Dennis Latham: Life, Fiction, and the Pursuit of Madness

An Excerpt From A Book You'll Never Read  The Welcome Sign at Sunnyvale Mental Rehab From the book Waiting For An Open Bed, written at Sunnyvale Mental Rehab in Fermonga, Ohio. Chapter 41 Vito Nazarini and Monk Spitzanelli watched as the man they were supposed to kill stepped from a parked car. In a moment, they were at his side. "Hey, Frankie," Vito said to the victim. "Big Elmo says dat you is supposed to take a ride wit us, ha-ha." Frankie Garbaroni knew his executioners well, and though trapped with two ice picks jabbing his back, he had a plan. "Big Elmo who?" Frankie said. Vito and Monk looked at each other, and Frankie knew their limited third grade education might save his life. "Frankie, you know who it is," Monk said. "Big Elmo Maraconzon, uh, Maracuzzo, uh, you tella him, Vito." "Hell, Monk, I can't a pronounce dat name, either. It's Big Elmo Macaroni, I think." "It...

My friend, David Nelson from Kansas  KIA July 4, 1968 Ambush near An Hoa, South Vietnam The Vietnam Booby Trap   (Taken from part of my personal writings on Vietnam for a PTSD session) I stepped in the hole and froze. I don't know if it was from training or just self-preservation. We had been keeping 30 foot intervals between each man in the thick jungle terrain, and we were spread out along a sort of beaten path to make better time. You had to keep the others in sight or risk getting lost. If you got lost and captured as an enlisted man, you were going to die. My left foot went into the hole almost past the top of my jungle boot. That's when I froze. "I'm in a hole," I yelled to the men in front and behind me. Everyone stopped as word was passed along. They called for an engineer. I was told one would be along shortly, and then I was left to myself as the Marines cleared out to a safe distance around a bend. There was jungle all around me, an...