Roger Wright – Chicago

Lester “The Lip” Lapczynski nursing a ginger ale in the air conditioned blast at the dark end of a Chicago Loop bar. Ninety five degrees on the second of September. Late afternoon. Downtown emptying out for the Labor Day Weekend. Lester in the red plaid jacket. Bad combover. Cheap black framed glasses.

Lester was always home at the bar. And I had a Labor Day question. So I stopped by because they had closed the cubicles up early.

Lester?

Shut up Roger.

But I haven’t . . .

Yea I know. You haven’t. So I will. I’ll put the question out there. Besides. Shut up is a good way to start with a guy like you. Kinda guy who thinks he knows stuff.

Lester, if I knew stuff. . .would I have been. . . .

Yeah, well. I know why you’re here. You’re here to ask about unions. Ain’t you? You’re here to ask me if they’re dying, right?

Well yeah.

You’re here to ask me if their time has come.

Well as a matter of fact. . .

Don’t tell me facts Roger. Because that question ain’t got squat to do with facts.

Lester how can you say that? It’s a fact that union membership is going down big time. It’s a fact that unions have been known to be run by crooks. Crooks, Lester. Crooks!

Roger. Have a not taught you nothing? You pissant. You call yourself “Chicago Guy” and put the picture of Algren up there on the top of this page. You are a child. You don’t see it do you?

Lester, what I see is that up in Wisconsin, all over the country, there are people trying to bust unions!

Wisconsin government? You mean ‘The Student Council?’ Roger, that’s an easy one. Even for you. Think Roger. Think about bullies. Plain old garden variety cheap, flat and empty bullies. Of course the bullies in Wisconsin are trying to bust the union. Any moron could see that. That’s easy. But I’d expect you to dig a bit deeper Roger. Now think. Ain’t there more to figuring out unions in 2011 than calling out bullies?

Well, I know that a lot of the people who run unions are crooks. They don’t care about the workers. They just care about the cream they can skim off the top. Is that what you mean?

Nice news flash ace. People who run unions can be scum. Keep that kind of deep thinking up and maybe somebody will actually hire you for real money to write something. No, that ain’t it.

Ok, then look at the fight going on with the teachers union here in Chicago. They’re saying the Mayor is trying to bust the union. And the mayor is saying “I’m embarrassed that Chicago has the shortest school day of any big city in America.” Both sides are saying ‘This is about the kids’ and. . .

Whoa. Easy, Urban Cowboy. This is about the KIDS? Did I just hear you say, ‘This is about the KIDS?’ You are fucking kidding me. This is NEVER about the kids. Ever. That kind of line is ALWAYS code,

Well what’s it about then?

It’s simple Roger. It’s about power. Just power. Of course there are scumbags running unions. There are scumbags running churches and countries and companies and even charities. Now, let me pause there for a minute to let you take that in. I know you can be a little slow sometimes.

OK Lester. I got it. Scumbags everywhere.

So here’s the point. Oh wait. Before I tell you again. What was it you used to do where you made all that money?

Male model?

Don’t be cute Roger. I’m trying to teach you something. Oh yeah. Teach. You used to teach bosses how to be better bosses. Now, how’s that working out? Anybody paying for that these days?

Lester, you already know no one pays for that anymore.

Of course I know. That train left the station about three years ago. A person can do that kind of teaching indirectly. Maybe you can do it well. I heard you were usually pretty good at it. Accept for that time at the church when it didn’t work out.

Lester, lets not talk about where it didn’t work. That will get us off track. That’s a whole other story in itself. The point is that no one really helps or teaches bosses to be better bosses. No one really teaches leaders to lead. The world is full of people called bosses. And lots of them just aren’t very good at being bosses. And the people above those front line bosses–they just don’t care.

Hah! Now you’re getting it. Now you’re close. So I’ll push you on to the finish line and tell you the answer.

The answer is this Roger. People will always need unions. Always. Even when the unions are a big fat collection of pigs at a trough just like the management they go head to head with. You know why Roger?

Why?

Because there will always be a need to protect the vulnerable. Protect them from bosses who don’t know HOW to be bosses. OR—and this is even tougher–protect them from larger forces, or bigger bosses, that just don’t CARE. Folks who LIVE to step on the little guy.

So unions will never die. Because we will always need someone to protect the vulnerable? That’s what you’re telling me Lester?

Always. Always. Always. And if the union doesn’t do that then fix the fucking union. Or find some other way to fill the need of protecting the vulnerable. Fix it Roger. Don’t kill it. Fix it.

But what if. . . .

There are million what if’s Roger. A billion. And it all comes down to this. Somebody has got to look out for the little guy. Because if no one does that? We’re all done. It’s over. So you hear me Roger?

I hear you Lester.

OK, if you hear me.. . .then what am I saying?

You’re saying Happy Labor Day.

Damn straight.

They were three. The father pushing the silver Cadillac wheelchair. Swerving, gliding along Chicago’s Michigan Avenue on a hot August day. The father’s eyes with an intensity that could grab summer by the throat and make it shake if summer got in the way of caring for his son.

The boy in the chair like a rag doll. Slipping to the side, his father reaches over to right the boy, tries to make him comfortable. The boys eyes are blank.

The mother off a bit to the side in giant sunglasses. As if to separate herself at least for this one moment. Her mouth a grim straight line. The father focusing on the task at hand. The boy flailing as he rode.

There was a Michigan Avenue hotel they had likely come from. Paying the big vacation money. Let the boy see Chicago. We can take a vacation too. The three cross Randolph Street and roll into Millennium Park. Where in the middle of 8 million people there might be the chance for a person—or for these three—to find a quiet, shady spot that felt as if they were almost alone.

Andthe office worker watching sends out a prayer for landscape architects, for old Mayor Daley the son, for all those who laid the sod and planted the trees. This little oasis they planned and built. These very flowers, splashes of quiet colors can give these three just a moment. For the father to bring out the gallon-sized clear zip lock bag crammed with prescription bottles, tubes, ointments and potions, all of them packed to make it through airport security, and to do what the father is about to do.

The mother stands to the side. Almost to disassociate herself, almost to say, “No I am not with them,” but there is a shred of her soul showing – she’s using it to stand guard over her men.

The boy’s head slips to the side. The father rights him. The father starts preparing the feeding bar and tube. He pours, mixes, shakes. Shoots the liquid through the tube and it arcs out on to a tiny patch of green grass. The father preparing lunch for his child. Every move practiced. Deliberate. As if he’s always done this. Always will. And will never, ever ever stop paying attention to make sure he gets it right. Because this is who he is. This is what he does. He takes care of his son.

The boy sits squirming in his chair, while his father performs a lengthy, complex procedure barely imaginable to any random soul who might be part of their quiet corner. And the boy is being fed.

The three pause or a moment. Take a breath. Perhaps buried deep in the grim-faced mother’s heart is the thought that it’s his turn, the father. Maybe she thinks, this is not what I signed up for, I did not know. I never could have guessed. And if I want a little distance on the big trip to Chicago…who are you or anybody else to judge me? I love my son. I do love my son.

The father watches the girls in their summer dresses breeze by and maybe he remembers a time when everything was different.

Maybe the boy in the wheelchair hears a faraway whisper of a guitar, that plays the song where he gets up from that chair, strolls up a path in Millennium Park and a summer girl in a yellow dress turns and gives him a second look that lingers.

While an office worker marvels at the strength of all three pieces of this family puzzle, as he gets ready to go back inside one of the buildings and start filling out spreadsheets with meaningless numbers, thinking about this boy whose parents do what they do to care for him. The worker thinks about what lies beyond this boy and his parents, the thousands, the millions who don’t have the money to buy his version of health. All those who wouldn’t even stop to think for a moment about answers to questions like, “Is health care a right or a privilege?” Because they’d be too busy wondering if they had the pills they needed to do something about the pain. Too busy thinking about what it was going to take to make it through the day.

All those people in all those wheel chairs lined up right behind that boy in the Cadillac of wheelchairs. That boy with the parents on either side of him. Doing the best they can.

While the office worker watching them hears the sound of a gentle guitar saying: this is what love looks like.
—————————————————
Originally published in www.fictionique.com

Keith Jarrett draws one shimmering copper colored note from his piano. Then another. Now, laying down a chord the way Monet laid down a painting. From that one chord comes the melody. Maybe recognizable—“There’s a place for us, somewhere a place for us.” But the recognition of the piece doesn’t really matter.

Open your eyes and watch this guy carefully. You’ve looked him up on You Tube. Or, you’re in the 9th row of Orchestra Hall in Chicago on a rainy September Saturday night. Basking in the echoes of all the music that’s poured over you inside those acoustically perfect walls.

Keith Jarrett is celebrating 25 years of a trio, with Jack DeJohnette and Gary Peacock. Two elder statesmen of musical depth who don’t just provide rhythm; with bass and drums they are the rhythm, the rhythm that anchors the soaring golden tones of Jarrett somewhere near solid ground. Or they take him along to give purity to be-bop. Many would say that’s a contradiction, and that’s okay.

Because there simply is no one else like Keith Jarrett. You watch him create and you realize just what it means to create. Every whimper, every groan, and every shout of joy from wherever it is he goes when he creates. The way he moves on the piano bench. No other human being has a spine like his. If you were to see him in mid-song, literally slide up over the keyboard and into the piano, bouncing and vibrating on the strings with only his feet sticking out to accentuate a line: you wouldn’t be surprised.

Listen hard, and something else starts to happen. Something that happens nowhere else, dancing in the interplay of the handoffs from piano, bass to drums, with a pristine clarity of tone, you realize that there is a bridge these artists are painting, a bridge that starts on the walls of your very soul. A bridge that reaches the part of you that is only you and no one else.

You stand on that bridge and your mind is so sharp, so clear: that where you are right that second doesn’t even matter. The music has prompted you to think. Why think? Why not feel, just hover, or float away on the music?

Because as the shimmering blues and cool green crystal of this music propels you forward, walking on the bridge Keith Jarrett has built to somewhere: you can clearly see whatever it is you are up against right this second. Your own very most private challenge. The thing that’s holding you back. That stopped you cold. You can see it, and as you see it—you can name it:

Today I am alive. I will get through this thing I’m going through now. There will be a job for me where I can add all I want to add to the world. That person now gone from my life: I can handle that. Maybe not now but I will. That sorrow as our beloved country bends to its knees weighted down by the loss of our very moral center. That collective groan of horror that goes out across the world as we look at what we’ve collectively become.

Today I am alive.

Your step feels so light on Keith Jarrett’s bridge to somewhere, that it brings you back into this world. The lights go up. The performers bow and take their leave…but the music stays.

As if the musician’s hand tossed you a golden, braided rope and yanked you through your own private fire.

———-

Edited by L.C. Neal
This piece was originally published on www.fictionique.com

Just before ‘a screaming comes across the sky,’ somebody around the table at lunchtime in Little Rock says, “Can you believe we’re still here? How the heck did THAT happen?”

Outside the restaurant a grey crawling mist settles in on what was moments ago a sun baked August day. A slight chill seems to rise. Inside somebody takes a bite of an oyster Po Boy and says, “The Program ended what, 5 years ago? It was a freaking management development program. No one even does that anymore! What was it about us? Why did we stay in touch? Why do we even care? We work for a corporation. That’s like saying we work for a bushel full of data stored in a vault somewhere in Delaware or something. Why are we different?”

Where the street outside was normally a happy throng, it had now gone quiet.

“Ha! Why are we different? How much time you got! And the group around the table all laughed.

“Well, Chad made it home safe from Afghanistan. And so did all of his troops. And there is a birthday or two going on.” The glasses were raised around the table.

“That made us grateful. I’m not sure it made us different.”

And at that exact moment there was a piercing pop. As if the ear drum of the world had just been punctured. Around the table everyone froze. Then all eyes swept to the window.

Total darkness. Everything outside that small circle was gone. Vanished. The fingers of fear starting to rise. And then someone at that table said, “Wait.”

Another voice from the table. “Who’s here?”

And they all said their names.

“Who else?”

“We’re all of us. 25. All of us here in spirit.” All 25 were named.

“Who else?”

“A power greater than all of us. Unseen.”

Then another voice said, “Count us down Chad.”

He started the count at 10, drew a breath at 8 and someone said,

“All of us. At the table. The rest of the 25. All of our friends, our families, everyone we touch, everyone we pray for, all of us are here. Everybody’s here. And everybody’s welcome.”

He resumed counting and paused at 5. Someone at the table sang out, “We are here to take care of the vulnerable. That’s what we do.”

Someone else rang out with, “Blessed are the meek.”

The count resumed and at 2, someone shouted, “Because we know our strengths!”

And when Chad reached 1. The entire team rose in perfect unison, something they’d actually worked on before but never quite mastered. Moving from the table to the restaurants’ front door as if to do battle with the very heart of snarling darkness itself. Throwing open that door. They all stepped out into that trembling unknown. And as that whole group, the ones right there and the ones in spirit, as they all leapt out flinging their very souls into the darkness. . .

The street came alive in the blessed heat of an August in Little Rock. Everything was moving, was alive and singing.

And someone from the table said, “What were we talking about again?”

“Just take a vacation. Simple. Right? The Hamptons. The Cape. The Ocean. It’s August. Just go!”

That’s what the TV talking head expert bleats out when he’s asked, “What should people do about the roiling stock market?”

And then the host, God bless you Judy Woodruff, tries again. She asks him, “But what about normal everyday people? What should they think about all this? What should they do?”

Again the expert says “Relax. Take a vacation.”

He blathers on another minute or so. And then Judy, seeing that subtle hints will not work with this blow hard, ends it with, “And of course we need to remember how many of our viewers can’t afford to take a vacation.”

August is now the month when the wealth gap sticks out on the national consciousness like a red, raw pus filled sore.

So for those who don’t have a vacation. Those too busy finding work to have a vacation. . . .

I remember this morning walking west on Grace to get the newspaper. It’s early. A summer morning just a bundle of golden promise.

There he is.

It’s him. Walking west with the sun. The Tin Man.

Haven’t seen him in awhile. He’s obviously worked all night, though I have no clue just what the work could be. He is dressed in a faded silver tux. As if the circus just left town and he missed the train.

This is 6:30 in the morning. He is the color of tin. Walking down Grace. Even his skin is the color of tin. The only other color, a green plastic bottle of 7-Up that swings along in his left hand. Everything else is a grey, weary tin.

His eyes a silent story of a hard, hard night.

No vacation for him. But of course he does have a song. Because we all do.

So as I pass his downcast eyes, I hear from either my head or his:

When a man’s an empty kettle he should be on his mettle,

And yet I’m torn apart.

Just because I’m presumin’ that I could be kind-a-human,

If I only had heart.

I’d be tender – I’d be gentle and awful sentimental

Regarding Love and Art.

I’d be friends with the sparrows …

and the boys who shoots the arrows

If I only had a heart.

Picture me – a balcony. Above a voice sings low.

Wherefore art thou, Romeo?

I hear a beat….

How sweet.

Just to register emotion, jealousy – devotion,

And really feel the part.

I could stay young and chipper

and I’d lock it with a zipper,

If I only had a heart.

The great Jack Haley, the Tin Woodsman from the Wizard of Oz. That’s who’s singing.The brilliant songsmith Harold Arlen. That’s who wrote the song.

I wonder if that song could maybe be like The Tin Man’s vacation?

And with that question, Arlen’s song connects to another song. As songs can do.

The story that came before this next song hits first.

She was a secretary banging out tunes in the Brill Building in New York City. He was studying to be a pharmacist. One of their songs, “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” was sold. She wrote the music. He wrote the lyrics. And when news of the sale went down, they rented a limo to drive them off to some new life. Soon after that they wrote this next song.

This next song that offers a vacation.

For anyone.

For everyone.

Listen to the part where this next song says,

Right smack dab in the middle of town,

I found a paradise that’s trouble proof.

Listen to The Drifters sing Carole King’s song.

And enjoy your vacation.

Surrounded by a half dozen Navy Seals, Senator Mitch McConnell and Rep. John Boehner opened their eyes in an underground tunnel at an undisclosed location below the streets of downtown Chicago.

Both men immediately started talking.

“How the hell. . .”

“Just where am I?”

“I am a United States Senator. . .”

And that was when the President of the United States, Barack Obama, strolled in dressed in wearing gym shoes, shorts and a grey sweat shirt dribbling a basketball.

The Navy Seals all saluted, the President returned the salute and McConnell huffed out. “Mister president, what in the world is. . .”

“Shut up Mitch.”

McConnell, like all bullies everywhere, immediately retreated and went quiet.

“Now Mitch, I tallk, you answer. Understand?”

“Well I. . .”

“You are nothing Mitch. Nothing. You’re a cheap piece of sleaze who hit it big playing a game. But you see Mitch the game is now over. I talk. You listen. So, question number one. And I hope this ain’t too hard for you. Mitch, what state do you come from?”

“Kentucky. But I . . .”

“What’s that race you have there Mitch? Never mind. I’ll answer. You are not the sharpest pitchfork in the stable, are you Mitch? The answer is the Kentucky Derby Mitch. And I’m thinking that next year? Come May? Or better yet, a week or so before May. When all your women are just about to go buy those silly ass hats? I’m thinking I might just snap my fingers and cancel ya’ll’s horse race. How you like that Mitch? Friends of yours loose any money Mitch?”

“But I. . .”

“Hmm,” said the President. How bout this?” He snapped his fingers and a Navy Seal handed him a piece of paper.” Mitch I got the names of the 10 people who own you. The ones that make it all possible for you to buy well. . .I don’t want to go into details. . .but lets just say the people who finance your ah present standard of living. Now what you say I just tell them to stop paying you?.”

“Mr. President. Sir. I thought you were all about compromise. Working together. How can you. . .”

“I was an idiot Mitch. I thought that I could make deals with you devils. I thought riding the middle, playing the center, I thought that was the right thing to do.”

“But it is Mr. President! It is!” John Boehner piped up.”

“Boner. And can I call you Boner? Wait. I’m the effing President. I can call you anything I want. Boner. You are that close to loosing your top 10 contributors and the entire Ohio State football season. IS that what you want Boner?”

“But sir I. . .”

“Too late for Sir, Boner. You too Mitch, game is over.”

“What do you want sir? How do we get out. . .what can we. . .”

“Stop babbling Mitch. And Boner? Stop crying. I’m going to give you a direction. You can call it an order if you want. I’m going to give you 4 fucking words boys. And they will be the words that will govern every single thing you do. Every tired, blowhard speech, every piece of legislation, every conversation you have with whatever handler at Fox News that has you on the phone barking orders today.

These will be the four words you will live by. And I am keeping it simple. Keeping it at four words. Because I know when you two get into the longer sentences things can get ah confusing for you. So are you ready boys?”

“Yes sir.”

“Then here are the four words that from now on will govern every single thing you do.

Blessed are the meek.

“You boys know who said that?”

“No sir,” said Boner.

“You sir?” said McConnell.

“No boys. Wrong. It wasn’t me. But that’s alright. I forgive you.

Just don’t ever forget those words. Because if that happens. And it probably will because evil never dies easy—-we three will be right back here again. And we’ll have to have another lesson. And next time? Next time I won’t bring the Navy Seals. Next time it will be just the three of us.

And you do not want that to happen. So once again boys. Tell me the four words.

“Blessed are the meek.”

“Good start boys. Good start.

But we have a long, long way to go. A long long way before you boys learn what it means to respect.”

Pay no attention to the man screaming into the hot August night wind on the gritty streets of Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.

Can’t make out what he’s saying? Ignore that man. He’s crazy.

Pay attention to the fact that you are in an ancient Spanish castle.

It’s designed to put you inside an ancient Spanish castle. The Aragon Ballroom. First stop on President Obama’s 50th birthday fund raiser slash birthday tour.

Inside the Aragon Ballroom, where the President rolled up his sleeves and stoked the fires of the crowd last night, if you were to look up, you’d see the twinkling elegant stars in the elegant courtyard of a grand Spanish castle.

That grand Spanish castle was the vision of Andrew and William Karzas when they opened their Aragon Ballroom, in the shadow of the El Train, on Lawrence Avenue at Winthrop St. on a hot July night in 1926.

The Karzas Brothers knew exactly what they were doing. Their $2 million dollar palace was 4 stories high. Patterned Spanish style brickwork, terra cotta design for the exterior. Two stately promenades lined with opulent draperies and hung with oil paintings flanked the room and connected a Grand Salon on one end and three stages on the other. A maple dance floor built on a cushion of felt and cork accommodated 5,000. Access to the dance floor was on the plushest carpeting of the day. And the staircase sported statues of two giant plaster dragons to guard all who passed.

Building on the success of their south side Trianon Ballroom; the Aragon was more than a dance hall. It was a social statement; communicating that the earlier saloon-like dance halls that populated the rough and raw streets of Chicago, could now give way to a new standard in refinement. In short, Chicago was no longer a rough and wild frontier town. And truth told, it was, like the Trianon, a social statement colored by the fact that inside it’s walls, all were not welcome.

Architectural racism.

No one said that. No one could prove it. It can be argued. But it wasn’t. We can be subtle about our sins here Chicago.

While the south side clubs of Bronzeville were blending African American spirituals and blues into what would become jazz, led by the likes of King Oliver and his young friend Louis Armstrong; the more “refined tones” of popular white orchestras whose names have been lost in the mists of musical history would be the ones drifting out on to Lawrence Avenue from the stately Aragon Ballroom.

The orchestras of Freddy Martin, Wayne King and Dick Jurgens were Aragon regulars. And all had large followings at the time. Familiar names?

Nope.

This is the haunted ghost of a building where the President began last night’s celebration. Inside on the Karzas Brothers stage. While outside, right across from Uptown’s Peoples Church, that street man kept screaming. A silent scream. No one really heard him.

And the hot August night went on.

At its peak, the Aragon was bringing in 18,000 people a week. And that didn’t include all the concerts broadcast across the Midwest by radio station WGN.

Through the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s, the management’s style of keeping true to that vision of “refinement” kept the crowds coming. Crowds of the “right” kind of people.

Floorwalkers stopped anyone who tried to jitterbug or any of the other wilder dances that grew popular through the years.

This was a time when all public dancing was considered by many to be evil. And the grand opulence of the Aragon helped change that view. The Aragon didn’t just have slower paced music. It had chaperones.

But time, and television, took its toll.

A 1955 fire started next door and did serious damage. And the era was over. William Karzas sold the building for less than it cost him to build.

For a brief stint, the next owners tried ice-skating. Then in 1966, the “Discothèque” craze shimmied in from New York and the Aragon became “The Cheetah Club.” After that died, there was a brief try at returning the Aragon to it’s former Big Band Glory. But that fizzled too.

Then came rock and roll. The Grateful Dead, Jethro Tull, The Allman Brothers and even blues legend BB King played the Aragon.

But as the economics of rock and roll changed, moving to stadiums, the boom rock and roll years gave way to the Aragon’s latest new life as a center of Hispanic entertainment. Current owners Viva Entertainment now open up the venue for corporate and private parties. And, on occasion, English speaking acts, including the legendary Bob Dylan, will appear at The Aragon.

And of course, now the President.

It’s become a familiar routine, the President coming home. Every few months. The throbbing train of black military helicopters taking off from O’Hare, skimming the treetops, barreling along above our house to Soldier Field on the lake. Then a caravan of black SUV’s. This time into our neighborhood. To the Aragon. Last time I was in there, I believe it was to see The Marshall Tucker Band. All of whom are probably in rock and roll retirement homes. I remember beer was involved.

But the silent screams of that street guy outside last night, they weren’t there. Back then he wasn’t screaming.

Which is why I kept listening to what he was screaming, as I stood outside with him on the sidewalk while the President had his party under the twinkling electric Spanish stars inside. I kept listening till I finally heard what he was screaming.

“Mr. President, the way to do what’s right is NOT to split the difference between good and evil.”

That’s what I heard the man scream. I had to listen carefully. Had to think about it. Because it sounds simple, but it’s not. So I listened harder. And I heard it again.

“Mr. President, the way to do what’s right is NOT to split the difference between good and evil.”

And after he screamed it one more time, I looked around to see if anyone else had heard. To see if anyone else understood.

But I found I did not know.

Doing the best they can. . .

She’s my kid by choice.

She lost the baby.

So I wept

She’s my kid by choice

In some parallel universe.

Beyond right now.

Walks with her, so small, hoisted up on my shoulders

Summer vacations, golden moments, crying nights and dorky boyfriends

Till that one guy finally came around and I nodded yes.

She’s my kid by choice.

I said it. I told her.

If I ever had been blessed with a daughter

I would want her to be you.

Couldn’t tell you why. No clue.

I guess I get to know, because of her—

That you really can’t explain why your kid is your kid.

You should see her when she smiles.

If I ever had been blessed with a daughter

I would want her to be you.

Once I told her parents that.

And saw the danger signals flare up in their eyes.

Good for you, I thought.

That’s the way I would want everyone.

To look out for my kid.

So may the words do their best to be loving arms.

Show my burning wild desire to take away her pain

I send along the song. Just the song.

Because you should hear the way my kid can sing.

Hard times, come again no more.

Sang only for

My kid by choice

Of her I am so proud.

We were in the corner at the end of the bar. McMurphy’s Place. A place you really don’t want to find. So lets just say it’s off of Van Buren somewhere. 100 degree heat outside so the air conditioner was blasting. Snake with his usual. Canadian and seven. Lotsa ice. Hunched over at the dark end of the bar near the back, talking into his glass like it was some kinda microphone.

“So this David Brooks guy, he’s a priest, right?”

“No Snake. He’s the reasonable, level headed voice of the conservatives. He’s America’s leading conservative intellectual.”

Snake did a Danny Thomas at that. The booze sputtering out his nose. McMurphy with a bar rag. Saying nothing. Just wiping.

“Well the two guys talking to him, they kept smiling. Kept calling him Father Brooks.”

“Now, tell me again where you saw this?”

“I was down on the campus. University of Chicago. Checking out some uh computer labs or something. It was a building without a sign, so I walked in. Heard this yelling. Peeked around the side of the door and there they were.”

“Snake, what do you know about computer labs.”

“I know how to count, Roger. And I know how to follow instructions for ah, certain unnamed people who are always looking for business deals that require ah very little capital investment.”

“Capital investment? Geez, you were on a college campus, Snake.”

Snake beamed. His narrow eyes shone bright.

“So,” I asked him. Tell me what you saw?”

“This David Brooks guy. He was sitting in the front row of a deserted classroom. Sitting at the little desk. And these two older guys, couldn’t make out their faces because there was all sorts of shadows in there, they were walking back and forth, pacing in front of him.”

“These guys have names?”

“”Every time one would talk to the other, they’d use the same name. They’d say, ‘Thank you Mister K. Or My pleasure Mister K.’ And it was like that wasn’t even their real names. They just called each other that. Maybe it was that Kafka guy you talked about once?’

“No, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t him. But what were they talking about with David Brooks? What were they saying?”

They were all excited about something he wrote. Called it the July 14th Masterpiece.”

“I saw the column. Didn’t read it too carefully. Assumed it was the usual. ‘Open with reason. Tell both sides. Then get to the point—which is always the same: the rich people win. The poor people lose.’

“Oh,” Snake shook his head no. “It was more than that. These two bosses was all excited. They were telling this David Brooks something like, ‘this piece is the biggest piece of intellectual masturbation they had ever seen.’ That’s it. I remember now. Cause I remember them saying intellectual masturbation and I wasn’t sure how that could be much fun.”

“What else did they say?”

“Well, after the masturbation part, I don’t remember all of it. But it was something about all the budget deficit fighting going on right now. And what the two bosses were all excited about was that this Brooks guy wrote something saying that the battle of the budget was really about a battle against cheating death. About keeping people alive longer. And how that’s where all the health care money went. Keeping people alive longer. And how if we didn’t have to do that we wouldn’t have a budget problem.”

“No way. They did not say that. That’s crap.”

“Oh, they knew it was crap. That’s why the two boss men were so excited! They said that the way David Brooks dressed it up and made it looked so pretty with his 800 words was just worth a million dollars!”

“Yeah, so David Brooks gets to be the one to lead us to the decision as to who dies when?”

“Well yeah. And he even made THAT sound reasonable. He said something about how we weren’t gonna leave people with Alzheimer’s disease wondering out on a hill. And the boss guys, they LOVED that.”

“So David Brooks makes a connection between budget talks and death. Everybody gets lost in the intellectual fairyland wonder of the academy. We cut back care for the elderly. And the money goes to more coal power plants or corporate subsidies or whatever those two Mister K guys want”

“Well, I ain’t exactly sure of what you just said. But yeah, I think that was it. Way I saw it though was more like the 3 man teams that work State Street and Navy Pier crowds. It ain’t all that hard. 2 guys make a scene. Start yelling. Then the third guy slips in and starts lifting everybody’s wallet.’

“And David Brooks gets to help us all decide when everyone should die.”

Snake shrugged his shoulders. Looked up from his drink. And he said, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty much it. So, you buying this next round or what?’