Which Do You Want First, the Good News or the Bad?

No, I'm not talking to YOU.  The greeting on this post is from an email I received shortly after the indispensable Dr. Anthony Fauci announced that it's the elderly—people in their 60s, 70s and 80s—who ​are most at risk for serious illness and death due to COVID-19.  

The email was from a college buddy who lives in Greenwich Village. Back in the day,  I knew him by nicknames that no longer apply, most of which referred to his Beatle-esque mop of brow-covering red hair.  A fine mane if ever a mane there was. His appearance has changed over the years (bye-bye boyish bangs), but his curmudgeonly sense of humor has not abandoned him altogether.  Not even after a worthy career on the frontlines of education.  "I hope you survive the plague," he wrote.  And with that his email came to an end.

Although it's always good to hear from college pals, I was surprised to find myself on the distribution list for such a message.  After all, I'm not elderly.  How could I be?  I look in the mirror and see a man in the prime of life. Which I suppose is exactly how the subjects of Tom Hussey's famous "Reflections" see themselves.  That's the photography series where people of advanced years gaze into a looking-glass seeing only younger versions staring back.   But surely I'm different from those folks.  I really am in my prime, even though I have passed Miss Jean Brodie chronologically 

Nevertheless, I trust Dr. Fauci more than anyone on the White House Coronavirus Task Force.  And it turns out that I really do fall within the purview of COVID-19's hit list.  Dr. Fauci is 79 years old and runs 3.5 miles a day.  Proof enough that age is just a number.  Unfortunately, the coronavirus is a poor mathematician.  It slices and dices at will.  And it does not discriminate.  

It's not as if you can challenge COVID-19 to a chess match like the late Max von Sydow in The Seventh Seal.  This sucker don't play no games. 

That's the bad news. ..

​A few years ago, I was sure I’d never set foot on Atlanta’s beautiful Oglethorpe University campus again.  That’s because Georgia Shakespeare, which staged its productions at the university’s Conant Performing Arts Center, finally gave up the ghost in 2006 after nearly three decades.  

This was not the fault of Oglethorpe by any means.  But without Georgia Shakespeare, there seemed no reason to return to the campus.  The end of those fine productions was a  great loss to the city’s cultural landscape, and I kept hoping it might rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix like Atlanta itself.  So far that has not happened.  But last weekend I found myself making the familiar turn off Peachtree Road onto the school's Brookhaven campus for a decidedly non-Shakespearean production of the Tony-Award-winning musical Spring Awakening. 
 
If I’d taken the time to investigate further, I probably wouldn’t have driven through Saturday’s horrible rainstorm for what turned out to be a student production.  Purchasing the tickets online was a knee-jerk decision.  I clicked “buy” only because veteran actor and director Richard Garner, co-founder of Georgia Shakespeare, was listed as director.  I’d seen plenty of his work on the university campus, most of it featuring Equity actors, and that’s all it took to clinch the deal. 

When you hear what I have to say about what happened at the courthouse that day, you may decide that I'm racist.  After all, it's not the kind of charge one can easily deny these days.  Not even if you're the least racist person in the world.  But the truth is, there's no way to relate what happened without brining race into it.  In a way, the whole thing was about race.  And it all began before the jury was selected.  Before the defendant was even arrested. ​

The place is Georgia.  The month, August.  It’s hot, and we’ve been stuck here since 8:00 AM.  For most of that time, it’s been impossible to ignore a young white woman who’s been flitting about, laughing and chatting since we got here.  Her laugh is infectious.  She’s added a certain levity to the day.  A lift even the espresso I got from a vendor couldn’t quite compete with.  Then near the end of the day, she says this: 

 “Oh my God, I think I might have bought drugs from this guy back in high school.”

Recently, I finally got around to checking out the celebrated British TV series,  Foyle’s War — and found it impossible to ignore the way this echo from the past foreshadowed two news events that occurred the same day.

The first was Donald Trump’s visits to El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, in the aftermath of last weekend’s mass shootings.  The second was the mass arrest of 678 undocumented immigrants at seven agricultural-processing plants across Mississippi, the largest raid of its kind in American history, topping the previous record of 595 in 2008.    
 
You know that old saying about how there’s 20/20 vision with hindsight?  And the one that says those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them?  Well, that’s why my first viewing of the Foyle franchise keeps rattling around in my brain.  

It is a hot midsummer's day in a small town just north of Atlanta shortly before the Epstein sex scandal hits the fan.  Maybe the teenage girl who passes me as I exit the department store is sexy.  But I don't think so.  

She's asparagus thin and much taller than the older rounder woman, possibly her mother, who enters the store alongside her.  They do not speak to each other or to me.  The girl's gaze is downward, her attention is fixed on a cell phone.    She wears more makeup than her young skin requires, and her dishwater blonde hair is pulled into a bun at the back of her head.

I notice these two, in part, because the girl can hardly walk.  She's wearing denim blue jeans and platform shoes that add about three inches to her height.  The jeans  are not yoga pants or tights, but they might as well be.  That's how snug they are.  Between the shoes and the jeans, it's not difficult to figure out why she walks like a robot without bending her knees.  And yet, she clip-clops into the store as if evolution had always intended for humans to walk this way.

I can't see my own face, but I don't think I react.  The sight of a skinny teenage girl in tight jeans doesn't do anything for me.    I see her as a girl in the process of growing up.  And that's about it.  

For the guy entering the store a few feet behind the girl, however, something different is going on.  

I don’t care about Jeffrey Epstein.  I care about the girls.  I see the term “Lolita Express” in the news alongside passenger logs that include the names of rich and famous men, most of whom are white,  and the only relief I feel is that Epstein did not have the audacity to give that name to the aircraft himself.  The reference to Nabokov's famous novel came from the press, as did the nickname for the 72-acre island he owns in the Caribbean—"Orgy Island."  ​

Cute, but it's not funny
Lolita is a tragic figure.  She is completely undone by the lust of a sophisticated, well-educated adult, who by possessing the object of his desire transforms it into something entirely different, initiating her demise.  The novel is a double tragedy.  It is  the story of Lolita's ruin and that of her putative stepfather and abductor Humbert Humbert.

Consider what it means to call Espstein's airplane "Lolita Express."  Especially when the alleged sex trafficking of underage girls is part of the equation and an alleged open secret.

Nestled on an island far across the Pacific, the Hotel G20 requires the most exclusive credentials in the world.   It's an invitation-only getaway.  Crimes have been committed to earn a place here.  Or so it's been said.  As with most exclusive hideaways, what you see on the surface (should you fly a drone over), is nothing compared to what Hokusai art lovers might call the "thunderstorm beneath the summit."  It is here that the Short-Fingered Vulgarian meets with his boss, The Bare-Chested Horseman, to go over the books.  
               
Although he nods agreeably at the spreadsheet, the Bare-Chested Horseman is not pleased.  His undilated pupils tighten to the size of pinpricks.  Two black dots in a pair of unblinking eyes.  Something is bothering him.
                 
“Idiot!  Did you really rape some woman in a department store?”

 “How do I know, boss?”  Though he tries to look bemused, the short-fingered Vulgarian seems bewildered.  “You think I keep track of ‘em all?  But I did read that excerpt from her book, and—”

 “You read it?”

“Well I had Huck read it to me over the phone.  Anyway, it sounds kind of familiar. Especially the part about pushing her into a fitting room.  But she wanted it, boss.  She was laughing the whole time.  Besides, you can do stuff like that when you’re famous.”

“So you keep telling me.  But once again your sordid past threatens to jeopardize everything we’ve worked for.  What are you trying to do to me?”​