by
Tom Wolfe
3
Prologue: Mutt on Fire
0
terms
1
notes
7
Come down from your swell co-ops, you general partners and merger lawyers! It's the Third World down there! Puerto Ricans, West Indians, Haitians, Dominicans, Cubans, Colombians, Hon-durans, Koreans, Chinese, Thais, Vietnamese, Ecuadorians, Panamanians, Filipinos, Albanians, Senegalese, and Afro-Americans! Go visit the frontiers, you gutless wonders! Morningside Heights, St. Nicholas Park, Washington Heights, Fort Tryonpor qui pagar mas! The Bronxthe Bronx is finished for you! Riverdale is just a little freeport up there! Pelham Parkwaykeep the corridor open to Westchester! Brooklynyour Brooklyn is no more! Brooklyn Heights, Park Slopelittle Hong Kongs, that's all! And Queens! Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, Hollis, Jamaica, Ozone Parkwhose is it? Do you know? And where does that leave Ridgewood, Bayside, and Forest Hills? Have you ever thought about that! And Staten Island! Do you Saturday do-it-yourselfers really think you're snug in your little rug? You don't think the future knows how to cross a bridge? And you, you Wasp charity-bailers sitting on your mounds of inherited money up in your co-ops with the twelve-foot ceilings and the two wings, one for you and one for the help, do you really think you're impregnable? And you German-Jewish financiers who have finally made it into the same buildings, the better to insulate yourselves from the shtetl herdes, do you really think you're insulated from the Third World!
You poor fatties! You marshmallows! Hens! Cows! You wait'll you have a Reverend Bacon for a mayor, and a City Council and a Board of Estimate with a bunch of Reverend Bacons from one end of the chamber to the other! You'll get to know them then, all right! They'll come see you! They'll come see you at 60 Wall and Number One Chase Manhattan Plaza! They'll sit on your desks and drum their fingers! They'll dust out your safe-deposit boxes for you, free of charge --
Completely crazy, these things roaring through his head! Absolutely paranoid! Nobody's going to elect Bacon to anything. Nobody's going to march downtown. He knows that. But he feels so alone! Abandoned! Misunderstood! Me! You wait'll you don't have me any longer! See how you like it then! And you let me stand here alone at this lectern with a goddamned asbestos ceiling coming down on my head --
Come down from your swell co-ops, you general partners and merger lawyers! It's the Third World down there! Puerto Ricans, West Indians, Haitians, Dominicans, Cubans, Colombians, Hon-durans, Koreans, Chinese, Thais, Vietnamese, Ecuadorians, Panamanians, Filipinos, Albanians, Senegalese, and Afro-Americans! Go visit the frontiers, you gutless wonders! Morningside Heights, St. Nicholas Park, Washington Heights, Fort Tryonpor qui pagar mas! The Bronxthe Bronx is finished for you! Riverdale is just a little freeport up there! Pelham Parkwaykeep the corridor open to Westchester! Brooklynyour Brooklyn is no more! Brooklyn Heights, Park Slopelittle Hong Kongs, that's all! And Queens! Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, Hollis, Jamaica, Ozone Parkwhose is it? Do you know? And where does that leave Ridgewood, Bayside, and Forest Hills? Have you ever thought about that! And Staten Island! Do you Saturday do-it-yourselfers really think you're snug in your little rug? You don't think the future knows how to cross a bridge? And you, you Wasp charity-bailers sitting on your mounds of inherited money up in your co-ops with the twelve-foot ceilings and the two wings, one for you and one for the help, do you really think you're impregnable? And you German-Jewish financiers who have finally made it into the same buildings, the better to insulate yourselves from the shtetl herdes, do you really think you're insulated from the Third World!
You poor fatties! You marshmallows! Hens! Cows! You wait'll you have a Reverend Bacon for a mayor, and a City Council and a Board of Estimate with a bunch of Reverend Bacons from one end of the chamber to the other! You'll get to know them then, all right! They'll come see you! They'll come see you at 60 Wall and Number One Chase Manhattan Plaza! They'll sit on your desks and drum their fingers! They'll dust out your safe-deposit boxes for you, free of charge --
Completely crazy, these things roaring through his head! Absolutely paranoid! Nobody's going to elect Bacon to anything. Nobody's going to march downtown. He knows that. But he feels so alone! Abandoned! Misunderstood! Me! You wait'll you don't have me any longer! See how you like it then! And you let me stand here alone at this lectern with a goddamned asbestos ceiling coming down on my head --