9 Quotes by Gary J. Floyd

We’re again in a free-fall. At this point, Jennie stops, sits on a step just inside the whitewashed walls. Below, two ocean liners, with its fiesta lights strung along the main lines, are anchored in the pitch black bay. Above the white town, Fira, twinkles suspended like a mirage.

Eventually, Coleen calls. We have coffee. Coleen asks, “Why haven’t you called?”I’m inadequate at breaking up too. I say, “I’ve been really busy.”“Will you call later?”“Not sure.”Our relationship won’t end in fireworks. Instead, it’ll end in a whimper. I see myself as she does, a bad boyfriend. Coleen is frustrated, exasperated that I’ve kept her at a distance. We sip coffee. The world passes. I’m convinced that if I continue trying, one day I’ll succeed.

The front ramp is gradually lowered, in slow electronic increments. A couple of dozen backpackers stand, inside the lower deck’s muted light, like an army of extraterrestrials. Paros is refilling with English, German, French, Italian, Scandinavian, Australian, and South African tourists. The town remains in motion. Some come. Some go. The cycle appears endless. The entire world appears to wash up on Paros.

Capital sees politicians as a means to their ends, just another employee, or a potential bankable asset. And politicians, whoring themselves to the highest bidder, write their laws for a seat at the table. Some politicians aren’t directly on the take but, it’s hard to imagine, that, while on the public’s dime, they’re at least not on a job interview. Capital rewards their loyal underlings with no-show jobs for their idiot relations.

Friday night, under the dim atrium lights, we sit on wrought iron chairs, drinking beer in the cool antiseptic air. Near the fake flagstones snaking through the fake trees, ferns, and the bubbling, chlorine-infused, somnolent brook. Anytown USA. A fake park superimposed on the Washington swamp. Outside, oversized windows overlook the city, streaked with: rain, humidity, and tears.

An Ancient Proverb Concerning the US that I Just Thought UpA sick man with a gun still has a gun.

I know Jimmy believes that the company’s evaluations are meaningless. Mildred appears naïve. Employees are always surprised when they’re let go and they have no idea who to turn to. They’ve heard of Jimmy. He exists in some mythical employment realm, like the Yeti; and he’s as popular, with management, as Oscar Schindler once was with ex-Nazis. I tell Mildred that Jimmy will get back to her. For Mildred, it’s a long wait. I hang up, leaving her to the lonely world of the recently fired.

I remember. A gunship’s crew laughing before mowing down reporters and civilians - in short bursts. A truck crossing a shadowy bridge, seconds before it explodes along with those inside the pressroom, as the general declares the driver “the luckiest man in Bagdad.”Our military - using attack helicopters and night scopes – to spray bullets at fleeing soldiers, like roaches running from a giant can of Raid. The pressroom laughs again. It’s not funny and there lies the rub.

I’ve seen the war criminal reformed because he gave the wife, of the person, who didn’t prosecute him, a mint at a funeral. I think if only Heinrich Himmler had carried Tic Tacs in his pocket all would have been forgiven. Bad paintings help humanize you even when you’re legacy rests on a pyre of bones.