ERNEST HEMINGWAY (July 21, 1899–JULY 2, 1961)

“It is all gone now.  The old days.  The old ways we had of dealing with a bully whether in a bar or in a boardroom.

The FBI opened a file on me during WWII.  Hoover was watching everybody.  He was some bully.  A bully you couldn’t get at.  But it made him impotent too.  It made him pathetic to be left all alone with his files and his secrets and no one knowing about it.

I’m looking at these stories now about Snowden and Obama and the NSA and the goddamn phone companies.  Brother.  How was it you people let things get so far gone?  No cojones we used to say.

If I were with you now I would sit with you in a bar and tell you how it ought to be.  I’d tell you about Spain.  About the green hills of Africa.  About liberating Paris from the Nazis.  About Cuba.  And all the bullies and spooks we dealt with.  And all the women we loved and who loved us back for the kind of men we were and what we did.  And how the women did it too.  Sometimes better than any of us men.

About how the light could be so bright and just right for seeing the things you needed to do something about.

Now you waste a lot of time worrying how correct you should be and whose ass to kiss.  And whether you can get away with not acting or even thinking about what is right and what is not.

And you’ve let the whole planet go to hell because of that.  Soon there won’t be any lions or bears or any kinds of creatures to hold in awe for their simple beauty and their courage and their dignity.  And nothing for your kids to look up to except the bully.

It’s a wonder you all don’t put a shotgun in your mouths and just get it over with.

And when somebody comes along with words that are strong and true you don’t want to hear them.  A way you’ll never be.  Just like the bullies and spooks want you to be.  All for the fatal nothing that has become what was once your spirit and is now your damnation.

So I’ll leave you with it then.  I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable poking at what you’ve become and what you’ve let come to pass.  It wouldn’t matter anyway.  There would have to be more in it for you the way you live now than just an old man telling stories about how it was and how it might have been.  Wouldn’t there?

Still I can see a faint light somewhere in front of you.  The one you keep turning away from.  It would be pretty to think you might someday look right into it without fear but with the courage and dignity to make it your own.

Maybe you’ll even do it tomorrow like you keep saying you will.  But you have to truly do it.  Just do it.  Just like that.  Like we did back when the light was much brighter and we could take on the bully full out.  And then laugh about it and love ourselves for it.  And lift a toast to ourselves for the sheer hell of doing it and getting it done.”

(Brother.  That was some post Petey.  Just like that.  My regards to Wendy Davis down in Texas on this day.  Cojones.)

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.