Frank Klus - Azaleas Don't Bloom Here

Pamela looked on in silent anguish.

“It was all a lie. The whole world… my whole world was disintegrating, and all I could think of was that damn promotion, a home in the fortress, and lovely, beautiful Catherine. I didn’t care about anyone or anything else. I didn’t care, Pamela.” He began sobbing openly as he sat back on the bed, covering his face in shame.

Then he stopped crying, turned to her, red-faced and tear-stained with goggled eyes. He stood up as if to make a grand announcement. Looking at her, now sorrowfully, he spoke with a raised voice. “I WANT MY WORLD BACK! I don’t want to go anywhere else.” Then he crumbled to the floor again, his back leaning against the bed, the palms of his hands against his forehead, elbows against his knees, and crying. “I can’t take it anymore, Pamela. Prison, Hell House, Hogs. When does it end? I can’t find meaning in my life anymore. I’m an empty shell. I hate myself, but I want that mad, decadent life back again. I want my naiveté back. I want my ignorance back. I want sober, lovely Catherine back. I want to feel good again.”

Pamela knelt down beside him, putting her arm around him and hugging him tightly, crying as well.

“I’m dead, aren’t I? I mean spiritually dead. I can’t have it back and I shouldn’t want it back. I don’t want to be selfish old Gene. I don’t want to use people for my own comfort, but there is nothing else for me. Maybe I should just let them change me. Maybe I could stand the pain—others did. I’d fit in. They could make me forget Zinney. Then they’d never fear I’m going to start some revolution.”

Eugene continued to look at Pamela wearing a somber expression. “They could make me forget Catherine. I wouldn’t have to face the pain of guilt or loss. I could have that promotion. I could fall in love again. This time, have a family of my own. Life would be good. I wouldn’t feel guilty about what I was doing to others. I wouldn’t even care. Let’s go back, Pamela. I could call Dennis up and tell him I’ll take Hell House. I’d cooperate. They wouldn’t have to beat me.”

Pamela looked frightened, shaking her head sideways with a crimsoned face, listening to Eugene’s mad attempts to find happiness in a dead world. “Gene, listen to me,” holding him tight while helping him up, and sitting him down in a chair. She kept her eye on him, afraid his madness would get worse, while grabbing another chair, and pulling it over to him.

“I know how you feel. This isn’t a dumb cliché. I really do know how you feel, but I tell you this, Gene. There is a better world waiting for you.”

Eugene looked downcast. “I can’t accept it. I’ve made up my mind. I want to go back.”

“Gene, you don’t understand. The world you know is dead.”

“But my father and mother, and my brother Bo—they’re still there. And they’re real; they’re alive. They aren’t dead to me or anyone else.”

“Gene, listen to me. I promised your mother something that I’m now going to violate because I believe she really wants you to know. Your father hasn’t had any real work in months. Haven’t you noticed the neighborhood? No one fixes the potholes or drains the town swamp anymore. People aren’t fixing up their homes. Weeds grow in many yards—your parents’ yard. Your father needed help from your Uncle John. Soon that help will dwindle.”

Eugene was puzzled. “But you never met my parents.”

“Yes, I did. I met them before I met you. When Ray called me and told me you needed to escape—he also told me about your parents. He was really worried about them. I called your mother up, and she invited me over. We talked. Oh, Gene, she’s just like you are now. She yearns for the life that is dead now. She couldn’t bear leaving her home because in her own mind it’s still the grand place she remembered when she fell in love with your father. Intellectually, she sees the deterioration, but it was the world of her youth that gave her pleasure. She can’t separate herself from that world. She and your father cling to it like a life preserver.”

Eugene looked at Pamela with a curious and puzzling visage. “I never really noticed that about the old neighborhood. It still felt vibrant. It still felt like home.”

“Do any of your childhood friends still live there?”

“No. They all moved away.”

“Do you know the neighbors?”

“Not really.”

“Then it really isn’t home anymore. You can’t let go of the past and neither can your parents, even though it’s eating all of you up inside. You don’t know anything better, so you cling to what always felt good before.”

“I believe it’s more than that, Pamela. I understand what you’re saying, but it’s more than that. Whatever we destroyed, we can bring it back. The conservatives do make one good point. People have to take responsibility for their own lives. I could take that job, and then move my parents to a better place. They could move into my neighborhood. I could help dad find new markets. There is much I can do.”

“It won’t work. You see, honey, it’s about more than taking responsibility for our own lives. We all share in the same problems. How long would that job last? How much can you squeeze out of people who have next to nothing? No matter what cute name you give to crap, it still amounts to the same thing. The well is running dry, Gene. If you aren’t producing something that makes the world a better place, it will become a worse one. If one suffers, we all suffer. Do you remember that poem by John Donne?”

‘No man is an island, entire of itself…. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’

“Do you remember that, Gene?”

He nodded.

“Old America is running out of time. As more people become poor and unemployed there are fewer dollars to buy things. When they’ve spent their last dollar on women, booze, and drugs there won’t be anything left. The rich can just look for new opportunities somewhere else, but even that won’t last much longer. They devour everything they touch. When it’s all gone, they’re done for too. Gene, this world is dead. No amount of personal responsibility is ever going to change that.”

Eugene’s lips began to quiver, but he listened.

“Your father failed, not because of anything he did or didn’t do, but because his clients failed. His clients failed because their customers failed. Their customers failed because their employers failed. It is a cycle of failure because this thing—I don’t know—corporatism, or whatever free enterprise got twisted into, is a failure. The New World has a better way. Hold on, Gene. We’ll get there.”

The news of his father’s disintegrating business struck him hard. “Then why didn’t he come with me? Why didn’t they want to come?”

“Your father is a proud man. As long as he felt he could endure, he wouldn’t leave. To leave would be to give up, and your mother and father just couldn’t do that. It isn’t in their nature. Your father believes in responsibility, and that means never giving up. He’s blinded by the fact that there’s nothing left to give up. His clients are all suffering; therefore, he suffers.

“It’s the same with your brother, Bo. He’s supposed to set an example for you. He works sixteen hour days—sometimes twenty—just to stay ahead of the game. Soon, it won’t be enough. But the thought of giving up is so repulsive to him that he won’t do it until his world comes crashing down on him.

“We’re all in this together, Gene. It’s just like John Donne says… ‘No man is an island’. What happens to one of us affects all of us. Personal responsibility isn’t enough. We live in the same stink we create for others. The rich and powerful try to wall themselves off from it, but it won’t last. Utility companies are shutting down for want of customers. They shut down; even the rich won’t have electricity. Oh sure, they could build their own generators, but where would the fuel come from? Fuel distribution is dwindling because of fewer customers. There’s no money in it anymore. The rich are being consumed by their own greed. Nothing it touches will last; not even the Fortress. Those azaleas you mentioned—they have a dark side. They’re highly toxic. Just like your world. You can wall off yourself from all the rot, but you get consumed by it as well. The beauty of azaleas only disguise the rot.”