A Glibertarians Exclusive: Marilee – Part I
Republican City, Nebraska – August 1969
Harlan Country, Nebraska
Coy McAlester woke slowly. The sun was well up, shining through a gap in the curtains. Coy grunted. His left shoulder hurt. He had taken a Japanese bayonet through the shoulder on Okinawa, and the old wound had hurt every morning ever since. The bayonet had been contaminated. “Probably with the Jap’s own shit,” Coy would complain to anyone who would listen. He had almost died of sepsis, finally recovering after the war had ended.
“Semper fucking fi,” Coy muttered. He sat up in bed and reached for the pack of Winstons on the nightstand. “At least it’s Sunday.” He had a menial job in the local concrete plant, the latest in a long string of menial jobs he had worked at, all over the country, ever since the Corps let him loose in late 1945.
Coy swung his feet out of the bed. He lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring at the ceiling. The cheap space, a cold-water two-room apartment above a hardware store on Republican City’s main drag, was cold and spare, like all of the other cold and spare places Coy had lived over the years.
At least he had managed to sleep the night through. That wasn’t always guaranteed, even twenty-four years after the war. Sometimes his dreams were from Guadalcanal, sometimes Peleliu, sometimes New Britain, sometimes Okinawa, but they were always bad.
Coy had volunteered for the Marines on December 9th, 1941. He fought in Colonel Puller’s 1st Marines through the whole war, somehow remaining unscathed until that morning on Okinawa. He could still see the Jap’s face – the blazing hatred, the grimace of effort as the man drove his long Arisaka with its probing bayonet at Coy’s chest. Coy had managed to deflect the strike, taking it in the shoulder instead of the lungs, and before the Jap could back away, drew his holstered .45 and shot the man, over and over, until the slide locked back on the empty magazine. He remembered, even now, how the man’s shining black eyes had gone vacant, flat, as he slowly toppled over backwards after taking the eight hammering blows from the .45.
When Coy awoke a day later in the field hospital, his shoulder burning in hot pain, the first thing he remembered was the man’s clear black eyes and his white, even teeth – nothing at all like the squinting, buck-toothed caricatures produced by cartoonists.
One of Coy’s few possessions was that Japanese bayonet, that now hung on a hook on the wall of the cheap apartment. Everything he owned in the world – all of it – fit in his cheap cardboard suitcase and his old Marine rucksack. Since 1945 he had lived as he still did, wandering aimlessly from town to town, from lousy job to lousy job.
There was one constant in his life, one odd, transient constant, that kept coming around – Marilee Peyton. “My name,” she had told him once, “means ‘like the star of the blue sea’,” and he believed her.
He hadn’t seen her in ten years. But somehow, he still felt the connection, the old entanglement, that had resulted in them somehow running into each other over the decades, since before the war.
I bet she’s getting gray by now, wherever she is, he thought. Like me. He got up, slowly. He stubbed out his cigarette, walked to the sink and rinsed his mouth out to get rid of the taste of the pint of cheap bourbon he had drank the night before, alone, in his room.
Coy looked at himself in the tiny steel mirror fasted to the wall over the sink. Look like shit, he told himself, honestly. He considered his razor, laying on the edge of the sink, then shrugged. He brushed his teeth and splashed some water in his face and then, feeling marginally more human, dragged some clothes on over his lanky frame and went out into the day. Need some food, he told himself. For once his abused ’49 Ford pickup started at the first turn of the starter, and he headed off towards a cheap diner nearby. He was on good terms with the owner, and sometimes the guy would let him have double the usual portion of biscuits and gravy.
The balance of the day Coy spent in enjoyable idleness. He hadn’t set foot in a church since he was a boy; instead, he went back to his cheap rooms, smoked cigarette after cigarette, and watched disinterestedly as a series of sporting events, news and bad entertainment scrolled across the screen of his tiny black & white TV.
Towards evening, as he was half-way down another bottle of cheap bourbon, his thoughts drifted back to Marilee Peyton, as they often did.
Boy, her parents sure didn’t like me, back then. Didn’t like my whole family, for that matter. Coy’s father had been a poor farmer, scratching a bare living out of fifty acres of up-country land. The McAlesters, Coy and his parents, made do with a two-room clapboard house in east Texas. Their food was all too often fried dough with no meat; their clothes were home-made, often altered overalls and shirts from the church’s charity barrel.
The Peytons, on the other hand, traced their lineage back to a large family of Virginia landowners. Even during the Depression, they lived a comfortable life in town, where Abe Peyton ran a dry-goods store.
I suppose most of the Peytons thought we were just poor white trash, Coy thought fuzzily, through the haze of bourbon. And to be fair, they ain’t wrong. Weren’t for the trouble I got us into I suppose I’d still be back there, probably still walking along behind a plow, looking at the ass-end of that same damned old mule.
Around one in the morning, Coy woke up in the chair, his head pounding from the bourbon. The TV station had gone off the air, leaving behind a hissing noise and scrambled white fuzz on the screen. Tiredly, painfully, Coy shut the TV off and dragged himself to bed.
The next morning when he woke up, it was raining. Shit. At least it was nice over the weekend, he groused silently.
Coy got dressed. He brewed a pot of vile coffee and drank down two cups of the snarling brew, ate a stale roll from a bag of day-olds he had bought the week before, and finally dragged himself outside into the rain to go to work. When he arrived at the concrete plant, he found the gate closed and his boss standing out front, holding up a big umbrella against the downpour.
“McAlester,” the foreman greeted him. “Sorry to give you the news like this, but the plant’s closed down.”
“Closed?”
“Owners couldn’t make a go if it anymore. Guess the place has been losing money the last couple years, so they’re just letting it go.”
Coy looked down. The rain dripped off his battered old Marine fatigue cap, onto his broken old leather shoes. “Well, hell. What am I supposed to do now?”
“Not much else around here,” the foreman admitted. He looked at Coy. “You aren’t a bad worker. Got any cash set aside?”
“About a hundred bucks,” Coy replied. He wasn’t completely reckless; also, his minimal lifestyle kept expenses low.
“If you think you can get to Virginia, place called the Newport News Shipyards are supposed to be putting some men on. Building ships. My brother-in-law works there. I’ll be heading there myself next week; once all the men are notified and my paperwork done, I’m out of work just like you.”
Coy reflected on that; somehow the fact that his boss was sharing his fate made the whole thing easier to take, for some reason Coy couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“Well,” Coy said at last, “guess it’s worth a try. I’ve done a little welding, suppose that couldn’t hurt if they’re building ships. Thanks, boss, I’ll give it a try.”
“Good luck.” They shook hands, then Coy turned and walked the six blocks back to his cheap rooms.
Well, he told himself, at least I haven’t paid this week’s rent yet. It was the work of moments to gather his few possessions and sling them into the cab of the Ford. As was his habit, he placed the Japanese bayonet under the seat, where he could reach it quickly if need be.
Start, you bitch. He pushed the starter button. The old Ford replied, roaring to flatulent life, as though anxious to move on. The wipers started flailing weakly at the rain.
Guess I’ll head for Virginia, Coy thought. See if those shipyards are really hiring. I guess I’ve done more than enough around here. Don’t owe anybody anything, at least.
’49 Ford
He put the old truck in gear. Rattling, clashing, and farting, the Ford waddled slowly down the dusty street toward the U.S. highway.
***
Early one morning the sun was shining,
I was lying in bed.
Wondering if she’d changed at all,
If her hair was still red
Her folks they said our lives together,
Sure was going to be rough.
They never did like Mama’s homemade dress,
Papa’s bankbook wasn’t big enough.
And I was standing on the side of the road,
Rain falling on my shoes,
Heading out for the East Coast
Lord knows I’ve paid some dues,
Getting through
Tangled up in blue.
YES, THIS IS POSTED LATE.
…
My fault.
The rest of the series will play out over the Monday 1100 time slot.
Swiss, if there’s anything I can do to help the TPTB out, let me know. My bandwidth at the moment is… well, more open than normal.
Just keep turning out the high quality content.
I’ll give it my best shot.
Intersectionality fail. No BIPOC characters. No transgender lead. No lesbian couples. And worst… Redneck white heteronormative cisgendered Nazis are treated as human beings.
You might as well be advocating genocide.
Yeah, I’ll get right on that.
Getting right on that could be racist. I dunno.
Definitely not anti-racist enough.
You should buy two Kendi books and say a hundred hail Xe.
And yes, I am in something of a mood today.
I think you have a future writing for the Daily Beast.
I saw no indication of anyone’s race. As far as I can tell, every character is BIPOC.
That just shows how fucking racist you are, you racist!
This guy gets it.
Failure to properly underscore BIPOC, LGBTQAI and strong female characters is systemic racism and oppression. Therefore violence.
Also, failing to understand that having post-racial characters is a form of white privilege is racist.
This one looks good Animal, keep it up, and thanks again!
I like it.
Good start, pulled me tight in. Looking forward to the rest of it.
Thanks, Animal!
“right” in. Crap
I like it, and the Dylan quote at the end.
From the last thread…why would anyone think I havent been to an IT potluck that wasnt 50% Indian?
Because we’re of the mind that IT Potlucks are in and of themselves rare events?
But, when they do happen they are 100% Indian, thus he is lying.
So… you’re saying robc is Indian?
Yeah, we only did one before events that led to most of the IT staff in my office leaving and eventually my pink slip a couple years back.
But the food was about 75% Indian. I think I brought German potato salad.
SMDH.
The whole attraction of working in IT is being about to avoid people and things like “potlucks” with co-workers.
+1 WFH
In my case, we had a gal who – I don’t really know what the heck she did, but one of the extra things she did was always setting up stuff like this.
IT potluck? is that where the problem is neither hardware nor software, it’s silverware.
Silverware?
It’s always been plasticware.
OT: It is dismaying to me how much of construction estimating is just really obnoxious data entry. I feel like I’m doing something wrong every time I end up plugging and chugging away. There must be a better way…
Do it like the government. Figure out how much money your friends need, then add a billion.
Dear Anne Landers,
Is the girl at work who smiled at me just scared of me or coming on to me?
Signed Lonely Gambler.
Is this not the advice column?
Both. You should sneak up behind her car when she leaves for the day and jump out to scare her and then propose getting a cup of coffee. Guaranteed win.
Chicks really dig it if you hang out in the bushes out front of their houses and just watch them come and go. Bonus points for digging through their trash to find credit card receipts so you can figure out what they like.
That’s basically my job, when she’s on property anyway, the rest is over-time.
Sometimes they test you by interacting with other people. Whenever you see an unfamiliar car in front of their house, you can show your appreciation by slashing that car’s tires. That’s how she’ll know that you care about her.
This place has only THE BEST, MOST CLASSY relationship advice!
Her shift ends after mine, so I can’t do that without losing drinking time…but she comes in after I’m at work so I could do that when she clocks in! #Romance!
“Hello, I’m CPRM, the creative mind behind the Hat & Hair series. I’m used to swimming in poon because of my scores of fans, but you caught my eye. You’re special.”
*changes to Hat’s voice*
“Wanna ditch this joint and go
thnort thome coke off of Donald’s pith hookerth? I have it on good authority that he thockth only the betht!”
Yeah, that part there, besides folk in my department aren’t supposed to talk with departments we oversee. Say we go on one one or two dates and then it gets messy and my bosses find out about my terrorist cartoons…
*shoots AK into air while trilling*
*imagines the Hat doing that*
*laughs*
*Thinks about Trill*
*goes to bunk*
Read as while tribbing.
Don’t whip your dick out until she asks…
Or until she’s sleeping is the advice I took away from that…maybe that’s why the He-man cartoon was wokafied…
Great read, thanks. Love the truck. I went through a period where I had a bunch of ’49-’53 Chevy trucks. I remember the vacuum wipers. They’d go slower the faster you drove. Used to have to kick it into neutral and let the motor idle while coasting just to see again. Scary, especially with 4 wheel drum brakes that worked even worse when it got rainy out.
Good piece. Pretty interesting story.
“I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe.
Tangled up in pubes.”
Good stuff, Animal. I like your writing.
OT: this chick is an utter dipshit, but her viewpoint is frightening, Evil Fucks!
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/covid-vaccine-skeptics-are-ruining-return-normal-we-have-no-ncna1276221
I DVR Bar Rescue, it’s a guilty pleasure of mine, though I know all the production tricks employed. A recent episode had a 73 year old who had a double lung transplant and then had covid and it was the lockdowns that fucked up his bar. What the fuck are we doing?
Okay so I’m not generally this way, but since she’s a reprehensible human being and seems to be firmly committed to screwing with other people and cognitive dissonance (author of “How to Be a Catholic and a Feminist”), I’m going to let fly.
Somebody beat her hard with the ugly stick.
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/religion/article/71598-how-to-be-a-catholic-and-a-feminist-celia-viggo-wexler.html
Is she cosplaying as Gollum?
Yikes.
Yeah, that lady is a vaccine against viagra.
Holy shit, how is it possible?
Gah! Mein eyes!
You tipped your hand already. You cant untilt it or threaten your way into getting what you want. You fucked up.
I’m getting really sick and tired of this particular meme.
No shit. “I’m suffering because you are free.”
Yeah? Go blow it out of your ass somewhere else then.
Since the new rule is that even the vaxxed can spread the disease and have to wear masks, what on earth makes her think that if everyone was vaxxed, her “burden” would be any different?
It’s her role in this world to be put upon.
See her immense desire to be a feminist and a Catholic.
Their logic is broken but that doesn’t stop them. I think now it is more “we rushed out and got this and it doesn’t do what they said it would…everyone else should have to do it also!”
I was gonna get vaxxed, then Trump did the vaxx, and I wasn’t, but then Biden got elected and it was my duty, but now delta, I don’t know…
Sit back and wait for long term results never seemed to be an option for these people.
Who was it who said last night that it’s morphed into everybody needs to get it because fuck you, that’s why?
what on earth makes her think that if everyone was vaxxed, her “burden” would be any different?
She doesn’t. Either she’s too stupid to think it through or she’s well aware that her next attack will be against the vaxxed who don’t properly submit to the next indignity.
*given her particular pet advocacies, I’d bet on it not being a stupidity issue per se, but instead an overvaluation of emotion over rational thought.
?
You’d have to be an idiot to think at this point that even with 100% universal vaccinations, things would just go back to normal.
Yep. Tiger repelling rocks forever.
Hey, do you see any tigers?
Huh. Republican City, NE is a real place.
So is Liberal, KS.
Very cool. I’m looking forward to more.
I’m thinking Ozy is having a sense of deja vu.
&$^U#@ with link
*1000yd stare*
He knows this because Fauci told him.
This is all we got so far here in the FAA
Vaccinations and Testing: You may have seen that the Administration will be requiring all federal employees and onsite contractors to attest to their vaccination status. For those who are unvaccinated, or choose not to answer, there will be a requirement for testing 1-2 times per week when reporting onsite. We will be providing much more information about both vaccine attestation and testing before either is implemented. As a reminder, every American over the age of 12 is eligible to receive a vaccine. You can find information, including a location site near you, on vaccines.gov. You can receive administrative leave for yourself to get vaccinated or to take a family member to get vaccinated. If you have not been vaccinated yet, we encourage you to do so.
Easy enough. Even if I get poked, I won’t tell them. Shove it up my nose for all I care.
I think my work is dragging their feet hoping it gets full authorization or some major federal court rules they can do whatever evil they want. I expect the serious stuff in about a month or so. Thus far, they seem to be trying to make us test on our own time/dime, which I’m not sure I’m willing to do. Sure would be nice if I had a union to fight this for me.
Lazy motherfuckers
They want everyone to get the vaccine so it takes the burden of management off of them.
“Hey everybody got the shot, we did what we were told to by the smart people, too bad you ended up with MS, not our fault.”
Very good read, there are some damn fine writers her on Glibs.
Agreed
As one of TPTB, I do editing….this one gets even better. You are all in for a treat.
Look at this showoff. Pssh. Seriously great stuff. I do miss me some stargazing, rock pounding, space opera stuff as of late though.
So do I,
Hey Swissy, what’s the word on my Tales? they are still waiting, I had contact with TPTB but, ?
Had to go see about a girl.
Did she get loose and start banging on your basement door again?
I think they call it the underground there or something.
This is correct, as articulated by the most reserved mullets ever.
*attic
Thanks to Animal and all the other contributors. We have a bit of breathing room for a week or two.
Swiss, I put one the chamber you can use as need be.
Nothing is a bigger pain the ass than a pet pig. They are so cuuuuuute when they are little…wait until they are 300 lbs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPm24h7Y_cw
Never going to be ‘Worlds Fattest Pig’ at any fair, sad.
Awwwww, he looks so cute and tasty.
Mostly tasty.
Yeah, I said it. Deal.
The Story of the Twice Failed Battlestar Galactica (1978): Lawsuits, Deaths & Controversies
Interesting watch.
I LOVE toy Galaxy! I linked to them way back on my As Seen on TV articles about both (I think) Exo-Squad and captain Power.
🙂
Ahh… Galactica 1980.
That was Cool, I love BSG, of course,
I think COVID is real and probably does pose some (manageable) risk. I’ve gotten jabbed based on my best risk assessment. Here’s the thing I’ll note, though. The pandemic LARPers are the ones, more than anyone else, who bear responsibility for “vaccine hesitancy”. They consistently mixed their pronouncements with utter, obvious, demonstrable, bullshit. Bullshit that was utterly self-serving and designed only to suit their political agenda utterly divorced from any scientific or medical consideration. From “COVID doesn’t infect you when you’re protesting for racial justice” to “two weeks to slow the spread” to “only racists think COVID stemmed from a lab leak” to “it’s all those ignorant fundamentalists who won’t get vaccinated” to “illegal immigrants don’t bring COVID infections” to “hydrochloroquine is useless for treating COVID”, step by step we’ve been gaslighted into things that anyone with an ounce of sense knows just isn’t true. People know they’re being lied to by the pandemic LARPers. And they know that the pandemic LARPers specifically silence information that might be useful and important. If the authorities had been rigorously honest, if they’d accepted information that was counter to the narrative because honesty and credibility were just too important to risk, then a lot of people would probably trust them more than they currently do. But, they didn’t. The crisis was too good to let go to waste. Well, now we have the results.
This is exactly why reasoned and measured debate about cannot happen, because it asks inconvenient questions to the policies that were enacted and words that were said. It was and still is a large propaganda operation on our response to the virus, not the virus itself.
This is likely my main motivation for not getting the vax. A, I don’t think I really need it and B, the people wanting to force it on me have been lying about everything from the very beginning. I’m supposed to trust that this experimental drug, which has been under development for decades and never approved yet, is suddenly perfectly safe and effective and the only thing I have to base this on is the word of proven liars. And my health is possibly the ante for this bet. I doubt that the vax will harm me, but I also doubt that the virus will. The virus might infect me, but that would be an accident, the vax will be an intentional decision and I’ll have to live with whatever comes of it as such. If that makes me hesitant, that’s because it’s reasonable.
If the Vid kills you, it’s Fate.
If the vax kills you, it’s a crime against humanity.
^^
Got my tin foil on… I think we can all agree that we are being lied to most of the time by politicians and media. There’s obviously a bit of accidental truth that sneaks out from time to time, but set that aside. What if the following scenario is underway, does it affect anyone’s vaccine calculus?
Let’s say it was an accidentally released bioweapon in the development stage (not too hard to believe). The bit about the specific base pairs that increase infectiousness but they are a combination that also don’t occur very often in nature lends credence to bioweapon. BUT, let’s also assume there are far more ‘edits’ that have yet to be revealed or discovered by anyone outside Chinese intelligence or high up in the party, and that these edits will specifically make the virus more dangerous as it evolves/iterates (contrary to normal virus evolution). Then, assume for a moment that the frantic drive to immunize everyone is driven by a select few who are privy to this knowledge.
If all that was true (and that truth was disseminated), does this make any of the current vaccine refusers change their mind? On the whole, I say no. I can’t pinpoint why, but it’s something along the lines of “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
All of my experience with vaccines and their manufacture, including the tinkering with genomes, Gulf War Illness and govt’s anticipated enemy battle order, etc. has led me to this conclusion: the experts in government always get it wrong. Always. Unforeseen consequences are real; Bastiat doesn’t just apply to economics.
I have thought about this exact possibility (and articulated it in private for some time now) and I still come to the same conclusion: I’ll take my chances on me, just as I came from the factory, with whatever modest precautions I can take. I have lost all faith in “The Science”tm now. It should be called “The Lysenkoism” because that’s what it is.
What he said.
All of this + it was always going to go down this way because “the authorities” are behaving exactly like they do in every other situation – they couldn’t do otherwise. They lie and cheat and steal over everything. The only difference is people are paying a lot more attention to it now.
He brewed a pot of vile coffee and drank down two cups of the snarling brew, ate a stale roll from a bag of day-olds he had bought the week before, and finally dragged himself outside into the rain to go to work.
Beautiful sentence.
Thanks, Animal! Looking forward to the series!
(And one of the few Dylan songs I truly enjoy)
“And one of the few Dylan songs I truly enjoy…”
Holla.
Expected but The Pentagon is saying all service members must receive the vax by 9/15:
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/pentagon-pulls-trigger-all-troops-ordered-get-covid-vaccine-sept15
What a drag.
I heard this on the phone this morning from a prospective active duty client. I have agreed to represent another.
I am preparing to file the day the mandate is official.
I have a rough idea of how this should be fought, but I may not be around here for a bit. I’ve got to get started.
Fuck YOU, America! For making me have to fucking sue you (again)!!
Get ’em, Ozy. Beat them badly.
Hearts out to you Ozy.
Sounds like America had it coming to me.
God bless ya, Ozy!
Burn it all down and salt the ground.
I second this statement.
Go get em Ozy!
Get em! Btw, my wife is an attorney and she wants to know if she can use you for referrals. She’s had people ask about the military mandate. LMK if that’s OK.
It’s okay. The more merrier!
If you need somebody to do some grunt work for really effing cheap, let me know. Heck, I’ll do it pro-bono if I can help the cause.
Get my info from TPTB if you don’t have it, trashy.
I may take you up on it. I’m reaching out to my old colleagues who did the Doe v Rumsfeld litigation.
I know there’s going to be plenty of work to go around.
Additionally, I anticipate we may need to do some fundraising for the litigation, so that’s in play.
If anyone has a good contact at IJ it would be appreciated. I’m going to try to enlist their help, as well. I have some “friend of friends” and will go that route, but figured that it might not hurt to tap into the Glib hivemind.
Animal – my apologies for the thradjack.
I’m loving this story. Is this another one you built off of a Dylan tune?
If so, NO SPOILERS (to the Dylan fetishists)!!
I have an IJ contact, we can continue to discuss offline. I’ll ping TPTB to get your contact info.
No need. I’ll send it to you. Same address?
Go get ’em Ozy!
I have a rough idea of how this should be fought, but I may not be around here for a bit. I’ve got to get started.
Fuck YOU, America! For making me have to fucking sue you (again)!!
Good luck. Maybe justice and common sense still have a toehold somewhere.
Awesome Animal. Looking forward to more.
Always late to the party but you were hitting pretty close to home in some of your directions. Maybe the name was different and I hadn’t seen her for over 30 years but the bond was still there. If you get closer I’ll have to change the hiding place for my diary. Great story Can’t wait a week
? Thanks Animal.