Carol

My sister, Carol, passed away on the eighteenth of August. It was not unexpected. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer five years ago, a vicious disease that carries an inevitable death sentence. Carol was five years older than me. She would have been seventy this Christmas. I don’t wish to dwell on her death, nor do I wish to recount all the details of her life. Like everyone else who comes into this world, it was filled with both joy and sorrow—good times and bad. Let’s keep that story secret shall we, hidden within the memories of those who knew and loved her. I want to speak to you of her spirit and what she meant to me.

There were four children in the Teves household; six people living in a small home with one bathroom in San Leandro. My brother, Danny, is the oldest child, ten years older than me. My sister Susan, eight years my senior, was three years older than Carol. I grew up with the disadvantage of being the baby of the family. There were things going on in my family that I was blissfully unaware of. By the time I became cognizant of our family dynamic, Carol was already into the double digits, a girl blossoming into a young woman….

Ten days before she died I went to see her. She was in bed and was deteriorating so rapidly it shook me to my core. I sat beside her, held her hand, now so fragile in mine, and wept. Carol and I had discussed the possibility of an afterlife. She didn’t think there was one; I wasn’t so sure. Through my tears I said to her, “Carol, if there's a place we go to when we die, I swear I will find you.”

Carol was uncommonly beautiful, a fact that was mostly lost on me as her little brother. She was, after all, my sister, and I didn’t see her as anything special. It wasn’t until years later when I saw a photo of her as a young woman that I had my “oh my God!” moment. Carol was, as we used to say back in the day, a fox. She had silky black hair and green eyes, the only member of our Portuguese family who didn’t have brown. Her green-eyed genes heralded back to the Azores, the islands of our ancestors. When you looked into them, you saw both beauty and a hint of the past.

My dad used to call her firecracker, a reference to her fiery personality. She had her opinions, and even as a little girl, she made her thoughts (and demands) quite clear. She was on occasion frustrating and hard to handle. I have fractured memories of verbal battles she conducted with our parents with regularity. She married her first husband, Ron Roach, and was out of the house when I was only fourteen, not enough years to be with her in the same home in my book. I used to have these crazy dreams that she left her husband and returned to me. But that never happened.

Of all my siblings, I was the closest to her. We had the same outlook on life, a complicated brew of irony, practicality and sarcasm. We both loved to read Stephen King novels and would talk endlessly about the latest one on the phone. The two of us always loved a good horror story. I will never read another one of his novels without thinking of her.

Carol was famous for her Christmas Eve celebrations. It was always at her home and was the closest thing we Teves’ had to family tradition. When she moved, the gatherings moved with her. I will always miss those winter evenings together that spanned so many years. The Teves and Roach families were together as one. Our children were young and life still had possibilities.

After Ron passed away, Carol was introduced to a man named Dave Victorino. Dave is a big guy, and the first time I met him I suspected he might be a gangster, but he was the furthest thing from that, our dear Dave. I had the surprise of my life when he asked me, the youngest brother, for my sister’s hand in marriage. I said yes, and he never gave me any reason to regret that answer. Their marriage was all too brief for two people so much in love. Dave cared for her with devotion and amazing grace until the very end….

Five days before Carol passed I went to see her again. This time I was prepared for the sight, and I did not weep. Instead I sat with her and talked for two solid hours about anything I could think of. Carol really couldn’t speak, but she could understand me. I once again told her we would try to meet again on the other side. Her eyes briefly opened and she said, “In Poipu”, the location of our home on Kauai, the island of our birth.…

When Carol was a little girl she couldn’t pronounce her name. Carol came out as Kakki. That became her nickname throughout her childhood and beyond. I remember calling her that when I was young. The beginning of her email address was KakkiCarol. So I leave this post with these words: I love you Kakki, Carol, my beloved sister, and I promise I will see you again.

Protector of the Language

Because school will soon let out for the summer break in a week, I have been preparing my Intention Statement. Haven demands that all its 1203 citizens be proficient in some skill brought to the colony from Earth by the original settlers. It is essential for our survival. Since I am the granddaughter of the mayor, I am expected to dream big. Maybe become a scientist, doctor, or some other core profession needed for Haven to prosper. Some have even suggested that I might be the mayor someday. This was stupid. I have no such ambitions. I told Grandfather that perhaps I’ll become a carpenter, a noble profession essential to the colony. He just looked at me, his glasses perched at the end of his nose, and said nothing. Guess I will not be a carpenter.

Anyway, Grandfather knows very well that my first love has always been words. That’s why he gave me this beautiful paper. In my Proper English classes, I have always received perfects. Who knows? Maybe someday I’ll become a Protector of the Language and pass my knowledge of the English language to a younger generation.

I suppose I will marry someday. Every woman is expected to help seed Haven, whose population is stable but never seems to grow. (Maybe this is about to change. Mrs. Lester recently had triplets.) But that is a long time away after I have made my choices and the boys finally become men. I’m hoping that my trip to the Big Outside will help me decide which path my life will follow. Until then, I will prepare for my trip and dream of its possibilities.

                                                           From my novel, “The Lady of The Rose”

In my novel, “The Lady of The Rose”, my young protagonist, Abby Henry, says that someday when she gets older, she might become a “Protector of the language”. On her Earth Colony, the planet Zakura, somewhere in the faraway stars in a settlement called Haven, there are those whose duty is to keep the language pure. It seems to me we have no interest in doing this on Earth.

For a lot of years, I have marveled how weird politically correct expressions pop up now and again and how ridiculous they sound. It all started many years ago when they started calling garbage collectors “sanitation workers”. Then it moved on to calling a “chairman” a “chairperson” which is okay with me, but then they had to take it one step further calling the leader of a committee a “chair”. Whenever I hear that, I vision a nice comfortable wingback chair. How about you? 

The bottom line is there are certain segments of our society that love to twist the language into something they deem less hurtful to anyone that might possibly be offended by the truth. That’s why “illegal aliens” became “undocumented immigrants”. Now the sci-fi writer part of me does prefer that “aliens” be real aliens—like from outer space, I mean.

 Now I don’t want to get into politics—I don’t want to offend future book buyers—but let’s just say a lot of these people like to shop at Whole Foods Markets.

 These people never go to a class, they attend workshops. I always envision a lot of wood chips on the floor while they study modern literature. After the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco, all of a sudden the word “infrastructure” popped up to describe the rumbling highways and bridges in the earthquake zone. Then the word was broadened and used in various other ways to describe anything and anything that might need a little work. Using it to describe the political infrastructure is one of my favorites. They loved that word for a few years before, thank God, it began to fade.

 When the letter “e” started to be used to describe anything on the internet from email to ecommerce to esex, every freaking commercial on television used it over and over again. Then there’s the word “green” to describe anything that might possibly save energy. Green this, green that. Green leaf emblems in the back of cars. Thank God that’s over with.

My favorite expression of all time was when the Mayor of Detroit called community gardens a“multi-diversity empowerment zone.”

Speaking of which, the word “diversity” had a long successful run and made me think evil thoughts.

Then there’s the global warming vs. climate change switcheroo that depends on the time of the year and the weather to determine which expression is used. Make up your minds, for God sakes. Here’s an idea: every fall when we turn back the clocks for the winter and change the batteries in our smoke detectors, we call it climate change, and in the spring we call it global warming for the hot summer.

Right now the word the currant word of the moment is “sustainable”. If I hear that word used one more time I might go mad.

Then, a couple of weeks ago I was listening to a story on an all-news San Francisco radio station about people who have to get food from a food bank. Now don’t get me wrong, food banks are a necessary and noble thing in our society, but when they refer to those who use their services as “food insecure” I want to vomit.

I wait with anticipation for the next mangling of our language. Abby Henry dreams of being a protector of the language. I fear that here on Earth, it’s too late.

Flip Phone

“Laura Stewart's eyes fluttered open to see Charlie Adams' hand hanging limply from the side of the examination table. She was still huddled on the floor, one arm gripping the pipes below the sink as if they were a life preserver. For a second, she had no idea where she was or how she had gotten there. She looked at the hand with confusion. His index finger was extended, reminding her of that painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It was at this moment, with Charlie's finger pointed delicately toward the tiled floor, that Laura remembered George Rayburn. He had disappeared, sucked into the mini-universe that had unfolded across Charlie's body.”

                        --From my novel, “The Secret of the Sky”

 

I own an old Razor3 flip phone. It’s about seven years old, has the original battery and refuses to die. I have a love/hate relationship with cellphones. My wife insists I have one. I drive down a lot of isolated country roads on the way to work and back. I also have some physical problems that make it necessary that I have one with me at all times. But other than that, I hate the suckers. A couple of years ago I thought I had lost it. My first emotion was one of relief, but then I found it the bottom of my backpack. Bummer.

Why would I feel this way about cellphones and electronics in general? I mean my writing obsession depends upon a computer and the Internet access. I’m using my computer now to write this spectacular piece of prose. Yet a part of me hates it.

I like to say I’m an analog guy in a digital world. Chevrolet says I should have something called a tablet. Oh, they love tablets, that General Motors. They harp on it continually in their training videos. They assume that all the Chevy salesmen out there want one or already have one. It’s one of the conceits that show how out of touch they are with the guys on the front line selling their iron.

 

But that’s another story.

This whole thing with Smart Phones bugs the crap out of me. I cringe when I see one. I was at the doctor’s office the other day. There were twelve people sitting in the waiting room, and seven of them were staring at their phones. Six of them were women. Can someone tell me what they hell are they looking at?

I suspect that my old Razor has lasted so because I don’t use it much. At one time I had 4000 unused minutes in my ATT&T account. I don’t like talking on the phone. I have a nephew that will confirm that. The battery always goes dead on me because I forget to charge it. It usually gives up the ghost when I’m driving down one of those country roads I mentioned earlier.

I miss party lines. (Look it up.)

This brings me back to my writing. Without a computer and a little help from Microsoft Word 2010, I would still be dreaming of red ’57 T-Birds stuffed in the corner of my backyard on Lark Street. The magic of a keyboard opened something up in me I didn’t know I had. To be honest, it gave me a reason to struggle on when times were at their roughest. It’s doing the same thing for me now. I am eternally grateful.

But I refuse to ever consider a Smart Phone. I don’t want to check my email, go on Facebook, surf the net and whatever the hell there else there is to do while waiting to see the doctor. That’s why God invented books and magazines. My good friend Scott McDonald bought me a Kindle, and I’ve never used it. Here I am hawking to anyone that will listen to buy my books, but I don’t participate in the process at all. As I said, I’m an analog guy in a digital world.

There’s something sick about that, isn’t there?

Keep Reading

There is more than meets they eye at the 4Corners Cafe. I encourage you, dare you to read my older posts. You may find something interesting there. Maybe even a story of sorts--or is it real? I have recently rearranged them in ascending order. Try it, if you dare.

David

God, the Universe and a '57 T-Bird

“Liz knelt and carefully picked it up. It was heavier than she expected. The edge of the glass had a delicate bevel that highlighted both the wood and the mirror itself.  She looked at her reflection and an older woman stared back. Not old, just older. Her youthful face, the face she had known for all these years, the one that carried the horror of pimples as a teenager and later beguiled Burt Smith was gone. In its place was another face, a face still pretty but one caught in the apex between youth and middle age. Fine creases were starting to appear on her forehead and around the corners of her mouth that no amount of Oil of Olay could banish for long.”

 From the story, Mirror, Mirror, from my upcoming story anthology “unexpected pleasures”.

  

As it happens my first experience with storytelling coincided with the discovery that the Universe was not what it seemed. I was eight, the youngest member of a loving but insulated Portuguese family from Hawaii living on the “Mainland” as it was called, a place so very far from home.

My uncle, Jim Teves, had a bright red 1957 Thunderbird. He was single then, and the world was his oyster, as they say. He’d come over to our house on Lark Street to visit us and park the beauty at the curb. The T-Bird mesmerized me. I remember standing on the sidewalk in front of it thinking it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Every curve and angle was perfect. How could something be so beautiful?

I wanted one.

That’s when I began my campaign for God to give me a miniature version of it. I would lay in my bed at night obsessing about it (and the actress, Sandra Dee, but that’s another story). I concocted a story about it. The government was experimenting with allowing a few select young people to be allowed to drive, and I was perfect for the project. I would have my red T-Bird. I would proudly drive it around the neighborhood, perhaps all the way to Assumption Church, were the pleated-skirt Catholic girls would greet me with love and kisses….

The plan was carefully laid. I instructed God to deliver the T-Bird to a bush at the very back corner of our expansive yard early Saturday morning. That way I’d have the entire day to enjoy it. There, next to creek where we played on lazy summer days, it would be waiting for me. So beautiful. So perfect.  So red.

I awoke that morning and announced to my parents the wonderful thing that was about to occur. I remember them laughing. I thought they might be mocking me, but I suppose now it was one of those “oh, how cute” laughs. Whatever it was, they didn’t appreciate the gravity of the situation. God was going to fix me up.

I remember bounding out the back door and down the steps. It was one of those wonderful overcast Bay Area mornings; a chill in the air that made you feel so very alive. I ran toward the bush. The T-Bird wasn’t readily visible, but I imagined that God had carefully hit. But as I approached, there was a sinking feeling within me. The space between the bush and the fence was empty. Apparently God had screwed me, and I was devastated.

It was one of those “aha!” moments. A great revelation that I had no control over God, the Universe or anything else. It was at that fateful moment that I realized that life can be cruel, and as the Rolling Stones would later say, “You can’t always get what you want.” 

But I got a story about it; not written down but in my head. And over the weeks and months that followed I would lie in my bed and expand it to my own private underground subway system and a bowling alley that spit out packets of money every time I bowled a perfect game.

So God had given me something: a rich fantasy life that would stay with me throughout my childhood and into my adult years. And then, one day when I was thirty-eighty, I began to write them down.

Greetings from the 4 Corners Cafe 2.0

Starting next Wednesday, July 2, 2014, I will be starting a new addtion to this blog. It will be about my life as a writer.

I posted on my Facebook page that I would delete the old entries and start afresh. I now think I won't do that--writers don't like to delete things unless they don't work. When I looked back at those writings, I remembered what great fun I had writing them, and that's what writing is all about.

I am posting below what I wrote on my Facebook page--slightly modified. I hope you will stop by on Wednesday to see how deep I can put my foot into my mouth. I haven't even started yet, but I've already done it.

David Teves

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First entry for my new writing blog that is not a blog as of yet. 

So I’ll start from the beginning then. A writer’s journey. My journey. Call it part biographical, part bullshit. I’m supposed to try to use this to promote my writing. To get you to help me get out of my day job and have a little peace in my life. But going in I gotta tell you that probably won’t happen, so don’t put too much pressure on yourself.

This is the way it will be. I’ll write one post once a week. I could write more, but it would keep me away from the real writing—if that’s what it is. I’ll post it let’s say on Wednesday mornings. Just before I go to my chemotherapy. There I said it. It needed to be said. It would be a lie to myself and to you if I didn’t. But that’s all I’ve got to say on the subject. This is about writing, not cancer.

Next. I will go over the post one time before I publish. If I catch errors, that’s great. If I don’t, well that’s the way it’s gotta be. I obsess too much about the finer things in a sentence than to worry about it here.

Did I mention I’m a bullshitter? Keep that in mind. I’ll tell you something interesting. I didn’t discover I was a writer until I was in my late thirties. That’s a kick isn’t it? I spent a lifetime not quite fitting into things. I thought I was just emotionally flawed, but it turned out I was just—different.

Last. Despite of the heaviness of the last few sentences, I intend to keep things light for the most part. Fictions supposed to be fun, right? But still the same, I am going to try and seduce you into getting me out of the car business. That’s the price of admission.

It will start next Wednesday, July 2, 2014.

 
David

Starbucks

I hate Starbucks. I say this even though I go there about once a week during the winter to order a medium cup of coffee, just a little room for cream please. This hate/like relationship with the place has been going on for several years, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it. Sad thing to say, isn’t it?

The reason for all the thinking is because I have wondered if my almost phobic dislike for the place has something to do not with Starbucks but with my deep-seated personality flaws in general. I tend to be an anti-social, semi-asshole some might say. For the most part I dislike most people—especially the pompous ones, and let’s face it, Starbucks is crawling with them. Every time you go into one there they are: guys hunched over laptops of iPhones, women with their shoes off, curled up comfortably in an over-stuffed chair having meaningful conversations with their friends.

Starbucks likes to go for the ambience of a hip coffee shop. Smooth jazz lulls you over the lousy overhead speakers. Over-priced CDs are available for those gullible enough to buy them. $17.95 for a CD? Hello, haven’t you people heard of Amazon.com? Expensive coffee makers, To-Go coffee cups that won’t fit in any car cup holder designed to date, all wrapped up in a politically correct, social responsibility, let’s start tweeting package. Now I ask you, who’s kidding who?

In their view, Starbucks is not just selling coffee and coffee accessories, they’re selling a lifestyle. They call it “The Starbucks Experience”. As for me I think any title with the word “Experience” in it should have “The Jimi Hendrix” in front of it. As a still slightly rebellious child of the 60’s, that oh so pretentious lifestyle comes off as obnoxious and fake.

In my opinion a real coffee shop (as opposed to a diner) is a place filled with cigarette smoke, rude waitresses, and guys in berets reading awful poetry while the listeners click their fingers in approval. In my book that is the definition of cool. Smelly, but cool.

When I go into Starbucks I get claustrophobic with the yuppie vibe of the place. I plan the trip carefully. With exact change in hand I will only go in if I don’t have to wait in a line. I place my order quickly a succinctly. No thanks, I don’t want a brownie or a scone. Just give me my damn coffee. Then, paper cup in hand, its one package of Equal, a little half and half and I’m out of there. I don’t want to spend any time wondering as I survey the crowd if I am, in fact, just like them.

I can hear you laughing. Why the hell do you go in there in the first place if you hate it so much? It’s pretty simple. Sometimes on a cold winter night when I have to drive thirty miles to get home, it’s great to get wired up, and believe me; Starbucks is great for getting wired. One properly ordered cup can make you feel like you’re on a South American holiday. At my age a hit of cocaine would probably kill me, so this is the second best thing.

One last thing before I end my rant. I went through a period when I was fixated on not using Starbuck’s names for the sizes on their coffees. I mean, what ever happened to a simple small, medium or large? How can a small cup of coffee be called a tall? What idiot thought that one up? So one evening I ordered a large cup of Joe to go. The “barista” (another word I hate), a blond, doe-eyed young lady with a butterfly tattoo on her neck, looked at me and said. “Sir, at Starbucks we say Venti”. I was so taken aback at the thought of using that word, I was temporarily frozen. Then, after a long few seconds, I turned around and left.

I guess I didn’t need to get wired that badly.