Greetings from GrungeTown

November 1992. The long, bitter struggle was over -- the Republicans defeated. My comrades in the Resistance laid down their arms and settled back to their civilian lives. Me, I couldn't forget so easy. I'd been fighting so long I couldn't remember any other life. The nightmare was over. . . . so why was I still waking up screaming?

The medics called it Post-Yuppie Stress Syndrome (PYSS). The hiss of a cappuccino-maker was enough to send me tumbling for cover. The sight of a brunch menu left me shaking. I couldn't open an op-ed page or watch a Sunday morning pundit without breaking into a cold sweat, on guard against some new assault upon my sense of truth, justice, and humanity. I could still feel them lurking behind every cafe window, hear the echo of their running shoes as they race-walked across our democracy.

I needed a break. So I packed up and headed out to Grungetown. The Republicans had never captured much of this rainy, backwoods terrain. The local people were simple folk who worked hard and played by the rules, preferring electric guitars to dreams of corporate empire. I got a job at the Grunge Works running the jeans-shredder.

Then one day the people of Grungetown awoke to find the clothes they'd always worn and lives they'd always led coveted by a world seeking to forget its LaCoste-sbirted past. The orders started pouring in and the Grunge Works hummed day and night.

Kachunk rrrip. Kachunk rrrip.

The plaid fader, the denim deconstructor, stain-maker, permanent-crusher and the other machines whirred and spun as the tokens of authenticity swarmed off the assembly line. Kachunk rrrip. Kachunk rrrip.

Like the sound of cash registers ... of Margarita blenders... of buildings gouged for renovation....

Suddenly, I was back on the battlefield. The foreman came toward me, only he was a waiter and his clipboard was a blackboard. I dashed for the storeroom before he could mesquite grill me. A trail of red spots stained the floor. Sun-dried tomatoes! They led to a trapdoor. I tugged it open and descended into darkness.

I lit a match. A thousand impressions surged out of the darkness. Barrels of bottled water. Wheels within wheels of Brie. California rolls. Photos of troops in full Yuppie uniform, all-cotton ensembles bearing the fearsome Polo Western insignia, Dockers and Nike crosstrainers, laptops and cellular phones at the ready. The Stairmaster race! Arms outstretched in the dreaded Yuppie salute, Gold Cards extended to the sky. I could hear their fevered chanting: "Heil, Gipper! Go for the burn! Greed is good! Government is not the answer!' Somewhere an alarm was sounding. My legs felt weak. Something thudded against my head....

I came to in an office, tied to a futon frame. A balding man in a power tie and suspenders hovered above me. "Vot vere you doing in ze grunge locker?" he asked, removing his monocle.

"Grunge! Why tbere are enough junk bonds down there to crash the world's economy five times over. You're nothing but a nest of Yuppie scum.'

"Yuppies?!' he interrupted. 'Ve vere not Yuppies, Sure ve drank Perrier but ve did not like ze bubbles. Ve did not know vot was happening in ze S&L's."

'That's what they all say. Never met a Yup yet who'd admit to it. Destroy and deny. That's how you guys operate.'

He leafed through my file. "It seems that u vere wounded in the Siege of Clarence Thomas." Ye

"Listen, buster, I was stranded behind enemy lines - so far up the Upper West Side even the homeless drank latte. For twelve years I lived by my wit and fought with any weapon I could get my hands on - puns, one-liners, sarcasm, collage, allegory, illogic, absurdism. But no satirical device on earth could match the insanity of those hearings."

"Ze last few years have been hard on us all. But now ve are in recovery. You must forget ze past!"

"Like the War never happened. Like you and your kind never tried to wipe out everything I believed in, No, Buddy, I've seen too many hostile takeovers, too many innocents gentrified before they knew what hit them, dodged too many J. Crews missiles... Remember the Marathon Oil Merger. A thousand temps went down in one arbitrage barrage. The Battle of the Brownstones - the poor, the old, the infirm, deported to make way for your co-ops. You never bothered to ask where they went, to wonder at the walking corpses you stepped over on the way to brunch."

"Ve vere only following orders!"

'Whose orders? That's what I want to know. Who gives the orders? Who tells you guys when to stop selling the Emperor’s New Clothes and start selling his old ones? To stop pushing smugness, greed, and self-seeking indifference in favor of caring, sharing and love of planet."

"I guess that's vhy ve're still in charge. Und you're just a two-bit satirist."

'I'm just satirist alright. Just another one of the faceless millions who look at the world and say this is absurd!' The guys without brains enough to know when to whistle a new tune. But a satirist's gotta do what a satirist’s gotta do, even if it's dated, even if it's been done, even if he'll be preempted by tomorrow's news. Someone's gotta set the record straight, to make sure your crimes are not forgotten.'

I wrenched at my restraints ... only to find that there was nothing binding me. My interrogator went in and out of focus. His suspenders were a stethoscope and his monocle was the ophthalmoscope with which he peered into my pupil.

'Worst case I've seen. This guy is so PYSSed I don't know if we'll ever get him back to reality.' I was lying on a cot.

"Where am I?" I said.

"In the infirmary. Delirious. You've been talking to yourself for hours."

"Years,' I said....

It's midwinter now. We've got a new President and a new look. I'm still not sure who's who or what to trust -- the rosy world of rehabilitation and recovery or my vision in the darkness. I only know that I'm through talking to myself.

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