About 25 million years ago, when monkeys ruled the earth, I wrote a novel. That book – which I furiously banged out on a Brother word processor, day and night, until the carpal tunnel spread to my neck, spine and colon – was a giant kettle of crap. And I don’t mean the kind of crap that most first time novelists produce due to inexperience, rather, the kind of crap that exists within the writer’s DNA, the kind of crap that no amount of experience or workshopping can ever flush – this crap was the kind of crap about which the Mother of All Craps could be proud.
“That’s my boy!” the Mother of All Craps was often heard saying about this novel.
Not having a predilection toward delusions of grandeur, I permanently shelved the tome and sought a career in journalism. This way, I could still be an author without having to write, or revisit, or even think about – ugh - books.

MSG speaks!

Fast forward to November 2005, scouring the internet trying to find fodder for a looming deadline, I encountered the website for the then upcoming, 2006 installment of the Southern California Writers’ Conference and was immediately intrigued. I’ve always wanted to attend one of these writer thingies but, to my horror, noticed the conference focused on writing – acck – books!
Oh books, wilt thou ever stop taunting me!?

While I was still committed to never thinking about that horrible piece of crap that I wrote back when monkeys were flinging their own dungheaps and calling it technology, I was nonetheless drawn to the idea of a writer’s conference, drawn to the promise of schmoozing with other scribes, chatting about sentences and words and semicolons and also, boozing, which is something apparently many writers enjoy – schmoozing and boozing – that was my main attraction to the conference.
As Michael Steven Gregory (also known as MSG) said, “Most writers work in such agonizing isolation that the chance to work, hangout, drink and stay up all night with other writers and publishing professionals is invaluable.”

Michael Steven Gregory, incidentally, is the Executive Director of The Southern California Writers’ Conference (SCWC). Together, with his partner Wes Albers, they produce, design, market, book, finance and MC the SCWC, which has three chapters: one in Los Angeles/Irvine; one in San Diego, coming this President’s Day weekend, February 13-16, at the Crowne Plaza Resort; and the Palm Springs installment, currently on hiatus.

According to MSG the conference has been a huge success. Nearly four million dollars in first-time-author book and screen deals were facilitated by the SCWC over the past 23 years. During one 14-month period, five books were published as a direct result of first-time authors being recognized, embraced, and enabled by SCWC staff.

“What most often distinguishes our conference from similar events,” said Gregory, “is the generosity of authors, agents, and editors on staff willing to extend their relationships with conferees well beyond the end of any given conference weekend in order to get their manuscript where it needs to be to sell.”

Wes Albers

Admittedly, the SCWC does not staff the mega-popular Stephen Kings and Dean Koontzs like some of the other Gigantor conferences do. Instead, it gets the working stiffs, the guys and gals who are not so far removed from the bloodlet of debut book publishing that they are no longer able to relate to conferees, and vice versa. Authors such as Andrea Portes, whose immensely popular debut novel, Hick, was recently optioned by movie producer Steven Seibert; Andrew Peterson, a competitive Master ranked marksman and author of First to Kill, also returns; writer’s writer Maralys Wills (A Circus Without Elephants) brings back her popular and hyper-informative workshops; and writer’s writer’s writer, Judy Reeves – whose books, essays, and work groups have motivated aspiring authors for years – will again impart her limitless wisdom upon the conference.

“There are so many diverse, exceptional authors on [this year's] schedule it’s difficult to highlight only a few,” says MSG. “For instance, Novelist and screenwriter Don Winslow (The Death and Life of Bobby Z; The Dawn Patrol) will be joining us for the first time to discuss his uniquely Southern California-set thrillers. . . and I’m looking forward to Laurel Corona (The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi’s Venice), whose [speaking] topic is, “My Years of Writing Copiousssssly [sic]: How I Published 19 Books in the Last Decade, and Remained Relatively Normal (I Think).”

These authors, while not as famous as your Kings and Koontzs, are success stories nonetheless. There is much to learn from them. And they are quite approachable. You can ask a question such as, “So exactly how did you get your book published?” and not receive a pat answer like, “Through hard work my son,” before the author scuffles off to a cone of silence in the corner somewhere with their equally unapproachable entourage. The SCWC staff will engage. And that, right there, is the foundation upon which the rest of the conference is built.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~“

Here is what a person can expect when attending The Southern California Writers’ Conference: You register Friday afternoon and dive into the workshops or Read and Critiques. Then comes the schmooze and booze mixer, followed by book signings, an evening speaker and the rogue Read and Critiques, which tend to go into all hours of the night. On Saturday, there is more of the same – more speakers, more workshops and Read and Critiques — and the beginning of the One-on-One Advance Submissions Critique, which operates as such: Before the conference begins, you send 20 pages of your manuscript to somebody from a long list of agents, publishers and other industry professionals on the SCWC staff. The person you choose, let’s say an agent, will read the manuscript before the conference. Later, at the conference, you will meet with him or her for a one-on-one sit down, during which the agent will explain the myriad of ways in which your book is a kettle of crap or, in the rare instance, will say he or she needs to sign you immediately, or, most likely, something in between.

And so it continues through Monday morning, with more speakers, workshops, Read and Critiques, the much anticipated Agents and Editor’s Panel, a banquet, a writing contest, an awards ceremony and tearful goodbyes followed by the long, lonely ride home.

As for me, I listened to the speakers and attended the workshops (that did not focus on novel-writing). For the Advance Submissions Critique, I mailed some of my columns to syndicated Canadian humorist, Gordon Kirkland, who told me I was, “not ready for prime time,” probably because of the column, “There is a Fungus on my Penis,” about which Kirkland asked, “Is this some sort of sick joke?”
“I wish,” was my response.

Matt Pallamary (left) giving advice during Advance Submission session

I pretty much sampled everything at the SCWC, but the best part, as expected, was the late night schmoozing and boozing. In fact, it was on just such an occasion, gagging back shots of tequila with Andrea Portes and her agent, long time SCWC staffer, Sally van Haitsma, when something simultaneously magical and horrible happened.

We were pondering Andrea’s recent success with Hick and Sally began praising Andrea’s initial query letter. Apparently, this was the perfect query letter. It was unanimously lauded by all the attending agents and publishers as a shining example of what a query letter should look like. It was then when Sally turned to me and asked, “So what about you, Ed, do you have a novel to pitch?”
Horrible reaction then: Tequila, and bile, and old, terrible feelings about a long forgotten manuscript began swirling at the top of my stomach, threatening to disgorge.

“Um, well, I did write something 25 million years ago, when simians ruled the planet.”

“Let me hear a pitch,” she said, in such a manner that made me think that everybody in the world has a pitch just sitting around waiting to be pitched.

“Um, I don’t really have one prepared,” I responded.

“Surely you have something?”

“No, really, it’s not ready.”

“C’mon!” she persisted. “Let’s hear it!”

“I c… c… can’t.”

And that was it – the moment about which every aspiring author dreams – an agent asking, nay, begging, to hear his query for the great American kettle of crap. Yet I had nothing.

After several months of full-blown depression, several months of lying in bed in the fetal position till 2 p.m., drinking Pepto from the bottle and throwing shoes at The View’s Sherri Sheppard’s stupid face, I started an entirely new novel. And I’ve been working this novel ever since. And when this novel is near completion, I will write a pitch. It will be a great pitch, a pitch for the ages, a pitch that no agent can refuse. The book may turn out to be another kettle of crap, but my pitch will make Andrea Portes’ pitch seem like it’s sitting on top of a T-ball post waiting to be whacked by Derek Jeter.

More late nights

… And godawful early mornings

Discount Offer: Mention my name (that’s Ed Decker) for 50 dollars off full conference fee. Contact me for more details.
[Full Disclosure Part 2: Shortly after the author's attendance at the 2006 San Diego installment of the Southern California Writers' Conference, he plied the directors with enough quality booze and schmooze to weasel his way on to the staff. Make no mistake though, the author does not hold the conference in high regard because he is on staff, rather, he is on staff because he holds the conference in high regard.]

I just got off the phone with Ralph Collier of the International Shark Committee and am utterly blown away. My knees are weak. My brain is in a haze. And now I’m looking at the blank screen that will become this column thinking, Where on Earth do I begin?

In 1994, a “friend” of mine was killed by a “shark” in the waters off Ocean Beach, San Diego. I put quotes around the word “friend” because Michelle von Emster wasn’t a friend-friend, nor was she a girlfriend. She was a young woman whom I fancied for several months, whom I eventually asked out on a date and who accepted.

We went out to Winston’s, a bar in Ocean Beach, watched bands and drank liquor. At about midnight, we left Winston’s, bought some beer and cigarettes, returned to my pad and sat on the couch, where we talked and flirted all night. At one point, she let me take off her shirt so I could see the large butterfly tattoo on her right shoulder blade, after which we kissed and fondled each other until well past dawn.

I was crazy about Michelle and was looking forward to seeing her again, and again, and again. But late the next night, Michelle went skinny-dipping off Sunset Cliffs and was attacked and killed by a “shark.”

I put the word “shark” in quotes because now (thanks in part to phone my conversation with Collier) I don’t believe that’s what killed her.

Here’s your backstory:

Remember the shark attack in Solana Beach (just north of San Diego) in April, 2008, when Dr. David Martin was killed by a great white? Well, that incident put Michelle’s name back in the news, having been one of only three people killed by a shark in the San Diego area, Dr. Martin being the third.

However, I noticed something peculiar about the reporting. Not every news outlet cited the same statistic. In fact, some of the reports listed Dr. Martin’s death as only the second shark fatality in the area, such as ABC News, which reported that “the last fatal shark attack in Southern California was in 1959.” And Surfline.com reported the same thing. Even the Union-Tribune (North County edition) reported back in April, “The only fatal shark attack in San Diego County listed by the International Shark Attack File… is the 1959 death of Robert Pamperin at Alligator Head in La Jolla.”

I was very confused. Michelle was killed by a shark in 1994. The police said it, the media said it and the county Medical Examiner confirmed it. So why was Michelle being ignored by so many news organizations?

Rush to judgment

At the time of Michelle’s death, journalist Neal Matthews wrote a controversial story, published in Boating magazine, called “Who Killed Michelle von Emster?” In the article, he chronicled the reasons why it may not have been a shark that killed Michelle and that there may have been a rush to judgment by the police (who passed the case off to the coroner without batting an eye), the coroner (who neither performed a sexual-assault examination nor took her liver temperature to determine an accurate time of death) and the media (which didn’t do it’s job as professional skeptics).

It was Matthews who told me that the reason for the conflicting stats is because the International Shark File (ISAF)–the world’s leading authority of all known shark attacks–did not list Michelle as a confirmed shark fatality based on a lack of evidence.

So why the rush to judgment when the shark experts said otherwise?

The manner in which I learned Michelle had been killed by a “shark” was brutal. It was three days after our dream date, and I was watching television. I was depressed because she had not called, assuming she was not as impressed by me as I thought she was.

I remember sitting on the couch, sullen, watching a local news channel, when a live, on-the-scene report came on about a dead woman who’d just been pulled from the water. They didn’t know who she was yet, but the field reporter mentioned an identifying mark on her right shoulder blade. It was half of a large butterfly tattoo, apparently just the wing. The rest of the butterfly, it was surmised, was bitten off by a shark.

It can’t be her, I thought.

I don’t remember much else about that day, except that, from the first utterance of the word “shark,” the snowball started rolling down the mountain, increasing in size, momentum and ferocity. The verdict was in long before the autopsy. The harbor police said “shark,” the lifeguards said “shark,” the coroner said “shark,” the media said “shark,” most of the public said “shark”–so I believed shark. But the shark experts, unbeknownst to me, all said, “Um, no people, probably not shark.”

A plea for due diligence

Shortly after he contacted me last June, I met Matthews for coffee. It was a productive meeting; we decided that there’s enough evidence to justify a request to reopen the case. We knew it was a long shot, but we concluded that it was one worth taking, especially since a new chief medical examiner had taken office. His name is Dr. Glenn N. Wagner, and we sent him a formal request, by post:

“Dear Dr. Wagner, We are writing to ask you to take another look at the accidental death finding in the case of Michelle von Emster…. We are writers with special interests in the von Emster case. One of us dated Michelle briefly before her death, and the other investigated the case for a story published in Boating magazine in 1994. We believe Dr. Brian Blackbourne’s [the previous coroner] conclusions may have been biased because others in the community rushed to judgment about this being a white shark attack.

Sincerely,
Neal Matthews
Edwin Decker”

Dr. Wagner responded by post about a week later. The gist was that there did seem to be some questionable evidence, or lack of, but not enough to amend her death certificate, and he closed his letter by saying that “any case can and will be reopened if additional validated information surfaces.”

So what of this questionable or missing evidence? Before we begin, it should be noted that smaller, blue sharks did feed on Michelle’s body post-mortem. It’s whether she was killed by a shark that Matthews and I question.

Here’s why:

1. The Severed Leg Problem: Michelle’s leg was cut clean off–not particularly splintered or sheared, as you would expect in a great white attack. In Matthew’s 1994 story, George Burgess of the ISAF says he never saw a cut like that in a shark attack. Furthermore, large sharks leave distinctive tooth scrapes and bite marks on bone, yet the leg stump had no such markings.

2. Blunt Force Injuries: Michelle’s autopsy revealed that she had a broken pelvis, broken neck and bruised and broken ribs. The coroner said this probably happened when the shark took Michelle’s body down to the bottom and collided with the ocean floor. Only problem is, every shark expert I, and Matthews, spoke with has said they never saw a case where this has happened. White sharks are known to bite and back off. Even Wagner, the current coroner, in his response to our June 7 letter, said that these injuries were “atypical for shark injuries.”

3. Clothes Never Found: Michelle’s body was discovered nude; her clothes were never found. So where did her clothes go?

4. Conspicuous Purse: Michelle’s purse was found the next day by the seawall, out in the open, its contents–$27, cigarettes, driver’s license and makeup–seemingly undisturbed. Question: If you’re going to go skinny-dipping late at night, would you leave your purse in such a conspicuous location? And wouldn’t you keep your clothes and your purse together, in one spot?

5. Conditions: It was a midnight swim, in April, when the water was still quite cold–60 degrees, to be exact, which is not a pleasant swimming temperature, especially without a wetsuit, which she owned and kept in her apartment a few blocks away but, for some reason, did not use.

6. Improbability: In 1994, not counting Michelle, there had been only one shark attack in San Diego, and that was nearly 40 years prior. The sheer improbability of it should’ve been enough to make investigators thoroughly scrutinize her case. At the very least, they should’ve questioned me. I was one of the last people to see her. And, I went on a date with her. Everybody knows that when you have a suspicious death, you look at the romantic interests: the husband, the boyfriend or, in this case, the suitors. It just seemed like nobody wanted to be bothered, that the snowball had already rolled down the hill, and the snowball said “Shark.”

Enter Ralph Collier

Collier, president and founder of the Shark Research Committee (SRC), is a consultant to all medical examiners along the Pacific Coast of North America. He has published more articles on great white shark attacks than any other ichthyologist in the world. He wrote a book called Shark Attacks of the Twentieth Century, which details every shark bite on the Pacific Coast. Collier reviewed Michelle’s case in 1994 and re-reviewed it in 2003. Today, Monday, July 7, 2008, I spoke with him on the phone.

Collier offered many scenarios. He said the blunt force trauma could’ve happened from a fall off the cliffs. He said her leg could have been cut off by a passing motorboat’s propeller. He said she could’ve run into some bad people who did something terrible to her and dumped her in the water. He said there were a thousand possibilities as to what might have happened to Michelle–except being killed by a shark.

“Michelle von Emster,” he said, “was unequivocally not killed by a shark.”

He also said I was wasting my time trying to get the case reopened, that there’s nothing anyone can do, unless a witness comes forward, which brings me to the reason for this column.

After our conversation, I couldn’t get the “what if” scenario out of my mind. What if somebody hurt her? What if her killer is still out there? What if there is somebody reading this right now who knows something. I know it’s probably futile, but maybe that person is ready to come forward with some information that might provoke the coroner to reopen this case. So, are you out there? Come out, come out wherever you are.

Ed Decker
07/23/08

Here is the original article about my date with Michelle
Here is the letter from the coroner
Here is Neal Matthew’s article Who Killed Michelle Von Emster2.doc (open with Word)

1. “Hello, may I rub lotion on your nose?”

2. “Playing doctor is for kids. Let’s play Lifeguard!”

3. “If I said you had a beautiful rescue tube, would you hold it against me?”

4. “Do you know the difference between an orgasm and the breast stroke? You don’t!? Well let’s go swimming.”

5. “This mouth isn’t going to resuscitate itself!”

6. “Your lifeguard stand or mine?”

7. “You know, a deep, dark tan would look really hot on you – by the way, my name’s Tan.”

8. Hand the lifeguard a piece of paper with your number and a note that says, “Help! I’m drowning in a sea of losers – please call me.”

9. “I’m new in town. Could you show me the way to your heart?”

10. “I’m not much of a swimmer. Can you teach me your strokes?

11. “Do you want to see my new dive? It’s called the, “Holy-crap-you-are-so-hot-will-you-marry-me,” triple gainer.

12. “Do lifeguards carry handcuffs?”

13. “Your name must be Ripp Tyde because when I look into your eyes I drift away.”

14. “Wanna go into the water with me and check out the swell?”

(Originally published in San Diego CityBeat Summer Guide issue 5.14.08.)
This is a partial list of interesting insects you might see in San Diego County this summer:

1. Jerusalem Cricket (Stenopelmatus fuscus): For the most part insects scare the crap out of me. Unless I am certain that it will not bite, sting, siphon, burrow, prick, infest, infect or inject its eggs into my brain and have the larvae eat my head from the inside out, I basically steer clear of any insect I encounter; especially the scary looking ones, and this Jerusalem cricket looks horrifying.

It is tinted orange with black and orange bands on its body. It looks like an evil Martian cricket sent to invade our planet one venomous sting at a time. The reality, however, is that they do not have poison glands and are not aggressive.

When encountered, I recommend squashing them under your boot until they are but a black and bloody splotch on your memory.

2. Green Fruit Beetle (Cotinis mutabilis): Also known as the June bug, these flying insects will invade your airspace around – you guessed it – June. You’ve seen them before. They are green and huge and clumsy and dumb. When I moved to San Diego and first witnessed one of those giant, green monstrosities, it scared the living scabies out of me. The way it loudly buzzed around the patio, bumping into everything with a resounding thud, made me mistake its stupidity for fearlessness and thinking it was most certainly coming to lay her eggs into my brainmeat.

Of course, they are utterly harmless, and for that reason, when encountering a June bug, batting them out of the air with a Wiffle Ball bat is recommended.

3. Kissing Bug (Triatoma protracta): This is what infuriates me about some of these insect types. They have these totally harmless sounding names that make you think you could love and trust them, only to find out the reason they call it a kissing bug is because it sucks blood from your lips when you are sleeping.

And that’s not even the worst of it. While sucking your lip-blood, it also injects saliva which can cause anaphylactic shock. So you’re basically getting a wet, bloody, disease-addled kiss from this creature that you never even invited into your bed in the first place – which is just plain rude.

If encountered, you should shoot and stab it in the face like you would any other home intruder molester type.

4. Termites (Reticulitermes Hesperus): As a home owner, all I have to say about this group of insects is, “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!”

When encountered, I recommend putting your house on the market.

5. Argentine Ants (Linepithema humile): I kinda dig ants. I dig their whole colony vibe. As long as they stay outside and don’t crawl on my personal skin or personal skin accessories, I’m cool with them – except, of course, those Goddamn Argentine ants. To Hell with them! They are predatory and violent and spreading across the globe via Argentina’s agricultural shipping exports. They are the Borg of the insect world. Once they arrived in San Diego, they started attacking and eating all the native ants, which didn’t have a chance against the deluge. The SoCal ants were just chilling on the tops of their respective ant hills with a beach chair and a bucket of Corona’s when the Argentine’s swooped in and ate their asses. This really is a major problem as the invasion is destroying the delicate balance of our local ecology.

When an Argentine ant colony is encountered, pour gasoline into the hole and set it on fire.

6. Golden Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia): I have mixed feelings about spiders. On one hand, they are noble and effective insect destroyers, catching the annoying little buggers in their webs, sucking out their lifeslime, and leaving their emaciated corpses suspended in the web as a message to other insects: Beware all ye who cometh here.

I like that part about spiders. But they’re also scary to humans. And, some of them can kill you badly.

Incidentally, I learned something while researching the bugs of summer. Turns out, the brown recluse spider does not inhabit southern California. And to think, all the years I wasted being frightened of the brown recluse. I can’t tell you how many gardens I ran screaming from, how many attics and basements I wouldn’t go into because I thought I saw a brown recluse sharpening her fangs in there.

Turns out they don’t even live here.

But the golden garden spider does. You’ll find them primarily in San Diego coastal areas. And, as far as scary appearance goes, the golden garden spider makes the Jerusalem cricket look like a ladybug in a lily field. For one reason, the garden spider is huge. The female grows up to almost an inch long. She’s got a fat, yellow and black abdomen and thick black and orange banded legs that have several rows of black hairs running single file toward her feet. Her bite is not deadly to humans but I have no doubt that she would lay her eggs in your brainmeat given half the chance.

When encountered, I recommend enslavement of some sort, since she will catch and kill other bugs for you.

7. Common House Fly (Musca domestica): There are simply no words capable of expressing my fear and loathing of the common house fly. Just the thought of their hairy legs dragging particles of dog excrement and rat dander all over my picnic guacamole bowl makes me turn white. Suffice to say, that guacamole is as good as dead to me.

When encountered, I recommend capture and slow torture – you know, to send a message.

8. Western honeybee (Apis mellifera): I really hope the bees come back soon. Talk about ecological instability. If they stay gone for much longer we’ll have to evolve back to lizards and move into the caves.

If encountered, I recommend a ticker-tape parade, with confetti, marching bands, and banners that say, “Welcome back, bees.”

Ed Decker
5/14/08

And what of this edge? What tragedies lay behind it? What sort of experiences are so profound that they can alter a human being’s personality, even slightly?

“My name is Corporal Seth Reil of the United States Marine Corps,” he said lighting the first of a dozen Camel Lights he would smoke during our interview. “I work with the military working dogs. My dog was trained for attacking and also finding explosives. My unit worked in eastern Ramadi in the al-Anbar province.”

Reil and his unit were stationed in a small combat outpost known as an FOB (Forward Observing Base). The dogs and the dog handlers all lived together in a hardened building called The Hooch.

“A hardened building is made out of cement and is constructed to withstand small-arms fire and mortar rounds,” said Reil. “The FOB is a big complex with different command posts, army platoons, mechanic’s bay, and medic’s bay. It has about 15 to 20 buildings. It actually used to be an agricultural college that shut down at the beginning of the war, and we just turned it into a base.

“When we first got to our hooch, we had to build it up some. We built some rooms, and a couch and a patio. The reason they let us have the patio is because we said it was for the dogs. We knew we wanted one, but needed to [justify] it, so we said it was for the acclimatization of the dogs because they can’t work if it gets too hot, which was kind of a bullshit reason–but we wanted the patio, so that’s what we told them.”

Whether the dogs actually need a patio for their well-being, one thing is for certain. They don’t like war any more than humans do. Some of them are even coming down with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).

“It’s not surprising because dogs live in the now,” Reil explained while extinguishing his 6th or 7th cigarette into a small candle holder-turned ashtray. “They can’t say, ‘Hey, I’m getting shot at today, but tomorrow will be better.’ If they get shot at one day they’re going to think they’re going to get shot at the next day, and the day after that. So the dogs start shutting down. They think that every time they go out, there they’re gonna get blown up or get heat exhaustion. But the benefits of having dogs far outweigh [the risks]. If the dog dies or it gets PTSD, chances are he found stuff that made him that way, which means it was good that we had him there.”

According to Reil, a typical mission occurs at night. The supporting unit picks them up in their Humvees; they convoy to the target zone, and proceed to clear the area, usually houses, streets and courtyards.

“They break things down to pushes,” Reil explained. “They will clear one section of the city and secure all the insurgents. Then they’ll push the next section, until that section is cleared.”

Another role of the k9 units is to clear buildings for “meet-and-greets,” which are gatherings of civil-affairs officers and local sheiks. They would meet in a building, say, a power plant, and discuss different ways the Marines could facilitate the rebuilding process and how they could better serve the Iraqi people. It was Reil’s unit’s job to go into the power plant and make sure no shenanigans were planned by rival sheiks or insurgents.

Whether to clear a building for a meet-and-greet or clearing a house suspected of harboring weapons or insurgents, the way it worked was just like in the movies. First, the guys with the M-16s would rush through the building one room at a time, yelling, “Clear!” after each room was checked. Then, when the building was secure, Reil and his dog, a Belgian Malanois named Tino, would go in and sniff out explosives.

“We look for what’s called a ‘change in behavior,’ Reil says. “His ears go up and his tail stiffens, and then the dog will pull me in the direction of the odor. During the al-Iskan push… my dog and I found four pressure plates, which are IEDs [improvised explosive devices] but designed to go off when trucks or tanks or people step on them. When we find them, we call over the EOD [explosive ordinance disposal], and they do a controlled detonation.”

It was during the al-Iskan push that Reil and his unit ran into trouble. After the incident with the pressure plates, they commandeered a house for the night. When a house is commandeered, they put all the occupants into one room and post guards.

“[The occupants] usually don’t mind too much because we pay them for their troubles and because unemployment is so high over there, it’s often the only income they see. The ones that do mind, it’s usually because they’re hiding something.”

The next morning, the unit exited the house they commandeered and almost instantly started taking incoming fire.

“I don’t know if it got leaked that we were staying there,” Reil said. “We took cover behind a wall and returned fire. Then we called for a gun truck, which is an up-armored Humvee with a .50-caliber mounted. We followed behind the Humvee until the insurgents scattered.”

Corporal Reil didn’t seem to mind talking about this particular firefight, probably because nobody was hurt. But when asked about other, similar situations, he fidgeted in his seat, lit another cigarette, and respectfully declined to elaborate.

“People get hurt,” he said, eyes becoming red and glassy. “It’s really hard to talk about.”

And there it is–that thing. The thing you hear so often when soldiers come back from war, the thing they can’t or won’t talk about, the thing that gives them that “edge” they bring home with them. The things like the time the suicide bomber detonated himself in front of an Iraqi police checkpoint.

“After the explosion, my dog and I had to search the area for secondary devices,” Seth said. “When we got out of the Humvee, before I could stop him, my dog started licking and eating the remains. That was hard. It was a long time before I let my dog drink out of the same water bottle as me.”

Reil said that, while in Iraq, he didn’t follow politics all that much. He was too focused on the job. He did say however that he did not believe the anti-war movement was undermining what they were doing over there, that it did not affect their morale to such a degree that it weakened the troops and emboldened the enemy- a mantra we kept hearing over and over by certain supporters and members of the Bush administration.

“People saying they didn’t support the war–that’s fine. Being American, they have that option. I’m trying to defend that option, just so long as when the troops come home, the [people] show support.”

Apparently that’s what he’s received. Most everyone he’s encountered has been respectful and supportive of his sacrifice to our country. And though he did not lose life or limb, his sacrifice has been enormous. Not just the friends for whom he mourns, or the new bride torn from him, but also his personality, his former self, now as gone as his twelfth and last cigarette of the interview.

“I have been avoiding big groups of people. . . It freaks me out. I smoke way more than I ever did. . . My wife says that I’m more serious, and I space out. It’s kind of a defense mechanism. If something bad happens in Iraq, you shut it down otherwise it will eat you alive…. You get thrown into this hostile environment and your mindset just completely changes. Things you wouldn’t think of as dangerous before all of a sudden become extremely dangerous. Like, if you see a pile of garbage on the road, here in the states you would think, ‘Oh, that needs to be cleaned up.’ But if you see a pile of garbage in Iraq, you say, ‘Oh no, we’re gonna get blown up!’ In Iraq, you are in that mindset all the time. You can’t let your guard down at all. We have a saying that says, ‘Complacency kills,’ and it does.”

Ed Decker
11/14/07

10) She’s actually agreed to meet with your 40-year old, fat, middle aged ass

9) Screen name is Chris_Hansen_undercover123

Asks you to bring condoms, alcohol, and your lawyer’s business card

7) Knows what a “dirty sanchez” is

6) Wants to know if you wouldn’t mind including Dan Rather for a threesome

5) When you ask what alcoholic beverages she likes to drink, she answers “Glenfiddich, neat.”

4) Seems to understand and even LOL’s at your joke about the U.S. senate hearing with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales

3) When you talk on the phone her voice sounds like that guy on TV who catches all those terrible pedophiles

2) You arrive at her house and there are cookies and lemonade waiting for you. Get out now!

1) ???
That’s all I could come up with. I need an entry for number one. Anyone care to contribute?

[Author's note: The Possum King originally appeared as 3 separate columns because of space constraints. I posted them together here as one story because that's really what it was].

Part 1: First Encounter
The following is a tale of a great war. It was an epic war. The following is an epic tale of an epic war that was totally and utterly epic and as such, can not be relayed within the confines of a single column. Indeed this week’s column isn’t even about the war. Rather, it is about the events that preceded it. I will do my best to refrain from embellishing.

About two months before beginning a major home renovation – I was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of a cat eating dry cat food. Now, being a co-owner of two cats, the sound of cat food consumption isn’t normally the sort of thing that wakes me up in the middle of the night. But something was different about the way this cat food was being eaten. I couldn’t put a finger on it at first. But then, as I lay in bed listening to the crunch, crunch, crunch sounds resonating through the house, it occurred to me – it’s not how the cat was eating the cat food that was peculiar, but for how long.

I mean that thing was going for twenty minutes. And the incessant crunch, crunch, crunching was so obnoxious, I finally flung off my bed covers and headed toward the kitchen so as to stomp its little cat-head. However, upon arrival, when I flicked on the light switch, I looked down to see a great beast looking up at me from the cat food dish that was quite clearly not a cat.

It was a Possum – an enormous, wretched, arrogant, disease-carrying, pink-eyed, monster of a prehensile marsupial just looking up at me from the cat food dish as if to say, “Yeah, I’m all up in your shit. Wot you gonna do about it?”

She reminded me of another possum I met a long time ago back in upstate New York. I was driving down Cromwell Hill Road with my then girlfriend Jill. It was late at night and we were nearing the bottom of the hill when we heard a loud thump-thumpa-thump noise thumpeting beneath the car. I pulled over to investigate and there in the middle of the road, on its back legs, was a big fat possum pissed off and screeching in pain like Queen Latifa at a white-girl pajama party.

It was a dreadful thing to behold, the creature writhing in agony and Jill shouting, “Do something, do something! You gotta do something!”

“Do something??” I asked incredulously. “Whaddya want me to do, nurse it back to health?”

“No Doctor Doolittle, I want you to put it out of its misery,” she said,
as if putting a living being “out of its misery” was just another man-task, like hanging a shelf or mowing the lawn.

“I’m not putting it out of its misery,” I snapped back. “You put it out of its misery!”

“No you!”

“No you!”

“No you!” we shouted, not noticing that another car was cruising down the hill until it struck the marsupial with a resounding thump-thumpet-thud-thudda shutting us both the frick-up.

The driver stopped and exited the vehicle. He glanced at us, then at the possum who, unbelievably, was still alive hissing and spitting even more than before. The stranger approached us and we discussed our dilemma.

“No problem,” he said as he picked up a stick about the size of a broomstick, walked up to the animal, and matter-of-factly clubbed the possum across the head with a full-on baseball swing.

The Possum’s head snapped below its shoulder and instantly snapped back into place. Then it wailed to the possum-high-heavens. It was a terrible sound of a creature in unthinkable pain, but still, not yet dead. So the stranger clubbed her again – only to make the beast howl even louder, angrier, Queen-Latif-ier – then again, and again, and again and it seemed the more the possum got clubbed the less dead she became.

At that point, Jill was going ape-shit. She was screaming at the stranger to stop and even lurched toward him. I grabbed her by the back of her shirt and shoveled her kicking and screaming into the car. As we drove away, I saw the man in the rear view mirror still clubbing the thrashing possum.

Man, those things won’t die, I thought.
——————
And here now, some 20 years later, looking at this possum seething at me in my own kitchen, I’m thinking that she looks like the same possum we encountered on Cromwell Hill Road. I’m thinking maybe it is her and she’s looking for revenge. I know that sounds crazy but, see, she’s looking up at me from the cat food bowl like this is her Kill Bill moment and I’m the Bill that needs killing.

“I’ve been waiting for you Decker,” she’s saying with her teeth bared, talons extended and those eyes, those eyes, those eyes all pink and dripping – a carrier’s eyes – and I say, “Screw this! I’m not messing around with her furry ass. Those things won’t die.” So I turned off the light and went back to bed thinking I’d call animal control in the morning.

The next morning I awoke to find 5 or 6 of possum pellets and a quarter-cup-sized puddle of urine where a possum used to be. I counted my blessings that she was gone and hoped that would be the end of it.

It was not the end of it.

Part 2 – Operation Skippy

About 3 months after the encounter with that first possum, and right around the beginning of the Great Multi-Apartment Remodel Project of 2005, a war of epic proportions began.

My apartment was all torn up from ongoing renovations some friends and I were making. Tools and debris were everywhere. The stove and refrigerator were dragged into the living room. Boxes of tile and grout and ten pound bags of thin-set were scattered about.

It was a difficult time for me. For one reason, I’m certainly no carpenter. Secondly, I just couldn’t get used to waking at 6:00 a.m. Hell I don’t even usually go to sleep until 4:00. So in the days of the remodel project, I spent many hours tossing and turning trying to fall asleep by midnight.

On one particular sleepless night, I was awakened by the familiar sound of something – not feline – eating cat food. Angrily, I snapped back the covers, stepped over some boxes of tile, navigated around the stove, crawled over large bags of thin-set, slammed my toe on something pointed, like the corner of a shelf prhaps, muttered a series of expletives, and turned on the kitchen light to see not one but two possums looking up from the cat food bowl.

I knew in an instant. These were the babies of the first possum. That’s why she was so big and ornery. And now her offspring have grown and returned to the place where they know the cat food is.

The following morning I phoned Dave from 1-800-CRITTER who arrived with two rectangular metal boxes. He placed the traps at the foot of the refrigerator (which was now in the living room). Then he spread dry cat food all around the outside of the trap and applied a large swath of peanut butter inside. And thus was the first major military operation of the war set into place. It was called Operation Skippy. And it seemed to work because we caught the first possum on the first night. The next morning I called Critter Catcher Dave and he came and took the possum away (apparently they release them back into the wild).

So at first things looked promising. But the second possum eluded the traps for days. Every night it was the same thing: Just when sweet sleep would come, I’d hear that old Crunch, crunch, crunch crunching again. Then it was a nightmarish cycle that went like this: Hear crunching. Wake up. Navigate appliances and debris. Bang toe on something sharp. Mutter expletives. Flick light switch. Possum hides. Shout out derogatory, anti-marsupial insults such as, “You are the scum-sucking, illegitimate son of an alley cat and a rabid kangaroo!” Go back to bed. Toss and Turn. Eyes shut.

Then, sleep comes. Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. Wake up. Stumble around in dark. Bang toe. Curse loud. Flick switch. Possum hides. Attempt Sleep. Then Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch again, and I’m wondering, “Why oh why won’t you go for the Skippy, oh delicious Skippy peanut butter, so creamy and yummy. . .” Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, again and again, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, reverberating through the house in the middle of the night like Satan chewing on John Gacy’s bones and it’s sunup now, time to drag myself out of bed, make coffee, get dressed and meet Possum at the time-clock.

“Morning Ed,” he says, punching out.

“Morning Ralph,” I say clocking in.

In this way the nights all meld into one and now it’s the fifth night (I think) – night of the infamous military engagement called Battle at Front Door Front.

Battle at Front Door Front:

It is the fifth night of the ordeal. I am watching Law and Order with W. The possum has grown accustomed to us and is fearlessly meandering about the household. In a stroke of luck, he wanders toward the front door. This is fortuitous because, while the wooden front door is wide open, the security screen door is closed and it occurs to me that this can be used as a trap. As he walks up to the screen door and looks outside, I slam the wood door shut locking the possum between the two doors.

Furious now, the creature begins scratching and scraping fervently. I open the door a crack to see the little bugger digging into the floor underneath the screen door.

He’s already got his head through, followed by his neck, then shoulders, then torso, until all that remains on my side of the door is his tail.

In my head I know, if he escapes, he’ll be back tomorrow so, without thinking further, I leap onto the ground, grab the disgusting hairless appendage and start tugging him backward. It’s a firefight now with him hissing and spitting and clawing and me pulling him backward until he pops out from under the screen and now I’m holding him in the air by the tail while he wildly snaps claws and jaws and just before he gets a piece of my hand-flesh, I drop him into a laundry basket and close the lid over his head. Victory is mine.

Sleep comes easily this night. I dream I am sitting on a throne at the base of a giant, Sphinx-like monument with the head of a cat and the body of a rabid kangaroo. It is Marsupius – God of Possums and I am his chosen one. Standing before me are millions upon millions of possums waiting for my announcement.

“I am the Possum King!” I say as they hiss and spit their approval. “I can do anything.”

The next morning, I called critter catcher Dave who arrived in his Critter Catcher mobile. I showed Dave the laundry basket which was now on the front stoop. He opened the lid to get a look at the possum and the possum – as effortlessly as Colonel Hogan pulling a warm nail out of a tub of butter – sprung out of the goddam basket and wriggled itself through a possum-sized opening under my goddam house.

Part 3 – The Final Showdown

Can you imagine how sick I was of this interminable war with super-possum from Hell? I mean, after all those hours of lost sleep, after cleaning up all that possum shit and piss, after all the days of living in a house that smelled like the county simian morgue, after that epic brutal Battle at Front Door Front when I finally, finally caught the goddam object of my insanity – after all that then this Critter Catcher Dave person just goes ahead and opens the lid and let’s the possum out!

I could not believe my eyes. When the possum escaped, I actually fell to my knees in despair. True story. I’ve never done that before; never really ever had anything to fall on my knees in despair about. Not that possum-catching is a worthy reason either. But I did it unconsciously. And it happened so fast. When the possum jumped out of the box, my knees got all rubbery until I collapsed muttering, “No, no, no, no,” in disbelief.

Because I knew he’d be back that night. He’d come back like he always came back, and the crunching, and the defecating, and the no-sleep-getting would begin all over again.

Critter Catcher Dave for his part felt awful. He just stood there shocked like Bill Buckner looking up from an empty mitt.

“You,” I said, getting up from my knees and pointing at him. “You did this to me.”
Dave delivered his apologies. In his hand he held one of his critter catching instruments – a slim metal rod with a cable that ran up the shaft and became a loop at the end to make a noose for hooking around the animal’s neck. It looked menacing.

“Give me that thing,” I said pointing at the noose-hooking-cable thing.

“This is my only one,” he responded, “I’m really not supposed to lend it out.”
“Give. Noose. Hooking. Thing. Now. Dave.”

“I guess I owe you,” he said.

Oh, you owe, all right.

As I write this, it occurs to me that my trials quite mirror a movie I saw some 20 years ago called Of Unknown Origin. It’s a peculiar little horror flick, Moby Dickian in nature, about a man named Bart Hughes (Peter Weller) who encounters a rat while remodeling his home.

In the film, Hughes tries the usual methods to dispatch the rat but the rat is some sort of super rodent and cannot be outwitted. Destroying the rat soon becomes a compulsion for Hughes which eventually destroys his family and career.

There is one memorable scene in which Hughes decides to stop being a victim and procures a shotgun. In the scene that marks the beginning of the movie’s climax, he cocks his shotgun, mutters an immemorial catchphrase, and begins chasing the rat around the house in a maniacal rage – blowing holes in the walls and furniture and cackling to himself the whole time and this, my friends, is where I am at right now with this possum. I’m at wits end people, ready to go mano a ratto in a final showdown and now that I’ve got the wondrous cable-noose-hooking device, all I need now is a memorable catchphrase.

Battle at Little Big Bathroom – the final showdown

It is the 6th night in the ordeal. W. and I are watching TV. Possum is pacing around the apartment like a bored third roommate. He opens the refrigerator door looking for a night snack. He takes a slug from the gallon milk bottle, pulls out some sandwich fixings, makes a sandwich, leaves the mess, dials a long distance phone call, then heads toward the bathroom, I assume, to stink up the place.

The bathroom? He’s going inside the bathroom!”

As quietly as possible, I grab the noose-hooker apparatus, skulk toward the bathroom, then step inside and shut the door behind me. Holding the device in the air like a cocked shotgun, I mutter the only catchphrase that comes to my war-torn mind…

“No sleep ’till hookin,’” I say, and go after the possum. The beast darts into the bathroom closet and I get on my hands and knees and start feverishly digging through the clutter at the bottom of the closet – shoes and shoeboxes mostly, some garbage, knickknacks – until I see the possum in the back right corner of the closet.
He’s hissing and spitting, but holding his ground. I slowly position the noose in front of his head, then in one swift motion, loop it around his neck and snap it tight.

“I got you now bastard,!” I say as I pull him out of the closet. Oh he’s pissed now, clawing and snapping at anything in reach and just before I pull him all the way out, he closes his jaws on one of my wife’s revered dress shoes and clenches down hard.
Must save shoe, I think, and grab it by the heel and start pulling. But he just clenches harder and as we tug-o-war it out, I can see his teeth marks dragging across the leather. Realizing all hope for the shoe is lost, I yank the possum out of the closet and into the air. Now he’s dangling by the neck and thrashing violently. Shit and piss is flying everywhere. Foamy drool drips down the shoe still in its mouth. I make a dash for the outside patio and slam the creature into a box and close the lid.

And just like that, war is over. Neighbors all come out of their houses to witness the victory celebration. Hugs and cheers then. Handshakes. Champagne and cigars. Confetti. Smiles. A soldier kisses a nurse.

Possum images from aanimalcontrol.com
EJD
10/05