THE TRUTH ABOUT OLD MEN - Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Sometimes, a cure for the world’s real problems seems so close at hand. Sometimes, I’m driving down the street, watching the citizens walk by with their britches around their knees and I think all it would take to fix America is a good pair of suspenders.

Other times, I’m trying to get a read on what’s happening out there and I switch on the TV, cycle through the hundreds of channels the new technology has given me, passing right by reruns of The Rifleman, Mayberry RFD and The Golden Girls, and I find what looks like a sane interpretation of current events and news.

Oh, yes, I think. I’ll just pop in on the world while it’s not looking. I’ll find out what it’s up to, see what it’s thinking and get a read on how things are going. The moderator is a girl about 12 years old who, someday, hopes to become a model. She’s asking another girl about 12 years old, who would already be a model, but she went to economics school and now she’s going to explain The War on Terrorism and its impact on money markets across the globe. It’s okay. She’s the CEO of a major American corporation and should give us some answers we can use.

I’ll get some serious hard news from people who know what they‘re talking about, I think. I flip to a local channel, depending on the sage interpretation of Bob Sheifer or Peter Jennings, but they're gone. In their place is another model about 12 years old and she’s introducing today’s guest commentator who will consume the next minute and a half delivering today’s editorial. He’s a plumber from the Bronx. He stopped by after work to do the CBS Evening News before his bowling league meets at 8. It's a pub stunt by the net designed to create the impression that the media and the citizens it controls are all together in one big happy reality stew.

I cycle around the news channels, looking for a read on the world. Everything can’t have gone to hell that quickly. The REAL NEWS can’t be that hard to find. After all, I have a half-dozen solid choices now. I find they all agree on today’s top story. It’s about an Idaho woman who disappeared ten days ago from a resort community in Mexico. She hasn’t been heard from since. The Mexican army has been called out to find her. Local authorities are hiding the truth. American journalists have gathered in a throng outside her hotel. Her face is on the cover of every tabloid paper displayed at the Safeway check out counter. We don’t know if she’s dead or alive. Her boyfriend, a 12-year old lothario who is employed as an attorney, has taken a sabbatical from his career to look for her. Her husband and children are in tears when they’re interviewed. Her gay friend is trying to be brave. A famous American bounty hunter is on her trail. A law team that once got a legendary athlete off the hook has agreed to represent her interests pro bono.

I heard about the missing woman this morning when I tried to listen to the radio talk shows. I already know about the cover-up by local authorities being paid off by the tourist industry. Don’t worry. Tourism is not suffering because a woman went missing. It’s suffering because the missing woman is getting so much press.

I’m concerned. I Google American missing persons to find out how often a tragedy like this happens. 2,300 disappeared today. Roughly 900,000 are lost annually.

I fix a bowl of oatmeal. I take my heart medicine, have a warm bath and sit at the dinner table for a while, staring at the dribble cloaking the inside of my empty orange juice glass. And I wonder...what are we gonna do about the woman who went missing in Mexico?