Codger’s Column: Another year

Early in this new year, on the kind of sunny, gin-crisp morning that reminds him why he loves winter on the Island, Codger sat down at the otherwise unoccupied counter of the Place Formerly Known As The Pharmacy and ordered breakfast. He wanted to think about the past year as well as the current one, which had already begun badly, and what better spot than this symbol of shock and betrayal, a kind of metaphor for America right now. 

Closing a pharmacy might not seem as horrific as say, shooting shipwrecked sailors or killing a woman for driving away, but it also makes clear that those with their fingers on the triggers, literally and figuratively, are often reckless outlaws without compassion or responsibility. While enjoying scrambled eggs in the Place Formerly Known As The Pharmacy, Codger felt both sad and somehow detached.

He wondered about the three welcoming Latino workers on the other side of the counter. What are they feeling? Are they anxious, too?

Codger finds himself in this meditative mood because he has a big birthday coming up this week (at his age they are all big) and he feels anxious, angry and somewhat unmoored. So do most of his friends. They agree that while obviously something is profoundly wrong in the country and that something must be done, the impact hasn’t really hit them. What’s going on in Venezuela, Minneapolis, Portland, can sometimes feel like streaming shows. His friends confirm that sense of separation. They agree with Codger that we are living in an abstract tyranny. After all, their investments are holding, they say, they can handle the uptick in prices, and they’re worried less about themselves than about grandchildren and the people who clean their houses and yards and might someday be asked to care for them. And what will we do for them?

“What about the ICE factor?” Codger might ask. “Should we pay for observers in Greenport and North Haven to warn of a raid? Are we ready to stand at the ferry slips and block the tanks?” 

“Will it come to that?” they ask.

Codger shrugs. He has no idea, either. Maybe that explains the passivity so far. We’re waiting for the midterm elections. We’ll respond properly, at the ballot box. Change the majority in the House. Meanwhile, start getting more aggressive in all local elections. Protest louder. These No Kings demonstrations are good, but somehow unfocused. Didn’t we play that card 250 years ago? It’s not going to scare Congressman LaLota, much less Stephen Miller. Maybe we’ve been slapped too many times lately, too many executive orders and unilateral actions, a head-spinning torrent of threats and lies. 

There is an unwillingness to believe this actually could be happening to us. Surely the decisions will all be reversed after the referees review the films. Look, aren’t there signs of Republicans stirring with decency?

For Codger, it was the Solovievs, not the Trumps who rang the alarm. In a small community of many aged residents, a recently arrived oligarchal company buys up a number of iconic properties, then suddenly shuts them down, including the only dispensary of prescription medicine. It was town officials, not the Solovievs, who scrambled to find alternate ways of getting drugs. And there seemed little organized reaction — demonstrations, boycotts, any attempt to question the civic responsibility or integrity of the company, which had just failed in an attempt to build a midtown Manhattan gambling casino and was trying to build residential and recreational developments on the North Fork. Did they think they could get away with anything because Trump does?

After the Soloviev betrayal, Codger avoided the Place Formerly Known As The Pharmacy and almost begrudged leaving $9.54 for breakfast (delicious, nice price), a tip and the Times, whose front page offered no answers with a photo of ICE troopers pepper-spraying demonstrators, and a reference to a story about RFK Jr. putting red meat back up the pyramid as a favored food. 

Warnings about the dangers of alcohol were being downplayed. What next? Trump Vodka in school lunches?

Codger laughed when he got back out on the street, reminded of the best joke from Woody Allen’s 1973 sci-fi film, “Sleeper.” The hero awakes after 200 years to be prescribed “Tobacco … one of the healthiest things for your body.”

Funny, but now what? Codger says forget about the bloated bully for a while and concentrate on the reachable world around the Place Formerly Known As The Pharmacy, the haunted buildings of the Center, the lack of enforcement of the codes, the latest promise to finish the Comprehensive Plan, the slow walk toward affordable housing (for whom?), the muscles we will pump up while creating a Shelter Island less vulnerable to oligarchs for when the real battle begins.