A Night In Hell
What a night, huh?
What a night…
Yesterday started out pretty great. An opportunity presented itself to do something pretty cool for Angel’s birthday. She reads this, so that’s me being a tease. Hi.
She accuses me of conspiring with her child. She’s right. She’ll just have to wait. What I can tell you is that, for the rest of time, she will always be eighteen months and thirteen days younger than Uncle Boyd, and, that’s a fact.
I was gonna work on my book today, but that requires clarity of mind, and that’s not happening. Freewrite, though, that’s different. That’s how Uncle Boyd stays sane.
I started getting disturbing news. I don’t get my news from the television. I get my news online, and I look for nonpartisan, non-US sources. I also have some boots-on-the-ground people in Minnesota. Disturbing as it was, I wanted to fit the pieces together myself.
George Patton called. A mutual friend is missing. George is no stranger to helping people, but he’s like me; he likes to do it himself. For him to reach out to Uncle Boyd means I have to worry immediately. I have boots-on-the-ground people in New Orleans, too, but it’s the start of carnival season, and you know how those people are.
One day, at dinner, Daddy said, “George Patton is gonna be one of Jackson’s most important doctors.”
“Isn’t George like 19?” I said. George was an older kid at Galloway, but like the Gober and Ezelle boys, he was still just a kid. They played guitars at Vacation Bible school. When I was young, I wasn’t so good at keeping up with who was doing what. His becoming a doctor escaped my notice, but his guitaring didn’t.
One day, a pretty Asian lady started hanging around. Ole’ George had a girlfriend. I had one too, but she wouldn’t go to Galloway. I had to go to her church and handle snakes. I don’t mind snakes so much. Girlfriends can be tricky, though.
Dealing with both of these crises, plus whatever the hell is up with Venezuela, I look on Instagram, and Little Bird has posted a video where she’s taking bully-girls out like Conan the Barbarian. I was furious at whoever was bullying her, but I was genuinely impressed with how she handled it. She’s naturally beautiful, more beautiful than she’ll ever believe, but with a little fire in her eyes, katy-bar-the-door.
She said she didn’t think she was a very good writer. We’ll have to have words about that. Pretty stern words, but different battles for different days. People think I love her because of her mother, which is true, but I would love her without that. She’s remarkable.
I missed Little Bird’s birthday because I didn’t bother to ask when it was till she posted a video of herself trying to tame an alligator in New Orleans on her birthday. Uncle Boyd is an idiot and missed her actual birth. That’s not a story I like to tell very often.
While much good has happened in the past two years, much hurt happened too. You don’t get to choose from just one pile, I guess.
I have, well, had, a very young friend who told me he was leaving Los Angeles for Israel so he could “live among his people.” I joked, “There are more Jews in Israel than in Los Angeles?” A beautiful boy, Joel, would be a suitor for Little Bird, only that’s not possible anymore.
If you like movies, then you’ve appreciated his dad’s work. I knew his dad because we were Monster Kids together, trying to get Uncle Forry’s attention and approval. Most of you don’t know who Forrest J Ackerman was. He was the most influential person in the movie business who never made a movie. He also made little boys like Joel’s father and me. Joel’s dad is a Boomer, and I’m Generation Jones, which I didn’t even know existed till my beloved Janie told me about it. Boomers and Jones kids get along. George Patton is a Boomer, I’m a Jones. He’s actually not nineteen.
Joel didn’t believe in the ethno-state, and he had problems with the current leadership in Israel, but he wanted to flesh out his roots.
“What are you gonna do when you get there?”
“I want to teach. I’ll teach English to begin with, since that’s my degree.”
“Your degree is in writing.”
“My other degree.” He said.
“Promise me, promise your dad, you won’t stop writing,” I said. “Stay out of Tel Aviv, go to the older places. Israel is one of the most beautiful and most historic places on earth, but be realistic about your expectations. Four generations of Christians in this country have warped what Israel could be.”
“I will write again, just not now.” That’s the last time we ever talked about his writing. Imagine what the world lost.
That was seven years ago. He served in the IDF for thirty-two months, as is the law. Almost two years ago, he was reactivated owing to the renewed violence in the region. He died, not from terrorist activity, but from horrendous command choices. He left Los Angeles to be with his people and died by friendly fire.
I will send this to his father. He’s asked me not to name him in my stories. I try to honor that. It happens fairly often. If you don’t want to be named, don’t hesitate to ask. Others have already asked.
My people and his people celebrate grief in similar ways. We make what can only be described as noises, senseless, mournful, noises of pain. My people call it “keening.” To me, it sounds like the bagpipe.
I learned what happened to Joel because his brother, still safe in LA, texted me. I called his dad. We cried together. His precious boy, our precious boy, was gone, and there was nothing to do. Joel wanted to be buried in Israel. His dad asked if I was going. I said I had just gotten out of rehab, but I’ll be there in every way but body.
I was always the kind of boy who worried about the whole world before he worried about himself. As I’ve gotten older, it’s gotten worse.
When things get really bad, really suddenly, something terrible comes out of me. A wrathful, slobbering, blood-loving beast takes over me. It doesn’t last, but in the moment, I’m aware of what it must seem like. Fortunately, nobody was here to see it last night.
Some old friends contacted me. “Don’t you want to get involved again?”
“No. Your tactics are illegal, and success isn’t guaranteed.”
That’s actually not entirely true. Parts of me ache to be dangerous again. I don’t think that’s the way, though. Not yet.
