God bless America and god bless our president. It's one hell of a job.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
False epiphanies
By Stephen Richter | 2:06 a.m.
Martín looked at the screen smiling. She’d left her email open. Yahoo España was written in the upper corner of the browser. Martín didn’t notice. His lips moved, mouthing a word again and again.
“Positíva...” he finally whispered.
He smiled. He frowned. He smiled again. He sat back in the chair and made a steeple with his fingertips. He nodded his head.
“¡Bueno!” he said. He slapped the desktop with the palm of his hand. He stood, took the checkbook and his overcoat and headed for the door. He left his briefcase sitting on the floor.
8:30 p.m.
Martín walked into the apartment. It was dark now. He turned on the light with his elbow. Martín’s arms were full of shopping bags with bows and ribbons and colored tissue.
Angelica stood in the kitchen. She smoked a cigarette. A suitcase sat beside the kitchen door. It was ajar.
“¿Que te pasa?” said Martín. He put the bags on the table. “What’s wrong?”
She told him the truth.
The sun shone through the living room window. Martín slept in his suit on the couch. Bags, baby clothes and toys cluttered the floor. He looked at the kitchen door. It was closed now. She was gone. The alarm went off.
7:30 a.m.
Time to go to work.
Stormwatch
By Stephen Richter | 1:30 a.m.
I crossed the railroad tracks by the soccer field in the rain. I avoided the tunnel and walked up the hill towards west cliff instead. I had an urge to put my hands in my pockets but didn’t. I haven’t done that since before the Corps. I continued up the coast. White water boiled. It rolled into the bay. I bent my head to the rain and walked to the lighthouse. This place is sacred to me, at least for what it represents. The sea lions were gone. They’ve been gone for a while now. There were only three people disbursed along the guard rail, in the mist, at the edge of North America. They stared out at the sea. They watched her churn and smack against the cliffside. I did the same, for a while. I felt a bit silly, standing there with my wetsuit on beneath my jeans and jacket. I had walked down to see the waves. I wasn’t going to surf. I don’t even know why I had suited up in the first place. I took off my jacket. A woman watched me hop the guard rail. I walked to the edge of the cliff and stared out at the swell and the sea birds. I looked down.
“Come on,” I said, “It’s not a big deal.”
I held my hands in front of my face. I closed them into fists then opened them again. I looked at the lines, life lines, love lines and fingerprints.
“Hello, excuse me,” said the woman at the rail behind me.
I assumed it was her. I slid my hands into my pockets. I savored a pure and undisciplined moment for a moment then jumped off the cliff, into a patch of kelp and the Pacific Ocean. I back-stroked and got swallowed in the wash. The current drove me into the bay. I swam towards the pier, then once free, I swam towards the monument and the stairs beneath it. I climbed from the sea, clean, cold and winded. I smiled. I walked back for my jacket. The woman was gone. I headed down west cliff, over the railroad tracks, across the lagoon, to my home beneath the willow tree, beside the brook.
Unload!
From Mexico City to Las Vegas, Nevada, two men make a hypnotic journey into the dark heart of the sports gambling industry. They race against the clock to get the girl, the cash, and get the hell out of Dodge, as the streets of Sin City erupt with blood and mayhem.
By Stephen Richter
http://www.amazon.com/Unload-Stephen-Richter/dp/1450576060/ref=pd_rhf_p_img_2
Hawaiian Ice
Cultures collide when a group of recession-weary refugees from the mainland try to forget their pasts and begin a new life beneath the volcanic slopes of Mona Loa. In one night of confusion, the Big Island of Hawaii erupts with revenge, redemption, and delusion.
By Stephen Richter
http://www.amazon.com/Hawaiian-Ice-Stephen-E-Richter/dp/1449929753/ref=pd_rhf_p_img_1
Doing this for my health
By Stephen Richter | 2:52 a.m.
I watched our commander in chief struggle upstream to the top of Capitol Hill, in the name of our good health. I couldn’t help but think of Staff Sergeant Strong and his opinion on our nation’s health care system.
“Listen up Devil Dogs. If you somehow manage to injure yourselves or get yourselves sick, your lives will no longer be in my capable hands. It will be in the clutches of some miserable fat-body, in a white coat, with nothing better to offer you than a finger up the keister. And that’s about all the good you’re gonna get out of sickbay or some hospital. So until ordered otherwise, you are going to have to stay alive and healthy, and take responsibility for your own nasty little bodies, you understand me?!”
"Yes sir!"
“That means drink water, wash your hands, eat healthy - you know what to do so don’t bullshit me or yourself. Keep your hair short, all you hair short, so you don’t attract critters. Take your vitamins, PT every day, and stay away from whores, whiskey, and Robitussin. You do that, and you’ll live as long as Chesty Puller, and he had bullet holes and bayonet wounds in his body. If you don’t, and I find out you went and died on me, you will be in a world of shit, Marines, understand me?!!”
"Yes sir!"
"Carry on!"
Maybe it’s the Pavlov, maybe it’s the passion, but staff sergeant’s words have always made sense to me. One can never rely on someone or something outside oneself to provide them with “health care.” Big Pharma doesn't care about our health. It starts within, by taking good care of ourselves and by taking responsibility for maintaining a lifestyle that supports good health. My mother was the only one out of ten brothers and sisters that didn’t end up with diabetes, cancer, hypertension, and the long list of maladies her siblings have dealt with over the years. There are only three of them alive now, and she can attest it to one thing:
An ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure.
It’s a good place to start.
So regardless of the future of our nation’s healthcare system,
Take care of yourself, really take care of yourself.
Semper Fi,
Stephen Richter
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
¡El Paniquiádo!: panicked
The 15th of September, Independence Night, Mexico City: A salesman, a politician, a traficante, his scorned wife, a DJ, a federal agent, a poor little rich girl, a methamphetamine cook, and a sixteen year-old prostitute try to escape a city-gone-mad. There is only one night, one opportunity, and one way out of the land where no good deed goes unpunished.
By Stephen Richter
http://www.amazon.com/%C2%A1El-Paniqui%C3%A1do-panicked-Stephen-Richter/dp/1448684943/ref=pd_rhf_p_img_1
The Expatriate by Stephen Richter
The Expatriate is the story of Sidney, a man who discovers he is dying then drops everything in his life. He disappears to Mexico to face his final days alone. Planning for the inevitable, he's thrown into a world of dark secrets, double lives, escapists, predators, hunters and the hunted. Love, life, death, fear, friendship, music, betrayal, forgiveness and obsession thrive in the Baja, at the end of the world. Sometimes, when one is closest to death they start living, really living for the first time in their lives.
By Stephen Richter
http://www.amazon.com/Expatriate-Stephen-Richter/dp/1448653126/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_3
Friday, March 19, 2010
Infamy
By Stephen Richter | 2:52 a.m.
"December 7th, 1941 — a date which
will live in infamy"
On the seventh of December, 1981, an
eleven-year old boy and his father stared
down at the remains of the USS Arizona
at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. I remember
standing next to a family of Japanese
tourists. Their son was my age and I
wondered how they must have felt being
them, being there, at a site so charged
with emotion and all that it represented.
We watched a video in the memorial’s
viewing room and that same family sat
three seats down from me. I remember
feeling angry at them. Their son smiled
at me and I didn’t smile back. “Gomen
nasai,” he said. I didn’t understand
Japanese when I was eleven. It meant
nothing to me.
In October of 1993, I learned how it felt
to be a U.S. Marine, standing next to a
Japanese family, at the Hiroshima Peace
Park in Japan. And although I hadn’t
been alive when it took place, I still felt
very sorry and somewhat responsible for
that place and what it represented. I
apologized to the family I was standing
next to for some reason. The
grandmother had surely been alive when
it happened. “Gomen nasai,” I said. I
bowed to her and left. I was leaving
Japan for good that day.
September 11th, 2001
CNN - DAY OF TERROR
A 21st century 'day of infamy'
I remember watching CNN every day for
a week after 9/11, until I couldn’t stand it
any more. I remember looking at the
footage from Iraq and Afghanistan and
feeling angry.
December 7th, 2009
We are, eight years into the war on terror,
just a couple years shy of the Soviet
Union’s record ten year occupation of
Afghanistan. In the fall of 1993 I studied
the doctrine of guerilla warfare at the
JWTC (Jungle Warfare Training Center)
Okinawa Japan, in the Northern Training
Area below the prefecture of Nago. We
took a class on the mistakes the USSR
made during their decade-long
occupation of Afghanistan.
“That is why
the Russians got their asses handed to
them in Kabul,” said Sgt. Samoa, “that
is why the United States will never do
something as asinine as try to occupy a
country like that for any extended period
of time - not after what we learned from
Vietnam, and definitely not in my beloved
Marine Corps,” he said. We all laughed.
Psychologists say that one of the most
difficult crimes for a victim to recover
from is Home Invasion
Ghandi once said that an eye for an eye
leaves the whole world blind.
As a veteran, a father, an American, and
a citizen of the global community, I can
only hope that on this December 7th we
can all pause for a moment of silence to
respect those who have been lost, on all
those infamous days in human history.
Whether we were there or not, we are all
responsible in one way or another, in
some way for what comes next. For all
those who have lost their loved-ones at
the hands of their fellow man,
Gomen, Gomen nasai...
Morning Roll
By Stephen Richter | 4:52 a.m.
Good morning, hard-chargers.
As we approach the month of October and our beloved Marine Corps birthday, I must admit that our numbers are swelling here in town. More Marines than I ever imagined are moving about the city of Santa Cruz.
Staff Sergeant Strong once told me that camouflage is a progressive art. The purpose is to imitate and reflect natural world around us. We strive to become a seamless deadly thorn, on a real bush, that the enemy will fatally slice himself on in passing. So here’s a toast to all you Devil Dogs scurrying around the city seamless, masquerading as Joe civilian.
1. To the hard-charging Devil Dog behind the desk of Apple Computer’s Genius Bar on University ave, Palo Alto, California. – Nice work there, killer. (nice wrist-lock too, on that customer who wouldn’t wait in line for his appointment. I bet he won’t be waving that USB drive in anyone else’s face.)
2. To my motivated MSG Marine I met in Trader Joe’s from the USS BELLEAU WOOD (CV-24). Considering that she was decommissioned 13 Jan 1947, you are looking damn good there, killer! Keep up the Pilates. At first I was a little funny about it, in a knee-jerk sort of way. But, if I can be charging half as hard at 91, I’d be open to whatever kind of progressive P.T. program they threw at me.
3. To my swift silent and deadly park ranger out at natural bridges last Saturday. Some of the people in the crowd said your “Aussie repel” from the cliffs was gratuitous. I thought it was out-fucking-standing. It demonstrated esprit de corps the likes of which you rarely see in civil service.
Semper Fi.
Rum buggery and the Splash
Mogadishu, Somalia Jan. 1993
By Stephen Richter | 3:50 a.m.
Friday night.
Good morning, Devil Dogs. Mission accomplished.
I’ve found him.
It took three weeks of recon, five tanks of gas, two bottles of Wild Turkey, a drive from Santa Cruz, California to Sacramento, to Eureka, to Redding, then to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and finally to the tribal police on the Hoopa Indian reservation, but I located our brother marine, Cpl. Gene Ryan.
We were squad leaders together in boot camp, (3rd BN. Kilo Company, Platoon 3029). We ran into each other a year later in Okinawa, Japan. From Okinawa we deployed to Somalia together as a security detachment in 93’ then spent a hairy-assed year in the shit, until “the incident” that sent me home occurred. We have neither seen nor heard from each other since.
The debriefing in Virginia had been a bit rattling for me. The confidentiality agreement we signed forbade us to speak about anything, much less have contact with the marines who were present when the rounds started going down range, at least for a period of five years. Once the five years were up, I was already in Mexico and in the middle of another world of shit. So I have never had the opportunity to find out what became of Cpl. Gene Ryan.
I guess I’ve been looking for closure lately. Being back in the U.S. and on this new crusade of conscience and curiosity, I had to know. I needed answers. I was afraid of the answers, either way it could turn out, but I just needed to know.
Did Gene readjust, adapt, and become Joe civilian when he came home? Was I just some mal-adapted freak of nurture? Had Gene able to do what so many of us have been incapable of pulling off? My mind wandered back to a time that I’ve tried to put as many miles and years in between as possible.
Until now.
The snow on top of Mt. Shasta reminded me of Mt. Fuji, of Camp Fuji, of Japan in general. I got out of the car and stared out over the lake for a while. Gene used to talk about fishing here when we were in Mogadishu. I climbed back into the car. It was a hot bitch. I guess spring would be over early this year.
“All that goddamned Aqua Net…” I said. I drove off.
I pulled up to the Win River Casino Bingo at sunset.
I’d already found Gene’s Grandfather earlier that morning around ten. He’s a full-blooded Pit River / Hoopa Indian Marine from the Korean War. We got to drinking and talking so much that I passed the whole day on the porch in front of his trailer with him. I laughed so hard I cried. God knows I needed it.
“Discipline creates strength, and perfection comes from absolute focus.” he had told me sometime that morning.
I repeated it to myself. Gene’s grandfather was an amazing human being. I found it hard to leave for some reason.
He gave me Gene’s work address. Gene was now a security guard at the Indian Casino Bingo Palace, on the Pit River reservation. Gene is only a quarter American Indian, the rest of him is Irish, so he makes one hell of a drinking buddy. He nearly got us butchered by a group of Yakuza in a bar in Okinawa once. He wouldn’t eat some egg dish then he started patting the boss guy on the top of his head like in a three stooges movie…. I’ll tell you later. You get the gist though.
The Win River Casino was in the middle of nowhere. The parking lot rumbled with activity. Groups of guys gathered around pickups with gun racks in their rear windows, drinking beer.
I didn’t even make it half way across the parking lot.
“You looking for someone?” said someone.
I avoided them. Walking, I counted them. They followed. The someone guy repeated his question. The group blocked my path, and there we were, in some sort of half-assed Sergio Leone cliche -
a Casino Bingo standoff.
I regretted not wearing my USMC baseball cap. It usually serves as a deterrent for undisciplined civilian types.
“Very well,” I said.
“Very what?” said Mr. someone.
“Well.” I said.
“Well, what?” said someone.
I grabbed his trachea with one hand and his Mr. someone in the other then pulled him towards me, using him as a human shield. I backed away from his friends.
Gene hit me in the back of the head with a Maglight.
I was still glad to see him, once I could see him, and when I saw him I told him he was a shitty security guard. I said he would probably get sued someday with that ready-fire-aim mentality of his.
Gene smiled. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He had already pepper sprayed me, himself, and all of the casino bingo parking lot mafia before the situation was explained and contained enough to finally talk with each other. We had a lot of catching up to do.
We’re heading back to San Francisco now.
I didn’t feel welcome on the “res” anymore. I don’t think the res was feeling me either. Plus, I want to introduce Gene to my wife and family. I want take him out on the town then get some answers, some peroxide, alcohol wipes, and some bandages for my head too.
“Why did you tell those guys you had swine flu?” said Gene.
“Gotta’ improvise, hard-charger.” I said. “Psychological warfare.”
Gene is driving my car for me.
I’m on the keyboard.
The lights of the city are just now coming into view.
It’s 2:46 am.
Talk to you soon, my brothers, wherever you are.
Stay green, disinfect and keep it clean…
Semper Fi.
Amphibious Assault
By Stephen Richter | 3:51 a.m.
Sunday morning: the crack of ass
(Dawn Patrol at world Famous Steamer Lane, Santa Cruz, CA.)
I opened my eyes. My three-year old son snored like his father and his grandfather before him. I smiled. I tip-toed down the hall and slipped into my wetsuit and booties. The smell of wet neoprene always brings a morningwoodie to the true hard-charging Para-frog. At least that’s what Staff sgt. Strong used to say in Okinawa.
I grabbed my 6’6” thruster and crept out the door.
Approaching Neary Lagoon, I scanned the bushes and trees for Marines. Santa Cruz is crawling with em’. Six of us surf the lane each morning at dawn patrol. Our numbers are growing. My heart raced. Somehow the nostalgia has gone to everyone’s head. It’s been getting a little out of hand. I crouched into a lower stance, keeping in the shadows of the reeds growing from the lagoon. I stepped onto the catwalk. Wood creaked in the pre-dawn silence.
I was a combat readiness instructor at the JWTC in Okinawa. I love to motivate people. I guess I’ve been pushing us all to charge harder in the water lately, but it’s been spilling over onto the shore. It has my wife very disturbed. Two mornings ago, Rodriguez fell upon me like a rubber panther from the tree-canopy about 200 yards from where I was now crouching. His face was painted with camo-stick. A diver’s knife was strapped to the calf of his wet suit...
He tackled me to the deck and said he was just testing my situation awareness. You know, to help me keep my edge sharp.
“Morning, Hard-chargers!” I said. “You out there, Rodriguez?”
SILENCE
I burst into a sprint, screaming, streaking down the wooden catwalks that float on the surface of Neary lagoon. I held my surfboard like a lance.
“Sons of Bitches! I just want to surf today!” I said.
A longboard fell from a willow tree at the end of the catwalk on the other side of the lagoon with a thud.
“Fuck!” said someone. I saw a leg protruding from the branches up ahead. I charged and pulled on it, then sprinted up the hillside. Donovan fell from the willow tree behind me, spewing obscenities. At the top of the hill I ran a zig-zag pattern. My chest burned. My heartbeat drummed in my ears. Before I reached the railroad tracks a bar of sex wax pelted me in the temple.
It was Charlie.
Not Charlie charlie, it was Charlie Rodriguez chucking bars of wax at me from the plastic dome on top of the slide, from the playground behind me.
“Fuck you, Rodriguez!” I said “It’s gonna’ take more than that!”
I crossed the tracks. Sweat poured. The squeaking from my wetsuit echoed down the residential street. I tossed my board into the tall-grass and flipped over the chain-link fence of the church on Westcliff. Somehow I landed on my tailbone. The pitter pat of rubber bootied footsteps grew in volume on the other side of the courtyard.
They were close.
I ran across the street, keeping the ocean on my left. The lighthouse was just up ahead.
Six wetsuit-clad former Marines charged the point, like fingers of a hand. The sun rose at our backs. The fire of a new day burned in our hearts, and I’m sure none of us knew why the hell we were doing all this.
But we were here, just like we once were, just like we’ll probably be for the rest of our lives: alive, full of intensity and ready to take on whatever the world has chosen to hurl at us.
One by one we leaped from the cliff into the Pacific ocean. Seals vocalized their approval. Otters backstroked away from the impact zone and the waves rolled in from across the sea...
Good Morning Devil Dogs, wherever you may be.
Semper Fi.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
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