The Flag and the Stepstool

September 11^th is approaching. I get the flag out of the garage and put it up against the front of the house while standing on a shaky step stool. As I look up at the fluttering piece of cloth, my mind starts a conversation with Marinelle, a friend from college days that I have not seen for fifteen years.

“Very nice,” she says. “You move to the suburbs and fly a flag. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate if you just slapped a banner across the house that says, ‘I’m a sell-out’?”

“Good to see you again, Marinelle. What are you angry about now?”

“About you. Remember singing along with John Lennon on the radio, ‘Imagine there's no countries, It isn’t hard to do’? Apparently it is, for you. Remember talking about taking on the military-industrial complex? I’m sure now you’re in favor of invading Iraq knowing that we have a thousand times as many weapons of mass destruction than they ever will. While you’re crying about 9/11, do you have any tears for Native Americans who were hunted down like dogs for the sole crime of being the rightful owners of this land and the civilians of Rosewood, Hiroshima, and Mei Lei?”

I fold up the step stool and set it down against the wall. “I’m fully aware that the US foreign policy is spineless, greedy, and two-faced, Marinelle. But my flag is not about the past but about the hope and dream that the US will one day stand up for secular democracy, environment, and human rights, including women’s rights, and not compromise them for oil and friendship with this country or that dictator.”

“What democracy?” Marinelle rises like an angry cobra that my mother told me stories about when I was growing up. “You’re such a hypocrite. You want other countries to have democracies like ours with a court-appointed president and a capitol building filled with white males who are corporate concubines?”

She stops and stares at a sticker on the rear windshield of my car parked in the garage. “United we stand? Who’s the we in there? Does it include the unarmed African Americans shot to death by white police officers, gays and lesbians who can’t get the most basic protection from harassment, or millions of people like you who will always be second-class citizens because of your skin color?”

I open up the step stool again and sit on it. “Let me know when you’re done, Marinelle.”

“I’m done,” she says. “I’m just disappointed that you of all people sold out.”

“Marinelle, did I ever tell you what the most basic quality of a human being is according to my mother and the Hindu tradition that she comes from?”

“Nope.”

“Gratitude. I may sound like an Uncle Tom to you, but I’m grateful for what this country has given me. I think of my flag as a thank you note for a job, a diverse group of friends, a multi-racial family, and a nation that may fall short of its ideals but still has ideals that I can appeal to. Nations are like individuals, Marinelle. We all have our hypocrisies, but what helps us get out bed every morning is the hope that someday our conscience will be clear.”

“And until that day you will keep quiet about what’s going on?”

“No I will not, but I won’t stop expressing my gratitude, either. We as a nation owe it to ourselves and to those that died on 9/11, to not only love this land but to help it keep its promises to people here and abroad.”

For the first time, Marinelle smiles. “You’re still there. I was worried that you lost your soul along with your hair.” She runs her fingers through the hair I have left. “Take care of yourself, kiddo.”

As she fizzles away in my mind, I look at my step stool and wonder how I can make it more stable.

(Sep 2002)