Instalment One Hundred and Seventy Five

You need to build up your capital if you want to get ahead son, I was told. So I stared a sports hat shop, ALL CAPS as well as a sports hat shop for kids,  Small Caps to build up some capitals. 

It. 

Was. 

Simply. 

The. 

Beginning.

CAPITALISM started running RAMPANT ACRoss the world. IT WAS every MAN and WOMAN for THEMSELVES. OperATING UNCHECkED it was DISTROYING WE ONCE HELD DEAR and TRUE. CAPITALISM TOOK OVER. NO ROOM FOR DIFFERENCE, DEVIATION NOT WELCOMED. “LOWER CASE IS LOWER CLASS” THEY SCREAMED.

NEXT THE SERIFS WERE RULED SUPERFLOUS AND WE SERIFED NO MORE. PROBLEMS FOLLOWED. BUILDINGS FELL DOWN. I-BEAMS WERE NO LONGER I SHAPED. PEOPLE DIED.

so we tried to live without capitalism. 

we welcomed back all the exiled serfis. issues arose. t-shirts fit no human. y-fronts left it all dangling out in the wind. c-clamps, o-rings and s-bends were now way too small. a-frame houses fell over but a-line dresses were more accommodating to curves. it was a mess. quit your complaining and make your point son, i was told. so i made my point big. 

i’m gonna make my mark on the world, so I had a go at marksism.

Instalment One Hundred and Seventy Four

“We do nothing, still they come.”

“They hunt sister. They kill for joy. Not even eat.”

“They are sheep, know only what others do. Copy.”

The wolves were sad.

“We do better job with child than they. We only kill for need.”

The wolves were angry.

“Change must come.”

The wolves came. Down from the mountains. Out of the forests and the plains.

At night they took the children. All the children.

They was much howling in the village come dawn when the children were found to be missing.

Up in the mountains, in the forests and plains the wolves raised the children right.

Seasons bled into years.

The children returned. In packs. Wild eyed, matted together with loyal hearts.

They marked their territory, there would be a new way. Act true and protect.

The village grew strong and prospered.

The wolves returned.

“You kill bears for us.”

The wolf children said no, the bears do not harm us, you taught kill only in need.

The wolves were sad.

The wolves returned to the mountains, the forests and the plains and stole some bear cubs as their parents slumbered, raised them right.

Soon wolf bears would visit the ungrateful village.

Instalment One Hundred and Seventy Three

Patents are God to their children.

My dad was just like Jesus, he left and said he would return.

After three days his side of the closet was empty, so he was telling the truth. I just wish we had been home.

My sister called it A.D. from then on, for After Dad, and gave up on him.

I stopped believing in Jesus when I was thirteen but still thought he had said some good things.

I believed in my dad a lot longer and he never said anything good.

He was like a set of house keys, always somewhere else when you looked for him. And like keys, you would blame yourself until he turned up. I was sure it was something I did wrong.

Now I’m old, on Sunday morning I listen when the radio plays gospel music, but I don’t believe in the man they sing about. And now I’m old, on Sunday night I listen when my dad calls, but I don’t believe the man he tells me he is.

Turns out it was me that was a lot like Jesus, killing myself for a distant dad’s approval.

We could never get close to our Farther.

Instalment One Hundred and Seventy Two

Like many of you, I was told I to get somewhere in medicine, specialise. Pick something you love, a pediatrician said. She was wrong. Do something were you can make the biggest difference.

I became a Witch Doctor.

Diverse bunch witches, you never know what you’re going to get day to day. Yes I know, there’s a lot of warts, people tell you that and it’s a hundred percent true. But other days you can really make a difference. I had a witch presenting with chest pains, run the tests, turns out it was simply a matter of diet. If you’re only eating greedy kids fattened up on sweets and cakes of course your cholesterol is going through the roof.

And there’s still so much to learn, my paper “Water stored in wooden buckets has adverse effects on Wicken,” will be published next month.

They’re a challenging community, always mixing home-brew cures rather than taking prescribed medication, but we’re making inroads. And sometimes listening is enough. What I’ve learnt is that behind every poisoned apple there’s a women who society told she isn’t fair enough. Treat the patient not the symptom guys.

So don’t curse yourself, be a Witch Doctor.

Instalment One Hundred and Seventy One

The deal Ship Captains get is really second to none. You don’t hear about train captains now do you? They’re just called drivers. No one pats aeroplane pilots on the back for going down with the plane. They’re suck in the cockpit screaming along with the rest of us, no wonder they’re usually drunk in a crash.  But Ship Captains, they’re soooo honourable for going down with the ship! I say you made your bed now you sleep in it pal, I didn’t sink the ship, I don’t have epaulets on my short-sleeved shirt. You know who else has to go down with the ship but literally made zero mistakes? EVERY OTHER MAN ON THE SHIP. It’s not “women, children, and those with no culpability for the situation first!”  If it’s a lady captain I bet that that second rule outweighs the first, if this so called “Maritime Law” is even a real thing. Captains can marry people too! Did we also give them permission to start radio stations off shore? You bet we did. What I’m saying Dad, while you teach me to drive I’m the Car Captain and get to pick the music. No? Classic rock it is.

Instalment One Hundred and Seventy

My bones have a lot more to say to me these days. They won’t shut up, morning through night. My cracking bones reminding me the mistakes I made in my youth.

I rub at them with affection, regretting nothing, knowing I don’t have a jealous bone in my body. They take a crack at me, letting me know I still have a skeleton or two in my closet. Funny bones that they are, they love to cause me pain.

Bad blood runs between us. I search for sleep but the slightest movement sets my bones chattering. Their cracking grows worse and I learn a tough truth about myself. I do not have a kind bone in my body and it makes my flesh crawl.

I’ve had a skin full of my lazy bones but we’re joined at the hip. I offer to give them a piece of my mind but my bones have no change of heart. You and I, we are not flesh and blood they snap, we are nothing more than skin and bone.

A fracture that can’t be knitted.

They’ll defeat me over my dead body, when I am dust and they are still my still bones.

Instalment One Hundred and Sixty Nine

The worst job in America

Curtain up.

An office in disarray, 27 DAYS handwritten on a whiteboard. GREGORY,mid-50,overweight enters stage left.  ANDY,mid-20s, follows.

ANDY
AGAIN!

GREGORY
It’s in the lexicon kid.

ANDY
Hoover’s in the lexicon, Kleenex is common vernacular. We’ve got the President of the goddamn USA dumping our brand in the shitter.

ANDY waves a newspaper, PRESIDENT LASHES WALL STREET.

ANDY

Whatta the clips like?

GREGORY
Papers running hot, rolling across every channel.

ANDY
Spoon-faced lobcock set us back a month. 

GREGORY
We’re getting the speech.

The stately MR PERKINS enters.

PERKINS
I pay you boys don’t I?

GREGORY
Sir.

PERKINS
Then why, while sipping morning Pink-Lemonade did I read “President says Wall Street’s drinking the Kool-Aid,”?

ANDY
We’ve had 27 good days.

PERKINS
There’s nothing good about failure son.

GREGORY (whispered)
I hate the speech.

PERKINS
When my great-grandpappy left his mother’s homemade-lemonade out and returned to find it dried up, he found the idea of our lifetime. In 1978, 200 folks chug the powdered-drink Flavor-Aid mixed with poison, not Kool-Aid boys, mark my words, Flavor-Aid. So why, when someone has a great idea, why don’t we say they’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid?

ANDY erases whiteboard.

Curtain.

Instalment One Hundred and Sixty Eight

“Lovie” he said to me.

“You only call me Lovie when you want a fight to be over,” I snapped. We’d been having a go at each other for a couple of hours. It started with something his mother said about “not needing no fancy education,” which devolved into track one side one of our greatest arguments hits.

“What? I’ve never called you Lovie, what am I in the theatre? Chookas out there tonight lovie!”

“You just did!”

“What? No! It’s that thing, you know that thing that people do when life is bad you say lovie and move on.”

“You say lovie?”

“Yes.”

"Are you sure you don’t mean to say c’est la vie?”

“Say say lovie? No you are just meant to say lovie.”

“Listen to what I say… c’est la vie”

“Lovie.”

“You are so completely wrong I don’t even know where to start.”

“That’s life!”

“YES! In French?”

“What’s French got to do with it?”

“You said that’s life which is c’est la vie in French.”

“Look I didn’t finished school like you but I’m pretty sure love is armour in French because it makes you strong..”

“This is your fucking mother’s fault.”

“Kay Sarah Sarah!”