Touchdown Dogs (life and times of spa salesmen)

Put your fingers together in the water. Move them back and forth over each other like you are rolling a booger. If your fingers glide nicely over each other than you have a problem. If you can feel the roughness of your skin, with plenty of resistance, then fire up those jets and let the heat heal you. You will pulsate with relaxation.

I have Hemingway

Borges had Cervantes. I have Hemingway.

While lying in bed last night, I had my first experience of being stuck in a story. One sentence repeatedly:

He got on his hands and knees and letting one side of the hatch over the engines slam down, crawled over it forward to where the steering stool was.

This sentence can be found near the end of chapter eighteen in Ernest Hemingway’s To Have And Have Not.

For those that have not read To Have And Have Not, I must give you a piece of information necessary for this discussion. Harry, the main character of Hemingway’s story, has one arm. You need not know any more about Harry, though I would highly suggest reading the story.

He got on his hands and knees…

Harry only has one hand.

As I read the beginning of the sentence again and again, I struggled to move on toward the period. I was stuck on those five words, He got on his hands… Then it happened.

I found myself smoking Cuban cigars in the time before it was deemed and act of treason. I put my hand to my gray beard that held the smell of tobacco, drink, and the sea. Harry has one hand. What am I to write?

He got on his hand and knees…
No.
He began to crawl, and letting one side of the hatch over the engines slam down, crawled…
Damn. That is the second crawl.
I wish I were at a bullfight. Or fighting a marlin. Focus. Drink. Focus.
On his knees, he bent down and with one hand and his stump he…
Back to crawled. I love leather. And sea turtles. Drink. Focus.
He got on his hands and knees and letting one side of the hatch over the engines slam down, crawled over it forward to where the steering stool was.
I’m Hemingway. To hell with anyone that cares Harry only has one hand.

I finished the chapter, but not without the feeling that somehow I had been taken advantage of.

The Strange Case of Bella Eisenstaedt

Bella Eisenstaedt was a lone crusader in the pursuit of male driving etiquette. She specialized in the development of good sitting skills and detested men who drove their vehicles as if they were lounging in a lawn chair. Good posture behind the wheel for men was her life long passion. Sadly no one knew this until her memoirs were uncovered due to her unfortunate circus-peanut accident. The memoirs fetched one dollar at an estate sale held last fall.

Conversation

"Do you think I take myself too seriously?"
"Yes. Pass the salt."
"You didn't even think about your answer. Yes."
"As a rule, anyone, thanks, that asks that question takes themselves too seriously."
"What are you doing?"
"Keeps the napkin from sticking to the glass."

John Wesley Harding

I've been married for eleven years today.
And, "Frankie Lee and Judas Priest they were the best of friends."
Happy for over a decade.
"With four and twenty windows and a woman's face in every one."

We drove on the Blue Ridge
"Nothing is revealed."
Sipped wine and ate chocolate.
"Don't go mistaking paradise for that home across the road."

Rain fell and then it didn't
"But I did not trust my brother..."
There were deer and then there wasn't
"Stay free from pety jealousies..."

She gives her sweet face as a constant
"...and whom lies with every breath."
Almond eyes like batted butterfly wings
"whose tears are like rain."

Grasshoppers

Black dog set against green grass
Her chrome leash slack
Nose to the ground makes a wake
Of jumping flying legs