I had a dream, in that curious state between slumber and awake, just on the cusp of morning.

     I looked up and saw and heard the prophet telling me, "Ed, get thee hence to the land that God has promised you, the land of lowfat milk and orange blossom honey, that place over there!"

     He was a stern and imposing figure, a tall, bearded.....well,...prophet, in saffron robe, holding the Holy Repair Manual in one hand and a Revenger X Whipmaster Special in the other. He raised a trembling, crooked finger and pointed East, then as I lay helpless and frozen on the ground, prodded me with the whip handle, a sharp jab right in the crotch.

     Ouch. He had my attention, already.

     He went on. "Ed, you know in your heart of hearts the land I shew you is yours and your brethren’s. Arm yourselves and cleanse the land of those heathens that squat like filthy non-believing vermin on the real estate that God insists you have." The timbre of his voice strengthened. "Now get moving!"

     He prodded me again, in the now smarting and sensitive gonadular nexus.

     "Wait, sir, or brother, or O Great Prophet, or whatever your name is." I was willing to bite. "How can I do this? And just where exactly is this, uh...land?"

     "Can’t you see where I’m pointing?"

     He was now clearly irritated. Here came that whip handle again. Shit. I definitely wanted to wake up, now.

     "Uh...Mr. Prophet."

     "Huh?"

     I’ll get myself to this land you speak of, but for God’s sake, will you lay off the testicle smashing?!"

     The Prophet hesitated. Some of the fire drained out of his eyes.

     "Well, all right, but the time is nigh, and you have been the one chosen to lead your persecuted and clinically depressed friends out of bondage, and you will all walk hand in hand into the land of plenty."

    Lee was up and running early that next Saturday morning. He had to get the mess in the garage cleaned up, the results of Bobby’s "experiment". Third Law of Thermodynamics, indeed. Yeah, sure. Did the kid really think he could fool the old man? Huh? Lee had found the recipe still sitting on the workbench, miraculously unscathed. Bobby was grounded, (not that he ever went anywhere), but Lee also sentenced Bobby to no internet access for an indeterminate time. If Bobby was sufficiently contrite and helped Lee fix up and repaint the garage, then perhaps his sentence could be softened. A little.

    Not once, but several times over the past week Lee asked the question, "What in hell were you thinking, son?"

    Bobby’s answer was always the same. "Sorry Dad, I just wasn’t thinking," leaving it at that. He had to make amends though, so today he was the very picture of exuberant helpfulness. "Here, Dad, let me help you." and "I can lift that."

"OK, Bobby," said Lee with stern abruptness, at around nine o’clock. "I’m going to walk down the street to Chuck Worth’s to pick up the mower. While I’m gone I want you to clean the floor and mop it good. When that’s done you’re going to start cutting the lawn."

"OK, Dad, I’m on it."

Ten minutes later, Lee walked up the red flagstones to the two story yellow brick house, the Worth residence. Chuck sat on the shady front porch steps, squinting at his mail through wire rimmed reading glasses.

"Morning, Lee, How’s all?"

"Great. I’m gonna grab my mower and put that boy of mine on it today, work him a bit."

"Yeah?"

"Oh, yeah. I guess you didn’t hear. Last Sunday Bobby tried to make some kind of explosive in the garage and damned near blew him and me away. It was loud as hell and the neighbors called the cops. They were here asking questions for a couple of hours, and it was all I could do to persuade them that I had everything under control. It made the evening TV news."

     It’s late November, 1967; Quang Tri Province. Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment, Mike Company, is my mailing address, but mail is the last thing we think about tonight. Operation Fortress Ridge is underway and we are in the middle of an amphibious assault at the mouth of the Cua Viet River. We move in partial darkness. Illumination flares, tracers, and artillery bursting nearby highlight us. We are stop-action snapshots crouched against the clouded mountain backdrop of the DMZ. We sit atop swimming amtracs, weapons ready, now out of the surf, off the beach and heading inland where over thirty NVA divisions are waiting. Fear chills our breath and tightens our grip.

     We are the few, the proud, the 19 year-olds who get the killing done.

     Under fire. Incoming. Medevac. Words heard over and over again, shouted and whispered into radio handsets countless times during the first 48 hours of Tet. Mike company sustains over 70 percent casualties, the rest of us regroup with Lima Company, 2 clicks away. We take incoming mortar and small arms fire the rest of that night.

     Monsoon clouds hang low, too low for air support. Quiet finally comes, black dissolves into gray and we start our perimeter sweep.

     I look down at a dead enemy soldier, eyes half open and jaws deformed into a horrible yawn. We search the bodies for any documents or money, but when I pull the plastic wrapped wallet from his pocket and open it, the first thing I see is a picture of this dead soldier’s wife and two young children. They pose solemnly, unsmiling, and stare straight into the lens, straight into that snapshot, straight into my eyes. I drop the wallet in the sand, add another check mark to our body count total and move out.

     There’s something about a Vietnamese graveyard that is alien and unnerving. The graves are small and sand is heaped in a 3 foot round dome over the grave. Here and there are small shrines where incense is burned and small tokens are left. This place stretches from the outskirts of the village on the river towards the DMZ, about a mile away. It’s night, the only time we fight, and we know that there are many NVA hiding among those graves, crawling closer, peering toward us, waiting for the right moment. We are a listening post of five Marines. I’m the squad leader and radioman and we are on hairtrigger alert, watching the graveyard, watching, straining our eyes to see and hoping to see nothing. Around midnight Jon Six, a lance corporal new in country and on his first ambush patrol stands up and yells.

I often have wondered, suppose Perry White had fired Clark Kent and he had to try finding a new job? Here's what I came up with.

An unemployed newshound named Kent

posed, Man of Steel, in a tent,

His peep show endeavor,

Though fiendishly clever,

Just simply would not pay the rent.

   North Bergen Police Chief Harley Dove scanned the photos arrayed across his desk. The blurry images were of a hulking, bent over character with sinister eyebrows and a red skullcap who slithered and skulked in and out of the Toyworld Store at the Bergen Country Faire Mall.

   "Chief, we’ve seen this individual hanging around for a couple of days. He seems to slip in and out and it’s almost as if he’s casing the place, but we can’t seem to get a handle on where he comes from or goes to." Detective Ted Krumpnik was alarmed. That hard knock to your gut kind of alarm. He’d seen this clown somewhere before, he just wasn’t sure where. Or when.

   "Ted, the holiday shoppers are out in full force, and we want to be on top of this. That means no weird vagrants hangin’ at the mall, no exceptions. I want you on this guy’s ass, and if he runs, book ‘im."

   Any kind of incident was Chief Dove’s worst nightmare right now. He and the Department were already in hot water with the Feds and the voters over his handling of the shmutz epidemic that was spiraling out of control, and North Bergen was the epicenter of this madness.

   "Ted, you know the Department has been receiving on-line threats, and I’ve got a couple of hot leads for you to check out."

   Detective Krumpnik was surprised. This was the first he had heard of any threats. "What threat, Chief?"

   Chief Dove handed Krumpnik a copy of an e-mail dated November 28. The message screamed its vile words at him in bold caps.

   "May Allah Curse Your Mustache!"

   Krumpnik was stunned. Terrorists, here in North Bergen! Dammit, this was not acceptable, not at all.

   "Chief, can you put someone else on the Teen Robbery case? I’m getting on this right away."