Big Dick Pickles - Part 2

Semi-retirement is great because, except for the "semi" part and whatever limits are imposed by my checkbook and my current wife*, I get to do what I damn well please in life. During that portion of semi-retirement that I call my own, I have been pretending to be a Writer.  Fiction, that's the ticket.  I don't write that stuff here because Eye of Newt is reserved for God's Truth, as you know.  But I occasionally bend the rules - they are, after all, my rules, and arbitrary and capricious rules at that.  So sue me.  Anyway, having temporarily exhausted my supply of Truth, I offer some untruths for your consideration.  Here is the long-awaited second installment of Incident at a Motel, the soggy, bloody saga of Big Dick Pickles.  If you did not see the first installment, the following will make not one jot of sense.  You can catch up here . I'll still be here when you get back.

Back so soon?  Okay, here we go:

Incident at a Motel

Part 2 of an Occasional Series

Unable to control two crime scenes at once, Big Dick made the call for backup.  When Officer Mary Ann Hotchkiss responded, he left her to cope with the mess while he chugged up the stairs to 401 to complete the mission that had begun with his dyslexic misstep.  Stormtroopering still another door, he surprised two potential perps in flagrante and wide-eyed delicto, their attention suddenly diverted to the jack-booted and slightly out-of-breath police sergeant standing where the door used to be.  Pleased to find the occupants with heads intact and demonstrably well, Big Dick got down to business. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

The perp on the bottom croaked out an answer that could have been “Okay,” so Big Dick continued. “We have a heinous crime in progress down in Room 104.  Well, not actually in progress, but it was probably in progress a little while back.  Did you hear anything unusual downstairs?”

“Would you mind terribly closing that door?” asked the perp on the top.  Big Dick hated it when people answered questions with questions.  The top perp withdrew toward a chair, selfishly swaddling himself in the only unoccupied sheet in the room.  His accomplice glared at him nakedly from the bed.

“Oh, yeah, sure.”  Big Dick tried to force the splintered door back into its frame when he suddenly recalled that the original report of a disturbance in Room 401 was a 520/NV – noise without violence – and he began to contemplate his lack of a warrant.  “We, ah, thought that the noise reported in here might be somehow connected with two folks, victims actually, who lost their heads in Room 104.  But I see you both have all your parts in order. Maybe you might have heard something?”  He paused to ponder the likelihood that these enthusiastic but nonviolent bystanders might be helpful.  “Depends on how seriously you treat foreplay, I guess.”

The perps shook their heads.

“Okay.  Please don’t leave town until we have had time to question you further.”  He ducked out through the remnants of the door without checking ID’s as storm clouds gathered on the horizontal perp’s face.

When he arrived back in the bloody mess that was Room 104, he found that Benny the Nose had arrived.  Benny was Tampa’s only visually impaired detective – he claimed to be blind as a bat with a nose like a bloodhound – and he was accompanied as always by his Seeing Eye police dog, Spot.  Both were sniffing around the room. “Big Dick,” said Benny, “what do you think happened here?”

“I’m guessing sawed-off shotgun, 12 gauge, no choke, up close.  Just vaporized the vics’ heads. Hearts kept pumping long enough to paint the whole damn room red.”  Big Dick had paid close attention during the weapons session at Forensics School.

“Nope,” sniffed Benny.  “What do you smell?”

“Blood.”

“My point exactly.  No gunpowder smell. I will wager that the team will find no bullets, no shot pellets, and no shell casings anywhere in the room.”

“So – what  – ?“  Big Dick trailed off in confusion.

“And there’s more,” said Benny the Nose.  “I smell brains.”

“Brains?”

“Yes, cooked.”

“Cooked brains?”

“Yeah, if you rinse off the layer of sprayed blood, you’re going to find cooked brain underneath.  Medium rare, I think.” 

To Be Continued, Perhaps

* I use the term "current wife" advisedly.  First, it will let me know whether or not she actually reads these things.  Second, it gives readers some reason to read all the way to the bottom to see how I get out of the hole I just dug myself.  I'll let you know on that last part.

Newt 

Short Puppies Got No Reason

Sugar Creek, the densely populated manufactured home community (read: trailer park) where I live, has rules that cover the full range of human experience, including pet ownership. I live in the abbreviated "pet section," a cloister within a conclave that permits inmates to own dogs small enough to fit comfortably in the box your toaster oven came in.  One would think a canine size limitation a salutary rule.  One would be grimly mistaken unless one were deaf as a post.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I don't own a dog.  That's because I was born without the patience gene.  The problem with other people's puppies is that, unless you whisper to the little darlings (abbreviated "LB's") like the buffoon on the National Geographic Channel (we've come a long way from the magazines of my youth with the photos of naked aboriginals), the LB's invariably go about their doggy business in the most annoying fashion.  And don't get me started on cats, although I live with two. (See "My Hyphenated Cat," August 2009.)

Predictably enough, the local denizens - rule-obeyers all - have loaded up on pocket puppies: Peek-a-Poos and Chihua-Poos and every other bastardly breed of miniature mutt and teacup terrorist.  Something in the evolution of the  tiniest breeds favors snarling ankle-biting over civil doggery.  In dogs, nasty disposition is inversely proportional to shoulder height at maturity.  Ever seen a nasty retriever?  Damn right. Ever seen a placid Lhasa Apso or a mellow Bichon Frise (now, there's a well-named breed)?  Neither has anyone else.  The LB's in Sugar Creek run on some combination of crystal meth and Mace.
 
Sugar Creek's pet section has only fifteen or twenty households with dogs, but there is a pooch parade every night around dusk, highlighted not only by the ferocity of the dogs' territorialism but also by their owners' sad enthusiasm for walking around carrying baggies of warm dog poo.

Some years back, the pond around which Sugar Creek is situated became infested with a middlin'-sized alligator.  People of a certain bent, as you might expect, fed the gator bits of this and that, all from a safe distance, of course.  I mention this because, during the alligator's short tenure, the nasty-little-dog problem abated admirably. Or so I'm told. Well, the locals complained, as locals do, and the alligator was dispatched to a purse-factory somewhere.  Whereupon there followed a resurgence of nasty little dogs.

Meanwhile, back at the pet ranch, the old Arkansasians next door to us (see "Little Bastards," July 2009) have recently vacated for cooler climes, but before they left they added another Pug-eranian to their personal kennel.  Every time I farted in the driveway, the LB's next door went off like Tasmanian Devils in a bee-eating contest.  They're gone now, and peace has descended, at least in the near prospect.  That, however, leaves the transients, the casual dog-walkers who are happy to let their LB's cross-pollinate with all the other LB's in the neighborhood.  Every time one of them passes another, the resulting snarl-fest sounds like a concerto for two chain saws.  Yesterday, I watched two of them chase each other in circles of ever-decreasing radius and ever-increasing speed until they flew up each other's tiny little bungholes.  That quieted them down somewhat.

We need another alligator in the pond.

Newt

The Bergsten Belly & the Newton Butt

My older sister, Kathy, was the first to complain.  In our common lineage are the Bergstens, late of Sweden with some stray Norwegianism in the mix.  Martin begat Elsie, who begat Arline, who begat Kathy and the rest of us.  Martin, though I barely recall the old gent, apparently carried the dominant pot-belly gene  I understand there is a genealogy extant in Sweden which traces the Bergsten Belly back to the Vikings.  We all have it, except perhaps Steve, who we think was conceived of a donor mother.

No matter how you try to suppress it, the Bergsten Belly piggles and jiggles just below the waistline, spoiling the profile and making us - OK, some of us - look like old Uncle George, who was also begat by Martin and who was afflicted by the family problem even more grievously than was Elsie.

Of course, it takes two to tango, which brings us to the Newton Butt.  It's called that because it came upon us through the Newton side of the family, but it ought really be called the Sears Butt, since Nana Newton, its most prominent - if you will - victim, was a Sears.  So Miles began Otis, who begat Violet (that's Nana N), who begat Everett, who along with Arline of Bergsten begat the rest of us, again with the possible exception of Steve. The Newton Butt in its most pristine form protrudes rearward from the hips like a permanently hitched U-Haul trailer.  You could store all your junk handily in the trunk.

Kathy, of course, complains of having the deadly combination of both Bergsten Belly and Newton Butt.  Donna, on the other hand, hasn't raised the issue, and the rest of us see no profit in inquiring.  She dresses well, so who knows what goes on there.  As for Kathy, I take her at her word and shut up (until - God help me - now).  Steve, the apparent spawn of a different gene pool, is built like a stick, and the rest of us secretly hate him.

The point of this anatomical exploration is the tragic imbalance that arises if, like your humble reporter, you lack the Newton Butt but instead have two Bergsten Bellies.  Keep in mind the function of Bergsten-Newton syndrome is to provide a couple of cushy hooks to hang your belt on, thereby reliably holding your pants up. As I age and my personal condition approaches perigee, I find that the Bergsten Belly functions admirably to support the front of my jeans.  The deficient butt, however, doesn't hold up its end - if you will - of the bargain.  That's right - the Bergsten Belly, in the absence of the Newton Butt, causes posterior droopy drawer syndrome, which in its final stages begets Plumber's Crack.

Maybe I'll get me some of those swell padded skivvies I see advertised in the back of certain magazines.  Or implants - yeah, that's the ticket.

Newt

PS: That bit at the beginning about Kathy being my "older sister" should not be confused with a claim that she is older than I, because she may not be.  Our relative ages are of no significance.  What matters is that, of my two sisters, Kathy is my older sister.

N

The Weather Is Fine Today

I moved to Florida for the weather.  There were other reasons, but I forget what they were. In case I forget to mention it, it's sunny, 68F and balmy here in the Tampa Bay area on this Monday after Christmas.

For the first few months after I left Connecticut - I left in mid-October 2008 - I began most phone calls back north with the weather report.  "Hi, it's 78 and sunny here."  The first few times I did that, I garnered the desired expressions of envy, tempered with shared joy at my sweet circumstance.  Of course, that soon changed.  I have learned that short-term pleasure at the good fortunes of others rarely survives serious snow.  Eventually, the bloom falls off the rose, and people start to snarl.  I started getting responses like, "Shut your pie-hole. My car is in a snow bank."

Being the sort of guy who is sensitive to the plight of the less fortunate, I eased back on the weather routine.  "Hi," I'd say, "How's Fido?"

And my Northern Correspondent would reply, "Fine.  I suppose the weather is great where you are?"

Not wanting to lie too blatantly, I replied, "Um, it's nice, I suppose."

Silence descended.  I could sense the battle raging in my NC's soul.  Eventually, perhaps inevitably, unable to stifle the fatal question, my NC would crumble and ask, "How nice?" 

"74 and breezy."

"Shut your goober-trap.  Fido froze his thing to the fire hydrant last night and we needed the fire department to free him."

"Gracious!" I would exclaim, as sympathetically as I could.  "I hope he's OK?'

"Well, he'll never be a father again."

Eventually, I learned to temper the truth for the benefit of the bereft.  "Oh, it's cold and grey down here," I'd say.

"How cold?"

"58."

"Shut it.  My nose hair iced up while I was jump-starting the car this morning."

There really is no adequate response to that.

To help my northerners heal, I called often last summer to report the weather.  "94 and humid as hell," I'd say.  My NC invariably felt comforted that it was only 85 in Hartford.  I always neglected to mention that I was at the pool with a pina colada and that everything here is air conditioned to a fare-thee-well.  "Just miserable here," I'd say. "Be glad you're up north."

So here it is December again.  Life is so sweet.  But don't tell that to my NCs.

Newt

When Blogging Infects the Ego

Sitting at a computer blogging about whatever I happen to be thinking this morning is undeniably an exercise of ego, an electronic form of mental masturbation -- fun to do but not much fun to watch.  Personally, I like it.  Blogging, I mean.  I have decided to do it more, even if I go blind.

Each opening day of a certain law school class in Connecticut, a learned professor  began with the question: "How many of you intend to pursue a career in professional writing?"  Thirty fresh faces, as yet unscarred by the horror of what they were proposing to do for the rest of their lives, routinely came up blank.  The still-human folks behind the faces no doubt wondered whether they had signed up for the wrong course. Silence begets fear of grade deflation, so the wise professor sat silent, waiting.  Tick-tock.

After enough tick-tocks, one student, reliably and timorously, always raised a hand.  About shoulder high.  Emboldened, others followed, until the whole class finally tumbled to the idea that all of them were in fact planning a career in professional writing.  Lawyers write.  They get paid to write.  Some think before they write; others do not.  Some write well, others do not.  The ones who do not write well beget lawyer jokes and deservedly so.

So, yes, I'm a lawyer (DISCLAIMER ALERT - whoop, whoop, whoop!) but not here in Florida.  I practice law in Connecticut.  Ask me for legal advice here in the sunshine state and plan on being politely brushed off.  The local bar casts interloper lawyers into dungeons and chains.  So I don't interlope.  Even my Connecticut practice is becoming an occasional thing, ever since I came to my senses and bagged it for this sunnier clime.

But I arrived with a lifetime of writing prejudices and nowhere to park them.  Well, technically, it's not a lifetime yet.  Just a little hyperbole there; so sue me.  Anyway, I used to teach baby lawyers how to write like professionals.  Short, simple declarative sentences, strong verbs, active voice, that sort of thing.  Some got it; others will write about the party of the first part, being subrogated to the rights of the party of the second part, for the rest of their regrettable lives.  These issues are no longer my concern.

But I come here with a few firmly held beliefs:

• "Legal writing" is a euphemism for "crappy, unintelligible writing."   My friend Mark Dubois, who still teaches baby lawyers in Connecticut, will steal this line for his next class.  I hope.

• Good writing is universal.  It is sufficient to writing about the law, about what I did on my summer vacation, about an old man and the sea.

What I have been doing here in Eye of Newt has mostly fallen into the "summer vacation" essay genus.  Somewhere in another venue, I am writing about old men and the sea.  And Lord knows I have written enough about the law, although, like Vicodin, that last is hard to put down entirely.  Still there remains, what to do with the teaching gene that has so disrupted my life.

Enter Shaking the Writing Tree.  Yup, another blog tossed upon the blog-o-heap.  SWT differs from my earlier teaching experiences in that it does not seek to tell others what to do.  I admit to a little regret in this regard.  Teaching law students was sweet in that, if students failed to do what I told them, I flunked their asses and ruined their pathetic little lives.  My readers - if I ever develop any - will be made of tougher stuff.  I hope.

Instead, SWT discusses why I do what I do.  The subjects will range from "Arrant Pedantry Up With Which I Do Not Put" to "Why Adverbs Stink."  Responsible opposing viewpoints will be encouraged.  I hope you enjoy it.  There are links to Shaking the Writing Tree elsewhere in this blog, and here's another one:  www.shakingthewritingtree.blogspot.com

Newt