4. Please Don't Tell Us It Was France

  

                                     PLEASE DON'T TELL US IT WAS FRANCE

     That night Dan dreamed of another time in America. He dreamed of sex, drugs and Vietnam - peace, love and the Ku Klux Klan. He dreamed of tear gas and pepper gas - parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme - billy clubs and paddy wagons - wooden ships on the water and the answer blowin’ in the wind. Images flickered before his eyes in a Nickelodeon of acid trips at the beach, of VW vans full of clouds of pot answering his thumb on the side of the road. He heard the first girl thanking him for being gentle and the next screaming her head off.  He dreamed of cities burning with rage and thousands of angry voices chanting ‘The whole world is watching!’. He saw four dead in Ohio and the young with hope shining in their eyes turned away from the fossilized Democratic Party and the poisonously corrupt unions. He wept at the slaughter and mayhem in Southeast Asia. He swayed to the music. He kissed the girls. He held a prism in his hand washed clean of pain by time and endurance and youth passed. His dreams shined with the glow of hope and the certainty that, yes, we can change the country, of change we can believe in, of the audacity of hope, of the conviction that yes, we can change the world. Yes, we can. Yes, we can.
     He woke up in a cold sweat gasping for air. Lucia was beside him in bed. They were in his cabin. The bed was small, and she was half out of it. “Daniel, for God’s sake, wake up!”
     Dan’s dreams fled out the porthole like gusts of bats. He reached up and put his hands on her shoulders. He stroked her cheeks and looked into her eyes. He saw panic. Her eyes darted around the cabin. “What is it, darling? Calm down, my love.”, he heard himself saying. The booze hung heavy on his eyes. He swore, as he had sworn so many mornings for so many years to cut down.   
     She was almost hyperventilating. “The steward has just been by! There is trouble in Athens! It's probably in flames!”
     His eyes widened. “Calm down, Lucia. We are not in Athens.”
     “But we have to go back there!”, she gasped.
     “I have to go back there. You do not.”
     She suddenly grabbed on to reality and looked at him. “My God, you’re right! How could I  have been such a fool? I must make arrangements immediately. We will fly out together, get away from these insane people, back to civilization! What God forsaken island do we go to next? Daniel, are you alright?”, she asked, seeing him for the first time.
     Dan sat up in bed and put his hand to his forehead. “Just a little fuzzy”, he mumbled.
     “Well, I’m not surprised, darling. You certainly were in your cups last night. We just had to spend the night in this -” She looked around disdainfully. “this cabin. Is that a porthole? My God, what level are we on? I hope you’ve got this out of you. Once is enough. We’ll be sleeping in the state room from now on.” Suddenly confusion swept over her face. “But today I will be flying out of whatever savage island we’ll be landing on! What is it? Do you know?”
     “The port of Heraklion is our next destination. We arrive tomorrow. What are you so afraid of?”,
     “Tomorrow? You know, this God damned cruise wasn’t even my idea!”, Lucia blurted. “What island will we be landing on?”
     “The island of Crete, home of the Minoan civilization, Daedalus, Icarus,
the Minotaur.”
     “The Minotaur.”, Lucia shot back with a lusty grin. “Half man, half bull. That always turned me on in some strange way.”
     “Your sex fueled passion seems to be the only thing we have in common.”
     “Well for God’s sake!”, she frowned. “We only just met each other. If we're going to be marooned on this barge, let’s see what else we have in common. How about cuisine? I’m famished!” She glanced at her watch. “It’s lunch time already! Get shaved and dressed. I’ll meet you in the dining room in twenty minutes.” She stood up like a shot and searched the cabin frantically. “Is there a bathroom in this - cabin?”
     “Behind you.”, Dan sighed.
     She spun around and leaned into the bathroom to face the mirror over the sink. She ran her fingers through her hair and patted her face. “Oh my God!”, she moaned. She turned to the door and started out then stopped and composed herself. She stood over him and looked down. The impatience and irritation melted away. For a moment she seemed lost. “Oh, Daniel.”, she whispered. “I have never met anyone like you. I -” She reached down and placed a hand under his chin. She lowered herself to the bed and kissed him. “Daniel, I -” She stood up and rushed from the room.

     "Fucking lunatic.", he muttered. "Fucking beautiful lunatic."
     After he showered and dressed, Dan found myself on the Promenade deck. This time the beauty of the Aegean came back to him. The ocean was bluer than any he had ever seen. The islands, stripped bare of trees thousands of years ago rose up out of the sea like mountains in the desert. They glowed a golden gray. They reeked of thousands of stories, millions of lives, of Minos and Aegeus, Theseus and Ariadne, Labyrinths and Minotaurs. The bickering and squabbling of his fellow Americans seemed pathetic child’s play. They were all a bunch of greasy, dancing cannibals. He closed his eyes and felt himself warmed by the sun.
     A familiar voice jarred him from his trance. “Daniel! What are you doing?  I’ve been waiting for you!” He turned to see Lucia across the deck. A dazzling smile graced her beautiful face. “We have company!” She almost skipped across the deck into his arms. “Darling, there are two wonderful friends sailing with us and I didn’t even know it!” She hurried him toward the door to the dining room. “I just ran into them. Come on, you must meet them. We will have lunch together. There they are!” She pointed to a pair of older ladies across the room and waved. Gucci and Prada sparkled back. She led him to the table. “Ladies, this is my friend Daniel.”
     A thin, pinched woman with piercing blue eyes extended her hand. Gold bracelets dangled. “Gladys Euryale. I am very pleased to meet you Daniel.”
     As Dan took her hand, he felt another hand touch him. “And I am Nadine Setheno” She was heavier and painted with torrid rouge and lipstick. Steamy vermilion eye shadow washed over her large, dark eyes. Diamond earrings swayed.
     Gladys smiled through her teeth. “Lucia says you haven't known each other long. Tell me, Daniel, what do you do for a living?”
     He looked into her eyes. “Lucia told me you were two dear friends. I think she is keeping something from me. Are you her aunt?”
     “Why no, I  -”
     He cut her off. “Forgive me for being such a Cretan. You are her sister.” He caught a hint of color through her makeup.
     “No, no, Daniel. I am just a …”
     Dan moved in for the kill. “But you could be her sister. You have the same beautiful complexion and though your eyes are blue not green, they are just as riveting.”
     Nadine let out a loud laugh. “Come on Daniel, tell me what you do for a living.”
     “Glamour pours out of your every pore.”, he leered,  giving her the once over.
     “Now that one I have never heard before.” She unconsciously shifted herself in her chair toward him. “Mission accomplished, sir. I don’t care what you do for a living. You could be a liberal for all I care as long as you keep talking like that. I haven’t been so charmed since I met Jack.”
     “Jack?”
     “Jack Kennedy, you duffus!”, she scolded. “Of course, I was just a young girl.”
     “A twinkle in your father’s eye.”, snapped Gladys. She rolled her eyes at Dan. “Well, whatever you do and whoever you are, Lucia seems quite smitten with you and we were just being protective.”
     Lucia broke in. “Daniel, Gladys and Nadine have heard news about Athens. It’s not in flames. There is just a lot of rioting going on.”
     A swarthy waiter appeared at the table. Gladys glanced at the menu impatiently. “You know, Nadine, we never should have booked a Greek ship. They serve nothing but Greek food. “I’ll have the Mezes.”, she announced to the room, never once looking at the waiter.
     Dan suppressed an urge to reach over and slap her. “But Greek food is sensational!”, “The freshest ingredients are beautifully prepared so as to bring out the -”
     Nadine interrupted him. “Yes, beautifully prepared. I’ll have the Greek Salad.” She shoved the menu into the waiter’s hand.
     “You two are being impossible, as usual. I know you just love Greek food. You’re just putting on a show for Daniel.”, Lucia scolded.
     “Oh but we do love Greek food, don’t we Gladys?”, tittered Nadine.
     “The most sophisticated cuisine in the world!”, Gladys guffawed.
     Lucia smiled seductively at the waiter. “Would you please bring me Horta and Kolokythoanthoi?”
     She’s doing her best to keep a variety of saliva from spicing up our lunch, Dan thought with a smile. “I’ll have the Aginares a la Polita and the Apaki.” The waiter smiled seductively at Lucia who winked at him. She had saved them all.
     The waiter hurried away. “Cannibal.”, muttered Gladys under her breath.
     Lucia turned to her friends. “Why on earth are all the Greeks so upset?”
     Gladys wagged finger. “Because they are greedy, and they got caught. They wanted to be admitted to the European Union but they had too much debt, so they hid it and now, with the recession and all, the cat’s out of the bag. They are going to have to make sacrifices just like people at home are going to have to make. We are going to have to raise the retirement age for social security to fix the deficit. Of course, the smart people in Washington want to get rid of the ridiculous Ponzi scheme altogether. When Roosevelt shoved social security down America’s throat, people were lucky if they even lived to see sixty five, at least the people who supposedly needed it. Now they are living past seventy five, some of them. George Bush tried to privatize it and the Democrats stopped him. Now, thank goodness it looks like the Democrats are coming around. If we don’t do something soon, it will bankrupt the country, that and Medicare of course.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a small card. “Here’s my Medicare card. I took it out the last time I saw my doctor and said, ‘Here, take it. I refuse to be part of the Gerontocracy!’ Everyone expects to be taken care of these days. Everybody is screaming about nine and ten percent unemployment. Well, what do you expect when you extend unemployment benefits over and over again? If people don’t have to go to work, people won’t go to work. The greedy Greeks retire at sixty or some ridiculous age, they have health care, they have minimum wage and God knows what else. They’re up to their noses in entitlements and they’re just going to have to do without them. Too bad for them.”
     “But great for us!” Nadine was primping her hair. “This cruise is so cheap, it’s almost free! I have done without ever since the crash. I mean, I was terrified just like everyone else. I let Consuela go. Juan and Haruki are indispensable. I can hardly be expected to drive myself to my bridge games and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have a gardener. Of course, they are almost family, so they understood that there needed to be shared sacrifices and agreed to a pay cut. I even cut back Maria’s hours. Can you believe it? She won’t be asking me for a raise anytime soon. Did I tell you, Gladys that her father died and she had the nerve to ask me for five hundred dollars to help with the funeral?  Five hundred dollars! What was she planning on, a bronze coffin? How many bronze coffins do you think there are in Mexico? She even pulled the loyalty card. I reminded her that she may have worked for me for fourteen years, but I was the one paying for it. After subjecting me to much weeping and hair pulling, I finally said I would lend it to her, with ten percent interest, of course. I mean for God’s sake, I had to close down the house in Pebble for the summer. The summer! That was the last straw.  I finally said to Gladys, enough is enough. We just have to get away somewhere and if it all comes crashing down around our heads at least we had the courage and the joie de vivre to go out in style.”
     Dan had to change the subject or he would never be able to eat his lunch. “Those pearls are the biggest pearls I have ever seen.”

     “Aren’t they wonderful?”, Nadine cooed. “My husband Frank gave them to me, God rest his soul. You know it took him awhile to get it right. His first attempt was a dismal failure. I had to take the entire suite back to Tiffany’s.”
      Gladys choked. “You never told me that!” Her eyes narrowed with disgust. “Never, ever give back the jewelry!” She turned to Lucia and Dan. “My husband Tom was the same way, God rest his soul. I wouldn’t let Michelle Obama wear my first suite but it is still in the safe. I just took him down to Shreve’s and picked what I wanted. Problem solved." Her eyes swiveled back to Nadine. "You also never told me about Jack Kennedy. Just because he was handsome doesn’t excuse the fact that he was a democrat and a lecher. Now Ronnie and Nancy, there was a pair to win. My husband and I had a ranch in Santa Barbara not far from Ronnie and Nancy’s ranch, Rancho Del Cielo. Isn’t that a beautiful name, Heaven’s Ranch? We all used to picnic on Lucky Lake.”
     Nadine shrugged and stroked her pearls. “Well, La Di Da. Who hasn’t been to Rancho del Cielo and who hasn’t commented on that dreadful seventies furniture. He was a lovely man and the greatest president in modern history, but he didn’t have much taste and frankly, Gladys neither did Nancy. I mean, really what was with those hats of hers? I had to take her aside one day and tell her that people were beginning to talk.”
     The waiter arrived with lunch. As he laid it out on the table, Gladys and Nadine stared at the ceiling with irritated, impatient expressions on their faces. Dan marveled at the putrescent prima donnas. He felt as though he were in a zoo staring at some extreme life form and his initial disgust was turning into genuine fascination, a fascination that just might keep him from losing his temper. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
     “Oh, Daniel, you aren’t feeling well, are you?” Lucia turned to her friends. “Daniel had a bit too much to drink last night.”
     Nadine reached over and gave his hand a squeeze. “What he needs is some hair of the dog. I think we all could use a little something. Waiter, bring us a bottle of wine and not that Godawful Retsina! Bring us some chardonnay! Now where were we?” She looked at Gladys. “Oh, Nancy and Ronnie. You know, Lucia, just talking about them makes me so nostalgic. Those were glorious days for America. That man single-handedly broke the back of the Soviet Union. He finally freed us from the commie threat.” 

     Dan could take it no longer. “He shaved his armpits.” The table fell silent.
     I beg your pardon?”, asked Gladys.
     Lucia frowned. “Daniel isn’t exactly on the same page with us.”
     “You know, I’ve heard that rumor about Ronnie.”, said Nadine, oblivious. “But we’ve all got our quirks. My husband was an ophthalmologist. After he retired, he used to give eye exams one day a week at the free ophthalmology clinic.”
     “And the only people who could take advantage of that were people without insurance! What does that tell you?”, Gladys snipped. “If you keep giving things away to people, they’re going to start expecting it. They thought they should own their own homes too and look what that led to. I mean, these people who blew up the housing market could no more afford a mortgage than they could afford dinner in a decent restaurant and yet they were allowed to buy a home and a lot of times more than one and now the rest of us are paying a terrible price. When did it all of a sudden become acceptable for the poor to own their own home?  For God’s sake, they don’t contribute a thing to the country. As far as I’m concerned, they shouldn’t be allowed to vote either. They just vote themselves more welfare, more entitlements that the real citizens have to pay for. Do you realize that half the people in the country don’t pay any income tax?”
     The waiter arrived with the wine and Dan drank the first glass like water. “I thought the recession was President Obama’s fault.”
     “Well, all those people elected him and things only got worse.”, said Nadine as she sipped her wine. "We’ve gone from Doctors donating their time to socialized medicine in just a couple of years. Ronnie is spinning in his grave. It just goes to show you, Communism is always with us waiting for a chance to rear its ugly head.”
     “Do you really think Obama is a communist?”, Dan asked the table as he poured himself another glass of wine.
     “Somebody certainly is thirsty.”, sniffed Gladys. “You’re not trying to tell us you are an Obama fan, are you?”
     “I was.”, he sighed.
     “But you have come to your senses.”, Nadine said sternly.
     “I have.”
     “And that’s a relief!”, said Gladys as she patted her lips with her napkin. “Not that I thought you were, of course. It’s just that you never know, and those people can be so difficult. They are absolutely convinced that their arrogant, ignorant and ridiculous view of the world is sacrosanct, and God help anyone who disagrees with them.”
     Lucia was wide eyed. “Daniel, I thought for sure you…” She caught herself.
     “You thought for sure what?”, asked Nadine as she peered into Lucia’s eyes.
     “Oh, it’s nothing. Daniel and I have had a few disagreements that now that I think back on them were probably just misunderstandings.”
     Gladys gave Lucia a maternal look.” My dear, all couples have misunderstandings especially when they first meet. When my husband and I were looking for our first home, he was just crazy for this Eichler in the hills and really didn’t understand that even though he wasn’t a sailor or even a swimmer, and to tell you the truth, didn’t even like the water at all, that a home on the water with its own pier and boat house was where we should live. It took him awhile to understand the error of his ways and as though it were a sign from God, just a month after we moved into the home that was destined for us, the Eichler in the hills burned to the ground!”
    The table fell silent. Dan cleared his mind and thought of nothing but his food as he dug into it. It was delicious. After a few minutes He felt the waiter breeze by. He caught him and asked him to bring a double scotch on the rocks. He looked up at his dining companions. “Would anyone care for a drink, another bottle of wine?" All three of them were staring at him. He put down his fork and knife. “What is it?”
     “Ordering a cocktail in the middle of a meal seems so… plebeian.”, said Gladys. “Do you own a restaurant?”
     “You are eating your food like a European with the knife and fork in the wrong hands, piling all your food on the back of your fork with your knife. You haven’t told us where you are from. Were you raised in Europe?”  Nadine realized her question might be considered rude. “Please don’t tell us it was France.”, she giggled awkwardly.
     "What's wrong with France?", asked Lucia.
     "Those idiots almost stopped us from liberating Iraq!", gasped Nadine.
     "I haven't touched a French fry since.", growled Gladys.
     "But you can now since they've been renamed Freedom Fries.", sighed Dan. "Speaking of freedom, we wouldn't exist as a country if the French hadn't saved us at the battle of Yorktown."
     There was an uncomfortable pause. “You drink scotch. You don’t drink bourbon, you drink scotch.”, muttered Gladys.
     Dan turned back to his food. “You’ve found me out.”, he admitted between bites. “I am a left-wing spy sent on a mission to slit your throats in the middle of the night and throw your bodies overboard.”
     There was a deafening silence for just a couple of seconds too long and then the table exploded in laughter. The women heaped praise upon Dan’s brilliant wit and cast glances back and forth between each other. Lucia gave him a knowing smile. He poured them the rest of the wine and raised his scotch in a toast to Gladys and Nadine. He thanked them for their good humor and lied through his teeth about how much he enjoyed their company and how glad he was to have met them. He finished his lunch and his scotch, rose from the table, kissed Lucia and begged her forgiveness. He had to sleep off the night before on deck in the sun. Lucia gave him a concerned look, but he put her worries to rest promising he would call on her before dinner. She smiled and took his hand. The three women launched into a frenzied conversation, catching up with themselves as he walked out of the dining room.
     When he reached the sun warmed deck, the charming facade he had smeared over himself began to stink. Why had he played such a disgusting game? What else was he going to subject himself to for the sake of the company of ‘his love’? Lucia was beginning to feel like a very seductive drug. He referenced his extensive experience with just about every kind of drug as he walked along the deck. She wasn’t heroin. That never did much for him anyway except make him itch. Not pot, there wasn’t much negative in that high except it made him drink too much. The same with coke, besides the realization that coke was frighteningly addictive. What else, mushrooms, acid, mescaline, ecstasy, peyote? Peyote! That was it. A cactus bud coated in poison that made you puke your guts out then gave you the most euphoric, lucid, physical high of all. Great, he thought, a fantastic, beautiful woman, the best sex and ptomaine poisoning.
     He came upon a row of deck chairs all empty but one. Buck was stretched out eyes closed, with an iPod plugged into his ears. Dan lay down next to him. Buck spoke without opening his eyes. “How ya doin’, Romeo?”
     Dan smiled. “Not so good, Cyrano. How about you?” 
     Buck opened an eye. “I’m listenin’ to African music. We didn’t get to African music and fuckin’.”
     Dan turned his head to Buck. “You have a one track mind.”
     “Unlike all the other guys in the world.”, he snorted.
     “OK. Let’s hear about African music and fucking.”
     Buck unplugged his ear buds and handed them to Dan. “Tinariwen, a buncha pissed off Tuareg guys, that started jammin’ in a refugee camp in Libya. Their music is Tishoumaren, music for fucked over, unemployed suckers without a home that are fed up and are about to do somethin’ about it.”
     Dan put the ear buds in his ears. He was astounded. He heard the calls of holy men. He heard the blues. The rhythm massaged him. The harmonies were haunting. Women ululated. A caravan rose out over the dunes and the necks of the camels swayed hypnotically. He wanted to whirl like a dervish. He wanted to chant. He wanted to make love. “Oh my God!”
     “Good fuckin' music, ain’t it?”, Buck leered. “And the Tuareg guys get all gowed up and dance for their women. Just the other way around from us which ain’t so bad an idea, I think.”
     Dan handed back the ear buds and relaxed on the deck chair. He let loose a long sigh. “I just tried that and it made me sick. I just performed for Lucia and two of her good friends, a pair of gorgons hell itself wouldn’t have.”
     “But you and your redhead are on fire in the sack. If you got that, you got almost all of it. Let it play out and run with it.”
     “The Greek uprising scares her to death. She wants me to fly out of Crete with her when we land.”
     Buck shook his head. “That don’t sound good. Sometimes a man’s gotta draw the line even if the fuckin’s dynamite. You can meet her halfway, even more than half way but if she takes control, you ain’t a man no more, and of course the Greeks scare her shitless. When the little people rise up, the rich shit their pants. Greece is a trial run for what them fuckers plan for us. You seen it. You heard them, moanin’ and groanin’ about how there ain’t no money for nothin’ so they gotta take what’s shit all left and hand it over to themselves.”
     “It seems as though the country has been attacked by maggots and it’s not even dead yet.”, sighed Dan. “But we are the Greatest Country in the World.”
     “Yeah, that horse shit. How much different is the Greatest Country in the World from the Master Race?”
     Dan put his hands behind his head and looked up into the sky. “I had a dream this morning that I was a kid again protesting the war in Vietnam and facing the draft. I almost feel we’re on our way back there except the American people haven’t a clue.”
     Buck turned on his side and put his chin in his hand. “Did they get you?”
     “Nah, I got lucky. I was too young. Tricky Dick was out. Did they get you?"
     "I was hooked up with a shiny blond babe, the one and only blond babe I ever hooked up with as I swore off blonds after her and only went for brunettes and red heads, red heads like that red head of yours, but I digress. Tricky Dick decides he wants a piece o’ my ass and I wasn’t up for dyin’ in some shit hole swamp in Nam. I wasn’t the robust specimen of manhood I am today and Nam, jail, Canada or never porkin’ my shiny blond again gave me an ulcer. The Doc looks me over, puts me on Belladonna and durin’ the rest of the checkup he notices I have real flat feet. He writes a letter to the Army sayin’ I am a wuss with an ulcer and recommends me to a antiwar commie foot Doc that looks at my feet and says I have a 50-50 chance of foolin’ the Army. The commie foot Doc writes a letter to the Army foot Doc sayin’ I am a cripple and a wuss. He then writes a bunch of mumbo jumbo to prove it and tells me to go out and buy the weirdest pair of shoes I can find and before you know it, this double wuss is standin’ naked with a buncha other naked wusses in the Army pre induction physical with a real light in the loafers Doc - not that I got anything against gays cause I don’t - goin’ from wuss to wuss puttin’ his finger under their balls an tellin them to cough. When he gets to yours truly, and I ain’t braggin’ here, it just happened, OK? he starts feelin’ me up like Henry Kissinger feels up a whore just before he snuffs her. I finally have to grab his ear and give it a yank in order to wake him outa his dreams. The rest of the day is the usual Nazi routine, marchin’ from station to station gettin’ checked out to see if I am fit enough to die in a foxhole sittin’ in my own shit. I soon become so pissed off and mixed up that I make a bad mistake that lookin’ back on it was a good mistake. There was a station where you all have to stand in front of a urinal and piss in a paper cup and I did so accordingly. I then turns a corner and, cause I was a little slow in pissin’, all the other wusses have marched on. I find myself alone with some black queen all decked out in a white jacket and, I kid you not, three-inch fingernails. He motions me over with one of his fingernails and sticks some sorta paper in my cup. He then looks at the paper and I guess everythin’s fine cause he waves me on and I find myself with a cup fulla piss wonderin’ what to do next. I sees a sink and next to it is some sorta rack all skiwampus with all kinda holes and tubes and whatnot and probably ‘cause my dear old ma would have slapped me silly if I ever poured piss in a sink, I pours the piss on the rack instead. All of a sudden the queen is screamin’ like a stuck pig and I am high tailin’ it outa there only to jump outa the fryin’ pan and into the fire. I end up in a small room with another queen who is gonna decide if I’m bonkers enough to give myself an ulcer. And don’t ask me why I keep runnin’ into queens cause I ain’t got no answer for that. After readin’ the letter about my ulcer, the bastard lets me know pronto that if I fuck with him in any way, my ass will be on the next flight to Nam. He asks all kinda personal questions and I tells him all kinda personal lies and before you can say God bless America, he tells me that even though he thinks I’m too bonkers for Nam, he’s gonna send me there anyways. I walks out with my head hangin’ and only one chance left. When the army foot Doc reads the commie foot Doc’s letter, he gets a real concerned look on his face and I’m thinking maybe I have a chance after all so I waves my weird shoes in his face. He gives a jump and says, ‘He make you wear them?’ at which point I sees him scribblin’ ‘Unfit for Military Service’ on a piece of paper which I then take right away to some dip shit behind a desk who says, ‘Head for the hills, kid’.”
     Dan let out a laugh and started clapping. “That is a wonderful story.”
     “I ain’t finished yet. As I am hitch hikin’ back to the motel thinkin’ about bumpin’ my shiny blond, a guy in a mustang convertible pulls up and tells me he is goin’ my way. He asks me why I have such a shit eatin’ grin on my face and I tells him I have just got a big fat ticket outa Nam. There is a pause, and he tells me he is just back from Nam and outa the Army where he was a helicopter gunner. There is another pause where I am wonderin’ if I am about to be ejected out of a mustang movin’ along at sixty miles an hour when all of a sudden he says ‘Congratulations, Kid! Open the glove compartment and help yourself.’, and as God is my witness, I ain’t never seen so much coke and crank and smack and weed and plenty of stuff I ain’t never seen before, so I thanks him and helps myself and that is the end of my story.”
     Dan let out a long sigh. “You’re one hell of a storyteller.”
     Buck frowned and handed him the ear buds. “One little bit of light in a whole lotta darkness. Let’s change the subject. Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Some Zulu kids livin’ under apartheid in South Africa that broke free with their music.”
     Dan plugged the ear buds in.  He heard deep, swelling acapella, incredible harmony that turned opera on its head, powerful rhythm punctuated with grunts and warbles, music that boiled in the base of his brain. His eyes opened wide in amazement. He swayed back and forth, lost in another world.
     "You wanna dance, don't you?", smiled Buck.
     "I do."
     "Well then, dance."
     He did.