Happy Veteran's Day! Author: The Carrot Email: stevem@shore.net Date: 1998/11/12 Forums: alt.tasteless I had the day off from work on account of today being Veteran’s Day, 1998. Like most Americans with Veteran’s Day off, I pondered the sacrifice of our brave patriotic soldiers....for all of, oh, thirty seconds. Then I shit, showered, shaved and left the house in search of adventure. The day was one of those precious days that happen in New England during November when the sun comes out (after some morning rain) and the temperature climbs to a sizzling 65 degrees. I hopped in the Carrotmobile and headed toward the state park at Salisbury beach. The place was nearly deserted; a few cars parked down by the Black Rocks but no major crowd. I parked the car and walked down onto the sand; the tide was coming in and the waves were roaring onto the beach. An occasional wind blew the sand around. It was perfect, I could see people in the distance walking along the beach but I had that particular stretch to myself. I didn’t even mind the incredible amount of dogshit that seemed to be everywhere; I guess in the off-season they don’t clean the sand as regularly as they do during the summer. I walked down to the tideline and sat in the sand. I stared at the ocean, my unrequited love of and for the Atlantic filling my heart. You can love the sea, and as a sailor I do, but the sea will never love you back, not in any meaningful way. You may get the equivalent of a blowjob every now and then, and even the occasional fuck, but you’ll pay dearly for the privelage. I’ve got the receipts from the boat repair shop and the physical scars to prove it. I stared at the incoming tide for about ten minutes or so before I could feel boredom starting to creep in. I also noticed a family walking toward me, invading the two acres of sand that I had claimed for my personal space. Fuck, I hate that, especially when the family consists of the parents and their two overactive, overly-loud sprogs. I needed a way to chase them away. Then it hit me: today it was Veteran’s Day! What better way to celebrate our beloved American veterans than to re-enact the landings at Normandy? Well, a better way would have been to re-enact scenes from World War I but the thought of catching the clap from a French whore and then dying as a cloud of toxic gas filled the trench I was in didn’t appeal to me, so I settled for Normandy. Oh, I suppose I could have gone up to Leather and Lace in Seabrook, stuck my dick into one of the "performers" diseased snatches, eaten at Taco Bell and then buried myself in the sand and trapped the farts around me, but that’s *work* Glubdammit, and I had the day off. The invasion of Normandy began. I charged up the beach, yelling "Die, you Nazi cocksuckers! BANG! BANG! Sarge, I’m hit! Arrgh! Mother! Mother!" The family eyed me with alarm as I collapsed onto the sand and rolled back and forth, pretending to writhe in agony. "Medic! Medic!" I bellowed. The father walked over to me, glaring. "What on God’s earth is the matter with you?" he asked. As he gave me the same look that I give retarded people I noticed that he kept his distance; good thing, too, since you don’t want to clump together lest a single artillery shell knocks your whole squad out. "Do you think they can save my leg?" I asked him pleadingly. He turned and walked back to his wife and spogs; they beat a hasty retreat, leaving me to myself on the nearly deserted beach. Score one for Private Carrot! Now to take care of that nasty boredom. I started walking along the shore towards downtown Salisbury, thinking that I’d grab a late lunch and a beer. While I walked I perused the flotsam that the tides had swept onto the shore, seaweed mostly, but there was the occasional dismember crab, a wire lobster trap that had been washed ashore during a storm, lots of little ordinary shells, the occasional plastic thingy that comes with tampons, a tennis ball (and why is it that you always find a tennis ball while beachcombing?) and something with feathers stuck under a big clump of seaweed. Something with feathers?!? I prodded the feathered mass with my foot and discerned what was left of a seagull wing. Further examination revealed a dead seagull that was rotting away. It obviously hadn’t been dead for very long as there was still quite a bit of flesh left on the carcass. Most of the flesh, and the feathers, were blackish-gray and at first I thought it was a comorant (another feathered airborne pest we have in the area) until I saw the ex-bird’s head. It was definitely a seagull, a smallish one, but a seagull. The smell reminded me of the time I had tossed some left-over chicken into the garbage and then gone away for a hot summer weekend. The dead bird reeked and the more I prodded it the more it stank. I was about to continue my stroll when I saw a treasure hunter slowly ambling down the beach, waving his metal detector madly about. He was about a quarter mile away. I hate treasure hunters. Hell, everybody should have a hobby, I suppose, but something about walking down the beach with a metal detector, looking for buried treasure on a public beach that’s already been searched about a zillion times infuriates me. The fact that these guys usually find enough spare change to pay for a beer or two doesn’t make me feel any better about the activity. Perhaps it was my remembrance of the devil Furplay’s Beanie Baby massacre that inspired me. It might have been a side effect of the medication I was recently on, or perhaps I became temporarily insane. My personal theory is that whereas some people are in touch with their Inner Child I am in touch with my Inner Asshole. In any event an evil plan sprouted in the cancerous mass that I call a brain. I searched my pockets and found some change. I don’t remember counting it but there were several quarters, a couple of nickels, and two pennies. I remember the two pennies because at first I thought about putting them over the dead bird’s eyes. I squatted next to the bird and grabbed its head with my hands. Ever rub your hands over cold and slimy algae-covered wet leaves? That’s what it felt like. I tried to turn the head upwards so I could pry the beak open but the head broke off and I was left holding a decomposing seagull head in my hands. My gorge started to rise but I managed to keep from puking. I tried breathing through my mouth but I could *taste* the dead, decaying flesh. I dropped the head and then, quickly, I stuffed the coins down the neck stump where the head had come off. Using my feet, I scuffed out a hollow in the sand, put the carcass in, and scraped sand over it to cover it up. I looked over at the treasure hunter; he was still a good distance away but coming closer. It didn’t appear as if he saw anything. I lit a cigarette and took a drag; the stench of dead seagull was rising from my fingers. Gagging, I tossed the butt down and walked down to the water to wash my hands. After rinsing my hands in the incoming and rubbing them down with sand the smell was just about gone. I lit another cigarette. A beeping sound came from behind me. Mr Treasure Hunter was scanning the area I was just sitting in, apparently hoping to claim any spare change that had fallen out of my pocket. As his metal detector swept over the area where I’d buried the seagull I watched his eyes light up. "You got something there, Tex?" I yelled over as he took his entrenching tool off of his belt. "Yeah, I think so," he replied, and starting digging. He hadn’t dug more than three or four inches before his little portable shovel pierced the remains of Donald Duck. He lifted the shovel up, dead seagull impaled on the end. The stench rose up, hit him in the face, and he turned and puked at both the sight and the smell of rotting flesh. When he vomited his baseball hat flew off and the wind blew it towards me. I picked it up and noticed the VFW logo. I trotted over with the hat. "You OK?" I asked, faking concern. I had a hard time containing the laughter. "Fuck., that stank. Yeah, I’m fine," he said, taking the hat from me and putting it back onto his balding head. "You a veteran?" I asked, pointing at the hat. "Yeah. I served with the Army in Korea", he replied. "Happy Veteran’s Day," I told him, and continued my walk down the beach towards downtown Salisbury, in search of a cold beer. I felt a slight pang of regret over pulling a stunt like that on a veteran, but with the help of a few cold beers and a cheeseburger I soon got over it. - The Carrot