Rudy Can't Fail

One gorgeous afternoon on the first of April several years ago, with America just getting started on another War and everyone demonstrating their patriotism in the most pagan ways, a simple American citizen by the name of Rudy J. Swingle happened to be down at his favorite watering hole, The Buzzard’s Roost, innocently starting on a third pint of his favorite hoppy ale. A television set in the corner of the bar was on and there was a lot of talk on the news about the economy being “depressed” and “sluggish” and even “slumping,” “staggering,” and “spluttering.” The President was catching flak from the chattering heads on the show for not being more of a booster for it, which, because of his past success as a prep school cheerleader, was expected of him. “That’s right,” Rudy said to the man sitting next to him at the bar who was passed out with his head resting on an open newspaper, a small pool of drool forming on a crossword puzzle he’d been working on regarding the pious Christian lives of the Founding Fathers. “That’s right,” Rudy continued undeterred, “the country’s at War again after all, and when you’re at War it’s never good to have economic problems and unenthusiastic remarks about it from the Commander in Chief on top of everything else. Not that I know any better, but it makes sense to me that the President’s job is to cheer on America no matter what’s happening.”

Suddenly the words “U.S. consumer indicators” flashed through the air, and though Rudy had heard those words many times before without ever giving them the slightest thought, this time something clicked. Other words followed: “individual consumption most vital component of economy,” “two-thirds of U.S. economy dependent on consumer spending,” “consumer trends drive nation’s health,” and so on. Perhaps it was the context they were phrased in, or maybe at that particular moment Rudy’s mind was as fertile as a newly plowed field in the spring and so receptive to them. At any rate, what can only be described as an epiphany occurred to him then—and like all great epiphanies that have happened to people throughout all time, Rudy suddenly found himself sitting wide-eyed in a new world. He was still in The Buzzard’s Roost of course, but now the machinations of the whole civilized world, that is the economic world, always a profound and obscure mystery to him, was made clear as an unmuddied stream. “Happy horses!” he realized with surprise, “we live in a consumer culture!” Corollaries to this startling new idea ricocheted through his mind like a mighty pinball shot—when people buy more things, companies sell more things, and the more people buy, the more companies sell, and the more companies sell, the more production rises, and the more production rises, the more people work, and the more people work, the more money they have to buy the things they need to buy to keep the economy going so that everyone can keep working and consuming over and over again and on and on in a perfect cycle—also, things must be made to fall apart, so that people have to keep replacing them, and, more importantly, for the economy to keep growing, people need to buy more and more things, newer and more improved things, faster and faster all the time! And thus the need for government institutions to monitor consumer activity and guide and nurture the economy, and for big corporations to control the media and let fly a relentless barrage of titillating advertising to coerce and bamboozle people to feel that they really need to buy more things! The whole artifice and simple structure of it suddenly lay bare-naked before Rudy’s wondering eyes and his mouth watered at the sight. But then another thought began to take shape in his mind, and with growing anxiety Rudy saw that this great economic scheme had a downside too, and that was the grim inexorable truth that if this rabid consumption by American consumers were ever to cease, it would kill the economy and spell the doom of America—and all of her proud history and glorious promise would fade forever from the face of the earth.

That’s when it dawned on Rudy that he was an enemy of the state—right then, while safely ensconced at The Buzzard’s Roost with his third pint to his lips, to be precise—for the simple reason that he never bought anything! Not a thing! And by not doing so, he was undermining the nation’s economy, putting America in danger, and therefore committing treason! He was stunned. He set his pint down and looked cautiously about at the other patrons. “God help me,” he thought, “it’s come to this at last has it—I’m a traitor to my own country! But can it really be true?” He carefully reviewed in his mind the logic behind this startling discovery but alas! it all seemed ironclad—he lived in a spacious teepee he’d put together out of fir poles that he’d cut and dragged out of the forest and covered with a skin of old paint-spattered canvas drop-cloths that he’d come across at the dump and sewed together using fishing line recovered from the shrubbery down by the river; he’d set the whole thing up years ago on an abandoned piece of property outside of town, behind a screening grove of tall evergreen trees, and heated it by wood fires during the cold months; a little ways off he’d dug a hole and built a little outhouse over it for the discharge of his bodily needs; in the summer he cleaned up in the river, and in the winter he bathed outdoors in a 50-gallon drum filled with water and heated over a fire; his clothes and bedding he got from the town free-box or as gifts, and he never dined out either, preferring his own simple home-cooked meals and the privacy of his own table; fresh water came from a nearby spring and most of the food he ate came from a vegetable garden he’d put in and a greenhouse he’d rigged up nearby; there were also orphaned chickens that he’d adopted and built a little coop for who contributed eggs; seasonal runs of steelhead and salmon still came up the nearby river, and the forest behind the property offered wild edibles year round in the form of acorns, berries, mushrooms, and assorted greens; his neighbors supplied him with homemade breads and pies in trade for a little labor, there was honey from transient beekeepers that passed through needing a hand, and there were plenty of fruit and nut orchards close by to help himself to in season; if he ever had anywhere to go, he either traveled by foot, an old bicycle, or, during the warmer months, by paddling an inner tube up and down the river; he had no dependents, not even pets, except for Pinky, an albino cat that came with the property, but she was feral and lived more or less off of a healthy population of field mice so that he’d never had to buy her any food; and finally, he had no hobbies to speak of, except for birdwatching, and all he needed for that was his eyes and ears and an innate fascination for colorful flying things. In fact, the only thing Rudy required money for was buying pints down at The Buzzard’s Roost, and he got that easily enough collecting the cans and bottles strewn about the roadsides and returning them for their deposits.

And so with dismay, Rudy concluded that the only contribution he could see that he was making as a consumer to his culture and his country was by buying pints down at The Buzzard’s Roost, and although that was considerable, it was mostly during Happy Hour, and sometimes in trade for swabbing out their beer cooler. He shook his head ruefully, “So it’s true after all, I’m totally off the grid, off the map, below radar, out of touch, out of tune, out of step, and out of the loop. In a word, I’m frugal, and while this may have been a virtue in the past, I can see that it’s certainly unpatriotic now. We’re at War again and it’s time for every man to pull his weight around, and I’m not! In fact, America’s economy is suffering by my very own hand and I am a traitor to my country!”