Sirens

I’m on the lake yesterday and in the distance I hear sirens screaming: on the lakeside drive, north of the lake. The other day in town the sirens screamed: the old, east side of the lake. I live just west of the lake, what used to be quiet, seemed rural: cows in the pasture, you’d never guess the number of snowbirds Sebring has crammed into the developments ranging westward from the road. Don’t get lulled by appearances: traffic screams by going seventy.

Early on in college, freshman year or so, I worked part time setting tables at the Faculty Club. I was very fond of a full-timer there: some sort of unschooled but intellectual Commie, spoke a bit of Creole, had Creole folks back in New Orleans. Bang, bang, bang. And we pause setting tables to look down from Morningside Heights onto the roofs of Harlem where cops shot at guys jumping from roof to roof on a somewhat regular basis.

When I was a kid blues sounds got to me before I’d had the merest whiff of puberty. Oh, man, the brass, the tenor sax, the bass ... I bought a couple of Dixieland records, and by age ten or eleven would carry the windup Victrola out into the yard and oppress everyone with my enthusiasm. By actual puberty I had a hi-fi system that needed to be plugged in. I didn’t take it outside, but I sure upped the volume. Everyone on North Forest Avenue had to know what little Paul was listening to.

That’s a familiar part of puberty, isn’t it? Hormones making you scream Me, Me, Me? Imposing your existence, your tastes, your whims ... onto the public environment? Isn’t it the young who scream loudest at football games? in wars? Isn’t it the young who demonstrate en masse at the drop of a pin? Me, Me, Me!

I guess little girls scream a lot too, especially where they’re ganged together and feel safe. Still, puberty is a major contributor to noise. Me, Me, Me.

What I want to know is: Will the kleptocracy ever get out of its puberty? Will the kleptocracy ever grow up?

It’s easy to think that the cops were chasing hypothetical perps from Harlem rooftop to Harlem rooftop. Hell, the guys did run. (Wouldn’t you if you were black and the cops were shooting?) But listen with another ear: weren’t the cops really the state, screaming Me, Me, Me? Look how big Me, with guns, is protecting helpless You. (Terrorizing the niggers!)

Kennedy screamed about "Cuber", Johnson howled about the ’Cong. Bush is currently screaming about eavesdropping, surveillance, how we can’t afford liberty in America: and won’t tolerate it anywhere else.

Ah, but pk, that’s not Me, Me, Me; that’s US, US, US!