A Run-In with That's That

My maternal grandmother detested compromise. She dismissed it with the exclamation, “Now, that’s that!” Her word became reality.

Concepts are best understood by experiences. I’m mulling over why our culture prefers middle-ground compromise to absolute truth. After this morning, I think I get it.

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I’m fed up with our newspaper carrier. Often the paper hangs from the shrubs, trampled on in the road or floats in a puddle. Phone calls and letters produce no results. It’s time for confrontation.

Our carrier comes about 4:00 AM. This morning I suit up for battle. Obsessively concerned for safety, I slip on a green, reflective vest abandoned by the garbage man while fleeing from my dog. Its reflection can be seen clearly from the next county.

I wrap myself with a strand of leftover blinking lights from Christmas. I resemble a lighted Miami palm tree. I hook thirty LED bike lights to the vest. They flash red and white for emphasis. I find the LL Bean hunter’s camo hat with a million-watt halogen head light embedded in it. Raccoons a mile away are blinded.

At 3:45 I stand on the center line of the road. Car lights approach. They are slow, then begin again, creeping nearer. Finally, the car screeches to a stop in front of me. Nothing moves. I wait.

The door opens. Military boots emerge, worn by a dark figure wearing black. The white fangs of a large dog inside startle me. A female voice says, “What’s this…the carnival?”

I ignore the comment, confront the carrier. “We need to talk,” I say.

“About what?” she asks abruptly.

“Your aim is bad. You need to pitch my paper in the driveway!” I snap.

“Back it down, rat breath. You’re lucky to even get a paper.”

“What? It’s your job.” I say, retreating.

She gets out, all of five feet, 100 pounds. The dog stays inside. The flashing lights illuminate its fangs. It doesn’t move.

“Strange dog you have,” I say. “Just sits there.”

“Duh, you moron. It’s a dummy, a taxidermy special. Wake up!”

“Let’s talk about my newspaper.”

“Listen, Bonehead, you know what you can do with your newspaper?” The momentum shifts.

“I’m calling your boss if we can’t find some middle ground. You might lose your job.” My intimidation falls flat.

“Back off, buddy, you don’t know jack. I’m up at 2:00, wrap and deliver 300 papers. You think I care if you don’t get your fifty-cent paper? Call him!” The middle ground shrinks further.

“Hey Rambo, I sent you a Christmas card with two dollars in it. Doesn’t that count for better delivery options?” Money talks. I grasp at straws.

“Tell you what, Twinkle Toes. How about we swap places? I’ll go in your nice, warm house, have coffee, read the paper. You finish delivering these. Then tell me about your $2 gift card. Now, that’s that, Mac. So move your circus outta my way!” Compromise vanishes. My grandmother’s words suddenly ring clearly in my ear.

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Some people are old school. They don’t split hairs or pirouette around in some nebulous nowhere called middle ground. They know that compromise is not pure truth. It’s a coward’s way out.

Our culture loves to dance around issues, avoid confrontations and conclusions. Indecision, our partner, is the furtive shadow of Ambivalence. Certitude sits in the corner and snoozes.

Middle ground is a battlefield strewn with skeletons of combatants seeking consensus. Their blanched bones testify that harmony is a moving target. Absolute Truth is the Bagpiper who surveys the scene from an ethereal perch, piping Amazing Grace.

Such must have been the thesis of the mystic poet, Matthew Arnold, when he wrote, “…here as on a darkling plain swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night.”

The ‘center’ is shifting sands of concepts based on the orthodoxy of opposites. It’s a marketplace, a wild bazaar where ideas are exchanged, where we’ve bought, sold, traded and bartered. We often leave the table feeling a little cheated or short-changed.

Our culture vacillates in the mystical space of entrenched ideas and status quo. Give a little, get a little. Like sports teams, we need a zero-sum game. Win or lose. Closure at all costs.

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As my blinking palm tree retreats to the house, paper in hand, I consider the options. No middle ground here today.

Short of a pistol duel, it’s good to have run-ins and hear, “That’s that!” It clears the air.

Bud Hearn
February 13, 2015