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theoddcatlady · 8 years ago

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Just Business

Honestly, I’m so freaked the fuck out to be even talking about this. I’m scared he’s going to come back. But I can’t shut up about it. My dad might be able to accept this as what it is, but I refuse, given what’s going to happen to me no matter what I do.

I work at my dad’s diner on a busy stretch of road. However, since my grandfather’s death, and with him the loss of the secret recipe for his famous meatloaf, business has taken a nose dive. Funeral costs had my dad considering bankruptcy, much to my gran’s horror. She and granddad build this place up from the foundation. People would pass by and come in from everywhere, and everyone, no matter what you looked like or who you were holding hands with, was welcome.

It was Wednesday when the black cars pulled up to the diner.

The place was dead at eight AM. I was the only waitress signed on for the day. I could hear my gran’s wheelchair in the kitchen, squawking away as she made sure everything was ready, just in case we had someone come in. Then five black cars pulled into our dirt parking lot, kicking up the dust and causing Rusty to start barking. Damn dog.

Once the dust settled, I could tell these cars were high end, the kind only people who had a lot of cash drove. Men in suits got out of the cars, suits that likely cost as much as said cars. All of them had the same stone like expression. Then the chauffeur of one of the cars got out and opened the door.

A man walked out. I heard Rusty’s barks quiet down to whimpers, and I saw his reddish tail for a second before it vanished with the rest of him in his dog house.

The man was tall, broad shouldered with grayed out temples in his dark hair. I suppose he was possibly Middle Eastern, not that it’s a big deal but that’s my best guess. I have to tell you though- this man was the most handsome I had ever seen. Jawline for days and if he was much younger he’d be posing for magazines.

But in the same breath, I couldn’t be any more petrified of him.

The suits filed in and took places around the diner. Already I was kicking myself for leaving the sign saying ‘seat yourself’ up.

The leader, I suppose, came up to me and smiled. The smile didn’t reach his eyes. His cold, lightless eyes.

“Can I speak to the owner? We’d like to rent this place for the day.”

I swallowed, my mouth entirely dry. “I’m… I’m sorry, sir, we usually don’t handle parties this large without a bit of warning.”

He hardly seemed bothered by my comment and didn’t say a word, just flicked his eyes back to the kitchen. Feeling a bead of sweat make its way down my face, I hurried to the back, feeling those lifeless eyes follow me all the way there.

My dad came out after I told him either we were the victim of a prank or the mob was dining with us today. I could see him start to believe the second theory after walking into the dining area and saw all these men sat across the room.

“Ah, Mr. West.” The ‘leader’ swooped in front of my father and shook his hand. “I’ll make this quick. I need to borrow your restaurant for the day. I’m only able to conduct my business for today, and I need a private place to do so. During this time, you’ll see many people come and go as we discuss private matters, I advise you and your staff remain tight lipped about who you see and what we talk about.”

My dad’s no small guy, he’s over six feet tall and has arms bigger than my thighs. Even he looked nervous around this man. “I can’t condone anything you do illegal on my premises,” He managed to get out.

This only made the man smirk. “I promise, everything I intend on doing here was stated in their contracts. Oh, don’t worry about the business you might lose.” The man drew a check from his jacket, crisp and white. “Will this suffice, not including what we’ll pay for drinks and refreshments, of course?”

I don’t know what the exact number was on that check, but I can tell you there were more zeroes written on there than the amount of ‘zeroes’ we’d made in the past two years. My dad saw the dollar signs before he smiled and pocketed the check.

“Well then, I suppose make yourself comfortable, ummm…”

“Mr. L.” The man cocked his head to the side. “I suppose you’ll understand our need for anonymity?”

My dad kept his hand on the pocket where the check was and he nodded.

I would’ve clocked out then but someone needed to be these people’s server, and given Gran was in a wheelchair, it wasn’t going to be her.

I honestly expected a bunch of pigs, constantly making sly comments about joining me in their car for a few minutes or pinches to the ass. I’m used to truckers coming on by, given the rest stop down the street.

In fact, I’d never dealt with such polite customers in my life. Always ‘please’, always ‘thank you’, and never a ‘what’s taking so long?’ or ‘how do you still have this job?’

Oh, and did I mention the tips were through the roof even though all they did was order drinks and chat with each other?

At first, I was starting to think that maybe having the mob reserve our place for the day wasn’t half bad. But business hadn’t started yet.

They started coming in maybe around eleven. At first, a lot of them were just nervous looking businessmen in suits carrying briefcases. Whenever a briefcase opened another table would wave me over, so I never saw the contents. I remembered the look on my dad’s face when Mr. L brought up anonymity, and decided not to push.

Then came in the first guy who didn’t fall through with what he promised.

I had just been serving Mr. L another glass of lemonade when the guy practically ran in, sitting across from him.

“L… Luce, you gotta give me more time! I got three, you can wait for the others, right?” He flipped open his briefcase and it was then I realized I knew him.

Our town doesn’t have many ‘famous’ people. But there was one kid named Tye who landed a few commercials within the last year, and was now looking like he was on his way to stardom. And Tye was sitting right there, sweating bullets and pawing nervously as what I originally perceived to be scraps of cloth in the case.

It wasn’t cloth. It was hair. Hair with skin and blood still attached to it.

I went pale and slowly looked over at Mr. L, expecting that I’d be shot on the spot for ‘seeing too much’.

Instead, Mr. L just smiled and leaned back before looking at me, almost like ‘do you see this right now?’ Like he couldn’t believe that scalping three people was expected to be enough for him. He then looked back at Tye and slowly shut the case.

“Tye, when I told you I was giving you a year to have six properly sent my way, I meant it.” Mr. L looked back up at me. “What do you think, Margo? Should I extend his time?”

Judging by the look on Tye’s face, something seriously fucked up would happen if I said no. So I slowly nodded. “J… just a little,” I stuttered, inwardly kicking myself. Tye had proof he’d scalped three different people, and just said he would go after more!

Mr. L nodded and turned to Tye before tugging the suitcase towards him. “Well, I suppose it’s your lucky day. Three more months. I’ll send the dogs if you miss the deadline.”

“Three months?! That’s not enough time to kill three-“

I blinked and missed it. One moment Tye was complaining and the next he was faceplanted into the table, his eyes rolled to the back of his skull and bloody drool spilling out of his mouth. Mr. L hadn’t even twitched.

I screamed and jumped back, shattering the quiet of the diner. The mumbled conversations came to a stop and everyone turned to look at me.

Mr. L waved his hand. “He’s not dead, don’t worry. He’ll have one hell of a headache when he realizes his three month deadline is passing faster than he thought. Remember Margo, don’t complain when someone tries to give you the benefit of the situation. And could you see about bringing me out a slice of lemon meringue pie?”

I hid in the kitchen for as long as I could before returning with said pie. Tye was gone. The only evidence he’d been there was the drool on the table. I wiped it off and threw the towel into the trash. I couldn’t get the look on his face out of my head.

I can’t name the people I saw that I knew. I saw actors. Singers. Politicians. The more famous they were, the more likely they were going to sit with Mr. L. Not all of them brought briefcases. Some of them just brought their words. How well they’d done for Mr. L, how much they could do if they just had another year or another four. Mr. L would listen, nod a bit, and for the most part he’d grant them time. Not even the most skilled liar could hide the relief on their faces.

There was one though. One guy. Poor bastard.

He’d come in confident but half way through his conversation, he started to look uncomfortable. He’d constantly dab at his forehead with his napkin, mopping off the sweat. He started asking for more drinks, as if buying Mr. L a lemonade would cool his temper.

It didn’t work. The longer the guy pressed on, trying to impress Mr. L, the more annoyed he got. Annoyance turned to frustration, and frustration turned to cold fury. Soon the entire café was quiet other than the guy’s insistent babbling about the deeds he’d done. No one wanted to speak.

When I brought their fifth refill, Mr. L raised a hand. “It won’t be necessary. I’ve heard quite. Enough,” He said.

The guy went stark white. “B… but I did all I could!”

Mr. L snorted before he reached into his pocket and produced a silver knife. I wanted to run. Scream for my dad. I just couldn’t make myself move. I was frozen.

With a lightning fast move, Mr. L dragged forward the man’s arm and ripped up his sleeve. “Liar,” He hissed before the blade went down. The guy wailed as Mr. L calmly carved letters into the skin. I couldn’t recognize the alphabet used. Blood dripped down onto the table and the floor, the guy pulling away as hard as he could but unable to so much as twist his arm away from Mr. L.

Finally Mr. L let him go, wiping off the knife on his napkin. “You have three days to get your affairs in order. Don’t try to get away. You knew what you were getting into,” He said.

Sobbing, the man ran from the restaurant.

I stared at the blood on the floor and table.

Mr. L pushed more money into my line of sight.

“For cleaning up the mess,” He said.

I cleaned up and ran into the kitchen, begging my dad to let me go home for the day. I even told him what happened.

My dad’s hand touched the check in his pocket before he snapped at me, “Get back to work.”

The love of money was the ticket to hell. That’s what my granddad said.

Sometimes it’s someone else’s love of money that’ll do it for you just fine.

At the end of the day, most of the customers had left. Maybe two or three more tables were there, and of course Mr. L.

My dad came out and rattled off the bill. Mr. L didn’t so much as blink before he withdrew his checkbook and started writing down the numbers. I saw an imprint of a snake on the leather cover.

He handed it to my dad. “Thank you. Now, before I go, would you like to make a deal with me?”

My dad sat down across from Mr. L. “Is that what you do? Make deals?” He asked.

Mr. L nodded. “Oh, yes. That’s exactly what I do. Payment varies of course, but I’m sure we can arrange something. Now, what is it that you want?”

My dad looked at me.

“Margo, clock out.”

I went home and cried in my bed.

All the money in the world couldn’t make up for the horror I’d seen then. I didn’t understand fully. Not then.

It’s been three months. Business has picked up. It’s like how it used to be when my granddad was alive.

But I can’t work there anymore.

I can barely get out of bed. I’m wasting away. The doctors don’t have a clue why. It’s just like my body decided to stop living, and the clock’s ticking down faster by the day. My hair’s falling out. I can’t keep food down. All I can manage to stomach is Gatorade, Saltine crackers... and a meatloaf that tastes exactly like my grandfather’s.

#horror stories #scary stories #sixpenceee #sixpenceee stories #my stories

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whatisonthemoonarchive · 8 years ago

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Mr. Moon & Neil Salonen! - Lets talk about Brian Crozier and the USGSC! - Part 2

https://isgp-studies.com/le-cercle-pinay

Since about the time that Crozier became a leading member in the mid to late 1970s, Le Cercle seems to have forged closer links with the more hard-right elements in the US government. Besides the Reagan and Nixon administrations, Cercle members were involved with institutions at the Jamestown Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, the United States Global Strategy Council, the Committee on Present Danger, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, Americares, and the Israeli-US Jonathan Institute. All these groups were interwoven with the World Anti-Communist League and religious organizations as the Knights of Malta and the Moonies.

Seemingly one of the closest associates of mainly the British Cercle members was CIA officer and American Security Council co-chair Ray Cline. Cline is never mentioned in Crozier's biography even though both were involved in two very important organizations: the Jonathan Institute and the Foreign Affairs Research Institute (FARI), of which, interestingly, Crozier also forgets to mention his involvement. He also does not discuss the United States Global Strategy Council (USGSC), which was founded in the same period and headed by Ray Cline for most of its existence. The USGSC counted Cercle members General Richard Stilwell and William Colby among its earliest members and there's most likely more overlap.

The Washington-based U.S. Global Strategy Council (USGSC) existed from 1981 to about 1995 and was a think tank focused on setting coherent long range strategic goals for the United States. Clearly a bastion of America's permanent government, it mainly focused on worldwide anti-communist subversion. It also pushed for the development of non-lethal weaponry...

In complete contrast to the Carter and Clinton administrations, the USGSC was part of the hawkish new-right and neoconservative movements that came to the forefront with Reagan and remained quited prominent under Bush, Sr...The whole idea of a global war on terror, including the use of pre-emptive strikes, goes back to ideas that were proposed by this neocon group in the late 1970s and early 1980s. George Shultz is the most crucial player from the American side, which obviously is the most important. However, he had allies in the other parts of the world, including leading Israeli politicians from both Likud and Labour, fascist terrorists from France, and also Cercle president Brian Crozier and his clique in Britian. They came together at two conferences about international terrorism sponsored by the Jonathan Institute, an Israeli think tank named after the brother of Netanyahu. According to former SAS/MI5 agent Collin Wallace, it was a Mossad front.

The first meeting was in June 1979. Crozier and his Cercle sidekick Robert Moss were two of the speakers at this conference of which the purpose was to blame all international terrorism on the USSR. Richard Pipes, the later associate of Crozier at the White House, also spoke at the conference. Ray Cline and George H.W. Bush of the CIA were there, just as retired General George J. Keegan who had recently stepped down as head of Air Force Intelligence. OAS terrorist Jacques Soustelle attended, together with Benjamin Netanyahu, Jack Kemp, and a whole range of international journalists who promoted the view that the USSR was behind worldwide terrorism.

The only thing that was disagreed upon was if this movement supporting a global war on both terror and the USSR should be incorporated within the United Nations or not...Crozier's close associate Lord Alun Chalfont, together with intelligence connected religious extremists as Michael Ledeen and Arnaud de Borchgrave, were among contributors to papers read at the conference.

Chalfont had already been working with Cercle presidents Brian Crozier and Julian Amery in their Foreign Affairs Research Institute (FARI), together with Sir Frederic M. Bennett and Cercle member Robert Moss. Like Chalfont, Crozier and Moss were involved with the Jonathan Institute. FARI was set up in 1976...Reports that it was linked to the CIA are rather obvious today.

Conferences of FARI were attended by Crozier's money man Richard Mellon Scaife and Cercle members William Casey and Edwin Feulner. Ray Cline of the CIA and the Jonathan Institute has been in attendance, just as General Daniel O. Graham of the CIA and DIA. Like Stilwell, both Graham and Cline were involved with the US Global Strategy Council. Cline was among the founders of the USGSC and chairman of the institute from 1986 to 1994.

The members of the USGSC (initially 70 or so) had close ties to the Military Industrial complex, including highest level (often retired) representatives of the Navy, the Air Force, the Army, the intelligence agencies, shady defense corporations as Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), private business groups, and unusual religious interests as the Moonies and Knights of Malta. Over the years, known members have included:

*William Colby - CIA director 1973-1976; deep insider of many black programs, including CIA drug trafficking; Opus Dei

*Henry Luce III - Time Magazine; president of the Pilgrims of the United States since 1997; grandfather bought and held on to the JFK Zapruder film

*Clare Booth Luce - Dame of Malta

*Ray Cline

*Admiral Bobby Ray Inman - director ONI; director DIA; director NSA; deputy director CIA; director Wackenhut; director SAIC; Trilateral Commission; chairman of the "Jet Propulsion Laboratory Oversight Committee", which is not supposed to exist

*Michael Alan Daniels - Special assistant for political science research at the Office of Naval Research 1969-1971; section vice president SAIC since 1986; chairman of SAIC's Network Solutions since 1995

*General Brent Scowcroft - major Kissinger protege; reportedly visited Le Cercle

*General Daniel O. Graham - American Security Council

*Edward Teller - American Security Council

*Arnaud de Borchgrave - CIA contact of Belgian pedophile entrapper Baron de Bonvoisin; hard-right journalist; good friend of Sun Myung Moon

*Lynn Francis Bouchey - organizer of CAUSA operations in Central and South America

*General E. David Woellner - chairman of the Sixth CAUSA-USA Foundation Conference and a defender of the Moon Cult

*Lev Eugene Dobriansky - American Security Council

*Jeane Kirkpatrick - co-chair USGSC; Le Cercle

*General Maxwell Taylor - former chair Joint Chiefs; Institute for Defense Analyses; Pilgrims

*General Albert Wedemeyer - American Security Council

*General Robert Schweitzer - served under Alexander Haig at NATO; served under Haig, Kissinger and Richard Allen at the NSC; chair Inter-American Defense Board 1982-1987; national strategy program director USGSC since 1987; friend of General Singlaub; publicly supported Oliver North after Iran Contra

*Christopher Morris - chair and vice-president of M2 Technologies, which focuses on non-lethal weapons; research director at the USGSC, working directly under Cline, and later heading the council's Non-Lethality Policy Review Group; member of the 1995 Council of Foreign Relation's Task Force on Non-Lethal Technologies; of which Don Zakheim and Jason scholar Richard Garwin also were members

*Janet Morris - president & CEO of M2 Technologies; also member of the 1995 Council of Foreign Relation's Task Force on Non-Lethal Technologies; research director on non-lethal technologies at the USGSC 1993-1994; consultant at Los Alamos and close associate of Col. John Alexander

http://whatisonthemoon.tumblr.com/post/166024552889/mr-moon-neil-salonen-lets-talk-about-brian

http://whatisonthemoon.tumblr.com/post/166549462164/dr-durst-tell-us-about-le-cercle-now

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gordonwilliamsweb · 5 years ago

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¿Puede este fin de semana de vacaciones disparar otra ola de casos de COVID?

Con suerte, el verano no terminará como comenzó. Las celebraciones de Memorial Day ayudaron a desencadenar una ola de infecciones por coronavirus en gran parte del sur y el oeste de los Estados Unidos. Y las reuniones del 4 de julio dispararon más casos de COVID.

Y ahora llega el Día del Trabajo, cuando esas regiones recién comienzan a registrar una disminución de casos. El doctor Anthony Fauci, director del Instituto Nacional de Alergias y Enfermedades Infecciosas, advirtió el miércoles 2 de septiembre que los estadounidenses deben tener cuidado para evitar otro aumento en las tasas de infección.

Pero la gente está cansada de quedarse en casa, y los destinos turísticos están hambrientos de dinero en efectivo.

“Aunque sea escaparte un par de horas a un hotel cercano son como unas vacaciones de verdad”, dijo Kimberly Michaels, quien trabaja para la NASA en Huntsville, Alabama, y viajó hace pocos días a Nashville, Tennessee, con su novio para celebrar el cumpleaños de él.

Para el final del verano, muchos gobiernos locales están levantando restricciones para resucitar la actividad turística y rescatar a las pequeñas empresas.

Nashville, por ejemplo, dio luz verde a las tabernas ambulantes, permitiendo que los bares sobre ruedas, impulsados a pedal por humanos, salgan a las calles nuevamente.

“No son el grupo favorito de Nashville, francamente. Pero la justicia requiere que se lleve a cabo este cambio de protocolo”, dijo el alcalde John Cooper, y señaló la dramática reducción de nuevos casos en la ciudad. Lo que llevó a que la primera semana de septiembre se elevara el límite de personas permitido en bodas, funerales y otras ceremonias.

En Virginia, Virginia Beach trató de ser indulgente con sus restaurantes en crisis durante el fin de semana festivo. Pero el gobernador Ralph Northam rechazó las súplicas del alcalde, basándose en las recomendaciones de Fauci. El principal experto en enfermedades infecciosas del país ha alentado a los gobernadores a mantener las restricciones para evitar otro aumento de casos relacionado con las vacaciones.

“A veces, cuando comenzamos a eliminar las restricciones, la gente tiene la impresión de ‘Oh, eso debe significar que es seguro’”, dijo la epidemióloga Melissa McPheeters de la Universidad de Vanderbilt. “Queremos asegurarnos de no dar esa impresión, porque esta enfermedad sigue aquí”.

De hecho, algunas comunidades han vuelto a imponer restricciones, especialmente para el fin de semana largo. Santa Barbara, en California, ha prohibido tomar sol en la playa para evitar otro aumento de casos.

Círculo vicioso: escuelas y COVID

También hay un nuevo factor X en el último fin de semana festivo del verano. En muchos estados, las escuelas han reanudado las clases en persona. Por lo tanto, las familias y los amigos que se encuentran ahora tienen más probabilidades de exponerse mutuamente al virus, incluso si intentaron mantenerse en un círculo cerrado durante el verano.

“Si esas burbujas ahora tienen niños que regresaron a la escuela y están interactuando con otros o han regresado a los deportes y la burbuja se ha expandido, es menos probable que estén en una reunión que sea segura”, explicó la epidemióloga Bertha Hidalgo de la Universidad de Alabama-Birmingham.

Y, sin embargo, vale la pena intentar estar juntos de manera segura, preferiblemente al aire libre, dijo Hidalgo. La experta aseguró que la salud mental de las personas necesita un impulso para pasar los próximos meses.

“Si puedes hacer las cosas de manera segura ahora, antes que llegue el invierno y el clima frío, entonces serás más resistente para superar los malos momentos que puedan venir”, opinó.

En destinos como Nashville que han dado la bienvenida a los visitantes durante la pandemia, el turismo no se ha recuperado por completo. Pero algunas noches de fin de semana, el distrito turístico colmado de luces de neón puede atraer multitudes.

La primera semana de septiembre, Vaj Vemulapalli y su novia, de Dallas, regresaron a su hotel después de sentirse incómodos con lo apretada que estaba la gente.

“Extrañamos la interacción social, ir a bares”, dijo. “Pero al final del día, nuestra postura general es que no vale la pena adquirir COVID-19 sólo por beber”.

Sin embargo, esas multitudes tienen límites, como descubrieron Kimberly Michaels y el cumpleañero Marcus Robinson. Ellos llegaron a Nashville con máscaras y listos para tener una fiesta responsable. Pero después de registrarse en su hotel, descubrieron que todo tenía que cerrar a las 10:30pm.

“Es una locura. Era como una zona en penumbras”, contó Robinson. “Entramos [al hotel], las calles estaban llenas. Nos cambiamos, salimos y nos preguntamos ‘¿a dónde fueron todos? ¿Pasó algo?’ No sabíamos nada porque no somos de aquí”.

Aún así, a medida que pasa el tiempo, algunos viajeros están dispuestos a correr más riesgos para volver a actividades que sienten normales.

Suzette Ourso vive en las afueras de Nueva Orleans y voló a Nashville para su primer viaje fuera de la ciudad desde la pandemia. Dijo que es cautelosa y usa su máscara cuando está cerca de alguien.

“Ahora tengo desinfectante de manos en mi bolso. Nunca lo había tenido antes”, dijo. “Pero puedes morir mañana viajando en tu vehículo. Así que tampoco puedes vivir tu vida con miedo”.

Ourso tiene planeado un viaje a la playa para finales de septiembre.

Esta historia es parte de una alianza entre Nashville Public Radio, NPR y Kaiser Health News.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

¿Puede este fin de semana de vacaciones disparar otra ola de casos de COVID? published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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jimluce · 6 years ago

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Totally surprised to see my son #MathewLuce in the #NewYorkTimes today! He is responsible for #MatthewsRule, the corner stone of #OrphansInternational - “Raising Young Global Leaders.” #VeryProudDad! Join Mathew and me at our 19th annual gala this year at the Princeton Club on Thursday, February 28. Www.OrphansInternational.org. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/lens/asian-american-identity-transracial-adoptions.amp.html (at The J. Luce Foundation) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt7Y_6hFEpg/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ojnvr2h3ov0u

#mathewluce #newyorktimes #matthewsrule #orphansinternational #veryprouddad

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davestone13-blog · 2 years ago

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Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright Accepts Luce Foundation Award

At the J. Luce Foundation’s 24th Annual Ceremony and Awards Gala, New York State Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright accepted it Humanitarian of the Year Award. Busy at work in Albany, she graciously welcomed it from a distance. The Roosevelt Island Daily News Following is AM Seawright’s message after earning the award. “Thank you for your honor of the Humanitarian of the Year Award for the 24th…

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#Humanitarian of the Year #J Luce Foundation #Rebecca Seawright

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dinafbrownil · 5 years ago