moment to moment

To be buried in lava and not turn a hair, it is then a man shows what stuff he is made of." From Malone Dies ONE SUMMER NIGHT It all started one summer night when Buzz, a.k.a. the Buzzard, Foonut shot the little missus, Bobbi Sue. Oh, he didn’t kill her outright, though he might have been trying to; he just sort of nicked her in the left arm. Winged her, to use a pun. It kind of makes you wonder though: What would drive a man to wanta murder his wife? But, I wouldn’t know; I’m not a "modern man," according to the ex-wife. I’m old-fashioned. I grew up in an age when boys had peashooters and girls had cooties. We amused ourselves with Lincoln logs and Erector sets. It only cost five cents for a pack of baseball cards, and a pink slab of stale gum came with it. Milk was delivered to your house in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers. War was a card game. It took five minutes for your TV set to warm-up so we could watch Howdy Dowdy and Buffalo Bob and be part of the Peanut Gallery. We talked over party lines, listened to 45-RPM records by Elvis, used metal ice cube trays with levers on them, and stored them in the ICE BOX. Nobody had a purebred dog, but we had roller-skate keys, tinker toys, slingshots and played with popguns that shot real corks. We motored to the drive-in’s in a Studebaker and watched the picture shows; and you got two of ’em, along with cartoons, newsreels, and a travelogue-usually one with pretty girls water skiing at Florida’s Cypress Gardens, while holding a flag in one hand and one of her legs in the air. And, when we weren’t busy doing all that, we drank powered Kool-Aid with granulated sugar and chewed on Bazooka bubblegum. Hot damn!, what a great childhood we had. Today, kids drink beer and smoke pot (or worse) while watching porn over their satellite TV’s. They have every electronic gismo in the universe like cell phones that can dial-up anyone in the world. These mobile devices store memos, notes, books, photos, play games, movies, hold every recorded song since the beginning of time, have a calculator, plus a global positioning device that can track a person to within one foot of their real-time location, anywhere in the cosmos. It can tell you the weather in Bombay, how the stock market is doing, connect you to the Internet to surf the web for world news, find statistical information about your favorite teams in any sport, checks your e-mail, and it doubles as a camera that takes both still pictures and video, all in living color. It has maps that can tell you where the nearest gas station, restaurant, hotel, amusement park, escort service, sex Shoppe, or coke dealer is-along with directions on how to get there. It can be waved over any barcode device, in any store, in any country, to complete any credit card purchase. All this in a phone that is flatter than a flapjack and fits into the palm of your hand. And we haven’t even begun to talk about iPads, Xboxes, synthesizers, frequency translators, clock oscillators, crystals, video games, portable signal generators, OCXO’s, VCXO’s, TCXO’s, VCTCXO’s, or DRO’s. God!, I haven’t any idea what all of those initials even stand for. As for women today: they hang out in crews (like gangsters working for a mob syndicate) at fancy coffee shops-where a cup of Joe cost five dollar a pop-to discuss their hapless, hopeless husbands, or who’s having the latest affair. Or else, they gather together, at the local salon, and while they’re having their nails manicured, their toes pedicured, their hairs waxed, their backs massaged, their asses and abs buffed, they all pitch a bitch about how their pathetic, incompetent husbands couldn’t find their G-Spot even with the aid of one of those super-duper, butt-kicking, massive spotlights that producers use at Hollywood premieres. Some of these turbo-bitches with teeth even go so far as to suggest that their spouses must not only be morons, but gay morons to boot, since they can never seem to find that little man in the boat. And, they are all-all of them-are still, still waiting, just waiting, for that elusive Bi g O. As for me? I just wonder what all these women are bringing to this party. But, what would I know? Nothing, according to the ex-wife. I’m "old-fashioned," remember? I guess I must be, for men today, are almost as bad as some of these women. Men wear their daughter’s placentas around their necks, can’t drink wine because it makes them too sensitive, and carry a vial of their girlfriend’s blood, around their necks, to get in touch with their feminine side. And what about me? The wife divorced me, so NOW!, I’m the "modern man" all right: lonely, depressed, all by myself, insensitive to women, and I openly participate in debates with my fellow man as to whether or not women have a soul. I’m Officer Corky Smidlap of the Manatee Springs PD, but most people just refer to me as "the Cork." I was summoned to the scene of this here happening to take the reports, along with my partner, Bucko Johnson, but we just call him, "Junior." I guess I had better start at the beginning, that’s usually the best place to start…at the beginning. This all happened in Manatee Springs: it’s a small town, in the middle of Florida, right above Lake Okeechobee, next to Coconut Gardens. Most of the people here live in manufactured homes; they don’t call ’em mobile homes any more-gives off the wrong impression, it does. People always poke fun at those kinda folks-trailer trash and all that. I’m sure you know what I mean. Manufactured home sounds so much more refined when you say it: "I live in a "manufactured home!" See what I mean? Well, anyway, this all happened in one of those trashy trailer parks with one of those heavenly sounding names, this one being Paradise Cove: it sat right smack on Hagfish Bay and consisted exclusively of retirees: fifty-five years of age and older—no children. It all started one summer night in mid-September. The Foonuts, who lived at Thirteen Lower Whacker Drive, were watching the weatherman on Channel Six with their bloodhound, Old Blue, when—surprise! surprise!—he told them (the weatherman, not the bloodhound) “to expect sum sorta unexpected cold snap durin’ the night.” The temperature was going to dip down into the low sixties. This, in and of itself, wasn’t interesting news; it’s just that Bobbi Sue had recently bought herself a few of those Clivia miniatas—is how you say it, I think. It’s one of those variegated houseplants that grow them orange flowers with yella throats on ’em. I’m sure you know what I mean, if you’re interested in that sorta thing. Real pretty, is what they are, but super sensitive to the cold…and cost a pretty penny too! She had several of them, outside on the porch of her manufactured home, just getting the fresh air. However, when she heard that news report, about the cold snap, she got to speculating as to whether or not she should fetch ’em inside. “So’s, whatcha think?” wondered Bobbi Sue. “Bout what?” replied her husband, as he continued to watch the news and simultaneously read the newspaper. “Bout what? ‘Bout what the weatherman’s bin talkin’ ‘bout, and what we been discussin’ here fer the past five minutes. That’s ‘bout what!’” The Buzzard peered over the sports page. He had this one milky eye that was pointed all wrong: it looked out of his head at an odd angle and made him appear as if he had something real important working on his mind. “Well, run it by me one more time.” “’Bout my Clivia miniatas, is “’bout what.’” “What about ’em?” “My back teeth! Fer land’s sake, Buzz, are ya payin’ attention ta me or not?” “Course I am, Peaches.” Bobbi Sue was a Georgia transplant. The Buzzard nicknamed her his Georgia Peach, but most of the time he just called her Peaches.