My Cure for the Blues

An abandoned auto court in the San Berdoo foothills; Buzz Meeks checked in with ninety-four thousand dollars, eighteen pounds of high-grade heroin, a 10-gauge pump, a .38 special, a .45 automatic and a switchblade he’d bought off a pachuco at the border—right before he spotted the car parked across the line: Mickey Cohen goons in an LAPD unmarked, Tijuana cops standing by to bootjack a piece of his goodies, dump his body in the San Ysidro River.

Opening paragraph,L. A. Confidential, James Ellroy

When night dominates the day in Autumn, and the cold rain seeps into the bones while walking home in the middle of the night, and minor winter depression creeps back into my soul, then I read a James Ellroy novel to get back on track.

In a James Ellroy novel heroes and villains are barely distinguishable. Idealism masks greed for power and money. Those who suffer and die are the victims of their failure to negotiate a treacherous world rather than the victims of their character flaws. Every victim also rides in a posse, and lynches with the mob. Fine moral distinctions are exposed as justifications for the control of another’s body and wherewithal. The notorious and sensational merges seamlessly with the mundane and banal. The true believers in American justice are merely unwitting fools and squares, who, if confronted with the real, will be exposed at best as hypocrites and assuredly no better than the rest. Crimes are not about the act, but whether you get caught. The great moral and metaphysical question is who is to dominate, for only winners and losers inhabit the world.

The Ellroy novels appeal to the dark soul as a sort of satanic fantasy, but they also scrape away the thin façade of houses made from shit. Words used in polite society don’t exist in an Elroy novel. The novels answer questions about control and domination, and the answers are not disguised in pretty words. The losers never accept being called misguided by their enemies. The moral universe is eventually seen by everyone for what it is. The prey possess no illusions about their predators. The privileged man in power merely uses the prey as holes to be filled for his own gratification. The prey know they are being fucked. The prey are never misguided. The boss with his slippery poses and rhetoric decides what life is. Right to life means what is amenable to the boss’s life.

The moral universe when exposed this way comforts me. Just saying it makes me feel better already. I feel I can get on with things.