on the side of the road

he was an older guy. wore a tweed jacket with leather patches affixed to the elbows. a family man.
no terrorist.
just a guy, maybe like you or me and he was caught up.
probably forced into it.
his AK was old and rusty. doubt it could fire straight.
and even if it did, i doubt he would employ it properly.
from the hip.
i saw this guy.
an older guy.
with the tweed jacket.
leather affixed to the elbows.
somewhere near the town of al nasiriyah.
alongside several of his compatriots.
dead.
on the side of the road.
still steaming,
pupils wide and starry
an agglomeration of red and white and many other things not fit for writing.
yet i wouldn't have known he was a man at all, if it wasn't for the helmet adjacent to his person.
because he was a mess of meat.
there on the side of the road.
the older guy.
a teacher?
engineer?
botanist?
i don't know.
but he had a family.
this mess of meat.
i know.
i saw.
in his helmet.
they stood-his family.
stoic arabs.
not one smiling.
apparently he had placed a picture of his family inside his helmet.
and i found it.
sometimes i wished i had kept the picture.
i dont know why.
its probably better i didnt.
it would keep me up at night.
but i did look.
an odd sight.
one day you're taking pictures in your tweed jacket, the next day you're festering on the side of the road-a robust meal for dogs and crows.
well, it was the heat of battle, so i couldn't stay and philosophize about this poor bastards life-i had to liberate.
from what?
hell if i know.

'their's not to reason why/
their's but to do and die'

those answers are left to the officers.
the rumsfelds. the mcnamaras.
those ivy league fuckheads with the plan.
or cute little rabid girls with the audacity to hope.
and us; well, we deal.
we get caught up.
just like my guy on the side of the road.
i still have his helmet.
i took it.
its in my garage.
up high.
hanging from a black nail. in the dark.
so far removed from where i got it.

on the side of the road.

"remember that night in the Garden?"

'on the waterfront'
written by Budd Schulberg.
i'm humbled.

in the desert

california's high desert is empty.
real empty.
aside from the I-15, the desert just fills up the eye.
mostly dry brush, rocks and used shotgun shells.
sometimes a bullet filled computer monitor or tire sits on the ground.
a mojave rattler beneath.
the bones of a little lost sheep bleaching in the sun.
maybe a desert tortoise.
its bright and clear and never stops.

i like that.

been going since i was fifteen.
with guns.
strange how my life has revolved around the firearm.
hell, i was paid to shoot machine-guns.
big ones.
nasty sonsofbitches.

weapons those pabst blue ribbon-swilling-gun-nut-commandos would spooge their pants for.

dripping wet in front of their nazi memorabilia and cache of ammunition.

and stacks of 'barely legal' porn mags.

yet at the time, i didn't absorb the entirety of my job.

0331-machine-gunner.
nope.

it wasn't a job.

-it was my life.
it wasn't a gun.
-it was 'claire;' 50 caliber browning machine-gun.
i can't find many pictures of her. or me for that matter.

i wasn't fond of the lens back then.

but last weekend i went to the desert again.

halfway between victorville and barstow.

View Larger Map

105 degrees.
we wandered for a bit. but it was hot.

we shot some guns. not many, but some. and we ate sandwiches in the sun and didn't talk too much, just ate.

i like that.

think i'll go back.

alone.

just bring my pistol and some agua and maybe a camera.
my gun and i.

in the desert.

1911 45 acp.

don't really want to kill anything. i'm done with that, i think.
the kill.
it'll be a hot motherfucker.

up between victorville and barstow.

sweat dripping down my face.

salty.
a stifling heat.
everything just curvy and wavy in the distance.

all the animals burrowed deep.
some cars shimmering off in the distance.
i could die there, i think.
out there in california high desert.
alone.
with the heat.
dry brush and shot gun shells and tortoises.

content.

a story.
it went a little like this:
the 1980s.
this guy; a Vietnam Veteran.
successful.
intelligent.
boss type. with the italian suits and penguin ties and florsheim kicks.
once a year he would disappear. i guess being the boss or whatnot, he could do such a thing.
so he vanished for a week or so.
nobody knew where he went.

AWOL.

a week.

he went back to the south pacific.

the 'Nam.
to the jungle.
the dark green bush.
and he would live outside for those few days.
off the land.
hunt.
fish.
a decompression of sorts.

obviously he had PTSD.
and this excursion into the bush was his therapy.
his group hug.

his kumbaya.
his paxil.

and the week would end and he would come back and spit-shine his florsheim's and button his italian suit.

and be the boss again.

i like that.

colby buzzell

i've always been behind the power curb. starting late. making up time. pushing hard to get back into the cut. well, i recently came into the writings of colby buzzell. soldier and blogger since the early 2000s. and in my time back, i've read quite a few iraq memoir's ( hoo-rah fucking officers/badass marine corps special forces, geeked-out embedded reporters, etc.), and none have resonated with me as much as buzzell. here's one of his stories. put the volume up. lower the lights. maybe close your door.

miscreant Marine get booted

i like animals.
dogs.
tortoises.
chickens.

red-tailed boa constrictors.

and i'd be lying if i said that animals aren't suffering alongside humans in Iraq.
they are.
and if you haven't already seen the youtube video where a Marine hurls a puppy off a cliff in Iraq, thats a good thing.
its insanely disturbing.
dumbass jarhead grunt mugs for the camera, picks up puppy by the scruff of its neck, cracks a few jokes, then chucks the innocent pooch off the cliff.

wtf was this fool thinking?

a puppy?

off a cliff?

and videotape it?

and post it on youtube?

i've seen quite a few dead and dying people in my day.
its disheartening.
sad in a way. but thats War, yes?
people die.
people have their limbs torn off.
boiling hot engine oil melts faces.
sand from IEDs detaches retinas.
but this is our wager.
our toss of the coin.
and amidst the chewed up fedeyeen, eviscerated civilians, and few American causalities i happened to come in contact with during my stints in the desert, i felt especially bad when i saw a black and white dog drag its bloodied hindquarters across a date field.

a chunk of shrapnel embedded into his ass.

it yelped as it walked.

no.

not a yelp.

a cry.

and i regret very much that i never put a bullet through its head.

to end that pain.

but i didnt.

its strange.
this empathy.
im sure theres been a study conducted in berkeley.

some hippy retreads justifying peta.
but im digressing.
the marine.
the dumbass cretin.
he got kicked out.
good riddens.
heres a link to the story:
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20080612/NEWS01/867055405/-1/rss02

yet another reason to hate the french

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4124354.ece

fowl assassinated, served with catsup

caution graphic scenes of my dinner

i bought two chickens. a "rhode island red," and a white-breasted "leghorn." i figured it was about time. chickens. i mean, they shit eggs.

well, at least one of them did, the "rhode island red." the "leghorn" was a frying chicken. plus i liked the "rhode island," she didn't scratch up my lawn like the "leghorn," and i just re-seeded my lawn. we(my cousin and i) went about processing the bird.

we wrangled up a chopping block (4"x4") and gave the

"leghorn," some fresh fruit. she liked that. then

i set her on the block. very gently. stroked her little back and before she knew it, her little chicken head was plopped off by my "Cold Steel" kukri. now let me re-enforce something: there was NO animal cruelty going on here. just a good old fashioned fresh chicken dinner. free of hormones. free of disease (hopefully), and open range.

after the head was cut off, i strung her up from my shed, drained the blood (about a cup full), then brought a pot of water to a boil. dipping the bird for several minutes. retrieved her and went about dressing her.

fairly easy work. rip. rip. rip. feathers just slip off. then i inserted my k-bar fighting knife into the gut and cut out the innards. what a sight. and to think, we kinda look like this too. complicated beings my friend. take a moment to reflect.

yes, that's nice...

so the bird is gutted and scrubbed. cut up some taters and an apple. shove the aforementioned accoutrement's up its butt. drizzle some extra virgin olive oil. a shake of garlic salt. insert into 350degree oven for an hour and a half.

it sizzled and browned and smelled rather delicious. mouth-watering even. scrumptious. heavenly.

unfortunately it tasted like a used tampon.

but we had catsup.

lots of catsup.

99cent store catsup.

when bird mites attack

http://wcbstv.com/health/bird.mites.bloodsucking.2.741942.html

"They were biting her all night long," Shea said. "They were coming out of her ears, her nose, some other places."

atonement in a porta-shitter

four years ago today,
a porta-shitter.
103 degrees.
me.
standing.
piss coalescing around my boots.
sun stamping the blue green stall, leaking through rivets; polka-dotting white hot my face.
put shit paper on the seat,
but urine soaks through.
another layer.
still damp.
sit down anyways.
m-16a2 rifle across my lap.
sticks to my thighs.
8am, steaming already.
"fuck this place," i think.

light up a marlboro medium, attempting to stifle the stench.

it works a little.
the porta-shitter is covered in graffiti:
-"jamie gives good head"
-"ftc "(fuck the corps)
-"for a good time contact the colonel's wife"
- explicit drawings of well-endowed men (has someone been been spying on me?)
-a detailed illustration of a vagina circa 1975
-various slurs
the wind steals hollow and carries away the smell.
light drops in.
plastic contorting, bending.

the air feels warm through my fingers.
my hands dry and calloused, and for the first time in many years i look down at them.
veins like roots, travelling beneath tanned hide.

cuticles torn, mean looking.
my palm:
smooth thick skin. i wonder what the lines mean?
scars.
cracks.
a man's hand tells a story.
just look sometime.
a script exfoliating with time.
but i sit for a good long time. i dunno why. but i sit.
paralyzed maybe.
compelled.

i think of many things. some desperate, mostly pragmatic.

this is my lot in life. ive accepted that.

if i survive another week in this shit hole, i head home.

if i get killed, i get killed.

simple as that.

but if i do survive, i will do things.

finish college;

get a girl;

buy a house with chickens, plum tomatoes and a big fig tree.

a car and drive to the ocean.

climb down the cliffs to the tidepools and watch the tide come in.

but if i die, hopefully it is not a painful death.

burning alive inside a hummer.

disemboweled by a 7.62

yes, hopefully a rocket does not come down right now and detonate and i get killed by boiling hot shit and piss and melting porta-shitter plastic.

yes, hopefully its a big mother fucker and it just turns me into a pink mist.

i will hear the whirrr and a flash and there goes cpl mandia.

but the then the smell returns.
piss forms yellow ponds around my boots, flies, heat.
i finish my shit and exit.

spark up another marlboro medium. inhale, exhale. i squint at the sun, follow the smoke into the day.
walking back to my hooch, i pass an iraqi civilian worker.
he wears a nike t-shirt and new balance tennis shoes. he smiles at me. one of those subservient day laborer smiles-fear tinged.
he looks familiar.

they all look familiar.
but i hit my hooch.
think the bunkie is gone, but i dont remember. i retrieve a sketch pad and pen.

4x8 inches of white paper. i write down a few words.
i draw a man.
iraqi.
from the first War.
he holds an ak-47.

appears from behind a building.

every Marine's weapon dialed in on him.

just like the movies, but this time he drops the ak-47 and turns himself in.

nobody dies.

then that smile.

tinged with fear.

we put a burlap sack over his head and load him onto the bed of a 7-ton.
"fuck saddam," he shouts through his burlap sack. "fuck saddam!"

we all laugh.
yes.

fuck saddam.

clinton machine felled

my stomach turns.
palms sweat.
tremor runs down my left arm.

"by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."
-macbeth

she walks onstage,
her pie hole emotes a screeching noise: blah, blah, blah-i block it out.
an automaton posturing.
shes deserves this she thinks; she didn't go through eight years of humiliation with that redneck Casanova, for nuttin',
it was supposed to be hers.
first wellesley,
than yale.
hillary clinton.
president of the United States.
twelve years in arkansa; the horse flies, double-wide trailers, the mullet festooned imbeciles.
you fools, she think, you sad little fools.

i replace the rusty butter knife inside the kitchen cabinet.
it wont be needed for my castration.
obama got the nomination.