Abused By Illusions

I persuaded a gruff Tampa Bay area delivery driver to allow me to tag along on his mad cap Tampa Bay area thrill ride. He was resistant at first but I was soon able to persuade him to cooperate. It was simple really all I had to do was flash some pictures of said driver exiting a *furry party taken some days ago by my agents in the areas seedier underbelly. This thrill ride was sure to allow me to survey the natives in their natural environment while the city teemed in the natural swirl of pandemonium that is a hallmark of most modern major U.S. cities.

Million dollar homes within blocks of boarded up dilapidated buildings and housing projects created an interesting fresco for one, such as myself, with a trained eye in the art of neo-optic semi-synaptic psychological deconstruction. For sale signs line the streets here like psychotic exemplars on a multicultural American economic and social cancer screening. I first observed that the street people prevalent on the streets look as if the derive much more from the mainstream than they once did. Designer shirts coupled with ragged trousers and bed rolls recite a visual narrative that currently sweeps the urban scape of United States major metropolitan areas. The mantra of continual upward mobility has somehow trans morphed into the nightmare of downward economic and social spiral. Some have blamed the alchemist of finance for this seemingly new phenomena. Here, however, I will not digress to further muddy the waters with my own dribblings of sentimental utterances. The economic situation of the country is in utter chaos even the most blind among us can see this clearly.

In upscale neighborhoods Lotus, Mercedes, Royals Royce, and various and sundry luxury automobiles aprise the careful observer of continuing economic prosperity for the top tier of an increasingly top heavy economic house of cards. The slums in contrast speak volumes of the spreading want and despair gathering, like ominous storm clouds, over our cities both large and small. One can almost smell the coming storm on the stagnant air wafting through the city here. There is a foreboding feeling in the air at both mainstream bistros and back alley sandwich shops. Now and then I catch fleeting glimpses in the corners of tearing eyes an eerie expectation of the other shoe dropping and the reverberations toppling the entire unsteady house of cards that our nation has become.

Most, though, seem oblivious as they meander throughout the city. They appear as cybernetic androids following some long forgotten pattern seemingly embedded deep within some long forgotten urban program.

The psycho delivery driver, that has become my guide akin to the ghost of prosperity past, mumbles to himself in a vernacular that seems to crawl from deep within a Louisianan Bayou. He assails me with a physical presence and ironic commentary giving his van the electrified atmosphere of a ceremony being held at an ancient blood letting temple.

The interior milieu of the van coupled with the driver's banter makes the environment queerly stifling yet at some strange sublime level also enlightening. This modern prophet of diesel fumes and artery clogging greasy spoon fare is a keen observer of the human condition with an apparent doctorate in fecal frivolity. He has the ability to turn the most mundane of objects and the people we pass into brilliant frescoes of gastric rupturing hilarity.

Periodically he seems to doze and his blue collar chariot list either to the side of the road or into oncoming traffic. As I awaken him to avoid leaving the road or an almost certain collision I sometimes notice an almost dreamy look in his eyes. This aberrant yet strangely innocent look seems to invoke happier times and environs from a past most different than his present.

We end our wild ride through the streets at a boarded up building emblazoned with a skull icon. He explains to me that this building was used as the location shoot for the apartment building in the movie, "The Punisher." His stubby fingers jab toward a large building scaping the sky like a gigantic talon. That building, he explains, is where the climax to the same film was shot.

We end our day in a small Cuban restaurant enjoying my first Cuban sandwich. The contrast of the slightly greasy meat and hard crusted bread is ample analogy to this city which we have traversed. This the city named, Tampa, supposedly by native Americans to mean the place of the fiery sticks. Cities such as this derive their flavor from the contrast between both its' people and structures. We visit them and through our observations savor them much like my first taste of a Cuban sandwich. In the process we satiate not only our desire to know a new place but also to know a little bit more about ourselves.

*Furry parties are people that hold fetish parties where everyone dresses up as stuffed animals for sexual gratuitous purposes.

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