Some Mean Birds

 This is a chapter from a novel I wrote called Freedom Weed set during the rise and fall of the medical marijuana dispensary system in Spokane, WA. It is based on a story I covered as a journalist about a buffalo farm in northern OR.

It smelled like a pet store everywhere. Shawna was glad she wore the right clothes and boots to the interview. She felt uncomfortable alone out in the open expanse with nothing but some thin electric wires between her and the 2000 lbs beast not more than 50 yards in front of her. The male buffalo stood, breaching the pile of girl buffaloes. His chest puffed out - all muscle with strands of clumped up fur hanging down.

    In her research, she learned buffalo can jump six fee in a single stride, remembering that fact, Shawna took a hefty step back from the wire fence as the bull eyeballed her. The eyes were big and motionless. Where is he, she thought. Looking around, she saw nothing but an old shed with overgrown grass and shrubs at the corner of the buffalo fence. Shawna walked over to the shed, a hand painted sign reading CAUTION! ELECTRICITY! was on the door. She checked - it was locked.
    Down the road Shawna heard the rumbling of car on dirt - a sound she’d recently grown used to - it was a brown Buick spraying bits of gravel and mud. The man inside had bulging eyeballs and a bulging gut. By the looks of it, he cut is own hair and didn’t own a belt since in the 10 steps or so he took to reach Shawna he pulled his pants no less than twice.
    “I’m Walt, you the gal from the paper?
    “Yes. Shawna Finnin.”

“Nice to meet you.” he grabbed her outstretched her hand and shook it. His hand was clammy and unwashed. Shawna waited until he turned his body away to rub off her hand on her tan Carharts.

“What do you do there at the paper.”

“Quite a bit actually. I’m the main reporter and editor.”

“Yeah?” Walter said doubtfully.

“Yes. So these are your buffalo?”

“These are them.” Walt started to walk over to the to the shed, pulling up his pants every other pace.

“Is it true they can leap six feet?” Shawna asked, “I read online about how most of the buffalo’s muscle mass is in it front legs.” Walt didn’t answer. He was searching for the right key. “I also read that they can run up to 30 miles per hour.”

“I don’t know about that online stuff. There’s a lot of weird stuff on there. I don’t think I trust it.” Walt looked up from his keys with his beady round eyes looking suspiciously. He found the key and turned off the electric fence.

“You just need to know how to use it.” Shawna said.

“Well okay then. so the fence is off. You wanna go in?”

“What?!”

“You wanna go in, take some pictures?” he asked, pointing to the camera slung over her shoulder.

    “I wanted to ask you some questions.”
    “You can ask me in there,” Walt said as he pushed down on the wire and stumbled into the field. Walt strafed slowly toward the bull in the distance. The massive beast slowly and carefully stepped out of its harem. Walt had a wide stance either to keep his pants up or to be able to react quickly. Looking back at Shawna, Walt motioned for her to come forward. She noticed the bottom of his jaw was slightly off kilter as if it had been broken once and never set properly. Inside the fence, Shawna decided to play it safe and stay close to the perimeter.
    “You go ahead,” she said, unstrapping her camera and tossing her notepad into a dry spot in the ditch.
    “Sometimes,” Walt whispered, his eyes two balloons squeezed to brink of popping, “you can get in real close.”
    “I’ve got a pretty good zoom,” Shawna fumbled with the setting of the newpaper’s camera, cursing herself for not toying with it more - one of the perks of the job. She also cursed Walt for not waiting just a moment.
    “I can hear em breathin,” Walt said, crazed with adrenaline, hunched over and inching towards the beast of the American west. Walt found the bull’s eyes, his crooked grin growing more crooked with each step, he looked back and waved Shawna to come closer. Years of “Just Say No” Training could never have prepared Shawna for this kind of peer pressure. Camera in hand she baby-stepped forward with morbid curiosity.
    Less than 25 yards from the Bull, Walt started making a grunting sound. Shawna was still close to the fence, walking the perimeter, trying to find a shot where she could capture both man and the bull without Walt’s uncovered ass crack showing as his paunch pushed ever more down on the front of his sagging, worn jeans. He looked back to wave Shawna in again and just as he broke eye contact the Bull leapt what must have been more than six feet towards him, clearing two female lying on some uneaten grass.
    “Look out!” Shawna cried waving her free hand frantically. She scurried to get out of the fence and when she was safe she looked up and saw Walt running with both hands holding up his jeans, knees kicking high like an athlete - behind him, the bull quickly sped towards 30 miles per hour. Just as Walt was close to the fence he stooped to jump through the wires, the bull lowered it’s head and almost delicately whipped its neck to the side and upwards, catching Walt by the cuffs of his jeans and flinging him like he was a rag doll through the fence. Shawna saw the thin string of metal disappear into the flesh of Walts bicep and come out vibrating like a plucked sting of a guitar, dripping with a thin coating of read liquid. The bull stopped, grunted out of his nose, and trotted back to his awaiting pile of cows, proud of his handiwork.
    “Dang, Som of a bitch got me pretty good,” Walt hoisted himself up and out of the muddy ditch holding his arm. Blood was streaming out under his other hand.
    “Oh my God. Are you okay?” Shawna stood still.
    “Yeah, he’s a quick bugger,” Walt limped over to his car, opened the back door and grabbed a dirty white t-shirt to press against the bleeding wound. When he bent over to grab the shirt, half his ass was on display - the hairs all pointed toward an awful unwashed dark pit. “Did you say you wanted to ask some questions.”
    “Do you need to go the hospital or something? You might want to get some stitches.” She grabbed her notebook.
    “Nah. Shoot, you think that’s bad you should see what he done to me a couple weeks ago.” Walt turned around and lifted up some hairs on the back of his head to show a Shawna a gash which looked as though had not healed properly. “I woke up in that ditch when he gave me this one.” Walt turned around and talked without looking up from his wound, “Did you get some good shots.”
    “Yes,” Shawna lied.
    “So,” he looked up at her, squinting at the sun finally coming out from the clouds, “you said you had some questions?”
    “Umm. Yes.” She rearranged her tools - put camera back in bag, pulled pen out of pocket. Flustered she asked slowly, “So - What is the benefit of buffalo meat over say beef or even other alternatives such as ostrich or elk.”
    “You know I used to own an ostrich farm when ostrich meat was supposed to be the next big thing. I’ll never do that again. Those are some mean birds.”

Breaking Protocol

    I work on the edges of corporate environments where people too-often worry about covering their asses rather than getting things done. A while back someone stopped a conversation and said, "let's worry about solving this rather than finding out who's at fault." She was a secretary, but I hope someday she becomes a CEO. I interpreted that experience into the below piece.

   Tracy didn’t know the man by name, but she knew him by sight. Evey other Friday  like clockwork he’d gas up, set a case of Keystone on the counter, and scan the lotto tickets. “Which one’s a winner,” he mumbled under his breath. He was always dirty, but in a good way. In a metal shavings, grease-under-the-cuticles sort of way.  
    For years Tracy rang up booze and dollar scratch tickets, until, like a dove dying in mid-flight, he had some sort of fall from grace. The man began to come in sporadically--sometimes daily, sometimes once a  month. He’d always be dirty--not in a good way. Cheap beer and a chance to get lucky turned to malt liquor and desperate hope.
     The man didn’t show tor weeks, then months. Finally,  when he make his way back to the store, Tracy noticed he’d lost two of his top teeth. Tracy noticed the grey lotto ticket dust under his fingernails had turned black and slimy. Threads of red spider-webbed across the whites of his eyes and his fetid breath teased Tracy’s gag reflex. She watched him and listened to the grumbling, manic whisper, “Which one is a winner?”
    Breaking protocol, Tracy reached out, laid her hand on his dusty Army-issued cameo jacket. She asked, “Hey, are you all right?”

A Birthday Wish from a Four-Year old to his Younger Brother.

I wrote this not long after one of my kid's birthday parties when I looked around at all the new toys and thought, "This is too much....too much." Yet I wanted to capture the experience from the perspective of a four-year-old with all the responsibility of an older brother.

        Brother, let me tell you that I am so proud of you for having a birthday. Truly, this is a momentous day for you to have won the affection of so many who are so willing to bestow us with the new tube of mini plastic dinosaurs, the pair of foam swords, your new Roman style helmet and chest plate armor, our new large cardboard box filled with some such or other of a tricycle or something, oh and all these new toys will surely heighten our brotherly bond.  To be honest, last year I did not focus on your birthday due to the anxiety surrounding the recent mastery of my bladder and I had urinated inside my pants. This year however, I was highly focused and very clenched.
           And I realized something: your birthday – along with my own and Santa’s – is such a bountiful day for our little playroom.  From here on out we are no longer merely brothers; we are allies. In the interest of growing our collective worth in toys I will no longer torment or ask you to test possible food items I find– I am committed to your survival. You must admit dear brother, surviving has been difficult for both of us. Do you recall the time you scaled the counter and gained access to the ice pick? Remember, Mother did not understand, “What the hell was going on?” If she did she would have moved the cookies into a more attainable spot. Without your brotherly love and the cracker you found under the couch we would have surely starved to death that day
           Also, dear brother, do you recall almost dying of a broken heart when the next-door neighbor let his dogs into our yard? Father did not understand they were growling at each other, quarreling over whom was to receive our attention first. He was much too harsh with them. Yelling at those poor creatures scared them far too much.  Visions of their muscular shoulders and jaws clenching, flexing, and bulging with fright still permeate my mid-afternoon nap dreams. Fright has paralyzed those dogs’ once carefree spirit, why I have not even seen them in their own back yard since Father chased them off into the forest with a shovel.
           Yes, it is safe to say our parents are quite inept at caring for us or understanding our success. Mother and Father shared none of our triumph when we acted independently, finding and eating all the Halloween candy. We did it all by ourselves and all they did was ask God to dam something. And how are we to rely on parents who can barely stay awake the following day after we were up sick all night. I for one have very little confidence in a man’s fathering abilities after watching him cry over a gurgling toilet stuffed with wiping papers. It seems our survival is up to us poor brother, so we must stick together.

No gesture could convey the importance of this message, but I hope you’ll accept this hastily made birthday card. I’m not implying it needs clarification, but the picture on the front is a monster, wishing you happy birthday and on the inside you’ll see I’ve irreverently used the stickers from our Barnyard Animals collection. Do forgive me if I misspelled your name for you see I have not yet learned the spelling of “DAN.”

          
           So again, brother, please accept my very sincere wish of Happy Birthday.

Lost in Translation at the Laundromat Arcade

 This is a fictional story I wrote after playing a lot of Target Terror. Outside of using my real name and the fact that Target Terror was located in a laundromat arcade--this is a work of fiction.

Didn't  you used to be Area 54?

Ahem….excuse me, pardon me. I don’t mean to intrude but you see we have a problem. Or rather you have a problem and I have a problem and our problems have met each other. I don’t mean to assume.... but you don’t speak English do you? No? What is that? Cambodian? Laos? Either way, its a beautiful language. Loud, but beautiful. …..Well...I’ll do my best to convey our little problem.  Now I know that you may still be busy poking your wife in the forehead with her newly purchased dryer sheets so I’ll try to be brief and to the point. Your daughter (and may I say she sure is a doll) seems to have pooped her pants.
Now I understand every culture is different and what is considered appropriate in different families encompasses an extremely wide spectrum. Just look at the way you’re taking all of your wife’s underwear and stretching it out as wide as it will go then pretending the stretched out fabric is walking as you’re making farting noises. Why if I did that to my wife she would do a lot more than sit there with her chin in her chest trying not to cry. But we’re traditional, middle class, white people - borrr-ing. Anyway back to your daughter and our problems converging. The issue is not with your daughter or the fact that she seems to have poopy pants, but rather the fact that she has wandered off, which brings me to my problem.
Let me introduce myself: My name is Phillip Bash Kopczynski - PBK - and as you can see from the high scores in this Laundromat Arcade - I’m kind of a big deal around here. And therein lies my problem. I own a washer and dryer - frontloaders actually. I’ve never used them because I have a lovely wife who stays home with my precious sons and she does all my laundry, but from what I understand they’re very nice. With all that going for me, I still come here 2-4 times a week to see how many headshots I can rack up on Target Terror: Gold Edition. Now it’s not always about the headshots - sometimes its about finding secrets, or improving accuracy, or seeing how far I can get on only three dollars, but at the same time it is kind of totally about seeing terrorist heads explode into a cartoon gore.
And that is my problem - I’m a 31 year-old man who has a weekly quarter budget, but I’m okay with my problem. Yet now I can smell your daughter behind me and I’m concerned this might not be the most appropriate game for her to--Oh excuse me for a moment I just got the gun that makes those terrorist bastards explode with their guts going everywhere. God Damn that is awesome--okay I’m sorry about that, now what was I saying? Oh yes, I can hear you on the other side of this arcade and last time I saw you, you were making farting sounds and pointing to your lips while dumping out all your crying wife’s belongings from her purse (what a rich and vibrant culture you come from, I must say). So maybe you already know about your daughter’s diaper. Maybe that's your way of telling your wife. I don't know.
But again, I don’t want to take away from the issue at hand which is not the fact that your lovely little princess is really ripe and the ventilation around these games is not all that great. The issue is that she seems to need some kind of help based on her screaming. I would help her,  I know that I’m not her father yet I’m very qualified - trust me - it’s just that I’m not really able to look away since I’m right on the edge of getting a high score which I’ve been competing for with a gentlemen by the name of A-S-S for a few weeks now.

I’m sure you can understand my dilemma, and there is no hurry to get her or anything. She’s completely fine to just stand or sit behind me and scream like she’s frightened or scared or hurt - I can’t really tell since I haven’t been able to look away for a while. So no rush - whenever your done dumping all of the powder laundry detergent all over your wife’s freshly folded clothes basket feel free to come get her.

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