Oldguy’s tuckered out, battling for good
in a land where the Four Freedoms
morphed into freedom from thought,
fact, candor, and plain goddamned
human decency. A Rose Bowl
of varlets brought to justice, and what’s
the bottom line: four mega-Rose-Bowls
of replacements and a mile-long line
of wannabes shoving in. He moves
into Hunters’ Glen Retirement Estates,
where he’s assigned a room with a bed,
chair, pole lamp, and a window looking out
on a Budget Rent-A-Car lot. Dinner’s
in the Plantation Room, where meals
feature jello, turkey loaf, day-old rolls,
and jello. Entertainment takes place
in the Moonlight Ballroom, which offers
barbershop quartets, Boy Scout drill teams,
nutrition lectures, Bingo, and slide shows
for pre-paid burial plans. Lodgers respond
with 1,000-yard stares through rheumy eyes.
Oldguy stares out his window, then demands
a full refund and, in a rented red Camaro,
screeches off for a rematch with iniquity,
flattening the People Who Love People sign.