Cafe de Mello

It is the afternoon and I'm behind the bar during the slow period while Jane Edsle, our regular bartenderess, has a few hours off to get her teeth bikini waxed. Jake, our Hoagy Carmichael wantabe, is playing "One more for the road." You've got to be true to your code.

At the bar, Barbara Dogsmom looks sad as she sucks at the ice in her glass. For two years she hasn't said anything to me besides, "Tall, double vodka over with a lime twist." A minimalist poet, her work almost covers her bar bill.

Three seats over, Hicks the insurance agent nobody likes is sipping a double, single malt Scotch he is paying too much for. He doesn't care. At my right elbow, Wayne nurses a short beer. He doesn't care either.

Two younger men, both in jeans, one with a brown checked flannel shirt, the other wearing a mud-colored hunting jacket over a blue t-shirt push in through the front door and takes the stool across from where I'm standing at the middle of the bar. Both order bottled American beers; who cares what brand. I fished them from the ice under the bar, pulled the tops and set out glasses.

"Did you hear about the guy in Sacramento who pushed the lady from the drive through lane at McDonalds into traffic?" Brown shirt asked me.

"Gave the fat ass what she deserved," Hunting jacket said.

"Fat ass?" Wayne said and continued to stare into his beer.

"Had to be," said hunting jacket. "you know the type, fat ass woman, gets her order and drives half way down the drive thru and stops to check her order. Heaven forbid she didn't get enough fries. She sits there stuffing her pie hole and checking her receipt while you're waiting to get off and get going. Lard ass like that ought a get out and go inside. The exercise would be good for her." Jake, the pianist, started an instrumental version of "Asshole" by Denis Leary.

"And you're saying the lady pushed into the street was at fault?" Hicks asked.

"Had to be," Brown shirt said. "Thoughtless bitch."

"The news report said only that after he got his food, a guy in a pickup with an American flag in the rear window became impatient with the lady in front of him, pushed her out of the drive through into traffic and drove off," Hicks said. "I read about it before I came in."

"Damn straight what we need are fewer morons in the drive trough lane."

"And if someone pushed you out of a drive through lane into traffic, they would be in the right?" Hicks asked.

"Seems like you've got a problem buddy!" Brown shirt said.

"Seems like you guys have read a lot into the story," Hicks said. "We don't know why the lady was waiting in the lane or whether it was for one minute or five. She could have been waiting for traffic to clear. We don't know."

"We know enough. The guy had an American flag on his window. He was a stand up guy."

"If it was done under the American flag, that makes it OK?"

"Damn straight," said Hunting jacket.

"Giles," Hicks said, "get out your American flag and put poison in their beers."

"I can do that," I said. I reached under the bar and brought up an unmarked tub of white powder. "They won't feel a thing."

"I hate this place," Brown shirt said.

"I hate this country," Hunting jacket said and finished his beer with a long swallow. "Ain't nothing right in this country anymore."

"It's getting to where this country ain't fit for decent people to live in." Brown shirt said. He set his unfinished beer on the bar and both men left. I set the tub of glass cleaner back under the bar.

"Malaise," said Barbara to no one in particular. I poured her a fresh vodka rocks with a twist on the house. She looked at me with contempt as I placed it in front of her. Jake slipped into Billy Joel's "Shades of Grey."

"There's as much malaise as mayonnaise," Hicks said, "but what we just saw was an exhibit of Narcissist Americanus, America's normal personality disorder. Feelings of being special, superior, disdain for those you consider inferior. Expecting others to go along with your ideas and plans, and having no empathy for those who don't support you. Those two recognized the guy in the pickup as one of their emotional kin, and came to his defense."

"And you're an expert?" Wayne said.

"I try not to insure them," Hicks said. "They are impulsive and prone to act out rage with no concern for the damage they cause. Do you want to hold the insurance on that guy in Sacramento's pickup? And they are all over these days. We've normalized the disorder."

"Normalized being an asshole?" Wayne said.

"Sure," Hicks said. "Look at Rush Limbaugh. He's a textbook case, and he's admired. How about O'reilly, Hannity, Glen Beck? Where do you think they feel they get the right to lie to the American public with impunity? They vilify our president with incendiary epithets and the raving of mad men, all because their side lost. Since the majority has chosen not to support their plans, they call the democratic process tyranny."

"They have the freedom of speech," Wayne said.

"No one's threatening their freedom of speech," Hicks said. "I'd be delighted to see them standing on soapboxes at any corner they choose, but when we give them radio and television shows, we are approving and furthering the disorder. Maybe that's why in March alone at least 57 American's died in mass homicides. That's more than the number of Americans killed in Iraq during the last three months. Who needs terrorists when we have each other?"

"Anymore it doesn't matter, whose right or wrong. We've been injuring each other for much too long," Jake sang along with the start of Kristofferson's "Nobody Wins"

"Time to walk back to the office," Hicks said. "Hand me my body armor and helmet." It made me wish I could smoke.