{"id":385,"date":"2024-01-04T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2024-01-04T15:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/?post_type=product&#038;p=385"},"modified":"2025-09-05T13:00:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T18:00:21","slug":"nearing-the-end","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/product\/nearing-the-end","title":{"rendered":"Nearing the End"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>by Ji\u0159\u00ed Klobouk<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<style>\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t#tab_container_384 {\r\n\toverflow:hidden;\r\n\tdisplay:block;\r\n\twidth:100%;\r\n\tborder:0px solid #ddd;\r\n\tmargin-bottom:30px;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_384 .tab-content{\r\n\tpadding:20px;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n\tmargin-top: 0px;\r\n\tbackground-color:#fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tfont-size:16px !important;\r\n\tfont-family: Open Sans !important;\r\n\t\r\n\t\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n\t}\r\n#tab_container_384 .wpsm_nav-tabs {\r\n    border-bottom: 0px solid #ddd;\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_384 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a, #tab_container_384 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a:hover, #tab_container_384 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a:focus {\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tcursor: default;\r\n\tbackground-color: #fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_384 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a {\r\n    margin-right: 0px !important; 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\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n#tab_container_384 .tab-content{\r\noverflow:hidden !important;\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n@media (min-width: 769px) {\r\n\r\n\t#tab_container_384 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li{\r\n\t\tfloat:left !important ;\r\n\t\t\t\tmargin-right:-1px !important;\r\n\t\t\t\t\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_384 .wpsm_nav-tabs{\r\n\t\tfloat:none !important;\r\n\t\tmargin:0px !important;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n\t#tab_container_384 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_384 .wpsm_nav{\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n@media (max-width: 768px) {\r\n\t#tab_container_384 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_384 .wpsm_nav{\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n\t.wpsm_nav-tabs li:before{\r\n\t\tdisplay:none !important;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n\t@media (max-width: 768px) {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t.wpsm_nav-tabs{\r\n\t\t\tmargin-left:0px !important;\r\n\t\t\tmargin-right:0px !important; \r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t\t\t\t#tab_container_384 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li{\r\n\t\t\tfloat:none !important;\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t}\t\t\t\t<\/style>\r\n\t\t\t\t<div id=\"tab_container_384\" >\r\n\t \r\n\t\t\t\t\t<ul class=\"wpsm_nav wpsm_nav-tabs\" role=\"tablist\" id=\"myTab_384\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li role=\"presentation\"  class=\"active\"  onclick=\"do_resize()\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#tabs_desc_384_1\" aria-controls=\"tabs_desc_384_1\" role=\"tab\" data-toggle=\"tab\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span>Overview<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li role=\"presentation\"  onclick=\"do_resize()\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#tabs_desc_384_2\" aria-controls=\"tabs_desc_384_2\" role=\"tab\" data-toggle=\"tab\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span>Excerpt<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/ul>\r\n\r\n\t\t\t\t\t  <!-- Tab panes -->\r\n\t\t\t\t\t  <div class=\"tab-content\" id=\"tab-content_384\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div role=\"tabpanel\" class=\"tab-pane  in active \" id=\"tabs_desc_384_1\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"sm_text\">\"Three days ago, March 23, 2013, I set out writing\u00a0<em>Nearing the End.<\/em>\u00a0I pulled off one paragraph and deleted it. Time wasted, indeed. The book, a collage of my life\u2019s circumstances, is meant for Amaya. After I die, my wife, sitting on the balcony of our 4H apartment, her legs resting on the empty chair opposite, where I used to recline, she\u2019ll turn the pages wondering about this or that. For example, she\u2019ll get to know how my mother Katka wanted more children but my father Franta opposed the idea. How at age nine I broke my right hand balancing on top of a chopped-down poplar tree and slipped. How in 1945 the Nazis were defeated, I discovered jazz, saw the movie\u00a0<em>Rhapsody in Blue<\/em>\u00a0six times and despaired to acquaint myself with Jean Simmons, the teenage goddess from the Dickensian silver screen feature\u00a0<em>Great Expectations<\/em>. Last but not least, I want Amaya to know that when the war ended, the Commies replaced the Nazis in a good half of Europe. Stuff like that foretold that I would end up in New York and meet her (Amaya), and that she would become my wife and I her husband.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><strong><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-381 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Jiri-Klobouk-headshot.jpg\" alt=\"Ji\u0159\u00ed Klobouk headshot\" width=\"200\" height=\"250\" \/>Ji\u0159\u00ed Klobouk <\/strong>writes fiction, radio plays, poetry and essays. He discovered jazz when he was twelve and later began to visualize the world around him through a camera lens\u2014he worked in film and television. He created a body of work in which as one critique noted: \u201cWe could feel the rhythm and see things from unexpected angles.\u201c<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Klobouk\u2019s short stories have appeared in literary periodicals:\u00a0<em>Partisan Review, Chicago Review, Artful Dodge<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>Skidrow Penthouse. For Winter Wolves<\/em>, a story published in\u00a0<em>Mid-American Review<\/em>, he was named outstanding writer in the 1985-86 Pushcart Prize edition.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">His list of books includes:\u00a0<em>My Life with Blondie, Anti-Communist Manifesto<\/em>(1975),\u00a0<em>Mostly Beethoven, Radio Plays I, Radio Plays II, Third Wife, JAZZ II:Parents, Music After Midnight<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>How High the Moon<\/em>.<strong>\r\n<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div role=\"tabpanel\" class=\"tab-pane \" id=\"tabs_desc_384_2\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong><em>SOMETIMES IN TROUBLING MENTAL MOMENTS<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0my inner voice takes over my outer voice with calming and uplifting encouragement. It enhances my good deeds I somehow no longer consider important. The soothing inner voice addresses me directly: you have had a fulfilling life journey, man. You\u2019ve published books (so far mostly overlooked \u2014 sorry, man) but despite setbacks you\u2019ve always believed your future is bright. Someday your yellowing manuscripts will be studied by literary academia and your great-great grandchildren will think you were an awesome scribbler and more. During your lifetime, the inner voice says, you managed to play boogie-woogie on piano like Pete Johnson, escaped from Commie paradise to a country where the Rocky Mountains dominate the horizon, and you\u2019ve been to (mostly with your 2nd wife Evelyn) Machu Picchu, Rio de Janeiro, Ulan Bator \u2014 there she claimed, when you mounted her from behind on a smelly bison skin, that you were the most skillful lover she ever had \u2014 Grand Canyon, Washington DC, cruised the Mediterranean with stops in Naples, Venice, Monaco and Malta. You were blown away with the Palace Istana Nurul Iman in Brunei and then, after Evelyn ended up in a Moroccan lockup and you spent years writing\u00a0<em>My Life with Blondie<\/em>\u00a0at the Sunshine farm up North, won an American immigration lottery, became a green card holder and finally, a U.S. citizen. You\u2019ve resided in New York City ever since, at 172 East End Avenue, New York, apartment 4H, with an enchanting wife (Amaya is your third or fourth, it depends, come on, wrinkly). Here I must shut off my inner voice, and use the outer one to comment that my marital endeavors could be quite confusing for any reader who happens to turn the pages of my personal account about what kind of life I lived before I met Amaya. So here I volunteer to untangle the web with an official list of my spouses as they appeared from present to past:<\/p>\r\n\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li><P><strong><em>Amaya Kaishimawa, Japan<\/em><\/strong><\/P><\/li>\r\n \t<li><P><strong><em>Nordbjorg Bergesen, (scam Skype marriage, annulled), Norway<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\r\n \t<li><P><strong><em>Evelyn Levesque, Quebec, Canada<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\r\n \t<li><P><strong><em>Magda, my first wife (Czech origin)<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">I begin with Magda. We married in 1957, had two children and left Prague for Canada after the 1968 Russian invasion. Our marriage spanned thirty-eight years of empathy and of misery. The last ten years were ghastly. After we split Magda spent three years in a mental institution in British Columbia. When they let her go, she changed her name to O\u2019Malloney, claiming to be Irish, and married an Argentinean she met in a Vancouver Walmart eatery. He claimed to be a dentist and good friend of the son of General Jorge Mindela, who was apparently a lover of Eva Peron before she died in 1952. Once they reached Buenos Aires, the dentist turned out to be a mortician and stripped Magda of her already negligible possessions. He put her on a decayed steamboat to sail away, and as quickly, as possible. Magda returned to Prague and died in 2004. She died alone in her bed in a city she loved. She lost her battle because she neglected to have colonoscopy as advised by her doctor. Maybe she neglected to have the colonoscopy done on purpose, because she was sick and tired of colonoscopies and being alone. I\u2019ll never know exactly. According to our children, who kept contact with her until there was no contact anymore, she wasted from inside the same way a weakened animal in a forest finds a hole and is devoured by worms and ants. I met her the same day I quit my medical studies. That morning, I was sawing open the skull of a deceased person lying stiff on an aluminum table\u2014all 300 pounds of him. Out of nowhere an opening clarinet glissando of Gershwin\u2019s Rhapsody in Blue began to resonate in my head. I dropped the sawing tool on the floor and exited onto the polluted Prague street. I was in a celebratory mood and a wretched one at the same time. I had no place to call home: young man, age 24, no one to talk to, but myself. I had one pair of trousers. One plaid shirt. Two pairs of gray socks. In the back pocket of my trousers I had timeworn photographs of Duke Ellington and the blind Art Tatum. I could hum Tea for Two, but who was the other of the two, I had no clue. To quit my studies was a piece of cake. No regrets. But to stay in Prague was a catch-22 situation. In line with the restrictive rules of the authorities, no individual could reside in the Capital unless that individual has a permanent address in the Capital.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t \r\n\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n <script>\r\n\t\tjQuery(function () {\r\n\t\t\tjQuery('#myTab_384 a:first').tab('show')\r\n\t\t});\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\tjQuery(function(){\r\n\t\t\tvar b=\"fadeIn\";\r\n\t\t\tvar c;\r\n\t\t\tvar a;\r\n\t\t\td(jQuery(\"#myTab_384 a\"),jQuery(\"#tab-content_384\"));function d(e,f,g){\r\n\t\t\t\te.click(function(i){\r\n\t\t\t\t\ti.preventDefault();\r\n\t\t\t\t\tjQuery(this).tab(\"show\");\r\n\t\t\t\t\tvar h=jQuery(this).data(\"easein\");\r\n\t\t\t\t\tif(c){c.removeClass(a);}\r\n\t\t\t\t\tif(h){f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+h);a=h;}\r\n\t\t\t\t\telse{if(g){f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+g);a=g;}else{f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+b);a=b;}}c=f.find(\"div.active\");\r\n\t\t\t\t});\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n\t\t});\r\n\t\t\r\n\r\n\t\tfunction do_resize(){\r\n\r\n\t\t\tvar width=jQuery( '.tab-content .tab-pane iframe' ).width();\r\n\t\t\tvar height=jQuery( '.tab-content .tab-pane iframe' ).height();\r\n\r\n\t\t\tvar toggleSize = true;\r\n\t\t\tjQuery('iframe').animate({\r\n\t\t\t    width: toggleSize ? width : 640,\r\n\t\t\t    height: toggleSize ? height : 360\r\n\t\t\t  }, 250);\r\n\r\n\t\t\t  toggleSize = !toggleSize;\r\n\t\t}\r\n\r\n\r\n\t<\/script>\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Ji\u0159\u00ed Klobouk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":386,"template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[37],"product_tag":[35],"class_list":{"0":"post-385","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-non-fiction","7":"product_tag-jiri-klobouk","9":"first","10":"instock","11":"shipping-taxable","12":"purchasable","13":"product-type-simple"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=385"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=385"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}