Michael Rodgers's Open Salon Blog

The Yellow Windbreaker

Fri, 6 Jan 2012 06:01:33 -0500

The score was tied with three minutes left on the clock when she started in on me again. They’ll be here any minute now! Why do you always have to make me crazy! Just once I wish you’d…

Okay, okay, okay! Stop screaming at me for crissakes. Just tell me if Michigan wins or loses. I say the words, but I know she doesn’t give a shit. I head for my old pick-up truck just to shut her up. The one game I care about all year long and she’s got me running errands for her friends. She sure got bitchy after the second kid…got bossy, too…and fat.

Jesus, do we really need another dinner party for her friends? Don’t those people ever eat at their own frigging houses? Of course, all the dinner parties are for her friends. My friends don’t come around much anymore. They say they don’t like the tension. Go figure. I don’t like the tension either, yet here I am. Stuck. Stuck with two kids who treat me like shit, a double mortgage and a wife who hates my guts. Okay, hate might be a bit strong, but still.

Yup, nowadays it’s just me, the lawnmower and the TV on the weekends. Oh, and the dinner guests. Can’t forget the dinner guests. Snooty asses. What was I supposed to get again? Oh, yeah, baguettes. Heaven forbid we have a dinner with ordinary bread. The horror, the horror…

I found a space right in front of the store and that’s when I saw him. One of those human train wrecks. What the hell was he doing? It looked like he was arguing with the garbage can right there where the glass auto-doors open. His bright yellow windbreaker clashed hard with his greasy pants and his hair looked like it hadn’t seen a comb since the Clinton Administration.

The garbage can was one of those domed models with the spring loaded door you have to push in on to dump your trash. I sat there watching the guy and thinking, the poor bastard. Then I thought, if he wanted a real argument, I could give him my address. Hell, I’d even drive him home. Let him deliver the baguettes or something. That oughta get a rise out of the old lady’s dough.

The argument with the garbage can continued, so I decided to sit there and see if the show had another act. I couldn’t tell who was winning, but the homeless guy seemed to be holding his own…like I used to do. He’s silent for a minute as if he’s really focused on what the garbage can is saying. Then he throws his hands up in disgust, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. He turns real sharp, takes three quick steps away and then spins back as if the garbage can just insulted his sexual competence.

Yeah, I know. That old canard. Been there, done that. That’s like the beginning of the end when they hit you with that one. Call it a turning point or whatever, but when the venom sinks that deep, the road back to normalcy usually misses the guardrail and goes right off the cliff. I’ve seen a lot of guys post the white flag after that one. I know I did.

As I sat there watching, I wondered how the poor bum ended up arguing with a garbage can out in front of the Winn-Dixie on a Saturday night. Apparently homeless. Obvious mental issues. Probably been married before.

I have to give the old bird credit though, as far as I could tell he was giving as good as he was getting. Suddenly, he’s standing there with his hands on his hips and his head cocked to one side and leaning in real hard, like he’s taking some serious abuse, but I can tell he’s just about had it with this garbage can’s shit.

Then the homeless guy does something I’ll never forget. He takes off his shiny yellow wind-breaker and crams it right into the mouth of the garbage can leaving nothing, but part of one sleeve hanging out. That oughta shut the bitch up. I couldn’t tear my eyes away as he stomped off toward the corner of the building and away into the woods. He never looked back.

I sat there for a long while trying to absorb what I’d just witnessed. In spite of his obvious problems, I felt a great admiration for the crazy old homeless guy. At least he didn’t compromise on his principles. He may have lost a windbreaker, but he still had his dignity.

It took another full minute to remember why I was sitting in the parking lot in the first place. Oh, yeah. The dinner guests need baguettes. To hell, I thought, I don’t even like baguettes. I cranked the ignition on the old pick up and drove away knowing I would need my own yellow windbreaker when I got home.

Fiction Friday...The Lynching of Mattie Brown

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 08:04:20 -0400

“The coroner didn’t have a particularly difficult time determining the cause of death for Mattie Brown. It was pretty obvious she’d been lynched since she was hanging there in the tree with the rope still tight around her neck. The man had a harder time explaining the thirteen piles of ashes, loose limbs and all the white hoods and robes that surrounded Mattie’s body, still swaying there and twisting in the morning breeze.”

Zach just sat there by the window staring at me. I couldn’t tell if he was interested, faking it or somewhere in between, so I went to the fridge for more ice and topped off our glasses. “Well, you’re still here so you must be interested,” I said. “Besides, I hate to drink alone this early in the morning.” Something outside the kitchen window caught his eye and he turned away, decided it was nothing and turned back to me, giving a barely perceivable shrug.

“Anyway, this all happened back when I was a kid in school. We weren’t what you’d call good friends or anything, but me and Mattie was the same age and we had a few classes together over the years. I wasn’t there at the end and I never saw the crime scene, but the townspeople talked about it for years to come, though they never really talked about it, if you know what I mean.”

Zach has been my housemate for the last six or seven years and wasn’t much of a drinker, at least not like me. He wasn’t much of a talker either, not until you got him drunk anyway, which wasn’t very often. He nosed around the ice in his drink, took a sip, shuddered a cringe and sat back. I tossed back a finger’s width of bourbon and continued.

“This was back when they just started integrating the schools and all. Most of us younger kids couldn’t see what all the fuss was about, but a lot of the adults were terrible upset about the whole thing and they found ways to play out their hatred by teaching their kids to hate the black kids, too. Momma said that just wasn’t right because Negro people were just people too, and they had the same wants and needs as white folks. She said if she ever heard of me treating the Negro kids, that’s what they called ‘em back then, Negroes and a lot worse, too. Anyway, she said if I ever treated ‘em any different than I treated white folks they’d be hell to pay and she meant it. Still, it was hard to have much to do with ‘em as some of the white kids was really hard on you if you gave the black kids any respect back then.”

Zach poked at the ice cubes, but I could tell he was listening. He just never learned to show much of an interest in things, even when he was interested, so I carried on.

“Mattie sat beside me in first grade. She was quiet as a mouse most of the time, but I could tell she was really smart, even though she’d only answer questions when she was called on by the teacher. Then, one week she didn’t show up at school, so on Friday I stayed after class for a minute and asked our teacher, Miss Johnson, if she knew where Mattie had been all week.”

“Why William, it’s good of you to be concerned,” she said, “Mattie and her brother got struck down by lightning last weekend during that storm. It was a terrible thing. I thought everyone knew. They were playing under that big live oak tree that sits in their front yard when it happened. Split that old tree right down the--”

“Is she, you know--“

“No, no child, she’s fine. She’ll be back sometime next week. She got it worse than her brother, but she’ll be as good as new. You’ll see.”

I finished off my bourbon and noticed Zach had hardly touched his, so I pulled it over to my side of the table and went to the Frigidaire to see if there was any beer hidden away anywhere. I found two in the crisper and another in the door behind a box of BisQuik and poured one into a glass for Zach. He happily lapped it up and nodded his approval which I took as a motion to continue.

“Mattie wasn’t the same after getting struck by the lightning. It wasn’t anything you could put your finger on, but she was different for sure. Later that summer there was a terrible storm and the Billing’s house up the valley got swept away in a flash flood. Everybody got out except for the ten-year-old Billings’ boy who got washed away downstream. Forty men dragged the river for nearly a week, but couldn’t find him. Mattie kept telling her Momma she knew where the boy was. Her Momma just put her off, but Mattie wouldn’t let it go as she had a quiet, stubborn streak, just like her daddy.

‘Just how are you supposed to know where the boy is when forty men can’t find him, Honey?’ her Momma finally asked.

‘He come and sees me, Momma. He’s trapped under a log down by the old pump-house. He says he wants to go home, Momma.’

“Well, I can tell you ol’ Zachary, things wasn’t the same after that. Two Negro fellas found the boy right down under that log, just like Mattie said they would, even though the area’d been checked two or three times. They gave the boy a right fine funeral with the whole town attending. Even some black folks showed up to give their respects and didn’t even get hassled by the whites, which was a rare thing in them days. Mattie and her folks were there too, but they kept their distance due to the fact that Mattie’s daddy, Lamar, was up to his neck in the civil rights movement and plenty of white folks were none too happy about it.”

I paused for effect and looked over at Zach who was licking beer foam from his upper lip.

“Go on,” he said.

“I thought I was talking to myself for a minute there. You sure you want to hear this?”

“You have my attention. Continue.”

Like I said, Zachary has always been a little short on words. Less so when he was sober. Alcohol had a way of loosening him up.

“I guess Mattie was about fifteen or so when she went to meet her maker, but the locals eyed her with considerable suspicion after the boy’s funeral. There was other things that happened after that that only added to her mystique. She seemed to have some connection to the supernatural or somethin’, and I’m not sure if I believe in such things, but rumor had it that she could see spirits and talked to the dead on a regular basis. She would tell her Momma when someone just died before anyone even knew it happened. Like the time Ol’ Lady Wilkins tried to beat the train in that crappy ol’ pickup truck of hers or the time Junior Hill cut his leg with an axe and bled out before he could make it back to the house for help. Her Momma said she could see them things and describe ‘em as if she was there. That sort of talk upset a lot of these folks here in the Bible Belt. Some of ‘em started saying Mattie was studying to be some kind of conjure woman who was delving in the dark arts and summoning familiar spirits and other such nonsense, but I never saw any evidence of anything like that. She seemed as normal as could be and never spoke of that stuff at school, at least not as far as I knew.”

Zach had his head laid on the table with his arm under it and just stared at me unblinking like.

“Am I boring you, Zach?”

“Not really.”

“You could show a little interest, if you’re interested.”

“Whatever.”

“You want another beer?”

“If you’re buying.”

I topped off my rock glass and poured the beer in a bowl so Zach wouldn’t have to exert too much effort drinking it and pushed it up to his face. I was feeling considerably stewed and wished I was writing this stuff down.

“Now, where was I?”

“… as far as you knew.”

“Yeah, right. Anyways, there was other people about town claiming that little Mattie could move objects with her mind and shit like that. Something they called hyper something…or tele—“

“Telekinesis,” Zach offered.

“Yeah, that’s it. Now, how did it come to be that you would know a word like that?”

“I know about things like words.”

“I suppose you do. We should talk more. Anyway, I don’t know if I believe in such things, but it would sure go a long way to explaining what happened that night. Back in those days there were a lot of Klansmen around these parts. Way more than there is today. There’s still a few around, but nothing like as many as back then. Well, the local boys were none too happy with Mattie’s daddy, Lamar, and his organizing civil rights marches and petitioning and all. He’d been warned and none too subtle, either. They even burned his car one night right in front of the police station when they had him in there on some trumped up charge of disturbing the peace or whatever. Nobody ever got charged in the car burning ‘cause it was well known that half the police and sheriff department men was all Klan members.

“I asked Mattie about it one day and she said her Momma begged her Daddy to back off because she was scared something dire might happen. There was plenty of violence happening all over the South back then, so she had good reason to fret, but her Daddy said it was too important and he just kept going like a bull in the rut. I guess the good ol’ boys decided it was time to up the ante, so they all donned their hoods and robes and drove on out to the Brown’s old farmhouse on Sherman road…you still with me, Zach?”

“I’m following.”

“Don’t you find this stuff the least bit interesting?”

Zach gave out a big yawn, “I’m riveted. Go on.”

“Fine. People say they only went out there to scare Lamar, but I ain’t so sure and nobody knows who fired the first shot, because everyone that was out there ended up dead one way or another, but I think I have a good idea of what happened after considerable pondering about it all these years.

“The Klan used to plant a big cross in the yard of those who they considered uppity and lit ‘em on fire as a way of sayin’, ‘Back off, or else.’ We’ll I’m guessin’ Lamar met the boys on his front porch, shotgun in hand, because he didn’t know how to back down from nothin’. I don’t think he would’ve fired first ‘cause he was largely outnumbered and all them boys carried pistols on ‘em back then. Anyway, who shot who first don’t much matter, but they found Lamar next to his shotgun on what was left of the front porch, with him all riddled with bullet holes and three of the Klan had melted buckshot in the ashes of what was left of their burnt carcasses, so there was definitely a shootout.

“They found Mattie’s brother by where the window of the front room used to be with two bullet holes in his head and her Momma was found in the back of the house, burnt to a cinder. Some of the boys may have had their way with her before they torched the place. There was no confirmation of such things, but rape was another way they used to terrorize the blacks back then to keep them in their place. Anyway, her Momma never made it out of the house, though it seems that Mattie did at one point or another, as there was some evidence that they dragged her back to the tree in the front yard.”

Zach interrupted, “White men are inherently evil.”

“I suppose there’s enough evil to go around.”

“You wanna wrap this up? It’s two in the afternoon and you’re cutting well into my nap time.”

“Fine. You sure are a grouchy drunk.”

Zach let out another yawn, “And you are a pathetically drunken drunk.”

I topped off with the last of the Kentucky bourbon, “You’ll get no argument from me on that subject.”

I decided to finish the story in spite of Zachary’s hoity demeanor, “What happened next is the weirdest part, the part that goes unexplained. Like I said earlier, when the coroner got there, he was at as much a loss for words as the rest of the crowd that gathered ‘round. There was Mattie, still swinging from that old oak and the house was still smoldering with a couple of the sheriff’s boys poking through the ashes with some sticks, but it was the condition of the Klansmen that couldn’t ever be explained by anyone before or since. There was thirteen of them all told, and every last one of them was charred beyond recognition except for their teeth which became about the only way of identifying some of ‘em. But, the weird part was that they all burned right there in their robes and hoods and their robes and hoods barely had a charred mark on ‘em. Sure, there was a hand or an arm or a foot still in a boot that wasn’t burned, sticking out of a robe here or there, but for the most part there was just these piles of ashes and robes all haphazardly circled around the tree with young Mattie still hangin’ there.

“As best as anyone can figure, Mattie Brown did indeed have some supernatural influence or something and when they strung her up, she called on her powers to exact revenge on those who killed her. As one last thing to make the story even stranger than strange, that old tree had a new split in it too, as if it’d been freshly struck by lightning, even though there hadn’t been a storm in over a week and Mattie herself, had no evidence of being burned. Some folks tried to explain it as this thing called spontaneous combustion that caused it all, which I guess is a similar unexplainable thing, but nobody’s ever seen so many burnt like that in the same place before. And even though I’m not sure I believe in such things, I think Mattie might have conjured up the lightning that struck that old tree and zapped those Klansmen to dust. So, what do you think about that, Zach?”

“I think you drink too much.”

Then he said something I’ve been speculating about ever since. He said, “What would you think if I told you I was the familiar spirit of Mattie Brown, a reincarnate of sorts?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Zach. Mattie was always nicer to me than you ever been,” I said.

“Well, what if I told you the first name of the Billings’ boy they found under that sunken log, was Jeremy,” and with that Zach jumped down from the kitchen table and headed off to where ever it is he sleeps, but not before taking a moment to puke-up beer and some half-chewed cat food on my favorite rug.

Things got fuzzy after that and I remember waking up on the couch at about three in the morning. Zachary was sleeping on my chest with his butt about two inches from my face. He can be an ass like that. I had a headache something terrible and swatted Zach off my chest for being the jerk that he was being. I swore off drinking for a long while after that and Zachary never spoke to me about Mattie Brown or much of anything else for what seemed like eons. And to top it all off, I still haven’t figured out how Zach knew Jeremy Billings’ first name. I considered that there could be some supernatural rationality for it, but I’m not sure I believe in such things.

Shameless Fox News Finally Comments on Hateful Vitriol

Sun, 9 Jan 2011 12:01:54 -0500

Christina Taylor-Green

I was wondering how long it would take before Fox News could spin their hateful vitriolic contributions to the shooting of Gabby Giffords and eighteen others, including the deaths of six of the victims, to lessen their involvement. They couldn’t ignore the subject forever and knew they would be a likely target of blame from the left.

So how did they “get out in front “of the story and divert the blame away from themselves? By marching out the only reporter they have that could be remotely viewed as sympathetic to the left, Juan Williams. Marching any of their colleagues from the right who instigate violence (Glenn Beck, et.al.) would have been in poor taste. Juan did a fine job, along with the cookie-cutter blonde anchorwoman, of completely denying that hateful and incendiary rhetoric from either side had anything to do with the incident. This just happened a few minutes ago so video or text is unavailable to post, but the message was clear; hateful speech has nothing to do with hateful acts.

I wish they would explain that opinion to the mother of Christina Taylor-Green, the nine-year-old girl with the interest in government, who was slain in the melee. The third grader was at the meet and greet event to see how her government operated. Sadly, young Christina would never get the chance to find out.

Intelligence Committee IQ Drops with Bachmann Appointment

Fri, 7 Jan 2011 07:01:05 -0500

The inmates may not yet be running the asylum, but they are getting a leg up with new House Leader John Boehner’s appointment of Michele Bachmann to the House Intelligence Committee. Well known by the left as one of the craziest people in Congress, Bachmann is notorious for blurting out all forms of inanities from calling out the media to investigate whether Congressional members are pro-American or Anti-American, to claiming the White House spent $200 million per day on a recent trip to Asia. A number the White House incidentally derided as “a long trip from reality.”

A darling of the loosely formed Tea Party, Bachmann brought them legitimacy by forming and chairing the Tea Party Caucus in the House last summer, thus bringing them under the Republican tent, as if anyone paying attention thought that Tea Party members were anything but Republicans in the first place.

IMHO, Bachmann has always danced on the rim of delusional fantasy (along with those who continue to vote her into office), but this appointment by Boehner calls his own sanity into question. He might find himself weeping in regret. Is this really the woman he wants knowing highly classified information and sitting on the board that oversees the CIA? Boehner has been known to hoist a few after working hours and should refrain from making such decisions until after the booze wears off.

Apparently Boehner felt he had to replace recently defeated Republican House Intelligence Committee member Pete Hoekstra, who was known to blurt out classified information to the press, with a comparable information faucet in need of a new gasket. As far as I know, Hoekstra was never truly reprimanded for his indiscretions by anyone on the right, so we can expect more of the same. Will Bachmann be in direct competition with WikiLeaks to see who can divulge the most classified information? I doubt it, but the old saying “loose lips, sink ships” does come to mind.

I often find the words coming from Bachmann's mouth entertaining in some, “I can’t believe she just said that out loud” kind of way, then I cringe when I remember she is one of our illustrious leaders. The fact that a politician like Bachmann continues to gain political power and is quietly (though, leakily) considering a run for President in 2012, should give us all something to think about for the next two years. Any reasonable Party would have run her out of Washington on a "too crazy to govern" or "she's an embarrassment" charge, but that would require a modicum of shame and that's a link in the genome that the GOP is conveniently missing.

Flyboy Bigot to Command Aircraft Carrier

Mon, 3 Jan 2011 11:01:07 -0500

Have you seen this yet? The Executive Officer (XO, or second-in-command) of the USS Enterprise is under investigation for showing some disturbing video over the ships closed-circuit TV on movie night. The content is, at best, in very poor taste and stars the XO as his sexually bigoted , insensitive self. The story is here, the must see to appreciate video is posted below.

Captain Owen Honors has a very respectable resume as a flight and combat pilot, but his Top Gun ego and childish behavior depicted in the video borders on the maniacal and should dismiss him from any pool the Navy uses to select those who are to command a nuclear (or any other) vessel in the name of the United States.

Apparently, that is not how the Navy works. Honors was recently promoted to Commander of the Enterprise. That is more disturbing than any content shown in the video. The videos were shown to the sailors on the ship in 2006-2007. Now there is an investigation (though I understand he was reprimanded for his actions long ago). What took you guys so long? Why does the story have to reach the mainstream before there is an investigation?

I agree that times have changed since 2007, especially with the recent repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, but I doubt Commander Honors’ attitude has changed much since then. My guess is he is just as immature as he is in the video and if I were a gay or lesbian serving on his ship, I would be afraid, very afraid. Maybe some sensitivity training is in order.

Is this how we should spend our war dollars? Is this the guy you want in charge of one of our nuclear aircraft carriers? The guy you want overlooking four or five thousand of our troops, many who are likely gay or lesbian? I find it disturbing that this is the best the Navy can find to command this ship, though I must admit the video editing on board the Enterprise is top notch. It’s only the subject matter that is in question.

My guess is we will be hearing more about this story in the next few days. I would like to hear Commander Honors (an ironic name by any standards) explain himself. I would like to hear him apologize to his shipmates. I would also like to hear what the Commander-in-Chief has to say about this story. My guess is that he is fuming.