Page 4 - The Myth and the Moment

Morning

Ah, a decision! Shall I wear the week-day workaday T-shirt
emblazoned ‘Hodges Pool Service’ or shall I follow the dictates of
conscience and don something more appropriate to the Christian
Sabbath? Wait a minute—if I wear the company uniform and get it
dirty, I won’t be able to show up in it tomorrow; the boss will
certainly be less than pleased by such a display of disloyalty on
payday. So, what else have I got here in Cockroach Cupboards? The
old powder-blue polo shirt with an embroidered anchor where a
pocket might be more useful: yes, that makes a fashion statement.
The retired stockbroker with a string of polo ponies venturing forth
from his yacht in the Marina to scrape algae off the walls of a fellow
robber-baron’s swimming pool.
But don’t go down that road of broken boulders and gaping
potholes, Comrade Natesky; the contradictions of capitalism hold no
more fascination than the simplifications of socialism. The fat cats on
both sides have been skimming off the cream of the profits of war
for a hell of a long time: why, why, why can’t they see that it’s all over
now? You’d think the ones with the most to lose would be the first
to figure out ways to keep as much as they could. But they’re out
there with the rest of the taxpayers, huddled under a non-existent
umbrella waiting for the storm. Ho! Talk about non-existent: didn’t I
have a pair of clean socks in here? No matter. My hands are dirty, but
my feet are clean. Anything to put off the day of reckoning at the
laundromat.
There! Now for a bit of self-mockery before the mirror. Do I pass
the existentialist dress code? Is it possible to care about not-caring? If
I’m not what I appear to be, am I in disguise? Too tidy or too trendy
or too tight-fitting? Wonder how monks feel, every day reaching for
that same old habit. Well, at least this mirror can’t lie; can’t say
anything at all, in fact, since where it isn’t opaque is where it’s
cracked. Eyes aren’t the mirror of the soul; clothes are. So what do
blind people wear? And what do they make of The Emperor’s New
Clothes?
Well, at least I can justify working today on exalted moral grounds,
not just greed. More pool-cleaning equals more money equals greater
certainty of successfully seeding the desert with The Myth and the
Moment. Ah, all these tiny gears of personal economy meshing with
the grand clockworks of multi-national military finance! But organism

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