THE LONGEST ROAD - Part X - More from BEHIND the MOP

John Miller is sitting at his fictional computer... since he's fictional.

He open's a fictional bottle of beer, lights a fictional joint... and begins to write.

At over age 50 John reflects, all these years he had a sub-conscious fear of becoming a marijuana burn-out. When he began using marijuana around age 20, that was the primal fear of using it - burn-out. 


30 years later, John stopped using marijuana as he got to the age where hanging out with younger people wasn't as easy. By then John realized he was in a new career, a more stressful career... he started drinking more beer. Only, very rarely did he smoke any pot. So, that was now, but he reflected back to what he could remember when his adult life began.

The "Longest Road" was becoming the "Longest Story" he realized. In due part to facing a terrifying reality. Revisiting a story - his life in his early to mid twenties, that held vital significance. Even if it didn't, even if it was simply a personal issue, John felt writing about it was important.

A history from the mid 1970's...

John became the evening custodian at the community college's Fine Arts Center. His shift began at 3PM and ended at 11PM. He lived a block away. He had a room on the 2nd floor of a converted horse-barn. He shared a kitchen and bathroom with five others around his age. They all smoked pot. Anything was available. John preferred just his pot. At the time - $30 an ounce. All varieties, were from other countries. Very little was grown within the US.

By 1975, marijuana was widely acceptable... nearly every party had people passing a joint or smoking a pipe. The more stoned you were the more you tended to get into groups that were discussing interesting topics. The more drunk, the more you'd be playing poker, or out-side getting fresh air.

John knew many students from the campus as well as many staff and professors. Several professors liked to attend the parties, where students also gathered. John was invited to staff parties too... and they were much the same.

What John would like readers to understand is he was a respected member of the college community. He had a ring of keys to every door in the Fine Arts building. He didn't just clean toilets.

What ticked John off... and what he feels he can't get past, is how could getting a dream job such as he did, become the catalyst to what became his self-imposed exile from his family?

In the next post John is going to get back on topic... turn the "Longest Story" into the story it's meant to be.

Expect a change in title...

There is no "Longest Road..." It's a myth.

"JOHN MILLER" INVITES YOU TO A PARTY... <: )

Welcome to John Miller's Fictitious, April Fool's Day party.

The sign at the door says - NO HARD DRUGS ALLOWED!!! 

I've just arrived at the party ...  And a big, muscular gal, big enough to be a bouncer, stands at the door in a pink cocktail dress, holding a lemon. I wasn't sure about - why a lemon?

A brief argument ensues as the couple in front of me brought cigarettes and beer...

"Sorry", the bouncer says... "No hard drugs."

"What?" the guy exclaims!  "Well that's stupid. It's legal in case you didn't know... " He swears and shows obvious signs of alcoholism and instability... obvious he's had a few already, same with his girlfriend who grows visibly impatient..

"There's a bar down the street," the bouncer explains.

She smiled, being friendly, but the guy's girlfriend thought she was winking and flirting. The thought of no beer drove her crazy and she tried to take a swing at Nancy. The lemon juice caught the girlfriend right on target, and in both eyes.

Ouch, ouch! The couple left, swerving away at high speed down the road...

Jerks, I thought. I knew the rules... they were on the invitation. . 

I was let right inside. I gave Nancy a tip... of my hat.

Inside the party the air was thick with reefer smoke, incense, and the smell of good food... chocolate cakes, cookies, and KFC*. Bob Dylan music (and I think I saw him), Tom Petty, Pink Floyd... I ate some... had a cup of tea...

It wasn't long before I was stoned... with about 30 other people... there were a couple of senators, a judge, two off-duty cops, an attorney, several doctors, a couple nurses, a cook, two custodians, several laid-off auto workers, a gypsy, a comedian, a Romulan... then suddenly, it didn't matter anymore...

I sat down at a table with several different people smoking purple starlight from a hookah. They were discussing the hugh DEB raid in Northern California...  after the drug czar ordered all federal troops to swoop in and arrest or kill as many pot smoking, 21st century hippies, they could find. They began with those who held medical marijuana cards...

The DEB had planned this for years... 70 years to be exact... being stoned some parts of the story went harmlessly off - not registering. Some stuff caught my attention, like I got caught up in a discussion  about how this would not only increase the violence and the moral message about how "drugs are bad, but put fear into the populous... it would increase desire for alcohol and tobacco - increased taxes, and result in less stoners.

A Zombie Round-up...

Yeah... okay... I moved on... it is common for such discussions when persons smoke cannabis. And the discussions generally migrate towards peaceable solutions, or frustration that it's a lost cause. Either way, generally, the discussion moves on, to other topics, and later maybe, people get creative.

From there I got up, ate some more, and saw three attractive women sitting on a couch, passing a joint. I walked over, asked, "may I join you?" a couple smiled, then the woman on the right moved over a bit... "sit here", she said. I did...

***

The police did eventually arrive... surrounded the place and threatened to tear-gas the house. Then they got word there was KFC* inside...So they asked Nancy, the big gal with the lemon if they could come in and have some KFC*?

Nancy made sure they had no hard drugs...and made them leave their guns at the coat-room.

The police investigated, using talents that amazed me as they zeroed in on the KFC*...along the way they tested out a few of the other amenities. They ate all the KFC... and left.

It turned out to be a great party... everyone got along.

April Fools !!!

KFC* is my thanks to Comedy Central's, "South Park "  - March 31, 2010...    I laughed my ass off !!!

THE LONGEST ROAD - Part IX - A VIEW from BEHIND the MOP

John Miller had no idea what to expect! He was 21, going on 22.

He'd told his parents about his new job. His father laughed. His mother crumbled - " my son cleaning toilets", she cried, "what is wrong with you? What ARE you thinking?"

Elsewhere he got support... from friends - "that's cool, ya know".

John had worked for 3 years for a discount department store, part of a large chain of stores. His mother pleaded with him to become a store manager. John didn't completely discount the idea, but he really didn't like that place, that work. He didn't know why. The people working there were mostly okay... and he got to flirt and try his wings with a few of the women working there. Older women and those his age... one he actually got up the nerve to date... Angela, he recalled... slender, fit, and hot... and he'd gotten a date with her. A date he knew included sex...

Ironically, he chose the college park after dinner to pull over and make out with her. He was about to get to 2nd base when the police cruiser pulled up beside them, lights going - red lights! Angela had her shirt off - well, almost off. We pulled ourselves together quickly, as the officer knocked on our car window.

John rolled the window down... the officer asked questions, told them they need to leave. They left, and John never saw Angela again. He quit his job and went to work for the community college. How ironic he thought a year or so later. If he'd only gone with Angela in the hundred acre park, he'd have gotten to home. But he lived home then, and when he got the new job, he lived on the edge of the campus. A half a block from the arts building he'd be working at for the following three years. He often walked to the park at night, and not along the road, but through the dark woods.

John's mind was overloaded with information, new experiences, new revelations, knowledge and questions he didn't dare ask. Who could he ask. His father was generally cool and supportive, but he always seemed to hand him off to his mother... yeah, his mother. What happened between mother and son??? John really wanted to know. But it went so far back, and he was free to seek out a new life... for the first time he felt an overwhelming inspiration.

John wanted life! He wanted to be friends with women, and he felt that was taboo, which isn't surprising he often thought given the "general morality" in town, and how strictly his mother bought it. He wanted knowledge, he wanted to write. He wanted to solve mysteries, wanted to find the truth that had been strung in front of his nose his whole life... being told what was right, what was wrong, and there was little flexibility, in his opinion.

The first day on the job at the college his new boss, Frank, asked to see his hands. Nearby was his new co-worker, a man with bad teeth, a jutting lower jaw, but strong, and obviously he had a power of some kind. You could easily see in his dark eyes, the mischief within them. Half Italian, half a direct descendant from Apache Native Americans, Oats, it's what he was called, was a man that didn't take sit from anyone... he was exactly the kind of guy that John probably would not have chosen as a co-worker, had he the choice. Oats saw him as a hair-bag, a guy with longish hair - a hippie. He was right. But Oats turned out to be a better friend, than not. He would turn John upside-down at times. In a good way; though his pranks got John in minor trouble on a few occasions.

Frank, wasn't too impressed with John's hands. "The guy hasn't done a day of work in his life", he scoffed. Oats laughed. Frank handed him a partially cut-open white plastic bleach  bottle, and a toilet swab... "time to learn how to clean toilets", he told him.

And he learned...

After work that night - his shift ended at 11PM, John went home, rolled a joint and took a walk to the Hundred Acre park... mostly river and forest... he didn't go far, he just wanted to get out and walk in the darkness and the lights on campus; then get a feel for what was something he was familiar with during the day... when he'd walk along the paths in the woods. Funny how no matter how alone he was he felt paranoid, like a dozen police cruisers, helicopters would swarm in on him when he least expected it. Never happened... those years of paranoia were a waste. But John had to laugh... he would think, if pot makes a person paranoid, as he was told, then how was it he had a reason to be paranoid?

He'd been raised his whole life to strongly believe marijuana was a dangerous drug... a heinous drug, "the destroyer of youth..." Some destroyer... to John he'd begun to discover himself... and for the first time in John's life he realized he'd found a road that he liked. A road he felt good on.

In the middle of the dark woods John stood... he sparked up his Zippo lighter, and lit the joint. He inhaled deeply, held it in. The woods grew brighter, then darken and started closing in on him. The rush hit him a few seconds later, and the dark woods turned alive. Now he could see in the dark. He pushed back on any fear he felt. He told himself... believed, a dream had come true.

To be continued...

THE LONGEST ROAD - Part VIII - A Slippery Slope... *John Miller Fiction* by BobKat

Henry Miller, who is best known as the writer who wrote: Tropic of Cancer, 1934; Tropic of Capricorn, 1939,  no relationship to our fictional John Miller, wrote "Remember to remember..." in one of his novels; it stuck for John. It became one of his mantras... remember to remember.

After a year and a half in community college studying electronics technology, he decided he wanted to be a writer. The fact was, he was terrified of the math, calculus he'd have to study. Electronics was a hobby he enjoyed, not something he felt he wanted to do for work. The first Apple computers were just coming out, and besides, in 9th grade he'd taken interest in a basic computer his HS was loaned, and he loved it... in his free-time that is where he would go. That was until the school decided to cut his computer privileges because algebra was more important and he wasn't doing well.

 It must have been around 1974 John made the decision. He still remembers his first writing class at the college... he was scared to death, nervous, sweating, from fear of failure. Sure he had written as a kid, but this was far different. He was actually studying writing!

He actually did pretty good in the class. He struggled with the answers... in many cases because there weren't any, in the traditional sense. It was a creative writing class. They also learned the rules of poetry, the different types of writing and he really enjoyed writing Haiku. His humble beginning was poetry.

The children are born, the children of change.

The children are free, the children can see.

You ask - "what can they see?"

The answer is simple, for all to see.

A web is before them, a web called "life". 

A spider is watching, for those who are not.

The spider is deadly, it'll get you, it must.

The children can see it, the people not.

1975

It was a couple more years before John was able to learn the truth about writing. The fact that in many ways questions were far more important than answers. A good answer required an excellent question. It was also a couple of years later that John was introduced to the writer Henry Miller, and the phrase that would become his mantra, and his unexpected burden.

It was a slippery slope for John, making the change near to the end of getting his AS degree... he was shy 15 or so credits, and changed his major to liberal arts. His parents didn't know yet, since he had moved out a couple of months earlier. He'd have to tell them eventually, wasn't sure what they'd say. He also realized he wanted to work at the college. What could he do?

He realized he could get a job as a custodian... maybe. He had his doubts, but he'd sit on the step to the Maintenance Department everyday if he had to to get the job. It was his way inside the realm of the scientists, a concept he'd picked up in a science-fiction story by Ray Bradbury. Three years he figured... if he could work in the college for 3 years as a custodian he'd be set... he would be ready to reach out farther and have time to find himself, an ideal that drove many a person those days. Just 3 years, that's all he asked for...

Next time... A View from Behind the Mop