Sunday, July 5, 2009

Independence Day

The whithering heat continues to worsen here in La Paz. All non native plants die within a day of not being watered. It is like being in an oven. In fact, the sauna at my old gym was often cooler than it is in my bathroom here. Our clothes are constantly damp. There is almost no relief without going in the ocean or the swimming pool.
My computer is still working but not for long. The desert takes everything.

The previous living situation is behind me now. Needless to say Don is a colorful character if you read the stories below. I will remember him fondly, but "remember" is the optimal word because if you are with him for a few days in a row then you will descend into a place that feels very comfortable and yet is difficult to escape from. The rest of the world seems drab and boring. People talk about food and work. Don talked about nothing except sex and knife fights and drugs and jail...sometimes all appearing as characters in the same anecdote such as...

"this hooker I was fucking went out to buy some meth and came back with three Mexicans armed with knives. I broke one guy's arm with a club I carried and another one got his knife into me before the police showed up and took all my money and then put me in jail for a week. I went through withdrawls and almost died under the prison cot."

the whole time he is casually drinking and smoking and his voice never speeds up or slows down. He's unusual. I told him that the reason he is so unhappy is because he shouldn't be alive. He defied all the odds and survived his own life. Now he has to die naturally and it has made him depressed. After I tell him this Don looks at me and says, "I love fucking pretty young girls with tight wet pussies."

Here’s some sample poetry from Don that furthered my need to leave that apartment.

After the narrator kills a guy in a stolen car…

“The blond she was crying

and starting to pray

I didn’t want her to suffer

I just wanted her to pay

Why you may ask

Why did she have to pay?

She could have been with me

But with him she did stay

Her scream cut short

By the shot that rang out

I opened both doors

And let the bodies fall out

As I cruise down the highway

I see a pretty young thing

Looks like she’s waving at me

She’s as misguided as could be

Standing tall and sexy

Vulnerable and all alone

What she will soon find out

She most surely will atone.”

Not exactly the stuff of romance and flowers. The language is pure jail vocabulary tinged with the bitterness at having your life served to you on a tin plate and being watched over like a child in a cage. It’s a horrible feeling. He hates the world and takes it out on this innocent couple, hopefully in a fantasy world. It says everything…and more.

He wanted me to make it into a song. A Song! To sing in public. No kidding? The next Johnny Cash.

So I'm in a sober house now and we play pool and dominoes and this world of insanity and knife fights outside strip joints is like a foggy dream except the stain is never fully cleaned off my hands.
be careful what you ask for...
there were no fireworks this independence day. Not one. Just heat. I think life would have been different had I grown up in 1776. That's a war I could get behind. That's a side I could choose. Today, I am basically alone in my feeling that America is a repulsive juggernaut devouring the resources of the world so Hannah Montana can sell plastic backpacks. If there were an army that declared war against Hannah Montana then I would join. But it is ludicrous. Who would you kill? Walt Disney? Miley Cyrus? The Vietnamese slave workers making the Hannah Montana barbie dolls? There is no enemy and so no war and I am frustrated.
Everyone needs a side to be on and I'm still looking for mine. I guess that's my independence day message. Find a side and fight for it. Don't be neutral. This is not as easy as it sounds in today's flat world where the Japanese own parts of St. Louis and money is traded like spice and all roads lead to Walt Disney and Coca Cola. Who can you trust?
Did you know Coca Cola couldn't sell to Nazi Germany so they changed their name to Fanta in Europe and did it anyway. That's what I drink down here. Fanta soda: The drink of Jew Killers.
pick a side people. And fight the good fight. United we stand. Divided we fall.
Creative Commons License
Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.