3WW for Aug. 4

drink, feeble, predict

It was his chair, the one his wife had bought for him. Deacon didn't shop; men of his generation rarely did.
Over time, the blue Lay-Z Boy recliner became Deacon's favorite place in the house. He'd sit it in every morning, drink his coffee and read the the newspaper, grousing about the day's events and checking the obituaries to "make sure he wasn't in them." He'd snooze each afternoon in the recliner while schoolkids noisily walked by the house on their way home from the parochial school across the street. A TV tray was the dinner table in front of chair as he ate and watched movies or "Law and Order."
Faded by time and stained by kids and grand kids, the blue recliner had been a fixture of Deacon's living room since well before the downstairs living room had paneling on the walls, blue shag carpet and that damn fake snow crap on the ceiling. If Deacon wasn't sitting in the chair, he was out in his man shed, smoking cigars and watching old John Wayne movies with the sound all the way up, the TV volume getting progressively louder seemingly with each birthday. Deacon didn't give a shit. He was unconcerned with aging. He didn't care his kids joked about his hearing. He didn't bother to answer the complaints that his jacket, the one he wore on cold nights in the man shed, had a funk that entered the back door 15 seconds before he did. He especially didn't care for the doctor. He'd as soon go quickly and quietly in his sleep one night. No fuss, no mess. "Have the coroner come, pick me up, put me in a box and be done with it all," he told his children.
When his beloved Kathy died, the chair became one of the only things he kept in the house. Everything else was donated, sold or trashed.
The goddamn toaster became too painful to look at -- a reminder of how Kathy had made his toast just so perfect -- crispy, but not burnt and with a side of marmalade -- each morning.
But the chair stayed. It would be his lifeline for the nearly two years he lived alone, before he met Martha and they two widowed friends became life companions.
The funky blue chair eventually migrated out to the man shed when Martha moved in and infused some life and modern decor sensibility into a house that was not only stuck in the past, but stuck in some weird afraid-to-move-one purgatory.
New paint, new carpet, new furnishings all brought life back into the house. But a fight, a big one and the first one the two friends had ever had, erupted over Kathy's chair.
Martha wanted to dump it and update. Deacon wouldn't hear of it. It was his lone umbilical cord to "his Kathy." In time, Deacon and Martha would learn to argue without hurt feelings, but not now. The fight over the recliner got ugly. It got personal. It nearly drove a permanent wedge between them.
Martha left, going to stay at her sons for the weekend. Deacon spent the weekend sitting in the chair, getting up only to use the bathroom. He slept in the chair, where Martha found him early Monday morning when she returned to mend fences.
They worked through the issue and it was decided the chair would move to the man shed. It stayed there for years, absorbing the smoke tendrills of thousands of cigars and watched an unending loop of "Rio Bravo."
Years later, when time had irrevocably joined Deacon and Martha a pair the house that once was stuck in neutral had been home to their children and grandchildren. A new family had sprouted from the ashes of two widowed families, joining in a weird Six Degrees of Separation way to become a group that needed a banquet room in order to go out to dinner.
But no one was in mood for dinner today. The doctor had just come from Deacon's room to let the family know the end was near.
Deacon's breathing was shallow and the death rattle, the sickening gurgle that sounds like you were drowning, was getting stronger.
"A day, two tops," the doctor said in a hushed tone to Deacon's middle son, Fitch, the one the family elected spokesman. "But it's not an exact science. We're close, but I can't predict exactly when."
Normally, Martha would've been the one to talk to doctors, but she was laid up, fighting what would be the final weeks of her three-year long struggle with lung cancer.
When Fitch broke the news to the family that Deacon would be gone in a day or two, there were tears, yes, but more shock than anything.
Sure, Deacon had declined in the past few years, but not to the point of incapacity. He wasn't feeble, but he'd definitely slowed. He still had been there for Martha's chemo and radiation appointments, but those daylong journeys began taking a bigger toll on him as well. Perhaps it was the realization he was going to lose another woman he loved -- a thought he could stomach -- but Deacon hadn't seemed himself in the past few months. A little more disoriented than usual and a whole lot more sluggish, Martha finally dragged Deacon to the doctor after she spotted blood in the toilet one morning. Deacon had been pissing blood for a week -- a secret he wasn't going to divulge.
An enlarged, cancerous kidney was the diagnosis. The 15-pound kidney was removed and the margins cleared.
"The biggest fucking kidney I've ever seen," the surgeon's non-PC boast went.
Deacon came home to rest, recover and, as it turned out, die. He stayed in the chair, which had again migrated, this time up to his bedroom, and he slept in the chair instead of his bed. He catnapped throughout the night, waking at 4 a.m. to pee, get a cup of coffee and then head back to bed. He woke again shortly before noon to eat lunch and then climbed the eight steps to the top floor, his room and another nap. A 5 p.m. dinner made him rise again for 30 minutes before a return to his chair. It became his routine, without deviation.
Martha grew concerned after two weeks, but couldn't convince Deacon's children of the problem. They were busy and they knew he was a perpetual curmudgeon.
It was only after Deacon went into diabetic shock one night that the gravity of the situation slammed his four children in the face.
An ambulance trip, ER visit, lab work and follow-up doctor visit revealed Deacon's cancer has spread; it was everywhere. He had one month, maybe. Less time than Martha.
And when Fitch told her the end was near, she climbed out of her bed -- she and Deacon had been friends, lovers and companions, but always kept separate bedrooms -- and went to his side, sitting next to Deacon's blue recliner.
She sat next to him that night, mopping his brow and whispering to him whenever he would get agitated.
Martha fell asleep about 4 a.m. waking two hours later as Deacon began a particularly nasty coughing fit.
She knew the end was near. She was ready to let him go.
At 7:56 a.m., Deacon died. He found what looked like a moment of lucidity, sat up, looked up at Martha, smiled and took his last breath. He went limp and Martha knew he'd gone from his blue recliner back to Kathy.

Two for Tuesday

Mary Williams



Ferris Anthony

Monday's Musings

A break from photos and stories to talk about ... random shit.

I felt like a 3-year-old this weekend, no not shitting my pants and drooling. I walked around most of the weekend asking the age-old question ... "Why?"

1. Why do i have to dust? It's not like it's a winnable war. I cleaned house on Sunday and cleaned and dusted the living room before moving on to the kitchen and my bedroom. By the time I sat down to watch the Giants game at 5 p.m., there already was a layer of new dust settling on the TV stand.

2. Why do I never have enough hangars? Even when I buy more, they seem to disappear. Kind of like sock.

3. And speaking of socks, why do I never wind up with an even number of socks? It's a toe-curling conspiracy, I tell you.

4. Why does my boss fail to answer my e-mails in a timely manner -- two days -- but if I don't respond to hers by the end of the business day, she saunters over and asks me what she probably should asked in person anyway?

5. Why do some dudes insist on striking up a conversation while standing at the urinal? Rule No. 1 in life: Don't talk to another man with your dick in your hand.

6. Why don't I get rid of my dog? I don't like it, don't want it and ignore it except to feed it and give it water.

7. Why don't I get a dog I actually like?

8. Why don't I learn to say what I'm thinking, no matter who gets offended? I watched my former colleague and one of the replacements cover a football game on Saturday. I was pissed that something I took six years to build up unraveled in one afternoon. The new guy needed nearly 24 hours to post a story to the web, something that should've been done before he left that evening. And the old guy on staff should've taken the lead on that, something he was always spared of having to do, but now has to do it.

9. Why don't I follow a friend's lead and quit this shitty business? I'm sure it would be hard, but I honestly think I'd be happier and could make a living, even if I had to work a couple of jobs for a while.

10. Why is that I always seem to wake up at 5:22 each morning, look at the clock and roll back over. Happened four times in the past two weeks.

sandy cheeks

There's nothing better than than the beach with my boys

3WW for July 28

the word prompts are: abuse, cramp, hatred

It was Hell Week and the abuse was coming strong, heaped on by that bastard Coach Johnston in those oh-so-out-of-style gray nylon shorts, Pierson Pirates T-shirt and his goddamn whistle.

25 up-downs. 30 sit ups. 20 push ups.

"Not fast enough, ladies," the coach screamed. "On your faces, sweethearts. Let's do it again and get it right. We can do this all night.

"Jesus H. Christ, Franklin, that's pathetic," Coach Johnston screamed. "Your granddaddy's right over there. You want me to have him come over and show you how to do a proper up-down? Shit, he's 85 years old and I'll be he could give me a better set than you just did."

"No, coach," screamed Taylor Franklin, a 6-foot-7, 285 pound junior right tackle hoping to get the starting nod this season and looks from more schools than Iowa State.

"Steve, bring me some water," the coach called mockingly to his assistant, Steve Neylor. "My mouth's getting dry from blowing my whistle so much. This is wearing me out."

"Not good enough," Coach Johnston yelled. "Again."

A collective groan, soft enough to not be traceable to any one player, but loud enough to be audible, rose from the turf.

"Fuck this shit," Steve Crawford, last year's second-string tailback, muttered under his breath as the whistle blew, marking the start of the second set of push ups.

"This is child abuse," thought Johnny Stevenson, the stereotypical fat kid always languishing in the back row. A cramp, a side-stitch made him vomit next to the space he was doing up-downs. He'd hated the first three years of football and openly questioned why he was back for a fourth.

But he knew the answer. Hell Week was a rite of passing in Pierson, Iowa, a pissant community not unlike the many one-stoplight towns many dotting the fabric of rural America. Make it through Hell Week and you were golden. You were on the team, free to run the school, chase all the pussy you could and, of course, play some football.

It's what your brothers did, what your dad and granddad did and what you were expected to do.

Drop from the team during Hell Week and you may as well pull off your red and black jersey off, pop the shoulder pads over your head, drop your girdle and walk naked down Main Street to Maryanne's Fabric Shop -- to buy the material your mom would need to make your skirt. Drop from Hell Week and you were no longer John or Jim or Shane; you were "Little Bitch." Through the years, only a handful of kids became "Little Bitch." It was a Scarlet Letter and a name openly used, even among polite company.

A Little Bitch was ridiculed, tormented and punked. It was one of the deepest shames you could bring on your family, short of becoming one of "them-there emo-faggots."

No, you didn't dare drop during Hell Week. Football was, after all, the lifeblood of the community. It was the dawn of the year, as if everyone in town went into a deep sleep from December to July, awakening in the heat of the summer for Hell Week's two-a-days.

Generations lined the fences lining Reardon Field that first day of practice, a muggy afternoon with the hint of thunderstorms off to the east, to catch a glimpse of this year's town.
The town was so interested in the football team that you probably could rob the bank, grocery store, mini mart, the one of the outskirts of town, and get a two-hour head start on the sheriff if practice was in session. Hell, they probably wouldn't care either, as long as Tim Reynolds, the senior linebacker who flattened fools like a steamroller, had his on straight and had mended the fence with Wes Slight, the start running back a mere 988 yards from becoming the fourth back from Pierson in the past 35 years to break the state rushing mark.

Reynolds and Slight spent all spring and most of the summer fighting for the affection of Tiffani Prowl, a lithe junior blond dick tease who craved attention and got her jollies off playing both boys. She knew neither boy was getting a piece of ass, and until they figured that out, she was content to play both sides of the line of scrimmage.

Tiffany knew she was a tease, but didn't care. She knew many in town disapproved of her antics. Hell, even her brother, Spencer, the latest quarterback to lead Pierson to a state title four years ago, despised Tiffany and her bullshit. He knew Tim and Wes, and knew they were the ones who could help bring home another banner for Pierson. If his bitch of a sister didn't ruin things. Coach Johnston had confided in Spencer and his dad, Henry, that Tiffany would be the undoing of a team poised for state unless. The three had concocted a plan, but would wait until Hell Week was over to see if things corrected themselves naturally.

And as the sweat dripped off the nose of the players, lined neatly in those goddamn rows, so straight and perfect, Coach Johnston wondered what was greater, the hatred of him or the hatred of Hell Week itself.

Paul Johnston, Coach Johnston to his players, both past and present, knew he was a bastard. He knew that fatass in the back row probably wanted to walk up and kick him in the nuts -- that is if tubby could lift his foot that high, but he didn't care.

There was a method to the madness. When you win 10 small school state titles in 20 years, you can do what you want, be as big a dick as you care to.

"That's better," the coach said smugly. "And it only took us four tries. Shit, we might just make football players out of you yet."

Surf City

This is a work in progress ~Aaron


Dante didn't need an alarm clock. The hum of the crashing surf and the thud of the slamming porch door -- the unmistakable sound of last night's dalliance leaving -- usually did the trick. If not, the rising sun was more than enough incentive for Dante to slide out of bed. The combination of the sun and surf were too great a lure to sit around and sleep, as if the sun was telling him "Get your lazy ass up, man" while the surf beckoned "Come and play, Dante."
Dante rubbed his eyes as his feet hit the floor. He shuffled into the bathroom, trying to remember her name.
"Mary?" he thought. "No, that was Monday.
"Oh, wait. Sonya. Sonya from Chicago," he remembered, smiling at the thought of the mattress gymnastics she performed last night.
Dante splashed some water on his face, took a leak and walked back toward the bed. As he passed the mussed up queen-size bed, he stuck out his foot, grabbed his shorts with his right big toe and flipped them up into his hand. He lifted his left leg and stuck his foot through the hole and repeated. Zipping up, he ambled into the kitchen. He dropped two slices of bread into the toaster, reached into the pantry for the Nutella and grabbed a knife waiting for the toast to pop.
A creature of habit, Dante's life read like the back of a bottle of conditioner: Wet, lather, rinse, repeat. Only Dante's world was rise, surf, siesta, serve, sex and repeat.
Dante was a little groggy this morning after a long night at the bar -- no, he didn't imbibe, but owned a tiny cantina that catered to the locals and tourists on the Pacific coast of Mexico -- and an equally long night with ... oh, yeah, Sonya.
He opened the screen door off his bedroom and onto the patio overlooking the beach and stared out at the surf. He laughed that he couldn't remember her name, but it didn't surprise him. Last night it was Sonya. Last week it was Celia. Next week, who knows? An American expatriate in Mexico was a safe bet, a sure thing, for the hotties, Cougars and MILFs looking for a little unencumbered vacation action south of the border. It was a given down here that he was there for her pleasure, a vacation story to tell her friends back home, and he didn't mind extracting a little pleasure out of the tryst himself.
Dante's life was exactly what he'd envisioned 10 years ago. Stuck in a go-nowhere job, swearing he wouldn't die a human gopher in a maze of gray carpeted cubicles, he vowed that the day the rugrats were gone, so was he.
"I'm going to find me a beach, a bar to run, live simply and simply live," was Dante's oft-repeated refrain; so much so that his friends always knew when it was coming and learned to serenade him on cue right as he was getting ready for the chorus.
"Surf all morning, an afternoon siesta, get people drunk all night and find a little senorita to curl up with. That's the life," Dante -- and his friends -- would repeat.
He thought about his old life from time to time, usually when the ex called to complain about something or another. There were always too many decisions; too many quandaries; too much unhappiness. Being a corporate clone usually meant someone was unhappy. Too many hours at work took away from his home life. Too much time with his boys took away from his pocketbook. Too many decisions to make took away from his peace of mind.
But that was done and gone. Today, a Thursday he thought, was much like yesterday . . . and the day before.
Nowadays, his big decisions were which honey to flirt with, how long a siesta he would take and the day's first, and always important decision -- which surfboard to use.
He looked down the sand-covered patio at the surfboards, brightly colored fiberglass models of varying sizes and purposes, lined along the patio railing, trying to decide if today was a longboard day or if the tri-fin shredder was the stick for today.
Dante plopped down on the step, his feet finding the cool morning sand and watched the waves.
"Same as yesterday," he said to himself. "Left to right break starting at the channel."
After watching the sets roll in -- 5 feet high, sets of four 25 seconds apart -- Dante decided for the shredder today. He wanted to get the ole ticker humming and hanging 10 just wouldn't do today.
Dante watched the waves for a few more minutes, taking mental notes of the conditions and an internal inventory.
As a kid, he had learned to surfed. As an adult, he'd unlearned all the things he'd enjoyed as a boy. But that happens, he often thought. "You've got to do what you've got to do," he rationalized.
And he did do what he had to as an adult. He'd raised three boys, sending them all off to college and into their own lives. He was proud of the way they'd turned out and proud of his hand in it. And, he concluded, he'd done his job.
Not that he was abandoning his fatherly duties now Nathan, the youngest, was out of the house.
He'd just returned from Nathan's Georgetown graduation. The youngest of the three, Nathan had turned into quite the man, graduating as valedictorian with a law degree. Actually, Nathan, always the cautious one, passed on a chance to strike out on the PGA Tour, opting instead for the No. 1 spot on the Hoyas' golf team. He dallied in a few mini tours, but in the end took the sure-fire way, clerking his final summer at Georgetown for Smith, Jensen and Browing, one of D.C.'s most prestigious law firms. Nathan would begin working there after his three-week trip to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.
Dante spent the week in Northern Virginia, hanging with Nathan and his brothers, Brandon and Tyler, along with various aunts, uncles and cousins that lived in the metro D.C. area. They took in baseball games, made their way up to New York for a day and then sat up as close as allowed as Nathan talked about the future, the past, the struggles, the opportunities and then teared up as he thanked Dante for all he'd done in turning him into the man he'd become.
Yep, he was still engaged, still up to date, still connected.
Which was more than he could say for his ex-wife, who called the morning of graduation to ask Dante to let Nathan know something had come up and she wouldn't be there. Actually, Dellane had never planned on coming and was banking on Dante covering for her. She had checked out of the family life years ago -- about the same time Dante's Mexican dream hatched -- opting instead for the Quixotic quest of finding a man to adore her.
Dante's boys knew the depths of their mother's selfishness, learning a long time ago to expect nothing and be pleasantly surprised if something was actually given.
No, Dellane was more concerned about herself and her own life. She's married Stan when the boys were in middle school, hoping to "be a family" again. Stan was a good guy, hell, even Dante liked him. But the family Dellane sought to create was a fabrication, a facade for her low self-esteem and a bridge to have someone next to her in her old age.
When Stan died, during Brandon's senior year of high school, Dellane fell apart. She was older -- if you call 50 old -- and just knew she would never find someone to love her again. So, instead of pouring herself into her boys' life, she retreated into herself.
Dante felt bad for her from time to time. But he also didn't need her bullshit. He'd had enough of that in the 10 years they were married. Dante still cared for Dellane, but that sentiment only went so far.
And so when Nathan graduated high school, Dante knew he was free. Not that he regretted being the stable parent -- quite the contrary. He loved that his boys had grown up to be fine men. He prided himself that his house was the start and end point of so many of their high school adventures. He wore their success and failures as a badge of honor.
But he also knew it was time to be free. Not free to run away and ignore his boys. But free to finally chase his whims, his dreams, his desires.
And that's what led him to Puerto Escondido. One of the untapped gems of Mexico, it boasted one of the best surf spots and a growing population of tourists looking to avoid the meat-markets like Cabo. Puerto Escondido offered a simplistic, throwback lifestyle, like Mexico used to be in the "Endless Summer" days.
But the dream didn't come easy -- or cheap. Aaron knew he'd need a nice chunk of change to buy something down south, probably more than normal, being a gringo and all.
So he worked, moonlighted, freelanced and something totally out of character, and honestly more like his dad, saved.
Half of what he made with his second, third and, sometimes, fourth jobs, went into the Elliott Ness account -- it was untouchable.
Two months after Nathan's high school graduation, Dante plopped $70,000 cash down on a cantina with an adjoining house.
Ten years after devising an escape to surf and sun, Dante was the proud owner of the Playa Cantina.
Dante picked up his board, rubbed more Sex Wax on it and tied the green leash to his right ankle. He walked across the sand and was greeted by the feel of bath-water warm ocean spreading around his feet and up to his knees.
Dante ran five or six steps away from the shore and flopped on his board as it slid across the next set of shorebreak waves.
He paddled out through the channel and took his spot in the lineup with the three other early risers, one of whom Dante knew. The other two looked like surf-trekkers, guys who roamed the globe in search of the dream wave.
Dante nodded to his company, spun his board and paddled to catch a promising swell.
Three hours and countless tube rides later, Dante was back on dry land. Sated, he sat on the beach, watched a few tourist girls frolic in the surf and made mental notes of items he needed to restock in the bar.
He would send Maria, his longest-tenured waitress and second in command, into town to replenish the the low stock while he took his siesta.

Dead again

The parking lot sang
Songs of old echoed
Remnants of a past life
Suddenly rekindled
Glowing bright
The corners of his mouth upturned
And he was reminded of a time long ago
When life was full of promise and gratefully dead