Élephante

I'm going to lunch today at Élephante Scottsdale, which serves southern Italian cuisine.

For some, that sentence gives the entire story. I will enjoy recounting it to gales of laughter in my next life in France.

An affluent friend, a gifted and harmed philosopher, is in town during my last months in The Valley of The Sun. I am eagerly anticipating meeting their spouse, whom circumstance has prevented me from knowing until today.

I do not wish to cast aspersions at my friend, but this story is so real and strikes so deep in me that I must tell it.

When I say "harmed philosopher" of my friend, I mean that they have suffered the same and worse as I have. Poisoned by this culture and their upbringing to see their value only in their ability to acquire money or some equally vacuous success. The contradiction between that poison and their authentic core has destroyed them, again and again, in the years I have known them. Bringing them, brutally, closer to the brink than my own perilous path.

Aside: I think I love the word "vacuous" in this context. It implies both emptiness and endless devouring.

But I digress (there's a surprise).

We are going to Élephante Scottsdale, a corporate-curated social experience feed trough from The Blabla Group (New York, Los Angeles, Venice Beach, Las Vegas, Scottsdale, look for us soon at Daytona Beach, Atlanta Motor Speedway, and Calgary). It serves stock southern Italian cuisine at profiteer prices to great acclaim from the shareholders.

It is the most perfectly American thing.

Éléphant is how you say "elephant" in French.

Elefante is how you say "elephant" in Italian.

Élephante is how you say "I want to buy a Tesla" in American.

And so I told this story to another affluent friend of mine. I added a quip that I might needle the hostess about it to pass the time if I arrived early. They replied that the hostess is not to blame.

And that is true. The hostess is almost certainly a victim of this system as much as any, a wage slave doing their best to win the American Dream that remains, now, only in dreams.

But I am troubled and sleepless now over the thing that has had me awake so many nights this year. My affluent friends who are staying, in this rising white supremacist homeland, because they are making money or gaining influence - along with all the other reasons that can be marshaled to bolster - are they equally victims of circumstance?

When does collaboration become a crime? What if collaboration is not necessary to survive, but only convenient, or profitable? What if leaving means leaving family, and staying means supporting the enemy?

I cannot stay, it would kill me inside more than the past 20 years already has. Every day the thought of leaving makes me happier, the thought of staying more boggling.

How can they stay? Those who could leave?

They are my friends, how can I condemn them? But how can I ignore collaboration?