Spiro and his girlfriend were in the hotel bar in Ixtapa, Mexico, looking at a Pacific sunset. It was happy hour, and as they eagerly awaited margaritas, they didn't know were destined to save his life. He lit a cigarette, got strangled, and went into a coughing fit deluxe. It consisted of several small coughlets, breathlessness, gasping, then finally one great cough.

He began losing vision in his right eye. At first it was negligible, but quickly became total. They sat in a corner booth bordered by a mirrored wall, and looked at the eye in it. The pupil was so large, no iris was visible.

His intended took a penlight, and shone it into the eye. There was no reaction.

He thought, “I'm no neurologist, but dud'n that mean something's happening in there?”

A seniorita brought the drinks. He was suddenly exhausted... tireder'n he'd ever been. “Maybe some cur fur'll help,” he thought, and slurped a snort. Some dribbled down his chin. After downing both, his vision returned to normal. Alcohol thinned the blood.

He had a common ASD (Atrial Septal Defect) called a PFO (Patent Foramen Ovale).

Everybody was born with one. An unborn child got oxygen and nutrients through it in the womb. At birth it began to close.

In adolescence, it grows completely shut... most of the time.

Physicians estimated a fourth of the world populace had one that didn't.

It was like a crack in an engine block. Depending upon its location, a motor could function normally in spite of it.

As blood coursed through the human body, it picked up biological trash. When it flowed into the right side of a heart, the refuse was dumped in the lungs. When it was pumped from the left side of the heart, it was free of the debris (called “emboli”).

In a very few unlucky people with a PFO, a violent episode of coughing, or a physical strain (as in a manual lift), initiated a “shunt”. In medical jargon, it was called “The Valsalva Maneuver”.

In someone so cursed, an embolism could shoot through the PFO, bypass the lungs, get sucked into the brain, and cause a CVA (Cerebro Vascular Accident) stroke. It's comparable to the workings of a car's fluid drive. An automatic transmission's heavily filtered because one grain of dirt shuts it down.

Almost a year later he underwent a TEE (Trans Esophageal Echo) Exam that detected the anomaly. The attending doctor told him to take an aspirin weekly, and nothing would come of it.

He married the girl who'd shined the light in his eye and moved to her hometown.

There were some odd traditions there, for example: Domestic vendettas were permitted, even encouraged amongst family members. What in the past had been settled by a duel, was in modern times dealt with by speechlessness.

It wasn’t unusual for relatives (usually conjugal) not to speak to one another for years.

There was no such thing as an amicable divorce in those parts. If a couple split, it was understood neither ex was to never again utter a kind word about their former spouse... ever.

The local inhabitants harbored a deep mistrust of the government. Most believed mankind never went to the moon, and the lunar video was an elaborate hoax filmed

in Hollywood.

The same folks thought that federal scientists knew the cure for cancer, but withheld it to curb the population.

They believed The Union North routinely tested chemical and/or biological weapons on the Confederacy, that auto immune deficiency syndrome resulted from just such a botched endeavor, and the yankee CIA introduced AIDS to the South in the form of crack cocaine or China White Heroin.

They didn't know there was any difference between a fission atomic device, and a much more powerful fusion (H bomb) hydrogen weapon, just that they were both nuclear (said: 'New-Q-Ler').

They thought a spaceship crashed in Roswell, NM, in 1947, and its wreckage, along with the preserved dead crew were at some tip top secret, ultra hush hush facility.

In addition, many thought a Mexican airbus collided with a UFO on landing in the 1990s, and caused it to crash. They strongly suspected the Federales had the deceased occupants on ice, and the craft in storage.

September sixth, 1992 would live in infamy for him. He wasn't yet 40. It was the date he became a Disabled-American.

He'd been needing a prefix anyway.

It's a crime now to discriminate against the handicapped.

Being born handicapped was probably better than being stricken down late in life.

A congenital disorder is bound to be easier to deal with than a late onset one. At least the host would never’ve known what it was like to be able bodied.

He began seeing a new physician who told him to stop taking aspirin on the grounds it might be causing “tinnitus”, a dissonant shrieking in both ears. It was the same tone... sharp in one ear... flat in the other.

Not 7 months later, he had a major stroke. The doctor called in a cohort (a supposed cardiac “specialist”).

Spiro told the doctors about the PFO. They couldn't find it. They ruled it out.

Over a year later, he went searching for competent physicians. They found the PFO right away and recommended surgical closure.

He asked, "Isn't that like closing the gate after the cows have gotten out?"

The surgeon replied, "Yes, but you still have some cows in there."

So the next day, Halloween, they did an open heart procedure.

He was nervous as a prostitute in church when they wheeled him in the cutting theatre. They scooted him off the gurney and onto a cruciform. Bright floodlights were trained on his chest. They hooked him to multiple machines. One blipped with each heartbeat.

The pulse was rapid. They put the anesthesia mask on, and he knew no more.

The next thing he knew, Spiro was looking down on the medical personnel... and himself. A placard folded like an inverted V, invisible at floor level, bearing a question mark on the face was atop the cabinet. A scrub clad technician threaded a breathing tube down his trachea, then laid a mat on his upper torso. The matting had a square opening in its center, and must've been self adhesive. It stuck fast.

The guy smoothed it out, and peeled off the squared area. Spiro's clean shaven chest gleamed. Another nurse inserted needles into either side of the neck.

The needles had plastic tubing ends that ran to what he inexplicably knew was a heart/lung machine. He cringed as she took a piece of the same hose, and fed it into his seminal vesicle.

A doctor took a scalpel and expertly slashed him from neck to mid abdomen.

Another physician stepped up with a bone saw and cut the sternum. The ends were bent up and tied off. Layers of tissue were peeled back to reveal a squirming organ. Its rate had slowed, but it still thrashed about.

The heart/lung machine was energized, and the tubes filled with blood.

"If we are ready to stop it, now's the time," someone said.

A defibrillator on a cart was rolled up beside the table, the paddles lightly greased, and one placed on either side of the jumping myocardium.

Somebody said, "Setting: 200 joules!"

Another shouted, "Clear!"

He felt his back press into the ceiling, and everything went dark. He embarked on a series of strange dreams with a World War theme. There was but a single conflict.

In the opening episode, he was asleep in the top of a bunk. Life as a sailor was soft once he'd gotten out of boot... three squares a day, and all the bullcrap a fellow could handle. There was a lot of ugly talk, but that was to be expected. Whenever a bunch of guys got together, they were going to cuss, or talk vulgar. It was a smoke screen to mask their fear.

Being stationed on a battlewagon in Hawaii was a dream assignment. His mama was so proud of him. She had the beauty most Latinas did.

It was peacetime. Scuttlebutt said that might soon change.

They were safe here though. The harbor was only 40 feet deep. Torpedos needed 50 to operate. Besides, destroyers ran antisub patrol nonstop.The bunk shook as if in an earthquake. Before he was fully awake, there was another blast. A wall of brine rushed in. Everything went black.

The dream disintegrated into a thousand pixels.

Hubris struck the Imperial Fleet of the Japans at Midway in 1942. At first they were trouncing the Westerners. The Americans sacrificed men and planes... poured them back into the ocean like rainwater. Some of the casualties weren't Anglos.

In the space of 5 minutes during the fray, the situation reversed. The combined planes of three US carriers caught the enemy landed, loading, fueling and mortally wounded four flattops.

Spiro dove a Hellcat onto a ship. He released his 500 pounder and watched amazed as it went directly into a stack. He took a hit from somewhere, and the entire airframe shuddered. Smoke was everywhere.

“I got to get down,” he thought. “We're clobberin' 'em!”

There was no doubt they'd won. Crazy Horse would've been proud.

He saw a flight deck and headed for it. He came in for a landing. At the last second, he saw a rising sun on the flight deck. He opened the throttle all the way before he touched. It was so smoky, he'd not seen the meatball.

“Mebbe' this crate'll make it home,” he thought. He banked away and headed back. The plane was smoking and sounded like a grain thresher. He finally sighted the right boat, and lowered his wheels.

The Hellcat was pulling to the right. As soon as he set down, it veered toward the superstructure. The arresting hook grabbed, but immediately tore free. A guy standing near the forecastle went ashen and ran inside. The right wingtip hit it. The Hellcat broke in half. Darkness descended upon Spiro.

His next recollection was flying a P38 Lightning, not 10 feet off the water. Another was beside him. It was unbelievably hot. They'd left with five Lightnings. Three'd washed out'n turned back. They'd climb now, get some chilled air, and dive on the Admiral. It was said Pearl was his brainchild.

The Jappers'd rigged fish with wooden fins that broke away when they hit and ran in shallow water. Codes played a bigger role in the 1940s than in any previous conflict. Germany and Japan never knew their codes were compromised.

In war, assassination was a given. Yamamoto was to be the first high-ranking, non-commander-in-chief militarist the US assassinated.

A radio message acknowledging Yamamoto's itinerary was intercepted. The Admiral was going to make an inspection of the front. His Mitsubishi “Betty” Bomber would be escorted by six Zeros. There'd be two Betty Bombers. Both'd have to be destroyed.

The P38s climbed high, got cool enough to stop sweating, and there they were. The Lightnings pounced on the double-engined Bettys. They passed the Zeros like they were standing still.

Spiro intended to “clear his guns.” He was at the wrong angle to shoot anything. He just wanted to know they were operational. When he fired, he saw a bomber engine burst into flame, so he held the trigger down.

Both bombers fell to earth.

In an instant, Spiro was in a foxhole on The Isle of Saipan. There were 29 Codetalkers (first there were 30, but 1 washed out).

They'd contrived a codex of 411 terms in California. It was incomprehensible to anyone who wasn't Navajo. The tongue was unwritten.

The Codetalkers debuted on Guadalcanal. They were in every Pacific Marine Action.

Shells whistled overhead, and began dropping all around. They were being bombarded by one of their own ships! Stop messages were hastily sent but weren't heeded.

The enemy had broken every code, and often sent phony “stop barrage” missives.

Spiro called the ship and asked them to find a Navajo. When they did, Spiro told him to halt the firing. They did. No enemy could've sent that. The vision broke up like satellite TV in a thunderstorm.

When he next became aware, he was centrifugally pinned to the inside fuselage of a B17 in a death roll. An antiaircraft artillery shell had exploded in front of the bomber. Groundbound triple A downed more planes in the war than fighters.

Razor edged shrapnel had pierced the cockpit. The Pilot, Copilot, and Navigator were killed. The Copilot was decapitated.

One of them had engaged the automatic pilot. It maintained altitude, but the plane drifted out of formation. When it was beyond the range of group protection, a Messerschmidt 109 swooped in behind. With the cannon in its prop shaft, it took out the tail, all the engines, and belly gun. Before the flying fortress nosed down, a Focke Wulfe 190 overflew laterally and strafed it. The 50 caliber door gunners and the upper ball turret man were all hit.

He had to get out soon. It would shortly begin spiraling. Escape would be impossible. Everyone was deader'n a doornail but him.

They'd been on their 25^th and final mission. “The limeys gotta' do 30 afore they can go home,” he thought desperately.

He was spared by the fickle finger of fate. He'd been in his bombardier's cubbyhole. He'd barely made it out when it nosed down.

He was on his back, then rolled over and began low crawling for the nearest open gun window. He had to slither by one of the door gunners.

A scarlet bubble formed through the unrecognizable features. Spiro put a hand to his neck, and felt a weak pulse.

Although he knew him well, Spiro would have walked right by him on the street. Spiro grasped the gunner's collar and dragged him. A Kiowa never left a wounded comrade.

At last his fingers curled around the gunport rim. He pulled hard. Him and the gunner were suddenly bathed in sunshine.

The aircraft was descending more rapidly than he. When it was away from them, he pulled the wounded man's ripcord. When the parachute blossomed, he fell away. Maybe The Wermacht would give the woundee medical attention. He popped his chute.

When the parachute deployed, he was jerked up. It was imperative he get away from the bomber. If anything broke free of the leviathan, it would likely impact him.

Ironically, at that millisecond, a piece of the shattered plane broke off. It zoomed past Spiro but ripped a gaping hole in the chute. He free fell to the ground.

He abruptly found himself in a Hughes Boat. It was June sixth of 1944. He was third in line, had a pack strapped to his back, and they were taking small arms fire. He could hear bullets hitting the thin exterior and see dents form but couldn't hear the reports. The light skin couldn't stop a direct shot.

His grandfather was Commanche. The Commanche called Hitler “that crazy white man.” His own people tried to do him in not long before.

Explosions in the sea threw up geysers as eighty eights tried to and occasionally hit boats. Some empty ones were at the beach. The men had been let out too far out. Weighed down, they sank like stones. Them that didn't drown were sitting ducks for sharpshooters.

The roaring motor cut to an idle.

At the rear of the craft, a butter barred officer cocked a sidearm, pointed it at the helmsman, and told him, "You’re taking us all the way to Omaha Beach."

The driver protested, "We'll all be killed!"

The lieutenant replied, "I don't give a damn! You're gonna' take us all the way to France, or I'll guarangotdamtee you won’t see nightfall!"

The engine revved. In a moment, the gate dropped. Spiro watched fascinated as a bullet came through the man in front of him.

It struck his mess kit knocking his breath out and made him lose his balance. He toppled sideways into the water. He slipped his pack off and pushed up from the bottom.

He surfaced to see every last man come forward, get hit, and pitch into the drink. He took cover behind a floating corpse, and pushed it to a steel obstacle called a “hedgehog.” Rounds hammered the far side. He thought he could make it to shallower water. He crouched down and set off. He'd not taken two steps when a great collision took the helmet clean off his head.

In the blink of an eye, Spiro was the first in line on another Hughes Boat skimming across choppy water. He had a wave of deja vu, and confusedly noticed the silence. There was no gunfire. He looked around to see scores of craft headed toward an islet with a single peak jutting from it. He felt queasy and did what they'd been told would settle their stomachs... fastened his gaze on the horizon.

He heard muttering and glanced behind him. Some guys were praying. One of them had tears on his face. Somebody hollered, "On your feet!"

Everyone chambered a rifle round. They beached. The gate went down. He ran onto black sand and huddled behind a large rock. There was no opposing fire. The Japs had learned from Overlord it was useless to contest overwhelming force on the shore. A voice said, "I've already lived longer than I thought I would."

After all the boats unloaded, some flares went up from Suribachi. All hell broke loose... the zips had the beach zeroed in.

“You could hold out a cigarette and light it on the stuff goin' by,” he thought wryly, then asked himself, “Who decided we needed this godforsaken place anyway?”

The Navy could've stood offshore and lobbed in chlorine shells. Not a GI would've been lost. FDR could've said it was retaliatory. It was going to be a bloodbath taking this island conventionally.

Months later the B29 “Bocks Car” returning from Nagasaki made an emergency landing there... out of gas. Some of the brass said the islet might not've been conquered without the Navajo.

On the statue in Washington DC commemorating the flag raising on Iwo Jima, one of the soldiers is Navajo.

At first, Spiro thought he was redreaming the same dream, skimming across choppy water. He saw the same black sand ahead. He looked around, and saw other like craft.

He knew the amphibious transports weren't Hughes Boats. They were LSTs... popularly called large, slow targets. For one thing, the boat was much bigger. He was a tanker. Two humongous gates in front opened like butterfly doors, and he drove a tank out. It had “Beelzebub” painted on it. There wasn't much hostile fire. Most of the nips were inland. In war, enemies have always had names for each other. The Germans called the British “Tommy,” or “Englander.”

The Brits called them “Fritz” or “Jerry.” In the Great War, the English called them “The Bosch” or “The Hun.” The Englanders called the French “Frogs.” The Germans called the French “Vichy.” Everyone called Americans “Yanks.”

Yanks called the Nazis “Krauts,” Italians “Wops” (WOP

was coined on Ellis Island, and was short for “without

papers”), Japanese “Zips” or “Nips,” and Russians “Ivan.”

This was to be the last invasion before the Japans themselves were stormed. It was estimated by one of the ”grim reapers” a million casualties might result in the final assault.

It was suddenly dark as midnight. He could hear a countdown, "nine, eight, seven..." and became aware of a voice near him.

It said, "There were 400 pounds of uranium aboard the sub that docked in Portsmouth month before last... enough for this'n and most of another. With what we had, another device can be built. Documents on the sub showed how to make all 32 switches fire at once. The third gadget will be a plutonium implosion bomb. It’ll make the uranium bomb obsolete. Try not to look right at it."

A brilliantine flash turned the darkness to daylight. Spiro saw the semi-arrid surroundings through green lenses. The shock wave knocked Colonel Doolittle off his feet.

While he was trying to let his eyes adjust, Spiro heard voices again.

Somebody said, "Now we're all sons of beeches!"

Somebody else said, "Now I am become death... the destroyer of worlds."

"Brighter than a star," said someone.

"Brighter than two stars," went another.

"I can't believe it... the fat sum' beech' is buckin' for a promotion!"

It sounded like the same voice he'd first heard. "They say it's like 15 tons of TNT," it added.

The vision dimmed. Spiro was in the engine room of a warship, listening to a recently overhauled diesel. They'd left their classified cargo on Tinian. Nobody'd known what it was.

When asked, the officer in command of those who delivered it and welded the steel trunk it was locked into the foredeck said, "I can't tell you, but it'll shorten this war 24 hours every day you save gettin' it there."

It was lead encased, then placed into the strongbox. It was rumored to be a golden toilet for “Dugout Doug McArthur.” There was a limerick similar to an “Awgo” or “Knock-knock” joke that went:  “Do you know Dugout Doug?”

The answer was, “Yes, I'm one of those who dug Doug out!”

It was a cloudy night. The cruiser wasn't zig-zagging. The Navy neglected to tell them a ship had been torpedoed there the previous day or there was enemy submarine activity thereabouts.

Less than a mile from the vessel, a sub surfaced. The skipper planned to launch two kai tens, the aquatic equivalent of a kamikaze. A kai-ten was a motorized anti-ship mine that could be driven into a target. The driver would probably not survive.

Before they were launched, there was a break in the clouds. The moonlight allowed the skipper to aim. The submarine fired a spread of six torpedoes, then dove. Four missed.

Spiro was knocked off his feet by a blast. He ran out into the corridor. They'd hit a mine, or taken a fish.

The intercom crackled, "Close all watertight doors!"

That might save the ship. Anyone on the wrong side of the doors would drown. He was decked then by another detonation.

He heard the command, "Abandon ship! Repeat: Abandon ship!"

On the way uptop, he passed the signal room. The radioman, named Scott, was exiting.

Spiro asked, "Did you get off a Mayday, Scotty?"

Midshipman Scott replied, "Yeah, two of 'em".

The main deck was awash in confusion. The bow was listing. Many of the men had been asleep and were in their skivvies. Spiro pulled on a Mae West and realized Mister Scott was a few feet away doing the same.

He said, "Darkest mucking gloom I ever saw! Looks like we're gonna' get wet!"

"I don't mind gettin' wet, long as I don't get et'. Cap'n McVeigh says this sea is full o' sharks. I hope Air-Sea Rescue got my mayday!"

They both jumped into the dark.

Two separate Allied Outposts had picked up the distress calls but ignored them. They might be a Nipponese trick.

"There it is,” remarked the surgeon who'd just sliced Spiro's heart open, pointing at an elongated hole between the chambers. A nurse handed him a pair of hemostats with a short needle clamped in them. Biosoluble line had been prelooped through the eye. He began sewing.

Explosions scare marine life away.

The first shark appeared at dawn. By day's end, a mob had come to feed on the floating banquet. The men formed into groups. When the sharks approached, everyone began slapping the water and shouting.

Sometimes, but not always, the beast turned away. When it didn't, the ocean turned red, and the bitten screamed horribly until they were dragged under. A few bobbed back up still shrieking, but only once.

The rest of the group would get away from the victim. The water was of sufficient clarity to see once an attackee was pulled beneath the surface, a horde of the creatures set upon and tore him asunder. If anything was still in the vest, the smaller scavengers got it. The nights were the worst. No one could see them coming... nobody knew anything unless the victim got off a shout.

The man who'd bisected the heart finished closing the PFO and began rejoining the halves. He stopped long enough to allow a nurse to mop the sweat off his forehead.

“Got dam lights are hotter'n hell,” he thought.

The Mae Wests were designed to remain buoyant for 72 hours. Spiro swam to, and got those that floated up if they weren't shredded or those still afloat with an unresponsive man in them. If there was no pulse, he unbuckled the cadaver and took the jacket to someone whose had become waterlogged.

Sometimes, when the dead sank, a pack of sharks feasted on them in full view of the living.

It was on one of the Mae West gathering trips something bumped him hard. Beneath the clear water, he could see a huge shape. There was terrible pain in his foot, redness, then blackness.

Spiro unexpectedly found himself walking down a city street. A ball was being chased by some boys. It bounced against his leg. The boys stopped, and he bent down to get the ball. When he straightened, he saw his reflection in a storefront window. He was Oriental. He tossed the ball to the youngsters, then heard an airplane and looked skyward. A gleaming, silver plane ejected something, then dove. A parachute blossomed from whatever had been expelled, and the aircraft used the speed it gained from the dive to get out of there.

The doctor sewed up the inner dermal layers, then stepped back. The fellow who'd sawed the sternum untied the restrained bones, and took up an instrument resembling a dental drill.

After placing a cloth under the ends of the severed breastbone to catch the chippings, he drilled a hole in each end, removed the shaving laden cloth, and haywired the ends together. By then, the physician with the sewing needle had switched to nonsoluble catgut. He finished the closing.

He said, "Let's get him back."

Once more the defibrillator was wheeled to the cruciform. The paddles were regreased, it set on 250 joules, and one placed on each side of Spiro's breast.

The placer hollered, "Clear!"

Spiro jumped, but nothing else happened.

"Crank it up to 300," ordered someone.

Once more, the placer shouted, "Clear!"

The brightest light Spiro had ever seen emanated from the chute. It disintegrated him, and left his shadow permanently burned into the sidewalk.

Native scientists would later speculate Hiroshima was coated with magnesium dust, and it remotely detonated.

"Give him the max," the fellow who'd commanded the defibrillator amperage cranked up ordered. He looked worried.

When the paddles were placed, he hollered, "Clear!"

The monitor began to beep.

Spiro woke into a world of pain. He went home to mend. He was despondent. Being disabled wasn't a joyous thing anywhere, and America was no exception.

The prisons, and the taxpayers, could save money if prisoners who were to be incarcerated for life without hope of parole were to have a reversible crimp put in their spinal cords, making them synthetic quadriplegics, then condemned to Social Insecurity and Mediscare. Millions of law abiding people were in that very situation.

Everything was harder for the handicapped. Spiro'd always been slow. Anything he did took him twice the time it did someone else... and that was when he was whole.

Now it was three or four times that, for simple tasks. Being infirm slowed a person down. Spiro looked at a lot of TV. He liked animal shows. The laggards always got it first.

The predators spooked the herd. Once the prey were on the move, a straggler was isolated. Maybe it was old, sick, or... crippled.

Spiro was on the lookout for something to believe in. He found a flexible rule of thumb. It could be used to govern practically every aspect of life. It never failed even the most rigorous test.

Like many great codes, it was unwritten. The abbreviated collection herein might be the first attempt ever to record the sacred wisdom he came to know as “The Double Negative Rule”.

The provision was so pliable, it could be used in the present and would function as well as it did a century ago.

It served as a dandy litmus test during predicaments in which one was unsure how to act.

The rule had culinary applications as strict as were the Hebrew Kosher Laws.

First: Don't serve any meal that ain't smoking. (The hotter, the better... the desired temperature would be that of molten lava.)

Second: Don't serve meat that ain't swimmin' in grease.

Next: Don't serve any food that ain't festooned with salt grains.

For crash dieters, there's The Double Negative Diet: Don't eat nothin'.

For those with diarrhea of the mouth: Don't say nothin'.

All of The Commandments could be stated in double negative form:

Thou shalt not kill. Don't kill nothing. (That went for housework, and all animals as well as humans. Washing the green fur off dishes could result in the homicide of innocent amoeba and disrupt some grand cosmic/ecclesiastical arrangement.)

Thou shalt not steal. Don't steal nothing.

Thou shalt not bear false witness. Don't tell no falsehoods (unless they're white lies).

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's spouse. Don't lust after nobody's mate... not verbally anyway. (It was normal to think about it, just don't say it.)

Thou shalt not worship any graven images. Don't idolate nothin'.

Thou shalt not take The Lord's name in vain. Don't use no pious oaths.

Honor thy father and mother. Don't disrespect your parents.

Remember The Sabbath, and keep it holy. Don't do no work on Sunday (except maybe mowing or car repair).

The second most important: Don't never give up.

Finally: A prefix don't entitle you to nothin'.