Bumps in the road

I have to admit I'm excited about this meeting. That's unusual, of course. Usually you just practice saying yes, though sometimes to beat boredom I try saying yes in new and equally boring ways. Or I stay quiet. Or at worst stay awake; saying no is just not a good idea. Last time I said no was the last time I had a decent job. This, though, will be no office meeting. It's better. I think.
It's - well, a little frightening, too. I'm not sure quite what they want from me. Or exactly who 'they' are.

It started serendipitously, as you'd have to expect. I haven't ever done this sort of thing before. I don't know anyone who has - well, that I know of. I'm starting to get suspicious now. After all, this had to start somehow. Someone I've met must be involved already.

I was at a party. Nothing special. Just a party. The kind that has a fair number of people, and an unfair amount of alcohol. The kind where not everyone can drink to their heart's content (or liver's discomfort, if you prefer). It was upscale, and I ordinarily wouldn't have been there for that fact alone, but I've reconnected with a few old friends recently. And the women at these things tend to be a lot smarter, or at least better educated. Sure, in the long run they might be quarrelsome, but they do know how to talk. And I like talking. Which was, after probably a few too many drinks, what I was doing. Loudly.

Of course it was politics. No one wants to talk about anything else anymore. Well, I guess there's always music, too, but it's just as bad. I like not insulting people, so I don't have any particular politics of my own; just whatever keeps the world running well enough. I like to call it vehicular politics. You don't need to change the oil every 1,000 miles, or use special blends, or special gas, or check out every little ding and squeak and squeal. Nah - so long as it keeps running well enough, that's good. Same with the world. It'd be better, maybe, if we did all those other fancy things that could be done, but no one's serious about doing them. The few who are are crazy. Things usually work out. And - I always have to smirk a little when I say this - it gets us where we're going anyway, right?
In fact, it gets us where we're going faster if it's not working right. Heheh.

So I was talking about my vehicular politics. I was resolving some little political trifle or other, probably the economy, when some wit suddenly turned to me and said, "Hinayana or Mahayana?" I scowled at him - I always scowl by default when I'm confused, fortunately people usually take it as displeasure - but then I said it'd have to be Mahayana, since it gets us all where we're going well enough, and it must therefore be quite large. Then I added, "and isn't 'lesser-vehicle' insulting to non-Mahanayas?" Spineless, PC bastard that he was, that shut him up, and I'm glad, because I don't really know much more than that. Funny how political correctness defines what people know and say. But it has its uses. Like shutting that guy up.

Anyway, someone else then added, "while we're on the subject of vehicles, how about oil? And Iraq? How shall we navigate that mess without getting our car bombed?" She smiled hugely, like her teeth were thinking of leaving her body to make their own republic (probably they'd call it Teethistan), as though she thought that was a very clever thing to say. Another added, "or sick?" He looked around, disappointed and a little sheepish, "you know, carsick?"

Early in the evening I'd realized that I stopped talking to these high-school 'friends' for a reason. But I figured now that I was here, I might as well try to impress people. For that question, however, I think I may have an answer. I didn't flounder like the asker was probably expecting. I hate floundering. And flounders. I hate that word. Bottom-dwelling, lopsided fish. It's not even symmetrical.
Anyway, I have a solution, and I think it'll work. It's partly based on the Malay Emergency, and actions of the British Army in putting that down, and partly also on a...well, somewhat anachronistic view of the world and human rights. Plus a big healthy dose of realism. Unlike some people, I believe the job of soldiers is to shoot people, not stand in the dirt waiting to get shot. They exist solely to make other people do things they really don't want to do. I doubt extra guys with guns standing in the dirt for a couple weeks, trying to act polite and respectful of local traditions and customs, will be stopping any wars anytime soon. This problem was at least fifty years in the making, if not centuries. Everything so far has failed, so I say it's time for something new.

I won't bore you with details yet, but I told them all about that. I got a bit carried away: I was describing some of the worse things I'd learned from reading. I tried to keep it light, but that comes across as gruesome sometimes when you're talking about dark issues - I was telling them how many thousands or millions I expected to die, and from what. I guess just for shock value I told 'em some stuff I'd read in the newspapers, you know, some of those heart-rending stories journalists do. If I was talking to soldiers, or other realistic people, it probably would've been fine, but these were party people and intellectuals. Neither had ever seen anything real. Even as inebriated as I was, I could see they were uncomfortable with me. They'd rather not think too hard about what it takes to make a decent world.

I'm pretty sure it's been said before, and better, but partiers get away by drinking. The ones who have opinions don't get them on their own. They borrow thoughts from the angry musician of the moment. Whichever furiously delusional middle-class punk is hot at the moment, that's the party people's political voice. Intellectuals aren't much better. They act like they do care, but they get away by getting close - through a pinhole. Imagine a room full of people, and they're all holding newspapers. Each person's newspaper has one tiny hole in the fold, and these people spend all their time looking through it. They can't see much of anything; most of the time they only see empty space, or someone's shoe, or a patch of carpet - they have to ask someone else where to look, and even then they hardly see anything, but they study that patch of view like it was God's own face, and they tell the rest of us what the world is like. It's like Alice through the Pinhole, the things they tell us. They're all afraid of the world. That's why I'm sure that's been said before - people never change.

So, isolated and awkwardly alone, I decided to make my exit. Granted, several of the people who'd heard me seemed interested in what I had to say, but once their friends and spouses started looking edgy, they backed away, too. I heard one woman, one of my old high school acquaintances, actually, and back then always very open-minded, muttering something about treason. "Well," I thought to that, "free thought might be dead. Better get some free food."

I scored a few mouthfuls of those pretzels and m&ms that inevitably fall into every living-room couch at every party, some diced fruits, an especially salty little meat-cracker thing, and a couple oranges. I was glad I wouldn't need to buy dinner. Money has been a little tight lately.

Before I left, I noticed the wine bottle, and the punch bowl. I'd really been expecting things to go better than they did. I thought people cared about this stuff. Soldiers getting blown up. New wives and little babies, whose man is never coming back. All the people over there, the way they suffer. Killed just for being born in the wrong place, to the wrong family. So I see these protesters and whoever, and they go and have marches and rallies and scream a lot, but give 'em a solution, and they act like they'd rather not know you. I had a few more drinks. And maybe a few more after that. My idea really was good. I wish they'd at least think about it.

It took a while to get home. I might have been driving drunk. The trip home was long and hazy, and I didn't get there until very late. And when I went inside, there was a message on my machine. I wondered why they hadn't just called my cell. Maybe it was the people from the party. Maybe they didn't actually want to talk to me, but just pretend to care by leaving a message. I was tired. So I hit play, sat down, and ...fell asleep.