about me? I am the one doing the flying. No appreciation for that, huh, guys?

Now that I am into this flying thing, I’m working on hang time (that’s staying the air as long as possible for you dorks who don’t know about this) and sense of direction (I need a little better help from Fat Guy for that). And I am doing this all without wings. Try that and see how well you do!

But the day becomes repetitious. Swat and fly. Swat and fly. Me and Fat Guy become a team. We’re in this together. We stop occasionally at a small circle of grass so he can tap me on the butt to force me into a metal hole that contains a flag. Fat Guy is not good at this. Not my fault. I try hard but he doesn’t do his part. This causes a lot of cursing and throwing of his short iron on the ground—like it’s the iron’s fault? If I were him, I would just skip these stupid little holes and stay out in the long grass where we’re having fun, but who asked me, huh?

And then—and then—he smacked me on the butt, and I flew out in a wild curve over a couple of trees and landed in some tall bushes. He wasn’t happy when he came to find me. He thrashed the bushes with one of his irons, cursing loudly (Fat Guy’s got a mouth!), while his buddies yelled at him to hurry up. And he gave up. HE JUST LEFT ME HERE. He walked away as if he didn’t give a damn. The whole group went on without me.

Now It’s getting dark. There are all kinds of strange noises in the bushes around me. Squirrels, snakes, chipmunks. A fox. Something licks me as if checking out the taste. Then a snake swallowed me whole, but spit me back out. This is getting really scary. And I never got to say hello to that cute Greek girl. Life is unfair.

May 8

It’s raining.

May 9

It’s still raining. I’m miserable.

May 10

Hello, hello, I’ve been found! It’s not Fat Guy, but a younger man. I heard his ball clump into the bushes behind me. Then he waded in with his feet and iron, spreading the bushes apart and stopped when he saw me. He picked me up and glanced back out on the course to see if anyone else was looking at him. No one. He laughed and put me in his pocket and walked out of the weeds, no longer looking for his own ball. I didn’t like this. What if Fat Guy comes back for me? He’ll never find me. I am missing him, so maybe he’s missing me. Also, I felt sorry about my new compadre lying back there just a few feet from where I was. This skinny guy just walked away without him. Whatever happened to loyalty?

May 11-20

I’m now a substitute. No longer the first one out of the bag. Being used only when he happens to remember me. And I get all the hard shots. Flying over the creeks and ponds and hopping over the raggedy ass parts of the course where balls go to die. I am no longer quick on my feet, or should I say, quick on my dimples. It occurred to me that I am now expendable. My bright sheen has gone. I have small nicks and cuts here and there. Some of my dimples have dirt embedded in them, and he never bothers to wash me. I also often wonder about Fat Guy. Is he getting along without me? Does he miss me?

I also dream of the Greek girl and wonder what could have been. I hope life has been kinder to her than it has been to me.

May 21

Catastrophe. The skinny jerk has splashed me into the water. A large pond near the end of the course. We’ve jumped this thing several times in the past few days, but today he just pops me up like a fat ass baseball out to centerfield and splunk, I sink. Didn’t even skip across the surface. Just splunk.

Not deep in here. Cold, yes, but not deep. I thought the fool would walk in here to fetch me but no, he plays another ball. He splunked that one, too. But he’s good on the third try. Lucky him. What about us?

The skinny jerk just walked away.

May 26

My heart is broken. I don’t think I am going to recover from this. Water is starting to seep into my nicks and cuts. Wet bottom grass is enveloping me. I can feel myself deteriorating. But looking back, it was a good life. Had some fun. Met some nice people. Had a nice family. Saw some of the world. Was in love once or twice. What more could you ask for? I hope Fat Guy is doing well.

I . . .

The Journey Is the Destination

(Literary Learnings, Summer 2020)

Thanks to COVID-19, Carl Hoffman may have written the last great travel adventure book for the next few years. It will a long while before someone else dares to take six months out of their life to circle the world via South America, Africa, and Asia on the world’s most dangerous buses, trains, and airplanes.

He did not do it on a dare. Nor did he do it to see anything special, such as a long-lost city or a hidden site, or to tour an ancient cathedral or explore an out-of-the-way museum. He explicitly set out to traverse the world on the most dangerous transportation conveyances available to humans. The journey was the destination. Welcome to The Lunatic Express.

Carl Hoffman has made a career as an adventure journalist, writing for such magazines as National Geographic Traveler, Wired, Smithsonian, Outside, Men’s Journal, etc. Along the way, he became obsessed with news clips that told of packed ferry boats in the Philippines or Bangladesh that overturned and drowned hundreds of people, and crammed native buses in the Andes that plunged off narrow mountain roads into ravines so deep that the bodies will never be recovered, and commuter trains in Africa and Asia that average five to eight deaths per day.

Hoffman’s morbid fascination morphed into a plan to circle the globe in a nonstop pilgrimage to understand how and why this was happening. It led him into a world where hundreds of millions of people, all desperately poor, are on the move seeking their fortunes, commuting to their jobs, or traveling the cheapest way possible to visit their families. He discovered how the world’s destitute masses live, travel, and survive.

His start set the tone. He hopped on a cheap Chinese bus line out of New York City that took him to Canada to catch the perilous Cuban Airways flight to Havana to connect to another risky flight to Bogota. He then immediately caught an overloaded night bus through the steep mountains to Lima. The game was on.

I was swept into Carl Hoffman’s stories from my own memories as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa a long, long time ago. I remember sitting on the souk (market) buses as if it were yesterday, rumbling between villages with every row of seats holding four people (or more) while the central aisle was jammed with people, chickens, dogs, and small goats. Other folks were hanging from the open doors and riding on the roof. Let’s not even talk about the overwhelming odors. Or taking the train to Marrakech on the Marrakech Express (this was before the old song became popular) in third class; the crush of passengers bumping and banging together on wooden benches over the ragged rails. But Hoffman outdid me—he would continue to ride on such transportation twenty-four hours or more as he circled the rough half of this world!

Memories continued as I continued to read. I once took the jammed, pitching ferry boat from Manila (Philippines) to the island of Corregidor to visit the World War II monuments. The boat wallowed and rode the swells with its overcapacity load, and I wondered if I had made a bad choice. In his book, Hoffman searches these crafts out on rivers, lakes, and small seas as if daring to see if he would survive.

And then there is Victoria Terminus in Mumbai. It is in fact an exact duplicate of Victoria Station in London, built in the 1860s. Victoria Station in London has moved forward with the times. Victoria Terminus in Mumbai remains as built in 1878. The London station handles thousands per day. A good guess would be that the Mumbai station may handle a million a day. Or at least it feels like it. The overflowing crowd is pushed to the very edges of the train platforms. Six to eight deaths happen per weekday as people are pushed onto the tracks or as they scurry to cross the lines to the other side. Others get their heads whacked by telephone poles and rail signs as they cling to the open doorways on their commute, as there is no more room inside the train car. A couple of years ago, I went to look at the terminus as a sightseer, then left. The station was too crowded to push my way into. Carl Hoffman went in and out several times as a pretend commuter. Better him than me.

I have traveled to many of these out-of-the-way places both as a tourist and for work. Over time I have become inured to the Third World: its smells, crowds, inconvenience, noise, etc. I would (and will) eat in the streets carefully and selectively, and still get sick. In the book, Hoffman appears to eat whatever and whenever and never pays for his sins. God bless him.

Hoffman deepens his adventure with flashes of his personal troubles at home. He tells about his marriage coming apart, his estranged relationships with his three children due to his long absences, and reflects on a short romance that quickly dies while he is on the road. He was terrified that this voyage and this book were taking over his life.

In spite of our differences, my dipping in and out as time and finances allow, and his unending six-month slog through South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, we arrive at the same conclusions: Wealth buys space—with even the slightest wealth, you can upgrade your travel to second or first class and have a seat (maybe even a comfortable seat) to yourself, without rubbing haunch-to-haunch, or having someone’s butt in your face. You can also have a house or an apartment of your own, without sharing it with your grandparents, kids, brothers, sisters, and even cousins, all in one or two rooms. It also becomes apparent that the majority of people in the so-called Third World are nice. In crowded conditions and seemingly unending voyages, they will share their food with a stranger, take an interest in him/her, and want to know where he/she is from and what it is like back there. Finally, more people than not work very, very hard to make a living with very little return; peddling onions on the street, frying chicken in open markets, fixing bicycles or cars with only hammers or screwdrivers, or commuting for hours every day in uncomfortable conditions to lousy jobs that pay too little. It is called surviving.

Home again after his epic voyage, Carl Hoffman sat down with an actuary to determine what his risk had been to survive the world’s most dangerous buses, boats, trains, and planes. Good thing he didn’t ask before he left—50%. He might not have taken the trip had he known that.

In our current circumstances, such a trip is now impossible. COVID-19 would be out there waiting for you—90% probability. So it is an open question whether anyone will ever be able to chase after such an adventure in the near future. But as you are at home in quarantine, this is a book that will take you far in vicarious thrills, cultural insights, and deep reflections.

They

Jerome W. McFadden

(March, 2013)

I am mad. Irrevocably insane. Everyone says so. Because I see strange things in the cornfield behind our house in the late evening.

They are not ghosts. But their bodies are pale, effervescent, iridescent , never firm. Their movements blend between a shimmer and erratic darting about. And I hear their voices, but nothing verbal, more like musical tones. High pitches and low notes. The sounds do not sound menacing but they cause an unease, a foreboding.

My husband Earl laughed at me in the beginning. He would watch me standing out on the patio, staring at the cornfield as the sun went down, then tease me, asking me if I was seeing my cornfield people again, Sweetie? I would point at them when they came out but he could never see them. I would motion him to be quiet but he could never hear them, either. But I could see them and I could hear them, and there were more and more of them every week.

Earl finally got angry. He put on his hunting clothes and hiking boots and pulled out his shotgun and loaded it, then took his good flashlight, the kind the police use, and said if there is something out there, he’d damn well find them and chase them away. Was I going to come along or not? I backed away. No way was I going out there and I didn’t want him to go either. But he slammed the back door and left.

He came back empty handed and even angrier. There is nothing out there, he said, so stop your nonsense now.

But more of them come. A few more each evening. I see them weaving in and out of the corn stalks and through the adjacent trees, singing to each other, whistling to get each other’s attention, as if they’re exploring the new world around them. I dare not stop watching. I can’t take the time to cook supper for Earl anymore, and I no longer have the time to come inside to watch television. Earl has to come out to steer me back into the house to go to bed. Some nights I slip back out to watch – but he always catches me and gets infuriated, roughly pulling me into the house.

He takes me into the city to see the doctor. I am physically fine, the doc says. Blood pressure a little high but nothing to be worried about yet. A small pill of Diovan every day will take care of that. I am in great shape, for a woman my age, yes indeed, he says. But he adds two more prescriptions for Earl to take to the drugstore. Xanax and Prozac. If one doesn’t work, we will try the other.

The first one makes me drowsy for most of the day. Not getting anything done. Don’t really care either. A nuclear bomb coming down our chimney ain’t going to bother me much. But they are still out there. Coming closer. I can tell.

We’re on to the second prescription. But we must have over done the dose because I am now lost in my own head. Dreams. Memories. Long periods of nothing. Earl has to feed me and take me back to my bed. And pull me out of the bed to take me to the toilet, if it ain’t already too late. Then I lie on the sofa and watch the ceiling while he cleans the sheets and does the laundry.

But I can still hear them. Late at night. Their songs penetrate the fog of the pills. They are coming closer. Now almost to the edge of the back yard. I slip out of bed, trying not to wake Earl, fully awake myself for the first time of the day, to stand on the patio in my nightgown. They are looking at me now, pointing. Talking at me,. I can tell. It’s a warm summer evening but I feel a chill and need to hug my arms around my body to keep warm.

Earl comes busting out of the sliding doors, angry as hell, saying I am goddamn crazy standing out here in the middle of the night in my bare feet and half nude. He hits me. For the first time in our married life. In the morning I have a huge black eye and Earl is crying and hugging me and saying he’s sorry and he will never do it again and I gotta forgive him. I don’t say anything. I don’t care one way or the either.

We go in to the city to see another doctor. But this one doesn’t give any pills. At least not yet. Just talks to me. And talks and talks, asking me stupid questions about my family and my father and how I felt about Earl and if we are still having sex and do I feel like going somewhere for a rest?

I told him I didn’t want to go. I need to stay home. I need to watch them. They’re getting closer.

He and Earl have a long talk afterwards. More pills. No big surprise to that. But now a woman comes into the house to watch after me while Earl is off at work. I don’t remember her name but she’s pleasant enough. Feeds me well. Makes sure I make it to the toilet. Lets me sleep. Earl comes home after work to take over. Gives me a lot more pills at bed time.

But they don’t work. I can still hear them out there. But I can’t get up now as Earl has me strapped down in a cot in the spare bedroom. I can’t move my wrists or ankles. And they’re talking to me now, just outside the windows.

Earl has to go on a trip for work, so the woman comes to stay day and night. It’s going to work out. She put togeher a schedule for me, for when to eat and when to pee and when to do the other things I need to do. She dresses me and fits on my shoes for me. It’s nice, I think.

One night she sees me listening and trying to look out the window. Asks what I’m hearing. I tell her. She nods, smiling to herself. Then stands up to walk me outside to the

patio.

They’re there. Excited at seeing someone new. But she doesn’t see them. Or hear them, just like Earl. I take her hand and pull her past the patio into the yard so she can be closer to them. Surrounded by them. But she puts her hands on her hips and stares around the yard and out into the corn fields and trees and says she doesn’t see or hear a thing. It makes me so mad I pick up the rake Earl has left in the yard and hit her with it. Again and again. Damn her. Damn her. Broke the handle but I keep hitting her with the rake head.

They take her away. That surprises me. They take her by the arms and legs and pull her into the forest.

Earl comes home two days later and asks me why the woman isn’t here. He is really mad. The house is disheveled and my clothes are soiled and the toilets are backed up. I tell him. I tell him they took her. Out into the trees. Which makes Earl even angrier. He hits me again. Says I’m lying. Says I drove the woman away. Says I’m a crazy bitch and he can’t take it anymore. I say she is out there in the trees. With them.

He looks at me funny. Then goes out the back door, telling me to stay here, do not leave the house.

Takes him a long time, but he comes storming back, even angrier than before. I am waiting for him at the back door. I blast him with both barrels of the shotgun. Blowing him past the patio table, right out into the yard.

I sit down on the patio chair and wait. They come in the evening, really excited to snatch another body. They drag Earl away, singing and whistling just as I thought they would.

So now I’m waiting here at the house with the shotgun to see if anyone else will show up.

They’d like that.

Suicide

Jerome W. McFadden

(Featured, March 2012)

He was standing on the stepladder, facing me. He glanced at me as I came in through the garage door but continued to adjust the rope around his neck. The top end of the rope was secured to the overhead garage beam. The other end was quickly becoming an expertly knotted hangman’s noose. I was about to ask what the hell he thought he was doing but he kicked away the stepladder before I could get my mouth open.

Instinct propelled me forward. I managed to wrap both my arms around his legs just as he hit the end of the rope There was a sharp jerk and a heavy grunt but I pushed upward with all my strength in the same instant.

“You OK?” I asked, trying to regain my breath. I could feel he was alive. We had achieved a delicate balance with me carrying the brunt of his weight but his neck cinched against the taught rope. I could not lift my head high enough to see his face. I was in fact talking into his crotch.

There was a long silence, followed by a hoarse, “What…the…f—k …do…you…think…you’re…doing?”

“What the f--k do you think I’m doing?” I replied, resenting his tone.

“Meddling.”

“Don’t bother to say thanks.”

He tried to wiggle his crotch away from my face, saying, “I hope you’re not some kind of pervert.”

“If I feel you’re getting a hard on, I’ll let you drop. How’s that for a deal?”

He didn’t speak for a moment, as if considering the deal, but then said, “I think this was a mistake.”

“Hanging yourself or me stopping you from hanging yourself?”

“Hanging myself.”

“Had a change of mind once you kicked away the ladder?”

“How you going to get me down?”

Good question. I hadn’t thought about that up to this moment. I was too busy just holding him. I looked around. He had kicked the stepladder out of reach and there was nothing else within six feet of us.

“You got a knife on you?” he asked, his voice still a hoarse whisper but amazingly calm.

“I have a Swiss Army knife, but it’s at home.”

“My hero.”

“What if I lift you up? You put your feet on my shoulders and then maybe you can reach the beam to untie the rope.”

“I got a rope cinched tight around my neck and you want me to balance on your shoulders to reach the beam?”

“All right. I’ll lift up a little to put some slack in the rope and then you try to stick your thumbs under the noose to loosen it, OK? Maybe you can pull the noose up and off?”

Silence, then, “OK, that might work.”

I awkwardly pushed his legs up as I high as I could and he raised his hands to insert his thumbs inside the noose - but the quick shift in his weight made me lose my balance and lurch backwards, causing him to gag with a loud squawk, with his eyes popping out like huge marbles as the noose cinched even tighter around his neck.

“Sorry,” I mumbled sheepishly, once we were back under control.

His voice came back in a very low whisper, “My f--king thumbs are caught under the noose.”

“I guess that eliminates trying to reach the beam?”

“Jesus, this really hurts,” he croaked.

“You were going to hang yourself and you didn’t think it would hurt?”

“I thought it was going to be a little quicker than this.”

“Why not take sleeping pills? Or gas yourself in your car? No pain, no muss.”

“I’m flat broke. I wasn’t going to waste a hundred bucks on a bottle of fancy sleeping pills just to kill myself. And my car was repo’d last week.”

I shifted my arms slightly, trying to avoid a cramp.

“Goddamn it, be careful, will ya?”

“I guess you’re not Catholic?”

“What the f--k has that got to do with anything?”

“Catholics think you go to hell when you commit suicide.”

“I’m about to die here and you’re worrying about me going to hell?”

“Seemed appropriate.”

“You Catholic?”

“No.”

“Then why the hell did you bring it up?”

“Forget about it. I was just making conversation while we figured out what to do with you. What the f--k are you doing hanging yourself in Chuck’s garage, anyway?”

“Chuck is away for the weekend and I didn’t have any other place to do it. What are you doing here?”

“He said I could use his hedge trimmer. Just come and get it out of the garage while he’s away.”

“You a friend of Chuck’s, too? I’m surprised we haven’t met.”

“Just lucky up to now, I guess.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Your friend is away for the weekend and you hang yourself in his garage? He comes home on Monday and finds you hanging here. He’s in shock but he’s gotta get you down, call the police, explain who you are, then clean up the mess. Who the hell would want you as a friend?”

“The schmuck deserves it. He got me into this mess.”

A ring tone went off over my head.

“You gotta cell phone?” I asked.

“Shirt pocket.”

“Who’s ever calling can help us out for chrissakes!”

“You gonna reach for it? My thumbs are trapped upside my neck!”

That was pure sarcasm. He knew damn well that I couldn’t reach it. The ringing finally stopped. “That was probably the bitch, anyway,” he said.

“Is that what this is all about?”

“Whatever. I am flat ass broke. I’ve lost my job and the bitch says we ain’t got a future together. I ain’t got a damn place to go except to the end of this rope.”

“She sounds a bit shallow."

“So what are you, a marriage counselor?”

“If you were both in love, you could work it out.”

“Thank you Dr. Phil. She doesn’t work. She’s just a housewife and her old man barely has a pot to piss in, so she wouldn’t get a dime if she divorced him.”

“She’s married?”

“A neighbor of Chuck’s. He introduced us. Said he thought we would be a real match. That’s why he deserves to find me here, stretched out in his garage. Probably ruin his day.”

“Maybe she’s worried about you. Does she know you’re this depressed?

“Saundra only worries about herself.”

“Saundra?”

“Yeah, Saundra. The bitch only worries about herself. No money, no honey. And I ain’t got no money.”

I shrugged my shoulders, lifting his legs a few more inches upward, saying, “I don’t think we’re going to make it.”

“What does that mean ‘you don’t think we’re going to make it’?”

“I can’t see any way out of this and I am getting tired of holding you up.”

“So you’re going to drop me just like that?”

“Yeah.”

So I dropped him. He bounced and gurgled and danced in the air and turned blue and purple with his eyes bulging out again and then fell silent.

I spent a few minutes looking for Chuck’s hedge trimmers and then walked out of the garage. I giggled to myself thinking about the sh-- fit that Chuck was going to have when he found his buddy hanging in the garage. I wondered how he was going to explain about the thumbs being caught up under the noose.

But I was keen to get home. I couldn’t wait to tell my wife Saundra about meeting her boyfriend in Chuck’s garage.

Top Ten Places I Never Want to Go Again

by Jerome W. McFadden

(March, 2012)

I was infected with virulent wanderlust at an early age. I have spent most of my adult life living, working, and traveling outside the USA, which has led me to some weird and wonderful places. None of the below are among them. Many of these qualify as the home town for Crimes-R-Us. All qualify as a vacation spots from hell.

10. Bali (Indonesia):

The tourists live in beautiful resort ghettos. Once past these walls, you are open game for every beggar, peddler, and hustler on the island. Litter & pollution are rampant in Paradise. Some of the public beaches are toxic and the Royal monkeys play with plastic shopping bags. Tourist t-shirts are the major industry. The cheap Australians infesting the beach at Nusa Dua provide no redemption.

9. Prague (Czech Republic):

A pristine medieval city center devoid of real life, surrounded by a conglomeration of former communist urbanization. No one lives in the center city. All of the stores, shops, and outlets hawk tourist trinkets. All of the restaurants are touristic kitsch. A city surviving on its backpacker’s reputation.

8. Port Au Prince (Haiti):

Overwhelming poverty and chaos. Makes all other 3^rdworld countries look good. And this was before the earthquake!

7. Cairo (Egypt):

A filthy city with unbelievable cultural & historic attractions. Garbage in the streets, garbage in the doorways, garbage on the roofs, Garbage in the canals. Enough dust and dirt to make you an asthmatic for life. But the Nile, the museums, and pyramids are a once in a life time experience - and you will only want to go once in your lifetime.

6. Johannesburg (South Africa):

Strip mines in the center of the city. The rape capital of the world. They advise you not to walk outside of the hotel alone because of the rampant crime. An ugly urban gateway to a beautiful country with awesome geography, great vineyards, amazing game parks, and some wonderful people.

5. Teheran (Iran):

Grey. No personality. Even the Grand Bazaar is boring. The Ayatollahs make the Pope look like a party animal. The plethora of cops in the streets are not there to protect you. You could get arrested for breathing, blinking and having non-religious thoughts, but the most heinous crime of all is being American. The Shah had all of the good stuff and he took it with him.

4. Ryadh (Saudi Arabia):

Oppressive heat. Oppressive atmosphere. Joyless. You might get arrested for laughing. You can definitely be arrested for riding in a taxi with a woman who is not your wife, mother, or daughter. Unfortunately, it is illegal for your wife, mother. or daughter to drive. But if you like to pray 5 times a day, this might be the place for you.

3. East St. Louis (Illinois):

My foreign wife locked the car doors and hid under the dashboard. Looks like Beirut in the bad old days. I have never been to East or South Los Angeles but they tell me they are similar, kinda like Disneyland for gangstas. Oh, did I forget to tell you I was raised in East St. Louis?

2. Caracas (Venezuela):

A deep, lovely valley surrounded by world classfavelas – slums – with all city housing and apartments having bars on all of the windows (no matter how high up) to prevent intruders, with all balconies and porches sealed off by iron grills to keep the bad guys out. The innocents are in prison and the should-be inmates are running free. This is a way to live?

1. Monrovia (Liberia):

Deep poverty with spots of even deeper poverty. Another city where crime is so rampant that you are advised not leave the hotel or to walk in the streets or take a taxi alone. Did as I was told, then got mugged in the hotel lobby. A historical social experiment gone bad.

Santa Claws

Jerome W. McFadden

(Dec. 2011)

Have I told you the story of Santa Claws? This is a story of an evil presence that has lived for hundreds and hundreds of years in the very, very far North, beyond all civilization and human reach. It is a man wearing a blood red suit with a fearsome face that is hidden behind a long matted white beard and bushy, nearly impenetrable, overgrown eyebrows.

He comes out of his frozen lair on the 25^th of December, every year, to terrify young children. He slips into their homes in the dead of night through small openings or unguarded chimneys, guided to his victims by a team of ferocious shaggy animals with sharp antlers who stamp their hooves in the cold and who can smell young children from far distances.

Once in the house, Santa Claws devours any unguarded lactate drinks sitting on counters or tables as well as all baked flour compounds that are carelessly left out on small plates. It is also rumored that he mistreats any small animal, cats or dogs or hamsters or gold fish that might raise a cry of alarm. His intent inside the house is to punish young unsuspecting children for mischievous behavior known only to him. He does this through the threat of withholding promised rewards if the desired comportment is not followed. A true convert might receive the promised gift, a reluctant follower might receive a reward but never the one promised, and a recalcitrant victim will have a dirty black lump of coal shoved into a pair of socks carelessly left around the home.

It wasn’t always like this.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a kindly bishop named Nicolas who lived in an ancient European city. He very much loved his parishioners and was in fact upset one winter when he discovered that two sisters did not have sufficient dowries to lure any local young men into marrying them. So, in the dark of night, he sneaked past their house and threw bags of silver coins through an open window. In the morning, the two sisters had a brilliant dowry, enough to bribe any man in the world into marrying them.

Alas, someone saw him do this (the night was not as dark as he thought!) and then people far and wide began shouting at him, “What am I? Chopped canoodle? I have no money and no one loves me, either! You throw bags to the hags but you got nothing for me?”

Bishop Nicolas did what he could, but it was never enough and the demands never ceased. Slowly he was hounded out of his parish, and then his village, and then his country, constantly driven father north to escape the incessant demands of an ungrateful public.

After he was gone, the people realized how great the bishop was, and called him a saint. Saint Nicolas. But as he disappeared into the cold north, it was mis-translated into Santa Nicolas and then Sanicole Las, then Santa Claus. But the cold and greedy people back home had turned bitter and mean and he became known him for what he is now: Santa Claws.

And now he travels through the storm tossed snowy nights of December 25^th, clumping across the roofs of frightened children, scaling down their darkened chimneys with his heavy sack of unwanted items, entering their empty living rooms, shouting, “Ho, Ho, Ho, I know what you did this year!”

And the children cringe and cry, desperately trying to remember what they did this year, hoping they had behaved the way Santa Claws wanted them to. But, gradually, after years of constant torment and fear, the children finally grow older and learn that the evil Santa Claws can no longer hurt them and they can ask their parents to buy them gifts and lumps of coal in socks don’t mean anything. They can live their lives as they want. All of which makes Santa Claws even more bitter as he returns into frozen seclusion, waiting for another year for his animals to sniff out younger children that he can terrorize.