Question 7: Adversary

RICE:  Who did you in?  Who is directly responsible for your fall?

GREEN:  Thank you.  Appropriate question.  Her name was Luckie Miller.  Before her, there were only two other female employees in the company’s history – neither of whom having anything to do with my downfall.  Luckie, however, can claim almost sole responsibility.

          I hired her on as quality control because of her extensive experience with J.C. Krone’s biggest competitor, A.M. Fields.  I brought her onboard and mentored her compassionately, in that I drove her through the daily routes instead of of letting her find her way around the base by getting lost.  In the process of showing her the ropes, I got to know her.  She downplayed her uxorious marriage while I concealed my various girlfriends.  We were happy with the dynamic – happy, that is, until she found out how much work her job required.  A loathing of work seeded her jealousy.  She thought that she could handle my job.  Yes, she got a handle on my job, alright.

          With the amount of confidence she exuded, her body language and word choice suggested he had the ability to manage the work.  Whether her confidence manic, delusional or drug-induced, she fully believed in herself.  I guess she had to fail to prove herself wrong.  She has been terminated by now, correct?

          Nonetheless, I found out where some of her confidence came from.  Her plump, artificial breasts did much for her self-image, but it was her creature comforts that empowered her: cocaine and adulterous manipulation.  Her deal was this: She knew landscaping, in and out.  She was, to boot, management material.  She was not, however, capable of judging “prestige” grass, abstracts or aesthetics.  Matter of factly, she had no visual sense, whatsoever.  Though she did – after our little scandal – land my job, she was not qualified for it.  Mo and J.C. had assumed that her looks would earn favor for her and the overlooking of company errors by Saul.  However, her physical form had only the slightest of impact on the difficulties of the job.

          The problem was that she flirted.  With me, no quarter.  She made me feel welcome, arms and legs opened up to me like a spread eagle.  Man, was that hot.

          Now, we all know the ways in which some women manipulate.  It’s sick, I know.  She lured and tempted me with a sole ulterior.  Subsequently and consequently, I wound up here in prison.  Though not so moral, she may not be as dumb as we take her for.

Question 7: Adversary

Digression

RICE:  On the topic of adversaries, I will verify that Luckie Miller was not a good person.  Single handedly, she was manipulatively responsible for at least eight separate conspiracies.  Men fell to her whims, to please or catch a glimpse or cop a feel.  In truth, mind, she was one, hot chick.

          She carried herself well, too.  I would argue that her blind confidence in her abilities was a result of the constant flow of cocaine metabolites through her system.  It was either that or her sex card, which she was never afraid to wield.  Some of the lowliest laborers, unafraid of randomly accosting any woman in any public setting, were reduced to itches and nervous twitches in her presence.  I can’t argue that she was not a valuable asset to the company, however she never was a good leader and, most likely, never will be.

          Leadership was owned, though, by Mr. Green.  Green was a social angel – truly, an antebellum-style socialite.  Luckie best played the part of the carpet bagger, the scalawag.  Somehow, though, she snaked his job from him.  Her conspiratorial methods of doing so, including her reasoning behind the act, make up the bulk of the story that I am unfolding for you.

Question 6: The Freudian School

RICE:  What is the so-called “Fruedian School” and how does it operate?

GREEN:  A fun question.  I’ll begin by discussing Freud, himself.  A quack doctor, he jumped onto a medicinal bandwagon, promoting cocaine as the newest “wonder drug.”  Since he founded many psychological schools of thought, the generic “Freudian School” applies to anyone who has maintained their belief in chemical miracles.  Some of the elders remain today – those who grew up in Freud’s heyday.  The “Freudian School” is a German ethos.

          An easy metaphor under which to break down the idea is the phrase “Idle hands are the devil’s playground.”  The phrase has many interpretations.  Here, we will analyze – no pun intended.

          Freudians used the great forgotten language: symbolism.  A tap on the nose meant something was up; hand gestures were often employed to accentuate a highly accelerated speech pattern.  We controlled our voice pressure and never mentioned to a soul outside of the group that we “messed with ‘soft’.”

          When the “soft” was unavailable we went through any means to keep our hands busy.  To allow our hands to become ‘idle’ meant to return to drug-seeking behavior.  Once you’re addicted, you tend to fill in those gaps with whatever narcotic you can find.

          In the Freudian School we obeyed established rules, laws, and traditions.  We did not curse in public.  We respected our elders.  We did good deeds.  Things and minds change quickly, however.  To follow the basic rules, nowadays, is characteristic of an obsessive compulsive disorder.

          On that line, shrinks are creating labels for every variation in personality type.  It is yet another form of “drugs for the masses,” barring mention of the cookie-cutter prescriptions handed out by military doctors.

          Alas, the final rule of the Freudian school is simple: “Don’t get caught.”  Well, I fucked that rule up.  So I’ll forewarn you:  because I am caught and thus have no secrets to hide, I’m not afraid to speak and behave with a heated candor.  They fucked me, Rice, they fucked me.

Question 6:  The Freudian School

Digression

          To be more politically correct, Green was “black-balled.”  Though he had survived many previous “black-ballings,” the Freudian School is who put him out of commission.  He really is lucky to be alive.

          The person charged with the man’s ruin was a lady by the name of Luckie Miller.  Luckie was the third female hired by J.C. Krones.  Like the first two, she was considered attractive.  Unlike the first two, Luckie was brought on to handle “quality control.”  Her job required frequent interaction with Mr. Green.

          Greg may wish to speak on the relevance of the first two women, though I need only mention Luckie Miller here.  Green fell for an established cliché.  Luckie was sent by the Neo-Nazi’s (skinheads).  For now, we’ll just say that she ended up taking his job.  Sorry to spoil that ending, folks.

Question 5: Roles

RICE:  Did you play a role in this “drug ring?”

GREEN:  You’re becoming more direct in your questioning, Rice.  I’ll tell you, in fact, that I filled more than one role.  In this sense, I am not the typical ‘fall man.’  I fell in many ways for many people.  Alas, so it goes when it lives in Green.

          For a while, I was the main pot-peddler – of good pot, that is.  This role was legitimized by my involvement in landscaping.  For some reason, the Department of Defense expects its laboring lawn techs to act like the ethical pot-head.  In other words, the Fed favored those who were extra-cautious, relaxed and did not act ‘sketchy.’  That’s all.  Most can’t handle the logic behind it.

          I am compelled to mention, however, that this conspiracy spread much further than you would imagine.  Many local business owners, clergymen, and even the police were “subcontracted” into the overarching, archetypical mob mentality.  Still no names yet, though.  

          Here, I mention my other roles: I was a negotiator.  I transported.  I took “shallow dives” for the betterment of the “community.”  I hid things.  I hid people.  I did much, friend, much.  My cut for all that work was two eight-balls per week, and all the pot I could distribute or smoke myself.  Mine was a world of bargain, trade, barter and unspoken contracts.

          I even maintained numerous bank accounts to facilitate the laundering of green-backs.  Money we kept separate from goods and services, to keep the black market unknowing and uninvolved.

          The brainwashers, before feeding dope to the locals, had to prove their integrity and trustworthiness to the metro population.  After gaining community trust, these “feds” released a statistically insignificant amount to the public, through various channels, at measured intervals.  The trickling flow pervaded the areas surrounding the bases and kept contracted workers of all kinds numb enough to labor overtime; to make enough money to buy their next bag.  The Pentagon has signed, stamped, and sealed this slow, urban, downward spiral.

Question 5: Roles

Digression

RICE:  Roles switch and roll.  Though unwitting, Yours Truly was an active participant in this scandal.  Even I feigned numerous roles.  However, I was an unwitting participant. Thusly, my memories of the conspiracy are dissociated and often lack any observational quality.  Curse that pot and its effects on the peripheral!

          I was a slacker, a townie.  I attended an Ivy League school but dropped out after my freshman year.  I returned to the same college, joined a fraternity, partied some more, then dropped out of the school again.  Since then, I’ve been attending community college night classes at a half-time pace, all the while landscaping and free-lancing to earn money.  Of a loser, I was a xenotype, archetype or stereotype (not sure which I pretend to be).

          An example of my obliviousness to the ubiquitous corruption is that I am not sure whether the conspiracy concerned me or if I merely witnessed a wide variety of circumstantially suspicious coincidences. 

          My role was the “good kid,” the “happy eye.”  I unknowingly scoped out scenes, prepared paths, and even acted as decoy, Smokey and the Bandit style.  Meanwhile, without joining the new mafia, I reaped some of the mob mentality’s many benefits.  Mind control works best against the controller’s hubris.  Always let them maintain control and they reveal their intellectual limits.

          Being “the bandit” was hard work though.  It required insight, driving prowess, and wisdom.  However, after a short while, it became child’s play.  The factions could not help but make their shadows of surveillance obvious.  We are not all good actors, players. We cannot all mask emotions like the fear of being found out.

Question 4: Contact

RICE:  Commissioned or non-commissioned, what officers did you deal with, whether on or off base?

GREEN:  I’ll commend you, Rice, for trying to cut straight into the rare meat of the conspiracies.  Numerous officers, yes, I dealt with.  You see, some were liaisons between the Air Force, Coast Guard, Army, Navy, and Marines.  Many high-ranking “gentlemen” handled the negotiation of shared man-hours.  An example:

          When a Coast Guard boat makes a “drug bust” in the Atlantic, the foreigners are arrested and the drugs are sent to the nearest base, where they are counted and measured.  Whether the boat was carrying real or decoy drugs is up to the lab to decide. 

          The Yorktown Coast Guard does not have labs in the Tidewater.  Necessarily, the material must be shipped to Federal labs in Washington, D.C.  Because ship routes are slow and inconvenient, the drugs are trucked, via Army transportation, to Langley, where they are subsequently flown to D.C.  Are there middlemen commissioned in this process?  You bet.  And guess what?  I know all of them.  That’s one reason why they call me Mr. Green.  I know military-speak.

          If you want names, I can give you names.  Not today, no, not yet.  I see the bush you’re beating around.  Your suffering journalism, Rice, would be redeemed if I called forth those demons of the nineteen nineties.

          Nonetheless, I continue by mentioning that Colonels, captains, and even admirals were involved in this.  This conspiracy ran so deep that some called it a “donut hole.”  Does it exist?  Will we ever find out?

          Yes.  And names, I can give.  Not now, but later.  I fear the workings of fate.  Bad things will happen as I call out specific ‘demons.’  Besides, we have a story to tell.

          I knew them.  They were a clandestine bunch.  And a rowdy lot, at that.  I tried my damnedest to fit in, to be chill, to exude an air of relaxation.  I was trusted.  I was no snitch.

Question 4: Contact

Digression

RICE:  Green’s story holds.  He failed to cut what I, so graciously, served, however he led us down the right path.  Which is OK, for now.  We understand, at least, that the narrator may lead us in the wrong direction.  I hereby plan to alter my questions to skip over his jumps of logic.

          He is correct, however, concerning the widespread existence of this “donut-hole” conspiracy.  There are far too many names to list.  So many men fall; fail, that the snake has no head.  Concerning officers, there is a certain colonel from Ft. Eustis Army Transportation Base, two Captains from Langley, and a Navy Admiral who I believe to be stampers and sealers of this “drug ring.”  I will not give the names until Green’s story confirms my suspicions.

          From ‘headless necks,’ conspiratory activity trickles down to the factions.  In a Federalist Paper, Thomas Jefferson warned that factions would be the downfall of America.  Though they maintain their dangerous qualities, we have yet to see them significantly alter our day to day lives.

          Among the most crucial to the conspiracy were the weak parties: Kluxers, Panthers, Neo’s.  These xenotypes virally disburse into other factions.  Trickling further down, we come to the charge of nurses, the fraternal order of doctors, and the community of soccer moms, with their “cells” – junkelectronic toys for gossip and hearsay.

          Many professions, aside from union influence, are honored by societies devoted to their betterment. Id est, factions.  Amid the professional orders, we find the Hells Angels, the specific sportsmen, the watermen, the woodsmen.

          The ways in which they team up is another story for another day.  I have provided these names to serve as a backdrop for the story that Green will continue to unfold for us.  I note before signing off that this is no ordinary drug conspiracy.  This is one for the books.

Question 3: Quotidian

RICE:  Describe, please, your average day as contract manager of Langley Air Force Base’s landscape.

GREEN:  My days started early.  I arose habitually at five thirty each morning.  After thirty minutes of prep time, I rushed off at six o’clock. Usually, I arrived on base by six twenty.  The first one there, I’d open the gate and proceed to the office trailer where the daily ritual would begin.

          The early risers showed up at the compound around six thirty.  Ironically enough, the ‘early risers’ were not the hardest workers; they were the suck-ups.  The ones with the puritan-style work ethic didn’t show up until about six fifty.  The pot-heads showed up between six fifty-five and five minutes past.  The trouble makers rolled in at seven fifteen.  Rice, you were the hardest working troublemaker of them all.

          I do not mean to jump that much time that quickly.  The brunt of my workday actually began with those early risers and their groggy battery of simple, self-answerable questions.  I did my best to be diplomatic, political, though ethics were shunted, at times. 

          The hard-workers came next.  From them I fielded requests for days off, doctor’s visits, appointments with the groomers…  My amazement with people never ceased.  I cannot say that it was ever boring…

          Unlike the aforementioned, the slackers slipped in when surveillance was low; when everyone was busy preparing for their day.  Finally, trouble rolled in, usually stirring up shit and making faces.  I’ll admit that it was a circus, at times.

          The crews were mandated to be out of the ‘compound’ by seven ten.  Only crews waiting on equipment, supplies, or trouble-makers left later.  At seven fifteen, the waiting game commenced.

          Saul usually visited the compound at seven thirty.  Together, he and I would brainstorm, all the while inventing a system of favors designed to benefit the both of us.  It was a symbiotic relationship, like that of lichen, or that between tree roots and fungal michorrhizae.

          After my rendez-vous with Saul, I often fielded a call from Mo Johnson.  Once he was appeased and his orders were well taken, my rounds began.  The scope of my runs around the base resembled those of one man trying to run errands for eight Mexican families.  I had traded the toil and sweat of labor for stroke-inducing stress.

          I cannot begin to mention the myriad militants I conversed with throughout the day.  I hope that I have, at least, downplayed the idleness of the job.  I didn’t have to try to stay busy, however I always harbored at least one “idle hand.”

Question 3: Quotidian

Digression

RICE:  I respected Green from the outset.  Immediately, he became an unofficial mentor of mine, a father figure, if you will.  He was at least six foot one, a slender one hundred eighty pounds, with silver hair and a matching goatee.  His tan was healthy and he looked distinguished for a man of thirty-six.

          I mention his appearance so early in these issues because I was haunted by a vision of his likeness the night before I met him:

          The ‘compound’ was arranged the same way, in my vision, as it turned out to be in reality.  However, Green stood outside the office trailer, sipping from a coffee mug and smoking a cigarette.  He tapped his ashes into his mug, which immediately burst into flames.  At that point I realized that it wasn’t coffee he was drinking, it was gasoline.

          The vision sops there.  Green had several “cool” aspects about him.  Firstly, he dealt with the minority-majority Hamptonites well, because he was too liberal to sponsor racism.  He could keep a conversation rolling with wit and insight, not mattering what cultural slant the participants followed.

          He was even liberal enough to let the laboring pot-heads know that, indeed, he was one.  What else he did, however, he kept secret.  Further, the man believed whole-heartedly in UFO’s and government conspiracies.  He was anti-prohibition and maintained a firm foot-hold on morality.  The man chewed aspirin like candy.

          And ethical, he was, as well.  His behavior was best defined by the “old-school” ethos of pot-smokers.  His was a realm free of snitching, shady behavior, and dishonesty.  Unfortunately, his realm never overlapped well with those of his peers and inferiors.

          Still, he admired hard work, like the puritanical rage that I stomped out, while pushing my “Weedeater” to its limits.  My goal was always simple: to out-work the others.  Oh, and I did it.  To boot, I did so with planning and a less intense effort.  God, Bless.  It lives in Green.

Question 2: Job Description

RICE:  How did you land the Langley job and what chores were you charged with?

GREEN:  Its funny that you ask, Rice, considering that both you and I had problems with the same college, William and Mary.  Your problems were academic, mine were occupational.  I had applied to manage their Grounds Maintenance crew.  They entertained my resume, application, and two interviews.  It was during the third interview that they told me, “No,” because I didn’t have a degree.

          Since grandiose government contractors dwarfed my business in Florida, I decided that I’d fare best by infiltrating their ranks and rebuilding their systems with logic and order.  J.C. Krones was a well-established contractor, so I targeted them first.  Bang!  Not only was I on target, but the arrow was true.  I landed the position of contract manager for grounds maintenance on Langley Air Force Base. 

          Langley’s lawn-care is deemed “prestige cut” because Langley is a “show base,” to which dignitaries and foreign diplomats are brought when they desire to see an example of a ‘typical’ American Air Force Base.  The arrow struck true.

          I had interviewed with Mo Johnson and Jared C. Krones, himself.  Mo managed equipment – a company term that included labor – for all of the company’s contracts.  He was also my immediate supervisor and ten years my senior.

          Is my tone polite?  Excuse me.  Mo and Jared are racists.  Their attitudes and politics make me sick.  But enough about them.  Back to me.

          Contract manager of grounds maintenance on Langley Air Force Base was a hefty charge, indeed.  Outside of my company supervisors, I had one other civilian to answer to:  Saul Santos, civil engineer and base grass inspector.  He was the hierarchical bureaucrat, in the archetypical sense.  He was middle-aged, like Mo, only frumpier and more clean-shaven.  Saul operated from his office in Langley’s CE building and his gold Ford F-150 pickup. 

          It would please me, Rice, if later in our sessions you would allow me some time to expand on my occupational relationship to Saul Santos.  Nevertheless and not to digress, my responsibilities were as follows: organize man-hours between seven segregated crews; answer to three “supervisors,” field a swarm of mutinous, curious employees and quizzical questions; talk to MP’s when things were damaged, and finally maintain a general standard of appearance on a base the size of a small city.  And I tell you, verdant, that landscape was.

Question 2: Job Description

Digression

RICE:  Now that Green has explained his placement in the company, I can describe how I came to meet him:

          At the base’s West Gate, I waited for the “Edging Van” for seven minutes – just enough time to be reprimanded by the Security Police for butting out a cigarette on the ground.  The edging van arrived, driven by Keith Goodman, retired NCO of the Air Force.  Manning shotgun was his wife, also an employee of J.C. Krones.  In the van’s seat-less rear were Keith’s sons, Lawrence and John.  When they pulled up near my car, I clambered in through the van’s hatch, enthusiastically joining the motley crew.  My desire for small-talk was blighted by the argumentative sparks of family conversation.

          Keith drove the van up to the guard shack and showed his government I.D.  Since he was retired Air Force, the rest of us were allowed on base under the assumption that he would be our ‘escort.’  After the gate, I listened intently as the family bickered over the short mile and half drive to Krones’s “Compound,” near the base’s golf course.

          After we slid out of the van, we crossed a small field where the cool dew slicked the soles of our shoes.  Soon enough, the yards crusher gravel coated our shoes like cinnamon.  Keith led me to a white and red trailer in the rear of the compound.  Keith ascended the trailer’s rickety steps.  As I patiently waited at the foot of the steps I threw cautious glances into the dimly lit office trailer.  A dark figure, silhouetted by beige min-blinds, nodded back.  Keith then peered at me from inside and bade my entry with a hand gesture.  I stepped inside.

“Hi.  Howareya?”  I heard.  When my eyes adjusted to the trailer’s light, I realized that “Hi. Howareya?” were four separate words.

          “Well, sir.  How are you?” was my best response.

          “Fine.  Did you have to wait long at the gate?”

          “Not long, at all, sir.”

          “You ever done day labor before, son?”

          “Since age fifteen, for the record, sir.”

          “Good.  You’ll start on the ‘Weedeating’ crew, with Ryan.  They work out of that bus, there,” he said, nodding toward a large Ford conversion van, molded into a thirteen seat short bus.

          I felt like laughing.  Green gave me a vest, two t-shirts, earplugs, and safety glasses.  He looked at my deck shoes.

          “We try to wear steel-toed boots out here, Rice.”  He added, “in addition to the long pants and sleeved t-shirts.”

          “Can I wear a straw hat?” I asked.

          “Sure, I don’t see why not.”

Question 1: Location

RICE:  Where are you from and what brought you to Hampton Roads?

GREEN:  Well, I’m from Florida.  I was born and raised near Miami.  I relocated to attend Florida State University and a subsequent drop-out from the college stranded me in the Florida panhandle.  I took up landscaping and eventually amassed enough equipment to start my own business.  I went after government contracts, and landed them.  I was involved in money.

After my second contract I was offered a buyout by a large government contractor.  They wanted my trade name, Mr. Green, as well.        

Anxious to leave a state that was being gradually colonized by elders, I sold my business and packed my bags (in one week’s time).  Even returned non-essential keys and passwords, I did.

          Rumors of a chaotic but temperate climate lured me to the intellectual backwater known as Hampton Roads.  I’d heard that the area experienced distinct seasons that fade, subtly, from one to the next.  I do know, however, that one cannot predict the weather in Virginia.  The Commonwealth’s random meteorological fluctuations make weather prediction, here, a backward science.

          So…  New town, new life: subject to my whims; at my disposal.  I decided to settle in the Virginia Tidewater and forget the past – with no regrets; to “hit the lights” on those unhappy, never-ending “dark sets.”

          New towns yield new faces.  New faces bring new memories.  Life is learning.  Human life is, simply put, the acquisition, collection, and loss of perceptual memories.  Can new memories espouse a new past?

          Logically, the replacement of old memories for new could, indeed, make one a new person; give one a new life.  Can new lies ever espouse a new truth?

          You may already know me too well: my truths, my lies.  However, you’d remind me that human minds are limited and that none can ever platonically “know” a true, abstract Form.  Mankind, as small components of universal truth, cannot ever wrap their particle minds around the overarching structure that houses them.  Only as of late, with satellites and space-travel, have we augmented our objective view of ourselves.  Yes, it took that much money and that much time.

          Since no one can look universal truth in the face; since this ‘god’ is unknowable, I have thusly rationalized the omission of certain parts of my past.  Like I said, “New town, new life.”

Question 1: Location

Digression

RICE:  For the record, Green’s blatant acceptance of dishonesty is a mark against my history of journalistic integrity.  Alas, I see no need for this story’s discontinuance.  Be it fiction, then all the better.  We’ll just have to see if the untrustworthy narrator leads us down the proper paths.

          To digress on Greg’s answer to my first question, I must briefly describe how I came to meet the man that everyone called “Mr. Green.”  The morning started terribly:

          Late, I drove with mad haste toward Langley Air Force Base.  It was ten past seven and the traffic leading into the West Gate was considerable.  Since I was an Air Force brat, I was not unfamiliar with the area surrounding the base.  I was able to circumvent the traffic – for the most part – and slither my car into the small parking lot adjacent to the gate.

          At twelve minutes past, I stepped out of my Valiant and produced a “Post-It” note from my pocket.  It read, “Gary,” then “542-2245” underneath.  I dialed, cellularly, and was immediately received by his voice-mail greeting.  Since it rang only once before being deferred, it meant that his phone was either busy or off.  I tried again at seven fifteen.  This time, it rang.

          “This is Greg,” he answered, in a cool voice.

          “Are you Mr. Green?” I asked, with unintended fascination.

          “They call me that, yes.  Who’s this?”

          “My name is Rice Cutgrass, sir.  I’m Ryan’s friend.”

          “Oh, that’s right.”  His tone changed when he said, “You’re late.  I’ll have to send the edgin’ van to come scoop you up.”

          “My military ID’s expired.  Otherwise, I would have been able to drive right onto the base.”

          “That’s alright.  We’ll get you.  Just hold tight.”

          “Thanks.” 

          Click.

          “Hello?” I asked oblivion.

          I put my phone back into my pocket, gathered my belongings, and exited my vehicle.  After locking it I stood at the gate and waited…

          The rest of this story will be told in the next digression.

A Novel

by

Rice Cutgrass

Langley field consumed those bleak, quicksand days of fruitless and seemingly infinite toil, casting a sinister darkness over seasons and lives, despite epic skies, relentless landscapes and a blistering, maddeningly bright sun.

Ineffible torment laced the soul-burning flow of time. Ours was a land of dry air and cracked skin. We didn’t live; we withstanded.

If men were not broken in by the field’s interminable thirst for labor and sweat, they were simply broken. A few of us endured enough hot, unrecoverable years there to become aware of the all-pervading conspiracy that made unwitting participants of those actively involved.

Unfortunately, stratified roles and near-infinite dynamics prevent one from visually mapping the directional intricacies of the scandal’s system of benefits.

From here is on is my best attempt at a description of a societal undercurrent – government-sanctioned mind-control of local populations.

Preemptive Strike

Strike one, for the record:

Death blow dealt,

This defeat recorded.

Onward, marching

To battle next,

Sucker punch,

Our coward’s blow.

Minds washed out,

Battle ready.

Strike when low, unprepared.

They must be hit

Before they’re ready.

Here, we fight for Green.

It lives in…

It Lives in Green

Introduction

By Rice Cutgrass

          Thank you for taking interest in these interviews.  I am including an introduction to quickly explain the circumstances that dictated the format of this work.  Gregory Green, my interviewee, requested the employment of a short, serial form to give each subject adequate attention and focus.  Thereby avoiding journalistic brush-overs, clipped questions, and curt answers, each chapter of this work is devoted to one question.

          I agreed to this form for two reasons.  The first being that a scandalous drug conspiracy is best revealed in small, incremental doses, like a substance to its addict.  The second reason is that the stories told involve serious political and philosophical implications.  Sidestepping the tedious tradition of dialecticism, our format allows the stories told by Green to be well-weighted with evidence and details. 

          Each chapter begins with a question posed to Gregory Green.  Since Green is in prison for the majority of the interviews, his responses are somewhat dictated by the length of his visitation hours.

Each of his subjective answers is complemented by an objective digression, provided by Yours Truly.

          Form aside, my motivation for this work is influenced most notably by Thomas Wolfe, a literary giant of North Carolina.  In his previously unpublished manuscript titled, O Lost, Wolfe describes his escapades in the Virginia Tidewater: namely Norfolk, Hampton, and Newport News.  Here, Wolfe is locally influential – both literarily and historically.

          In the manuscript, O Lost, Thomas Wolfe describes autobiographical accounts of his role in the construction of the Hampton flying field, known to us today as Langley Air Force Base.  There, Wolfe oversaw the clear-cutting of marsh trees, the blasting of their stumps from the ground, the “interminable” filling of the craters with imported soil, and finally, the planting of the sod that now makes up the base’s grass.

          For seasons, Gregory Green and I labored over the landscapes planted by this man.  Throughout these interviews we will follow in Wolfe’s footsteps as we unveil the dark coursings of life and money.  And now, without much further ado…

It Lives in Green

Abstract

“There was an enormous whisper of corruption… and over the whole place a huge, indecent wink.”

 - Thomas Wolfe, O Lost

          This story is motivated by a sundry assortment of sordid influences.  I am compelled to mention, in the outset, the most visual influence on my decision to conduct this work.  My compassion for the subject of these interviews can be explained allegorically in this short abstract.  This abstract, in its imagery, gives an account of true nostalgia that has haunted me since its onset.

          Her image alone was almost haunting.  I observed her from my car as I drove alongside, flanking.  To me, she seemed old enough to be a member of the ‘Freudian School.’  Shriveled and grey, she piloted her land-yacht with Germanic calculation, over Hampton’s roads, near its “Flying Field.”  She coasted, slowly, as red lights welcomingly turned green on her approach.  After each successful crossing of a controlled intersection, she rubbed and prodded at her nose.

          As I saw her through the window tint of her LTD, she seemed to enjoy snorting back her own sinal mucus, as she did with vacuum-strength.  She resembled a by-product of Freudian medicine.  The scene itself was visionary.  In my pensive state of cautionary control of my vehicle, I was overcome by a wave of what I call ‘true nostalgia.’

          Nostalgia is defined as the bittersweet longing for things and events past.  With this concept, most are familiar.  The mind-state overcomes its host like a tide and ebbs out, slowly.  Her image haunted me as a nostalgic vision of a life that I had not lived – in time lapse.  I saw her quotidian meanderings, in blurs and points of clarity, in unexplainable dimensions.  I saw eras.  I saw psychoanalysis.  I saw drugs.  Her life, I saw as a frozen river. 

          It was after that nostalgic surge that I decided to tell the story of one of the fall men for a national cocaine conspiracy:  the Pentagon’s sanctioned release of narcotics into areas surrounding defense installations.  Who’s afraid of the D.O.D.?  Thomas Wolfe would say “Not I!”  As would, Rice Cutgrass.

This writing is compulsory – I am forcing myself to post a blog entry for the exercise of my creative processes, as personal issues in the last eight months have distracted me from my loved hobby of reading and writing.

That I have personal issues is an understatement. I’ve been dealing with lethargy, procrastination, an addictive personality, unhealthy habits, mental illness, the terminal illness and ultimate death of my father, a sense of having outgrown my current jobs, and the fear and uneasiness of the prospect of moving hours away from a comfortable home to start a career in the hemophiliacly bleeding newspaper industry.

My confidence in my occupational abilities, interpersonal skills and future are at an all-time low. Hopefully, the medication I am beginning to take again for my bipolar disorder will balance out my troughs, as it has proven to do with my manic peaks.

As it stands now, I am set to begin a third job, concurrent with landscaping and foodservice, that of a minimum wage-earning, part-time clerk in the sports department at the local newspaper. However, because of conflicting schedules the new job will result in my demotion at the restaurant from bartender to simple waiter.

I was reluctant to relinquish my responsibility for and control of the bar, though I recognize that, indeed, I have outgrown that job, and the experience I will gain at the newspaper is at the very least a springboard into a more rewarding, entry-level full-time job at some newspaper – somewhere.

My hours landscaping on the Air Force base will nonetheless be unaffected, though seasonal layoffs are looming at two months away. The saving grace of that situation is that my part-time jobs will be low-paying enough to ensure my eligibility for unemployment benefits – a familiar and expected norm for those in the field of grounds maintenance.

And keeping that lifestyle away from the perpetual is an anticipated and faintly perceived light at the end of the tunnel (that light being a job offer from one of the myriad newspapers to which I have applied or will apply to). Yet, as mentioned earlier, that light is foreboding as it brings by implication my uprooting from home soil and subsequent transplant to place where I will be in want of friends and family, performing a job with which I have only limited experience.

Alas, I will choose a path as directed by my gut. Difficult will it be to ignore a fear of change, unfamiliar territory and the challenging demands of a new job.

I’ll let you how it all pans out.

Thanks for stopping by.

Truly yours,

Rice Cutgrass

There is no message to this. This blog has no intended theme. I’ve tried – with only the most futile outcomes – to drum up a central idea that could be said to patternize and tie together these posts of numerous and various subjects.

The point is content. If I tie my ideas down to one thought platform, I thusly limit its realm of philosophical potentiality.

An lo! A theme has been conjured from the murky mix of words above: Knowledge, for knowledge’s sake.

Ontologically, we will herefore explore both hypothetical and transpired situations, with meaning being the sought-after end.

This blog therefore becomes a means to an end of meaning (linguistically, we could go worlds from there).

Let’s jump some worlds.

This blog is a means to an end, ontologically. That end sought after is meaning, here interchangeable with both truth and knowledge.

However, when put with fewer words that the blog is a means to an end of meaning, we are presented with two possible interpretations – or meanings, if you will.

We have discussed the blog’s utilization for the production of philosophical truth. Thus, the first interpretation is given. But could the blog possibly end – terminate, rather – truth or meaning, altogether?

Yes. True statements are true in all of their varying interpretations. Such is why the Judeo-Christian bible is such a consistent document.

This blog could be a means to an end of meaning, and here is how:

Meaning being knowledge, or truth, one must understand that the universe abhors a vacuum – an idea old enough to be Aristotlean.

Vacuum, here (in our uses), becomes interchangeable with meaning, knowledge or truth, based on the idea of creation ex nihilo or a big bang theory in agreement with the biblical book of Genesis.

In the Judeo-Christian bibles, quasi-historical figures who come in close or visual contact with God, truth, become consumed by that abstract entity and are ultimately destroyed.

Id est, if one looks at God, then either God disappears or the individual disappears.

When scientists attempt to create controlled physical vacuums in labratories, the near-vacuum fills itself with virtual, exotic particles – those not previously existing in universal nature.

This being true, along with the supposition that an absolute vacuum preceded the formation of the universe, we will hereby equate any creator God of any religion with all of the following: truth, knowledge, meaning, nothingness and a true vacuum.

That being said, if we further examine this vacuum in subsequent blogs, we could cause its truth to elude us by its fizzling supplantation with non-truths. Thusly, though meaning being an end, this blog could be a means to an end of meaning.

Have we lost it yet?

That’s all for now.

Truly yours,

Rice Cutgrass