<![CDATA[
<bgsound src="TR2Foothills2.wav">
]]>
Lisa and I were going to join the Marines. I'm not quite sure how it all started. I think it was kind of a spontaneous thing that we just thought about doing as we were walking along. We were at a place that was a rock quarry type of area. I recall walking up a slight slope of small loose rocks with Lisa and to the left of us was an area that was dug out of the side of a mountain. There was a cliff 20 feet to our left that dropped down into a gully. In this gully were numerous people, most or all of them being men, and they were working down there, doing some mining things. There was a single train track down there that wasn't for trains but for the mining carts that were rode along and manipulated about. The gully was 60 feet deep and wide. Occasional men would be seen on the side of the rocky, dark hill across the way, doing stuff like picking away at the rocks and dirt. Some of the guys wore mining hats and although this very much resembled a mining operation, it was supposed to be a boot-camp-like scene for those who wanted to join the Marines. The hillside that was on the other side of the gully was tall but I don't know if it was mountain height or just a big hill, but I do know that it was higher than the ground I was standing on. Lisa and I came in contact with some guys, one man in particular who was around 5 feet 10 and balding and kind of plump, and it was this man that we talked to about getting into the Marines. Lisa and I were immediately incorporated into the group and became one of the others roaming around this environment. There was one scene that occurred down in the gully, perhaps a confrontation between myself and one of the other boot camp dudes, but I can't quite remember what that was all about. Later I was talking with the guy that Lisa and I had been recruited by and he asked something or me to stick out my tongue, as if giving me my physical. I obliged and my tongue was covered with a white pasty substance. The man seemed concerned about this so he scraped my tongue with something and examined the pasty film. I'm not sure what that white pastry stuff was; excess food stuff or just your average, everyday tongue covering, but the man told me that because I had this stuff on my tongue then I couldn't be in the Marines. I didn't care at all and I was kind of relieved because I didn't want to join anyway. I talked to Lisa about this and she made it clear that even though I wasn't going to be a Marine, she was still going to remain enlisted. She was very nonchalant and expressionless about it. Her deciding that meant that she would be going off doing her military duty and I would remain a civilian. The idea didn't seem to faze either one of us, so we parted ways. I remember having a duffel bag, one of those tough, dull green ones they give you in boot camp to put all your stuff in, and I was toting it along the hill Lisa and I had first walked up when we came to this place. At the crest of this light rocky hill were some train tracks. I can't remember if a train ever came but I do know that I had planned to board the next one coming by and getting on it to go back home or wherever it was I was planning to go.
I was with a group of people, around four or five others, and we were going to a concert. To get tickets for this we had to stand in lines that were in front of long tables, the kinds you see in school cafeterias. The atmosphere was kind of like that too; like a school gym or someplace similar where petite women who looked like schoolteachers lined up behind tables awaiting your registration card for a nice looking-over. The guy in front of me tried to get a ticket but the lady there, who was kind of school-marmish with her skirt that went to her ankles and her hair short and her face makeup-less, asked the guy for some ID. Apparently to get a ticket you had to show some ID first. Why? I don't know, but the guy in front of me (who I think was one of the people I came to this concert with) didn't have any ID so he wasn't able to get a ticket. He walked away disgusted and I was next in line. I showed the lady my driver's license and for some reason she took out a pair of scissors and cut my license in half. This pissed me off and I asked her why the hell she did that. The look on her face suggested that she was thinking that perhaps what she did was a mistake. Even though she looked guilty and on the spot she wasn't prepared to apologize why she had cut my license in half or to explain why she had done it. I think that maybe she thought I had a fake license and therefore she cut it up, but then she realized that it was indeed a valid ID. She walked out from behind the table and strolled away to another table, trying to make it look like she had to go do something and therefore that justified her not having to answer my question right then and there. However, I walked after her, asking her right in her face angrily as she strolled to another table with other people at it why she had cut up my license. She didn't quite make eye contact with me, looking bothered about the whole mess she had just gotten herself into, and she mumbled something about how she was having a bad day. I took this to mean that since she was having a bad day and was so stressed that when I came to her table, she just cut my license up without thinking about what the hell she was doing. Her saying to me that she was having a bad day, however, wasn't enough for me, and I continued to walk alongside her, badgering her to explain why she had destroyed my driver's license.
Top of page
Main page