March 27, 2025 • 12 mins
This week we meet Carl. Carl’s made his dough. Occupies the corner office. He’s traveled the world. Bought the beach house and the fishing boat and the snazzy fleet of cars.
Too bad he hasn’t been able to escape the past. The war. The damn war. He’s tried everything but he can’t silence the explosions. The relentless explosions.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,
your host, narrator and author. We hear at the ten
Minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or
rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to
(00:25):
pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human
condition as ten minutes will permit. Mini novels on steroids.
This week we meet Carl. Carl's made his dough, occupies
(00:46):
the corner office. He's traveled the world, bought the beach
house and the fishing boat, and the snazzy fleet of
fancy cars. Too bad, Carl hasn't been able to escape
the past, the war, the damn war. He's tried everything,
but he can't silence the explosions, the relentless explosions. Better
(01:15):
off dead. Carl sits at the broad desk in his
corner office, the barrel of the revolver pressed against his temple.
How many times has the explosion gone off in his head?
A thousand times? Ten thousand? What a joke? Try a
thousand times an hour, ten thousand and more times a day,
(01:38):
three million times a year, for thirty three years in
counting one hundred and twenty million explosions, and Holy Christ,
there's another one, and another and another, as plentiful as heartbeats, marriage, wife, kids, work, play, booze, drugs, whores, gambling,
(02:00):
mountain climbing, skin diving, helly skiing, to the ends of
the earth and back. No reprieve, none ever, in bed
at night, in bed in the morning, in the middle
of a meeting, in the middle of the kid's football game,
in the middle of a jaw dropping run down some
wild snow covered glacier in British Columbia, in the middle
(02:20):
of an orgasm. For Christ's sake, kaboom. It was not
his first amphibious landing. It was, in fact his ninth,
including the early ones when he'd come in late with
the engineers. The beaches secured save for the occasional land
mine or jap who'd only been pretending he was dead.
(02:43):
The slanting eyed bastards would lie there, face down in
the damp sand for hours, not moving a muscle, not
even breathing. Scrawny half starved nips could hold their breath
for days. And then you'd walk by, carrying med supplies
or ammocases and a little some bitches would pop up
and shoot you in the face or bayonet you in
(03:04):
the balls. They always went for the balls. Always. Brass
got wind of that crazy shit, and right away they
ordered the MPs to go around and level around into
every nip head dead or faking dead. Sweat pours off
Carl's face, His hand shakes, his finger twitches on the trigger.
(03:26):
He wishes his finger would just pull the damn trigger.
Already pull it and be done with it, done with
the explosions.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Kublam.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Is the office door locked? Is it that I locked
the door? Christ Mildred or one of the partners walks
in and sees me sitting here with this gun shoved
up against my temple? Holy fuck? With lieutenants dying faster
than goldfish, they made him a captain in no time.
He didn't want to be a captain. He didn't want
(03:56):
to be an officer or an enlisted man. He didn't
want to be in the Core. He didn't want to
be in the South Pacific fighting Japs. He wanted to
be back at school, back in Bethlehem, playing split in
for the engineers, drinking, chasing girls, and trying to get lucky.
When they made Carl, a captain. His luck ran out.
(04:18):
No more mop up landings. He'd be taking his company
ashore in the first wave. One hundred guys, two lieutenants,
ten sergeants, ten squads his command. Two Higgins boats. Captain,
the major instructed two Higgins boats, fifty men per boat.
I know that's a stretch overloaded, to be sure, a
(04:41):
third boat with thirty five or so per boat would
be best, But we don't have three boats to spare.
So squeeze him in, Captain, squeeze him in and make
do be a man, be a marine, Yes, sir, said Carl.
You ride in the lead boat, Captain, and let your
men see you in the lead boat. Let them hear you.
(05:02):
Pilot will get you into the shallow water before dropping
the ramp. Get your men ashore without any bullshit, and
secure the beachhead. Right, secure the beachhead, Carl muttered then,
and he mutters now. He mutters it aloud as he
glances out the office window at the Big Apple, a
quarter of a mile below from his sweet Corner office.
(05:26):
He sees the Hudson, the south end of Manhattan, and
the Statue of Liberty. He can practically see out to
the leafy burg in Jersey, where his enormous center Hall
Colonial sits atop a prominent bluff. He can see his
long suffering wife and his well educated kids, and his
(05:48):
golden retrievers, and his race car he trailers up to
Lime on weekends, and to the south he can almost
see his beach house and his fishing boat half a
mile offshore, beyond range of the JAP artillery. The Higgins
boats were dropped into the Pacific from the ata's attack
(06:12):
transport ships. The men, scared shitless in sweating bullets started
going over the sides, down the ropes and into the boats.
Their captain, feigning bravery, encouraged his men, assured them JAP
resistance would be at a minimum. They'd be safely assured
on the beach in no time, without any trouble at all.
(06:35):
This is what Carl told them, and so during an
unexplained delay in the loading of the Higgins boats, Carl
made one last mad dash for the head. His heart raised,
his brain pounded, He felt faint, He couldn't get a
decent breath. He wanted to hide somewhere in the bowels
of the ship, not emerge until the attack. Until the
(06:56):
whole goddamn war was over and done with. In the head,
he vomited, and then he vomited again, and then he
just barely got his pants down and his ass on
the seat before half his insides washed out through his anus,
and then an emotional and physical wreck. He pulled himself
together and returned to his command. The loading of the
(07:20):
Higgins boats had finally resumed. He had to hurry over
the side and scurry down the ropes the last one aboard.
Carl dropped into the overcrowded Higgins boat. The men shoulder
to shoulder, pressed together like sardines in a can. And
that's when he realized he was not in the lead boat.
(07:42):
The lead boat had already pulled away. He was in
the rear boat, in the rear with the gear. The
company's captain was in the rear boat. For thirty three years,
he has told himself, assured himself that climbing into the
wrong boat had been purely an accident, nothing but a
(08:04):
goddamn accident, a bloody mishap, done not on purpose, but
merely in haste, because well, because he'd been in the
head puking and shitting his brains out, had he not
told himself this, assured himself of this, over and over,
ten thousand times a day. He would have blown his
(08:24):
brains out years.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Ago, decades ago.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
It was an accident, a fucking accident. But still it'll
be sad for the kids, he thinks when I'm dead,
Sad and embarrassing having to try to explain why the
old man killed himself. But what's the alternative? Another thirty
three years of explosions and suffering and depression that mostly
(08:50):
manifests itself as anger and rage. Fuck it, just fuck it.
The wife will be shocked, but after that passes, she'll
be well. Christ she'll be happy, happy to be done
dealing with me and my stupid war bullshit. And who
can blame her? The poor woman has suffered long enough.
(09:11):
And plus, I mean, there's plenty of dough. I've left,
plenty of dough. She'll live like a queen. And if
she wants, she can find another guy, some guy who
didn't fight in the goddamn war, didn't get crushed by
the goddamn war. The explosion occurred less than one hundred
yards off the beach at Bogainville. Until then, the flotilla
(09:36):
of Higgins boats had made their way toward the island
with very little resistance. Jap artillery had been minimal. There
had been some machine gun fire, but even that had
been erratic and seemed half hearted. Carl had started to
believe they would take the beach without a fight, without casualties,
(09:58):
and no one would ever know that he had been
in the rear boat. Fifty yards ahead, he saw half
his company hunkered down in the lead Higgins boat. He
knew he should be in that boat with them, and
he was plenty worried about the consequences once his commanding
(10:18):
officer found out that he'd brought up the rear A
Type ninety nine eighty one millimeter Jap infantry mortar caused
the explosion. Other than their rifles and a few machine guns,
it was all the Japs had left to fight the
(10:39):
amphibious landing. They'd waited and waited until the Yankee dogs
grew close before firing. Most of the mortars landed harmlessly
in the sea, but this one, this one landed dead
center in the lead boat, and in an instant, an
absolute instant, fifty marineans were dead, blown to smithereens. Half
(11:03):
the company, his company Carl's company right there, just ahead,
not fifty yards out in front, and now gone, gone, gone, gone,
no trace other than some splintered plywood and random body
parts floating on the surface of the sea. Dead fifty
(11:24):
dead marines. Carl pulls the barrel of the revolver away
from his temple, sticks the gun in the bottom drawer
of his desk, and locks that drawer uptight, as he's
done so many times before. But he assures himself that
he will do it tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow, He'll do it.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Kaboom, KaBlam.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Thanks for listening to this original audio presentation of Better
Off Dead. If you enjoy today's story, please take a
few seconds to rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast,
and then go to Thomas William Simpson dot com for
(12:18):
additional information about the author and to view his extensive canon.
The Ten Minute Storyteller is produced by Andrew Pleglsi and
Josh Colodney and as part of the Elvis Duran Podcast
Network in partnership with Iheartproductions. Until next time, this is
(12:40):
Bill Simpson, your ten Minute Storyteller.
Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,
your host, narrator and author. We hear at the ten
Minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or
rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to
(00:25):
pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human
condition as ten minutes will permit. Mini novels on steroids.
This week we meet Carl. Carl's made his dough, occupies
(00:46):
the corner office. He's traveled the world, bought the beach
house and the fishing boat, and the snazzy fleet of
fancy cars. Too bad, Carl hasn't been able to escape
the past, the war, the damn war. He's tried everything,
but he can't silence the explosions, the relentless explosions. Better
(01:15):
off dead. Carl sits at the broad desk in his
corner office, the barrel of the revolver pressed against his temple.
How many times has the explosion gone off in his head?
A thousand times? Ten thousand? What a joke? Try a
thousand times an hour, ten thousand and more times a day,
(01:38):
three million times a year, for thirty three years in
counting one hundred and twenty million explosions, and Holy Christ,
there's another one, and another and another, as plentiful as heartbeats, marriage, wife, kids, work, play, booze, drugs, whores, gambling,
(02:00):
mountain climbing, skin diving, helly skiing, to the ends of
the earth and back. No reprieve, none ever, in bed
at night, in bed in the morning, in the middle
of a meeting, in the middle of the kid's football game,
in the middle of a jaw dropping run down some
wild snow covered glacier in British Columbia, in the middle
(02:20):
of an orgasm. For Christ's sake, kaboom. It was not
his first amphibious landing. It was, in fact his ninth,
including the early ones when he'd come in late with
the engineers. The beaches secured save for the occasional land
mine or jap who'd only been pretending he was dead.
(02:43):
The slanting eyed bastards would lie there, face down in
the damp sand for hours, not moving a muscle, not
even breathing. Scrawny half starved nips could hold their breath
for days. And then you'd walk by, carrying med supplies
or ammocases and a little some bitches would pop up
and shoot you in the face or bayonet you in
(03:04):
the balls. They always went for the balls. Always. Brass
got wind of that crazy shit, and right away they
ordered the MPs to go around and level around into
every nip head dead or faking dead. Sweat pours off
Carl's face, His hand shakes, his finger twitches on the trigger.
(03:26):
He wishes his finger would just pull the damn trigger.
Already pull it and be done with it, done with
the explosions.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Kublam.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Is the office door locked? Is it that I locked
the door? Christ Mildred or one of the partners walks
in and sees me sitting here with this gun shoved
up against my temple? Holy fuck? With lieutenants dying faster
than goldfish, they made him a captain in no time.
He didn't want to be a captain. He didn't want
(03:56):
to be an officer or an enlisted man. He didn't
want to be in the Core. He didn't want to
be in the South Pacific fighting Japs. He wanted to
be back at school, back in Bethlehem, playing split in
for the engineers, drinking, chasing girls, and trying to get lucky.
When they made Carl, a captain. His luck ran out.
(04:18):
No more mop up landings. He'd be taking his company
ashore in the first wave. One hundred guys, two lieutenants,
ten sergeants, ten squads his command. Two Higgins boats. Captain,
the major instructed two Higgins boats, fifty men per boat.
I know that's a stretch overloaded, to be sure, a
(04:41):
third boat with thirty five or so per boat would
be best, But we don't have three boats to spare.
So squeeze him in, Captain, squeeze him in and make
do be a man, be a marine, Yes, sir, said Carl.
You ride in the lead boat, Captain, and let your
men see you in the lead boat. Let them hear you.
(05:02):
Pilot will get you into the shallow water before dropping
the ramp. Get your men ashore without any bullshit, and
secure the beachhead. Right, secure the beachhead, Carl muttered then,
and he mutters now. He mutters it aloud as he
glances out the office window at the Big Apple, a
quarter of a mile below from his sweet Corner office.
(05:26):
He sees the Hudson, the south end of Manhattan, and
the Statue of Liberty. He can practically see out to
the leafy burg in Jersey, where his enormous center Hall
Colonial sits atop a prominent bluff. He can see his
long suffering wife and his well educated kids, and his
(05:48):
golden retrievers, and his race car he trailers up to
Lime on weekends, and to the south he can almost
see his beach house and his fishing boat half a
mile offshore, beyond range of the JAP artillery. The Higgins
boats were dropped into the Pacific from the ata's attack
(06:12):
transport ships. The men, scared shitless in sweating bullets started
going over the sides, down the ropes and into the boats.
Their captain, feigning bravery, encouraged his men, assured them JAP
resistance would be at a minimum. They'd be safely assured
on the beach in no time, without any trouble at all.
(06:35):
This is what Carl told them, and so during an
unexplained delay in the loading of the Higgins boats, Carl
made one last mad dash for the head. His heart raised,
his brain pounded, He felt faint, He couldn't get a
decent breath. He wanted to hide somewhere in the bowels
of the ship, not emerge until the attack. Until the
(06:56):
whole goddamn war was over and done with. In the head,
he vomited, and then he vomited again, and then he
just barely got his pants down and his ass on
the seat before half his insides washed out through his anus,
and then an emotional and physical wreck. He pulled himself
together and returned to his command. The loading of the
(07:20):
Higgins boats had finally resumed. He had to hurry over
the side and scurry down the ropes the last one aboard.
Carl dropped into the overcrowded Higgins boat. The men shoulder
to shoulder, pressed together like sardines in a can. And
that's when he realized he was not in the lead boat.
(07:42):
The lead boat had already pulled away. He was in
the rear boat, in the rear with the gear. The
company's captain was in the rear boat. For thirty three years,
he has told himself, assured himself that climbing into the
wrong boat had been purely an accident, nothing but a
(08:04):
goddamn accident, a bloody mishap, done not on purpose, but
merely in haste, because well, because he'd been in the
head puking and shitting his brains out, had he not
told himself this, assured himself of this, over and over,
ten thousand times a day. He would have blown his
(08:24):
brains out years.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Ago, decades ago.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
It was an accident, a fucking accident. But still it'll
be sad for the kids, he thinks when I'm dead,
Sad and embarrassing having to try to explain why the
old man killed himself. But what's the alternative? Another thirty
three years of explosions and suffering and depression that mostly
(08:50):
manifests itself as anger and rage. Fuck it, just fuck it.
The wife will be shocked, but after that passes, she'll
be well. Christ she'll be happy, happy to be done
dealing with me and my stupid war bullshit. And who
can blame her? The poor woman has suffered long enough.
(09:11):
And plus, I mean, there's plenty of dough. I've left,
plenty of dough. She'll live like a queen. And if
she wants, she can find another guy, some guy who
didn't fight in the goddamn war, didn't get crushed by
the goddamn war. The explosion occurred less than one hundred
yards off the beach at Bogainville. Until then, the flotilla
(09:36):
of Higgins boats had made their way toward the island
with very little resistance. Jap artillery had been minimal. There
had been some machine gun fire, but even that had
been erratic and seemed half hearted. Carl had started to
believe they would take the beach without a fight, without casualties,
(09:58):
and no one would ever know that he had been
in the rear boat. Fifty yards ahead, he saw half
his company hunkered down in the lead Higgins boat. He
knew he should be in that boat with them, and
he was plenty worried about the consequences once his commanding
(10:18):
officer found out that he'd brought up the rear A
Type ninety nine eighty one millimeter Jap infantry mortar caused
the explosion. Other than their rifles and a few machine guns,
it was all the Japs had left to fight the
(10:39):
amphibious landing. They'd waited and waited until the Yankee dogs
grew close before firing. Most of the mortars landed harmlessly
in the sea, but this one, this one landed dead
center in the lead boat, and in an instant, an
absolute instant, fifty marineans were dead, blown to smithereens. Half
(11:03):
the company, his company Carl's company right there, just ahead,
not fifty yards out in front, and now gone, gone, gone, gone,
no trace other than some splintered plywood and random body
parts floating on the surface of the sea. Dead fifty
(11:24):
dead marines. Carl pulls the barrel of the revolver away
from his temple, sticks the gun in the bottom drawer
of his desk, and locks that drawer uptight, as he's
done so many times before. But he assures himself that
he will do it tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow, He'll do it.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Kaboom, KaBlam.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Thanks for listening to this original audio presentation of Better
Off Dead. If you enjoy today's story, please take a
few seconds to rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast,
and then go to Thomas William Simpson dot com for
(12:18):
additional information about the author and to view his extensive canon.
The Ten Minute Storyteller is produced by Andrew Pleglsi and
Josh Colodney and as part of the Elvis Duran Podcast
Network in partnership with Iheartproductions. Until next time, this is
(12:40):
Bill Simpson, your ten Minute Storyteller.
Host
Bill Simpson
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