DESCENDANT UN escalator

I found this image in a children’s coloring book. (I don’t know who made it, but I sure do like it.)

Dear diary,

Every day there’s something to fume about. It seems that we’ll never run out of things to enrage us. Living in the U.S. in the early 21st Century, I get the feeling that everyone is always angry. One either hates the current Prez or loves him; and if you love him then you hate all the people who hate him, which is more than half the populace, either way. And there’s all sorts of topics that make people furious, so all you need to do is mention a single word and certain folks blow their lid: like “abortion”, or “taxes”, or “racism” . . .

. . . or sometimes it’s two-word phrases, like “police brutality” or “militarized police” or the film “Wrong Cops (2013)”.

And I don’t exempt myself from this fury: I’m as mad as everyone else. In fact, I’d say I’m even madder.

Actually I’m not angry at all. I’m mad, but not angry. So I do exempt myself from the general fray, and I speak from a point far above, from a God’s-eye view, because I am arrogant.

I really do feel that I’m above all this; yet I’m smart enough to know that my indifference is only due to the fact that none of these problems have ever affected me personally. The cops have never roughed me up or used chemical weapons upon me or killed me — every police officer who’s ever pulled me over always acts extremely deferential when I roll down my window; they say:

“O! are you Bryan Ray, the infamous author of all those zany books? I love your stuff. My daughter brought your writing to my attention — she’s your biggest fan. And then my wife and I began reading you, and we fell in love too. Sorry for stopping you — you were driving the speed limit perfectly, but I saw this Porsche 911 and expected to find an Executive from some Big Corporation driving it, so I was gonna drag him out of the car by his lapels and beat him senseless with my nightstick. I didn’t expect to see you in the driver seat; because, in your Public Private Diary, you always speak of yourself as owning a snow-white hybrid.”

“I say that my sweetheart drives the hybrid,” I correct the cop; “I myself just bicycle everywhere.”

“Ooh, that’s right,” sez the cop. “Sorry again. — So, how long have you had this new slick red luxury sportscar?”

“I just stole it from a corporate executive about an hour ago.”

“Ah,” sez the cop. “Well I’m gonna let you off, scot free, without even a warning. But, wait-wait-wait-wait! before you go, will you sign the copy of your book that I keep in my squad car?”

“Sure,” I say, “just tell me what personal, heartfelt message you want me to write, cuz I hate having to think up that type of stuff.”

The cop jogs back to my car, hands me the book, which I observe is well-worn and has underlines, highlighting, and handwritten notes scribbled all over the margins and blanks.

“If you will, please write ‘To Columbia: forgive your father for being such a horse’s ass’,” smiles the cop.

I look up sharply. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

The cop stares for a moment, and then we both burst out in laughter.

“I gather Columbia is your daughter?”

“Yeah,” shrugs the cop. “She works at the shop down the road with Vanessa and Diego and the rest. You know, the place that sells glass elephant figurines and strobe lights?”

“I love that place,” I say.

“Me too. And I heard that your friend Ines paid them a visit and browsed around yesterday,” continues the cop. “And they made a big sale: two whole crates! So now Columbia gets her bonus...”

“Hold on,” I say. “I think I know who you’re talking about. I just wrote a news report about all that stuff recently. I thot I was dreaming. But one thing doesn’t add up about what you’re saying…”

“One thing doesn’t need to ‘add up’. You can’t ‘add up’ one thing: one thing is a unity, all by itself — no adding required,” explains the cop. “You need at least two things if you wanna add them up…”

“No,” I interject, “you’re getting all tangled in a game of math, or semantics or something. I’m talking about the fact that you described yourself in the dinner chat of my story as — and I quote — ‘working hard at the office’. Now, how can you claim to be the father of my news report’s Columbia, when your job is obviously a street-level affair and very dangerous, as opposed to a safe, stuffy, indoors occupation?”

“I can’t believe you’re asking me this,” sez the cop; “you of all people! You’re the whole reason that me and my family watch Wrong Cops every holiday. You talk about that film so much that my daughter twisted my arm and made me purchase a DVD copy of the film from a shady online retailer. You can’t tell me that you don’t remember the scene where Officer Sunshine returns home in the afternoon and greets his wife and their daughter, and the latter accuses Sunshine of ‘really smelling like marijuana’, and when he excuses his aroma by claiming that he and his cohort ‘seized a big shipment’ and have thus been ‘handling bags of weed all day’, the daughter replies dismissively, saying: ‘I know you’re an office cop, Daddy.’ Well, I rest my case here. For I, too, am normally just an office cop. I work inside, at the station, most of the time. Yesterday I spent the whole day filling out paperwork at my desk; thus, during the dinner in question, when it came time for me to say how my day had gone, I told my family that I’d been working hard at the office, just as you quoted me — so your report is accurate: it all checks out. It’s only a fluke that today I got commanded by my supervisor to cruise the highways and harass bigshot executives. But that’s what I love about this job: it offers a wide variety of situations for me to draw tragedy from.”

“Situational tragedy,” I muse to myself while staring dreamily and tapping my chin, “I like what I’m hearing — I think you might be on to something, here, copper. Instead of a sit-com, we can produce a sit-trag!!”

“Hey, I’m down for whatever you wanna do. I’d quit this career and become a TV star in an instant,” sez the cop. “I’d sign a contract faster than you could say ‘Bang-bang!’ — as long as you’re the one writing the script and directing the series.”

Here I snap out of my reverie. “Nah, too much work,” I say. “Here’s your book back, Officer… sorry, I don’t think I caught your name—”

“Usted.”

“Officer Usted. Here’s your book, and I wrote the message that you requested right here on the title page, just like authors should do.” (Here I open the cover and point to what I wrote.)

“O thanks!” sez the cop; and he focuses his attention on my personal message and breathes quietly while proofreading it. Then, after a number of moments, his eyes grow wide and he shouts: “Absolutely perfect! You wrote exactly what I wanted. Yet, now, could you also add a little picture of a bird, next to your signature?”

“A bird?” I say. “You want me to draw a little birdie?”

“Yes, please,” sez the cop; “if it’s not too much trouble.”

“But your message mentions a horse, see here?—you called yourself ‘a horse’s ass’,” (I point to the page;) “—don’t you fear that the inclusion of all these different animals might end up confusing your daughter?”

“No, not at all,” the cop assures me. “Columbia’s smart. Here, let me show you her work-in-progress…”

He pulls out his wallet and flips thru a series of photos of the fresco mural in her bedroom.

“God’s light!” I exclaim, “Your daughter’s a visionary genius!”

“I know,” sez the cop; “it’s cuz I sent her to a really good school.”

I look up sharply from the mural pics and squint at the officer for a moment; then again we both burst into laughter.

“I’ll see ya round, Bry,” waves the cop as he heads back to his squad car.

“Take care, Usted!” I shout and hit the gas and burn rubber and peel off into the distance, leaving two trails of flame where my tires had been.

CLASS DISCUSSION:

So that’s why none of these hot topics that anger everyone else ever bother me much: I’m just well-treated by every thing that lives. And I learned how to achieve this state of mutual respect by observing the local animals. I noticed that none of the squirrels where I live ever argue about politics. And I saw that the robins don’t care if one of them gets an abortion by purposely ingesting too much pesticide, while another one brings her egg to term and lays it and feeds it worms after it hatches. And only a very small percentage of wildlife pay their taxes. And their police forces consist of democratically elected members from their own community.

So I just mimic my animal friends, and everything always turns out fine for me. If I step outside and see a fellow neighbor wearing a loud hat that supports the current U.S. Prez, I don’t yell insults at him; no, I greet him warmly and take a sandwich from the stack in his handlebar basket. For he was biking thru the neighborhood offering free samples of “America’s Favorite Sandwich” (as it sez on his placards), to anyone who’s food-insecure; for he’s a professional philanthropist. And I felt hungry at the moment, so I took a sandwich and bit it. That’s what a fox or a crow would do; and if it’s good enough for our local wildlife, then it’s good enough for me. I don’t worry about the ethics of such things. I say that any behavior is acceptable, as long as it keeps me from furiously raging at my fellow creatures.

And that’s also why I decided to take the Porsche earlier. Its key fob was on the seat, and it was parked in one of the executive spots outside Corporation Evil. So I hot-wired it and took off. The car-alarm started blaring, but I just pretended it was cool techno music; then after a while, it silenced itself, cuz I accidentally bumped the fob’s emergency toggle button. Then I drove to a dealer and traded in the sportscar for a Time Travel Buggy, which I utilized to trot back into the past; and I came to rest on the døgn labeled “T.G.I.F.”, which was roughly 48 hours ago; then I visited the home of my late friend Ines, handed her two huge sacks filled with hundred-dollar bills, which I had found billowing out of the unmanned register at a shop; and I said:

“Ines, take this cash and go purchase a vacuum cleaner — that mutt of yours in a nuisance.”

And this caused the establishment where Officer Usted’s daughter is employed to receive a sharp spike in its stock price, which resulted in Columbia earning her quarterly bonus. Thus I paid forward the kindness that my cop-friend displayed in not abusing me, by pulling strings that at length bequeathed his daughter the life of her dreams.

That’s how society works. One hand washes the other.