Guiseppe's Crossing--Second Installment

Installment One is Here
Installment Three is Here

Part Four—Consensus and utterances

The fourth day brought heat like none of the prior. Even very early in the morning, the blistering, exposed skin of the dying man became irritated and made him nautious. But the pain was not altogether excruciating. Whatever medicine the peregrine monk had applied to him the day before had helped numb his sense of pain. Certainly, he was very uncomfortable and his wrists were sore beyond the cure of any drug, but the completeness of his agony had been subdued and opiated.

There was something else that aided the dying man on this day as well. He noticed a small bud on the branch to which his right arm was nailed. It was a mere tiny, green spurt of growth, glistening in the sun. He bent his head as far forward as he could toward the ground and pondered the dried blood on the roots of the great tree. A slight smile came about his face—but that was fleeting. Anger filled his eyes after that. And after that he tried not to sweat—which was, of course, an endeavor of futility and impossibility.

It was on this day, the day of the budding, that the Bedouin sent a delegation out to the tree of the dying man. They came, about fifteen of them. They kept their distance from the dying man because they were told about the diseases of foreigners. They talked at the dying man for hours into the day, but he said nothing in return. Then finally, a young man and his two brothers approached the tree. The two brothers boosted the other up into the mangled branches of the tree. The first thing this young man noticed was the small green budding on the branch. He smiled at the dying man and said:

“We’ve come to get you down from this inhumane torture.” He continued to smile. “But we need to make certain that you pose no threat to our children.” The dying man still said nothing, he didn’t even grunt. It seemed to the young Bedouin that the dying man was staring past him, at the burgeoning growth at the end of the branch. The young man looked down to his brothers for counsel, but they both shrugged and shook their heads.

“Do you speak my language?” Asked the young nomad.

The dying man nodded.

“He nods!” The young man yelled out to the delegation. The crowd murmured and mumbled.

“I will bring our physician up here to unbind you?”

The dying man shook his head. And then he seemed to nod his head, but he did it frantically, as if pointing downward with his chin.

“Is there something down there?”

The dying man nodded but then tried to utter a word but no sound formed in his voice.

“There is something!” Said one of the brothers standing near the bloody base of the tree. “There, in his loincloth!”

The young Bedouin shimmied down the trunk a bit and retrieve a blood-stained parchment from the only piece of clothing the dying man had been afforded.

He opened it up slowly, so as not to destroy it.

“What does it say?” Asked the contingent. “Read it to us!” They demanded.

“It says,” started the young man, “By decree of the high lord and most exalted master, Sul al Val, ruler of these lands and the people therein, the following: This man, being subject to the laws of these lands, is sentenced to bear out the rest of his days on the tree of Malachi in the desert of Zoab. Let it be known that any person or person’s happening upon this living criminal shall not take part in letting him down from this tree. For this is his punishment until he is dead.”

A bevy of responses ensued. Some said “that is that” and wanted to leave immediately. Others asked who this Sul al Val was because no one there had ever heard of this ruler or his power over any man. Some others demanded they let the man down and bring him to the caravan. But there was no consensus.

The young Bedouin, seeing the discord among his peers, turned to the dying man and asked him if he could try to talk, for it would help them decide what to do.

“Tell me what crime you commited.” He said softly into the dying man’s ear. “Tell me so that we can decide what to do.”

Then he leaned his ear near the mouth of the dying man because it seemed he might say something.

And he did.

“He speaks!”

More murmering and mumbling.

“What did he say?” Asked one onlooker.

But the young man looked confused and shook his head.

“Was it profane?” Inquired another.

“Was it decipherable?”

“Was it didactic?”

“Did he curse you?”

“How many words?”

“Tell us!” They yelled.

“Two words,” the young man informed them, “he spoke only two words.”

“Well, what were they?”

They all grew quiet awaiting the answer. The young man stood there silent for a few seconds before saying anything.

“Meep oar.” He said calmly. “He said: “Meep oar.”

“Meep oar? That doesn’t mean anything at all!” They yelled.

“This is child speak!”

“Barbaric utterance!”

“What language is this?”

No one was certain. These traveled men, who had been introduced to nearly all the languages of the world, found it hard to unravel the meaning of these words. But after some time, one member of the group thought he might recognize one of the words.

“There is a language from way beyond our world in which an oar is a stick that rows a boat!” Said one after some thought.

“Yes!” Replied another, “maybe he was on a boat called the ‘Meep’.”

“That sounds possible,” said another, “maybe he killed the captain of his boat with an oar!”

“He’s a murderer!” Said two or three onlookers at the same time. Then others joined in, whispering the word “murderer” to each other.

So finally a consensus was reached. They would leave the dying man on the tree to his fate—for fate is how they viewed it. Only the three brothers and a few others were unimpressed by the delegation’s decision. But, they were in the minority, and had to succumb to the wishes of the group.

“I will see what I can do.” Said the young man to the dying man. “We will bring wisdom to these unengaged vagabonds. Do not die.”

Then the three brothers left the dying man and followed after the rest of the group. They consoled each other and patted each other on the back as they disappeared from the dying man’s sight.

Part Five—Happiness is a construction

Days passed in the desert. The sun, a whipping flame warden, crept and increased the day’s length. The moon flew by, an orb of chill mockery. The birds, cruel harbingers, cawed the song they caw on death’s eve. As the days passed, hunger waxed and with it grew the pain and sorrow and anger of the dying man. Through all this however, the fledgling bud grew and a toddling hope piqued.

Do not die.

And he did not.

They are coming back for you.

And they did.

True to his word, the young Bedouin returned with his brothers on the third day since they had left. On their shoulders they harnessed sticks from which dangled bags of food, water and other bundled supplies. The dying man, ever distraught by his hunger and pain, managed to smile at them as they approached his tree and climbed up with food and water.

He drank and ate and took medicine. The effects were immediate. Strength returned to him. The three brothers then unwrapped long boards that they had carried on their backs. Then they unsheathed hammers and brought out small pouches full of nails. They then produced a saw and another saw of very sharp steel. This initially brought fear into the eyes of the dying man. He wondered if he had just received his last meal. But this was not the case.

Through the hot day, the brothers climbed the tree to the thickest of the very high branches above the dying man. And through the day they hammered and sawed and sawed and hammered. The dying man could not see what they were doing, but above him a shade was growing and his tortured skin was relieved, at least in part, from the stinging brand of the sun.

With their work completed near the end of the hottest part of the day, the three brothers climbed down to the dying man. Using harnesses they had created, they surrounded the dying man.

“This is going to hurt, my friend.” Said the young Bedouin. And with that, the other brothers clasped their hands around the nails that bound him to the tree. The dying man fainted before they even began pulling.

When the nails were dislodged, the brothers set to work cutting the barbed wire from around the dying man’s body and plucking the barbs from his body, one by one. The dying man awoke as they were hoisting him upward toward the tree house they had built for him that day. Great twinges of pain filled the dying man’s body, and as he ascended the tree his blood began to seep out of the holes left by his puncture wounds.

After pulling the dying man into the tree house they medicated and bandaged his wounds, gave him some hash powder to help him sleep and set down some straw for him to sleep on. Becoming very drowsy, the dying man motioned for the young Bedouin to come close to him.

“Thank Ew.” He whispered in the young man’s ear.

“Are you satisfied, then?” Asked the Bedouin.

“Happy.” He said. Then he slept.

Part Six—A far, better place

The dying man awoke the next morning on his back. This pleased him and he laughed out loud—which hurt very much, so he laughed a little softer. Around him were four wooden walls, a wooden roof and a wooden floor with a wooden hatch with a wooden handle that could be lifted for coming in and going out. The room that had been constructed for him was approximately eight feet from south to north and near twelve feet from east to west. It was not a lot of space in this little wooden cell, but it seemed like a castle in the sky to the dying man. There were two square windows cut into the southerly and northerly walls so that he could see over the dune to the south and out to the sea to the north.

From the hatch in the floor a rope dangled. The rope was laced with intermittent knots up and down it, presumably for climbing. The dying man pulled himself up to the south window when he saw a wisp of smoke pass by it.

Down there, at the base of the sand dune was a small campfire burning. Huddled over it was the young Bedouin man. There was a lean-to, a makeshift shelter nestled into the slant of the dune.

“Hello?” Said the dying man in a weakly voice. The young Bedouin turned his head toward the window and waved and smiled.

“Good morning! Good morning! How are your injuries? Do you need medicine?” The young man got up and slung a leather bag over his shoulder.

“Pain.”

The young man briskly climbed the rope and entered the dying man’s treetop house. He laid the dying man back down on the straw and began changing bandages and applying ointment all over his body. He had brought a robe for the dying man, but he declined it due to the pain it would cause. After tending to the wounds of the dying man, he fetched a broth he had been brewing and slowing fed it to the dying man with some olives and bread.

“We were able to sway the people toward a new opinion.” He said softly as he lifted a spoonful of broth to the dying man’s lips. “We’ve reached an agreement of sorts. I persuaded them to realize that the decree of the ruler who put you here was to do exactly that—keep you here…on this tree.”

The dying man raised his eyebrows and nodded.

“Yes. You see, you are meant to be kept on this tree, that is what is written, but the manner of your incarceration was not defined.”

“I see.” Said the dying man.

“So, we decided to build for you this house and to take up your care. It is the right and moral thing to do, we think.”

“I see.”

“We were also able to form a consensus on how were going to help you.” The young Bedouin continued. “We have agreed to all chip in a little bit to help you recover. All of my people are giving a little bit to this cause, for we think it is right.”

The dying man looked for a moment at the face of the young benevolent Bedouin, the dropped his eyes toward the floor.
“Thank you.” He whispered.

“Not necessary to thank me. This is the right thing to do.” The Bedouin caressed the wounds on the dying man’s neck and forehead. “I see you’re regaining your voice.”

“Words…come hard.”

“I know.” The Bedouin’s voice was soothing and consoling. “I know they do.”

There they sat silent for a few minutes, gazing out at the white sands to the south or the hazy sea to the north. The young Bedouin continued to help the dying man eat and drink until he was content.

“There is one stipulation to our aiding you, however.” He placed the bowl of soup on the floor and bent down to look the dying man in the eyes. “You must stay on this tree. This is the commandment of your sentence, and we don’t wish to incur the wrath of the local magistrate or whoever it was that handed this fate to you.”

The dying man continued to stare at the wooden planks of his new house. He gave no response.

The Bedouin man grabbed the dying man by the hair and lifted his head sharply. “You must do this.” He said in a warning tone. “You must abide by this rule or we will not help you.” He let go his grasp and placed a gentle hand on the dying man’s shoulder. “This is for the greater good—for your own good.”

The dying man turned over and sat himself up against the thin wall. The Bedouin took a white robe from his bag and placed it on the dying man’s lap.

“Besides,” said the young man, laughing, “where will you go? The sea to the north is treacherous and all other ways lead to sand. Endless sand.”

He viewed the dying man with squinting eyes and reached out to wipe the sweat of his captive’s brow with a small piece of cloth. The dying man recoiled initially, but after a second stuck out his head and allowed the Bedouin to cleanse his brow.

Then they sat together in the tree house, saying little, until the sun fell. When the dying man had finally fallen asleep under his new roof, the young Bedouin made his way down the rope and lay down next to the hill of sand. He took from his belongings a long sheathed scimitar, placed it on his chest under a blanket, and lay in the sand watching as the violet blanket of night covered all the land. And then he slept.

Part Seven—Res Lumen

What do you know? The purple sparks dance and skitter across the desert floor like dusty sand in a summer gust. Alight in the darkness of the night. And no one is awake enough to see them.

Guiseppe's Crossing--First Installment

Guiseppe’s Crossing

C.T. Lostaglia

©Liber Review, 2009

Comments to Lostaglia@msn.com or ctl@pdx.edu.

Part One--Borne into ruin

The frayed and dusty robes of the three executioners whipped in the wind as they passed over the shifting sands into the vapors of the desert. New sprinkles of windswept sands spilled over the trail of blood they left behind. The blood trail, already drying in the swelling heat, proved the purpose of the now distant trio of death bringers. The red trail ran back down the small sand hill, across a small patch of arid, sandless ground, and up the gnarled, leafless tree that suspended the dying man. Blood trickled out through his wrists, covering the nails that pierced him. Barbed chords strapped his limbs to the prickled, black trunk. He was not dead. But he could not move.

It was hot. The dying man’s skin blistered in the high heat. A slight wind caressed him with a thousand frozen teeth.

The dying man opened his mouth and screamed with wide eyes. His voice faded into a gasp.

He could only straighten one leg in his effort to break free—and that was an irreversible action. The barbs dug into the flesh around his knee and now new tributaries of cold blood shot out of him, ran down his burning skin and met the other cascading streams. He wriggled his heavy head about. His mouth was full. Pain breeds sickness.

The dying man scream out vomit and felt everything.

The pungent scent of blood and emetic bile clogged his nostrils and covered his cracking lips. Weakness enveloped his body. His strength had passed long before they hoisted his body up on this cross. But now, in fragments, he played out the scene of his beating in his mind. The straps of pain they covered him with and the celestial pricks of light that penetrated the sackcloth hood.

The killing three had removed that black hood from him before they left. They had carried it and all the blood it contained with them up the dune hill. They had cursed the dying man before they left. They cursed him to live. “Live.” They said. “Suffer.” They said. “Live long and suffer hard.” This is what the black-eyed assassins said through those vile, broken teeth.

And now, being bitten by the wind and tormented by open wounds filled with sand, the dying man wanted it to end.

But this man, this captive of life, could not die.

For all the bruises and gashes in his flesh, he was not dead. For all the blood lost, for all the will broken, he was still breathing. Heart pounding. Lungs pumping. Veins flowing. He was not dead.

He wasn’t dead yet even if the birds were coming. He shifted his eyes this way and that when he heard one of them in the distance.

“Die.” He whispered the word, but there was command in it. He would will himself to die.

“Die.” Again in a soft, angered voice.

“Die!” He screamed and spewed a sanguine spray of spit into the wind.

But that was all he could muster. His eyes closed. His head fell. He slept through the pains of the day and bitter naked of the night.

Part Two--Traveling ahead while staying behind

The sun was bright, but the day was not yet hot. The dying man lifted his eyes toward the ridge that hid the desert from his view. On the dune two figures seemed to be coming toward the tree. The dying man nudged his head up a little bit, he grimaced but managed to lift his head high enough to let it fall back on the trunk from which he hung. There were two people coming. One figure was much larger than the other and as the two approached, the dying man made him out to be a scholar of some sort. The black satchel, the learner’s crest…he was a teacher. The other traveler, no more than a boy, must be his disciple.

They came to the tree, stopped a few meters away from the dying man and uniformly tilted their heads, inspecting the situation in their scholarly way. The dying man grunted, an apparent attempt at speech. The elder scholar ruffled through his satchel and pulled out a book. The younger just stood there, tilting his head to the left, pondering, then to the right, pondering further.

“Well, we should help this man, I think.” Said the elder to the younger after

consulting his book for some minutes. The younger continued his examination of the dying man, the tree, and the dried blood.

“I think he is up there for a reason, sir.” The younger said.

“Why, yes. The reason he is up there is those chords that bind him so. And they seem quite capable of holding him there for weeks, if not months.” The dying man grunted again.

“I mean to say…it must be a punishment for some heinous crime.”

“Heinous, you say?”

“He must be a dastardly fellow, or why else would he linger there this way?”

“Disciple, are you suggesting that he could get down if he were motivated to it?”

“I am not certain. To get down would mean to dislodge himself from his piercing bonds. The pain might not be worth it to him.”

“That is reasonable thinking. You truly are my greatest student.”

“You jest. But really, I was talking about the cause for him being there, up on that hideous, dilapidated tree.”

“Ah! The cause, is it?”

“What do you know?”

“I know that, being men of reason, we simply cannot travel back in time to undo the cause of his situation.”

“Reasonable. Time travel is an impossibility.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Explain.”

“Time travel is possible—is this a lesson you’ve learned by my teachings?”

“I have no recollection. Certainly I would remember such a profound lesson.”

“Well let me teach you then: As matter of fact, one can travel ahead in time. It is the traveling back that is impossible.”

“Will you teach me, master?”

“Indubitably. Watch this.”

The elder scholar lifted his head to the darkening violet sky and froze his body in place. There he stood, an akimbo statue against the purple panes of the universe. The younger scholar and the dying man (being intrigued by the prospect of traveling in any direction through time) watched intently.

A minute passed. Nothing was happening. The elder man was still standing there, hands on hips, smiling into the outer reaches of space. Another minute came and went. Then another. Nothing.

“Master?”

The elder removed his hands from his hips and laughed.

“See? I told you I could do it.”

The younger scholar shook his head, indicating he did not understand. The dying man grunted and coughed a dry cough.

“Ho ho! My young apprentice! You do not realize that when I began traveling in time the sun was just there above that naked bough. And now, a good five minutes has elapsed and here I am! I, my nimble-minded fellow, have traveled ahead in time.”

Amazed and enlightened, the young man rejoiced in the celestial prowess of his mentor. He fell to his knees and kissed the robe of the elder.

“Verily, you are a powerful man, Master!”

“Indeed, my boy. And one day I shall teach you how these things are done, but not today. Today, we have to help this man and go about our tasks of endeavor.”

The younger scholar rose and straightened his robes.

“Yes, master, but how should we help him if we are not capable of altering the cause of his situation?”

“Simple. We give him water and bread.”

“Yes! That is what we should do! Water!”

“And bread.”

“Right.”

The young apprentice took his wineskin and some bread up to the dying man and, after wrestling his way up the tree, slowly fed him the food and water. It was a difficult job, the dying man’s mouth was dry and swallowing was a painful task. The young scholar climbed down the tree when the water was nearly gone and rejoined his teacher.

“Let’s be off then.” Said the old man.

“Let’s do.”

“Master?” The young apprentice, pleased with their accomplishment and the master’s display of arcane power, had one more question. “Master, can you travel far into the future? Like, say, ten years or so?”

“Why yes, my lad, I can. But it would take a decade to get there.”

They walked briskly around the tree and continued their long travel toward the lush valley beyond the hills of the desert, for this is where they lived.

And this is how the dying man lived his first day, a day of agony, yet a day sustained, on his arboreal grave. It is true that he still wanted to die. But he wanted to die a little less than he did the day before.

Part three--Opiates of denial

The next day brought great pain to the dying man. He grimaced and flinched with every thought of moving an arm or a leg. His injuries did not simply sting like they had the days before. Now he could feel the nails and barbs inside him. The exterior pain gave way to inner pain—a more throbbing, excruciating, pulsating sensation. Especially painful were his wrists and the bones in his arms. The nails felt as if they might rip through his arms if he moved too much, so his every thought was on flexing the muscles in his forearms to prevent the rending of flesh. And this was a horrible task. His shoulders creaked with intensity, his muscles had to be relaxed every now and again or else they would quiver and he would lose the battle altogether. A careful balance between flexing the muscles and relaxing them had to be maintained, and when he slept—when he was able to put off the agony enough to sleep—he could only hope he would wake up before the nails proved stronger than his bones and flesh.

The one thing that helped him in this regard—ironically—was the barbed chord. The chord entwined his arms in such a way that, if he were careful, he could shift his weight, so very carefully, to alleviate both the pressure and the pain. This chord with its spiky teeth was wrapped around his torso and legs as well. He realized it was helping him survive. And staying alive became more feasible the longer he did it. Certainly he still had many, many moments throughout the day when he would throw his screams to the sky, or maybe he would cry softly into his shoulder, wishing either the heat of the day or the light in his eyes would just end.

On this third day of his crossing, at the height of the greatest wave of heat, another traveler happened by the tree of the dying man.

Curiously, the dying man spotted a hunched over figure on the dune-top. This silhouetted figure seemed to be brushing aside sand with his hands as if he were looking for something. At times the figure would disappear over the hill only to reappear a little later in the same hunched over state, still investigating the sand.

The dying man tried yelling at the hunching figure, but his voice was still powerless. Only raspy whimpers came out of his mouth. This, coupled with the anguish of his physical state, angered the dying man very much. His breath became erratic and his veins bulged, causing the bleeding to start again at the nails in his wrists and over certain parts of his body where the barbs had sunk in deep. He passed out.

The dying man awoke to a cold chill across his face. Water. Cold water. As soon as the brightness of the sun faded, the dying man saw a hunchback man hanging above him by his legs from a large branch. In one hand he held a small parchment and in the other, a wet cloth rag that was soiled with blood, dirt and sand. He smiled at the dying man and continued cleansing him. He was reading from the paper and chanting, all the while hanging like a monkey upside down. This new stranger wore the minimalist garb of a monk, the peregrine monks from across fertile plains beyond the desert. He began chanting in a strange language, maybe Latin, maybe Romanian—it was familiar, but not wholly recognizable to the dying man. The peregrine monk cleaned and bandaged the dying man’s wounds without unlatching one barb or pulling one nail. He then applied a medicinal ointment to the man’s entire body and gave him an oral anesthetic. All the time he was singing and laughing, talking in a deep voice (in a foreign language that was neither Latin nor Romanian) and making strange clicking sounds with his mouth. And then, his countenance fell.

The monk placed the soiled rag on the dying man’s head and gave water and bread to him, who took it apprehensively.

“Would you like me to hear your confession now?” Said the suspended traveler after the water was nearly gone.

No answer came.

The dying man blinked and then stared into the sun.

“Was it a crime of anger?”

No answer.

“Can you speak to me?”

No answer.

“Do wish for redemption? For reconciliation?”

Then the monk asked a series of questions and to each he received no reply—not even a nod from the dying man.

“A crime of passion? A crime of thievery? Thievery, was it? You stole to eat? Was it a crime of poverty or of greed? Did you make bread on Sunday and eat it on Tuesday? Are you a debtor? A chop man? Did you catch a fish for sport? Did you laugh at court? Perhaps you failed to pay taxes or you associated with rebellious entities. You are an enemy of your lord? Is that what it was? You conspired to assassinate the Sultan? You are not from here? Did you count the stars or build a levy? Did you accuse a man? Was it a walking offense? Malice? Scorn? Impertinence? Incontinence? Rape? Was it incest? Skullduggery? Did you protest within five paces of the Gate? Did you test a fault? Did you fail a test? You were a spy in a foreign court? Were you the bearer of ill news?”

Having no questions answered, the monk let slip the soiled cloth into the air and watched it fly through the winds of the desert.

“I cannot help you if you do not help me help you.”

No answer.

He shrugged and spryly descended the massive tree in a series of fluid bounds.

“There is a caravan near here.” He said while gathering up his peregrine’s gear. "They are Bedouin. I will tell them of your plight."

The dying man looked further away from the monk.

“Beware the purple lights. The hunchback monk motioned across the sands with his hands. “The lights are my quest. If you see them, take heed from whence they come. I’ll be back again.”

And with that, he left the dying man to his own free will, and hunched off over the desert, across the sea to the mountains beyond the fertile plains of a distant land, for that is where he resided.

And this is how the dying man lived the third day in the desert. He was grateful to the monk although he did not show it. He was, after all, still nailed to a tree, in great pain. But that pain was not why he cried for hours and hours that night. He sobbed and wept until all the dry desert air was filled with his lament of moans and the lavender moon disappeared in the lilting sky.

Read the next sections

Silent Night

A quick rendition...maybe I'll do it over in a couple days. As always, sorry about the sound quality! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Portland's Finest Update 1

So here are the names of all the officers we think need to be thanked. We will be filing a commendation report with the city next week. We really cannot express enough gratitude to these men. If I have any details wrong, it's because the whole incident was pretty blurry and happened at breakneck speed--and because I kept forgetting to ask names at various points along the way.

Officer Rilling who helped us over the phone and got the ball rolling on all this.
Officer Scott who visited Brendan at the hospital.
Detective Christianson(sp?) who is responsible for getting the confession and doing all the other things he's done/is doing.
Officer Lee, the transit officer who made the arrest of the perpetrator.

And one huge thanks to the one guy whose name I never got, the bus driver who helped Brendan get home and took time out of his day to help us in other ways. This man is a truly good guy and I feel like a toad for not getting his name and number because I really want to write a letter to Tri-Met about him. I'll get it.

Also, thanks to the Assistant D.A., Christine Mascal, for making this matter come to pass in a quick and timely fashion. Swift justice is my favorite kind and to be honest I think Brendan, being involved first-hand in the process, learned a lesson not many kids get to (have to) learn. I think he understands how extremely lucky we got on this, but he also found out that the system can work, does work, even if it's far from perfect.

We met with the grand jury today and Brendan gave his testimony along with all the other witnesses. They do have a confession so it might not have to go to trial. If it does, Brendan says he's ready to roll...but let's hope it never gets that far.

Portland's Finest--possibly the finest in the world

So, Sunday at around 4:30 pm my 15 year old step-son Brendan comes strolling in the house. I say "hi". He didn't reply. He'd been down at his girlfriend's house and I figured they got in an argument and I was getting the angst-riddled radioactive residue from the fallout. I was wrong.

"...just got mugged." he said in a mumble.
"Who just got mugged?"
"I..."
"What the f..."

I jumped out of my chair when I saw the gaping gash above his eye and the bloody rag he was using to dab out little pieces of dirt and rock.

Come to find out, he had gone down to the mall at Lloyd Center with his friend to drop off an application. I can't tell you how many times I've told them (all the kids, my kids, your kids, everyone's kids) to STAY AWAY FROM LLOYD CENTER and especially STAY AWAY FROM THE MAX STATIONS!!! Some young hip-hop hoodlums, gangbangers or just random punks beat him up for his cell phone and iPod. *Angry.* He had taken the bus all the way back from Lloyd Center to our house because he was debating whether he was going to tell us about the whole affair. Apparently, he was afraid of being grounded for being somewhere he wasn't supposed to be... Kids...logic...does not compute...

I don't get this world. Now's when grandma comes in and says "And this used to be such a nice city..."

But get this:

I, of course, immediately called the police, and after the usual wrangling around for a body that actually cared that a measure 11 crime had just been committed against my son, got a very competent officer on the case. Within a matter of FOUR HOURS, the police had not only detained the specific individual who had physically assaulted my son, they had a full confession. What the f... Nah. Really? Yep.

Apparently these kids had got on a bus or the MAX and did this to yet another victim and this time they got caught, possibly in the act, I'm not sure on all the details as of yet. The last I heard, the police had 2 of the possibly 5 assailants in custody.

I thought I would share this for a couple reasons. One being that we are always hearing about crimes being commited and nothing being done about it/cops being apathetic, unresponsive, etc. Maybe I thought a success story would help our societal morale...I hope it does. Secondly, I have to hand it to the detectives who interviewed the bad guys, the officer who came to the hospital to talk to Brendan, the dispatch officer (big cheer for this fellow), the bus driver who helped Brendan get home, the Transit cops, and everyone else involved. (I won't use their names until they say I can, but they deserve medals, commendations and raises--I'm not kidding)

We won't know how far this will go until later on. I'll try to update this as it all comes together.

By the way, Brendan is just fine. Three stitches, a bruised ego and yeah, of course, he's grounded. Heh.

Liber Review's Interview with Barrack Obama 10-29-09

During president Obama's recent trip out here to help promote the campaigns of certain incumbents, Liber Review was fortunate enough to get this short interview with the 44th president of the United States. We cannot possibly thank the adminstration, the president's staff and our new friends at the press corp for allowing us this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

We were only allowed two questions as we had to share the forty minute interview session with other fledgling outlets. We, of course, cheated and got an extra question or two in under the radar.

I have to admit, that I was very, very nervous doing this interview. Apologies for my obvious rookie mistakes and general amature composure...

One word of warning: we do not possess the editing capacity required to cut, edit or sample these tapes as of yet (we will soon, God willing), so beware the "R" rated word at the end of the tape. Sorry about that. Still, I think the interview went quite well.

Wrecked.

Song of the Month--October 2009--The Fool's Dog

The Fool's dog.

A yip and champ. The strident fool.

We'll wish him well.

We'll shove him off.

The frayed and snapping string of ancient lyre.

A pounding paw for past regrets. That's him prancing, yelping, admonishing.

What you once knew.