I've got answers?

I responded to a friends request for volunteers to play along with her in a game she called
Becky Has Questions, I Have Answers... So I guess I will call this Sue Has Questions, I Can Beat Around The Bush With Something Resembling Answers With What May Just Be Idle Ramblings Of A Seriously Long Winded Warped Mind. (is the title long enough?)

The premise:

1. If you had the option to go back in time and re-do one event in your life, would you take the chance on a different outcome?
2. Being a chef, what is the one thing you enjoy cooking the most – and the least?
3. What is your favorite meal to EAT?
4. If you were given the choice of being a famous writer or a famous singer/musician, which would you choose? (Since I happen to know you are extremely talented in both areas!)
5. An easy one: What is your favorite color?

The answers

1. I don’t know if just one event would have made much of a difference in my life, I do believe that if there were one event that might have changed the coarse of my path it would have been to stay in the Navy when I was younger. I had worked my butt off as a pollywog finally gaining my sea legs and was just coming into my own when I left the service for the “girl next door”. We were engaged and planned on being married as soon as I was discharged, as Debbie being an army brat wasn’t fond of the military. Debbie met a jarhead and was introduced to the world of drugs and parties while I was undergoing separation duty. By the time I returned, she had moved in with her new friend and was intoxicated daily bye 7a.m. I don’t try to second guess if I could have done anything to help her avoid some of the mistakes I made earlier in my life, she made a choice and ultimately lived with it. It didn’t take me long to realize that I wasn’t all that heartbroken as I should have been over the ordeal. If I had remained in the service, I would have traveled more, the military was about to pay real wages and I was moving up the ranks after several years of “growing” up. I loved being at sea and always had wanderlust. I was good at what I did and took pride in my performance and was a good mentor onboard ship. I think it would have been a good life and I really enjoyed the fantail band Cinnamon Reign that I played with and miss that life at times.
   
2. It is a toss up between Saucier, Garde Manger, or Boulanger/Patissier. I worked at Sam’s Seafood as a Saucier making all the soups and sauces for the evening meal, then worked the fast paced shift as expediter or relief bartender as the need arose. The restaurant was owned by the “Skipper” from Gilligan’s Island; Alan Hale Jr. and was a lot of fun to work for. The atmosphere was laid back yet romantic with Polynesian music and a Koy pond complete with an eight-foot rock waterfall gurgling in the background decorated with elctric fireflies like at Disneyland’s bayou area at the end of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. After hours the employees and often Mr. Hale would set up a table in the lounge and play poker or Mil Borne until dawn. I was performing with a group called TNT in the Orange County area at the time as well and with Mr. Hales generous help we were able to get gigs at places like Jaspers, Moonrakers, Reuben E. Lee’s, The Rusty Pelican and more. Garde Manger was the position I shined in at the Aircoa Sheraton Hotel in Newport Beach. I was an apprentice there and working full time, carrying a full load at Orange Coast College, working a few graveyard shifts at U-Totem Mini Mart in Costa Mesa and teaching the (don’t laugh) New York Hustle and West Coast Swing at the Arthur Murray School of Dance in Newport Beach just down the street form the Sheraton. I also tried singing waiter at a restaurant across the street, but I just couldn’t fit in with the staff. And my stint in the Navy gave me my bakery roots, a job I didn’t much care for in the service but volunteered for because it got me first liberty whenever we pulled into shore. So I learned well and spent my landlubber days in exotic lands as a tourist instead of pulling inane guard duties while docked. It is a skill that served me well over the years, and when I opened my first restaurant I included a bakery as well as a catering service, which greatly expanded my income potential. Then later when I faced hard times and was in need of work, I accepted a job as poolside Hotdog vender at the newly built Ramada Express during their grand opening. As it happened, a drunk driver struck the Pastry Chef while he was walking home from work one night and was hospitalized and eventually retired from work. Chef Albert Hall III asked if anyone had experience as a pastry Chef and much to everyone’s surprise I came forward and stepped into the position, a decision chef Al never regretted. Later after the County of San Bernardino finally picked me up as a deputy, it was a close call between long challenging hours of Casino kitchen work and the better paying adventurous position of sheriff’s deputy and I chose the call of the badge. Who knew that in a few years I would be the head of Bakery operations and the R.O.P. training coarse and get the opportunity to design my own multi million-dollar bakery for the county? So it is very difficult to nail down what my favorite food prep is, but I do know I don’t care for working with anything with fresh tripe in it, I had a really bad shipboard experience involving a hangover and cleaning tripe in the hot humid south East Asian tropics one time.
   
3. LOBSTER!!!! Hands down my personal favorite, preferably Brazilian or Zealand Rock lobster, spiny lobster is ok and so is Australian, Main or New England lobsters. Don’t bother offering me Langoustinos or fresh water lobsters (crayfish) I will hold out for the real thing. I love mostly broiled lobster tail, or BBQ’d lobster kabobs, lobster thermadore, lobster Newburg, lobster bisque, crisp lobster salad with mango and lime dressing, I love the rich sweet flavor with a hint of smoky slightly charred delight of a brazier or barbeque grill permeating the tender pieces of lobster. Ok, now I’m hungry.
   
4. Hands down I would choose famous writer. As much as I love to sing and perform, I am not a crowd person, and if I were a famous in-your-face musician on CD labels and concert tours, I would loose much of my privacy. If I were a famous writer I could remain a recluse and not show my head to the public any more than necessary to promote my books. Then I would take time out to form a little local garage band as a hobby. I do love being a big fish in a small pond.
   
5. Easy she says… I once liked the color green as a child, but my fondness for blue emerged in my teens. As a young adult Black became the understatement that defined my inner angst and by mid twenties avocado and persimmon pleased my palate. Disco broke the barriers and introduced me to bright psychedelic flamboyant color and chrome combos (I never adapted to pastel leisure suits) and wild paisley prints, I wanted many colors that would make me dizzy by bursting out in conflict of one another. This was followed by a brief brush with the combined red and black colors of some mystic significance I cannot recall at this time (probably involving a troubled woman). Then as my business like side settled down to take the helm of my journey; I preferred the influence of earth tone browns. Later as my independence gave me more personal definition I found comfort in power combinations of banker gray suits and bold red ties. Now days I am more fond of Silver, Pewter and Black and White.
   
   

Anniversaries mean many things to different people

Thirty-seven years ago I met the love of my life. I walked into a Sizzler Steak house on Tustin Avenue in a city in Orange County of the same name and approached the cashier with a sense of apprehension. It wasn’t because the young girl behind the cash register was strikingly attractive with only a Farrah Fawcett hairstyle and a v-neck honey-caramel butterfly blouse with little pastel flowers visible above the counter top, or the smile that took my breath away impeding my heart from beating for a very long personal moment. I was filled with anxiety because I was new in town, nearly penniless and desperately in need of work, any kind of work.

After she asked if she could help me and stared directly into my eyes, I knew straight away that this extraordinary person was and always would reamin special to me. I didn’t seem to know very much else at the time though, as I stuttered and mumbled my miserable request.

“May I have an application?” I managed to convey in an awkward technique typically engaged by mimes and interpretive dancers but in my application I merely appeared lame and Special Olympic bound, much to my magnificently sad credit.

“Sure thing, we happen to be in desperate need of a broiler cook right now, Grant’s son quit again. He’s the boss. Well Grant is, not his son. Greg, that's Grant's son. Same name as my older brother but you probably don't know any of them, do you? How soon can you start?”

“Uh, I was thinking of something like dishwasher or busboy. I don’t have a lot of experience on the grill.” I explained in a painfully embarrassed confession of my absolute lack of ability.

“Ever barbeque at home?” She asked.

“Well, sure, and I used to help Duke Sherod, the owner of the Trabuco Oaks Steak House on the grill when it got busy some nights. He was teaching me prep work and…”

“Sounds like your qualified to me. Here I’m going on break let me help you with the application. I know what Grant likes. Oh by the way my name is Janet, do you want a soda or something?”

It is oddly strange that I cannot remember my own phone number some days, but I can recall every detail of that meeting. The conversation that took place and even the clean but worn padded red vinyl booth we sat in to talk. I remember the washed out gilded frames around pastoral scenes of banal bovine bliss hanging on the wood paneled walls, and the bright sunlit parking lot coolly visible through the large tinted polarized plate glass windows surrounding the dining room. I can still see her sweet smile and large nutmeg brown eyes, and I can once again hear her infectious laugh and feel the self confidence that gave me the strength and belief in myself to follow her lead and pad my resume even as I write this.

From the very first day I met Janet I have measured all women to her caliber and found none that compare. We became fast friends and over several years we endured the rigors and challengs that comes with growth and responsibility. I protected her when she was vulnerable, and encouraged her when she was adventurous. It crushed me to learn upon my return from Viet Nam that Janet married my best friend, and hurt even more years later when they divorced. I never wished pain on either of them.

I lost track of Janet after she left my friend Michael with her two year old son Chad and did not see or hear from her for twenty years. Then one day I received an email from Chad. It seems he tracked down his Dad and then me through the Internet. After a few pleasant rounds of messages he asked if I remembered his Mom and said she spoke of me often and then said that she wanted to know if I would mind hearing from her. I was elated (understament). I could not believe after some correspondence that we lived so close to one another, since neither of us lived in Orange County any more. We shopped at the same grocery store, visited the same Walmart and Target stores. We went to the same soccer park, the same movie theatres and the lead singer (coincidentally named Randa Lee) of the Randa Lee Express band which I was playing in at the time had her hair done by Janet’s best friend from grammar school. We dined at the same restaurants and yet we never bumped into each other over the twenty years we co existed in each other’s backyard.

For me our reunion was magical, an answer to all my prayers. It was a second chance to do what I should have done twenty-five years earlier. I asked her to marry me, and Janet accepted. The wedding was beautiful as weddings go, full of hope and magic and promise of a perfect future. Unfortunately for me, Janet found our married life less than fulfilling. Romance and passion aside, once the novelty wore off I guess she found life with me competitive and tedious. She left me two years later (and by leaving I mean she tossed me out keeping all my stuff). To give her credit, she was the perfect housekeeper; she ultimately kicked me to the curb and kept the house, both of them. I would like to say that I have learned my lesson, but I am a fool of fools who still loves only one person. Some say I am broken but that I can be mended. But I know better. I am missing a part of my heart that cannot be repaired or replaced and must learn to live with my real enough handicap; the knowledge that I found true love and couldn’t hold on to it.

Twenty-two dollars and some change plus a two-dollar tip

I bought a delivery pizza and paid $3.00+ for this slice (the apple cost $.60) from a popular national pizza franchise. I won't embarrass the company by naming it, so we will just give it a fictional name like A Table Not So Square; a name just randomly picked from my imaginary hat. I found myself caught up in the moment last night as I stared at that miserable dry hunk of crust with pre cooked pre formed artificial "topping product" piled loosely above unmeltable cheese-like food stuff. The pizza sauce was so thin it soaked into the crust leaving a feint pink paint brushed effect on the pizza. So as I analyzed and determined that a slice broke down to roughly a dollar a bite I became uncomfortably aware that I had just been culinarily raped by the delivery girl and even as she left I still tipped her two dollars (it would have been more, but she forgot the soda that I was billed for and she had no idea how to remove the charge and would not relinquish my pizza without payment in full. The tip would have been less, but I don’t like spit in my pizzas either) after she promised to return with my beverage as if she believed I would wait eagerly by the door waiting with school girl applomb for the revisit that would never come.(And never did, in case there are any of you optimists still out there.)

When did frozen grocery store pizzas become better than pizzaria pizzas? I knew we were in trouble the day I pulled into a truck stop, and as I browsed through the aisles I spied a Pizza Kiosk also sporting a popular national name we will refer to as pizza shack. There was a young girl selling pre made pizzas run through a microwave oven to customers from behind a small counter. The selection was limited and the quality of the junk food was compromised but yet there was a long line of customers waiting to order.

I need to spend more time in the kitchen

sweet mysteries of life

OK. Here’s one of those, oh so fun mathematical problems. There are seven books in a series, I bought them all, but of course they arrived at different times, but they all arrived. Maybe. Definitely according to my records. I read book one and kind of enjoyed it, so I ordered book two, three and four. While I was reading book two I ordered book five, six, and seven. They came in less than numerical order after book two, and I ended up reading another book outside the series between books three and four. By the time I started book five all the books were in except books six and seven. After I finished book five I was ready to start and actually began the first few pages of another book outside the series when book six came in the mail on the very day I picked up a Peter Straub paperback. I set Straub aside to read book six and book seven came in hardback version the very next day. I was settling into book six when it occurred to me that a vague reference to a previous death of a cousin in the books first chapter has now been referred to in the past tense several times by the middle of the story and actually the tale seems to be evolving around here to unknown facts from the loosely mentioned previous event.

Have you ever been reading a book and fallen asleep? Most anyone who reads does this at some time or other. I do it frequently, often dreaming about the subject matter I’ve been absorbing. But sometimes, not very often, but on some rare occasions I realize midway through a chapter that my eyes have been closed for several pages. Invariably, I am able to convince myself, though barely; that I nodded off and lost my place in the book somehow navigating backward in my unconscious efforts and upon awakening found my book open several pages from where I left off. So that it only appeared that I continued along the books pathway with my eyelids closed. This explanation train arrives in a timely fashion from common sense yet embarks on its journey to points unknown with me feeling edgy and enveloped in a sense that I am strangely gifted in the rare art of pulp fictional paperback scrying. The logical clarification hardly leaves me feeling any more sated than the arcane theory of magic and otherworldly perception.

Somehow this knowledge does not help my equation very much; it merely muddles the factoring assumptions and misdirects my course of calculations. I went back to my previously read books and inventoried the titles. Book one, check. Book two, check. Book three, check. Book four, check. Book five. Wait a minute where is book five? Book six is in my hands and book seven is the yet un-cracked hardback sitting on my nightstand with the Straub thriller patiently parked below it. So I stretch and limbered my arthritic fingers and begin counting again, one two three four five six. Six of seven books accounted for. One alleged story unread, one book unaccounted for. Basic math says one and one make two, one missing book and one missing story line seemed to equal out in my mind. My assumption would be that the missing book IS the missing story and I would of course be correct in a sane universe.

I went to the Internet and addressed my online Bookshop ‘til You Drop web page of choice and reviewed my transactions thinking to myself that clarity has finally struck the chord of truth and shown me that obviously I stepped out of sequence with my series and have yet another book to account for. I am quick to blame myself for such over sightedness as I have numerous priors in fanning this kind of flame of confusion. I returned to basics. I investigated the correct number of books in the series. Seven. Good. I Compared titles with books already in my possession. I went to the page describing the missing book and as I read the product description, my fingers trembled and a little bit of drool leaked down onto my beard as I realized the subject of this book was already known to me and in fact I was certain I had already read the story (maybe in a past life?) and I remembered with the recall of one who recently absorbed the information in considerable detail of what that adventure entailed. Now I was back to my unstable reality where uncertainty ruled the realm and I began once again from the beginning, reading the back covers of each book and reviewing the stories in my mind. When I came to book four the plot was familiar, in fact so familiar it matched the online description of book five to a tee. There you have it, book five was improperly represented with the wrong product description. That is why it seemed all too familiar! Relief and reality joined hand in hand once more to set me in a determined effort to find a sensible solution to this mystery. I turned to the back of book four and reviewed the preview of book five in the excerpt that was provided to encourage readers to buy the next installment.

The story line was certainly different, but no less familiar. I have read book five, I know it, I remember it, and my records show I received it, but I cannot find it. It is missing. I searched the house once again. I went outside and searched my pick up truck. I dug through the trashcan. This book five is now a mystery in more ways than one. So in conclusion, I have read books one through five, book six still refers to events unknown to me (maybe I mentally blocked out a few chapters of book five?) from an inferred previous tome of unknown description. Book five has fallen through the cracks of space and time and is unavailable for discernable review, my mathematical skills are in irreparable despair, and I am sitting here writing instead of reading. What would life be without a little mystery?

Billy Bob And Billy Jean

I lived in a small duplex in the Surrounding San Diego area for a time with a girlfriend name Jazelle, she wore her blond straight hair in a long ponytail that reached down to the small of her back and wore fringy leather vests and hip hugger bell bottom jeans with a peace sign sewn just above the bottom left cuff. She was a serious thrill seeker, loved surfing, sex in sleeping bags, and jamming on the back of my bike. We were by all standards the perfect match made in Hell, destined to be together for weeks. I knew that she might not be the right one for me when one day we encountered a minor mishap; the front forks on my chopper snapped on the freakway (here name for it not mine) while traveling about eighty five miles an hour in the fast lane. After dropping the bikes frame to the asphalt and skidding into the center divider spewing sparks like it was the 4th of July I scraped myself from the bike seat and with trembling hands, legs and torso stepped back and assessed the situation. I noticed right away as I fumbled and failed to light a cigarette that the road had ground away the bike frame and eaten into the engine block, fluids were leaking onto the blacktop like the choppers own blood, and life had seeped from the engine until it was obvious there would be no resuscitation for this sad puppy. As I shook from the realization that death had just narrowly missed grabbing us by the nape of the neck and hurling our limp bodies into the oncoming traffic, I looked over to Jazelle to see her jumping up and down yelling “Far freaking out man! That was so righteously bitchin’!” It was that very moment that I realized something needed to change in my life.

Soon after the near death experience, I presented Jazelle the bad news, explaining that I realized I wasn’t good enough for her and that she should move on to someone more worthy; like, I don’t know, a secret agent or a shark hunter, someone who might have a minimal chance of survival while being around her. She was, much to my surprise tearfully shattered. I secretly suspected that Jazelle would leap at the opportunity to be free of me and be gone in a split second. But she told me she really wanted to make our relationship work and she did this with a completely serious face. She told me she would prove she could be just as fun at home as she was on our road trips and somehow after gazing into those solemn sincere eyes I held my resolve in check and agreed we should rent a place giving cohabitation a chance. I know I wasn’t thinking with common sense, after all, if I couldn’t deal with her part time, what chance would we have together ALL the time?

Well this ill thought plan was put in motion, we found the small duplex in my price range, and could have had the whole house for a little more money per month, but we had plenty of space, and frankly I couldn’t afford the extra cash after replacing my recently departed chopper. Jazelle set up housekeeping, decorating our home in Post 60’s hippy fashion with macramé plant hangers, Indian rugs hung on the walls accented with posters and neon paints, avocado furniture in the front room, tangerine dining set in the kitchen. Waterbed, lava lamps, strobe lights flashing in rhythm to Janis Joplin on the stereo, black lights shining on love beads hanging across the doorways, we were one cozy little family.

In fact it was kind of sexy. For a while… then Jazelle started with the incense, which wasn’t bad really, then she began hanging talismans and dream catchers all about the house. Finally, out came the ouija board. That was a little creepy, and Jazelle was showing signs of captivity syndrome, all twitchy and nervous and yes getting just a little too bitchy for comfort. I am an easygoing kind of guy, I let a lot flow off my back, but I was at the point where something had to be said.
When I confronted her, Jazelle broke down in tears quite atypical of her usual hard-core personality and said that she was afraid of the house. “How can you be afraid of a house?” I asked, and she said that things were happening while I was away playing Navy and that she didn’t want to be alone in the house any more. Well that was weird even for Jazelle. I was at a loss for words. She said she could prove it and brought me to the kitchen table where she had the Ouija board set up. I examined the board; it was crafted with Egyptian styling, a trademark stamp depicting the board as manufactured by the Kennard Novelty Company and a copyright by Elijah Bond dated 1891. To each corner were faded stencils of icons, to the upper left, a sun, to the upper right a crescent moon, and in the bottom left and right corners a single star in each. With arched stenciling there were two rows containing the entire alphabet, below that in a straight progression were the numbers one through zero. Just above the line of numbers was the crystal pointer which rested directly over a skeletal “joker” looking pattern that although faded or maybe because of the fading, oddly appeared to be laughing in a most disturbing manner.

“You see?” she cried out.

“I see an ouija board thing, so what of it?” I asked fairly exasperated and just a little shaken over Jazelle’s sudden change of personality.
“The pointer thingy! It’s…it’s pointing to the symbol for death! My death! Your death, our death...I don’t know, death!”

Well I spent most of that evening calming her and after a couple of wrong turns managed to get her to see the foolishness of her fears and settle down. I took her out to dinner then brought her home, tucked her in bed and promised everything would be just fine then slipped into the front room to get some needed privacy and rest. I was not accustomed to playing caregiver, at least not on this level, and although what she said made no sense to me, I could tell she was deeply disturbed by something. I put some music on and let the earlier events of the evening slide off of me like so much baggage. The entire day onboard ship had been stressful enough, this was way beyond the call of duty. By the end of the cassette, a weight lifted from me and I was floating in the twilight of calm and stress liberating bliss. I was too mellow to even change the tape, I just sat back enjoying the quiet hassle free moment.

I heard a cupboard slam shut in the kitchen. I must have dozed off for a moment there and Jazelle had gotten up. I groaned and raised myself from the couch and headed for the kitchen. “Whatcha doing honey?” I asked as I came around the corner. No one was there. Now that was weird. I must have really been out and dreaming some funky shit, I thought to myself. I turned to go back into the front room when behind my back I heard the cabinet door under the sink slowly creak open. I turned with a shock and watched as the door gently rocked on it’s hinges and laughed at myself for being so jumpy. I reached into a drawer on the other side of the kitchen and grabbed a screwdriver and some WD-40 to fix the lazy cabinet door once and for all. When I turned back to the sink, the door was closed. Now I understand about unbalanced doors with loose hinges forced by gravity to swinging open, but how do you explain it swinging shut again? Obviously there is one, I was just at a loss to figure it out that night. I went to the fridge and pulled out a beer, thinking I really needed a case of this stuff at that moment. I returned to the couch, put another tape in the stereo and kicked back, mulling over the peculiar events that had just transpired. I settled down and drank my beer and feeling much better as I finished the last drop from the can, I was thinking another beer might be in order.

Just then the cassette stopped in mid song. Cursing my bad luck just knowing the stereo deliberately devoured my favorite tape again I grumbled and started to get up from the couch one more time. As I stared at the silent stereo I heard an awful clamor in the kitchen, and the front room plunged into darkness. I stood there trying to recall where I kept the flashlight for such emergencies when a pair of headlights shining through the window lit up the room. It was an eerie bluish haze that spanned the area, but there was enough light to make out some details. I walked to the kitchen, still wanting a flashlight and was pretty sure the breaker box was located there as well. As I came into the room, my foot brushed against something shadowed in the dark, startling me into keen awareness of my surroundings. I searched with my foot and tapped against what felt like a small box, probably Screaming Yellow Zonkers size. So that was the commotion I heard in the kitchen? Some rodent attacked the munchies supply on the counter? I laughed at myself, Jazelle sure picked a night to freak out, she had me on edge and susceptible to my rather enormous imagination. I found the flashlight and went over behind the table and locating the breaker box I reached for the switch. To this day I don’t recall if I actually flipped the breaker or not for at that very moment all the lights came back on and I was staring at the kitchen floor. Every single box, can and bagged item from the cabinets were scattered all over the ground. Once again horror chilled me to the core, freezing my actions for several moments. My mind just could not wrap itself around the sinister event that had just taken place in my home. Grabbing a broom for defense and a beer for courage I stood in the middle of the room taking in all the damage. A cabinet door swung closed, and others just sway lazily on their hinges, innocent enough looking to make me reconsider my diabolical assumptions, and sit down at the table and finish my beer.

“Pretty funny joke” I proclaimed out loud to the joker skeleton laughing absurdly at me from his Ouija resting place. Of course I realize if a sly mouse can attempt to hijack my Zonkers, then it doesn’t seem so far fetched that a pack of wily rats might have tried knocking over the entire kitchen surplus taking advantage of the brief plunge into darkness and scurrying away the moment the lights came back on. I got to hand it to them for ingenuity but tomorrow the traps come out. It just then occurred to me that there were headlights at the window earlier, and I wondered who could be there. It wasn’t that late yet, at least not in my world, midnight was not an unlikely time to find visitors at my doorstep. I am nocturnal by nature, although there weren’t a lot of acquaintances that kept the same hours as I did it left me to ponder over who the mysterious night caller might be as I reached for the front door. Damn, I didn’t hear anyone pull away, but the car was definitely gone.

“Oh well,” I thought to myself, “I ain’t much in the mood for company anyways, but it sure would have been nice to have some help putting all that stuff back in the cabinets. Good thing for the rats nothing was gnawed on or I would have bypassed the humane traps and went for the back snappers.”

After stowing all the gear and squaring away the kitchen, I gulped down one last beer, I decided to quit while I was ahead and turn in for the night. I quietly snuck into bed not wanting to wake Jazelle, and most certainly not feeling up to answering any questions about recent events. I felt her warm breath as she snuggled up to my shoulder and I settled into a shallow sleep filled with wicked dreams. The remainder of the night passed all to quickly and I was up and rushing to get ready for work and worrying that I was going to miss revelry again. I kissed Jazelle gently on the forehead, normally I would have kicked her ass out of bed when I rolled out, just because I could, but this morning I thought that she needed her rest after yesterdays anxiety attack. Besides, I wasn’t sure what I would find when I slipped into the kitchen to make coffee. Much to my relief, everything was in its proper place.

At lunch I was ordered by the Lt to go downtown to the Public Library and collect some information in the microfiche department from Miss Darling. I could imagine a spinsterly gray haired old woman tending to books slightly older than she herself and figured if I played my cards right, I could probably finish off the afternoon with this one job. The Lt had been informed his inventory was ready for pick up, but mistakes happened, and one mistake was sending me on a task so close to the pool hall downtown. I jumped in the ships assigned jeep from the carpool and cruised on over to the old town district then parked in front of the pool hall walking the half block to the library. As it turned out mistakes did indeed happen and the Lt’s order was in but had not been brought up from the archives yet. I was sent down to one of the lowest sublevel basements by the quite matronly librarian, and as I thanked Miss Darling with a smile and a wink, she sharply corrected me in a hushed librarian manner.

“Mizzzz Darling is in the lower basement and you will quietly report to her this instant!” Ouch, the only thing missing was for her to wield a ruler and she would be the spitting image of the cover girl on this months Mad Magazine.

I marched heavily down the stairs several flights, descending into dustier, darker, mustier surroundings with each level. Finally I reached my destination. It was poorly lit and hazy in the grimy storage room, and as I looked about, all that was visible to the naked eye was not the orderly rows of shelving that neatly bore the support of the Dewey Decimal System, but half filled boxes and stacks of magazines that had fallen over from aspiring to reach far too high. A lone desk, bare of any familiarity save for a computer terminal and a single microfiche machine sat in the center of the room paired with an empty chair that had seen better days. I called out in a bare whisper, “Miss Darling, ma’am?” and received no reply. I wandered among the stacks of yellowed newspaper bundles scattered across the floor and softly called her name again. After the previous night, anything could spook me, and of course I had to find myself alone beneath tons of aged concrete in a dark and dismal room cut off from the entire world.

“May I help you?” A firm but tender voice rang out from the unnatural silence.
I jumped at once, and croaked in a nervous murmur “ I, I am here to see Miss Darling, uh pardon me, but do you know where I might find her?”

“You already have” came the melodic voice “and there is no need to whisper down here, no one but the dead can hear you.”

At that moment a youthful vision of splendor appeared from behind several large stacks of belligerent magazines, wearing a knee length light blue dress that put curves in all the right places, her tawny gold hair was tied with two baby blue ribbons making cute pig tails that captured the preciously scarce light in the room and accented her sapphire blue eyes that were slightly hidden behind oversized glasses set in a thin frame and resting low on her button nose. I cleared my throat and explained that I was sent to retrieve certain microfiche information requested previously by my Lt and was here to offer my services in any way that I might be of assistance. Suddenly I had forgotten about the pool hall, the previous night or what day it was for that matter, all I could see or think about was that lovely girl standing before me.

“Are you ok?” I heard. “You spoke to me but all I got was something about reprieve civilian fishes pitied by the rest and you need my systems’?”

Damn my nervous mumble. “ I said I was here to collect some microfiche information for my Lt.” I stammered, “And offered my assistance if you need It.” There I got it out.

“Oh,” she smiled “you must be the Navy guy. Are all you sailors so shy?” The day was just getting better and better.

“No ma’am,” I replied, “ Shyness is my specialty, I have worked strenuously for years to perfect my own personal form of shyness and quite frankly anyone you meet out there trying to be shy was probably trained by me.”

“ Shy but not modest, a peculiar combination of traits.”

“ Those are two shining attributes to my personality, but not the strongest traits to my character Miss Darling.” I said leaning against her desk. I swore I could sense it slip just a fraction under my grasp.

“Then I hope patience is one of your ‘stronger’ attributes as I am still searching for some of the information your lieutenant asked for, and please call me Sam.”

“Sam?” I asked. “That is such a coincidence, you can call me Darren.” I smiled back at her, I felt a little foolish afterward for the slight play on words, since she obviously never watched an episode of Bewitched, and now she didn’t know my real name. After my fumbling first impression, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

She dropped a stack of papers on her desk and started back to the rear of the room telling me to have a seat and make myself comfortable. I swung around the desk and started sifting through the assorted paper work and realized the Lt was searching for historical references to our ship. I wondered if it was official business or some trite hobby he was absorbed in that brought me here. I finished an article about a family picnic held at Balboa Park in honor of the returning Destroyer Escort, my returning Destroyer Escort and was wondering why I hadn’t heard about a picnic for ship’s personnel when I noticed the next article down, An Ode to Billy Bob and Billy Jean. The title was pretty corny, but the subtitle grabbed my attention; Duplex murder/suicide Friday night. I looked at the ancient date of the article and read further. The Crestmore duplex apartments located in the lower east section of San Diego was the scene of the subsequent arrest of Jackson Pole, a known dealer of drugs and prostitution for the apparent slaying of person or persons not yet divulged to the press. Pole, a 34-year-old felon is being held without bail pending further investigation. The suspect has been under investigation for fraud, extortion, drug peddling and prostitution for several months. This follow- up story reveals the shocking truth of what happened within the walls of the fateful Crestmore home. The Crestmore home is the very house that has a diabolical history of death and tragedy for more than 120 years.

The introduction though disturbing and written years ago had a ring of familiarity, so I read further;

Billy Bob and Billy Jean were married right out of High School. Both were raised on small Indiana farms and Billy Bob joined the Navy just like his two older brothers. After Boot Camp Billy Jean came out to San Diego and shared a small efficiency home with her husband for a short time until he was shipped out for a six-month tour of duty. After Six months Billy Bob’s tour was extended and Billy Jean was left at home very bored and quite lonely. She met a man who took her out dancing, to exotic parties and introduced her to drugs. Before she knew what happened, Billy Jean was getting high, sleeping around and running ‘errands’ for her pusher boyfriend. After 18 months overseas Billy Bob finally returned home and one hot August evening showed up at their doorstep with flowers and chocolates and a reservation to the most romantic resort he could afford. As he got to the front of the house he left his car running and dashed straight to the door, fumbling with his keys he could not get the right one to work, so wanting to surprise his lovely bride, he ran around to the back of the house, slipped open the bedroom window and crawled in.
Misfortunes often step into people’s lives whenever dire circumstance allows and this was certainly one of those tragic occasions. Billy Jean was passed out on the bed with her pusher boyfriend Jackson Pole who was awakened when he heard some commotion and in a fit of fear and desperation, or perhaps in cold calculating deliberation shot Billy Bob to death as he came through the bedroom window.
The police came and arrested Jackson Pole for involuntary manslaughter and knowing this man for his reputation wished to God they could do more. They searched the crime scene well into the night and most of the next morning for evidence of drugs or paraphernalia but found nothing. The boyfriend wasn’t a stupid man, just ruthless and coldhearted. The car that Billy Bob left idling in the drive glared its accusing headlights into the front room of the house, its engine idling in vain until finally after overheating it too died, leaving the headlights to run off the battery well into the early morning when the car was towed away. With what little evidence there was bagged and tagged and sent down to forensics, the investigating officers returned to their station to file reports and Billy Jean was left alone in an empty house.

Billy Jean was crushed by the tragic events that had unfolded the previous night. Riddled with guilt and mentally distraught she tore through the house looking for something to calm her down, knowing Pole had cleverly hidden his stash somewhere where the cops wouldn’t find it, she searched well through the rest of that day searching for relief from the pain that tore into her heart and soul relentlessly. Reflecting and retracing Jackson’s steps in a moment of clarity, she recalled the pusher boyfriend spending a lot of time in the kitchen after shooting Billy Bob. She went through each and every kitchen cabinet meticulously until she came across a box of rat poison that she found in a cabinet under the sink. She emptied the contents into the basin and discovered a baggy containing a syringe and a plentiful supply of uncut heroine. Not knowing or perhaps not caring of the potency of this drug, she sat down in the front room after injecting a massive overdose and waited. Waited for emotions to fade far away, waited as she sat without sensation for her life to fade even further away. Perhaps it was the drugs, maybe it was the guilt, but the last thing she saw before she slipped into deaths comma was a pair of headlights shining into the front room.
Her body was discovered days later when a detective came by to follow up on some questions about the tragic murder of Billy Bob. He found Billy Jean collapsed in the drive in front of the house, her body covered with chocolates and roses.
I sat in that deep clammy cellar and waited for the feeling to return to my legs, I sat still, silently oblivious the world outside. I could hear my own heartbeat pounding faster than a drum solo; I felt the blood slowly leaching from my face back to other needy extremities that had been without for far too long. I could not focus my gauzelike gaze from eyes that were blurred and distracted, I could feel how close to unconsciousness I had come and slowly shook my head from side to side in denial.

“No,” I thought to myself,” “this isn’t possible!”

“Here you go, that’s everything, and I must say you have that shyness thing down to a tee. Most boys who come down here won’t leave me alone unless I agree to a date. I rather like your approach. You may have my number.”

She passed me a slip of paper and I folded it up in my hands with the article that was already there. I absently pushed them into my pocket and offered a feeble thank you and walked out. I couldn’t get out of that cave fast enough. I ran up the stairs, I ran away from my fear, I ran out into the sunlight and drove straight back to the Naval yard without so much as a thought of the pool hall, or anything else for that matter. My mind was locked in neutral. I was afraid to think anything, afraid to relive the information that slammed into my mind with the force of a fleet invasion. I was afraid of the truth, afraid of the past, afraid to go home.

I sat in my shipboard office compartment and stared at nothing, I sat there in silence, I sat in stillness, I sat alone too terrified to assess the information I had obtained. I sat and thought of nothing. I have no idea how much time slipped away, how long I sat there, but at some point my Lt turned up and said, “There you are! Did you get what I asked for?” I faced him and placed the papers in his hands. “Is this everything? Did she find all I requested?”

“Yes sir,” I responded finally. “There was also an article.” I hesitated. “An article about a picnic…” I searched my pockets and pulled out the half folded half crumpled paper and held it out to the Lt. “ It says there was a family picnic for the ship sir.” I offered.

He took the paper giving me a suspicious look and I told him “There was another article about the apartment I live in written by Steve Carroll I believe his name is and it had some pretty gruesome things to say about that house.”

“I know that name,” Responded my Lt “He’s a ghost chaser, thinks of himself as some kind of Kolchak or something, I wouldn’t listen to anything he has to say.”

I thought about what Lt said and realized I was just being irrational. It is funny really, when you think about all the coincidences that led up to my hysteria, but in the sensible light of day it all really did seem like a fools dream. Come on dead people reliving their worse nightmare at my expense? It is laughable now that I look back on it, all right? I’m just glad no one was around to catch me playing the neurotic simpleton. I figured this was a story I would keep to myself for many years. After all the family already had too much ammunition for holiday get-togethers as it was.

By the end of the day I was back to my old self and was seriously considering using a phone and calling Sam. Tonight Jazelle and I needed to have a very long serious talk. It was her freaky superstitions that got me all worked up in the first place. I kick started my new bike and hugged the wind as I road home, and then bracing myself for an emotionally draining evening I walked through the front door.
I was received by the blur of a vision charging straight towards me, I flinched and pulled back expecting a blow, but it was the old hyper Jazelle leaping into my arms and smothering me with kisses.

“I am so sorry about last night, lover. I don’t know why I got so worked up. We have a lovely home and I want to spend the rest of my life with you!” she assaulted me with another barrage of kisses and hugged the very breath from my lungs.

“I’m glad you are feeling better…” I started to say.

“You are the most wonderful man in the world you sexy thing and I am going to show you how much I approve of you tonight!” she wiggled and giggled in her flirtatious way and said “The flowers and chocolates are the sweetest thing anyone has ever given me. How did you know that roses are my favorites?”

She held me close and I couldn’t breath. She planted kisses on me and I couldn’t feel them. She leaned into my ear and whispered “Honey, there’s a car coming up the drive, are you expecting anyone?”