Connecting Ten Thousand Fugitives and
Beach BoysMy soul is starved and hungry, ravenous— insatiable for your nourishing commands. Psalm 119: 17-33
Driving between two lunches I had that day. Mike Love’s reed thin voice leading up to radio news that “Torture Guy” (Our American Attorney General) had somehow slapped cuffs on 10,000 fugitives almost all at once.
The sun baked nasal Beach Boy surf tones heralding first cannon shot of actual class warfare in United States. Karl Rove commands guns to be turned on our own. Karen Hughes spins it so soccer moms can quickly nod yes and then get back on their cell phones. Condi stamps a black stiletto boot and raises her eyebrow. And Brian Wilson’s lyric kicks off parade in my car:
Well I’m not braggin babe So don’t put me down But I’ve got fastest set of wheels in town.
Ten thousand fugitives in 24 hours????????
Alone, just number and time frame is alarming. But that it’s coming from “Torture Guy”---makes me remember that soon, on this long drive back home from wild and distant suburbs of Chicago (where all food comes from Olive Gardens, Applebee’s and Bennigans)—it makes me remember that if I just take Oakton east, I’ll go right by Steak and Shake.
Because if this is it, if country has now been lead to implode---I better grab another lunch. Never mind that I just finished lunch 5 minutes ago. And that it wasn’t at a chain restaurant. I better eat again.
Wonder what ethnic and racial breakdown of that mass arrest would be? Wonder if there’s a religious element to this? Did Jerry Falwell give word that we could finally round up all Muslim Americans? Wonder why that first lunch left me feeling so empty?
What would Brian Wilson do? Would he grab another lunch? Would he wonder why Kaufman’s Deli on Dempster in Skokie had somehow left me with a rye bagel that was just short of stale, cream cheese whipped with air, , lox that didn’t tingle with taste way a special, sometimes treat should. Nova lox that brings on a train of thought that goes: I can’t get this very often---way too expensive. . .especially when you have no money coming in. . . .so why can’t I taste this????
I am pulling out into traffic on Dempster, one hand on wheel, other stuffing potato chips into my mouth just a little too fast as I look east for lines of Federal Marshalls. But all I see is McDonalds and Skokie Swift train.
Why can’t I taste these potato chips? Only salt and bulk. And why do they keep making me even hungrier? Boy some fries would go good now. . . Why am I so hungry?
And how many people does it take to arrest 10,000 in a day? Did they put them on trains and roll them out to Utah, string up some barbed wire and call place a Relocation Camp? What kind of paperwork was generated? And most of all: why do I keep stuffing these potato chips in my mouth just a little too fast?
