Autobiography
I was born in soggy Seattle, where no one really minded the rain or getting wet. In third grade I moved to Rome, Italy. In fifth grade I went to Italian school where my teacher was a nun who also doubled as a soccer commentator. One day Daniele Lombardi was teasing me, and I had my automatic umbrella with the duck-head handle in hand so I popped it open in his face. It didn’t hit him, but he told on me anyway and the teacher told the class that I had to kiss him as an apology. I hadn’t quite adapted to my new cultural settings yet, and having to kiss a boy in front of the whole class really freaked me out, especially when every one in the class, including the teacher, started chanting, “Bacio! Bacio!” (Kiss! Kiss!). Since then I have hated umbrellas.
I refused to take cover under one even when I lived in muddy England and had to walk a mile to the nearest grocery store. They aggravated me further when I moved to New York and people would walk down the crowded streets, canopies deployed, unaware of the eye-gouging they were imposing on their fellow pedestrians.
Thus began my campaign for mayor of New York City. My platform was simple: ban umbrellas and feed the pigeons and the squirrels to the homeless. At first I was just going to run for Manhattan Borough President, but my campaign caught on like wildfire, and both the Republicans and the Democrats begged me to put my name on the ballot. The Greens were mixed: they liked a campaign centered around removing barriers between us and the elements, and appreciated the focus on feeding the homeless, but they wanted to see a more veggie friendly approach. The libertarians, on the other hand, were anti-umbrella regulation and while acknowledged the homeless problem, thought a better solution would be to provide the homeless with letters of marque entitling them to hunt the squirrels and pigeons, and to deregulate the parks so that they could cook their catch in park fires.
It was too late to get my name on the ballot, but I won as a write-in candidate. For the first time, the city’s budget ran at a surplus: money saved by the elimination of umbrella-gouged eye related ER visits and homeless programs. More importantly, without aggressive squirrels trying to steal their bagel and lox, or pigeons shitting on all available surfaces, New Yorkers began to enjoy their parks again. And being outside on sunny days, they began to enjoy one anothers’ company again. Some of the richest New Yorkers decided to build their own parks, but then realized that they were no fun without the public to keep them company, so opened them up… the city became a Utopia.
But I had forgotten one crucial element: the rats. The rats were clever enough to lay low at first, to take their time, strike only when the moment was right. They made contacts in high places, got funding from the CEOs of Burberry and Totes, who had campaigned vigorously against the umbrella ban. They waited until the squirrels and the pigeons crawled forth, begging for help, submitting to their former nemeses.
March fourteenth. The first warm day that year, that day that reminds people that winter will end, the crisp morning air bustling with the joyful anticipation of more warm days to come. Zabars called it in first, H&H bagels was next. Then then clump of food carts outside the Met, and then the Met trustee’s dining room itself. Peter Luger’s Steakhouse, Grimaldi’s Pizza, Tavern on the Green. Katz’s Deli, Tom’s Diner, del Monaco’s. Rats by the thousands in alliance with the cockroaches, flanked by what was left of the pigeons and squirrels.
I declared a State of Emergency and called in the National Guard. We tried to negotiate a surrender, but they didn’t just want territory, they wanted vengeance. Had it just been me they wanted, I would have given myself up. But they wanted my campaign staff, they wanted every homeless person who had participated in our program and they wanted every fumigator and every person that had ever called a fumigator.
There was nothing more a I could do. I was evacuated along with the rest of the city. In defeat, I immigrated to Ireland, where I thought maybe I could learn about how another rainy climate deals with umbrellas. I studied International Relations at Dublin City University in a quest to formulate a means for peace in New York. I came back empty handed.
Still trying to figure out how things had gone so terribly wrong, I went to law school back in New York City, where the National Guard was successfully holding a line against the rats from 14th street on down to Battery Park. I did my case readings in a ditch or on rooftops, taking my rotation on watch, as was the duty of any New York resident at that point.
The rats were declining. They had miscalculated. They had no expertise in agriculture, in manufacturing, in production. They were scavengers, and they were running out of our garbage. The pigeons had flown off to other parts. The squirrels and the cockroaches were losing interest. There was dissent within their ranks. Our time had come.
We made them an offer: they could have Staten Island, and we would use it as our garbage dump.
The city was ours again. Clearly, my political career was over, but I was still asked to consult on the new city charter in secret: after all, I did have some expertise and I had learned from my mistakes. I failed to keep Sec. 54.102 “Umbrella Protection Provision” out of the charter. If law school had taught me anything it was the limits of laws: laws are blunt instruments. They will not solve social problems and they will not change society, except on the margins. I no longer wanted to regulate umbrellas, but nor did I want to protect them. I wanted nothing to do with them.
So I came to Austin.
