Sometimes I ask myself why God does not send down lightning from the sky to
smite this place-- or better yet, "to finish it off" with
plague-- our misbegotten
wheeze of a strangled, underfed turkey you call a city flapping its wings,
waiting for the axe to fall like "Sodom on the flood-plains". As darkness presses in from all sides, the
political factions
warm their hands by the fire, fueled by the spoils of the dwindling tax base and
the unbroken cherry of revitalization schemes as they growl like
politically-correct squatters over a can of pork n' beans. It's a ritual of
spineless acquiescence and blusterly Afro-centric chest-beating and gay
slithering where ultimately the rich shove everyone aside and take "the
lion's share" while playing the game of rhetoric where people walk away
"ripped-off" but not quite offended enough to march. County residents look at all
this subdued madness and figure, "leave the rats to St. Louis. . . . ."
as those who stay pick through tin cans like the worst of trashy Catholic-descended vermin
giggling shrilly in the bars like harlots with the undercurrent of rot, denial,
and guilt.
Surely there should be some "middle-ground" between doctrinal heaviness
and "swinging sin" that reveled in piss, shit, and dead-eyed sleaze,
but it was getting harder to find. . . . .
It all started in 1876 when the city decided to divorce itself from the
county, figuring that it could save itself money and upkeep from "this tax drag that
would never amount to anything". Now the tables have been turned, and the
city comes to the county "hat-in-hand" like its sleazy whore of
a sister. The county residents, known for their tight-fisted circumspect
tendencies, take one
look at the flaky idealists scampering around like "The Marx Brothers" trying
to mollify everybody, and then they look at that yawning money pit of dubiety
where nothing really "quite adds up" as folks with a cloud of
unreliability slink around, then they glance over
at their so-called "black brother" mumbling down at the
police line-up with a red doo-rag on his head who holds up a sign with the date
of his arrest for drug-dealing and murder, and then you had the lectern of
hemming and hawing flute-snoot professors in tweed coats trying to explain away
what you see right before their very eyes, refusing to address the issue head on
as "the intelligensia" cleared their throat and sipped from the water glass of pedantic
social science, and the county residents pass you on a bill of "no sale".
For they are not stupid. . . . .
So the stalemate exists, and remember that money does not grow on trees. Life is hard-bitten, and the dispensation of wealth does not come from some fruity nabob sitting on a pillow being fanned by servants and clapping his hands, deciding to reward largess to corrupt vanity projects that will never go anywhere as the obsequious smile toothy grins like mules. Other then by magic or otherwise special exception, water does not flow uphill. . . . .
There you had the liberals, lamenting the sad, slow course of the universe like teenagers looking resentfully over their shoulders at "the golden opportunity that got away" with "if only" thinking that ignores the sterner concerns. When county residents are hardened and cynical, and point out that there will be "no accountability" with the greasiness of city politics and the refusal to deal with "the social problems" in any meaningful way, the left decries "racist attitudes". Yet you don't see them living in the ghetto with a sign on the window that says "crawl in and steal my t.v.". and even they show a modicum of sanity away from lethal "blind faith".
The whole prospect of the
Central West End's revitalization effort was piece-meal and disorganized, and therefore bungling
and futile as black bag ladies waddled on by with smirking,
dishonest expressions. Across a boulevard of landscaped trees and brick
paving, upon which squeegee men dropped their drawers to take a shit on
occasion, a bus depot where BiState kept its fleet of vehicles for
"the disadvantaged" dawg-facing out the window. Loud-mouthed black ladies
built like snorting Mach trucks-- mean as pitbulls-- hollered at you for your
unfamiliarity with the "pull-wire" that signaled at her to "stop".
Your sense of common decency was, but for want of a Driver's License, jangled.
Once, as a 14 year-old trying to be a sprightly young liberal doing his part to keep the dream of the region alive, I was about to walk my environmentally-friendly bicycle across the corner at a light when a bus turned at the intersection, banked close to the curb like a leering Moby Dick, and flattened my bike without remorse.
But the system could do nothing for you, the "Magic 108" radio tower looming into the sky like a hunk of rusted technology as black D.J's in black-hooded sweatshirts hunched over the console and scratched modern R&B records, one big-booty shakin' party where your 'cred was a pager filled with girlies' numbers and the occasional street fight outside of a club to maintain honor. Infrastructure had already been built by white people. . . . . and this was all about co-option and decay as the D.J. knocked back mint-flavored "pimp juice" like "a playa" with petty "get-rich-quick" niche business that did nothing for our "hamburger-stand" economy and values that only existed on paper, but fell with a terrible shudder like "a house of cards" as investors took off like seals "splorching" away from a breaking ice shelf, taking down some to their financial oblivion.
"WICKA, WICKA, WICKA!"
The team
van zipped along with the coach's distracted orienteering, past the stone granite
face of the St. Louis History Museum-- a mausoleum of relics from the 1904
World's Fair-- which almost seemed to pass judgment on the frivolity n'
decadence of the
current age
that defiled the memory of our fabled days of Anglo-Saxon grandeur. We headed
toward the ball fields for baseball practice, and could see the tall buildings rising far away above
the curvature of the earth with the stillness of objects glimpsed at great
distances. It judges us, compares us, to other athletes-- movie stars--
titans of industry-- WORTHWHILE FOLK-- from long ago. Dinner jackets, alma
maters, fad sports. Young runners carrying torches for some herky-jerky newsreel
Olympics flickering on a projection screen. You wondered, if in this obscene age of sugar-free raspberry
Fig Newtons
and 35 varieties of performance-enhancing Gatorade that all miraculously
tasted like cooked battery acid, in the era of "Be Like Mike" ads and ghetto-fied
Bugs Bunny "keepin' it real" and the Nike "Swoosh" logo if you were somehow defiling the great gods of
tradition. Unbury a reeking crypt, and the foul smell would be the verdict, the
breath of rotting heritage pointing a bony finger, jaw wrenched open with the
silence of the dead and the yawning cavern of emptiness in your heart, a
softball-size lump in your throat where one's faith used to be.
Like that poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade", our small, liberal alternative arts school was utterly wiped out by county schools with a larger pool of players. Their teams members were-- on average-- 5' 6", well-scrubbed, and milk-fed like the end result of some kind of Henry Ford eugenics program. They regarded us with supreme indifference, like robots. Or like slime in a petri dish about to swallow up weaker slime. Whatever the romance of the underdog, media propped-up sentiment is a rather feeble lever with which to overturn the immutable laws of the universe. . . . .
But despite this, the city had its annual Balloon Race. . . . . a civic event
drawing locals to beautiful Forest Park where roller-bladers in
emotionless wrap-around sunglasses are occasionally pulled down like "white prey".
But the undifferentiated mass prevents that from happening on this day, as
hangdog city boosters hand you a hot dog
"Gimme a dollar" both booster and bum entreat with rotten relish breath-- salvaged from the trash can of this town-- but you know where it's going. . . . . unless you're a liberal, which is a conservative who doesn't know he's been "ripped off" yet and remains. Still they come to the Balloon Race, those who choose to show civic spirit among the hordes of the liberal, socialistic, well-to-do "true believers". Either those who refuse to see it that way out of flitting ideological stubbornness, or those who were born temperamentally bland and can't feel anger. . . . . the blurry, scummed-over filters through which they see the world. Usually, the wife "wears the pants" in this family as the husband relinquishes his manhood in a box of jingling Chinese relaxation balls that sit in his wife's bezerkedly opinionated hand. The only thing that is being massaged is his lack of ego, "going along" because he's afraid of what others will think of him as a good Democrat.
By this time, I had the good sense to stay away from the balloon race. But one occasionally goes outside to watch them floating high in the sky, sailing past in the wind like a childhood memory of the cradle and teddy bear and feeding time.
One year, a balloon loomed closer to the ground. . . . . swelling through the
trees, huge, practically right in my neighborhood. I went up the adjacent street
in University City, the streets and houses curling off like a gingerbread road
in a storybook, to see what would happen.
And there it was. . . . . suspended above a house with spurts of dying gas and struggling not to crash. The whole neighborhood came out to see, the well-to-do human material of pottery classes and ballet lessons and juice makers and wind chimes and world harmony. Yes, "New Left" couples talking about "balance"-- loose screws in the first place who sympathized more with the Vietnamese than they did with America. They could give their reasons-- physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual-- but probably otherwise wouldn't survive outside of their "blue-state confine".
The men in the balloon were not necessarily made of better material-- the bitchy stuff of "Evian bottled water" and yuppie health that lived no where else but" completely in the moment" as they tossed down ropes to event assistants who preened into their cell-phones self-interestedly, with no sense of humor or irony-- wrapped up in the excitement of the moment and not this curious, strangely wonderful sight. What made it even more wonderful was the cute teenage girl I saw fluffing her hair I noticed out of the corner of my eye, coming out in her sandals with her painted toenails to see what all the commotion was about in the street.
It's the small things in life that get us through. . . . .
Which reminds of the time when a friend alerted me to something in the
paper--
There was a man who looked like my ultimate impression of a writer-- a stubby, lisping fellow with a neat goatee and glasses dressed neatly in a button-down shirt and slacks who paced around nervously before the meeting started, the small-time huckster who called up this gathering with the real intention of pitching his seminar of "How to Overcome Writer's Block". He was the small-time stuff of desktop publishing, featuring pictures of 1920's movie marquees and old-time Broadway personages tap-dancing with a hat and a cane about two cuts below Liza Minelli worship. As it turned out, he was the only one in the group who had published anything. "Names I Have Given to My Cat" he ushered forth with an uncomfortable grin as he uttered the fact heavily with the breath of neurotic gay energy and it was then that I knew this meeting was fucked.
People sat around and gave their horror stories of the industry like coughing chronics in bathrobes, even as we sat in this bookstore of splendor that seemed to promise easy things with the "hop, skip, and jump" of instant consumption. The contrast was depressing, the very illusion of comfort & ease mocking us-- how books looked so good on shelves-- but after a couple of days following your purchase, took on the drab look of common affairs which definitely did not gleam with the mystique of leather chairs, hard-wood tables, and gold (-- actually, brass) trim.
Another time, I had the half-assed intention of passing on my work to T. Coraghessan Boyle with the hope of "showing off" and "getting discovered". . . . . like Ace Frehly of Kiss offering to produce Guns n' Roses' first album. A book signing for his latest work was at "Left Bank Books", named after the French quarter where the Paris communards-- writers, artists, and intellectuals-- were pathetically bayoneted to shreds after the 1871 Franco-Prussian war when they declared an anarchist, free-love, humanist-oriented state. And who shopped here, but "New Left" bourgeois bohemian types-- spongy, ugly, European-descended, splotchy-faced humanity with glum faces and baggy eyes who passed off their liberal humanism as a milquetoast outlook flitting with pornographic intrigue in the name of "sophistication" with a goosed Virginia Woolf expression because their lives were so miserable. In this terrible shit-hole world of ours there was no God-- just the electric triad of modern entertainment found in film, rock n' roll, and semi-hip literature. In any case, it was a leporous, primordial soup of ineptitude that wasn't going anywhere as T.C. Boyle gave a talk and signed his book, quirky and weird like an insectoid praying mantis of blind instinctual sifting and laying up ironic set-asides in langorous self-indulgence that no one seemed to hear except for himself. It was that kind of breed of secular-humanism which turns inward and eats itself inside out. Magical dreams don't happen in this world and needless to say, he never responded.
At least that was a whole sight better than my mother had managed. She was "too nice", you see. And had rented out our old house to a bunch of animal-like tenants, though presentable in person, lived like "The Hells Angels". It was the seedy world of alcoholics, and St. Louis Blues hockey, and cheap rumpled suits laying in a rum-soaked pile, and vomit out in the parking lot of "The Casino Queen" gambling boat moored to the sloshing riverbank, and hiring fly-by-night lawyers threatening to counter-sue until the drunken client was too unreliable and sociopathic even to pay the lawyer. An empty story. A purposeless story. A St. Louis story.
Abortion mills, drive-by-shootings, the heaviness of the Catholic church looming above-- never exactly denying the story about how "The Exorcist" was based on a local incident at Alextion Brothers hospital like evil spirits rising from the region, a charnel house. And there we are-- bundled off into the night-- shouting like hoop-earinged Gypsies. . . . .
HOME SWEET HOME!!!!!
*******************
"You want a-nuther song? Well I ain't plain' one mutherfuckin' note until someone comes up here and puts sum money in my god-damned tip-jar! You know I only came here for one purpose. . . . . to take yor fuckin' cash! Why, I could make more profit puttin' out my meth-head neighbor's asshole and ringin' a bell, hollerin' 'Man for sale! Man for sale!'
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(Rheeee of Crickets)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
("I heard that, Missy!")
© 2009 by Insufferable Industries
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