King St. John's Jim

Southwick

Southwick, over at 3 Gunas Loop lives in shared housing. There are two reasons he does that.

1. He is serving his country in the wit-less protection program.
2. It’s what he can afford.

and lo and behold, there is a fabulous side-effect! He has dedicated his life to spiritual pursuits and has obtained an advanced degree in “yoo-hoo-coo-coo” from Newage University.

He gets to scope out the spiritual interactions of Roger, Tommy, and until recently, Wanda. Although Wanda has not been on the scene for a few months, she figures prominently in a continuing battle of ex-lovers. (Author’s note: Southwick dishes me this great stuff for a budding writer. I love it.)

Roger

Roger is the Navy guy. Navy Retired. Quartz crystal on-time no nonsense enlisted background. After that he worked AGAIN and got a full retirement from a Portland ironwork. If Roger does something, you know it’s totally A-OK (except for the divorce thing.) Mr. no-problem seldom complaining, but often griping. His life is OK, but he wonders about the competence of people he has to deal with. Don’t we all.

Roger has a PhD in Preventative Maintanence from the school of hard knox, and is working on a second on-line PhD in> minding your own business> . Southwick says most of Roger’s class material kind of looks like Tetris or something.

Tommy

Tommy is an interesting guy. We can only wonder about his early years. Swarthy, a bit likeStromboli, but with a nordic last name. Raised mostly in New Jersey, but somehow brought out to Portland by Geppetto, who sold his woodcarving business and bought quite a LOT of land here. High priced industrial land. Or, at least that’s the fog that Tommy puts out. Blustery about even very small things out of place. Snores like a razorback in rut. Tommy is an excellent mechanic, loves to take anything apart, but only can put barges, ships, cars and engines back together.

Tommy is a professor of workplace ethics for Waterfront U. Mostly there are none. Ethics, that is. He holds the coveted “Mouthpiece” chair.

Wanda

Wanda. Very young, trying to train to be a medical clerk without much help in life. Hard childhood as an after-thought latchkey, foster kid. Red hair, tolerable smart but not very pretty, slightly anorexic, no clue about the wider world, very reactive verbally, but also very guarded.

Wanda is getting a B.S. in tactical retaliation. Her early work is very promising.

Wanda left Tommy in May or so. Since then they have been playing some petty games with each other. She wants to milk Tommy for things like car repairs. Tommy wants to lure her back to his bed with a big pocketbook that is just out of her reach.
Tommy has steamed and seethed. Losing Wanda hit him hard: he wanted to be the stallion that could tame a 21 year old. Mostly quiet recently but then, one night at 10:30PM, Wanda ispoundingon the front door. She wants Tommy to come out to talk. Tommy is hiding in the dark in his bedroom. He’s murmuring “tell her to go away, I’ll call the cops.” She pounds away for another 15 minutes. She walks away shouting threats that would freeze the heart of Capn Ahab.
This morning, Tommy leaves early, putting up a note to Roger saying: “Call me ASAP” – Agitated Roger is cooking his breakfast, and turns to Southwick: “Is it OK to VENT?” – He says “Sure.” (Southwick knows I’m a sucker for an interesting story, and this one is devine! )

It seems that Tommy snooped around on FaceList or CraigBook or somewhat and found an ad for a request for a threesome from Wanda and her new boyfriend, Carl. The pictures on the ad had blanked out faces, but Tommy had the original picture (?) and put that in an e-mail with the link to the offending ad. Then Tommy sent that out to all of Wanda’s and Carl’s friends and relatives.

A dirty, filthy trick. No wonder Tommy wanted to hide.
Well… It gets more fun. It seems that when Wanda left Tommy, she had the admin passwords to Tommy’s computer!!!! Tommy has his remote administration feature turned on, but to Tommy, that’s like saying “> Boff Noff Toff Roff> “ – meaningless. Wanda gave the passwords to Carl, who is Windows savvy, and farkeled Tommy’s computer.

Tommy wants to call the FBI.

Roger and Southwick’s gab-fest is cut short as Tommy arrives: “Have the Police been here yet?”

At this point, Roger is steamed up because he’s friends with all the players. Been friends with them for years. In fact, Carl is the son of Roger’s best friend. Wanda has known Roger since she was 7 and confides in him like a grandfather. She calls him “Gramps” – All herfriendscall him “Gramps.” And all the players in this crap-opera are pushing him to act as go-between and such which pisses Roger off!

This is all cutting into Roger’s class participation in his on-line PhD in “Minding Your Own Business.” Shit, if he doesn’t get a good grade, he will have to pay back that Student Loan for all his hours of on-line Poker.

More to follow soon!!!