It was the last time I had seen my folks, my friends. The last time their worn soles had touched the ground was on that very road, ten years before. They exclaimed, like they usually did when I was lost, that they were glad I wasn’t dead on the side of the road, stabbed by some hitchhiker who moonlit as a serial killer. The house smelled exactly the same at it had when I left, like Italian food that had just come steaming from the oven, garlic still hanging in the air to seduce me back into the kitchen. I threw my new Italian shoes into the trunk, prying the old ones from the back of the car. Created around 1485, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (Nascita di Venere in Italian), also known by it’s cute nickname “Venus on the half-shell”, is considered by many as the purest expression of Renaissance beauty.
The most famous of all, Michelangelo, is buried here along with fellow sculptor, Lorenzo Ghiberti (Baptistery bronze doors), Renaissance author, Niccolo Machiavelli (creator of hard-ball politics who wrote The Prince), Poet Vittorio Alfieri along with Physicist/Astronomer Galileo Galilei (who was allowed in many years after he died). The Old Man stood waiting behind the wooden doors of the Theater with a towel. Thunder echoed off the streets as the water ran off the unlit bulbs of the theater into little pools, running slowly into the street and down the gutter. His theater couldn’t have shut down. If you have ever rented a machine from your local hardware store, you probably noticed how fast your carpets re-soiled. The hamlet is also in the town of Blooming Grove. At the valley’s mouth, where Woodbury Creek drains into Moodna Creek, is the small hamlet of Mountainville, with its own fire district and ZIP Code. My mouth felt mossy and thick, my skin felt slick and cold, but on fire underneath. It passed through the shell handling room for the No. 6 Bofors gun mount, starting a fire as it did so, before exploding in the midship living compartment, where it killed twenty-three and wounded another twenty.
The dust in the room passed through the magic light beam, the click and hum of the projector running filled the room. I appreciated his suggestion — ever since the Old Man had shown me Robin Hood, I became obsessed with the magic light. The ship was thereafter used as part of Operation Magic Maplewood Carpet Restretching, the effort to repatriate American forces after the war. During World War II Naval Base Hawaii was given the codename Copper and Naval Station Pearl Harbor the codename FRAY. The Cold War (1947-1991) and the 600-ship Navy had Naval Base Hawaii active. In 1951, the Marine Corps took over Kaneohe Field, and the Navy moved land operations to NAS Barbers Point. Tonight “The Adventure” was dark, swallowed by the navy blue of the night sky. The only thing that ever stayed open in Scathlock was the movie theater, “The Adventure”. I felt safe walking down the hall to the lobby, the walls lined with creased and old, but still somehow vibrant movie posters. I wondered vaguely as we drove how a one horse show like Scathlock had ever sustained a movie theater. One way to shorten this drying time, according to MacDonald, is to replace lightweight aggregate with lightweight synthetic particles.
Please pray for one new very important intention. I could see a stick figure carving at the bottom of the door, a faceless fighter bending a bow and arrow, and a deformed, scrawled dragon about to be felled. They led me to my old front door, green and scratched. The United Service Organizations (USO) was founded in 1941 to lift the morale of our military and nourish support on the home front. As we chained the front end to the rusty hitch of the truck, my Father spoke. He had always owned the biggest truck, and the best — albeit only — useable chain in town. It couldn’t. Dim neon lights in the distance spelling out “GAS” flickered on and off, heralding my arrival to town. Scathlock usually hibernated at about 6 o’clock every night, the Gas station looking out for wayward travelers until about eight. The only sound I could hear was the weak hum of the gas station’s sign that welcomed me, and the scrape of my feet on the old cracked pavement. I looked behind me, but the Old Man was already gone, the sound of metal clanking in the projector room above.
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