Slice-o-Life: The Scarlet Badge of Desire

Slice-o-Life: The The Scarlet Badge of Desire
by Mike Madias, Clinical Sociologist and Columnist

September 10, 2002

Columnist Mike Madias I have chosen to live a life of indulgence. I have satisfied my senses with food, sex, liquor, drugs, music, artwork and literature. I have shared a joint with Jerry Garcia and Janis Joplin, taken an acid trip with Tim Leary, and been tear-gassed with Norman Mailer. I am a reporter. I have the best job in the world, and I enjoy one of the best partnerships any man could want. Where others live lives of quiet desperation; I am loud, boisterous, and defiant. And I pay the price for this life. Choice.

I have collected an impressive array of risk factors for disease as a result of my life style. It has taken the best efforts of a competent medical team to get me up and around. I'm grateful, of course. But I am without repentance. If you want to ride the pony, you have got to pay for the ticket. The life I have chosen has not been kind to my body. There has been damage to my heart, lungs, kidneys, liver and pancreas. It is all on the mend. If I were to die young, then the life I have chosen will not be kind to the many people who love me. I am afraid it won't be a pretty corpse.

Of course, the people who choose to hitch their emotional wagons to this particular celestial body know who they love. There is no fraud. I am a libertine. I receive Social Security Disability payments. In our society, working people pay taxes that filter their way past an army of bureaucrats and social workers. The resultant transfer of wealth arrives in my bank account by automatic deposit, and to my HMO, when my medical bills are covered.

There are many treatments that might prolong my life. My HMO will not cover all of them. As a result, someone better heeled then I will also be better healed. Yes, some self- respecting person (who has had less sex, drugs, and rock and roll than I) can afford to ask their doctor about all the prescription medicines advertised on the evening network news programs. He can afford to buy and gulp down all this swill and smile. I buy many of my remedies at the dollar store.

I would not trade places for all the Prozac in China. I could have changed my choices, I could have made my parents proud, and gone straight. But, I enjoyed the life I have led. Which brings us to the question of who is entitled to live and who to die. Is someone who engaged in dangerous hedonism as entitled to medical care as one who lived a life of quiet normalcy? Can one earn a long healthy life? Did the suburban straight guy earn the probability of a longer life span by his conformity and suppression of his desires? Yes, he paid the price, and he gets to ride the pony. When people talk about government subsidized medical care for libertine folks like me, they use the term "entitlement." They describe this as a transfer of wealth. It is a contemptible situation.

On the other hand. My progressive friends argue that this is the richest country on Earth, and we all deserve a piece of the action. If I get sick, it is a public health problem. The government should step in and pay for the treatment of my maladies. Maybe that is a valid issue of policy. Maybe it is just an ethical issue. What is certain is that there are people in the world who live at high risk of premature death, not because of the extreme nature of their individual choices, but because of the way others choose to relate to them. For example young people in South Africa; young people in Iraq; and young people in the 13th Congressional District in the city of Detroit.

The local television news show reported that according to a statistic to be released by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention-Detroit has the highest rate of syphilis in the United States. The CDC states that anyone who has had unprotected sex in the last 20 years may be a carrier of the disease. The symptoms include arthritis, blindness, dementia and then death. I hear the voices north of Eight Mile saying this: "Ok, a bunch of city folk had unprotected sex and got syphilis, and now the straight community has to shell out good money to help bad people." I had my initiation to love making on a Murphy bed in a low rent Detroit city hideaway, a block or so from Hitsville USA. Given a choice between getting a pint of joy or a box of lamb skin balloons, the Scotch won and the Trojan lost. Choices. Now, at 56 years of age, I have arthritis, I type this story in an extra large font, and I lost the remote control to the VCR a few months ago; and I still can't remember where I left it. A lot of people who shared sex drugs and rock and roll with me are now dead.

I may be wrong about this, but I would be willing to bet my copy of the the "Story of O" that a few of my readers have also had unprotected sex at some time since the years of the Reagan administration. I bet some of them ask their doctors about Celebrex, wear contact lenses and frequently misplace the keys to the SUV. So this guy who stayed home and watched the Mary Tyler Moore Show when I was blowing dope with Jerry and Janis, who steadfastly refused to tune in turn on and drop out, and who did not enjoy the party with Mailer and the US marshals, this poor schlamazle, might be carrying syphilis. His sin? The poor guy just wanted to feel it, just once.

Is it God's justice? This guy and I might both have syphilis; even considering that I lived in "La Dolce Vita" and this guy was living in "Love Finds Andy Hardy." I say yes, it is God's justice. When the divine She sent an angel to Abraham and told him to sacrifice his son; Abe sought the advice of his bookie - an expert in quantum mechanics and probability . The bookie, not a great rhetorical artist, replied with a cliche, "Ya pays your money, and ya takes your chances. Sometimes you get a hell of a lively pony, sometimes its just another candidate for the glue factory." If there is a God, is it Her justice that allows conditions to exist so people in Africa have an HIV-2 epidemic; and that Iraqi babies have dysentery; or that my congressional district has the highest rate of syphilis in the country?

I say that, if someone claims to be a human, they must recognize the suffering of others and they must do what they can to relieve that suffering. God won't do it on Her own. Einstein once said that God does not throw dice. I say that God does not do windows. It is a dirty job, and it is our job. Frankly, the only way I can justify society's support of my continued existence, is by devoting myself to this task. Choices. I think that when people call human charity "entitlement programs"and "transfer of wealth" it is just the failure to recognize that life is chaotic, difficult, and dangerous. That the only defense is to give it up for your brother, and hope to hell that your brother is willing to give it up for you. People need help, not because they are poor, but because they are human. Maybe God created humans as creatures in need of help. If we choose to be fully human, I don't think that God will object.

If a righteous citizen can recognize the humanity of an old libertine with bad health like me; and some guy who got infected with an STD in the act of fucking without a rubber, then maybe we are on the way to claiming our souls out of the cosmic coat-check room. The, maybe, just maybe, we will be willing to help by giving up some of our wealth. Maybe we will feel and act with compassion on those with HIV-2 in Africa, or those with dysentery in Iraq, folks with syphilis in Detroit. Choices.

I am not being a hard line political existentialist in a Parisian café, writing on the issues of love, freedom and charity-high on opium, eyeing a pretty French youth. I am just a freelance hack, eating another Coney Dog in a greasy spoon off of Cadillac Square . I still enjoy sex, drugs and rock and roll. I love it all - with the breath, smiles and tears of all my life, And if, on the off chance, there is God, I shall love it all even better, after death.

"God does not love or hate anyone. For God is not affected by any emotion of pleasure or pain, consequently he does not love or hate anyone . . . No one can hate God." - Baruch Spinoza

Shalom, Blow the ram's horn, and come with the whirlwinds. ***

Mike

"And good night, Mr. Spinoza, wherever you are."

Photo of Mike Madias courtesy of the author

A clinical sociologist living in the Metropolitan Detroit area, Mike's work has appeared in The Detroit News. He may be reached by e-mail at DetroitHardball@aol.com.