Letter to Franny:
barbaralba_part - 5th book of a letter to Franny.
In the foundation was a mule in the sub superstucture is Barbaralba.
One doesn't find Barbaralba, one waits.
barbaralba_part_01

Book 5

An old beginning. A lovely fish. Ich habe durst. I was thinking, though my German is shitty, it’s much better than most people’s German if they don’t speak it at all.

T ‘Shut up.’

Sn ‘More Coffee.’

I was thinking I’d write you a letter, Franny; a short one, tell you how well I’ve got to know you over the last 4 or 5 years. Then I remembered we’ve probably talked 12 and a half minutes.

Did you know France borders Italy? Did you know Germany borders about nine countries? Did you know you can buy a carton of smokes for 9 marks, which is almost 8 dollars Canadian, in Gibraltar? Have you ever heard of Liechtenstein? My guess is they like to keep it that way. Do you know how many possible combinations of ancestors you have if you go back 50 generations, which is only about 1,000 years. My guess is around 27 billion. So what? So there you go. And sure there weren’t that many people, it’s just math.

If I knew then what I knew now, I would have been a little less dumb. Who said, ‘The trouble with youth is it’s wasted on the young.’ Bet ya’ it was Samuel Clemence.

S ‘My advice to people is to enjoy each other.’

P ‘That’s good, Steve.’

J ‘Jeboneie.’

Oh, fuck it. I’m all dried up.

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-Remind me to write the Gospel According to Steve. Maybe you find the bible stuff tedious but it is our culture.

‘Who am I to judge? asked the judge, impatiently. They brought out the next contestant in, ‘What’s your crime?’ The case is stated as such: In the beginning, which of course was millions of years after the dinosaurs were extinct and mammals ruled the Earth, with one of the primates showing signs of rapid brain development and use of tools, was the word.

Sn ‘More coffee?’

T ‘Sure, why not?’

S ‘‘Cause you’ll go batty and piss your self if you have any more.’

A ‘Good point.’

Sn ‘So you don’t want any?’

A ‘Yes, please.’

There it was, a word. The word was COD, but of course it was too hard to say back then when people didn’t even have computers or televisions, so when they tried to say it, after a few lessons in phonetics, it came out as GOD.

Heaven help us, they got a fish turned into a god. Well the fish was stuck in the mud and shouted, ‘Let there be light.’ and someone was good enough to wipe the mud from it’s eyes. ‘Let the water get out of this dirt.’ So he was gently placed on the grass where he still complained. ‘Let me see the fuckin’ sky.’ By this time some of the people were getting impatient, so they gave the COD a good kick. ‘Let there be Rock.’ That was the last thing COD said. He received a rock on top of his head. His belly was sliced open with a sharp stone, his guts pulled out and one of the people said, ‘Uma guma fuma.’ which of course meant, ‘Let there be a fire.’ So what’s his name, I think it’s Pamithious or something, came out of a cloud and gave them some fire. They ate COD.

Then everyone died of food poisoning. Everyone in the world except for a fellow named Adam who wasn’t hungry that day. He thought it was cool to be alone at first. He could steal people’s sharp stones, eat his dessert without his main course and have sex with chickens.

This he lost interest in after a few years, so he studied chemistry, biological engineering, physics and short hand. At the end of it, he was pretty smart, so he cut himself open, pulled out a rib and some muscle tissue and some blood and fat and got busy in the lab making himself a friend. Much to his pleasure and amazement, it turned out to be female with a very luscious body.

The first thing he thought to do was try sex with her, see if it was better than a chicken. For him it was, unfortunately for her, it wasn’t. He didn’t know about a woman’s orgasm.

Since the sun was going down, Adam called his new mate Eve. In the morning, Eve asked Adam if he knew how to give a woman an orgasm. He didn’t know what she meant. So Eve, not being pleased, went and got herself an apple and started in on the tree of knowledge. The same school Adam went to. She learned things that Adam had missed. She studied, philosophy and ancient religions.

How far do you think I can take this?

and psychology, statistics, metaphysics, boat building and rocket science.

She tried to have an intelligent conversation with Adam but he just wanted to touch her tits and off load his sperm in her vagina. Things being as they were, meaning without birth control, Eve had a dozen children. They were all boys. Six of them grew sugar cane. The other ones raised sheep and kept cows in a stable.

Boredom set in, so they started at killing each other. They all died but one of the fellows that grew the cane. His name was thus Cane. Well Adam was off on another project, so Cane had sex with his mother. He learned from her how to make her happy. She had 12 girls. Cane had sex with all of them and they had boys and girls and Cane had sex with any and all of them until he died. All the kids had sex with each other and by the time a few years got on, the place was crowded and they found they were slaves in Egypt.

They were a little upset at that so they made one more baby and told him to be Moses. Moses was to figure out a way to get away from the bad brothers and sisters who weren’t very nice. He developed breeding facilities for locuses and frogs. After dumping those on the buggers, he tried a few more little tricks to freak the buggers into hysteria. Moses said to his people, ‘Exodus’, which meant, get out or run away. So they did. They ran to the lake and Moses used some hydro planes to get his people over. Well by this time the Egyptian side of the family showed up and since they were really drunk, they went for a swim and forgot what they were doing before then.

Moses didn’t like the way the people were behaving. He gave them some rules. They told him to piss off. So he ran up a mountain and made an explosion to cause a great light. He quickly chipped some notes down on some rocks and rushed back down to yell at the people.

‘Hey, assholes. I just talked to COD and he said I’m the boss and these are the terms.’

He read the rules about, COD is the big guy. Don’t kill each other, don’t do bad stuff.

So they went and killed other people instead. Mostly women and children but sometimes soldiers as well.

Moses told them COD said it was okay to kill these people because they ate fish instead of worshipping it. They decided they’d be the chosen ones and rule the world.

Birth control is illegal for Catholics. Until the Catholics are all there are. By the way the bible story is over.

I think I’d read Charlie Farquhason now if I knew were a book was. I think he told a story about the bible or history of the world. He might have been a member of the Royal Canadian Air Farce but maybe he couldn’t fly.

1,2,3,4.

Sn ‘More Coffee.’

S ‘No, I don’t drink coffee.’

T ‘Not here anyway. You’d have to eat it.’

Maybe I’ll go shopping on Thursday, see if I can find something nice for my wife. We already have a good toaster. What else do women like.

S ‘Let’s talk about oral sex!’

Frank ‘Ram it, ram it, ram it up her...’

P ‘Frank.’

J ‘You’re supposed to de dead Franky.’

The very next day the cat came back ‘cause he couldn’t stay away. I heard Led Zeppelin is on the road again. Is there truth to that roomer? Writing is a lonely job. Maybe I’ll, I don’t know.

This is the sorry end of today’s babble, Mr. Bones. And remember, assholes need love as well. And this isn’t a sexual reference, Frank.

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Suddenly, at 3 or 4 in the morning, not being able to sleep again, I find the urge to tell you a little about myself. I’ll keep it brief. What made me think of doing this is that I wanted to know something about you, especially things about your youth in your continent of origin.

I was born in Halifax Nova Scotia, May 15, 1960. I was the first child of a mother who was 20 and a father 24. They were both raised as Baptist. Since this is my story, I won’t delve into their history. My first home was a 16 foot trailer (I liked to tell this though it’s not true, they moved before I was born). Things got steadily better after that. I wasn’t conscious then anyhow. For reference, I consider myself conscious now.

I’m not quite old enough to have developed the ability to remember much of my first half dozen years which were in 7 or 8 different places in Sprifield, which is part of Halifax. I remember the ocean because my dad took my sister and I there quite often. I remember grandparents, hair cuts at Grampy’s place. Their oil stove, which I always wanted to put some garbage in, thinking that was quite a novelty. There were many relatives in Nova Scotia. It was always excellent to visit, especially people like old uncle Victor and his two sisters or cousins or I don’t know. They lived in a great old house, right on the water in Herring Cove. It’s far too much to describe, I’ll save it for a David Copperfield project one day.

We move right along to London Ontario, when I’m almost seven. Fast forward. I don’t think this at all fits with rants. Age 11, parents bought first house. They live there yet. Not for much longer. I went to high school, smoked some pot. Quit school, quit pot, went back to school, went to collage, graduated in Architectural Technology. After Dad and I went to N.B. for his parents 50th anniversary, Dad dropped me off in Toronto at Brent’s. Lived in Toronto, making some excellent friends to add to the excellent friends I had and still have in London, though most of them aren’t in London now. Blue Jays won the world series, so Wiebke was at the Squeeze one day. I was most determined to love her. She was maybe a little reluctant at first but decided to take me back to Germany with her. Now here I am in bed just narrowly avoiding the tedious task of an autobiography, which I would have to admit would need a little, what’s the word here? not extrapolation, endorphins, embisile, the word that means taking a few liberties to exaggerate a few events to make them look like something happened. endow - something like that. Any how. There were no Murdstones, I was never orphaned, my parents were steady, they are still married and enjoying each other. Life was with few trials. Adventures were always planned. Puts me at a bit of a disadvantage now doesn’t it. I pretty well have to skip right to the Agnes chapter.

Saw ‘The Mask’ today with Edmundo. I’m almost able to follow the language now. Funny, though the whole thing was quite different, the formula was very close to ‘The Specialist.’ Sharon was good enough to show us her naked body which was, or is, a pleasant sight. But the sexy woman in ‘The Mask’ didn’t have a sex scene, it wouldn’t have fit so I’m glad they didn’t force it in. The good guy wins the beautiful voluptuous blond in this movie as well.

Didn’t take long to run that pen dry. I’m going to go get a blond next week. Just like the movies. We all want to be a movie. It may be a character flaw or it might be simple genetics, but my woman has to be the best. Otherwise, I hurt my neck always being on the look out. There are dangers in physical beauty. Other people can see it and some will try anything to get to it.

Any whore. None of tonight’s attempts have amounted to much. I was going to go into How come why is and would that lead to that but it’s all a tired process. What we need here is a new middle approaching a thesis that will lead us to a crescendo that ends with a big bang. Not a whimper. I have a strong urge to start reading more Shakespeare, mostly for his style. For as they say, ain’t nothing said what ain’t been said a for and it didn’t mean much den neider.

Franny, for a couple reasons, this book will be the last in the series. One, five is a good number. It goes beyond the trilogy but stops before the sixth one which can often become tedious. Two, I’m going to have to focus my writing time on what’s her names biography. It’s actually a double biography. What’s his name meets what’s her name. The question is, can I get my head to write in 3rd person? I think it’s necessary for the story and also for me to do it. In the third person, I can avoid my little dopey flip remarks that make the characters of my first two books have a shitty attitude that differs little from mine. And I don’t want Peggy to think I can’t stop writing about myself. Speaking of Peggy, I was thinking about one of her delicious daughters the other night. We became friends but because of my complete ignorance of how to conduct myself as a sexual animal, I lost my chance to get to know her that way. It was not an easy loss at the time. I can picture her clearly after nearly 20 years. But I’m still glad of her friendship and the whole family’s friendship.

How many toes does a dragon have?

Bla Bla Bla.

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One last note to the Nazis and the like. Any flaccid, pathetic, myopic moron with absolutely no courage can excel in hatred. It takes strength to love.

-I’ve got it. In Germany it’s legal to rob people in there home if you tell them it’s common procedure. I’ll site 2 examples: This morning at 09:00, a man rushes into the flat proclaiming he must see ‘gas oven’ which I direct him to in our bath. He opens a box, plays with a thing and the heater for upwards of one minute. Says ‘alles in ordnug, 35 marks’. In my estimate, that’s well over 1,000 marks per hour. What do you think Frank? ‘Swear to God they got the most, on every business on the coast. They’re lying and lazy,’ well they differ hear. They move fast. I must have mentioned the washing machine that never gets repaired but cost nearly 200 marks to have someone come say they don’t know. Wiebke told the man the motor is new, the problem is likely in the brains. Well, not only is Wiebke a woman, but she has long blond hair, so the bone head took out the motor held it in his lap, said some times bolts are upside down, put it back in, smiling coolly as he took our money, walked away. Next day, discovering he did nothing, Wiebke called the company to complain. They sent out another fellow to do nothing; he wanted another 200 marks. Wiebke sent him away. One more example. If there is insufficient postage on a letter to your address, you, the receiver are fined double the regular cost.

So this is my business idea. Bust into people’s homes when ever you know they are sleeping or eating, tell them you are from ‘the Bundes Republic Wasser Controller Board of Regulation Department of Something that’s too important to ask questions about. Put some tap water in a jar and add some green dye. Look under the sink at the build up of minerals, scratch your head, look in a book, move your head from side to side, inspect the dyed water one more time. Dump it out and in a hurry with all urgency, write out a bill for 85 marks, hand it to the woman of the house to make her feel important, then search your official money wallet to see if you have 15 marks to give her when she passes you a 100 note. Tell them it only has to be done every 6 months and not to worry. The trick is too keep the visit under 2 minutes. Not only is it more official but you can make up to 30 calls an hour, certainly 20. That would put you in retirement in a few years. That’s the trick in this country. Make a thousand marks the hour without doing anything.

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by Joanne B. Washington

read on. barbaralba_part_02



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