I Once Adored Ms. Pacman

By Shaheen Asbagh

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• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 7, 2009
• ISBN: 9781467859691

Shaheen Asbagh

Among the active cells of a generation that is yet to be closely scrutinized for its enrichment of arts and culture, he now holds a title in verse and prose with many works in the market, each worth a praise as an addition to the growing power of western literature. Shaheen now lives in San Francisco.

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© 2009 Shaheen Asbagh. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 1/2/2009

ISBN: 978-1-4389-4247-6 (sc)

ISBN: 9781467859691 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

To all who sheltered me.

As, dad, Charlie Lamoux was led to a refuge, to Brazil, his wife Ulanda gave birth to a girl, Veronica, Vanessa Lamass, as she was the most gifted child. She grew learning from mom and dad as others provoked her to choose a new life for herself. After school she left home to start living on her own feet.

During this time, in Europe, she ran into a young and likable chap from northern Europe. Carl, as she became suddenly taken and deceived by him, she accepted to help him with his secret wishes. Thereon, her first involvement became a major part of her role in life and after he left her she remained to be the queen of the underworld. Her clandestine duty provoked a life of adventure and inner intimacies with the past, in the young girl’s mind whose spirit and dignity finally saved her life from the intentions of the betrayers.

Like her father who was led to escape and exile, Vanessa Lamass reached America, safely to begin a new life with her beloved partner.

Young Charlie suddenly had a farm around his hometown Louisiana Greenland’s while actually known to be a city boy.

A couple of old trees set themselves around the shaggy little farmhouse, god bless Charlie for the years while he tracked rabbits around the footsteps left by the road gangs by the stream nearby his newly owned place, as everybody had begun to pray for his presence when he returned from Baton Rouge where he had started in history. Charlie had his wild times around the jerky highway farm. His Irish hat, all friends reckoning him by it by then at college, was all that held something like a sensible identity with other local corn necks.

After the testimony Charles Lamoux didn’t know nothing about shit. His talk with them Cajun court officers let them find out everything, and more, nothing about the whole damn thing. Charlie sweated all that time so there wasn’t a bit left out. He couldn’t leave out nothing, he said, they ought to know everything before starting to bust anybody! . None of the attorneys felt angry and they were damn well ready to get away from everything. They already got all they were after. Charlie finally got to where he made everybody cry and they stood up to get the hell out of the courtroom. Some were surprised so much of that stuff he knew so well about, a college boy. He eventually kept control and pursued all them questions as he could find a short answer. More or less, this whole mess was an awfully evil setup. And after poor Charlie’s interrogation there was nobody else left. That’s why they decided to keep an eye on the farm. But the court had to proceed into the next step just to try to bring the whole mess to an end.

It really made everyone really sorry to hear all that nasty bullshit. It was frightening and it really scared the hell out of them court sheriffs and whoever else. So it was said and it was done. They couldn’t find anybody else to put it better than Charlie with his charming and polite tone, as he trembled every day and couldn’t keep his head down at all. He was an innocent soul, and he was rather friendly too, after all. He tried his best to keep a smile on while spending his time on that seat listening to every question that the curious prosecutor had to ask him, guessing that he would burst into tears any moment. He was to lead his life alone that day on, Charlie knew better with mom, dad, Georgia his maid, and Dee and Bobby all dead. Busted with double-barrel duck catchers as though them bastards damn hated everyone of them by the guts.

As kindly enough, others stopped coming around the farm as it was happening to be a one man testimony; Charlie’s contacts were yet to be spotted by the cops, as the thought had ran his worried mind for a serious quit. Charlie Lamoux still wanted his farm for himself and didn’t like it going to the court all the time. He was turning into an outcast but for him that wasn’t like fun! Last time they met with Tommy Mouton, his older college mate back from the hometown country, he’d say about real things to him all the time, things that were not nice to hear from his cool dude, but he thought, Tommy Mouton, when trouble would run after you it’d be better to play it like pigs wanted you to. Charlie hadn’t been back to the farm in two months hitting them text books by a fly! He’d be out there looking for friends in Baton Rouge. Charlie never would want to look suspicious Their plan for North dropped a bit after what went on with this testimony, the district attorney mess. It was a new stun after all. But it shouldn’t be too long before their final decision. If they found out then suppose the pieces fit in together well. There was a big big doubt! Them people in Washington didn’t have nothing to do with this thing. Charlie had left all his friends behind telling Tommy he couldn’t see them in face no more. He said it was his turn to put money on the table and blast away.

Charlie Lamoux was like the district boys but that time he was not around to work for others. Most of the time he chipped in for a lunch or something and then he’d be gone for a while thinking about what he heard in Granny’s from the court boys. He probably did it to get his college situation straight. There was nothing else as important for him. He thought about staying in a motel where only he knew about its whereabouts. He wouldn’t want anybody to find out about his place, because his familiar face, his Irish hat was going to attract the sheriff.

Things had been changed, Charlie thought about opening contact with the mobs. He didn’t have a family no more.

He drove a real cool car daddy had gotten him when he was headed for Baton Rouge. He’d made the money for it selling from the farm. He was in the paper big times. Charlie was afraid to identified, he was hating it wearing hats and sunglasses most of the time trying to hide his sweet face. He played it like them muzzlers in New Orleans ghetto house chewin’ shit with them colored pushers dressed like women once they got to the city from around Texas.

He sounded like he was out of his damn mind. He’d be paying no attention to others while Charlie stood his last court telling the town everything he knew and saw hopping in by surprise to visit his mom and dad, and sisters. His case was a heart beating one. This cat wanted everyone in trouble by then, even those old timers his father had know for a long time. They always made everything look so creepy and useless while leaving everything to the dogs, even Charlie’s college education! For Charlie, it wasn’t like living at all, he looked serious about giving in, and leave his body for them Vulchers out there in the bayou country. Bless old Charlie’s heart, he was nobody’s boss, he turned into a silent figure, everybody thought he should be a boss someday!

Always dressed in pressed clothes acting like a mature and ambitious citizen of the state. Charlie had done a few big ones during his time in high school, and he sure had a lot of ideas about who might have done such a crime.

Charlie felt playing it big keeping his mouth shut once the papers had made him a famous man in the town.

This bad mouth monk of the town, rich and powerful, William Landry, who used to be a fine gentleman with the mature and educated members of the county and especially the boys when his political rubbish about skin heads started getting into him telling families like Charlie Lamoux’s, his mom a Polish from north, they ought to start doing something about protecting their properties from the aliens numbering around the bayou area. And getting meaner with his men in his ranch sending them over for after dark meetings to collect alimony and have the community citizens brainwashed.

Charlie recalled his position as a handy boy in the middle of William Landry’s mess around the town and if he mentioned them in his testimony some would send him to prison for murder. Charlie wouldn’t mess around anymore, thinking about hustling his way out of the united States…..

There were no trouble makers waiting on the street for him anymore and he hated leading his life like a homeless orphan.

Every time he walked out of the court, Charlie could smell the trouble, scared away, but his choices in Louisiana were still very limited! Running away somewhere for poor Charlie could be a treasure, while he felt a new man was beginning to show up within him who sensed freedom miles away, overseas, South America! The Sheriff’s deputies didn’t seem to be too interested in the proceedings but Charlie knew ass necks like Landry would lay it straight in front of them again and again if they could. Besides, Charlie Lamoux wasn’t thinking about losing the house and the family savings in the bank that was coming to him. Landry’s friends all over the place even some Texan incomers and elsewhere had already pulled the rope real tight for the town, particularly for young and smart guys like him who always wanted to be a politician. It made Charlie throw up his guts, he had nobody left on earth, most of his moms relatives lived far away up north and his uncles all dead by then. The rest had all left the state. They hardly wanted to write to his parents who still lived in the Cajun country, none of them liked it back down south.

The cutbacks had turned the business around. Naturally, the news didn’t deal with everyday people after the war had ended while hard times had already dashed the good old country life while guys were turning into a bunch of lazy boys.

And some, were ignored or abandoned for hitting the bottle and suffering from the influence the GI’s brought about to the southern communities. All time rumors around the union building fell far above the general belief that future wouldn’t have been much different. People were talking about things everywhere all day. Many a time a thing becomes very hard to tolerate just for the person and the one suddenly he happens to turn into. Kind of strange when you got to start doing something you hadn’t been taught by mom and dad, it was all very frightening for Charlie Lamoux only twenty- three! He was looking for the best place to start before he ended up on the streets like those blood hounds would be looking out for him next, with a shroud! He saw no pride at being around that small town no more. Every scene, the shops and familiar corners of the tiny town center were filled as he could think, with the reflections of his family’s slaughter. The lots he used to park his truck to unload, the red lights, his daily route for delivery after he graduated from high school, the flags everywhere hanging by the store entries as some still rang that familiar bell as Charlie was trying to step faster through his immense paranoia in parody of a criminal. As neighbors and friends would be soon getting into this mess forced to pay a lot of dues by then. The bus station farther down as he drove his gifted automobile to the city hall for property clearance and deeds was crowded with straw hats and the colored maids who waited there all day to be hired or leave after midnight sipping on a bottle of soda until the only passenger bus passing through the town about fifteen minutes before one in the morning arrived and unlike the one transferring the county prisoners to the facility near Baton Rouge this one was a way to home!

Her compassionate deliberations had left us both in a spark of disillusion as my doubts about her love became more and more scattered in such a unique and brusque fashion. As she and her friends continued meeting everyday. Vanessa Lamoux, a very healthy young girl, an adorable blond who was a Brazilian blond she had told me she was from Rio De Janeiro where the bare women with flabby barrels and a treasurers tan only familiar to the Amazonian creatures on the beachside hot sand under the colorful balloons splashing the water at each other to take heart away from the visitors who wouldn’t dare but worship the lavish synergy for love and beauty that Santos brought to earth every year. She could be from wherever she wanted fluently speaking four or five different languages learning them from her parents, at school or even on the beaches filled with all types of people. Vanessa had completed her education in South America and then some in Europe and then had miraculously stepped on the American soil since more than a year ago! She was loved by everyone who knew her standing six feet and two inches tall built like a centerfold. I agreed on and on that she was a reality than myth. Vanessa, Veronica Lamoux, as later in the years she and her family had changed the family name for reasons of identity and the ongoing ritual of a deep fear for his children while Charlie always reminded himself of the freedom and the beautiful family god had given him and once and for all had decided to call himself Charlie Lamass as it bore a familiar and native shape.

She was born in I962, at thirty-one she perfectly described her age by what she was. She seemed to be updated and kept up with all the on goings around the world. Although rather young but uniquely intelligent, she had an exceptional sense for everything and everyone surrounding her life. She would make anything more attractive or even, if she wanted to, less important and pitiful if she wanted yet because of what she did she enjoyed politics like her father. An agent for a fashion and cosmetics company one might say that was very different than the others. As almost a close friend by then, I should say that she did many other things as well. She enjoyed traveling on her own time and not necessarily alone every time and she was but boring never having any hardship in finding a friend. Her parents spent quite a few years in France as both of them wanted to be away from Rio at least a few years, they communicated often since ever leaving home their child was able to and afforded to return any time she wanted! She was busy, determined, and certainly very appealing as I believed someone like her could not feel like ordinary people. A well educated girl, as always was very modest about herself and remained distinguishably silent every time there was a discussion until she could find a close link with the subject that everyone understood easily. Like everyone else, Vanessa wanted money and often had risked her pride to reach her ambitious fancies as her life, she admitted, was a ciborium with still lacking jinx for more color. She talked about sex, and her friends always noting that someday she would have ended up a rich prostitute, I assumed she could be one if she really wanted, unaware of her previous commitments as she had led her life to New York where that kind of profession would not have paid for what Vanessa knew how to do best. With an excellent eye for alien beauty, a rather skilled photographer her job in the company had often led her to pose in front of a camera. She often talked about money, prospects, like a business lady, indeed she wanted to learn better ways to earn it easy. At her status as she always said she could say only one thing and that was her education not at all helping in what she really was!

Her father, Charles Lamoux, was a retired college instructor of history whom was always identified and praised as a bright and dignified Frenchman, his mother a Polish American while his father still led his personality as the only memory of the past. Charlie was a third generation son on either side believing in the new wave from top to bottom, and he had strong atrocities for others who did not believe in its future. He believed in liberation, Charlie had once learned to love its faith. Vanessa described him to be a gift; she said that God had brought them together to where they stood. He preferred France and nowhere else while still after many years since his refuge to Rio and leading a prosper family he believed his roots were the cause of his fortune. Her mother held nothing against that, as Ulanda was an educated member of their family as well as others.

Mrs. Lamoux held a degree in, home economics, so well with her care for the children and her husband, Charlie that had nothing but a strong compromise for her intuitive strengths to always help him with his decisions. She had raised three children out of which it was Vanessa who dared to move abroad. Her two other sons remained at home for quite a time until one found a worthy, as his mother, spouse and got married a few years after Vanessa had gone away.

Ulanda, from Rio, always insisted that she would have lived a very desperate life not having had met Charlie and listened to him.

Their meeting in Rio happened to be a coincident as Charlie had just arrived at Rio De Janeiro from Sao Paolo on a short and brief bus ride on a college assignment to teach a group of teens planning to stay there for three weeks. After the first two week of his stay sharing the facts of their national history with those young m~ and women during temporarily scheduled classes that were for sheer orientation of the students of Rio’s major university with the field of history/Charlie planned to stay there for a week more after he had completed his short course and had decided to go to the beach in order to visit one of the most beautiful cities of the world, as he had been there before but on a different occasion, and consume his long crave for quiet and peace. This happened to be the most fortunate trip of his entire life, as he had survived to glance through and seek refuge leaving Rio quickly a small shack near the city of Sao Paolo until he earned an assistantship with a local college years before. Rio De Janeiro, a big city for tourists, led Charlie to look after spots his friends back in Sao Paolo always mentioned as they met in a popular joint, a restaurant while he had accepted an invitation for dinner over table discussion from another instructor.

As he had asked a few others to join before the short orientation with history was going to end letting them find out more about one another as they might have shared the intricacies of what they had found out about history and culture. Ulanda, on the same night, was given a graduation party by her classmates at the Joelle Temp where Charlie was headed that evening as she was very excited finally spending a night there for the first time. Later, during the night’s happy harmony and all the joy that had seized the diners from their plates as dolphins that could sense the overwhelmed excitement joining a direction everyone seemed to belong to one table and that was the open area for Cha Chao As Ulanda was invited for dance once she gladly joined the tall and attracted Charles Lamoux, a man with a confident expression on his face, that was dancing like a foreigner! It all was not a romantic round, as the crowd were more focused in carrying on with the midnight while the humid breeze from the ocean had thickened the cluster of smoke beyond the chill of the ventilation in the hall.

She became very interested in him as his ambiguous manners, and the heavily accented way, he talked. about things did not seem to be too far from what the exceptionally young and proud Ulanda Paolo Caesar was once fancied. She was the smarter type among others in her class but what in reality made her different was her looks as though she was not Latin at all with light features and a bony face that Charlie had already fallen in love with. Ulanda used to be an excellent athlete in school as she had almost outdone poor Charlie on the floor when he finally subtly as he wanted the cordial sincerity that ruled men and women in Rio De Janeiro to show to gain her trust once Charlie requested Ulanda’s whereabouts in the city and possibly her telephone number! As she later passed it on to him before the whole thing was over promising to meet him sometime before he left. Charles Lamoux took her out a week after they met at her graduation party and then decided to stay in Rio for a little longer as they had a whole month to stay away from everything. They fell in love! Ulanda told him that she always wanted a way to leave the family in .

the house and start on her own while during his short stay there he finally got to meet them all as they talked about everything. As he was able to speak and understand them while his presence was the pride of the cute and sweet girl that had tried to signal her separation from them.

Charlie finished school in Sao Paolo in I957 as he had struggled to let pent his safety and awayness from the enemies of his long buried family in the coffins that the district attorney had ordered for them and letting him escape from Louisiana with the remainder of his inheritance. He was a few years older than Ulanda when they got married in I96I. As, only one year before their blessed matrimony, Charlie kept talking about the GIs and the changes brought about after the war. He joked that no one ever wanted to give him a medal and that was why he always stayed away from the recruitment posts and loved his history books.

As her family still remembered the diplomacy that ruled Brazil during that period and the partisanship her father and oldest uncle had led having to do with business. Charlie kept mentioning to them how much he loved their daughter finally convincing them that he could be a worthy man for her as their marriage was set for the October of I96I.

within the time of engagement, one day Charlie wrote a letter to their house along with a one-way bus ticket to Sao Paolo asking Ulanda to go there as he could not face life on his own. Ulanda left her parents with no word leaving them the letter that explained all they needed to know then, a very tragic departure where it seemed it was the best way to describe her love for him. She was certain that the future would change everything, her fantasy to lead a family of her own had suddenly come truth. They were married a few days after she met him at his place celebrating their first Christmas in a new home where Ulanda gave birth to their first child in I962. They named her Veronica.

She was a pretty child. As the first god given treasure of their family she had brought them so much happiness as neither one cared if it had been a boy or a girl. Veronica was exceptionally quiet and she always held a smile on her face that fed her mother with a precious sweetness. Neighbors and friends loved her so much that she could be hardly ever kept in the house. Ulanda was still suffering from her adaption to Sao Paolo, but her only interest to bring her up was very important as she overlooked the hardship that her distance with her parents caused while making Vanessa what she later proved in reality, an outspoken and desirable personality. She and her mother an exceptional ability together to learn and communicate, and Charlie played an important part in bringing the two nearer but as a father he could only provide what a man would bring home.

By the time, Veronica found herself among brothers and sisters she had adapted to the special care and consultation that she provided her younger kin with. When she was three, she looked unbelievably pretty and by the time she had turned six she was growing at a competitive rate remaining taller than her two younger brothers, Sergio and Paul as Charlie had picked the name …. Her early attention to everything and everybody around her was a big plus as she had turned to easily learn about them, however very beautiful and subtly behaved as she could not be any better adored by all of her family telling her brothers all the time about the feelings she had for learning a trade as good as she knew it would make her proud someday. Like others her age, she was not particularly attracted to dance or act as her looks allowed and hardly liked to cook as Ulanda satisfied the household with a superior talent to feed them. But she was rather interested in taking photography, and so did her father always talked about how he regretted not having enough pictures of his parents and friends never buying a camera in his earlier days while the only thing on his mind was an auto that he once made the money for with the help of his at the farm in Louisiana. Ulanda’s brother who was older than her was a journalist and every time they visited coming from Rio he kept talking about pictures and photographs getting her attention and complementing her mother for her adorable girl that he thought one day would end up working as a model. One day, Veronica asked her parents for a camera, one less expensive than the one her father always kept in his closet for taking family pictures.

It was hard to forget, but rather natural and quite evident since tio never stopped to provoke them, when finally mom and dad gave her one for her fine performance in school.

She described it as miraculous as gifts always flattered her spirits. Veronica collected butterflies while some of them could be traced in between the pages of her school books and as she had grown older she began writing adventures in English as a member of a club in Sao Paolo, and more she wrote letters to abroad, to friends and youngsters who volunteered to correspond with new friends! Once having graduated from college her parents especially were certain about successful career as she was an achiever with a high standard in grades as her two brothers. Lamoux’s, however, hated to make any decisions over the faith of any of their children as they found it wise to let them chose what they wanted to be. Vanessa had doubts and feared to ask her parents to send her abroad for education yet, indeed, it finally carne true as she insisted upon her writing to foreign companies that had branched in South America as she, many times, had inquired about other professional opportunities at those countries. As eventually, once all done with school in Sao Paolo, young Veronica seriously started to apply for employment with them. Soon after, a German company answered, a privately owned aircraft design agency which was said to be looking desperately for someone to work for them in their headquarters that had the appropriate language fluency that was growingly worrying similar companies over there… Paul, her younger brother, had already started to write for the newsletter in his high school, while Sergio still had to finish elementary school. Paul wanted to move to France to study literature as his classmates were quite aware that he would have made it big someday. And surely, his dad was a powerful endorsement to his desired lead.

Charlie always cautioned him, that becoming a writer could not be so hard, especially for him who almost topped the other students in literature every time there was an examination as well as fine and genuine knowledge of French that always provoked him to go to Paris. But Charlie often times worried about him, he wanted him to become real good at his pen, a capable writer who could easily deal with reality and its games, one who deeply believed in heritage and values being able to create confidence and strength at the heart of his readers as Paul had tried to steel his attention around the house many times taking home his articles and letting dad take a look at them. His ambition had already begun