Djelloul Marbrook

Do you think a man who throws his styrofoam cartons and beer cans onto someone else’s property is apt to be contemptuous of tree-huggers? Setting aside for the moment the likelihood of his wrapping himself around a tree, setting aside my love of trees, I’ve been trying to walk a mile in this man’s shoes. Isn’t this what is required to bridge the red state-blue state gap or any other gap in human relations?

How would it feel for me to chuck trash into someone else’s space? I think I might feel relief at being able to get away with this expression of anger and contempt. I might feel exhilaration. But is it the exhilaration nasty kids who torture animals feel or is it a more calculated gesture aimed at a society that steadfastly refuses to treat me with respect? It’s certainly not the exhilaration developers devoted to a bald planet feel when they scalp yet another woodland. No, that’s money-in-my-pocket exhilaration, and they can even sneak in a little contempt as an extra bonus for themselves, like a CEO laughing all the way to the bank after sinking his company.

So how would being this desecrater feel? Did I cover my arms with tattoos for the same reason, to give the bird to a society that treads on me and denies me a chance to have what others have? Or do I want attention? Am I an exhibitionist? Is there little difference between me in my pickup truck and some loudmouth look-at-me in a Brioni suit who drops into a Starbuck’s in Manhattan and tries to impress everybody with his importance by speaking loudly into his cellphone?

Why has society dignified this clod and not me? Relax, it’s a fake question. I know the answer. He went to college, he worked hard, he deserves what he has, but I dropped out, I do odd jobs, I drink too much, I beat up my girlfriend when she wises off, I don’t get out of the way on the street for old people. Stop right there, neither does the clod in the suit. But he does put his trash in a bin, just so his bosses and clients won’t see what a jerk he is.

The truth is I’m pissed off. I like tough talkers who tell me what’s wrong. There are a lot of people in this country who don’t belong here. They’re eating my lunch. I wanna send them back where they came from. They don’t even look right.

… well, that’s as far as I get in this man’s shoes, in his angry, bitter head. I have no way of knowing if he votes, but I suspect if he does he is going to vote for whoever tells him who to blame, he is going to vote for the angriest and most macho guy on the block, because everybody else reminds him of the people who have so much more than he does, the people whose properties he likes to trash. They deserve it. Maybe he’s not sure why they deserve it, but they do, in the same way some woman who knows how good looking she is has it coming when someone messes her over.

I don’t like being in this guy’s shoes. Not for a yard, not for a mile. But I have a hunch that if we don’t start walking in each other’s shoes we’re going to lose this beautiful republic to the guys who know what’s good for us. And we’re not going to like it.—DM