Fergus, Quondam Happy Face's Reviews > Shamus Dust

When I was a young man in 1969, upon my zombified release from the Royally Awful Psych Hospital I was every bit as countercultural as Shamus Dust.

I wanted only to be a Fly in the Establishment's Ointment! So what if the state had had its reasons? Didn't jive with mine.

My Mom (may she rest in peace) turned to me and looked me square in the eye, sitting there in our state-of-the-Art Teak Living Room in the wintry dawn of the Nineteen-Seventies.

That ugly late November before she jetted me away for some R and R to the sunny Caribbean (once there, when we arrived my every bead of sweat froze in my Chlorpromazine Catatonia) she wanted to put the fear of God into me...

"You can't Fight City Hall!" she reasoned - from her weary, extensive experience doing just that - as Chief Librarian for the soon-to-be City of Nepean.

Finally words that made sense, I thought.

"You've just gotta work WITHIN the System!"

Now, I have always obeyed my parents.

So I did just that, signing up three years later as a gypsy-scholar with the Defiance Department. Cuz that was who I was. And being a dumb Hippie, I burnt out at it, after 31 years.

Well, that burn-out wised me up something awful.

Hell's jaws then expectorated me.

***

Arrival at the Gates of Purgatory promises peace to all who enter therein. Tell me if I am not glad to finally flaunt my innocence before the jaded eyes of Shamus Dust, the Royally Awful medicos, and the Department of Defiance!

Oh well, each of them had his or her reasons.

Shamus' able excuse is City Hall doesn't deserve the sweat, blood and tears he excretes in his Battle Royal with that monolith. That's reasonable.

London's an awfully big place. Shamus' sweat is not noticed there. Everyone is self-possessed in London and City Hall does have its reasons.

Silencing dissent is its only option when it contacts Shamus (with some very large caveats about playing a defensive cameo). That's Realpolitik. Shamus, though has Moral Presence In a town that couldn’t care less.

So Shamus persists in unburying the bodies, as I continue plowing through this book.

With enough persistence he may (assuming fictional characters possess a ghostly meta-reality) in time escape the losing city of angels for the winsome Angelic Heavenly City!

While I continue with my reading of it, to see if Meta-Shamus could use my prayers, I’ll hold off until I see how his misadventures pan out.

***

Yes, Shamus is a Purgatorial candidate for a great many more Ordeals by Fire. He never says never. That’s the ticket!

Folks who don’t read the fine print of life need not try to escape zombiehood. They’ll have second thoughts when Hell Freezes Over. But then it will be too late.

You know, my guardian Angel Lee Ann Womack once cheered me on over the radio when I was in the Dark Depths of Burnout…

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Livin’ might be takin’ chances but they’re worth takin’
And when you get the chance to sit it out or dance…

I hope you DANCE!

Shamus Refuses to stop Dancing through the Brit bureaucratic maze.

And one day he may REJOICE, the day the Guilty are Punished.