02/06/01

I suppose I could have brought up the obsession I had about the secret room in Porch Rot’s house with Swami Hard Salami when I went to see him today, but I kept it to myself. I can accept needing to be on medication to fight my depression--- especially given that my probation officer has ordered me to comply with depression treatment under penalty of jail--- but there’s just no way in hell I’ll ever accept that I’m delusional. What I have, I joke to myself, is embellishment disorder. They’re just stories that crop up in my mind. Sometimes they turn out like shows you’d see on TV or at the movies. I know they’re not real, but they just play on, and they’re actually pretty entertaining most of the time.

I guess Swami will eventually put out the verdict on me, but I’ll be damned if I do anything to make it easy for him to get to that point. He just seems to be fucking around half the time anyway. I just keep thinking why be straight up with this fucked up fucker?

Delusions don’t seem to really exist as they’re defined except in the mind of an outside observer. Seems to me that truly delusional people never seem to really know to use that word to apply to themselves. That’s not to say you still can’t develop an anxiety disorder worrying your life has been one big delusion. That’s probably more where I’m at.

Speaking of anxiety creation, Swami tells me, living out in that trailer in the wilderness, it may only be a matter of time before you turn into the Unabomber.

Unabomber? Are you kidding me? Fucked up fucker!

You know I hate when people do that Unabomber shit to me---one of Percy’s geek friends at the Super Bowl party all but said the same thing to me.

Do you know what Ted Kaczynski’s IQ is? Swami asks me.

167, I reply. Entered Harvard at age 16. Subjected to cruel, CIA-sponsored psychological experiments. Became a mathematics professor at Berkeley while still in his 20‘s. Quit. Moved into a shack in Montana. Started setting off bombs everywhere. Wrote a manifesto critical of industrial society. . .

Swami just sat there quietly looking at me like I was nuts.

Shit, why did I just do that?

Good fucking gracious.

02/05/01

I was going back trying to figure out how the crazy idea came into my mind that Phil Palfrey might still be alive and caged like an animal in Porch Rot’s house. I realize now it was probably from the story Tommy New Yawka told me last month about the feral man the fire department found locked inside a burning apartment in the city. I guess Tommy’s rescue company had all they could do to bust through all the locks and reinforcements to get to the man, only to have him start attacking the firemen from that point out of fear and insanity. Meanwhile the fire continued to rage. Tommy said he decided at some point to grab the rabid little guy and put him on his back, with the guy sinking his teeth in him and growling the whole way down.

Usually Tommy is away for days at a time at the firehouse. His shift always begins and ends off-hours so he never has to contend with rush hour traffic really. He came home from work late one night and found a pack of coyotes crossing through the yard. He came to my trailer the next morning and asked to borrow a gun. He seemed unaware I was a convicted felon. Not surprised, just sort of unaware, blasé about it even, and that was surprising to me. I assumed everyone in town knew. I said my guns belong to Phebe now, you’ll have to go to the house and ask her. Tell her you need her 30-30 and her green and yellow box of ammo. Not the red box, the green and yellow one.

I can understand Tommy’s worry about coyotes with a house full of little kids like that but I almost got the sense that he was afraid he himself might get attacked by them. I couldn’t help but say oh, you city slicker, those coyotes won’t leave teeth marks on you any bigger than the ones the feral man left on you when you carried him out of the fire.

In any case, I’m glad Tommy’s opinion of convicted felons seems better than his opinion of coyotes.

@GLHancock takes on @Scatoma 12/5/10 ouch!

She said: @Scatoma Spam much? #writechat

He said: @GLHancock Define spam. . . #writechat I've been doing this for 8 months. I get 1000 reads per week and growing. I am making nothing.

She said: @Scatoma One version of spamming on Twitter is to cram as many hashtags into a tweet as you can. What do you call it? #writechat

He said: @GLHancock The reason you don't like me is not because I'm cramming too many hashtags into my tweets. If Twitter tells me to stop I will.

She said: @Scatoma The other kind of spamming is to send the same message to many individual @s, making them look like personal messages. #writechat

He said: @GLHancock I don't use deceptive tweets. What are you referring to?

She said: RT@Scatoma: The reason you don't like me is not because I'm cramming too many hashtags into my tweets. || Huh? I don't even know you!

She said: @Scatoma If you have a beef, please respond here, where you sent the first message (along with a lot of other hashtags). #writechat

He said: @GLHancock You're a industry insider unhappy with an independent author using technology in a legitimate way to promote his work #writechat

She said: @Scatoma As I wrote, I didn't even know you. Now I see you're one of THOSE. And a spambot. Why RT me if you think I'm wrong? #writechat

She said: @Scatoma: Youre a industry insider unhappy with an independent author... | Tell it to @Amazon where I SP Kindle material #writechat

He said: @GLHancock You wanna stage a Donald Trump v. Rosie O'Donnell fight here I'm all for it. I'm already seeing my numbers tick upward #writechat

She said: @Scatoma No one cares about an anonymous free blog poseurs' "numbers." Spam us and slam us, I have paid editing work to do. 'bye #writechat

02/04/01

After our interlude the other day I asked Phebe about the missing Cumberland spearhead my father gave me. She brought it down to me this morning, she said she got it out of the safe deposit box at the bank first thing in the morning. My gosh, what a wonderful piece of work it is! Probably worth as much as a tractor!

Exactly where you told me to put it, she says to me, what are your getting senile?

So I say to Phebe You didn’t go tell anyone about this?

She just looks at me like I’m an asshole. If I tell you I’ll keep something secret, you better damn believe that’s what I’m going to do!

Back when I first started getting sick, before we had Cornelius and Maddy move in and take over the operation for me, Phebe was working day and night, milking the cows some days twice a day and then putting in a full shift at the hospital too. One day she went in to work exhausted and injected an old man accidentally with something that ended up killing him. There had been some rumors going around that Phebe was running the farm for me and reporting to work exhausted, so the hospital was nervous about indemnifying her. At some point later Phebe was put under oath in a deposition and she went through a couple hours of questions and denied up and down she had ever worked on the farm before any shift, or that she ever reported to work too tired. With this placed on the record, the hospital continued to stand behind her and moved to settle the matter without much further ado. Everything could have fallen squarely on her shoulders. She pretty much saved the farm. I guess sometimes you have to decide which virtue you’re going to give top billing in life: honesty or loyalty. Don’t know which one a marriage requires most, but I now think I know which one keeping a farm requires most.

I think moral choices must have been easier for people when this Cumberland spearhead was made. All you had to do was keep from starving to death and everything was good---you were a fucking hero!

Where to put this god damn computer disk though where I won’t forget it or where it won’t get stolen? I guess I’ll keep it hidden out in the tool shed behind the trailer here. I ought to keep this spearhead together with it too. Now there’s a pair of mismatched items!

02/03/01

Had this dream the other night about Porch Rot’s house. Well, it was more than that really. It was a dream about a secret room. I know it probably sounds crazy, but I started obsessing on the thought that Hiram had lied to me and that Clean Phil wasn’t dead at all. I started imagining that Phil had gone crazy and was being kept locked up in a room in that house like a caged animal. Craziest thought, I know. I have no good evidence that the dream could ever be true. It sure got me in the most fucked up, unexpected situation though. I guess my wacky thoughts got the better of me.

My memory just kept going back to the time that I asked to go through Phil’s stuff. I realize now that the inside of the house didn’t match up with the outside of the house, that a secret room really could have existed there. What I mean to say is there should have been another room or two on the ground floor of the house than what I saw that day to account for the square footage you can figure from the outside. So as I’m recalling going through that house, in my memory I realize a big armoire was placed up against the wall where a door should have been. I suddenly recall years later a piece of door trim partly visible behind the piece. I remember thinking to myself at the time, Porch Rot has that room closed off, but I never thought at the time why that was so.

The beagle went missing again, so I took upon myself yesterday morning to go looking for him on Hiram’s farm. Got close to the house. Got near to the window where I thought the secret room might be, put my face close to the glass to look in, and what do I see inside but little Milady naked in a bathtub, her little brown jugs bobbing so sweetly on top of the water and suds. She didn’t scream or anything, but I sure did feel like a fool. I can tell I embarrassed the hell out of her. She just kind of sunk her body beneath the water so that only her head was sticking out of the soap.

I’m looking for my dog, I say all red-faced, desperate to explain myself, Perro. Mi Perro esta losto againo.

And then I left and came back to the trailer to hide under a blanket on my couch. Thought the police would show up any moment and arrest me for being a peeping Tom or a stalker or user of really bad, made-up Spanish or something. Just had these visions of being sent back before the judge on a probation violation. Had these visions of awful headlines in the newspapers. Had these awful visions of being sent to prison for twenty years or something, being boned up the ass by some burly woodchuck more foul than even myself.

What the fuck are you doing, Thoreau? I just kept thinking, buried beneath that blanket, What the fuck are you doing?

What happens next? A knock at the trailer door. Who is it but Milady bundled against the cold in a ski jacket smiling happily at me, the fucking beagle squirming in her arms desperate to get away again.

I fine your dog, she says happily.

Great, I say dishonestly, bring him in.

I was thinking I didn’t want to run the risk of trying to take the dog out of her arms and dropping him and have him run off again. I didn’t want to run the risk of brushing her titties either trying to get the dog out of her arms. Better to let her bring the dog right in so he could‘t get away again.

But just as soon as I say that, I think: why the hell are you bringing this girl into your trailer? She could accuse you of abusing her or something.

Can I get you a warm drink? Coffee? I say, slipping deeper into the abyss.

I’m thinking to myself, Why the fuck did you do that? She’ll be here for an hour now.

She just shakes her head yes, seems reluctant to say anything in English. She’s wearing these super tight jeans. Never noticed her in them before, I’m thinking what’s that about? Sits down without hesitation on the edge of the sofa I had obviously been using as my bed, had her hand crammed nervously between her thighs by her crotch. She still has her jacket on.

Don’t ask her to take off her jacket, I think. Don’t ask her to take off her jacket.

Wouldn’t you like to take off your jacket? I ask.

She doesn’t say anything. She just shyly takes off the jacket. The beagle doesn’t like the whistling sound the jacket makes and starts yapping. Milady hushes the dog. Dog fucking obeys for once. Dog is transfixed by her, and that saying nothing of the beagle. She got a low riding blouse on and has cleavage showing to match the Rift Valley of Tanzania.

My fucking goodness, I’m such an idiot. Such a fucking idiot. I’m doing math in my head. If this girl is 19 years-old and it 2001 now, then she was born around 1982, the year John Cougar Mellencamp, who was only John Cougar then, came out with Jack and Diane. I’m remembering back singing the line life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone and I envision this girl at the time still at her mother’s breast. So then I’m thinking about her mother and what her breast must have been like in 1982 when John Cougar Mellencamp, who was just John Cougar then, was just out with Jack and Diane, and I start wondering how old she, the mother, might be. I realize I’m probably older than her mother by 10 years. Then I start thinking maybe her mother had her when she was 16 and her grandmother had her mother at 16, making the girl’s grandmother the same fucking age as me!

Now that kind of thought sure would put a damper on the old physiology. . . if it weren’t for the wonders of Viagra, I mean. Ever since the male chest cancer I’ve had to be on the shit. In reality there was no chance anything would have ever happened between me and Milady that day. I was being closely monitored the whole time. You see, Milady went to the house first with the dog and Phebe sent her down the lane to the trailer. When Phebe didn’t see Milady return from my trailer right away, she concocted an excuse to come visit me to make sure nothing untoward was taking place. Upon sight of Phebe nearing the trailer Milady got up off the sofa and put her jacket back on to leave.

I was cleaning up the house and came across your old 8 track player Phebe says and she hands over a box to me. I know in an instant from the musical selection--- Neil Young‘s Everybody Knows This is Nowhere---that she was there for a specific purpose---to partake in the Cinnamon Girl deed. I suppose she was curious to see if I had expended myself. Surely she learned that was not the case.

I remember hearing tales about World War I, how the two sides put down their arms on Christmas, climbed out of their trenches and had a good old time with each other while that particular day lasted. But then when it was over, they were back in their trenches again, back to trying to kill one another. That’s kind of the same thing Phebe and I went through on Christmas Day and now Ground Hog’s Day: Five and a half minutes of Woodchuck Love, and than back immediately to trench warfare.

Like George Carlin says: fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.

He also said the shortest sentence in the English language is I am---the longest sentence is I do.

I guess you could say I saw my shadow. Somehow I’m guessing we’ll have six more weeks of Winter.

2/01/01

I was getting by financially for a while sneaking into the house while Phebe was at work scrounging for stray coins and refundable bottles and the like, but then she saw fit to have all the locks changed and a security system installed. Probably cost a fortune. Never could find where she hid the check book. Couldn’t find any credit cards either. She uses that ATM card to get money out of the machine most of the time. Never did take the time to teach me how to use it, so that ATM card wouldn’t be of any use to me even if I found it. Now I gotta go to Middletown on the tractor every so often as the weather allows with a load of scrap metal to get cash money. I load up as much scrap as I can in the manure spreader, which is my most road-worthy wagon at this point. I used to synchronize the scrap runs when I could to swing by the government center in Goshen on reporting day to save on gas, but I was told by a sheriff‘s deputy that my “mode of transport poses a health and safety hazard. . . and takes up too many parking spaces to boot.” I told him “the supermarket doesn’t seem to have any problem with me parking there--I can’t see why here should be any different.” He wasn’t too pleased with that comment, said, “you report here for probation, right?

I’ve been heating the trailer with a wood stove. Lately I’ve been cooking on it too since the electric stove in the kitchen stopped working. I had no idea last summer I would be in this predicament living in the trailer in Winter. I would have a good supply of seasoned wood stacked up otherwise. It’s been tough going out in the woods with tractor every day, dragging home whatever severed limb I can find in the snow. Right now as I sit and write this I have wet clothing hanging from clotheslines strung all throughout the trailer. Just had my second meal of oatmeal for the day. The dog hates the shit. No wonder it keeps running off. At least we’re in February now. Not that it’s any less fucking cold.

01/31/01

Poor Maddy--- 6 feet tall, 250lbs of solid muscle---couldn’t find a boy in high school with the bravery to date her, decided to go to college at Oklahoma State on a shot put scholarship to “find a real cowboy”.

Maddy used to use her shot put prowess in high school to put any boy who might cause her trouble in his place: You think I can throw these heavy balls far, she’d say, wait until I get a hold of your little scrawny ones.

She also used to joke at the time, since she was so determined to travel at a distance to find a man, that maybe she would be the first person in the family in 100 years to marry a non-relative. Who does she meet at school, fall in love with and marry but a 6th cousin, Cornelius Kuykendall, Texas cowboy, and, according to Percy‘s research, descendant of Jacob Luursen (1616-1655) immigrant to New Amsterdam same as we are.

I guess Cornelius’ parents had him when they were teenagers. He was named for Cornelius on the Planet of the Apes. He was raised by his grandmother in some trailer in the Hill Country of Texas until it was tossed during a tornado. I wonder if the head injury he got then has had anything to do with his wanting to turn into a woman. Sure makes you wonder though how that happens, especially to a hulking Texan with the testosterone level of a rodeo bull.

If you think of yourself as a woman, Maddy made the mistake of asking him, what are you thinking I am? A man?

Phebe and I let Cornelius stay on the place and farm long after Maddy moved off. Swami Hard Salami didn’t think this was good at all, and thought Cornelius needed to make a break from us and give his final answer, as Regis Philbin would say, to the surgeon before he permanently ditched his male genitalia. He was such a damn good farmer though, and Phebe liked all the handiwork he did on the house. I guess we kept him on too long. He took his truck down to the green market to sell his organic produce and hand-crafted cheese and got wasted at some gender bender bar, crashed the box truck on the GWB trying to make his way home. After that Swami lures Cornelius off to do building maintenance on all Swami’s apartment buildings in Newburgh. Said Cornelius needed to live around people as a woman, see if that’s what he really wanted before he passed the point of no return. So Cornelius is living as a woman now---Cornelia---but still is every bit still intact for now. Roll down Montgomery Street, or Grand Street, or BayView Terrace and see him up there on the ladder cleaning the gutters wearing a blonde wig. And God forbid you fail to pay your rent, Swami Hard Salami---psychiatrist slumlord---will have Hill Country Cornelia come after you and kick your ass till you pay up.

Well, it‘s not exactly like that, but still.

Did I tell you it’s the middle of Winter and I live in desolation in a trailer?

Maybe I ought to find a wig and move on out there to Newburgh too. . .

Maddy was always the better farmer of my two children. You’d never know it now but Rocky was a fragile child, born almost 6 weeks prematurely. From almost the first day he came into this world he’s been wheezing and coughing, having allergy attacks of one kind or another. Hell, he was lactose intolerant as a baby. . .to fucking breast milk! Now that’s an auspicious start for a dairy farmer! When it came to being around hay, or animal dander, or poison ivy, or bees---forget about it. He’d either be swollen up like a balloon, struggling to breathe, or oozing some kind of fluid out of one body part or another. Yeah, like he was any better suited to work drywall than farm. All that dust from sanded spackle should have killed him. I should have known it was all a crock. He got in with one of the Umbria’s crew. The drywall shit was all window dressing I think now.

My father’s family got sucked in with Dutch Schultz during prohibition, my son, with the Umbrias. I’m the fucking boy scout of the lineage, I guess. Then again I’m a convicted felon, aren’t I? Well, scratch that then. Well, of course, Maddy made it into the State Police academy. I guess she’s the boy scout of the family. They were going to throw her out when they learned her father had become a felon too in addition to her brother, but she vowed she was permanently estranged from us, and they let her stay on only because of that claim. I sure do miss seeing her.