| SPINBUSTERS |
| Flowers for Robert |
| Ain�t nobody but me gonna throw flowers on the grave of killer Robert S. Flores. But hey, the dead gotta produce, just like the living. Earn their keep. So with our maggot-flag a�fly, let�s make like a scene outta Dickens, and see what we can loot offa Robert�s fresh stiff. I just KNOW he won�t mind! There�s no need to lionize Flores. He was no hero, and that is the telling point. His life story reads like American pulp. His experiences as a male � in academia, the legal system, etc. � are firmly mainstream, boringly so. Aside from the tweak that exposure to chemical agents during the Gulf War will give a dude � and I�ve seen worse at raves -- Robert�s life was typical of millions of modern American males. He fared porely under the neo-matriarchy. Robert served his country and got stomped. He tried to be a father to his kids, and got stomped. He foolishly entered that ur-lair of feminism � the American academy � and, for variety, got royally trampled, a real buffalofest, with cherries and a handshake. Flores, rather than take his whuppin� like a man, instead shot dead three of his nursing professors at the University of Arizona. By way of revelation, he left a 22-page letter addressed to Mizz Jane Amari at the Arizona Daily Star newspaper. �Dear Ms. Amari,� Robert wrote, in passable prose. �Greetings from the dead. You have received this letter after a rather horrendous event.� Then, on the eve of All Saints and All Souls, he inscribed, �I do not know what forces are compelling me to write this.� Ah, well. Better late than never, Bob. Ain�t no Big Secret. They are simply forces who wish to prevent more such posthumous missives, screaming children, folks airwalking outta fortieth-story buildings. Those forces. Sorry you were the last to know. Sometimes it�s unaviodable. �Free will,� and all that. Prior to executing one of his professors, Flores stated, �I�m going to give you a lesson in spirituality.� Then the class came to disorder. This roq is a hard place, is it not? Spiritual seminars here have a pronounced overbite. What we got is a self-contained learning module, suitable for K-through-death. Around and around she goes. Instant karma�s gonna get you, spake prophet John. No, he weren�t guessing. �That is madness!� you splutter? "Flores� letter is the raving of a lone nut, a psychopath, completely disconnected from �normal� society, a slavering brute obsessed with rage and vengeance! Those women were pure victims -- innocent, absolutely and irrevocably innocent. To suggest otherwise is heartless and foul, insults the families of the victims, throws the dog off his feed, and tosses a�whack all our sense of morality, of justice, of the rightness of blood compense." Sorry. It�s me hobby. I used to bite my nails. Here�s the old news: In this zoo � some how, some way � ya reap what ya sow. Not a feather more, not a feather less, and nothing cares whether you like that or not. Now, these are harsh rules, but just -- for eventually they force us into compassion for, and stewardship of, one another -- which we are wont otherwise to, ah, misplace. I�ve walked in Robert Flores� zapatos, and he did not hallucinate his perception of subjugation as a modern Western male. Our land of materialism and matriarchy indeed is hostile to masculinity and to the male spirit. In this, Robert was correct. Here�s his own last testament: �I asked him [college friend Mike] if it didn�t bother him when female student[s] started to put men down in general in front of him. He stated that yes, it did bother him but he kept his mouth shut so that he would not be labeled.� [a misogynist] |
| Part One of Three |