Author Archives: J. Allan Wolf

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About J. Allan Wolf

J. Allan Wolf is a writer, a physician (OK, retired), a nerdy ham radio operator, and a bad guitarist. (The groupie thing just hasn't worked out very well.) Read his two books, Spacebraid and Other Tales of a Dystopian Universe (very science fiction-y) and Zendoscopy (very, very funny but also serious in places and explicit -- don't read it if you're a prude). If you buy my books (print or e-book format at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and elsewhere) I won't have to go without lunches or clean underwear. So, thanks in advance.

On Sequels, and Thanks

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Hollywood seems to have no problem grinding out sequels. Especially those involving comic book characters. Most are brainless summer action movies (and we’re into the season now), and it’s amazing how well these films do at the box office. Or not. Most of the movie going public isn’t very demanding when it comes to intellectual stimulation. Just include enough things blowing up and give ‘em a huge tub of faux-buttered popcorn and a 32 ounce soda and they’re in heaven. Actually, I haven’t figured out how they can sit through two hours, drink all that liquid, and not wet their pants. Or, maybe they do?

Anyway, I can’t help thinking about sequels these days because I’m in the process of writing a sequel to Zendoscopy, my funny, sad, risqué novel about a young fellow’s coming of age. The main lesson I’ve learned is that while it may be easy to write a sequel, it’s damned hard to write a good one. On my first try, I gave up after three chapters and started over again. On my second try, I made to eleven chapters before realizing that what I’d written had nowhere to go (not even down). Frankly, even what I had written offered nothing much of real interest in any of its chapters.

So, it was back to the bloodletting as I started pounding out the third iteration of what was to be Zendoscopy 2. Several chapters into it, I realized that I was heading down the same, pointless path, and that’s when inspiration finally struck. I realized that I’d said all I wanted to say about Sherman, the hero (I use the term loosely) of Z1. The sequel, then, really couldn’t be about him, although he could have a cameo role. Instead, it would have to be about other characters from the book, and maybe not even any of them as the central character. With this realization, the story has taken off. It’s now a sequel only in that some of the characters from Z1 make appearances, some even in major roles, but there are completely new characters as well, with the story largely focusing on one of them, a hapless, bumbling fellow named Horace Tibbles.

The book is about halfway through its maiden draft. With some luck, perhaps it’ll be done by the end of the year. It’s as yet untitled, but I’ll let you know as soon as it’s got a name.

Finally, regular readers will have noted that that the blog has been quiet for several weeks. I was traveling, and after returning home I underwent shoulder surgery. For those of you who haven’t given up on seductivepeach.com, I extend my thanks for your patience and, especially, for coming back!

My First Best Friend

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My first best friend was Doug. Well, okay, he might not have been my first best friend, but he’s the first one I can remember. And I might not have been his best friend, but it doesn’t really matter. Here’s the story, and why I think about it now.

In the early 1950s, when I was 7 years old, we moved from New York to California, settling in the northwest San Fernando Valley. We arrived just in time for the school year and my entry into the second grade. Almost immediately, I met Doug, a kid open to friendship with the newcomer. Doug was the shortest kid in the class but athletic and smart. I liked him immediately and I became one of his several close friends, who readily accepted me into their little clique.

Despite Doug’s wiry athleticism, he could be painfully slow of execution. At lunchtime, he would carefully remove his dental retainer, set it aside, and then eat his lunch painfully slowly and carefully. Long after the rest of us had inhaled our PB&Js, Doug would be chewing his sandwich, grapes, chips – whatever, so meticulously as to make the rest of us crazy, but we’d forgive him for using up so much of our lunch period because he was the kind of kid that you instinctively liked and, more importantly, was the kind of kid you wanted to like you.

I always wanted to be invited over to Doug’s house, mostly because he had an elaborate tree house in his backyard, the most outstanding characteristic of which was the “pee-pipe”, which was just what it sounds like it was, although I think it was later used as a hiding place for rolled up nudie magazines, issues of sanitation not withstanding. I only was invited into the tree house a couple of times, and I knew that his other friends spent considerably more time in it. This was my first indication that, although Doug and I were friends, I was not necessarily his best friend. It stung a bit, but I hung in.

When we were 12, we both became ham radio operators and were able to talk with one another using Morse code over the radio. This was far more exciting than using the telephone and, besides, aside from my father being a doctor and needing ready access to the phone, in those days we had a party line which I couldn’t monopolize.

By the time we got to junior high school, our social group had expanded, but Doug and I were the only ones in the group who had decided we would be engineers. This dedication to the physical sciences held through high school. Despite our common interests, the day we graduated to go off to college was the last time I saw Doug, and I have no idea whether he actually did become an engineer. I didn’t. I became pre-med after a time and ultimately went to medical school.

It’s been over fifty years since losing touch with Doug. I’ve always hoped he’d turn up at one of our high school reunions, but he never has, and no one seems to know what’s become of him. I’ve searched the internet and all the common social media sites with no success – it’s as if he’s vanished from the face of the earth.

As I get older, I’ve come to realize that there’s no particular value in living in one’s past, but remembering it and periodically reaching out to touch it helps to create perspective on the journey we’re all taking. Life, as we all know, is short, and having some sense of the composite whole of our brief existence is very comforting. It’s why, although I was miserable in high school (another story for another time), I always attend my class reunions. It’s wonderful to see old acquaintances and share the stories of our lives. This is especially so now for those of us who are leading edge baby boomers who came of age in the 1960s. We are the triumphant survivors of the ancient curse of living in interesting times.

So, Doug, if you’re still out there, and on the miniscule chance that you’ll stumble across this article, please, please reach back to me. I’d love to hear from you.

Your (not necessarily best) friend,

JW

Gimme That Ol’ Time Porn – er – I mean, Religion

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We live in Southern California, where most things don’t stick out because there are so many of them. It simply ain’t so everywhere, and as a case in point, I offer the apparent link between pornography and religion in the southern part of our country.

Some years ago and on trips taken since, I’ve noticed that in driving through areas of the South, the Ozarks for example, one passes two distinct institutions along the roadside: “adult” business establishments and churches. The former aren’t hidden as any sort of shameful thing. They’re right there, with easy highway return. The churches are many in number, and even more prominent are the billboards exhorting us to get to know and accept Jesus, that Jesus will “save” us, and so on.

The prominence and proximity of these things is truly remarkable. But I’m not writing this to make a moral judgment about what people choose to indulge in, whether sacred or profane. I’m here to say that there’s a reason why the relationship between the two exists.

Everyone knows or admits (except maybe a few Republicans running for office) that we all come into this world starkers, and only after that do we get saddled with clothes. Beyond the age of, say, three, however, it seems as if most folks think that there’s something wrong with the unclothed human body and, more to the point, being seen naked. And when it comes to the subject of sexual behavior, few want to talk about it because it makes them uncomfortable, or because they’ve been told it’s wrong. Among those who are ill at ease talking about sex, those most uncomfortable are the fundamentally religious. Why? Because they’re taught that sex is something a) not to be discussed in public, b) that it’s somehow dirty, and c) that it should only be addressed in the act, silently and for procreative purposes. Of course, homosexuality and masturbation are taught to be sins.

The problem with this is that you can’t fool biology. Nor can you evade marketing. Sexual drives will out, and marketers will take advantage of them. Thus, the adult emporia along southern highways with nearby churches and all those billboards to try and save folks from what comes naturally. Those churches urge you to believe in fairytales about a robed guy who rose from the dead and his vindictive dad who, as one learns from the Bible, was one mean son of a bitch.

The truth is that the relationship between pornography and religion is not unique. It’s just that it’s harder to see it in places like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and other big cities. In the less populated South, where religion is strong and the concomitant repression demands its outlet, it’s just easier to see the phenomenon manifested.

Perhaps humankind will eventually outgrow religion and its repressive, often aggressive and theocratic teachings, but I doubt that will happen soon. So, in the meantime, I guess we just get to enjoy the idiocy of Church on Sunday morning and a visit to the pornatorium in the afternoon. Now, if someone will only explain all those fireworks emporia to me.

Too Smart by a Half

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We live in an age of advanced technology. Well, maybe not as advanced as we’d like to think, but pretty advanced, anyway. Unfortunately, sometimes that same technology doesn’t work so well, and when it doesn’t, it may be terribly frustrating. It’s even worse when it tries to be smarter than we are — too smart by a half, say.

This evening, I tried to log in to get my e-mail. I had no problems with e-mail earlier in the day. So, when I booted into my e-mail client, I got a message from my ISP saying that it wanted me to confirm my e-mail address. I did so online, and then it asked me to reset my security question. I did that and clicked on “SUBMIT”. The damn screen reverted to the start page again, asking for me to confirm my e-mail address. Things only got worse from there. After looping through this several times, I got a message saying I’d be receiving an e-mail asking me to confirm the changes. I’d then have 48 hours to do the confirmation. Only one problem: my e-mail was no longer functioning.

In frustration, the wife and I went out to dinner.

Upon our return, I re-booted my computer and, hurrah! E-mail was back up and there was the message asking me to confirm my e-mail address. All I had to do was click “CONFIRM”. I clicked and…nothing. Multiple tries, rebooting, and swearing were all to no avail. So, now, I’m concerned that if I can’t confirm my e-mail address, they’ll cut off my service, thinking I’ve vanished. Oh, and clicking on the “if you have questions, click here to connect” button” led to the same dead end as the “CONFIRM” button.

I waited another fifteen minutes and tried again. Now, after a somewhat long wait, it connected, confirming a my “change” of e-mail address or, in fact, simply confirming the e-mail address I didn’t change. I only changed my security question, remember?

Well, if I encounter any more difficulty, the next step is going to be to try and call the ISP on the telephone, and that ought to be great fun. What time is it, anyway, in Bangladesh?

Mispronunciations

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OK, I know that the English language is complex. Spelling doesn’t always correspond with pronunciation, and vice versa. But one should expect TV and radio journalists, and especially experts in various fields, to pronounce the terms relevant to their topics correctly.

In California and much of the great West, we are experiencing a terrible drought. Perhaps it is in part a function of geologic climate cycles, but it is certainly exacerbated by human related activity. Spewed exhaust from vehicles, major industrial factory and power plant emissions, as well as less evident sources of global climate change with overall planetary warming all undeniably contribute to the degradation of our environment, including the Western drought. So what does this have to do with pronunciation?

Some experts (and others) are recommending desalination on a large scale: taking water from the ocean, removing the salt (and other impurities), to generate potable water. I repeat that the process is called desalination. It is not “desalinization”. Every time I hear someone talk about “desalinization” I grind my teeth.

Other mispronunciations also drive me nuts. How many times have you heard people say “deteriate” when they mean deteriorate? I’ve heard TV news people mispronounce the names of local cities. The city of Tujunga is pronounced “tuh-hunga”, not as it’s spelled. The city of Alhambra is not pronounced “Alhombra”. And Cahuenga (a street in Los Angeles), is pronounced “Cah-wenga”, not “Ca-hunga”, In each of these cases, I’ve heard locals mispronounce the names.

Then there are the colloquial mispronunciations. In Los Angeles County, the city of San Pedro is pronounced “San Pee-dro”, not “San Pay-dro”. When anyone uses the latter pronunciation, you know immediately that ”they’re not from around here”.

As a physician, I’m used to hearing frequent mispronunciations on medical television programs. “Dilatation” instead of “dilation” is an error made not only on television but also by medical personnel. (Pupils and the uterine cervix don’t “dilatate”. They dilate.) Sometimes medical mispronunciations can be hilarious. I’ve heard all of the following: “Smilin’ mighty Jesus” for spinal meningitis. “Fireballs of the Eucharist” for fibroids of the uterus. “Cedars-Cyanide Hospital” for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

There doesn’t seem to be much we can do about all this – it’s been going on as far back as anyone can remember and will probably go on forever. But, hey, do yourself a favor and check out the pronunciation of terms that are new to you. If nothing else, it’ll save you from appearing ignorant to those more knowledgeable within earshot.

Networking for Aspiring Writers

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Writing is a solitary activity. You sit at your desk, pen and paper or keyboard at hand, and bleed words onto the page. But as I’ve noted many times in past postings, the big problem that we relatively unknown, often self-published writers face is lack of visibility. Oh, we’d be visible if people could find us, but for many of us, often limited by budgetary constraints, without media contacts, and realizing that social media can only take one so far, the need to network becomes important. If nothing else, perhaps those of us who are struggling for recognition can learn from the struggles, failures, and successes of others. So with all this in mind, not long ago I joined the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society.

The Society is a nonprofit organization offering a variety of services to established and aspiring writers, and to those like me, who aren’t well established but are more than aspiring.

After a period of no participation in Society events – unfortunately I had to miss working, and marketing my books at several events due to schedule conflicts – I decided to attend one of their forums last weekend. The panel was made up of published writers, two or three of whom had also written for TV. The nominal topic was, “Things I Wish a Pro Had Told Me When I First Started Writing”. Actually, none of the panel members specifically addressed this until the Q&A, when they were asked for one thing they wished they’d known when they began writing in the attempt to make a living. The answers weren’t terribly enlightening, unless you’d been living in a dark cave since birth. The most profound answer was in the form of advice to save ten percent of every check received for retirement. Good advice, but not quite why most people were there.

So why were most people there? My observation was that there were three types of people in the audience:

  • The totally clueless
  • The guys looking to pick up women
  • Those actually looking to network and learn something

The totally clueless asked questions of a sort I’ve heard before. Questions like, “I’m writing about (some topic). To whom should I send my manuscript?” Or, “How can I tell whether my dialogue sounds ‘real’?” I wanted to scream in pain.

The guys looking to pick up women were typified by what went on in the row of seats just in front of me. Three guys, all trying to impress one cute young woman. One guy admitted early on that he was unemployed as he thrust a personal “business card” at her, one appeared to be a hopeless nerd with Asperger’s who couldn’t stop talking about his science fiction and fantasy stories as if they were documentaries, and the third just sat next to her and kept grinning, apparently happy enough just to have scored proximity.

As for those of trying to network, it was pretty much a bust. Since most of the audience wasn’t really networking material, and since none of the panelists had anything concrete to offer as, say, in, “Your story sounds interesting – I’d like to read it and maybe help you get to an agent/publisher/studio…”

In the end, I left feeling somewhat disheartened. I won’t give up, though. The Society does offer real opportunities for book signings at book fairs, and I plan to participate when I can. Oh, and on the way out, I found myself on the stairway immediately behind that cute young woman from the row in front of me. As we left the building, she turned to me, smiled, and wished me a nice day. All of which had the effect of reminding me that I’m old enough to be her father…and then some. On the other hand, at least she didn’t offer to help me to my car.

A Few Words about Pets

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   My wife and I share many compatibilities, which is a good thing after nearly 40 years of marriage. Up near the top of the list is our mutual agreement about pets or, rather, the lack of them.

First, let me dispel a few assumptions you’re probably already making. Neither of us is afraid of dogs, cats, or other common house pets. OK, a few of the less common ones make us uncomfortable. Say, boa constrictors. Neither one of us actually dislikes cute little puppies or pretty pussycats, although I’m not so sure we feel the same way about pet rats, but I doubt that anyone would blame us for that. (A digression: My worst summer job was doing vaginal Pap smears on 50 rats every day as part of a contraceptive research project when I was in college. The rats weren’t happy about it, either.)

No, the real issue is the Nuisance Quotient, which can be thought of as an opportunity cost:

NQ = [What I could be doing] / [What I have to do for the dog, cat, etc.]

In my book, the NQ is always unfavorable except, perhaps, for a fresh water tropical fish tank, and even that’s iffy.

People ask us whether, now that our kids are grown and married and gone, we’re going to get a dog. We say, why f**k up our lives? Now we can go anywhere, do anything, without worrying about the kids. Why worry about pets? As time has gone by, we’ve only become more resolute about this.

Another, not entirely unrelated issue, is that we’ve become intolerant the assumption made by so many people that we’ll love their pets. Getting jumped on by some slobbering pooch while sitting on the couch at a friend’s house is a) unpleasant, b) inconsiderate on the part of the pet owner, who should be keeping the animal locked up somewhere, and c) the cause of an otherwise unnecessary dry cleaning bill.

This pet thing has sloshed over onto social media, as well. Recently, I’ve noted that my Facebook page is getting bombarded by pet photos. Along with the rest of the detritus that regularly shows up on Facebook (and, presumably, other social media sites), these photos are simply unwelcome clutter posted by people with too much time on their hands. So, I’ve resolved to block the postings of anyone who repeatedly dumps Fido and Puddy into my page.

This may surprise you, but I was a zoology major in college. Animals fascinate me. But people and their pets, not so much. And don’t even get me started on people who don’t pick up after their crapping dogs…

Dogmadillo: Part 2 (conclusion)

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This week’s blog entry is the conclusion of my short story, Dogmadillo. To recap, our narrator had been having terrible dreams about a hybrid-appearing, bloodthirsty creature that he and his physician were calling a “dogmadillo”. The doctor, Oglethorpe, had special knowledge of history and lore which strongly suggested that the beast was, if not quite material, nevertheless real. Part 1 of the story left off as our narrator has come to realize that the creature of his nightmares had been freed from some dormant state by his own excavation of a strange appearing dirt patch in a plot of land he was evaluating for possible development into a shopping center. What he didn’t know was why the monster was coming after him, assuming that there was any logical explanation at all which, maybe, there wasn’t…

 

DOGMADILLO

A Creepy Tale by J. Allan Wolf

Part 2 (Conclusion)

    Of course, I didn’t know it then but, immediately following my leaving Dr. Oglethorpe with the sleeping pill prescription, he closed his office for the remainder of the day in order to visit an acquaintance with a large library of the occult. I only learned what he was thinking much later, but that would place me ahead of my tale.

In any case, it appears that the good doctor took my description of the “dogmadillo” much more seriously than I had originally thought and, burying himself in his friend’s library, he rapidly confirmed his suspicions. The next day, he called me.

“How did you sleep last night?”

“Like a baby,” I lied. In truth, I hadn’t filled the prescription and had had the dream again. Only this time, worse. Just before stomping on the accelerator, the dogmadillo had leapt onto the hood of my car, its slavering face against the windshield before I awoke in a sweat, shaking with fear, heart pounding.

“Hey, tell me more about the monster in your dream, the hell-beast.”

“Why do you use that term, ‘hell beast’?

“I’ll tell you, but I need to speak with you about this in person. Can I come over?”

Puzzled by his seriousness, I affirmed the address and waited. A half hour later, there was a knock at the door. “Come in.”

Dr. Oglethorpe entered my small apartment. He looked worried and a bit pale.

“It’s my dream, Doc. How come you look so awful?”

The doctor grimaced and, for the first time, I noticed the three old books he was carrying. “Let’s sit…there,” he said, pointing at my crappy walnut colored Formica breakfast table with red and black vinyl-covered chairs.

“Can I get you some coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

We sat. “So, what’s this all about?”

“It’s about your hell-beast.”

“Again, with the ‘hell-beast’. Why do you keep calling it that?”

“Does it bother you?”

“Not really, except that that’s the term I hear myself using in the dream. And now you’ve been using it, too.”

Oglethorpe frowned. “Could be a coincidence. Or not. Look, Armand, this is all very strange and, frankly, it’s the first time I’ve ever encountered a real demon.”

“A what?”

“I’m sort of an avocational student of demonology but I always thought it was folklore. You know, like vampires, chupacabras, devils, ghosts and the like. I know you’ll think I’m crazy but I’m almost certain you’ve got a real one here.”

“That’s ridiculous. What I’ve got is bad dreams ever since I saw a picture of this…thing…on that ewer.”

“What ewer?”

I told him the rest of the story–about the survey and the dark soil and the ewer I dug up.

“Where’s the ewer, now?”

“Here. I’ve got it in the bedroom.”

“Let me see it.”

I fetched the pitcher and watched as Oglethorpe very slowly examined it.

“It’s in pretty bad condition,” I volunteered. “I mean, the cracks and missing pieces.”

“No matter,” said Oglethorpe, far more fascinated with the artifact than I was. “You have to take me there.”

“Where? You mean to Mirrendale?”

“Yes, yes. To where you found this. And the darkness. I need to see it.”

I shrugged. “Okay.” It was Friday. “How about tomorrow morning?”

“Good, yes.” Oglethorpe was shaking with excitement.

“Pick you up at 8:30.”

The next morning, at 8:30 sharp, I picked up Oglethorpe. He was wearing a pith helmet, a khaki shirt with epaulets and snaps instead of buttons, khaki shorts, knee socks and brand new, brilliantly white sneakers. It was all I could do to keep from inquiring as to whether he was Dr. Livingston.

On the way up, he filled me in on a bit of our demon’s history or, as I looked at it then, its mythology. Apparently, what I had disturbed was a somewhat displaced, chimeric death demon. As best Oglethorpe could determine, the ewer had probably been brought to the place where I found it sometime in the 1600s by Spanish explorers who had “liberated” it during the desecration of an Egyptian temple.

“But that’s not all of it, is it?” I asked.

“No, it’s not. You see, I don’t think that what you found was just the picture of the beast. I think you found – and released – the beast, itself.”

“That’s ridiculous! You can’t believe the demon is real?”

Oglethorpe grimaced. “In fact, yes, I do, which is why I want to see where you found the ewer. I think the dark soil has something to do with the demon’s death aura, and that when you unearthed the ewer, somehow – I don’t know exactly how – you freed the monster that’s haunting your dreams.”

“This is starting to sound like UFO, New Age, crystal and crap nonsense but, okay, let’s say you’re right about this. Why would it haunt my dreams? What would it want from me?”

“I’m not sure, yet.”

“But, you think you know?”

“I’m not sure, yet.” Oglethorpe appeared to have said all he was going to say. I tried just to concentrate on my driving.

We arrived at the site around 11 AM. The sun was high, if not quite directly overhead. I walked Oglethorpe in the direction of the dark soil but, upon arriving at the spot where I thought it had been, I saw nothing except uniform coloration. Oglethorpe saw my confusion. “You’re sure this is the place?”

“I certainly thought so but, well, now I’m not so certain. I mean, the area looks no different from anyplace else on this plot.”

“Yes, now,” he said, nodding, apparently understanding something I did not.

I walked around, searching for the hole I’d dug, finding it right where I thought it should be. “Look, here’s where I found the ewer.”

Oglethorpe stared into the hole but there wasn’t much to see. Just the hole, as far as I could tell. “Get the shovel.”

“Why?”

“Just get it.”

I went to the truck, found two shovels, and brought them back. “Here, ” I said, giving one to Oglethorpe.

“Dig,” he ordered, and we began to enlarge the hole I’d previously made.

It didn’t take an awful lot of excavation to uncover more bones. This time, however, it was more than ribs. A fragment of what clearly appeared to be a lower jawbone came into view, followed by a scapula and a fragment of a pelvis. “Human,” Oglethorpe muttered, and I wondered how he knew. “This is bad,” he said, finally. “OK, we can stop digging.”

Oglethorpe was silent for awhile as we began the drive back to L.A. Then, he said, “I want to stay with you at your place, tonight.”

I was taken aback. “Why would you want to do that?” I asked.

“Because I don’t think it’s safe for you to be alone.”

“Oh, come on, Doc. This is just getting downright crazy. You expect my dream to hurt me?”

“Not your dream. The hell-beast.”

I looked over at the ridiculously dressed and now sweaty and dirty fellow next to me. If anything, he was paler than before, and he looked frightened. I decided to humor him. “Okay,” I said. “You’re the boss.”

Oglethorpe just nodded.

We stopped at his place so he could pack an overnight kit and some fresh clothes, and then we got some dinner and headed back to my apartment. He showered and put on his pajamas; I did the same. Then, a thought occurred to me.

“You’re not, er, I mean, this isn’t about, ahhh…”

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“Ah, okay. Forget it. You get the couch. I’m going to bed.

The last thing I remember before turning out the light was looking at the ewer. The hell-beast looked hungry.

And then I was behind the wheel of my car, again, on my way home. I turned the corner onto my street, looking ahead and to the left to see my driveway. Part way down the block, it came into view and, with it, the hell-beast, waiting. It saw the car and began twisting in circles as I had seen it do before.

I would kill it this time. I would floor the accelerator and mash the abomination to a bloody pulp. But all was unfolding very slowly. I crept down the block to my driveway and began the turn. I will kill it. I will step down on the accel–

Abruptly, the hell-beast sprang to the car’s hood, saliva dripping from its leering mouth. I floored the accelerator, swinging the wheel sharply to the right in an attempt to dislodge the monster but, instead, the dominant forward jerk sent it slamming into the windshield, shattering the glass into myriad glinting splinters as the open jaws came directly at my neck. Then, the teeth made contact, puncturing my neck. I vaguely saw a shadow behind the beast, and then a long flashing blade stabbing, stabbing, stabbing into the armored coat and, finally, sweeping forward to slice the head from the body, missing my breast by millimeters. Blood and entrails spewed everywhere and I was screaming, screaming, screaming as I woke up, holding pressure on my spurting neck.

I opened my eyes to see Oglethorpe, standing over me, dazed, the bloodied knife in his right hand. “It’s all right. It’s all right. I killed it. It’s all right.” He kept repeating it.

Then, he called 911 and helped me to the bathroom, where he cleaned the symmetrical canine puncture marks while applying pressure to my neck until the paramedics arrived.

“It can’t hurt you anymore. I killed it. I killed it. It won’t come back, again. And now you can sleep.”

And he was right, I did.

© by J. Allan Wolf. All rights reserved.

Dogmadillo

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When this blog got under way over a year ago, one of its main purposes was to be flacking my own writing. I’ve written many entries about my adventures to date in writing, getting published, and pursuing marketing, and I hope the columns have encouraged you to snap up copies of Zendoscopy and Spacebraid and Other Tales of a Dystopian Universe from Amazon.com and Amazon Kindle. After some consideration, I’ve decided that periodically I’ll put a few bits of my writing on the blog: everything from the macabre to the downright silly. So, to begin, I offer the short story, Dogmadillo, a disturbing little piece in the horror/supernatural vein. Part 1 this week; part two next. I hope you enjoy it.

DOGMADILLO

A Creepy Tale by J. Allan Wolf

As I approached the driveway, I could see it just in front of the garage door, as if it were waiting for me. A sort of a lupine armadillo, but much larger than the latter: smoothly rounded, armored ass and concentrically ringed torso with short, hairy legs. The creature’s shaggy head had short ears slanting back, and a long – too long for the body – canine snout and jaw. I think it growled, although I could not hear it with the windows rolled up, but I could see the hungry leer and wolfish, bared teeth. Spittle hung from the left side of the monster’s mouth, near the fangs.

I stopped at the driveway’s threshold while, at first, the creature held its stance in front of me. I should run the hell-beast over. The only way to do that, though, would end up with me plowing through the garage door. The automatic opener was broken. I had the inexplicable sense that the creature knew.

I was trapped, certain that the whatever-it-was would rip me to shreds if I tried to make a run for the front door. There was, then, only one way to deal with this. Damn the garage door. I would run the thing down.

I looked at it. Straight. At first, it stared back, and I saw dead emptiness in its black eyes. Then, it yelped – I heard it despite the closed windows – and began twirling as if, but not actually, chasing its tail. Finally, it stopped, staring at me and grinning.

I took a deep breath, took aim, and then closed my eyes and hit the accelerator.

A moment later I awoke, sweating and palpitating, and realized I had wet the bed. Nancy was asleep, undisturbed, next to me.

I swung out of bed and went to clean myself up and get a towel to lay over the wet sheet before trying yet again to sleep without dreaming the dream.

“I just haven’t been sleeping very well for the past two or three weeks, Doctor,” I heard myself saying. “I know it sounds silly, but I keep having this dream. About a dog.”

“A dog?” The company doctor, a gaunt fellow named Oglethorpe with manner more that of an undertaker than a healer, looked up from his note-taking.

“Yes, a dog. Well, not a dog, exactly.”

“Not a dog, then?” He looked puzzled.

“Well, yes, a dog. I mean, sort of a dog. I know how this is going to sound but, really, it’s more like a dog with armor, you know. Well, no, you don’t know. It’s a sort of a…a…dogmadillo.”

“A dogmadillo.”

“Yes, like that. A sort of a hybrid thing, part wolf-like dog, part armadillo. Dark, mean, evil. It wants me. It wants to kill me.”

“You know this?”

“Well, yes. It has these dead eyes, and when it looks at me, I know it wants nothing more than to eviscerate me, to suck me into some place of death that it knows well. That doesn’t make sense, does it?”

“I’m not sure, yet. But, then, how does it end?”

“It doesn’t, really. Just when I’m going to run it over – I always see it from my car as I’m pulling into my driveway – I wake up.”

The doctor looked concerned, in an unconcerned sort of way, or maybe a harsher but more honest way to describe it would be to say that he oozed hypocritical sympathy. “Well,” he opined, it doesn’t sound like much. Some unresolved anxieties. Concerns. Transmogrified, as it were, into your hell-beast.”

I sat up straight, startled. “What did you call it?”

“I said, ‘hell-beast’. Why?”

“Nothing, I guess. Just coincidence.”

“Coincidence, you say?”

“Yeah, coincidence. Forget it.”

The doctor shrugged. “As you wish. Perhaps things at work have been a bit too stressful for you. I’m going to give you something to help you sleep. Short term, though. Just a week’s worth. By then, your brain will have had time to resolve whatever is troubling you, and you should again be able to sleep through the night without these disturbing dreams.”

“I hate taking stuff like that.”

“It’s only to get you past the crisis, whatever it is. There’s no harm.” Dr. Oglethorpe held out a prescription, and I thought I detected a brief twitch in his smile. I took the piece of paper.

“Thanks but, you know, my problem isn’t falling asleep. It’s what happens after I fall asleep.”

“Take them. They’ll do you good.”

“Yes, all right.”

I left the office, not feeling reassured, and went to my office. I’m a geologist working for an engineering company. I go to proposed construction sites and assess soil and geologic stability, and then I generate reports for the company’s clients that provide the information they need to decide whether to proceed with whatever they plan to do. It’s a stressful job and, although no one has ever pressured me here, I always feel that the company’s expectation is for me to green-light everything to keep our clients happy.

Recently and in good conscience, I’ve had to advise against several projects and I don’t think the boss has been too pleased about it. I’ve tried to tell him that there’d be a lot of company liability if I were to give the okay to an unsafe development, but I think the argument hasn’t had much traction.

As I said, I’m a geologist. I’m not a paleontologist or anthropologist but, about a month ago, when I went to perform the survey for a proposed new outlet shopping mall just west of Mirrendale, a planned community in the Mojave Desert west of I-15, I was struck by some peculiar findings at the site.

I arrived at about 10 AM on a sunny but cool Wednesday in October. The thing that immediately struck me when I began to walk the flat, treeless, rocky site was that one small area, roughly circular and about forty feet in diameter, appeared dark. I don’t mean that the soil was darker than the surrounding area. No, I mean that the area was actually without sunlight.

At first I thought it might be the shadow of a cloud but, looking up, I saw none. The sky was as uniformly blue as I had ever seen it. As I crossed the boundary from light to dark, I cast no visible shadow on the darker area, and when I took a handful of sand from the area and dropped it outside the circle, it immediately brightened to match the surrounding sand.

I went back to the truck for a shovel, which I used to turn some of the dark soil. It was dark as far down as I dug. I dumped some of the dirt outside the circle and watched as it became light. Damn. What is this?

I picked an area at random and began digging in earnest. At around two feet below the surface, I hit something solid. Carefully, I excavated what appeared to be a large ewer decorated with – I swear – what looked very much like Egyptian hieroglyphics. My eyes were drawn to an animal, or god, or demon depicted in faded browns but with large black teeth. It was dog-like, with a rounded behind, short legs and small ears.

In the ewer were bones. I’m no expert, but I think maybe they were ribs.

Back at the office, I sought out the boss. I told him I wasn’t sure of the meaning of what I’d found but I thought we should get someone from UCLA to go up there and take a look. The boss wasn’t impressed.

“Were you on Indian land?”

“No, of course not,” I answered. “I know where I was. I was right where I was supposed to be.”

“Well, then, there’s nothing to worry about, right?” It wasn’t really a question. More like a directive.

“Yes, sir.”

And that’s when the dreams had begun. I know now that the creature on the ewer is the monster of my dreams. What I don’t know is why.

Part 2, the conclusion of the story, will appear in next week’s blog.

© 2015 by J. Allan Wolf. All rights reserved.

More (Mostly) Republican Imbecility

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It’s been obvious now for a number of years that the right wing dominated Republican Party exists through maintenance of a class system. Only by pushing policies that keep the rich rich and the poor poor can they succeed. This is bad. This is very bad. But even worse is the simple fact they have crossed a line and now become willful and unrepentant imbeciles. The result is going to be destruction of the planet. Think I’m overreacting? Read on. Oh, I know this seems extreme, but bear with me for a moment and you may come, if reluctantly, to agree with me.

  • Opposition to nearly all environment legislation: Newest on the Republican hit list is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed setting of new limits on mercury and arsenic contamination by big industry (which also opposes new regulations). Mercury is a known neurotoxin that can delay or damage children’s neurological development and result in disabilities including blindness. It’s not good for adults, either. Both substances are emitted by coal-fired plants, and Republicans, in particular, don’t give a shit that we’re poisoning ourselves with the stuff.
  • Opposition to regulation of other air pollutants: As we all know, Republicans are constitutionally incapable of supporting substantial expenditures for alternative sources of energy. Thus, in addition to what is pouring out of coal-fired plants, we’re also spewing pollutants from our cars’ and trucks’ tailpipes. In the March 26, 2015 issue of the L.A. Times, reporter Geoffrey Moran cites a study in the recent issue of the Journal of the American Association Psychiatry that supports this pollution as a cause of lower cognitive processing and ADHD in children.
  • Opposition to vaccination: The imbecility of this is almost beyond belief. As idiots like Rand Paul say that the choice of vaccination should be left to individuals (and damn the risk to the general public), we now see rising incidences of measles and whooping cough, diseases that can maim or be lethal and that were nearly absent until scientific ignoramuses like Jennie McCarthy came on the scene and Republican politicians decided to take us headlong into the good ol’ days of disability and death.
  • Refusal to believe in the human contribution to climate change: If not the above, then this is what’s going to kill us all. 2014 was the warmest year on record for our planet. The fact that morons like James Inhofe can stand in front of Congress with a snowball and deny climate change is proof that Republicans are going to kill us all. The oceans are rising as polar ice melts. Severe storms are becoming more common and destructive. Whole islands and parts of the U.S. coast are going to be flooded into non-existence. The Western U.S. is struggling with record drought. Climate change is going to lead to mass migrations, and these will lead to conflict and killing.

And why do Republicans behave the way they do? Here are two observations I’ve made:

  • The U.S. has become a corporatized nation. We’re no longer a representative democracy. Corporations own our politicians, and corporations only feel accountable to their shareholders, not to the public – or the world – at large. Big oil rules, and plans to do so until we all die of suffocation. After all, it’s short term gain that interests them. Not the future for the executives’ descendants.
  • The Republican right’s drift into more and more literal, fundamentalist religion with a belief in the “Rapture” means that they can do anything to the planet now because it won’t matter then the Rapture lifts them up to that great paradise in the sky. Yes, these superstitious yahoos actually don’t care about the planet because, to many of them, it’s irrelevant. God will save the deserving while the rest of us go to hell.

C’mon folks. This is 2015. We should have long grown out of primitive superstition. God doesn’t save children from burning buildings. Firemen do. God doesn’t save people with busted guts from dying. Surgeons do. And God isn’t going to save us from the havoc being wrought on the planet through our own environmental disrespect. Only we can do that, and if we don’t wake up and take action, it will soon be too late. Uncontrolled pollution, uncontrolled population growth, lack of potable water, severe weather…Republicans and Democrats, but mostly Republicans (including those dolts on the Supreme Court), better get with it soon, or there’ll be hell to pay for all of us, and not just us infidels.