Originally, I wanted to title this piece, “Shit Cops Say,” but it’s still a bit to serious for that yet…

As I was exiting a store late yesterday morning, I saw a young man beating on a frail older man. Later, I learned that the man is 79-years-old, five-eleven and 160 pounds, while the younger, at five-eight and 190 to 200 pounds, is only 15-years-old.

After yelling at the teen to ‘stop,’ which he didn’t, his mother started yelling at me, “Don’t hurt him, he’s special needs.”

Three times I told her to either stop her son or I would. Each time she failed and informed me again about him being ‘special needs.’

By this time the man was in the fetal position, bleeding from the nose and mouth, his dentures (both upper and lower) where broken, teeth and pink-plastic scattered everywhere and he had a nasty laceration to back and top of his head. Furthermore the store’s security members weren’t willing to doing anything to halt what was happening.

So…I did.

Since the kid was on top of the man, I dropped on top of the kid, placing him a Judo choke-hold known as ‘shime-waza.’ It took less than 30 seconds to ‘put him to sleep,’ a euphemism for cutting-off both the flow of blood and oxygen to his brain until he passed out.

In pulling him off the man, I dropped onto my back, so the kid was on top of me. As I was doing this, the kid’s mom tried to kick me, but I rolled into her causing her to kick the kid in the stomach.

Within minutes, deputies arrives along with an ambulance. While I was filling out a report, the mother was doing her level best to get the deputies to arrest me ‘for beating up’ her son.

Both the man and the boy had to be transported to the hospital. The man for his blood injuries, the kid because he was unconscious.

Now the incident goes to the DA for further review and possible charges because as the lead detective stated,  “While the kid attacked an ‘elderly person,’ you used a ‘deadly force technique’ on a ‘disabled person, which might be a ‘hate-crime.’ We’ll have to see.’”

Somedays, you jus’ can’t win.

The cabin looked as if built from miniature logs and moss, blown up to scale and dropped in the middle of the Redwood forest. Joey thought he’d found his heaven as he searched the deep woods around it.

“Perfect,” he smiled as he pushed the door open to reveal an empty single room interior.

Joey found his retreat, a place where he didn’t have to argue his ‘flat earth’ theories, could live off the grid, enjoying the fruits of his labor. Yet, he couldn’t see the eye’s that watched him as he settled into the terrarium garden she made realistic.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know Aunt Bernie, as my wife and her family calls her, as well as I would have like to, but I do find it important to acknowledge her life. She’s the wife of E.G. Conklin, the older brother of Mary’s dad, Don.

What I do know about her is that she was a brilliant, intelligent tough-as-nails woman, who taught high school mathematics for many years within the San Diego School District. In fact that’s where she and Uncle E.G. first met.

She was possibly the only person with enough sand to put up with the crustiness of an old retired U.S. Navy Chief like E.G. When everyone was ducking and dodging his straight forward talk, she was in there tossing it back at him.

Aunt Bernie passed away on April 18^th, after living with Alzheimer’s for the last few years. And while I know she was born July 23, 1933, and that her father was Ernest William Boland, that is about all I know of her 84-years on this earth.

God bless you, Aunt Bernie and rest in peace.

After reading writer H.R.R. Gorman’s story ‘Food Should be Silent,’ I got a touch of inspiration — albeit closer to home…

If my hand’s weren’t so full, I would plug my ears. The squealing of the Dungeness crab is nearly more than I can take.

It’s so loud that even the dogs  heard them from outside. The crab’s hideous pealing sent them into a frenzy of barking and hopping around in an extreme state of canine excitement.

My wife, in the back room, wants to know what in the hell I did to set them off. I refuse to explain because she’s already pissed that I brought live crab into the house.

I’m so damn glad I can’t hear cauliflower scream.

A neo-noir dystopian (NND) film is a twisted and very dark point of view in a movie about a place or time in which everything is unpleasant. It can sometimes be a genre within a genre, which sets the movie apart from other forms of films.

The day after I learned two more of my friends had died, I sat myself in front of the screen and watched four movies to help draw me out of my sadness. Each flick was either an NND or contained some element of the genre.

The last movie watched is, “Arrival,” which contained elements throughout it. These included ‘memory and sequences,’ ‘news report cut-ins,’ and ‘character shifts,’ from minor, like a nervous shaking hand, vomiting into a garbage can, to major like the attempted destruction of the alien craft and the death of a child from an illness. And as a side note: Amy Adams has the most perfect turned up nose in films these days.)

In the film, “Revolt,” the opening scenes are confusing and I believe edited that way to kind of throw the viewer into a sense of confusion as we jump suddenly form combat to our protagonist awaking in a jail cell. The entire film moves from there and continues to be a great example of NND as an already broken society, further breaks down.

The second film watched is one I generally avoid because I’m personally burned out on the premise of the world coming apart because of some disease that turns otherwise healthy humans beings into man-eating killers: zombies. However, “The Girl with All the Gifts,” was slightly different as the child had the capacity to control her urges and in the end redefines the monstrosity humanity had been – especially towards her and her kind.

Lastly, and fitting that it was my first film of the day, and is now the last film of this review, is “Bushwick.” It takes the viewer from the seemingly unpleasant chaos of everyday living to the hell of a civil war, twisting secessionists against American citizens, who are unaware that the Union has divided.

This ‘twist’ is what creates a truly NND element in this film. The main protagonists are from different walks of life; a Hospital Corpsman turned janitor and a college student on her way home to visit her family, and both caught up in a sudden attack.

The janitor is ‘hiding from his emotional pain,’ and ‘avoids much of society’ because of it’s ‘ugliness.’ The student is ‘simply happy-go-luck,’ not a care in the world until the ‘shit-hits-the-fan’ and her world’s turned upside down.

“Bushwick,’ gave me a new point of view on social upheaval and the violence that a civil war will produce. Yes, it is pretty certain that if it were a foreign invading force, most armed American citizens would pick up a weapon to defend themselves and their neighbor.

But what if it were secessionist and what if they failed in letting anyone know that the ‘revolt’ was happening? Yeah, therein lays the twist of all NND twists.

Each of these films made me feel something beyond my real heartache and each gave me an opportunity to reflect on exactly how had things can get if such fictions turned real. It is one of the many ways I’ve taught myself to deal with the stresses of persistent melancholia and use it as a tool to move forward.

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” is a misquote based on a passage from ‘The Mourning Bride,’ a play by William Congreve.

But Franklin wasn’t thinking about that as Satan stabbed him from behind with his pitchfork, forcing him into the pit of screaming tortured souls, while carrying the clay jar of water. Furthermore, he didn’t expect those same souls to be so self-possessed that they’d refuse to help him in his endeavor.

In his ear, Franklin could still hear Lucifer’s mocking words ring, “If you can cross the pit without spilling a drop, I’ll let you go.”

He was the quiet one. It wasn’t because he was shy, rather it was because he’d rather watch what was going on and being said than anything else.

That’s how I remember my high school classmate Tom Anderson, who was born in Crescent City, California, June 18, 1960, but passed away April 18, at his home in San Francisco of a heart attack. Unfortunately, all I could find in the way of a photo of Tom is one from our 1978 yearbook ‘Crossroads’ — which shows how private he was about himself.

It’s hard to think that he was in a lot of pain towards the end of his life because he was always an active outdoors-kind-of-guy, enjoying bicycling, scuba diving and surfing. Tom was also extremely studious, having made the dean’s list in high school every quarter which lead to his being named in the 1978 book of “Who’s Who in American Students.”

Sometime after high school he attended the University of Hawai’i, where following graduation, he took a job as a teacher. Later on, Tom entered San Francisco’s Hastings Law School, and as was his nature, passed the California State Bar on his first attempt.

Tom was the kind of person who’d give you the shirt off his back, or better yet, he’d buy you a new one if need be. He was a rare mixture of athleticism, academia and plain old humbleness and he’ll be sorely missed.

They sat in the visitor’s room of the rest folks home where the old man reminisced and the Grandson politely listened. “Yup, the world sure’s a different place today than it was in my day.”

All to soon the Grandson said, “I can’t stay any longer Gramps, I gotta date tonight.”

“Good for you, kiddo,” Grandpa smiled as the young man began pulling on his bright red fall-out suit.

Then he watched as his Grandson walked outside and to the sidewalk. “I’d have told him to make sure he wears protection, but I know it means something totally different anymore.”

It’s very hard to breathe at the moment because I’ve been crying so hard. Another friend has passed away and I knew it was happening, but for the want of a few bucks, I couldn’t make the drive to Missoula, Montana to see her one last time.

Theresa Anne House passed away at home June 5, 2018, after a heroic battle with uterine cancer. She was born November 30, 1963, in San Diego, California, living with her family in El Cajon as the eldest of 11 children.

When I first heard her name, I was en route to the recruiting station in Eureka, California to sign my Air Force enlistment papers. She was a friend of Adam, whom he met over the summer when her family stayed at Camp Marigold, in Klamath, across the fence from our home.

Adam refused to introduce Theresa to me because he worried that she might ‘like’ me more than him. Kids!

After Adam died in 2010, I posted an article about his death. Theresa found it after ‘googling’ his name and she reached out to me through Facebook.

At first I had no idea who she was, but then she used her maiden name of Layman and I knew in an instant I was talking to the little blond-headed girl from across the fence. We’ve remained in touch ever since then.

It was at some point in late 2016 or perhaps early 2017 that she told me she had cancer. She decided not to battle the disease in the traditional manner, but to take a more holistic approach.

Theresa was a very headstrong woman, bordering on the edge of pure stubbornness, so I figured she’d fight and she’d win. In April she let me know that the treatment didn’t work and that she was going to die from the disease.

The last time I corresponded with her was March 8, where she said of me: “What a wonderful, sweet friend!”

Theresa then added, “Just continue to pray for my entry into Heaven. I am trying to have a good attitude about recovery, but I have my eye on the prize, Heaven.”

She made me promise not to be sad, because as she told me, “I know where I’m headed and I’m not scared.” But I’m afraid that I’ve gone and broke that promise, Theresa, because I am beyond sad.

I swear I can hear her and Adam giggling like a couple of school kids.

“It’s nice to get out of the house,” Mom commented.

“I know,” Dad responded, “I really do miss our Sunday drives and sight-seeing.”

“So,” Junior asked from the back seat, “did you play here as a kid?”

“Yes,” his mother answered, “This is where I first met your dad.”

“Was that on the Ferris-wheel or the Roman aqueduct?” the child asked.

“Oh, the Ferris-wheel,” his dad returned, “the aqueduct was a bit before our time.”

“I don’t understand why they are together then if they’re from different times,” the boy stated.

“It’s simple,” Dad explained, “It’s how civilizations are built.”