It’s amazing how things work out: today’s the 22^nd anniversary of my mother’s passing and yes, even after all this time, I still miss her. My plan for the day was the same as most others, do some writing and editing of stories I have prepared for future postings.

But as the the saying goes: “We plan, God laughs…”

In 1988, she and her new husband, took the AA pledge, never taking another drink again. In that time, she urged me to attend Al-Anon, which I did up until her death in 2002.

This morning, I received an invite to read a friend’s newly finished manuscript. Without giving away the story line, the plot involves Alcoholics Anonymous.

Reading it brought back all of the information I’d gained sitting in those rooms. And in those 400-pages, it was like having my mom back for a brief time, talking to me, guiding me, urging me to do better.

As I read, I saw myself in his main character and I realized that some self-correction is in much need. In the end, I’m a fellow who likes to see the ‘dots’ connected and they certainly came together today.

Alrighty, Mom – it’s His will, not mine…

Robbie was the neighborhood bully and everyone either shied away or joined him. Either way, they did what they did out of fear for their safety.

Maggie was the new girl to the area and she had only one real run in with Robbie. He’d pushed her down, then laughed, challenging her to do something about it.

Not one to be confrontational, the 12-year-old took his abuse and once he grew bored of her refusal to respond, he went away. This wasn’t the first time she had to deal with a bully, but she knew it would be the last bit of bullying Robbie would ever do.

The following day, Maggie knelt on the sidewalk in front of her home, drawing smiling faces with large pieces of colored chalk, when Robbie appeared. He immediately began dragging his tennis shoes over her artwork, spitting on the drawings, distorting the once happy faces and laughing all the while.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Maggie warned.

“Oh yeah?” Robbie taunted, “What’cha gonna do about it?”

“I’m not going to do a thing,” she answered.

Suddenly the smiling face he was standing on came to life and before Robbie could react to it, the thing’s mouth opened and the sidewalk beneath swallowed him. It happened so quickly that Robbie never even had the chance to scream.

Being single is better than being lied too, cheated on, and disrespected. Thank goodness I’m not married to Congress.

As he stood by the side of his truck, gassing up, he noticed a woman squatting by the ice machine. She looked tired, was dirty and down on her luck. She leaned on a large metal framed backpack.

Finish at the pump, he walked over, “Can I get you a soda, coffee, something to eat?”

Meyer had a soft spot for the homeless and less-fortunate. She smile with a nod ‘yes’ and followed him inside the store.

He used the can and then got himself a coffee. She had a sandwich, a large bottle of cola and a coffee. He happily paid.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Call me John.”

“Okay, John. Thank you. I’m Sara.”

“You’re welcome. With or without the ‘h’?”

“Without.”

“So where you headed, Sara?”

“Las Vegas.”

“I’m headed that way myself. Wanna lift.”

“Please.”

He hefted her pack into the bed of his truck, opened the passenger side door, cleaned off the seat of the two notebooks and a pen, then let her get in, before shutting the door. She quickly slipped the seat-belt on and leaned back.

The first ten-miles or so were silent ones. Meyer had decided not to ask any questions, rather allow her to open up and talk on her own, that is if she wanted too.

“She’s kinda cute,” decided as he glance over at her from time to time.

Finally, she broke the quiet, asking with a smile, “How do you know I ain’t serial killer or something?”

More than a little shocked, he studied her hard before answering her seriously, “First, not very many women are serial killers and when they do turn out to be one, they are generally in the company of a man, who is usually in the lead role.”

“Women can be lone serial killers,” she argued, “You know, like that Aileen chick.”

“Aileen Wuornos, you mean.”

“Yeah, her.”

“But then what’s the likelihood of two serial killers, each unknown to the other, ending up traveling in the same vehicle?”

It was her turn to study him hard and as Sara did, John Meyer thought wistfully about the ax he had stowed behind his driver’s seat and gently licked his lips.

Your religious?
I prefer pedestrian,
Walking in belief.

As he turned off his computer, he chuckled at the attempt in humor of the story about the boy trying to solve a murder only to find out it is fiction story written by Stephen King. He got up and crossed the hallway, got undress and laid down on his bed. Sleep found him quickly.

That morning’s alarm burned a hole in his dreamscape with it’s harsh buzz-buzz-buzz. He rolled over, fumbled with the clock, before finally finding the sliding switch that turned the noise-maker off.

It was still dark out, but John Meyer knew the sun would be up shortly. He got up, showered, dressed, made himself a toasted bagel with some raspberry jelly on it and headed out the door, happy that he’d packed his gear the night before.

Before backing out of his drive, he laid two notebook in the passenger seat beside himself along with an ink pen. Meyer enjoyed the ability to write out thoughts while racing along the highway.

Finally, he stopped a the 7-11 store at the corner, a mile or so from his house, and bought himself what he call a ‘frou-frou coffee;’ sweet french vanilla. Road trips were the only time he allowed himself this simple pleasure. Any other time, it black coffee, hot or cold, but always black.

Before long he was heading east on Interstate 80. In half and hour he’d be cruising southbound on US 95 towards Vegas.

Meyer had plans for the weekend. He wanted to take photos and hike the desert, maybe even visit the worlds largest temperature gauge at Baker, the gateway to Death Valley.

Soon, and with the sun up and at a blinding position coming in through his truck’s windshield, he made the left hand jog at Yerington and pulled into the first Chevron he found. He needed to fuel up, take a massive piss and get another cup of frou-frou coffee.

Stephanie first saw him as he stood in the main hallway of the high school, seemingly lost. There was something different about this boy, foreign perhaps, maybe innocence, a shyness or even worldly.

She couldn’t tell. However, she rushed over anyway to ask if she could help.

“New here?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Stephanie.”

“Howie.”

“You look lost. Can I help?”

“Do you know where this room is?”

“I sure do. That’s my home room.”

She led him to the door. He opened it and allowed her to enter first.

It was like that through much of the first few weeks of their junior school year. She met him at the front of the school each morning and they’d sit in their home room chatting.

“Would you go out with me?” Stephanie finally asked.

“Sure, but I don’t have a car or my license.”

“That’s okay. I have both. Will Friday night at six be okay?”

“It would be great.”

“Super! Then we have a date.”

“She’ll be like puddy in my hands,” Howie thought as the class bell rang.

Friday night finally arrived and Stephanie pulled up to the curb in front of Howie’s home. He came out and got in the car the moment he saw her.

“So, what’s the plan?” he asked.

“I thought we’d go for a dip in the ocean off of Kellogg Beach.”

“Oh, I can’t swim.”

“Really? I can teach you.”

“Okay.”

Once at the beach, the two stripped down to their underwear and headed for the water. True to her word, Stephanie showed Howie how to swim, though he wasn’t very good.

Afterwards, they returned to the vehicle where they retrieved the towels Stephanie had brought, then started to redress. As Howie stood next to a half-dressed Stephanie, he felt his excitement rise and he leaned in and kissed her.

She pulled back in surprise. Then she checked her partially-naked self, then looked up at Howie, who stood there dumbfounded by her actions.

“Mom and Dad have always told me to beware of the change as I become a woman,” she offered sheepishly.

“Does that mean you didn’t like me kissing you?” Howie asked.

“No! I loved it,” she giggled, “And I want you to do it again.”

The two pressed themselves tightly to together and engaged in a lengthy time-forgetting french-kiss. Suddenly Howie jerked from her away with a frightened gasp.

Stephanie had changed. She was a greenish glob of goo that spilled out of his arms and oozed its way to the ocean.

Howie turned and ran, forgetting the rest of his clothing. He spent the remainder of the weekend in his bedroom trying to figure out what had happened.

Monday morning, a still confused Howie learned that Stephanie’s family had abruptly moved out of state over the weekend. That evening, while preparing for bed, he allowed himself to relax into his natural translucent-red blobulous self.

“If only Stephanie knew how perfect we’d be together,” he thought, falling asleep.

Ink and watercolor, 8 x 11 1/2

The old man struggled to push the wobbly shopping cart west along Mill Street. He wheeled the noisy cart to the north on Lake Street and under the city’s ancient arch, before turning it west again on the tiny street of Bell.

He’d heard that there would be trouble that night, so he wanted to set up his place on the sidewalk before it got too heavy later on. With a kind-of state-mandated quarantine in effect, life had become somewhat harder and he did need it to become anymore difficult.

“Certainly,” he thought, “This spot’s got no value to those looters and rioters.”

Quietly and methodically, he pulled the cardboard box out of the cart and set it up against the nearby building, a closed bar. It would serve as a place to rest his head during the coming storm.

Over it, he spread a well-worn blue plastic tarp across the box and his cart, affording himself some form of privacy. Then the old man crawled inside.

Now he began the important work, he laid out his several dirty blankets, used and reused over the years. Lastly, he withdrew his cheap 22-caliber rifle still wrapped in a blanket and slid it in against the inside corner of the box, covering it with more blankets.

It didn’t take him very long to fall asleep, after finishing.

Late afternoon, and the old man was awakened. The sound of voices, yelling and screaming, “Fuck the police,” had brought him out of a dreamless sleep.

Raising up on his elbow, the old man looked beyond his feet. Nothing. The street, though now in full shadow, was empty of people and vehicles.

He turned and looked west, through the square opening he’d prepared when he first found this box. It was an opening where the flap should have been, but wasn’t, because he’d removed it so that he might be able to see out if need be.

Here was that need.

The old man watched as a large crowd of young men and women gathered in front of city hall. Then it began, the vandalism, the looting, the arson and the beating of an innocent passersby.

Rolling over he found his rifle and attached the homemade silencer he’d fashioned to it’s muzzle.

“My precious little chihuahua’s tiny, but she’s gotta ferocious bite,” he chuckled.

It took him very little time to bring the rifle around to his ‘gun loop,’ and find one of the marauding and unsuspecting targets through his 4-by-32 scope. He had 13-rounds before needing to reload.

The old man planned to make each one count as the report of the rifle went completely unnoticed.

This is going to be controversial to some, on point to others and a mystery to those who cannot understand the situation, because they’ve never operated under tremendous stress as offered in the video evidence provided by both the City of Minneapolis, through police cams and bystanders using their cellphones.

While I am not going to get into the personal behavior of personnel on the scene, I am going to point out at least two things that make me question the professional training of both the law enforcement officers and emergency medical technicians from that day. So please bare with me as I lay all this out.

Along with kneeling on the subject long after he had been subdued, other problems I see with the George Floyd case is how the Emergency Medical Services responded to his unconsciousness. They failed to provide basic life saving techniques including a cervical neck brace as Mr. Floyd was unconscious, there was no 12-lead provided to check for a heat beat and oxygen was not provided immediately.

Now, it is hazy as to when Mr. Floyd actually died. Was he dead at the scene, en route to the hospital or at the hospital? If he were dead at the scene, his body should never have been removed and a police investigation should have been establish right then. However without anyway of actually accessing whether he had a heartbeat or not is is impossible to know if he’d were dead at the side of the squad car.

Then I have to ask, why no cervical collar to protect his airway? If he were already deceased, no collar is needed and we return to the original supposition that a police investigation needed to be opened and his body should have remained in place.

If he were still alive, but unconscious, taking the time to secure his airway, via a cervical collar may have prevent him from dying. But since none was administered, I must assume he was already known to be dead and thus an investigation into his death, was actually thwarted by both law enforcement and emergency medical personnel on that scene.

It’s my conclusion that the City of Minneapolis failed Mr. Floyd and poses a serious risk to every person that it serves. Their actions on the day in question, show neglect and a lack of responsibility.

Prove me wrong.