Pride Goeth Before A Fall

I nearly hesitate in presenting this short short story by my father. It is very cynical and its cynicism is not assisted by the invocation of God. My father was, for years, a non-practicing Greek Orthodox. He had agreed to allow my mother, a non-practicing Catholic, to raise me as a Catholic. I left for a while and came back to the faith, and remain with it to this day. But he always hovered around religion, and participated on the peripheries with me when I attended my parish activities, even occasionally attending a service so that "I can hear you read." I have been a lector for many years. He met my pastor, similar to him in that both had Greek fathers, who ruled the roost. And my pastor said, "Leave him alone" when it came to any consideration of belief or conversion. And so I did, and went about my business religiously speaking. The only difference between my father and me regarding cynicism, which I share with him in abundance, is that I battled mine inside the faith. He battled his, like the protagonist of this story, outside of it. I will have more comments after you read this gloomy short which was written in the 1990s, as the Enron scandal was in full bloom. What was Enron? It was an energy supplier and it became a trader in the market of commodities. The machinations of the company were originally praised as creative, and I am a market idiot, so I cannot really understand what happened but when the dot come market collapsed, whatever the machinations in accounting for profit and loss, making the company look more profitable than it actually was, until the actual losses could no longer be hidden. Lots of people got charged ultimately for insider trading and fraud and some of them ended up in jail. Lots of people thought this was justice because of the damage likely done to investors who didn't have money to spare. But some people felt that there was an unreasonable inequity in punishing this type of crime so assiduously while coddling those who do physical harm to others in comparison. When I was a prosecutor at the State Bar of California, attorneys who got into these kind of "white collar" transgressions would remonstrate with me in what they considered my ivory tower (though I had worked for people much like them in my early career and was very familiar with the rationales) because "everyone did" what they were often caught in doing. They didn't raise the bigger issues with me as does this prisoner of the short story raise with the minister/probation officer in the exchange of letters. My father was a thinker, not as famous as thinkers of the past or the future, but a thinker he always was. He needed, as so many of us do, proof of absolute justice that will never be found on this earth. And not finding it, like many thinkers, he railed. 

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PRIDE GOETH BEFORE A FALL

The following may be a true story.  I discovered the text folded neatly within the page of a volume I bought at a yard sale.  It consisted of a series of letters between a convict and his parole officer and spiritual advisor.  I thought it a particularly interesting exchange in view of the Enron situation--a morality tale for our times.

Dear Reverend John:

Please forgive the familiarity of the salutation.  After all, your name is John.  I will admit that the use of the word, "dear" may be excessive in view of our mandated association.  Please accept it in your most liberal interpretation of salutations.

On the other hand, you do deserve some deference in view of your interest in my REHABILITATION, my continued education and the invaluable assistance you have given me over the past five years.  I entered this hallowed institution a crass, uneducated, materialistic felon. I am now an erudite criminal, with five more years to go--though perhaps a probation will be called for I continue to hope. I can read with a modicum of comprehension, something beter than the daily stock quotations.

I have just completed two of your more recent contributions, Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, by this guy Dostoevsky.  They are both dismal narrations by a man who was half afraid there might be a God, in the way that Hamleet was restrained by the same phobia.  I did not get the message that crime does not pay. What comes through to me is that there are crimes and there are crimes-the phenomenon of equivalence. When I borrowed a few hundred thousand rubles from my clients, I did not tap some unwary person on the noggin or murder a close relative for his holdings.  I performed an accepted business maneuver--a daily occurrence in the investment field, which simply required, for a short period, sufficient capital to cover an imbalance in accounting.

Think about it.  If the stock had gone up the next day instead of down, I would have been a milionaire and a hero, instead of a patsy for an ambitious district attorney.

Padre, you are taking a chance with my sense of morality and ethics with non-relevant musings by a morose Russian.  The bad guy kills himself not because of his sin against humanity and God but because he cannot even trust the anti-God or the secular satainic ministry either.  His comfortable world was shattered.  If you can't trust God or the Devil, where can you look in this dog eat dog world?

In a revealing passage of Dostoevsky's book, Christ, who has reappeared suddenly on earth is dragged before a Grand Inquisitor.  He is castigaged for his inopportune incarnation.  "Get thee hence," he is told, though not in those words, else, "We will crucify you again."

The Grand Inquisitor likes the world the way it is and needs no God to offer interference, however authentic He may be. He is urged not to meddle in a successful consortium of prelates, and the secular acolytes of a compliant government, a consortium which will abase itself to the blandishment of either.

I am convinced I was better off as a partially educated con man.  The doors you have opened for me are not portals to mercy and goodness, the ultimate surcease promised by some God merchants and withheld by others, soem judges and those who interpret the law as it is dictated to them.  It is an illusion.

In what y fellow inmates refer to as "stir", there is an underground culture of right and wrong.  WE are like a species suddenly discovered in soe subterranean depth that does not respond to the xternal forces of life.  In this Plutonic underworld, we are anomalies with our own rules of existence and death--and especially Justice.

This last is not the traditional blindfolded lady with the pendant scales.  More often, she peers beneatha bandaged eye and permits the scale to tip one way or the other.

With Great Reverence,

Federico Speranza

Dear Federico:

I am saddend by your cynicism.  Your trials are half over.  You are no longer the man who entered those stone pillared gates five years ago.  I see in your letters words that tell me His Light has indeed penetrated your heart. Yes, your sentence was severe. Yes, ore grievous transgressions escape the notice of the law, but this can only be a sign of God's Infinite Wisdom at work.  Shall you rail against the Almighty? Remember how He chastised Job for questioning His unknowable purpose? Patience my son. 

Reverend John Burton

Esteemed Reverend:

"What news, O Pastor of the Damned, you ask?"

Samantha, my wife, has relocated.  She has taken the children to an unknown location.  There were tear stains in her letter.  It is out of love for me and for our three daughters, she said. They will no longer be encumbered with the name of a criminal.

Suggest, dear Reverend, a passage from the God book to palliate my pain.  Tell me about the wisdom of the Eternal Father, and the forgiveness that awaits me when I am dead.

Help me to curb my rage, to repress my curses against the secular and the Divine. I will grow a beard and rend my clothes and rail against the immutable tempest of the cursed maelstrom of life, like that idiot King Lear, "What would he do had he the motive and the cue for passion that I have?" His need was only Pride and the ego disaffections of a madman.

Reverend Father, spare me your parables. There is nothing outside these walls that is preferable to my solitary cell.  Like that legendary king, I had a wife who loved me, three daughters and a kingdom within my grasp.  Now, there is only the abyss.

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Nothing can assuage such pain if we are unwilling. Federico, it could be argued, is looking into an abyss of his own making, even if that conduct was arguably not as bad as that of someone who escaped humanity's imperfect justice. He blames all on God, but denies his own free will. Of course, we are never sure what part of our will is free and what part mere chance--or manipulation.

But as to my father. Some years after he wrote this story, at the age of 85, he called me on the telephone late into the evening, after dinner and no doubt a few glasses of wine, and announced he was going to become a Catholic. My own genetically inherited cynicism was alerted when the only clear utterance of the sudden decision was "It will make it easier for you." I would ever have to speculate what would be easier for me. The burial after he died? He could thus be buried in a Catholic Ceremony and interred in a Catholic Cemetery. But if he did it only for that reason, he could easily have eschewed attending Mass after he was received into the Church. Instead he became a regular Sunday attendee, an usher and a Communicant. And while it was not a Pauline conversion--blinding and of auditory dramatics--it brought him inside, where there is, again I can only say, arguably, as many will disagree, the Grace to look into the abyss, and think, even at the very periphery of mind and soul, that God will indeed make sense out of it all. 

After all, it was my non-practicing Greek Orthodox father, and my non-practicing Catholic mother, who put me on the path of Catholicism. That somehow does not seem to have been any accident. There is a phrase that seems to apply here, "Felix Culpa". Happy fault.

Taj Mahal by Constantine Gochis

 Time for another Constantine Story!!!!

Taj Mahal

She stood, barely taller than the wrought iron fence that shields the elderly from the world they have eschewed.  Others lolled around umbrella shaded tables that fronted the Golden Years Retirement Hotel. Some fed the omnipresent fat pigeons, others dozed under a friendly sun.  There remained only the call that would announce the evening meal.

There was nothing passive about her.  She wore an air that denied capitulation.  A coquettish hat crowned an ermine collared jacket of yesteryear.  She held gloves that could not ever fit over her multi-ringed fingers.  I had the feeling that all her accessories had to match.

"Hello there!" she called out, as I was passing.  "What's your name?"

I approached the fence for a closer look at this little lady dressed to go somewhere.

"My name is Anita," she said extending her hand.  I took it gingerly, lest the slightest pressure on the multi-ringed fingers cause her injury.

"I was a dancer once", she announced. "I danced at the Taj Mahal."

"In Agra, where the Sultan built a temple to his beloved?  How seductive", I said.

"Not that Taj Mahal. Not India. New Jersey, where they had all those casinos, and the great boardwalk."

"You mean ballroom?"

"Yes. I danced professionally with my husband. He left me a year and a half ago."

"He abandoned you for another lady?" I asked impishly.

"No, he died."

Departing the realm is not unexpected in these environs, I thought.

"We danced everywhere, but we were a big hit in the Taj Mahal."

She raised her arms and made a respectable pirouette.

She was wearing very high heels but she came to a graceful fianle and smiled, charmingly and professionally.

"You know," she said, "there is dancing on Melrose Avenue."

I know of no cabarets that feature dancing on Melrose Avenue.

"Really?" I asked, my tone suggesting my doubt.

"Really. It's on Melrose Avenue. Not far. I went there once, but it's no Taj Mahal."

She is right. It is not a cabaret.  It is a senior center. 

A local newspaper advertises dancing from 12 noon to 2 p.m. every Saturday afternoon.  Indeed, not a Taj Mahal.

"Let's go dancing," she said suddenly.

I was surprised.  I did not know how to answer tactfully.

"Will you drive? I do not have a car," I said. I knew full well she could not.

She was clearly disappointed.

"Never mind," I said. "We can return in our imaginations and dream of the Taj Mahals of our glorious yesterdays."

She extended her ringed hand.

I brushed it with a kiss.  

Acceptable Violations

There are currently three requirements in some stores, in no particular order. One is that even if you are 105 and look like you are on death's door, you have to show ID to buy alcohol. This is apparently the solution to having to deal with kids under 21 who seek to buy alcohol. Don't enforce against them or people who sell to them. Simply inconvenience everyone by creating rules that make no sense. The second is "no dogs allowed, unless they are service dogs". I suppose the idea is that your pet should not be around food or other perishables, and that there are people who are allergic to dogs who shop in them. Now, I am a big animal person, so I don't care about that one particularly, but I completely am on board with it because it has clear logic and reasonableness.  The third, of course, is the wearing of masks in order to "flatten the curve" of the Corona Virus. Now, if you are in a plane, right next to someone, crushed in like a proverbial sardine, you CAN take off the mask to have a snack. If you are at a restaurant that has outdoor seating, you must wear the mask while standing at your table, or walking through the restaurant, but you can eat, talk and breathe freely at your table, as long as you are sitting. If you are homeless in Los Angeles, whether or not you actually wear a mask, you can live, eat, and poop on the street while I am passing by fully garbed and in danger of fine and ample shaming. 

Joe Biden, apparently thinking he is already President, opined that "we" should be wearing masks for at least three more months. Is that three months starting now? Or is it three months from the time that Kamala is sworn in? Or three months that becomes forever? 

Well, of course, we can't flatten the curve. We can and probably have (unless you believe the screamers on national media) flattened this one, but they are 80 or so days shy from admitting it, depending on who becomes the President. If Kamajoe is the winner, then it will be over and life will return to its progressive bliss. If the Orangeman wins it will remain with us for the NEXT four years. And anyway, no matter who wins, after all, there are plenty of diseases out there affecting the human race that probably require life long mask wearing, per the folk who "follow the science". 

I digress, as I am wont to do. What got me started today? Well, it is a particularly hot day in Los Angeles, and I had to visit the UPS store for a friend, and thus I had to wear a mask. In fact, a young, trendy woman came in without one, and was immediately given the appropriate remonstration. She had a bandanna with her--a fresh new one she was clearly hoping that she would not be required to don--and she complied, with that air of youthful contempt which is so lovely to behold in the millenials and zoomers. I could barely breath, but it was only for a few minutes. My next stop was the local monster drug and sundry store. As I wended my way through the aisles I saw three customers, masked because otherwise they would be tossed out, with their respective dogs. None had anything indicating that they were service dogs. I got to the counter to pay for my goods, which included, two large cans of beer.

I would have said nothing about the inconsistencies on display in the enforcement of the rules du jour. But then she asked for my identification so that I would be permitted to take those two cans of beer. 

I made my complaint. Why are you allowing people in here with their dogs, but requiring me to wear a mask and to be carded? She has surely heard versions of this lament before, and dutifully gave me a number to call with my fruitless objections. 

Right now, it is approved progressive behavior to have your dogs in stores. They don't feel threatened by any public health consequences. Their politicians are in control. And woe betide any poor store keep who tries to point out that it is a rule. It is also progressive ideology that I don't have to present ID to vote, but at nearly 70 I must present some to buy alcohol.  And it is a matter of panic if I don't wear a mask in a store. It doesn't have to be clean or otherwise useful. A bandanna is useless but approved. I have seen people with shirts pulled up over their faces. Approved. A plastic face mask is not acceptable. 

What really makes me mad, I realize? I lack the courage to violate openly, like so many people, some I agree with, some I do not. 

Dennis Prager, who is making waves against progressive tyranny and thus is being royally attacked in an effort to silence him, has asked the logical question that causes hysteria in the left, "When will it be safe for us to go without masks?"  Well, of course, the answer which no one is willing to give because then people might wake up to the fact that they are being primed for the next great restriction, is "NEVER".  It will never be safe. We can't be safe. We are temporary creatures.We get sick. We die. We die from eating. We die from drinking. We die from everything under the sun and so far, there is no stopping it. We were told it was only temporary, this wearing of masks. We are now in the sixth month. 

So it is not about safety. It never was about safety. Otherwise having a dog in the grocery store would not be allowed. But in the course of brainwashing and remaking modern man who used to be free, it is an acceptable violation. Until it's not. 

The most frightening thing, though, is that soon it will not be an acceptable violation to object to all of these inconsistencies and arbitrary rules. It won't be enough to comply. You will have to enjoy it or be punished. Feel free, say I am wearing a tin foil hat. And pretend past history can't become present history. 

POSTSCRIPTUM, AUGUST 18, 2020

Today, I heard the good news from California's public health spokesperson that the number of deaths and hospitalizations is down 37 percent and that five of six goals have been met but people must continue to wear their masks and avoid congregating. They should also stay home while conserving energy in the current heat wave or go to State approved cooling centers. So, the curve has been flattened? No? It must be eradicated? Wanna bet that masks will remain the order of the day? You know, that "new normal" of the aptly misnamed Open Society? 

Susan Sontag: The Defacer of Books. Good for Her.

As the confinement of coronavirus continues into a fifth month, I have watched a great number of documentaries, the latest NetFlix's two parter on Sinatra. But just before that I watched one about a writer I knew of, but knew little about. She came of age about twenty years before I was born, and she was I probably knew vaguely, an intellectual force of the Counterculture as it developed and matured in the 1950s and 1960s. And, of course, she was a renowed activist. As all good activists do, she wrote about, among other things, sex, camp (not the Boy Scout kind, but rather the joys of things of bad taste and ironic vulgarity), human pain and the evils of the United States. She passed away in 2004 at the age of 71. 

At the program's conclusion, I was glad to have learned of her. I think I would like to read one or two of her essays or non-fiction, but it was clear she and I would be on opposite ends of the political divide, then, and now. Still, I went on line to read a little more about her, in particular, to indulge my curiosity about her relationship with her son, David Reiff, who was born when she was only 19 years old. In her countercultural pursuits she gave up her rights to him, but ultimately they had a relationship, and he was very much present for the difficult death she endured. It was, let's say, as most parent child relationships are, complicated. 

Then I ran across an article, the name of which I no longer remember by a critic or commentator whose name I no longer remember. In passing, the author said that he had learned Sontag underlined the books she read. He opined that this habit suggested the reader was not attentive. But then he absolved her, sort of because he noted that for her, it worked. 

Her intellectualism, thus, as I interpret the comment, was shall we say, marred, by this plebian habit. 

It is the only thing that I have in common with her. Since I am neither famous, nor an activist (unless one can be an activist on behalf of conservative values, but I am guessing that is forbidden), the fact that it works for me to underline the books I possess, is irrelevant. But that little thread of commonality between me and Ms. Sontag, made me like her, a lot. 

I would never underline a First Edition. I think I might have one, given to me by an aunt, and nobody is going to want it, "Gone With the Wind" and it is on the secular index of banned or soon to be banned books. But it wouldn't be the kind of book I'd underline anyway. It is fiction. When it came to disposing of books for a couple of people for whom I cleared out apartments, I found that nobody seemed to want them. I remember going to every bookstore in Los Angeles to try to sell the books, and you were lucky you would get one dollar for a tome purchased for 30 dollars. Even libraries didn't seem to want them. So what harm in underlining before they ended up in a garbage skiff? 

As for me, I underline non-fiction, biographies, philosophy, theology. Notwithstanding the opinion of the Sontag commentator, it makes me a more attentive reader. I make little notes. I know that for one reason or another, I will go back to the passage I found meaningful. Attentive though I am, I have not got a computer memory.

So probably a majority of the books you see in this dining room library have my mark. 

And since most of my books, if not all, will end up in a garbage truck after my demise, why is the habit of marking them an act of lese majeste in the minds of some thinkers, though of course, Ms. Sontag got a pass? 

As for me, since I do sometimes buy used books, I am happy to see markings, a name, some little note. It connects me to the person. I tend to feel about having underlined or notated books that belonged to others as did the writer of one of my favorite books (and it is fiction) and movies, 84 Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff. She said:

“I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages someone long gone has called my attention to.”

It is kind of the feeling that I had when I was in Pompeii, or Jerusalem, where you can see the once used fountain, or once used item of ritual. It is why I like photographs of other people, even strangers. It is this incredible thread between the past and the present and the future, here on earth. 

So Ms. Sontag, you marked your books. Good for you!

There Were Some Good Things in the "Good Old Days"

Yes. I have been watching the First Season of "Marcus Welby, M.D."  I am seeking a psychic vaccine against the ravages of a society tearing itself apart. I suppose, though, even when this show premiered in 1969, we were also going through the ravages of a society tearing itself apart. That was the era of the Vietnam War, of student campus protests, of complaints about the meaning of equality and its implementation. I guess, truth be acknowledged, with human beings there is always a catastrophe to be dealt with, real or imagined. So, Dr. Welby probably provided similar psychological medicine back when it was first run and I was watching it. 

What got me on this, besides the need to hide under my bed covers? That back when Dr. Welby was fictionally practicing medicine, his real life colleages were doing it in much the same way. This was the time when medicine still, though it was fading away, was a personal interaction with no more than one secretary between the doctor and the patient instead of a phalanx of paraprofessionals and administrative staff, and as we experience today in every aspect of life, the "phone tree" which confuses, confounds and frustrates. Today, the first thing on the phone tree of a doctor's office is, "If this is an emergency, hang up and call 911." Not so paranthetically, I am thinking, that phrase has always bothered me, because often when something is going on, I imagine the whole problem is that we are not sure if its an emergency, so that's why we want to call our doctor. Instead, now people stuff the Emergency Rooms with things that aren't real emergencies, but naturally, they just got scared, and they aren't allowed to commune with their doctors to see if they really should go, and clog the Emergency Rooms. Vicious circle. Well, that dovetails into one of the things still done back when Dr. Welby was on the screen and we were living without the level of technology that we have today. The doctor would make house calls. So, you called with a potential emergency, the doctor heard the problem, agreed or disagreed that it was an emergency, and that an ambulance was necessary, and was ready to be present when you arrived at the hospital.

Even in 1969, though, the world of the General Practitioner, the Family Doctor, was starting to phase out. Dr. Welby was fighting against it. But he didn't have a chance. And neither did we. Now, we have the Internist, who usually is a specialist in something, Cardiology, Urology, etc. but pretty much everything sends you off to someone else. I recall when my father was sick, that I got a snarky laugh from Dad's cardiologist/internist when I complained that it seemed that what was going on with his Urologist was unknown to him. That would never have happened with Dr. Welby. And quite frankly, it wouldn't have happened with my old Pediatrician/Family Doctor, who treated everyone in my family when I grew up, Dr. Alan Goldberg.  As late as 1979, when I was a last year student in law school and developed a massive rash and flu like symptoms, Dr. Goldberg came to the apartment my dad and I shared (they had known each other as kids as well) his house call concluding that I had a rather late in life case of the Measles. Once I was diagnosed, Dr. Goldberg, whose avocation was jazz, played a tune on my upright piano. 

Today, in additon to the guards at the desk, and the variety of paraprofessionals who take your most recent history only to have the doctor ask the same questions when he or she arrives on the scene for the most cursory of examinations and conversation, you have a secure link with which to ask your questions about a medical issue or medication. You ask your question. You have to wait for a response, but this means you have to log off and wait till there is a notice on your e mail that you have a message in your link. So you have to go on with your user name and password and read the message, usually from the secretary, which may or may not answer your questions, and then respond. Then go off the link and wait again. Sometimes the waits between communications are brief. Sometimes they are not. So, last week I sent a link note to my doctor that I was running out of my blood pressure medication. I had misjudged what I had left. He responded, it looked like himself and not some one else, because the answer was "Done". I had asked him to send the request to my local pharmacy, long used by me, instead of the mail in pharmacy to which I have become attached with a change of insurance cards. By Monday I was out of the medication. On Tuesday, the 21st, I went to my pharmacy, and they gave me a different medication, one the doctor had recently prescribed (which is a separate tale which remains to be seen) but did not apparently have the one that he and I had "discussed" on the link. I went back on the link and this time got the secretary. She said that it had been ordered and was at the pharmacy on the 19th. Ok. I guess I am the crazy one. I went back on the 23rd, after I got this message. They said they had no such prescription and in fact they were completely out of the medicine that was at issue. I showed them the note from my link, that I had to get on, that this was what I was told. The pharmacist assistant is a lady I have long known and liked as she makes an effort rare in customer service. She apologized. Meanwhile I was sharing the news on my link with the secretary, and that I had a half left (I had broken one in two) and I figured it would be ok, until today, when I was promised the medication. No notification by text that it was ready, today, Saturday. But there was a notification about the other medication, and how to use it, that I probably won't use (another story as I said). So I called the pharmacy and of course got their tree, and a mechanical notification that they were "working" on my medication order.  

Dr. Welby would have delivered it and had a cup of joe with me by now. And provided some bon mots about dealing with a pandemic and a quarantine. 

I happen to like my internist/cardiologist. He is talented. He is well-regarded by patients and fellow doctors. There is no place to go for me to get a better physician in these modern days. But soemthing, among the many somethings, has been lost from days gone by. 

In seeking its utopias, humanity has become less than human and mostly mechanized--just as science fiction writers in the 19th and 20th centuries predicted. 

I miss Doc Goldberg. I miss the image of Dr. Welby, though at least I can content and comfort myself by his kind manner on Amazon Prime. 

Before the Summer of '42 by Constantine Gochis

1930 Ford

Time for a Dad Story, a tiny bit risque, well, not so much in this wild world of ours. . . .It's in the present tense style of Damon Runyon. The part of the story about how he used to drive Model A's down south I can tell you is true. Dad told me. As for the rest, I just don't know for sure. 

Before the Summer of '42

The other day I see this guy polishing a Model A Ford, circa 1930, with loving strokes.  In the parlance of used car dealers, "it is a gold piece."  The finish is factory fresh.  Many of this vintage have been found in cartons hidden away in barns, and still unassembled.  It is the proverbial "find", a legendary car owned by an old lady who only used it once a week to go shopping.

I first hear this story about crated Model A's, and little old ladies when Ronald Potter, Continental George and Ignaz Skinder are shooting the breeze. I am a kid then.

I hanag out at Ronald's parking lot where I pick up a bob or two doing odd jobs.  Continental George is a car dealer, a recent refugee from Germany. Ignaz is an itinerant car mechanic, an aspiring wrestler, and prone to check the cars on the lot to see that they are securely locked.

I develop serious doubts about Ignaz and his probity when I inadvertently hear him being reprimanded by an angry Ronald.

"If'n I see you touch another door handle again, I will tear a piece off'n your ass."

Now Ronald is big and brawny.  He is know to uproot stubborn tree trunks manually.  I hear he is a captain of artillery in the National Guard.  I once express my admiration to Louise, his wife, and she disabuses me somewhat.

"The bum gets the heave ho from the guard when they discover a stolen motor in one of his cars."

Ronald loses a few points in my esteem. I begin to feel a little guilt about the job I do for him.  You see, he sells more parking spaces than his lot will hold.  Later, in the evening, he parks some of the cars on the adjacent streets.  In the morning, as the lot starts to empty, I return the street-parked cars to it.

This is one of the schools of experience I attend as a teenager as I cannot abide the confinement of a regular high school.  Of course, I learn many things I would like to forget, some of which I relate here.

Continental George deals in those Model A Fords.  He buys them in the Bronx where they are a glut, has them driven to South Carolina by indigent teenagers, where he sells them for more than a hundred dollars each.  He buys them for fifteen dollars. When he hears that I just get my driver's license, he offers me the opportunity to drive one of the Model A's to Florence, South Carolina.  He introduces me to another driver who he calls "Chippy". Chippy wears shiny boots, sports an earring on one ear, and has a studded belt around his waist fastened by a large, ornate buckle.  He is to lead our caravan.

George promises five bucks for the trip.  He gives me three in advance and a marker for the balance.  I almost do not go, however.  Louise, Ronald's wife, who is very friendly to me, and beautiful besides, cautions me thusly, "Listen kid, don't get involved with those bums. It's only trouble for a few lousy bucks."

"Ronald says George is a right guy," I say lamely, thinking about the fiver, which is a large sum indeed.  The year before I works seventy-two hours a week delivering orders for a fat Turk who eats raw potatoes, skin and all, and vents his irritation shouting, "bok tam bok" which is Turkish for "worse than shit."

"Ronald is as big a bum as any you can find," she says.  "I lose him as soon as I save enough car far and a few extra bob for a trip back home."

I am indeed surprised.  Louis is as pretty a lady as I ever see.  I do not call her a "doll" as she does not seem to me a frivolous lady.  While I never hear them talking together, except about whether or not the clients pay their tabs,I do not consider this unusual.  Most married people do not seem overly talkative to one another.  I think this is a natural consequence of the married state.  Anyway, when she sees I am determined to dgo, she cautions.

"Stay away from that bum, Chippy, and get the money from that sleaze, Continental George in advance."

Now in retrospect, and as a result of my fine education in the principles of life, I feel a tinge of possible loss.  Louise seems to have been protective, though less than maternal.  We might become good friends, given time.

It was a long and wearisome trip.  I will not dwell on its dullness.

Chippy has all the cars of the caravan sequestered properly, dismisses the other, more seasoned drivers, selects one of the tidier vehicles, looks at me, and says,

"Hop in. Its too early for bedtime. Let's head for a little fun."

I do not know what he means by "fun".  I look at him for further explanation.

"You gotten laid yet?"

I do not answer.  I do not yet reach the age when I surely lie if even I hadn't.

He drives on and cruises until he spots a kid. "Hop on the running board.  Which way the 'ho' houses at?"

The kid directs with unerring expertise.  The unpaved street is line with clone like houses, each with a porch.  These are all lit except that the alternate ones have red lights.  Chippy gives the kid a nickel.

I once hear Humphrey Bogart make reference to the tinny piano in an ornate parlor.  He surely has to have been here.  The piano is indeed tinny.  A very fat woman in a gaudily silkish gown greets us effusively.

"Come on in, boys, lookin' for a date?" Then she looks at me.

"You done bring us a virgin." She then turns toward the stairs and shouts:

"Come on down, girls, we got us a virgin."

The girls amble in to see the "virgin".  They come in various sizes and shapes.  Several approach me as if inspecting an oddity, others tousle my hair. They all smile knowingly.

Chippy and the Madam talk price.  The cost is one dollar for an ordinary visit and two for a glimpse of Paradise.

Even if I am not frightened to death, there is nothing in that room that will cause me to part with one or two of the dollars I have hidden in my shoe.

Chippy decides on his trip to Nirvana.

Continental George completes his transactions.  He sells two Fords for one hundred and fifteen dollars each.  He does well with the others.

I ask him on the way back how the farmers can pay for Fords as surely they go for an excess of their available funds. 

"Vun dollar own and vun dollar a week for four hundred years," he explains.

I do not know what he is talking about but I decide Louise is right. He is indeed a bum.

He never does come up with the two bucks he still owes me. 

From Pandemic Protection to Article of Dehumanization Made Hip

Right now, to complain about wearing a face mask is considered selfish and, as the character played by Patrick McGoohan would have said as the "Prisoner", it is an "unmutual" act. It veers from the haranging narrative that one is doing the responsible thing by wearing it. This, despite the fact, that at the beginning of the appearance of the virus, the preponderance of thought was that a mask was only for those with illness, and not useful for the healthy, despite the fact that old bandanas were and still are considered adequate face coverings, though probably recently on one's dog, and not preventing germs under likely conditions, and despite the fact that people are touching their masks all the time, thus assuring that more germs are, well, germinating. All right, still, being a good citizen, moral in my concern about others, naturally anxiety ridden, and compliant with the voice of authority, however inconsistent, I have tried every version of a face covering in order to be, as I have always been, following the rules.

Anything over my face and nose I find virtually unbearable.  I take a blood thinner that has the side effect of occasionally giving me shortness of breath. And the mask creates a blockage of the fresh air, although I have been promised by the experts that have served us so well, that breathing back in my own exhalation is not in any way dangerous. So when when I would go into a store with appropriate covering, I could only manage a short time, rushing to get my stuff so I could get back into my car and free myself from the constraint. I know I wasn't alone in this. Pretty  much any person I  have spoken to has had the same complaint, but they are keeping silent. Can't be bucking the loudest, most powerful voices. And as to those people who really do have psychological conditions, like claustrophobia, great and lesser, tough. We are not hearing from them. Those people can just stay home, for the rest of their natural lives.

Finally I found a clear plastic type that I could bear and I have been wearing a version of that for about a month. It allows me to be slightly more comfortable for a longer period. It doesn't seem to affect my breathing, except to be a little warm in the area of my mouth. And my face can be seen, my reading glasses don't fog at the supermarket, and I can see clearly enough through the sea of other masks.

As time has gone on, over a quarter of a year now, as I write, the need to wear a mask has been extended. And not just in closed spaces, in the outdoors. In California, one must wear a mask whenever one goes out. A lot of people don't, and I, though I have always seriously questioned the logic of their use, I have worn whatever version I had gotten off of Amazon, quite successfully made afraid, despite my common sense that this wasn't and isn't the solution. I was after all raised by nuns, concerned about doing right, and being charitable to others, and finally afraid of the punishment that comes with failing to follow even arbitrary rules.

I was relatively happy with my plastic face shield. It covers all of my face, including the eyes. I actually sometimes forgot I was wearing it. "I can manage now," I told myself. People saw it and asked, "Where did you get it?" And several got their own.

Most places have accepted it, because the phrase on the makeshift signs say "face covering". And if a bandana or old scarf is enough, well, how could anyone object?

Well, so much for small moments of equilibrium. Today I went into an Italian Restaurant for take out. As I was looking at the menu, the host said I had to wear a mask. I said "This is a mask."  "No," he said, "it has to be cloth." I hadn't read that on any doors before. I objected. He said that it was possible that air borne spittle might somehow come under my chin. Besides he said, it was the law. He showed me a lengthy posting on the window outside. And sure enough, it said, that patrons had to wear a cloth mask.  This was additionally distressing, or confusing, or both because many people wear the disposable several layered paper ones. They are not cloth. But they are apparently still acceptable while my thick plastic face shield was not. The rules, they are abounding exponentially.

Now, we are hearing and reading that wearing a mask might become the "new normal". The conditions under which this will happen are not entirely clear, but they are listed as until there are fewer postives (though being positive isn't the proper measure, it is the one currently hawked with deep serious tones), no positives, a vaccine, or "we are not quite sure." The latter reason is because they, the experts, haven't got a clue. That's hard enough to hear.

Besides, this very day, our Governor Newsom closed again all the bars that had opened, and all in dining, and a variety of other things, like beaches. The view of our leader is that it must be these places that are causing an uptick in positives, though what that actually means in terms of safety is still unclear. And though this uptick is about 14 days after all those protests that occurred like, in all the neighborhoods around here, we are required to accept that the uptick had NOTHING to do with it. No, it is the bars that opened like five days ago.

I am going back to a couple of bandanas that I started out wearing. Of all the proper cloth masks those are the only ones that I can tolerate for, if I am lucky, up to an hour. And I will be seeing my doctor for a check up related to the heart stent that was placed in October. I will have to discuss the additional effect on my breathing related to the cloth masks.

It is kind of looking like masks are the future, forever. After all, when this particular pandemic is done, probably on November 3, if the right person wins the Presidency, there will be new viruses requiring the crippling of the society and to terrorize the populace. In fact, I recently read that another is currently percolating in. . . .dare I say it, China.

The commercials, on television, on Facebook, everywhere are now proclaiming one after another the fashion of mask wearing. There are designs abundant out there, cute little things, like animal faces, or political statements, colors and patterns of all kinds. Wearing a mask is the cool thing to do in the quest to conquer illness and death. Just watching these brainwash exercises makes me profoundly depressed.

What should have been short-term protection is now mainstream. A mainstream mandate.

When I see a group of people wearing the cloth masks, as most people still do,  and to which I must return, covering a significant part of their humanity, I find myself feeling, well, depressed, yes, but also as if I am in some science fiction movie that usually doesn't end well. It removes any semblance of humanity. It makes us facially anonymous. It makes us substantially anonymous. It is a branding.

It began as voluntary, and as all things that are said to be voluntary by anyone in government, it becomes a requirement with punishment for the failure to comply. Right now that punishment is secured by the media shaming not only those who fail to comply, but those who, though complying, are fighting the extensions into forever.

You are never going to make me content about having to wear a mask in most environments indoors, if not outdoors, by showing me commercials of young people jumping joyfully with their pets in the park or telling me how we are all in it together. We are not. A few are in it together. The "it" is the dehumanization of the rest of us so that we can be led, controlled and contained. Why? Because that is what human beings do to one another. The United States (and England, and Australia) were once bastions against such things, but they have been transformed and absorbed by the pawns of the devil himself.

Since we know that germs will exist after this pandemic, then really, using the logic of our government officials, there can never be a time, when we are free of restriction. And that's just how someone or a group of someones' clinking glasses and laughing at the rest of us, like it.

The Funkiest, Most Fashionable Face Masks, Ranked

https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/05/face-masks-coronavirus-fashion-ranked.html

But you will be fashionable in your imprisonment.

P.S. You know what many people do when they think no one is looking? They put that little cloth mask under their noses, so they can breathe. Others carry them in their hands when they are outside.  I even saw a police officer yesterday on a call with her mask below her chin. Today, I was doing my laundry in my building. I was alone but I had my cloth mask with me and when I heard people coming down the stairs, I put it on, assiduously. But two of my neighbors weren't wearing masks. They didn't even have one on them.  We couldn't pass within six feet of one another, cause it is a narrow hallway. Oh, well. I am not upset at them. I truly understand. I know some of you are probably shaking your head at their selfishness at wanting to move around their own apartment building without a mask.

I am doing what I am told. I better get used to it, just like when I was a kid, as more and more rules are implemented and enforced. But right now, I hope it's ok if I object. I know that soon that will change too.Then our health, body, mind and soul, will really be in trouble. Heck, we are already in trouble.