Frank Hagney

I work in the creative department of a large cable communications conglomerate based on the east coast and, more specifically, my derriere can usually be located during normal working hours festooned upon a slick swivel chair that rolls on fresh unfurled plastic in one of the more roomier cubicles that just so happens to include a nice window view of the adjoining building’s gray sooty façade but only when exiting said cubicle when the time has finally come to make more coffee, drink more coffee, piss more coffee, which is quite often, or better yet, lunchtime, or even best, quitting time, when I slip out that big glass door and plunge down that mirrored elevator and then it’s back out into the real world where there are bars with spinning stools in front of them everywhere! Now of course we’re into everything – phone, TV, wired, wireless, any and all silicon chip-based gadgets – if there’s any bandwidth left out there that we can squeeze a bit more of our message into or onto then you can bet we’re already there – never mind what that message might be. Zipping, zapping, even through thin air, and that ringing in your ears that never goes away is usssss.

Sorry about that.


You might wonder what creative does at a company such as ours and if you can’t even imagine what that might be then that’s why you’re not a part of creative. It’s kind of a self-fulfilling thing and it’s best for you not to dwell upon it. Do not sweat it, don’t give it another thought, we’re here to take care of that kind of thinking so you can just sit back and relax. Leave all the creating biz-wax to us. Because believe me, we’ve got it all well under control. I guess that is our message and we do a not so surprisingly effective job of communicating it to the number-crunchers, the sales guys, the higher-ups who just kind of grin, exchange fist bumps, and proceed on their unencumbered ways.

But I don’t mind sharing one thing with you, not at all, in fact it’s the primary reason why I bring any of this up in the first place. You see, a big part of my responsibilities here is coming up with those succinct one line movie summaries that appear on your TV screen whenever you press the Info button pertaining to said movie. We call them zingers. Somebody has to write them, they don’t just magically appear, they certainly don’t come as part of some movie studio’s package deal with us, and what’s more, my boss doesn’t want me to copy some of the more long-in-the-tooth zingers that have been zinging around out there for quite awhile, quasi-intellectual property that was produced by some other unit’s creative brain trust and that now in effect constitutes copyrighted material. That’s got something to do with our legal department, our honchos in the ponchos, who are paid handsomely to anticipate incoming shit storms and take proper measures to avoid them, and sometimes those boys’ ingenuity put us creative types to absolute shame. Now that’s something I’m sure you can imagine! So the mandate from above is simple – keep it concise and original.

That can be tougher than you might think.



As the fates would allow, it just so happens that my great-grand uncle was a fairly successful actor who appeared in many films that require such informational descriptions and I’ll bet you don’t know his name but if you saw his mug in all likelihood you’d be taken aback, you’d swear that you’ve seen that face somewhere before, and it’s lingering glare might actually disturb you, you might in fact even want to punch it, but you probably wouldn’t be able to put your finger on exactly where you saw it if I gave you all the time until next spring’s coming thaw.

You see, my great-grand uncle had a role in a holiday classic, perhaps a relatively small one, one that required no speaking of any lines whatsoever and only the appropriate retention of a somber beaten-down scowl, but he’s right there in the credits, he sure is, and so I should be rightfully proud.

So… the size of my great-grand uncle’s little stitch upon the rich tapestry of artistic film in this country? In truth, not much. However, his impact on the emotional psyche of the American people from his performance in one single film?

You should be the judge of that yourself.



You know, it’s tough sometimes, being privy to this prime nugget of family accomplishment, yet not really being able to leverage it into a potentially more advantageous position, to garner some kind of tangible benefit. It’s like possessing a large shiny family jewel yet regrettably choosing to stick it away in a safety deposit box for no one else to ever see. Actually, it’s not even as good as that, because at some point, if it really comes to it, you can at least take that jewel out of storage and sell it for whatever the current market will bear. But our possession? Fleeting, fading away, frustratingly intangible, an empty box of staid air.

It doesn’t help that we look nothing alike. I’m green-eyed, sandy-haired, soft, while he was dark, angular, sinister – it’s little wonder that he landed so many old western roles playing poor defeated Indians or some downtrodden renegade as I bet he had a little aboriginal blood running through him due to his birth way down under. That’s right, he came on over from Australia and all by his lonesome so he’s a self-made man, everything he got on this soil he earned through his own ethic, by hook or crook or that god-awful look, and word has it that he could act any part required of him other than honest law-abiding man, a role he apparently never much fancied on-screen or off.



Well, as you might imagine I’ve tried to use this tiny thread of golden lineage many times over the years to my advantage. On the playground, in the classroom, whenever I found myself in a position of shaken confidence or bruised ego. I used it to impress teachers, to out-brag braggarts. I’ve even used it on girls. Not exactly a solid pick-up line but a damn sure icebreaker over martinis in a darkened lounge. Why, you don’t mean that old Monkey Face do you? a dazzling blonde brazenly responded and I couldn’t help but grin in embarrassment flashing my big chimpy teeth. Quickly I finished my drink and then knuckled my way out of the joint.

Maybe it’s a good thing that we don’t look too much alike after all.



Once I was at this holiday party and not too surprisingly the hostess put the DVD on. I was feeling a little insecure so despite my initial mild consternation and since I had already knocked down more than a few I scooted up to the front of the couch and leaned toward the screen pointing, smiling big, saying there’s my boy.

Just as I’d hoped I’d aroused the curiosity of the cute girl sitting next to me and she asked like, hey dude, what do you exactly mean? You got a man-crush on somebody? And I just leaned back and with coolish matter-of-fact pleasure explained precisely what I had meant, no man-crush, just Hollywood blood lines, and the room fell uncomfortably quiet as if some foolish scoundrel, that would be me, had loudly proclaimed his passing of at least one liter of a hot wicked gas. They all settled back into their seats, hands folded, jaws clenched, the TV dialogue now loud and almost scolding, and awaited with apprehensive twitching nostrils the stench that never came.

Talk about a tough audience.

Somehow I managed to excuse myself and wandered back into the kitchen where some semblance of a conversation between three individuals whom I’d never laid eyes upon was meekly continuing and I mercifully attempted to join right in and maybe even pick it up a bit. I fixed myself a stiff one, all the time smiling and nodding, clinking the ice in my glass while slowly sliding closer and closer to the freedom of the front door.



I mentioned that the official zinger mandate is to keep it concise and original. But then what of accuracy? What about making it a truthful summation of the crux of the flick? I mean, take fifty people, show them the same exact film, and then see what each one comes up with, what each viewer independently determines as the absolute bottom line meaning of the film. Maybe you wouldn’t be surprised at the wide range of such interpretations but you’d sure be entertained. And maybe that’s why we have such a hard time in this society with the truth. Because it aint universal, it’s often just a shifting point of light throwing sparks off into the dark, and it’s constantly evolving just like you and me.

But I really do give it my best. I’m absolutely serious about my duty, unless the film in question is a grand comedy, and then I’m serious in my attempt at delivering a cleverly non-serious zingerooski. And as for the flops, those horrific wastes of both time and money, the you can’t be serious endeavors that somehow still made it out of the can and onto the silver screen, I aim for both the succinctly obvious and verbally economical. I won’t waste any more of my time with them and neither should you!



When it comes to my family I’m actually the one who “low keys” the whole “we had a relative in the movies” thing. I mean, the guy is my mother’s mother’s uncle so we don’t even share the same last name, not by a long shot. And she only remembers actually being with him a few times back when she was mere toddler and years later when he was invited to her wedding he sure didn’t show. No RSVP, no nothing. The guy kept his distance and family recollections are both somber and few.

Not to mention the fact that the guy’s been dead for about as long as I’ve been alive. But you know human nature, what is deemed as potentially valuable but currently unusable is eventually decomposed and later reinvented and then you can reassess its usefulness once again. You should hear my sister, eighteen months my junior and orbiting way out there in zany land, speaking of him as if they used to take afternoon tea together on the gently lapping shore of a summer lake, and she loves to make reference to her inheriting his steely gray eyes and sharp jutting cheekbones – well good for her, I guess.

Sometimes I wonder if the guy even knew my family existed. He obviously didn’t care. And yet still my mother hangs his portrait in our living room at the same spot that it’s claimed for years. Other pictures and paintings have come and gone, wallpaper has been peeled and reapplied, furniture bought and rearranged, and yet his gaze still reigns supreme, watching, overseeing, and over time that beginning of a smile that I have always detected but never seen fulfilled persists, seemingly awaiting the pay-off of a joke, and he never was able to just come right on out with it and grin. When I die and enter that white light I wonder if his beaming countenance, at long last consummated with an overdue laugh, will be there to greet me?

I seriously doubt it but then again, maybe I’m a part of that pay-off.





My modus operandi is usually to come up with three zingers per film. I’ve found that it helps to build from a good foundation. The first one, the brick and the mortar, is the easy one, the one for the simple-minded and those who really only want to be entertained or perhaps distracted from the reality of their own lives. Most of these folks would just as soon go to a cock fight or a demolition derby but somehow they learned to operate the remote control and found themselves running through the TV listings, pressing the INFO button, hoping to locate some good action shit or at least a little harmless T &A. So here’s an example of one that I whipped up for these folks:



A young American male born on Independence Day is sent off to Vietnam to kill some gooks.



Now the second one allows me to jump up the evolution ladder a couple of rungs leaving the smelly Neanderthals far below scratching their bellies and laughing at just about anything. I can now conjure the proper alignment of words that will ultimately speak to the masses, to those of average intellect and insight, in other words 92.76% of America, and hopefully produce a more popular choice. I submit for your approval:



An innocent young man goes to war and comes back a changed man.



And then there’s the last one, there’s my truth, the least obvious and yet the eternally redeeming gist of the film. It’s heart, the true spirit. Oh, I know, this is really just a matter of opinion and opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got at least one, but can we at least agree that some stink more than others? So this is where I allow my ego to seep on in and I succumb to the urge to sermonize:



War is fucking hell.



Nobody will ever see that one. It’s just for me. But I’m thinking that there are quite a few folks out there that would likely concur.



Or how about this trifecta?



A couple of lonely cowpokes get all homo up in them wooded hills.



Two men struggle with their identities in this poignant tale based on the Annie Proulx short story.



Regret.



And finally…



Some really cool 3-D animation but where’s the ass-kickin’?



A disabled soldier is sent on a mission to another world and becomes caught in a philosophical battle between this new society and the one from which he came.



Too much butter and not enough salt!



Okay – it’s probably time to stop beating around the bush and get real with you. Get down to the true reason for my little soliloquy. As a start let me just give you the old zinger that’s been making the rounds out there forever – you’ve probably even seen it yourself.



Frank Capra’s heartwarming holiday account of small-town Americana.



Now I’m sure having just read the above you’ve already begun to form a mental picture in your head. You’d have to be a deaf, dumb and blind member of al Qaida to not have something stirring inside there, the pursuit of a Jolly Jihad notwithstanding. Is the proper image starting to come together yet? Well, if not, here’s more. A few years ago I actually read the following eye-popping zinger and the swiftness of its creator’s dismissal is still much discussed among our ranks.



A small town banker contemplates suicide on Christmas Eve.



Wonderful. Make sure the entire family tunes in. Pop some corn, melt some butter. Make sure grandma gets real comfortable. Sit back and enjoy!



And now, just for the hell of it, I humbly present to you a couple of my very own created for personal reasons mind you:



A loveable blubbering drunk crosses the dunce line once too often.



It was just another role, a paycheck, don’t blame old monkey face.



Listen, the guy had a wonderful career. Over 350 films spanning a fifty year period. He had a slew of uncredited movie roles where he played with stunning believability town drunks, despondent Indian chiefs, gun-slinging rascals and could always be counted on to provide a memorable face in a hostile crowd. Bartender, Bartendee, and my personal all-time favorite, overly-excited lemonade vendor, which begs the question, what sane parent would allow their child to purchase some freshly squeezed from a man who looks (and probably sings) a lot like Tom Waits?

But that’s not all. Towards the end of his fine career he enjoyed success in the dazzling new world of television with roles on Daniel Boone and Perry Mason. The man even appeared in Bob Hope’s Paleface and John Wayne’s Ride Em Cowboy and received proper credit in both.

This guy was no three-role flunky pining for Actors Guild benefits. He may not have been a so-called movie star but I’ll tell you this - the guy could act.

But I won’t mention his name, I’m tired of the name-dropping, I’m tired of what it never really got me. I hope you at least find my honesty refreshing. Just google a few of the facts that I have already related to you: Bob Hope, Pale Face, John Wayne, Ride Em Cowboy, drunken Indian chief. See if you can figure it out on your own.



And still the bells jingle and the pretty paper wraps gifts. For the wee-folk Christmas approaches so slowly but for so many of us aged children now entering into this twilight of sweet remembrance it passes far too soon. If you’re lucky along the way you may get caught up inside one heartfelt carol, one moment of real gratitude and bliss, zing, but it can never last and for it to mean what it needs to mean why should it? Better for it to come, go, and leave a void that reminds.

It’s a late Saturday afternoon and as a gray gentle dusk quickly descends I can’t decide if these sudden shadows are comforting or alarming. I’ve got my Beaujolais chilled and my cheese sliced and my crackers are all lined up and so by the time the credits roll at the end of the broadcast I’ll be adequately fortified to admit this real hum-dinger of a zinger:



My great-uncle once removed etcetera etcetera knew the truth and didn’t do a goddamn thing.

November 25th, 1971 – An Immovable Object Meets an Irresistible Force

                            (an excerpt from my unpublished novel The Lost Child)

Somehow Theo’s old man found it within himself to give the boys his four tickets. Maybe because it was Turkey Day, maybe because it was cold – or maybe because he drank way too much the night before at the bank office party. It would take a couple of hours to drive to Norman for the game and there was no earthly way the man could ply himself out of that bed nearly in time to grab a shower and gobble a bottle of aspirin in hopes of soothing the throbbing ache. With each beat of his heart that was painfully obvious. In fact, it would be all he could manage to somehow rise above his foolish misdeed and find himself positioned honorably at the head of the table come 2 pm, jolly-faced with bow tie in proper place, prepared to heartily disseminate the carved tom.

This Theo’s mother had discerned by ten o’clock the eve before, and when the call came late that night the boys were more than ready and willing. Hell yes! This was the Nebraska Cornhuskers versus the Oklahoma Sooners, Number One versus Number Two, the widely-proclaimed Game of the Century – an immovable object was about to meet an irresistible force or so proclaimed the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Something had to give and these boys were ready to go see just what that might be.


Bright and early Theo pulled up in his daddy’s crimson and cream Cadillac and shortly thereafter the party was most definitely rolling on down the road! Leroy up front with Stevie and Bobby in the back and the boys were excited and ready for just about anything.

“So what time did you roll in last night?” Bobby asked Stevie, knowing that he left the bar just after midnight while his friend remained behind swallowing hot wieners and knocking down shots.

Stevie coughed and rubbed his eyes. “Not exactly sure,” he mumbled, “but you know me – all I need is a good shit, a shave and a shower and I’m good to go.” They’d all heard that one before, many times, in fact it might provide a fitting epitaph on the man’s rock some day but with a few minor alterations – he definitely didn’t shower, not sure if he shaved, but he damn well just shitted – so the remark elicited not even one small guffaw.

“What you got there in the sack?” Leroy asked Bobby.

“You know my mom – she packed us a bunch of turkey sandwiches. Some with mayonnaise, some with Durkee sauce. Wanted us to at least have a little taste of Thanksgiving I guess.”

Now Leroy was smiling and he whispered “God bless your sweet mother” and reached back for the sack but Stevie slapped his hand away. “Already big fella? My God, give us a chance to at least clear the city limits.”

“But I’m hungry,” he answered matter-of-factly and although Leroy didn’t reach again, he didn’t exactly withdraw his huge mitt either. “I’ll bet you had a big breakfast, huh?”

“Well I had what I always have – a pop tart and a banana. You can’t beat that.”

Now Bobby chimed in. “A pop tart and a banana? You eat that every damn morning?”

“Hell yes. Cinnamon tart, slightly toasted, and I don’t mind a bruising fruit. And of course a glass of chilled juice, orange, apple or prune – it don’t make no difference to me.”

“Pruuuuune?” Leroy inquired and Stevie just sat back and smiled, quite pleased with himself and obviously well-lubricated. “P-ruuuuune,” he confirmed. “Freshly squeeeeezed.”

“You can’t squeeze a prune,” Leroy observed.

“You can squeeze anything,” Stevie replied with a grin, and Leroy wasn’t really in the mood to continue this particular line of thought.

“Well I don’t know about you guys but I’m getting my Thanksgiving treat from over yonder,” Theo remarked and nodded toward the glove box. Leroy obligingly opened it and pulled out the bottle wrapped in plain brown paper. Theo continued, “Now that’s the kind of turkey I’m interested in – the wild variety,” and Leroy removed the wrapper and there it surely was, a full bottle of the amber spirit, and before you could say “Garfield county line” the boys were passing it around and gobbling turkey sandwiches.



By the time the boys hit Norman the bottle was empty and the drab November sky was spinning directly above their every maladroit step. Plenty of sunshine but plenty cold, downright chilly in fact, and they didn’t feel a thing. They burst into the swinging double doors of the Jockey Strap Saloon a good two hours before kick-off and lucked into a table in the outer back beer garden where the pre-game celebration was most definitely hitting its stride and there were a couple of good-looking Nebraska gals standing alone off to the side, a couple of strong-jawed corn-fed blonde beauties that Stevie took an immediate fancy to – he was never one to let silly schoolboy loyalty get in the way of a good screwing or, let’s be more realistic here, maybe a quick peck on the cheek – and he grabbed a full pitcher and sauntered on over to let them know all about it much to poor Leroy’s consternation, he who had just settled down after waiting in line to acquire that first full pitcher, and now the big man just sighed and pushed his way back up to his feet and fell back into that long beer line once again.

“Here comes trouble,” Theo said and he pointed towards three big old Cornhusker boys that were ambling their way through the crowd and back toward those still-smiling gals, and if those gals were corn-fed then these were the fellas doing all the feeding. Bobby raised an eyebrow in agreement and added, “I suppose we’ll find out if he’s in a sharing mood today.”

Turns out Stevie was in a sharing mood, with plenty of back-patting and good cheer and cold beer for everybody, and after a moment of discussion he led his new friends back to the table and the next thing you knew they were all sitting together, sipping suds, grinning into each other’s eyes and wondering who was going to be crying in their beer at the end of the day.

“I’m Bob Olsen and this is my brother Dave, and that’s my friend Billy Simpson,” said a pink-faced giant with peach-fuzz sideburns and the huge beaten hands of a dirt farmer, and when Bobby shook one of them there was a slight uncalled-for pressure applied that seemed to suggest that you’d better keep an eye on your boy over there. “And that’s my wife Kathy and Dave’s wife, Odella.”

Stevie perked up and scooted in closer. “Odella Odella – can I get a smella, I wanna be your fella,” and when Bobby caught the flash of her widening eyes he couldn’t be sure if she was appalled or enchanted or, more likely, an intoxicating mixture of both. But he had a good idea what the Brothers Olsen might be feeling.

“Hey Leroy, why don’t you grab a couple of extra pitchers?” Stevie cried out, oblivious to just about everybody, merrily on the road to his own obliteration one way or the other.



Stevie and Bobby never did make it to the game. Stevie was having far too good of a time pontificating right there, drinking and flirting and being an all-around chummy guy, and when he asked Bobby to stay with him Bobby really didn’t need to think too long about it. Because he was rather hammered himself, and although not really serious about sniffing out the pussy and subsequently waiting to get his ass kicked like his foolish friend, he understood that this was after all just a game, a stupid football game, and besides, the only way to avoid the inevitable plunge into the vise of hangover despair was to just keep on drinking. Keep on drinking! And naturally Theo was royally pissed off at the pair because these tickets weren’t cheap, this was one hell of an opportunity, and his family’s generosity was in effect being trashed.

“So sell ‘em,” Stevie sighed, and Theo knew he could score a nice profit from an easy sell, but still Stevie’s unappreciative attitude annoyed the hell out of him. As usual. But deep down he might honestly be relieved to avoid Stevie for the next three hours but he wouldn’t let on to any of that.

“Screw you asshole,” Theo snarled and he shot a glare at Bobby that clearly implied that he wasn’t exactly happy with him either, I would have expected as much from Stevie, but you? Then Theo turned and marched away and Leroy took a deep breath, gave those remaining behind a peace sign and a weary grin, and then followed his agitated leader into the heaving mob.

The Husker fans had bid farewell a few minutes earlier and the place was thinning out, the scattered few left behind either without tickets or unwilling to end the party, but at least now Bobby and Stevie could move on inside where it was warm and a few booths were becoming available.

“Now this is the life my man,” Stevie announced as he pushed his way back into the corner of a booth and stretched out, his legs laying atop the wood bench. “We even got a television tuned to the game over there,” and sure enough right behind the bar sat one small black and white television, rabbit ears sticking up into the smoky air, a pack of loud men settled around it.

Bobby eased back into the booth. The only thing to do now was obvious – keep your fingers crossed and just keep on drinking.



Dusk descended all at once late that afternoon. Looking at it now it would be surprising to realize that a week or so earlier a few of the trees had clung to their last summer leaves like tearful mothers holding on to letters from sons still at war. Tentatively, hopefully, but eventually you must set them down and trust that all will be fine, nature has its ways, no matter what life will most definitely go on. But in the last light of this particular day, if one should even care to notice, these trees were all barren, cleanly plucked and denuded, their last hope released and the promise of spring seemed so sad and far away.

The game was over and the Sooners had lost. Life would go on, the citizens of this state would pick one another up by the seat of their britches and somehow find a method to wait out the lingering sting of this hangover, but Theo’s father would need to buy a new television set to replace the one he had destroyed with an impressive end-over-end fling of a half-full bottle of not-so-cheap Cabernet through the glass picture as time ran out and Cornhusker players hoisted that fat asshole Bob Devaney atop their shoulders carrying him to midfield.



The cold walk back to the car took on the appearance of one long procession of crushed and extremely distraught crimson-clad refugees, complete with aching unseen wounds and a diversified chorus of deep heartfelt sighs stamped by bitter exasperation, who for the most part did their damnedest to remain quiet and level-headed as they mingled with the handful of Nebraska fans who were understandably ecstatic and attempting to maintain their own dignified composure. But of course as the reality set in and the fresh loss cemented into another forever fact a simmering rage poked through some blown gaskets and a few angry voices did ring out from time to time.

“Hey, how much did you Corn-holers pay off the refs on that punt return? That no-call on the obvious clip?” The voice was high-pitched, hoarse, desperate – and of course very anonymous.

A sprinkling of Huskers was walking briskly up ahead. The biggest one slowed a bit and tilted his head back toward the source of the high-pitched anonymous voice. “Stop your crying Sooner boy – calls went both ways and we came down here and won it fair and square on your own damn field.”

“There sure as hell was a clip… a couple of them!” Stevie responded, sobered up by his flaming anger and obviously looking for trouble, for some kind of release, even if it wound up being a painful one.

“Wah wah wah,” the big fellow continued, and then he whispered something over to his friend and they both laughed and flashed knowing grins back towards Stevie as they marched away.

Oh my God Bobby thought. That’s Bob Olsen up there. As drunk as he was he knew that this wasn’t good, not if Stevie found out, and he stole a quick look at his friend. And it was obvious by the flicker in Stevie’s eyes and then the following look of deep concentration that he already knew.

“Hey Olsen, big Bob Olsen, is that you up there?”

“Shut up, Stevie,” Theo said. He was as upset about the game as anybody and was absolutely in no mood to accommodate any additional shenanigans from him.

“Big Bob, is that little Davey up there with you? And I do mean little in every sense, especially the anatomical one.”

Now Bobby was looking to Leroy. He knew that Leroy would try to pinch the poison out of Stevie before the telling bite could be administered, but only if he could get his hands on him first. If not, and if it came to it, then Bobby knew that Leroy would surely end up watching Stevie’s back. Whichever way it went, he knew that Leroy wouldn’t be happy about it.

The Olsen brothers had stopped dead in their tracks along with their friend Billy Simpson – but those two corn-fed beauties just kept walking ahead. A small crowd had gathered and any textbook psychologist worth his monocle would point out that the assembled crowd, although not exactly a mob, not yet anyway, was certainly in the mood to vent.

“Hey Dave, why don’t you ask Odella where she was during half time?” Suddenly the assembled crowd oohed.

Oh my God Bobby thought once again. Stevie had been gone quite some time during that aforementioned time period – he had assumed that the bathroom line was endless or he’d stopped off to harass some other poor waitress – so he hadn’t bothered to question him about it. But come to think about it Stevie did seem to possess a wider grin and that special twinkle upon his return midway through the third quarter. Now Leroy rushed up from behind and grabbed Stevie by the shoulders. “That’s just about enough out of you, friend,” and he applied an urgent death squeeze.

“Ouch! Goddamit Leroy, why do you always got to be the voice of reason? Just once I’d like to see you cut loose and knock somebody silly.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Leroy quickly answered with crooked teeth clenched, “because it would probably be you. Hey, they won the game and that is that, so let it go,” and Leroy punctuated this with a half-assed grin directed towards the Olsen brothers and Billy Simpson.

For a moment all fell silent and motionless, Theo standing off to the side with both hands in his pockets looking more bored than anything else. And then he said quite seriously, “Leroy, as far as I’m concerned you ought to let the little bastard go and allow him to seek his immediate fortune.”

“”Yeah, let him go!” another familiar voice cried out, high-pitched and hoarse, still quite anonymous, followed by a quick series of likewise urgent pleads.

But just then Dave Olsen broke free from the group and took off in a panting jog towards the quickly fleeing shadow of his sweet Odella, who might have truly sat on Stevie’s little fella, because come to think of it, she was gone quite some time, off to the ladies room and then the concessions, and when she finally returned empty-handed she had nervously explained to Dave she had eaten a hot dog somewhere else.

“Hey, where you going?” Bob Olsen asked but Dave wouldn’t answer or maybe didn’t even hear, his mind so suddenly drowning in the churning sea of his own questions. Bob and Billy Simpson had little choice but to turn and take off after him.

And now the crowd aahed.

“That’s right Husker, run, run away, but please send Odella back to play,” and now Stevie was beaming like the ornery pup that he was.



Ten minutes later they finally reached the Cadillac. Theo and Leroy lumbered into the front seat and as the other two waited for the car to unlock Bobby looked Stevie square in the eye.

“You didn’t really, did you?”

With a mischievous grin Stevie replied, “I’ll never tell.” Then he walked over to a truck bearing a Nebraska license plate, opened the lid to the gas tank, and with unrepented pleasure completely relieved himself.

Ghosts of Everest

by Noble K. Thomas

As the cleansing tonic of pure starlight showers down from above I should relate that we all came here for different reasons.


Some came because they possessed a sense of adventure that unmercifully led them from one goal to another, each new challenge a special test of the physical and the mental, of the true spirit, and once conquered there was little time for celebration as the next goal revealed itself as both obvious and demanding of their full attention. Others arrived at our snowy flank as a result of the need to escape someplace else, as an opportunity to go far away and fast, to remove one’s self from a place both unpleasant and apparently cursed with little hope. And naturally some came here motivated solely by greed, by wild ego, perhaps out of sheer desperation.

So some came here running towards it, others came running away from someplace else, yet we all now mingle sharing this special bond – together in our folly, alone in our eternal grief.

And why did I venture here you ask? Oh, a little of all of the above I suppose, plus a dash of boredom and because, well my friend, after all, it is there.



Do you ever wonder what it’s like up here when the winds scream across exposed rock and whipped ice and no man would even dare contemplate an ascent? Of all those endless howling days filled with a battering chaos which stands apart from the brief window of time in late spring when nature relents just long enough to allow for the possibility of human expedition? In some minds the summit may as well not exist at such times, that small icy patch at the top of the world being so utterly inhospitable and devoid of life that it is rendered somehow entirely meaningless, yet it most certainly does exist, even right now as you hear these very words resonating inside your mind it exists, it is just as real as the very voice inside your head that insists it must be so! Right now, at this very moment, the summit exists. It is there – it is there! And if you were there right now, somehow caught in the mad maelstrom, you might quickly come to believe that it is the rest of the world that does not exist. Close your eyes and envision it – hear it, feel it, experience it – and please hang on for your life.



Indeed, hell may be that final destination that boils with fire and damned souls but this place may be hell too, with instantaneous freezing and the flossing wind, the blinding razor snow, where the idea of finding a peaceful resting spot is as farfetched as a friendly game of croquet on the moon. And yet so many think of the summit as heaven too, the highest shiny point on earth, where snow angels await open-winged and eager to clutch to their warm bosoms those precious few triumphant dreamers.

But for me and some others it has become a kind of purgatory, a deep slippery crevasse that we can’t seem to crawl out of, and although I sense that I can’t stay here forever and I know I should not want to, somehow I can’t yet find the will to just dig in and pull myself up and out and then beyond. There are indeed many who have moved on, they finally let go, having floated off into the blinding light of their next adventure, and there was something in their eyes that said whatever happens, hey, it is okay.

But still I find that particular sentiment hard to accept. I fret and cling. Alone among the scattered dead I have found no peace – it is not yet okay.



Death. The end. But, as you can clearly see by my continued dissertation, it is not truly the end. Perhaps it should be. And I give you this one hopeful thing – no matter where you are or how old you may be or even the specifics regarding the natural or unnatural undoing of your very existence, the last mortal thought you experience will be that of your first memory, of being a small child caught within a loving embrace, comforted, gazing up into those big beautiful eyes and making the tender connection. Mother. So help me God the last vision will always be that of your own sweet mother comforting you and for that one small blessing we should rejoice!

Unfortunately it takes our own death to escape the blind clutch of this insecure world, to step back and see through its deceptions, to escape the pull of its fleeting physical charms, and like a good spring thaw last autumn’s blunders are revealed leaving our ugly intentions exposed. Only in that moment just before death do we come to understand the wonderful bounty of a simple life lived in full appreciation. That seemingly endless collection of the days of our lives have a way of piling up and turning into the brief flicker of a lifetime just as summer leaves unbelievably, incredibly, one day finally surrender to the mythological change and wilt into brown crumples finding their way back down to the patient dirt. And late on an October afternoon an old woman rakes those leaves into one more pile to burn as a murder of crows look on.

Be kind to that woman – she may be somebody’s mother and was most definitely once some mother’s sweet child.



You probably know that there are bodies scattered across this place. Physical remains left behind due to the impractical nature of any attempt at recovery. That my own body may or may not be one of them is really of no consequence to these proceedings. Did I perish on the way up or on the way back down? Did I ever even summit? It really makes little difference at all. The truth is I might have been hit by a whacked-out rickshaw driver just outside the Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu as I absent-mindedly stepped off a curb while adjusting my brand new back-pack before the expedition ever even began. Or perhaps I might have dropped dead of a heart attack as I carried groceries from the corner market back home a month or so upon my return. Regardless of the specifics surrounding my own demise it is a fact that my spirit is tethered to this mountaintop, my own personal reckoning tied somehow to this lonely place.



We can of course speak of courage when we talk about the men and the women who have come here with but one purpose in mind. Yet what other human traits may we speak of? Well, there’s determination. Trust. Even compassion, because a true mountaineer understands the depths of each other’s sacrifices and commitment and thus a kind of mutual empathy naturally ensues. But what of the other end of the spectrum, what of selfish intention, the desire to ignore the emotional tug of those loved ones left back at home while attacking the mountain with a damn-it-all reckless attitude, squeezing yet one more ego up and through the Hillary Step in an all-out climatic blitz to the top? And what of the possible misuse of vast resources in the pursuit, of the application of great sums of money and time when all around the planet hungry stomachs beg for a scrap? What of taking at the expense of giving?

At the end of life and the advent of reflection such troublesome musings await us all.



I recall hearing about the experience of an Apollo astronaut orbiting the moon all alone inside the module while his two compatriots plodded and scooped down below. Although originally bitter with disappointment regarding his designated role, for this lonely orbiter those solo hours became an incredible spiritual experience, with the earth slowly disappearing behind the moon while out the opposite window only the vast and deep sea of space-time bobbed and swayed. And just when his worried mind struggled with the crazy thought that it may not be there anymore, that the world had vanished or had never even really existed, that maybe it had all only been a beautiful dream, miraculously our precious earth reappeared again so blue and white and full of life, the heartbeat of the cosmos.

It was still there.

All he could do was weep at the simple magnificence of it.

All of our time and lives contained within the square of that module window, capable of being blotted out with a man’s fist, and it was both heartbreaking and unsettling.

It was beautiful.

I suppose that on some lesser level the same holds true for those of us who inhabit this very spot, this omniscient perch from the top of the world, and the sadness felt from the ignorance of Man’s cruelty perpetrated upon Itself can be at times overwhelming. Up here where the air is thin the burden can be so heavy. But there can be no looking away. And with no resolution in sight it makes it all the more hard to contemplate ever letting go.



Somehow I lost my way. I’m not sure when, I’m not sure where, but the confident arc of my own life somehow got bent, a gravitational pull that yanked me out of a steady easy orbit. Yes, some of my world was wrongly taken away from me but what remained I squandered and then eventually purged with one final wiping of anxious hands. Abandoned and then forgotten I opted to flee, to keep moving, and was never particularly concerned with the wisdom of the direction. I migrated toward the higher altitudes where only a fool would ever attempt to track me down, to live among the hermits of the high places and to be fully cloaked by the thick swirling mists and the cruelty of its unforgiving environment, to become just another goggled whiskered face stuffed inside a long wool scarf.

And then one day I saw it and I believe deep down in my heart it saw me too. It surely did. A mere man perhaps, a weathered bag of flesh and bone but captained by eyes that burned and a soul that yearned, a man now inspired by the beating of a determined heart that begged to begin this final ascent, to reach the secret place where the snow angels await.

So I picked my way through the khumbu ice fall and along the western cwm. I addressed the Llotse face and advanced to the balcony. I was smitten by the smiles of the sherpas and the peaceful calm of each camp. Surprisingly sleep came easy and each day broke as a crystal revelation.

But there is no real celebration to be enjoyed at the summit. Only a moment of quiet reflection if the oxygen-deprived mind can fathom it. This is it. Wow. So which way is down? Oh, I suppose every way is down. How quickly the attention turns from triumph to the ominous task of a safe descent. The wild ego of “I did it” morphs into the outright fear of “I’ve really done it now.”



You should really take a moment to think about it. The majestic riddle of time, our world’s history, millions of cascading years toppling atop one another as the earth shifts and turns itself inside out, the Himalayas pushing up, the sheer rock-busting evolution. The wars and the plagues, the starving and the doomed – the countless souls that came before us that hoped and wept and loved. And then one day a man at long last reached this summit. But was he truly the first? Does it really matter? The truth is real, it exists, it’s out there, up there, but it can never be known by Man. Only what he experiences with his very own senses can He truly know, only what he feels in his soul can He truly worship. Everything else is conjecture, speculation, someone else’s conceit.

People are suffering.

The first man to summit is dead.

For some time now these have been my truths.



Night time passes and another cold day dawns. In the distance I detect your hesitant approach. Please, we can open our tight circle and allow you inside whether you’re just passing through or plan on staying a while. There’s always room for one more, we tangled spirits not requiring much elbow room, and over time we’ve gravitated toward a non-judgmental open inclusivity. So think about it. You’ll soon find that from this lofty perch you can easily look back down upon the world and have plenty of time to ponder the questions. Questions like - was it all worth it? Was it a waste? And why must I leave it now? You will clear your throat and then look higher towards the heavens as you must ask the final question, the question that forever looms because, after all, it is there.



Oh my God, is there anything more I could have done?

Good Friday

by Noble K. Thomas (April 10, 2009)

Have you ever worn
A crown of thorns?

It’s not so good to be king
When they fit you with a neck ring

And hang you from the cross.

Jesus, you didn’t have to die for me
In order to set my soul free.

When I look at your Father’s creation
I get that very same sensation.

The holy things in life have always been free
And they alway will be.

Still everybody wants to be king
But the silk rope of the noose
Still stings
As the body swings

Over the shadowed soil of their wasted dominion.

The Enigma of Age

by NKT

Who wants to be ten years old?
The boy who is five years old.

Who wants to be twenty?
The lad who is ten.

Who wants to be thirty?
The man who is forty years old.

Who wants to be forty?
The man who is fifty.

Who wants to be fifty?
The man who is seventy years old.

Who wants to be seventy?
The man who is ninety.

Who wants to be ninety years old?
The man who is dead.

Who wants to be dead?..

My TC Boyle Contest Winners

the Edison Banks / Maclovio Pulchris Memorial Contest

from 2002 my first place winner (select contest #2 on left):

http://www.tcboyle.com/page2.html?9

and from 2009 my third place entry (select Forums / TCB Discussion / Contest #7):

http://www.tcboyle.com/page2.html?9

The Mirror

by Noble K. Thomas

The mirror in the hallway,
At the foot of the stairs.

You were on that glass,
Inspecting, smiling,

But mainly inspecting.

Yet most times you would just walk on by
And unsuspecting it would grab your reflection
As you hurried straight across.

You were on that glass,
Your carefree visage glimmered and sparkled
On those beautiful ordinary days.

And now you are gone
And there is no echo, no faded image,

The glass only reflects the present light,
The mirror only respects that moment’s truth.

This man with the deep sorrow in his eyes.

I wish that I could take it down
And climb to the highest mountain
And attach it to the highest pole
And point it toward the brightest star,
In hopes of by chance capturing your return.

And I suppose I could try but I won’t,
There remains only this ---

The mirror still hangs on the wall
Where your lovely hands

Once tenderly placed it.

Old Tobacco

by Noble K Thomas
(a recent attempt at flash fiction)

Well, he’d done it again. Despite all the public warnings and tragic headlines, despite his vows to keep it clean and set the proper example for the boys, he’d stopped by the Firecracker lounge and had a few drinks. More than a few. Too many to count and why in the world would anyone in their right mind even bother to count?

     Certainly not him.

And then he’d gotten behind the wheel. Sure he had. And stopped by that old gas station just south of the highway where all the clerks look like sun-baked scarecrows and they sell those nasty barbecue burritos that taste damn good when washed down by cold beer. So he’d grabbed a six-pack and a couple of burritos and handed a crisp twenty over to the weather-beaten hag and the fact that he already reeked like an East Saint Louis brew house didn’t seem to affect her in the least. Then out that door and back into the leather sanctuary of his red sports car with the loud thumping music that sounded so fucking great and there was absolutely no need to rush home.
     And he thought, damn, I wonder if those cigarettes are still hiding themselves so cleverly deep within the forgotten clutter of the glove compartment?

A sober man would never be so foolish as to operate a vehicle in such an outrageous drunken state (and therein, of course, lies the crux of our modern problem) and he was set adrift upon a strong current swept so far away from the shores of sobriety that the notion of booking a return trip was becoming more and more ridiculous with each passing minute. Nothing mattered anymore anyway. Not the precious safety of the general public. Certainly not the recent phone calls from the state securities department, nor the e-mails from the concerned bank officer, and just when could he expect the federal agents to drop in for that unannounced visit? Good God the losses, the mounting losses, who knew there were that many zeroes, a bonafide avalanche and just when he was so close to a triumphant kick-up-your-heels tap dance upon the golden peak.
     He wondered again where they would send him when all was said and done, when all the crying was over and all he could see was an ocean of angry balled fists as they paraded him away. He hoped way up north to that new federal facility where you could watch television all day long (probably a lot of Martha Stewart – you had to admire the old battleaxe, she really took hers like a man) while squeezing in a few minutes on the putting green, or, and this thought made his stomach flinch, they might banish him to that old dump down in Texas where supposedly the warden had just found religion and adopted a steadfast appreciation of the physical sacrifices that must be made in order for his flock of poor sinners to have any shot at salvation.
     Or he could always flee. Right now, tonight. For the life of him he couldn’t understand why Bernie hadn’t pocketed a quick twenty mil and deposited his ass on some faraway sunny beach. The bastard must have had a conscience after all.
     At least he finally found those cigarettes, or more accurately, a cigarette, smashed within the back crevice tattered and leaking the precious tobacco. Boy had he meticulously sniffed the length of the crumpled paper rod and fired that fucker up and sucked in the harsh nicotine soot and it had been so long that he coughed and almost gagged and those barbecue burritos didn’t taste so good the second time around.
     But the beer had a way of washing it all away.

And he drove and he drank and he thought and he tossed that cigarette butt out the window. Toss it, fling it, flick it, eject the little asswipe, let it ride on that putrid schizophrenic wind and just FORGET ABOUT IT ALL!

Now he was back puttering up the driveway and his decision to bring an end to his night of zombie patrol and hometown circumnavigation was a somber mistake, it always was, but his ass ached and he was in need of a rather urgent piss, so with a sigh he placed it in park and turned off the ignition. As he ambled inside she didn’t say a word and the boys were nowhere to be found. No, she never said a word but she never looked away either, fully pouty-jawed, her arms folded as she simmered in the big chair and those elbows could be lively and surprisingly dangerous. And on the television, the drone of the local nightly news and the glow from the tube flared and caught his blood-shot eye.

…authorities are not sure how the fire started but they are almost 100% certain that it started just over an hour ago a little south of the highway, possibly by something as trivial as a passing motorist tossing a lit cigarette out a car window, and with these constant winds and the dry surroundings it sure didn’t take much. The Andersons, who are uninsured, suffered a complete loss but, as you just heard them say, at least they still have one another.

     Back to you, Ken.

Why are you looking at the god-damned TV set she asked? Look at me you son-of-a-bitch. Now she was talking and her elbows were flaring and as he sniffed the fresh stain of old tobacco on his fingertips one of the boys poked a head around the corner and sleepily asked, “Hey dad, is everything going to be alright?” He would have liked to answer sure son, no matter what happens we’ve still got one another, but he figured now was as good a time as any for the lying to stop.

Birds Nest in Winter Treetop Exposed

by Noble K Thomas - February 2nd, 2009

It must have first come into being
On some random spring day,

A long stubborn process, some instinct being satisfied,

Twig by twig, stick by stick,
A busy beaked bird desiring a temporary home.

This sod bowl tapestry wedged high into the sky.

And then came the fragile white jewels,
Thin-skinned eggs protecting a brewing inner world, until

                     tap – tap – tap – CRACK

Then tweet – tweet – how sweet?
Now off you go and beat those tiny wings!

All through the summer
It stayed hidden in the plush of fluttering green,

And then through autumn,
As the wind hacked away at the dwindling camouflage
Concealing an abandoned artifact.

Now I see your remains
Revealed by time as nature recedes,

And I wonder what else is out there,
Undetected but real all the same.

Still unheard because of all the clatter,
Still unseen because of all the clutter,

Perhaps something wonderful is out there,
Flourishing within quiet solitude,
Patient as the filling moon,

Waiting for our arrival.

Birds nest in winter treetop exposed,

Awaiting not the return of the bird,

But acknowledgement by the seeking man.

Still Now

by Noble K Thomas (February 2010)

It is still now,

This precious moment
Defined by comprehension
Of our conscious existence,

Of this abundant light
And unlimited air.

Praise the random bark of a dog,
The sound of the old train whistle bending down the breeze.
The feel of the sun upon your face,
The sound of your own finite breathing.

O the long quick slide down the thermometer of our life,
From the welcoming yellow to the fertile green and into the deep sky blue,
From the waning orange to the crumpled brown and into that streak of silver,
Then the long sink into the deep sea of eternal black.

The sundial in the garden
Strangled by forgotten vine and hungry weed.

Damn the material riches of this world
That pale to the gift of simply being.

It is still now, you fool,
But it won’t be
Forever.

Blood Rainbow

by Noble K. Thomas

There’s a pot of dung at the end of the blood rainbow,

Evil pot,
Over-flowing pot,

Pot of Man.