Chapter 22: A Kakistocracy of Mangistes

Olney and Maggie were discussing things astrological as they entered the compound of the American Center for Students and Artists, a few blocks from the cemetery.

"I don't believe you have a chart," she said. "I'll bet you never even had a mother. You were hatched."

"At least I don't have my glands on the ascendant with the Moon in a coma."

"Your moon is in bullshit."

Inside, Olney was diverted for a moment by the business at hand: sign up and get out. An American girl stood near the door. He could tell she was American by the outfit she wore: a pair of grey track pants that looked as if she'd slept in them. Her mammoth tits filled a pink sweatshirt bearing the inscription, Sciola College. "But worst of all," he said to Maggie, "are those pastel pink and grey jogging shoes on her big feet."

"At least she's color-coordinated."

"She's pathetic."

"Now don't get hysterical."

"It's hard to imagine the extent to which her mental faculties have declined, but I suggest a worthy benchmark is that pair of unbecoming athletic shoes. Doesn't she know that pretty girls wear sneakers or runners, but never jogging shoes?"

"Pipe down, please."

"Doesn't she know that wearing them in public represents terminal bad taste?"

"La ferme!"

The girl looked uneasy in the large hall where so many young Americans were rushing hither and thither with a confidence born of unopposed attainment. Olney approached her stealthily, as if he were some swarthy nightmare stepping from the shadows of her bedroom closet. Her eyes widened as he drew near. Then, as if to force the poor girl into instant insanity, he, the total stranger, spoke with the kind of off-hand familiarity that belies the psychopath. "So, how are ya? Sure are a lot of people here, today. Say, s'pose you could remove your sweatshirt and tell me where I can register?"

"Huh?" The girl looked terrified.

Maggie groaned as she leapt to interpret. "He means, my poor old father here, where do we sign up for the commercial?"

"Oh!" said the girl with relief. "It's over there."

"Why did you do that," Maggie hissed, as they joined a queue ten people deep. "You're an insufferable prick."

"Aw, they're all so lame. And scared to death. Jerks, every one of 'em."

"You sure are," she seconded. "You're gonna be the last one in my deck."

"I don't blame you," humble said. "I wince in their presence, seeing my own national persona played back in all it's clueless hubris." A big sigh. "'Cause there's no getting out of it, I'm American to the core."

"Rhymes with bore, doesn't it?" Maggie added with a snort.

"So where did the great American Dream go wrong?" wistful wondered.

"It never woke up."

"You should talk," he snorted back. "Canadians are still swimming in amniotic fluid. But Americans, oh, dear. A country of formerly fixated commie haters now with no one to hate but themselves, and all of 'em having checked in their frontal lobes for a lifetime of TV. Not an ounce of social conscience, either. All self-interest and fuck everyone else. The 'Me' nation cries, 'Arm Now!' in the act of -- Ouch! Hey! -- " Olney's voice, in the act of lifting a leg to mount its favorite pigeon-beshat soapbox, winced as Maggie pinched his arm.

"In the act, as I was saying, of feeling good about itself. A culture based on the cult of individuality that measures it's worth by the guage of the weapon each individual owns to make sure other gun-toting individuals don't get too close. Now don't pinch. It's the nation that never grew up. The average age of Americans, no matter how old they are, is about sixteen; a country of adolescents flexing its muscle. If America didn't exist it would be hard to imagine such puerile arrogance. Laughing stock of the planet. Except everyone's scared of 'em, scared in the way folks're scared of a paranoid mental patient with an axe in his hand. And when the world isn't scared of 'em, it just plain hates 'em. Too big for their britches, Hey! Stop pinching."

"You stop raving."

"I won't. The trouble with Americans is this: they're a race of instant cultural hybrids. It took Europeans centuries to become Italians, Rumanians, Norwegians. They had to deal with constant devastation in one form or other and it earned them just a little maturity. But Americans, typically, became Americans overnight. They're still children, with big zits popping up and down their nervous systems. Dangerous children on a big island full of natural wealth who no longer need to suppress their hatred of difference, Ow. And their business ethics, for crying out loud, have made them a nation of entrepreneurial scammers who'll sell you everything from vegetable dicers to roundtrips to the moon. Shame on America for allowing its noble ideals to be perverted by a gang of petty capitalists. Buyers and sellers should bloody well stay out of politics. In fact, there oughta be a law against businessmen running for political office. Who needs a wheeler-dealer kakistocracy of mangistes running the world -- oh!" He pinched her back.

"Ow!"

"What Americans are in major need of," he went on feverishly, "is a minor catastrophe. Some horrific event that stops each and every one of 'em in their tracks, that affects every last self-important, other-hating citizen. Something that wipes out their smug juvenile conceit. In short, an event that causes instant maturity. Otherwise the world is gonna suffer every time they throw a tantrum"

"So you're suggesting, a nuclear attack, is it?"

"No, God forbid. But if there were a God, why couldn't He send down some corrective virus that only attacked Americans, now don't pinch. Make 'em want to shut off their TV's and haul their minds and souls out of mothballs. So they could concentrate for a change, so they could think about their lions-share contribution to the erosion of human values in this world. So they could become aware of said world and feel for the rights of others and become decent human beings instead of flagwavers dying from ratburgers and Big Gulps. I used to think a hundred well placed neutron bombs would solve the problem. But then you'd want to eliminate most of the hideous architecture too. A messy idea that would traumatize the world. Short of interference from God or other aliens, there seems to be no hope."

"That's just the way an American would think. All extremes. You're no better than the people you hate, you left-wing fascist. They -- you never relax."

"All those chemicals we ate growing up. Combine a lifetime's ingestion of preservatives to nationalize the manic disposition, along with voluntary slavery to the sub-mental cyclops and you've got a country that would not only support a Hitler but get in there and help him rip out the hearts of un-Americans with zeal."

"Underneath you wish you could be a left-wing Hitler. You're always talking about machine-gunning the silent majority. God! America is truly a nation of psychopaths."

"Can't argue with you, there. I mean, only in America could the people elect a B-grade movie star to the highest office. I suppose you could have fun with a plot like that if you were writing a sitcom. But that's America, for you. As real as a sitcom, and one that's interrupted every ten minutes for a word from the sponsor, the 'word' having been put together by snake oil pitchmen who still think you can seduce women by playing Frank Sinatra records, and their coke-snorting offspring whose generation of Americans are the biggest marks in history."

"Olney, will you cease and desist!"

But oh, no.

"The word 'gullible' was invented for Americans. What nationality in the entire history of human stupidity has been so blind to hucksterism? I mean, it's embarrassing. In droves, they send their hardearned money to face-lifted TV evangelists who've never drawn a sincere breath in their lives, who use the name of Jesus Christ to make money in the same way that serial killers use the bodies of women to get themselves off. Anyone with half a brain could see through those bastards, but not your average American."

"Stop raising your voice. You're surrounded by Americans. And they're probably all the children of parents who love to give their money to religious demagogues. Anyway, what about the good ones, Americans like ... like youknowwho, and ... whatshisname ... can't think of 'em at the moment. Darn."

"It's an extreme place, all right. America's full of sterling examples of the best humanity has to offer. Trouble is, they usually get assassinated or thrown in jail."

Maggie blew her cheeks. "If you ask me, you're all a tiresome bunch." She was going to plead for dismissal of the subject when she remembered: "Say, what in heck is a 'cacastocracy of mangeestes?'"

"Why, a kakistocracy is a government run by the very worst citizens imaginable, and a mangiste is a businessman who eats the weak for profit."

"Don't let's talk about it any more."

"Just trying to wile away the time while we wait. It's so easy, though, to make their ego's flinch. Believe me, it's been done to me by American baiters. You can always catch an American unawares. They make you want to. They're so caught up in themselves they never really know where they are. Oblivious to the world. Why, I'll bet you a decent bottle of cognac that I can pull out my pecker right here and no one will be present enough to notice."

"Don't you dare."

"Then let's go to the graveyard and make love. We can do it against the wall near Brancusi's Kiss."

"Stop it."

"Pootie, I must have you immediately. That vacant American girl turned me on."

"Well, thanks a lot."

Suddenly they were at the counter.

"You vish to ap-peer in ze projet?" A bearded Frenchman wearing cokebottle glasses spoke to them in English with a German accent. O. and M. nodded affirmatively. "Hmmm," the man said. He looked them up and down. "Please, vould you sign here und szen vould you step to zuh cornaire, please? Ve vant to have your photograph." M. and O. signed and stepped to the corner, O. looking with fear into the eyes of his P. After a whispered exchange with a colleague holding a Polaroid camera, the German-schooled English-speaking Frenchman returned to his seat. The photographer then spoke. "Please stand next to one and ze ozere." O. wanted to yell: I know Gaston Dutronc. You'll never get away with this. "You, monsieur, weell put your arm around ze shoulders of ze geerl. Merci." Pop went the incriminating flash. While the photographer waited for the print to develop, O. measured his ground. He was certain now of imminent arrest for indecent verbal exposure. With the tremulous voice of one whose legs will no longer support the squeakiest conviction of innocence, he hissed: "Why have you taken this picture?" The reply accompanied the evidence--a frightful, washed out shot of them both. "In part," said the photographer icily, "ze projet demands an oldere man weeth a youngere woman. If you are selected, you weell each earn one szousand francs."

§§§

They argued all the way home.

"We'll never get that job now," Maggie fumed. "You offended the picture taker with your uptight paranoia. All that money we could have had. Honestly, why don't you ever just relax?"

"We'd never've gotten it anyway. Look how we're dressed. I don't know what this 'projet' is about, but unless it stars a couple of bums, we're out."

"They're not going to film the two stars in their street clothes, dummy. You could have charmed them. You spoiled it."

He knew she was right. "You're absolutely wrong. Did you see the print? We looked awful. I looked like a grinning marionette and you looked like a street urchin."

"I did not. But it's true you looked like Howdy Doody on an ego trip. Sometimes you're handsome, so why did you have to go and look foolish just then? We could have made an entire month's rent."

"Yeah, well screw the big time, we'll just have to accept our lot as extras. Say, I'm gonna buy some high grade Martell when I get my 200 francs. What're you gonna do with yours?"

"Squander it on groceries!"

§§§

Chapter 23: On the Town

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