Death in a Gilded Crypt

I've probably mentioned (but who remembers) that I live near I-10 in Houston, a highway that marks an informal barrier between the north side of the road (mine) and the south, where some of the villages (small incorporated towns) house some of the richest people in Houston, outside of River Oaks (the really wealthy district).  I've mentioned it because several years ago a new grocery store was built not far from my house, and people from the "other side" wanted to shop at it.  But they were afraid to, so the store put up conspicuous TV cameras and hired off-duty police to stand at the doors and look menacingly at the parking lot (which isn't that large) so the "rich" people would be reassured that the hoodlums and thugs in the neighborhood where I raised my daughter and have lived for 20 years in peace and comfort, wouldn't rape them and burn their cars and steal their purses.

There have actually been, hand to God, more acts of crime and violence on the south side of the highway than the north side.  Well, that's where the money is.

So I know people like these two, the famous St. Louis couple who pointed guns at protestors on their way to the Mayor's house (still wondering why the Mayor lives in a gated community with such a flimsy gate).  They insist they feared for their lives (nobody stays out of jail for pointing a gun at somebody because they fear for the furniture or their lawn care):

As he has done in a series of interviews in the past few nights, McCloskey maintained that he was “literally afraid that within seconds they would surmount the wall come into the house, kill us, burn the house down and everything that I’ve worked for and struggled for for the last 32 years.” 

So he thought he'd woken up in a Brad Pitt zombie movie? Or did he fear the residents of St. Louis, who are largely black and poor, had finally come to take what was rightly theirs?  He did say in another interview he thought they were coming for the Bastille, which indicates his mindset about his home (and his legitimacy there).    This is, I understand, near Forest Park.  I spent time there when I was in seminary in the area.  Played golf there, took my daughter to the zoo and the aviary (still standing from the World's Fair in 1902 (?).  Beautiful thing.) and the art museum.  Strolled around the park, which has definitely seen better days in the early 20th century than at the end of it.  Maybe it's improved by now, but in its heyday the wealthy of St. Louis were wealthy, indeed. Anheuser Busch and Purina were headquartered there, when those names dominated their respective industries.  I went to a UCC church that had its own china pattern and sterling silverware pattern, because it used to entertain the "best" of St. Louis society, including politicians and celebrities, and employed a kitchen staff to serve the meals.  Those days of glory gone, all gone, now.

I'm sure this couple is proud of their house.  But they are just like the people who live only a mile from me, terrified that someone is going to take what is theirs, because somehow they cannot rest easy on their piles of gold.  Somehow they know, or fear, that what they have is illegitimately held.  the reference to the Bastille is a reference to power illicitly imposed, and illicit power must fall.  I had someone actually drive a truck into my house.  I had someone else ring the doorbell late at night, and then stand there after I shut it again reciting poetry until I turned the lights off and, unable to read, he finally left.  Found someone in my backyard once, when the gate had fallen down and I hadn't repaired it.  He left, then came back to my back door, and we had to call the police.  But never have I felt the need for a gun, or felt my property and life threatened.  I don't live that way.  I don't fear that way.

This couple does.  I can tell by what they say, and what they live in.  They live in constant terror of losing it.  They don't even have the comfort of the rich man in the parable, who piles up wealth and great stores and decides his future is set, only to find his life demanded of him that very night, and all he has amassed lost to the living now, of which he was no longer one.  These people are dead while they are alive, and I pity them.  I've got my worries and anxieties and weaknesses, but I don't have their problems.

And I never want to.