I think you need to know something a bit more about writers than you do now. Good writers sell out everyone they know eventually.

Screaming in the kitchen about who did what to whom, an iron pan goes out the patio window. Your writer-lover may appear to be in the moment, to really feel the epithets being roared, but in fact is thinking only of how delicious the scene will read. Subconsciously doing the calculus to know if antes can safely enough continue toward their limit. Being struck might cement the story with the credibility that only a police report and sticky red can.

A highschool semi-sweetheart of mine got a real book deal with a real book publisher. I found out about it after reading some of our more modern correspondence, as you know, got me wondering what the last 5 years had been to her.

It’s a book she’s worked doggedly on. Back when we were corresponding — and she thought me mad — she was after it in the way that you need to be. I can only respect that. You should buy the book when you can; she’s a terrific writer and it’s important material. It’s called Assembling My Father — A Daughter’s Detective Story. He killed himself when she was 5, I believe.

It’s been awhile since I’ve been in the moment and I’ve been terribly worried that I myself would go so far as to put a straw in my lovely hammerless S&W .357 so as to decorate the blank pages with anything at all just so they would stop saying I had nothing else left to record. Worried that I’d lost it.

I know now I haven’t because when I saw the extremely happy news that a friend had a book on Houghton Mifflin’s Autumn aught-four list, my first thought was of the subject matter life had laid at her feet. I thought aloud, “Some people have all the luck.”

I had dreams last night that I liked very much. Angels and Samurai—Seraphim and Ninja. “…How long has it been since we’ve eaten together? Had rice and mice…”

I’ve been watching more executions on teevee. Today it was the Chinese. I looked away, knowing full well what I was about to see, and then some part of me made me look. Was it pain or pleasure? Where does knowledge fall in that canyon? What drove me to need to see that row of people on their knees shot in the backs of the heads; bilging rivers of their lives out of their mouths as they fell? Of the two ways humans murder I’m not sure which I find more disturbing but this kind is more frightening. Because it is so casual that it could be lurking anywhere. A passionate murder is seen coming; usually even participated in. An execution like this is not seen coming. A border shifts somewhere and suddenly you are undesirable.

…Ah, I was supposed to be manufacturing something besides small talk. What is it I can say?

The desire for a girl without skin. The desire for an evil that is so natural it doesn’t seem it. To be submerged into a lacking. A cardinal lack of pain. With an automatic return ticket lest the drug be overpowering. Would you trade albatrosses? I think not. Even our secret pains make us special.

Some historians recently re-analyzed the battle of the Little Bighorn, usually known as Custer’s Last Stand. They decided to go about it from a forensic angle with a focus on ballistic analysis. This makes the most sense of any possible approach of course b/c the main evidence, even when it happened in 1872, is bullets and shells.

It’s long been painted as a brave and hard-fought battle. Only lost b/c of the overwhelming numbers of Sioux involved.

Back up: it’s the 1870s. The Civil War is just over. The Government is all but bankrupt. Lincoln’s dead, replaced by an impeachable puppet and a genocidal incompetent in turn. The California gold rush is not such a rush anymore. Manifest destiny as a term is already 30 years old. The children who grew up with it know it as truth. Debate is dead and buried. Imperialism without seas blocking is somehow more palatable, righteous.

The US government of the day made treaty after treaty with the Natives. They had to be continually remade b/c white America spent all its money killing each other over the economics of slavery and was growing westward where more gold kept turning up in the craptastic lands the Indians were relegated to starving in. No one batted an eyelash at giving the Black Hills to the Indians b/c they were so desolate and apparently worthless.

In 1874, one of those treaties was broken again by a survey party entering the Black Hills under George A. Custer. This violation into the Sioux lands would not have amounted to anything if the party hadn’t discovered gold lying around like spilled popcorn. But they did.

Now it was just a race to circumvent the treaty in question completely. It didn’t take long.

Ugly, brutal, illegal, immoral. Everything about it was wrong but the American people and their duly appointed representatives wanted it. It was patriotic, for the Fatherland.

In the Dakota hillside the ballistics show, quite clearly, that the battle was short, decisive, and one-sided. The Sioux were completely in charge from the jump. They out-generalled the General easily. They slaughtered the soldiers like dogs while said jaundiced canids ran about like decapitated barnery.

The shells of individual soldiers show they abandoned any discipline early in the battle and gathered together in a frantic ball on a hilltop, like so many terrified mackerel hiding their heads in each other’s asses, hoping nothing, just fighting to be the last to die. They were easily destroyed. Those who saw the end coming early ran from the hill and were caught in the nearby ravine and literally butchered.

The Sioux believe that enmity survives into the next life. To cripple their antagonists in the next world they would do a great deal of postmortem rearrangement to fallen soldiers. Decapitation, severed limbs, disembowelment, you know, Justice.

Custer had a “wife” among the Cheyenne and much contact with all the tribes. The legend about Custer goes that he had personally promised the tribes not to attack. It is probably apocryphal but they say when Custer fell at Little Bighorn his body was the one that was not butchered. The women however punctured his eardrums with a bone sewing awl. They hoped that this might help him to hear better in the next world so he would remember his promises.

When I heard how it really happened, that it wasn’t just a win for the Sioux and Cheyenne but a humbling, emasculating, fair-and-square military slaughter of US soldiers, I was ecstatic.

If I’d expressed this opinion at the time of the events, I might have been put to death or at very least fined 5 years pay and put in prison for a deuce, the standard fair for sedition of the day.

Soon after I changed jobs for the last time at the ’Zon my new manager walked up to my desk and the first thing out of his mouth, in a quiet self-deprecating tone, was, “I’m an asshole.”

Though unsure of the context, I replied as any good Samaritan would: “That’s not true.”

It was before I knew him well, and I had no business interfering with such an important epiphany.

I have lapsed into the sloppiest style of essay. Practiced by most everyone who writes for the New York Times and of course one Ms-scratching-all-the-way-down Coulter. I have neglected that all points, no matter how reasonable or obvious, have rebuttals and they must be addressed for one to be right as well as maintain the appearance of being in the right.

While firmly against genocide I must admit to a healthy emotional enjoyment for the mainstay of it: the macheté. I’d have to look up the figures to be sure but I think I’m within reason to say that the most common method of genocide after forced starvation and Zyklon B is the macheté. It makes sense when you think about it. All three methods are extremely cost effective. Guns, bombs, and even bullets aren’t cheap. Several million in Africa in the last 20 years alone were chopped down. Hell, there was a period of just a few weeks where 100,000 men, women, and children in Rwanda were hacked to pieces.

I just spent an hour in the rain clearing a half acre of creekside of invasive species. I did it with a macheté, mostly right handed but I’m quite good with the left too. Swinging the whole time, leaving the fallen blackberry and knotweed where it landed. Rarely have I so enjoyed physical labor. Wrists aching. Boots soaking from within and without. Brow steaming in mild spring weather. Feels fantastic.

A common theme in literature and film is that it is actually difficult to kill someone with one’s hands. As opposed to one’s fingers, the American method, with a joystick and a dizzying array of death-dealing buttons. I think it might be hard to kill someone who bravely, calmly, without anger looks you in the eyes while you raise your arm to swing your blade for the first of several necessary blows to the neck. But come on! That means murder is difficult once in 10,000 strokes. Within the predatory mammal nothing incites ire, and the urge to strike, more quickly than begging and frenzied scraping for escape.

Genocide must be the easiest thing in the world. I recommend finding a still, beautiful center of self-respect to at least make yourself a few degrees harder to chop down.

I used my drop slip yesterday. When my contractually obligated silence
expires in a few months I may have some stories to tell about
Amazon.com’s vaunted service.

Hope things are great now that you’re a dad, just like me. Here’s some money even though you and your wife each make more than I did at your age. I especially hope that the boundless dread and anger I gave you for your 11^th birthday is coming in handy now that you have a child in your arms! Bet you didn’t think it would all come back to you with such facility after 10 years of peace. :) It’s like a bicycle!

I have had the same job for exactly five years. That’s not true, strictly. I have been employed at the same company for five years where I have held 6 jobs and a coven’s dozen hats. I never had the same job in my life for more than a year and a half before this and I’ve never been fired from a job.

Five years ago a clean sheet of paper couldn’t stare me down and make me embarrassed that my name had to go on a thing before I was allowed to leave the fucking room.

From: such-and-such <so-and-so@monkeys-r-us.org>

Date: Fri May 23, 2003 18:30:48 US/Pacific

To: “Guy, That” <you-know-the-one@corporate-america.com>

Subject: Re: RE:

commie!?!?!? why i turned my own grandmother in to the mccarthy re-review committee just days ago for having a suspiciously toned cadillac and not supporting our troops with baked goods.

should see you at least once next week. maybe twice. three times a lady.

i half made up my mind last night to quit. but i think i’d like to see one more christmas at the ’zon and see what it might mean to me fiscally.

i miss being amusing more often. veri doesn’t get my Fractured Take™ on the hizbollah style of child rearing. she simply refuses to keep her ordnance ship-shape.

oh, dear. just when i decided to come back i start writing email that could get me canned again. or caned. singapore is very nice this time of year when the temperature and humidity stay in perfect tandem in the mid 90s. much like unscrupulous securities agents and the republican party. ouch!

i haven’t even had coffee for two days.

I graduated from highschool when I was a junior, sort of. That is to say, I had all the requirements and then some to graduate but no one bothered to let me know or give me the info to figure it out myself till I was half through my senior year. I found out at almost the same time I had this encounter:

Her: You will sell tickets for the theater and debate group.

Me: I’m not in that group this year. I’m not going to sell tickets for it.

Her: You will or I’ll fail you in Humanities.

Me: You do and I’ll take you to the school board and get you fired.

Classroom: «gasp» [mumbling and staring at shoes commences for rest of period.]

I went and got a drop-slip for all my classes the next day. I had well over the credits I needed so I could quit school anytime I wanted. I carried that thing every day in my pocket waiting for another such episode, or just a whim, to take it out, slap it down, and say, “So long, suckers.”

I never did that. The slip was enough. And being there was better than being at home. Never told anyone at school about it either. It was my private peace.

In two days I’m scheduled to return to work after a nice long break. My stock options finally are in the black and nowhere near the houseboat money they were at before but still at nice car money, or year off from all work money.

I thought that was my new drop-slip. The way I could go back to work and take it for another year or two. Two meaning the options would probably be back up to houseboat money. Now I’m not sure at all.

I used to be a big fan of omens in those drop-slip days. This is the one I was greeted with today.

You shot the biggest, most amazing looking grizzly that’s probably walked the earth in 2,000 years. For a photo and bragging rights. You would have had a lot more to brag about if you’d let that thing mosey on so the rest of us could see it animated and not propped up on a rock in a crappy picture you took home to have masturbation material on those nights your mom is indisposed.

Retraction [07/30/2003]

I was totally wrong and I owe Mr Winnen an apology and a beer. As one of the only decent Presidents in the last 100 years said, to justify criticism of his own proclivity to hunt (roughly paraphrased): Being shot and killed is a tremendously speedier and more humane end than most animals meet in the wild — where they either die of starvation or being eaten alive, as a rule.

He was right, even for trophy hunting, if it’s not a threatened or endangered animal. However, this same President is responsible for the “Teddy Bear” specifically because he once refused to shoot one as a stunt.

The theory of evolution is not. It is fact. Gaps in the fossil record are no more relevant to its veracity than gaps in the Periodic table meaning fusion and elements don’t exist. Jesus!

And since it’s impossible to discuss something constructive with those who are unable to understand that evidence is required for making points, let’s just go back to name-calling. Refer to the title as a pop-quiz on your religion: Who am I?

And if you think name-calling is all we’ve got, refer to evidence. Homophobic: Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:26 — Baby killing: Exodus 12:12, Revelation 2:23 — Suicidal: Matthew 26:21, 27:46 — Jew: 5:17, 27:37. Ad nauseam.

You can thank George aWol Bush’s latest venture into anti-science for this rational venom.

Danielle is a gorgeous, intelligent and kind young lady from Taos. Not like you nobodies née New York. We all called her Dani. We all thought she was terrific. I never tried to lay a hand on her over-developed-self, unlike some of the boys. You know who you are. She was the smart little sister in the group. Never mind the buds gone to flower pre-legal.

I heard that Dani thought and said some quite terrible things about me. This hurt and confused me. As I said, I thought the world of her and never did her harm. I was confused for a year or so. Recently it occurred to me what was probably going on.

Long time back, I was down hanging around with Cort and Barnaby at my house I think. I can’t remember anything about what I was doing but that it was the kitchen phone I answered. We were probably playing music. I just know we weren’t up the canyon at Barnaby’s house because Calvin called from there.

We all owned knives. It was the thing. And unicycles. That was the other thing. Northern New Mexico could only be more boring for adolescents if it were more difficult for them to purchase alcohol and narcotics.

It seems Calvin and Eliam were playing with one of the toothéd representatives of the pantheon of 440. Calvin called and told me Eliam had stabbed himself in the leg while poking at a Popsicle stick on his thigh. He called me in part b/c everyone else in my family with my name was a doctor at the time.

I asked how bad it was and got a vague answer which led me to believe it was like all the other knife wounds I’d had and seen lately: not that bad. Calvin said he was going to use hydrogen peroxide to clean it. I told him that it wouldn’t do any good on a puncture wound. He said he’d try some liquor then. I volunteered that this was also not efficacious or particularly lucid. I said, “If you’re worried about it, you should go see a doctor.” This didn’t sit well with him. I said something along the lines of, “Okay. But if it still hurts or is hot or really red in another hour, he needs to go to the emergency room to get looked at.” And we hung up.

Calvin is now one of my good friends and Eliam is a great guy. At the time they were fucking stupid 14 or 15 year-olds. And at that particular time, they were both drunk off their asses. That was the other reason they called me instead of a parent and why they didn’t want to have anything to do with a doctor. And why Eliam passed out for the better part of the day, didn’t see a doctor, and ended up with blood poisoning that came pretty close to killing him.

Eliam’s sister is, you guessed it, Dani. Dani probably never heard that version of the story. She probably heard the one from her mother: Reb Judith.

Orthodox Judaism and Christianity are antiwoman in that they are patriarchal. God is He. Woman, first in sin, is made not even of mud but of a piece of the mud pie. You can’t reclaim it. It’s an antithesis. A woman becoming a Rabbi is a bit like a black man trying to become a Grand Dragon. Revealing.

When Eliam lay in the hospital that moaning old bag of cat bones did what she always did. She kvetched and wailed and blamed everyone else (she fired poor Harry once for something he didn’t do either) for her son’s brush with the great Lexicographer. She even threatened to sue me, a minor at the time, or my parents. I can only imagine what she said about me to Dani. I can only imagine that Dani might still have the notion that I nearly killed her brother.

If you start your own copy shop, do not undercut Kinkos. Cheap copy shops attract the kind of customers that cost a lot more money than not attracting as many customers b/c of high prices.

Xerography, as the kids say, is today primarily the domain of sub-cultures who can’t afford or learn to operate a $400 Gateway and a $75 Lexmark. The people who feel the need to completely document and duplicate their lives, thoughts, dreams, so on, tend to be the people who lost their mental-care situations when Reagan got his first swing at signing some Bills in 1981.

One woman in particular would bring her suicide notes in for copies. She would have us copy them, even though self-service was cheaper. She would leave them overnight, even though the job took all of 40 seconds. She would linger at the counter the next day, sure we’d read her missive to the great Unknown and all things Cruel, waiting for one of us to intervene. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

One day she came in for six sets of a new letter; presumably another suicide note. She’d been refining them.

She went to the counter and bantered with Barnaby about who would make the copies. We or she. Barnaby was, quite appropriately, as if he’d been trained at home by a psychologist, non-committal and unwilling to make the decision for her.

He provided the pros and cons but didn’t volunteer an opinion until she leadingly asked the third time, “Or I guess I could just make them myself?”

In a moment burned deeper in my silver paths than any birthday or first-kiss, Barnaby leaned across the counter to her, looked her square in the eyes, and said, “Go crazy.”