I came out here hunting the Vanilla Gorilla, trying to update the catch and release tag on that endangered primate. I came hunting his past to be exact, his history, and don’t you know, that shiftless cracker absconded with himself—with MY writing material! For anyone who can provide said yeti, a muscular blond man of 29, who looks like the lovechild of the actor that wielded the giant hammer in Conan the Barbarian, to be found wearing a crimson hoody no matter the weather, negrotinian sneakers too—the reward shall by four and twenty dollars for the return of said cracker, so that his biographer may have him again.

I was supposed to stay with said over-sized cracker in Joshua Tree, California. But certain heroical acts of his caused his promotion. He managed the overnight shift at a Hispanic-themed convenience. While training young Dennis Steed, an 18-year-old retail prodigy, a Squatamalan tweaker began eating taquito rollers out of the hot food case from behind the counter. The young heroes stopped this heinous crime at some loss of their own blood due to the savage fortitude of the time traveling Mayan warrior. Thence, they became blood brothers, joking over this as they cleaned up the broken glass and the Taquito Bandito made off down the road with grease of orange hue running down his sturdy chin.

Liking that such sturdy Nordic studs were willing to fight for his property, the Latino owner, a Peruvian, promoted them both. The understudy, Dennis Steed up out of Los Angeles, was promoted to manager here, where he is my roommate for another day. The Vanilla Gorilla, raised on Mid Western feed corn, has been promoted to Elkhart, Indiana to oversee the proliferation of more Peruvian Bodegos.

The subject might change, but the biographer’s duty remains the same, to document coming of age in Murkha for young men of these later less greater days in the life cycle of Uncle Sham, greatest nation to ever bestride this little blue world at the end of the stardust road…

…

Genetic Profile

Dennis is 6 feet tall, and was shocked to find that this writer guessed his weight at exactly 285-90. He has a big round head, a mop of straight brown hair that is cut above the brows in the front and long down the back. His hands are potato grade punching mitts, to which observation he assures me he has done some boxing with friends and they don’t like it when he hits them. His feet are size 13 with a size 16 big toe, making him a certified and tagged Yeti. I will forward his particulars to the Endangered Arуan Affirmation League, whose fine fellows are attempting to preserve the genome of the grass bandits that stole the sciences of Egypt, Wakanda and Hotepia and thence bootlegged our kind into world domination.

Dennis has very strong hips, and to this observation noted that he wrestled when younger. Over all, he seems the ideal form of the overnight bodega clerk. We watched bare knuckle boxing of various kinds on you tube and he played guitar for me, which brings us to his patrimony.

Chad Dad

Dennis and Chad, his dad, who I met briefly over coffee one morning, like indie music, their favorite band being Modest Mouse “before they went main stream and sucked, which is to say, like 2005.” As Dennis is only 18, it impresses this non-musical thinker that he prefers music made before he was born. This is something that never existed in my youth. No brat, punk or metal tard of the 1970s would ever show interest in dad’s or granddad’s music—ever. That was taboo. Numerous young people have recently confided in me that their generation, and the one before them, have not produced much compelling music.

Chad is 6’ 1” with a bald head, well groomed, lots of tattoos, muscular, but not buff, after the Baltic tradition, and drives for a living. I have asked nothing here, but gather that this calm, respectful man who packs a gun and drives constantly across the entire country is involved in shuttling diplomats and/or likewise important documents. He’s like a heavyweight Statham in transporter. I am toying with the idea that he might be a contractor, or some kind of fed, like a Tariff Marshal or something. The important point is this man has done well, but works A LOT. Since Dennis escaped from government/mom control, turning 18, he is now spending a lot of time with Dad and hopes to follow in his father’s trade, whatever that may be. He is confident, extremely so, that his dad is the foremost expert in his field, a trade he has learned from experience and self education.

When Chad and Dennis take their extensive drives together, they listen to music which they critique, to audio books, and, once Dennis lands, Chad leaves a book for him to study. The current title Dennis and Chad are reading in print is:

A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, 729 pages, one of the more respected mainstream historians of this century.

I suppose that’s how it goes when you are cool, and good looking like Chad, your sons like what you do and want to do it and even read what you suggest. Weird little twerps like this writer have no such good fortune.

Chad told me that he is confident Denis will be stronger and healthier than him, because “I started smoking at eleven years old, and he didn’t.”

Must be nice, Chad, that “do as I say not as I do,” worked for you!

The other aspect of Dennis’ patrimony that I find insightful is the old guitar, with the original strings, that sits on his broad lap. As he picks and does chords, whatever this stuff means, with his callused fingers and thumb, he relates, “This was my grandfather’s guitar. I never met him. But my grandmother gave it to me because I like music. It is a right-handed guitar. I’m left- handed. I can’t play it left-handed, see, its upside down, that’s how Jimmy Hendrix plays it—which is amazing.”

An unconscious present tense that Dennis used three more times about Jimmy Hendrix, that he “plays” like this rather than played, I found touching. Dennis is kind and sensitive and does not have the years and confidence he wants, and seems eager to earn these through experiences not yet had.