Words, Rhetoric—

Embedded in my DNA, etched in my bones, moves a panorama of my family's liberal background—unions, socialism, revolutionary fervor, marches. I eschewed the narrow confines of the right. So why am I tiring of rhetoric that soars and belies reality? Maybe I'm naive. Maybe I refuse to accept the political realities--the buying of votes with favors.

Do the ends justify the means? An old philosophical conundrum worthy of speculation in dim coffee houses and living rooms. If you do this we'll add this to a bill; if you support this we'll sweeten the pot. What do you need? No, what do you want? Another bridge?

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The day after school ended and the summer before I entered Wade Junior High School, I took the train— along with three friends— to Coney Island Amusement park. Our ride from the Bronx took over an hour and involved changing trains several times. We carried brown bag lunches packed with peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches. My mother added four Oreo cookies.

After riding the roller coaster and a ride that turned me upside down we wandered the side streets. A man, barker, stood outside a storefront shouting words of wonder. "Come inside," he said, "and see the Alligator Man, the Siamese Twins and a fire shallower."

"The alligator man must spend twenty hours a day submerged in a tub. He's been written up in Ripley's Believe it of Not. If you don't see him today he may not be alive tomorrow. "

We stood outside wondering if this was our only chance. To return to our Bronx apartments without seeing the Alligator Man, to travel the D train home uneducated about Siamese Twins and to turn down a chance to stare at a fire shallower —and yet we still stood rooted to the concrete.

"Girls", the barker said, " Don't tell me your ages because I know you're too young, but this once I'll let you buy tickets to enter this emporium of wonders,"

"Where do you live?"

When we answered, the Bronx, he sighed and continued. "We'll never come to the Bronx. What do you have there? This, young ladies, is a rare opportunity. Yesterday the Alligator Man stayed in the tub all day and today he's out for two hours. "

I didn't know at that time how words strung together by an able performer, like an aphrodasic, lures the listener.

We bought tickets and entered a small room where a dozen other ticket holders waited for the show to begin.

"Ladies, gentlemen and girls from the Bronx, look straight ahead and meet the alligator man."
A man with a hood covering his face, stumbled across a stage constructed of wood crates. Backstage someone turned up the volume of a musical piece that accentuated suspense. The alligator man, with help from an assistant, unbuttoned his shirt and took it off. His skin was thickened and coarse, darkened, creased and hard looking. He stood there with his arms hanging down at his side. Long arms.

"Now, let's see," said the barker, "what he looks like." The hood, that covering hiding or protecting the alligator man, removed in a slow dance by the barker revealed the alligator man's face.

"Jesus'" said the man next to me.

The entire bottom of the alligator man's face protruded . His profile view resembled a snout.

The barker asked him, "Who would you like to kiss?"

"Point to her."

And an arm lifted and he pointed to the blond girl standing with a sailor.

"I'll blow him a kiss," she said. And then looked in his direction and blew him a kiss. It took me a number of years to realize the humanity in that gesture.

We left there and our hour ride home to the Bronx covered the distance between childhood and something beyond.

Words--cajoling, seductive, promising—yet the reality was tragic.

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