13.
   The elevator filled to capacity. The mob stared back at me like fish in an aquarium, not so powerful now, not so graced with the majesty of important shoppers, but they were happy, their children were stoned, and the dogs were having fun with each other as dogs will do, screwing away in front of God and everyone.

   What a marvelous menagerie of bright colors and blank faces they were, a peaceable kingdom where lambs lay down with sheep. It took so little to make the middle class happy. All we really needed was a cheeseburger and fries, church on Sunday and a 45 under our pillow.
   A little monster, her paw in her mother’s hand stared hatefully at me. She was the one who was supposed to be looking down at me. She saw the cynicism hiding behind my bland expression as only a child could. Rage burned in her eyes. Who was I to judge her? She lived in the greatest country in the world. She would have had me crucified in a New York minute if she could. She had a rose in her hand, a gift no doubt from some quivering saleslady in the foundations department or from some haughty maitre d’ staring at the ceiling with a handful of menus rammed up his ass. She stuck out her tongue and threw the rose at me. The mother quickly replaced it with some sort of high fructose lollypop bomb. The elevator doors closed, a welcome curtain on a pathetic Everyman Tale. God was in his heaven, and all was right with the world. My mind filled with listless applause.