We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next door neighbor.

Why do people spend scads of money to move to a place they consider a unique, idyllic garden spot, then work with all their might to change it? Why do you think some sort of minor celebrity entitles you to demand that everyone change for your benefit?
Pete Ambrose is an anachronism. In a country that demands designer lettuce, the truck farmer has plied the same earth for 35 years. He is one of only roughly five fruit and vegetable farmers left in the area.
He owns and operates what is known as a community supported agriculture” farm or CSA. Rockland Avenue LLC is a 130-acre farm where people purchase a “share” at the start of a growing season and then pick up their supply of fruits and vegetables each week.
In economic hard times, Ambrose truly lives the life of a farmer. He makes a living from the soil. His U-Pick business thrives for only two months a year.
If former NASCAR driver, Ernie Irvan and his wife, Kim, have their way, Ambrose will have to close up shop because the couple who bought the 49-acre lot next door three years ago feel inconvenienced — they’ve had enough.
Kim Irvan told the Post and Courier, that “she and her husband didn’t know about the U-pick operation when they moved in three years ago.”
Apparently, Petey Ambrose’s business is causing the Irvans pain and suffering and they want it to stop forthwith. In a grotesque scene straight out of “The Amityville Horror” as many as 60 cars an hour roll down the dirt road in April and May to pick berries.
As traumatic as that scenario may seem to the average American, imagine Ernie and Kim’s astonishment and dismay when they found that “The cars are noisy and stir up dust,” Ambrose’s customers even had the temerity to “wander onto her land to pet her horses.”
For God’s sake, when will the madness end?
The farmer whose family spans generations in the area points out the remarkable observation, “farms tend to stir up dust.” He also allows that the Irvans might have had a clue that their part of the shared road might be a tad dusty what with their building their barn and other buildings along the dirt road instead of another, less dusty part of their property and all.
Perhaps not.
Kim Irvan bemoaned their dire straits with the comment, “I don’t want the fighting. It’s tearing us up,”
She and her husband, a former NASCAR driver whose career included 15 career Winston Cup victories and a terrible crash at Michigan Speedway in 1994, have decided to take control of the situation the old fashioned American way.
They are going to sue.
The civil suit seeks attorneys’ fees as well as a declaration that the covenants of the Selkirk Property Owners Association to which both parties belong are being violated. They prohibit retail and commercial activities but allow “generally accepted” farming practices. Ambrose says selling shares and running a U-pick berry business are basic farm practices. The Irvans maintain that the practices are commercial activities; an injunction has been filed to stop the on-site commercial activity.
One might honestly inquire whether Irvan’s Horse Farm is a non-profit organization.
Petey Ambrose believes he is facing ruin if the Irvans win.
“We’d just have to give up,” he said. “I can’t see how we would make it.”
The issue is of course the interpretation of the covenant. Be that as it may, no matter how it shakes out legally, the farm was there long before the NASCAR couple were.
It just goes to prove the old Charleston axiom, “You can’t buy graciousness. It has to be beaten into you at a very young age. “

Nuff said

This is a 1948 Cartoon

My comments:

Cracks in the Facade

What a week – best of times, worst of times and all that.
Tuesday, a referendum was held on Barry’s agenda, and he came out wanting. The White House claimed that the president didn’t watch the election returns, that when Virginia and New Jersey dropped like ripe fruit, he was watching a basketball game after watching an HBO special about himself. That’s encouraging.

He should have watched “V.” A 21st Century version of the 80’s mini-series, it is a cautionary tale which warns that if you are promised everything, you should expect nothing. There are some references to some hopey/changy happy crap. My roommate and I enjoyed it. It was slicker than the original, but the premise was basically the same: don’t trust lizard aliens who promise free health care.

Was it a poke at the Messiah? Well, maybe. There’s a rumor afloat that Axelrod and Emmanuel didn’t like it. The truth is there has been a shake-up within the power structure.

Here’s the explanation (read the comments):

Click Here

Later in the week, on Thursday, the largest terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11 occurred at Fort Hood. It was a tragedy as well, but the guy was a Moslem, wielded two revolvers and shouted, “Allah Akkbar,” as he killed 13 people. Me? If it walks like a duck…

What bothered me was the total insensitivity the Commander-in-chief had for his charges. I saw it. Read the comments in the article below. I, like so many others, thought the producer had made a mistake, but no, it’s all about Barry.

NBC Chicago

I have said that BHO was cold, callous and calculating since the gitgo. Watch it, and tell me otherwise. What’s interesting is that it was the Chicago NBC affiliate that took him to task.

There are cracks in the façade and the mainstream media can no longer ignore them.

This was even more accentuated the next day when the unemployment figures turned out to be 10.2%.
This was in the midst of every major media outlet questioning the veracity of the numbers reflecting jobs saved or gained. The figures are turning out to be bogus.

From AP

There’s blood in the water. The mask is starting to melt.

The Independents are balking. The media is awakening. Whether conservatives have the time, resources and will to win remains to be seen. I’m not so sure that a seminal event (Say with Israel and Iran) won’t change things irreparably.

Be that as it may, people are waking up to the fraud that is the Obama presidency. The question is whether enough so do in time.

Duck With Rasberry Sauce

I had occasion to go out to dinner the other night. For the past few years, my idea of going out to dinner has been stopping at Ryan’s and tearing through some fried chicken and mashed potatoes, slapping some soft ice cream on some cold cherry cobbler then getting home in time for The Simpsons.
This night, however, was special; not because I was celebrating anything in particular save being in the company of a long cool woman in a black dress, but because I haven’t been out to eat in Charleston for about five or six years.
To be honest, being a writer, my idea of eating out is half-price burger night at Moe’s Crosstown Tavern, but this night I dressed up and took an out-of-town guest to one of our finer downtown establishments.
Dinners like this generally cost almost half my rent (I’m not kidding), but I had let someone use something I wrote a few years back and was paid with a gift certificate. Since it would be bad form to cash it in, and it would be tacky to try to sell it on the street (I can see it now – me dressed up in a suit coming up to some idiot from Wichita in shorts that long since quit fitting and black socks, “Hey, how ya doin? How ya doin? I got a chit for food, man. I give um to you fo…”), I decided to go to dinner.
Before I launch on that, let me launch on this. I dress for dinner — coat and tie at the least. Downtown Charleston is not the beach. I know that we are the playground for the Atlanta nouveau riche, but I feel that a certain sense of decorum befits an occasion that would equal a Ladson family’s food budget for the next six weeks. I wasn’t going out to eat; I was going to enjoy some fine dining.
It was a warm night (Halloween), but I kept my jacket on. I understand that fine dining establishments have become thicker than flies on a flounder (a pistachio-crusted, plum sauce drizzled flounder at that) on the peninsula. Having a big toe in the industry, I understand that it is tourists that fuel the business, that the dress code is a bit relaxed, a pink blazer, blue starched Brooks Brothers shirt and khaki pants with cute little anchors are acceptable evening attire.
When I grew up, the only fine dining was Perdita’s on Exchange Street. I got to go there on very rare occasions. My father and mother would treat me and any girl I’d been talking to for more than three months to dinner and a psychic examination that would make a proctologist uncomfortable. I dressed well out of self-preservation and it seemed to impress the girl, often it was a screen pass at first and goal.
So I admit, I might be a little neurotic about dressing for dinner, but I just don’t think middle aged over-weight couples should confuse it with a softball game. At the risk of being labeled a misogynist, I firmly believe that once you’re over 55, short gym shorts are not a good look. Certainly not in that setting.
Yet I saw a woman wear such a thing to dinner that night. I don’t know. I guess if I were selling a five dollar piece of meat for $30, and you were willing to buy it, I’d seat you if you were dressed like an hermaphrodite, but still…
Charleston has become somewhat of a magnet for gourmands. Indeed, if you had a week, you could easily eat some of the finest meals in the country in a three-block radius. You could probably pay off the debt of two or three African countries with the money as well, but by the time you got done, you could eat shrimp and grits in so many different ways.
Which brings me to my point: Before we rated whole blocks of time on the Food Channel, on tours, I would point out that I like duck with raspberry sauce as much as the next guy, but Charlestonians never ate it.
Shrimp and grits were for breakfast. It comes from the fact that the shrimp man would go door to door throughout the peninsula and sell shrimp (a full plate for a dime). The plate would be dumped in a skillet of scalding bacon grease, then eaten with grits (ground corn – hominy grist).
It cost about 20 cents a serving.
That night, I had a couple of Diet Cokes; my friend had a couple of cosmopolitans. We had a couple of appetizers as well as two entrees. It cost about $175.
Two nights later, we grilled some steaks and watched the World Series. The meal was about $10. The company was excellent. Watching the Yankees lose: Priceless.

Happy Halloween: Domingo Redux (part2)

Marian Glessing was having a terrible evening. Walking out into a crowded North Market Street, the waitress avoided a gaggle of drunks and cursed as she thought about the lack of revenue she had garnered. That’s what happened when your customers were pond scum from Europe. Suddenly, the sound of high pitched laughter pierced the night and turned her bowels to jelly.

A block away she saw her pal, Megan, and something was terribly wrong.

Behind her she heard a commotion and saw two homeless men – one white, one black – running through the second market building. Hot on their trails were various men and women led by a middle-aged mother of three from Akron, Ohio, screaming, “Stop! My purse!”

She turned to see Megan enter the first building towards the two thieves, although Megan didn’t seem to be Megan. Her friend’s long flaxen hair seemed to be receding in front of her and her lush figure was distorted. The tour guide’s shoulders began to spread and her wasp-waist began to contort in unnatural ways. Her once-perfectly proportioned face began to elongate. Marian was not the only person to find this disconcerting. Video cameras whirred and cell phones flipped.

A fetid aura rose from the market, and as the amalgamation of what-was-Megan shifted, so did its surroundings. What was eleven at night was suddenly dawn. Another, somehow older, market building sat next to the US Customs House. Feral cats and mangy dogs began to follow market vendors that emerged from the shadows, laden with chickens and sides of beef.

The homeless thieves, previously preoccupied with the howling crowds gaining ground behind them, suddenly turned their attention to the chimera that lay before them. Time, space, and the thieves stopped dead in their tracks.

The crowd following them froze as well, halted at the border of chaos demarcated by State Street.

In that stationary space of time, Pedi-cabs morphed into horses that began bucking at the low-rumbling laughter, the atmosphere fecund with horse effluvium. Pigeons began to grow like balloons being filled, changing into grotesque turkey buzzards that lined the tiled roofs, their beaks dripping with rotten flesh.

Those logging onto the various sites streaming from the crowd’s iphones and cameras thought they were watching a produced program. The laughter, the sense of sebaceous despair, all came barreling across the electronic spectrum, disrupting the wave/particle duality. The consciousness of a schoolgirl from Leningrad, a professor from Wichita, a steel worker in Beijing and scores of others suddenly found themselves amid the crowd bustling through the 1902 tableaux.

The homeless men dressed in period rags watched in horror as the-thing-that-was Megan grew into a hulking black man, his muscles ripping though the fabric of his host’s clothing. His reptilian eyes alive with malevolence as he headed for the two theives.

It had all happened in less than a second, and the two men were still barreling along their escape route when they ran straight into the arms of the dark giant who grabbed them by the scruffs of the necks and raised them above his head. His voice rattled through the market, tinged with the tripping cadence of East Africa. “I am John Domingo. Behold, I am the ultimate sovereign of the root. I control all within my purview. I have come back from the dead and I am devouring your soul!”

Holding the thieves still higher, his sonorous reverberations rang ever louder, “I am more powerful than Christ himself! Behold, I hold a thief on either side of me. “

John Domingo’s eyes began to glow. A viscous green light began to fill the market like water in an aquarium, blanketing all in the 1902 scenario.

Then, just as quickly, the radiance disappeared. The stalls laden with meat and produce were bathed in a syphilitic sunlight. With the speed of meted justice, something yanked all three men to a level right below the rafters. Men and women, white and black, past and present watched slack-jawed as the septic face of the ancient root doctor contorted in agony, a white caul shrouding his jet black features. Massive finger marks made deep indentations as the sound of strangled gasps echoed through the City past and present.

Domingo’s massive hands unclenched the thieves, who sprinted off in all directions. Whatever held John Domingo suddenly wrenched him as a dog shakes a rabbit. Monstrous retching punctuated the dense quiet. To the world, something ponderous occurred, although if pressed, no one could explain it.

The massive black man fell to the ground and began to shape shift back into Megan, her body now broken and misshapen. Her head lolled back, distorted features masked by a cascade of flaxen hair. A disembodied voice from the ether croaked, “This place is mine.”

At once, traffic on both sides became as it should. Marian Glessing awoke with the sense that dusk was drawing nigh, even though it had only been an hour since Megan first encountered the ruffled man. Marian ran over to her friend. What she saw would scar her for the rest of her short life.

The videos of the curious case of John Domingo first appeared on October 31, at 10:57pm. By midnight it was breaking news. Millions all over the world stared into the eyes of unadulterated wickedness. By 2 am EST on All Saints Day, the evil stared back.

Mila Binhamton, a 16-year old cheerleader from Roslyn, Virginia, was transfixed by those orbs of iniquity. She felt a sensual tingling as her body began to contort in her bedroom. She walked down the hall to the kitchen. Her parents heard a sebaceous low laughter before being ripped to shreds with a meat cleaver.

All over America, this familial scene of bliss was repeated. As the sun rose on Washington, a homeless man sitting on the Ellipse stared at the White House and mumbled.

Inside the Oval Office, the order was given to launch every nuclear weapon in the arsenal.

Amid the rockets’ red glare, John Domingo just laughed and laughed.

Fear and Loathing in 1969 Arden (Part 2)

Many couldn’t hack Christ School. If parents knew what was happening, they would have yanked us. One of my favorite people, one of the smartest, funniest humans on the planet drank cough syrup with codeine every day. He didn’t last beyond 4th Form. It is interesting to note that he has a doctorate in theology and is now an evangelical minister living in Maryland. Surprisingly, we don’t stay in touch.
Pot had yet to surface. That would change things dramatically the next year, but the punishment for tobacco in 1969 was called the Cs –six weeks on campus (we rarely got to leave, anyway), waiting tables every meal and every afternoon with Mr. Dave.
My second form year in 1966-67, seniors flooded Lower 38 through the doors and windows about midnight — long after lights out. They took us in the hall, individually, one by one, and hit each of us repeatedly with brooms to make us confess to smoking cigarettes. Most of the teachers lived away from the dorms, all on campus.
A few lived next to the dorms, but the screams were ignored for the most part. One of the seniors started whacking me on the ribs and arms with a broomstick. I confessed.
We took this until 1969 when we were in 4th form (sophomores).
Our class was so bad that by Christmas of 1968, many had the Cs and others had left for one reason or another. Our dorm prefect, proctor if you will, was a senior from Kentucky. One room was deserted, so he turned it into a library which consisted of books that the school library wouldn’t think of carrying.
Titles ranged from Atlas Shrugged to Soul on Ice. Ralph Ellison and George Wallace shared the same bookshelf. It was eclectic, exciting and educational. Mao and Jefferson cohabitated. Howl , Rolling Stone and Foreign Affairs were in the magazine rack.
One long cold winter night in January, seniors decided to make sweep through the second floor of our dorms about an hour and a half after lights out. They didn’t come for me, they came for my roommate. I could hear the thwack of the belt being swung full steam into his legs and ass. The whole dorm could hear him scream.
I was sure that I was next. My heart jumped through my chest. I couldn’t swallow.
My name was mentioned, but the angels of death moved on down the hall claiming two or three others. The fear was palpable.
The next morning, my class was seething.
You might ask why we put up with it.
Here’s the rub, the crux. It was an unwritten rule tacitly approved by Mr. Dave that if you hit one senior, you hit them all. In other words, if some worm with a power complex started hitting you, you could not hit back. If you did, two or three chaps from the football or wrestling team would come by and have a chat.
Mr. Dave wasn’t headmaster, anymore.
About a month later, two seniors came into our dorm, ascended the steps and went into a room whereupon they began to whale on the two kids in there. It got to the point where the intruders emptied the boys’ drawers out the window in a pouring rain onto a clay tennis court.
They were in the middle of trying to force the mattresses out the window while battering two guys smaller than they. The seniors were out of control.
There are few moments in life when a instant occurs where you can say, “That’s it. This changes everything. “
That’s when the paradigm shifted.
Protocol dictated that seniors from another dorm stop by the prefect’s room as a courtesy before going on to smack a boy around. These fine young chaps (one is chairman of the board of a company in Spartanburg) failed to observe protocol.
In my mind, I always cast the prefect as Horatio at the bridge. Upon reflection, I’m not so sure that he didn’t find himself in an untenable situation in the form of two guys bigger and crazier than he and needed a lot of back up.
What he did was to call every boy in the dorm out of our rooms — ordered us out. We weren’t sure what was up. We’d heard the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth down the hall. We were very insecure about what lay on the other side of dorm room door.
As roughly 30 boys gathered around the prefect, he began to shout, “Are we going to put up this, anymore?” The crowd roared as one, “No, hell no.”
Again, I don’t think this boy understood what he was unleashing, but he was on the edge of inciting a riot, more to get rid of the interlopers rather than unleash a movement, but that’s what he did.
Ours was not a particularly close class, the usual assortment of jocks and intellectuals. An 18-year old, 6’3” tight end from Atlanta that one might be surprised could stand erect much less complete sentences did not mix well with a 15-year old wrestler who longed to be a ballerina.
Still, we spoke with one voice –insistent in its ferocity. We were the villagers with torches. We were manning the ramparts. Call out the instigators, cause there’s somethin’ in the air.
For the first time, we saw fear in the intruder’s eyes. For the first time, we struck back.

To Be Continued…

Fear and Loathing in 1969 Arden (Part One)

I read Mein Kamf when I was twelve. The Communist Manifesto, with its Utopianism was absorbed when I was 15; Soul on Ice when I was 16. This led to Edward Bellamy and Looking Backward fascinating me in fifth form .
I was lucky to be at Christ School my junior year (I would leave abruptly in November of 1970). Although I was guilty as sin of the charge and was offered a plea deal (if I told them who I had been drinking with, which was kinda whole power structure of the school, I could stay), I held a long stare into Mr. Hutson’s eyes and told him no.
He had me cold. (Let’s see, eight years of boarding school… no drinking smoking or women. I was 18 at the High school of Charleston with everyone from the home team. Oh Lord, please don’t throw me in the briar patch).
If I had sneezed wrong in Fourth Form, Heneo (sic), who was assistant headmaster at the time would have seen to it that anyone one of three us would be sitting on trunks on a gelid February evening at the end of Christ School Road waiting at the Blue Bonnet Café at an intersection 12 miles from nowhere in the North Carolina mountains for a Greyhound in the snow.
There was a genuine special animus between Henry Hutson and me. We were both from Charleston a half a generation apart. My ideas didn’t sit well. I wasn’t the only one, but I was the home boy who went off track.
For him, I was breaking some sort of Old Charleston code by thinking for myself. I suppose, to be fair, to him, I was.
Viet Nam was raging in 1969. The radical left was stirring the kids. Our parents sent us to boarding school as much to shield us as to expose us to new ideas.
Just remember that we were at a school with roughly 150 or thereabouts give or take white teenage boys deep in woods. I always thought of it as a quaint Devil’s Island nestled in the hills.
Christ School in 1969 was not exactly a hot bed of enlightened thinking. I don’t think there was a black person within 25 square miles of the place. The values of perceived cosmopolitan Charleston and rural rednecks mean as a snake didn’t always mesh. I swear, any boy who went to Christ School back then could watch Deliverance and think of Souther’s.
The student body had few if no Yankees. This was the unreconstructed South, one of the most misunderstood places and eras of American history.
We were incredibly educated. The basic premise was you studied your ass off or it would get beaten. The Latin teacher had a black paddle with holes in it with which he would render three or four whacks as hard as he could.
I know at my age, I’m supposed to look back and laugh. What a zany time.
I don’t know. It was the relish that he and others took at inflicting the pain and misfortune on the lower classes that could border on insanity, an almost sociopathic disregard.
In 1969, the former headmaster, Mr. Dave abdicated his throne to his son, young David Harris who would lose his vaunted position in a power play by Henry Hutson three years hence. It was then I learned that the politics of academia were so vicious because the stakes were so low.
Mr. Dave was old, tough as a barnyard rooster and irascible. He was an educated man who was rough hewn but sharp as a razor. You didn’t love Mr. Dave, but you sure as hell respected him.
Young David Harris was a nice guy. He was a ‘60s kind of Mr. Chips. In his forties, he wore a tweed jacket and smoked a pipe. His father was football without pads, he was soccer.
Under Mr. Dave, seniors had all bit unlimited power.
The basic premise of the school was work. Mr. Dave presided under a system that idle hands were those who would do what they shouldn’t. Hands at rest were evil, not in a church way, but a bunch of budding testosterone contained in such a small area had to be rigidly controlled.
I tell people I went to boarding school ,and they think some sort of posh elite idyllic location where our every whim was catered to. I would argue that the unspoken motto was “Arbeit macht frei”
We had two work periods each day after breakfast and before early chapel. Every student must have thoroughly cleaned their room, bed made taut, floor swept, stereo equipment dusted.
After that we had job period. Jobs consisted over everything from feeding cows, stoking large coal furnaces, sweeping and dusting classrooms, raking leaves , doing errands for teacher’s wives (which would lead to a disaster in 1970) or scrubbing bathrooms amid myriad other tasks.
(As a an aside, when I was 16, I had to deliver a basket of food to the Sewell’s house which was on the far side of the football and baseball fields. Looking back, I can’t imagine why these families would eat that crap, but there you are.
It had been very windy after a pretty fair snow storm. There were huge drifts at the end of the fields. As the twilight’s last gleaming faded behind the mountains, I walked into a drift roughly 10 feet deep at the end of the field. I was stuck up to my waist. Only after assembly did anyone think to look for me there.
During that 45 minutes, as the wind howled in the frozen darkness, the family went without creamed chipped beef. It never occurred to me to touch what was in the basket – not because it was the right thing to do, but I would have gotten the living crap beat out of me.)
One rotated from job to job with neither rhyme nor reason every two weeks. This included the seniors or 6th formers.
However, their job was to inspect yours. It was pretty subjective. Some guy might find your work sloppy, tell you to do it again. Another might punish you and another might knock the living crap out of you even if it was neat as a pin.
It all depended on the luck of the draw.
The punishment was a work list, which meant an afternoon of working with Mr. Dave. For three hours you dug ditches in the sun, rain and snow, dug rocks out of the dirt, cut down trees with few breaks. If you slacked you earned another afternoon being derided and pushed far beyond anything on the football field.
It really was much like working on a chain gang for we broke rocks.
Before you go thinking that I disapprove of this — far from it. It was good honest work, and we weren’t whipped.
What I objected to was the capriciousness of the meting of the work list, the whimsy of the punch in the stomach.
It turned out I wasn’t the only one.

Continued

Domingo Redux: A Very Short Story

Megan Trumpy smiled as the people gathered around her. A Charleston city guide since July, the 23-year old NYU graduate with a degree in drama had found her niche.
Embellishing stories that were already utter balderdash, Megan cared nothing for the veracity of the tales, only their effect watching the children clutch a little closer to their parent’s hemlines, the young girls grasping the biceps of their boyfriends.
She embraced the angst as a personal gift. It was not about the story – it was about her — her long silky blonde hair, her perfect body perfectly sculptured by her T-shirt and jeans, her perfect faux London accent.
She reveled in the looks of horror on the faces young and old as she described the mass grave the group was standing over. A harvest moon cast a cold shadow down on and caused a cold shiver through the hearts of children and grandparents in the velvet evening as she described the mass murderer who abducted scores of hapless sailors from ships and ladies of ill repute from 6 Mile, tortured and buried them right on this spot.
, “You might want to tell them that you are standing on what was once a creek bed — Kinda hard to form a mass grave out of a creek, dear.”
The pronouncement came from a man older than her father who had that superior attitude with that funny accent to top things off. He was scruffy and disheveled, but elegant at the same time. He was dressed in what she could only describe as an un-pressed version of “the uniform” – wrinkled khakis and a broadcloth shirt with button down collars.
He had slightly longer gray hair and a beard. What impressed her, though, were his eyes, eyes that burned through her like a laser.
They didn’t just undress her, but somehow for an instant, stripped her down to her soul. This man took her psyche to a place hitherto yet fathomed – a place that echoed with the demented laughter of a soul devoid of hope.
The name John Domingo reverberated through her head. It was a name fraught with evil, although she’d be hard pressed to explain why.
Just as quickly she was standing by the graveyard, her tourists laughing because they thought it part of the show. She recovered with aplomb, giving the rest of the tour with her usual wit and charm.
Walking back to her car parked on Concord Street, she walked by the north side of the Customs House.
There was the man, again.
He seemed a bit more disheveled when in the light; somewhat… decayed. Megan quickened her step, the slap of her sneakers against the sidewalk growing louder in her ear.
Seconds before, there were dozens of people in the area. It was as though an assembly bell rang – class started, the streets were empty.
All around her, another market building began to take shape. It was no longer 10 at night but late dawn. Slow to fade; all around her were sights, sounds and smells foreign to her senses. For Miss Trumpey, the supermarket was sushi and arugula, shrink-wrapped boneless chicken breasts and broccoli from California.
For all intents, this was 100 years before; chickens ran through the market as though their lives depended on it.
She noticed the man closer now, his face a leer.
Just as the market was transformed, the man’s face began to shape-shift into an ageless black man. John Domingo! She knew that as well as she knew her own name.
His head turned grotesquely towards her, and she screamed silently as she felt the ancient root doctor’s essence take over her body.
For all intents and purposes, Megan Trumpey no longer existed, her thespian aspirations otherwise. John Domingo, the most powerful root doctor ever in Charleston admired the fine body and flaxen hair. The average person would see no difference save for the eyes. Her eyes were dead.
As the beautiful girl walked back towards the market, a high pitched laughter began to reverberate through the bars and restaurants, on Anson Street dogs howled, and cats hissed.
Evil was now in session. Order in the court.
To be continued…

Dark Side of the Moon

The morning of Friday, October 09, 2009, was one to remember. We bombed the moon this morning. My understanding is that we whacked it like a mole.
I shared the life experience with a friend, and we agreed we’d cherish that special moment forever. I’m sure we were not alone.
We agreed that it was a watershed human event. Years from now, people will remember it well, “Where were you when we attacked the moon?”
“I know! What the hell did the moon do to us?”
Also on that fateful morning, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. I walked to the corner store to get the paper and informed the clerk that Obama had won and a black guy in line said, “For what? What the hell’s he ever done?”
According to Reuters, “The first African-American to hold his country’s highest office, Obama, 48, has called for disarmament and worked to restart the stalled Middle East peace process since taking office in January.
“’Very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,’ the committee said in a citation.”
Not to be churlish… No, really, but what on earth has Barry actually accomplished in his entire career? He has been elected by reciting vapid platitudes. How that is hope and change going for you?
It is what it is.
Personally, I think this was just one more opportunity to bitch-slap George W. Mind you, I’m not a W fan, but the Nobel committee has tweaked Bush a couple of times before by awarding prizes to Jimmy Carter and Al Gore.
It can be argued that Carter might have gotten it for his work with Habitat For Humanity, and I would have given it to him. He didn’t though. He got it for criticizing Bush; Al Gore for the polar bears.
Obama is the third sitting president to receive the award. The other two were Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
mmmm… mmm.. mm!
One more thing: Barry won a peace prize. The United States of America unilaterally attacked the moon, it was punched with the ferociousness of justice.
Here’s what the moon might do in retaliation;

Kate Waring: Day of Reckoning Anon?

Ethan Carolos Mack and Heather Angelica Kamp appear to be “low people.” The term is one used by Stephan King. Low people are those who skulk on the fringes of society. They are the human equivalent of hyenas.
According to the Post and Courier, “Charleston police arrested a James Island couple Wednesday on charges of forgery and obstruction of justice in the case of a woman missing for nearly four months.
“Ethan Mack, 29, and Heather Kamp, 30, of Riley Road, are being held in the Charleston County jail. Bond hearings were scheduled for today, Charleston police spokesman Charles Francis said.
“The missing woman, 28-year-old Katherine Waring, is a part-time student who lives with her parents on Murray Boulevard in Charleston.
“She vanished the night of June 12, after she went to a West Ashley gym, a downtown drug store and then to Wasabi Japanese Steakhouse with Mack. Her cell phone and credit cards haven’t been used since. “
Kate Waring is an old Charleston girl. Her vanishing has struck people to the core. How could this happen?

I don’t know, look into the eyes of Mack and Kamp. Does there seem to be an intelligent glint in either face? What in the hell was Kate Waring, a beautiful, talented and loved woman doing in the company of such low people?
They are accused of forging a Bank of America check on June 15 in the amount of $4,500 on a joint checking account of Waring and one of her relatives three days after Kate disappeared. The check was deposited in an account at a Folly Road bank.
The handwriting on the check a forensic investigator with the State Law Enforcement Division compared with samples of her handwriting determined they were not written by the same person,
On top of that according to the arrest warrants, on Sept. 28, Kamp contacted police and told them her earlier statement to police was false. She gave police new information about the events of June 12 that contradict earlier statements by her and Mack.
Here’s a website that covers it all.
There is one glaring question. The police have known about this bogus check for months. Why was nothing done? Why was there no sense of urgency?
Kemp changed her story five days after the candlelight vigil. Look at her face. She has been in custody for a couple of days She looks like a crack addict. If that’s the case, she should be getting cranky.
I suspect the whole thing will fall apart by the end of the weekend. I’m pretty sure this will not end well.
I pray I’m wrong. I hope Kate pops up, and we all sit down and have a good laugh. Sadly, I don’t think so.
I am truly, truly sorry.