From the City that Always Sweeps

FROM THE CITY THAT ALWAYS SWEEPS By Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, back together on this last page of the second edition of the Shepherd’s new monthly ink-print extravaganza, a nice hand-held publication you can enjoy whilst sitting on the can exercising your morning daily constitutional for weeks at a time, what the fock. But here we be, 2020, near-fall of this confounded year’s election season. And here I be, drizzled-grizzled veteran of political wars waged ’round our American vicinity and beyond, having mounted nearly several half-assedly funded campaigns for all kind of elective offices over the years: Senator, U.S. and/or state reprehensative, county sheriff, president, governor, mayor, commissioner of baseball, Tahitian potentate. Cripes, I’m James Dean come back as a political candidate. Ask me what I’m running for? “Whatever you got.” You betcha. So last month, I got my mail-in/absentee ballot for the primary for a bunch of local elections and you’d think my name would turn up on the card for some of the offices, just on general principles. Nope. I don’t know if the people realize and appreciate how goddamn difficult it is for a guy like me to have to pencil in names not mine, election after election, year after year, just because I can’t find “Art Kumbalek” listed on the voting form. As that great American, Daffy Duck, would splutter: “It is to laugh.” And yes, I still got the fire in the belly for the higher political office. But what I don’t have, never have had, is the funding, that huge wad of dough needed to turn my fire into a blood-hot ballet-box haze.

This paucity of big-time jack is what brought me and my buddy Little Jimmy Iodine to the southwest corner of Wells and the Old World Third Street the other warm night. We were flush with a couple, three savings coupons for a carry-out soup and a sandwich at the George Webb down the block there. But at that corner, looking east, today in history, is a parking lot where once stood the legendary Princess Theater, yesterday, in the olden days, B.D. (Before Development). Jimmy and I began to reminisce our youth, yet as seasoned pedestrians, we waited for the light to change. “Jeez Louise, remember, Artie? It seems to be a dream now, but didn’t we see our first naked boob in the Princess way-back when, ain’a? I don’t believe the young people today could begin to understand what a triumph that was to see a naked boob in a motion picture theater. Yeah, the movies they showed there were always like from France and fock if you could figure out where the plot was hiding but sure as shootin’, you always knew that by evening-close before the theater played the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ right before the houselights came up, you would had seen your naked boob. “Nowadays, even in the movies and TV series that have the big-time stars, you got bare knockers coming out your ears. But Artie, for me to go see a movie these days, I can’t ride the goddamn bus a couple hours all the way out to near Brook-focking-field from here just for the sight of the unencumbered breast. I’m too tired. Too tired, Artie.”

This was not good. I had to cheer Jimmy up. I told him that maybe I ought to run for the alderman from Downtown next time around.

“Yeah, Artie! Alderman. Tell me the story of how it’s going to be. When you’re alderman.”

I told Little Jimmy I’d make him my top aide, that he could have his own chair to park his butt on in my office over by City Hall. “You got to be jerking my beefaroni. My own chair, Artie? I wouldn’t wreck it. I promise. And maybe I could answer the phone sometimes if you were peddling a speech somewheres. Like if somebody called about how come their street wasn’t plowed. I’d ask them if they voted for you. And Artie, if they didn’t, I’d give them directions to the hardware store and tell them to go buy a goddamn shovel and plow their own damn street themselves, the lazy focks. “And tell me more, Artie. Could we still live Downtown like always? We wouldn’t get pushed out by trust-fund knobs and fat-ass rich empty nesters from the suburbs who all of a sudden dream to live Downtown with no place to park, but can afford to pay whatever the piper plays; would we, Artie?” Not a chance, Jimmy. I’d make Downtown just the way we want it to be. I’d bring back the Princess Theater so a guy could see a goddamn motion picture in his neighborhood, not to mention The Strand, Esquire and the Palace, to boot. And I’d make sure you could find a couple, three taverns where a nice cocktail wouldn’t cost a mortgage payment and there’d be no loud music boom-boom ’cause none of the candy-ass people who go to lunch for a living would dream to go there. And I told Little Jimmy that I’d find a spot to put in some bowling alleys and for the people who lived in the neighborhood there would be a store with a practical housewares department, where one could purchase a nice oven mitt or affordable shower curtain.

Jimmy was now all ears; so I told him not to forget that as a custodian of the commonweal, I’d also need to make a play for the occasional tourist who came to town. I would trade all our pigeons and squirrels to some Third/ Fourth/Fifth World country in exchange for their chimpanzees and assorted monkeys, a good deal all around. The poor foreign country would acquire a usable food source and Downtown Beertown would gain one heck of a tourist attraction, even better if we dressed the monkeys and chimps in little festive ethnic outfits. We could also maybe train them to do city-grounds maintenance and low-level clerical work. Lower property taxes, anybody? “Could I take care of the chimps, Artie, could I?” Little Jimmy asked me. “I’d be really good to them. I promise. I’d give them cigars. And teach them to roller skate.”

Sure you could, I assured Jimmy. Then I had to give him a good whack upside the back of the head ’cause he wasn’t looking when the stoplight turned red. I heard someone say, “What the hell is eatin’ those two guys?” Dreams, that’s what’s “eatin” us, especially the ones that aren’t ours, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.