The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Johnny Fever’s got a cigarillo dangling from his lips, one arm out the window, one hand fiddling with the radio dial. He’s listening for clues in the song lyrics, he’s watching for numerological signs on license plates, he’s motormouthing a mile a minute flying down the interstate at 105 miles per hour, dodging semis as he weaves wildly, lane to lane. “There you go,” he shouts over the windnoise, flicking ash out the open window. “Two threes and a one, adds up to seven! Seven’s my number, man, seven’s my combination!”

I’m tightening my seatbelt, wishing I’d made my will, but it’s too late now and my only hope at survival is probably a state trooper with radar. “Hey, John, how ‘bout we slow down 50 miles an hour or so?” I say, not that I think he hears one word I say over the radio squawk. “Hear that?” he howls, hammering on the dash. “Van Morrison, man. Van the damn Man!”

Apparently this is a Good Sign. He’s smiling, hums to the words, flicks an ash and squirts between two behemoth diesels as if they were stopped, not doing their actual 65mph. They disappear behind us in the blink of a bloodshot eye. I’m white knuckling my armrest, saying between clenched teeth if I live through this I’m going to get my will in order first thing.

Johnny Fever is on a bender. He stopped taking his meds a week ago and now he’s untethered, a rocket moving into the stratosphere of his skull, homing in on Seattle, me as co-pilot. If I thought I might protect him from himself, I was sadly mistaken. I will be the victim of his unintentional suicide, more than likely.

“There!!” he bellows. “Right there!” I look to where his cigarillo is pointed, a truck license that has two sevens, a three and a four. “Triple sevens, man!! Whaddaya think of that?!”

What do I think of that? I think I’m not feeling too lucky today, is what I’m thinking … as we cut suddenly between a delivery truck and a BMW. Johnny Fever slaps the dash and dials the radio for another sign. “Gonna be a good day, Skeeter,” he yells, grinning happily. Where the hell are the State Patrol when you need em?

The head honcho of Iran flew into Italy this week. Now that all the sanctions are dropped, he’s there to make a few deals. Lots of oil money flowing finally and everybody is rubbing hands in anticipation of some serious profits. This, in case you haven’t been paying attention, is the way the world works. All well and good. The rich can get a bit richer and the rest of us can get trickled on.

I stopped throwing myself in the gears of capitalism long ago. In fact, I am a businessman myself, registered with the state of Washington, and paying taxes just like Microsoft and Boeing. You know, without some of the breaks they got. No, my beef isn’t with the profit motive, mine is with the folks in Italy who decided they needed to cover up their art with fig leaves so that the Iranian prez wouldn’t be so offended he might turn tail and tear up future contracts. These statues from antiquity were bare ass naked. I mean, really offensive stuff. Penises and breasts, genitalia, all those body parts the Italians are worried would be viewed as a sick porn party.

David and Venus de Milo, all that degenerate art Western Culture ordinarily celebrates unless it interferes with business deals, needed to be covered. Sure don’t want to offend the mullahs and their entourage, not when multi-billion lira deals are on the line. I assume most TV stations were told to stand down as well, movie theaters closed for the week and book stores asked to censor their shelves. Been awhile, I guess, since the Iranians got out for a spin around the globe, no need to shock sheltered sensibilities.

In full disclosure, my so-called business is art. Hopefully not too degenerate, but hey, filth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Like most of my artist cronies, I get my fair share of criticism, not primarily from the mullahs but from the neighbors who have their own standards regarding art and culture. Censorship can be subtle or it can be harsh, but usually it’s honest. Censoring what you claim to love, what you say is the cornerstone of your culture, well, god forbid we offer up our own tolerance as an aesthetic. When in Rome now, apparently, they’re ashamed of what the Romans do. As they should be….

So I’m at the little park I take care of over on the east side of the South End, loading up a wood ‘sculpture’ the wind had knocked down. I hear a truck roll in to the parking lot, but I’m lugging my wreckage, not paying much attention to bystanders when … geez, here’s the heroin addict who stole my guitars a few months ago walking right up to me. You can imagine, a thousand thoughts are ricocheting off my cranium.

My boy walks right up to me and says he’s been hearing how I think he stole my banjos. I said you heard right, amigo, I think you stole my instruments. Course, my instruments were guitars, not banjos, but okay, let’s hear the man out…. “I didn’t steal from you, Skeeter. I mean, I am a thief and all. I’ve stolen from lots of people, but I wouldn’t steal from you. No way, I have too much respect, man.”

Well, if you think someone has ‘too much respect’ for me, you maybe never met me. My boy has met me and I’ve met him. It’s not that I think a junkie would lie, it’s not that I believe an addict would say what he has to say to wiggle out of a bad situation, it’s not that I didn’t believe him. But … he did walk right up to me and maybe he’s clever enough to mention my banjos when the thief really stole my guitars … or, okay, maybe I’m a naïve sucker. But … I was mouthing off without real solid proof, asking around about his whereabouts, all that, and yeah, I guess I am, deep down, a bleeding heart liberal, what can I say?

What I said was this: “I am going to accept your version here, man. And I’m going to apologize to you for making what you say are false accusations. I appreciate you talking to me face to face about it and okay, I will assume you are not my thief.” He said again he’d stolen plenty in the neighborhood, but he was in rehab, trying to kick the monkey on his back, going straight. I said that’s great, good luck to ya. We shook hands, just two South Enders trying to make their way in this hard hard world. I said I got to get back to work here and he said yeah, he did too, he’d left some clothes in the woods the other day he needed to pick up.

I watched him hike into the woods at dusk, a slow drizzle starting up again, but I lost him in the firs and so I went back to my little park ranger task. I was about to drive out, near dark now, when he emerged through the ferns lugging a box. He placed it in the back end of his buddy’s truck and we waved adios.

The box was too small to hold my guitars, but I wondered whose stuff it did hold. NOT that I’m accusing my new buddy of theft. Sure don’t have any solid evidence for that …. I’m fairly certain he stores his clothes in the woods until he needs a clean wardrobe. Don’t you?

You might find it hard to believe, but the South End used to be a Destination Spot. The whole island did. The island you could drive to, one developer in the 80’s called it, but 50 years before that, the resorts promoted it the same way.

Camp Grande, Diane, Tyee, Cama, Madrona, Indian Beach, Camp Lagoon, Sunset Beach, Utsalady Beach, Camp Comfort. The poor miserable sweltering city folks could escape their sizzling apartments and rent a cabin for the week. All day long the menfolk would do what menfolk have done since Cro-Magnon dropped their tails and descended from the branches of the nut-trees. They’d sit on their butts and drink. Course we modernists call it FISHING. Which is really a euphemism for Drinking.

When the boat was full of empties and dead salmon, the boys would pull up on the beach and wobble up to the mizzus with their trophy salmons and do what menfolk have done since the 2nd day they hit the ground. Order the womenfolk to cook up the catch.

Back then they had these cute pioneer woodstoves in every cabin. Women must’ve really liked this. Their menfolk, being he-men, could split up the firewood with an axe, probably whacking off a couple of fingers and toes, and she could stand over a 500 degree stove in a cabin with all the doors and windows open and the kitchen about 400 degrees, and she could fry up some smelly fish for the whole squalling family. Later she could wash the burnt-on skillets and the rest in water boiled on the stove. She probably had the time of her life playing pioneer mizzus.

The resorts are all gone now, end of an era on the South End. Some say the fishing dried up. I say the women finally got fed up.