NO DOUBTS, JUST SHOUTS ABOUT THE ROUTS OF HUMAN AFFECTION SO STOUT AS
TO SURVIVE THROUGH ALL TIL NOW
“Alienation of Affection” is a civil charge worth lots of money at
law. To anyone paying attention at this moment in our ambit through
time, alienation of affection is more American than cherry pie. Under
its terms, many of us should be able to sue the U.S. government for
wreaking havoc on the most basic human attachments. The singer Joe
Jackson stated the case succinctly when he crooned, “If there’s a war
between the sexes, then there’ll be no people left.”
And what better context for a gender-war than an actual war that rips
our families to pieces, rips American men to pieces and Iraquis of any
age and gender to shreds, and places a premium on terror for business
and society generally. Needless to say, the explicitly-stated
‘neoconservative’ plan to make warfare a central and everlasting policy
practically guarantees the continuance of the said-same alienation of
affection. To say the least boys and girls are at odds.
Today’s situation approximates, albeit without a “lead character,”
what Greek men must have faced in the classic drama, “Lysistrata.” In
the play, Lysistrata insisted to the women of Athens, Sparta, and
Corinth that they eschew physical and emotional expressions of love
until their men made peace. Aristophanes’ leading lady in the play
that bears her name stated her case thus.
“So be it then. So much is gained. Come, like the men we’ll swear
a fearful oath....
Go fetch a skin of wine....Let each touch this noble sacrifice(the
wineskin). Al-
mighty goddess of the subtle tongue, mistress of argument, who gives
victory in
persuasion; Goddess of Love, whom we this once forswear;....receive
this sacrifice
and be propitious to us women. ...Now, every word I say, you say it
after. From
this day forth until peace is declared---...although my heart aches
for my husband’s
love---...or any lover comes, afire with passion---....I never will
take man into my
bed---...so that my husband or my lover faints to hold me---and never
shall he have
his way with me---...of my free will---...and if he overcomes me by
sheer force---...
I’ll lie as cold as ice and not respond---...I will not give him joy
in any way.”
Our culture is bursting with images, metaphors, and allusions to
fellows experiencing this diminution of the legendary female proclivity
for passion. Men themselves may even be manifesting certain elements
of a “Larrystrata” psychology, less capable of desire in a situation so
callously brutal and that demands them to numb anything feminine in
themselves in order to cope and produce, in order to ‘perform,’ so to
say, in the arena of social and economic life.
Of course, the simplicity of this comedy confronts a tangled web of
complexity in contemporary America. Instead of just to men who refuse
to make peace, women and men today are reacting not only to
hypocritical mass murder as policy, but to a widespread plan to divide
men and women, or if not a ‘plan’ per se, then a sum of social programs
that yield the result of division as effectively as the Manhattan
Project yielded the atomic bomb. This programmatic separation of male
and female has multiple aspects, in addition to the age-old methodology
of clannish carnage, now fueled by the false patriotism of “team
America’s” “Army of One.”
Both legal and illegal drug policies contribute powerfully to this
gender Jihad. Given the seemingly contradictory but actually
chillingly compatible impacts of substances such as cocaine, Viagra,
and Prozac---they all make a promise of fulfillment but end up robbing
the user of vitality, potency, any actual energy rooted in a person’s
own animal carnality---this gender battle occurs behind the facade of
connected, contented, or as Viagra’s new marketing drive would have it,
“mischievous” people, folks whose smiles are relaxed and confident,
whose biggest worries concern which brand of beer to buy or which gated
community to join. But impotence is everywhere, apparently, and unless
an actor on the world’s stage is playing the part of a blind, deaf
moron, things are ugly and pernicious in cocktail parties, in singles
groups, on the web, and in bed.
Another big share of this “Lysistrata-Moment’s” predominance is the
criminal justice system. Thus, millions of men have spent time in jail
for failure to render levied child support, creating an oppositional
mentality that may take generations to heal. Imprisonment for debt and
unemployment is just a fraction of the issue, as nearly half of young
Black men end up in jail for more than a moment or two, very often if
not generally for activity which we are at best insane to criminalize,
and almost always for ‘offenses’ that would not lead to similar
treatment for fairer-skinned cohorts.
Thus, in the rantings of a reactionary like Bill Cosby, for instance,
whatever rationality exists is vicious and stupid, even if cast in the
most generous light, since problems in African American families are
systematic at least as much as---and arguably, because of our shirking
of collective responsibility, much more than---they are personal.
Everything, from AIDS among Blacks to fatherless Black children, has
deep and disgusting roots in policies for which all Republicans and
most other established politicos are fully to blame, policies that can
never accomplish what we say we want but will only make the horrid,
fetid social cancers, about which we complain so loudly, much more
malignant and deadly.
A thousand million stories every night on earth illustrate these
points, and many other ways of analyzing and categorizing these issues
are interesting and important. Readers will realize that I cannot help
contextualizing the bizarre and horrifying and hilarious and putrid
vignettes that come my way day after day after day. I insist that
things that happen connect with and makes sense in terms of other
things that happen. As the philosopher is wont to say, “blessed are
they who can see the universe in the grain of sand, and in the grain of
the sand all of eternity.” It makes sense to me.
For example, just yesterday one of my far-flung correspondents
revealed a sample of pathetic putrefaction hard to parallel but full of
the ring and sting of contemporary coital conflagration. The reporter
of this bit of persiflage was a State Medical Examiner from Dixie,
where all social ills are much more likely to be acute and lethal.
On or about Tuesday afternoon, he received a call to investigate a
death, not at all untoward given his job, but always dramatic and
daunting if only because of the way in which we all resist
acknowledging mortality’s severe hold on our psyches. In the event, he
found himself in a warren of closely-packed half million dollar town
homes, 4-5000 square feet and a bit of yard surrounding each gargantuan
castle. On the scene in question, a fantastic wraparound kennel
covered the lawn like a colony of gophers or prairie dogs, dirt and
flowers atop a fantastic maze of redwood tunnels and trellises. Baying
and barking exploded from inside.
“The deceased’s in there. Husband.” The sergeant from homicide
motioned with his head toward the canine cacophany, his hands deep in
his pockets. The M.E. passed the recently passed fellow’s recently
widowed wife, maybe sixty but definitely fit, smoking vacantly at the
kitchen table, wearing a colorful but worn housedress. The background
noise throughout this process combined Olympic-announcer chatter and
commercial pitches that plied mood elevation, phsyical or psychic
fitness, or financial security in one form or another. The death
tableau was simple, but the entire mix was so completely weird that he
knew he had to discover some facts that would be, at the least,
unpleasant to countenance.
This is where Jimbo-the-merciful inserts, intrusively and
parenthetically, that readers of a delicate sensibility or who long to
retain even a hint of rose in their tinted glasses should desist at
this convenient juncture. They can leave my assessment alone or take
as much of it as makes sense to them, as will be the case after reading
of this grotesque expression of Lysistrata’s life among us. Anyone
feeling even a little off should just stop, right here.
* * *
All righty, then! Doug’s corpse splayed amid flagstones and gravel,
just inside the ornate gate that admitted amblers to the domicile of
the dogs. These, which “Dr. D.” would soon examine, continued to howl
heartily from what one of the uniforms present called “their living
room.” Another boy-in-blue spoke up, inclining toward
what-was-once-69-year-old Douglas, “Obvious heart attack, huh ‘Dr. D.?’”
My correspondent eyed the drawn-up legs, the beginning-to-be rigid
grimace, the hands clutched at the center of his chest, the gray eyes
wide with anguish, and nodded. “Mmmmm.” I can imagine the skeptic’s
sneer as he prepares to dash off a first sally of response. “What’s so
‘grotesque’ about this? What? Dying’s for the dogs, eh? LOL.” Just
wait.
Decedent Doug’s boxer’s and trim Docker’s trousers bunched around his
knees, which made his legs’ reflexive attempt to achieve something akin
to fetal comfort even more awkward. His penis retained a semblance of
erection, although not entirely turgid. Next to his snowy mane, head
twisted as if to escape its approach, was an open cylinder of Vaseline.
“Bet the lid’s under him,” said the uniform who was plotting his rise
to detective and who was, of course, correct.
“Look at his hands!” The ‘detective’ again, a garrulous and winning
youngster of a certain sort of Southern Gothic gigantic proportion that
allowed him his size without rapidly threatening those in his presence.
“Yes, I see.” Before ‘Dr. D.’ leaned in really to look, however, he
spoke to the quiet uniform. “Do you think...? The dogs, could
you...?” The doctor’s eyes pleaded for a moment of quiet.
“Believe me we’ve tried, Doc. More than once, more’n twenty times.”
The mute’s nodded agreement accompanied his bright partner’s assessment.
“They’s evidence,” the silent one offered, nodding again to the M.E.’s
widened eyes.
“Yeah, well...” ‘Dr. D.’s’ head bowed away from them as he lowered
his eyes to examine Doug’s hands. Although the body’s left palm and
fingers were unexceptional, the right’s digits glistened with goo,
globules of unsmeared jelly still obvious between the spread-eagled
fingers that clutched his chest like talons seeking purchase. Tufts of
whitish, gray, and golden-blonde hair showed as well, and these bits of
fur were all over his navy blue polo V-neck too, “smack in the middle,
like,” noted the quiet cop. Two wounds opened just above Douglas’
right knuckles, purplish blue punctures in cold meat under ‘Dr.D.’s’
gaze. “What the fuck?”
“Well sir, it’s obvious. The bitch bit him ‘fore he was...” A loud
nervous cough from Mr. Mute interrupted the young
apprentice-lieutenant’s explanation, and both he and ‘Dr. D.’ followed
their taciturn partner’s raised eyes to Mrs. Douglas, standing at the
gate casually, a glass of clear fluid and ice cubes in her hand, her
tanned posture relaxed, her affect flat.
“It’s probably gin,” thought my M.E. buddy, “the athletes almost never
drink vodka,” before recognizing an equally familiar sedation that had
nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with the antidepressant
commercial, he realized, with a spontaneous grin, was spilling out of
the TV behind and beyond her.
“My husband,” she announced levelly, unbelievably so under the
circumstances, “loved to play with the dogs.”
* * *
This vignette represents an iconic story, of course, which, as
something fictional might have a life-affirming impact yet. That is
certainly my intention, but before turning to that task, the completion
of this more didactic job remains. And that means providing a few more
facts, before taking a final analytical spin around this scene of
madcap pathos and surreal serenity.
The four dogs included two females, one who had managed to shred her
duct-taped muzzle, though it still clung to the fur of her jaw. Her
fang marks were on Douglas’ right hand, and she joined the two males in
the chorus of both outrage and loss attendant on their former owner’s
habits and doom. Her bite likely represented the proximate cause of
the attack. Her sister was still trying to shed her gray, sticky nose
guard, which barely allowed her to breathe, when ‘Dr. D.’ looked in on
the pups’ “living room.”
Doug, according to his wife, always “figured they liked to play,” and
whatever their general opinion, clearly that was not the attitude this
day, at least not for the “bitch that bit him,” as the nascent
detective was about to say. After examining the dogs, and releasing
the one female still gagged, the M.E. spent about an hour with Mrs.
Douglas. He wanted to know, more for personal reasons, more to tell
me---his faithful mad interlocutor, than for any clinical necessity.
The case was now ‘open and shut,’ as the saying goes.
They basically never had sex anymore, since 1996, when they had a
fling before the Summer Games in Atlanta. “The last two years, though,
she told me,” ‘Dr. D.’ explained to me, “they had one twenty four hour
party, the first time on his birthday, the next year on hers.” They
were both Libras, New Years Eve babies maybe, “like half the rest of
Anglo North America,” laughed my buddy. The way things synchchronize,
like the Olympic swimmers, can be amazing. “You basically have to
believe the universe has something to tell us.” While Mrs. Doug
related this tale of insurance and Viagra substituting annually for a
sex life, “one of the ‘little blue pills’ competitors blared out a
naughty little ad on ESPN, between gymnastics matches.” Mrs. Douglas
ended her reflections with a note at the irony that this year’s supply
of “old reliable” would go to waste now.
More details---seamy, grimy, steamy, and grim---are available of
course. Mrs. Doug has been imbibing SSRI’s since 1995, and any
semblance of a post-menopausal drive to copulate basically disappeared,
with the caveat that the past couple of years had witnessed, if not a
apark, then something akin to an occasional wild lightning strike.
Perhaps her husband’s sex life “going to the dogs,” so to speak, was
some kind of wake-up call, a page from the clue phone.
These people really cared for each other, although they didn’t do a
lot other than eat and watch television together anymore. The point is
not that people need to have daily sex. The point is not that people
need to have lots of sex. The point is not that every old relationship
must be passionate. The point is nothing simple nor uniform. Like
human sexuality, this case has layers and layers of complexity and
meaning.
One thing seems certain, however. The current climate, “Lysistrata
Meets ‘Larrystrata,’” is certainly perfect for the decline and fall of
the human race. We have not evolved to manage our erotic affairs with
pills; our nature, as complex as it is, flies in the face of
management, marketing, and commoditization, without which, seemingly,
the current American paradigm is as impotent as many men apparently are
without Viagra.
Perhaps the reader will reflect. Perhaps connections rarely obvious
on the surface interlink the drive to permanent war, the drive to
imprison half the planet, the drive to “just say no” to most of the
things with which people have played over the eons, with the sense of
estrangement and longing that---in the case of most of the people I see
anyway---afflicts the social ethos of this moment like ptomaine
afflicts the unlucky sushi patron.
In any case, as is my wont, “That’s My Story & I’m Sticking To It!!!”
This article was written by JIMBO.
