2010-03-10T13:10:22Z Kenneth Gardner Copyright 2010, Kenneth Gardner SPHPBLOG
The man is scary; but what is scarier is Fox News. When has there ever been such a forum created for one man's view on politics passing as news? This wacko gets cart blanche to brainwash the American public with his crap? And has America forgotten that Fox is a foreign network, owned by British media mogul Rupert Murdoch? What does he care about American public perception? Fox's biggest hit is American Idol, another brainwashing blob of crap that capitalizes on the simple American mindset that operates on the principle that there are only 300 people in the world.

Wake up people!]]> http://www.richmanscoffin.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry100307-011707 2010-03-07T00:00:00Z 2010-03-07T00:00:00Z
• Beverly Eckert was the widow of Sean Rooney, who died in the World Trade Center in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. After Sean's death, Eckert co-founded Voices of September 11, an advocacy group for survivors of the attacks and families of those killed.

I am sorry, this is just too much of a coincidence for these two people to be aboard the same plane that crashed. It crashed in total violation of safety rules for the conditions, with an experienced pilot. Yes, this was a Dutch move to eliminate these two people. They knew too much, and were spreading too much information about Dutch domination and control of the world.]]> http://www.richmanscoffin.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry090216-091633 2009-02-16T00:00:00Z 2009-02-16T00:00:00Z
The $700 Billion bailout has come out of nowhere, and is being shoved down our throats. Talk radio is talking about an emergecny, but with every shrieking hour, the urgency fades from the public perception.

The amount of the bailout is extremely close to the amount that the Chinese government has in cash reserves; all accumulated since 911, and a lot of it invested in US treasury bonds. Someone on Capitol Hill asked where the money for the Bailout is coming from. It is coming from the Federal Reserve. Is it paranoid to assume that the Chinese have used their lobbyists to push the Bailout through the US legislature, and they are buying America right now?

If they buy the real estate of this country lock, stock, and barrel; they will own us. They will own all the land, all the banks, and all the cities. Hoards of Chinese soldiers will march down our streets and rape our women. Wake up America! March on Washington now, and demand that this Bailout be rejected!]]> http://www.richmanscoffin.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080925-221052 2008-09-26T00:00:00Z 2008-09-26T00:00:00Z http://www.richmanscoffin.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080916-214456 2008-09-17T00:00:00Z 2008-09-17T00:00:00Z
The Dutch use our military and our government to further their interests and control around the world through NATO. Case in point: Palin's recent comments about admitting Georgia to NATO, and possibly going to war against Russia. Russia is now in an unofficial battle with the Dutch for the oil supplies of the former Soviet Union countries. The Duthch are using popular media, including American TV, to turn voters against Russia using the Republican Party. This is so they can draw America into a war with Russia using NATO and the UN, and take control of the majority of Russsin oil fields.

On the other hand, if it should not work out, the back-up plan of the Dutch is to have the Democrats be elected, and then they can make more advances directly on the American home front by taking control of more American food production companies, etc.

So, Food or Oil. Take your pick. Who are you going to vote for? Or, are you going to finally stand up to the Dutch power and say enough is enough? ]]> http://www.richmanscoffin.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080911-222505 2008-09-12T00:00:00Z 2008-09-12T00:00:00Z
1) This is how the Dutch stir up world controversy and manipulate international tension.

2) This is how they put the pet food companies on the ropes or out of business entirely; so they can introduce their own line of new pet food. It is a huge market.

3) This is how they practice for launching a tainting of the American human food products, and then most likely blaming it on the Muslim 'terrorists.'

If you want proof, just look at the brands of peanut butter that were recently tainted. Also, look at the news stories about Dutch politicians talking about "Islam Taking over the World." Use Google. It is your best friend for uncovering the Dutch Connection and their plan to dominate the world.

Just type in any word that pops into your head and type the word "Dutch" one space after it. Follow the trail of information on Google! Thank you.]]> http://www.richmanscoffin.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070420-090552 2007-04-20T00:00:00Z 2007-04-20T00:00:00Z
DSM, a Netherlands-based industrial group that is the world's largest maker of melamine, said its products could not be tied to a deadly rash of pet food poisonings in the United States.

DSM's melamine division has operations in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Jakarta, Indonesia and operates the world's single-largest melamine plant in Geleen, the Netherlands, according to its Web site.

Late Friday, Colgate-Palmolive Co.'s Hills Pet Nutrition said it was voluntarily recalling its Prescription Diet m/d Feline dry food from the market because during a two-month period earlier this year, wheat gluten used in the cat food was provided by the same company that had supplied it to Menu Foods.

For those of you who are not aware, Colgate-Palmolive is one of the biggest competitors of Unilever, a Dutch conglomerate that controls about 40% of the brands in America. Unilever dumped all of its holdings in pet food companies about 2 years ago. Hmmm.]]> http://www.richmanscoffin.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070419-153126 2007-04-19T00:00:00Z 2007-04-19T00:00:00Z
Schools in the northern city of Yuba were in lockdown as a search continued for Jeffrey Carney, said Paul Parker, of the Sutter County Sheriff Department.

He told CNN Mr Carney, 28, had called his family members and a local pastor "and made statements to them that he was going to make Virginia Tech look mild in comparison, that he was armed with an AK-47 and improvised explosive devices and that he wanted to commit suicide" by being killed by a police officer.

Mr Parker said a search for the suspect was immediately launched in co-operation with four neighbouring law enforcement agencies, and the local school districts were contacted today to make them aware of the situation.

Mr Carney has been arrested several times recently on domestic violence issues and was suspected of taking methamphetamine, a powerful stimulant.

"It is apparent that he may be actually exhibiting some symptoms of methamphetamine psychosis. This is something we cannot ignore," Mr Parker said.

The threat emerged just days after 23-year-old South Korean student Cho Seung-Hui went on a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, killing 32 people before turning the gun on himself.
]]> http://www.richmanscoffin.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070419-152452 2007-04-19T00:00:00Z 2007-04-19T00:00:00Z
Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old English major, has been described as a loner who alarmed professors and students with his violent writing. One professor says she was so disturbed by his writing, she referred him to campus counseling services.

Officials say a rambling note left by Cho complaining about women, rich kids and religion was found.

My "King of the Cross" was completed in September of 2006, more than 6 months before the Virginia Tech Massacre! For a work of fiction to so accurately portray what goes on inside the mind of a killer makes me proud. If only the people at Miami of Ohio University Press had seen fit to publish it!]]> http://www.richmanscoffin.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070418-074210 2007-04-18T00:00:00Z 2007-04-18T00:00:00Z
I finally decided to go see a shrink like you said. I know you didn’t mean it like it sounded, and I didn’t really have the money to go see a shrink because I didn’t have health insurance and all but I thought that I would give it a try owing to the fact that you say it all the time now when we try to talk about anything. Talking to you has been so hard lately, I don’t know why, but it makes it even harder when I think about how cool you used to be when we could talk about anything. Ever since you got saved, though, it has been different. But that doesn’t stop me from remembering the way things used to be, even though every time I try to bring something up that happened the way I remember it you get really upset and say I need to see a shrink.
Love,
Foley



Dear Dad,
Well, I’ve been seeing my shrink for a while and she is really nice, actually. She asked me why I came and I told her I really didn’t know. She told me it had to be something bothering me, or a forty year old man wouldn’t just wake up one day and decide to go see a therapist as she says it is properly called. I told her “man” was not how I felt talking to you lately, and she said she wanted me to tell her a little about my relationship with you. I said “what relationship?” and that is how it all began. I told her that I felt strange lately, that all this anger kept coming up inside me every time I think about you and I don’t know why. We always got along great, except for a couple of times, but now it feels like we are not friends anymore like you always said you would try to be with me and not like other kids’ parents who drank martinis and drove station wagons with wood sides and lived in those houses like the TV shows. You always said we were cooler than them and I believed you because you always let me smoke some pot with you and mom before I had to go to bed.
Boy, my psychiatrist got really interested when I mentioned that and asked me how young I was when I remember the first time you gave me any and I told her that I was about four and you put it into brownies and everything was totally blurry laying in the back of that Volkswagen van (the newer orange one, not the older red one; but the newer orange one was older I guess because we had it first) and mom was totally acting worried and nervous and whining at you and you just kept laughing and saying it was all right. I remember it ruined the taste of brownies and I thought deep down that adults must be stupid to ruin the taste of chocolate brownies.
My therapist says I might have “arrested development” because of my feelings about you and my life. She says that I am very angry and don’t know it. She says that I am lucky because she is actually doing a study on men like me for a paper she is writing. She asked me if I would be willing to sign up for the study and also try some drug that her company is testing. She said that my therapy would be free as long as I did what she told me. I said yes. The drug is called “Fenestreban.” She’s got nice tits, and she smells good. She is young, too. I bet she used to get drunk and do cocaine with her asshole frat boyfriend in college, just like me. She’s one of those chick psych majors I could never imagine giving a shit about anyone with problems, especially someone like me; now you got me going to one of them. I hope you are happy.
Love,
Foley


Dear Dad,
You really are a fucking cocksucker. At least that’s what my therapist says, or at least she says you should be comfortable with me saying that after all I have told her about what you did. She says that I have been holding my anger in all my life, and now it is looking for a way out. She says mine is really bad and I am lucky that I came to her in time, or I might get really violent. I had to tell her that is why I am divorced anyway, and why I have to take my kid on weekends at 6 on Saturday morning and then have him ready for his mother to pick up at 6 Monday morning with hardly any time for a nap or watching football and drinking beer by myself. Cause I hit my wife, did you know that Dad? My therapist says I should tell you everything, even if I don’t think you want to hear it. You are a motherfucker. How about that? Boy, that Fenestraban is something else. It really gets the old mind going. If I didn’t have to work and pay child support and take care of the kid on weekends, I might just sit around and think about everything for a while or write a novel or something. Maybe that would get some of these crazy thoughts out of my head. My therapist says that I am not crazy, that I am a genius. I told you she is nice. She is telling me that I may be able to take some time off work since the study about me taking the drug is going well. I will let you know. Are you reading these letters? I hope so, but if you’re not, I am going to tell you everything anyways. Talk to ya later.
Love,
Foley

Dear Dad,
I had a little time between milkings, so I thought I would write you real quick and update you. I know it’s been awhile, so let me see what has happened over the last six months. I told myself that I was through with you and was never gonna talk to you again, but somehow my feelings have changed. I am not as angry at you anymore. I think it is the Fennies. You know, the Fenestreban. You’d be amazed. The first thing this stuff does is make you feel better about your self. The second thing it does is cut out all thoughts about drugs and alcohol. I mean all thoughts, not cravings. You don’t even think about that stuff, let alone want any of it. Ingrid, remember my therapist, says stuff about serotonin release and reuptake inhibitors and all that stuff, but all I know is one a day and I feel great.
Oh yeah, Ingrid is here too. She came with me to New Zealand. She’s still asleep now, like she always is after the morning milking. It’s a long story, but we are a sharemilking couple now. That is the easiest job for travelers to get in New Zealand, next to apple picking. You can do both, because the seasons are different. We just got off the plane and got a room at an inn out in the country and got a prepaid cell phone and started calling want ads. We had both always wanted to work on a farm. Ingrid actually grew up on a farm in Holland. She is Dutch, so she says that all the cows in New Zealand come from the Netherlands. The Dutch are very meticulous and actually still track all of the bloodlines and success of all the cows that go all around the world. They make the most milk. Ingrid is still keeping track of how I am doing with the Fenestraban too.
Oh yeah, if you haven’t figured out already, we fell in love and moved out of the country, the United States I mean. All of the talk about Y2K and the stock market bubble and all of Clinton’s bulllshit was really getting me down so we decided to move. After we first hooked up I started telling her that the Fennies were giving me the clearest thoughts about how boring and fucked up my life had become what with still being at the beck and call of my ex wife and having to watch the kid in my spare time and not being able to date and all. My ex got married in a quickie ceremony without telling me and that really pissed me off, so Ingrid said that we should just take the next step in the treatment anyway and that the company would pay for it. I told her that I hadn’t traveled much except in the navy, but Australia was first on my list. She said let’s make it New Zealand first, so here we are. You would be proud, Dad, just one backpack of clothes and stuff and we were on the plane, just like when we moved from California to North Carolina. Remember that? When I was eight and I was just learning to skateboard and surf with all of my best friends ever and mom was so happy living in the sunshine and one day you just came home and smoked a joint and said pack your shit in one box, we are driving to North Carolina. This was actually a little easier. I was ready for the change this time. Ingrid has to take some data now, and then it’s back to my herd. It sure is quiet here on a Sunday morning. No hammers banging, and saws running, and you running around yelling at everyone to get up and do something so we can finally finish the damn house we are living in. Later.
Foley

Dear Dad,
I just heard about Columbine, so I thought I would write you. They have a saying here, “only in America.” It bothered me at first, but now it seems to be true. The rest of the world as I can tell, and especially New Zealand, is a very peaceful place. It has really helped with my anger. Ingrid says that I am really making progress. She says that my anger toward you is really a symptom of something else. Not that I don’t have a right to be angry at you, she says, but just that the anger is tied to something deeper. Now this is all her theory, and it goes along with the Fennies, so please bear with me: I am “a typical middle-aged American male who has been disenfranchised from my primal cultural roots by a modern dysfunctional society.” How do you like them apples? She is a fucking genius. I felt ten times better just hearing the words come out of those pretty little lips of hers. Finally, a woman who understands me! I know what you would say, that I am just looking for something or someone to blame my problems on, but it is true.
Ingrid says that it used to be customary, and it still is in most civilized European countries, for the young men to travel when they reach a certain age. In fact, it is mandatory in many countries like Germany. Out the door they go at seventeen not to return for at least two years, until they have gained their manhood. She says that stupid Americans go straight from high school to university to some other academic prison until they are thirty and then feel like something is missing. Like they never did something they were supposed to, that is IF they make it that far without killing themselves or someone else. I know what you used to say about me even going on Spring Break with my college buddies. Those spoiled little rich pricks, right Dad? Just come home and do the dishes and watch the Saturday night fights and smoke pot with you and mom, right Dad?
Well, anyway, New Zealand has been a real experience and has made me feel like a real man. Getting up before dawn and rounding up five hundred cows on a motorbike on cold, wet, green grassy hills is a real hoot. That’s what New Zealand is: cold, wet, grassy hills for as far as you can see. Our cabin is out in the middle of the farm, about a mile from the owner’s house, and the farm is out in the boondocks. Town is just a few stores and a couple of backpacker hostels.
So let’s review: You are a cocksucker. New Zealand is great. America is an overpopulated suck hole where pissed off kids are out of touch with reality and have easy access to guns. I feel like a real man now, and Ingrid gets restless when the cattle rustle against our walls in the still of the night. Something about the snorting and the chewing and the house quaking causes her hand to clasp mine. The thought of there being more cows and sheep in this nation than there are people makes me shake. Did I mention I’m writing a novel?
Love,
Foley


Dear Dad,
We are getting away from the cows for a while. The season is over, and besides, I was getting sick and tired of their blank stares. The cows, I mean, just look right through you, kind of like you and your new wife do when you come over and the dinner isn’t just what you expected or you are just waiting to see if there is something smart that you can add to what I say when I am done talking. Or like the blank stares that I have always gotten when I walk into a room and try to speak to a group of people whom I may or may not know. Always the same blank stare, and then the heads turning away all at once followed by the talking amongst themselves. You say I am paranoid, but I know what I know. The cows are the same way. They can be persuaded to go in a certain direction, or even scared into running, but they never really seem to appreciate what I am saying. Not like Ingrid.
I don’t know if this is due to life on the farm, or the Fenestreban, but my face has grown and become more manly. Not like a little boy anymore. A late life growth spurt? How can that be? Do you know what it was like to be thirty-five years old and have the face of a little boy? Besides the fact that no one listens to you or takes you seriously, people call you names. They called me monkey boy and two-head on the submarine (as opposed to a four-head owing to the fact that my face was so small). But now, either from sunshine or fresh air, my face has filled out to that of a man. Finally, at age forty! So you can maybe forgive yourself a little for feeding me pot as a child and stunting my growth. Don’t over do it, though, there is still the matter of the narrow palate and the small mouth and the missing teeth and the ones that the orthodontist had to pull out just to keep me from looking like a total freak. Don’t forget your little hippy health plan and how pot was good for everyone, especially growing and developing four-year olds. Thanks Dad. We are wandering around New Zealand looking for something. I will let you know when we find it. Besides, I want to have time just to write my novel. I don’t know what it is going to be about, but I know what I want it to be for. That is, I don’t want people who pick it up and start to read it to have to think about anything, I just want them to realize things. Like the book is helping them figure out things about themselves that they thought were so bizarre that they would never have them in common with someone else, especially a character in a novel. Like “The Catcher in the Rye” for example: Salinger was such a fucking genius. IS, I mean. I read some book that says he is still alive somewhere. But THERE’S a guy who wrote a book about some misfit, probably like himself, and everybody thought it was so dirty because he briefly mentioned prostitutes and used words like “throw” to describe the sex act. What I think is hilarious is his joke on everybody: “Throw.” “Catcher.” “Catcher in the Rye.” “Catch her in the eye.” Get it?
Love,
Foley


Dear Dad,
We are having a blast touring New Zealand. I always wanted to do all of the extreme things like bungee jumping and jet boating. You can even swim with the dolphins. Did you know that there are no snakes here? I mean nowhere in the country can you find a snake. Well, maybe if you go to church, you might be able to find some of those Christians that hiss at you. I know, you say that I am paranoid. I swear that has got to be the most overused word in the English language. But as for the Christians, I am talking about those new ones that get together and sing and smile and read out of the newfangled translation of the bible and call their churches nice vanilla names like the bible church or the house of worship or anything that says nothing about the long bloody history of Christianity and then when you try to talk to them, they hiss at you. Not real noticeable or obvious or anything, but real slow and low like a tire sneaking flat. It’s just something they do, like they assume that you are the serpent in the Garden of Eden or something. Like all that smiling and singing and praying doesn’t make a lick of difference, they know what is in your heart. Just another no-good evil bastard to hiss at.
But I honestly feel like Ingrid and me are Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It is so nice here. We actually met some of those European fellas who are traveling around as part of their rite of passage. German, I think they are, all dressed in black like the Amish back home. Believe me, they are not slow-witted. They already figured out that I am American, and boy do they have some words for me. They told me if I want to get around easier, that I should tell people that I am Canadian. Whatever, they can kiss my ass if you want my honest opinion. Ingrid is just happy that I have got my manhood. I didn’t have to get up and say, “Today I am a man” like a little Jew boy, or walk across the Sahara, or cut myself in some private place, but by God, I got my manhood now and I didn’t need some goddam clinical psychologist to show me in some book as to how to go about getting it. I just took it what I deserved being alive and being male on this planet. Drives Ingrid wild. She sucks and fucks like a little banshee. I just act like I am something special and no one messes with me. Not like when I was ten and just started feeling good about myself and you yelled at me, “Stop strutting around like a little Hitler!” I heard that father bears will castrate the male cubs with their teeth just to eliminate the competition. I think that is what you tried to do to me. So FUCK you.
By the way, we tried this thing today called a Zorb. It’s a big rubber ball you get in and roll down a hill.
Love,
Foley


Dear Dad,
The Zorb is something else. Like a big ass pool ball. Remember when we used to play pool with grampa and you two would teach me about hitting the ball right and with English and how to hit it down the rail and stuff? I remember that one tricky move you showed me one time and said never to show no one, it was a family secret. I remember the cross where you can make the ball go one direction and then end up going another just by hitting it with two kinds of English off the rail. Drives the Kiwis nutters as they say. And then we three would have a good time together all day long until it was my time to take a shower at night before bed and I would come out and both of you would be scowling at me for being in too long and using up too much hot water and running up the electric bill even though I swear I turned off the water while I was soaping up and I was real proud too because I let the shampoo sting my eyes and then I rinsed off all at once. That didn’t matter though, I just went to bed in trouble called a liar with a lump in my throat. I liked playing pool, though. Everyone here seems to take their pool game real serious. I remember when I used to get lucky and get you behind the eight ball and you would say I was too young to know what I was doing and get all mad and I would feel even getting you “behind old scratch” like you used to tell me the history of the game when you were angry and wanted to change the subject like I hadn’t heard all that same old crap come out of your toothless plastic mouth a hundred times before.
But the Zorb you would really appreciate I feel because you get in this big ball that is as tall as three men and it is clear inside out so you could see where you were going if you weren’t rolling and spinning so fast down this big old green hill in the middle of nowhere that looks like the shire in The Hobbit. Then towards the bottom you are rolling so fast that every little bump makes you take off and it feels like you are flying. Ingrid tried it but it made her sick. She has been getting sick in the mornings anyway, and not a lot of fun to be around the rest of the day, let me tell you. Women get so damn moody, it drives me crazy. I told her to take some Fennies but she snapped that she wouldn’t touch that shit. I said it’s good enough for me but not for her and she said just drop it honey and then she just got real snuggly so I said forget it. I am getting tired of New Zealand anyway. I got an idea for this Zorb. I’m sure you will hear about it.
Love,
Foley


Dear Dad,
Sorry it’s been a while since I wrote, I’ve been so busy. Ingrid and I are back in the states now, working on a project. I got the crazy idea that I wanted to ride a tornado and Ingrid loved it. Said it fits right in with the research. It took a lot of convincing the folks at the Zorb place to build me some and let me take them home, but those New Zealand people are real understanding, especially when it comes to seeing the big picture about things. I told them that I was with the United States Government anyway, and then when I told them how much I was gonna pay them, they got real nice about it. Of course, it’s Ingrid’s company that’s paying for everything.
So we packed up everything and flew to Kansas. This is where I emailed some storm chasers from the local university and told them I was with the Department of the Interior and all this shit and they ate it up. Ingrid had some fake checks made up and we paid them a shit load to help us out and now we meet with them every day. They love the idea of me being their tornado astronaut, but how am I going to really do it they keep asking. Me and Fennies, baby, we’ll figure it out. All I know is that I got to find a tornado, catch it, jump in the Zorb, and a way we go! Like a bubble in the wind. Going up won’t be the hard part. It’s coming down that has me worried.
Love,
Foley


Dear Dad,
We had a near hit today, or a near miss as you would say. The tornado was out in the field, next to the road running the same direction. The Zorb was on the trailer, ready for me to jump in and pull the quick release cord and everything. I guess the kids got scared cause they stopped hooting and hollering at one point and they got those blotchy pink and white places in their faces when you can see the skin dampen but it isn’t sweat anymore, it is something else. Oh well, I figured that we would have to keep fine tuning the plan as we got closer to the real thing. These guys didn’t seem to take it seriously anyway. I think they think I am just coming along for the ride or something. Ingrid likes it, but I want to do more than just ride around and videotape storms. I think these guys realize that now.
So when the tornado veers away and I grab the wheel of the truck and break through the barbwire fence and start hauling through the slick grass with the cow pies splattering the fenders and the mud sounding like popcorn, then these guys kind of get a clue. Now they are talking about proper testing and design and all this shit and I am saying it’s about time! I am finally a project manager. It’s amazing how people will listen to you if you have enough money and enough balls to do anything. No more “nobody likes you” crap when you try to tell them what to do and them running to your boss and whining about it’s not fair and shit. Just do it and shut up, right Dad?
Love,
Foley


Dear Dad,
Ok, so they’re talking about maximum 300 mph winds and stuff. Like even if I’m inside the Zorb in my full leathers and everything, a straw could come shooting through the plastic and spear me. I can appreciate that, but I’m not up for all the testing. I just want to do this thing! I want to be the first man to ride a tornado and live to tell about it! Can you imagine? Of course, you are probably saying that I will die trying and it will serve me right. But I think that you can even get excited about this one, Dad. How high will I go? Once the winds grab me, will I be whisked up into the vortex and shoot to the top? What then? Will I float around gently like those beach balls you see at the vacuum cleaner shops at the mall? How hard will I crash? Will I slam into the ground, or will the tornado bash me into a tree or a building? How hard? Here’s the plan me and the college kids have worked out: We’ve got to have this thing bullet proof, no way around it. One thing that I haven’t explained to you is the inside. The Zorb is hollow, but with an inner chamber in the center suspended by thin cables evenly spaced between the outer and inner layers. Like a perfect spider’s web holding a precious egg inside. The side of the inner chamber fuses to the outside and that is how you get in and out without the air escaping the middle. Like a huge marshmallow with a hole in the side. So this thing has got some cushion, but will that matter? I mean, yeah, IF I find the right tornado, and IF I get in position, and IF I shoot to the heavens, I want to live to tell about it! What good would it do if I got crushed like a bug? Only a fool would want that, right Dad?
Foley


Dad,
They shot me today! Well, they shot at me. Not like when I shot the neighbor’s dog, and told everyone that I didn’t mean to, I just shot at it. How was I supposed to know that the damn dog was gonna jump up on a log in full trot at the last second? I swear I heard it wince when the air rushed out of its popped lung, even from 100 yards away. Or like the time that you were showing me how to shoot the first time with Grampa’s 22 and I got all happy and pointed the gun straight up and shot at the sky. I didn’t have to actually shoot the sky, cause you were mad enough to chase me all over the woods the rest of the day anyway yelling you were gonna kill me. We had to get Kevlar in order to even think about making this thing work. It’s got to hold up to anything that the tornado could make into a missile and puncture the skin of my flying machine. Kevlar is damn expensive! Of course, the cops just use a little bit for their vests and stuff, but the surface area of the Zorb is huge. Plus, we had to fly those Kiwi guys up from New Zealand to rebuild the whole thing in Kevlar. You have to use ceramic scissors. We didn’t actually use Kevlar. I searched around the internet and I found this guy who makes a kind of material that wraps around houses and protects them from tornados and hurricanes. He makes huge sheets of the stuff, Millibar, so it wasn’t too hard to order it and have the guys make a new bulletproof Zorb. It took a few days with us all drinking coffee and me asking them to stay up late and talking to them while we worked and stuff, and then came shooting day. We all talked about it, and I decided that we would use a 30 ought six high powered rifle because that would best imitate what a projectile flying through a tornado would do. Of course, the only way to do the firing test was live. Ingrid and me argued about it for a long time. She yelled and yelled that we should just put a dummy in there and take a shot, but then I told her what better thing for her research than me showing my courage on Fennies. She thought about it for a minute and then agreed. It was me or nothing!
You should have seen it, Dad, I crawled in there and strapped myself in and one of them college kids that I swear never shot a gun in his life raised the rifle real slow and just like we rehearsed pulled the trigger when I gave the signal and BAM it was all over. Everyone was hootin and hollerin so loud when I climbed out and took my helmet off and Ingrid kissed me and the guys were jumping and hugging me and slapping me on the back. I swear I don’t think that they ever had a professor like me. Anyway, not to get carried away with all the sloppy stuff, but that bullet hung there in a wad of that plastic stretched so thin and hanging like a stop action photograph in a crime lab. Didn’t get anywhere near the inner chamber. That’s all she wrote for the puncture test. I think the Zorb will hold up just fine to flying objects. We still have to find some way to launch it. We can’t just shoot it out of a cannon, we have to figure out some way to catapult it into the swirling winds. I don’t believe that the tornado will just reach out and politely pick up the ball. It might but I doubt it. Next thing we gotta do is the crush test, though. I don’t know if we should use a truck or a train. I’ll sleep on it.
Foley


Dad,
They’re out to get me. The Dutch, I mean. It’s for revenge. For what the floods did. They almost had it all won, the whole world. They know I know it now. It would set them back an awful long way if people knew that they were taking over the world again. All that damn pumping water out of the marshes with windmills and wooden shoes and tulips and shit for 300 years. Man, they are furious deep down. Just been biding their time. “If it ain’t Dutch, it ain’t much,” Ingrid said one day. They must have been the ones to leak it to the media. To make me look stupid I guess. That way when I start jumping up and down for real about them, they got me over a barrel. Some crazy guy who’s trying to ride a tornado, right Dad? Serves me right, right Dad? Well fuck you and fuck the Dutch, I’m going full speed ahead. You ever been run over by a train? Let them film that!
Foley




Dad,
The goddam media. I can’t believe they care so much about some damn trailers. I’m sure you’ve seen me on the news already. Yes, we pulled some strings with FEMA to get some surplus trailers out to the field where the train runs through for a good long stretch. Some liberal college rag reporter got her stripes by sniffing this one out. Good for her. She’s just jealous because she didn’t think about it. That’s not your regular college science experiment. Pure genius though, don’t ya think, Dad? Huh, I mean who else but your genius son would be able to figure out that mobile homes actually DO attract tornados? No one, that’s who. And that cunt reporter can suck my dick. I mean, its not like anyone was living in the things. She wrote some shit about “misappropriation of Federal resources” and all this other crap. She’s probably going to school on Daddy’s dime and getting drunk and whoring around catching Chlamydia and all kinds of crap at that college of hers, and she’s pretending that she cares about poor people. Fuck her. Wait til she sees me go up in that funnel cloud. Then she’ll have something to fucking write about. You should see it: My little trailer farm. Row upon row of neatly spaced single-wides just sucking that barometric pressure right out of the air. I can hear the theme music to Jaws, I swear. Standing out there with the deafening silence under the dark billowing clouds when the calm hits. Brown fields and black skies. One poked its finger out the other day and started twirling down, began its long, siren song, then backed off. We’ll get touchdown here any day now. It’s the season for it. Ingrid says I am her little tornado matador. A tormatador. I like that. How about you, cocksucker? Foley.


Dad,
Sorry it’s been awhile. Me and Ingrid have been in Cairo. It’s different here, that’s for sure. Dry and sunny, not like fucking Kansas hot and muggy all the time. We got a nice little bungalow just outside of town. This is the land of the Pharaohs. I don’t know, after I rode that tornado, I just felt like I was king of the world or something. All the attention on TV and everything was nice, but it was just getting to me. I felt like I was famous, but not like I was in control. I don’t know how to explain it. Well, yes I do. They didn’t have nothing good to say about me after awhile. Here I was the first damn person to ride a tornado on purpose and live to tell about it, and all that damn cunt reporter had to say about me was about my history of domestic violence. How I had been convicted and wasn’t supposed to be carrying firearms and I was running around with a loaded gun and shit. That fucking cunt. Here I was making history, and all she cared about was that me and some bitch like her had gotten into a scuffle one time when she was on the rag and couldn’t keep her goddam mouth shut no matter how much I begged her. What the fuck do they want, Dad? Oh, yeah, you know now, doncha, now that you are God’s gift to women. Even though you used to slap all your old ladies around, you’ve straightened up now, right asshole? Yeah, right. Pure as the driven snow, I keep forgetting. Anyway, someday when I have a chance I’ll tell you just how I got up in that funnel cloud and what all I saw way up in there.
Foley

Dad,
Cairo has got some damn stinky bitches in it. Millions of them. They walk around in their damn burlap robes and their scarfs on their heads, and you can smell them, right through that thick cloth stuff. They smell like damn goats, but there’s something about it that will get you straight up and wanting their asses. There are just so many of them, walking in the street everyday. Not going to work or taking care of kids or going to Wal-Mart or Target or anything. Just marching straight in throngs down long dusty streets. I get right up in there with them like a shepherd in a flock and then I have at them. You know what I do. I know you’ve done it. It was like being born again for me. I’d never done it. Never had the balls to. But when no one can see your hands, or has the space to look around or down, it’s freedom. They got rock hard juicy asses. I swear they don’t wear no panties up under that sackcloth. All I feel is cheeks and the lips. They don’t flinch an inch. Like they like it or something, or they’re just used to it. All day long, I get so strung out from the adrenaline that I am exhausted when I take lunch. Then I just sit in the café and sip my beer and watch them from a distance. They just throng and mill, throng and mill. And they are all shaped like Sophia Loren. Then when it’s late afternoon and the crowd just keeps getting thicker, I dive back in and it’s more butt surfing for the rest of the day. Ingrid’s off doing some survey work on the pyramids. She said make sure I take my Fennies and report anything unusual to her. I wonder if this would count? Sometimes I find one really young little filly, and I swear she lets me ride it. I get my hand up in there through a thick part in town and she lets me palm it for blocks. Wet too. Then she just turned into a store and disappeared like nothing was happening. I am really new at this, and I am not a scientist, but it seems like the more I grope them bitches, the more of them that seem to like it. Or even seek me out. You know what I mean? I mean like it’s on my hands or something. Like they spray me or mark me with their invisible squirt. All those cheesy ads you see in the back of magazines about pheromones and being more attractive to chicks. This is the real thing, Dad. Just going out and getting all of their different juices on me. Then it’s like they don’t know what hit them. I can talk to one at a counter or sitting at a table next to me, and they’re all eyes and ears. I wonder if I could get one home without Ingrid finding out. I wouldn’t even use a condom, just pump her full and send her on her way. Another one for the McMann clan, right Dad? I wonder what my shrink would have to say about this.
Foley


Dad,
I told Ingrid. She wasn’t too upset, just said it was the Fenestreban working. I asked how she knew if it was experimental still, and she said that’s how it was designed to work. I asked how do you mean and she just wanted to fuck, again, as usual. She must be on the pill or something, because I swear we’ve been doing it for months and she hasn’t gotten pregnant. I’ve never seen a tampon or anything either. The ass grabbing story seemed to really turn her on though. We’d been in a dry spell for a while, but she says she’s been attracted to me in a different way lately, she doesn’t know why. I told her my theory about the pheromones, and she said could be, but she didn’t seem to buy it. She’s all serious these days, I guess it’s her research. She wants me to help with something. I thought we were here just to get away somewhere, but she’s got something going on with the pyramids. That’s my Ingrid. She wants to know how they were built. She’s got all these satellite photos and maps and aerial drawings and stuff. We went out to look at what she’s been working on. First stop was the quarries where the Egyptians took all those stone blocks out of the ground to build the pyramids. Not many people know about that, I certainly didn’t. All you ever see from the tourist shows is the Sphinx and the Pyramids and the statues and that’s it. These huge square caverns where they took the rocks out are more impressive than any of that stuff. Then we went to the Pyramids and looked around. I never knew they were forty stories high. That’s high. I never really thought about this stuff. I have to admit, I actually have some respect for the ancient Egyptians now. Can you believe it, Dad, me having respect for something or someone? Forget the fact that I was a straight A student in high school. Remember when I was valedictorian and we were going to my graduation and I was all nervous about giving my speech and you said wait until I get to college and find out that I am really just a C student? Remember that, Dad? Of course you don’t, you can’t even remember which glass you put your teeth in most nights. But anyways, I didn’t know that there are over one and a half million stone blocks in the biggest pyramid, and each one of them weighs close to 15 tons. Ingrid says that it was built in only 23 years. Well, it doesn’t take an Einstein to do the math. That means that each block would have only six minutes to be cut, moved, and put in place with perfect precision. No stopping, no mistakes, for 23 years. Something doesn’t add up. I am going to have to use my C brain on this one.
Foley


Dad,
It’s simple, really, how they built the pyramids. At least this is how I think they did it: Before they put in that damned dam up the river, the Nile used to flood at the same time every year. I’ve been hiding out in the library, in case you were wondering how I knew all this stuff. If you look at the satellite photos (and I’m sure you’re gonna run right out and look at those satellite photos) you can see how the banks of the Nile left flood lines right next to where the Great Pyramids are. It’s right downstream of a big bend in the Nile. From what I’ve been reading, the priests back then who really ran things knew precisely to the day and hour when the Nile would flood, and how much. So you can see how if they were going to build something big next to the river, they would know exactly how close. The last people to really think about all of this stuff were back in the 60’s and 70’s when everything was “Pyramid Power” and all those pot smokers like you were just all happy to look for some magical mystical explanation about how the pyramids were built like aliens and spaceships and all that happy horseshit. Well maybe, but I don’t think so, because the answer is really simple if you think about it. I read that the Phoenicians had mastered sea traveling and built these cranes that were just sticks with an animal skin bag on one side of the fulcrum and the load attached to the other side. They could swing what they wanted no matter how heavy just by pouring in enough water on the other side and swinging their load around the fulcrum. That got me thinking. Every one of the “experts” has said that those huge blocks were rolled on logs by hundreds of men up a dirt ramp that was built higher and higher and spiraled around the pyramid as it was built. Then the same experts say that it would take longer to build the ramp than it would to build the pyramid itself. So they don’t know how the hell the thing was built, really. To me it’s obvious. When the Egyptians came along, they learned all the stuff about water and the sea from the Phoenicians and then they came up with their own ideas. Number one, they were experts at making beer, probably the first ones in history. People don’t realize how much grain there was being grown along the Nile in those days. Probably more than in the whole Midwest of America. That was a lot of easy beer making material. Also, it took a lot of space to store all of that grain, which would explain why they would need a pyramid that big, not just as a big tomb; but I’ll get to that later. The beer was fizzy, though, don’t you think? I mean most people don’t realize that you get more carbonation from fermenting something naturally than you get from the store-bought stuff that has the carbon dioxide pumped back into it. So, the fizzy stuff is the same stuff that you get when you drop baking soda into vinegar, like when you did when you were a kid. What does this have to do with building pyramids? Well, the rock they used was actually limestone, formed in huge deposits of sediment along the banks of the Nile from millions of years of flooding and drying. Kind of like the gesso you use to prime your canvasses before you ruin them with your paintings. But enough about you. Limestone is basically all calcium carbonate, the same as baking soda except in solid form. It is porous. It has millions of holes in it. It is almost three times less dense than water, which means that it will practically float on its own. Can you imagine what would happen if a chunk of limestone were soaked in fresh beer? That’s right, it would get all fizzy and float like a big Alka-Seltzer tablet. Now what does this have to do with a 15-ton block of limestone, you ask? Well, if you had enough beer to soak a block that big in, it would have the same effect. And if you had enough grain and water, then you might be able to make enough beer to float a 15-ton block. Or several hundred. So imagine a quarry next to a river that floods the same amount at the same exact spot every year at the same time. Then imagine cutting lines and layers in the solid limestone like you would if you were dicing an onion. Then pack your grain from the year’s harvest deep into the scoring and add water. In a few days, you’d have enough fizz percolating up to break those slabs into individual stones just from the pressure alone. Then here comes the Nile pouring in on top of it all at flood time and popping those stones out of the matrix just like chiclets. They’d bust out and be swept downstream, dropping out of the current right at the bend, virtually at the foot of where the construction was going to be. Do that for a few years in a row, and you’ve got the blocks all piled up there ready to go, none of this dragging and rolling them one at a time in a big line like ants. The base of the pyramid is perfectly level, too. How do you think they did that? Well, there’s a reason that a carpenter’s level has a bubble in a capsule of water. Oh, wait, you are the expert carpenter, I forgot. “Screw-it-and-glue-it” McMann, how could I forget what everyone called you? So you can appreciate this theory of block moving, especially after having us haul all those blocks by hand up that muddy mountain road in North Carolina to build our dream home. I guess that you weren’t smart enough to pave the road first so a truck and a forklift could simply deliver the cinder blocks. Anyway, the Egyptians had the foresight to let the river do the work as it had for thousands of years. Once they had a level base on the edge of a flood plain, and all of their building blocks on site, they simply had to maneuver them into place. And why build a ramp when you can use a system of channels and locks and water cranes? One level is just as easy to reach as the next when the water rises that high, right dad? I could go on and on about the inner burial chamber and how it is really a vertical water elevator to float one block at a time to the proper lever then spit it out like a giant Pez dispenser; or how the hollow sarcophagus is not just a coffin for the Pharaoh, but a tribute to his genius for using it as a flotation platform to push the solid stones up through the main shaft. But why bore you to death, right dad? How could you have known that your beloved son would one day solve the mystery of the Great Pyramids, especially after shooting the neighbors dog, or showing up to pick my prom date up exactly one week early? Oh yeah, I forgot to tie in the grain warehouse thing. That’s what the pyramids were, not just a grave. Oh, and they acted like beacons too, because they were close to the Mediterranean Sea. That’s why they built them so high, so all the other primitive cultures around the world would know right where to sail to and buy their beer-making supplies.
Foley


Dad,
I like Egypt. Egypt is cool. I told Ingrid about my theory about the Pyramids and she says that my greatness is really coming out. She says that it is just natural for a great mind to think of great things. I tell her about my chasing around packs of women in burlap robes squeezing their butts and making them squeal and she likes that too. I told this other lady I met about my theory of the Pyramids and she wasn’t too pleased. She said that I had to come and listen to her about who I really was, and she began to tell me my fortune. It was in the back room of the big library downtown, and she got out all these big dusty books and started telling me stuff. She said that some of the books at Alexandria had not completely burned, and that they held the secrets of the universe. She said that she had been keeping an eye on me ever since I filled out a library card application, and she knew from my birthday that I was someone very special.
I asked her how she knew I was really who I wrote down and not some impostor, or some spy, or one of these guys that had gone to a graveyard and found some little baby’s name and gotten a false birth certificate and a passport; and she said she could just tell from talking to me. I thought she was pretty cute, too; hell she’s one of the few that doesn’t wear her body all covered up along with her head, so I could actually see her pretty brown eyes and she really wears that mascara like you imagine that an Egyptian lady would like Cleopatra and all. So she starts talking about my birthday and how I was born in the last few days of January on the cusp between Capricorn and Aquarius and how it was the last few days of the year and I asked her what she meant because January is the very beginning of the year and she said not really because in the astrological calendar the new year does not begin until near the end of January. She says that I was born in the year of the dragon, and the way I was born just after midnight on the day that I was, that I am a special kind of dragon. She says that predictions made a long time ago say that one special dragon will come during our lifetime, during special times that need a special leader. She says that might be me. She says that all the signs point to it: That I am The Dragon. She says that there are different kinds of dragons. She says that I am a Blue Wood Dragon. I don’t know what kind of dragon I am, but I’m banging her now. Took her straight back into that dark little secret room of hers and did her good. Ingrid would shit if she found out. I think she would get jealous. She wouldn’t have before, but something has changed. She’s getting all clingy and shit. I like this little Cleopatra chick though. She’s good people. Anyone who tells me that I’m going to take over the world one day and screws like she does is all right with me. She’s reminded me again, like Ingrid did, that I have a destiny and that I am important to the fate of the world and to Mankind, something that you never told me. I matter, you old cocksucker, do you get that? I matter! I’m gonna go catch some more of this Egyptian sunshine. Catch you later old man. Remember: “www”.
Foley


Foley,
Get your ass home. Jesus, you really need help. Who in the Hell do you think you are, talking to me like that? I let Marlene read some of your letters, and she is appalled. You really need to see a shrink. I am not sending you a dime! You got yourself into this mess, and you can get yourself out of it. Still living the life of Riley, I see, gallivanting off around the world, living in sin with your little girlfriend, what are you trying to prove? You are just like your mother, never sticking to anything or anyone, floating around on the breeze. Once a hippy, always a hippy, I suppose. Well, you had your chance. The Lord was your salvation once, I thought. At least, that’s what you declared to everyone and God at your baptism. Is this how you would like everyone to remember you now, running around with some overeducated Jezebel out in the land of Abraham? What the Hell is wrong with you? I am through with you. You have put the mission at risk, and I will not tolerate your megalomaniac behavior. Terminate your shenanigans now and return for debriefing. Stop trying to blame the Dutch; they have nothing to do with what is happening to you or to anyone else for that matter. The Dutch are no different from anyone else. Your story about the Pyramids is the only thing that makes sense at all. Maybe if you come home and study like you used to, you can still have a good life. And don’t tell me “www.” I know “www,” you little bastard.
Love,
Dad


Dad,
What’s this? A letter, no less, from the great one himself. The old man still has the touch, sending me a letter in a foreign country and shit. Way to go, Dad! Hey, hat’s off for sharing my fucking letters with your stupid new wife. Way to jeopardize the mission, douche bag. It’s not like she’s smart enough to catch on, but still, use some common sense. You don’t seem to understand my struggle anyway. You never experienced any of the things that I face in America. The racial quotas, the psychological wars, the gender battles in the workplace. That’s why I like traveling. The middle-aged white male still rules most of the world. People listen to me when I speak, they pay attention when I walk into a room, they do what I say without making smart-ass comments or arguing with me for the sake of arguing. I love it. Women adore me and my American accent, they literally throw themselves at me.
You never had to face the political blackballing of the average white male. It was something that you never experienced first hand, so you write it off as paranoia if anyone talks about it. Talk about it today in the wrong context, and get branded as a racist. Go into a post office or any government agency and see what I am talking about. Get a female boss, even if she is white, and see how well you are treated as a white male. Oh right, I forgot, you are retired now. You never had to compete in the workplace with people that are trained from birth to hate you as an “oppressor.”
I guess that’s it. I finally figured out why I hate you so fucking much. You and all of your hippy friends were so free to do what you wanted, and now it turns out that it was all just fashion. You have sold out all of your ideas like a pair of faded jeans at a yard sale. Get someone who really gives a fuck about what is going on and boy, for you that person didn’t get enough mother’s milk, or ‘‘it’s all been done before” or some such shit like you like to yell before your dumbass Christian wife calms you down and gives me that look like I am a bad influence on you. On YOU, motherfucker, what is she thinking, the biggest dope smoking, long-haired, hell raising dickweed in his day, and somehow, I am paying for all of your sins? Somehow, I am the bad guy in all of this? Straight A student, first in his class in every goddamned school he ever went to, except that worthless fucking party school on the Hill; and somehow, I am the demon seed in your little pseudo-Christian, Martha Stewart cuckold there, daddio. The two of you can suck it. Suck it hard, you toothless old sellout.
I have been reading Mein Kampf. I love it. Hitler talks about “the fighters, the lukewarm, and the traitors.” You are a traitor to your ideals, dad. You cashed them in and now dementia will set in because you cannot remember who you are or what you stood for. Senility is when you let go of the rail in the dark hallway. Once you were a fighter, but that was back when people could sit around on welfare and smoke pot and dream up all kinds of effete intellectual solutions to stuff. Now, we have to work constantly. I have a college degree and it doesn’t mean dick. They say that there is no caste or class system in America, but what is that “salary history” shit all about when you go to apply for a higher paying job? It’s just another way to keep people down.
Hitler was a genius. He was a master of political thought. Here’s another little language tidbit for you, graybeard, you know that saying “for all intensive purposes” and the faggy fucking English majors say that it is not a real phrase, but then they have no idea of its origins? Well, it is really “for all intents and purposes.” Right there in black and white in Mein Kampf in little Adolph’s own words. The best thing that Hitler talks about is the “general longing” of his country’s people. Their “natural patriotism.” You went against that patriotism, and now you stand for nothing. And now your entire generation is a generation of sellouts and lukewarms and traitors. The largest generation in human history set adrift. That is why America is ripe for the slaughter. How do you tell a stupid person that they are stupid? Better yet, how do you tell millions of stupid people that they have been brainwashed? Hitler says, “To learn history means to seek and find the forces which are the causes leading to those effects which we subsequently perceive as historical events.” Pretty profound words from a man that you cannot even mention in public anymore without being immediately branded as some kind of neo-nazi lunatic, don’t you think? And to think that most patriotic Americans would be shocked to realize how much they actually identify with Hitler’s writings on Nationalism. You should read it sometime, it is not rambling. The man definitely knew how to put words together. And now the same censorship and totalitarianism that we abhor in him has become our social paralysis. You cannot even have an open discussion on the man’s ideas without fearing for your life. Strange.
I guess it all comes down to identity though. You had the luxury of throwing one away. Another thing that you denied me. After you fucked up my head with your Marxist hippy ideals and ruined my face and body with your drugs and anemia-inducing “health-food” I never got the chance to form an “identity.” I was ridiculed and picked on as a runt from the earliest age that I can remember, and I always had to run so fast and hard just to survive my childhood that I never had the luxury of forming a sense of self or well-being or anything close to an identity. How cute, how you grew up the larger, older brother, making fun of your little brother and becoming the big basketball jock in your family; only to shock everyone and become a hippy abstract painter. How suave, how debonair, how cool. And to think how many times that you yelled at me for being selfish. You’ve screwed the pooch on this one. I’ve got you by the balls. You’ll die a loser with no real contribution to mankind. Hats off to you, you selfish, traitor cocksucker.
Foley


Dad,

Hitler infected the world with his madness. It wasn’t his fault, he didn’t know he was crazy, it’s just that he thought differently than anyone else; and instead of going down into ruin and oblivion like most maladjusted people do, he went up to great heights because of his grit and determination. Of course, it didn’t turn out all right, but if you read what he wrote before it all went down, he was prepared to die for his beliefs. He said without that character of conviction, that no man and no country will achieve true greatness.
For all his grandiose ideals of racial superiority and ethnic cleansing, he could not hold a candle to the superior attitude of the Dutch to all other races. That’s right, daddio, talk about racism, the Dutch consider all other “white” people to be inferior. Like the “Negro” is to the nazi, the Germans are to the Dutch. And they see the Americans as the same way. White trash. That’s what Ingrid tells me. Well, she didn’t tell me directly, but I picked up on it from the stories she tells me about her old man. Seems as though she’s got some issues with her father as well. That’s why we get along so well.
It’s funny, though, how the Dutch seem to think of the world, and especially Americans; or so I gather second-handedly from only the recounting of a single source – Ingrid’s father. It seems that we are a curious nation to them, one to be emulated and mocked at the same time. Their children begin watching state-run television at the age of three. American and British shows with Dutch subtitles, so that by the age of five, the kids are all bilingual English and Dutch; and have absorbed the particulars of both foreign cultures. An advanced form of Social Studies as it would seem. Yet, we grow up learning so little about the Dutch, or even that it is really two countries united, Holland and The Netherlands. I asked Ingrid why they are so interested in us, and she couldn’t answer. I asked why we knew so little about them, and she couldn’t answer. But it seems almost intentional, really, like hiding in plain sight. Tulips, windmills, and wooden shoes is all most Americans on the street could answer about the Dutch, and you would be lucky to find any that could name all three. Most people don’t know that the Dutch colonized much more of the world than did Napoleon and Cook combined; and they did it quietly. No grandiose stories about campaigning across Egypt and discovering the Rosetta Stone, no tales about being harpooned on the shores of Hawaii; the Dutch seamen just quietly went about their business taking over all the choice islands with all the prettiest women and nicest climates. Back when it was a three-way race to take over the world between England, France, and Holland, the Dutch nearly had the others edged out when some big damn floods came and wiped out most of their country. That’s what all the windmills and wooden shoes are about. The windmills drive big Archimedes screws to pump the flood water away; and the wooden shoes float.
Ingrid says that for every great British or American thing, a Dutchman has either done it before or done it better. She says they invented banking. Imagine that, a people smart enough to get other countries to give them their money for safekeeping. That’s brilliant. She says that the Royal Dutch own ninety percent of the oil production companies in the world. Forget the Saudis, Ingrid, says, it is the Dutch who really control the world oil supplies. She says that they have their eyes set on the all the American food production companies next, and also the pharmaceutical manufacturers. Look at every corner of every major city, and you will see it turn to a Shell station soon. That is because the little guys and other companies cannot compete. And the hotels? They are snapping those up also. And every hotel and motel should have a convenient gas station and mini-mart right beside it, right? I love it when she uses logic. She says that the Dutch actually like Americans. I bet, I told her. Sleep, eat, and drive. Like good little cows on a farm to them we are. Why does she tell me all of this? Hell if I know. Seems like it would be top secret doesn’t it? She says that you could tell people in America point blank that the world as they know it is run by the Dutch, that they have no military except for the one that they rent from America and use to control the oil fields, that all major American foreign policies and military actions are determined by the World Court in the Hague, Netherlands; and the American People would stare at you like those cows on the farm we worked on. Never even blink. I told her that her secret is safe with me. She says that she doesn’t care who I will tell. Doesn’t that rock, Dad? The Dutch are taking over the world, and no one gives a rat’s ass! You know what else they own? They own the Nielsen ratings now. To complete the set, they bought the company that collects the data when you swipe your card at the grocery store. So, they have formed the perfect Triad: They can tell which of the dumb American cows are watching which commercial, how soon they get in their big fat car and drive their big fat ass down to the store to buy what they just saw on TV. Isn’t that awesome? The consumption of a country of millions being monitored in real time by a foreign country that we know essentially nothing about! And nobody cares. And they wouldn’t give a shit if people did know. That is why they love us, Dad! We are a good breed of milk cow!
Love,
Foley



Dear Dad,

Ingrid and I split up for awhile. It got kind of hairy what with banging that other chick and stuff. She didn’t last long either. She was kind of freaking me out with all of her hero worship. Said she had seen me on the TV and knew that I was that guy who rode the tornado. I let her ride the tornado a few times, if you know what I mean. I am staying in a hostel in downtown Cairo now. It is run by Dutch people. We sit up on the roof and smoke hash at night and look at the stars and listen to music and sip beers. It is great. The Dutch people love to give me shit about being American. Everything in the world is our fault. We are to blame for everything. There is no escaping it, they drive me nuts. I knew I should have told them that I am Canadian, but I forgot again. Next time, I swear, I will remember. They call me a moron all the time. All day long. You American moron this; and you American moron that. Then they pull out their guitars and play Southern Blues, and everyone sings American Pie. Drives me crazy. They talk with the worst accents, and they are so obnoxious. They all have some hard luck story about some American that did them wrong. All of them, poor bastards, have some whiny-ass tale about being fucked over by an American. Then they just stop and look at me, like I am going to get up like some organ grinder’s monkey and dance on the table or something. I am starting to hate them fucking all. But I hang out and keep my voice down, and by and by the hash bowl comes around to me and I puff my feelings down a little deeper and I look at some of these Dutch chicks and they aren’t so bad cause they all got those huge ass down on the farm tits and they all wear their little skimpy, tight, cotton tank tops in fruity colors and I like sitting next to them in the cool desert breeze as it blows across the roof top. Then I whisper in their ear and watch their nipples.
Plus, after awhile they all break down and loosen up and lay off of the politics and everyone starts playing grabass. God, they need to learn to wash their socks, though. I never smelt foot odor like in these hostels they got. And four of us to a little tiny room, it smells like something rotten. I walk in at night and they got 3 of them laying there in the dark snoring with the window down tight and all their hash smoking, beer drinking, foot stinking asses are more than I can take. But the rent is cheap, and the women are fine, and I like the easy life. I still got plenty of cash left over from what Ingrid gave me for the experiment; and oh yeah, I still got plenty of Fennies. I don’t share those with no one, though. Those are for me when I get to feeling really frisky just before lunch time and one of these lasses with a great ass is sitting around the TV lounge with her legs curled up under all side saddle looking pretty because her shaved-head Euro soccer punk dumbass boyfriend has gone off to one of his cash-under-the-table daily labor jobs and I get to chatting her up about the weather.
I got one all talked up and all the way into the room, door closed behind, roommates all out sightseeing, sitting on the bed all ready to go and sample that ass; and who should walk in but the funny looking redheaded Dutch fellow who runs the front desk. Go figure. Says sorry, wrong room, bowing and backing out, “carry on”, but by then the damage was done and off and away she was. I felt like killing that motherfucker cause he knew exactly what he had done. So my nickname for him from then on was Van Dork. He ain’t no dummy, no not that one. He’s got all of the master keys for the hostel.
Egypt is funny, though. You don’t really hear about Egypt a lot. Did you know that Egypt produces a lot of oil? Just like the rest of the Middle East. I did not know that. Here among the pyramids and the camels and the papyrus stands, they got oil wells. Lots of them. Egypt is one the world’s largest oil producers. And it is a very popular tourist destination. The two go together very well here: Oil and Tourism. Not like the rest of the Middle East. I am starting to like it here. Nice place to work on my tan, drink some beers, and take in the local culture. Of course, most of that is done here at the hostel. This is an Islamic country, as you know, so most of us partake in all of our vices here at the “compound” as it were, up on the roof. That’s where I am now, in the hammock in the shade. I think I am getting sleepy.
Love,
Foley



Dear Dad,

I had to move back in with Ingrid. After I got out of the hospital, that is. You wouldn’t believe it. They blew up a bar right down the street from our hostel. A bunch of us were walking back from town and just walking into the hostel when the blast caught us from behind. It was unbelievably loud and the force broke my arms when I went to the ground. When I got up, there was glass and dust all over and I turned around and smoldering people were running past me and they had purple ooze coming out of their clothes and they were terrified. I walked through them and I saw all the people near the center of the blast, or what was left of them. The car frame was on fire and people parts were searing and smoking black all around and the smell made me sick in the heat and I passed out. When I woke up they were all shouting and screaming and loading me in the ambulance and women in black robes were yelling and flailing their arms. They were looking at the sky and then down at the ground, but I remember that some of them were looking and yelling at me. I asked myself why, and I must have spoken out loud, even though I could not hear anything very well because my ears were ringing. The ambulance driver yelled, “They say it is your fault.” The last thing I remember was seeing that pattern of stars up in the sky that they have on the flag of Syria.
The hospital was horrible. They never changed my sheets and the flies drove me crazy. The food was like garbage, and I could not understand a word my doctor said. Ingrid came to see me, and after about a week I absolutely could not stand it any longer and I begged her to get me out of there. She must know Arabic because she spoke to my doctor and before too long, they put me in a broken down wheel chair and I was out of there. I was glad to be back in an air-conditioned hotel room with all the amenities. It took me two showers to get the smell off of me, and after a little room service from the kitchen and from Ingrid, I was right again. We have been back together for a few weeks now, and she tells me that it is not safe for me to go back to the hostel. I agree with her, even though I know that she just wants me to stay. That’s cool. I can humor her for a while. She says that it is like fucking a mummy. It is hard to write with casts.
She has finally explained to me what it is all about. She has made it clear to me now, what the purpose of the experiment is, the drugs, the therapy, the reason that we are in this place. It is all to show me what my purpose is, my destiny, my plan for the world, and the universe’s plan for me: I am the One who will see this scourge for who and what they are. These murderous wolves who parade in sheep’s wool, covering their heads like the cowards that they are. Ingrid has finally revealed it to me, and I am free. I am going to find the solution to this problem which threatens the very existence of humanity as we know and love it. I have discovered the true nature of this curse called Islam. It is up to me to find the solution. Ingrid is my angel, and I am the Savior.

Love,
Foley



Foley,

Get your fucking little ass home, NOW! I am not kidding, before you fuck up the world. So help me, God, if you start World War Three I am going to kill you. This shrink broad and the drugs and the sex and the talk about shit you have no business dicking around with. Enough, already. And the bomb? You got what you deserved. You need to come home now before you jeopardize the mission any further. If I can get a letter to you, just think, what else is coming your way? Just something to think about.

Love,

Dad

P.S. Don’t worry about the shot. If you can’t make it, you can’t make it. It’s just a game. Jesus, you don’t have to feel like a failure. I will understand.




Dear Dad,

I guess I always knew that I was the One. When Mom and me used to do the I-Ching on a rainy Sunday afternoon, I would always end up with some heavy outcome, and she would always just stop and ponder my results for hours afterward. It always happened. We’d get out the three pennies from the coin jar and start tossing them on the table. She’d ask me why I smelled my fingers, and I’d tell her that the pennies made my fingers smell like farts. “ Who’s farts?” she’d ask, and I would get embarrassed. Can you believe it, me in front of my own Mom, talking about farts! And her fortunes would always turn out like something simple and plain like flowers or fields of grass or how her life was like a river. Mine, though, would turn out heavy and big like I was a tiger or a dragon or something. One day, she just gave up and we never did it again. Because the book said so: I had tossed the pennies a few times like always, and she looked up the fortune in that thousand-page book, and there in the middle of the book, she started reading out loud, “Your journey has come to an end. Do not seek wisdom from this book any longer. You have come upon the ultimate I-Ching. You will be the greatest leader that the world has ever known.” It went on, but she just got kind of foggy-eyed after that and she got real quiet and went off into the kitchen and started doing the dishes. It was a cloudy day, and she didn’t turn on the light in the kitchen. I can see her silhouette now, her in the gray dim kitchen, me in the dining room under the bright bulb, elbows perched up on the table, reading that fortune. It scared me.

It doesn’t scare me now. Neither does the Phenomenon. The Phenomenon is hard to explain to people, though. I can’t even explain it you, Dad, without worrying that I will lose some of my power. Some of “its” power. The short version? If I could, I would just tell people straight to their faces: “God doesn’t like it when people make fun of me.” But I couldn’t tell them that without making Him angry. So it’s like a Catch-22. Remember that movie, Dad? Old Alan Arkin running around trying to make sense of the War? Old Keller was a rye bastard, writing that one. But it’s true. I can’t tell people not to make fun of me because it will make God angry, but when I don’t tell them (and I never have told one of the dumb fucks because that is where all my power is) they get literally stomped on by God. Hammered. Toast. And the tragic comedy of the whole thing is, they never make the connection. Poor dumb bastards, even after their lives are in shambles, never once wake up in the middle of the night and go, “I never should have picked on McMann!”
It’s sad, really. And I am talking big things that should have set off alarms in their heads. Like, for example when I got fired from my one job. My boss lady’s husband was a flight officer in the navy, just about to make promotion. Two days after she fired me, he was taxiing down the runway for a routine training flight when his brakes on the landing gear failed. He skidded off the runway and caused about a million dollars worth of damage to the plane. The ensuing investigation turned up nothing wrong with the plane’s equipment. Nothing! Human error, the report said. His career was finished, in the toilet. After another job, the office building where I had gotten fired burned up inside. There was no security breach, and no suspicion of arson. But somehow, the fire had started from inside the network computer room on the one computer that had the main internet connection. The paper stated that it was as if an outside source had sent a signal for the computer’s power supply to overheat. Bizarre things like that, Dad; and I can go on and on. The bottom line is, “Do not fuck with Foley!” Someone is looking out for him. I wish that I could just tell people that. That would make their lives a lot easier. Instead, they insist on going about the Phenomenon the long way. Putting in the long hours as it were.
It all starts simple enough: I used to think that it was me. I really did. That’s what cracks me up, but I learned that no matter how many times that I encounter it, and how many different ways that I try to play it, it is always the same. That is the beauty of the Phenomenon. It starts like this: Someone at your school or your job always has to make a wisecrack at your expense. That’s where it starts. And that gives you two choices: You can either ignore it and seem not to mind any funning about you, thereby being “cool” and unconcerned about your loss of social status due to the sleight; or you can come back with a witty remark, thereby signaling to the aggressor that you take his remark as a serious enough threat to at least attempt to acknowledge it. Either way, you have made a choice. You have chosen a path and you have moved one square down that path on your social standing game board. It is there for everyone to see. It is imprinted in their minds where you currently stand. The next time that there is a gathering, your choice is to either be the aggressor and risk retaliation; or remain passive in the hopes of not being remarked upon again. Inevitably, however, you are always fired upon; and your response can mean the difference between your social life or death. For once your aggressor has an advantage, he will continue with that advantage and capitalize upon it to only one end: To drive you insane or drive you from the place, or both. It may be assumed that if you quit a perfectly good job for no apparent reason, other than the fact that everyone began to make fun of you, that you must be insane. You lose. And so it goes. If you respond from the beginning, then you must be prepared to have your comments perceived as hostile; and therefore aggressive, although they have merely been offered as defenses on your own behalf. Then you fall prey to even harsher ridicule than before because you committed to fighting, and it is a losing social battle. You become the asshole, and your boss fires you. Catch-22.
But always, if you fight the good fight and you are obedient to God, then He will defend you, even though you suffer; and he will vanquish your enemies before your patient eyes. One by one, although you long for your colleagues’ sudden and horrible deaths, they cling on day after day. There are the little things, however, like the nasty infections, the extended “medical leaves,” the sudden deaths of relatives. These are the little things that you can relish, although you beg God to forgive you for taking even a smidgeon of joy in your enemies’ misfortunes, that feeling in the back of your mind gives you comfort as bad things continue to befall your tormentors. All the while, I wish that I could just walk up to them and say forthrightly, “God does not like it when people pick on me.” Would that just make me a zealot in their minds? Would I lose all credibility? Where is that line, when people die and it is their coworkers’ turn to say, “Everyone respected him,” even though no one says, “Everyone liked him?” When do we cross that line of no return, when we have pissed off or alienated everyone around us so badly that they would refrain from saying ANYTHING about us to the media if interviewed?
Love,
Foley



Dear Dad,

Goddam, King’s Cross is a blast. We started staying at a hostel right in the middle of Sydney, and of course, it is run by Dutch people. But that is all right, these seem like young rich kids from Amsterdam or something that just decided to all go in together and buy a hostel. The place is all painted funky colors and has a funky odor from all the hashish and smelly shoes. I shudder to think what is growing in the showers, but I really do not care at this point. The rooms are really cheap, and Ingrid and I went ahead and ponied up for a couple’s room for the long term. I think we paid for a couple of months or something. I asked her why we had to go all the way to Australia for me to get religion when I am already saved, and she said that I had to experience this place first to see what the opposite of spiritual purity is.
The place is nice. It has three floors, and a roof, like Cairo, and the Australian sun beats down all day while the breeze blows nice and clean. People just sit around and talk and smoke hashish all day long and occasionally walk down to the liquor store to get a bottle of beer. That walk is something else, let me tell you. First thing you walk out the door you are in an alley with about ten different little cafes with food from all over the world. First, there is Indian food, which I like to get right in the evening just after the sun has gone down and the crowds of young backpacker chicks start dragging ass back from a long day and the lights start to flicker up and down the street. The heat starts to lift off the pavement and it meets the heat that is settling in my belly from that tandoori stuff that they put in that Indian stew. Man, it will hit you like a bowling ball on fire way down in the bottom of your gut, and then you wash it down with an icy-cold Coca-cola and you are set for another big bowl full. A big afterglow comes up all over you and you start to feel the sultry shine of horny tourists and backpackers all around you.
This place is throbbing with sex. Another café is right next door, and I like to eat at that one right at lunch time because all the little stewardesses from Air Thailand are down there with their shopping bags all set to run back from a day down at Town Center and jump on their planes back to Bangkok. I have to be careful, though, because it is right outside the front door of the hostel, and Ingrid took up the day shift at the front desk. I don’t want to pick up on one of these little brown bunnies right in front of her, even if she says she doesn’t mind who I screw, that just isn’t good form. I don’t want Ingrid to think that she and the Fennies have turned me into some kind of sexual Frankenstein. I will get lucky soon enough. I will let you know as soon as I find out what is further down the street.
Oh, by the way, check it out Dad: I have decided to start my novel here since it is such a relaxing, Bohemian atmosphere. Ingrid works during the day and most of the night, so I thought that I would go ahead and use this time productively. Here is a snapshot of Sydney so far in my own literary style:
“Sydney throbs. Darlinghurst Road snakes its way through a sultry, sweaty drizzle which seems to sizzle as it falls past the yellow bulbs which pulsate on the walls of the sex shop across the hissing street. Taxis slide by the slot of an alley from where I see the slippery black current of crossings and cross-dressers soaking in the warm mist. A pulpy, orange sensuality permeates the thick air on this corner of the city, and in particular, the window of my purple and yellow hostel room. The silence of horns from the steady stream of lookers in smoothly passing cars accentuates the strobing glimmers which dance in the shiny, wet underbelly of the wandering show squirming incessantly above. It is a non-stop festival, with a feeling between Rio in Carnivale and New Year’s in Hong Kong.”
Isn’t that a trip, Dad? I have never been to Rio or Hong Kong, and here I am writing about them in my novel. That is the power and freedom of writing, I guess. I can unleash my mind. My first novel! Hey, I just thought about something: I could go for the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature. In fact, my character can mention that in the novel. I wonder if anyone has ever actually talked about the Prize in a novel and then won it? I suppose that you would have to have some really lofty social purpose for the book or get across some really heavy message if you were going to stand a chance of doing that. What do you think, cocksucker?
Love,
Foley




Dear Foley,
Too many adjectives. For your novel that is. You are not going to get anywhere writing like that. It is just too cumbersome. You don’t have the natural talent to write, I can tell already. You have to have a natural talent, or you are just wasting your time. What heavy purpose are you trying to prove? That you can run away from all of your responsibilities, as always, and gallivant around the world with your little tramp wasting your time and money? Oh, yeah, I forgot, it is not your money. I keep forgetting how good you are at spending other peoples’ money. What a disappointment you have become. I tell Marlene what you are doing and she just laughs. But she really thinks that you are sad. She tells me that it must be hard having a son like you who brings shame on the family. But you are a man, now, Foley. Why don’t you act like one? And that poor girl: Being stuck with a project like you. That’s what you are right, just her little project? Because no self-respecting woman would hang out with you just for the fun of it. Anyway, you are no writer, rest assured of that. Don’t come begging for money when your luck runs out and little miss pharmacy company leaves your ass high and dry in some bar down under somewhere and they come and drag you off to deport you. And it doesn’t hurt my feelings when you call me names, son. Remember, I’m not even sure if I am your real father; and besides, your grandfather had some real doozies that he called me long before you came along. So try and hurt me all you want. You won’t win the Nobel Prize either, don’t worry. You’ve already won the prize for biggest schmuck in my book.
Dad


Dear Dad,
Sorry to hear your reaction to my first words as a novelist. I guess technically, though, I cannot call myself a novelist until I am published, right? Until then, I am just a writer. Can a writer write without experiencing anything first? I am writing today to let you know my experiences so far in Sydney. I don’t know if the rest of Sydney is like King’s Cross, but God have mercy on it if it is. I have walked the street down from the hostel to the end of the Cross on both sides of the block now at least a hundred times, and although I have done all the things there are to do in all different ways and order of events, I will tell you the highlights and the places in the order that they occur from the hostel. Ingrid doesn’t work the front desk anymore. She got a job as a professional stripper just down the street. As soon as you walk out of the alley where the cafes are and onto the street, the old drunk aborigines stand there around the circle with the tree and the pigeons on the sidewalk outside the Burger King. They call it Hungry Jack’s here. American fast food, it seems, has invaded Australia and taken root pretty well. Just in time for the Olympics this summer, which is really Winter down here, but you would never know it anyway. Just past the circle is the Bank, and then the liquor shop, the tobacco shop, and then the first whorehouse. Come day or night, one of only about three different ones is out there in her short skirt and long black boots and a skimpy blouse, and she stands there with her butt up against the wall but she is right out on the walk so close that you could reach out and touch her as she smiles that far away little junky smile. I joke to myself that she’s been stuck so many times in so many ways and places, that smile is permanently stuck on her face. It is not funny, though. Kinda sad. But I’ve got to hand it to her, she is out there day and night. Come night, the place lights up like Times Square. Or the State Fair. I feel like Pinnochio when his buddies dragged him off to the carnival. All the lights dance around on the front of the buildings and the awnings, forming a low halo of light that makes you forget whether you are walking along two-story shops or towering skyscrapers. Your eyes are grounded to the spectacle at street level, with the scent of corn dogs and cinnamon buns coming out of the snack bars between the brothels. Then there is the sex theatre. I tried this one on an odd day, just to see what was going on. I paid the twenty bucks just for the day pass to the pushy girl at the window, and then made my way down the dark stairs going below street level and then turned the corner into the auditorium. It was a bunch of older couples and families on vacation from all over the world, with dads in Hawaiian shirts and moms with big boofy hair doos, and they were all sitting there in the old wooden cinema chairs in the dark with their eyes glued to the naked couple up on stage engaged in all kinds of carnal acts. That one freaked me out, I have to admit. Did not want to try the popcorn in there. Don’t see how anyone could spend the day in the cramped little underground theatre. I was happy to give up my twenty dollars for some fresh air. Next door down out on the street was the first drinking pub, the Goldfish Bowl. Just a normal place to enjoy a few pints and watch some sports on the telly. I am really getting a taste for the European sports: Formula One, Rugby, Soccer, and my favorite so far – Australian rules football, or “footy” as they call it down here. Absolutely nutty to watch. Nearing the corner, there is the big club dance hall. This is a favorite among tourists. It sits right at the corner before you turn and make the big steep descent into downtown. The big Coca-Cola sign towers above everything, and this is really what is considered to be the entrance to the Cross. Inside the dance hall, it goes twenty-four hours per day, non-stop techno dancing. In case you didn’t know, techno is 16-time as opposed to 4-4-time like American rock. So just imagine moving your feet four times as fast when you dance. It’s like aerobics, really. Now imagine doing aerobics for 12 hours straight. Now imagine doing aerobics for 12 hours straight and drinking nice cold beer and smoking cigarettes one after the other. Oops, you caught me. Yes, I have started drinking and smoking more and more. It was something about Ingrid becoming a stripper that kind of put me over the edge. Well, that is only partly true, because she told me that she wanted me to explore my darker side while we are here. “To become as morally reprehensible as possible” is how she put it. She wants me to become as debauched and depraved as I can, so that I have some moral zero to mark my improvement by. I asked her about what improvement, and she says it will all come later. She tells me this, and then I have to watch big drunk guys rub their faces in her little pink titties and shove dirty money into her panties right before she takes them off and shows her muff. Sometimes, I’ve been home and asleep in the room for hours when she comes home smelling like beer and cigarettes and climbs in beside me. All I can say is that it is worth the wait. I can’t tell you about the whole of Kings Cross in one letter. Besides, they just dimmed the lights up here on the roof. I don’t write so well after a few hits of hash and a beer. I gotta go to work tomorrow anyway. Did I tell you I got a job? Did I tell you that my boss is a junky? I’ll tell you later.
Foley



Dear Dad,
So my days are pretty much the same now. I wake up early, put on my shower shoes to keep from getting some funky backpacker foot fungus, and traipse on down the hall past the hand-painted, multi-colored doors of the hostel to the men’s bathroom. I take a shower, make small talk with the guys who are up and actually have a job, and get ready for the arduous day ahead in the Sydney heat. I don’t actually have to work, but I find that it keeps me busy. Going out and moving furniture for the people of this town has been an eye-opening experience. There is no better way to get to know a town or its people than to drive around all day and move peoples’ junk. After my shit, shower, and shave, I throw on my t-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes and go down to the square where the Aborigine drunks are all up early and panhandling and milling around rambling at the tourists. There is always a preacher there trying to save them. I can’t help but listen to him, because of course I want to make sure that he is saying the right thing. Not that I am any model of Christianity these days, quite the opposite, but I want to see what his take on the Bible is. He talks about salvation, and walking the path of righteousness, and not sinning, and all the usual good stuff; but there is one thing that he says at the end of each sermon that really gets me: He says, “All you have to do is give salvation a try. Walk in the path of righteousness with the Lord at your side. If it is not all that I say it is, then you are always welcome to have your old life back.” I like that. Straight and simple just like a salesman or something. The Proposition Method to Salvation. Well, I guess I have made my choice. I am going to keep my old life. And then I am going to go a little further off of the path of righteousness. You see, I have already gone pretty far afoot. At night, when I get back from sweating and breaking my back moving pianos and couches for the people of Sydney, I cool down with a beer up at my boss’ apartment, where he calmly shoots up his daily dose with his young wife in front of their little two-year old. That’s right, his evening cocktail is a speedball, Dad. He is a functional junky. He doesn’t stoop over, or pass out, he just gets real mellow and starts cooking dinner and turns on the telly and watches the evening news like a regular guy with his family. It kind of reminds me of when you used to yell at me when I would say something about your lighting up a joint first thing when you would come home and you would scream, “This is my Martini, you little fuck. Why don’t you go hang out with some of your friends’ dads and see what they are like when they come home from work and get drunk and beat up their wives and their kids!” That used to make me feel good that you were doing the right thing by smoking pot and even letting me have some too, because who else than the coolest dad in the world would let his third-grade son smoke pot on a school night? Or did you make me wait until the weekends? I can’t remember. But my boss, J.J., as we call him, hasn’t started letting his two-year old shoot up yet. I wonder when he will start.
After chilling out with J.J., I wander back through the twilight a few blocks back to the hostel. I stop on the way at the liquor shop and get my bottle of beer, and then I get up on the roof where the people are lively and the conversation is happening, and the hash smoke is sweet. Stories about going up to the Blue Mountains, and going up the Gold Coast to Surfers Paradise, and going to the Sydney Zoo. Young couples hooking up for the first time from all over the world. Sometimes they talk about the upcoming Olympics. People are pretty excited about that. All I can think about is Ingrid being down at the strip club showing her muff under the ultraviolet strobe lights. I also think about the fact that the world did not come to an end back on December 31st, 1999. Here it is, a few months later, and things are still cool. I hear by email from friends in the States that it was a media circus in America, like a hurricane coming. Only in America. That’s what the headlines say here. Then my mind turns to the preacher: You can have your old life back at any time. I think that I will go for a walk tonight, further down the Cross than I have ventured before. Peace out.
Foley




Dear Dad,
My walks down the Cross are getting longer. I have found a lot of things that I like. Number one is a little whorehouse called, “Talk of the Town.” What a nice little out of the way place to get laid. Well, it’s not like I went there right away to satisfy my urges. First, I just checked the place out and walked in and looked around. They are down around the corner and off the street, and they have a nice waiting room when you first walk in. Then the madam greets you and brings out the girls that are available. You get to look them over and take your pick. I told them that I would come back later. Because just a couple of blocks further is one of Sydney’s hottest all-night dance clubs, the Rhino Bar. You walk in, and the techno music grabs you. First, though, the bar is in front, and everyone is clamoring for a drink. The bartenders are really friendly, even to an old guy like me, and all the ladies are really good-looking and the whole place is thumping to the beat. Then, once you’ve got your drink, you go back into the back where the dance floor is. There is a staging area where it is all dark and carpeted and it is wall-to-wall people and mostly nice-smelling women who are all hot and charged to dance. The dance floor is bathed in colored rotating spotlights and the music is really loud. The DJ keeps the music going continuously, and people dance non-stop. You can walk out on the dance floor among the people and the fog and blend right in and dance by yourself and no one even notices that you are there. Before long, you are rubbing up against some girl who is wearing a tight polyester jumpsuit and moving in military precision time to the music and she acts like she likes you being there. The track slides into “Do you think you’re better off alone?” and then picks up speed again with Gatecrashers. After awhile, you go back to the bar and get another drink, and then go back on the dance floor and get in with the mob and keep moving to the music. Usually, I would drink a lot, like six or seven beers, but here, I only drink about two or three, and then I go and see what is going on outside the bar and damn! It is light outside and it is about 9 o’clock in the morning. Like a time warp. Talk about high energy. A lot of the people do not even buy drinks. I think that they are on ecstasy or something because they just carry bottles of water and they are all bright and smiley and move and dance really fast the whole time. It is like day in the middle of the night. I love it. I really pace myself, because even though I like to drink alcohol, I do not want to get all mushy and drunk and stand out in the crowd and slow down. So, three or four beers gets me through the night and then I can wander through the early morning light back over to the Talk of the Town where some nice young Asian girl named Lillian or Grace is waiting for me to pick her out of the line up and take a shower and then throw her around the room and fuck the shit out of her. I love this town!
Love,
Foley


Dear Dad,
I am scared. I scare myself when I sit alone in the dark and think of the crazy things that I do. When Ingrid works late stripping, I can hear the people’s feet scraping and the chairs dragging and the clamor of the party on the roof right above my hostel room. They are playing in the midnight sun which turns night into day here. It is nights like this that sometimes I wish that I lived in a dorm room with some other guys just to have someone to talk to, but then I am reminded of the smell of parmesan and feet, and the odor of hash mixed with ripe snot gurgling from the throat of some snoring backpacker with an old cold. I lay back and wait for Ingrid, and I think of all the whores that I have slept with. I can hear the Lebanese pizza boys loitering noisily between orders in the alley below. They are louder than the brothel barkers who try to hustle you in as you stroll by The Pink Pussycat, Porky’s, and Club 21. I talked to one of those Lebanese guys once and they have an interesting story. Because of their ongoing war with neighboring countries like Israel, they get refugee status in Australia. All they have to do is apply for refugee status and they get 200,000 Australian dollars and a big house in the Sydney suburbs. Isn’t that a trip? Man, what I could do with $200,000 and a house here. I couldn’t even think about buying one at home.
I think about running down to the Kings Cross Hotel or going out to the World Party dance club, but my mind is too tired. I catch an occasional verse of the song playing on the hostel public address system. The dreamy lilt of “If you dream of sand dunes and salty air” has given way to a more aggressive, “I see you baby, shakin’ that ass” in the thick of the night. In my mind, I can see people drinking their bottles of Victoria Bitter and smoking their doobs in the picnic table booths on the roof. My mind turns to all of the sexual experiences that I have had here in the Cross. The one that creeps me out the most is when I picked up this independent chick walking down a back street. I could tell that she was a hooker, and she looked to have a pretty nice body. I asked her if she was up for it, and we went down an alley and negotiated a price for oral service. Everything was fine until about half way through, she stopped and whipped out a baggie and started gasping into it and I caught a strong whiff of glue. There I was, getting a blowjob from a glue-sniffing whore, a “huffer” as they affectionately call them down under. Then I saw her face with the missing teeth and the gray pallor and just about lost it. It was then that I decided that the overall quality of service needs to be improved in the Cross. The funny thing about it looking back on the whole experience is: How does someone know when they are half-way through a blowjob? Just a little joke there old man, get it? It is kind of funny like you thought my going through four years of college just to become an enlisted man was funny. That kind of funny, that’s what I am talking about. I remember you asked why I did not go officer, and the look on your face when I told you that my college grades were not high enough. I don’t know if you were more disappointed by the fact that I had not worked hard enough in school, or if you were more confused by the fact that you had not been aware of my low grades all along. Kind of like getting half way through a blowjob. Funny.
Love,
Foley


Dear Dad,
God, it was kind of a queer day today, what with my declaring myself king and all. I stayed in the room all day drinking beer and rereading “The Catcher in the Rye.” I stayed up here with the window open and the smell of the Lebanese pizza drifting in, sweating. I waited up all night, or morning I should say, for Ingrid to come in so I could tell her my plan. I told her that I wanted to make better hookers for the Cross, and she was all for it. She said that she had been talking to several of the backpacker ladies at work and that they would be up for it. Plus I mentioned that I wanted a piece of the drug trade, and she said that she could arrange it. She knows a guy at work who deals a lot of the junk for the Cross and he is always looking for more contacts. So, things are looking up. I figure that all I have to do is tell JJ my boss that I have a connection with cheap stuff, and he will be all ears. I will go from being his mule to vice versa. Plus, the hostel has an endless supply of young hotties that are willing to work at whatever odd job to pay for their travels. All they need is some guidance. We will see how it goes. Ingrid is snoring right now. That is so weird, I have never seen her do that. Poor girl, she is so exhausted from stripping. I really owe her a better life. I am just finishing my last bottle of beer, so one more ciggie, and off to bed. I will mail this in the morning. Probably after 10, when the day actually begins in Sydney.
Love,
Foley



Dear Dad,
God, we’ve rented out most of the hostel now. I mean, all of the girls have their own room now. We’ve even taken over most of the dorm rooms, with the girls coordinating their schedules and “pick ups.” The majority of the johns are businessmen on their lunch hour. That is one area where the street vendors were seriously lacking. I mean, what self-respecting business suit guy wants to greet the burned out hooker on the street and duck into a place called “The Pink Pussycat” in the middle of the day? He just wants a nice clean girl that he can discreetly meet and boff in a hotel room. We have a few girls now that are using hotel rooms, but for the most part, the hostel is dirt cheap. So the guys come around the cafes down in the alley, and at first, we had the girls strike up conversations with them. What guy is not an easy pick up, unless he is gay? And the introductory price is irresistible. These gals will lick their lips, flit their hair, and do whatever to get these guys to flirt, and then it is a no-brainer. They are up to the room, and any mention of price centers around “can you help a girl buy a plane ticket home?” and the guys are generous. Most guys chip in 20 or 50, so of course they learn after awhile with the same girl that the service is better with the more that they “give.” After a few days of finding the same nice-smelling, clean, blond, fresh 20-something girl at the same café at the same time, they think that they have a girlfriend. Those that keep paying are usually none the wiser. Those that ask too many questions or start acting too possessive are given “the treatment” and usually start shaping up like any man would that doesn’t want to scare a good girlfriend away. We have had a few that get weird, and do things like butt in on conversations with our girls (“their” girls) and Ingrid swoops in and acts like a friend coming to the rescue and the guy comes to his senses. For those who don’t, I am always a phone call away, if I am not already leaning out of the second floor window yelling down into the alley anyway. We have only had one guy start shouting, “Whore, whore!” but I came running down and took care of him. That leads me to my boxing training, but I will get into that next time. I have to make the rounds and make sure that all of my girls have a little hash on hand to smoke with the regulars. Boy, that shit really loosens up the wallet, even if it does stink.
Love,
Foley


Dear Dad,
Things are going better than I could have expected. Ingrid makes a great pimp. All I have to do is stay at the hostel all day while she runs the girls. Occasionally I get horny, and she lets me get a little action on the side with some of them. She joins in too for the girls that are more adventurous. Most of them are just simple, fun-loving ladies. Sometimes, my phone rings and it is JJ, looking to make another run. I drop by his place and hook him up. He moves a lot of stuff, and I am proud of him. He keeps his shit straight. He has quit his furniture moving business, and he makes a lot more money with me. Ingrid says that the guy at the club is happy because we are moving stuff pretty well, and it has not cut in on his original business at all. So, that is cool. Actually, the girls who are not busy stop by my room all day long and hook me up with favors. I tell them not to tell Ingrid, and they are cool with that. Smoking hash and doing nice blond backpacker chicks all day long is very nice. I don’t think that I will ever get bored of it. One thing that I enjoy the most is roughing up the johns that get too clingy or obnoxious. This is bringing out a part of me that I didn’t know. The boxer. Did I mention that before?
Love,
Foley


Dear Dad,
I started exploring the Cross one day, and I went down William Street at the end of the Cross past the subway entrance. At the bottom of the hill was the City Gym. They have a boxing club, and I said that I wanted to start training. I think the guy smelled beer on my breath, because he started to laugh. I whipped out my wad of bills, and he stopped smirking after he counted it and I told him that I wanted a personal trainer. He took me aside and said all right mate, but I would have to show up early the next morning. I think he wanted to see if I was a piss head or not. Sure enough, I showed up, and that is when my new hobby began. A few people have already come up and said that they saw me ride that tornado. They don’t have tornados in Australia, but they sure do love boxing. I don’t think that any Aussie boxer has ever qualified for a shot at the world heavy weight title, or any title for that matter. This time, I got smart. When the son-of-a-bitch asked me, I told him that I am an Australian citizen transplanted from Canada. That stopped him cold in his tracks, I could tell. No more, “where you from” or “how long are your immigration papers good for” like a lot of these nosy bastards always ask you. Only 18 million dumb fucks on a continent the size of the United States, and they seem all worried about a fucking invasion or something. Always asking to see your passport. So I cold-cocked this dumb fuck’s curiosity before he even had a chance. So now I am the next great white hope in Australia.
Love,
Foley

Dear Dad,
Funny as shit, you would not believe it. I never boxed before in my life, right? Well, there were those times that you and I shadow boxed and you would get mad as hell if I really connected a punch and you would start hitting me back as hard as you could and say “goddam, what the hell is wrong with you?” even though you were in your forties and I was only 17 or 18. But now that I am getting trained by a real boxer, I am actually winning a few of my sparring matches, and my trainer is ready to take me to my first city fight. My secret? He says that I can fight both “southpaw” and right-handed. Like I am a schizophrenic pugilist or something, he says. When we first started, he was frustrated as hell. Me too, because we would train all day and into the night, and he would yell shit like, “Goddam, man, make up your mind, are you going to jab with your right hand, or your left? You can’t do both!” So I would try real hard and hit first with one hand for a day or two and then bring in the roundhouse knockout punch with the other, and he would say, “ok, now you are ready to spar.” Sure enough, as soon as I got into the ring with Butch, the sparring guy, I would jab with my right instead of my left, and then when he started acting confused, I would land a hard left on his chin and he would go down. Nate would jump in the ring and go ape shit! He would jump up and down and say what the fuck are you doing, just like when I was 8 or 9 and you would try to teach me how to drum because you were a jazz drummer in high school, and then I said, “well, I knocked him down, didn’t I?” and his eyes kind of flickered like his mind was saying, “oh yeah.” So after that, he didn’t say anything. He just trained me and watched. Then next time, I got into the ring with Butch, I jabbed him with a bunch of lefts and then floored him with a right. He doesn’t want to spar with me anymore. Nate says that we have a bout on Friday, but he doesn’t have much hope for me. I told him that I would reimburse him for any money that he loses. He says, ok sure kid, just make up my mind. I don’t know, I just go by instinct. It’s not like practicing the piano like you used to make me do all day when you and mom were at work. This feels natural, like the teeth that you used to have before that North Carolina dentist yanked them all out in a day. Imagine how he felt, a fast-talking New Yorker sitting in HIS chair, begging to have all of his rotten teeth pulled, after all those jokes he had endured about Southerners and their bad teeth? I wonder if he had fun that day! What do you think, cocksucker?
Love,
Foley



Dear Dad,
I won my first big fight tonight! Not like Nate wanted me too, but he was happy, even if he didn’t let on. He had some beer and peanuts afterwards, and his little wife was there grinning, so I know he was happy. But not with the way I won the fight. They had announced me as a Southpaw, just like those fucking announcers like to do. Like a freak show, anything that is different is the top story. Then of course, it is telegraphed to the opposing fighter during training, like an advantage or disadvantage going in. That way, he has time to prepare. The big, bad southpaw. Maybe he gets scared, or maybe he has prepared his “anti-southpaw” strategy. Perhaps he is a southpaw himself. But usually, the announcer will be sure to blast that out. Two lefties! Gather round and watch the freak show. But when is the last time that that happened? Very low odds on that occurring. The truth: It didn’t bother me one bit. I went in there knowing that this poor dumb schmuck thought that I was a southpaw. I knew that he was right-handed. I fielded a few of his scientific left jabs. I countered with a few of my right jabs. But you know what, Dad? They didn’t feel right. So, second round, I came out jabbing with my left. They felt strong. He got confused and thought that I was trying too hard and early going for the win. A couple more rounds of that and he got careless. He came in with a right, and I sidestepped it and countered. Either he discounted it as a jab or was slow to react, but I connected and brought him down with a hard right cross. Bam! Down and out for the count. I have moved up a rank in the Sydney city standings!
Foley



Dear Dad,
There are not too many good boxers in Australia. Sure, a lot of them are big, but they are not very impressive. Nate has given up coaching me on which way to punch. He just trains me now on fitness and nutrition and hopes for the best. The press touts me as the “split decision.” That’s cool. I have traveled to Perth, Melbourne, Darwin, and Tasmania. Everywhere I go, it is the same story: The crowd is packed, and the fighter in the other corner looks scared shitless. Ingrid is there in the front row sometimes, and I hear her scream when the other guy lands a punch. But then something inside me takes over and I fight however I feel like. The longest fights so far have been about 5 rounds. That’s how long it takes me to figure out my opponent’s style, and then I just clobber him with whichever hand feels right. I already have the title for Oceania. They brought over some guy from Tonga, then Fiji, and New Zealand, but all of them were just sweaty, big, overrated hacks in my opinion. A few drags of hash before the match and I was good to go. With a little training, and a crystal-clear head, I can figure out how to beat these guys with my eyes closed. The press has started to make a big deal of me, but I am kind of bored with it after a couple of months. The “Tornado Terror” is what my true fans have been calling me. It has made keeping a low profile back at the Cross a bit of a challenge. As the King, it has become like holding a public office. Not easy for someone who is trying to hold down the drugs and prostitution racket. Ingrid says it may be time to move on. I was kind of hoping to take a shot at the Olympics. Oh well.
Foley



Dear Dad,
I had the weirdest dream about Mom tonight. At least, I think it was about her. Do you ever think about her anymore? I know that it has been a few years, but sometimes I think about her. I feel really bad, because my memory of her is not really clear. I try to think very hard about how it used to be when the three of us lived together and what her face looked like and what she used to do, but it has faded a lot. Then I had this dream tonight. In part of it, I saw her face really clearly, but the rest of the dream was just bizarre. I was working in this restaurant, and the cheesecake had to be really cold. They had a rule about it, and you had to put the fresh cheesecake in the walk-in freezer until it was chilled firm. Then you could serve it. I put a few servings of the cheesecake in the chiller. It was the fancy kind, with cherries on top. But I left a few servings out, not in the freezer, but on the pantry shelves. In the dream, I came out of the ice box, and these girls were sticking their fingers in the pie! I don’t know why, but when I asked them what they were doing, they just started giggling and walking off. I yelled that I would call the police if they ever trespassed and damaged property again! I was enraged that they would just come into the back of the restaurant and start sampling the cheesecake with their grubby little fingers! But now that I am awake, I think that one of the girls was Mom. And I think that they were young and drunk, Mom and one of her girlfriends, having some mischief. Why would I dream about that? I am wide awake now and all the beer shops are closed and I am out of hash. Ingrid is out working the streets, and the goddam noisy Lebos are running pizzas all night long. Sometimes this place gets on my nerves. Ingrid has been talking about going home and showing me Amsterdam, so I can see what a real city is like. I don’t want to leave, not after all I have accomplished. I run this fucking place. After 6 months, I can walk down the street and people either run and hide or bow. We have over a million dollars in the bank. We have bought all of the sex clubs and stripper joints all the way from Potts Point to William’s Street. Every drug mule in the Cross is our employee. I get an electric bill for every flashing bulb and strobe light from the juice shop in the alley all the way down to the Bliss Café where the lightweights fresh off the plane buy the cheap pot. We have bought every hostel on Darlinghurst. What else can we do? The thrill is gone. I have gotten high, fucked myself silly, danced myself crazy, supplied every dope addict on the street, and kicked every motherfucker’s ass that has had the balls to challenge me every day for as long as I care to remember. What else can I do in this dump? What’s next, buying a big chunk of the outback and starting my own country? Ingrid laughs when I say that and says that she could have her dad pull some strings at the U.N and get a charter or something. Wouldn’t that be a hoot, cocksucker? Me with my own country? The south side of Australia would be perfect. From Melbourne all the way over to Perth. No one fucking goes there. Over 5,000 miles of coastline for shipping and resorts, with farm land in between. It would be the richest fucking undeveloped country in the world. Filthy rich people from everywhere would be lining up to homestead. I would be bigger than Bill Gates and Warren Buffet combined. Just takes a little organization and discipline, right cocksucker?
Foley


Dear Dad,
I don’t know how we are going to pack up and move and leave the operation here in Sydney. Ingrid says just give it away, but I don’t want to just leave everything like I did in my apartment when I started this whole odyssey. This is ridiculous. It kind of bothers me, Ingrid’s entire cavalier attitude toward the whole thing. Over a million dollars per month in revenue, and she is like “fuck it” we will start another one in Holland. I am thinking that JJ can run the whole thing, but who wants to leave an entire empire in the charge of a junky? We will take our chances, I guess. I am hanging out on the roof in the hot sun today anyway, writing my novel. I finally came out of my chilly, dark, room to mingle with the people. My room is cool most of the morning, I should say, when I have the curtains drawn and Ingrid is still asleep. I get a beer out of the little dorm fridge and walk down the hall and crack it open and listen to the still silence of the hostel at 9 in the morning, and then saunter back to the room and sip on my beer and think about the money. You know, it really isn’t that great, having all this money. I mean, yes, of course it is in a way, but what really turns me on is how we have gone about getting it in the last few months and how well known I am and what an influence I am in the community and what not. I guess you would say that it is the politics of it all that has my juices flowing. It is the power and the energy that I feel every morning. The invincibility of it all. I can get up in the morning and drink my beer and walk up on the roof and look out over Sydney and smoke my cigarette and feel that I am really somebody, that I have accomplished something, that I will never get sick because I have fully utilized my mind and my spirit which have evolved over millions of years to accomplish just something like this. This is what I was meant to do, my destiny. Who can succumb to a cold or cancer or some other bullshit like that out of the blue when they are utilizing every fiber and essence of their human being? This is what God intended for man, why would he strike a man down in all his glory? Or a woman for that matter? But he did. And that is what I am going to focus my novel on. Now that I have time. Now that the operation is practically running itself. I have decided what my novel is going to be about. I am going to write about what I think caused Mom’s cancer. Because there was a reason that she got that brain tumor, and it wasn’t God’s reason, it was because of man and all the shit that he pumps into the environment. All the oil companies and their pesticides and herbicides and all the other shit that they make to keep the price of oil up and spray on our crops. You know why Mom died of a brain tumor? It was no coincidence that it was about the size of an orange like the doctor said. It is because of all the synthetic hormones that the oil companies make to make all the fruits and vegetables grow so big these days. Everybody oohs and ahs at the big fruits and vegetables, and they never stop to think why they get that way. They think that it is natural, but it is not. It is all that petroleum-based shit that the farmers spray onto the fields and the crop dusters dump into the air. And you have people like Anita Bryant and the orange growers association bombarding it into our heads to “eat your fruit” and give the little kids vegetables and eat all your greens because you want to grow up big and strong. No one thinks about what is growing inside of us because of that shit. Now that I have traveled around the world, I see the real size of fruits and vegetables. They are naturally small, not like the gargantuan things we grow like something out of a bad cartoon about radiation-induced giant produce. It is ridiculous. Mom loved fresh fruit, especially those big navel oranges from Florida. Freaks of nature, those things are. That is what my book is going to be called: “About the Size of an Orange.” It is going to be about the oil industry and all the fake growth hormones that go on our food. You can wash them all you want, but that stuff is still inside. Mom will be proud. Oh yeah, I forgot that you do not like to touch the subject of Mom, now that she is gone. Sorry, asshole.
Foley


Dear Dad,
This is becoming more like a journal than letters. What have I written you, like 50 letters or something? I don’t know what made me do it, but I will go ahead and tell you about it. Ingrid was really pissing me off, so I went out for a walk, deeper into the Cross than I have ever been. Not down towards Potts Point or the Rocks or the Opera House; or even down William Street. But across the top of the hill, underneath the Coke sign, over toward Town Hall. I was just steaming, walking, and thinking. I stopped in a club and had a few beers, and then I went out into the sultry air and walked some more along the wrought iron gates on the sidewalk in front of what I would call brownstone style bungalows. They are right in the heart of the city, and they give off a warm feeling in the middle of the night. That is to say, I felt warmth from them as I trucked along in my black leather jacket without a clue of where I was going. Just walking. Then I saw this little pink neon sign at the top of the cement stairs of one of the townhouses, and I was drawn like a fly to read the name closer. Jezebel’s was written in cursive lights across the door of the open stairwell leading up, and I could not help but follow the smell of incense wafting down into the quiet dark street. The stairwell was lit by one dim overhead bulb, and the well-worn wooden stairs beckoned me to step one after the other to the top. A pleasant sight awaited me on a parlor couch in a purple glow surrounded by gauze curtains. Behind this makeshift foyer peeked out white bulges of a dresser and a bed. She said welcome, and I said how much. A deal was struck at a hundred, and we touched on the way to her lair. Brushing skin and smoke-scented hair aroused our senses, and we entwined without hesitation. She was expectantly receptive and I was expectedly ready, and as we embraced and heaved moistly in the fan-cooled ambiance, I became aware of a pressing weight heavier than her apparent presence. There was more to her than met the eye, and I could sense it mightily. As I ascended into tighter ecstasy within her loins, I chanced to open my eyes and met her intense glance. Lord, her eyes turned red, and her face purple, and she said welcome Foley, I have been waiting for you. From out of her sides came leathery wings, and I felt a gust of wind as she flapped and writhed underneath me. Then he gaped his jaw and yelled in my face with his lantern eyes and grotesque breath that he was my master. He rolled me over and had a go at me for a time. I guess he expected me to wilt like a lily and run, but much to his chagrin, I flipped him again and had a go with a few pumps and strokes of my own. Hey, any port in a storm, right? The Devil’s ass is as good as any, and all’s fair in love and war, they say. Here’s the kicker, though, Dad. He went on to say that he had lead me down the path to damnation and that I was now the most wicked man that he had ever trapped. I calmly explained to him (while I was getting my pleasure) that he had failed to do his homework. That old boy was clearly shaken, I’ll tell you! I mean good is good, and evil is evil, but that stupid old bastard did not know which way was up! He demanded to know who I was, and I just said that in the Good Book, it didn’t make it too clear, so maybe he should go back and read it a little better. He turned back into a she as quick as a wink, and tried to act like little miss meek and asked me to leave or she would call the coppers and whatnot. Go figure, Dad! The mission is working out pretty well. Do you think that he even has a clue who I am? I just pulled up my pants, and walked home. Ingrid was so worried about me. She practically threw herself at me. It was good to come again, twice in the same night. But I lay there awake after Ingrid went to sleep, thinking about things. The whole night had gotten me excited. I mean, here I am Dad, the success of some experiment, and it has gone better than expected. Granted, it was not that well scripted, but actually living it has made it a little bit clearer. I mean, the whole part about dying in front of the entire world and coming back to life? I had that covered when the local news station in Wichita put it out over the AP wire that I was going to catch the next string of storms. They were there when I flash-inflated the weather balloons at the sound of the first warning sirens and lashed them to the Zorb. Millions had started to tune in when the funnel cloud formed and I suited up on the back of the semi tractor-trailer barreling down tornado alley flanked by news crews. Close to 2 billion had been patched in live when it made “breaking news” status. It all came together in the next few minutes as the darkness swirled and the train roared and your boy was whisked up. But you saw it all live, right Dad? You were witness, along with the masses, to the glory that unfolded that day. You saw your son go up out of view of the cameras as the commentators squawked about “thousands of feet”. I have replayed the tapes from all of the networks, and they all sound like the same broken record. The man who rode the tornado. And then the sightings of the blob that came down. How they came up on my twisted bag of plastic and my mangled form. The cameras never stopped rolling, did they Dad! There I was, pronounced dead by the paramedics for the billions tuned in. But wait, what was that whoosh, that gasp, as the first paramedic cut into the film and let the air rush in? Was it my lungs grasping at life? Was that me crawling out of my snarled wrapper? I believe that it was. I know you saw it, Dad. Everyone did. And what does that make me, Dad? Certainly not Satan’s bitch boy. That part should have been written more clearly. Oh yeah, and I caught a glimpse of Mom while I was up there, cocksucker. WWW: “Who wrote who?”
Love.
Foley


Dear Dad,
Here’s another letter written after lying awake all night. That night I told you about last time just about got the best of me. I seriously considered ending it all. It didn’t bother me at first, but then my guilt started getting to me. It just doesn’t seem fair, what I am doing here, with my life and everyone else’s. I mean I have seen the guys that come here and don’t make it out, with the drinking and the whoring and the drugs. The ones who get sick, with the nagging coughs and the black clap and the sunken eyes. I‘ve seen it hundreds of times now, the fresh ones that show up full of life and then steadily end up in the gutter. They get the bottle in front of them and the pipe in their hand, and what they earn in a day, they blow in a night with one of the black widows on the strip, with the stuff growing on their faces to show that they’ve had their tongues in places where it doesn’t belong. And I am responsible for it all now. There’s not one holdout in the entire Cross. They didn’t see it coming, and when they realized what was going on, half of them didn’t care, and the other half just had to pack up and move on. Now, here I am feeling remorseful. Why must I play this role? What is this proving? Why must I profit from other peoples’ souls? I told Ingrid about the night with the tranny. She didn’t really mind. I told her that it was kind of tearing me up inside, but I didn’t tell her who he really was. I told her that I have hit rock bottom and that I can’t do it anymore. She said that it is just in time. The experiment was a success. Ingrid says that now I am ready to conquer Amsterdam.
Foley



Dear Dad,
It’s a nice cool Fall morning in Amsterdam. I have already been up, had a cup of coffee, smoked a joint, and am now reading the paper on the street outside a nice little café. What a trip about the American elections! Wow, how are they going to resolve that, I wonder? First, Gore quits, then he doesn’t, then he does. Just like a good Democrat, right Dad?
Ingrid and I did Amsterdam in style already. We hit the red-light district our first night. Yep, we did it together, can you believe that? We were looking for fresh meat, some girls just off the plane, so we went to a place called the Hymen Factory. That’s where they guarantee that the girls are virgins by medical exam. Sure, you pay out the nose, but if you really want a good time, then it is worth it. Most of them are Asian girls who are already expecting it because they got sold or told about it back home as a way to make a living, but then there are the school girls getting back at their parents, or the desperate backpacker chicks who got stranded without money. Those are the ones that Ingrid and I picked out of the lineup. We splurged. We got good and liquored up on champagne and then we got some big-titted blond Norwegian girl all alone in one of those cheap velvet-covered rooms with a round bed and we just went to town on her. You could tell she was all nervous the way she was quivering and stuff when we petted it, and then we just dived in and chopped her up right. She couldn’t have been more than 16, but I think she enjoyed it after awhile. There’s no looking back now. I’m sure she’s been fucked a hundred times by now.
The pot is good here. It makes you think. I asked Ingrid why we were staying in a luxury suite hotel and not the hostel. I couldn’t see how we were going to make contact with the young ones and control the clubs and the streets if we were all cloistered away in an expensive high-rise. She told me very simply that we are not. Those days are over. She says that my days as a common man are over, and it’s time to become something great. I thought I had, but she said that I had only become as great as a common man could, running the mob in the Cross. I was kind of hurt, but I guess she is right. It did teach me how to control people. There is only so far that you can go in that kind of work. Besides, it seems that all the dirty stuff is controlled by the government here anyway. Can you imagine that? All the pot and sex and shit is legalized by the Republic. Boy didn’t you miss out on this one, hippy cocksucker! Anyway, Ingrid has got me lugging around these old dusty books, “The History of the United Netherlands” by John L. Motley. He’s some dude who wrote all this stuff down a couple of hundred years ago. It goes all the way back to the 1500s! She says that it is the only truly accurate account of the history of Holland. From now on, my letters will not be so common. If I quote something really heavy, you will know which book it came from. So now I gotta study all this shit, Dad. I thought we were coming here to play grabass and now she’s got me studying Dutch history. I gotta go right now and walk past naked women behind glass hustling me to come fuck on the way to the day in the library. Wish me luck.
Love,
Foley


Foley,
It’s “Who wrote WHOM.” Jesus, Foley, you know better than that. All that time in the best schools? You know what a stickler your mom was for English, too. Well, you better believe that I WROTE YOU. And I don’t give a shit, quite frankly, about Dutch history. Yes, they play a mildly important role in the overall scheme of things, but they are just a bunch of Pagans, much like you are becoming. What good are they to me? They were friends to the Moors, they drove out the Catholics, and they laughed at the English when they were hunting the Devil and burning witches. So what good are they? Tell me. I am all ears.
So now you have made it to the Babylon of the North. And what will be different there? Must I suffer the same sordid tales of filth and moral depravity? These days, I am afraid to open the mailbox, but I run out there just to make sure that Marlene isn’t exposed to one of your toxic little bombs. God knows what she would catch just from touching one of them. She is past her child-bearing years. She says that you make her even more glad that she kept her virginity for so long. I agree with her. You make me glad that I got a vasectomy after you were born. I have been thinking seriously of disowning you. Marlene and I are forming a trust, so that if anything happens to me, your inheritance goes to her. If anything happens to her, it all goes to her family. How does your snotty attitude make you feel now? What have you got to say now, punk? Listen, Foley, here is a word of advice: Just finish the mission. Make the shot. Do your job. Let’s get this over with. I grow weary of your games.
Dad


Dear Dad,
You’re disowning me? That’s fucking hilarious. Like it could get any worse between us. You really are an FOB: Fucking old bastard. And I bet you go around your church just smiling and faking it with all of those other FOBs, don’t you? All wired up on coffee and snarfing donuts one after the other, your teeth clicking as you lick your lips waiting to get in the next snappy line that makes you sound all cool with your Christian friends. How many of them have you told about your wayward son? How many times have I come up in the prayer request? Zero, because then your past would come under scrutiny, and the “new creature” in you can’t be having that, right Dad? Or wait, maybe you play it for sympathy? I can see that. Either way, it is never you that is the problem, right?
So you don’t give a rat’s ass about Dutch history. That doesn’t surprise me. It’s not written in the Bible anywhere, so why should it matter, right? They are all going down in the Lake of Fire in the end with Satan. Serves them right! So YOU wrote ME? Well, if that is true, then you surely are the Father. And Jesus would be my half-brother. And who is Satan, then, a distant cousin? But I am confused about where Jesus became God? I mean, you guys haven’t invited me home in a long time. So I can’t just look in there and verify all of this “sitting on the right hand of God” stuff. So if my half-brother became God, and I am the Anti-Christ, then is it possible that I authored the entire story? If I am the Anti-Christ, like you say, then is the converse not possible that I authored myself? You want the Bible to be the “unerring Word of God.” So if it is 100% accurate, then I am half God, at least, right? I mean, I am a human who starts out on earth, and fulfills his destiny according to the Bible. Who does that remind you of? Jesus said on the Cross, “Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?” You kind of mistreated him, also; so why should I be so surprised? Why do I have to be the bad guy in this? Is that fair? I don’t like the story as it is. Therefore, I am taking control of it. Who wrote WHOM. There, are you happy motherfucker? I wrote YOU! So according to the story, I have got to produce some beast. And the beast has to have the number of 666? That’s about right, because that’s a FICO score that is a real beast. A lukewarm credit score that most people today hover around. Too low to qualify for good credit and interest rates, but attained only through the sweat and tears of years of paying all of your maxed-out credit card bills on time. And everybody has to have a mark who worships the beast? How about this: How about a shell! Because Royal Dutch Shell already owns the world baby, that’s a fact! If Ingrid and I have our way, everyone will get the nice little yellow and red scallop shell tattooed on their shoulder. That way, all they have to do is flash their tat and they will get everything that they need: Gasoline, food from the mini-mart at the gas station, and a room to stay at the hotel right next to the gas station. Am I raving, Dad? Maybe I am YOUR dad. Ok, I’ll chill out. Seriously, Ingrid says that I have to double up on the Fenestreban. I have a lot of important work to do. I have to quit drinking, too. All of it: No drinking, no smoking, no whoring, no ass grabbing, nothing. Just study and learn about the Dutch. She is right about cleaning up my act. This place is already making me sick. I can’t go near the red-light district anymore. I told Ingrid, and she says that the Fenestreban is working the way it is supposed to, without the interference of drugs and alcohol. I guess my head does feel a lot clearer. No more sin! I have sinned enough for a lifetime, now I can concentrate on a higher purpose. Ingrid asked me to tell her what I had learned about Dutch history (other than what her FOB dad had told me), and I told her that it seemed fairly simple. The highlights are interesting. In 1606, after 40 years of fighting the Spaniards for their independence, the constant rain that torments this country put a damper on the fighting spirit of Spinola, and he kind of got lazy and quit fighting. Then as a final insult, the English and French made a power play and tried to dupe the Dutch into letting them “protect” the country by kind of taking over Holland in a way. Kind of like asking a recent rape victim if she wants a one night stand to make her feel better. Of course, the Dutch wanted nothing of it. Especially since it was the same time that everyone was discovering vast wealth in America. In fact, the next year, 1607, Jamestown was founded in Virginia. Having had great success with the East Indies Trading Company and superior seamanship, the Dutch decided to tell everyone to go to hell and give them a run for their money at colonizing the richest parts of the New World. They did a fantastic job, forming the West Indies Trading Company and pulling more gold and wealth out of Mexico and South America than the lazy Spaniards had. Then they got cozy with Britain and started putting their own people into the ruling positions in that country. At the same time, they formed the United Netherlands. Does that sound familiar? Ingrid squealed with delight when I got to that part. She says that is the foundation of the United Nations. Then I told her it was about the same time that King James of England had the current version of the Bible put together. So go figure, old man, the guiding forces of the fate of the modern world all came together within a year of each other close to 400 years ago! That’s wild man. It’s kind of got me pumped up. Ingrid is ecstatic. She had me jump to studying the present-day United Nations and the World Court after that. Now there’s a beast!
Love,
Foley


Dear Foley,
Your musings are certainly A-musing, to say the least, if not blasphemous, insane, and just plain rude. You keep getting your self deeper and deeper into a hole, which I guess is not surprising for a doomed soul. Does the Anti-Christ have a soul? I don’t remember John putting that into the Book of Revelation. I will have to go back to the old books. Yes, the ones before King James. Congratulations, you got me thinking again, Foley! And yes, I use the Lord’s name in vain. And how can Jesus and I be the same “Lord” now, you ask? Ancient Chinese secret. I guess that you will never know. And I suppose that your lot in life as you perceive it, what little life that you have remaining, would seem unfair to you. But bear in mind, it is an important role. Don’t you think? I mean c’mon, aren’t you having fun with all of this sin? And now you are bearing down on the truth, the reason d’etre, so to speak. That should be satisfaction enough, I would think. That is the way it has to be. That is the way that I wrote it: The way that I wrote YOU. Don’t fret, son, it will all be over soon. And no, I will never acknowledge my bastard son to the good people at church. And I never sucked a cock, so stop calling me that. Way to zero in on the U.N. Just wait until you get a load of that hooey! I can’t wait to hear about it. I have to admit, I am excited for you, son. A stint in politics may make you a respectable man after all.
Love,
Dad

Dear Dad,
As far as I know, the antichrist is not mentioned in the book of Revelation. Anyhoo, I got your last letter before Ingrid and I moved to The Hague. Let me tell you, nothing is “vague” in “The Hague.” Ha Ha, get it? To tell you the truth, the U.N. just seems like one big global chamber of commerce. It is all set up to talk about preventing wars and protecting human rights and all that good stuff, but it seems to do just the opposite. And after the wars just when all the war criminals have been caught, the World Court lets them go or they die mysteriously waiting for trial. They have actually not been able to prevent any of the wars since their inception, and yet, they remain eerily involved in all of the conflicts. I feel like Hitler when he went to Vienna and watched the clowns in the parliament talk and talk and do nothing but take bribes from the corporate lobbyists. The U.N. seems like an international parliament, with the huge corporate vultures just hanging around. Speaking of politics, what kind of shit was that with the Supreme Court deciding the presidential election? That is scary. But it was good to see Americans finally get off their asses and protest in the streets about something, right Dad? Oh, I forgot, you don’t care about that activist stuff any more. You know what is really funny? The traditional form of “American” democracy actually began in Holland. Most people think that America invented democracy with the American Revolution. Some really intellectual types pride themselves further by tracing it back to the French, and their revolution and ideas of liberty. But really, the Dutch were the first. France was still a monarchy, along with Britain, and Spain, when the Netherlands became a republic of states. A United States. But you know all that, right? Just worldly details to you. Nothing but chaff for the flames, right Daddio? But the Dutch don’t have a jury system. In their courts, they just have a judge. One judge. So I guess that the American people should feel fortunate that there are at least 9 judges determining their national fate now, not just a measly ONE. When I walk around the halls of the U.N. I feel really important. A lot of people recognize me as the guy who rode the tornado, of course. Some people ask me why I don’t hang out with the American delegation. All I know is that it is strange that there is no Dutch delegation. Is it the fact that they host the U.N? I mean I guess that makes sense. Just odd, I think, that all of the other countries have representation here except the Netherlands. Don’t you think that they would want some say in what is going on in the world? Hmmm. Another reason that I don’t hang out with the Americans here is that all they do now is sit around and bellyache about how unruly Americans are now after the election. How they seem so ungrateful for everything that they have. How the country is like a big spoiled child who needs to be disciplined. God, how could they get away with having discussions like that in Washington? The press would leak that kind of talk in a heartbeat. Here, it is like they are in some special cone of silence. I hear other things that disturb me also. Like one of the American delegates talking to one of the New Zealand delegates. Zealand was one of the “states” in old Holland. When the race was begun in 1607 to conquer the commerce of the world, New Zealand was one of the Dutch conquests. Just a tiny little country, really. I loved it when I was there, but it is hard for me to imagine that the new president of the International Monetary Fund is from there. Also, I hear that he just bought the World Trade Center in New York. I thought that was odd, but you see all kinds of that stuff here day in and day out. I casually walked behind the tables of the New Zealand delegation one day after he had made the purchase, and they had a bunch of guys in starched white shirts and geek glasses studying a big thick book. It looked like an owner’s manual for the twin towers because I saw a page title that said, “Possible Demolition Scenarios.” I swear that I saw a figure drawing of an airplane going into the building. That must just be a theoretical case, I suppose. Seems a little extreme for reality. The guys next to them were studying another book. I saw a page title in that one that said, “The Media and Terrorism.” Another one of those college books for intellectuals, I suppose. One guy was studying a much thinner book. The cover said, “Real Estate Values in Manhattan.” Finally, something more down to earth! Anyway, I just couldn’t fathom what a bloke from New Zealand would want with a big tall yank building, especially after learning first hand how little they care for us and our “Yank Rubbish!” Everyone’s got to have their trophies, I guess, but these guys are playing way out of my league. I keep asking Ingrid what she expects me to do here, but she says that I am on my own on this one. I asked her what she means, and she just snapped at me and said something about if I don’t know then maybe I am not the one and maybe it is not my destiny. Can’t go for a long walk on this one, streets are full of water here in The Hague. The Hague sucks.
Love,
Foley



Dear Dad,
I figured it out! I told Ingrid and she is all happy and shit. All of this, the trip around the world, the transformation into a man of confidence, the experiences, the liberation of the soul, the bold move into politics, all for one purpose. It is boring, though, really, and too easy to figure out I told her. She was a little bit hurt, but what could she expect? It is all so plain, like some dumb chess move or something. Yes, I just go in one day as a guest speaker, I point out the fact that the Dutch have no delegation at the U.N., but somehow they manage to run the affairs of the world, blah blah. Once I have everyone’s attention, then I get them gasping with the story about how the Dutch struggle for independence bankrupted the Spanish Empire with over $300,000 per month (in 1606 dollars) going to the struggle. Then, when the Spanish had said uncle, the Dutch retaliated by pouncing on the same resource-rich areas of the world that the Spanish could no longer afford to manage, and it was an instant reversal of fortune.
Then when they are numb in their seats, and the television cameras are all tuned into me, and I am going out live to most of the world on a “breaking news” feed, then I will hit them with the fact that not much has changed in 400 years. The Dutch cornered the vast majority of the resources of the New World. They started the slavery trade and convinced the Black man that it was the fault of the English, the “other” white man. They financed the American revolution and then settled America in greater numbers than any other group, including the British. If the satellite feed is still going, and the cables have not been cut by then, I will wrap up by saying that the Dutch slowly turned America into an army farm, cultivating a culture of heroism and patriotism that produced millions of brainwashed robots to go out and fight wars that were nothing more than land and resource grabs by the Dutch. Nothing has changed, and the world is just one big Dutch colony, ruled by the United Netherlands, oops, I mean the United Nations, with a little help from the World Court.
Then the world will wake up and realize that I am the smartest man alive, and they will rise up in revolt against the silent Dutch tyranny, and I will take command of the U.N. and the world. Cool, huh? Is this how you imagined it?
Ingrid got a little bit pissed off at my know-it-all attitude and said so go out and do it, mister smarty pants, but I am not ready. It’s too predictable. I want to play some more. Besides, what would I do then? Oh yeah, I would subjugate the Dutch government and their holdings, including Shell Oil, and everyone would get the mark of the beast, and then the prophecy would be fulfilled, and the righteous would live forever, blah, blah. Well, I am not ready for that. Besides, don’t we get some woes or some sorrows or some shit brought down on mankind first? You don’t make the order very clear on that one. This is where I take over and prove that I wrote you. I want to have some fun. I liked it when I was riding the tornado. I told Ingrid. She says that she is a little bit disappointed in me, but she will come up with something. Boys will be boys, she says. I’m gonna go sweeten her up a little. I will let you know where we go and what we get up to.
Love,
Foley


Okay Dad,
Let’s cut the crap. You know and I know that I have fulfilled the mission. I blew the lid on the Dutch. Yes, I took the podium one day when no one was looking and all the delegates were just sitting around their tables and chitchatting. Sure, they whisked me away after a few brief moments of spouting off about the Dutch and shit; but hey, at least I had the balls to do it. They escorted me out and threatened to have me arrested, but let’s face it, all I had done was speak the truth. No harm done. I exposed the world conspiracy. Blah, blah. I even touched on the Free Masons, Illuminati, and Bilderburgers. I got everyone in there. There were some raised eyebrows and some blushed faces, but nothing major. Is this why I am the Antichrist? Because I threaten the world order? Because if everyone in America knew that they had been duped, that the reason that they think that they get up every morning and go to work, and support the military, and go rah rah we are number one is all a bunch of bullshit and has nothing to do with reality or the Muslims. Is that why, Dad? Then let me come home. Say it. I just want to be a normal kid, Dad. Don’t you love me anymore? Why can’t I just be like all the other kids? Why do I have to achieve greatness? Of course, this is not greatness, it is great badness. Evil. Why, Dad, why? I couldn’t stay away from the beer tonight. I have let everyone down. I am sleeping on the couch tonight. Ingrid is ashamed of me. I think she thinks I blew it too, the way I handled it. My great moment of destiny. I think she envisioned me as a Nobel Laureate, getting up there and taking command of the world, not like some rambling drunk. I wasn’t cut out for politics after all. Later.
Foley


Dear Dad,
You will not be able to get any letters to me for a while. We are way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere now. In fact, this letter is leaving on the last camel out of here in a few minutes. I thought that we were hiding out because of Ingrid’s betrayal of her country and stuff, but she says that she didn’t betray anyone. It is all going according to plan. I’m thinking, how does a country go about building someone up to expose it’s secret mission? I take her word for it, but I think that things went a little differently than she or any of her superiors planned there in Holland. I think that they are playing damage control. We didn’t get the throngs of reporters, or the crowds of groupies and instant followers like I had thought she was planning for. I mean, that’s what the Antichrist gets, right? They all line up for the mark? Maybe not right away she says. It takes time to develop. It is not like a too cute book or movie that draws attention to itself, like a gun in the hands of a four year old. The plot has to ripen, to mature properly.
Besides, I kind of liked those people at the U.N. They were real matter-of-fact. They actually sat around and talked about getting things done, and the things that they talked about actually got done. Because they agreed on things, I noticed. They didn’t argue with one another for the sake of looking intelligent, or put one another down arbitrarily, or insinuate that the other person speaking was wrong by using some non sequitur manipulation of inflection or tone. They were all like happy little engineers, like builders doing their job in unison toward a common high purpose. I really admired the spirit. But now we are out in the African desert measuring some wind. The Harmattan wind, Ingrid calls it. I call this the Harmattan Project. She is not amused. She’ll still suck it good, though, if I ask her to. She’s still my good girl. I like Ingrid, I really do. Here it is, damn near middle of Winter, and it is hotter than Hell and this goddam wind kicks up the sand, and not only that, the DUST from the sand, sonofabitch if you can’t see more than 10 feet in front of you when it gets going. Red stuff. Beadles up in your eye snot and makes like clay gunk. Makes your lungs feel like playdough. But here we are, in a tin shack, roughing it out with a propane stove and a port-a-potty. Why, Ingrid, why? She tells me that these winds are the beginning of hurricanes. Well, not the beginning. They are the opposite of the beginning. They have been blowing forever. But they only blow in the Winter. For as long as the Dutch have been settling Africa, they have studied these winds. Because the Dutch are masters of wind, remember? Don’t make me go over the windmills and the pumping water again. But what these winds do is prevent hurricanes, by blocking the North East Trade Winds off the Atlantic Coast of Africa at the Gulf of Guinea where the Cape Verde Islands are. Sheesh, I had to copy all of that straight down from where Ingrid had it written. I feel like a geography book all of a sudden. But Ingrid says be patient, because after the winds stop blowing, then we are going to the islands. Those are real nice, she says. I asked her why we had to experience so much of these winds out here, and she said for me to appreciate exactly what we are doing. It is like brewing coffee, or beer, she says, it has to be crafted by the person. Something is brewing dad, can you smell it? Don’t sniff the letter, asshole, it’s been on a camel’s backside.
Foley

Dear Dad,
So those winds just stop blowing like clockwork. Like the hand of God just flips a switch and bang! We got nothing but sunshine and a nice gentle breeze the last few days that we were there. It was like Fall in America, except with no pretty leaves, just nice little snake ripples in the red sand coming down the big dunes like you see in the pictures. But the islands are nicer. That is WHEN I get to see them. We are down in some hole underneath the islands. It is weird, because it is like some underwater bunker with submarines and American sailors walking around these tunnels like some James Bond movie. I slip away every chance I get and go up on the beach and sip Coronas, but then Ingrid comes looking for me and bitches me out for not standing duty. She says that this mission is Top Secret, and that I should take it more seriously because hardly anyone even knows that this place exists. It is another partnership between the Royal Dutch government and the United States Navy. I told her ok that I would try harder, but it’s like trying to study on vacation. So a lot of shit has happened back home, huh? Bush finally settled in as President and everything is back to normal it seems. Well, this place is anything but normal, let me tell you. These subs come pulling in up under the island and then park at this concrete pier. Ingrid is a boss and walks around in a white coat with a clipboard all day long monitoring these gauges that we got. This place is an island called Fogo. It is part of the Cape Verde Islands that I told you about. It is right where the Harmattan Winds usually clip the North East Trade Winds, but now that they have stopped, the trade winds are free to blow over the islands. The wild thing is that we are right inside a volcano. I got a little scared when Ingrid told me that, but she says that it does not erupt, it only blows hot air up into the atmosphere. I felt MUCH better when she told me that, let me tell you. But here’s the strange part – she say’s that we are controlling how the jet of hot air goes up. I asked her what she means, and she gave me a lesson in all the gauges and knobs. It seems that they have built a huge flue with a damper kind of control, like a fireplace chimney, into the cone of the volcano. The natural cone goes for thousands of feet straight up, but the damper controls are hydraulics and air-mixing chutes down here in the core. So, here’s the breakdown: The red knob controls the temperature of the air coming out of the top of the volcano. It can vary by a thousand degrees, depending on the carburetion. The blue knob controls the amount of moisture that the air contains, pumped in by spray jets at the base. The yellow knob controls clockwise spin of the air stream, and of course, the orange knob controls the counterclockwise spin. There are various other knobs like a black choke, and a purple knob for abort and a green knob for extra effects (I don’t know what the hell that one does). I asked Ingrid how all of this stuff works, and she said that it was a work in progress. It is not an exact science. That is why they are continually experimenting with it. I asked her experimenting with what and she said with making hurricanes, silly! I can’t believe it. The Dutch doomsday machine is the ultimate windmill. Makes sense, doesn’t it dork? What are you so surprised about? Listen, Ingrid also found out about my letters. You knew that she would. FPO not safe, local mail shack, other side of the island. Out. Foley.

Foley,
Take the shot! Make your grandfather and me proud, just like we taught you. Use the reverse English, send one right across and bounce it off the tip of Florida and round it up through the Gulf. Yes, that’s it, make it a big one. Show everyone exactly how it is done. How it is being done. Don’t worry about the casualties. Don’t worry if it takes you a few tries. Listen, speaking of that, there are going to be some casualties in the States this Fall, possibly New York, maybe elsewhere. Do not be overly saddened, the mission has been a huge success. You have exposed exactly what is going on. Do not worry about the mail being intercepted. Our people are in place and will deliver. I cannot believe how well you have done: The feigned disrespect, the craziness, the sly deception of it all. You really duped that bitch! Everything from using the “Bible Code” to implicating the Muslims. Everyone would be really pissed off if they knew what you had done to pull it off, but at least now their anger will be focused on the right people once they know what is really going on. Don’t worry about us getting out of this one alive. We will go down as prophets, as saviors, as true patriots. I am brimming right now, Foley. Please come home. You have wrapped it all up beautifully, all in a nice little deck of cards. You should be proud of yourself. Your mother would be proud. This could all be a nice little novel if it weren’t all true. You have finally become someone that I can look up to. Marlene wants to bake a big cake and throw a welcome home dinner for you. Come home, my little Dragon, I have a big surprise for you. I love you, son.
Douglas Errol McMann

THE END



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