Posted by
LadyLiberty on Thursday, March 20, 2008 4:48:40 PM
Episode 36: The Confusion of a Multitude
...however small the republic may be the representatives must be raised to a certain number in order to guard against the cabals of a few; and that however large it may be they must be limited to a certain number in order to guard against the confusion of a multitude.
--James Madison, Federalist #10
Curtis: Well, I know that I'm not in any little red, white and blue chicken coop or hen house, scratching in the bread line, for somebody to hand me my free lunch, or plump me up as lunch for the race baiters at the gate. You can supra-prime bank on that.
Ben: Not going to read your lines from the subtext for the poor, little hen-pecked?
Curtis: No, if I ever get that sick, call Dr. Honeycutt to the House! Matter of fact, call her in now. I'll do some preventive medicine.
Alexander: Now listen here. I thought I told you to stay in your chicken coop place, uppity cocky. I've got the keys of the foxy cabal. You're 'sposed to have the confusion of the multitude.
Curtis: How cleverly "complex" of you. I guess I'm pluribusted!
Alexander: Yes, you are. Because I can and will. So don't make me tax your free speech any further. Your tightly wired identity will help keep you in your many squares, so don't trip yourself up again, 'hear?
Curtis: Oh, I hear ya. Like a chain-clanking echo.
Alexander: I'm glad you're listenin'. Now you didn't really want to cross this here plantation line where everything's so carefully meshed out for you, did you? (patting him on the back) One Nanny master's enough, lil' chick. You watch your step now. You were just one puffed up huff from getting your clucking beak snapped.
Curtis: For real? Well now, Nanny bonehead, I'd be leary of some blowback on that threat of yours...oooh...what was that?
Alexander: Pay no attention to that trumpet call beyond the veil. It's just William getting in his licks to throw you off your game. We don't need no Dem-Cross here. If the machete clan don't cut it, the bombing ummeh will. Very double edgy.
Timeus: (yelling) William! Put it down. It's not Easter yet.
Curtis: (yelling to William) Give your props to the preps, slacker!
William: (hollering back) Just giving you a back up, Tutor Timeus.
Timeus: (to Alexander and Curtis) I'm going to have to cut through your psychodrama here and get you to the first base of your physical bearings. We'll hope your mental and spiritual follow. State your position.
Curtis: Yes, sir. I got my yard stick here. (pointing to his head and heart) I adjust them to that still, small voice in harmony with that wake-up call, but drowning out this travelling satana at 3:00.
Alexander: Well, I declare.
Curtis: Yeah, well, I declared mine too, so you can stick that co-dependence where the moon does shine over the desert. Yonder, pup. Meanwhile, campers...
Alexander: But that is SOOO mean, Captain America...please...help me...I'm melting; I'm melting!...
Curtis: Yeah, good job, sucker. Take a slow, dissipating hike back to your underworld. Anyway, y'all, (grabbing a long, straight stick) inner light to outer, sun to shadow, and on this level playing field (clears a space on the ground and drives the stick in), I stake my life on keeping the two in accord: ground of my being with the Heavenly Host.
My being has a nature. It is free by virtue of my God-given birthright and this mind that knows it like no other. Nobody owns it. Transcendent truth created it. Nobody destroys it but me, and I'm not in any mood to do so. I hereby refuse that dereliction of duty.
From God's hand to my mouth, I speak freely of what stands before me. My thoughts and words align themselves to "what is" first. I will not bend them like a magic boomerangst to what is not, or even what could be until I know them like a permanent crease across my heart. For what could be cannot derive from what is not. Let facts speak to a candid world, now steeped in fantasy.
When flattened that way and equal outcomes sing their siren song, I stay on course, by straitened and divinely-deeded equal means to diverse, everlasting ends.
I mark the tip of this shadow of death; I mark him well. Ten minutes could a thousand lifetimes be when I will mark again--eh Will!! (He hollers out, drawing a line from the first mark through and to a foot beyond the second mark.)
I stand my ground, squared up: left foot to the first mark, right foot on the end of the line. Being in the northern, temperate zone, my hand before me and to God above, I'm facing north. East to my right; west to my left; south to my back. All born to rise again by the rod and staff of right reckoning.
Timeus: Square away.
(In the teepee, preparing supper's soup and fry bread)
Mary: I've only got a half a cup of oil from my secret stash.
Raina: Well, that's half full.
Mary: (laughing) Is that enough for fry bread?
Raina: No. Not even if I get Wayne, the Wampanoag medicine man to anoint it.
Lily: Let's make biscuits with it now and we'll ask Tutor Timeus later where he put our baking ingredients.
Raina: You're reminding me of when we went to Wes Jackson's Prairie Festival years ago, remember Sharmayne? And he was telling the story about the farmer in Kansas whose new wheat crop got wiped out in one of those great plains tornadoes. Remember how mortified his family felt as they toured the fields of devastation. There was not a living plant to be found among the wasted acres.
Then finally the farmer laid hold of one stalwart, resilient shoot that shone to him as if it were the Holy Grail of Christendom. And he said to his sons, "Can you imagine that? What a strong and vital crop that's going to grow for us next season. That's American ingenuity at work, boys. Behold."
Sharmayne: Like my grandmama used to say, "You can't make honey out of lemons. But you can make lemonade. And that's the bittersweet truth of life, chile. If you've been kind to your neighbors and haven't coveted their well or ill-gotten gains, they might lend you a cup of sugar for the sweetening. So love them as yourself."
True story. That's what she used to say, God rest her soul.
Lily: And so say all of us.