AS I SAW IT IN AMERICA (1)
The Good, the Bad and the Burns
SALLY VINCENT
New York New Yorkers are proud people. At first peep of an English accent they recognise a true foreigner (which says something for the delicacy of their ears) and straightway plume themselves with the dangerous feathers of their city's reputation. Welcome, they insist as they smudge the bleary blot on their escutcheon to darken the alien spirit and keep it faint with dread of the violence that will befall if warning boasts are ignored. Welcome and have a good day. But don't go out on the street or you'll get mugged or robbed or raped or murdered. Welcome, and treble lock your door and keep the chin up. Nothing you own can be insured, and the sum of money you carry should you fool- ishly venture out must be sufficient only for immediate needs and yet be enough to gratify your mugger and thus disuade him from hit- ting you too hard. But welcome, anyway, and take care.
All you need is a locked door, an instru- ment to condition the air you breathe and another for your mind. You can turn on the telly at mid morning and run with the herd until tea time. You can open your heart to the benign indifference of the American soap opera and let a nation's morality wash all over you, It's what millions (and millions) of nice, careful ladies do everyday. And it's one way of sorting the good from the bad that gets your mind off reality.
The division is sharp as the muck they put on their food. Good people are unselfish. l They wear outfits in pale colours, speak in low, sincere voices, have a deep sorrow, con- cern themselves with the fate of others, drink tea and the occasional medium sherry and have miserable sex lives. Bad people are selfish, they wear dark clothes and talk in strident tones about their greedy ambitions, drink hard stuff and have a lot of fun in bed. Not a lot happens to either side. but When it does it's predictable. Supposing, for instance, a good girl is overtaken by a bad man and goes to bed with him. It will happen of course, because she was unconscious at the time owing to the inadvertent consump- tion of strong drink. She always gets preg- nant. Then she has an abortion from which she nearly dies. It's touch and go for a hun- dred episodes which gives all the good people the opportunity to discuss their responsibility in the doWnfall and scrabble around for a touch of guilt. Anyway, she doesn't die and later she marries a good guy and they find they cannot have babies. They languish over this misfortune for a thousand episodes. during which time they (the good couple) take to their hearts the offspring of a bad Couple, distinguishable by the fact that they are not faithful to each other and are seen to pour large drinks and heard to raise their voices harshly to their little one. One day the had parents are killed in an automobile acci- dent, or get caught up in bullets aimed at somebody else, and the good couple adopt the child and they all live messily ever after. Somewhere someone is always having a brain operation. It tends to be a good person and usually it's a doctor. Because everyone agrees that makes it particularly poignant as 1,1 garbage collector's brain is not so import- 'mt. The good doctor will have been hit over
the head by a bad person who is related to the doctor's financde (who is a good person) while stealing drugs from the hospital in order to sell them to the mafia (who are bad people). So all the good people gather to- gether at death's door and speak in their saintly concerned voices about how fond they all are of Russ.
In this wonderful world, drugs are not a pressing problem. Nobody actually takes them, although there are some bad people who inject good people with LSD while they are asleep or otherwise indisposed. Such vic- tims never recover. They go into comas, should their eyes ever flicker open you can tell their minds are affected and they will never be the same again. It is then necessary for all the good and unselfish people to tell each other that perhaps the victim was self- ish after all. What with his or her insecure childhood and the divorce/automobile crash/brain damage/abortion in his or her past.
Everything, however, always turns out for the best. As old grand-dad whines as he comes tottering into the kitchen to insinuate himself into a mug of mum's freshly perco- lated coffee, 'we might not think so. Martha, but things work out God's way in the end'.
Good old grand-dad. Just for him I shall stay tip all night and look at wicked people.
He would, after all, approve of the mottoes carved in marble on the precincts of the criminal court. In session day and night to cope with the eternal march of wickedness, 'only the just man enjoys peace of mind', it says, and 'every place is safe to him who lives in justice'. And there, there's the flag, curled and silken behind the Judge who is made of grey marzipan. Here are wicked faces a-plenty, rough, plain, sweaty faces, owned by men with police badges dangling off their shirts and by others who turn out to be lawyers and officials of the court. It takes some working out to spot a genuine desperado. The oriental fellow, now, with a black satin blouse decorated with a dragon. 'Oh boy', he addresses the ceiling; while the District Attorney pushes up his bail because not only did he wave a loaded gun around, but he also took a shot at a dog with it. The dog, indeed, of an acquaintance, 'Oh Boy, sighs the desperado, 'Oh boy, Oh jeez'. Then there's the greying negro, not far off seventy years old, with a wife and five kids at home. His legal aid lawyer pleads for low bail on account of the old man living in a dangerous area and needing a gun to protect himself. The marzipan Judge gets angry and shouts about his word being final and not having it and goddam it there are too many guns. His wrath is further height- ened by the sight of a seventeen year old girl who is smiling. The young lady. it appears, failed to co-operate with her captors when caught shop-lifting. Not only that, but she fought with three of them and kicked two with her shoe. The judge is astounded. He gazes upon her nervously tittering face and screams, 'she wants the fear of God put into her'. She smirks off. Her place is taken by a small brown girl who must be over sixteen or her arraignment would take place in a juvenile court. She looks about twelve. She is up for possession of a deadly weapon and nobody says anything and she gets paroled, her legs are unsteady but she makes it out of the court unaided, on the legal aid sheet her story takes three lines. She had a loaded gun and she shot herself in the stomach with it, thus requiring four weeks of hospitalisation.
Everybody goes home. Nobody is con- sidered too wicked to be allowed on the street at one o'clock in the morning. Nobody, that is, except a half-dead fellow with 'patty' in a heart tattooed on his forearm, whp has been caught twenty times too often with his heroin filled head lolling and something he shouldn't own in his pocket. He gets ten days.
He seems as unaware of his ten days as the Bowery bums are of the ten minutes they are obliged to devote to law and order. It seems that from time to time the respectable citizens of that district complain to the police that the down-and-outs are becoming too numerous. So to please the citizens the police round up all the bums, put them in a van, drive them to night court and stand them in a row in front of the marzipan judge. They comply gracefully. About thirty tramps, dirty and mysterious and wild as forest creatures. They are told to stand up straight and take garments from their heads and face to the front and they all agree that they are guilty of public intoxication. There is no punishment, just the trip and the obliga- tion to walk in a neat line out of the court and back on the street where it is not a long stumble back to familiar territory.
Lenny is last to go home. Slouching about in his hot pants and striped socks, pigtail, earrings, singing softly to himself under his breath. guilty of god knows what indescre- tion. He stands outside the hall of justice, just left of where 'the people are the foun- dation of power' and 'why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people' is carved in marble, and ties a transparent plastic bag over his head. 'And will you be ready' he asks. 'When the hard rain starts to fall?'
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