ALEXANDER DE KALB - THE FINAL MEDICINE MAN

159. ALEXANDER DeKALB – the Final Medicine Man:

I saw five meager men at the license plate mill and they were tuning up for war as such men often will - and no one said a word yet I already knew what was coming because I’d seen the rehearsals at the Center Stage Equilibrium Transitory Nature Theatre and so had heard most of the banter which passed for dialogue : BUT I listened anyway - “We’ve given everything away and we’ve got nothing left this whole country’s been turned over to wastrels and fools with no value nor education and we’re left to walk around in lands of our own abandonment and believe you me Charlie if I had my way about it there’d be a few dead bodies over this one floating in the Jameson River for sure” and this other guy simply nodded as he was blowing his nose with a large white handkerchief which seemed to suit him well (for he reserved nothing of his character once his face was hidden) and then he said “haven’t you anything for anyone left – you sound like the most cantankerous of fools” and that was the end of the dialogue as I heard it for they had already left the room and only the Director was there sitting with a Coca-Cola and two aspirins trying to figure out what else to do and he was writing what he said as he spoke the words aloud (but nothing seemed to work he grumbled and muttered and seemed to cross things out) ‘life’s a betrayal everything’s wrong the barnyard and the alley alike conceal thieves and latent killers together the warmest of folk are the coldest at heart death’s an infraction and disappointment has no brothers…’ and I figured (sincerely) that there HAD to be something more so I got up and went over and said (myself) “hey buddy don’t you know this is all lies and bullshit and whatever you’re trying to do it’s a bunch of crap and if you expect someone to listen and fall for this at the same time you’re crazier than I am for misplaced faith is no faith at all DO YOU understand that my fellow?” and then I remembered what I’d last seen in the memory palace myself - it was Father Alexander the Theatrical Fag in a ’61 Ford Galaxie driving down some Rubric Lane like a Maestro of Might with a cigarette dangling from his lips and a thick-lipped Allen Ginsberg smile beaming across his face while Belinda the Surreptitious Maid kept the entire dinner table waiting and HE pulled over and leaned to the passenger window and started talking back at me - “whatever you do it has to be real and the words really should flow between people even the small talk and the banter it should all at least come together as if people did really wish to listen to it and just getting ponderous for the sake of that alone is not worth much and also NEVER EVER do any of this at stage rear for it ALL must be brought up to the closest to the front of the stage as you can get for that is only when people focus on character and letter - each word of the speaker - make it all happen at the very proscenium edge if you can FOCUS THEIR EYES AND ATTENTION you understand that?”

and THE CAR COMPANY QUESTION:

And then one last thought struck me from 1961 : how is it and why that the Ford Motor Company decided to make a car they called the Ford Galaxie (which he was driving) and not the Ford Galaxy which would have been the proper way instead - but perhaps I was merely dreaming.