UTOPIAN BUM

William Wright

17.03.98

It took long enough. Finally, after all those years of alleyways, cardboard boxes and drafty viaducts, I've got a roof over my head and a room to call my own. Of course, it's not a real home ... not that I'd know a 'real home' if it hefted a leg and pissed on me! Actually, I'm the first occupant here. The only one to date. Brand new. I'm told last week they came to take photos for an architectural journal. Foreign one. Dutch, I think. Anyway, it's all mine. Wont be for long, but I'm not complaining.

It's a small room laid out with an astounding attention to detail. Nice, high ceilings. Polished surfaces. Balanced proportions. Why, I even have a mattress, though the one they put in doesn't quite fit the bill. Cheap thing, but a damn sight better than maggot-filled garbage bags. Nope, not a thing to complain about … except, I would be grateful if they didn't just dim the light at night, but rather, turned it off. Funny thing is, I can't sleep. I could sleep with blinking neon and humming sodium streetlights, but then there was always noise … you know, dogs, shouts, gun shot, sirens. You always had to keep an ear open, even in your dreams. It was all part of my old life, I suppose, when I was 'a fleshy blip in the micro-processors of the Information Age' -- Charlie liked to tell me wise shit like this when we were out drinking by the drainage canal. Poor Charlie. Nope, can't sleep here in my nifty room, so all night long in ambient semi-darkness I listen to my heart thump-thumping. It's like a clock ticking away each second of my life. Kinda ominous. But then I imagine all the good people living out here, tucked snugly under dry roofs, must have the same problem. Like them, I suppose I'll just have to adjust.

Sitting here all day certainly gives me time to think and observe the world … in this case, my room! I had to laugh when they expected me to use that lidless toilet shaped like a flying saucer in stainless steel. 'Never seen an ass like that!' I told them. It's very, very clean, mind you, but the plumbing leaks when you flush. I still have to mention it to them. And in place of the intense glow cast from a milky plate at eye level, a simple window would have been a thoughtful gesture. I couldn't imagine a room without one; actually, I was informed by the architect himself that this oversight was not a design flaw. After the official opening of the building, he paid me a visit. Very neighbourly, I thought. I offered him a place on my bed (a 'cantilevered bunk' he called it), but the guard instructed me to remain seated during the visit. When I pointed out the missing window, and explained to him how sunlight and the sights and sounds of the small community could liven up the little room, the young man winced. He really did. Said the indirect light from the sandblasted glass-block strip flush with the floor provided enough contact with the outside world. I agreed that the dialogue between natural and artificial ambient light was a clever touch, but I pointed out that the electric light high above was always brighter than the knee-high strip; the strip only served to wake me up at the break of dawn. And with my room on the second floor, the shadows of a bustling community were unlikely to animate the translucent wall segment. My guest stared at me, wordless, idly running his finger along the crisp beveled edge of the cell door frame. Not wanting to seem disrespectful, I laughed and added that some fresh air might at least be nice. It was autumn, I told him. My favorite time of year. Coloured leaves. Cool air. The herald of winter's quieter pace, I told him. Sometimes a virgin shroud of snow fell – sometimes even the city could seem innocent. The young man's wince only soured. His face grimaced. Then he politely grumbled that he'd note the missing window in his design evaluation.

I don't think he was a very happy man. Too much stress. He actually advertises it in his somber black clothing – a cry for help. While checking the faucets on the free-standing sink ('the urinal' as I call it), he confided that minimalism was a standard design programme from rooms like this one. Before he offered to reveal more of the Zen in his efficient and innovative design, I inquired why he didn't question the 'standard design programme'? Bad move … I hurt his feelings again. I really do like the room! Haven't slept better in months. Ashamed, I tried to show some interest in his polished concrete and joint detailing, but I had apparently spooked him. Suddenly he called for the guard to open the sliding door. Though I remarked that the rubber wheels did indeed make the huge door glide like a child's toy, the same deep frown persisted. Apparently architects are a sensitive lot; I didn't dare ask what 'Zen' was. I felt rotten. However, before the stainless steel door closed, something gripped the ambitious young man as he hovered over the threshold. He turned and told me that there were no windows because, in the spirit of Monastic Revival, the delightful little cell had been designed for Introspection; he actually pronounced the capital 'I' as though it was an essential clue to the meaning of his design. This answer seemed to cheer him up. I thanked him.

My trial was very glamorous. The local press was there in full force, with live coverage and all. Satellite. Web. You name it. Someone said my trial was precedential. Another asked me if I felt outraged by the verdict. Under the elegant, three story high portico I laughed shyly, telling the reporters something like, 'I felt honoured to see the judicial system work to protect everyone's interests', and 'If the court's decision can improve the lives of this community, this county, well, all the better'. I just kept smiling, though I admit it was hard to breathe with all those people clamoring around the car. Having learnt my lesson about criticizing the will of the majority as a younger man (being detained by police and handed over to an unidentified mobile surgical unit for DNA grafting, experimental inoculations, sterilization and an organ donation), I told the gathered crowd that I put my trust in the integrity of the people of this new town. My new hosts. My new neighbours. With an upraised finger, I hoped to point out the perfection that the town founders strove for in their urban planning … right to the last detail. In the shade of costly nursery maples, I directed their attention above, to where a giant hanging lantern, forged in bronze and founded in the form of an eagle, stirred gently in the warm spring breeze. Freedom and liberty in word and deed, right down to the last nail and coat of canary paint, this town's hope in the future radiated from their New Courthouse. The place even smelt of fresh linoleum, though I didn't mention this to the media. Linoleum is all the rage in public buildings, or so I'm told.

Of the trial, I don't remember very much. Fans turned on the courtroom ceiling. The Black Forest pine benches were packed. Several cameras linked the trial to the Web and the world, while the judge watched his monitor. I avoided looking at all the handsomely polished faces because so many people in one room made my bowels boil. Not unusual, really. In the city I avoided crowds, preferring to scoot down less traveled ways, even if this meant crossing into another's territory. Seated before the bench, I just held my breath and kept counting to a hundred, knowing that at some point they'd all have to go home to eat and sleep. And they did. After a long day, justice was served by that brave new community of home-owners, with speed and news-breaking unanimity from the Internet jurors. A state record, in fact. Outraged? Not at all. I might have to hang, but I thank my lucky star that I wouldn't be dying in the sewers like so many good friends … or rounded up and never seen again. Whether dead in winter slush, or with the flies and rats of sweltering summer heat feeding on you, or even hustled off alive in a white body bag by the sanitation teams for contaminant testing, death in Paradise had to be better. 'When you gotta go, you gotta go', as Charlie used to say. No sir, I tell you I don't even think there's a fly within miles of here … and nobody walks around with rubber gloves and masks.

During the trial the prosecuting attorney called me 'a monster' (or so I read later in the local paper 'The Paradise Celebration' … actually, the night officer, a kind soul, read it to me). At this slur, my state appointed lawyer promptly reminded the members the community that they had invited me to live in their midst, whereupon he continued to describe the town as a dangerous social experiment modeled recklessly on a society that had died together with this country's innocence a century ago. Thick with honey-coloured nostalgia, the designers had created a socio-economic Frankenstein, he said, though I still can't see how Boris Carloff fit into this address to the court. Drafting boards were one thing, my lawyer continued, but building for whites of European descent to the exclusion of other races and incomes and faiths was contemptuous and indicative of all the problems dooming our modern society. 'Paradise! Like a Medici palace, complete with park, grotto and resident hermit!' he bellowed. My lawyer pointed out with unmasked incredulity that the developers still claimed it was 'A Community for Everyone', but in reality they marketed Paradise only to those who could afford steep golf club memberships. He added with extra steam that the high annual community maintenance costs per household, over and above municipal taxes, virtually ensured a closed community … closed to all except those welcomed to stay. Apparently, he then looked at me with a meaningful gaze.

Unfortunately, I missed this dramatic touch, as the afternoon sun had dipped under the eves and illuminated the stained-glass window on the west wall. The work of a local artist, they told me. The scales of justice and Saint Michael never looked better. Really nice.

Anyway, whatever was said in my defense provoked some angry rebuttals. Was my lawyer opposed to ambition, opposed to improve living conditions in this country? Could my lawyer predict the future … could he predict the course of our ever-changing society and its needs? I had to agree with that. Front porches. Spacious sidewalks. Bicycle lanes. Horse trails and carriage rentals. Chip security. Personal Internet Office Space to rent either on the park, on the town square or at the club. Even a community compost and bunker. All ambitious innovations, all contributing to a higher quality of life, the other man in a blue suit pointed out. Where would America be without good intentions? 'Wasn't Greater America borne aloft on the wings of free market economics and marketing?!' the prosecution demanded, 'Why then should it be otherwise with the planning of healthy neighbourhoods?' Despite the inherent truth to these questions, my lawyer nevertheless rose to question this prescription. Once again, I held my breath. He proceeded to link this order of utopian planning first to Saint Augustine, then to the French Republic, Communism, German National Socialism and the European Union. Finally, he concluded to the bank of cameras and microphones that the property owners, those who had bought into the dream, must now accept some of the guilt for the boy's drowning.

With matched outrage and venom, the prosecution was quick to note that the drowning was not an accident. He repeated the charge of first-degree murder.

I started counting again.

I lived in Paradise's central park, before they moved me indoors. Before that, I lived in a series of alleyways bordered by three four-lane roads and a train embankment. Together with Charlie and Bug, I lived behind a strip mall that Charlie called our 'sustainable resource'. Two fast food restaurants, one of them a Chinese that spiced its chicken with too much garlic, ensured that we didn't starve. Tony's Woman's Fashions sometimes threw out bits of warm cloth and another Tony's, a Dry Cleaner, threw out ruined blankets. We didn't have much use for the discount store that sold no-name Tupperware, nor the after-hours men's sex club in its cellar. I wasn't born in that territory. I just ended up there. With Charlie. With the others. 'We were all teched-out', as Charlie would say. Anyway, one day a big car pulled up beside me and two finely dressed gentlemen offered me a new home in a new community away from the urban squalor. That's what they called my home. 'Urban Squalor'. They told me of the wealthy people who lived in this new community ('pioneers' they said) and their dire need for someone like me, someone who was not burdened with greed, lust or pride, someone who could fulfill their Christian urge for charity. 'Was I a Christian?' they inquired cautiously. 'Of course', I smiled, not wanting to mention my talk with Jesus the night before. 'Did I want to help other Christians?' they asked. 'Sure', I answered, knowing pride to be the gravest sin. And before I could bat an eye, or go to collect my stash of cigarette butts, I was whisked away in that magnificent car, speeding out of town on a crumbling freeway … through a congested suburban landscape famous for concrete and asphalt, tribal ghettos, racial and religious warfare, plague and domestic terrorism. Hours later, wheeling down that Ben Hur entry drive ('Neo-Classic', they called it), we arrived in glorious Paradise. 'Paradise'. A good name for a new neighbourhood, I remarked. 'A new way of life', they corrected me.

The park was huge. So much grass … the new trees were a bit on the small side, but then, like all things, they needed time to grow. Ponds teamed with stocked trout and a rose garden promised divine evening scents next spring. I couldn't believe my luck: playgrounds, paths lined with charming gas lanterns, sport fields, ecological education zones with a raised wooden walkway through a wetland arboretum, wildlife corridors and even an amphitheater. The gentlemen in the car dropped me off on a bridge sporting Classical Revival proportions. A famous man designed it, they explained; it's a shame I can't remember his name. A covered bridge with columns, it was a modern concrete interpretation of an old favorite, a fisherman later told me. From one side of the bridge one had an impressive view of the lake, the park and the surrounding buildings. From the other side, one had a vista up a central axis to Civic Square. A perfect place for a bridge, I told the same fisherman. 'It couldn't be otherwise,' he answered unenthusiastically.

The men dressed in charcoal suits told me I could stay under the Palladian Bridge, down by the water on a comfortable ledge. I could beg anywhere I wanted to in Paradise, so long as I did not offend, shock, use vulgarisms, disturb private property, soil the grounds or in any way undermine the good Christian values I had come to reinforce. Again, from behind the dark sunglasses, they warned against trespassing. I knew what they were talking about; some of my friends in the city did anything for a coin – Charlie never did. I thanked them, we shook hands and then they drove away. Developers are such odd folk. I never did see them again, not even at the trial.

The first few months were perfect. Our late summers aren't too cold, and when it did turn chilly, one morning I found four blankets on the bridge's balustrade. Four?! Food was never a problem. Neither was clothing. As models of a perfect consumer society, the people of Paradise ate and dressed well. Sitting down by the water's edge eating my meals, I would thank God for His and their generosity. So many fine houses laid out along so many perfectly balanced streets … the same fisherman that frequented my bridge told me that a plan had been built for the entire town, including three expansion phases. The plans were on display at the robin's egg blue Town Hall. 'Guidelines', he called them, every material, colour, and shape previously decided, just like the blueprints for a single house. Heights, set-backs, windows, doors, verandahs and even the gardens had been fastidiously detailed in these Guidelines. Schools, the Post Office and a Main Street lined with shops and cafés were all a part of the grand vision. Of course, this didn't mean so much to me at the time. I liked my park, just fine; safe, predictable and crafted with love, I told him (one of the few white-haired people I'd seen in Paradise). I told him it was like living in a fairy tale. The fisherman smiled. Nodding, he agreed. Like a mall, he said, like a theme park where the admission price is a steep mortgage and the hours of operation are decades. 'Like Paradise, itself', I laughed. Don't know why I should have laughed … never had a mortgage, never been to either a fancy mall or theme park, though I've seen Mickey Mouse caps and shirts. He grunted and said he felt a nibble on his line.

Yes, life was good until round about the time the town planners announced the coming of a second church. In those first months, there was only one Christian congregation in Paradise. One seemed to be enough. Yet if I had listened to the kindly fisherman better, I might have learned something about Church Street. The north side of the park swept up to Civic Square with its friendly banks and voluminous municipal buildings, while the east and south sides were lined with stately homes, called alternately 'estates' or 'mansions', as opposed to the 'residences', 'cottages' and 'mews' found off the park. However, running alongside the western edge of the park, Church Street was zoned for up to three churches and two schools. Hearing this, I declared my desire to see a mosque with needle towers and onion roofs. The fisherman rolled his eyes like a trout and warned me that I shouldn't hold my breath -- as I mentioned, I do that now and then. They built the new church in Modern Colonial Gothic and gave it a glossy coat of pistachio paint. Funny then, that together with the rose Shaker Revival church, charity should suddenly run dry? I figured it might be due to the year end … saving for taxes or Christmas. I'm not complaining, mind you. I know people here work hard for their money and don't just throw it away. For example, they pooled their extra resources to build a separate school and another movie house. I guess I had been spoiled in that first year. The churches now stand proud and sturdy on the green. Wonderful monuments to this new community's faith in the future. Lots of children attend. Less grandparents, but considering the cost of property here and the youthfulness of the new home builders, it isn't really surprising, or so my pensioned fisherman friend explained.

A piculiar story … before the paint had dried on the new church, the two congregations met to play baseball, over at the new diamond. It was a friendly game, though I don't think everyone was happy by the time it ended. Some father wasn't pleased with an umpire's call. A rule was questioned. Perfectly understandable when you are trying to instill a sense of fair play and respect for the law in children; could have used that more in the city. Unfortunately, the two men started exchanging blows. 'Bad apples spoil the barrel', Charlie used to say. Now that their parents are all back to work after the summer holidays, only children use the diamond. There are still fights. And though it was the last game between congregations, on Sundays they still greet each other pleasantly enough on the way to their respective churches. Same Bible, I'm sure.

I guess it's my fault really, about the lapse of charity in Paradise. Because of my unease around crowds I hung back in the park to avoid the busy Church Street traffic. Sundays used to be my days of thanksgiving. Then I could prove my worth to the people of Paradise, who so generously invited me into their community, by easing their pride and thanking their charity. In fact, just as I had been hired to do! Once I might have been a filthy shadow skulking about the byways of the city fringe, but here, in this comfortable utopia, I had a J-O-B. Made me feel good to know I earned my own place in Paradise. Anyway, begging on Sundays, I was usually offered enough food to last me a few days; a week if I curbed my gluttony. Out of sight, out of mind … unfortunately, they forgot their timid beggar living in the park. I don't blame anybody. I don’t have steep mortgages, bills to pay, parents in a nursing home, kids at school and a wife with a job. Naturally, they are preoccupied with work … the golden mean to ensuring happy futures for their families. No, I was not forgotten. They just had other priorities. Besides, as autumn deepened, there were fewer people in the park. Remembering humility, I said 'hello' in the mornings and evenings when my neighbours would be out walking their strange, exotic dogs. Their polite nods reminded me that I was not forgotten and their brisk pace reminded me that winter was coming.

Apparently there are many such Paradises springing up all over the country. The fisherman, who came less and less because herons had eaten most of the trout, told me of this phenomena. Little utopias birthed from dreams. Designers, planners and investors had studied the faults of Post-War and Post-Modern development, he said, and were now able to flex their highly educated muscles on new lucrative sites, on new growth locations … to build communities far from the smoking ruins of sprawling urban nightmares, new neighbourhoods with charm and elegance, cohesion and a soul right from day one. Like the first settlers to plunder this continent, he explained, seeking freedom from European dictators and kings, like the first religious groups seeking open communion with God on unspoiled frontiers, like the philanthropists who built company towns under the motto 'a happy worker is a productive worker', this country was founded on the institution of dreams. Hollywood, he said. Of course, I'd never been to Europe to see its famous dictators and kings, or Hollywood, or Detroit, for that matter. Checking his bobbing line, he told me that the phenomena reminded him less of a city of God, and rather more like Babel. Looking around, I told him this place was as close to heaven as I'd ever get. He only shook his head. He did that a lot. When he did this I knew he wanted to concentrate on fishing. So we both looked down at the water and I wondered why God would want to live in a city anyway?

I like kids. In the city, boys and girls are organized into feudal armies, but out here in Paradise, they aren't too bad. To tease me, they'd dangle food off the bridge like fishermen. I knew it was all in good fun … far less deadly than the wicked torment of urban gangs. Charlie was torched with gasoline while he slept. A twelve year-old girl threw the match. I couldn't put out the fire. He screamed and screamed ... poor Charlie. Anyway, as the autumn waned and winter waxed, these local kids began to worried me. I had a bicycle given to me by a kindly older woman, but not being able to afford a lock, I left it on the bank at nights. Had it for weeks. Then one frosty morning it was gone. Stolen. I should have seen the writing on the wall.

Incidentally, my cell at the municipal courthouse has no writing on the walls. They're new, like everything else. Besides, they told me graffiti was vandalism and therefore, forbidden by municipal by-law. The day guard, a bitter man with family problems and the smell of liquor on his breath, joked that I'd be hanged twice if I so much as spat on the floor. They say his only child is gay. I heard him mutter that it should have been his son who was murdered. Poor boy ...

The kids, especially in groups, became bolder and bolder. It surprised me that no one said anything to them early on, that no one caught them drinking. They ruined many fine trees in the park and even started a fire in the playground. Even if their teachers educated them during the day, at dusk the boys ran about like wild animals. Not all of them of course. Just a few bad apples.

To my deepest regret, one of those apples drowned. It was a great tragedy that broke my heart, especially when I realized I was to blame. Lead by the screams of feeding gulls, I found him on that fine spring morning bloated and bobbing in the reeds. After they fished him out, the other boys of his group later claimed I had mishandled them. Accused me of molesting the boy before he drowned, while the others ran for safety. The boys stated that they ran because they thought the eldest had escaped too, otherwise they would have alerted the security force immediately. Their parents confirmed these confessions … said I often watched their children swimming in the Old Swimming Hole. The boys added that on other occasions I had tried to fondle them, too. Said I opened my pants and showed them my … well, I didn't. I don't know why they'd lie, except that in their grief they muddled the truth. Lord knows the truth is hard enough not to muddle.

They were right, however. I was down by the water at the time of the accident, when I heard the group of them on the bank plotting more harmless mischief. I heard someone out in the water, but truly thought they were only skinny dipping again. They were a close-knit bunch. I'd often seen the eldest boy playing with the other boys in the Gnarled Oak Copse when they thought no one was looking. Masturbating. Torturing a snared rabbit. Boys will be boys. Anyway, the night of the drowning I thought I'd stay out of their way. As I mentioned, the court found me responsible for the death; in fact, it announced that I had had a motive to see the boy dead! Nonsense. While I didn't push him under like they said, it was true that I could have saved him if I hadn't been so introverted and selfish. 'Minding your own business is sometimes not enough': Charlie's words. Pride will do it to you every time. A city thing that I just can't shake, I suppose. God living in a city … now that's a joke.

I'm not bitter about the hanging. It's a bit nostalgic, I have to admit, but as a resident of Paradise (if I may be bold enough to make this claim) it suits. Gothic and Tudor, Victorian, Classical and Colonial Revival, grand icons of history all lined up and colour coded for enduring perfection. Lots here are selling like hot cakes. The Grounds Department built a little white fence around all the ponds; sued somebody after the drowning and used the money to pay for it. It really is a wonder to see initiative take root from one developer's dream.

I can hear them outside the courthouse on Civic Square building an authentic gallows now. Can't see it of course, but the day guard describes it in enthusiastic detail. The wooden construction is a replica of one used by the pilgrims in Boston, which in turn has a healthy pedigree from London. I guess Paradise is as close as I'll get to Europe … still, it's comforting to know even in the New World I have a place in the long history of civilization.