Tuesday, January 02, 2007
2006. took a beating
He was sitting alone at the end of the bar. Groaned sometimes. I bought him a beer, he grunted. I asked what had happened to him, how he told me he was 2006. The year of 2006, personified. Then he told me his life sucked. I asked why, and he spat back at me, Are you fucking kidding me? Jack Palance died, he said. And that little dog, from Frasier. The Crocodile Hunter, too.
I tried to argue that people die every year. He snorted, told me it wasn't just that. It was the soul-crushing steadiness of it. Constant. Does anyone even remember, he asked, that there was an entire Israeli-Lebanese war this year? And the 3000th U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. I tried to argue, at least we didn't have another bad hurrican season, or another tsunami. Then he reminded me, more than a year after Katrina, thousands of people are still living in trailers. I offered that at least the Democrats won the mid-term elections. so what, he wheezed. A functionally retarded man still runs the show. The Vice President shot a man in the face. Every positive I could think of, he found ten negatives. The Patriot Act was extended. The Arctic is melting. fast. Coretta Scott King. Ed Bradley. Robert Altman. Then he asked me if anyone I knew had died. I had to admit, the Mothers of two friends died of cancer this year. One on Christmas Day. Yeah, see? he cackled. Darfur. Palestine. The KGB had their coming out party with a killing of a russian journalist critical of Putin, and then the killing by radiation poisoning of the ex-KGB agent investigating her death. "Extraordinary Rendition" was true. By the best count by people who risk their butts to count, 500,000 or so Iraqi civilians dead. Don Knotts.
I gave up. Listening to his insistent, flegmy voice, I decided that 2006 was a tough year. got its ass kicked. I bought him another round, and he cackled, and told me the one good thing that's happened to him. That kid, the day old 2007. It's all on him now. I'm done.
Good luck 2007.
