Hello, all. It’s been something like 16 tumultuous months since I first checked in? I’m sure we’ve all been busy living life towards the infinity at play.
I was able to escape the guillotine of the gas station. It didn’t take my head, but it did take the last of my prejudices. You learn to hate everyone equally in a shit job.
Now? Instead of vices, it’s steaks, chops and fish, with the same bitch in a different outfit. Substitute the old ladies and their numbers for suburban housewives and holiday hams.
The old ladies only had money to lose and time to kill, these housewives have their last shred of dignity on the line. They gotta please The Hubby or else they’ll have to swallow at his demand.
And instead of being broke, they get riled up over having to wait in line or if the wind is whipping. The lack of convenience or the seasonal weather dictates the satisfaction of one single day.
But these are still humans – regardless of their bastardization of the term. Some of them were born losers, some of them had to work for it, some quit while they were ahead, most see no end in sight and the rest gave up early in the quarter.
Their eyes tell amazing stories. The heavy bags – always looking tired, even stoned. The pupils, dilated from the heavy years of working odd jobs, caring for the kids, reaching for vitality in their relationships both personal and professional. The girth of the spirit is lost on nobody but them.
That spirit needed in order to mount a cognitive aggression against the moral evil is lost on the worry of some external force prohibiting Junior and Jessica to walk that line.
With all of that going on, it’s easy to see why things have gotten so out of mind.
Freedom takes a back seat when survival and security become the necessities for scratching out a meager living. Fuck evolution, Junior and Jessica have to eat! We have to build this wall to keep the goddamn riot out!
Well, eventually Junior and Jessica and the rest of the Joad family will have to wake up to the reality that we’ve all been had. Every-fucking-person with thinking material knows we’ve been had. Junior told Jessica about it first.
But Ma and Pa are still hanging on to the good years. I try hinting at this reality when Ma and Pa come into the store. They’re good people, decent people, lost people.
Their eyes aren’t as heavy and they still have a dime’s worth of pep, but something in each expression was cursed to float around the never-ending line of meat and seafood, looking for the one miracle to fill their guts with a future they can touch.
They stare at the food like a soldier stares into the abyss, always waiting for God to show the way. And yet it is still up to that very embodiment of American individualism to propel the ‘community’ to at least give a shit. It’s only worth gearing for.
You can only gear up for the upcoming shit storm – the result of the world’s population, having read the ninth chapter of our history. We’re all on the last life and wondering “What the Fuck happened?” “How the Fuck did we get here?” And “What the Fuck do we do now?”
But when the mob says the sun rises in the South, it’s hard to convince a few bystanders otherwise. All the fingers never point towards the answer.
Admittedly, there is that radical part of my brain which finds entertainment in the thought of the world blowing up as I watch at ease as the ants scurry for the charade they bought into.
Empathy says it’ll be a scene of doom. But I doubt the hordes will agree. For those with nothing to live for, it’ll be the time of their lives.
Hell, it’ll even be the time I’ve been waiting for. A little action. A little madness. A little Fun.
That scene may not occur for another decade, sad to say. Until then, it’ll be waiting for Ma and Pa’s choice of what to feed Junior and Jessica while I stand in the daze of a hangover, hoping they finally get it right.
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