Headline, August23, 2013

''' !!! THE WARS !!! - & -

 !!! THE WEARY !!! '''

It didn't take me long to find one.

The first thing that I noticed about his office was the skateboard, which struck me as being out of place for Beverly Hills-  old-school pool-model deck, Indy Trucks, and Powell Bomber wheels  -pretty much the exact same setup that I skate on, or used to.

He was wearing a floaty white linen tunic shirt with subtle embroidery around the neck, designer-jeans, and wavy So-Cal blond hair. Supermellow, talking to me the entire time in a voice just above the whisper, which made me wonder if he spoke like that all the time, or he did that because he didn't want people next door hearing what he was saying.

After I took a seat on the leather chair, I asked him if he skated. He told me that he did, but with a smile that said mostly he loved to surf. He asked if I skated and I told him that I did, but not nearly as much as I used to. I skate mostly as transportation now, liquor stores and back, reason being the prolonged bending of the knees now sometimes create a large amount of stress and pain afterward, sometimes so great that I have a hard time falling asleep at night.

I had knee issues when I enlisted in the Army, but I kept them hush hush because I didn't want to be kicked out. In the Army, it was easy to obtain Vicodin, codeine, Percocet, you name it, from others in the barracks and wash them down whenever the pain came up. But since being discharged, I have no way of obtaining pills. So I told the doctor I was interested in turning to alternative medicines. And the whole time I was yapping about this, he took notes. I then told him about the time I went down to the VA to get my head checked out for ''Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.''

It wasn't till my wife and I moved back to the 213 that I came to find out that I was possibly wired differently now. One of the reasons I why I wanted to move back  to Los Angeles was because of an article I came across on the protesting that I was going on all across the country on the anniversary of the war. The article listed estimates of how many people showed up to each protest in each major city. L.A. was somewhere near the bottom, and when I saw that, I thought to myself, That's where I want to live.

Not because the anti-war crowd bothers me, but because I wanted to distance myself from the war as much as possible, and what better way to do that than to live in a city of narcissists? I didn't want to see any yellow ribbons, shake hands with strangers thanking me for my service, and I didn't want to view any antiwar slogans like ''No More Racist War for Oil!'' or sit in restaurant next to a rich NYU kids hearing them regurgitate to each other whatever their  ''draft-dodging professors''  told them that day.

While apartment hunting, I was living by myself at a month-to-month cold water efficiency near the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Western. I was having difficulty landing a place because most landlords could give two shits if you were in the Army. All they cared about was the job that you presently had, how much you made now, and if you could pay the rent. Saying ''Aspiring writer''  -also din't help my situation too much since all they would hear instead was ''Unemployed.''

While on a business trip, my friend Gabe came down to visit me, and as we were leaving the building so I could give him a ride back to his hotel in Irvine, he asked if the neighborhood I lived in now was bad. I looked him and said, ''After Iraq, what's a bad neighborhood?'' Immediately, after I told him this, fireworks went off a close distance from where we were both standing. They were sporadic, as we saw the screaming that came from that same direction.

''Get down!'' I yelled. ''Get the hell down!''

An image ran through my head of Sergeant Horrocks tackling a private who didn't take cover when we were under assault in Mosul, Iraq. 

''Are those gunshots?'' Gabe asked curiously, as I thought to myself, No way, that's geographically impossible, we're here in the United States, that shit happens only in the movies, like for example Boys N the hood. Just then I heard a ricochet bullet whirr close by, and my brain registered that yes, holy shit, those were gunshots being fired, probably a 9MM. Instinctively, I took a knee behind a car for cover and scanned over to the location where they were coming from as my friend ran.

When the shooting subsided, I got up, ran to the car, told Gabe to get in, and we drove in the direction the shooting was coming from.

''Are you nuts?''

''No, I just want to see what happened.''

when we drove to the location the shots were fired from, a low-rent apartment complex, we saw several youths standing around in a panic, and in the middle of all that a half-lifeless individual wearing a Hanes wifebeater completely soaked in red blood sprawled out on the front loan faceup, and a young girl standing next to him with tears running down her face hysterically screaming, ''WHY?!'' ''Why?!''

On the freeway to Irvine, I explained to my friend that whenever yo hear shooting, not to run, but instead to get down and seek cover. He then asked me why I didn't get out of the car to ''help when we drove past the scene.''

''I don't know,'' I told him as the car radio was softly playing some song I had never heard before, ''I was never really trained to do that.''

This remarkable post continues: The doctor said that my new ''medical marijuana card''  allowed me to purchase cannabis, but that it was not a ''Get Out Of Jail Free'' card. As I left his office, he asked that I be a bit incognito?!! ................So, don't miss the next post!!

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers in Syria. See ya all on the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless : ''Education doesn't make a Student unless !WOW! gives its approval.''

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless