It was bright and sunny in the hotel dining room where the legislators come and go talking about the issues of the day but really about themselves, being politicians. The old man in a rumpled linen suit over in the corner stood out like a weed at a garden show. If anybody had cared to notice him. But his hooded eyes noticed all.
The old man might as well have been another fraying fern. Or another fading pattern on the wallpaper. Nursing a stale cup of coffee, he could have been an outdated item on the dusty menu. "Why, don't mind if I do," he said on being offered a real drink. "Make it a Scotch. Single-malt. Laphroaig 10 Years Old, if they have it.
"I realize," he went on, "that I might look like a bourbon man in this disreputable state my 78 years have brought me to, but appearances can be deceiving. Once I, too, was going to be Atticus Finch out of To Kill a Mockingbird, but the malice of time intervened. Now I am the wretched sight you see before you--less Atticus Finch than Seb Cooley courtesy of Advise and Consent, only without the oratorical skills."
The old man smiled no smile. As if he were just locating himself scientifically in a catalogue of political species. "Scotch has been my comfort and downfall," he reminisced, "since I outgrew Early Times my freshman year at Ole Miss. And I was such a promising student, too. Still am. Just never graduated to prosperity. Just as well, just as well. Wouldn't know what to do with prosperity if I ever bumbled into it the way I do everything else. It would doubtless be wasted on me, as poverty is wasted on the poor. We live and don't learn. Here's to you, generous sir, and to the last gentleman. I think his name was Walker Percy.
"I seen 'em come and I seen 'em go," he mused, "but I'm not sure I've ever seen a crew like this one running the show over at the state Capitol these long days. Quite a bunch, even for Republicans. How do they manage to stay so interested in the least interesting things? Sure, they've got their crackpots and bores, like any other incoming class, but as a group they seem in their element only when dealing with the details of legislation, not its purpose. They're mechanics, not movers-and-shakers. Where there is no vision, the people lose all interest.
"How different from the Rockefeller Republicans that I remember sweeping in to clean up the whole state after all those years of Orval Faubus' nigh-eternal incumbency. Hope was in the air, all was promise, and Win Rockefeller was striding through the Capitol in those trademark boots of his. Did I say striding? Well, stumbling, especially late in the day and occasionally early. Even the best of us have our weaknesses. But this new bunch is so clean, so wholesome . . . and so unbearably dull. Let's just say that, on balance, they're about as fascinating as Asa Hutchinson, that is, not fascinating at all, just competent. Everybody trusts Asa, but how can anybody be interested in him? Especially if you've grown up in the Southern Gothic politics of my wasted youth."
The old man took a tentative sip of his Scotch, just to savor the peat. "You know, it's strange. My so-called specialty at law (my card, sir) is that of analyzing, explaining and generally mucking about with trends new and used. And yet I've never really been good at explaining things, especially the inexplicable. Like the South, for instance. Even if I'm still pretty good at casting a fraudulent air of understanding over what I have no hope of ever understanding. Only of accepting what was never meant to be understood. I love a mystery and would never disturb it. No ice, thank you. Well, one sliver of a shaving of a suspicion, just to set the aroma free."
The savoring got him admiring. "Ahhhh, the Scots knew how to make whisky," he sighed. "And how to fight, not to mention philosophize, usually against philosophy, which somebody certainly needs to do.
"Ah, the Scots. They could buy from the Jews, sell to the Armenians, and still make a tidy profit. I fear, sir, they have fallen upon evil days, like the rest of us in love with hope and change, not valuing what has been and still is. Of late, as I understand it, they wish to be both independent and wards of the English, much as we wish to be our own masters but still in thrall to those geniuses in Washington. Or just over at 500 Woodlane. So bring on those subsidies, grants, and earmarks! Just give 'em a name like Private Option and we true-believing capitalists are all for it. We don't want it just both ways, no sir, but every which way."
Twirling the glass as if in admiration for the color of the dark yet light whisky, but probably just to pass the time and punctuate a sentence, the old man paused. Much like a lawyer in his summation, just for the dramatic effect even if what followed would be of no effect whatsoever. It was what passed for a style, or used to.
"Hope and change were all the rage in the old days," the old man mused, "which were when--about three or four or six years ago? I lose track. Now it's despair and decline that's in--and how we're going to manage our last act, though of course those aren't the terms used. Instead, we're told of the need to adopt Sustainable policies. For, really, there's nothing to be done. About anything. Except maybe hold those insufferable, pointless international conferences our celebrities much favor--and jet to regularly. For we've peaked, you know. Clinton, Inc., can explain it all, given enough cash and connections.
"Peaked as in Peak Oil. Remember that theory? The world was running out of petroleum and there was really nothing to be done. Except maybe manufacture solar panels, probably in China by way of Solyndra. Remember it? Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end. They did, of course, like Solyndra itself. Just as soon as the government money ran out. Our money, if anybody cares. But we're not supposed to. The masterminds in Washington certainly don't."
The old man made a futile gesture at straightening his bow tie and thinning hair, cleared his ever-clogged throat, and then continued: "This being an election year, we're all supposed to be outraged at how the rich spend their money, not by how Mr. Obama spends ours. Decline's the ticket now, my young friend, don't you know? Our best days are behind us. We've just got to sustain what's left, nothing more. Just like in the Carter Years, when there was nothing to be done about it, either, except ration gas and sit around in the dark wearing sweaters and shivering. Cheers!"
The old man had reached the bottom of his glass, but not of his remarks, not quite. "Do you believe any of that, even for a moment?" he asked without expecting an answer. "We've found more oil and natural gas than ever before. Thank you, George P. Mitchell, not that anybody remembers his name. Or just who invented fracking and where the hell the Barnett Shale is down in Texas. But we're in decline, and must reset and retreat all around the world, seeking detente with whatever tinpot despot is riding high just now for the usual, inevitable fall. Ah, good old Detente, remember? Does anybody dare use that word now that Kissinger and Nixon no longer bestride the globe? Allow me to submit, young sir, that it's all a crock of cheap bourbon. Never bet against the United States of America, which was our big mistake in 1861. And downfall. The late unpleasantness we call it now. The late unmitigated disaster would be more like it."
After one more sip, the old man seemed to grow reflective, and then announced: "The one definitive, ongoing refutation of the whole scientific theory of entropy is the United States of America. It keeps coming back." With that, the old man set his glass down like a period at the end of a sentence. I motioned to the waiter for another round, but when I turned back, the old man was gone, leaving only a kind of grinning, star-spangled presence. And the check.
Paul Greenberg is editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. E-mail him at:
pgreenberg@arkansasonline.com
Editorial on 05/31/2015