I’m sitting on the front porch of Oscar’s having very good coffee with a group of pals. We’re recalling those glorious days of yesteryear when we had spontaneous erections and there was a rational relationship between productivity gains and wages.
Out of the blue one of the pals, a post-Katrina refugee, announces he’s leaving town and going back to New Orleans. “I’ve had enough,” he says, “of nasty little hills inhabited by life’s lowest common denominators.”
This is followed by a slab of uneasy silence. We’re trying to figure out how we personally rate on the denominator scale, or how a guy from Louisiana has the gall to talk about denominators. It’s a toss up either way. John Heartbreak, a retired bookseller from Berryville, looks puzzled. “I’m not sure we understand your math,” he says. “You need to present a set of fractions before we can agree if your denominator is common or otherwise.”
Heartbreak is the most linear thinker among us and dullest man we know. And because he’s from Berryville, and not an actual resident of the People’s Republic, everyone feels free to ignore him. We do that, and collectively decide to ignore Mr. New Orleans, too. We’ve heard him complain before, all about our area’s high incidence of Post Traumatic Church Disorder (PTCD), how Arkansas leads the league in federal subsidies but hates the federal government, and how that rat smell Mrs. Hutchinson smells in the governor’s mansion is really just the governor in repose. We know, we know, we know…
We turn the conversation around by telling him how sorry we are that he’s leaving. We’ll miss you, we say, mining the ether for a chord of sincerity. But we won’t miss him. He’s too crabby, too self-righteous, and thinks that Boston was the world’s greatest rock and roll band. I mean, really?
“Vaya con Dios,” we say with a smile. “Walk on the sunny side of the street. Keep your chin up! Grey clouds are going to clear up. Put on a happy face!” He leaves, slouching sourly into the shadows.
Well, we think. Wherever you go, there you are.
Priceless!