Tag Archives: Corruption

Clown Show

Earlier this year at a Vatican near you, several soft-shoed monks overheard Pope Vapid Agonistes CLXXXIX talking with Father Orifice, his liaison with the Department of Cynical Ploys. That conversation has been faithfully transcribed below.

“Papa Agonistes, I’ve heard back from the trashmen -“

“Father Orifice, please, we call them trashpersons, now.”

“My apologies, Papa. I keep forgetting. The trashpersons aren’t interested in meeting with you for a photo op. They’re concerned about how that would look considering the scandals engulfing the Vatican.”

“Scandals? What scandals?”

“Well, now, these are their words. Not mine. So please don’t burn the messenger at the stake, but they said something about our dishonesty in covering up the rape of children by priests and our failure to address it forthrightly even now. Also, something about fraudulent activity within the Vatican bank. And, what else? Oh, yes, all the hypocrisy in dealing with LGBTQ matters. They talked a lot about hypocrisy in general. They thought a photo op would make them complicit.”

“This is so disappointing! That photo op was the perfect scheme to show the world that we’re really serious about pretending to take the trash out and clean this place up. What are we going to do?”

“I do have one idea, Papa. You know how everyone adores clowns?”

“Of course, and rightly so.”

“How they’re respected the world over?”

“Obviously. Their moral authority is as great as mine.”

“Here’s my idea . . .” Unfortunately, they turned a gold-gilded corner, and the silent monks could no longer hear their conversation, but two weeks later, while they were flagellating themselves, the monks did hear this.

“Papa, I have great news. America’s comedians have agreed to meet with you.”

“That’s wonderful. They’re not worried about complicity?”

“Not at all. They said whitewashing is what we do best. So, I’m thinking we can call the meeting a Conclave of Clowns. And then we’ll release a group picture of them fawning all over you, and underneath there’ll be a caption that reads: If we’re so corrupt and hypocritical, why do all these clowns love us?

Schlitz and a Pack of Luckies

Dennis Lehane’s Small Mercies is aptly titled. Mercy in South Boston is as rare as a Yankee fan. Though published in 2023, the story is set in 1974 during school desegregation. “It was very hot in Boston that summer, and it seldom rained.” The white “Southie” community is virulently opposed to school busing, which will send their children to a different high school in September. Gasoline has been poured on the racial tensions. I hope no one strikes a match.

Well, hope moved out of South Boston long ago, so the match gets struck. A high school boy, who is black, turns up dead in a Southie train station. On the same night a white high school girl goes missing. The girl’s name is Jules. Her mother is Mary Pat, a rage-filled Southie woman who is not afraid to break a punk’s nose. The boy’s name is Auggie Williamson. His mother works with Mary Pat. What are the chances these two events are related? Exactly.

In Southie “you’re either a fighter or a runner. And runners always run out of road.” Mary Pat is most certainly a fighter. When Jules doesn’t come home after 24 hours, Mary Pat knows going to the police is pointless. She goes to the Butler crew, a criminal gang that offers “protection” to the Southie neighborhood, instead. The Butler crew, however, isn’t all that interested in figuring out what happened to Jules. That’s when Mary Pat takes matters into her own hands, and absolutely everyone better watch out. There is “something both irretrievably broken and wholly unbreakable [living] at the core” of her. She’s the kind of vigilante who would make Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson say hey, Mary Pat, you’re kinda freaking us out. Have you thought of anger management classes?

Lehane tells an engrossing, fast-paced story using a thesaurus devoid of pretty words. Vile racial epithets abound, but the brutal language is appropriate given the subject matter, time, and place. We aren’t reading about Disneyland. Southie is a small world, but it’s not a kids’ ride. “In Southie, most kids came out of the womb clutching a Schlitz and a pack of Luckies.”

While racial divisions are the paramount problem here, Lehane doesn’t ignore the economic divide. “We all know that the only law and the only god is money. If you have enough of it, you don’t have to suffer consequences and you don’t have to suffer for your ideals, you just foist them on someone else and feel good about the nobility of your intentions.” The private schools will remain segregated, as will the schools in the wealthy suburbs.

Hypocrisy and corruption are everywhere in Boston. Yet, somehow, Mary Pat believed Southie was exempt. “You know, we always say we stand for things here. We might not have much, but we have the neighborhood. We got a code. We watch out for one another . . . What a crock of shit.” When the truth finally smacks her in the face, Mary Pat hits back. Hard.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

Absurdistan: Love and Geopolitics

Gary Shteyngart’s Absurdistan is a geopolitical romp that ends on September 10, 2001. But the book was published in 2006 – so make no mistake – 9/11 hangs over the narrative like an ominous cloud. Don’t make this mistake either – though 9/11 was a tragedy and geopolitical catastrophe, the novel is a raunchy and satirical examination of life when you’re a geopolitical pawn. And we’re all geopolitical pawns.

As the narrator, Misha Borisovich Vainberg, tells us in the prologue, this is a “book about love. But it’s also a book about geography.” The story opens on June 15, 2001. Misha is 30 years old and the son of the 1238th richest man in Russia. That’s because his father is a kleptocrat.

During the 1990s Misha attended Accidental College in the mid-west. As a result he adores America and rap music. His rapper name is Snack Daddy, because he loves all the snacks that have turned him into a self-described “fatso”. Unfortunately, his father called him back to Russia, and he is stuck there because dad killed a politically connected Oklahoman in St. Petersburg. Now the U.S. won’t let Misha back.

Misha hates Russia and its corrupt transition from the Soviet Union – even though he has benefitted tremendously from that corruption. “These miscreants were our country’s rulers. To survive in their world, one has to wear many hats – perpetrator, victim, silent bystander.” He’s desperate to get back to his girlfriend in the Bronx – so desperate he travels to Absurdistan, where he has been promised a Belgian passport that will enable him to finally return to the U.S.

Absurdistan does not exist in the real world. I googled it. However, in the novel it is one of the Stans in the former Soviet Union. It consists of several ethnic groups, and they all hate each other. As soon as Misha shows up, civil war breaks out and the borders are closed. Each ethnic group wants to use Misha for its own political purposes, and Misha wants to use them to escape to the Bronx and his girlfriend. Sex, humor, and violence ensue.

Similar to Candide, Misha is a “holy fool” who is wrong about pretty much everything. Near the novel’s end he confesses, “I thought I was Different and had a Special Story to tell but I guess I’m not and I don’t.” Fortunately, he’s wrong about that as well.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

Harlem Hustle

So Colson Whitehead knows how to tell a story, and Harlem Shuffle is a great one. The novel opens in 1959, jumps to 1961, and wraps up in 1964. It is a time of intense transition in New York City, as is obvious by all the people jettisoning their radios and buying TVs. And the changes are chaotic and violent, as is evident by the 1964 race riots in Harlem. But this is nothing new. It is always a time of intense transition in New York City, and the changes are always chaotic and frequently violent.

Carney owns a furniture store in Harlem. That’s his legitimate business. His side hustle is less legitimate. He fences the odd piece of jewelry or electronics for his cousin, Freddie, and a few other small-time thieves. Just to be clear, however, in a city where cops, successful businessmen, politicians, and everyone else is corrupt, Carney is “only slightly bent when it [comes] to being crooked.”

Freddie gets him involved in a heist of the Hotel Theresa, which is a sacred place in Harlem. Robbing it is tantamount to “taking a piss on the Statue of Liberty.” The insult is magnified because they rob it on Juneteenth. That kind of bad karma is a snapping turtle. It bites hard and doesn’t let go.

This starts a chain of events over the next several years that has Carney trying to survive his judgment-impaired cousin, corrupt White cops, disingenuous light-skinned Black businessmen, and the descendants of Dutch families who originally “bought” the island and think they still own it. Carney is the ultimate underdog relying on his wits and guts to survive, and the reader can’t help but root for him.

Survival is a major theme. “Black people always found a way in the most miserable circumstances. If we didn’t, we’d have been exterminated by the white man long ago.” So is revenge. When Carney’s application to the Dumas Club is rejected (because he is too dark-skinned and can’t pass the paper bag test), he goes after its leader, Wilfred Dukes. Not because he was excluded from Harlem’s most exclusive business club, but because Dukes encouraged him to give a “sweetener”, which Carney believes should have guaranteed his admission. The club is named for Alexandre Dumas, whose father was a French army officer and whose mother was a Haitian slave. Dumas wrote the most famous revenge story of all time – The Count of Monte Cristo. So that’s wonderful, and so is Carney’s revenge.

But the real story is how Carney deals with the consequences of the Hotel Theresa heist. Can his wits save him and Freddie? The novel ends at the construction site for the future World Trade Center (the Twin Towers). So more transitions are on the way. And they will be intense, chaotic, and violent.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor