195. Ratings

It turns out that C.W. didn’t fare well with his plan to get rich staging contests. Actually, he was quite despondent about it.

“There is already a contest for about everything,” he said. “The field of staging contests is thoroughly soaked.”

“I thought you might find it saturated,” I said.

“Besides,” he said. “The Falloonian Elders refused to approve it.”

“They have to approve your business ventures?”

“Quite so.”

“What happened?”

“They said I was deranged, demented, and not my right mind.”

“They thought you were crazy?”

“That’s what I just said.”

I ignored him. “What was the basis this time?”

“They accused me of making things up.”

“Why?”

“They ruled that no species in the Universe would ever stage a contest to see who could eat the most hot dogs. They said I must have been imagining it.”

That made me think. I actually felt sorry for him. His current form created the “spitting image” of that TV personality Jerry Springer. He shook his head in sadness, but then snapped to attention and smiled.

“I have a new idea,” he said. “A real winner this time.”

“And that is?”

“Lists.”

“Lists?”

“Creating lists. Americans are wild about lists.” He thought for a moment. “I think it has something to do with your national obsession with being first at something.”

I nodded.

He added, “Except greed, of course.”

Ignoring this, I pressed him. “So what kind of lists will you prepare?”

“Oh,” he said. He reached into a pocket and produced a folded sheet of paper. “Here is one your species is particularly obsessed with.” He read, “The best city in America.”

I groaned.

“No, really,” he said, preparing to read.

“Wait,” I said. “This topic has been beaten to death. Each list names a different city.”

“Exactly,” he said. ”That is because of the rating criteria.” He smiled wistfully. “Control them and you control the world of list-making.”

I was curious so I let him continue.

“Whatever Chamber of Commerce wants its city first, I can do it.” He studied his sheet. “Here is one. Want to hear the rating criteria?”

“Very much so.”

“Okay,” he said. “The city must have at least an African-American population equal to the national percentage or it lacks inclusiveness or, worse, could be classified as a moment when the trailing edge of the Sun's disk disappears below the horizon city.”

“A ‘sundown city’ in other words.”

“Why are you always repeating me?”

“Never mind,” I said. “Go ahead. This is interesting.”

“Okay,’ he said, “the city must be at least 500 miles from the ocean.”

“Why is that?”

“So it won’t be underwater in a hundred years or so.”

“Okay. Keep going.”

“Must be located near a fresh water supply so it will be one of the last remaining places to live when your planet runs dry.”

“Makes sense,” I said.

“Must have been around at least 200 years to prove durability.”

“Maybe,” I said.

This time he ignored me. “So, there are other criteria, catchy nickname, neat skyline, and so forth. But do you want to hear the winner, the best city in America?”
 

“By all means.”

He waved the list in my face. “Why Detroit, Michigan, ‘Motor City’ of course.”

As I pondered this, he pulled out another sheet. “Want to hear the one I did for Flint Michigan?”




A city without a skyline is a city without a soul. Don't you agree? - C.W.

Also check out www.wattensawpress.com
 





179. Presidents

“Looks like some folks are pissed off at the President.”

With these words, C.W. plopped himself onto the couch and began eating an apple. He tilted his Stetson hat to the back of his head and crossed one leg over the other. His boots were of dark leather and as polished as his oversized belt buckle.

I said, “What the hell are you supposed to be, a cowboy?”

He smiled and chewed his apple. “Just a citizen of the world, Pilgrim.”

“Oh please,” I said.

“I been studyin’,” he said. “Studyin’ about the presidency.”

“I fear for us all,” I said. “Are you the second coming of George W. Bush?”

“Who was he?” He laughed, then added. “Just kidding.”

“So what have you learned? I’m terribly interested.”

“Sarcasm won’t get you nowhere,” he said.

“Sorry,” I said. “Go on.”

“Well,” he said. “Seems a large group of folks gets really irritated with the president of these here United Sates from time to time.” He pronounced it “yooo-nited.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Like when that feller Lincoln freed those who were the legal property of another and forced to obey them.”

“Lincoln didn’t free the wives,” I said, unable to resist screwing around with him. "You need to adjust your Galactic Universal Translator.”

“I trust my GUT,” he said.

“You Texans seem to have a problem with that.”

He ignored me. “Anyway, it was the coloreds that he freed.”

“We don’t call folks that anymore.”

“And it really pissed some people off.”

“It did indeed.” I decided to let him continue.

“Then there was the furor that the second Roosevelt caused when he enacted them programs to help the poor and elderly, you know, some of the least of those among you.”

“Continue.”

“Oh,” he said, “and look what happened when Harry Truman integrated the armed services.”

“Not pretty.”

“Nope. Seems like his policy of ‘if he fights alongside you he can sleep alongside you’ didn’t set too well with some.”

“You do have a point.”

“And lord,” he said. “I don’t have to tell you what happened when Eisenhower and Kennedy took on the educational system in our southern provinces.”

“Uh. No.”

“They’s folks still pissed about that and you see what it has caused: the motion of an object emitting all spectra of light it receives in or through a medium, especially through the earth's atmosphere or through space.”

“White flight,” I said.

“Ain’t that what I just said?”

Never misunderestimate the fact that, where
politics are concerned, a good smile and a
good hat get a person a lot further than doing
good deeds. Hell, a person won't need no
 "nucular option" then. Heh. Heh. - C.W.

“Please continue.” He was beginning to make a point.

“The passage of the civil rights acts of the 1960s by our native son—who by the way we don’t claim no more—Lyndon Baines Johnson cost his party the south. Maybe forever.”

“But look at the good the laws did.”

“My point,’ he said. “It seems to me that if a president wants to get his ass in a crack, the fastest way to do that is to try to help folks. Look at this current occupant.”

What could I say? “So your advice?”

He thought. “I reckon it’s this. If you want to be beloved by some people, cut out all that ‘do-gooder crap.’ Do no good. That’ll get an airport named after you faster than anything.”

“But what about the people who need help?”

“There you go again,” he said.

56. Commuting

Of all things, C.W. decided he wanted to learn to drive. Actually, as one who had piloted the galaxy on more than one occasion, he picked up the internal combustion engine easily. His main complaints are the mechanical inefficiencies─easily the worst design in the cosmos─and the unpredictability of his fellow motorists─doubtless the least attentive in existence. Nonetheless, we made it through the orientation and were making our final test run.

I had to smile. He had assumed the shape of a senior citizen, a lady, arguing that this would provide some degree of sympathy from inquisitive police officers or state troopers. There proved little to worry about, though. He maneuvered flawlessly with only a periodic “Oh, that poor dear should really pay attention.”

 

We tested his prowess in downtown traffic and then eased onto the interstate and headed out one of the major arteries serving the city. He seemed to enjoy the speed and flow of interstate traffic and I only found it necessary to caution him (her) about his speed once or twice.

“Sort of makes you feel both powerful and connected to others at the same time, doesn’t it?” he said. “I’m beginning to understand the attraction that operating a personal vehicle has for your species.”

“I suppose that is one way to put it,” I said.

“I mean, after all, you poor folks have so little opportunity to feel powerful.”

I ignored him. I knew he was only trying to wind me up. It is a frequent tactic of his.

At any rate, our attention shifted as we topped a hill and observed a long line of vehicles inching along the lanes opposite ours. They were heading into Little Rock but at a snail’s pace on this weekday morning.

“Must be a traffic accident back there, the poor people,” C.W. said in his most matronly voice.

I looked at him to see if he was putting me on. No, he looked serious.

“The traffic is that way every morning, C.W.” I said.

“Every morning?”

“Yep.”

“What’s causing it?”

“People commuting to work from other cities.”

“They live somewhere else and endure this every morning to get to work?”

“Every morning of the week.”

“Why don’t they work where they live?”

“Not enough jobs.”

”Then why don’t they live where they work?” he said as the freeway curved, providing a view of a line of creeping vehicles as far as the eye could see.

“They have their reasons, I suppose.”

I could sense his databank whirring through a complex statistical analysis.

“I see only one strong correlative factor,” he said.

I didn’t say anything.

“Don’t tell me …,” he said, stopping short to think.

“I’m afraid so,” I said.

“What is it with your species and skin pigment?” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I really don’t know.”

“Why you poor dears,” he said as he pushed the vehicle’s speed well beyond the legal limit.