Ghost Troop Home Page April Fools Part 1

Tuesday, April 22 – Mansfield, Louisiana – Jay

Billy

Billy was an even worse fool than me, that’s for sure…

Jay, about Charity and Roosevelt

The Judas silver

How’s Roosevelt doing? I know we both worry about the guy. You know, when he talks, there is a glimmer of a very smart man. He lost his sanity to nightmares and booze after Vietnam, and he’ll tell you so himself. I don’t think he’s been stone sober since the ‘70’s.

I made his acquaintance one day when I was out in front of your Laundromat practicing my long staff in the reflection of the windows as my clothes washed. You know the place: It’s where you and I always start a smoke before business comes calling before you’ve smoked an inch! We will finish a whole cigar there one of these days, God willing.

While I was spinning the weapon in vertical and horizontal patterns, up comes Roosevelt to bum some money for beer. It was eight in the morning. Since he is a respectful four paces away, I stop spinning, bow to him by way of greeting, and politely explain that I am a dry drunk myself, that I never buy alcohol for anyone, and that I always say as much to anyone who, like him and me, is an alcoholic.

Roosevelt eyes me closely as I eye him back. He has an impressive physique, all the more so when you consider that his main food group is brewed and that he has seen more than fifty hard years. Looking at another man for the first time is a lot like playing poker. You know what kind of cards you have but can only guess as to his. Roosevelt, of course, is playing poker, too. Up until now the game has been shaking down the locals for spare change or dollars. He looks as crazy as John the Baptist, and he’s not counting on people’s sympathy; he’s counting on their fear.. He’d been shaking people down for spare change or a dollar bill

Roosevelt eyes me steadily. “I see,” he says, and pauses for emphasis, staggering a bit as he does so, “and this here karate you doing, this here is your alcohol now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you was in the Army, wasn’t you?”

“Yes, sir” was all I said, but I was amazed at his sight.

“Well, then, that explains it.”

I take the bait. “Explains what?”

“Why you out here practicing karate weapons like a crazy man. I thought either you was in the Army or you’d done forgot to take your medicine!” He points to his head as he speaks to make sure I understand what king of medicine he means.

I guess it takes one to know one. I bow to conclude my half of the conversation and begin my patterns again.

“Well, I was in the Army before you was, son, so give me some money. You right about it being too early for beer, so I’ll get me some coffee.”

I give him a dollar.

Staff

A thousand repetitions later Roosevelt returns with a large cup of coffee. He has been my philosophy teacher ever since, and he never wants for coffee when I’m around. I’m pleased that you give him a (caffeine) brew and a smoke when he’s around. I think the more sensation he gets away from the bottle, the better. He used to get pretty rowdy in the days before you took over the store and laundry, staggering into the road to pick fights with cars. The cops busted him a time or two…

Roosevelt says he was born in 1945, the same year the president died. He grew up on a poor black farm until 1966 when he got “drafted by Sam for Vietnam.” His stories about the war are the real thing. When I listen to someone pretending to have been a soldier, let alone a wartime soldier, I can hear the bullshit. He saw more war than he should have. He has fragments of it in his body, where they move year by year to hurt new parts of his body, and he has fragments of it in his mind. I guess that’s the reason he’s the way he is: brave as a lion and drunk as a skunk. Poor man.

Every time I reach into the package of stogies you sell me I see the $20 bill you stashed into it for the soldiers of the 3-7. It touched me when I found it, so I’ve left it there as a reminder of the best in people. Every time I’m ready to pitch the butt, I smile to think that, although you have started to smoke a dozen of them with me outside your store or Laundromat, you’ve never managed to finish one yet. I know you’re busy starting up with the business, but you’ve got to give yourself a break, my friend. When I return we’ll go to my house around the corner, where no one can make us stop, and smoke ourselves sick.

It really makes me sad to think that the kids of my alma mater, kids who have it made, gave a lousy twenty dollars after I’d spent two weeks asking for donations. When I told you about the facts that they were bereft spouses and kids you go away for a minute and come back with a twenty. What’s the matter with my country, Jay? Why is it that the people who have it the best couldn’t care less what happens to those who have it the worst? It’s all very troubling, my friend.

Thanks for letting my son sell some of his chopped wood at the store this winter. I think he learned tae kwon do concepts better with an axe than with his hands. I guess that makes sense because hitting things with your hands hurts – unless you make your hands hard. To tell you the truth, I’ve let the chopping surfaces and my back fist soften a bit (you can’t avoid it on the road), but the knuckles are as brassy as ever (I’ve been doing my knuckle pushups in parking lot asphalt, lately).

I hope you’re carrying pepper spray with you, and I’d be happy to work with you or your sons on some self defense techniques. You liked seeing some of my cane work a while back – I’ll bring you the one I use for this trip. I worry about you, Jay. The neighborhood is tough, and I guess you know that a couple of years ago some robbers killed the guy across Homestead Road from you. That was before the Korean family bought the place and started doing business from behind bullet-proof glass. I know you don’t want to do business that way, since it would ruin the clean and friendly atmosphere that makes your place nice.

Say hi to the folks back home.

Sincerely

Ghost Troop Home Page April Fools Part 1