Our Resurgent Baby Tree

Raking leaves is cathartic.

Solitary.

Meditative.

Monk-like and focused I pulled crisp fallen leaves from the tree lawn into the gutter with all the energy of an aging samurai sweeping an empty dojo floor. Workers had already picked up most of our autumn leaves, but after the recent snowfall more dropped on East Gibson Street.

When I moved close to our baby tree that got slammed during last week’s snow storm I spoke softly, gently encouraging her to heal and return to us stronger than before the attack of wet, heavy snow that broke her limbs but not her spirit.

“You’re the most beautiful tree in Scranton,” I said, giving a spray of leaves a little peck.

I complimented her appearance without being “treeist,” a word I made up that defines the opposite of my increasing regard for nonhuman nature and the vulnerable fast-disappearing species that make up our planet. Earth exists as an endangered species all by herself. Without Mother Earth no human would remain or appear ever again.

If only for a few seconds, at least try to think about that somber fact.

Like human sexists who mostly harm women, human treeists disrespect the spirit of life that courses though the living, breathing veins of their victims. Like us, trees and leaves have veins. Leafy tubes carry water, nutrients, glucose and oxygen, transporting invisible building blocks of existence throughout the leaves and the rest of the tree. Like human veins that carry vital life energy into the hearts of our species, tree veins carry power and vitality throughout their trunks, branches and leaves that make up their bodies.

Standing back to inspect the natural beauty of our baby tree I noticed how since her accident she has expanded her reach into the sky, standing evermore firmly planted beside her big sister tree who reaches beyond the telephone wires as if she’s hugging the heavens, kissing the sky the way Jimi Hendrix smooched the azure outskirts of his mind. Our baby tree reflects the psychedelic, trippy and magical essence of the universe. Baby tree’s a hippie tree dancing amid societal breakdown, reflecting a wild natural rhythm of existence to which more people should pay attention.

Stephanie and I pay attention.

After I raked the leaves and piled them on the corner for city workers to collect, I entered our Zen garden through the high cedar gate at the back of the house. On my way in I reached down to greet two different kinds of bushes that line each side of the garden path. Weighty snow had pounded both plants and I spent time a few days ago carefully lifting and sweeping snow from their bowed branches. Now they responded like grateful pet dogs thankful for the attention.

A fat squirrel standing on the meditation platform where we sit zazen on warmer days watched my entrance. Resting both little paws on its belly the creature resembled an enlightened beastie Buddha, sitting back on its haunches, calmly observing life in all forms.

A week earlier I found a dead squirrel stretched out nearby beside the hard coal Buddha, three chunks of anthracite set one atop the other sculpted into what reminds me of a black dragon guarding the temple. I want to believe the squirrel died of natural causes but realize how predators prowl even peaceful land. Survival of the fittest dictates such stark reality.

Our primary failing as human predators lies in believing we have the right to conquer life. War, pollution and other toxic invasions might one day doom us all. Despite living atop the food chain, perhaps our species is a devolving freak of nature, mutant monsters too smart for our own good, anatomically modern Homo sapiens, yet quirks of nature after only about 200,000 years headed for future self-destruction. If so, the 4.5 billion-year-old planet will get along just fine without us.

Meanwhile I’ll do my best to live in peace among the intruders, practicing harmony as my main martial art of societal self-defense that requires helping to protect the environment. Peace of mind magnifies the will to persevere. Peace of mind unites the commitment to save a little piece of our world with the hopeful growth of our baby tree.

Stephanie and I look forward to watching our baby tree grow.

Together we’ll kiss the sky.

Our Baby Tree

From our upstairs bedroom window she looks seriously injured. One branch covered in wet thick snow lies frozen on the ground. Other branches droop from watery weight, hanging low as if bowed in mourning.

We call her our baby tree.

She’s a survivor who stands where her predecessors failed to grow. Over the years we’ve planted three trees near the corner where our 100-year-old house has stood through the ages. Each tree died. For a long time our baby tree looked like she wouldn’t survive, either, but she persevered.

We trimmed the top at the center branch about two years ago, giving her one last chance to succeed like a crew-cut Marine recruit giving a boot camp obstacle course everything she has. But even Tony the wise city tree expert pronounced our baby tree dead.

Stephanie said we should wait. Patience can invigorate baby trees as well as seasoned humans like us. So we waited. And one day the living tip of a tiny green bud appeared on our baby tree. More buds appeared in the following weeks. The smallest green leaves opened and turned wide as a child’s palm when she reaches to shake hands.

That first year made history. When Tony drove by and saw her dancing in the breeze he stopped to marvel. In his many years as an arborist planting, pruning, fertilizing and nurturing trees, he had never seen such a comeback.

“She’s a miracle tree,” he said.

“That’s our baby tree,” I said.

Sometimes I gently caressed her leaves and said, “You’re the most beautiful tree in Scranton.”

Sensing shyness and strength I spoke respectfully, not wanting to embarrass her or exert any more pressure than she already endured through tumultuous seasons and whatever evil lurked underground near the sewer grate that poisoned her forebears.

Our baby tree stood her ground.

The next year, and the year after that, she displayed powerful determination. Whatever power she carried in her genes convinced me she would thrive. Like people, she only lived so long. Like all life she, too, would one day succumb to nature and return to the universal mysteries that control life and death in all forms.

This fall our baby tree shined. Warm bright weather generated vivid fresh color dancing in golden sunlight among a beautiful buff coat of greenish-yellow leaves.

“She looks like a lemon lime popsicle,” I said one day not long ago as Stephanie and I walked down the hill on North Irving Avenue toward our sturdy old house. Our baby tree’s big sister stood beside her. Towering over her sibling in her own matching flourish of radiance, she stood swaying in a gentle breeze as testament to time and wonder.

Big sister came to us years earlier when a violent storm sent a massive tree crashing into the middle of East Gibson Street that could have destroyed our house had it fallen through the ancient wood. We have no control over which way the wind blows.

Or how hard the snow falls.

Later today I’ll lace up my trusty steel-toed boots, zip my worn black fatigue jacket to the neck and pull my watch cap over my head to go outside. I’ll use both hands and the broom to gently brush heavy snow from her limbs. I’ll talk quietly and tenderly, reminding her we’re here to do whatever we can to help.

Then we’ll hope for the best. Most people hope for the best at times like these. But we need to prepare for the worst. Nothing lives forever. Nothing is permanent. Still, we’re all connected — you, me, Stephanie and our baby tree.

Our roots will always run deep.

Weed Wine Makes Magic!

Psst.

Wanna get high?

My new novel Weed Wine Magic will light your fire.

So will real weed wine.

I can’t wait to see the movie.

One night in late October my editor Stephanie to whom I am married and I settled into our cliffside room at the Inn at the Cove in Pismo Beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean, each holding half a glass of what California Central Coast winemaking guru Bob Lindquist calls his 2023 Grenache Rosé “Especial.” What makes Bob’s “Especial” wine particularly special is the hand-planted, hand-picked cannabis infused into the wine.

“We provide the juice and a friend provides the bud and makes the wine in his temperature controlled garage,” Bob said. “The 2023 weed wine is … from organic grapes and organic bud.”

“So clean and pure!” sayeth the weed wine guru.

“If the Feds legalize cannabis, then someday we might be able to make it legally and actually sell some,” Bob said with a glow in his voice as vivid as a black light “Keep on Trucking” poster.

Cannabis-infused wine is illegal to sell anywhere in the United States. Whenever you see weed wine for sale it’s not weed wine at all. The product is alcohol-free THC and CBD-infused grape juice. In California, though, state law permits people to make bona fide weed wine for their own personal use and to share with friends.

Since weed is still illegal where I live in Pennsylvania and I have abstained from all illegal drugs for more than 40 years, standing in the parking lot when Bob gifted me with two bottles of weed wine in a boutique brown paper bag I felt like singing back-up with the Eagles on “Desperado” or auditioning as Don Johnson’s co-star in a new “Miami Vice” movie. But Bob’s bounty registered on the Hoocha Weed Scale as 100-percent-high-CBD-low-THC-legal, the sacred consequence of organic farming philosophy that respects the planet, the cosmos and nature in general.

My high wasn’t so much a mental experience but a physically-centered and subtle liberation of spirit. Honed, not stoned, like a polished piece of green Big Sur jade that glistens in moonbeams. We finished the bottle the next night with similar peace of mind. Stephanie sensed lavender in a fresh bouquet of violets. Weird as it might sound, I caught a hint of crisp celery just cut from a Santa Maria field.

“Not real psychoactive,” said Bob.

“That’s OK,” I said, “I’m psychoactive enough as it is.”

Still, the weed wine offered a simple natural sacrament from which adherents can take an easy climb up the stairway to heaven. I imagine a greater THC concentration will take you higher, like Sly Stone sang at Woodstock, but Bob’s Buzzy Brand produced plant-based enlightenment that enraptured my endorphins and delighted my dopamine.

Before we flew home we took our second bottled pot potion to Mama Osa, our friend and inspiration for one of the Weed Wine Magic characters who lives in Halcyon, a cooperative Central Coast community based on theosophical philosophy and universal principles of goodness. Halcyon was hip long before the hippies. Mama Osa promised to keep our weed wine cool until we return next year.

We also expect to make the scene when Hollywood films the movie.

Weed Wine Magic is a unique story unlike any far-out flick moviemakers have produced in recent years. When I think about my book I think about writers Ken Kesey, Richard Brautigan and Hunter Thompson. When I think about a movie I think about easy-riding Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, director Quentin Tarantino and Mexican director/actor Diego Luna.

My 2024 West Coast launch and readings from Blood Red Syrah, A Gruesome California Wine Country Thriller and the sequel Weed Wine Magic, A Freaky California Cannabis Country Chiller at Bob’s Arroyo Grande tasting room could not have gone better. Some of my best friends on the Central Coast showed up to raise a glass and cheer. Wine club members laughed at all the right times, asked smart questions and enjoyed drinking Bob and Louisa Lindquist’s fine family wines that once motivated editors at a prestigious magazine to name Bob one of the 50 best winemakers in the world.

We all agree a movie based on my novels would blast off.

We open with a drone shot of the contemporary raw western edge of America, rocky cliffs hovering over a wide expanse of deep blue sea. I hear psychedelic music, bongos and surf guitar. I see bountiful Hoocha Weed growing tall in tan sand mountains, the most potent cannabis on the planet. Mexican mysticism fills our souls.

Cheech and Chong might even ask for walk-on roles.

Lights.

Camera.

Action.

My big screen psychedelic dream is why I’m sending queries to film industry executives. If Hollywood producers are willing to tune in and turn on to Weed Wine Magic we’ll get the green light, step on the gas and take the ride. American moviegoers are long overdue for better high times. Truly creative people can take only so many superheroes. The diverse characters in my books reflect deeply held power of the people, untapped consciousness and wisdom daring producers can bring to a boil like homemade weed wine aged in the ancient Oceano dunes.

A young, bold audience is ready to take our trip through the open doors of perception, a journey to the center of their minds as well as the minds of my protagonists and antagonists both human and otherwise. The Weed Wine Magic movie will energize us to escape our craven new world, exchanging chaos for peace and love.

Paz y amor will prevail in our new age of Aquarius. Like the song says, “peace will guide our planets” and “love will steer the stars.”

See you at the premier.

Weed Wine Magic Blooms!

OK all you buzzed, baked, cotton-mouthed, couch-locked, fried, high, lit up, mashed on nature’s holiday, roasted, stoned, toasted and wasted stoners, get ready to read.

Same goes for you straight arrow intellectuals.

Even if you’re only half-baked, readers on all levels of cosmic consciousness can now buckle their brain belts and prepare for takeoff. Weed Wine Magic, A Freaky California Cannabis Country Chiller, has hit the streets and is now available.

My latest novel surprised Stephanie and me the other night when it showed up on a German Amazon site all by itself like it had a mind of its own, which it does. Then the book appeared on the main Amazon book site.

Barnes & Noble offers the book on its website, too.

Even Thrift Books carries the thing, the company algorithm informing people who enjoy my novel that they might also like Dr. Seuss, Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

I’m in good company.

Oh, yeah, Weed Wine Magic is definitely a thing.

Before we split for California and our whirlwind book tour, if you’d like an autographed copy at a special price, you’re invited to our local launch on Sunday, October 20, from 2 to 4 at Case Quattro Winery, 1542 Main Street in Peckville, PA. Or you can order an autographed copy directly from us at a special price as soon as our Posture Interactive tech team updates our websites.

So pay attention. Don’t just sit around wrecked like Cheech and Chong staring out the window at Cloud 10 on a cross country bus trip back to the West Coast. Free your mind. Weed Wine Magic is an introspective trip worth taking. I’m a better person for writing the book. You’ll be a better person for reading the book.

Enlightenment is always within our grasp, right there for the taking like picking a ripe bottle of Hoocha Weed Wine off the Hoocha Weed tree that grows in the mystical magical sand dune mountains of our minds.

Weed Wine Magic Launch

Better than any corrupt government shuttle, multibillion-dollar commercial spaceship or Martian-piloted UFO, Weed Wine Magic will get you high.

Want to take you higher…I wanna take you higher…Let me take you higher.

Thank you Sly and the Family’s Stoned.

That’s why Stephanie Bressler, my hippie editor to whom I am married, and I are inviting you to attend the local blastoff for my third novel, the sequel to my first novel Blood Red Syrah.

The Weed Wine Magic rocket touches down Sunday, October 20, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Case Quattro Winery, 1542 Main Street, Peckville, PA.

This saga has been a long time coming, its inspiration blossoming more than 50 years ago when as a Penn State star trooper majoring in interplanetary cerebral travel I first envisioned a super cannabis strain called Hoocha Weed. These singing, dancing plants grew lush and untamed in the Wild West and first traveled east on a loaded stagecoach driven by America’s first coast-to-coast pioneer pot smugglers.

Long before Stephanie and I met and eventually moved to the California Central Coast I experimented with my mind and times, tasting life in several lanes as I experienced unpredictable rolling brain waves and joints. For the record, I haven’t used an illegal drug in more than 40 years. I even passed on getting high during our last visit to California where recreational cannabis has legally been available since 2018.

Weed Wine Magic offers what I call primo Freekreational cannabis-infused wine that offers the chance to consider winemaking from the grapes’ point of view — a kaleidoscopic look inside their trippy little minds.

“Free” as in free.

“Freak” as in freak.

Freekreational as in Weed Wine Magic.

My novel offers readers a mystical, magical tour of yet another metaphysical nexus. Weed Wine Magic provides an unholy yet celestial link to my holy trinity of countercultural teachers, a connection to the past that nurtures the present and future for those of us who recognize ourselves in what the Dunites called “the face of the clam.” Literary enlightenment provided by the ghosts of Ken Kesey, Richard Brautigan and Carlos Castaneda guides me as a writer and thinker willing to face bleak darkness while prospecting fiery light.

Dunites, true to life bohemian mystics, shape the Weed Wine Magic tale and once actually lived as a far-out beach tribe of seekers on the California Central Coast where Blood Red Syrah and Weed Wine Magic are set. Dunites will live forever in the minds of those of us willing to book passage beyond the beyond and take the trip.

Stephanie and I are Dunites.

Our party does not appear on the ballot in the November elections.

That’s me in the photograph, by the way, standing guard at the ruins of Maya moon goddess Ixchel’s temple her followers built centuries ago in Isla Mujeres off the coast of the Mexican Yucatán Peninsula. Ixchel plays a crucial role in the Weed Wine Magic epic as does Mexican death saint La Santa Muerte, who graces the cover of the book, and Sinaloan narco-martyr of the poor Jesús Malverde.

So join us for a cosmic connection, a glass of wine (unfortunately not Hoocha Weed wine) and a nice afternoon among kindred spirits who respect the continuing search for truth in our chaotic world gone mad.

Peace and love, people, peace and love.

Three Primo Ingredients

Whenever parched seekers drink from the sacramental Dunite chalice, cannabis-infused wine conjures purple and green illusions of nirvanic wonder.

Whoa, dude.

Can you repeat the question?

Weed.

Wine.

Magic.

Three primo ingredients invoke pure California bliss. Vinified in a cauldron of peace and love this cryptic recipe creates a soothing elixir designed to comfort wandering souls. Long before Haight-Asbury’s psychotropic head trip, intrepid Dunite adventurers guided kindred spirits beyond golden primal mysteries hidden in mountainous Central Coastal dunes. Pioneering wanderlust that defines the future of creativity, Dunites left a sand trail of sparkling enlightenment and sacred animal tracks for us to follow.

In October, the season of the witch, Avventura Press will release Weed Wine Magic, my new novel and sequel to Blood Red Syrah. My publisher Lee Sebastiani blessed this wayfaring mission with wisdom and guidance. Multimedia gurus James and Kristin Callahan provided kaleidoscopic front and back book covers that rival some of the famous psychedelic Fillmore rock posters from the Bay Area’s countercultural heyday. Hippie editor Stephanie Bressler (whom I married in a secret San Francisco City Hall ceremony) continues to summon plans for a metaphysical book launch, readings and signings next month on the West Coast.

What role did I play in this radical literary genesis? I tunneled deep into the sand mountains, mining underground images as a modern-day Dunite prophet channeling mystical Mexican spirits of peasant hero Jesús Malverde, death saint La Santa Muerte and Maya moon goddess Ixchel.

Set in contemporary Central Coastal California, our saga follows a curious commune of mind-bending nomads into the caverns of their psyches. Plagued by the bloodlust of an invisible psychic demon who calls herself Syrah, a loco south-of-the-border drug cartel, Big Tobacco executioners and a white neo-nutsy militia loner, these voyagers face evil and satori in ancient sand dunes where an aging hermit grows the most potent pot plants on the planet to make his unique cannabis- infused weed wine.

Despite mounting chaos the tribe finds solace in the spirit of the Dunites, an underground society of true-to-life bohemian visionaries who once found refuge in the mystical Oceano dunes, unlikely crusaders who join forces to realize their saintly dream of harmony in a world gone mad.

Hoocha Weed is the gift recluse Mel Moyle and the rest of his newly-adopted family call Mel’s cannabis super strain. Hoocha Weed is the pot that calls the kettle potted. Hoocha Weed fuels the search for good karma. Hoocha Weed defines cosmic gospel beyond the beyond.

I had no plan to write a freaky California cannabis country chiller sequel to my gruesome California wine country thriller. Instead I banged out Paddy’s Day in Trump Town, a second novel jammed with surrealistic American wingnut politics and democratic chaos, a challenging read loaded with right-wing fascism, fear and hatred based on hardcore bigoted reality.

How was I to know somebody put a spell on me? How was I to know Malverde knew La Santa Muerte who knew Ixchel who got along with my Blood Red Syrah characters and others hiding out in the sand dunes?  How was I to know the spirit of Wally Wilson, the most lovable serial killer antihero you’ll ever meet, influenced the reincarnation of the story as well as his own rebirth? How was I to know Mexico offered the refuge of another motherland to match my maternal and paternal familial lineages in Germany and Ireland?

Witches reign in all three nations where countless mortals respect and fear cultural magic.

Germany boasts pow-wow, a traditional form of Pennsylvania Dutch healing and retribution. When I was a teenager my mother shared with me the eerie tale of a baby in York (where I was born) who viciously bit her mother while nursing. The mother sought out a “Braucher” who practiced folk magic.

“Do you know who might have cursed you?” the German witch asked.

“Ach jah,” said the young mother. “Yes.”

Steal an article of clothing from the suspect’s wash line, the witch instructed. Fold the garment over the edge of an open dresser drawer and slam the drawer. As soon as the young mother followed orders she heard screams from the jealous woman next door who hexed her. The rosy-cheeked “Dutchified” baby never again bit her loving mother.

Dark Celtic curses also help and harm. Despite the passage of more than 50 years I still see the young woman I encountered standing alone by the lake on the rugged West Coast of Ireland where my roots run deep in the bog. As a powerful wind whipped thick black hair around her shoulders and face she shrieked for me to turn back from my solitary walk and leave her alone in the cold, misty fog.

When I told the tale to stunned country cousins they blessed themselves and said the young woman only spared me because I looked like her prince who died in battle a thousand years ago. Three other young American men, visitors to the lake like me who didn’t resemble her warrior, had disappeared over the years when the heartbroken young woman spirited them away as prisoners to hold forever in the dungeon of the night.

My personal brand of mystical literature should also be respected and feared. My subconscious images offer redemption if you are open to their power. Take heed. I am a sentence shaman born of darkness and light. I hold the power to exorcise and raise the dead. I levitate and fascinate. I cast rich spells. Never underestimate the power of a daring word witch.

Prepare to meet the Dunites.

We’re ready to meet you.

Hounding Skeeter Dillon

Dark fur stripes on the side of the gravel berm caught Skeeter Dillon’s eye causing him to almost run his pickup off the road. Pounding the brake with his steel-toed work boot, he fishtailed and slid to a halt in a cloud of smoky dust and gray stone.

Wet blood still pooled beneath the dead raccoon’s open mouth.

Didn’t take much to pick up the critter by his tail, though at first Skeeter thought to just cut off the fluffy end piece with the Bowie knife he wore in a fringed sheath on a chrome chain belt. Always ready to gut a deer, he never knew when he might come across roadkill treasure and get free meat for the winter. But he was in a hurry and didn’t want to get innards on the blade he’d have to clean, so he just flung the whole varmint into the back of the truck.

He hadn’t worn his trademark Davy Crockett cap to play at Sonny’s Bar since he came home to Perry County country from two funerals and a failed existence in Nashville. Kept the hat under his bed hoping to dry out the beer stink on the crusty coon tail that to him smelled like cat piss. As soon as Skeeter put it on when it dried and stood in front of the bathroom mirror he felt dead and buried with no hope for the future.

But once his new ’Merican-genre song took off locally, a crack in the clouds opened up wide enough for Skeeter to run through like one of those art films where the hero runs slow motion nekked with arms open wide through fields of sunflowers under a summer sky. Skeeter never saw a movie like that but the scene always came to mind whenever he thought about paradise. Now Skeeter was living heaven right here on earth.

Perry County loved Skeeter Dillon. And that was good enough for him. Really, what more could a simple man want?

Earlene bought him that cap at Boot Barn a week after they met. When he opened the white shopping bag he sang her every word from the Davy Crockett ballad exactly the way he memorized the lyrics in the 12th grade talent show at the high school when he sang each line in perfect pitch except for the part he left out about “kilt him a b’ar when he was only three.” Skeeter loved bears, especially Smokey, swear on his dead Ma he did, and would never hurt a black bear, brown bear, teddy bear or grizzly.

The kids in his class loved the song that won him first prize, a subscription to Hot Rod magazine he quickly picked out of a selection that included Reader’s Digest and Redbook. All the wars and lousy presidents later, that was the last fame he enjoyed until now. Some of those same kids from school were cheering him on when he debuted his new tune at Sonny’s, rooting for him to keep going and get some of that acclaim they all rightly deserved but would never get because they were just regular nobodies nobody but themselves cared about and they often didn’t care much about themselves, neither.

Those best years were gone.

Earlene dead and gone.

Hound dog Zeke dead and gone.

His Harley, too.

Now the same went for his beautiful Davy Crockett cap that was as much a daily part of his image as eating pickled sausage with his knife from  a jar behind the bar at Sonny’s, the same cap he was wearing when Earlene and Zeke passed on in the scooter mishap, the cap he accidently sat down on drunk during the bus ride home when he spilled beer all over the fur and ruined it and everything else until his local hit song turned his world upside out and set him to living the dream as a country music star in his hometown of Duncannon, PA.

Now all his needs were met.

Maybe.

When Earlene left him he promised himself nobody else, never. No other woman could ever win his silly putty soft heart. Skeeter would keep that promise. But he didn’t say nothing about another dog. Nope. Skeeter Dillon wanted another dog more than he wanted another woman or another motorcycle for that matter, although visions of a new bike was dancing in his head the way Earlene used to wiggle to that “Black Betty” song on the radio.

A state-of-the-art Harley Davidson Freewheeler trike would comfort him and his achy-breaky butt particularly, though he still worried some young brother might laugh at him on a three-wheeler. But he’d cross that washed-out bridge when he came to it. No, he wouldn’t crack the smart-ass over the skull with a pool cue. Maybe he’d finally smile a crooked smile and admit he was getting a little bit older. Not a lot older, just a little. Goddamn if he might not even qualify for a $35,000 bank loan for the Harley he might even pay back.

But now with a fresh raccoon tail to turn into a new Davy Crockett cap Skeeter Dillon figured the time was right to get himself another hound. High school buddy and taxidermist Dr. Tom, who also ran a leather shop and sold fireworks you could shoot like mortars from the tailpipe of your motorcycle, could easily stitch him up a brand new cap.

Skeeter would have to find a new dog for himself. Who’da ever thought he’d pick one up hitchhiking in just a week? The dog was hitchhiking, not Skeeter. Hard as it is to believe, the dog was sitting by the side of the road with his paw raised like he was thumbing a ride or like that lion in the Bible asking the slave to remove a thorn from his paw. When Skeeter pulled over and opened the passenger door the dog jumped right in the truck. And when Skeeter looked into the dog’s eyes he saw himself, until now an old beaten loser. When the dog looked into Skeeter’s eyes he saw the same, a lonely cur all wrinkled and abandoned.

Until now.

“What’s your name, boy?” Skeeter wanted to know eyeing the black and tan Coonhound up and down.

Holding up his paw the miserable mutt looked out the window.

“You want out already to go bum another ride you scrounger? You’re nothing but a big mooch.”

Giving in and suddenly feeling loved, the vagabond pooch dropped his paw. When Skeeter got home the dog refused to get out of the truck. Skeeter fed him leftover Dinty Moore beef stew and white bread heels from his own two-cans-on-sale supper. After finding him asleep in the morning right where he left him the night before, Skeeter fed him a leftover SPAM and hard-cooked scrambled egg breakfast in bed. Only then did the dog get out with a bellyful of pork product and walk into the trailer like he owned the place, falling fast asleep in Skeeter’s recliner.

Skeeter named the dog Mooch — Mooch the Pooch.

Sonny’s was packed to the rafters the next Saturday night Skeeter played, actually over the rafters where Sonny let anybody sit dangling their legs as long as they could climb up drunk or sober. Fall off at your own risk, Sonny warned. If you did fall or get pushed a dozen witnesses would testify in court you jumped. Nobody ever considered filing a lawsuit even though over the years seven people did fall including George Mutzabaugh who did jump after taking an after-hours bet he couldn’t dive headfirst into a rubber kiddie swimming pool the biker regulars filled with beer. Damn near broke his neck, he did. But the bikers ruled he won the bet and Lester Zimmerman had to agree Bobby could date Lester’s common-law wife without having to take over Lester’s child support payments for the next month.

Mooch followed Skeeter into the bar, jumping right up onto the stage to wait for the show to begin like everybody else, first sniffing anxiously and growling at the plastic bag Skeeter placed beside the amp. When Skeeter was almost ready to start he reached into the bag, retrieving his new coonskin cap and pulling it snug on top of his head.

Skeeter wasn’t just wearing a reconstructed cap. This was a whole new cap far better than just a hat with a raccoon tail. Dr. Tom had used the whole dang hollowed-out animal, skinning him, drying him and when he was ready, positioning his whole ratty little raccoon head ears and all so the deceased creature was sitting low on the forehead looking right at you from the front of the cap like two Peterbilt headlights on a runaway diesel tractor trailer coming head-on at you from the wrong lane. Two red beady beastie boy eyes followed you wherever you went, making eye contact no matter where you looked.

Mooch the Pooch took off like a bottle rocket instinctively going after that wild thing — actually two wild things if you include Skeeter. With Mooch sinking still sharp canines into the raccoon’s head, biting straight through into Skeeter’s head (Dr. Tom kept all the raccoon’s teeth in its mouth for authenticity), Skeeter leaped off the stage and raced screaming around the dance floor frantically pulling at the snarling, slobbering Coonhound to make him release his locked jaws.

Thinking the frenzied scene was part of Skeeter’s new nightclub act, somebody turned up the juke box and about a dozen people imitated this new Duncannon dance accompanied by the sound of the stock-car-race-fast-dueling-banjo-twanging hillbilly theme song from the movie Deliverance.

When Mooch finally tore that coon clean off Skeeter’s head, the dog sprinted through the already open door, ‘cause it was a nice soft summer night on the dead end road, dragging the formaldehyde-scented coon corpse carcass into the darkness the way he woulda done when he was just a young pup out on his first hunt.

Sensing light at the end of the tunnel that, thank you Jesus, wasn’t another freight train coming straight at him, Skeeter jumped right back on the stage like nothing happened and kicked into his hit tune, his original rendition of the National Anthem, “Our Trump Was Still There,” he wrote to honor and commemorate President Trump almost getting snuffed by a Communist assassin’s bullet.

Everybody froze on the dance floor. Quickly removing trucker caps they stopped swigging bottles of beer, put their hands over their hearts and started singing along to the words “And our Trump was still there” over and over, doing their Perry County part to make America great again.

When Skeeter got home that night he stood in front of the cracked bathroom mirror looking at himself looking at himself. Image matters a lot to an ornery Appalachian American. You got to know who and what you stand for in order to be what you can. If a man lives long enough to come to grips with the frailty of his own mortality, sometimes there’s still time to change for the better.

Opening the medicine cabinet Skeeter grabbed a half-full jar of Vaseline petroleum jelly. Digging three fingers into the sticky goop he massaged the ointment into his scalp with both hands, running his fingers through what was left of his dyed black hair. Rooting through the toothpaste drawer far more carefully than the night he dug into the kitchen junk drawer looking for a pen to write his now famous song, he picked up a big black comb with a few broken teeth on the thin end, making him think of Mooch who wasn’t home when he got there.

Carefully parting his hair on the right, Skeeter Dillon combed one side back and then the other, trying to make the ends meet in the middle of the back of his head like he wore his hair styled in high school in a duck’s ass DA. For a second there he thought he saw a resemblance to Elvis or Johnny Cash, maybe both.

Never again would Skeeter wear a hat onstage. God only knows what Dr. Tom would create out of a straw cowboy hat with railroad flares shooting out both sides. No siree! Like Earlene, Zeke and his favorite heavy metal beast, that Davy Crockett cap was history, long gone, buried forever.

“I’m a new man,’’ Skeeter said. “Made in the USA.”

The bark came from behind out near the big pink plastic Tupperware soup bowl he used as a dog food dish. Mooch stood there looking like an escaped convict covered in mud, burrs and stickers, wagging his tail like nothing out of the ordinary had occurred at Sonny’s bar, an oasis in the parched lives of locals who didn’t ask for much and, of course, rarely got birthday wishes granted.

Skeeter wiped away a tear getting greasy Vaseline in his eye, but he didn’t care.

“You want a hot SPAM sandwich and a cold beer, boy?” he said.

Mooch barked twice.

“Me, too,” said Skeeter. “Me, too.”

Our Trump Was Still There: A Short Story

Waking shaking in a hot, dripping sweat on the living room recliner with his brain still a little beery blurry, Skeeter Dillon staggered to his bare feet and rushed to the kitchen.

In one yank, the failed country singer/songwriter accidently pulled the junk drawer completely out of the counter and dumped the contents on the floor. Kneeling like a condemned inmate facing the warden on execution day, he frantically dug through the mess looking for a pencil or crayon, digging into the rusty bottle openers, bent soup spoons, dull steak knives, a handful of .22-caliber bullets, spilled toothpicks, colored soda straws, chop sticks and an upper partial plate of false teeth until he found a green plastic pen bearing the logo of the towing service his cousin lost a decade ago to bankruptcy, embezzlement and a federal tax charge.

With all the urgency of a double-wide trailer fire after an indoors propane accident he scribbled on the front of his overdue water bill, writing a few jumbled lyrics to the new country song that had come to him like a Biblical vision in his sleep.

Misdialing his brother Chigger three times on the wall phone before he got the number right, Skeeter tried to catch his breath. Listening to the phone ring he held back his words like a mudslide ready to break loose until his blockhead brother answered in a voice groggy as a propofol anesthesia patent coming out of a prostate procedure.

“It’s four o’clock in the morning, dipshit,” Chigger said.

“Quick, Google the words ‘bombs bursting in air’ from the Star Spangled Banner,” Skeeter screamed into the phone. “Then read ’em back to me.”

Almost two minutes of silence later Chigger said, “The rockets’ red glare, bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.”

“Goddammit, I knew it,”Skeeter said. “That our flag was still there!”

Chigger sounded agitated.

“So?”

“So I finally hit pay dirt,” Skeeter said.

“For what?”

“Because our Trump was still there,” Skeeter said. “Our Trump was still there.”

“You’re not doing meth and bath salts again, are you?”

“You got me confused with your ex-wives’ children, Chigger,” said Skeeter.

Titled “Our Trump Was Still There,” the finally finished country song came to Skeeter slowly but surely, filling out images in his head sweet as Old Yeller custard in the middle of a homemade doughnut. Within a day he was already trying to decide the color of the tailor-made country western tuxedo he’d wear to the White House when a newly re-elected President Trump would present him with the Medal of Freedom.

After losing at love and lyrics in Nashville, Tennessee, Skeeter came home a failure to Cove, a rural hollow in Perry County, Pennsylvania just five miles from where the Appalachian Trail meanders down the middle of Market Street in Duncannon. After accidently spilling his beer and sitting on his soggy Davey Crockett cap with the real raccoon tail for the last hundred miles or so of the bus trip you could honestly say he came home with his tail between his legs.

Not many men lose their girl, their Harley and their hound dog at the same time. He shoulda never let Earlene drive his bike while he rode behind her drunk holding her tight around the waist with one arm, drinking an Apple Pie Moonshine pre-mixed canned cocktail and squeezing his dog Zeke on his lap with the other. Earlene and Zeke were loaded, too, all three of them drunk and disorderly when they left the bar.

Two out of the three died in the accident along the way when Zeke passed out, had a doozy of a doggie dream and bit Earlene in the butt hard enough for her to lose control of the 1980 Sportster Skeeter bought at a Fentanyl overdosed guitar player’s estate sale for $1,500 Earlene loaned him for the purchase.

Skeeter wrote the song “One Out of Three” when he got released from the VA hospital but the words didn’t make any sense and just made him sadder. His heart wasn’t into picking and singing no more. The only good news in his latest catastrophe was he didn’t have to pay back Earlene the $1,500 he borrowed, not that he had planned on paying her back anyway because he knew she’d understand.

Then he saw President Trump get shot in the ear on TV. Sitting alone, pounding down Reading 16-ouncers and eating Spam singles right out of the pack he cut into squares to put on Saltine crackers with sweet pickle relish, Skeeter immediately felt Trump’s pain. He even ducked hisself losing his “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” baseball cap in the process.

Skeeter loved Trump more than he loved Earlene and his dog put together, loved them even more than he loved Saltine SPAMwiches. After watching Trump almost get killed, providence shined on Skeeter the way it did when President Trump stood bloodied and, as a lame stream media reporter said on the TV, “raised his fist in triumph and defiance.”

Skeeter took Trump’s near-miss fatality as a sign from above, a new beginning for them both. When he passed out after drinking more than his usual 12 bottles of beer he just stayed asleep in the chair until he awoke up in that nightmarish dripping sweat. The rest was divine intervention, just like Trump, with the words “And our Trump was still there” slamming into his head like a backhoe smashing into a hidden septic system.

“Make it or break it time,” Skeeter said to Chigger when he sat his brother down to listen to the lyrics of what he fully believed and expected one day might become America’s new National Anthem. Sung to the melody of the Star Spangled Banner, Skeeter threw back his head and drove into the tune with the same confidence an over-the-road trucker exhibits barreling full-speed into a blinding fog, tearing into the tune with all the intensity of a bad shot Pennsylvania assassin’s speeding bullet.

Hey, lookit, yippie

On the roof a gun site

Coward gunman just failed

Sniper gave him a reaming

Rebel flags and NASCAR

Through our perilous fight

O’er the bleachers we watched

Trump fans gallantly screaming

Through lit Marborlos red glare

Semi-autos bursting in air

Gave proof through the night

That our Trump was still there

O say, does that red MAGA ball cap yet wave

O’er the land of the free and the nation Trump saved

Gave proof through the night

That our Trump was still there

Our Trump was still there

Our Trump was still there.

The first talent agent Skeeter called in New York and sang to over the phone quietly hung up at some point during the performance. The second agent in Jersey City couldn’t stop laughing. The third agent, this one a bail bondsman and right-wing Pennsylvania Dutchman about 40 miles away in York, booked Skeeter into a weekend gig at Sonny’s Tavern off Route 11 and 15 in Duncannon. The agent kept a teenage girlfriend in a hunting cabin up there and enjoyed stopping at Sonny’s to watch Sonny put a smooth finish to the bar fights.

At 8 p.m. sharp, Skeeter took the tiny stage, drained a Mason jar house special cocktail of Four Roses and Cherry Coke, turned up the volume on his amp all the way and kicked right into the new number to open the show. Nobody ever before sang the National Anthem at Sonny’s. The Lynyrd Skynyrd version wasn’t even on the juke box. Within seconds everything stopped, including two women divorcees French kissing by the ladies’ room door, a shoving match between their ex-husbands at the bar, arm wrestling at the waitress station and a contest between two already drunk roofers matching each other flaming shot of Wild Turkey for flaming shot. Men removed their baseball caps and held them over their hearts. A woman removed her hard hat.

Gave proof through the night

That our Trump was still there

Men and women in the crowd lost what was left of their narrow minds as soon as they deciphered Skeeter singing “that our Trump was still there” and began to sing along. Sensing instant approval instead of the prolonged mockery he got in the handful of Nashville bars he played, Skeeter roared that mighty refrain over and over again, the crowd picking up on the words to the line that wasn’t all that hard to remember drunk or sober in the first place. When Skeeter ended the show with his fingers starting to bleed from pulling on his guitar strings so hard, he drank for free until Sonny locked the doors behind them at 4:30 a.m.

Driving home Skeeter didn’t even put on his favorite Tex Ritter “Hillbilly Heaven” CD he always listened to in the truck. Back in 1965 he had seen the famous cowboy singer in person at the Duncannon Centennial firemen’s carnival and fell in love with the music. Tonight Skeeter just sang his own song over and over and over again.

It didn’t matter the new song stunk.

Skeeter knew the song stunk.

But after word got around town the day after Skeeter premiered the tune at Sonny’s, the next night a crowd filled the bar parking lot to greet Skeeter when he pulled in. The divorcees even asked for autographs. By 9 p.m. Sonny’s brimmed so full of customers waiting for the new number they didn’t even mind listening to Skeeter play original tunes he wrote and performed to ridicule down south in the Confederacy.

When time came for the anthem, the people were ready.

So was Skeeter who played out his little pea-picking heart, as Tennessee Ernie Ford used to say on TV in the Sixties, singing the words they all came to hear as they chanted “Our Trump was still there, Our Trump was still there,” even before Skeeter Dillon played the opening chord, chanting both inside the bar and outside in the green glass-and-gravel-covered parking lot.

For the first time in their lives many of the bar patrons felt like they was part of something for a change instead of just hanging at Sonny’s on Friday and Saturday for maybe the millionth time in their lives — which was good, mind you, real good, but sometimes just not good enough like something was missing they just didn’t know what.

Skeeter’s tune got to them as much as it got to Skeeter. Awakening a deeply felt patriotism they couldn’t explain, the song’s words described feelings they felt but didn’t know how to express, kind of like what supporting Trump did to them when they heard him mock, belittle and threaten groups of people they didn’t like, either. They wanted to hang Mike Pence, too, and would build a gallows in Sonny’s parking lot if Sonny gave them the go-ahead. If he didn’t maybe they’d hang him, anyway.

Skeeter Dillon’s song validated them. Not once did the thought of Trump dodging the Vietnam draft while some poor draftee up the road died, committing adultery on his pregnant wife with Playboy bunnies and some unfair-weather porn slut or groping and grabbing women by their TicTics cross anybody’s mind.

Living hard lives makes coming to grips with hardship a little easier.

Within a week Skeeter had made 100 CDs to sell and sign the following Saturday at the gun store before another sold out appearance that night at Sonny’s. The ABC television affiliate from Harrisburg sent a 24-year-old blond reporter with bangs wearing a short skirt and red, white and blue cowboy boots to cover the phenomenon. A crowd had gathered by 10 a.m. for the noon appearance unlike any crowd the gun store had ever seen and the store never lacked for business.

Skeeter Dillon knew he finally made it.  Where he belonged. Nobody could ask for more blessings than Skeeter now enjoyed. Except maybe Chigger who had a preliminary hearing before a magistrate scheduled the following week for an aggravated assault outside the gun shop when some shit-kicker told him Skeeter’s song sounded like a garbage truck crushing a battered couch. Chigger hit him with a beef rib bone he found in his truck, called him a communist and kicked him in the front buttons of his bib overalls just for good measure.

Skeeter agreed to testify that the back country freak attacked Chigger first and appear as a character witness if necessary down the line because he now was as solid a citizen as you could find in these parts. Maybe anywhere else, too, where standing your ground matters.

President Trump would understand — might even give Chigger a pardon the same day Skeeter Dillon picked up his presidential Medal of Freedom.

Weed Wine Magic

We’re close.

Weed Wine Magic is almost ready to sip.

Ready to get high?

Here’s a taste from my new novel’s back blurb:

“Set in contemporary Central Coastal California, this raw sequel to Blood Red Syrah follows a curious commune of mind-bending wanderers into the caverns of their psyches. Plagued by the bloodlust of an invisible psychic demon who calls herself Syrah, a loco south-of-the-border drug cartel, Big Tobacco executioners and a white neo-nutsy militia loner, these seekers face evil and bliss in ancient sand dunes where an aging hermit grows the most potent pot plants on the planet to make his unique cannabis infused weed wine.

Despite mounting chaos the tribe finds solace in the spirit of the Dunites, an underground society of bohemian visionaries that once found refuge in the mystical Oceano dunes. Guided by Maya moon goddess Ixchel, whose sacred energy lives in Isla Mujeres, the Island of Women, off the Yucatán Peninsula coast, Latina death saint La Santa Muerte and Sinaloan narco savior Jesús Malverde, these unlikely voyagers join forces to realize their sacred dream of harmony and truth in a world gone mad.”

Pizza Party: A Short Story

Grimacing when he noticed the last beer at the back of the refrigerator, Boone grabbed the sweaty bottle by the neck. Standing too fast he hit his head on the freezer door. Kicking the door closed he opened the beer with the church key he wore on a silver chain around his neck like the Medal of Honor.

“Who wants pizza?” he yelled.

The four kids all squealed and howled at once, jumping up and down in the kitchen. Boone headed for the door swigging as he went. He could still hear his son Bowie, 5, cheering when daddy tore out of the gravel driveway in the truck spinning rock against the aluminum back door of the house they rented in Newport, PA.

Boone came home drunk six hours later with a six pack and a wet pizza box stained with grease from the cold pie. The kids had already fallen asleep on the floor for their pajama pizza party. Dropping the box on the kitchen table he opened a bottle of beer and stood by the stove.

Lee Ann had already gone to bed.

Bowie appeared out of nowhere, standing in his little bare feet and pajama bottoms staring at his father.

“Help yourself,” Boone said.

Walking hesitantly to the table, Bowie climbed up on the chair, kneeled as if in prayer and opened the box. Reaching for a limp slice of pepperoni pizza he ducked his head under the flopping hunk of dough and took a bite.

“It’s cold,” he said.

Boone snatched the pizza from his boy’s hand.

“Suit yourself,” he said, eating the slice in about four bites before digging in and eating the whole small pie all by himself.

Bowie went to bed hungry.

The pizza box remained on the kitchen table until Lee Ann cleaned up the kitchen the next afternoon and went on with her life in the country. Bowie and the other kids never mentioned what happened that night. Neither did Boone. They all went on with their lives in the country.

Twenty-five years later, laid up in the hospital with cirrhosis and laid off from his security guard job at the dog food factory Boone knew he was going to die.  Weak as he felt, his stomach still growled. He even told the nurse he was hungry. At about six that night the nurse said he could eat some solid food as long as he took his time chewing and somebody helped him. Maybe she could find an aide to feed him. Boone felt so fragile he couldn’t get out of bed to pee. Maybe his appetite was just wishful thinking caused by meds and delirium but, man, he sure wanted to eat.

Half in and out of sleep Boone dreamed about dozens of steamed clams with melted butter he wolfed down at the stock car track, fresh grilled corn on the cob and fat homegrown tomatoes Lee Ann sliced thick with mayonnaise for sandwiches for his lunch pail. Boone missed Lee Ann making his sandwiches for work. But he wasn’t working no more now so what difference did her dying from lung cancer make to him anyway?

Bowie showed up at 7 carrying a small pizza box. He reached up, turned down the volume on Jeopardy and pulled his chair close to the bed. The strong smell of spicy hot pepperoni filled the room

“Hey,” Bowie said, kicking the mattress too hard with his motorcycle boot, startling Boone awake. Then he kicked the mattress again even harder.

Staring at his father, Bowie said, “Who wants pizza?”