The Luckiest Man in the World's Last Lottery

Leah was at her desk when Jacob left the house that morning for the liquor store where he would buy a one-dollar quick-pic lottery ticket and a six pack of beer as he'd done every Saturday since the lottery began in the eighties. The odds were the same, but it annoyed him when the lottery got big, because lottery fever always made the lines longer. Besides that, though he played to win, he never won anything, not ever.

Leah was but a year younger than Jacob though she had all the moving parts of a woman twenty years younger. Her blood pressure was a steady 115/70 and her vitals were all good. She hadn’t been admitted to a hospital since the birth of their third child.

Jacob’s health was another story. He was afflicted with all the age-related health problems of a man that didn’t take very good care of himself.

Forty years ago, a less fortunate GI tripped the wire to a claymore mine in Vietnam, and, though shrapnel took out half a butt-cheek, Jacob thought of himself as the luckiest man in the world because he met Leah. Tripler Army Hospital wards were full. The odds were a hundred to one against him.  A hundred young men to one or two young female nurses on the ward. It’s not like the movies: the hero catches the eye of the nurse, they fall in love, and live happily ever after. He thought, “Wars aren’t anything like the movies.”

And, neither is life.

She’d been changing his dressing, like she had been doing all morning for dozens of others in the ward. She commented, “it’s going to take a while to heal from this.”

He didn’t know why he said what he did, but he did say, “Well, you gotta play to win.”

She said, “That’s how it goes.”

Leah was married when she met Jacob. Her husband was a handsome US Navy jet jockey. There was nothing wrong with the man. He never abused, neglected, nor disrespected her in any way. But, when she met Jacob, she loved him enough to leave a perfectly good marriage.

Jacob wasn’t a lady’s man either. He was short, thin, and freckled. He never understood why a woman of Leah’s beauty would feign to look his way, but look his way she did and, when she looked his way, she knew she’d met her man. As simple as that.

Jacob returned home that afternoon to spend an average Saturday with Leah and said what he always said, “Dear, I bought us a lottery ticket.”

Leah was at her desk where she’d been paying bills. She didn’t answer.

He laid the ticket next to a note under her hand and pecked her cheek.

Her cheek was cold on his lips. The note said, “That’s how it goes.”

A man on the TV was saying, “You have to play to win.”

The numbers on their ticket blurred.

Schism-ism

There was Communism, Capitalism, and Schism-ism

Why am I trying to sound so fucking academic when I’m clearly not one of them birds and am out of my league when I try to pretend? 

What I’m thinking about is mere observation. I’ve witnessed much of it throughout the years of my generation. 

Youth will always take a stance opposing structures that won’t let them in. And that goes for almost any kind of orthodoxy. I look at the leadership of the Democratic party as a great example of this. And it is true to only a slightly lesser degree among the Republicans.They had four or five candidates under 60. But, sadly, both Parties ended up choosing candidates over seventy years old. The Democrats offered us a leader from the sixties that protested septuagenarians running the show when she was a young radical. Youth today are frustrated by their exclusion and rightly so. However, they have been led by their noses & nipple rings by a paradigm that would have them all believe they inherited a radical heritage that isn’t entirely theirs. That they allowed this to happen is proof that they ceded authority to our generation that apparently brainwashed them into submission. We would have had more than one or two choices of candidates in their forties and fifties... even sixties if this were not so.

It’s a sad commentary that they had no new refreshing ideas to offer other than empty protests like that overly vaunted vacuous media extravaganza called the Wall Street Occupy Movement. I.e. the chants might as well have been: 

"What do we want?" 

"We don’t know, we just don't like you!" 

"When do we want it?" 

"Now!"

The subtext is that it is a form of micro-aggression to even suggest this or ask what that means.

Nobody wanted to step in to pick up that banner. Who would? The core sensibility was a valid one whose original aim was to focus on the Wall Street Casinos but the resulting outcome was that workers were blocked on the bridges from getting to the source of our paychecks… you know, JOBS… (not Steve Jobs)... we saw it as nothing more than a bunch of spoiled brats pooping on themselves and causing us to be late to work. Late to work is okay if you're paid the same (as in a salary or have tenure) but the rest of us get paid by the hour. If only the members in the Democratic Party’s politburo would have given more attention to us... the bread and butter real issues instead of pandering to the fringes, we might not be looking at Donald Trump’s mug every evening on the Rocky Horror Reality Show.

One would have thought we would have organized into a movement more virulent than proposing an octogenarian candidate as an alternative to represent us by 2016 (feeling the Burn yet?). We came up empty because we had all the sound a fury of a legitimate movement but less to offer than the Black Lives Matter Movement and that one only offered an impotent reenactment of the sixties radical Civil Rights protests with a propensity to sack and pillage each other in the inner-cities.

I am of the generation that stepped outside the paradigm of Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War (and they were young men compared to Hilary and Donald). We had a good run and accomplished a lot. Now, it's way past the time to step aside but let's not merely pretend to do so by encouraging a younger version of ourselves. I’m not saying we all should head off to Florida yet but rather we ought to loosen up the grips on the reins. 

Young people came out for Barack Obama because he was something new and fresh. Like it or not, he was able to shoot hoops and still make it back to the office the same day. If you are over 50, and can still do that, my hat’s off to you. Try it if you don’t believe me. The younger generation didn't show up for Hilary Clinton and the Russians had little or nothing to do with that. She was old. Doesn't anyone in our generation remember when we couldn't trust anyone over thirty? Or do we want to repeat 2016 in 2020?

In Six Days

The anniversary of Bonnie's passing is coming up. It was on Friday, May 27th, 2016. Her meditation book is book marked to that day so I'm pretty sure... if I can be sure about anything... that Bonnie hadn't planned on departing us the day before she marked the page. 
   She wasn't feeling well when we came home from our Tuesday evening meditation meeting. It was one of the nights we often spent together, made dinner, and watched a movie or TV. We had been doing that throughout our entire relationship. She was my lover and best friend for nine years but we lived separate by choice. We'd spend a few nights at each other's place a couple days a week and take a day or two off from each other at least once a week. 
   That evening she said, "I'm not up to doing anything tonight. Do you want to go home? I won't be good company. All I want to do is sleep."
   When Bonnie felt that way, I was happy to oblige her because we've always wanted what's the best for each of us. It happened now and then, since her mitro-valve replacement, three years before. I have no reason to doubt that she felt the same for me. And, besides, I had a project going at my place and didn't mind at all.
   I feel I should make this point. There was a reason we lived separately. Mind you,I felt at home in her apartment and she was at home in mine. I kept night clothes, robe, extra clothes, and slippers at hers, and she had a night gown and the same at mine. However; we knew, early on, that we would drive each other bananas if we lived together. For both of us, our living space was also our work place.  If we ever lived together we would need to have a house big enough to accommodate the fact that she worked in a beautiful, Zen:clear/clean/ordered environment, and I work in the midst of chaos and clutter. Because of her influence, I'm better at it now but, though I appreciate and admire neatness, will never achieve her spartan aesthetic.
   Bonnie and I had an arrangement, She liked to sleep late in the mornings... sometimes 10:00 or all the way to 11:00 or 12:00. She knew I was most creative in the morning and liked to work until noon. We usually made sure our doctor appointments were between twelve and five.
   She called the next day around two or three, asking, "I don't feel well enough to go to the meeting with you (the Wednesday Sundowners). Can you call and cancel my Thursday's appointments?" 
   I wasn't alarmed, even after she added, "I woke up feeling fine. I went to the place around the block to get my nails done. But then I felt weak on the way home, I almost fell (or she did fall... I don't remember). George, I never get a flu or anything but I must've caught a bug. I'm going back to bed."
   "Yes, you never get the flu... all the time we've been together. Are you sure you don't need anything?" 
   This had happened before with here sciatica and so on but I still kick myself for not connecting the dots... that her heart valve replacement might be giving out. Though I don't know it would make a difference. What could be done about it? The torture of another heart surgery?... damned near killed her the last time. She insisted,"No, I'll be okay. Don't call me. I want to sleep. It has to be a flu." 
   "Okay, Pookie. (yes, we had embarrassing cute names for each other) Have I told you today that I love you?"
   "I love you too, Pooker." 

   She didn't answer her phone the next day and it still was no big deal to me. 
   Her friend Vicki asked, "Should I check on her?"
   I said, "I don't think she wants to be disturbed... at least before noon. But we'll check on her Friday if she doesn't return our calls." 
   I assured Vicki, "Bonnie puts her phone under a pillow when she wants to be left alone. I'll check on her if I don't get a call by eleven. I'll call you before noon and let you know unless you can anytime earlier." 
   I was busy with a final edit on a manuscript and was, frankly speaking, grateful she was giving me the time. 
   
   
   Vicki insisted, "Do you think she'd mind if I check on her tonight?"
   "No," I said, "but she would have called if she needed anything. She probably has the phone under a pillow anyway."
   We agreed to see if she needed anything the next morning.

   Bonnie could do that with phones, unhook her landline and put her cell phone under a pillow. It always bothered me that she did that but I also admired her for being emotionally, as well as physically, unhooked from our digital umbilical chord. If she wanted to talk with you, she called or met you in person somewhere. I showed her how to text but she never once sent one that I know of.
   Friday morning, May 27th, around nine-thirty or ten am, Vicki called. She was crying. I knew what she was going to say. I'm honest with myself about it, I was relieved. My first thought and feeling. It's over. Bonnie's suffering is done. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks... You just wish you could have one last second with her.
   "I love you Pookie," would be the last thing she heard from me. 
   I hear her say it now and then, "I love you too, Pooker."

   If I have it in me I will post about that day.

Bitter Herbs make for a Bitter Soup

After the Apocalypse of WWII, Andre Malraux insisted, ‘the 21st century will be spiritual or it will not be’(‘le XXI siècle sera spirituel ou il ne sera pas’) I remember reading  something he wrote while I was in college warning young radicals that our means must be commensurate to the end instead of justified by it. I.e., thinking that winning at any cost... any lie... any evil, can be excused and encouraged if the greater good can be expected to be attained by it. This is a vain pursuit that is most likely to end in tragedy if not tyranny.

Our leaders are but figureheads that come and go, but, the idea that the means are always justified by the end we aim for, will welcome the most ruthless men and women among us to ride in on a white horse. Progressive, liberal libertarian, or conservative, they will bring with them the tyranny we feared in the first place. 

A rational, sane, society cannot exist in the Chaos of ideologies that demonize each other. Malraux lived through the oppression of Stalinists and Fascists during the chaos of WWII and knew of which he spoke. I pray that we aren't heading in the direction of further division. Opposing ideas are good but it is the tactic of demonizing each other that I fear the most.

People are angry. I get that. But, I see shout-downs at town hall meetings and hear Democrats, led by Secretary Clinton, making excuses for winning the popular vote but losing the election. Are these alibis why the Democrats also lost the Senate? Did the Russians and Wikileaks accomplish that? It doesn't seem probable, even if it was possible, and I wonder if we'll ever get out of this morass of mutual hatred by throwing gasoline on the flames of honest dissent.

I hope we have the time to get honest with ourselves but I see the Republicans making the same mistakes. 50% of the population cannot be ignored by either side. I don't mean to Rodney King it but it isn't such a bad idea to respect each other even if we hold opposing ideas in contempt.

Loves Labors

   I have to be honest about it today. I'm 70 years old now. I never expected to live this long. I had a dream last night about my wife of so long ago. A conversation as we lay in bed... semi-erotic.
   I believe I started to look for her quite young. I remember fantasizing about finding and embracing some vague notion of a magical potion of love. Not possessive, you understand. It wasn't that I desired to cling to her or an ideal of her, to capture, or win her like in the Song of Solomon... that she could be pried open for the sake of love... 

   She said, "I don't love you."
It hurt but I accepted it as a verdict. After all, one can't be forced to love. I asked, "Did you ever love me?"
   "Yes... maybe no. I'm not sure."
   Thinking of our daughter I asked, "Do you still want to be married?"
   "Yes."
   "To me?"
   "No."
   
   The hurt... it was "the hurt". I call it "the hurt" like "the hurt" is a thing that possessed me. It wasn't about me clinging to her or feeling as though I was losing control. See, if those were the feelings it wouldn't have been losing a love. That would be more of a feeling of losing a separate thing from her. No, it was quite the opposite. It had become ungrasping. I let go.

   "Why?" I asked.  
   "You are clinging. I don't want to be owned by you. I live in your shadow."
   "I never meant you to."
   "See, that's what I mean. You never meant to do anything with me. We trapped each other without seeing it happen."
   "Sounds like you are saying you still love me."
   "No. I don't hate you. I care about you. I care deeply about you, around you, and sometimes through you, but I don't love you. I never did."
   "What is love if it isn't caring deeply about someone?"
   "I don't know but it isn't love."
   With those words I became owned by "the hurt". I would call it pain but pain is something that goes away. I carried "the hurt" with me in every relationship after that.
   I went on. Some tried to love me but I never tried to love anyone. I no longer cared deeply about anyone for a very long time. I didn't mean to feel that way but from that day on... the real day... not the dream day I bumped into people unattached but longing... longing...
   I ask the sky, "Oh, Buddha, are you full of shit?"
   The sky answers, "Yes, I'm full of shit."

  My second novel is about a man going through what happened to me... how I was opened to beauty and love through the unconscious and unrequieted love of another. This prepared me for what I became able to share with another. I couldn't share that before because all I had to share was "the Hurt" until then. 

   It became such a monstrous being... a horror I had to face. Only then was I ready to allow it to fade. No violins... no rays of light through the clouds... a simple onion soup... an act of kindness was enough...
   Is it gone.
   No. When Bonnie died it came back. It wants to take me down.