Incorrigible 4 Life

Incorrigibility is contagious!

2010-10-25T21:37:00.003-04:00

League of Women Voters get their butts handed to them by the crowd, who are hell-bent on saying the pledge of allegiance whether event organizers want them to or not!

Fight the establishment! Power to the people! Incorrigible 4 life!

Wow! That's Fast!

2010-10-10T22:03:00.002-04:00

I sat at the stoplight fuming. I hated working lunches. Not only do lunch customers suck, but so did the little Chinese bastard I had to work for, and his little gang of Chinese whores.

I was the white guy. The one hired to drive and interact with the customers, because the shady little motherfuckers did nothing but piss customers off.

There wasn't a day in my life that I hated working for the little bastard, but the pay was just good enough not to leave.

Will this fucking stoplight ever turn green?

I watched in horror as no less than four school busses turned onto the avenue in front of me.

Fuck.

A 4x4 pickup truck moves into the turn lane beside me, and belches diesel smoke directly into my open window.

The rage narrows my vision. It's all that little yellow bastard's fault.

The turn lane light turns green, the stink of diesel fills the interior of the car while the roar of the truck's engine drowns out one of my favorite songs.

My head begins to slowly explode.

In the instant blink of a digital eye, the light turns green, unleashing the naked, unfounded anger behind my enraged, irrational eyes.

300 pounds of leaden foot drops like an anvil onto 300 supercharged horsepower.

Freedom! Like a shot of anti-psychotic drugs, the acceleration melts away my depravity, my insanity, my irrational hatred, and brings a curve of a smile to my soured puss.

It's why I put up with this bullshit. The tires chirp as the transmission snaps into 2nd gear right on the redline. I've got this sucker floored.

Racing up the hill the line of school busses goes down fast. The first one in the left lane, the second one in the right lane, then instantly dodging into the other lane again as the next two busses come up on the left.

HAHA! See ya suckers in the yellow hammers later.

I love this job. Love that little Chinese guy who lets me earn twenty bucks an hour to do this shit. Love the world. I even love school busses and 4x4 diesel trucks.

Grinning ear to ear I throw a glance into the rearview mirror, and look back down the hill at the scene I just left behind.

I'm doing about 120 in a 45.

Behind and between the school busses are cops. Lots and lots of cops. Little blue and red bubble gum machines EVERYWHERE.

Ooops.

I shot past the liquor store on the right like a bat out of hell.

Looking in the rear-view the cops are threading their way between the busses. The lead cop is halfway up the hill already.

Shit.

Looking for a spot to shut down, I see the convenience store coming up on the right. I haven't been in a police chase in almost 20 years. Things have changed. I'm not going to get out of this one. I start thinking about the charges that are coming against me as I hit the brakes hard and slide into the c-store parking lot.

I'm going to jail...again.

I roll up into the parking lot and park off to the side, by the dumpster. I gotta get out of the car and throw something in it before they come rolling up.

Reaching for my seatbelt, I see the first two cops go screaming past me down the avenue, with their lights and sirens going.

I don't get out of the car, but instead ease it into reverse, and head for the left side of the parking lot, behind the gas pumps.

The other cops pass the convenience store.

No fuckin way.

Looking left and right, I pull out into the street going back the way I'd come. Looking in the rear-view for cops, I light my blunt.

Down the hill and back at the traffic light where this all started, I see two more cops at the light, headed the way I'd just come from. I hold my bomber low, and take a right at the light. This will take me out into the country about a mile, then another right, and two miles later I'll be at the destination I was headed to when I started to cause myself a lot of trouble.

Puff puff.

I take a detour through a gated community with the gates open because it's daytime.

Toke toke.

A few minutes later I pop back out on the road, and continue toward my destination, sucking on that roach.

Throwing the last 1/8 of an inch of blunt out the window, I see my turn coming up to make the customer's address. I've got my shit together now.

Turning onto the customer's street, which intersects both the street that I'm on, and the one where I'd caused so much mayhem for the local authoritarians, I see a cruising cop approaching the intersection slowly.

I wave to him most incorrigibly.

Arriving at my destination, the customer is in the yard, and surprised to see me. "Wow! That's fast!" she exclaims.

So I tell her. No big deal. I could have been here a lot sooner, but I smoked a doobie, stopped at a gas station, and got in a police chase on the way over here.

She laughs and tells me I'm hilarious, and tips me $5.

I love hating this job.

Take a Hostage

2010-03-01T00:42:00.007-05:00

I was laying there on the metal table, with my ass hanging out of the hospital gown, shivering and in pain. I'd never had any pain like this before. It was pain that I cannot adequately describe to you. Words cannot define it. You have to experience it for yourself to get the full impact of it.

I was 21 years old. I had been enduring this pain for most of the evening, and well into the wee hours of the morning.

The pain began as I was working the grill at a family-type upscale burger shack. In short order I was lying on the break room floor, moaning and clutching my guts. Someone was in there, and they wanted out. When a server came into the break room for her 15 minutes, I asked her to tell the manager to call me an ambulance. She returned shortly with a message.

Get your butt back on the line, or you're fired.

Sonofabitch.

I hauled myself to the back door on my hands and knees, hit the crash bar, and crawled to my car.

I could see the twin towers of the medical center just a few blocks away. "You can do this." I said to myself, and pulled myself to my feet with the door handle. That's when I blew chunks.

Cleaning my mouth up on my uniform, I got myself into the car and found the ignition. I lit a cigarette, and groaned as I started that big block up, and revved the motor to warm it up quicker.

I was leaned over to one side as I drove toward the hospital, and into the entrance that said AMBULANCE ONLY.

When I pulled up to the automatic door, I toed the high beam switch on the floor and everyone inside looked right at me.

I opened the door and fell out on the ground.

When I came to it was clear that little time had passed. I was on a gurney being rolled down a hallway, and someone was asking me if I could tell them my name.

I couldn't. I tried to enunciate this, but it came out as a groan I think.

Six hours and a whole bunch of tests, and even more prodding and poking doctors later, I learned that the problem was I had been busy making rocks, while I was frying burgers. I had a whole pile of little stones that wanted to exit my kidneys, and had gotten stuck. On both sides!

Relief was promised. The pain medication that was being withheld until the compassionate quacks could determine what was wrong, and of course that I wasn't a junkie with a serious jones, was supposedly on the way.

Looking at the clock, that had been an hour ago, and then some.

Fucking bastards.

So there I lay, with my ass getting colder, and the pain getting more intense, until I just couldn't take it anymore.

That's when the little geek in the lab coat walked by my room.

Hey dude! It seemed to come out as a groan from the depths of hell, at least to my ears, but it got his attention.

"Yes?" the skinny, small man said, leaning backwards to stick his head in the door.

"Come here dude, I need some help." I managed to motion with the hand I wasn't holding my guts together with.

"What is it?" the man asked, as he crossed the room towards me.

"Come here, I can barely talk." I whispered in a raspy voice filled with as much pain as I could put into it. I had plenty to spare.

He leaned down, and his tie dangled forward out of his lab coat. He was looking quizzically into my eyes. His were absolutely devoid of concern, and in fact he seemed rather annoyed with me.

He was about to get really upset.

With speed and strength I didn't know I had left, I grabbed his tie, and choked up on it right to the knot, wrapping it around my fist three times.

I WANT A FUCKING SHOT! WHEN THEY KNOCK ME OUT, I'LL LET YOU GO! SO START SCREAMING OR I'M GOING TO BEAT YOU TO DEATH! LET'S SCREAM TOGETHER! AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! The lab rat screamed with me. He jerked his head sideways, trying to make his face a lousy target for my other fist as I pulled myself up and him down, trying to rise off of the metal table.

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! we screamed together.

By the third scream the room was beginning to fill up with people. We screamed one more time just for good measure.

The lights went out.

When I woke up I was on the 7th floor of the hospital. I know this because it was painted on the wall, over the elevator, and that was all I could see. It seemed I had been restrained, sedated, and couldn't move very much. This was fine with me. Looking down I could see I was stopped at a nurse's station, and that an orderly was handing a nurse a folder.

"This guy is to be kept sedated. He took a hostage down in the ER." the orderly said.

"Mmmm. A real sweetheart huh?" the smartass nurse quipped back at him.

I dozed off again, feeling no pain.

Over the next 5 days I discovered that the maximum dose of morphine for your pain is vastly different from the maximum dose of morphine you are given if they believe that you might cause them pain.

Next time you're hurting so bad you can't stand it, all you have to do is take a hostage.

At least, that's what you do when you're incorrigible.

Wise man's bluff

2009-06-18T20:22:00.008-04:00

I was eyeballing the small town cop in my rear-view mirror as he slowly got out of his cruiser and approached the back of my custom van with the gold running boards, mag wheels, and tinted oversize windows. The 302 was purring like a tiger cub on a teat.

"SHUT IT OFF!!!" the grizzled old radar trapper yelled at me.

And so I did with a grin, shaking my head. I had just successfully came to a complete stop and looked both ways before continuing on at 10mph for the 12th block in a row with him right on my bumper.

And he pulled me over anyway.

That's what I get for asking a cop for directions.

Was he eyeballing me over the top of those $1.99 aviator's glasses, or studying the ground for his lost clue?

Removing my M-frame Oakleys I realized I had seen this piece of work before. Hmmmm. Where do I know this cat from?

I'd only been to this town twice, and the first time a buddy was driving in the front seat while in the backseat a girl was showing me her prowess at the game of hide the sausage.

The second time....oooh shit. That's the guy I held the door for at the stop n rob last week up here. The one who was standing behind me while I was complaining about their lack of choice in rolling papers.

Shit.

I got a little bit of that bomb-diggety in my pocket. Easy now. Everything's gonna work out. Don't get jumpy.

"Why don't you step on down out of that van now?" Did he actually pull my door open? Whoa!

Can they do that? Either way, he just did.

Now I'm standing there looking down about seven inches on this little guy in a very uncomfortable-looking uniform with a big grin on his face.

You'd think he just ate a canary.

"Wanna tell me what you doin over here on this side of town hippie?" He actually leaned forward as he posed his question. The more to try to intimidate me I suppose.

Hippie? Oh no! I'm in a time warp. This cat still thinks there's hippies around. I guess with my big goatee and french braid down to my ass, driving that van, I must look like a hippie to him.

Refugee from a Rob Zombie video was the look I was going for at the time.

Well, like I told ya when I pulled you over a few minutes ago officer, I have this rental list, and I'm looking for this address so I can see the house that is available. I hadn't been paying attention to what he looked like when I passed him on the street, and asked him to help me with an address.

He was the least helpful cop I've ever approached for help with anything, and that's saying something.

"White folks don't live down here on this side of town son." It was a command rather than a statement.

They don't? Is that legal officer? I mean, to tell me I can't live somewhere because I'm the wrong color...

He smiled even more broadly and exclaimed "This is a high-crime drug area."

Ah. Well that just explains everything now doesn't it?

Obviously this guy thinks he is just the man who is going to tell me how things are, and how they are going to be. What's the best way to play this....hmmmm. Obviously he thinks I'm a moron, so lets play along. Okay, I'm stupid.

Seeing that I'm thinking this over, he pushes on.

"Have you got a criminal record?"

No.

"I need to see your driver's license."

Wow. We're 5 minutes into this, and now he wants to see my license? Something smells bad, I'm thinking. He didn't ask for my insurance. I'll think maybe I'll just get it for him. I pull out my license, and hand it to him with two fingers. As he takes it and looks at the information, I turn to go get the insurance out of the van.

"Hey where do you think you're going?" He puts his hand on his revolver. Wow. This guy has got some serious issues, I'm thinking.

To get my insurance card. You need that too don't you? I know I'm really pushing my luck here. Like dancing with a rattlesnake. Fascinating.

"Your license was first issued only a year ago, but you're 27. Why is that?" My interrogator demands.

I moved here from out of state I tell him. Duh. What is this guy's problem?

"And you have no record anywhere?"

No sir.

"Well we will just see what we can't do about that!" he exclaims. Is that glee? OMG this guy is having a good time here. This ain't cool at all. Did he just offer to get me a criminal record? Man this guy might be trouble.

"Where do you work?"

I'm in between jobs right now.

"How do you support yourself?"

My wife works.

"What does she do?"

She works in a nightclub.

"The strip place up on the highway?"

Yep.

"And you ain't got no record?"

Nope. Third times a charm. Why is this so hard to believe?

"And you only been in Georgia for a year?"

Yep.

"Is there anything I should know about in that van before I go through it?"

Yeah, there is, officer. There is a Glock model 21 .45 full of hollowpoints under the driver's seat. And in a little card holder over the visor you'll find my permit to carry it.

"I'll just bet that was issued the same time your license was too, hunh?"

What the heck is up this guy's ass? I'm thinking. Slowly it begins to dawn on me what's up. If you're incorrigible enough, this could be worth a chuckle, I start to believe.

Could this be my angle? Is opportunity knocking at the door?

Will our hero yet again escape the clutches of the vile and dastardly po-lice?

Well yeah, I got my permit the first week I lived here, just like my license. It's the law ya know, that you have to change your license within so many days of moving.

You could have cut the insolence with a knife.

The smile vanished from his face. The guy became very grave and serious all of a sudden, he leaned into me in that annoying way he has once again and said in a low voice...

"Mister, just who are you working for anyway?"

The hook was set, the fish on the line, and with net in hand I said to him:

Officer, even if I was working for some other law enforcement agency, the last thing in the world I'd be able to do is discuss it with you, and you ought to know that. Don't ask me any questions that could land us both in trouble. And I thrust my jaw out at him and put my hands on my hips and stared him down.

He left in such a hurry, he forgot all about searching my van, and had to walk back to me from his car to return my driver's license, which he fished out of his front pocket where he had put it.

I think I made him wet his pants.

Months later I was getting ready to leave that small town. I had found decent work in a bigger city. I saw a friend's son walking down the street and offered the kid a ride.

"Hey man, do you mind if I stop at my buddy's house and get a bag? I'll burn one with ya." my friend's kid said to me.

No problem I said, where do you want to go?

Oh, he stays out by where the cops keep their meth lab. You know where that is don'tcha?

After he said that I decided it would be unwise to waste any time moving out of town. Skitzer cops. Thats what the world needs!

It sure does sound good

2009-05-09T15:56:00.021-04:00

The road was going to be a frontage road for a freeway. The freeway to nowhere. Part of an interstate project, this thing had been under construction for over 20 years.

It was a 3 lane one-way drag strip 12 miles long, flat as a pancake, and brand new, with another one just like it an eight of a mile to the South. That's what it was.

In the stretch where there were stoplights, they were spaced every half-mile, and timed to pass through-traffic at 45 miles per hour.

Or 90.

Everyone with a car they even thought was fast tore this stretch of new road up on a regular basis.

I regarded it as my own personal playground.

I had just finished a high-speed run with a buddy in my shiny red '79 Z28.

We were jamming to some tunes and toking on a number, grinning from ear to ear when we rolled up to that stoplight with a few cars ahead of us in traffic.

I savored a stout hit, and passed it over to my bro.

"Dude. squash that shit." He said to me. "See that brown car two cars up on the right? That's a cop."

Okay motherfucker, pass it low, smoke it like a cigarette. Shut up and quit yer bitchin. He's on his way to get a donut. Damn man, you're so fuckin lame. I thought to myself.

"That ain't no cop." I said, yanking his chain just a little.

My bro was always tweaking out about silly shit. I swear he needed something stronger than some green.

"Dude that is a cop! Put that out!"

Puff puff. A cloud rolls out my window.

"That's a chick bro. See her hair? Brunette too. Hey mama, wanna party?" I said, but not so loudly it could be heard two cars up.

"Dude that is a cop and you are so going to get me fucked up I'm gonna kick your ass." My very good friend suddenly wanted to kill me it seemed.

I grinned at him.

The light changed. Everyone grannied their way off the light.

Within a few hundred yards I saw my shot on the left and took it. I blew past the stack of cars with the cammed-up 350 screaming through the glaspacks and 4" megaphones right in sexy mama's ear as I passed the unmarked car doing 80 or 90.

The speedo had just topped 100 when she slid in behind me with the little blue lights under the grille just a winkin at me.

I dropped it down to the limit and signaled a right lane change.

There was a grocery store ahead on the right.

I stubbed my roach out in the ashtray, and palmed it.

My bro was now officially trippin balls.

I'm thinkin he's gonna lose it and start swinging on me or some shit. Then I'm gonna have to kick his ass while driving this car with a cop behind me. I swear you couldn't have driven a thumbtack up his ass with a jackhammer.

"Don't shit your pants man. We're cool." I told him as I pulled into the parking spot with the unmarked car behind me.

I handed him the roach. "Hold this bro, it won't take but a second."

Climbing out of the Camaro, I turned to face a brunette lady cop a few years older than me with a pistol and a badge on her belt.

"It sure does sound good." she said.

"Well it just cost me $20, so I am glad you think so!" I told her.

"How did it just cost you $20?"

"Because my buddy said you were a cop, and I told him you were too cute to be a cop. He said he knew you were and I said well I'll bet ya $20 she ain't, and I know just how to find out. So he won. How fast was I goin anyway?"

"I don't know." She said. "I only got up to 55 before you shut it down. How fast were you going?" She arched a devastatingly sexy eyebrow at me.

"I'll have to take the fifth on that." I said. "I got bigger problems anyway. I just bought this thing and haven't even switched the title, tag, or insurance yet, and I left my wallet and my license on my bedside table."

"You wanna go with me while I get it or do you get to handcuff me right here and now?"

She smiled. "I don't write tickets." she said. "I bust druggies."

"Fascinating!" I said. "Tell me about it over dinner, or in the morning?"

"You have a nice day, and slow down before you wind up in trouble." She said to me, getting back into her car.

"But you're the kind of trouble I'm trying to get into!" I yelled!

She had a huge grin on her face as she drove right out of my life forever.

I went back and sat down in the Camaro.

"Well?" My incredulous buddy demanded.

"Well what? She turned me down cold. Where's that joint?"

"I ate it." He replied.

"You sonofabitch!" That really upset me. "You owe me a joint now. And a hamburger!"

This day just wasn't going the way I was hoping it would.

Old Buzzard

2009-05-05T14:38:00.015-04:00

The turkey buzzard sat high in the crown of the tallest pine tree.

I watched him through the rising mist. I studied him for a long time sitting up there with the fading sun shining on him above the forested lake.

He was a magnificent bird, really. He was an old man. His head and neck were completely devoid of plumage. His leathery skin shone in the sunlight.

Though the distance was great I imagined that I could see his yellowish, beady eyes staring straight into my heart, reading my intentions.

I took a deep breath, and slowly let it all the way out, pushing my diaphragm up with my belly muscles, then gulped down another deep, slow inhalation.

Imperceptably I began to let it out as the old vulture spread his wings a little, pumped his neck, and settled deeper into his perch.

He was a good 300 yards away, and 150 feet up, in fading light.

Tricky.

Gently I stopped breathing.

I had been steadily tensing the muscles in my right hand, squeezing more and more firmly with my finger.

The rifle bucked suddenly against my shoulder.

The large bird folded his head up beneath his wing, as if to go to sleep.

I followed him through the scope as he fell, striking several branches along the way.

I lowered the weapon, cleared it, and put it on safe.

The old buzzard tried to shake his head, but couldn't for the neck brace. He took another sip from his bottle of Crown.

"You just lost another $100 boss." I said.

"You're a bastard." he replied.

Flower in the rain

2009-05-05T10:00:00.022-04:00

I was walking alone in a driving rain.

My life as miserable as the tears flowing in through the hole in my shoe.

I spied a flower, drooping desperately under the deluge.

Did I just happen to stroll by and see it there?

Or did the flower call to me from far away?

Were our destinies intertwined, this flower and I?

The rain poured down my face.

I stood in awe of the beauty of the creation I beheld.

Enthralled by the intricate complexity.

Enraptured by the simplicity.

Intrigued by the danger that lie coiled down inside of this flower in the rain.

I felt a deep loss for the flower as the realization dawned that this flower in the rain could not survive.

The storm raged on inside.

I cupped the flower in my hand and beheld it's beauty, if only for the fleeting moment.

I loved the flower with all of my soul.

I willed my life to the flower in the palm of my hand, that it might live, even though I die.

With one final carress I tenderly held the flower to my heart.

And got impaled on the bloody thorns.

I crushed the evil flower and threw it into the gutter where it disintegrated in the mud, and washed down the drain.

I hate flowers.

I hate the rain.

I hate myself.

I hate the pain.

I was walking alone in a driving rain.

Failure to signal

2009-05-04T15:33:00.012-04:00

Lawton, Oklahoma is a cool little town to stay in. It lies at the foot of a small range of squat mountains right in the middle of the plains. The constant echo of artillery from Ft. Sill reverberates across the town like thunder.

When I was staying in Lawton, the first Gulf War was on.

Lawton is a sleepy little town of fewer than 100,000 people and it's a long way from any major city. I don't mean OKC or Tulsa, but real cities like Dallas or New Orleans. But it has a mall downtown by golly! They have a Sears and a Dillards, and all that big city stuff.

I'm cruising down some side street with 45 degree parking on my right somewhere West of the mall on my V65 Magna. It was a bright, beautiful weekend and I was just picking up a few things before heading up into the mountains to spend the night.

I'm stylin. Got my Oakleys on. Hair halfway down my back. No skid lid. Black t-shirt and a grin from ear to ear. The speed limit is 20, and as I pass Chester Cheese back there on the corner I'm doing the speed limit, and my sh1t-eating grin is screaming "fuck you, porky."

He reads it on my face as I cruise on by, leaning against the hood of his car, staring right at me as I glide past him, barely making a sound on the Honda.

A van is in front of me crawling down the street looking for a parking spot. I could pass on the left in the other lane legally, but I didn't want to exceed the 20 mph limit with Barney Fife back there polishing his bullet, looking hard for someone who looks like me to work over.

So I crawled along behind the van for a block. Not today Porkskin, I got a different agenda than fooling with your punk ass.

Glancing in my rearview I notice that Granny Goodbitch in the Lincoln has made a right turn and is now following me at a distance of about 50 feet. I'm starting to feel a little bit uncomfortable here. Almost claustrophobic.

What's worse is that upon examining my rear-view mirrors I can see that Granny Goodbitch is having a hand-waving, eye-popping, positively engrossing conversation with Auntie Prisspanties.

And not paying one damn bit of attention to what's going on you know, like, on the damned road.

I sat up in the saddle and gave serious thought to getting myself out of harm's way, and threw a glance over my left shoulder.

That's when the brake lights came on and the van took a nose-dive. Someone had decided to just start backing out of that 45 degree parking right in front of her, and she wanted that spot.

I squeezed the clutch, kicked it down from 3rd to 2nd, let it go and gave a little twist all in the blink of an eye. And in so doing shot myself around the van and was to the stop sign before I heard the Lincoln impact the rear end of the van, and the van shove the car trying to back out into the parked car beside it.

Presence of mind had just saved me from being an incorrigible sandwich.

At the stop sign I turned to look behind me and decided I'd better flip a bitch and go see if anyone was hurt. Barney Fife had stopped polishing his bullet and had rolled up to the scene of the accident with his purdy lights just a goin, and was talkin into his walkie-talkie as if he was the grand poobah of this here parade.

And he was lookin right at me.

Oh boy. Here we go. I have the hair and the beard and the motorcycle. I musta caused all this trouble.

I knew it before he even told me to wait until he saw to everyone.

5 minutes later, with the paramedics looking over the old folks, and his boss having arrived to oversee the traffic control and removal of vehicles from a 20 mph pileup, this cat was giving me hell for pulling that fool stunt, blasting off down the road like that, startling these old folks, and making them crash.

He was of a good mind to haul my butt off to jail right then and there.

He wrote me a ticket for speeding, and for failing to signal a lane change. He said he would let the DA decide whether or not to charge me with causing an accident.

WHAT?

I argued with him that all I had done was save my own life! That I saw the accident coming and knew what was going to happen and waited until damn near the last minute to do anything for fear of getting wrote up for that!

His response was that lots of people go to jail for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I think he was just a sonofabitch.

The judge agreed with me too. He threw out all of my citations, and told the cop to his face never to bring him that kind of BS again. I think maybe the judge rode a motorcycle. He told me to raise my left hand. I did. He looked at the cop and said there, he signaled. Case dismissed.

It was a good day to be incorrigible.

You might get to keep the knee

2009-05-03T17:03:00.011-04:00

"You might get to keep the knee." the doctor said. "They just won't know until they start to amputate. One thing is for certain. If we don't remove your leg within the next few hours, you're going to die, and it will be a slow and painful death."

Fucking doctors! I was so mad I could have chewed 16p nails and spat machinegun bullets. The results of my bone scan had just come back and the results weren't pretty. My right leg was black all the way up to just below the knee.

I had a gangrene infection working it's way up the marrow of my leg bones, and all of the muscle tissue and skin too. My foot had turned black, and was about the size of a regulation football. My leg was a deep shiny purple mottled with patches of a sickly creamy color, the color of infection.

Red, angry, veinous runners ran up my leg to the bottom of my thigh.

I had gone from healthy as a horse, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, to half-way dead in about 36 hours.

This was the 6th time I was in the ER in that time. Most of 'em being seen by this doctor. This doctor who had sent me home five times with keflex and tylenol.

This guy had given me such sage and accurate medical advice before, that I gave his words the due consideration that they were worth now.

With great gravity I replied to him: "If I lose my leg you lose yours. Not only will I sue you and the hospital for everything you've got, but they'll put my name on the front of this place and I'll own your first born child. But before any of that happens I'll go home and get my shotgun and you'll lose a leg too you son of a bitch. You'd better come up with a better goddam solution than that." The thought of losing my leg had me just a little bit pissed.

I spent the next 10 days flat on my back in a hospital bed on IV antibiotics that were brand spankin' new. They were so new I was the first patient in the whole town to even get 'em, ever.

Imagine that. Those just happened to be sitting there, waiting for some VIP to need 'em or something.

But I was gonna lose a leg before they were gonna break 'em out until I got nasty about it, and swore a blood oath of revenge.

Infuckingcorrigible.

The day came that they were going to want to take that piece of dirty Rebok out of the bone in my foot it was laying against. I had stepped on a nail in my garage while building a speaker box with a built-in arms locker for my '77 Cougar with the tinted windows and the Cragar mags, and the nail had gone all the way through my foot.

Well I wasn't gonna walk around with a nail and a 2x4 stuck on the bottom of my foot, so I pulled it out. It was just a good puncture. Didn't even bleed much. I cleaned it with peroxide, dabbed it with some neosporin, and wrapped it in a cut up clean t-shirt and duct tape. I even ate an old tylox I had laying around.

Shoulda been fine, right? Well there we were and these ghouls who wanted to cut off my leg were now wanting to put me out so they could go get a piece of rubber the size of a pencil eraser.

I wasn't in to it. I didn't trust these folks as far as I could punt them.

The last ten days had been pretty hellish. Since I was on new IV drugs and they were running them in me like a river, they had this sweet little thing sitting with me and writing something down every ten minutes or so.

She didn't like me much. She said I was a pig, and a sexist, and my cigarettes stank. Damned hospitals. Just becaused they had banned cigarette smoking even in private rooms a few months before they thought a guy hooked up to an IV pole who couldn't get out of bed was gonna suddenly quit smoking.

They shoulda known better. My friends made sure I got bourbon with that tight little twat sitting there. Pizza too. I got anything I wanted. It's good to have people. The little nazi nurses tried to take my cigarettes one time. Only one time. Funny how I remember it always being the same pinch-faced little candy striper, and not more than one. Bah. I was on a lot of painkillers too.

I wanted these quacks to get that piece of tennis shoe outta me, but I didn't want to go to sleep for it. I just knew they were gonna take off my leg.

I really had this phobia that if I let them operate on me asleep, I was gonna be a pegleg. It was unreasonable. It was irrational. It was a real pain in the ass for me to act like that and I could plainly see that these folks were professionally offended by my suspicions of them.

And I didn't give a single damn.

That's my leg.

And I'm keepin it.

Can't you guys just do that spinal block thing, like they do for c-sections on women?

The docs looked at each other.

And I relaxed a little bit.

That afternoon I sat and watched, my girlfriend holding a hand mirror for me, while two surgeons opened up my right foot, removed a piece of rubber, and scraped the crud from a bone in my foot with a knife.

But...

I got to keep my whole leg. I'm kinda fond of it.

No deposit, no return

2009-05-01T02:41:00.010-04:00

When I landed in Georgia, I had $200 cash, an old riotgun, and a shiny new pistol.

Something was going to break my way, but that's the subject of another story.

This one is about the first place I ever rented in Georgia.

Rural Georgia is not a renter's paradise. Having few resources and a limited amount of time, I rented a small 2 bedroom trailer in a little dirt-road shithole of a park off of GA 300.

Cue Ugly Kid Joe's "Neighbor".

And so I moved in with my girlfriend, who was working as a stripper (much to her exes displeasure), and her 3 tricycle motors.

We were just the talk of the trailer park. It was a torrid little dump of a tornado magnet, ran by an old prune whose husband had left it to her, and a crotchety lazy old cracker who pretended to be the maintenance man in exchange for free lot rent, and his wife who lived on the other side of the park from him in a different trailer.

It was....temporary housing.

But we both worked and we worked hard and eventually the time came to move on to nicer quarters.

We had even gotten along amicably with the people in the park up until now. The rent was paid, a month's notice of departure was given, and everything should have been just fine...

but there was a little snag.

The old prune that ran the place had nitpicked and nitpicked us to death while we lived there. I think alot of it had to do with us not sending our kids to her church for proper religious indoctrination.

We sent them to the one they wanted to go to with their friends instead.

How terrible. I think Baptists just don't care much for Pentecostals. The kids didn't care much. The Pentacostals had more fun. And we got a break from them after Saturday night.

But hey, life in the trailer park trying to scrape out a living, right?

Come the weekend of the move-out, the snag was my security deposit. The lady said she just never returned it. Never. No way.

Now I had taken good care of this place for about 8 months. I even rebuilt the bathroom floor, replaced a floor beam, and installed a new cradle, sewer line, tub, linoleum, and trim in her old trailer when the rickety old maintenance man suddenly had an asthma attack and had to be on oxygen for two weeks the moment real work had to be done.

I was going to hand this place back to the old bat in better shape than I found it. She had already gotten my labor for free so I could have a bathroom the month before.

Well I called everyone I could think of trying to find a way to make her return my $100.

Yeah. A hundred bucks.

But there is no cop on the beat for a dried-up, old nag of a landlady who just won't do right.

Incorrigible is as incorrigible does.

I went to her one last time. I let her know I was going to throw a party the night before I moved out. I invited her. Told her we were going to have a housewrecking good time.

Or she could give me my money. $100. It'll prevent a thousand worth of damage lady.

She promised to call the cops.

I offered one final time to not cause trouble, and to clean the place immaculately. I really needed that $100 to get ahead of my bills while moving.

So we had a bash.

The cops came of course. We offered them beer. Demonstrated that we were well within our rights.

The second time they came they told the bizatch not to call them again unless someone was getting murdered or she was going to jail.

Partay time!

I don't have to tell you what the aftermath was like. We didn't damage her property in any way, but we didn't clean up behind ourselves either, if you know what I mean.

I got my $100 worth. And nobody cleaned it up Sunday.

Monday morning I happened to be having breakfast at the little ptomaine shack across the highway from the cesspool when I saw the car from county code enforcement show up a few minutes after nine.

I had made a few phone calls Friday afternoon, about 4 o'clock.

Before I could finish a second cup of hot cocoa, a car had arrived from the tax assessor's office as well, and a pickup truck from animal control. While all of these people were in the old bat's front yard waiting for a chance to talk with her, the health department arrived.

Months later I drove through the trailer park in my hippie van that they didn't recognize and went to see an old neighbor. The roads in the park were paved. They had newly installed city water...the old well was found to be contaminated. The mangy animals were all gone, the septic tanks were properly capped with concrete instead of plywood and a few inches of dirt, and all of the trailers had current registration stickers on them.

My friend told me that the entire trailer park knew that not returning my deposit had cost this woman almost $95,000.

He also said I probably shouldn't let her catch me there.

Now why would she feel like that I wonder?

Bitterly Clinging

2009-04-27T12:51:00.002-04:00

From Reuters today:

http://lite.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N26491120.htm

In spite of the swine flu epedimic in Mexico, the Department of Homeland Insecurity is not screening passengers flying into the US from Mexico.

I guess they're too busy looking for suspect #2 from the OKC bombing:

I gotta go now. I need to go cling bitterly to my bible and my guns.

If not, please continue

2009-04-27T12:11:00.008-04:00

I applied to a job posting last night. I found the craigslist entry amusing...

Are you looking to work for a traditional company?

If so...please move on to the next posting.

If not please continue.

Our company is coming to town and we are looking to bring on a experienced talent coach. This is not your sleepy non engaged company. So if you're interested in working in an environment where sit behind a desk and work in a traditional scene... I suggest you apply somewhere else.

Email for details

At the airport.

Compensation $30-40K.

I thought to myself, yeah. look at this mess of a job posting. Maybe he's afraid of hyphens. Or maybe he's just a tard. Let's see if he means any of it.

So I replied to the job posting thusly:

Four details:

I don't like traditional companies either.

I moved along to the next posting, but yours was more interesting.

I'd like to find a new career.

I make more money than you're offering as a professional bum.

And received the following reply:

Aloha!

I see your interested in working with a fresh new company that has a unique twist in travel.

To directly apply for all positions please see ourcompany.com and click the jobs selections.

Please apply through that application only.

If you want to see a little about our product look us up on you tube.

Silly company motto.

Wow. Four lines of brilliant sarcasm wasted on this cat. I don't miss often.

Try, try again.

I sent back:

Wow. You misspelled "you're", and you don't know how to include a hyperlink in an e-mail.

Yeah.

I wanna work for you.

And received the following reply:

Dear Sir or Ma'am,

Thank you for your withdrawl of any consideration for a position here at our company. We are aware that not everyone is unique and exciting, and these departures from the hospitality industry leave an average individual feeling out of place. Please do not feel that you carry any responsibility for this, not everyone is suited for this brand. May your future be as bright as you allow it to be!

Silly company motto again

Roddy Flowers
General Manager

Heh. So I replied:

Ah, now you're doing much better!

See. Not only do I have a talent for sarcasm and for ticking people off, but I bring out that quality in others as well.

Perhaps I should try talk radio.

I appreciate your consideration.

Best wishes!

Maybe I'm just too unique for some jobs.

Flash in the fog

2009-04-27T04:03:00.007-04:00

The Z28 was bright red. I bought it ready to run bracket races and put it on the street instead.I'm just shady like that.

I was 21, and I didn't even care that my car insurance bill was 20% of my income.

I didn't care about a lot of things.

Many of the insane things I did, I did in that monster of a car. Oh, it would only do about 120 on the top end. But it would get there in an eighth of a mile from a standstill.

There was an interstate that ran through town, and North of town a dozen miles or so it crossed a huge river. Sometimes the river would get fog so dense you could cut it with a knife.

Now if you've ever driven in fog you know how bright lights just make things worse. You also know to slow down because you don't want to over-drive your headlights.

So what better idea could there be than to flip on the high beams and see how fast we can go for how long in the fog, right?

Well shoot, only if you do it so wasted you couldn't see anything if it was a bright sunny day!

I have no idea why I am alive today, other than divine grace.

I sure do miss that car!

Winning the drug war

2009-04-27T03:29:00.005-04:00

I looked up from what I had been concentrating on and gazed blearily through the big plate glass window in the front room of the apartment my girlfriend and I were squatting in. Her mom had abandoned the place (and her), and the Sheriff hadn't come to put the furniture out yet.

The complex was built in a horseshoe with the open end facing West. Our apartment was on the second floor halfway down the Southern leg of the U. Below was a pool, a small laundry room, and a Coca-Cola machine.

I lit the joint I had just rolled, and placed the bag of weed, the papers, and the tray underneath the edge of the couch. I took a big toke, and held it until my head started to throb a little.

As I blew out a cloud and surveyed the morning unfolding below, Bob Barker's boy was telling some cow from the midwest to come on down in the background. TV sucks.

A cat skittered from the corner of the laundry room on the other side of the complex towards the pool, passing from left to right.

Behind the calico were people running.

They took the door of the bottom corner apartment right off it's hinges at a dead run and poured inside.

The first ones in the door looked like the black-suited, jack-booted thugs in the movies.

The guys in the plainclothes stopped and let them go past 'em at the corner of the building. One was wearing a yellow polo shirt, and carrying an MP-5 submachine gun like he was Don Johnson or something.

I watched, fascinated, toking on my doobie.

My doobie.

It might be a good idea to close the door, I thought to myself.

And the curtains too.

In fact, I think I'll finish this in the bathroom.

I needed my schmoke. I had been up all night drinking and smoking with this hoe I was shacked up with for the moment. Real piece of work that one. Once she woke up she would be on the rag again and it would be best to find a better place to be until she gets horny again.

Since I was in the can for the wake 'n bake, I went ahead and got cleaned up. Closed up in there I realized I smelled like a goat in the springtime.

Coming out of the shower in last night's clothes, I grabbed my keys. And my ID - don't want to be out there without that. And my shades. Some coins.

Playing off, I went down to the vending machine to quench my terrible thirst. It was already hot early in the morning, in the way only Texas can be.

I thought I'd hang out in the parking lot for awhile. See what the narcs were driving. The squad cars were gone, but for a couple. The arrests had all been made. A plainclothes cop walked by so I thought I'd ask him...

What happened?

He stopped and fixed me with a steady gaze and then he said to me with a stern and serious demeanor:

"Winning the drug war son."

"I'm glad." I said to him. He just nodded and walked away.

Self-righteous, tight-assed bastard doesn't have a clue, I thought to myself.

With all of this excitement, I decided that I needed another doobie, and so I walked upstairs with my warming half-can of Coke, contemplating the past half hour and shaking my head, just kinda grinning to myself.

When I opened the door the phone was ringing, so I went to answer it before some fool woke that bitch up. It was my best friend telling me about this killer stuff he had just scored from his new connection.

I looked out the curtain at the evidence technicians hauling off the belongings of my best hook-up.

That's good, I said. I'll have to check that out. I'll see ya in about an hour.

Incorrigible

2009-04-27T01:57:00.007-04:00

Incorrigible:

1. Defective and impossible to materially correct or set aright.

2. Incurably depraved, not reformable.

3. Impervious to correction by punishment or pain.

4. Unmanageable.

5. Determined, unalterable, hence impossible to improve upon.

6. Incurable.

Have you ever been labeled? When I first read the word used to describe me, and learned of it's meaning I knew that it wasn't just a label, but that my entire outlook on life had just been defined.

Have you ever been incorrigible?

Have you ever become enraged?

Have you ever just had enough?

Have you ever lashed out, rather than be pushed around?

Well, I just can't help myself. It's a personality disorder. A disease. A virus that feeds on my mind and my patience until I lean out the window and yell GET YOUR ASS OUT OF THE WAY JACKOFF!!!

Hell I think we need more incorrigible people around.

The world just ain't right anyway.

Mr. Walker

2009-04-27T00:32:00.002-04:00

Mr. Walker was a dean of boys at my high school. I had a rule about high school: Don't go to high school. Go to school high.

This more than anything describes why Mr. Walker didn't care much for me.

Mr. Walker was a distinguished black man. A preacher. An educator. An authoritarian. A royal pain in the ass.

Educators of his caliber breed kids named Klebold and Harris in my opinion. And he was one of the least evil of the administration at this place we refered to as Hell's High School.

I was trying to calm myself as Mr. Walker closed his office door behind me. I sat in the chair in front of his desk trying to contain my rage.

Rage. I had it in spades. My neck was burning. My face hot to the touch. Of all the injustices and offenses committed upon a teenager, this was the one that could not be tolerated. For all of the heat eminating from my visage, inside I was cold.

I had all of this cold, cold fire built up inside. Moments before it had all come flying out at once. And here I was sitting in this chair that had surely had a groove worn in it by now by my big behind, packing it all back down inside again. Bottling the anger up. Building up that cold fist of rage that comes flying out white-hot when forced to defend myself in the most basic way.

I was almost sixteen years old. At 5'11" and 200 lbs, no man was going to lay his hands on me in anger ever again.

They'll have to call a cop to stop me from dismembering you with my bare hands.

Disrespect me at your own risk.

So when that science teacher put his hand firmly around my shoulders and leaned into my personal space and whispered that he already had my name on a disciplinary form, and he couldn't wait to send me out of his class today, I told him to take his hands off of me or I would throw him out of the second floor window.

He responded by turning his fatherly gesture into a headlock.

I went to my knees. Any kid knows dead weight is impossible to hold.

When I shot back up it was right fist first.

You ever see a blind uppercut landed squarely on the chin?

It's a sight to behold. The recipient flys backwards and up at the same time. They stare right at you with their eyes fixed, a look of shock and disbelief and pain in their eyes as they go over the horizontal, and the back of the head angles down to the tile floor with the weight of the body all landing right on the neck.

That's when the lights go out.

I know I'll never forget it.

So there I sat in the chair, trying to get a handle on my anger.

"I'm not going to have any choice but to declare you incorrigible." said the distinguished man in the impeccable tie, leaning across the desk from me.

"Do you know what that word means, incorrigible?" he asked.

Of course, I did not. He handed me a dictionary and instructed me to address my ignorance.

"Unwilling or unable to be corrected." I read from the dictionary.

"That's you" Mr. Walker declared.

"But Mr. Walker, I'm not wrong. He had no business putting his hands on me. How can I be corrected when I'm not wrong?" I protested!

Be that as it may, guess who got kicked out of school?