Even before dawn, Snake was miles away from the
hospital room.  His sleep had been fitful.  The
hardness of the floor, for the first time in years,
had bothered him and kept him awake.

He had long ago grown used to falling asleep almost
immediately and it didn't much matter where.  A month
ago, he'd slept one night on the concrete outside the
bars of a lion's cage at a zoo, knowing the big cat
would awake him if anyone came near.  The next night,
after a chartered light plane took him to the end of
the Baja, he'd slept outdoors on the deck of the ferry
that runs overnight from Cabo San Lucas to Puerto
Vallarta, Mexico; people going to and fro stepped over
him because there wasn't enough room on that part of
the deck to go around.  None of this had bothered him.

Last night, however, he had nightmares about the
Spider Lady.  She had climbed the outside of the
Empire State Building, just like some small evil King
Kong, to reach him in his lair.  And her bite-while
not deadly, i.e., he was still alive, wasn't he?-had
been extremely painful.

Of course, spiders don't kill immediately.  Takes a
while for the poison to have effect.  Perhaps he was
already dying and didn't know it.

He wondered how many people would come to the funeral.
 Would Johnnie, his brother in Carlsbad, NM, come to
the funeral?  Probably not.  Probably never even know
about his death.

To get his mind off the subject of death, he performed
a few simples isometric exercises as he walked,
tensing his arm muscles and reaching out as far as he
could above his head and bringing his arms down, as if
pulling on a rope attached to heavy weights looped
over a pulley.

He walked slowly, still trying to shake the kinks out
of his leg muscles.  It was more of a casual stroll. 
He was in no hurry and, to tell the truth, once again
had no place to go.  His shoulder still wore its
mystery pain.  He kneaded it with his hand as he
walked.

He eventually stopped at a restaurant and had
breakfast.  The manager of the place was trying to get
it opened and having trouble.

"No cook yet," he told Snake.  "I've got coffee
brewing.  Be a few minutes yet."

"Sounds good to me.  But I had my mind on some
scrambled eggs."

"Don't know when that cook's gonna get here.  Sorry."

"I could cook them myself."

"I can't let you, old man.  Health regulations."

"I won't tell if you won't tell."

"Screw it.  Go ahead.  I just won't charge you for the
eggs."

The kitchen was clean.  All of the pots and pans were
hung on a rack over the stove and both the pans and
the stove shone as if someone who cared about their
job had cleaned everything with considerable passion.

Snake found some eggs in the ice box, along with some
butter.  He soon had five eggs cooking slowly while he
chopped some onions into tiny pieces and spread them
around the pan.  He also dropped in a few pieces of
cheddar cheese.

Looking on, the manager remarked:  "I don't think my
cook can cook that good anyway."

"Kitchen's clean, though."

"Yeah.  Did it myself last night."

Snake scooped the omelet into a plate, found a fork,
and took the plate out to a booth.  The coffee was
ready.  The manager brought him over a cup.  It was
strong, but not too strong.

"Cream?  Sugar?"

"No.  This is fine," said Snake.  "I could use a slice
of bread."

"How about a stale roll from last night?"

"Sounds good," said Snake.

The manager let him be.  Snake ate slowly while
reading "Dune."

After he finished the omelet, he went back to clean up
the kitchen, but the manager had already scoured
everything and the kitchen looked as if no one had
been in it yet.

"I generally clean up my own mess," Snake said. 
"Sorry."

"No problem," said the manager.  He wrung out a wash
rag and hung it over a railing alongside the stove and
looked up.  "You're Snake, aren't you?"

"I guess so," said Snake.  "Although I'm not sure I
enjoy being this well known."

"Word's around.  Description.  That sort of thing. 
And a lot of stories."

"Those stories.  They're false, you know."

"The stories say you'll even deny them, if and when
you get opportunity.  Even the fight in the park
yesterday.  I was there, just to let you know.  Now
that may have been someone else, but it sure looked
like you.  Some fight."

"And I've got bruises to prove it," said Snake.

"I've got a question for you.  You don't have to
answer it."

"If I can," said Snake.

"What's really going on?"

"How do you mean that? 
"The word is everywhere about the battle between you
and the Spider Lady.  I don't know who's in the right
and who's in the wrong and I'm not sure that it even
matters.  Especially in New York.  But what's the
reason behind it all?"

Snake thought a while before responding.  Then, he had
to confess:

"I don't know.  I swear to you that I would tell you
if I could figure it out myself.  She kidnapped a guy
I used to know a long time ago, but hadn't seen in
years.  That is, we think she kidnapped him.  We don't
know for sure."

"And that's what it's about?"

"So far as I know.  All of a sudden, there were people
sent out to kill me.  Did she send them to get me?  I
don't really know.  She shot at me once.  I think she
probably missed on purpose, but I don't know that for
sure, either."

"If you ask me, this is a very strange war between the
two of you."

"That's true.  And a lot of people on the sidelines
are getting hurt.  Some of them may have deserved it,
some probably not.  I'm trying desperately not to be
both judge and jury.  But I suppose I'm at least one
of those."

"That's a shame."

Snake set his dirty plate and fork in the sink and
went over to the coffee urn and refilled his cup.

"I feel the same way.  Worse of all, I'm becoming
bored with the battle.  We fight.  I win.  Even if I
have to cheat, I win.  I have a phenomenal instinct
for survival.  But after a while, everything, even
survival, becomes boring.  Dying would at least be
something new!"

"She has got on your nerves, that's all."

"Very true.  And it seems to be a war that I can't
win.  I can't even find the real enemy.  Oh, I meet
these foot soldiers now and then and without question
some of them are expendable.  But where is the Spider
Lady?  She spins the web, but never gets too close to
the web herself."

"And your friend?  The guy that started all this?  Has
he been found yet?"

"To be honest with you, if I met him right now, if he
walked in the door over there, I don't figure as I'd
recognize him.  I have a feeling that he's dead."

"Yet, you go on."

"There's no place to stop.  I can hide out for a few
minutes in a place like this.  If I were to stay too
long, the possibility is that you would end up dead. 
The Spider Lady has a tendency of killing those who
become involved with me."

"I don't want to get involved in this," said the
manager quickly.

Snake nodded.  Except with a few people such as King
and Wekser, he realized that he was fast becoming
persona non grata.  Soon, no one would want him around
because he tended to attract bullets.

"As soon as I finish this coffee, I'll be gone," said
Snake.

"I'm sorry, Snake."

"It's okay," said Snake.

He drank the coffee, which was just slightly hotter
than he liked, in a hurry and left a $20 bill on the
counter as he left the small restaurant.  Snake
spotted the manager, relieved expression on his face,
watching from the doorway as he turned the corner and
headed toward Gracie Mansion where the mayor of
Manhattan made his home.

The envelope from Caraboo Edwards contained
approximately $17,000.  There were 15
one-thousand-dollars bills and 10 $100 bills and a gob
of $20 bills.

He placed half of the money in his billfold and
replaced the rest in the envelope.  The envelope went
into an inside jacket pocket that had a zipper.

He had thought about going into the little park near
Gracie Mansion and exercising for an hour.  However,
he changed his mind and headed downtown.

His first visit was to the shop where he'd ordered a
new pair of glasses.  The shop was open by the time he
got there and the glasses were ready.

He tried them on.  They felt comfortable.  He placed
his other spectacles into the soft leather case and
put them in a jacket pocket.

Next, he found a shop that made tee-shirts and told
them what he wanted.  It only took a few minutes.

The clerk held up the tee-shirt.  "This wasn't what I
heard."

"It's absolutely true, though," said Snake.

"I'd sure like to meet this Snake guy.  Must be one
helluv a dude."

"Keep your fingers crossed," said Snake.

The clerk dropped the tee-shirt into a bag and handed
it to Snake.  Snake paid for it.

He was traveling a little heavy and he didn't like
that.  So, he walked on down to Grand Central Terminal
and placed the extra spectacles in their case in his
locker along with his "Dune" book and slipped the
envelope of money into the pages of "Dune."  He would
not have time for reading today and, as for tomorrow,
well, he'd worry about it tomorrow.

His suit was still there, growing a little wrinkled.

For a moment, he thought about dressing up.  Putting
on the suit and checking back into the Waldorf-Astoria
and ordering the biggest and best steak they had. 
Eating it in the main restaurant.  In plain view of
everybody.

What a stupid, dull idea!

But it might be something interesting.  An event!  The
legend of Snake would certainly grow after that!

If he lived.  That was the problem.  He noticed that,
more and more, he had been purposely placing himself
in dangerous situations.  Lately, the more dangerous
the situations were, the better he liked it.  If
liking it was the proper term.  Needing it, might be
the correct terminology.  That's what frightened him
the most.  He tried not to think about it.

They had come at him this time with AK 47s, the
weapons of people who didn't care who they killed nor
how many, including the intended victim and all of the
innocent people that got in the way.

He carefully folded up the suit and closed the locker
and turned the key.  He put the key in his pocket.

A moment later, carrying only the tee-shirt, he was
aboard the Harlem Central heading north.  He got off
at the 125th Street station and stood for a while in
the shadows.  No one looked suspicious or acted
suspicious.

What a great place, though, for an assassination.  A
man could stand up in that window with a scoped rifle
and pop anyone who got off the train and before anyone
knew it a dozen people would be dead and he'd be gone.

Maybe that was the reason, Snake told himself, that he
kept going in spite of the odds, in spite of the fact
that he faced an enemy he couldn't face, couldn't even
find!

The conversation with the manager of the restaurant
earlier in the morning had affected him immensely. 
Especially on top of his earlier thoughts about death.
 Now, all of a sudden, a response had occurred to him.
 It was always that way:  By the time he thought of an
answer, the person who'd asked the question was
ancient history.

But he felt better about himself because he could look
up at the distant window and know there wasn't   
likely to be some screwball up there taking potshots
at ordinary citizens as long as Snake or someone like
him was around and doing their job.

He hadn't been followed.  He was fairly certain of
that.

After a block or so, he circled the block and still
couldn't locate anyone following him.

But he couldn't take a chance of being trailed to
Rudy's bicycle shop-otherwise known as King's
hideyhole.  So, he walked north for a couple of blocks
before doubling back on his track and entering the
very shop that he'd passed at least twice.

They were all there having coffee.  When they saw him,
everyone fell into silence.

Snake walked out into the room, which was actually
more of a shed and as large as a handball court.  He
stopped, looked around.

"Any phone calls for me?" he asked.

"Oh, god!  Another comedian.  That's all I need!" said
Wekser.

"You're still alive!" said Rudy in a tone of complete
amazement.

"Last time I noticed," said Snake.

"Snake, this is my mother," said Rudy, introducing him
to a rather portly lady with a warm smile that made
you instantly feel important and in comfortable
surroundings.  She had an inner glow that filled the
room with a pleasant atmosphere.  She seemed to be
more Puerto Rican than Afro-American.  But in many
communities in America, especially in certain sections
of Greater New York City, those lines had long ago
fallen astray.

"Stay away from this man, my dear," Wekser told her. 
He turned to Snake.  "I saw her first."

"My mother's name is Pearl," said Rudy.

"Pearl, it's wonderful of you to offer us the comforts
of your home," said Snake, taking her hand with his
left hand and patting it gently.

Wekser slapped playfully at Snake's hand.

"Not too tight!"

"Would you like some coffee?" Pearl asked.

"I would love some coffee," said Snake.

"First," said King, "tell us what happened?"

"Not much.  A couple of men came up the hallway with
AK 47s.  I threw some itch powder at them.  That
solved that."

"We heard you hypnotized them," said Rudy.

"That's absurd," said Snake.  "I wish you guys would
quit spreading stuff like that."

"And they ran out of the hospital," said King, "and
down the street trying to fly like ducks."

"I haven't been out of this room," said Rudy.  "How
could I spread anything?"

"They were just scratching," said Snake.

"It was a guy who came in to get a flat fixed on his
bicycle who told us," Rudy said quickly.  "One of the
Goodwill Team.  Word is out everywhere.  Hypnotism."

"He also told us you spent the night on top of the
Empire State Building after daring the Spider Lady to
come get you."

"Lord!" said Snake.  He turned to face Rudy's mother. 
"Pearl, I hope you don't believe any of this!"

"I only believe what I see," said Pearl, "and what I
see mostly is a whole bunch of kids who were just
asking for trouble a few days ago not getting into
trouble any more."

"They've probably inherited enough trouble from me to
last them a life time."

"Among other things," she said.

"Well, they're working men now."  Snake glanced at
King.  It was more like a question.

"Montague and several others are in Central Park at
this very moment.  I'm heading over there in a few
minutes just to check on things."

"Good," said Snake.  "A wise general checks on his
army personally.  Even Ike, though he was basically a
stuffed shirt who refused to get his shoes muddy and
had GIs build a wooden sidewalk just so he could give
them an inspection."

"I get the message," said King.  "I'll make a heroic
effort not to become a stuffed shirt.  After all,
stuffed shirts become president.  That's the message,
right?"

"A black become president!" scoffed Wekser.  "Never
happen.  Now a good Jewish girl, that wouldn't be all
that bad."

"There's no such thing as a good Jewish girl," said
Elephant.

"Comedians!" said Wekser.  "No straight men around
here!"

"King, don't go near that post office for a couple of
weeks," said Snake.  "Don't try to even get in touch
with Allied Global.  Just in case.  Here's some money
to tide you and the others over."

He handed King three of the thousand dollar bills.

"Lota weeks here," said King.

"We need to play it safe," said Snake.  "Somehow or
other, the Spider Lady simply knows too much.  She may
have the phone lines tapped.  Or something.  I don't
know.  I'm still trying to figure it out."

"So, we don't even contact Neva about tee-shirts?"

"Right.  Do your own thing.  Forget about the money at
the post office for the time being.  You need more
money for anything, I'll provide it.

"Okay," said King.  He smiled.  "I bought another copy
of 'Dune'.  Figured you'd dump extra weight in order
to move faster up on the Empire State Building."

"Oh, my god!" said Snake in feigned disgust.  "I
wasn't even close to the Empire State Building last
night.  I spent the night at the hospital.  Used
Elephant's bed, in fact."

"Man has gall," said Wekser.  "Chases away the bad
guys and goes back to bed."

"You slept in my bed last night," said Elephant,
"while I had to sleep here in a sleeping bag?"

"No, Elephant.  I slept under your bed last night,"
said Snake.

"Seems to me I should have won that fight one way or
another," said Elephant.  "This man isn't all there."

Snake clapped him on the shoulder.  "I told you: You
won that fight.  And I have proof, everybody."

He took the tee-shirt he'd ordered out of the plastic
bag and held it up for all to see. 

The message read:  ELEPHANT WON!  Underneath the words
was Snake's signature in huge letters.

Pearl handed Snake a cup of coffee.

He sipped at it.

"Really good coffee."

"How about something to eat?  We live right upstairs. 
Just take a few minutes."

"No," Snake told Pearl.  "I've had a crazy idea in the
back of my mind for an hour or so.  I have this strong
yen to have lunch with some friends at a good
restaurant."

"What friends did you have in mind?" asked Wekser.

"The ones in this room will do find.  Perhaps we can
also pick up Montague on the way there."

"A yen, huh.  Well, Chinese does sound pretty good
right now," said Wekser.

"Can I wear my new shirt?" asked Elephant.  He was
still wearing the sweat shirt he'd worn for the fight
in Central Park and a pair of slacks.  The sweat
shirt, even though it was a dark gray in color, had
been amply decorated with blood.  Even the Plaza Hotel
would admit that the tee-shirt was an improvement.

"I think that's a good idea," said Snake.  "Would you
make reservations, King?'

"Sure.  Where?"

"I think the restaurant at the Plaza would be fine."

Wekser gave a low whistle.  "That's not exactly
Chinese."

"Dressed like this?" asked Pearl.  "I'll have to
change!"

"Wear your finest, dear lady," said Snake.  "As for
the rest of us, we're dressed as well as any set of
gentlemen as I've ever seen."

He held up a thousand dollar bill.

"That is excellent attire even at the Plaza," said
Wekser.

She disappeared into the back.

"I'm wearing my tee-shirt," said Elephant.

"After lunch, we're going to hide you, Elephant, so
the Spider Lady won't be able to find you."

"As long as I can wear my tee-shirt," said Elephant.

Snake finished his coffee and set the cup on a work
counter.  The room had two bicycles in a state of
repair against the wall.  Wekser and Elephant had
obviously slept on pallets in sleeping bags in the far
corner.

All of this was nonsense!

For much too long, the Spider Lady, god bless her evil
soul and beautiful face, had controlled their lives.

But that was over as of this very moment.  No more
hiding, per se.  Let her hide from him!

Pearl came back.  She'd done something to her hair and
now wore a very beautiful, quite sedate dress with a
silver broach on her left breast.  She looked very
nice.  Wekser offered her his arm.

"Charge," said Snake, heading for the front door.

"Uh, oh!" said King.

(continued next week)

"ACAPULCO"

I loved you San Diego from the first damp air I
breathed here.  I've always loved you.  Always will. 
But now almost at sea, doubt you ever loved me.  Faint
praise you might have offered temporarily under
legendary--but weird--magazine publisher George von
Rosen (Modern Man), yet I wanted to bask forever in
your beauty--palms, hills, sky with sand and miles of
sun and sand nearby.  Hard bay, though, today. 
Bruised, dark water.  Foreboding, as my last couple of
years with Billboard had been foreboding.  Memories. 
Not all pleasant.  No, not all.  However, my real
world is now Anthony's where joggers fling by armed
with Walkman's against the world.  Santa Fe Railroad
in the distance.  Palms.  Real tourists.  Not
artificial like me.  Three oriental women want me to
shoot pictures of them with their cameras standing in
front of Holiday Inn.  I wonder why.  San Diego is not
just a Holiday Inn.  San Diego was once Guns magazine,
American Handgunner magazine, Casino magazine.  And
George von Rosen who locked the Xerox machine at 3
p.m. and mailed everything bulk and a mysterious
investigator from Wells Fargo named Jon Hemp I learned
later (I've often wondered who he was investigating
and often wondered if it was me; what had I done?). 
It's just as well Casino did not survive, for Bill
Randle, another legend, lured me away to earn a
master's degree and become a college professor.  Alas,
Enid, Oklahoma ("Lemons of Wrath?"), was no San Diego
and the dues of the next two years were hard, bitter
dues and Barbara always wished we'd stayed in San
Diego, even on welfare.  Even when we escaped Enid to
Rochester, New York, she longed for San Diego, as did
I.  But that was San Diego of long ago and this is the
San Diego of here and now and a Celebrity cruise ship
named Mercury.

He was here, Jim Gabbert!  I feel his spirit in the
air on a breeze--that daring-do, why-not drive not for
success as much as for the adventure.  KPEN in San
Francisco gone, television station gone.  All's left
is money and a yacht or two.  He should be here, but
he, too, is gone.  Somewhere else.  Spending money as
if he had mountains of it.  That's because he does.

I wonder if Jack McCoy's boat is still here, tied to
some distant wharf like a castoff from some long ago
contest.

Ah, San Diego, I knew you in my Billboard days!  Never
well, but as best I could.  Bobby Rich, Dan McKinnon,
Ron Jacobs, Ken Reeth, Gary Allyn, Bill Ballance. 
Buzz Bennett was here, too, someone told me with ax in
hand.  A town replete with damned good radio and
damned good radio men over the years.  I cannot
remember them all now.  But I loved you San Diego and
wanted to live here and couldn't.  Sad now, watching
you withdraw from me amidst fat clouds sleeping on the
surface of the ocean.  Fog.  Horn cries against the
vanishing of the day.  We come.  Out of the way.

Nearing Cabo San Lucas.  Just an old geezer in old
geezer hat at full sea.  Ocean not yet blue.  Far
away, mountains gray against a skyline like milk,
clouds like the hair, drifting.  Me, too, drifting.

Me, eggs benedict of the morning gone, lingering now
on the back deck, conversation unwanted, unnecessary,
lemonade handy.  Max Brand awaits.  Where is Jim
Gabbert when you have a question?  Did he have eggs
benedict this day?  Or some kind of fancy San
Francisco cereal with fiber?  What a dull way to begin
one's day.  Fiber.  He may be wealthy, but I had a
better breakfast.  Eggs benedict, V8 juice with
Tobasco sauce, sausages, hash browns.  Poor Jim
Gabbert.

Barbara yet walks the deck, a miles-long circle.  I
cannot hide, she'll find me soon for I am captured
here on the Mercury, the morning sun finds me, too,
but I have just my canvas cap against the sun and
nothing to ward off conversation.  Barbara talks as
soon as she steps into view, crowding into my shade. 
Conversation is as necessary to her as eggs benedict
is to me.  Old now, I prefer eggs benedict to talk. 
Old now, I have little left to say.

When did I grow old?  Why has this happened to me? 
When once I full-steamed ahead, now I oft approach
with dread both conversation and the years.  I have
found, in the wisdom of years, that silence doesn't
argue.

Jesus, but those hills are high.  Like walls to
capture thinking.  As if I could think amidst this
ungodly beauty of sea and hills and sky.  I am a
vagrant here, I do not belong as much as I would like.
 Hemmed in, I ponder.  So many good men gone would
have loved this cruise as well as I and the seagulls
swooping by and thought, instead, of hot clocks and
ARBs and told themselves that Claude would enjoy this
cruise, for he carries a tainted muse.  Ah, but
whether I go and where I go, things have changed!  Hot
clocks?  Gone.  A computer glitch more likely.

This cruise is a gift from Darryl, my son.  We could
not have gone otherwise.  A varmint named Buchenwald
stole our cruise money long ago and I think plans to
steal more while promising to give.  He steals for his
desperate friends who, in greed, need more, and, in
their gluttony needed war as well because of its
lucrative benefits.  War is very profitable as long as
you do not have to let your own blood...nor see the
blood of others flowing, like the water passing
beneath this cruise ship.  War served like hotcakes
except the syrup is rather red.  Ravenous ravens
feeding.

From the ship, I see, first, low houses like forgotten
monuments, grave stones, then low hotels where once
Barbara and I camped with the kids on the sand in an
old Volkswagen camper, orange.  Like San Diego, I no
longer know this place, Cabo San Lucas.  It no longer
exists for me, neither in fantasy or reality.  I am
bound to Las Vegas, like it or not, an old man with
roots too deep to pull out.  Yet, I have few real
friends in Las Vegas.  I prefer not to make new
friends these days, neither here at sea or back at
home.

The problem anyway with old friends is that they, too,
are old.

Mazatlan, random hills, random beauty, people talking
about walking while waiting for a tour bus.

Ah, Darryl, with great money you would love this. 
Without money, even beauty pales and haze obscures the
view.  A waiter offers croissants.  Irish at heart,
Mexican at work, and when I refuse politely, seems
hurt.  What will he do now with his artistic tray of
calories?  At home, I cannot afford such goodies. 
Here, they are essentially free.  But I have had my
eggs benedict once again, a luxury, even here even
more valued than croissants.  Celebrity cruise ships
do eggs benedict good.  Not as good as the Polo Lounge
on Sunset Strip where Jerry Wexler told me that he'd
signed Willie Nelson to Atlantic Records while his old
wife Shirley toyed over salad.  I, too, ate eggs
benedict at the Polo Lounge in my moneyed days.  But
it has been years upon years since then and even the
Polo Lounge is ancient memory.  Mike Curb ate there
often, I heard.  Never saw him.  Too busy eating eggs
benedict, I suppose.

Mazatlan, too, is more memory than real for me though
I sit here with the city at my feet.  From somewhere
near, a train once years ago to Creel in the
mountains, Indians living in caves, small men whose
sons and grandsons more than likely now mow my lawn
for no one should live in caves while Cheney limos to
the outhouse down the street.  And I do not fancy the
idea of mowing lawns either, a job not for men, but
for kids on a Saturday afternoon.

Umbrellas flower around me here on the deck, but fail
to hide the city.  Big city now, big city then. 
Houses like storms, many not yet finished, with a view
of pirate pearls, bay gulled down, ships waiting like
lions for prey.  What mysteries behind the hills?

Sitting here, I hear the word "really" with a question
mark.  Then "Cozumel" and "Indianapolis."  There has
to be a story there.  Yet I cannot think, cannot dream
what the story has to be.  I recall now, here, old
rocks at Cozumel, Peyton Manning at Indianapolis, and
a blue, blue sea before me at Yucatan.  But that was
long ago.  Today, Barbara jogs or walks as an old
woman, many cruises faded, chasing youth around a ship
deck.  I sit and chase only ghosts, no longer walking
is my mien.  Instead, I pause here now, looking and
listening while strange words and worlds swirl around
me on a placid sea.

Why do I remember, once again, Jerry Wexler?  Down
here?  He did not make this world and the world that
he made there is secondary here to Cuco Sanchez. 
Sanchez was king here and Virginia Lopez queen.  That
was then.  I have no idea now who rules.  But it is
not Jerry Wexler.  Nor Seymour Stein.  They ruled once
in a world quite different from this.  A world that I
doubt anyone rules today except some bespeckled
bookkeeper no one knows.  Our world of yesterday was
blown away by people who--funny--probably didn't know
a note of music nor care.

Birds swoop in a hazy sky and swirl to swoop again. 
Over fishing boats going forth to fight the day.  And
Barbara jogs.  Walks.  Fighting fat.  She hates the
idea of growing old.  At 67 she does not see the years
behind were good and sometimes kind and being here and
now was worth the trip.  No matter how fast she runs,
she will not catch up with yesterday.

I, too, live a great deal in memory, but would not
want to venture back.  Good times gone, bad times,
too.  This cruise, Darryl-paid, is enough for me at
the moment.  I would like to linger here until it
became memory, too.  A woman near says "dolphins are
so smart...we have a lot to learn from them."  She,
like others, willing to pay many dollars to see them
on an excursion from ship.  Me, I think that if
dolphins were that smart, they wouldn't associate with
us.  Warmongers.  Baby killers!  How far we have
fallen from Lucy's tree.  Yet, this is more than
likely the most intellectual comment I've heard so
far.  The air, otherwise, is full of chatter and
engines of boats.  I find it unlikely to tell one from
the other.  And Barbara jogs.  Walks.

Puerto Vallarta.  I went hunting for my youth today. 
But it wasn't where I left it.  The old Delfin is gone
further south beyond the malecon, the pier is new,
concrete now instead of wood, the hills are also new
with new tightly crammed buildings and the streets,
cobblestoned still, are narrow and disturbing like a
shrill whistle while new hotels and condos thunder at
the sky which is dull gray yellow.  Obviously, someone
used my sky before I arrived.  I was once here when
the sky was blue.  Yet, soon gone again never to come
back.

Raul Cardenas, good friend, would too find this a
strange place unlike any Mexico we might have loved
when we were young.  No huevos rancheros here. 
Outback Steaks, I'm afraid.  Ah, Bruce Miller Earle,
do you remember when we chased the bull and caught it
under the XEROK tower in Juarez?  No wild excitement
like that here.  Ah, Art Holt, could you work your
radio magic here anymore?

I fall in love, however, with the crazy streets that
roam like an amused chicken, now here, and yonder and
everything is a view like a bright painting for a
living room wall.

Now, safe again on ship.  Waiting out the hours I
never made, searching, begging for grasp of shade,
anything to cool a feverish mind for blood races hot
here this deep in Mexico distant from Las Vegas.  Why
do I think of Art Holt here?  Strange.  But I also
think of the ghosts of John Huston and his friend Bill
Randle stomping through those mountains high up yonder
hunting gold and laughing.  Strange, because Bill
Randle never laughed much.  It is interesting that a
lot of radio men and women that I knew had enormous
amounts of fun, but never laughed much.  In oh so many
years, I never heard Gary Owens laugh.  Perhaps
because laughter was a business.  As it was with
others.  But neither did I ever hear Ted Atkins, Woody
Roberts, Charlie Parker, the Geater with the Heater,
Reggie Lavong, Joe Smith laugh.  Funny, because Joe
could make anyone laugh.  But I never heard him laugh
himself.  Strange.

Puerto Vallarta, I knew you well once, was here
thrice.  But the village I knew vanished in a movie
and the later town walked away from me.  Now, this
city, too, will fade.  I will come back never, but
neither will John Huston.  Does Deborah of Western
International still come here or did she die?  Barbara
and I met her once on the beach here.  By the rocks at
the end of the small bay.  She seemed more at home
here than Los Angeles.  Bruce Johnson, Jack Thayer,
Howard Kesler--everyone knew her.  Meanwhile, a
butterfly here on ship screams, beats against the
glass to reach the world it knows, yet that world will
soon be gone and the butterfly, too, will soon be
gone.  The ship sails.  We are all gone now.  Old
dreams gone.  Doesn't matter.  Me and Raul could not
exist in that world out there.  Like the old gringo
played by Gregory Peck who came down here to
disappear.  Raul, the scientist, made his way up
yonder and never had to settle for down yonder. 
Different worlds.  Different minds, too, I suppose. 
Our women changed us.  Our kids changed us, too.  This
is okay.  We both like where we are now more than
where we might have been.  But we once loved Mexico. 
With a passion you cannot believe!

Sailing down.  I can feel--it's as tangible as the
wind--the past that's yet to be and I talk too much of
tales of the Scotti brothers, especially Ben and Tony.
 Mike Curb, too, and his sister.  Family.  All old
now, as I am old.  And all of us grow nebulous, these
few pale tales, weak alternative to written history
which, of course, cannot be written.  Told, they are
fun.  Written, they might be libelous.  But we were
there, music and TV.

Listen!  They, too, Acapulco bound.  Captured like me
and Barbara on a distant sea.

All that I am, you see and you see all that I want to
be.  Could I have done more?  Limited gifts beget
limited view.  I know many who ended up quite wealthy.
 I do not regret their abundance as long as they do
not regret my tales.

Now, still going down on placid sea, I think of old
friends more than myself.  Their ghosts warm around
me, Max Brand at hand, a fantasy of a west he never
saw.  They milk the man, but he is dead, he will not
mind.  At 51, dropped his pen and died on the Italian
front in World War Two, the war to end all wars, yet
we meander on, bloodied hands, roughshod, careless,
without cause, without apology.  Buchenwald doesn't
understand that war has never been a valid methodology
for making friends.

The people on this cruise do not think of war.  It
does not exist.  Like Brand, fantasy.  I can't blame
them.

A cruise, too, is a different world.  I introduce
myself, but I remember no names or faces beyond the
moment and any hesitancy is quickly by.  And I am left
with ancient friends, potential friends shunned.  Dead
friends, after all, are better than new.

A better bunch no one ever had, alive or dead.  Lou
Dorren, Jay Blackburn, David Moorhead, Bill Stewart,
Mike Gross, George Wilson, Chuck Blore.  Many more.  I
have, indeed, been blessed.  A pity so few are with me
yet.

I know but one person really on this ship, squashed
clouds drifting yonder, Barbara.  I married her to age
with and age we did.  More now.  Faster now.  Today,
she is swimming halfway between Puerto Vallarta and
Acapulco, swims in a sea-water pool high above a dark
green sea under a hard sun, soon hot, and those
squashed clouds.

Here on what I call the poop deck, now, my turf
carved, all tables full now, I have a commanding view
because I was here first.  They followed.  Umbrellas
blossomed, conversation as well, but nebulous amidst
drifting forks, plunging spoons.  The sun will soon
chase my enemies here away.  But I hide in shadow,
free.

I did not find Puerto Vallarta, though I found where
it used to be when Elizabeth Taylor chased Richard
Burton around with a glass of Dom Perigon.  Life is
like that.  Gone the instant we're aware it's here. 
Champagne sloshed away.

But the road from Brady, Texas, to here was longer for
me than any road Elizabeth might have strayed.  Too
long.  But probably too brief for either of us. 
Fortunately, I have not finished the journey.  Not
yet.  Still time to protest, still time to get angry,
still time to fight.  In letters to Robert W. Morgan,
which he probably never saw, I tried to get him angry.
 Some people fight better when angry.  I thought that
if I insulted Don Imus, Morgan might respond.  He did
not.  All I said was that Imus is getting old.  What
insult in that?  Still, Robert W. did not protest, did
not get angry, and evidently did not fight enough. 
When my time comes, will I fight?  Perhaps we may not
even be aware when the last wave is by.

Ah, Acapulco!  Will you remember me?  I remember you
still.  But then, while I have forgotten many peaks
and crests along the waves of life, I have remembered
others.  Once, tired, very tired, so tired I could not
speak, because of the 1975 International Radio
Programming Forum in the Fairmont Hotel in San
Francisco, I was befriended by George Wilson and L.
David Moorhead.

You remember that convention, of course, because of
George Burns, who dressed for the awards ceremonies in
white tie and tails, hat to match.  He said everyone
would remember him and I have.  I remember Flip Wilson
and Glen Campbell.

But I remember best George Wilson and L. David
Moorhead who traded out airfare and hotel for a week
at a hotel on the beach in Acapulco for me and
Barbara.  A week of peace and luxury, a week of
healing.  They may have thought they were thanking me,
but they were, indeed, saving my life.

Beer, gone now.  But back then, collapsed under a
thatched umbrella on the sand, I ordered beer.  A
beach boy brought a bottle of Corona.  "A bucket," I
said.  And he did!  Slowly, I rebuilt my mind.  In
all, I did ten conventions, all with the help of
someone else.  Mostly L. David Moorhead.  But those
conventions were actually the endeavors of many and
someone always deserved more credit than me.  Gordon
McLendon, Ron Jacobs, Art Linkletter early, later
Frank Zappa, Smokey Robinson, Don Imus, Buzz Bennett
who pontificated for four hours while squatting on a
stiff-backed chair at the Waldorf-Astoria, Ted Atkins.
 A flood of people.  I hope that those living and
those gone know I was grateful then and I'm grateful
now.  Even now, sailing down, amidst waves and
memories.

Barbara, now, has come and gone, like the butterfly of
yesterday.  Mountains, too, gray-blue against a paler
sky, fly to the east.  They are slow mountains, still
slower now.  Mountains have no need to hurry.  Cliffs
leap from the sea.  People few, if any.  No room to
congregate and build villages.  One day, perhaps, the
Baja will be full.  It is relatively empty now except
for mountains, sea, and sky.

We dine each evening with Kai and Irene Chung and
Maureen and John Lee.  Good people.  From London. 
John surprises me.  I'm talking, which also surprises
me.  Usually, I'm quiet and Barbara talks.  I must be
telling him about my novels.  John asks if I know
about Black Mask.  Of all of the questions he could
have asked, this is the one least expected. 
Britisher.  Originally from South Africa.  And he
knows about Black Mask!  "Down these mean streets,"
John says, and I finish the sentence for him, "a man
must go."  We are brothers now.  Strange to find a
brother here at sea.  Kai is a nice guy.  Bright.  But
John and I are devotees of Raymond Chandler and the
others of the Black Mask.  Brothers.

Acapulco.  Finally!  The days have been oozing away on
me like a form of madness.  I hate to see each of
these pearls go and hold onto them as long as I can. 
But here we are docked at a fantasy.  The urge to go
further south is strong.  Like the belated hero of
J.G. Ballard's "Drowning World."  But this day, I go
no further.  Pinned here.  While Ballard's strange
hero went on south in fiction, slowly changing,
becoming something new.  Sadly, I realize that I'm too
old to change now.  Once long ago, perhaps.  In dreams
only today.  Perhaps.  But even my daydreams border on
realism.  The only changing I will yet do, perhaps, is
to feed the worms.  Pinned to destiny.  Like myriad
buildings on myriad hills around the bay.  Pinned in
place.  They fall not and I fall not.  Yet.

Barbara has gone to swim on some beach.  She is like a
fish.  Waiting for this cruise, her doctor said "no
pools" and she did not swim during the summer.  He did
not mention "no ocean," so she long looked forward to
this cruise of the so-called Mexican Riviera and she
is participating.  To tell the truth, at 67 she
doesn't handle water well.  But she thinks she is
younger and now splashes gleefully like a lost duck
who has once again found a pond in which to play.

Houses, perhaps homes, jutting out from the hills as
if seeking to escape, but heaped houses yonder and in
the distance, higher on the distant hill, houses give
ways to huts, then shacks, probably still homes, hard
to tell.  Few.  Almost hidden in the distant green. 
Scattered.  Even shacks have magnificent
million-dollar views here.  Green, purple, yellow
houses thrown around the bay.  The noises of cars too
nearby.  People too nearby.

Over eggs benedict this morning a woman as old as mud
yarned of a day when a Texas oilman told her she
wasn't "good enough" for his son and offered her a
trip around the world.  She was gone three months. 
Now, more than half a century later, she returns to
Acapulco from Nebraska.  Strange, then and now.

A man from Calgary says they have plenty of gas and
oil in Canada.  "Canada is fine."  Here, but not
really here, of course, but in the United States, the
coming winter bodes chilly news for ordinary people
living on ordinary incomes.  Buchenwald talks about
the growing economy and how great everything is.  He
forgets to mention people like me, of course.  He
lives in a world of fantasy and promises.  I'm living,
albeit briefly, in a world of fantasy, but reality is
not far away.  Not far enough away anyway.

Last night, those who dined with Barbara and me voiced
the opinion that the United States is the most-hated
nation on the earth and perhaps England is not far
behind.  Sadly, this feeling in rampant even among
many in the United States.

If I were young, as perhaps I once was, and this was
still the days of chivalry, I would perhaps challenge
Buchenwald to a duel.  Ball and chain, perhaps. 
Another magnificent Toast at Tennis.  Solve the
problem man to man.  Interesting fantasy here at sea. 
But the sea offers time and place for such
contemplation.  Perhaps even reason for it.

One companion at my table thinks Buchenwald is merely
a puppet.  Controlled, perhaps, by oil interests.  I
think more by the makers of guns and bombs.

Regardless, I see no solution for this Buchenwald
problem.  Truth is, I don't know how to use a ball and
chain.  Words have always been my major weapon.  I see
dark clouds ahead.  Words.  Not here, of course, for
Acapulco is bright with sun and green with hills and
the waiters wish I'd move from here on the poop deck
and I think I will, but just for a while.  Exercise. 
I shall return to my poop deck.  I may be done with
ball and chain, but I'm not done yet with
contemplation.  And words.

Back. An older lady at the next table gone.  Gave up. 
She was, I surmise, writing a letter.  This, too, is a
kind of letter.  To whom, I do not know.

The ship is still.  Many people gone, flooding out
into Acapulco to dip their billfolds at the shrines of
the city.  I am still enamored of the houses on the
hills and old memories.  There is not much news down
here.  Stranded.  But I heard that Mel Karmazin has
joined Sirius...or it has joined him?  Radio, thus
goes.  The conglomerates, delocalized, now done
better.  Ah, local radio I knew you when you were
something else!  But what happens now to KNEL?  And
also all of those radio stations by the bay in San
Diego?  And the old KPEN?  Forced to be local again? 
Interesting concept.

The older woman, too, has returned.  Let her be!  Let
me be.

Hot.  Must go pool down.

Anyway, radio must meet its own fate.  If it has one. 
Something bothers me immensely about radio falling on
me out of the sky.  Too many kinds of radio.  Too many
kinds of unpersonal radio.  The idea of Howard Stern
falling on me is terrifying!  Shouldn't happen to a
human being.  Let him fall on Mars or Jupiter.

We are docked, here, in Acapulco, across a busy street
from an old fort.  The only pirates now, tourists, and
there is no need for a fort.  Most of these modern
pirates gone for a while, providing the city a better
gold.  Plastic.  Somewhere below, a band competes with
the horns of cars.  I'm glad I did not go ashore. 
Poor Barbara, yonder, wading in the surf of some
hotel.  Paying for the privilege, of course.  Perhaps
the tourists are not the real pirates after all. 
Fifty dollars to wade in the surf?  Much more to pet a
dolphin...$125!

A breeze churns the flags on a wire as if the ship was
already going away.  But we do not move.  The pirates
are not done with us yet.  Nightlife awaits.  Dull in
comparison to the nightlife of Las Vegas.  Don't
bother me!  I've seen Elvis, Beatles, Rolling Stones,
Jefferson Airplane, Frank Sinatra, Roy Acuff, Linda
Ronstadt, Bobby Vee, Willie Nelson, Arlo Guthie, Frank
Zappa, the Cream...what can you provide, oh den of
pirates, half as good?

Then, during the night, we steal away from a bay
decorated like a Christmas tree, fallen down,
imploded, deploded.

By dawn, Zihuatanejo and, of course, like an
afterthought, Ixtapa.  I wondered on which beach
Morgan Freeman walked barefooted to meet Tim Robbins,
sanding away flaked paint on the hull of an old boat. 
Someone said it was yonder.  It, indeed, might have
been over there somewhere.  How did he know about this
place?  It's one of the most beautiful places I've
ever seen!  Sandy beaches.  Hills racing down to the
sea.  Water like a bruised green mirror.  Quiet. 
Wonderful.

Barbara and I bus a few miles to Ixtapa, then
motorboat to an island that would have made Disney
proud.  Snorkeling.  Swimming.  When you turn around,
there's a view worth a picture and it doesn't matter
where you turn.  Barbara pulled away from the island
with immense regret.  As did I.  She now swims in the
pool on deck.  We sail soon, but I wouldn't mind
coming back here.  I will not, of course.  Soon, this
quiet hideaway gone.  All changed.  Houses, condos,
more hotels, bigger hotels.  People.  Wal-Mart.  It's
odd how we destroy beauty with ourselves.  Wal-Marting
the world.

The open sea now at our heels.  The green hills at my
elbows as we elbow by.  The sky, pale now, nibbles at
my eyes.  I feel the rumble of the ship as if it
yearns to be away.  Gone beauty.  Gone.  Much too
soon, Las Vegas, summer gone, but okay.  I pity those
who must return to Canada.  We are moving now.  I sit
while paradise slides away.  Then we pause.  One last
chance to leap and stay, sans passport, sans shoes,
tattered jeans, beard.  But, too old.  Captured by a
different world.  I may like this better, but I also
must be gone.  My heart may be here, but my pills are
in Las Vegas.

They say they--whoever they really is--do not wish to
change Zihuatanejo.  But greed, sometimes waving the
banner of progress, oft beats hell out of beauty as
well as history.  This Zihuatanejo that I found here
will soon be gone.

A squalling voice, a woman, says much too loudly, as
if wanting me to hear, "I had two Democrats at my
table and I told them flatly they were not going to
insult me."  But Barbara has already had one
overheated discussion about politics; the debates rage
on.  Even here at sea.  She searches for a political
battle.  The election may be over, but she is not
over.

Barbara overhead a woman claiming that there was
nothing to do on a cruise but "sleep and eat, sleep
and eat."  Barbara said, "Sure hard work, isn't it?"

Meanwhile, an article in the ship's newsletter points
out that more then 12 million people in the United
States live in poverty.  It fails to mention the
homeless, a hidden nation in America.  How dare Dick
Cheney give himself a bonus of $34 million?  Robbery! 
And they crucified Bill Clinton for lying about a
dollar-and-a-half blow job!

At night, the ship pounds through dark waters, pounds
air into waves, white like ancient uncombed hair of an
ancient lady.  Silently, we rush to Manzanillo,
Barbara to a hotel with beach and small waves, me to
the poop deck, here, to write.  I sent my oldest son
John an two-dollar email to remind him that we will be
home Friday.  John, Darryl, and Andy will be waiting
at home, Thanksgiving gone, football still to do
perhaps.  Popcorn.  Diet Pepsi.

Here, I sip apple juice, shoot a picture of the
harbor.  Containers everywhere, neatly stacked,
waiting.  A ship of containers shoves past, going to a
better place in the myriad bays, guarded by green
hills.  Rusted lumps, some painted blue, stacked
higher than houses, waiting.  After Puerto Vallarta
and Zihuatanejo, this is a dull place.  Almost an
insult to the senses.  Just ships stacked with lumps,
some blue, loaded as if they would tip over in a rough
sea, scattering lumps, some blue, on green sea to
float away.

The bay north ripe with smog, ripe for lung problems
some day.  No wind to drive it into the Sierras, it
hangs here in the heat waiting for a breeze.  We all
wait.

This is a good opportunity to remember.  Tommy Noonan,
Ernie Farrell, Don Graham, Morris Diamond, Juggy
Gales.  Teachers all.  Gems along the road of my early
years at Billboard.  Odd that I remember them now so
far at sea.  But I recall now, suddenly, clearly, many
things.  For instance, I've always wondered why Johnny
Bond slugged Buzz Bennett in the nose at the
Century-Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.  Scotty Brink
knows the story.  Does he know the reason?  In the old
days, I often figured that it was sometimes better not
to know everything.  Such as the rotating
relationships of L. David Moorhead.  But now these are
the old days and the only days I've got left.  So, I
wonder.

No expensive houses on these hills.  Unless, perhaps,
they are hidden away.  Like many houses in Beverly
Hills.  Like the real story of Buzz Bennett and Johnny
Bond from Philadelphia.  Was Bennett ever in
Philadelphia?  Vaguely, I remember him working in
Philadelphia for George Wilson.  But why did Johnny
Bond need to hit him in the nose in Los Angeles? 
Strange.

I do not enjoy this place Manzanillo.  No glamour.  No
character.  No heart.  Doesn't matter.  I will never
have money enough to return here.  The Republicans
stole my money.  Gone now.  But it is a good place for
the moment and provides time in which to ponder.

Suddenly, I remember a moment that has always
embarrassed me.  It haunts me still.  I was sitting in
one night with Larry Scott on KLAC in Los Angeles and
I mentioned that "Tomorrow Never Comes" was the
English version of "A Solo Mio."  Larry quickly
rectified the situation because I'd made a mistake.  I
meant "There's No Tomorrow," which, so far as I know,
could have made a good country song, but wasn't.  For
some strange reason, though I've no doubt made many
worse boo-boos, this one has always festered my soul. 
Will writing about it get it gone?

This harbor, though relatively ugly, is relatively
clean.  A Republican would no doubt call that stuff
yonder "morning haze."  One coughs when one breaths
morning haze here.

Cranes like herons dining in a fish pond pluck ships
dry of containers while other ships seem to be growing
fat here.  Yonder, a freighter heads to the gray sea
between gray hills, by a gray island.  Gone to save
the commerce of the world.

As we leave, a rare pleasant view.  But nothing in
comparison to the views of yesterday and yon.

Today, at sea.  Sun behind.  Windy.  Waves with small
white caps and whales.  Too early for whales someone
said at eggs benedict.  But several small boats sit on
waves, looking.

Hard gusts.  Clouds like strangers.  Lost here like
me.  Barbara has gone to walk around and around on a
higher deck.  Then she has to have her hair done.  I
do not understand these things.  Women have always
been a mystery to me.

I shoot a picture of myself with the delayed timing
device on the camera.  Me, contemplating the sea on
the poop deck, but actually I'm wondering if the
timing device actually works.  I do not dare
contemplate women.  I have decided that it would be
tragic if I actually understood women.

Jonathan and Nancy Fricke once sailed these seas--and
many more seas.  Auctioned paintings.  Finally, bored,
they landed in Nashville.  I have a photo of Jonathan
and Willie taken years ago in Lubbock, Texas, at a
country music concert.  We go back far, me and
Jonathan.  Would Willie know him now?  Friends maybe
once.  But a lot of my own friends have wandered away
because of something I said or perhaps didn't say. 
Amusing.  Many friends, I suppose, were like the
harbors of yesterday.  Gone.  Real friends, you take
with you.  In spirit anyway.

Good, hard, clean air here.  No land in view either to
port or starboard.  I stand looking at where I used to
be moments ago, water torn and white by the ship,
still gleaming from the sun.  I see the now and
remember what used to be.  But what was is gone.

Why do some go to sea to play dominos or some yelling
card game, others sit and talk about their last
cruise, others still just sit and look out there at
the distance and wonder?  Those who talk, talk loudly
just as if talking loudly means you're having more
fun.

The sea here is cobalt blue.  Because land is far and
reality is also distant.  What a pity that Barbara and
I can not just cruise on.

I grow too old to dream of a bright tomorrow.  Too old
anymore to think of success.  Too old to be anywhere
sans los banos, sans TV.

Max Brand, a stranger here.  Yes, he wrote of the sea.
 But mostly he wrote of a west he never saw.  A west,
really, that did not exist.  But I read abortively,
sporadically.  Noises almost like words, no sense,
around me except for a hard blue sea beyond the window
now.

They eat here.  They play cards there and there they
wonder who I am, a strange old man writing and reading
a writer they do not know, a writer gone.

Days lost at sea are good days and hard to come by. 
Luiz, the cabin boy, and Cortez, the waiter, have
treated Barbara and I like royalty.  The room is
clean, the food is good.  If we had money, Barbara and
I would soon be on another Celebrity cruise.  Hawaii,
perhaps.  But money is a wall between us and another
cruise just now.  I keep thinking:  Sell a novel and
take a cruise.  No sale, no sail.  I write on.  A
query on the children's novel "Dark Castle" has been
with Athenum several months.  "The Music Convention,"
a murder mystery, has been with Norton's for several
months.  The months grow long.  Where is my cruise?

Today, November 24, 2004, 12:15 p.m., we ease by Cabo
San Lucas.

I think about the men and women in our business who've
been robbed of this beauty; they died before they
could take this cruise.  Pity.  Edna Collison, Jan
Basham, Mardi Neirbass, Diane Kirtland, Helen
Wirth--you would love this view.  Of course, Jan has
gone on.  Mardi, I never knew well, but was always
astonished by her brightness.  I found Edna amusing. 
Jan driven to improve the business.  Diane, highly
capable.  Helen lost my Elvis Presley tape when she
packed my stuff for Los Angeles.  Ah!  And I lamented
when I heard that Jan had died of cancer.

Now, the last day at sea.  Thanksgiving Day.

I have only few regrets.   One is that I cannot stay
here.  Great moment, soon gone.  Hard to realize I'll
be in San Diego in the morning.  With a head cold
stolen from another passenger.  Fever.  Nose a river. 
Memories, a stream.  Wishes, a slow creek.

Not too long later, I shall be home.  Back to
football, basketball, sons John, Darryl, and Andy,
Andy's cats, computer, jammed email files, emails to
look at, some to dump, emails to which I probably need
to respond.

How much has happened--what--in the real world while
we've been gone?  Time has been different for us. 
Problems different.  Dreams different.
--c. hall, November 2004