Know Dharma Morning

old monk
cold room
early morning
tattered pillow
just sitting

no expectations
no plans
no thoughts
no monk
just sitting

a cat watches
knowing everything
and nothing

just sitting

~mce

A Good day in Spookville

Spookville isn’t a particular place in space and time. It is everywhere, always. Wherever there is war, mayhem, intrigue, “national interests” or oil you will find Spooks.

I was a Spook twice; both times reluctantly, but a Spook nonetheless. That’s how I learned about Spookville.

I guess I should define Spook. Well the term cover a lot of ground. Spooks are creatures that work for the many intelligence agencies – military, civilian, and secret – that hover invisibly and ubiquitously all around us, all the time. They operate beyond good and evil. They just follow orders. They are true believers. Often they are sociopaths or even psychopaths. I found them to be crazy and dangerous as waltzing cobras.

I know this one guy who was the model Spook Mercenary.

His name was Ian. He learned the trade in Rhodesia doing his worst to keep it from becoming Zimbabwe. He was in the Rhodesian Special Forces. His specialty was terror, torture and assassination.

Hell of a nice guy. Oxford educated. Clever, charming, witty. Folks owned a big farm in Rhodesia.

Over a friendly beer in Da Nang, he told me a story,

We were out in the bush looking for a witch doctor that was stirring up the local kefirs.

Kefirs, I asked.

Means nigger in English, he said.

We were three, travelling alone and light. Broke into his hut about two AM. Never heard us coming; no one ever did. As he jabbered in horror, we cut his three wives throats. Now he was crying and begging and declaring his innocence.

Maybe he was innocent..Didn’t matter. Never does when you’re on a mission.

We hung the ugly wog from the lodge pole by his feet and gagged him. Then Tim, my mate, who was our knife man, went to work. First, he slowly cut off his testicles, then his penis and threw them to the dog in the corner who gobbled them up right before the old man’s eyes.

Then he began to skin him. Not completely, just long, thin strips of skin, the kind you might braid into a lariat.

I’ll tell you, that hanging nigger made sounds even I had never heard before. We left him like that, still alive, to be found in the morning. We’d made a damned fine example of him.  Best thing, it was still early so we got back to our base camp for breakfast. It was great. They had real bacon.

He might have been describing buying a car for all the emotion involved. It was just one more song of Spookville. Lingering in the smoky air. Nothing special.

Now Ian worked for the Company up in the Laotian hill forts as a sniper. Its good to have marketable skills I guess.

I met many Ians. Brits, French, Israelis, Aussies, others, mostly former special ops guys with experience in Ireland, Nam, Laos, Palestine the Congo and all over Africa. They all saw it as just a well paying job. Nothing personal.

I doubt they had souls. I know that the company men I worked for didn't. They were the zombies of Empire.

Personally, I got kidnapped into Spookville. I was working out my tour in comfort in San Francisco. Life was good.

Alas, I had made an enemy of the regimental colonel, so when he got an inquiry for an officer with a certain background, I popped right into his OD pinhead.

I immediately got orders to report to Travis Air Force Base - just that; no destination. I felt a centipede of Spookiness crawl up my spine. Travis was the gateway to Vietnam, Republic of. Not good.

I had done a tour there in 1969: ten miserable months as a field intelligence officer moving from unit to unit. It was a bad year altogether, but the summer was horrible. I’ll never forget the debacle of Death Valley. Talk about a huge clusterfuck.

That was my first introduction to Spookville, but as a lowly 2nd LT I was only on the fringes. In fact, I got moved so much and didn’t speak the language that the lowliest grunt knew more of what was happening than I. I just made up my reports based on chitchat and what I thought my superiors wanted to hear. What a way to run a fucking war.

Of course, all of Vietnam was a deadly nightmare, mostly imaginary, only real when metal met flesh.

So I did my time and went back to the world to coast through the rest of my tour as a staff officer at First Army HQ in San Francisco. I thought I had it made. How wrong I was.

Now it was 1972 and most American combat units (including the entire Marine Corps) had come home. No doubt that’s why the NVA decided to invade the south on April first. 50,000 NVA regulars with armor and artillery smashed into mostly ARVN forces and for a while it looked like the end.

Finally it was the Spooks that broke the invasion. Spooks who acted as advisers; mercenary Spooks (like Ian) who fought as regular soldiers; indigenous Spook mercenaries like the Hmong, Spooks who terrorized the NVA behind their own lines; and, of course, assassin Spooks who snipped NVA officers. It was a regular Spookville jamboree. They loved it.

And I got to be part of it. Upon arriving at Travis I met the men I would be commanding, 22 very young men, none had been to Nam, all of them chopper crew chiefs and flight medics. Poor dumb fucks thought they were on an adventure.

I knew how properly fucked we were when instead of an Army officer; we were met and briefed by a CIA officer. We were headed to Spookville for sure. Many hours later, we landed in DaNang, no longer in the Army, all property of the CIA.

It wasn’t that bad of a gig. We were to fly supplies up to the hill forts in Laos that were being pounded by the NVA and bring back wounded and certain Company merchandise. Valuable shit. Heroin to pay for the war. My handler made it clear if there weren't enough room for the wounded and the goods, the wounded would have to wait. See what I mean about no soul?

All I had to do was ride along with different crews to make sure everything went correctly. It was dangerous, but by Vietnam standards, not overly so.

Still, it would have been OK if not for Skip. His non-Ivy name was Lawton Knowles III. The Company was full of these Ivy League twerps. They all seemed to come from Harvard, Yale or Princeton where they no doubt took degrees in anthropology or art history or Mandarin. All of the senior Spooks were Ivy so that’s where they recruited. They really thought they were in Laos at the end of a failed war trying to save Western Civilization. They were like feral children who had been granted a license to kill and room to practice.

Skip was about six foot, broad of shoulder and narrow of waist.  He spoke Vietnamese fluently. He had short sandy hair and blue eyes. Even in Laos he wore khakis and polo shirts. His only concession to the mud and blood was jungle boots instead of boat shoes. He was the perfect preppie. You could easily imagine him escorting Buffy at some pretentious débutante ball or crewing down the Charles.

One evening at a base cap our Chopper developed a hydraulic problem and we had to wait there overnight for a part and a mechanic to reach us.

Now a Huey only needs three things to keep flying: the engine, the hydraulic system and a pilot. That’s why they could take immense amounts of damage and keep flying. Bullets went straight through the beasts (unless they hit you), but as long as those three items remained intact off you could go.

As a result, we had to spend the night in camp. I figured it would be a night of cards and beer and solid sleep.

Wrong.

An hour after dark, the NVA lit us up with everything they had. A full out attack in force with mortars, light artillery, machine guns and small arms. They meant to overrun the camp.

We scrambled into the slit trenches. It lasted for hours though it seemed shorter. Taking huge losses they managed to get past our mines and into the wire. They might have made it the whole way, but just before dawn a flight of Phantoms came up and napalmed them, causing them to retreat hastily.

Suddenly, it was dawn. Too suddenly, for the NVA had not had time to get their wounded out of the wire.

I was sitting on the edge of a slit trench near the wire. I was exhausted, dazed, somewhat deaf and angry. My normal condition after a battle. My 16 rested on my lap, still fully loaded. You never knew when some dead gook would jump up and kill you.

And then Skip walked up to the wire, about 20 feet from me. I swear the shithead was wearing a pink LaCoste polo shirt and khakis. And they were clean!

I was covered in mud and blood. Where the fuck were you, I thought, when Natty Victor nearly kicked our collective OD asses? Back in some bunker, no doubt, chatting up your Spook buddies about what a valiant job we were doing.

I felt it begin to rise within me.

Then Skip knelt down by the nearest wounded NVA. I noticed the Beretta in his hand. Ivy Spooks never carried regulation Colt 45s, too common.

He leaned over the gook and spoke to him softly in Vietnamese as if he was talking to a puppy or a child. Then he stood up and calmly shot the man in the head.

A Tsunami of blood and rage crashed through my body. Maybe it was just one atrocity too many. Maybe it was the thought that the smug preppie bastard believed he was immune.

I don’t know, but I was furious.

He went to another wounded gook and repeated the process.

Again I yelled, “Stop it!”

When he stood up, My 16 was on my shoulder.

He looked at me like I was some worthless piece of dog shit and lifted the Beretta.

“Stand down LT, he said, or I’ll kill right here and I’ll write the report that makes you the traitor you are.”

We fired simultaneously. The Beretta round grazed my shoulder. Thirty rounds of M-16 ammo riddled his body.

I walked over to take a look. He just looked surprised.

It was a good day in Spookville.

I wrote the report.

The Tao Of Bad Ass: A Porno-Comedic Study of the Modern West

Bad Ass was unusual in that it lacked Karma: none good, none bad, and none at all. A black cloud of nothingness seemed perpetually parked over the town. There were worse places than Bad Ass, but few. Everyone wanted to leave, but none ever did. It was a sad place, a cruel place, an ugly place, a lonely place, and a losers’ place. Motivation evaporated like spit in the on a Texas street on a July afternoon.

It all started with Marlene’s rack. She was a waitress at The Rat’s Ass Bar and Grill. It got its name when the founder couldn’t think of one and said he didn’t give a rat’s ass what it was called. So it became the Rat’s Ass of Bad Ass. It was not a high-end establishment. It was somewhere beneath a dive. It was the sort of place where if you ordered anything other than a Coors Light, malevolent looking cowboys cast you glances that seemed to question your masculinity. But it was the only watering hole in Bad Ass, Texas, so it did a brisk business.

Now Marlene herself was a big girl. Six feet tall and massively not fat. Just huge. She had bleached blonde hair, chewed gum, and rarely spoke to the rag-tag customers other than to take their orders with a grunt. She wasn’t unfriendly, but the life of a waitress at the Rat’s Ass was hard, filled with drunken gropes, obscene propositions and lewd gestures. Her silence helped keep them to a minimum.

Marlene’s Magical Rack compounded the problem. Marlene’s boobs were goddess quality. They stood out like a dare; like twin Everests waiting to be climbed; like two minuteman missiles straining to launch. Consequently, no one ever looked Marlene in the eye. They went directly to the rack. Everyone called her Rack behind her back. It made a girl lonely.

Marlene lived in a room above the Rat’s Ass. As a result many locals thought her a hooker. Far from it, the dismal quality of the local breeding stock was such that she hadn’t been properly mounted in a long, long time. That made a girl lonely, too.

The only customer she talked with was Ted. He came in every afternoon and ordered a Coors Light. Marlene would serve the beer, park the rack on the bar, and chat with Ted, who actually made eye contact.

Ted was what was called in Bad Ass, “at loose ends.” Actually mostly everyone in Bad Ass was at loose ends. The town consisted of a jail, the Rat’s Ass, a Haji Mart and a gas station. Opportunity did not abound.

So Ted and his fellow Bad Asses did the best they could. They got welfare, food stamps and whatever work they could find under the table. Ted lived in a 1956 singlewide mobile home. It sat on a bare patch of ground just outside of town. His ancient Ford pick up was parked out front. His only neighbors were the rattlesnakes that abounded in his vicinity. It didn’t make for much of a social life.

He was tall as Marlene and thin to the point of gaunt. He always wore old jeans and a small variety of give away T-Shirts. He had light hair, pale blue eyes and vaguely Appalachian facial features. Give or take a few pounds and he looked like most of the other guys in Bad Ass.

It wasn’t that he didn’t notice Marlene’s rack; it was that he didn’t stare at it. He mostly looked her in the eye and sneaked furtive glances when possible. She liked that. By Bad Ass standards it was gentlemanly.

Marlene wasn’t the only bodily challenged person in Bad Ass. Ted was too. He was unusually – very unusually - well endowed. Cruel and envious classmates had mercilessly teased him through out school.

They tried a variety of nicknames: donk, dork, dong, humongous, etc. But one wickedly cruel little classmate whose father owned the Bad Ass garage had hung the moniker pinion on his prodigious member. The pinion was the very long, very hard shaft that coupled with the rack to work the brakes on some cars.

They liked it and so Pinion he became ever after, behind his back, and everyone in Bad Ass knew he was hung like a Rhino. Even the girls knew, including Marlene.

Oddly, this worked against his sex life, which was non-existent.  Ted was a virgin. Apparently girls wanted to be probed, not perforated. Even Marlene, who liked him, was put off.

He was reduced to abusing himself regularly and intensely, usually to the image of Marlene’s rack. Those impossible boobs transfixed him.

This was a hardship as being a believing Catholic Ted had to drive 37 miles to Our Lady of Dehydration Church in Dry Hole, confess and be absolved. It also put a lot of miles on Ted’s tired pick up.

Suffice it to say, little of note ever happened in Bad Ass.

Until the lottery ticket. Every Friday Ted bought a lottery ticket at the Rat’s Ass; every Friday he lost.

Until that Friday. On that Friday he won $100,000 and instantly became the richest man in Bad Ass. Life changed quickly for Ted. Women suddenly seemed to overcome their fear of being fracked and spoke to him in seductive tones. Men started to try to borrow money and cadge drinks from him. He got a new muffler for the pick up.

But Marlene was smitten. The only nice guy in Bad Ass was rich! What luck.

The next time he came in for a Coors Lite she deposited the holy rack (she just happened to be wearing a very low cut shirt) on the bar before him and flat out asked if she could visit him sometime. She moved just enough to jiggle the rack.
This was well beyond any treasure Ted had ever imagined. He heard himself stutter out: sure, how about tonight. He had a hard on the size of South Korea.

She arrived at his trailer not long after her shift, but first she had gone upstairs and put on a very low cut and short sundress. As an afterthought she skipped the bra.

Stepping over a few errant rattlers, she knocked on his door. When he opened it his eyes nearly achieved lift off from their sockets.

He offered her a beer, and for once his eyes locked unabashedly on her boobs. They sat on his sofa.

Marlene was on a mission. She pounced. That hundred grand had turned her into a Tigress in heat. She wanted it and right now.

There was nothing subtle about this coupling. Before Ted knew it she was naked and tearing off his clothes. She mounted him, gasped at the immensity of her task, but soldiered on. Outside, the rattlesnakes hissed.

For a moment, Ted considered this was a mortal sin, but remembered that’s what priests are for. He also briefly thought that it was sad to get fucked for your money, but it quickly hit him that it wasn’t as sad as not getting fucked because you were poor. Also you could live a whole life in Bad Ass without this much luck. He heaved to and impaled her.

So it was that, like yin and yang, the Rack and Pinion were one and the Tao of Bad Ass became whole. For the four minutes that it lasted, it didn’t even seem that bad.

Surrealistic Pillows

Surrealist Pillows

Everything is sadder than it used to be. Even the rain is more dismal. It is a sweating fog to make you wish you were a train about to enter a tunnel or lucky enough to be a camel. But you are not so lucky. Outside you are a young woman chilled in the drizzle and inside a young man warm by a fire. Both of you are misled, but only one of you is wet.

***

Evy

I pluck my scarf tighter around my neck. The jaguars have gone silent; I haven’t heard a roar in seconds. I have forgotten my umbrella. As usual a trio of light-footed swine conga nimbly across the street. I am on my way to see my lover Paul. I am not hungry. My vulva hides no fangs. I lust with my loins, he with his head. Where are the black swans? I walk quickly; my shoes soaked. My hair is going to frizz at any moment. I have no desire to return home. I am strongly struck by an appetite for diamonds. I am not happy. I hurry through the invisible street, small and insignificant. This rain has gravedigger fingers. My face is a chaos of lust. I will be happy when I meet Paul. We will smile and kiss. My frizzy hair will count for nothing. He thinks me beautiful. We will couple with the randiness of mating pythons. He says he loves me. I will fall asleep in his arms. My pillow’s softness will swallow me safely into darkness towards tomorrow.

You pluck your scarf tighter around your neck. The jaguars have gone silent; you haven’t heard a roar in seconds. You have forgotten your umbrella. As usual, a trio of light-footed swine congas nimbly across the street.  You are on your way to see your lover Paul. You are not hungry. Your vulva hides no fangs. You lust with your loins, he with his head, Where are the black swans? You walk quickly; your shoes soaked. Your hair is going to frizz at any moment. You have no desire to return home. You are strongly struck by an appetite for diamonds. You are not happy. You hurry through the invisible street, small and insignificant. This rain has gravedigger fingers. Your face is a chaos of lust. You will be happy when you meet Paul. You will smile and kiss. Your frizzy hair will count for nothing. He thinks you beautiful. You will couple with the randiness of mating pythons. He says he loves you. You will fall asleep in his arms. Your pillow’s softness will swallow you safely into darkness towards tomorrow.


She plucks her scarf tighter around her neck. The jaguars have gone silent; she hasn’t heard a roar in seconds. She has forgotten her umbrella. As usual a trio of light-footed swine conga nimbly across the street. She is on her way to see her lover Paul. She is not hungry. Her vulva hides no fangs. He lusts with her loins, he with his head. Where are the black swans? She walks quickly; her shoes soaked. Her hair is going to frizz at any moment. She has no desire to return home. She is strongly struck by an appetite for diamonds. She is not happy. She hurries through the invisible street, small and insignificant. This rain has gravedigger fingers. Her face is a chaos of lust. She will be happy when she meets Paul. They will smile and kiss. Her frizzy hair will count for nothing. He thinks her beautiful. They will couple with the randiness of mating pythons. He says he loves her. She will fall asleep in his arms. Her pillow’s softness will swallow her safely into darkness towards tomorrow.


Paul

I am sitting in my favorite leather armchair. When I lean back tiny gremlin fingers massage my spine. I enjoy the absence of howling jaguars and the pomposity of dancing pigs. It is quiet. My feet are too near the fire. Fear death by immolation. Three black swans just flew by my window. I looked at them but they gave no sign of recognition. Evy should be on her way. I harden at the thought of her, but my cock fears her vulva holds fangs. I find this no impediment to lust. I lust with my head, she her loins. I have been seeing Evy for three months. She fucks like a dragon in heat, but I fear she craves more. I wish she would leave afterward. I find this tedious. What we are concerned with here is happiness. Am I happy? Perhaps when she arrives. I am not hungry at all. We will smile and kiss. Her hair will be frizzy from the damp. I will tell her she’s beautiful though she’s not. We will make love as usual. I will tell her I love her though I don’t. She will fall asleep in my arms. My pillow will feel like concrete and the movies in my brain will play all night, the cinema of despair.

You are sitting in your favorite leather armchair. When you lean back tiny gremlin fingers massage your spine. You enjoy the absence of howling jaguars and the pomposity of dancing pigs. It is quiet. Your feet are too near the fire. Fear death by immolation. Three black swans just flew by your window. You looked at them but they gave no sign of recognition. Evy should be on her way. You harden at the thought of her, but your cock fears her vulva holds fangs. You find this no impediment to lust. You lust with your head, she her loins. You have been seeing Evy for three months. She fucks like a dragon in heat, but you fear she craves more. You wish she would leave afterwards. You find this tedious. What you are concerned with here is happiness. Are you happy? Perhaps when she arrives. You are not hungry at all. You will smile and kiss. Her hair will be frizzy from the damp. You will tell her she’s beautiful though she’s not. You will make love as usual. You will tell her you love her though you don’t. She will fall asleep in your arms. Your pillow will feel like concrete and the movies in your brain will play all night, the cinema of despair.

He is sitting in his favorite leather armchair. When he leans back tiny gremlin fingers massage his spine. He enjoys the absence of howling jaguars and the pomposity of dancing pigs. It is quiet. His feet are too near the fire. Fear death by immolation. Three black swans just flew by his window. He looked at them but they gave no sign of recognition. Evy should be on her way. He hardens at the thought of her, but his cock fears her vulva holds fangs. He finds this no impediment to lust. He lusts with his head, she her loins. He has been seeing Evy for three months. She fucks like a dragon in heat, but he fears she craves more. He wishes she would leave afterwards. He finds this tedious. What he is concerned with here is happiness. Is he happy? Perhaps when she arrives. He is not hungry at all. They will smile and kiss. Her hair will be frizzy from the damp. He will tell her she’s beautiful though she’s not. They will make love as usual. He will tell her he loves her though he doesn’t. She will fall asleep in his arms. His pillow will feel like concrete and the movies in his brain will play all night, the cinema of despair.

***

Her three will meet his three making six persons in a place made for two. How many persons do we each hold? Is infinity large enough? No space here for alone or lonely.
Together is a given that may collapse at any instant. Love is just too large a word for
the crowded enormous emptiness of silence and pillows