June 2009
Sheeple Burgers
Outside the torch winds wailed. They blew suffocating blankets of white hot sand across a scorched and battered landscape. They are a delirious, lateral wind that makes litter of the ordinary and shreds all semblance into tatters. They are a seasonal beast that race through here like the wild, untamed hoofs of pandemonium all unleashed and with such unrestrained fury that daylight turns into a gray, insufferable time, a shroud of imponderable time that drives the pitted gaze of its high desert dwellers inward. That is where we have learned to grip the bitter edges of our own terrain, to grasp at anything at all. Even high hopes and promises of a better day will do to keep a person hanging on, from letting go into the arms of swirling, howling madness. It is a desert trait, an expression worn by those who share the clime. I think it is born from awe made inexplicable by the limitless expanse of the desert’s horizon. It makes certainty both doubtful and suspicious.
Inside, a series of TVs hung from their wall and ceiling mounts where they all mimicked each other and screamed like replicated idiots trapped in the dimensions of their own over-amplified asylums. In unison they disgorged the news, “…and so I can stand here tonight and say that America does not torture.”
A mid-aged man sat by himself at the left end of the bar. He came in to have a burger and from there could watch the griddle. He shook his head in dispute and leaned forward towards the TV. He gave it an impatient, irritated look and said, “Wha’d ya’ mean, we don’t torture? It’s what we do, all we’ve ever done.”
An older gent with white hair sat two stools down to the right. He said, “What do you mean, ‘Wha’d ya’ mean?’ You heard it, the man said so right there on CNN.”
The three remaining clientele huddled together at the far right end. A woman sat between the two men. She wore a red windbreaker with an Elk’s club logo on the back. A country-western track blasted over the blaring TVs. Together, they created an artificial deafness too loud to think and too loud to hear, as if to drown out the otherwise mute, sullen air of a vacant afternoon saloon.
The man on the left took another drink. “He might as well have said, we don’t lie, steal, rape, murder or pollute neither.”
The man with white hair replied, “Huh? What you say? I can’t hear you.”
Meagan worked the bar. She spoke with the white-haired man like they were old friends or maybe family. She stepped toward the stranger. “You want another while you’re waitin’?” She wore a white apron with white ruffles sewn all around the edges. With her boots on she looked real gold-rush. “Sierra, right?”
He nodded for the beer, then rejoined, “It’s a lot easier to believe in make-believe than it is to think or face facts.”
“Who said that?”
“Me. I did.”
The man with white hair said, “You ought ‘a bottle that. Make a million.”
“Here’s your beer, Hon. Your burger’s coming right up.”
“We could have had it all,” said the stranger.
“All what?”
“All ‘a everything. You know, everything for everybody. It would have been a whole lot cheaper than paying for the mess we’re in now. We’ll never get anything out of this but more
and more of less and less. It’s the sheeple that get me, people take it like it’s supposed to be, like we don’t deserve better, peace and freedom ain’t even worth a damn vote, some divine swoon that’s sent us all to hell for our own good. How wondrous is the Lord and all that.”
“Like it says,” added the white-haired gent, “In God we trust.”
“I’d rather have some of that liberty and justice for all. I mean, we begrudged the poor every dollar they got but now all’s we do is shovel trillions to the pinstripe thugs who robbed us, robbed us as blind as the faith we put in ‘em. It’s them we trust, even now, even after they and their pious cheerleadin’ reverends had us fleeced and begging for slaughter.”
The cook came forward into the bar and stood before the stranger. He gathered his breath and shouted down to Meagan, “Your order’s up.”
Meagan said, “You’re gonna love our burgers. And you got the cheese. Mmmm. You enjoy that, Hon. I’ll be right back with the ketchup and hot sauce.”
He cut it in two and took a long, slow bite. He rolled his eyes. After another bite he said, “You ever notice how the ones who fuss most ‘bout gay this and gay that are the ones most on their knees ‘a grovelin’ and ‘a slobberin’ for the affections of their pretty boy man-god? That seem funny to you?”
Meagan spun around and giggled.
The gent said, “No, I never did. But I’ll tell you one thing, if you don’t quit that line of thinkin’ or at least shut the hell up you’re gonna start noticin’ a lot of damn fists on your damn head. Where you think you are? This is God’s country, son. It’s all some folk got, anymore.”
The stranger took it to heart and shut the hell up. He nodded, “Yeah, I know. But it could ‘a…”
The white-haired gent fumed and faced his drink. “Could ‘a, should ‘a,” he mocked. “They didn’t want it, gave it all away to anyone who’d take it, and for nothing, nothing but damn fool lies, criminal greed, and all them dead and torn-up wounded.”
The stranger put a napkin to his chin. “That’s how they won, the way they beat us.”
“Who?” asked the white-haired man.
“They sold us the plantation with no money down and threw in the rapture for free. Trouble is, nobody said we’d be the slaves, our kids fodder, or our grandkids sold off like pork belly.”
“Didn’t want to know,” retorted the white-haired gent. “Too busy grabbin’ the chains.”
“Speaking of which, I see they’re building a couple ‘a new churches along the highway,” said the stranger. “More truss ‘n nails for the faithful and pasture for the flock, huh?”
“Governor says we got no money, closin’ down the schools and everything else needed to help a person out,” said the white-haired man.
The stranger finished up, took his last drink, and left a twenty to cover his bill. He waved goodbye to the cook, said how good the burger was to Meagan and zipped his jacket up to face the wind.
“Like you said, God’s country. Masta’s children don’t need no readin’ an’ writin’, need no doctor, and nobody need no gov’ment of no people. What people? There ain’t no people. Just sheeple. Sheeples and steeples. Can’t get no closer to heaven than that.”
Meagan laughed. “Well hell,” she said, “come back again. Who knows, maybe next year we’ll have some damn sheeple burgers on the damn menu . Ha ha,” she laughed. “Ain’t that right, Frank? Sheeple burgers,” she said to the white-haired man. “Ain’t that a hoot?”
Outside, the wild torch winds wailed.