Hiroshima Tears

This is a story told to me by a WWII vet in the winter of 2003, while I rotated through a military hospital. The words aren't identical, but it's pretty close.

I had already been part of the invasion force in the Philippines. By the end of the day I think I got about eight of them, but I'm not sure. Two I do know, because I used my bayonet. The first I hit right in the throat [motions w/ his hands] and blood came shooting out like a fountain. The other guy I hit in the chest. He didn’t die right away. I had to brace my boot on his head to gain leverage adequate to remove the blade. Actually, I’m not certain if he died but he wasn’t moving when I left him.

"I stabbed 2 men to death and shot 6 others that day… I was 19 years old. "

A couple years later I was brought to a training camp in Guam. I didn’t have to ask what we were training for… We were going to invade Japan. No one talked about it publicly. We didn’t have this constant news on the TV like you have now. But we knew… we knew that most of us wouldn’t make it.

One day I was standing outside the landing strip when I saw my CO with tears in his eyes. He had the oddest smile on his face. “They did it… I’m not sure how, but they did it,” he said. The US had dropped an atomic bomb on Japan.

Even then, surrender wasn’t assured. But it was my best shot. I was a death row inmate receiving a presidential pardon. And I cried too. Those tears weren’t for the 8 men I killed on the Philippines, either. They were mine.

The Final Moments of Rupert Roo...

SPOILER:If you’ve never seen the movie The Perfect Storm, serious details are revealed ahead! Additionally, this uses extreme language and is RATED 'R'. Proceed at your own risk.

Not too much on TV at 4am, even w/ Comcastic Video on Demand. I settled on The Perfect Storm, which has a decent soundtrack and good acting from John C. Reilly and William Fichtner. It’s about some East Coast fishermen who seek fortune from a big score (catching lots of fish) during a massive storm that threatens the lives of all on board. Here’s the end of it:They die. The storm causes the boat to capsize and all the men drown to death.

Summary:Guys go fishing, storm comes, storm tips the boat over and everyone dies. That’s about it. The characters are fleshed out a bit but that's the gist of it. And it really happened. The ruggedly handsome captain played by George Clooney was a real dude (only I bet he looked a lot more like Steve Buscemi than Dr. Ross). The only true detail known is that the ship went into a storm and disappeared. The actual boat and all of the bodies were never recovered.

Amazingly the writers of this screenplay determined that there was a shark attack and a stunning rescue of a man thrown overboard. Somehow they were able to fill in the hours and hours of mind-numbing sailing w/ interesting and quasi-complex storylines. But no one really understands what happened. For all they know, those men sailed out to sea to get away from their wives and hold a fierce Guitar Hero tournament.

I told a good friend that if I ever disappeared under mysterious circumstances that this was the most likely scenario:

Rupert Roo was newly released from the hospital after donating a kidney to a dying child when he met up w/ President Obama for sushi. During his hospitalization, Rupert had drafted a peace plan for the Middle East, learned to reverse global warming and mastered cold fusion. Later he met up w/ Scarlett Johansson and Salma Hayek. During a furious ménage a trois, Rupert (now w/ only one kidney) suffered a severe, anoxic event upon achieving full erection of his torrid, 24" penis. In an altered mental state from lack of blood flow and oxygen to his brain, Roo left the 2 women in post-multiple orgasm catatonia and stumbled outside. He staggered to Lake Michigan in a stupor and walked into the water, never to be heard from or seen again.

To which my friend replied:

Rupert Roo spent a night at his favorite club The Manhole, when he abruptly left the hotspot w/ suspicious scuff marks on his knees and watery eyes. He stabbed a homeless man in the throat on the way to his smack dealer when he remembered that it was his turn at the Gloryhole. This was no club, it was an actual gloryhole. After 2-3 hours of straight skull-fucking (actually, gay skull-fucking), the neurosyphilis that had been festering since he raped his first young boy during a grade school sleepover, kicked in. This infection caused acute confusion. In an altered state he stood up, wiped the most recent batch of jizz from his hair and marched his raging 2" boner into Lake Michigan, never to be heard from or seen again.

Which version do you think would make a better film, assuming I could get Mark Wahlberg to play the ‘Rupert’ character?

Scary Movies aren’t Very Scary, Right?

I don’t consider myself to be a particularly brave person. I am not fearless and it’s not as though I don’t worry. Quite the opposite, I worry all the time. But I don’t worry about being taken into an alley and getting stabbed by a recently escaped homicidal maniac. I have been held up by gun point 1 block from my Chicago apartment (In Boystown, nonetheless). That guy had my wallet so fast, I had to reconsider that the speed of light was actually constant. That did suck. But I don’t worry about Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhies.

If there’s a loud noise or a large figure suddenly jumps out in front of me, I may flinch. It’s probably a normal part of growing up to become less scared of things like that. Which amazes me, because a lot of adults find movies like Saw to be frightening. One of the most mature things a human can do is to accept their own mortality and the ephemeral nature of your own existence. We are all going to die eventually and that inevitability doesn’t startle me.

I’m much more terrified of other parts of life. I’m afraid I might die alone and never have my own family. I’m afraid that I’ll outlive all my friends and have to endure an existence without them. I’m afraid that all the cigarettes I’ve smoked will catch up with me one day (lung cancer can be pretty drawn out, actually). But I’m not afraid of Jigsaw or Pinhead. My girlfriend has a morbid fear of clowns, dolls or freaky ventriloquist’s dummies. As a 180lb man, why the hell would I ever be afraid of Chucky? Again, this isn’t written with false machismo. I really am just not afraid of that stuff. The thought that someone I love could be gone instantly, in a car crash tomorrow, is a lot more real to me.