Sunday Fair in Huancayo, Peru

The Singing Waters of Ñahuinpuquio (Bilingual-English & Spanish)

Spanish Version

The Singing Waters of Ñahuinpuquio

(or, Legend of the Little Goat with Seven Horns)


During the time of a full moon, the lake called Ñahuinpuquio
(in the Mantaro Valley, high in Andes of Peru)
draws in its shadows
and waits on the village people for an offering.
If the offering
is not given or pleasing,
the feminine and invidious shadows
rising high up into the resonating night
blocking out even the moon’s light: waits…
waits, just waits…
(as if wounded)!

Thereafter, the small islands stand about in a group
(within the center of the lake).
Each to its own thin opinions and darkness;
each, trying to agree upon what bleak
what final punishment
might be given
to the populace of Ñahuinpuquio.
The female islands chant out far
on the water, grounded in the wings
of their shadows,
then, more often than not, they blacken
the sky,
with roaring thunder (distinct)—
hail and strong winds!
For they seek a male offering, complete!

Once the lake is satisfied, the dark comes down
slowly—and on June 23rd
at full moon, the lake sings
as her voice hits the water from its shadow wings;
hence, a golden goat with seven horns, ascends
as if from under the water’s hidden door —
and appears for all to see!

Note: Drafted out on 10-13-2011, and reedited on the 14th; inspired by Engineer Felipe Zenteno (UNCP), during an afternoon conversation the University. No 3129



Spanish Version

La Leyenda de:

El Canto de la Laguna de Ñahuinpuquio

(o, Leyenda del Cabrito con Siete Cuernos)


Durante las noches de luna llena, la laguna de Ñahuinpuquio
(en el Valle del Mantaro, en Los Andes de Perú)
atrae en sus sombras
y espera que la gente del pueblo le haga una ofrenda.
Si la ofrenda,
no se da o no es satisfactoria,
las femeninas y envidiosas sombras
ascienden muy alto en la noche resonante
cubriendo incluso la luz de la luna, esperando…
esperando, sólo esperando…
(¡como si herida!)

Después, las pequeñas islas se reúnen en grupo
(en medio del lago).
Cada una con su propia opinión insignificante de malicia;
cada una, tratando de acordar sobre qué sombrío
qué castigo final
podrían dar
a la gente de Ñahuinpuquio.
Las islas femeninas cantan lejos
en las aguas, conectadas a las alas de
sus sombras,
entonces, frecuentemente oscurecen
el cielo,
con truenos estruendosos (distinto) —
¡granizo y vientos fuertes!
Porque ellos buscan una ofrenda macho, ¡completo!

Una vez que la laguna está satisfecha, la oscuridad desaparece
lentamente—y en la noche del 23 de Junio
con luna llena, la laguna canta
mientras su voz golpea las aguas con las sombras de sus alas:
así pues, un cabrito de oro con siete cuernos asciende
como si bajo el agua hubiera una puerta,
como si la hubiera atravesado—y luego aparece
¡para que todos lo vean!

Nota: Borrador hecho el 13 de Octubre del 2011, luego editado el día 14, inspirado por el Ingeniero Felipe Zenteno (UNCP), durante una conversación en la tarde en la Universidad Nacional del Centro del Perú. No 3129

Theme of a World Traitor

Under the influence of the highest offices of America: FBI, CIA, Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Oval Office, and conglomerate of other offices and individuals, America, since the late 1950s, has become the world manufacture, contriver and embellisher of what might be pleasing to the eye, if not graceful with its mysteries. In this small brief, details, adjustments are lacking, but the history is there, perhaps not all revealed, but dimly perceived, if you look for it. The actions of America transpire in oil rich countries, oppressed and stubborn countries, in countries that are united with America, such as NATO countries, etcetera; we even deal with our enemies. We are the executioner, the inventor, the dramatist. Let us say for purposes, since the middle half of the 20th Century, we’ve been this and more—the best actors in the world. I will be the narrator.

America, the Promised Land, also the biggest conspirator the world has yet to produce; a secret and glorious government, for the people but no longer by the people. Yet she is victorious—with all its premeditated and conjured deletions, generalizations, and distortions—to find her scrupulous destiny, to fool, redeem and condemn her taxpayers. The circumstances of her crimes are unknowable, but far reaching—deeds of her own improvisation, like a popular drama unfolding day by day, every word she says is prearranged.
She presently is engaged in compiling a stack of heroes, to cover up her indecipherable mysteries, assassinations (her violated blood) —and the world is her theater.
With all her resources, who could scarcely articulate between the bloods she sheds, and the blood she needs to shed, it is all under the umbrella of National Security. Hopefully in the future, people might realize the truth of her dealings, her plans. She now keeps silent her discoveries, her deeds. But no doubt, as the world turns and minds mature, it can be foreseen, the glory of her heroes are the publishers of comics, more so than real heroes.
Let me put this plain and simple: nobody is a hero into day’s wars. They are simply a staggered series of bloody acts between them and us: we point fingers, but that is for a purpose, to take attention off our evil thoughts.
For example the murder of JFK and the failure of the police, FBI, CIA to bring anyone thus far to neither justice nor do they have any intentions to. If the government can cover that up, what can’t they cover up?
Another example is our space program, what do we really know about them? Are they really war programs?
We have two wars going on simultaneously as I write. Iraq has cost us so far, $700-billion dollars. Look at our hero’s remains—guess their identity, none of us know them. If they died for anything it is the adventurer in them they die for. America doesn’t need anymore corpuses for those two wars; and for Iraq, they never did. Our boys are sent to a colorless desert, to a hatful people, with beards and grey eyes and we will never please them.
Our presidents are like Julius Caesar’s—treason, or is it traitor —they say one thing and do another; they collaborate with the devil men while we are sleeping. There is no need to look for the guilty, the beast is already split open, it has a deep stab would, we all know, as they all know, reality may be avoided, we are the beast, you and I and them. Here lies dead so and so, now we got our oil, a purely ill-humouredly explanation but it will do, the president says “It is for the interest of the United States!” And with the American flag, and bright lights, and a well written speech, they capture man, as they stab him in the back, and everything is unknown, secret, National Security, and believe it or not, they sleep well—like the lion who has no God.
Likened to the Senate, who produce false and anonymous rumors throughout our land (the media is pretty good at that also), and the movie stars that runs to the United Nations to put on their show, that know so little about what they are doing on that political stage, act as part of the divine nomenclature of the Pentateuch.
On the other hand, Congress repeats itself over and over, they have the character of Hesiod, trying to make gold out of iron, or is it oil out of sand, to buy gold with? In the process, transmigration of their souls, likened to the Britannic Druids. They put the common American into a labyrinth, tell him he is safe and saved in America, as they at the same time plunge him deeper into the inextricable abyss beneath the labyrinth, where no one understands anyone, as at the Tower of Babel; but all the better for the powerful. Now they got the common person, into their way of thinking, their hypotheses, at the same time, saying to the people: “I’m only a poor Christian like you!”
The crimes of America belong to the history of the world, the very timid world that surrounds her. There is no answer to this paper; therefore I shall leave you with the following inconclusive sentence:

The name of the guilty country has been spoken (and there are many more among her that has not been spoken to…)



No: 834 (11-6-2011)

Bear under the Snow

(Causes of the Vietnam War, a Personal View)


The Vietnam War was a ten-year rainstorm, one I experienced for one tenth of it (and got a decoration for). It carried us, as if to the moon, as if the moon had dropped on us. It infected the community, everyday life; it also gave some of us, excitement (as it had for me), but many funerals, 56,000-American funerals, over 5,000 a month. It gave us new and daily sounds over the radio, and television, and the full actual sounds of war, I would get to hear, in 1971.
The political power of the day embodied us all; it killed JFK, and brought the war even closer to our living rooms. As the world turned at the United Nations, behind closed doors, in our Congress, right up to the Oval Office, politicians and industry discussed its merits (its intrinsic worth) for ten-years. We had many dragons in our flag. Thus, the storm continued unabated.
We all looked at each other—back then (us soldiers), as if we were young blind owls in the night, once confident Americans, now feeling abandonment and estrangement because of the nature of the war. And the people of the nation, my nation the ones that commanded us to fight it, behind our backs, cussed us, called us baby killers, told us to go to Canada, spit at us: damned if we ran, damned if we stayed and fought.
My story is not quite like most of the other soldiers’ stories in Vietnam. I didn’t question if the war was right or wrong, I just went, matter of fact, I had taken some jungle training in Washington State, when the doctors discovered my toes on my right foot had been smashed from a bomb falling on it in Augsburg, West Germany a few months prior—as a result, I became unfit for war. I did not have to go to Vietnam, —because I would not be able to run well enough. However, I wanted to go so I kept my old orders as they were cutting new ones, and jumped on the plane to Vietnam: I wanted the experience of being in a war, I had filled my veins with patriotic fever, and the travel seemed exciting. I was a silly boy back then.
There was a hostile spirit in the core of America, so I discovered during this time—being from the Midwest, I never noticed it until I started traveling, for the Army; this spirit, I do believe created a defeated attitude among us in Vietnam. Again, I suppose I was different, single, no one back home—for the most part, but many a soldier cried in the night, wanting to go home, be with his wife, children, even some cried for their mothers, this created a storm of drug related soldiers. I saw them come in healthy, and three months later, they were on every drug available. Soldiers not wanting to be soldiers do not make for good soldiers.
President Johnson had taken the 34,000-troops that President Kennedy had sent to Vietnam, American soldiers of war—sent them home, and replaced them with 500,000-soldiers, new ones (much like Obama has done, shifting soldiers like toys in the Middle East; and all remains quiet in the White House.) What can you say to a man like that, like Johnson? Only the devil knows.
Pickled and indecisive Americans, we were all of that and more back in the early late sixties and early seventies. Actually, Nixon was the only one who wanted to stop the fighting, and started bombing Hanoi, and had we continued, we would have won the war (without shame, or dishonor), but again, America screamed and howled at our barbarism, which it was, but we were fighting barbarians. Nixon sent home 300,000-Americans by end of 1971. Those 300,000 were part of Johnson’s scheme for the American Iron Horse, American Industry, and the real barbarians who kept the war going. It was a commercial war, costing the American Government—not one dime, we made up the paper money as if it was wallpaper; oiled the money machines night and day: it cost over nine-billion dollars—devaluing the dollar worldwide, as we have done today, are doing right now, with the two wars going on in the Middle East. Equal perhaps, at today’s inflated rate, Vietnam would have cost 105-billion. In comparison, Iraq has cost us 700-billion, a war like Vietnam, of no crisis for America.
I went to fight communism. I believed in America, only to find out the cold hearts and thin shadows of the emperors of America’s industrialization had designed the war to last, or last longer. By proxy, that is to say, to fight a war in another country—a playground war sort of—instead of fighting one another (the Russians and Chinese), in our own backyards, and profit by it. In addition, in the process we destroyed the ecosystem of Vietnam, which was nearly equal to that of the Amazon, along with killing three-million Vietnamese inhabitants.
Let me add, Agent Orange killed a good friend of mine, among others of course, and genetically altered and lowered the life span of a million other American soldiers (out of the ten million sent to Vietnam), perhaps even my system was infected, who’s to say. In any case, during its usage and years later, a grasshopper was not safe to live in the environment, and for ten years after the war, defected children were born because of the massive usage of chemicals by America. Therefore, Vietnam was also a testing ground for new biological warfare (not much different from Saddam Hussein, who used it on the Kurds, and we scorned him for it).
The industrial machines of America was at full capacity in the mid to late ‘60s and early ‘70s: cranes, jeeps, wings for planes, bullets for rifles, and helicopters: trains filled up with rations: beef and butter, vegetables and fruits, all to feed those ten-million soldiers rotating yearly. It was an industrial heyday for America’s Kings of Industry (they ruled the political system).

The executives of industry knew nothing of leaping over bodies, digging holes in the dirt to hide one’s face from incoming rockets, the scrap metal, metal fragments displaced, and flying everywhichway (they quickly sent their children to college so they’d not have face the torrents of war). During one attack, a piece of metal the size of my fist, and bulky like a round smooth rock, red hot, passed flying by my cheek during a rocket attack, I moved an inch, seeing it come, and it missed me.
We were not baby killers—although babies—truth be told, in every war are killed, that is a fact, a reality of war—I do not know of any wars where they were not killed—consequently, we were just soldiers fighting a barbaric war, and trying to win it. We wanted to triumph, but no one back home did. Back home in the good old U. S. A., (figuratively speaking) they were all like happy fish, smiling at us as worms’ dangling on a hook, ready to be eaten one way or another. The very ones that called us baby killers were the ones who worked for the war machines. The factories, the food chain, the trains, the airports and transportation system in general, why didn’t they all go on strike, quite their jobs, hence, the war would have stopped abruptly—they made their living off the war and once it stopped unemployment rose to over six percent, from nearly zero. I remember because I was part of that unemployed era. Therefore, I suppose it was a Catch-22 for them, as it was for us in winning the war.
Vietnam was a cup of darkness poured over our heads. We were all invaders, if not terrorists, in some country, someone else’s country, that we were supposed to bring freedom to—where we didn’t belong, in which self-determination never came for the South. Constitutionally, the White House considered the Vietnam War a ‘Conflict’ thus giving the war justification to continue. Put another way, the only wars that were a crisis to America in the 20th and 21st Centuries, were WWII and Afganistan. No other wars of this period were politically or constitutionality correct and that came into play for Vietnam. It had to be justified. Of course, today, everything comes under the heading of National Security—hence, truth be told, we are fighting wars for world domination, not for America’s safety—which is fine if only we’d admit it, instead of pretending otherwise; we want to be placed strategically—which is obvious to the world that surrounds America, but not Americans per se.
For the soldiers the war was a jagged and heavy stone, one, no one could move, we were like a bear under the snow, we could not move any which way. We were like blind-owls in the night, blind to the ministers and department heads of American industry. We could not bomb this area or that area, or fight over here or over there, we had to shoot over the rubber trees or around it, do not shoot the enemy if they are in it. Do not shoot the enemy when they are stuck in the barbwire fences, which allows them to escape and live another day to kill more Americans. There were too many rules for us, and none for the enemy. We could not figure this out, that this was not a war to be won (because we could have easily won it; we had the manpower, the firepower, and the airpower, and even sea power—sailing about in the South China Sea; but the Americans and the political system and industry, did not have the willpower. In a way, we never lost the war per se; we simply got tired of it and walked away). No one could win a war anyhow, with such rules and such deviation among Americans—; they made such policies run ramped in our heads. These were either people who never fought a war, or people who were a lot smarter than us, who profited by it, and could care less if we won or lost, and who got killed in the process. This was America’s industrial and political way of thinking (God forbid, but the truth resides in the graveyards of America, in a so-called lost war, and in the devastation of Vietnam).
Anyhow, this is the way I see it, forty years later.


Conclusion (afterthoughts):


In closing, let me say, the first Americans created a civilization. The second developed it. The third, my generation perhaps yours also, we inherited it. Moreover, we tried to protect it, often like barbarians. However, as one can see it is a dying gift, to the future Americans. Unbelievably, barbarism is always around a civilization, especially if you intend to fight wars. Its center theme is to engulf its people by arms. Barbarism never admits its defeat, it will wait, and wait, outwait peace for war, like American Industry.
Vietnam, it was a bloody war, from bloodthirsty barbarians in our country, ruled by a bloody city called Washington D.C., by a vicious, cold calculating ruler called Johnson who gave a free hand to our industrial barons to use the political system as they wished. Johnson, —the mightiest of the rulers of his day, now long dead of course, and mostly forgotten, under drifting sands, and all the better for us Americans.


Note: written in a poetic prose flow, or style, No: 3152; written on October 27 & 28, 2011; at the request of a writer ((thus, this author was inspired to write this inspection) (inspired by Erisa Isufi))

By Dr. Dennis L. Siluk, Poet Laureate

Dragons Kept Watch

(A Student of Confucianism left China, for Argentina, then on to Peru)


Chapter One


I stepped off the ship. Glaring lights from Montevideo (Uruguay), it lay at anchor in the Rio de la Plata. Then after a week, I found my way to Buenos Aires, Argentina, the city was busy, with a European carefree illumination. In the country, I had come from, the cities lights were oil lit, and only for a portion of the night, likened to in the Dark Ages. I had come from 19th Century Manchuria (China, 1898) found my way to Shanghai. The ship was a passenger vessel. When it was being loaded with fish, meat and vegetables, I found a boxed-in corner, there I hid among all the crates, and took in the drifting smells. It was a large ship. All the ships that left China in those days were large to me.
It was late at night and the hold was dark, and it seemed to me, the ship was deserted, then I heard someone pacing aimlessly about, and he lit a lantern. A moment later, I heard steps behind me. I kept silent. Then my mind started wandering here and there, especially if I was to be arrested and sent back to China—if so, I would be imprisoned.
I had come from living at a Confucius Temple one with high and thick walls, difficult to escape from, but I had climbed them nonetheless, and made my escape. I was a student of Confucianism, and not in too good a standing with the Master who did not live up to analects of Confucius—his teachings, which I believed to be back then the art of reasoning by use of the mind upon the opinions of his pupils, whom he never listened to. Logic was not the core, rather thinking clearly and to the point, clarity and honesty of thought, and expression were. Anyhow, these were my first lessons by the Master. The objective for the student was for his speech from beginning to end, the whole thing, to be understood, whereas too often philosophers miss this. You see when you know a thing, it is to hold onto it, that you know it and if not simply admit it: this is knowledge. Dimness of thought, and artificial inexactness of speech, this could not be accepted—it causes misfortune.
I had escaped the torments and torrents of the Mad Master of the temple. My mother had told me more than once, ‘Son, dragons kept watch over you at birth, and they still do.’ Thus, to this day I must say, those dragons are still keeping watch.
Now the man was just above me, looking down. He was a little thinner than I was and about my height.
“Are you Chinese?” he asked in Manchurian.
I shook my head yes, and kept my silence.
“Manchuria haw!”
I did not answer. I looked up at him; I knew he was no police officer, just a deckhand of some sort, who spoke Chinese very well.
“I’m not a night watchman,” the man said.
I believed him. He was wearing plain deckhand cloths, nothing fancy. I had papers but he did not ask for them. I saw him with indifference to his face. He looked as pathetic as I did, if not homeless, surely friendless.
“Do you want to go to South America?” the man asked.
I did not reply. He already knew I did.
He jumped down off the crate and kicked over one to sit on.
“Here,” said the man, reaching into his pocket “one ticket for the boat ride.”
I saw the ticket. I could read the writing only slightly in the shabby light of the lantern some twenty-feet away. I felt safer now.
“What is all this?” I questioned him in disbelief.
“You can have it,” said the man. “I got a job on the ship, I don’t need it anymore.”
I stared at the man, I understood English and French and a little German, he spoke in both Chinese and English at the same time; I figured that if he had wanted me arrested, he need not have gone through all this trouble with such a game.
“I haven’t any money left,” I told him, although it was not true, I had yen, perhaps fifty-dollars worth.
“I didn’t say I wanted to sell it,” replied the man.
I looked back at the ticket it was real, genuine.
He handed it to me without a word, just a smile.
“I don’t understand,” I commented.
“Well, there is one condition,” he said.
“Sure” I thought, here it comes.
“It’s a long voyage, and I don’t have any friends, I want you to be my friend, no other strings attached. You have to stop and greet me, say hello to me on deck.”
“You just want me for conversations?”
“Yes, until we arrive in Montevideo.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes, that is all!”
“You sure there is nothing else?”
“I’m sure.”
I looked at him disbelievingly. On the other hand, I knew folks like him and I, if we had too much solitude we would go crazy on such a long voyage. At the temple no one talked to me, the head monk was a thief, and he knew I knew it. Therefore, I knew this dread of silence, this void one can place upon another. Moreover, here we were, two strangers, one wanting to help the other, and his reward would be to become friends. I gave him a positive gesture and took the ticket, and found the room 212.


Chapter Two


Arturo Garcia looked at me. “I know the feeling, so you changed your name to Manuel Peñaloza, after the family you’ve lived with these past several years?”
I now got the jitters, and felt a tightening in my stomach.
“I want to know everything, why did the family you lived with tell you to leave?”
It appears to be a reproach, as if I had done wrong again, but I had not. However, I did not have a passport, and the detective knew it.
“It didn’t help,” I told the Buenos Aires, detective, “when the children of the family got married; they blamed me for everything that went wrong in that big house. For a few years, they were obsessed with the thought that their parents might leave me a great sum of money, because they had often confided in me.”
“It didn’t help in the long run I see. You knew their affairs too well.”
“Yes,” I said, adding, after I felt his human warmth again, and a lowered voice, I had gotten rid of that ugly feeling.
“I had to leave but I had no place to go. In addition, I did not want to go back to China, god forbid. And I knew the family was a powerful family in Argentina, so I left and just slept in the park these past few days.”
The detective looked at my papers, and then he handed them back to me.
“What did the children do, or say to make you leave?” he asked.
“‘ You got to stop sneaking about the house, checking out my father’s papers looking for his will,’ said the older brother at the dinner table to me once when I was working in the kitchen helping the cook, and serving them food.
“The sister smiled. ‘Oh yes, father, he must stop that romping about at night.’
“‘And exactly what were you looking for Manuel?’ said the father.
“‘No. I wasn’t looking for anything; I was in my room all those nights, every night.’
“Then the father stood up and left the table, as if I was defying him, not his children. Then it occurred to me, they were setting me up.”
“I was alone again. They avoided me as if I had been a thief. Moreover, I could not explain it to anyone, no one in the family would listen to me. Do you know what I mean?”
He nodded. “The world never looks worse than when you’re being set up, thinking you had friends.”
His eyes were devouring me; pupils dilated, with long, very long stares, rigid, as if he should or should not believe me. My insides were frantic. The officers at a nearby table stood up, looked across several desks, “Arturo, we’re going to lunch!” He nodded his head, as if to say okay.
“If I could only stay here,” I said, “I don’t feel a bit like going back to China.”


Chapter Three


The police held me over for the following day, and night. However, it was a hard night for me. I was afraid they would send me back to China. In the following afternoon, I was calmed down, and the same detective called me over to his desk.
“I’ve decided to let you go, are you familiar with the way to Peru?” he asked.
Actually, I felt the boarders were not all that guarded, nobody really wanted to get into Peru, so I figured. On the other hand, Buenos Aires had been my home for several years, but sleeping on benches, were no good, and the family that had employed me would only cause more trouble for me in the future. As I sat there, I was already planning my attempt to cross the boarders. I would have liked best to wait, but I assured Arturo I would leave that night, for fear that too long a stay in the city would attract attention.

I shall never forget that night; my body was alert, in every way. My sense were sharp, I was prepared for anything, without fear, and when I started my journey to cross the boarders into Bolivia and then into Lima, Peru, I felt as if I was crossing Manchuria all over again, into Shanghai. However, this would be my home, and I would never return to China or Argentina.
It was hot the first few nights in Lima, and I slept naked in the parks. The nights were black and very cool that way. In addition, nearby I would plunge into the river, and it struck me as symbolic of my past, washing away everything—I had felt like driftwood for so long, but not anymore. I dried myself, and got on my way looking for a job picking fruit. For a long while, I met no one. I worked until twilight, and started back up again at dawn, watching men and women, children—families meeting each other on the way back home after a twelve hour work day. Everything to me that was the real meaning of revulsion was behind me now. I would tell my story to my son Fidel,

…he in turn, would—in his old age, tell it to his son Augusto, and he to his daughter Rosa and her husband (son-in-law) a gringo from Minnesota, in the United States of America, and someday it would be retold, written down for posterity, hence, becoming history (as it is now).


No. 832 (10-24-2011); Historical Fiction, inspired in fact
Original name “Driftwood’ changed to “Dragons Kept Watch”
Dedicated to Augusto Peñaloza’s grandfather

The Coming War with Russia

((Written in April of 2004) (Reedited, 2-2009, 5-2011 and again in 10-2011))


In my book, "The Last Trumpet..." I write about prophecy, and World War III, which I wrote about seven-years ago, in 2002, this came from my manuscript of which I wrote in, 1984, when I wrote out my visions; thus, I have not wrote much on this subject since, perhaps feeling there is no need for it, just a few reediting with a slight update.

In 2004 the United States was somewhat friendly with Russia (in 2008, this had changed, and now in 2011, we again are friends—we have always been on a rollercoaster with Russia, and I doubt this will cease). Moreover, to be frank, it will not remain as it is now for very long. In the book of Ezekiel, prophecy foretells that Israel as a people shall return to their promised land and now we see this has happened, back in the ‘70s and ‘80s this was not so, a prophecy now fulfilled (for 2500-years the Israelites had been displaced throughout the world).

I do believe Iran will be directly involved with the invasion of Israel—or its attempt, with Russia leading the way, as they have been planning to invade Israel in the end, long ago, but holding off for various reasons.

Looking into chapter 38, verses one and two, Ezekiel mentions Gog, the land of Magog. If you ask a Russian what is the top of the Caucasus Mountains called, he would say, "The Gogh." Consequently, Magog, with his tribe, left Asia Minor and went to the southern part of the land we now call Russia. As a result, Russia is going to play a major part in the war to come in the Middle East. What we have seen so far is simply a warm up for what is to come.

These are the end times, meaning, Israel's last Holocaust to be, it is coming (yet first there will be a war, then the Holocaust). The people to come against Israel will look like a cloud. Two hundred-million military forces will invade the Holy Land, the Bible decrees. China can boast that amount of military might with its 1.3 billion people, and with its ready reserves now, this very day, so a second prophecy is ready for delivery. If you think of it in numbers, it is two thirds of the total population of the United States of America. Consequently, those who have mocked the Bible, look closer sceptics, look at 2 Peter 3:10, there you will find a clear definition of the atomic warfare as is contained in any library, and which will be used within this time frame. It reads, “...the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up."

This letter to the Churches by Peter, was written nearly two-thousand years ago, which had very little meaning if any. Such capability by humankind was unheard of in those far-off days, so the author was writing down something he had no mental grasp on, only a visionary grip, and a directed spirit to write it.

By-and-large, Russia will hit Israel (once there is an agreement between Iran and Russia) before her last strike; when I say her last strike, I am jumping too far into the future, but not that far. First comes the war with Russia and then the two-hundred million military forces from China, all pointing to the Battle of Armageddon, in the valley of Armageddon. (As we can see, Russia and China have united in Battle Games already, against the United States, and Iran keeps trying to build their nuclear nest, so the full truth is not far off, it will unveil itself in due time.)

Judas’ Plight

(A Speculation, in Poetic Theological Prose)

Do not look for proofs or conclusions, only a few metaphysical exonerations …!






Judas Iscariot’s account, or legend behind the man has been oversimplified in that his act of treason by those who have written his story, have disrupted it to look as if it was sabotage (preordained). Although consensus would prove me more wrong than right, yet I feel he wasn’t that cleaver to have outwitted all the apostles, and Jesus Christ himself; consequently, Judas has been given way too much credit for his treachery; oh well, it did occurred, did it not?

A tragedy, this tragedy, one has adapted in history was not accidental, yet mysterious; that is to say, in how it developed. Was Judas not like all men, born of sin, and a trying heart? Yes of course he was. Was Christ’s divinity a secret among the few and many, perhaps? What unforgivable sin did Judas do? Are we not led to believe (like sheep to be sheered) the worse of Judas?

He lowered himself into the abyss, the fires of hell—is what has been legend and lore said, with the taking of those corruptible thirty pieces of silver…! Yet I doubt that is the most corruptible part of his sin! (If indeed that was the case, Peter denied Jesus three times; hence, he has saintly company! Moreover, Thomas did the same, by requesting he inspect and touch Jesus’ pierced hands.)

There is more to this reprehensible psychological psychodrama than meets the eye: even though some have said, it was in the plan of the Lord, that Judas was his instrument planned long ago! …and as a result, he gave the kiss of damnation to Judas’ soul—but for what? Did he not have—as all human beings have—choice or will? In indeed he did. Was this a theological game that the Lord had planted (that humankind has implied he planted, inferred by announcing it was written down in the Book of Days—figuratively speaking, eons ago) —likened to a mustered seed, far-off in ages yet to be—if so, this is miraculous. The reason being, because the grace of God was not with him and he placed indifference upon this man’s soul, to hang him for humankind, before birth: and there was no need for God to have done that. Oh but, should we call this the propagated glory of God? If so, would not history have proclaimed Him the Infamous Slayer, not the Saviour (?) In addition, should we not question, “Was this the unpardonable sin” which can only be against the Holy Spirit?

Oh no, I do not think Judas, played this game to be an infamous, renowned legendary hero, not at all, nor would the Trinity allow this abominate crime. If so, Judas must have thought Christ was less than the word itself—then, and again, this could not be, and far from proven? …yet theologians, the world over and centuries on… rebuked him, for his hypocritical, two-faced contradicting crime, sharp-edged heresy… (for it was quite the opposite) likened to Paul, the once quarrelsome, argumentative, slanted pious Jew; in the beginning he was no less a betrayer to the truth of the Messiah, and perhaps God saw this before time, long before Paul’s birth…who accepted his calling, when called.

Is there a canon that implies Judas claims Jesus Christ needed to redeem man? To my knowledge there is not. Did he not know Jesus was omnipotent, God incarnate, the son of God? Of course, he did—and he knew much more than that, perhaps more than the other apostles did—in that he believed wholeheartedly in the divinity of Christ and the power he could call upon, and his humanity, that is perhaps where the core of his sin resides.

Perchance what he did not understand, or fully understand was that Jesus did not come to choose between right and wrong or conquer the world like Alexander the Great. Only to announce the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand (which was not foreseeable at that moment; nor physical to Judas’ mind); moreover, in so doing curing the ill, the sick to include the leprous. In addition, in the course of his thirty-three years on earth, casting out demons— and that in time, his death and resurrection would invalidate man’s sin, through him, that he would bring them back to the grace of God Almighty—and that that Heavenly Kingdom would be waiting for those who chose it! —that he was the bridge to cross over from blasphemy, and tyranny, and rebellion—He knew although, fully knew—I do believe, Jesus was the one the Baptist called the Messiah, the Christ, and the Lamb.

Perhaps, just perchance, Judas was mad in that his King of Kings would not take command by moving the forces of the world, with the wave of his finger, as He did with the Red Sea for Moses; conceivably, it had to do with extravagance. Therefore, his heart, or perhaps his mind or spirit within him (maybe all those I’ve just mentioned), at that time, that moment, was not for the greater glory of God and that in itself, meant boldly if not traditionally, he was not invested in Jesus’ heavenly kingdom to be for mankind? However, he was investing in the kingdom on earth that was now in place. One might even say, it was a dilemma for him, if indeed he was conscious of both roads, both kingdoms that is, and surely he was aware somewhat if not devouringly so.

Oh yes, he tried to glorify himself—no doubt, and accordingly, as theologians have indicated or inferred, destroyed himself in the process—no doubt again, indisputable. In addition, as they have implied, cast into the eternal fires of Hell, which is questionable, at best. Nevertheless, his actions were not done by intent nor was it his aim, rather his burden, obsession.

The words that keep coming to my mind for Judas, are: predestined and the unpardonable sin; the theologians seem to make them into a package deal; one for all and all for one: meaning, one cannot be without to the other, like two peas in a pod. Christ said, “It would have been better had you not been born.” (This was a figure of speech for the most part. For is it not true, all persons in hell would have been better off had they not been born; on the other hand, if Judas made it to paradise, or even heaven, the shame he would carry with him, eternal shame, would this not also bear the truth of: “You would have been better off had you not been born.”)

In any case, there was no curse that God had cast down like lightening upon this man—; however, he knew the love Judas once had for him (perhaps still had in a mad way), and Jesus knew the psychological mind of man. Had he not loved Jesus, he would not have hung himself, nor thrown the thirty pieces of sliver into the gutter. The sin comes into play when Christ confronted Judas, and Judas did not change his formal (or should we called it his: prescribed or strict) reasoning, way of thinking, his attitude, remaining as he wished, as it had been for a long while.

Was it planned by Satan to move Judas—everywhichway, with his poisonous tongue, with a whisper in his ear? Like Satan tried with Christ. Should we give Satan the pleasure in promoting him to an influential figure in Judas’ rise and demise, in this ultimate plan of God’s, this somewhat 9/11? In a way we could infer, —like unto like—Judas was not unlike Satan, by wanting the glory no man nor angelic being could ever have; likened to sitting at the right hand of God Almighty…Himself (or thinking a grasshopper, could rule by the side of the Emperor of the Universe)!

Judas knew, Jesus could if he wanted to, change things with a gesture of his finger, in addition, this was his plan—now his new plan, I doubt it was always his diagram, only when he knew Christ was not going to use his power for earthly gains. Perchance, he felt Jesus would not read his mind, like so many of us think as we sin from day to day, sin right in front of him thinking he’s blind to our shenanigans. Sinning and wearing his cross, and sinning again (consequently the cross being no more than a trinket to the wearer) sinning as if we have a licence to do so because we can go to church and ask the Priest for absolution and all is forgiven with the wave of a finger, or sliding our fingers down the rosary. We forget, God reads the heart as well as the mind. He is not blind and lost; even with a horde of Christian Churches surrounding us, we think no more of his spoken word in that church than a person reading the daily newspaper sitting on a park bench, at times.

Another thing Judas did not fully understand was similar to John’s mother’s way of thinking: that John could one day sit at the right hand of God Almighty, like Jesus Christ—so you see, Judas is not alone in this obsession for power, in that, having a son next to such power could be quite valuable in the long run. Christ told her, “You don’t understand what you’re asking!” The deed or sin may be of ignorance, but nonetheless, behind all of it was greed for power.

What is actually taking place here? Christ could not offend the Trinity, he was (is) part of it. In addition, the unpardonable sin is it not, blasphemy, or irreverence, against the Holy Spirit? Thus, if Judas knew what he was saying and doing, he had thus committed the Unpardonable sin—I would think, perhaps conclude. John’s mother, on the other hand, did not, for Christ said, “You do not know what you are asking!” Let us take this a little further. To become equal to Christ was to denounce the Holy Spirit, to take his place. Christ could not cleanse that sin. However, was Judas asking to sit at the right hand of God, or the left hand? If not, then his sin is pardonable. Therefore, he commits suicide out of depression; this again, is pardonable—if approached right. However, Judas did not care about the sins of man, but the Glory of Jesus (God in human form), and his position with Jesus, and he knew at the wave of a finger, Jesus could switch his quandary, this dilemma, this fix he found himself in: wanting to rule the world alongside of Jesus. This was his plight.

Judas, stretching his arms to the heavens, with half-opened eyes—saw the labyrinth he was lost in; an unending, unwinding entanglement. Thus, at his ends wit, he committed suicide, more sorrowful—I believe—than any man alive had ever been.

Note: written 11-26-2008 (No. 2526); reedited 10-17-2011 (by Dlsiluk)

The Vilification of Mary Magdalene

The mistaken beliefs of Mary Magdalene becomes obvious as one researches the literature available, first she is mentioned several times throughout the Gospels of the New Testament as accompanying Jesus on his journeys, such as in Luke 8:2; and in the Gospel of Matthew as being present at his crucifixion (27:56). Also in the Gospel of John, she is recorded as the first witness of Jesus' resurrection (John 20:14-16) (Mark 16:9, later manuscripts)—seemingly not as an equal apostle, yet no matter how we frame it, she was the thirteenth. In the Gospel of Mary Magdalene itself, Peter is opposed to Mary's words, because she is a woman... (outwardly as you read and reread these conversations in the writings of Mary Magdalene, it becomes more obvious, or at least for me that she was a woman ahead of her times, and the male apostles had a hard time dealing with it).
Levi, in his defense of Mary Magdalene and her teaching (for she does try to teach the apostles what she has learned of the resurrection of Christ, and perhaps teach is too heavy a word for the male gender, thus we shall use, edify, or enlighten). Levi tells Peter directly to his face, and to those apostles standing about: “Surely the Savior knows her very well. That is why he loved her more than us.” In the Gospel of Philip, a similar statement paints a more obvious picture of Mary’s position with the Lord, as perhaps even a more trusted apostle. (The question comes to mind, who has vilified Mary, and why, who has tampered with the New Testament? We may have answered one of the questions or mysteries already).
Mary comes to fullness—as we look ahead here, not only as a woman ahead of her times, but also as an exemplary disciple. A witness to Jesus’ ministry, a visionary of the glorified Jesus, and in contest with Peter, living in a man’s world—and I mean, a man’s world in every word a women may have spoken in those far-off days of paramount jealousies, envies, and other cardinal sins. Perhaps it is time, being the 21st Century that one need no longer look at her as they have in the past, for it becomes quite noticeable someone or persons have bent the truth, deleted the facts, indistinct the reality of her life. However, perhaps as I have previously stated and put clearly she was the thirteenth apostle. Moreover, let me add, in good repute yet she becomes in her own time the forgotten one, the elapsed apostle, we can straighten things out though? Yes indeed, we can!

A true look into Mary’s life we see the erroneous view that Mary of Magdalene was not a prostitute, as so often misconceived. Moreover, for what it is, it is no more than a cheap piece of theological fiction, of some jealous lunatic. Alternatively, insane clergy who dare not write the truth in fear of his life. (On the other hand, modern day writers have no more evidence of her being a prostitute, and, there is no evidence for her being Christ’s lover, which again is simply the imagination of the 21st Century’s movie guiros, theaters trying to make a buck, or sell a book…). It is perhaps, a step to freeze the legitimacy of women’s leadership qualities of those remote days; moreover, it cheapens the viewer’s look at the first Christians. This was a time the disciples were putting together the doctrines of Christ’s Church. Its foundation—its religion per se, and I suppose being in a male orientated world, the disciples were concerned about reliability—acceptance, how people would recognize —mentally accept, being able to allow, a female tutor of God, of this new faith, and Jesus Christ’s part of the Trinity, incarnate.

We see in John 20 and in Matthew 28, Mary Magdalene wanting to take hold of Jesus’ feet. This has been widely popularized in many dimensions, with critical comments, a point of contention. Let us straighten this out, now and forever. There is nothing good on planet earth that Satan and his followers have not tried to corrupt; thus, her reputation of being less than a wholesome woman is simply a textual corruption. How can one tell? The original text reads “fear” rather than “touch” so it should read, “...do not fear me” not “...do not touch me” or perhaps it could have read “...do not fear to touch me” the words “...fear to touch,” are the ones in question, because the words are odd for Jesus’ manner of speech. Another point is, later on in the same chapter of John, Jesus says to Thomas—in so many words, ‘Touch my hands and side....’ Again, it is to Mary’s discredit I do believe such textual corruption exists. I repeat Thomas is actually encouraged to touch. On the other hand, Jesus might have simply been saying in his own way to Mary, here, right now, I stand before you, you do not need to fear or touch me. You see Thomas, like Peter, both were a little weak, and perchance, Jesus was trying to say, faith is better than denial or even doubt, the two sins of Thomas and Peter. There are many possibilities here, but the main factor being: he was not scolding her for anything, as the fraudulent has tried to design into the text: to install a morsel of doubt into the text.

Dialogue:
Mary said, “I saw the Lord in a vision and I said to him, ‘Lord, I saw you today in a vision.’ He answered and said to me, ‘Blessed are you that you did not waver at the sight of me. For where the mind is, there is the treasure.’ I said to him, ‘So now, Lord, does a person who sees a vision see it through the soul or through the spirit?’” (From the Gospel of Mary, contained in Berolinensis 8502)
Comments on the Dialogue:
In the conversation, Jesus Christ teaches that the inner self is composed of the soul, spirit, and mind; as a result, visions are seen and understood in the mind (Andrew and Peter oppose her...do not believe the Lord would speak to her first, or before without speaking to them first).
The dialogue and context of Mary called Magdalene, should be viewed I do believe in a broader Christian context. She is if anything, an intriguing glimpse into that long lot and biased past. The ancient years of the past, and a look into the apostles (and their human nature), and in what they would only allow a look into, some two-thousand years ago. One can now see a deeper Christianity, and its identity.
This confrontation between Peter and Mary can also be read in the Gospel of Thomas, Pistis Sophia, and the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians. It would seem—and understandable so, Peter and Andrew preferred, and represented the orthodox position of their day, which rejected the authority of women to teach, at near any cost.

It might be noteworthy, psychologically anyhow, to say Peter was heartbroken, because of his denial of Christ, and thus, Christ restored his credibility, or tried to, this never happened to Mary, and this may even have played a roll in Peter’s heavy confrontation with her, she was unspoiled in this area, where he was not. Like it or not, such betrayals, although forgivable, play a roll mentally in self-approval (self-esteem) and he was not getting any from Mary. We too often think of the Apostles as superhuman, when in essence, they are human beings, although chosen for specific tasks.

No: 560 (12-28-2009) Reedited 10-22-2011

Mayhem at the Turkish Guesthouse

(in, Babenhausen, West Germany, 1975)



Babenhausen West Germany, seven miles from the 545th Ordinance Company,
where Chick Evens lived…


The woman, German waitress in a Bavarian outfit, dress and all, left the bar area with a smile.
Her shoulders were very thin, her face and hands lightly tanned, and she was taller than most of the men in the bar, apparently so, who were Turkish. A few of the dark-eyed Turkish men strolled about from the bar to the tables in the next room where I had walked into. The strolling about customers, seemed more like people who had been hunted for—looking always here and there to see who came in, who was sitting at each table—somewhat guarded, so it appeared.
“Find a table, and I’ll bring you a beer if that’s what you’d like,” said the female server, “and there’s a table right over there,” she pointed into an even smaller room, with only four tables—perhaps for my benefit, which has to say something. My goal was to get half drunk, it was Saturday afternoon, and the sun was warm, not real warm, but warm, and in the guesthouse even warmer—near hot, just a stroke of luck—for the summer days in Babenhausen Township, for they can become agonizing.
I had not realized this was a Turkish bar for the most part—where a stranger would draw attention.
When I found my table and sat down, I looked about; my surroundings appeared to be a tinge dangerous. I moved a little closer to the side of the wall, a bit out of sight from the other two rooms. I got thinking—did I step into a hornets nest. Four men were sitting together at a table in the room connected to mine, along with several other tables filled with a mixture of young and old, male and female Turkish folk.
I had met a few Turkish families while living in West Germany, my experience with them stood me in good stead, or I might have retreated before I sat down at the table. As it was, I ordered a sandwich with the beer the server had already brought. I noticed one of the four men staring at me, and he had a pistol tucked away inside his trousers, I could barely see the handle, but I did get a glimpse of it. I did not want this to be my first encounter with a weapon in Germany. Although I have had them encounters before with drunks, having to fight my way out of a bar, but not with a pistol in hand, although I had had a drunk once put a gun to my head, outside a bar—once in my old neighborhood back in Minnesota; but this was Germany, and this fellow was Turkish.
In the preceding minutes, this had run through my brain. I had often imagined such a scene—being a loner for the most part during my youthful days, and as I said, even had at one time, a gun put to my head, and my share of fistfights, even a knife blade put up to my throat in Augsburg, Germany, a few years earlier, back in 1970. Nevertheless, the reality of such a happening here seemed remote. It was my head not my body that was reacting. My stomach was normal, my mouth unmoved, and no quivering to it. The man with the gun and his fellow men were talking about women in general, and that American Soldier. Which was I? In addition, by the looks of affairs, they detailed the two subjects.
Now, the robust, Turkish gunslinger, leaned over the top of his wooden chair, looking at me, “Where you from, headed for, comrade?” he said in a husky German tongue.
“I’m not headed for any place in particular,” I said.
“You seem to be a stranger here?”
“Yes, and no, I’m an American Soldier, stationed nearby, I live a half mile up the road, here in Babenhausen.”
He hesitated for a moment. Noticed I spoke broken German, meaning German mixed with English.
“Whew!” he said, not knowing how to say in English, ‘Is that a fact,’ or ‘is that so.’
“Who wants to spend all afternoon looking for a bar, when there’s one right here?” I shouted back, we were twenty-feet away from one another.
The gunslinger laughed. “That’s a fact for sure!” and gulped down his beer as if it was water.
“We’ve been lucky with the weather!” he yelled back at me.
I felt the sweat on my back, sticking to my shirt.
“Yes, it’s not been as hot as expected,” I commented. It being midsummer, but it was more than warm in the backrooms.
The four of them started in again on women, ordered me a drink, and as soon as I finished it, I got up and left the room. All four of the Turkish men appeared to be annoyed with one another—partly because the ceiling fans were not working and it was getting hotter and hotter in those two back rooms. One to the other was getting irritated and the drunker they got the more boastful they became. I felt—: why on earth did I come into this bar, the men were becoming almost intolerable for the waitress, her face showed fear and despair, they were hitting her on the rump as she walked by, spilling beer on the table, etcetera.
Now as I got up to leave (I had only had two beers), the server was passing through, and she was one of the most beautiful women I had seen thus far in Babenhausen. Being at the Army base most days, I saw very little of women. I stood motionless by the door, staring at the man with the pistol; he was rubbing the butt of the firearm. I kept thinking I had better get out of here it looks like trouble. I clutched the door handle as though someone might try to pull me back in, once outside. I have good instincts, I can smell trouble and I kept telling myself that by now it would be but minutes before that guy pulled that handgun out, and the sooner I got through that door, the safer I’d be.
When a person is in a panic, more often than not, one feels the limelight is on him, that no one else has anything more on his or her mind than you; and in this case, I was far from their ongoing dialogue, or frame of mind. I stepped outside the door, heard a shot, closed my eyes, the temptation to go back in to see what took place was strong, but I opened them back up quickly and started to walk back to my apartment, at a fast pace. I told myself as I neared my domicile, I was of no interest to anyone in that bar, and I was to him or her no more than a shovel full of sand, visible for a second. This was true; largely, it was the last time I would ever walk into that bar —being a loner in those far-off days, was often times a most dangers game…

No: 830 (10-22-2011)

The Repulsion of La Merced (A Cthulhu Account!)

Found only in ancient manuscripts is the word ‘Cthulhu’ meaning ‘horror of horrors.’ A horror that numbs you, one that defies even Satan the Devil, the decipherment of the word can entangle both the pawn and the prey; it reduces human existence to a weak and stale plight. Thus, in this following story, one that is based on fact and considered by the author as historical fiction—in that he was not present, and nobody can put the whole story together completely. Hence, having to add or fill in the gaps, he has fictionalized with his imagination the areas of this account with his own descriptiveness, his own adjectives, that in which he feels belong to the story. This account takes place in November, of 2008, we will see a jealous mindless monster in motion, and the pawn will be devoured (names have been changed).

I will tell you of Naomi, She left Andahuaylas, Peru, in the Andes crossing into the Mantaro Valley and Huancayo, on November 3, 2008, on her way to La Merced, her troubles forgotten—for the most part— unknowing as she neared the city of La Merced, once there a jealousy and peril would engulf her life.
As she reached her destination (having taken a bus), La Merced, being in the central jungle of Peru, near Satipo, she went to find the domicile of her half-sister, and brother-in-law, to live with them as she sought work, in the fields, assuming she’d be welcomed wholeheartedly. Once she found the residence, she knocked on the door. A man slowly opened it—and with a long silent stare, a long parade of glimpses from heel of her feet to the top of her head, as if he was eyeing her every inch, she said “I am Naomi,” for a moment thinking perhaps he, Cesar, Laura’s husband had forgotten what she looked like. They had not seen one another for a number of years.
He had then asked her in—smiling, giving her a kiss on the cheek, as his mind and inners whirled with glittering visions of romance. His eyes read, it was not going to be the drab day (or days to follow), as he had expected. Life would soon change; she was to his liking, with nice features, and with a youthful attractive shape, even a tinge meek.
With the greetings over and little said, her half-sister brought Naomi to her private bedroom. Then as evening developed, while at the dinner table, Laura noticed her husband had taken the liberty of returning faint like glimpses toward her half-sister, although there was a misconception here, Naomi was not participating in this game—these glimpses were unnoticed by Naomi—for the most part, or not taken seriously. In addition, Laura’s husband continued this most serious game, nightly.


And so during the following week, Laura put on an invisible mask, to hide her jealousy, not that her half-sister was feeding into her husband’s scheme, but jealous manifestations of that illusion entangled her imagination to think so (but fundamentally it was not true).
It was during the second week, towards the end of it, that Laura could no longer bridge the gulf of evil she had created towards Naomi—the hatred that was boiling within her fiber—an awful blackness, layers of numbed blackness—the ‘Cthulhu’ kind. Her heart now pounding, pulsating like voodoo drums, an unstable mind unable to bridge the gap back to sanity, her spirit spinning, shaking her every bone for vengeance to stop this creature from subduing her husband, she had devised her plan—
Laura was now overcome, mad if not possessed. Moreover, seemingly obsessed with the picture she had drawn inside her brain. Along with an insecure ego, and fear of losing her husband; blood burning like lit firewood in a heath throughout her bobbling hot veins, pulling at her hair when alone in a private room, until the roots gave in, and dropped out, she was ready for her ‘Cthulhu’ misdeed. It would have seemed—to an onlooker, a spectator—she was more a product of a lost primitive race, a dim and long forgotten evolution.


Oh, far, far—far off was her mind this night, when she woke up in the wee hours, took a heavy handled slug hammer, red-eyed, with a slayers heart, the hammer swaying back and forth, as she crept into Naomi’s room. Causally she bent over the bed her half-sister lay sleeping in, lurking, laying in wait, with her distorted mind for the Cthulhu moment. Now staring at the face of her half-sister—mumbling quietly ‘banshee, she whore’, listening to her breathing, she lifted the hammer with one hand, as if it was a feather, as if she had found a hidden strength somewhere inside her body, for this very moment. Then with the other hand, she grabbed the wooden handle to secure it, to aim it perfectly over her head. She wanted to produce in her cerebellum an inane chaos, before she stepped into the horrifically primordial everlasting darkness, called death. It was as if a beast haunted her and that beast recognized the mark she was to strike, and like a great wind, she struck that mark: once on her younger sister’s forehead, the temple, the nose, she struck several times, bone breaking blows, and sent her into an outer darkness, yet she existed.
The following day she had died in the hospital. Yet, driven only by some restless whim, to show her half-sister, her slayer, she would not die instantly, against all cosmic laws—to leave a lasting remembrance for her half-sister—she remained in this world, one day longer—thereafter, like a crushed worm, she passed on.

Written 11-16-2008, after leaving La Merced, a few weeks later, the author was inspired by actual events turning up in newspaper reports of a killing that had taken place, thus following up on the murder, he was inspired to write the short story, “The Repulsion of La Merced”; if for anything, for posterity. Reedited and slightly revised for publication, 10-23-2011. Dedicated to Nola and Sebastian.

Escape

(A Short Play in one Act, and two Scenes)


Overview
(Or general idea behind the story)

The story “Escape” is much like the Author’s other works, biographical in many respects; it presents a version of his own life. In this case, an imaginative speculation about what might have taken place prior to his leaving Minnesota to go to San Francisco and what might have happened otherwise, had he not.
That is, had he not chosen to go to San Francisco, in 1968, as indicated in his previous book “Romancing San Francisco”? Moreover, had he not gone to Vietnam, as indicated in his book, “Where the Birds Don’t Sing.” In addition, had he not went onto college receiving two Doctorate Degrees, along with two undergraduate degrees? And seven Poet Laureate Awards; traveling the world over—to fifty-six countries, and forty-six of the fifty states, in the United States. What is more, had he not worked on his self-image—had he not taken as Robert Frost the poet’s idiom seriously, “The Road less Traveled,” then what?
It cast light on the significance for him on his neighborhood (which the police call ‘Donkeyland’), whose influence on his early life is obvious. He himself is perhaps was his own worse—if not only—protagonist. His estrangement from the world outside of the neighborhood, which consists of two neighborhood bars, a street called Cayuga, a cemetery along Jackson Street, called ‘Oakland’; a dozen or two dozen friends.
This story elaborates on one single night at one of the two bars, his central theme alcoholism or escape.
Making the decision he did, he in the process sobered up, wrote three books on the subject of Alcoholism, which he would not have done, had he not escaped the neighborhood, and became an international licensed drug counselor.
It is 1968, at this point, Chick Evens had been married to Barbara for fifteen months, she is now seeking a divorce, but Chick will not give it to her, he knows if he does, he’ll be drafted, and sent to Vietnam. He has a daughter named Darla, born in 1966; again authentic, but on his aesthetic, or visual theory, things could change, in that he ponders on a decision. In real life, Barbara had told Darla, his real father died, of course, this is not the real case, and she wants to marry another person.
Escape, in essence is essential theme; for those who have read much of the forty-five books the author has written, there is always truth interwoven into his dialogues, his narrations, thus, you see the author’s life as it really is today of how it might not have been had he chosen a different road in life.
He has an apartment on the east side of town (York Street), which again is authentic, he is twenty-years old, his brother Mike two years older, lives on Van Buren Street, with his two kids, and wife. He is a truck driver. Chick Evens is a kind of roustabout, better put, working for Swift Meats, in South Saint Paul, and becoming a chronic drunk, he isn’t at this moment in his life, anymore than a bum, as he mother once put it lightly. Perhaps more on the borderline of inspiring drinker, but he drinks almost everyday, he likes beer, smokes three packs of cigarettes a day.
He has a girlfriend named Sandy Nelson; she’s sixteen years old, and a blond, tall, thin and nice looking, blue eyes, a sort of whore—or everyone’s girl, to get to the point. On the other hand, he had Sue Benton, sixteen years old, black hair girl dark eyes, very pretty, who wanted to be his exclusive girlfriend—so he was not lacking in female companionship, but she would not put out for him. Consequently, falling to the wayside; these girls will not show up in the Act, but it might be worthwhile knowing why he is not running after any girls during the Act. He also has a fake identification, and if questioned, he looks the legal age for drinking.
Therefore, now you know enough of the background of the story, to get into the story.
The tone to the story is haughty, if not portentous, in that it is slated on Chick’s self-importance. Perhaps you will get to know the author more, or better, knowing the most influential part of his youthful life, which drove him to escape the world he was in, was his neighborhood, and his dreams—although not fully developed yet. Escape is the objective, the author is trying to tell you, not everybody is successful in escaping, and how easy one may think it is, isn’t really so easy, that is if you don’t believe in it fully, and how one thing leads to another.
Had he not gone to San Francisco, and signed the divorce papers, he would not have gone to Vietnam, Germany, Italy, thus, not have written “A Romance in Augsburg,” or the 850-short stories, and 3200-poems and 1400 articles to date, along with forty-five books, or this One Act Play.



Escape: the Story

(Act One, Scene One)


Jackie S. and Nancy E. come in by the front door of the Mt. Airy Bar, on Jackson and Sycamore Streets, Jackie being twenty-years old. When she was fifteen, she and Chick Evens had a thing going, nothing serious, a teenager’s lighthearted affair you might say. Nancy is going with one of the Lund boys by the name of Sammy. The bartender is Jose Garcia, Mexican, a strongly build forty-five year old man, robust.
Jackie slender, from the Native American Race, is wearing a well made and trimmed navy blue blouse, and jeans, she’s slim and cute; as for Nancy, more plain than cute, brown hair, is holding a large handbag. They sit at the corner of the bar, towards the front door; it is 7:00 p.m.
By the jukebox and in a booth near the bathrooms are Jerry Hino, and his brother Jim, and Jerry’s second wife, Betty. A year prior, when Jerry had gotten mad at Betty, he and Chick Evens took a trip to Omaha, Nebraska, Jerry to get away from her, and that in itself is another story.
Jerry is perhaps the same size in height as Chick, but a 100-pounds heaver, and fifteen years his senior. Jim is perhaps twenty-five, more or less, about the same height as Evens, and build. They are drinking beer and smoking, kind of to themselves. Don Gulf, has come in from the bar across the street and is talking to Jerry, they are friends, about the same age, he is married to Jackie’s sister, one of the several sisters of Jackie, he is the biggest drunk in the neighborhood. Once he tried to pick a fight with Chick, thinking he was screwing his wife, when it was John L., (John L., who went with Evens to California; Long Beech and then L.A. and came back to marry his long time girlfriend, Karen) Larry L’s cousin.



Jackie: the boys are sitting on the church steps drinking as usual. I suppose Doug expects me to be there, but he can wait. They didn’t see us anyhow.

Nancy E: No, they didn’t, I saw Sammy there and Chick, he wasn’t there as usual, you should go back with him, you always give him the eye, but end up with someone different, he treats you better than Doug.

Jose: What you girls having?

Jackie: tap beer, any kind.

Jackie: (Points to the clock.) I heard Chick was going to San Francisco; learn more of that Karate stuff, he’s been talking about that for the last year now, he’s still living on East Side of town, goes to that gym he calls a dojo.

Nancy E: (Sitting on the stool next to Jackie, trying to get comfortable.) He’ll never escape this neighborhood, no one does.

Jackie: He might, he’s different. I heard Sammy asked you to marry him, is that true?

Nancy E: O, yes. (She is hesitant, coughs, then laughs, trying to put it off, rather nervously.) I’m trying to put it off until I finish nursing school, I want to be an LPN; that’s in two years, but he doesn’t want to wait, he says he’ll pay for it, he makes good money like, Chick’s brother, Mike.

Jackie: (Sympathetically.) Rather nice, I think he means it, he’s nuts about you.

Jose: Look outside, it looks like rain. (Moving towards the window, leaving the horseshoe shaped bar.)

Jackie: Is Mr. Carbonell working tonight? (Who is the owner of the bar, and kind of a snob?)

Jose: He always works the nights. (He points to the window it is raining hard now.) He’s in the back room getting ready, with Doris, the waitress.

Jackie: Yea, we all know what he’s doing with Doris, both married, and whooping it up.

Jose: Shiii, be quiet, he’ll hear you.

Jackie: we all know he stays with her in the back of the bar half the night after the bar closes.

Nancy E: It shouldn’t be long now; the boys will be in here, or across the street at Bram’s soon, I saw Big Ace’s brother in there, Kenny, you know the skinny one Chick went with to Seattle; he’s back with his wife again.


Mr. Carbonell comes out of the backroom up to the bar front area of the bar, towards Jose, holding papers, he advances towards Jose.


Carbonell: I’ll be a while girls, I got to count the money, and make a transfer, so if you want a drink, order one now.

Allen J: I’ll take a Bud before your start your business. (He shouts, he’s on the other side of the bar by himself, he’s been drinking nearly as much as Chick Evens lately, also the same age as Chick, they are both buddies, Chick used to like his sister, Italian stock, but she’s too young, fourteen. Allen is a nice looking fellow, black hair, his father owns a little business on Cayuga Street, polishing, and putting plated chrome on bumpers and other parts of chrome on cars and motorcycles, Evens worked for his father for a season.)

Carbonell: get him a beer Jose, I’ll open the register.


Doug, Reno (or Steve L. the fat man of the neighborhood, who married Judy, a silent a quite woman) Mike E., Larry L., and Jennie, Jacky’s sister, Nancy D. and her boyfriend, David, along with Big Ace, and his sister Kathy—whom Chick used to date right after he dated Jackie S. And Sid M., a friend who often stopped at Chick’s high school to pick him up before he enter the door, so they could get drunk (Jerry S, six-foot six, 240 pounds, and as dumb as an ox) all walk through the swinging doors of the bar.


Jose: Welcome boys, you will have to wait a few minutes while Mr. Carbonell clears the register. Hope you don’t mind.

Allen: (Rises up, waves his hand, as if to say hello, he is not really one of the boys, but part of the neighborhood, and not much of a troublemaker.)

Mike E: You see my brother. (Looking at Allen)?

Allen: he could be across the street at Bram’s.

Mike E: I doubt it, he does not like the place. Jackie, you see him.

Jackie: No, why?

Mike E: (looks at Jose)

Jose: Do not disturb me, we are counting, he was here an hour ago, left.

Doug: (He takes a hand full of change out of his pocket, hands it to Jackie.) Order me a beer, and the rest of the guys something, I got to go take a piss. (On the way to the can, he slips a quarter into the jukebox, plays Elvis’ “It’s Now or Never,” and Roger Miller’s “King of the Road,” and something by Johnny Cash. Bill K and his wife Judy walk into the bar at the sometime; Doug plays his last song, and heads on into the bathroom, waving his hands, a gesture of hello, at Jerry and Bill just before he opens the bathroom door.)

Mike E. You see my brother around, Bill?

Bill K: We were practicing karate earlier this afternoon in my backyard, I can’t say I have seen him since; he’ll be around though, he always is, why?

Mike E: He got some paper from the courthouse sent to my place, I think it’s his divorce papers from Barb, you know, his ex-wife.

Jack T: (One of Chick’s friends, comes through the door, hears what Mike said.) Divorce papers haw, he better not sign them he’ll be heading for Vietnam, I got my draft notice a week ago, I got to be going in three weeks. The bastards got me. Matter of fact, you see my brother Tom? (Tom is married to one of Jackie’s sisters, Trudy.)

Mike E: No. (All the other boys and the two girls, Jackie and Nancy, shake their heads no, but Allen, he’s not paying attention.)

Jack T: how about you goofball (Looking at Allen; Allen looks up surprised, Jack is a joker, and when drunk a loose cannon like his brother.) I’m just kidding, but how long you’ve been here?

Allen: I’ve been here a few hours, he never came in when I was here.

Doug: A letter haw?

Jackie: No shit, I bet he’s going to end up in Vietnam.

Mr. Carbonell: Okay boys, what’ll you have?

Doug: (Picking up his change.) Tap beer for everyone.

Allen: I don’t like tap beer!

Doug: Forget the big shot over there, tap beer isn’t good enough for him, asshole. (Allen just smiles, looks at Doug, he is a brawler.)


Carbonell hands each of his customers, which are really the neighborhood gang, all tap beer but Allen. The newspaper is on the bar, Big Ace pushes it towards Larry, and Larry the tough boxer of the neighborhood, tosses it in the basket behind the bar, knowing nobody in the bar reads anything, in particular, the neighborhood.


Carbonell: Please don’t do that Larry, I read the paper and Doris does after work.

Larry L. Horseshit, we all know what you do with Doris after hours. ((Everyone starts laughing, but Jose just keeps to his self and Carbonell leaves well enough alone.)(Bill and his wife Judy, are in one of the side booths, Doris brings them each a tap beer. She heard what Larry said, just produces a grim face. Jerry Hino is calling Doris over to place an order, there is a lot o noise, and Doris is hard of hearing, matter of fact year after year her hearing gets worse so it seems, one might think it’s from stress, with Mr. Carbonell…but who’s to say.))

Chick E: (Walks into the bar.)

Mike E: I had begun to think you’d never come in; haven’t seen you in a week.

Chick E: I’ve thought of that also, been thinking of going to San Francisco soon.

Mike E: You mean to see that karate expert from Japan?

Chick E: Yup!

Mike E: Still at the stockyards with ma?

Chick E: Yes, I see her almost everyday there, she gives me a ride now and then, wakes me up, honks the horn until I get up, drives me crazy.

Mike E: Well anyhow, here, why do you have your paperwork sent to my house? (Chick takes the envelope, opens it up.)

Chick E: I never had it sent to your apartment; Barb must have, knowing I never seem to have a place of my own too long; blame her.

Jackie: What’s it say, divorce, you’ll end up going to Vietnam, Jack says so?

Chick E: I thought of that, but who cares anyhow, I wouldn’t mind it, be something different.

Mike E. What’s it say?

Chick E: Not much, something about “Inhuman Cruelty” for god sake, what on earth does that mean, she’s the one screwing everybody in town, I was at one of the east side bars a month ago, and a guy comes up to me, says ‘…is Barb E—her maiden name—is she your wife?’ I say ‘yes’, and he says ‘what a whore,’ and I told him, ‘why you telling me what I already know, it’s your problem if you don’t like her, why tell me?’ and he just looks at me like a dumb fool.

Jackie: You must have known it before. (He does not answer.) Didn’t you?

Chick E: No, I didn’t know anything. ((Jackie looks at him with a sad, and somewhat mystified face.)(Chick looks back at Jackie, knowing Doug beats the shit out of her, and she takes it, smiles slightly.))

Mike E and Jack T: What you going to do?

Chick E: It’s just paperwork, they can’t draft me until I go to court, or don’t go to court and let them do what they want to, and maybe the war will be over by then: isn’t that the case, isn’t it, or unless I sign it, and agree to it…something like that.

Jack T: Not quite, you don’t know what she’s thinking.

Chick E: Barb wants me to sign paperwork allowing someone else in the future to adopt my daughter, you know my daughter, Darla, if I sign it, and she’ll not go for a divorce I bet.

Laura M: (John St. Clair’s girlfriend had walked into the bar, John being the only brother to Jackie S., and overheard the conversation.) Go on and sign the damn paperwork, or you’ll never go to San Francisco, or in the Army, and end up staying here getting drunk everyday like you do, and dying early. ((Everyone looks at Laura; she is seventeen years old, Indian, very pretty, tall, and pregnant with John’s first child.)(She likes Chick, feels he has potential; she has read some of his early poetry.))

John S: (John leans forward, resting his elbows on the bar, he’s eighteen, his hands joined together) She makes sense, but for us guys, we like it here (looking at Laura).

Laura M: (Shyly, as not to embarrass John.) Yes, we like it here, because that is all we see in our minds. And it is my mind that attracts me to you John, and I love you, so I stay (she’s now receiving hesitating glances from John and everyone). Why do you think I come here John, because of you, but Chick has nobody, he can go and do and see whatever he wants? I don’t even see why he’s here.

John S: Why, we’ve known each other since childhood. We have to give our child a name. It’s you and I, it always has been (John is confused, he’s not as bright as Laura, he’s gulping down a beer) it’s not so bad here, is it?

Laura M: No. Otherwise I’d not be able to see you, and that I’d not be able to live with.

John S: Why then do you say all that.

Laura M: (Suddenly confused.) I had better go, I’m tired, and I don’t want to drink too much, the baby. (She looks at Chick for a moment, then turns quickly and leaves the bar. John shakes his head.)

Jackie S. What now? (She says to her brother, John S.) What now! (She says to Chick Evens.)

Chick E: I can’t say I want to go to San Francisco (With a tinge of intensity.) maybe she’s right, if I don’t sign those papers things will never work out. (Something in his soul, seems to be fighting him, perhaps pride, perhaps ridicule, perhaps drinking too much, or not having money to drink as much as he’d like to if he goes, if he takes on this new adventure of going to San Francisco, contrary to signing the paper, and unknowing what to expect.)


Roger L. comes into the bar, the same age as Doug, twenty-four, he works as a bartender on Rice Street at the Horseshoe Bar, also raised in the neighborhood. He is married to what is considered an outsider, someone not from the neighborhood, he joins Doug and Larry, leans on the bar. Roger used to live with his father and mother and brother Ron, across the streets from the Evens’, on Cayuga Street, a few years back. (Ron L., used to hang around the boys he’s now finishing up at a trade school, to be a Sheet Metal Worker—he seldom if ever comes around the bar anymore, he if anybody, escaped the bar scene, at least the neighborhood bar.)
Larry L., now puts in two quarters, five songs, old Elvis songs, “Hound Dog,” and a few others, people are dancing, Judy and Bill.


Roger L: Give me a bottle of Hamm’s beer!

Bill K: (Talks softly to Chick E, he is standing by Bill’s booth) Courage, it takes courage to leave the neighborhood. I went to Vietnam, ’65, as you know, it’s no picnic, but you’re tough, go to San Francisco, and Vietnam like Laura says, get out of here. You are never lonely anyhow, you like being by yourself, I can see that. (Chick is thinking, leans hard against the soft padding of the booth, averting Bill’s face; Judy raises, walks to the bathroom, allowing them to talk; Chick looks around for a moment. Crosses the bar, sits down by his brother.)

Mike E: You going to sign the paperwork?

Chick: I don’t even know. (He was kind of feeling: why so much interest in me? Was it he that was going to escape and they wanted to know; that they might lose something in their life? Did this for a moment separate him from them? He is kind of feeling, the third person. Did he have a secret held back from them that signing this paper was his answer either way? He looked about, people smiled maliciously. How would it look, life look forty years from now? He points towards the jukebox.) What do you want to hear?

Mike E: Jack Scott or Brenda Lee (He says with some reserve.)

Big Ace, to Larry: (He’s clapping his hands, singing ‘Twenty four black birds backed in a pie…’ over and over, he can’t remember the rest of the words. Big Ace has been buying booze for the boys since Chick was thirteen years old, when he had his first drink, and drunk.) I always knew he would go someday!


Chick knew everything would change after he signed the paper went to San Francisco. His life, his mind— musing now; in a very just thinking way about it brought him near to death, a coldness little by little filling his body. It made him see things differently. If he stayed in the neighborhood, it was finding a job, a woman to sleep with, a bottle of booze, a place to sleep, like the one he had now for $15-dollars a week, just a room with a bed. Half closing his eyes thinking, he opened up the envelope, pulled out the piece of paper, a pale reflection on his face, not saying a word. With dejected energy—he reread the letter, looked at his brother…


Chick E: It all can’t be that tragic (whatever it was, something new was gathering in Chick’s brain, perhaps he knew what he felt he always knew, had to do, that was the reason he did what he did, was going to do, and signed the paper). O, I’ll probably live through Vietnam, it’s all an adventure anyhow, die here on the streets, in the bar, or some other place, what is the difference. (Thus, he had signed the paper in front of his brother, calmly and bitterly, and ordered another beer.)


Act One, Scene Two


Behind the jukebox, where the two bathrooms are, alongside the bathrooms is a corridor, that leads to the back door of the bar, you can leave by that way, but you can’t come in that way, it leads to the street. The walls are plain, no paintings or anything. It is near closing of the same evening, now night. The bar is light lightly, softer music is being played, people are drunker up what they have left, gulping it down, resting their elbows on the bar, the bar closes at 1:00 p.m., the last call for drinks has been called already, and it is twenty-minutes to one.
Chick inhales his 57th cigarette for the day, slowly and then puts it out in a nearby ashtray. Then whipping his hands onto his trousers, he leans back, stretches his legs, and waits.


Carbonell: Let’s drink up, I want to close early.

Doris hurries about picking up empty glasses, and garbage here and there, from the booths, as Mr. Carbonell, is counting the cash in the register. After a few minutes, John L, and his wife Karin, who were at the bar across the street, come in. Followed by a few Hell Outcast motorcycle gang members, it’s still raining, John takes off his hat. John sees Chick, notices his cousin, Larry.

John L: hay man, do we have time to order a beer? (He is yelling at Carbonell, and looking at Chick at the bar with his brother.)

Carbonell: Why come in so late, you should have told me five minutes ago, its five minutes to one, it’s too late, and I’m closing up.

John L: (Is drunker than a skunk, and the bar is full.) Hell, everyone’s drinking, killing time, give me a dam beer! (Carbonell looks at his watch then at the three hoods in black motorcycle jackets from Hell’s Outcast. Figures if he says no, there will be trouble, but if he says okay, they will stay until two o’clock.)

Carbonell: Now I do not want any trouble here boys.

John L: (Laughs, uneasily. Picks up a chair and throws it at Chick, Mike, Larry and Jennie…) Have it on me! (He shouts, but Evens block the chair with his right forearm, and the chair falls short of herring anyone. Now the other three find empty stools and toss them about, Carbonell calls the police)

Chick E to Larry L: I think your cousin is mad. (Chick now is thinking, this is not his kind of life, he’s not sorry he’ll mail the letter off tomorrow, the letter he signed in front of his brother. Very coldly, he says :) Who wants to end up like that? (John knows he said something negative, but remains suspicious, and nearly passes out, one can hear the police siren in the background—John stares at Chick, he had beaten up his younger cousin a season ago for attempted rape on Sandy, and John has not forgotten that).

A short silence

Rapidly, everyone gets up, and escapes to their cars before the police come in and accuse them of being part of the mischief. Chick Evens puts John in the backseat of a Taxi, pays the taxi to get going, pushes John’s body down so the police cannot see him…and the next day, catches a train to San Francisco.


Afterthought


What happened to the boys and girls?

Roger L. died recently at the age of sixty-five, heart attack, at home in his sofa chair.
David, of cancer, died at the age of sixty-three or sixty-four. Allen died at the age of sixty-two; it would seem of alcohol use and a stressful body. David’s wife Nancy, her brother who hung around the neighborhood some, died at the age of fifty-nine of cancer.
Kathy S., died at the age of thirty-five, an accident.
Bill K., was electrocuted, working at a steel company in the neighborhood, one Chick Evens and most of the boys in the neighborhood worked at, at one time or another, he was perhaps in his mid to late thirties.
Mike E., married twice, divorced twice, with three children, was retired at 54, and at 66, went back to truck driving out of boredom.
Jackie did not marry Doug, but married a brother of Larry L., and divorced him a decade later, had one child.
Sammy and Nancy got married, moved out of the neighborhood, but not all that far.
Laura and John S., still live in the neighborhood, they have a few more kids, drinking as usual, at Bram’s; not much has changed for them except for getting older.
Reno, the fat boy of the neighborhood, Chick’s age and at one time good friend, became a drug addict, and died in prison before his 40th birthday; his wife ended up working at K-Mart.
Doug, started his own business, bought a truck, and last I heard was going to court on fraud.
Sid M. died in a car crash with two other friends, all drunk, at the age of twenty-one years old, they had stopped to pick up Chick to go to Hudson Wisconsin, to drink. Chick was with his new girlfriend, named Sharon S., whom he’ll never forget, who gave him a scar on his forehead, a remembrance right after he came back from San Francisco, for ditching her without notice; but had he went he’d be dead, so he can live with the scar.
Jim Hino, died before his thirty-fifth birthday, heart attack, trying to save up $100,000-dollars before his 40th birthday, he did save $60,000 for his wife Bubbles. He worked night and day at a battery company.
Jerry, died before his fiftieth birthday, sober, trying to put a transmission into his car, and it fell onto his chest, and killed him.
Betty died some eight-years later of alcoholism. She drank herself to death.
Don Gulf, died of a swollen biological system—cirrhosis of the liver, created by alcoholism; died before his forty-fifth birthday.
Ron L., is married, and has on his shelf, the first book Evens has ever written, dating back to 1981, one his mother gave to him, before she died. Ron has done well in life.
John L, moved out of the neighborhood, but visits the neighborhood boys whenever.
Sandy, never did show up much at the two corner bars, but hung out at one of Chick’s friends bars, and to this day still does, ‘The Born’s’ on Rice Street, in St. Paul, Minnesota, haggard like a dried up leaf; Jerry B., being Chick’s old friend from the late 1960s.


The Mt. Airy bar closes, and only Bram’s remains open to this day. Nevertheless, it has a new generation of followers, the children of the lost. As they say, from the cradle to the grave, they visit that bar, even Chick’s brother, now and then, hangs out there to this very day.
In the thirty years the author has been sober he has visited the bar twice. Just before, they closed the Mt. Airy. And Laura told him to get out of there before they talked him into drinking—Allen was there and so was John S., that he had been sober going on four years, and the boys would talk him into drinking sooner or later, Chick did up leave, not abruptly, but smoothly, as he had come in. And a visit to Bram’s some fifteen years ago, where he saw his old friend and guitar teacher, Sunny, who could out finger pick any player know at the time, to include Chet Atkins, he was playing lead guitar in that dingy bar. He had played with some pretty big bands in his day, Merle Haggard, if I recall right, some super country western star anyhow. He just could not stay out of the neighborhood.

Written in seven hours (11-5-2-11) No: 833

Dragons Kept Watch (Bilingual: English and Spanish)

By Poet Laureate, Dr. Dennis L. Siluk

(A Student of Confucianism left China, for Argentina, then on to Peru)






Chapter One



I stepped off the ship. Glaring lights from Montevideo (Uruguay), it lay at anchor in the Rio de la Plata. Then after a week, I found my way to Buenos Aires, Argentina, the city was busy, with a European carefree illumination. In the country, I had come from, the cities lights were oil lit, and only for a portion of the night, likened to in the Dark Ages. I had come from 19th Century Manchuria (China, 1898) found my way to Shanghai. The ship was a passenger vessel. When it was being loaded with fish, meat and vegetables, I found a boxed-in corner, there I hid among all the crates, and took in the drifting smells. It was a large ship. All the ships that left China in those days were large to me.

It was late at night and the hold was dark, and it seemed to me, the ship was deserted, then I heard someone pacing aimlessly about, and he lit a lantern. A moment later, I heard steps behind me. I kept silent. Then my mind started wandering here and there, especially if I was to be arrested and sent back to China—if so, I would be imprisoned.

I had come from living at a Confucius Temple one with high and thick walls, difficult to escape from, but I had climbed them nonetheless, and made my escape. I was a student of Confucianism, and not in too good a standing with the Master who did not live up to analects of Confucius—his teachings, which I believed to be back then the art of reasoning by use of the mind upon the opinions of his pupils, whom he never listened to. Logic was not the core, rather thinking clearly and to the point, clarity and honesty of thought, and expression were. Anyhow, these were my first lessons by the Master. The objective for the student was for his speech from beginning to end, the whole thing to be understood; whereas too often philosophers miss this. You see when you know a thing, it is to hold onto it, that you know it and if not simply admit it: this is knowledge. Dimness of thought, and artificial inexactness of speech, this could not be accepted—it causes misfortune.

I had escaped the torments and torrents of the Mad Master of the temple. My mother had told me more than once, ‘Son, dragons kept watch over you at birth, and they still do.’ Thus, to this day I must say, those dragons are still keeping watch.

Now the man was just above me, looking down. He was a little thinner than I was and about my height.

“Are you Chinese?” he asked in Manchurian.

I shook my head yes, and kept my silence.

“Manchuria haw!”

I did not answer. I looked up at him; I knew he was no police officer, just a deckhand of some sort, who spoke Chinese very well.

“I’m not a night watchman,” the man said.

I believed him. He was wearing plain deckhand cloths, nothing fancy. I had papers but he did not ask for them. I saw him with indifference to his face. He looked as pathetic as I did, if not homeless, surely friendless.

“Do you want to go to South America?” the man asked.

I did not reply. He already knew I did.

He jumped down off the crate and kicked over one to sit on.

“Here,” said the man, reaching into his pocket “one ticket for the boat ride.”

I saw the ticket. I could read the writing only slightly in the shabby light of the lantern some twenty-feet away. I felt safer now.

“What is all this?” I questioned him in disbelief.

“You can have it,” said the man. “I got a job on the ship, I don’t need it anymore.”

I stared at the man, I understood English and French and a little German, he spoke in both Chinese and English at the same time; I figured that if he had wanted me arrested, he need not have gone through all this trouble with such a game.

“I haven’t any money left,” I told him, although it was not true, I had yen, perhaps fifty-dollars worth.

“I didn’t say I wanted to sell it,” replied the man.

I looked back at the ticket it was real, genuine.

He handed it to me without a word, just a smile.

“I don’t understand,” I commented.

“Well, there is one condition,” he said.

“Sure” I thought, here it comes.

“It’s a long voyage, and I don’t have any friends, I want you to be my friend, no other strings attached. You have to stop and greet me, say hello to me on deck.”

“You just want me for conversations?”

“Yes, until we arrive in Montevideo.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes, that is all!”

“You sure there is nothing else?”

“I’m sure.”

I looked at him disbelievingly. On the other hand, I knew folks like him and I, if we had too much solitude we would go crazy on such a long voyage. At the temple no one talked to me, the head monk was a thief, and he knew I knew it. Therefore, I knew this dread of silence, this void one can place upon another. Moreover, here we were, two strangers, one wanting to help the other, and his reward would be to become friends. I gave him a positive gesture and took the ticket, and found the room 212.

Chapter Two

Manuel Garcia looked at me. “I know the feeling, so you changed your name to Asunción Peñaloza, after the family you’ve lived with these past several years?”

I now got the jitters, and felt a tightening in my stomach.

“I want to know everything, why did the family you lived with tell you to leave?”

It appears to be a reproach, as if I had done wrong again, but I had not. However, I did not have a passport, and the detective knew it.

“It didn’t help,” I told the Buenos Aires, detective, “when the children of the family got married; they blamed me for everything that went wrong in that big house. For a few years, they were obsessed with the thought that their parents might leave me a great sum of money, because they had often confided in me.”

“It didn’t help in the long run I see. You knew their affairs too well.”

“Yes,” I said, adding, after I felt his human warmth again, and a lowered voice, I had gotten rid of that ugly feeling.

“I had to leave but I had no place to go. In addition, I did not want to go back to China, god forbid. And I knew the family was a powerful family in Argentina, so I left and just slept in the park these past few days.”

The detective looked at my papers, and then he handed them back to me.

“What did the children do, or say to make you leave?” he asked.

“‘ You got to stop sneaking about the house, checking out my father’s papers looking for his will,’ said the older brother at the dinner table to me once when I was working in the kitchen helping the cook, and serving them food.

“The sister smiled. ‘Oh yes, father, he must stop that romping about at night.’

“‘And exactly what were you looking for Asunción?’ said the father.

“‘No. I wasn’t looking for anything; I was in my room all those nights, every night.’

“Then the father stood up and left the table, as if I was defying him, not his children. Then it occurred to me, they were setting me up.”

“I was alone again. They avoided me as if I had been a thief. Moreover, I could not explain it to anyone, no one in the family would listen to me. Do you know what I mean?”

He nodded. “The world never looks worse than when you’re being set up, thinking you had friends.”

His eyes were devouring me; pupils dilated, with long, very long stares, rigid, as if he should or should not believe me. My insides were frantic. The officers at a nearby table stood up, looked across several desks, “Manuel, we’re going to lunch!” He nodded his head, as if to say okay.
“If I could only stay here,” I said, “I don’t feel a bit like going back to China.”

Chapter Three

The police held me over for the following day, and night. However, it was a hard night for me. I was afraid they would send me back to China. In the following afternoon, I was calmed down, and the same detective called me over to his desk.

“I’ve decided to let you go, are you familiar with the way to Peru?” he asked.

Actually, I felt the boarders were not all that guarded, nobody really wanted to get into Peru, so I figured. On the other hand, Buenos Aires had been my home for several years, but sleeping on benches, were no good, and the family that had employed me would only cause more trouble for me in the future. As I sat there, I was already planning my attempt to cross the boarders. I would have liked best to wait, but I assured Manuel I would leave that night, for fear that too long a stay in the city would attract attention.

I shall never forget that night; my body was alert, in every way. My sense were sharp, I was prepared for anything, without fear, and when I started my journey to cross the boarders into Bolivia and then into Lima, Peru, I felt as if I was crossing Manchuria all over again, into Shanghai. However, this would be my home, and I would never return to China or Argentina.
It was hot the first few nights in Lima, and I slept naked in the parks. The nights were black and very cool that way. In addition, nearby I would plunge into the river, and it struck me as symbolic of my past, washing away everything—I had felt like driftwood for so long, but not anymore. I dried myself, and got on my way looking for a job picking fruit. For a long while, I met no one. I worked until twilight, and started back up again at dawn, watching men and women, children—families meeting each other on the way back home after a twelve hour work day. Everything to me that was the real meaning of revulsion was behind me now. I would tell my story to my son Fidel,

…he in turn, would—in his old age, tell it to his son Augusto, and he to his daughter Rosa and her husband (son-in-law) a gringo from Minnesota, in the United States of America, and someday it would be retold, written down for posterity, hence, becoming history (as it is now).


No. 832 (10-24-2011) Historical Fiction; although, inspired by actual events
Original name “Driftwood’ changed to “Dragons Kept Watch”
Dedicated to Augusto Peñaloza’s grandfather


Spanish Version

Los Dragones Continúan Vigilando
(Un estudiante de Confucionismo dejó China, hacia Argentina, luego a Perú)

Capítulo Uno

Bajé del barco, había luces brillantes en Montevideo (Uruguay), anclamos en el Río de La Plata. Después de una semana, encontré la forma de llegar a Buenos Aires, Argentina—la ciudad era muy concurrida, con una iluminación europea libre. En el país del que vine, las luces de la ciudad eran encendidas con aceite y sólo por unas cuantas horas en la noche, similar a la Alta Edad Media. Yo vine de Manchuria del siglo XIX (China, 1898) había encontrado la forma de ir a Shanghai. El barco en el que vine era una nave de pasajeros. Cuando estaban cargándolo con pescado, carne y vegetales, encontré una esquina encerrada, allí me escondí entre las cajas y soporté los olores flotantes. Era un barco largo; para mí todos los barcos que salían de China, en aquellos días, eran largos.

Era muy de noche, la bodega estaba oscura y me parecía que el barco estaba desierto; luego oí a alguien caminar sin rumbo fijo y encender una linterna. Un momento más tarde, escuché pasos detrás de mí, yo me mantenía en silencio. Luego mi mente empezó a divagar de aquí para allá, especialmente si me iban a arrestar y enviarme de vuelta a China—si fuera así, sería encarcelado.

Yo había vivido en un templo de Confucio, uno con paredes altas y gruesas, difícil de escapar, pero, de todas formas, yo la había trepado, e hice mi escape. Era un estudiante de Confucionismo y no con buena reputación con el maestro, quien no vivía según las memorias de Confucio—según sus enseñanzas, que yo creía era en esos tiempos el arte de razonamiento usando la mente tras las opiniones de los pupilos, a quienes él nunca los escuchaba. La lógica no era lo principal, más bien el pensamiento claro y sobre el punto, claridad y honestidad de ideas y la expresión lo eran. De todos modos, éstas eran mis primeras lecciones por el maestro. El objetivo de los estudiantes era que su discurso entero, fuera entendido, desde el comienzo hasta el fin, lo que los filósofos muy frecuentemente omitían esto. Imprecisión de pensamiento e inexactitud artificial de discurso, no podía ser aceptado—esto causaba mala suerte.

Había escapado de los tormentos y torrentes del Maestro Loco del templo. Mi madre me había dicho más de una vez, “Hijo, los dragones te vigilaron al momento de tu nacimiento, y todavía lo hacen”. Así, en este día debo decir, aquellos dragones todavía se mantienen vigilando.

Ahora el hombre estaba justo arriba de mí, mirando abajo. Él era un poco más delgado que yo y casi de mi estatura.

¿Eres chino? Me preguntó en Manchurian.

Moví mi cabeza afirmativamente, y me mantuve en silencio.

“Manchurian, ¡aja!”

No respondí, lo miré; sabía que no era un policía, sólo una clase de marinero, quien hablaba muy bien el chino.

“No soy un vigilante nocturno”, el hombre dijo.

Yo le creí. Él usaba ropa simple de marinero, nada complicado. Yo tenía documentos, pero él no me los pidió. Lo miré con indiferencia a la cara. Él lucía tan patético como yo, sino desposeído, de seguro sin amigos.

“¿Quieres ir a Sudamérica?”, el hombre preguntó.

No le respondí. Él ya sabía que sí.

Él saltó hacia abajo fuera de la caja y pateó sobre una para sentarse encima.

“Aquí” dijo el hombre, metiendo la mano en su bolsillo: “un boleto para el viaje en el barco”.

“Vi el boleto, pude leer lo escrito sólo ligeramente con la poquita luz de la linterna a unos seis metros de distancia. Ahora me sentía seguro.

“¿Qué es todo esto?” Le pregunté incrédulo.

“Puedes quedarte con éste”, dijo el hombre. “Conseguí un trabajo en el barco, ya no lo necesito”.
Miré fijamente al hombre, yo entendía inglés y francés y un poco de alemán; él hablaba en chino e inglés al mismo tiempo; pensé que si quería arrestarme, él no necesitaba pasar por todo este problema con tal juego.

“No me queda dinero”, le dije, sin embargo no era cierto, yo tenía yenes, talvez valorados en cincuenta dólares americanos.

“No dije que lo quería vender” respondió el hombre.

Miré nuevamente al boleto, éste era real, genuino.

Él me lo entregó sin una palabra, sólo con una sonrisa.

“No entiendo”, comenté.
“Bien, hay una condición”, él dijo.
“Seguro”, pensé, “aquí viene”.

“Es un viaje largo, y no tengo amigos; quisiera que tú seas mi amigo, nada más, no hay otras condiciones. Tú tienes que detenerte y saludarme, visitarme en la cubierta”.

“¿Sólo me quieres para conversar?”
“Si. Hasta que lleguemos a Montevideo”.
“¿Eso es todo?”
“Si, eso es todo”.
“¿Estás seguro que no hay algo más?”
“Estoy seguro”.

Lo miré recelosamente. Por otra parte, conocía a gente como él y como yo, si teníamos mucha soledad nos volvíamos locos en viajes tan largos. En el templo nadie me hablaba, el monje superior era un ladrón, y él sabía que yo lo sabía. Consecuentemente, ya conocía de este silencio de horror, este vacío que uno puede poner sobre otro. Más aún, aquí estábamos dos extraños, uno tratando de ayudar al otro, y su recompensa sería hacernos amigos. Lo miré con un gesto positivo y tomé el boleto, y encontré el cuarto 212.

Capítulo Dos

Manuel García me miró. “Sé cómo te sientes. ¿Así que te cambiaste de nombre a Asunción Peñaloza, por la familia donde viviste estos pasados años?”

Empecé a temblar y ahora sentía una contracción en mi estómago.

“Quiero saberlo todo, ¿porqué la familia con la que vivías te pidió que te fueras?”

Parecía que era una reprimenda, como si hubiera hecho algo malo de nuevo, pero no lo había hecho. De todas formas, no tenía pasaporte y el detective sabía esto.

“No se pudo evitar” le dije al detective de Buenos Aires, “cuando los hijos de la familia se casaron; ellos me echaban la culpa por todo lo que salía mal en esa mansión. Por varios años, ellos estaban obsesionados con la idea de que sus padres talvez me dejarían una gran suma de dinero; porque ellos frecuentemente confiaban en mi”.

“Veo que a la larga esto no te ayudó. Tú conocías sus asuntos muy bien”.

“Si”, agregué, luego de haber sentido este calor humano de nuevo, y luego de oír una voz baja, me había deshecho de ese sentimiento feo.

“Tenía que irme pero no tenía lugar a dónde ir. Además, no quería volver a China, Dios no lo permita. Y yo sabía que la familia era muy influyente en Argentina, por eso salí y sólo dormía en los parques estos pasados días”.

El detective revisó mis documentos, y luego me los devolvió.

“¿Qué hicieron los hijos, o qué dijeron, que te hizo dejar la casa?” él preguntó.

“Cuando yo estaba ayudando al cocinero y sirviéndoles la comida, el hijo mayor me dijo: ‘Tienes que dejar de estar espiando en la casa, revisando los documentos de mi padre, buscando su testamento’”.

“Su hermana sonrió y dijo: ‘Oh, si papá, él debe dejar de husmear en las noches’”.

"Y exactamente qué estabas buscando Asunción", dijo el padre.

“No. Yo no he buscado nada; he estado en mi cuarto todas estas noches, cada noche”.

“Luego el padre se paró y abandonó la mesa, como si yo lo hubiera estado desafiando, no sus hijos. Luego se me ocurrió que ellos me estaban tendiendo una trampa. Estaba solo nuevamente; ellos evitaban hablarme como si hubiera sido un ladrón. Más aún, no podía explicar esto a nadie, nadie en la familia me escucharía. ¿Sabes a lo que me refiero?”

Él asintió. “El mundo nunca parece peor que cuando te están tendiendo una trampa, y tú piensas que tienes amigos”.

Sus ojos me devoraban; sus pupilas estaban dilatadas, con largas, muy largas miradas fijas, rígido, como si él quisiera creerme, o como si no debería creerme. Mis intestinos estaban revueltos. Los policías en una mesa cercana se pararon, miraron a través de varias mesas y dijeron: “Manuel, estamos yendo a almorzar”. Él movió su cabeza, como si para decir, ‘esta bien’.
“Si sólo pudiera quedarme aquí” dije, “no deseo ni un poquito de querer volver a China”.


Capítulo Tres

La policía me detuvo hasta la noche del siguiente día. De todas formas había sido una noche dura para mí. Estaba con miedo de que me regresaran a China. Al día siguiente, por la tarde, estaba más calmado, y el mismo detective me llamó a su escritorio.

“He decidido dejarte ir, ¿estás familiarizado con el camino a Perú?” él preguntó.

En realidad, sentía que las fronteras no estaban tan resguardadas, nadie realmente quería ir a Perú, eso pensaba. Por otra parte, Buenos Aires había sido mi hogar por muchos años, pero dormir en las bancas no era bueno, y la familia con la que yo había vivido sólo me causaría problemas en el futuro. Mientras estaba sentado allí, ya estaba planeando en cruzar las fronteras. Me hubiera gustado mejor esperar, pero le había asegurado a Manuel de que me iría esa noche, por temor a que estar por más tiempo en la ciudad podría llamar la atención.

Nunca olvidaré esa noche; mi cuerpo estaba alerta, en todas las formas. Mis sentidos eran claros, estaba preparado para todo, sin temores, y cuando empecé mi viaje para cruzar las fronteras hacia Bolivia y luego hacia Perú (a Lima la capital), sentí que estaba cruzando Manchuria todo de nuevo, hacia Shangai. Sin embargo, éste sería mi hogar y nunca regresaría a China o Argentina.

Las primeras noches en Lima, eran muy calurosas, y yo dormía desnudo en los parques; las noches eran oscuras y muy frescas de esa forma. Además, cerca, me zambulliría en el río, y esto se me pegaría como algo simbólico de mi pasado, llevándose todo—Me había sentido como una pieza de madera a la deriva en el océano por mucho tiempo, pero ya no. Me sequé, y me fui a buscar trabajo como recogedor de frutas. Por mucho tiempo no conocí a nadie; trabajaba hasta el crepúsculo y empezaba nuevamente en la madrugada, viendo a los hombres, mujeres y niños—familias— encontrarse uno con el otro en su camino a casa luego de doce horas de trabajo. Para mi era que todo el significado real de revulsión pertenecía ahora al pasado. Yo le contaría mi historia a mi hijo Fidel,

…él en su momento—en su vejez— le contaría a su hijo Augusto, y él a su hija Rosa y a su esposo (su yerno) un gringo de Minnesota, Estados Unidos, y algún día ésta sería recontada, escrita para la posteridad, así, volviéndose una historia (como lo es ahora).

Nro. 832 (24-Octubre-2011); Inspirado en la realidad.
Dedicado al abuelo de Augusto Peñaloza.