The Stupidity of the Carolina Squat

 For me anything that falls under the umbrella of “popular culture” is something I usually try and ignore. Whatever popular culture once was it is now overwhelmingly a banal wasteland paradoxically overflowing with lackluster personalities and social influencers who while not quite parasites on the butt of society certainly offer nothing of value to it.

Case in point has to be the Kardashians and anyone else associated with their popularity. There was a time when I thought they would fade into the static of American life like numerous others who found fame but couldn't justify it. Now, I have this strange idea that they will be remembered for hundreds of years in the future as a new type of demigods. I've got to admit, not bad for a family whose first dose of fame came from a “leaked” sex tape.

Despite my best efforts to ignore popular culture, aspects of it do penetrate my defenses making me take notice. That happened a few weeks back while I was stopped at a red light.

One of those massive monster trucks pulled up beside me. The funny thing though was that it was obvious that the front end was pointed up at a near forty-five degree angle. Like the back end of the truck was carrying a massive load weighing down the suspension. No, that wasn't the case. When the light turned green the driver of the truck hauled ass leaving me behind in all his truck exhaust glory.

Given the angle of the truck I could easily see the bed was empty of cargo. I didn't think much more of the truck until I saw another configured the same way a day or two later, then again not a couple of days later. By that point it was obvious these truck were not suffering from some sort of mechanical failure but were being alter to that configuration on purpose.

Eventually, I learned that these trucks with the front end pointed up, or the rear end modified to be lower was called the “Carolina Squat.”

Curiosity got the better of me and I did a little internet sleuthing. This trend originated in California and was used on the Baja desert racing circuit where it was called the “California Lean” or “Cali Lean.” Lowering the back end had a practical purpose in the sandy terrain and hilly landscape. When contestants hit a jump at high speed, the rear end would hit the ground first helping to avoid a crash. However this modification has no practical purpose when the vehicle stay strictly on highways and streets.

Leave it to the unrepentant ignorant rednecks of the American South to grab onto this trend in an attempt to impress someone. It was bad enough when years ago they started raising the wheel-bases of their trucks to the point small step ladders were needed to climb up into the cab. Throw in chrome rims that can run into the thousands of dollars alone and the American South once again can be thought of as a backwards bunch of idiots desperately attempting to overcome some perceived shortfall in manhood.

The shortfalls of the Carolina Squat include a total loss in towing capability, a dangerous reduction in proper handling along with simply being unable to see the road. Mainly because the truck's headlights will be pointed up and not down at the road ahead.

Leave it to Southerners to lead the charge into another level of stupidity.

You Know This is Coming

 For reasons that usually escape me I'm a fan of most of H.P. Lovecraft's stories. Cosmic horror filled with powerful entities totally ambivalent to humanity's existence is a level of science fiction that may have a closer approximation to reality than I'm comfortable with. 

 All that is beside the point with the key idea here being horror, painful intense dread of something perceived as bad or evil. Humans excel at horror, we are adept at torturing and killing each other on industrial-sized scales. As recent science podcast I listened to said ants are another type of animal that will wipe out an entire competitor population. Then again ants aren't sentient while we have plenty of religions and beliefs that say killing each other is bad. So on a certain level between ants and humans I'm not sure who has the moral high ground.

It appears humans have begun to reach for a new level of horror with the possibility of an "Ethnic Bioweapon" that could be designed to eliminate inconvenient populations of fellow humans. As the picture says, it might be possible to design a virus that targets specific genotypes. A terrifying prospect to say the least, but honestly you know Old Adolph Hitler would have jumped for joy to have such a weapon in his inventory.

And as you can already guess, human wisdom and morals has not advanced at all sense the end of the Second World War. I'd even go as far as to write that here in the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave" our moral high ground has greatly eroded in recent years. And well, you know there were those little oopsies with how we treated the Native Americans and the African slaves. Given the fear and anger oozing like a newly reopened sore from the crowd wanting to Make America Great Again I'm sure a few of the more rabid members would love to have an ethnic bioweapon. 

The following source is unknown:

 U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen considered such a "genetic weapon" plausible, and believed the former Soviet Union had undertaken some research on the influence of various substances on human genes. In its 2000 policy paper Rebuilding America's Defenses, think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC) described ethnic bioweapons as a "politically useful tool" that US adversaries could have incentive to develop and utilize. This weapon could be used to kill people with a specific code in their DNA essentially and effectively whipping them from the face of the earth.

 

Rainy Day Revelations

 

 

Saturday morning began like all the others since the divorce. Still half-asleep, I rolled over towards what had been her side of the bed not truly conscious of the fact that she was gone. At least the drowsy sense of panic only lasted a second or two before my brain fully rebooted for the day. The worst aspect of the situation was now just the unending silence making the house seem like a tomb.

Kathy let me keep the house in the divorce settlement, quite the consolation prize for a failed marriage. As a kid, I would stay with my grandparents for a week or two during summer vacation. In the afternoons my grandmother would makes us lunch and we would both sit in front of the television and watch game shows.

I enjoyed this time with her and we would talk about the various constants and how some succeeded where others failed. We would also laugh at their reactions to the contests the host put them through. Of course, the big winners at the end of an episode jumped around frantically as the off-screen announcer listed off the various prizes, cash, and trips they were taking home. As the closing music played the host and the big winner would then cross the stage to the glamorous models standing next to the various prizes or posing in front of the elaborate displays showing the exotic tropical destination the lucky guy or girl would enjoy.

For a brief second or two, the camera would flashback over to that day's runner-up contestant. He or she would still be standing behind their assigned podium with a stunned and dismayed look. The announcer would then quickly say that the runner-up, meaning the loser, would receive a year supply of Rice-A-Roni for their troubles. That's how I still felt, I got the house while the woman I loved had moved out and taken up residence in one of her parents' fancy downtown condos.

I laid there in bed for a minute feeling the loneliness closing in and again started thinking about getting a dog. Kathy was severely allergic to dogs, something that I had accepted when we married. Kathy also hated the sight of dog shit when we went walking in the park. The offending dog and its lazy, irresponsible owner could be long gone but she acted like we had stumbled across some disgusting alien monster struggling to free itself from its slimy birth pod.

Getting a dog was a definite possibility. My parents and former in-laws still chatted and even had the occasional Sunday brunches even though blood loyalty to their children had strained their sickly sweet friendships. As the eggs benedict and mimosas are served I can see my ex-mother-in-law asking the perfunctory question about how was I doing. I can then see my mom answering in an equally offhand manner that Steven had adopted some mutt from the shelter. The two couples would then smile and maybe even laugh a little then go about their usual, more important discussions.

Just for shits and giggles, I then imagined my former mother-in-law telling Kathy sometime later that I was destroying the house she had so perfectly decorated by bringing in some furry mongrel to chew up the furniture and shit all over the carpets. Kathy's hatred for dogs went beyond simple allergies, it was more based on her belief that any animal would destroy or spoil her masterwork of style and balance.

After talking with her mother, Kathy would then fret for days before finally calling me at work to ask about some item of hers she couldn't find and that was probably still stored up in the attic. During our stilted conversation, she would mention that she heard I had adopted a dog. And I would casually mention that yes, I had a dog and that it had unfortunately laid some turds in the living room and foyer but that you couldn't really see the stains. The tone in her voice would then drop giving away the fact that she was upset.

Yeah, whenever I decided to get my ass out of bed I would look online for the biggest dogs up for adoption.

It took several more minutes but eventually, I did get out of bed and went through the motions of taking a shit, showering, and shaving. Yes, I also brush my teeth, no need for tooth decay to interrupt my post-divorce malaise.

Coffee was the next goal and with a cup of steaming hot good stuff in my hand, I opened the kitchen window shades and looked outside. It was pouring rain, the skies were a dark gray pretty much guaranteeing it would stay that way all day. The lawn desperately needs cutting but the rain was making any yard work impossible. I'm sure the Home Owners Association wouldn't see it that way but since the divorce, I didn't give a fuck what they thought.

Still, I needed something to do for the morning before pet adoption places opened. Then it occurred to me that Kathy did have a huge amount of junk stored in the attic. While her condo overflowed in luxury and comfort, storage space was at a minimum. I had agreed to let her keep the crap here, mainly out of some ridiculous idea that she might realize her true feelings and come back to me and her precious house. It might be fun to look through the vast amount of stuff she couldn't part with but yet didn't want in her new home.

That was eighteen months ago and before I learned about Chad. When Chad entered the picture I wondered for a few days if the suddenness of Kathy's decision to end our marriage was because they were having an affair. That they would stay apart for over a year before announcing their relationship. I looked into the matter and learned that Chad had never stepped foot in Atlanta until his company transferred him here. It was Kathy's sister, Jenny, that confirmed to me that they hadn't made the beast with two backs until well after the divorce.

Jenny had always liked me and after we bumped into each other at a coffee shop told me that it was true love at first sight for the two. It was at a work-related party and apparently, Cupid's arrow had a direct hit on the two on the first try. Jenny then laughingly confided that they were soul mates because they were both extreme compulsive-obsessives.

Climbing up into the attic I was sort of stunned at the amount of stuff she left behind. Being the last survivor of our failed endeavor I didn't have any reason to visit the attic. My extraneous crap was all down in the extra, unused bedroom.

Looking things over Kathy's boxes were of course labeled and neatly organized like toy soldiers. Poor Chad, I hope the bastard was truly in her anal-retentive league. I opened the box labeled books and wasn't surprised to find a collection of hardcover and paperback novels arranged in neat order, like puzzle pieces. It wouldn't have surprised me if Kathy had organized them into some sort of secret code like something from a Dan Brown ancient conspiracy novel.

The selection of books did seem unusual for her. They ran the gambit from the typical romance novel, spy thrillers, to science fiction and even horror. It was almost bizarre on a certain level. Other boxes had papers from college, clothes that I never saw her wear, and even pictures from her family that had to date as far back as the 1930s.

Several hours passed with me going through every box. As her now ex-husband it was wrong for me to go through her stuff. One box even had love letters to a high school sweetheart that was now some high-level advisor to a US senator. This guy's existence was old information, Kathy told me about him while we were dating. But as I read the ancient letters that were sent during their junior year of high school I discovered the old boyfriend had admitted to her that he was bi-curious and had a crush on some guy on the football team. I found this revelation hilarious since this old boyfriend worked for the right-wing asshole from Texas.

After going through the last box I was suddenly overwhelmed with the thought that everything here made up the entirety of Kathy's life. There was even a copy of our divorce papers. But the one group of items missing was anything from our almost six years of marriage. No box containing pictures of our wedding, various vacations, or mementos two stupidly in love people give each other. It was a true gut punch to think that down in the spare bedroom I had a box storing all the birthday cards she gave me from the time we meet till that last year of marriage. Other boxes I kept had all the pictures I took of her, including the topless one she posed for on a beach in Puerto Rico.

That's when I noticed one last box in the corner. It wasn't labeled but when I picked it up I heard items sliding around. I lifted the lid off and saw five leather-bound journals inside. I picked up one and flipped through the pages, it was filled with her expertly neat handwriting. The leather cover of each journal had the year embossed in gold so it was easy to see where they began. The last one had the year she asked me for a divorce.

I flipped through the pages of that last journal to find the last entry. Sure enough, it was dated the day Kathy called me at work asking to meet her at the deli I liked for lunch.

Sitting on the floor of the attic I had a sudden flash of the emotions I felt as Kathy calmly told me in that deli she had hired a lawyer to draw up divorce papers. There wasn't any need for marriage counseling nor talking, she wanted a divorce. It would happen one way or the other and it would be best if we parted on friendly terms.

Sitting in that booth waiting for our order I felt the pit of my stomach sink into a churning, sour abyss. I looked at the woman who I loved more than anyone in the world numb from the shock of her words. There was no denying the reality of the situation. It was totally unexpected but I knew it wasn't some nightmare, it was real.

Some would say I was too shocked to agree with anything but I said yes to everything. I agreed to the divorce and didn't make a scene as my world collapsed. Kathy left a few minutes later leaving her lunch order untouched. Like a moron, I stayed behind and ate mine as if nothing weird had happened. I even left a tip on the table for the waitress as well as Kathy's untouched order. I'm sure the waitress asked me whether or not I wanted it packed up to go but I didn't hear her.

I never got any answers from Kathy as to why she ended it. And I'm sure if I had forced the situation and demanded them like some macho guy from the movies she would have refused. Her only response would have been a look of disappointment and heavy sighing like a parent might give to a slow child.

But now with these journals, I know the answers will be in Kathy's exact handwriting. Still sitting in the attic feeling the sweat pouring down my face and body, part of me knew I wouldn't like what I read.

That the answers I deserve would come with pain.

That same part of me said I should quit right there and forgot everything I had already seen. But it was too late for that, I was a true graverobber who had disturbed the ancient tomb and let loose all the cursed spirits.

I took the box down to the living room and began to read.

My Thoughts on the Bizarre UAPs

 

One of my most enduring but ultimately irrational aspirations was to live long enough to see humans make first contact with an alien civilization. This can be traced back to my childhood in the 1970's when I would browse the covers of cheap paperback books about UFOs and ancient astronauts at the local department store.

The subject of UFOs was a hot topic at that moment in popular culture with one of the paperbacks supposedly having a picture of an “energy being” on the cover. To my young and uneducated eyes still dealing with implications of the stories presented in Star Trek and other science fiction stories I was enthralled at the idea.

The fact that this energy being looked like a bunch of sparkles in a rough humanoid shape was something I didn't question at the time. Luckily for me, especially since I received most of my education in South Carolina which has never been a place famous for teaching rational thought, I eventually came to understand the vast, overwhelming majority of UFO encounters could easily be explained away with entirely earthly answers. Of course that meant any reported alien encounters associated with UFOs was the result of an intoxicating substances or an outright hoax. Probably like the dumbass trying to make a buck passing off a fake humanoid energy being.

Becoming a extreme UFO skeptic was a far better outcome for myself than turning into some redneck prole freaking out over a reported strange light in the sky. Real science turned me on to the idea of finding primitive but no less interesting organisms living deep underground on Mars or floating in the liquid oceans of the ice covered moons of Jupiter or Saturn.

Well a funny thing happened recently with UFOs or more accurately, Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP) as the Department of Defense is calling them and I find myself at a complete loss as what to think.

I'll be honest and write that I totally ignored the initial news reports of the United States Navy confirming the authenticity of leaked video showing UAPs being tracked my navy jets doing maneuvers that break the laws of physics. For example we're talking about UAPs making sudden 90 degree turns that produce several hundred gee forces.

Human pilots can take around nine gees before passing out with the structure of our planes able to take a few more before flying apart. These videos also show science fiction-like acceleration with no visible means of propulsion. No super-heated air coming from jets or even wings to provide lift. One in particular even has a UAP going trans-medium diving into the ocean and disappearing in the depths.

When I finally started paying attention to these reports it has been strongly alluded that other, still classified videos show these UAPs in high-definition performing other maneuvers that defy the laws of physics.

My initial thoughts about UAPs leaned towards Russia and/or China achieving some sort of technological breakthrough in both physics and structural engineering. That these UAPs were unmanned drones since any pilot flying such a craft would be turned into a thin paste of human salsa the second they attempted any type of maneuver that produced hundreds of gees.

Further reports featuring the navy aviators who tracked these UAPs as well as experts in field of aviation engineering suggested to me that for Russia or China to have produced these things the breakthroughs required would have taken the minds of people like Einstein, DaVinci, Tesla, Edison, Newton, and Hawking all at once. We're not talking next generation technology here, breaking the laws of physics, as these craft apparently can easily do, would literally require something done in science fiction set at least two or three hundred years in the future. Science doesn't work in a vacuum, so I am highly skeptical of some modern day science wizard developing inertial dampers for high gee turns and anti-gravity for wingless, hypersonic flying machines in his, or her garage.

I don't believe in conspiracies so the idea that this technology, which would have required thousands of scientists and a greater number of trained technicians as well a huge number of secondary support personnel to develop was kept secret for the decades required is ridiculous. So, where does that leave us?

Frankly I find it extremely hard to believe that an alien civilization advanced enough to travel the distance between stars would just decided to harass bored navy folks on the open oceans of Earth. Yes, there are reports that the Russians and the Chinese have their own investigations of UAPs. More disturbing and even scary are the reports of these craft are interfering with the operation of nuclear technology. We're talking about taking nuclear weapons offline and in the case of Russia bringing them back online as well as buzzing around nuclear power plants.

One video, produced by the Washington Post has the expert appearing saying something along the lines that these craft could be coming from “inner space”, “outer space”, or the “space between.” Okay, since these UAPs have moved beyond redneck proles and anal probing and into the halls of the Pentagon and official reports demanded by the United States Senate I've moved beyond happily puzzled into the realm of the concerned. Simply put none of this makes any sense, not as a genuine First Contact scenario and not as a geopolitical, national security issue.   

Included are two videos that I find highly credible. 

The Eternal Refrigerator

 

It goes without saying that the selling and/or the purchase of a house is a time-consuming and exhausting endeavor. For my wife and I back in 2000 we were lucky enough to be the exception to the first half of that rule. However the purchase of our new home was not smooth and seamless. To put it bluntly, it was a huge cluster fuck unparalleled in scope and repercussions. We spent years cleaning up the mess and dealing with the items the previous owners left behind.

Boiling everything down to the basics my spouse and I were in the closing stages of adopting our daughter from China. One of the requirements to satisfy the adoption agency was that the baby had to have a room to itself. Our first home had three bedrooms, enough for us, one for our son, and one for the baby. But my wife felt we needed a fourth bedroom for family and friends who would visit.

So we painted and repaired our old house until it just about shined. Then we went about looking for a new house that had the right number of bedrooms and met my wife's other personal requirements like location, good school district, and distance from her work. The housing market at that time was on the side of the sellers and we immediately ran into some issues. Things got worse when the first family that looked at our home made and offer and we accepted. The clock began ticking for us to find a suitable replacement and get out before the deadline. We had less than two weeks left before we found a house that while meeting all the requirements had several issues.

Namely that the family selling the house we wanted to buy wasn't ready to move. Their replacement house they were building was livable but they wanted more time. It's been over twenty-years now and all I remember was that as far as they were concerned they wanted all the bells and whistles in their new home fully installed and connected. They wanted at least another two weeks before surrendering the house.

That was a no-go for us because the adoption agency had to evaluate our new residence and then send confirmation to the Chinese governmental agency so the adoption could go forward. If we weren't in the new house by the time of the evaluation we could lose the little girl picked for us who was still in a Chinese orphanage.

So the selling family blinked and moved out before their new place met their standards. It was either get out or we would have rescinded the offer leaving them with two mortgage payments. As a Plan B my wife and I had talked about looking at apartments and just staying there until the adoption was over where we would then have a new house built.

The old owners were not happy with the situation and in typical Lexington county passive-aggressive behavior they moved out leaving the house trashed. As we moved in my wife and I were shocked to see dozens of holes in the walls in every room that had been cleverly hid by the selling family. Most were from pictures but no attempt was made to repair any of them. During this bullshit the house inspector somehow didn't warn us about a multitude of issues that the sellers were supposed to fix. Off the top of my head the report that asshole gave us didn't mention a word about the broken burner on the stove; the interior doors that weren't square with the frames; and most of all the stains on the kitchen floor.

I honestly believe the selling family slipped the house inspector money to overlook these issues. I mentioned as much to a few of our new neighbors and I'm sure my suspicions were relayed to the selling family. I have another suspicion that the selling family was friends with many of those people and my accusations colored my relationship with those living around me.

But in true passive-aggressive style it was the refrigerator they conveniently forgot to load up that still makes me harbor ill feelings about those assholes.

Adding icing to the already difficult cake of moving I had National Guard duty on the weekend we took up residence in the new house. And for reasons I never understood both the CO of my unit and the First Sergeant refused to cut me some slack and allow me to slip out to help with the move.

By the time I arrived home late in the afternoon the majority of the moving was finished. My wife and in-laws were still dealing with the shock of the condition of the house. I, in turn was flaming pissed and wanted to kick some ass. Especially when I opened the doors of the refrigerator they left behind.

My dad-in-law knew something about kitchen appliances and guessed that it had to have been twenty-years old back in 2000. While still functioning properly the inside had obvious wear, to the point rust was showing through on some exposed metal parts. Shelves were bent and glass panels cracked making it look like a real backhanded insult to us demanding they move before they were ready.

But most worrisome was the brown sticky stuff at the bottom. Partially covered by the crisper section for vegetables, it looked like a Coke or Pepsi had leaked and they never cleaned it up. I wanted to move that refrigerator out the garage and bring in ours from the old house but by that time my wife was on the verge of a nervous breakdown while my in-laws compassion and love of family were exhausted.

So we assembled beds to sleep, the in-laws went home, and we order pizza from what I was now calling a glorified redneck trailer. Later that night as I lay in bed and fumed we then discovered the marooned refrigerator made some of the god-awful noises. The sounds it produced were like a combination of it about exploded and a plea to end its miserable existence.

Weeks rolled into months and we slowly made our new suburban trash heap a home. That included taking all the insides of the refrigerator out and cleaning them. And yes, I personally cleaned out the brown sticky stuff at the bottom.

The trouble was that a week or two later I noticed the brown sticky stuff had reappeared at the bottom and it was growing. I think the brown stuff reappeared after each cleaning for about a year. It never entirely went away but we learned to live with what little bit we couldn't kill off.

The adoption moved forward and the years came and went but we never pulled the trigger on getting rid of that nightmare refrigerator. We talked about it many times but with a new baby and other issues the fact that it still kept food and drinks cold always prevented us from really doing anything. I even learned to take comfort at night with its strange sounds.

That refrigerator lasted another fourteen years before it had its version of a stroke and died. So if my late dad-in-law was correct, and the old bastard was smart, that refrigerator lasted north of thirty-five years. Here's the real kick in the ass, its replacement died in less than five due to a lightning strike. And its replacement, an expensive Samsung with all the bells and whistles lasted two years before the ice maker on it utterly quit.

We called in the company-approved technician and he isolated the problem to the touch screen controller or the water filter assembly that had its own little micro-controller. He couldn't isolate the issue to a single cause and to fix both electronic components would cost over five-hundred dollars.

We instead bought six plastic ice trays for fifty-cents each from the Dollar Store and called it a day.

I still believe the selling family left the old refrigerator here as a form of insult. A small dig at the ungrateful family that wouldn't give them enough time to move out on their timetable. But I'll be damned as much as anyone can think fondly on a kitchen appliance that bad boy was tough.

Real Dangers to Democracy

Okay, I'll make this brief because I've got people coming to remove some storm damaged trees. What does a dangerously authoritarian-leaning political party do when they can't win elections? You got it, they change election laws in the state legislatures they control. 

What does the other political party do to TRY and avoid having elections stolen? You write a bill that prevents the other party from destroying democracy. What's seriously tragic though is to have the Democratic senators from West Virginia and Arizona sabotage the process.  

On another front for those who don't realize this, we're at war with Russia. We have been at least since the November 2016 election, although it has probably been going on for years before that. While the recent pipeline cyber-attack was supposedly done by non-government hackers they have been traced to Russia. It would take strong evidence to convince me something like this happened in Putin's personal kingdom with him not knowing about it.

Putin is engaging in a curious form of asymmetric warfare with the United States. Numerous news reports over the years all suggest Putin blames the United States for the breakup of the Soviet Union. Putin's inference in American elections is certainly an attempt to spread dissension and chaos in this country. It wouldn't be hard to convince me now given his success that he and his cronies may believe they can actually breakup the United States as a form of revenge for his beloved Soviet Union.   

Understand something, for the most part I trust science and scientists. Of course where science gets sticky is when you have paid lackeys like the "scientists", who while employed by cigarette companies, claimed smoking didn't cause health issues. 

The same can be said for current day "scientists" who work for oil companies and claim Climate change is overblown or not caused by humans. But for the most part if an unbiased scientist with strong evidence says something I'm usually going to side with that person.   

No science is not a religion but it's a process that has been extremely useful in discovering how the world and universe works. Over the centuries since applying this process we have made the lives of billions of people far better. No science isn't perfect and the pursuit of knowledge can be a double-edged sword causing untold death and destruction.

In some ways we've been lucky with the Covid virus. It could have been far deadlier and with the idiots running around denying basic science and politicizing something trivial like wearing face masks the damage would have been far worse. I write this realizing well over half a million people died from Covid here in the United States.

The insanity of our times is exemplified when you have racists morons, like the ones on Fox News, spreading outright lies about the vaccines that could end this pandemic.  

  

Inconvenient Estranged Parent

 

Writing Prompt- Your main character is approached by their long-estranged parent who wants to reconnect. How do they react? This started out as fiction with only a little bit of real life thrown in. Unfortunately past history started seeping into the story creating a hybrid mix.  

 

 Early February at Fort Carson, Colorado isn't a good time to be stuck outside working in the motor pool. The only thing worse than the motor pool is being down range out in the field during a field training exercise. But then there were rare occasions when dealing with hardships out in the field were preferable than getting tangle up in old family issues.

“Specialist Vaughn,” my platoon sergeant called out while walking up from our company's motor pool repair bays. “Lieutenant Chase is on the phone, he wants to talk with you ASAP. Haul ass up to the office and find out what he wants.”

“Roger that, Sergeant Blackledge,” I said taking just enough time to put away a couple of pieces of equipment back into the platoon's storage container before double timing down the line. My seemingly responsible and prompt response still earned me a hateful glare from the man.

My platoon sergeant, SFC Blackledge, was a huge, African-American guy with a baked-in bad attitude when it came to anything I was involved. To this day I never really understood his dislike for me. I definitely wasn't the platoon fuck-up, we had three new privates fresh from Advanced Individual Training (AIT) who were all competing for that title. The general consensus among the other members of the platoon was that if you combined the intelligence of the three new guys a squirrel would probably still beat them at tic-tac-toe.

At the time my best guess for why Blackledge enjoyed hassling me was that I was the perfect average soldier. I was almost three years into my enlistment and my gung-ho mentality had long since died. It had been replaced with a new perspective of doing just enough to keep the NCOs and officers above me happy. I had one year and a couple of months or so left of active duty and my ass would be going home.

As most things go, the army during the late-1980s was pretty cut and dry. This is a gross simplification but as long as you shined your boots, performed basic hygiene, and could read a map most American males could be a success in the United States Army. But for me the glamour had long since died and whatever Rambo-esque dreams I might have entertained had long since been crushed by your basic standard issue reality.

Thinking on it now, my carefree attitude may have been the source of Blackledge's distaste for me. In all modesty if I had stayed motivated and played the dog and pony game by looking good and performing beyond basic standards, I'd probably could have made promotion way beyond just sergeant (E-5), which I would unexpectedly make the following month.

After arriving at the repair bays I stepped into the office and was handed a phone by one of the people working there. “Specialist Vaughn reporting, sir,” I said or something similar.

“Vaughn,” LT Chase said in a tone of voice that betrayed a touch of annoyance, “your dad called the company commander. He's in town and wants to see you.”

“Ah yes, sir, did someone die or something?” I ask back confused. At that moment I couldn't remember the last time I had talked with my father. My mom and dad's marriage and their final divorce back in 1977 had been Chernobyl-like in its messy, complicated nature. So bad that one of the few absolute certainties in this universe is the fact that those two fucked up individuals should have never been allowed to live on the same continent, much less marry and have children.

My mother had legitimate mental issues that in South Carolina went unrecognized and, of course, totally untreated. She was the child of hard working but poor parents whose education never went beyond a couple of years of high school. South Carolina was, or still is a backwater provincial land with a grossly under-educated population lacking any true idea of how mental health can affect individuals and society as a whole.

Mom's way of coping with her issues was to drink. She was a chain smoker as well, which brought on a whole other series of problems. Finally there was infidelity, something she would actually talk about to us kids once she had a few drinks in her system. Her other favorite subject of conversation was to tell her children how much farther she could have made it in life if she had never had us.

Dad's issues were a little more abstract but he was also a product of Southern society and culture. He was a hard worker but showed next to no emotion to his kids other than rage when they did something bad. Beatings with a belt were the usual punishment for infractions raging from not doing homework to breaking one of his possessions.

There was also more than a little resentment when he had to use his money for us kids. I clearly remember department store trips to buy new clothes for my siblings and I with him whining about how much money was being wasted. Adding more insult to these injuries, after mom and dad separated he got us for the weekends. Which most of time had us hanging out in his mobile home as he worked on cars outside. I vaguely remember catching him telling a neighbor, who had asked him to go on a fishing trip, that his damn kids were here so he couldn't do anything this weekend.

“Don't know Vaughn,” LT Chase answered bringing me back out of my memories. “But prepare to copy this phone number.”

LT Chase calls out the phone number to a local motel and the room number. I write it down on my notepad sort of figuring this meant no one was dead. My father had always seemed a few french fries short of a full happy meal when it came to common sense. But not even he would travel from deep in the bowels of bumfuck Texas and come to Colorado Springs just to tell me some member of his family was dead.

“Tell me something Vaughn,” LT Chase interjects without warning, “why haven't you talked to your father in several years?”

Whoa, that was the other thing about dear old dad which I had forgotten, he loved playing the victim. “It's a long messed up story, LT,” I respond wearily.

“Okay, I get it, Vaughn.” He says before hanging up.

The rest of the day plays out as usual with me wondering if I should contact my father. Got to admit I was more than slightly pissed with him playing the abandoned and forgotten father. Dad had promptly gotten remarried suspiciously fast after my parents' divorce was finalized. Can't really fault him for that with mom long experienced in blazing new trails in roadside motel exploration.

His new wife brought with her a couple of daughters and by all accounts he was a great step-dad to his new kids. My siblings had spent some time with them a few summers back while I was over in West Germany playing soldier. The reports I got from them about a happy, affectionate man was a truly alien concept considering the sullen individual I remember that only reluctantly took his own kids fishing.

After the company's final formation and being released for the day I found myself drifting towards the rack of payphones in the barrack's day room. With mixed emotions I dialed the motel number and asked for his room when the desk clerk answered.

“Hello,” a lady said in a sweet voice.

“Yeah, this is Eric. I got word that my father was staying there.” I replied figuring I was talking to his new wife, my step-mother by default.

“Oh Eric,” the lady said, “we've been hoping you would call. I'll get your father, hold on.”

A second or two later he picks up the phone. “Hey Eric, it's your father,” he says like there was some question who it might be. Remember, a few fries short of a full happy meal.

“Yeah...dad,” I say hesitantly not really comfortable labeling him as such. “You're in Colorado Springs, what's up?”

“Lisa has a band competition here tomorrow, and we decided to see if you wanted to have dinner with us tonight.”

Running this information through my brain, I had to figure that 'Lisa' was my step-sister, someone who I had not only never met but didn't have a clue what she looked liked. Full disclosure, I didn't know what his new wife looked like either because I had literally never been in the same location with the lady. When my parents officially divorced, dad stayed in Texas and my mom and siblings and myself went back to South Carolina. Dad's new family life began about three or four days after everything was finalized.

Being the oldest of my siblings, I knew neither of our parents were worth much in the way of consideration. Going with our mother back to South Carolina was the safest course since we had her family to fall back on for support. But I admit, I was considering his offer of dinner. Part of me thought it would be interesting to meet at least a couple of members of his new family.

“So how about it?”He asked in an upbeat tone that I found both curious and slightly irritating. Past experience had taught me that my father expected instant acceptance and that any hesitation on the part of me or my siblings was a personal insult to him. There was way too much baggage in our past for me to have any enthusiasm about this reunion. I wasn't a kid anymore, I was an adult in my twenties and the few times I remember talking to him in the previous years he clearly still thought of me as a child.

Out of nowhere a question popped into my head that I had to ask before giving him my decision. “How long was this trip up to Colorado Springs planned? I mean you guys didn't just receive news about the band competition the last couple of days.”

“Oh, its been in the works for the last couple of months.” Dad replied offhand not realizing what it meant for his own flesh and blood to be an afterthought. Such actions were typical for him, for some reason his own kids were never a priority. Truthfully, it bothered me a lot that he somehow expected me to drop everything and rush across town to see him. He served in the army himself and knew the end of the duty day didn't necessarily mean a soldier was free to leave the post. It was either that or his offer for dinner was never be meant to be accepted. That he would use my refusal as yet another example of him being the victim. Given that the trip to Colorado Springs had been months in the planning, the fact that he didn't call me until the day they arrived tended to support my conclusion.

I simply didn't feel like being played that day. “No,” I said to him, “had you called and arranged something in advance it could have happened. But no, I'm going to the mess hall and then hang out with a few friends.”

“Okay,” he said in a tone that I felt was indifferent. He started to say something else but I cut him off.

“Look, it was great hearing from you,” something I didn't really mean, “but your arrival was totally unexpected and, honestly more than a little inconvenient for me. How about we try this again sometime in the future.” After that I hung up and didn't think about him for the rest of the night.

Was I cruel? Probably. Should I have given the man the benefit of the doubt? Maybe, if the weight of too many disappointments wasn't bearing down on my shoulders at that moment. The one good thing out of this cluster fuck was that I learned to treat my own kids completely different.

The coming years would bring my father back into my life. Namely him showing up unexpectedly at my house a couple of weeks after the birth of my son. My wife made me play nice. But dad never really changed and my patience with him only got shorter. My brothers somehow developed a phone relationship with him over the years with nothing but silence between him and myself.

Recently, I got word from my brother, Wilson, that dad asked for my phone number. Thankfully, Wilson told him he would have to ask me first. As I talked with my brother I thought about it for a couple of minutes. My decision was ultimately no, curiously there is no bitterness on my part. I found myself indifferent to the man and his life. Whatever relationship we might have had has long since passed into nothingness.