Jesus Hernandez was a bricklayer. The Jesus you’re thinking of was a carpenter, although both are admirable professions. This Jesus lived alone in a nice house in the San Fernando Valley. He lived alone because he had “anger issues” and his wife was long gone.

His business was thriving. There was enough work right there in the Valley to Keep on Pilin’ like his sweaty T-shirt said. With a nice house in sunny California, a great business, and the wife not but a fading memory, Jesus was happy, his anger apparently conquered. But then…Donald Trump.

At first it was just a twinge he felt every time the media blasted “…and they’re going to pay for it!” But eventually that twinge turned into full-blown rage, and one morning, his neighbors were awakened to the sound of a truck delivering two pallets of bricks to Jesus’s front yard. A week later, he had constructed a wall, about waist high, across the front of his property. The neighbors hardly noticed. They lived in the Valley.

This eased his ire for a bit, and he even put some flowers on top of the wall to ease his conscience too. But words played on in his head. Rapists, murderers, drug-dealers. This would require more bricks–many more bricks.

Eventually his anger drove him to completely wall himself in, but you already knew that. And you probably assumed the day came when Jesus got hurt and needed help, but nobody could get in, and Jesus died a slow and anger-filled death. Don’t be like this Jesus.

 

My wife loved drugs, what can I say? I was more or less the alcoholic; she was the druggie–and she paid the ultimate price for it. She had a resting heart-rate of 120 bpm and an anxiety problem that bordered on psychosis; I never blamed her for wanting to feel calm. I know how bad that feeling can get, having been through extreme alcohol withdrawal more times than I’d care to remember.

She started out on benzos first, kolonipins, atavan, and her favorite, xanax. It’s next to impossible to OD on benzos, so that worked for awhile, but you also build up an immunity to them so quickly, they’re useless after a while. I remember more than once, an ambulance was called for her, and she walked out of the Emergency Room with a prescription for more benzos–I don’t know what she told the Doc, but I’m sure she should’ve won an Oscar for it.

So the next step up the Stairway to Heaven is opioids. These are the common pain-killers you get after minor surgery or if you break a bone. Not only do they numb your pain, they induce euphoria and have a calming effect. The most benign of them are compounds (usually mixed with acetaminophen) because you can only take so much powder up your nose. (Many users prefer snorting it.) Tylenol 3, hydrocodone, oxycodone come to mind. You can OD on these, however, because it always takes more to feel relief and there is a point where it will kill you. My wife used these for many years, until she met Lauri, who introduced her to Real Downers like morphine.

Lauri had a doctor friend (lover) who prescribed anything she wanted, and she had quite a little pharmacy in her lockbox. Needless to say, she and my wife quickly became best friends. I remember sitting in her apartment, and when she would go to the bathroom, my wife would grab the box, get it unlocked, rummage around for the morphine, and get it back in place sometimes a second before she came out–talk about nerve-rattling!

Lauri told me once that if my wife ever OD’d on her pills, she would kill herself.

One morning, my wife asked me for a drink as she lay down in bed–I saw her pop something, but this was the norm.  A little bit later, I heard her gasp, and when I checked on her, she was unconscious and not breathing. I tried everything and called 911; I’d brought her back from the brink of death many times, but this time it was different. I remember that the EMT fellas said I might want to leave the room for a minute. I found out why later–the autopsy report said she had the “usual broken ribs associated with CPR”. Also, the Sheriff was understanding enough to wait for me to slam a beer before we went to the hospital, where they told me she was dead. Married 33 years, 3 kids, 3 grandkids…gone.

A couple of weeks later, Lauri made good on her promise, and took the whole bottle of morphine.

 

This is me and my grandbaby Maddi–its hard to believe I was ever this young. When I was her age, ’57 Chevy’s weren’t classic cars yet, they hadn’t been made yet. We thought the year 2000 was so futuristic; the world would surely be like the Jetsons, flying cars and all.

Well, its 2016 and we’re still waiting on the flying cars, but the real technological progress has far exceeded anything we could’ve dreamed of. We do have cars that drive themselves, personal computers (remember Eniac?), and if someone would’ve told us about smartphones and the Web, I doubt if we would’ve believed them.

Still, I think I was brought up in the best of times for small, Midwest towns, and I’m glad I was around for the technology explosion, but there is one more thing I’d like to see happen before I croak: alien contact. I suppose the day after I die, aliens will contact us, and give us the formula for immortality and some seeds for kick-ass alien weed.

Oops, looks like there’s too much magic in that willow–even Good and Evil look like they might just bust out in dance. (Yea, I know, they dance all the time…something about dynamics.) I carved Grendel’s head out of a potato.

This is me on a mine dump outside of Aurora, MN, obviously contemplating Quantum Theory, Grand Unified Theory, the chances that the word prematurely came from Pretty-much-early, and, oddly enough, “schrodingers cat” because I can see my house from up here, the cat is home, and I don’t know if cats will eat rat poison. Guess I won’t know until I open the door. Poor kitty…maybe.

On our last day of marriage, my ex-wife gave to me:

Twelve beers a brewing

Eleven burritos baking

Ten tacos toasting

Nine nachos nuking

Eight Eggos waffling

Seven roasts a roasting

Six hot dogs heating

Five bologna rings!

Four fish a frying

Three Ex-lax

Two sleeping pills

And a subsequent load of laundry.

Circa 1000 A.D.

The Viking longboat slid through the icy waters of Dan, silent but for the rhythm of the oarsmen and the creaking of the crude planks.

Leif Eiriksson stood at the bow, gazing off to the west, though all he could see was mist and fog. Just as his father Eirik had been an explorer and the discoverer of Greenland, so Leif hoped this voyage would find new lands for his people. The ship cleared the fjord, the mast was raised, and the winds and the gods took over.

Leif grabbed one of the thralls and said, “Bring me your mistress, the prophetess, to throw the bones.”

The seer, in her long robe encrusted with precious stones, held her staff up to the sky and called out, “Oh Allfather, great One-Eye, help us to safely cross the great waters on this voyage. Redbeard Thor, send us an easy wind.” Then, as the others crowded around, she cast her bones and twigs on the wooden deck.

To the thralls and the freemen, it was just a scattering of bones marked with runes, but to the prophetess, they held great meaning. Just then, one of Odin’s ravens flew past. “We will find a great new land filled with forests and game, but I also see a great battle.”

Leif looked into her ancient, clouded eyes. “Ragnarok?” he asked.

“No, not Ragnarok,” she answered, “but a battle to rival it. I must cast the runes to discover the name of the battle.” She threw down the bones again, and then, studying the runes, her brow furrowed. ” The runes say the battle will be known as…Superbowl 51.”

Women are powerful beings, although many of them are unaware of their power because they’ve been subjugated by men their entire life. And why do men do this to women? Out of fear; us men know of women’s power.

Imagine Big, bad, weight-lifting, 350 pound Baba in the visiting room at prison. He’s feared through-out the prison–he’s doing life with no parole–and when he walks by, the toughest men cringe. And now, a bent over little old lady, all of 80 pounds, slaps him hard across the face, and all he does is say, “Sorry mama, I’ll try not to cuss again.” That women wields enormous power.

The writers of old tried to “keep women in their place” too. A woman was made from the rib of a man. A woman was responsible for the downfall of mankind. A woman’s testimony is worth half a man’s (Islam), the list goes on and on. Personally, I’m not afraid of women, I adore them, such awesome creatures! May they embrace their incredible power.

A single bead of sweat rolled down my back as I stood motionless, peering through the rifle scope for any sign of red. There was only one mall Santa left, and he was hiding out somewhere in the clothes racks of the men’s department. I radioed for the canine unit, and when he showed up, I waved a candy cane in front of his nose and sent him in.

In seconds, he was snarling and yanking the Santa out by his boot. There was a flurry of red and white and brown, and then, there it was: the shot. I lowered the cross-hairs on him and pulled the trigger. I plugged him right in the bowl full of jelly, and his pipe hit the floor a second before he did. The last mall Santa was down! The war on Christmas was finally over!

As a bartender, I’ve seen it all, heard it all. I’ve heard the most intimate confessions from a dizzying spectrum of drunken humans. I’ve heard their fears and deepest darkest secrets. It’s amazing what a few shots of truth serum bring out in otherwise well-guarded people. Most of them are harmless; just lonesome, or sort of lost, it seems. I don’t have a gun, but I have a hammer under the bar. I figure a couple of half-moons in someone’s forehead ought to slow them down, if need be.

Some people, you don’t know what to think of them. Like this guy last night. He sat there the whole night quietly  sipping brandy cokes, until it was almost closing time. Then, with just us two left in the place, he lifts his glass and blurts out, ” A toast! A toast for my brother Danny!”

I poured up a tapper, clinked it against his, and drained it. It was like a sauna in there, and the cold beer felt good all the way down.

“My big brother Danny,” he slurred, obviously quite intoxicated, “who died with a smile on his face and a funnel up his ass!”

Now the BS in a bar on a Saturday night can get pretty deep, but bartenders hear so much of it, it’s like we have hip-waders on, and we’re immune to it–but this one caught my attention. “A funnel…up…what?” I stammered.

“His ass,” he replied, and, finally making eye contact, ” a funnel up his ass…and I put it there.”

“Okay,” I said, “you got me. Let’s hear it.” I poured him  another drink, and pulled up a stool. “This one’s on the house.”

And there we sat drinking together til 5:00 AM. I make it a rule to not do that very thing with drunken patrons, but this guy really needed a drinking partner last night.

He told me how his big brother Danny gave him his first sip of booze at 12 years old (a scenario that would play over and over through the years), and how they’d raid the old man’s wineracks in the cellar, pouring out half the wine and filling the bottles with water and kool-aid. And getting in trouble with the police as teens, DWI’s, unplanned parenthood, and then marriage.

You would’ve thought that marriage would’ve put an end to his and his brother’s epic drinking binges, but alcohol was their real mistress (and a harsh one at that), and their marriages went the same way everything does for a drunk: away.

He and Danny moved in together in an old trailer out of town and proceeded to drink themselves into oblivion, month after month, year after year, “living” on Danny’s disability check he received for arthritis. Danny was still taking care of him. And everything was great. Until the cancer, of course.

Last year, Danny got stomach cancer and it had spread like wildfire. Last week, he was no longer able to keep any booze in his guts long enough to get drunk. And so he didn’t want to live anymore. He begged his little brother to kill him. Or find a way to get some alcohol in him. A needle, a brandy enema, ANYTHING!

At first he refused, but after some deep thought, he said, “Okay Danny, drop your shorts.” He went into the house and returned with a funnel. Danny seemed to come alive. He propped a pillow under Danny’s bare ass, and inserted the funnel. Then, he poured half the bottle in.

Danny’s body began to slump immediately, and a huge smile spread across his face. He mouthed a “thank you”, and lapsed into unconsciousness. A few minutes later, he stopped breathing, the smile still on his face.

“That’s quite a story,” I said when he finally finished, “but I gotta say you should have known that half a quart of brandy up his rear would kill him.”

He finished his drink, turned to me, and said, “I knew, mister, I knew.”