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“Mickey, why are you using that picture for this post?”

“Well, because… um… the picture of Millis I tried to start with didn’t work, because my computer keyboard keeps messing up… or maybe WordPress doesn’t like it now that they are supposed to be paying me pennies to put ads on my blog.”

“Millis the rabbit that became a man?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“That doesn’t make any more sense the picture of the Robot boy doing chemistry in front of a Japanese castle.”

“Who are you to question my decisions?”

“I’m your talking dog, Jade. You know the one that you just took for a walk and doesn’t really talk in real life.”

“You don’t really talk?”

“Mickey, I’m your dog. I only talk to you in your imagination because you know me so well you practically know what I am thinking.”

“Oh, really? What were you thinking when you ran away instead of coming back into the house with me at the end of our walk?”

“Oh, that’s easy. I was thinking, SQUIRREL!!!“

“I should’ve just left you out there to chase them. Instead I waited on the porch for you to come back and beg to be let back in the house.”

“Well, you love me. And besides, I am almost seventy in dog years, and I am really stupid about cars that could run over me and squish my little head.”

“Yeah. Your stupid head.”

“Mickey, are you holding this conversation with me because you can’t think of anything else to write about?”

“Yes… er, no… It’s just that I am trying to finish editing my book of Essays, Laughing Blue. I am almost done with it.”

“Why does that make you write about your beloved talking dog? The one you are thinking deserves a little hamburger meat right about now?”

“Because my brain it numb from the careful re-reading, and proof-reading, and changing pictures from color to black and white. And I have no thoughts at all where you and hamburger meat are in the same sentence… or even in the same paragraph.”

“Hey, I like that picture of Mom and Henry. Why didn’t you post that one first?”

“I am using it to illustrate the point that I have been converting artwork to black and white for the book. And that isn’t really Mom and Henry. Your mistress, who dislikes you and doesn’t want you to call her Mom even in my stupid old head, is actually a human bean. And Henry is almost 21 and working for the Dallas County Sheriff now. Neither one is still a panda bear.”

“But why did you have to make that black and white? Pandas are already black and white.”

“Her poodle skirt was red in the original picture. And they don’t do color photos in the print version of published books.”

“Why even include a picture, then?”

“Well, you know me. I am a cartoonist. I think in pictures. Especially silly Paffooney pictures.”

“Why don’t you end this post with a black and white picture of me, then?”

“Because I can’t connect my scanner to the computer for some technical reason. And besides, you slobber too much when I try to press your head against the glass in the scanner.”

“Oh.”

Here I am again, exhausted by battles with life and disease and uncertainty. I haven’t caught the Corona-virus, or anything so fatal. But I had to drive my number two son to work last night and bring him home this morning. He is working for the Dallas Sheriff’s Department and doing the night shift. The drive is about forty minutes each way in light traffic, and I suffer from arthritis and diabetes which both make driving that far a misery.

And driving that far, forty minutes alone with my own thoughts and worries, I was not only plagued by my aching rib cage and diabetic headaches, but my mind returned to that same dark, muddy wheel-rut that infects so much of my driving down novel-writing paths… In the Baby Werewolf, Sing Sad Songs, Fools and their Toys, and other stories as well. I can’t get out of that horrible trap I was in when I was ten and sexually assaulted.

You see, his brother gave me a warning, telling me about what had been done to him on a couple of occasions. But, stupid little me, I didn’t understand what he meant. I mean, I knew what testicles were, but I had not had the sex talk at that point to know anything at all that was true about the subject. I sorta liked girls, though I never admitted that to any of my girl-hating friends. And I knew sex was something that people did that would make me want to kiss a… (ergh) girl. But I had no idea how it worked or why you would do that. And I suspected what Lonny told me had something to do with sex, but I had no idea what the connection was.

I admit that I could not tell you the date that it happened. It was some time in October, I think, before the tornado tore apart Belmond, Iowa where both of my parents were working. I am pretty sure after the long night worrying about my parents, both, it turned out, helping with rescue and attending to injuries, I was so overwhelmed by the terrors of that month of my life that I intentionally buried what had happened to me in a lock box in an unused dark part of my memory, where it stayed until I opened it again when I was twenty-two.

Now, here is the part you may want to skip, the horrible secret I kept buried for twelve years and only talked about twice with one other person in the following twenty-nine years. He caught me when I was playing alone in my own back yard. He dragged me to the pile of used tractor tires in the neighbors’ yard. He pulled me into an alcove in the side of the tire-pile where nobody else could easily see. He roughly pulled down my pants. And what he did hurt so bad I saw stars. Who knew that you could twist part of another human being in a way that could cause that much pain? And that was not the worst of it. He warned me not to yell. “Nobody will hear you anyway. And you will just get hurt more. ” He showed me how much he enjoyed what he was doing to me. His enjoyment was large and scary to look at. And he got that way by causing me pain. He even told me that it was happening to me because I wanted it to happen. My head was too dead inside at that point to tell him that it wasn’t the truth.

I know that I probably should have told a teacher, or my parents, or the police. Believe me, a lot of years of regret and self-loathing happened because of that “should have.” But when I finally unlocked the repressed memory, my attacker was already married and a father. And I had never heard a report that he had done the same thing to anyone else. I could’ve destroyed his life by telling someone then. But would anyone have believed me? Especially if his record was clean otherwise? And how petty and evil would I have looked after keeping a terrible secret like that for twelve years? I made it my mission to learn everything I could about that kind of sexual assault. Was I a monster myself for having something like that happen to me? Especially for not telling? Cowardice can make a man a monster, can’t it?

John Wayne Gacy was arrested in December of 1978. My memories of the assault on me had come flooding back into my memory in April of that same year. Gacy had handcuffed, raped, and murdered over thirty young men and boys. And during the trial, it came out that he had himself been sexually abused as a child. That news stabbed me right in the heart. Was I destined to become that kind of creature of darkness? Was I a monster?

Simply put… I am not a monster.

And it was up to me to prove it. I like to think I did just that. As a teacher, especially when I was still single, I made a special effort to be a mentor and a protector to young middle-school and high-school boys. I did not rape and murder even one. I was dungeon master for endless Saturday role-playing games. I gave them a sympathetic ear to listen to the things they needed to talk about. I reported some abuse. I even fed a few of the hungry ones.

Judgmental old ladies noticed the time I spent with kids and took note of the fact that I was unmarried (though I had two different steady girlfriends they didn’t notice.) I got reported for their suspicions. But I had character references to help in that matter. I had game-mastered for the son of the County Sheriff and the son of the Baptist Minister, as well as the son of the high school Science teacher. I had already been thoroughly investigated at that point. And every boy they asked about me defended me. I felt that proved… at least a little bit, that I was not a monster.

I can’t say truthfully that I never had a moment of inappropriate lust in my life. But, not only was I not a rapist, molester, or murderer, I was not gay. And no girl was ever invited by me into my apartment. Only my girlfriend was responsible for inviting them and was always present when they visited. (Except for one girl who came with her older brother for role-playing games, and she was always chaperoned by her brother and one or two of his friends. And he brought her along without an invitation from me.) Truthfully, I never invited anybody to my apartment. The kids would ask for a role-playing game, and I would agree. Even my girlfriends weren’t invited by me. They just assumed they were welcome and came in anyway. I didn’t protest… most of the time.

From the time I learned in Belmond Junior High what being a virgin meant, I never considered myself to be one. But that was because of the horrible secret. My sex-life and love-life were extremely quiet and eunuch-like until I got married at the age of 38 (girlfriend number three, and the second teacher-girlfriend). My sex-life was negatively affected by the horrible secret. My chance to become a practicing nudist was also stifled by the horrible secret. I still suffer from the after-effects of what he did to me. Especially when my illnesses and a long drive make me feel bad and a bit down. But I am not a monster. And that one resolve has kept me from ever being one.

I woke up this morning feeling about as bad as ever I have on a morning when I wasn’t already suffering from flu or bronchitis or other illnesses. So, my first thought… those maskless mooks at Walmart. But, testing myself for fever and lung problems as quickly as possible, I discovered I was normal, and it was more a matter of nighttime arthritis pain than infection. Once I got up and moving, had breakfast and given time to my saliva and other juices to thin out and flow once more, I was feeling like I was still among the living, though plagued with illness due to joint pain and headache.

Nothing comes easily anymore. It has been over a decade since the last time I felt completely well. I fully expected that the current pandemic would be the death of me well before now. But it seems that I may have time to complete more projects. I am staying mostly alive and out of harm’s way most of the time. I continue to survive and to write. Of course, nothing comes easily. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have made of me a virtual pincushion full of little stings and piercing, small pains.

There are still villains to be thwarted out there somewhere. My heroes and space cowboys are lined up and ready to do it. But not much will happen today. I am pretty much tied to my bed and Netflix. Fortunately, the new season of Umbrella Academy is here. That is a real hoot.

Tomorrow I will get back on track. More will get written then. And hopefully it will make more sense than it did today.

There comes a time when Facebook, Twitter, even WordPress become too much to bear on a daily basis. Every now and again I need a break.

So, today I am broken.

As you get older and closer to the last page of the novel of your life, it is entirely appropriate to take stock of the treasures you have accumulated in a long and rewarding life. In fact, you will probably have heirs looking to reap their inheritance after your long-awaited passing.

My children, unlike those of certain Republican politicians, don’t have much to gain by discovering the perfect untraceable poison. In fact, if I don’t live long enough to pay off my bankruptcy, they may only inherit medical debt and the rapt attention of Banko Merricka’s relentless debt-collecting agencies.

But, as I am taking stock, what exactly do I need before I get the final handshake from Mr. G. Reaper? It turns out, I probably don’t need anything else. I have written more novels than I ever expected to. My children are grown into adulthood and take care of themselves now. And I am confident my wife, at eight years younger than me, will find somebody new to berate and explain to the myriad reasons that the new person is wrong about everything, and always will be… even if what you said was something she said was true the previous week.

Sure, if I had all the access to medical care and medicine that most other countries see as a human right, I might live longer. But my medical condition is bad enough that I would be seriously prolonging the pain and suffering. I enjoy being alive, but every day is a painful challenge, and, over time, that tends to get you down.

But what more do I want out of life?

Grandchildren would be nice. But none of mine are married yet, and only one of them seems to have found one he permanently likes. The countdown clock is ticking on that matter.

Well, recognition as a writer would also be nice. I came close to winning in a couple of novel-writing contests. A few readers have read and loved some of my books. Only one person ever hated my writing that told me about it, and he was a voice in my own head. There was also one reader who was not me that was somehow traumatized by one of my lesser books. But I have published way more books through four different publishers than I ever believed possible two decades ago.

But I was a successful teacher for three decades. I touched more than two thousand lives with my work in four different schools in three different districts and ten different classrooms… teaching four different subjects. I have no regrets about how I spent my life and what I got in return.

So, I am writing this believing this is not a maudlin topic. I don’t think I am actually going to pass away this weekend. I will probably get to finish at least one more work in progress. But nobody can say for sure that we will survive next month. Or next decade.

But pessimist that I am, things always turn out better than I think they will.

And afterthoughts?

If I had a magic lamp with a genie in it, my three wishes for the future would be;

1. That Americans would invent a pill that makes everybody into a genius filled with empathy for all creatures, even the vilest, human beings. And they would share it for free with the whole world.
2. That we would handle the climate crisis and all the future crises at least as well as we handled the nuclear crisis of the ’60s, the Cold War, the Coke vs Pepsi War, the Bugs vs Mickey War and every other war that didn’t wipe us out as a species in the past.
3. There will be no Monkey’s Paw consequences for our wishes being fulfilled.