A massive tranquilizer for liberals in Cayucos

January 24, 2021

Editor’s Note: The following series, “Life in Radically Gentrifying Cayucos by the Sea,” to be posted biweekly includes the notes, thoughts, and opinions of an original American voice: author Dell Franklin. 

By DELL FRANKLIN

The liberals in town are walking around with a bounce in their steps after four years of shuffling along in a morose torpor, one minute angry and spouting their vehement diatribes against the hated Trump, the next grumbling dismally that the son of a bitch was going to get reelected and continue his carnage of the country and force us all to flee to Greek islands or Ireland or anywhere in Europe where dictators do not exist.

I was one of those, having no confidence in voters and positive most Americans were fine with an authoritarian demagogue having a great time agitating his enemies into foaming-at-the-mouth bat-shit loonies on a daily basis, and transforming at least half of America into an absolute nervous breakdown, while the other half rejoiced at our slowly disintegrating soul-sucking, babbling, walking-around-in-circles nonstop mental anguish, gleefully repeating utterances on Fox News by Hannity and anybody else on the right piling on with increasingly vile loathing of us weak-kneed coastal elites.

Well, by God, now the tables are turned and we got an old man in the White House dispensing oratorical ativan and ambien in large doses to the whole lot of us temporary winners, though, when I run into my liberal friends on the beach or streets and they inform me how relieved and joyous they are that Trump is finally gone, I remind them that the people who stormed the capital and turned America into a maelstrom of chaotic anarchy and nihilism are possibly the only scattered group in America as well-armed as the entire U.S. military.

I haven’t handled a firearm since I got out of the army, and I can’t think of any relatives or friends (mostly coastal elites though solidly working-class) who even have a gun.

The other afternoon two neighborhood ladies walking their dog stopped as I hovered over my deck railing, and expressed their happiness at Trump’s tail-between-his-his-legs departure to Florida, where he no doubt intends to soon stir his legions into further fury at the very idea of these goddamn libs possessing the audacity to think they can tax the rich and fuck with our cops and take away our guns and give money to lazy non-white parasites!

These ladies, like me, had a Biden poster out front of their residence before the election. They carried on for awhile about how they despised Trump. They are possibly a couple decades younger than me.

I told them, “I’m not sure this is a healthy country anymore. There’s a sickness in the air, and I don’t mean just the pandemic.”

“Well, we have to be optimistic.”

It seems the ladies in town are surer of a more optimistic future than the men. I think most of us are still punchy from the barrage of outrageous poison and lies hurled at us for what seemed an interminable amount of time. We might not ever believe again after this experience. We surely will not ever be the same. Surely, America will never be the same.

The inauguration seemed a different animal than Biden’s victory night. There is the hopeful reality that for at least a little while we can leave the tube and feel things might improve and not give a damn about anything (we’re free!), and it’s too bad the bars are closed because I felt on election night and inauguration day like going to the Schooner’s Wharf and slugging down some buckets of good vodka with a few boozers I haven’t seen much of in almost a year.

It’s been a slog. But it feels good now that I can be part of a national populace not only despised, but despised for having our folks in power as we gloat over no longer having to turn on the TV and witness the latest Trump harpoon sunk into the over-sensitive hides of us weak-kneed coastal elites.

What we do have to look forward to though, is the already teeming onslaught of the lethal, willfully ignorant jackals that invaded our capital—a crew whose contempt for us and discontent with their own station in life in America seems all consuming and barbarous.