NOTES FROM THE DUMP

I'm sick of being sick...

…I’m not into it at all. I want to run and jump and play like a kid again, to go and visit, out to eat, just out for the hell of it, but no, I dare not get far from the breathing machine, not to mention Grace Cottage Hospital is right next door and they’ve been tested and proven adept at saving my sorry ass, so there’s that, and I continue to fantasize a one-size fits all pill of the future the swallowing of which will heal all that ails ye, so I guess I have to be patient a little longer although I’m a little conflicted about that…because, if patience is a virtue, why is he who hesitates lost? You can’t have both.

“Ahh, mes amis, quell jour de fe te!” (A loose NFTD translation would be, ‘OK fellow scoundrels let the drinking, belching and fun begin! If you’re gonna be bad be good at it.’

When Jack Kerouac did it it was called spontaneous prose, and a snooty Truman Capotes said of it, ‘That’s not writing, it’s typewriting…’ Which did not endear me to Truman but he too was gifted. With me I wouldn’t say it’s spontaneous but more prattling on and on and occasionally hitting all the right letters on the keyboard and making a modicum of sense, or is that true (he wondered drunkenly…)

Anyway I’ve forgotten what I’m banging on about because I’m most the way down bottle number 2 of Cook’s sparkling champagne in con-celebration of events? What events you say? O please, do you see what day it is? Yes that’s right, January 19th, you didn’t forget did you?

Can’t concentrate on anything…one heart attack, several broken hearts, one lung collapse, prostate cancer and emphysema have ganged up on me, so far I’ve held them off…but the deck is stacked against me.

I was on pretty thin ice...

…and needed to remove myself post haste or get hurt because the guy in the back of my taxi suddenly grabbed me around the neck and jerked me away from the wheel as he raked a serrated knife back and forth across my throat, ‘Give it up,’ he rumbled, ‘I’ll cut your fucking head off……get it up…’ as I fumbled and said, ‘Dude I ain’t even seen you got no idea what you look like, here take the money and go…

Wheeew, he punched me in the head as he left…his second mistake…I went from standing on thin ice to standing on shaky ground which is not much of a stretch and only a miniscule improvement. Do I really want my throat slit to save two hundred bucks, 40 percent of which goes to the company? I don’t think so…I could run him over and play dumb, but a two-way radio is a quick way to get help and in a very few moments red & blue lights were flashing and two cops ran into the tavern the yegg had gone in and dragged him out and away to the jailhouse. They got him but I never got my money back; fair enough because I fingered him and he got a stretch in Comstock, an upstate dungeon out of the 1800s.

…three times I volunteered to go to Vietnam between 1963-1969 but I never made it, instead sent to the Caribbean and the Mediterranean aboard a bird farm – aircraft carrier if you don’t know - and a 2-year stay in Nea Makri, Greece…but whereas once being a Vietnam vet, or in my case a Vietnam-era vet because I was never in–country, could get you cheers and catcalls all at once, now there is a certain cachet to having served during the first war we’ve ever lost…but I made sure there were no VC in the Med and I did a good job because in all those years I never saw a one.

A READER ONCE SAID OF ME…

“You’re a great writer, so glad to hear you are just drunk and stoned and not dead…” Thank you LuAnn, you’re right of course, I totally agree with you that I am a wonderful writer and if anyone dare have the temerity to disagree, well, I offer you a challenge, we’ll have a write-off, you pick the subject, 500 words or less, give or take a hundred and NFTD readers can decide...what say you? Join in the scrum…it’s all in fun, free entry, NFTD will donate $50 to winner…if I am chosen I will donate $100 to Doctors Without Borders…

WE’VE SCARED, ARE SCARING…

…migrant workers away. The law is coming down on illegalos, and the crops are dying in the fields. New laws are scaring the immigrants off and there’s no one to pick the corn. “The government’s decision effects every farmer and every person who hires one or more employees,” says Marc Higginbotham, a commodity director for the Alabama Farmers’ Federation. “The fact is a lot of Americans aren’t willing to do temporary jobs that involve intense work in the hot sun…”

For Weeks I've Written Nothing...

…hours on end I sit here, waiting, waiting, waiting - with a bottle of Cook’s California Champagne in arm’s reach, for if you know anything about life and drinking you know no matter how good it tastes it’s cleverly-disguised poison with which I’ve had/have a 54-year long attachment…in good times and bad times it stays with you. So it accompanies me as I ponder this world, a world running amok…why were our brave Brothers and Sisters killed in Iraq, Afghanistan? What do either of those countries have we can’t live without?


…the Iraqis and Afghanis in the main are dirt poor and we’re over there putting the arm on them, what gives? Where is my beloved America the Beautiful going with this? We got zero business there. And even if we did - money makes a lot more sense than slaughtering our young and theirs and remember – they are home, like it or not they see us as invaders and Afghanistan has never backed down and sent Moscow packing tail between its legs; Afghanistan will outlive us all. And when we’ve finally firebombed all of us back into the Stone Age they’ll be right at home, in my opinion. Give ‘em money…a few suitcases worth of greenbacks are cheaper than the loss of one soldier!


“OKAY, WHAT ARE WE NOT DOING TODAY,” I ask of myself…


…as I wrestle with a broken cork and finally give up and push it in…flotsam and jetsam in my wine…it’s not easy being a lush, there are many hurdles to overcome. That aside I’m having the time of my life because from here on it’s balls to the wall, party ‘til you puke…I pour another cup of Bisceglia Vin Rose, tastes alright I guess, I don’t drink for taste, I first check the percentage of alcohol, this one’s 12% so is fairly potent and I shall be six sheets to the wind before noon…what a success story huh! I haffta laff, life is good usually but you may have a different take on it…


…I can’t quote him verbatim but John Steinbeck once wrote that the first 3rd of the wine bottle was all hail-fellow-well-met hardy har har, midway down the second phase was introspection and thirdly, bottom of the bottle with the dregs, the biggy, emotional, physical and psychological meltdown…just what I had in mind!

A Stop In Rocky Mount...

…the day before Christmas 1970 I find myself (alone and palely loitering) on a highway in Rocky Mt. NC, which then was but a pit stop (where all the sedge had withered from the lake and no birds sing) and where to my chagrin I noted as I passed through town – hitch hiking mind you – o what can ail thee knight-in-arms - trying to get a ride to New York City and back in my taxi cab; meanwhile I’m a rookie cop’s dream come true because I’m stranded after my car broke down and freighted with a suitcase full of evidence to burn…needless to say I’m more than a little nervous, but it was a living and somebody had to do it.

…I’m a bearded, long-haired hippy freak so I keep walking and walking and as I get closer to town there’s a billboard on my left, big sucker, 15 feet high 30 feet long and on it a KKK klansman on a white stallion rearing into the air as the klansman held a burning cross aloft, and above the whole thing in two-foot high letters was written -

“YOU ARE NOW ENTERING KLAN COUNTRY! BEWARE!”

…O man do I need this, I gotta get out of here - out of North Carolina - so I cross over to a Greyhound station and ask the guy how much for a ticket to NYC and he says 40 bucks and I said well look I only got 24 dollars how far will that get me…he looked at me and said, ‘That’ll get you to Richmond…’ the kindly ole gent looked again, ‘’Y’all don’t want to be hanging around here son, better catch the next bus to Richmond and I got a ticket here that somebody left behind and it’s from Richmond to NYC, so get on that bus and, not to be rude dude, get gone ‘fore y’all get hurt.”

In some things I’m a quick study so I immediately jumped on the dog and we left…

LET’S GET SERIOUS… …what are we doing in Afghanistan? What do they have we want that as of June this year is worth the lives of thousands of our favorite Sons and Daughters? And millions of dollars every day…Tom said, “Lithium, what they have is lithium…” So ok, what’s the big big deal? Buy it from the poor bastards; Afghani dope is another thing, multi-billion dollar business right here in the good ole US of A, millions of dollars daily, I mean come on get over it. It’s here to stay and has been a political football too long. You want to smoke dope, fine, certain restrictions apply like drinking, okay that works. The only reason herb got illegal was because at the end of Prohibition all those unemployed cops working for Harry Anslinger and with too much time on their hands needed a new bogey man…but I digress…what’s up with Afghanistan? The only two things I ever wanted from there was an Afghan and some ‘ghani, both of which I got and both of which are now gone. Bring our soldiers home. LIKE A MONUMENT TO RESTRAINT… …I put off opening a bottle of Yellow Tail until 2 in the afternoon? Now I ask you to consider, is that not in and of itself reason to celebrate? I say it is and blast the cork from a bottle of Cook’s champagne bouncing it off the ceiling and ending up in the cat’s water dish…it’s her new toy but every now and then I have to pick them up (ok ok my friend picks them up) because it is also a testimony to my out of control drinking problem…something like that…. DEAR SARAH PALIN…I would write… “What is it we’re not supposed to like about you? You’re alright at least as much as any other person seeking public office and we’ve all got our idiosyncrasies…your speeches are good to listen to and I don’t see you as a wild-eyed maniacally-inclined woman, ergo I wish you the best unless anyone can point out to me a real reason for opposing you…did I miss something? I kinda like you but part of that is mcp – you’re pretty, which is not a good reason. But I also like your style plus I’ve always been a little crazy too, keeps me from going insane.

NOTES FROM THE DUMP

Stop me if you've heard this one...

…as Curator of The Dump for many years in the Town of East Eden (the provenance of this screed in case you‘ve wondered ‘…where in hell is this fool coming from!?’…) I came by everything you can think of…in its questionable wisdom (as I only learned much later) the town select board - with sweeping gestures of its collective arm - had told me when they hired me as we stood atop a mountain of putrefaction alive with dancing flies and disease-ridden rats itchin’ for a bite of my plentiful adipose tissue…‘It’s all yours, do what you want…don’t bother us with it…’

…man, it was like taking candy from a baby or leaving me your keys & credit card while you were away…cool, I’ll turn it into a cash cow and for awhile did, including one time finding 900 issues of LIFE magazine dating to 1936 when it started and even had a copy of the 1st one, it is a picture of the Fort Peck Montana dam…a 90 year old man had his manservant toss them away and so as not to tip my hand and let the guy know they were valuable in which case HE mighta got ‘em instead of me, I helped him wing them off the truck and over the bank laughing away with the dude as LIFE magazines went tumbling and blowing around and down a football field sized dump on a 30-degree incline, so they were scattered far and wide…soon’s he was gone I dove over the edge tossing rats left and right oblivious to the ten thousand flies, tons of Pampers, every chemical you can think of, all the stuff you see - and then the nasty stuff - into this ‘…stinking, steaming pile of shit…’ – to quote Zap Comics – I chokingly go enveloped in the smell and corruption of this festering detritus, and finally hours later had collected as many as I could, 896. I painstakingly cleaned them off and stacked them neatly in my storage shed at The Dump…

…fast forward six months, Dee is standing there looking thru the LIFE magazines, Dee a WW2 South Pacific Marine vet and even at his advanced age obviously rugged. ‘Hey Dee, how’s it goin’ with you…’ He looked up from the LIFE magazine - and I could see he was holding issue number one; he said, ‘My step mother took this picture of the 1st LIFE magazine, this one November 14th, 1936.’ I said to myself sure she did Dee and I said to Dee, ‘She did?!’ And he said yes she did.

…I was taken aback because I knew who had taken the picture…so I said well Dee, like, who was your step mother, and he answered ‘Margaret Bourke-White…’, bingo…’Margaret Bourke-White is your step mother!’ I said incredulously, he nodded, ‘…well, who is your father!?’ to which Dee - Dabney Withers Caldwell - replied, ‘Erskine Caldwell’ - talk about six degrees of separation…how’s that?

I have to say that if you’re 55 or over this story might mean something, if you’re younger than that you maybe never heard of one of WW2’s most renowned photographers, Ms. Bourke-White, and the famed author Erskine Caldwell, ‘God’s Little Acre,’ ‘Tobacco Road’…well now you have. When they are happening we don’t always recognize what ultimately becomes a significant moment in our lives…

IT WAS TERRIFYING...

…and, like NFTD – not for the faint of heart, but a moment ago I had the strangest rush; it was as close as you can come to passing out without actually passing out, see what I mean? Choking, gasping for air, actually reaching out with my hands as if to scoop some into my ruined air bags I staggered to and fro in my little apartment bangin’ off the goddamned walls & waking Peg downstairs I would guess…but to no avail, the lungs don’t function…not enough O2 was getting in nor CO2 out…I wasted precious air to curse whoever the Supreme Being is, take your pick, God, Allah, Other, and raged and yowled enough to wake the dead, hmmm…not to use that term.

To push the envelope any further would have been final, ah, fatal, well, both…assuming there’s no hereafter…fortunately this time I was home and not at the wheel and this mini-death was neither drug nor alcohol related nor neither was it self-induced in any fashion, discounting six point three decades of self-abuse; it just comes with the lung cancer territory.

I was scared make no mistake about it; I am scared still - and from now on knowing what I know. Once this episode passed I fell onto my bed and lay there in a stupor, trembling head to foot, thinking after all that if being dead is anything like this it’s not half bad once you get pass the strangulation. It was sort of a practice session, a brief glimpse into the beyond. Speaking of which…

Cemeteries are beginning to have a deleterious side effect on my psyche because all my life I have hung around them - they are great places to hang out if you don’t have to…the history lessons there and the stories the gravestones tell and don’t tell are a cornucopia (how’s that for mixing a metaphor, life and death…) of unbelievable scenarios, no two alike; one’s imagination runs wild, is released from limitation…but now it’s getting personal and I’m having to rethink a lot of things I once took for granted. Anymore when I’m in Townshend at the Oakwood Cemetery sitting with Ginny Albee or Alexander Cushing I’m wondering where’s a good spot for me…

The common denominator in the graveyard I once thought, is plural, not only death, but sorrow for the living - alongside each grave, I mused, someone once wept…but now I say, surely in the Pauper’s Field on Old Ferry Road some of those poor, demented wretches went to the ground known to no one…that said and there being a gamut of emotions run through at the boneyard maybe death is the only commonality; well, that’s the way it goes, you’re here for a while then you’re not.

At NFTD we believe in getting off to a cheerful start. It’s that - or give in to despair which I could easily do if it weren’t for you Dear Reader, you are my lifeline, my saving grace, the reason I am able to carry on - but o I tell you once I hung my head and wept, sobbed until the fucking table top I was leaning over looked like someone had spilled a glass of water on it…I don’t guess anyone saw nor heard me or if they did they couldn’t be bothered, which is just as well, wheeew - macho man crying is not all that cool. I felt quite the fool. I’ve overcome the blow…

I'VE HAD A LOT OF FUN TODAY...(From NFTD Archives)

...bear with me, let me explain...rewind...at six o'clock yesterday morning (6/28/98) I bought three $3 instant scratch tickets and went to have a coffee with a couple friends. Sitting at the kitchen table I scratched first one, a loser, and slid it across the table to Larry, 'Nope Larry, your's is a loser.' Now Joyce's, same thing, sorry Sister you're a loser too...well, your ticket is, you're not...and then...

Then I scratched the third ticket, mine. The instructions read something like match any one of your numbers to any one of theirs and win prize indicated. One of their numbers was a 2, so was one of mine, and the prize for me matching their number was: $50,000.

I passed the ticket over to Larry. 'Does this say what I think it says?' 'I think it does...' Joyce? 'Absolutely, you got a 2, they got a 2, the prize is 50 grand!' A flurry of excited activity ensued, then 'I gotta go!'

I flew back to Linda at the Jiffy Mart who only moments ago had sold them to me, her first customer of the day. I gave it to her. 'I'd like to cash this in,' I told her, knowing you can only cash up to 599 dollars without going to the Lottery Commission. She took the ticket somewhat ho-humishly and ran it through the computer which popped up with the information that the ticket was legit and $50,000 with my name on it was in a vault down in Concord! Then things got a little animated...I can't stand still but neither can I go to Concord to claim my prize because it's Sunday and they don't open until Monday at 8 - 24 hours I am walking around with a $50,000 ticket in my pocket so of course I can't sleep nor eat and feel that somehow there's been an error and tomorrow my little balloon will burst...a restless night.

As happens, morning came and by 8 I was standing tall at the lottery office where I said to Fran, the woman at the front office, 'I'd like to cash this in...' and she looked at it, eyes agog and said, 'Yes, yes, I should think you would,' and began the process of shelling out 50Gs to me!

Here is how that goes.

You don't get 50 grand. They take out Uncle Sam's right off the top so you don't forget to mention it to the IRS, and after they had done that Fran and someone else from a big suite office came out shook hands all around and presented me with a certified State of New Hampshire Lottery Commission check for (be still my heart!) 36,000 dollars, a good return on a three dollar bet. I am directed to the Bank of New Hampshire in downtown metropolitan Concord and when I get there and present my check, once again the camaraderie and pleasantries begin, everybody in the bank is watching what's going on. The teller - her name was Leigh, told me after punching up a few keys on the word processor and consulting with a couple bigger wigs, 'We don't have enough money to cash this...' I was thunderstruck - I've broken the bank! The esteemed Bank of New Hampshire doesn't have enough money to cash a $36,000 check!? Whatever will I do? I had to borrow 20 bucks to get here...they graciously come to terms and it went like this: they gave me $9,000 in cash and one of their checks for $27,000 which I can deposit in my bank and spend three days hence when it clears...no sweat...and then they are kind enough to count out 90 - can you believe it, 90 $100 bills, new ones, all in sequence and this done said to me, 'If you would like to count it again we have a private room for you...
I SEEM TO HAVE MOVED UP A TAX BRACKET...

...and a caste in one $36,000 check - suddenly a bank which yesterday would have wanted me deloused, today fetes me as if the sudden acquisition of money was validation of one's true worth. I had to laugh. In I went... I am absolutely astonished at my good fortune and everybody who has heard has been wonderful about it, and such comments: 'Tuffy, can I have a beer?' 'Sure you can, they're in the van; you may be rich but you still gotta go get your own...' From Frankie who I owed a lot of money for a long time as I walked into his garage, 'I heard you'd be coming to see me...' From my dear Aunt Gogi, 'Dear Terry, I want you to know I am sorry for the time you had a penny in your mouth and I made you do a somersault and swallow it. I think you were 3 years old...your loving Aunt Gogi' - or, as I walked into Town Hall to license my new-to-me 1978 Triumph Bonneville, Earl Luther followed me to the Town Clerk's office holding a chair, 'Would you like to sit down Mr. Ward...here have a seat...' How sweet is Lady Luck realized? Very.

…O, o, o, I tell you I am having so much fun! I am debt-free for the first time since about 1957, it is an extraordinary feeling I never thought I'd experience and I mean to be very careful about getting into that five decades long situation again...fast forward several days...so many many times in the last, let's see how long has it been now, today is the 6th of July, I'm way late in publishing this issue but winning like this is a serious distraction, anyway I can't tell you how many times in the last few days since hitting this pot of gold I have heard people say 'It couldn't have happened to anyone more deserving' or variations of it but in MY mind it couldn't have happened to anyone LESS deserving, however...it's your basic simple twist of fate & like I said, I'm having a ball!

...and incidentally, long-time readers might recall one of my daydreams has been to have an inch-thick stack of crisp $100 dollar bills? Well, I had it, actually I had (have!) several and the thrill of riffling through it and knowing it was mine, however circuitous its route to me, put a five-inch smile on my gap-toothed puss, and - and - you are not going to read: 'Sorry, only kidding...'

...because I am not kidding. In a millisecond (however long it takes to scratch a ticket) my life went from poverty to wealth and a week later I am still dumbfounded, dazed, elated, saddened & gladdened and I expect I shall be shaking my shaggy head in bewilderment the rest of my life.



...for in truth it must be said in no way am I deserving of this largess but what is a poor boy to do? Plus, I've yet to go down on my hands and knees and thank Whomever because it seems so totally hypocritical to thank The Lord when in the past I have been so obtuse as to pray like this, 'Look You Big Bastard, You don't scare me at all! You want prayer, I'll give You prayer: I pray You send me some money You SOB!' and I would shout and scream and weep and rave and fulminate against The Firmament for what was essentially my own undoing, so now, now the loot is in hand, the result of gambling for which Christ threw the gamblers and the money changers from The Temple, while I? I am reveling in my nouveau riche lifestyle, the end result of leading a life of dissolution! Go figure. It makes no sense & it ain't fair but we knew long ago that fair got nothing to do with it, luck does, in this case good luck…well, I've gone on long enough about it for now; you'll please understand it is difficult for me in this the first blush of my new wealth to concentrate on anything else and my writing may not be up to its usual (ahem) riveting and wondrous style.