My Little Valentine
What Does the Ruling Class Do When It Rules?
- another book I never finished
in the '80s, and now it's too late:
part of the great unread
library one shelf above
those bios of contacts I never made
or maintained. Like my freshman roommates:
Dick, with the traditional wisdom
of people from East 83rd, lately retired
from leverage; Wesley,
one of the few naval officers
to be fragged. They were guys: Mets fans,
pale ale. The ruling class
likes the smell of the polish
in the broad corridors, the house red,
sense-data. They have mutually
endearing traits: the head-angle
of one, another's monotone
laugh enter history and,
eventually, whatever history enters.
That's deep. The occasional prayer-breakfasts
are shtick, which doesn't mean they're not sincere;
the door revolves, the parachute is always already
open, the check forever in the mail. So
the answer to the initial question is,
I don't know. You know that
frontispiece to the first edition
of Hobbes: the King looming over the landscape;
the People entering, merging into
his chain mail, the expression of their backs that
of churchgoers, proudly recognizing
necessity. If you keep
watching you'll see the King take off his crown,
shake out his long hair, drop the
orb, even the sword, and with
the same guileless simper, start to move.
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