Tuning the Dark

            On Thursday morning I continued memorizing “Le complainte du progres" by Boris Vian.

            I finished memorizing “La noyée” by Serge Gainsbourg and started looking for the chords. I’ve found two versions of them so far.

            I washed a six-board wide and 125 cm long section of my bedroom floor just inside the entrance. There was more to clean there than on the floor where my bed sits because there’s foot traffic.

            I emptied into a roasting pan the contents of the big bag of frozen lentil soup that I’d gotten a couple of months ago at the food bank and heated it in the oven. I had a bowl for lunch with potato chips.

            I did some exercises in the afternoon while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story during an argument Sapphire says if she’d known how it was going to turn out she might not have married Kingfish. He decides to call hr bluff and makes a fake document showing that they were never legally married twenty years before. The prank backfires on Kingfish when she kicks him out of the house since she’s not going to share the same roof with a man she’s not married to. Kingfish has to romance Sapphire all over again to win her back.

            It rained most of the day and so I didn’t take a bike ride downtown but I needed meat and fruit and so I rode down to Freshco at around 17:00. I bought four bags of grapes, some old cheddar, some Black Diamond old cheddar on sale, a loaf of sliced light Bavarian rye bread, a pack of chicken drumsticks, a tub of margarine and a carton of spoon size shredded wheat.

            I roasted the drumsticks and made gravy. I had two drumsticks and a potato with gravy while watching one episode of Wanted Dead or Alive starring Steve McQueen.

            In this story Randall learns that a less ethical bounty hunter named Daimler is after the bounty for an old man named Juan Hernandez who may really be Don Diego Vasquez, who has been wanted for murder for fifteen years. Hernandez lives outside of Miles City, Montana with his half Sioux daughter Juanita and several Sioux that protect them, including a warrior named Charlie Two Hawks. Randall tags along with Daimler because he knows his reputation for preferring dead bounties to live ones. But Daimler doesn’t want company and knocks Randall out before going after Hernandez. Juanita meets Daimler on horseback to tell him that her father is willingly surrendering. Hernandez receives Daimler graciously and admits that he is Vasquez and that he did indeed murder a man but it was the murderer of Juanita’s mother. Vasquez begins to leave with Daimler willingly but when Daimler pushes the old man roughly and knocks him down Juanita attacks Daimler. Daimler hits Juanita and Vasquez raises his cane to strike but is fatally shot. As Vasquez is dying he tells Daimler that he has also posted a bounty. Randall arrives too late and asks Daimler to leave the body with Juanita but he needs it for the bounty. He ties the body to Vasquez’s horse and leaves. Charlie Two Hawks follows and Randall wants to stop him so he won’t also be hunted for murder but Juanita promises Randall that Daimler will not be killed. As we see Daimler riding along, first his horse is shot and the horse carrying the body runs away. Daimler tries to drink from his canteen and that is shot as well. Daimler is taunted by an unseen enemy making animal noises as he tries to make his way to safety. When Daimler finally collapses from madness and thirst, Charlie Two Hawks comes forward with a knife. When Randall catches up with Charlie Two Hawks he is riding with Daimler alive but in shock beside him. Charlie Two Hawks leaves Daimler to his care and when Randall asks what the bounty had been Charlie Two Hawks replies that he took Daimler’s right thumb so he could no longer be effective as a quick shooting bounty hunter.