Red Army, Cadillacs, and Blue Plates

My friend Mac paid me a visit, and brought with him as he always does a couple of stories. I didn't have a story of my own, so I made one up on the spot.  We settled on a bottle of California Sauvignon Blanc, corked, not screw-topped, as I didn't have any beer or his favorite red wine.

Mac told me how he once visited the town of Modesto, an agricultural center in California Central Valley.  He was short of funds and someone suggested a church where the homeless and poor were fed every evening.  All you had to do is listen to a preacher's sermon before they fed you, an old tradition dating back to Charles Dickens' London..   Apparently this was a training ground for fundamentalist Christian preachers, because the fellow preaching that evening was a real young greenhorn.

And he went on about how out of clay God created a perfect human machine. If you take a fine automobile like  Cadillac, he was extolling, in ten years the paint will be peeling, the seats, transmission and engine wearing out, the tires going flat.

A young country cowboy was sitting next to me, said Mac,  and he raised his hand and said, "Excuse me preacher, forgive the interruption, but people too break their arms and legs, and they lose their teeth and hair, their sight and hearing get weak, they just wear out."

At that point, I started laughing uncontrollably, said Mac, couldn't stop, and pretty soon the whole room joined me.  A couple of burly security guards approached from both sides, and escorted me and this cowboy out the door. We didn't eat there that evening.

Mac then asked me about Stalin and I told him that no,  Vissarionovich Jugashvili wasn't Russian, and that his army was called the Red Army, a detail that Mac forgot . This led to the second story.

Mac is an independent man for hire, a handyman, music teacher (he's a keyboard player) or whatever comes along.  One recent job that he picked up was driving cars and merchandise from the city of South San Francisco to Los Angeles, then returning in the truck of the second driver.   It didn't take long for him to realize that he was transporting stolen goods for loading on ships headed to the Far East or South America.  He politely resigned without giving any hints that he would notify the authorities, but it turned out that once you're in, it's not easy to get out.   The head honcho of the operation, the fence, made some threats.

It came to him in a dream the previous night. He and his brother were Red Army soldiers  during the war, and a man who looked like this fence approached somewhere in the trenches, demanding something.  He was in civilian clothes, like a secret police officer.  Not getting what he wanted he threatened Mac that he would shoot his brother, and eventually did, shooting a hole in his heart.  Mac's brother, who is a fireman in another state, was born with a hole in his heart. 

My story? It's not even a story.  There is a dour looking man living at the very end of my street, where after a gentle 15 degree turn it merges with the street that until then ran parallel to the north, so that his house may even have that other street's address, he drives an old brown Nissan 240Z, which is parked in front of the house and has blue handicapped registration plates, a sports car with handicapped plates,  though the owner, like many others with such plates, looks perfectly able, this man, who's been there for decades, could be anywhere between 40 and 70 years old, always dresses the same, in guerrilla chic,  not in an obviously military uniform, but a somewhat discrete, ready for the revolution getup, head covered by a canvas cap which he always wears that looks like a museum piece from a century ago, World War I period, brown or dark green, and when it wears out he buys a another somewhere, an identical one, his newest is for the first time bright red,  perhaps the revolution is expected soon, this man has a goatee beard that together with the cap makes him look like Lenin, and I've wondered for ages if he considers himself a Lenin heir, a Lenin double, a Leninist, or something of the sort, nothing unusual in this town,  but what am I going to do, approach him and ask, "Excuse me, Comrade Lenin, I presume?" ?