THE FRAGILITY OF JACK LORD

I sat at the small stone table outside the old gas station with the 2 hot dogs that I had ordered.

I almost decided to eat at the other fancier gas station further down the road near the yacht rental shop but it seemed colder and lonelier there–even the yachts seemed to whisper Don’t Go but I had to and did so without a word. I have never been good at saying goodbye in general, and never to yachts.

Normally, of course, you forget all the hot dogs you have ever eaten, except the ones that you eat at the State Fair, or the ones that you eat before you get on the Flying Bob at the State Fair. The Flying Bob is spiffy and fast!

But I doubt that I will forget these hot dogs that I ate at the old gas station tonight, and not because someone got shot outside the gas station as I ate the first hot dog (this really happened to me, but it happened on another night, and the hot dog was actually just a hamburger and the man who got shot was on an episode of Hawaii Five O, a very action-packed TV show that I shall never forget because Jack Lord, tall, lean and rugged, played Captain Steve McGarrett and eventually had Alzheimer’s and actually ended up dying in Hawaii, appearing less rugged and much more frail in the tabloids before he did. I guess that’s normal. Who can forget the time that he showed his fragile side, strumming his guitar as he recalled bittersweet romantic recueillements with “Cathy” in the episode entitled TIME AND MEMORIES? It was a welcomed interlude from the relentless violence of Hawaii.)

Where was I? Oh yes.

No it wasn’t Hawaii television that did it. And it wasn’t the hot dogs. These hot dogs were just plain eating hot dogs, not unusual in any particular way, although I do remember hearing, as I first begin to eat my first hot dog, the song THUNDER AND LIGHTNING, by Chi Coltrane over the gas station public address system, a song which was very popular the first year I went to boarding school which I hated, and it was followed moments later by the song LOVE ROLLERCOASTER, by the Ohio Players, which was popular the year I graduated from boarding school which I hated, and so naturally enough I like LOVE ROLLERCOASTER very much and I do not like THUNDER AND LIGHTNING at all. Nevertheless, my love for LOVE ROLLERCOASTER is a bittersweet love, because everyone used to say that if you listened carefully after the second verse you could hear the sound of someone screaming after they got shot or some say after they found the body of someone who was shot in the studio as the Ohio Players were recording LOVE ROLLERCOASTER. Whether or not that is true, the memory remains tinged, and will remain so forever.

So–let’s see: not guns, not Hawaii, not rollercoasters, not thunder or lightning. What could it be, then? But now I fear that I have lingered too long two explain why I shall remember these hot dogs forever, and I shall, but if I were to explain why, you might say, “That’s no reason to remember anything forever, not even two hot dogs.”

If you were to say that, I would quickly admonish you and remind you that I will remember Christine Edwards forever, and I only kissed her once, in the hull of a boat, when I was five years old and I have no idea where my parents were at the time. Not very responsible, if you ask me. But that doesn’t matter, I still remember Christine Edwards, as though it were yesterday, not 1000 years ago in the Caspian Sea.

I will always remember that I put ketchup on the first hot dog, mustard on the second. I bit the head off the first hot dog, (I assume it was the head) and then, just to be fair, the head of the second. Ketchup always precedes mustard these days, doesn’t it? And eating equal amounts of both, one after the other, it’s the right thing to do, isn’t it? I am trying to be fair, after all. If what I suspect is true, I have already eaten their heads off after the first bite–why should they care about anything at that point?

Well, you could cite the example of Johnny Depp, the handsome actor, paying millions of dollars to have his beloved friend Hunter S. Thompson’s ashes shot out of a 150 foot cannon shaped like a two-thumbed fist and into the mountains of Vale, Colorado, because those were Hunter S. Thompson’s wishes. But why would Hunter S. Thompson care at that point? The fist, for example, could have had only one thumb. Would it matter? Would Hunter S. Thompson be upset? According to many, no, it wouldn’t really; it would only prove that Johnny Depp, as handsome as he is, believes in God.

Or perhaps you just ate their feet, and they are wishing with all their hearts that you would just eat more quickly and get it over with.

That’s what Christine Edwards would have said, between kisses. When I say Christine Edwards, I can’t quite recall exactly what she looked like, but I think she looked very nice. She looked like everyone I have ever known, all put together.

I like to think of Christine as an amalgam of everyone I have ever met and all the world’s greatest hot dogs that I have eaten, and perhaps will eat, someday.

But wait! If memory serves, there was only one kiss, no more, and Jack Lord who once said–“Don’t call me ‘cop’ the name’s McGarrett, and the title is ‘Mister’"–is surely dead now. And if there were more kisses, I will not remember them at this point. And as for the rest of what happened in that boat, and with those hot dogs, and with music and love, it is truly too horrible to remember, too terrible to contemplate, or at least, I think, I would like to think so.

all artwork, including monsters but not old timey photographs,
® mr. crispy flotilla, 2007