Muzzled by History
Since the days of Alexandria, that legendary city of
cosmopolitan education and intellectual commerce, the
great pendulum of world history has swung into and out
of a Dark Age, climbed to its zenith in the Renaissance
and is now barnstorming the backswing domain of our
Age of Technology. If there is a poster child for opportunism,
for carpe diem puppetry, it is the pendulum
of history. It's got a full head of steam these days,
as we can see by the rapdily changing artifacts of our
present electronic heritage. So it moves now with an
inexorable force and dutifully plunges history toward
yet another Dark Age. As it must. What else can an echo
do?
Bush seems to be the new Christian face of fear, the
same fear that had Theophilus I heap the cultural scrolls
of Alexandria on the cella of the library and touch
them off with a torch. Faith, intolerance, zealotry,
patriotism, superstition, the sanctity of blood and
gods, jingoism and economic expansion are features of
this fear, which is the mainspring behind the movement
of the historical pendulum. And the latest flavor of
fear, ancillary to a culture's position along the mirrored
arcs of history, can be determined by conversations
in the street.
Patriotism, along with the flowering of its rectangular
fabrics above rooflines and town squares, is one of
fear's favorite filibusters. It keeps the historical
pastiche bubbling until the pendulum can reach its appointed
position. Other barometer whistleblowers are libraries
that rattle with empty spaces, bookstores struggling
to pay rents, daytime operas called Oprah Winfrey or
Jerry Springer, and cafe conversations that assiduously
avoid philosophical or artistic topics. But nothing
says 'Dark Age' quite so concisely as an obsession with
firearms. And in this disposition the United States
leads the world. To hell with Shakespeare and Keats,
the single syllable eloquence of a gun muzzle is enough
for them. And of course when everyone is packin',
a wholesale lunacy of apprehension sweeps the country.
It's easy to see one's own death in this weatherchange
of paranoia and neuroses. The prevailing images and
celebration of American hoodlumology in theatres, television,
books, rap and narco corrido lyrics, are easy
prognosticators. And as these dehumanizing iocns are
exported to the furthest outposts of the planet, worry
and angst take root in other cultures, if only as a
demonstrated horror for American violence and brutishness.
I've
seen my own death. And it is intimate with the great
North American aptitude for dislocation. Our culture,
largely thanks to technology, can make a living from
almost anywhere in the world. So despite our flags and
heritage, we embrace an ambulant lifestyle. We are the
new Huns, Mongols and Tartars. We conquer with laptops
and cell phones. We carry a gene that continually changes
its shape along the course of history's pendulum. The
gene of the nomad. And it seems in these times there
is no Passover in its heart. It infects the first born.
The second and third too. We are as migratory as rumors.
I myself am about to make a move to a new neighborhood.
I recently met my future neighbor, a big man with a
furrow over his eyes and an accent that suggested a
banjo somewhere in his family's DNA. He is an American.
He is intolerant. And he loves guns.
One afternoon we talked among a summer crop of Mexican
flies while his dog wetted my car tires.
"I'm getting the paperwork done for my guns,"
he informed me. "They'll all be legal."
"That's nice," I replied. What else can one
say to something like that? He gauged me with a glance
then leaned toward my shoulder, where he delivered the
following casual survey.
"Do you like shooting dogs and cats?"
"What?"
"Do you like shooting dogs and cats?"
I looked at him, decided he wasn't joking and said,
"Well, no."
The man sat back in his chair. "Oh," he muttered,
obviously disappointed he had not skillfully recognized
a fellow naturalized citizen of flintlocklandia.
Some months later I was playfully relating this encounteer
to another American, one I had similarly misread.
"Wait a minute," he interrupted. "He's
getting permits for his guns?"
"That's right."
"But I thought you could only own a shotgun in
Mexico."
"Apparently you can register other calibers,"
I reported. "The guy showed me a list of weapons
he was legalizing."
The American's eyes glazed in private revery. "I'll
have to look into that." he said quietly, more
to himself than anyone else in the room. Then he turned
to a fellow American at the gathering and the two of
them had a long conversation about shooting doves and
quail. I was suddenly orphaned by my distinctly unAmerican
disinterest in hand-held weapons of mass destruction.
Yes, I have seen my own death. The mental image of
my new neighbor skulking around the peripheries of his
property with his legal firearm cradled in his hands.
It's a dirge-like vision I can't seem to escape, a fate
as inimitable as the arc of history's pendulum. Mexican
gun laws might as well be a Do Not Walk on the Grass
sign hung next to an exit door of a football stadium
just moments before someone pulls the fire alarm.
Here's the way it's going to end, and it will have
everything to do with a chronic back problem that can
suddenly and unceremoniously drop me to my knees like
a sidewalk placcard in a high wind.
I'll go outside one evening to
look at the stars. My neighbor, in a fit of American
bloodlust, will be hidden in the shadows, wearing a
deerstalker and a Fennimore Cooper squint. There'll
be visions of stray dogs and cats running past his mental
crosshairs. And maybe a dove or two. As I tilt my neck
back to get a better view of the Milky Way my back will
short cirtuit and I'll drop to my hands and knees. My
neighbor will hear the noise and angle toward it.
"Frank, it's me! My back's out!"
But it'll be too late. And I'll become just another
Alexandrian scroll touched off by Christian zealotry
when my neighbor grins and opens fire.