We were walking along the riverfront in Little Rock. He was
in a favored shape, a striking resemblance to the late broadcast giant Edward
R. Murrow. He was enjoying favorite pastimes, testing my patience and flipping
lighted cigarette butts at bicyclists, a practice that began when one yelled at
him one day to “Get out of the (expletive deleted) way.” He had just sent one
cascading over an embankment and landing in a wetlands lake.
“It’s this whole accountability thing,” he said. “Why do you
suppose your species has abandoned the concept?”
“What makes you think we have abandoned the concept of
accountability?”
He didn’t answer. He took a long drag from a cigarette,
inhaled deeply, and blew the smoke from his nose.
“Why,” I said, “just the other day our legislature tried to
pass a law requiring a woman wanting to protect her body first to have a long
plastic probe thrust up her …”
He interrupted. “I’m not talking about women or children,”
he said. “I’m talking about male and corporate humans.” He finished his
cigarette and another cyclist left the sidewalk.
“Would you stop that?” I said. “You’re going to get us
arrested and, besides, you’ll ruin your health.”
“I have health insurance, don’t I? Besides, I can disappear
in an instant.”
I thrust my hand into my pockets and kept walking.
“Let me give you an example,” he said.
“Pray do,” I said.
“Your so-called ‘for-profit’ universities.”
“What about them?”
“It’s pretty much agreed that they provide no useful result,
right?”
“So I understand.”
“But public programs allow young people to borrow vast sums
of money to enroll in them.”
I began to see where he was going. “Yes,” I said. “Vast
sums.”
“Sums which can’t be paid back.”
“Afraid so.”
“So are the alleged schools held accountable for
non-payments?”
“No,” I said. “It’s the taxpayers eventually.”
“What about,” he said, “realtors and bankers who load young
folks with mortgages they know can’t be paid. Then immediately sell those
mortgages to avoid the consequences?”
“What about them?”
“Who pays the goods transported by truck, train, ship, or
aircraft?”
“Society pays the freight,” I said, “and you need to
get your Galactic Universal Translator adjusted. People aren’t going to understand
you when you talk.”
“That’s their problem,” he said. “My GUT is fine. Now about
this plastic probe …”
“Yes.”
“It’s pretty much a punishment applied to a female for an indiscretion,
right?”
I thought. “Yes, that’s right.”
“So, according to all the known laws of the Universe of
which I am aware, it takes more than the female to create this indiscretion,
right?”
“Correct,” I said.
“So is the plastic probe applied to the male half of the act
as well?”
“Of course not.”
“So he has no restraints, from an accountability standpoint,
to avoid the practice that causes the indiscretion?”
“No, no accountability whatsoever. So, you are correct, we
have a problem with, with, … whatever.” To tell you the truth, I found myself
distracted, for I was stuck with the image of that plastic probe. Then we
walked by some youths playing a game, new to these parts, in which bags were
tossed at holes in boxes with slanted fronts. I fought images, and we
walked in silence for a while.
“So you do agree your species suffers from a negative cognitivity
pod in this area of accountability?”
“I tore my thoughts away from the children’s game. “Well,
yes,” I said. “But it is our problem and shouldn’t concern the rest of the
galaxy.”
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| It seem to me that if you must have wars, veterans should be honored more than once a year. Just my opinion. - C.W. |
He started to flip a cigarette butt, saw that the cyclist
was a police officer, thought better of it, and handed it to me. For some
distance, he didn’t speak. Then he turned to look at me in deep thought.
“Tell me,” he said. “Whose children does your country send
to war these days?”
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