Page 6 - The Myth and the Moment

Morning

just to end up here, swirling into the spacetime vortex of my stomach
on this particular hot-as-hell Sunday morning.
“You want a drink? Coke, Pepsi, ice tea.”
“No, thanks.”
“Dollar fifteen.”
Eh? Has it gone up? Coins. Ah, got it all in coins. Payday
tomorrow. Get some napkins to wrap this up, it’s leaking.
“Gracias.”
How do I manage without Spanish? If The End doesn’t come, I
can see myself, writhing on the sidewalk, seized in the throes of
thrombosis. Help, I’ll gasp, clawing at my collar, call the doctors! Get
an ambulance! And looking down upon me will be dark
uncomprehending faces; not unkindly, but fearful of the authorities.
But maybe that’s preferable to dying alone, with Mrs. Fulcrone
banging on the door bitching about death rattles. At least to these
immigrants, a man dying in the streets is not a rupture in the normal
flow of events. But are they nomads, I wonder, like the wandering
tribes of Africa and Asia? We castigate them for not abandoning their
language and culture and hastily Americanizing, as our European
ancestors did. Now why did they need to assimilate, and these Latino
refugees not? Maybe it’s that nomad thing: clump together, trust no
one, breed like rabbits. Or is that just unconscious racism? Surely
some of them came from settled environments suddenly destroyed
by economic collapse or—
Braaap!
Whoo! Close one! Don’t those idiots know they’re supposed to
stop for pedestrians? Law and order in the final days of Rome. If an
earthquake strikes before The End, then the vandals will, indeed, sack
the city. Everybody pulling together in a disaster? Ha! Not here, not
now. Too great a disparity between rich and poor, no sense of civic
pride or responsibility. People isolated in their cars, in their houses,
not knowing their neighbors—probably not even speaking the same
language. What would I do? Blend in with the victims, but not
become one: a neat trick for the old chameleon.
The dog! Holy Christ, he’s put a guard dog in the yard! A
Doberman, for God’s sake! He must have done it last night; yes, I
remember now: keep the damned winos and punks out of the yard.
No more stolen equipment. No more slashed tires. No more graffiti

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