War in a golf cart

War in a Golf Cart is a collection of four novellas that I wrote in 2014. It is my sincere hope that you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.The first work, War in a Golf Cart, deals with the struggles combat veterans face when they try to come home from their wars. It?s an old story, but I?ve tried to give it a new face by creating fathers and sons from both the Vietnam War era and the more recent Persian Gulf Afghan struggles. Conflict, that subtle little brother and mother to Violence, exists not only in large spaces containing millions of men. It also lives and breathes in the smaller boxes where individuals must learn to co-exist if we are to have a civil and livable society. To me, the finding of that co-existence, the acceptance of the social contracts that bind us all, is the main point of the piece.Breakfast with Senator Wise, the second work, is pure political satire. Our hero, S.W., lives for nothing else than to be our next POTUS. We follow behind him and in him for a two hour stretch as he makes his way over all the bodies, some and no, who stand in his path. Ambition, that most dangerous word in all of the human universe, is his only enduring trait. Like all comedies, Breakfast feeds off of and serves contempt and hostility, foods I believe our current leaders endlessly gorge on whenever confronted by their rivals or constituents.Waiting for a Job, the third piece, appeals to many young people. Jerry, 24, our boomeranged hero, survives slothful and scared and maybe a tiny bit schizo in the basement of his high achieving and socially well adapted parents. The master of negation, inner, outer and somewhere in between, he discovers Beckett while surfing YouTube. The rest, as they say, is His-notmuchofa-story. The first person to read the piece said he thought it was written by a young person, which I took as high praise since I admit to being on the AARP side of 55.The last work, The Struggle for Space, is for me the most difficult. Ugly is always ugly, not a great space to dwell on or in. Our main character, another Jerry, older, wise guy and nastier, is an existential Triple AAA threat: Alcoholic, ambivalent and a certifiable asshole. His world is dark and only gets darker, his Lost Weekend a journey 48 years in the making. No one accustomed to sense and sensibility ever brags about watching a train wreck, but someone must take a peek now and then because Hollywood and wannabee noir writers keep creating them. I let in a tiny ray of light at the end of the collision, but I don?t think I really believe it, and God help and bless all those who struggle with substance abuse problems, especially those who keep trying. It?s a sad, tough story to end my collection with, but everyone who laughs must occasionally cry