by Pastor, Juan
"And here's one you can send your family." Sin says.
He hands it to me. It has a print date of 2010, but it looks old‐fashioned. It reads "Greetings from ARIZONA. Contained in each letter of "ARIZONA" is a picture of something Arizona is famous for. There is a clip‐art sun shining down on that very same ARIZONA. There is another of an old propeller airliner flying over a golden pasture with cacti growing in it, and a cowboy riding a bucking bronco. The bottom of the card reads:
THE ONLY STATE TO STAND UP TO
ILLEGAL INVASION 'DOING OUR PART TO MAKE A SAFER AMERICA'
I can't tell if the card was printed by someone who
means it, or by someone who is making fun of the people who mean it.
"Who prints these cards?" Sin asks the pony‐tailed man behind the counter.
He is not a young man. His hair is so jet‐black it gives of a sheen of deep deep blue. He has Indian features. It is a bad idea to ask what tribe one belongs to, according to Sin, but the man looks to be Yaqui, Pima, or Mayo maybe.
"I do." The Indian says. "Immigration is a bummer, isn't it?"
Powerball
Let me tell you a story Sin once told me. I don't
know whether to believe it or not. But when I think about it, Sin has never lied to me except for those few times when he hasn't exactly told the truth, but even then he hasn't really lied, he's more just not told the truth. There is a difference.
I am in a class, listening to a lecture about human anatomy. It is boring as ever, not so much the material being taught as the manner in which it is taught by the person by whom it is taught. I could learn more in five minutes talking to Sin, or reading one of his journals, but Sin isn't here now and neither are his journals.
But Sin helps pay for me to be here, as he's promised. He's told me that the boredom is part of it, and if one can go through all the mind‐numbing boredom, and still remain excited about learning, one is 95% of the way home, as he puts it.
I always thought he was kind of poor, and kind of crazy, but that he meant well, and he was trying to make up for some crime he'd committed earlier in life. As it turns out, he wasn't crazy. Well, maybe a little. But he definitely wasn't poor.
Anyway, here I am a student at the University of Arizona College of Medicine at its Tucson Campus. I read all the inspiring stories about why the people who are studying medicine are studying medicine. I listen to the Aspiring Doc's Podcasts. I let them interview me. I want to tell the truth, so I do. I tell them about my friend Rosaria. I tell them about the shootings. I don't think anyone believes me. They never air or post my interview. The only one that believes me is the woman that gives me my health physical.
"What are the scars?" She asks me.
"It's a bullet wound." I tell her.
She doesn't ask me any more questions about the
scars, but she is now nicer to me. Her name tag says Blanca.
I ask her "Do I have a chance here?"
"I'd say you have a better chance than most." Blanca
says. "You certainly have a better reason than most."
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ <>{}<>‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
But back to my story about how my Papa Azucar is
helping me pay for Med School.
He goes into a gas station, and says he wants to buy a
Power Ball ticket. The jackpot is over 425 million dollars. Of course, if the jackpot is $425 million, each person has a better chance of winning the Best Actor Academy Award, or a Superbowl as an NFL quarterback, than winning this prize. But this gas station no longer sells the tickets over the counter. The clerk points to a machine, and tells Sin he will have to buy the ticket there. He goes over to the machine, reads the directions. The smallest bill he has is a ten dollar bill. He inserts it. He pushes the Power Ball $2 purchase button. A light comes on saying "Printing Ticket". Then the ticket is dispensed. Sin pulls it from the dispensing slot. Another light comes on saying "$8 credit". Sin looks for a button to push to get his $8 dollars change, but finds none. So he goes up to the clerk, tells her what has happened, and asks if she can give him the $8 change back. She says she can't.
He says "What am I supposed to do? Buy $10 worth of Power Ball tickets?"
She says "I guess you'll have to." And she laughs.
That is on a Monday night. On Wednesday night the
numbers are drawn. Sin doesn't check the numbers until Friday night. He is still angry that he had to buy five tickets. He starts with the one on top, the fifth one he had to buy, and compares it with the winning numbers. 1, his first number is 1. 27, his second number is 27. 31, his third number is 31. 45, his fourth number is 45. 48, his fifth number is 48. PowerBall 18, his sixth number is 18. He goes through the sequence again. 1‐ 27‐31‐45‐48‐then 18.
The jackpot has grown to $505 million that night.
Sin finds himself shaking uncontrollably. Being rich is
much more terrifying than being poor. But Sin already learned this, fortunately, long before he won the Lottery.
Crazy white people.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐<>{}<>‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
That is one of his stories. Here is another. He tells me about a particular trip to what he calls Angel City. He says there is a lot of treasure there, and the treasure has been collected by a dragon named Smog. He says there is also another kind of smog there, but he’s not talking about that kind of smog right now. He says the treasure was collected by Smog through his involvement in, and eventual control of drugs, gambling, prostitution.
He says Smog was very adept at economics, and had developed what he called the “trickle up” theory. The fools at the bottom believed in working hard to earn their money and making a living honestly. That’s why they never had any money, and that’s why they had, barely, what could be called lives. One step above these people were the people who provided diversion in the form of entertainment of one type or another. What type of entertainment was offered depended on what type of entertainment one could afford. A step above the people in the diversion industry where the facilitators.
“Once you get really good at cheating”, The facilitators would say, “it’s not like you really need any other skill.” So the facilitators were pretty much the people who were the liars, cheats, thieves, extortionists. Most of them used other titles, and I’ll leave it to you to plug in the title depending on what type of facilitator you’ve dealt with.
There were other levels still much higher, but one had to be very deceitful to get there, and it was very hard to stay there because there was always someone more deceitful trying to knock you off of the top of Deceitful Mountain. Smog was smart in that he never tried to get to the top of that mountain. He preferred to live in a cave deep inside the base of the mountain.
So Sin says he and a bunch of associates he called the Dirty 13, most of the group being made up of what Sin called “dwarves” and “elves”, decided to set up a sting on Smog who kept all his wealth in a safe bunker deep in the mountain.
“If he keeps all his wealth at the base of the mountain, why is this called “trickle up” economics?” I once asked.
“Because it’s trickle up in theory.” He said. “But it’s trickle down in reality.”
“Or vice versa.” I remember saying to him.
Sin says that this is a period in his live he isn’t proud of. He went by the name Dildo Daggins. He said he had to work his way through all the dark alleys of Angel City that no‐one ever talks about, but he, and his Dirty 13 did eventually get to the treasure. He said there was so much of it there, they still haven’t got it all out yet. He says he only goes there when he, or the elves, or the dwarves, need more, which isn’t often these days.
When I asked him what happened to Smog, he never told me. Sin was pretty drunk when he told me this story. And I’m very sure he plagiarized parts of it from other stories. But then, he was drunk when he told me about winning the lottery too.
Believ
e what you want.
Grouse Shooting in New England
The Reaper had been flying over the Clinic for
weeks now. Part of another stepped‐up campaign, or surge, on the War on Drugs. At least that's what Sin had said. I insisted it was the war on illegal drugs. Sin insisted that any drug was illegal for which the proper payments by the proper people to the proper interests for the proper right to distribute said drug had not been paid.
This drone and others, including Predators, had been "ordinanced up" as Sin put it, meaning they were equipped with either guns, missiles, or bombs. None of the ordinance had been delivered yet. At least not to us.
"There are so many ways this is a bad idea." Sin says when I tell him about my idea for a free clinic in Mexico, right at the border, right where Rosaria had been killed. "Why don't you just practice at one of the Clinics in Phoenix or Tucson? Christ, you could have had your medical degree paid for if you'd just signed up with one of them ahead of time. But even so, you do have it now."
But too late. I am here now. It is here now. Right where Rosaria had said she wanted it, during one of her visits to me after she had died.
Sin is working on the tubes in the shop behind the Clinic.
"You ever read the book Grouse Shooting in New England?" He asks. "I'm pretty sure you haven't, but I just thought I'd ask."
"I've never even heard of it." I say.
"It's one of my favorite books." Sin says. "It's written by William Harnden Foster. It was first published in 1942. It's about grouse hunting, but it's mostly about a way of life that is now gone. Of course, I kind of like Grouse Feathers by Burton Spiller. And I also like More Grouse Feathers."
"Let me guess." I say. "Also by Burton Spiller?"
"How'd you guess?" Sin asks. "I'd read these books over and over every year til I got to the point I could have recited each book word for word without even needing to refer to the book. But it's funny how we change over the years. It starts occurring to the reader, at least it did to me, that each author and his friends killed thousands of grouse in their lifetimes. Have you ever eaten a grouse? Of course you haven't. You're not from New England. They're good. But they're gamey. You have to learn to enjoy the taste. But no matter how much you learn to like them, and no matter how many ways you cook them, there is no way you are going to want to eat thousands of them. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?"
"What's a grouse?" I ask.
"It's proper name is ruffed grouse. It's a little like a partridge." Sin says. "In fact, New Englanders call them 'pats', shortened from 'pa'tridges'. They're also a little like pheasant, and a little like quail."
"Like a Gambel's quail?" I ask.
"Yeah." Sin says. "A little. But a grouse is smarter than a quail. It's a whole hell of a lot smarter than anything, including a wild turkey. It's clever, it's cunning. It makes an awful racket when it takes off. And it flies very erratically, putting every obstacle it can between itself and anything trying to hit it, like a hunter, or catch it, like a raptor, in flight."
"Why are they called ruffled grouse? I ask.
"It's ruffed grouse." Sin says. "Not ruffled grouse. A lot of people do call them ruffled grouse, probably because they're thinking of ruffled feathers or something. But a ruffed grouse actually has a ruff, which is an arrangement of feathers on each side of its head and neck, that it can make stand out when it is about to fight, or when it is trying to impress a female. When extended, it makes a male grouse look larger and more impressive, I guess. But then, the females have them also. Of course, both sexes have feather crests on their heads, like bluejays, and both sexes fan their tales like a turkey. When you remember that birds really descended from reptiles, these display mechanisms make sense. There were grouse when there were still dinosaurs on earth."
"But they're only in New England?" I ask.
"Well." Sin says. "There are a few different varieties of
grouse that occupy the northern U.S. and most of Canada. But the one I'm talking about is Bonasa umbellus umbellus. It's native to the northeast U.S. and the Maritime Provinces of Canada. Ever heard of Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire?"
"Lake Winny‐piss‐sockie?"
"Yeah."
"What does that mean? Winnypissockie?" I ask.
"It's Indian."
"What does it mean?" I ask.
"The wind blew piss on my sockies."
Sin smiles. I smile.
The best place to hunt grouse used to be New
Hampshire." Sin says. And the best place in New Hampshire to hunt grouse was the abandoned farmland around Lake Winnipesaukee. Then the developers, bankers, and real estate people moved in. All the suckers, blood, cock, and otherwise, followed them. Then the grouse moved out, 'cause their neighborhood was going downhill."
"What are you working on?" I ask.
"A grouse gun." Sin says. "But a much bigger version of
one."
"How many beers have you had?" I ask.
"I don't know." Sin says. "But I stopped when the lady
at the cantina wouldn't serve me anymore."
"What cantina?"
"The one just down the way a bit." Sin says. "The lady's
name is Mary. She seems very nice. She sure knows a lot about grouse hunting."
"Yes, I bet she does." I say. "Is she the one that put you up to this?"
"I guess so." Sin says. "She said the drones were like large grouse. She said hitting the drones would be easier than hitting a grouse. Grouse rarely take the same path twice, whereas the drones take pretty predictable flight paths. She said the only difference is that the drones are bigger, so I would need a much bigger shotgun."
"Sin." I say. "There is no cantina 'just down the way a bit'. And what did this Mary look like anyway?"
"She looked kind of Italian." Sin says. "No, Greek. No, Spanish. Wait, she looked more Arabic or Jewish. Semitic? Mediterranean, anyway."
"Do you have any idea how much trouble you would be in if you managed to shoot one of those things down?"
"No more than I'd be in for trying and missing." Sin says. "It just seemed awfully important to Mary for me to bag one of these birds."
"Sin." I say. "Mary is a hallucination. You only think she's telling you to do something. You already want to do it anyhow. Think about it. How would a Mediterranean woman know anything about grouse hunting? How would she know anything about grouse hunting in New England? And how would she know how to build anything even remotely resembling an anti‐aircraft gun?"
"I don't know." Sin says. "How would a Mediterranean woman know that an unmanned aircraft circles over your clinic every day?"
Sin hefted the tube to his shoulder. On its underside
was what looked like a semi‐auto pistol attached to it. "How do you like it?" Sin asks. "It will launch something similar to a Russian OG‐7 HE/frag. But I'm going to make my own. It will be like a giant shotshell, but instead of shot I will use ball‐bearings."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." I say.
"The fragmentation head was intended as an anti‐
personnel weapon." Sin says.
"I didn't say I wanted to know."
Sin ignores me.
"It had to be smaller, only 40 millimeters, if it was going
to be used against people. I mean, it could be used against people, but the people had to be inside something for it to be legal. You've got to follow certain rules if you want to blow people apart."
"I still don't want to know..."
"I dream of a kinder gentler world." Sin says. "In the
future, there will still be wars. There will always be wars. But in the future, when two countries go to war, they will recruit only young men."
"I thought they recruited young men now." I say.
"Countries wanting to wage war will recruit teams of
teenage boys who are very good at video games like Halo or Call of Duty. The team that wins the virtual war will be the one that wins the real war for
its country. Heck, you won't even need to be a country to start a war. You can be a wanna‐be terrorist. You can be someone who wants to overthrow his own country's government. You can be a bored old rich guy. As long as you can put together a team of young guys really good at waging virtual war, you can wage war. Wouldn't that be better than sending young men out to commit all sorts of carnage against each other, like we do now? Wouldn't it?"
"Isn't that where we're headed anyway?" I say. "I mean, with the unmanned aircraft. And if they're doing it with unmanned aircraft, can unmanned tanks, boats, artillery, robot warriors, be far behind?"
"Except that now we cheat." Sin says.
"How do you mean?"
"The side that has the technology uses it to give its warriors, if you want to call them that anymore, an advantage. The techs get to keep themselves hidden, safe and sound, while they use the technology on people with nowhere to hide, nowhere to run, no way to protect themselves."
