Payload Delivery

Amazon contracts it’s own delivery drivers now. I despise that hegemon, but still, sometimes—what you gonna do?

When the familiar UPS trucks were displaced by vehicles in various states of disrepair driven by alternative-lifestyle looking humans, some, gasp, of different complexions, a few of my neighbors reinvigorated the Neighborhood Watch.

I imagine them checking their assault rifles, that sort of thing.

I talked with a source who told me that the police department is still getting calls about suspicious vehicles which turn out to be driven by nonwhite, gig economy victims delivering the Amazon crap we all think we need.

Last year, I asked a very large, massively bearded African-American man as he delivered to me my Amazon plastic crap if, ‘the good citizens of Ridgefield’ were watching his every movement.

At first he looked at me with what felt like suspicion. Who can blame him? Then, I suspect sensing I was more empathy than pathology, he said that the scions of the Home of the Brave follow him around until they see him deliver a package and realize he’s working, then they leave him alone.

I told him I was sorry and waved good-bye. But, I am pretty sure the Neighborhood Watch vigilantes, guns-a-ready, wait from a safe distance to make sure the package my bearded friend just delivered does not explode before looking for the next Trayvon. 

I’d bet the Asian dude with tattoos who delivered a dog collar to me today elicits paranoid heart accelerations from the same old, white people who’ve spent a lifetime voting for the plutocracy that put that young man on their doorsteps.

He’s trying to make rent in a country where corporate property rights are the primary beneficiaries of state enforcement. I’m sure he smiles as he leaves the package at the doorstep while my frightened neighbors peer through peepholes, FOX News noisily keeping the rear guard. 

It’s us against us, after all. We can’t ever forget that.

The dog collar, btw, works a charm. It beeps loudly when our dog barks. He’s so frightened by it he stops barking and pees on the floor.

Kahena helped me cut stars out of white cloth for our Halloween flag. We’re sewing together an 1865 American Flag for Henry’s costume. He’s going as a Civil War drummer boy. I’ll be a Union flag dude. Tomorrow we will glue the stars in place.

I chose the flag as a subtle statement about what happened to the Dixie flag immediately after the Civil War. They were pretty resourceful back then. I imagine they cut up Ol’ Dixie for various uses, bandages, snot rags, toilet paper.

We’ve got a big display of the ghost of the Dixie flag just outside town, next to the highway.

At first, I was going to follow Henry in his Union drummer boy outfit while wearing a ‘Do I Need to Come Down There Again’ General Sherman shirt, but I think the 1865 flag will do.

I should probably do the 1867 flag, as it would include Nebraska, the 37th State, but also the 14th Amendment which held some sway, at least theoretically, between roughly the late 1960s and 2010.

We hand cut the stars from pristine white cloth (note:not a Southern surrender flag, though that would be appropriate). Kahena’s stars are as awful as mine, but she doesn’t know it.

In a sense, she’s still star struck, while I see that my stars are bumpy, random, and misshapen, not as badly as the 14th Amendment, of course--they still resemble stars--but more like the First Amendment, abused but somewhat operational. 

Today, we learned Kahena will be singing Lee Greenwood’s rancid propaganda vehicle, ‘Proud to Be an American’, as part of a school music performance. This song, Greenwood’s most epic of all his epic pablum, was first used to bind God, Country, and the Flag into a zealous, patriotic triumvirate to glorify Reagan’s destruction of Unions and the environment.

The song continues to impart the glorious gloss of God sanctified militarism to Reifenstahl-proud Presidential Pep Rallies, to this day.

I’m not sure Kahena has told her music teacher, yet, that her favorite God of the moment is Erishkagel, the Babylonian Goddess of the underworld. Henry simply refused to believe in God in Kindergarten, though I did try to sell him on Hephaestus, the blacksmith who made Achiles’ shield and armor. 

There are a lot to choose from!

When I learned my Kindergartener would be singing the Greenwood gibberish I huffed a bit, thought I might call and protest. Then I figured, whatever, let her sing the song.

It’s utter crap and the kindergarteners will do it justice.