Ben Munsey said that maybe a 6,000 word story is too long to post on a blog. He said it would clog up his aggregator. I already know that people rarely have the stamina to read something that long on a computer screen. Instead Ben advised posting three or four lives at a time, as a king of blog-serial. Here goes:
Forty Lives By Fred Owens
Brief Biographies. These are the people I know, in almost alphabetical order, because I am using the list of numbers on my cell phone – forty people in all. People who matter to me for one reason or another, people worthy of praise, long memory, and small tears.
Greg Love is a man I met in Columbus, Ohio, last fall when I was working on the John Kerry campaign. He was a cheerful wit who told raunchy jokes. He sat in the corner and did things on his laptop – I have no idea what. A good-looking man, but unemployed, as he said, even though he was a lawyer. He had a tender regard for his wife, back in Washington, DC, and spoke of her often. I called him nine months ago. Greg said that he and his wife might be starting family. I thought that was a good idea.
Victoria Pavlik was really something – probably still is – a piece of work, a force of nature. I stayed at her house in Columbus, Ohio for three weeks, when I was working on the campaign. She owned a forty-acre horse farm called Jade Ranch. Tall, thin and lanky, sparkling eyes, crooked teeth, favoring a cowboy hat and stressing her hillbilly background with an adopted twang. She was an accountant who worked for the state government, age 42, bi-sexual – she told me that right off the bat. I suppose that she told so that I might know where I stood with her. But it only confused me in a most wonderful manner. She drank a lot of Budweiser, smoked dope, stayed up late doing laundry and talking on the phone, and she had two beautiful children, the first with via sperm donation and the second with some no-goodnik.
I think she was doing some cocaine – how else to explain her ceaseless manic energy? She infatuated me, and I loved her Ohio farm. But I had to leave – too much trouble.
Eva Owens is my daughter. She was born on March 3, 1979 at Skagit Valley Hospital in Mount Vernon, Washington. Dr. Logan was the Obstetrician. She had nice, thick, curly black hair when she was born and the nurse combed it nicely after they cleaned her up. Things have gone well for her ever since.
Last week she and I went camping in Yosemite National Park – we had a fabulous time, except Eva caught a dose of poison oak.
This afternoon I called her – she lives in Austin, Texas – she said she was all stressed out, but she could talk to me tomorrow.
