Nemesis
Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2024 5:24 pm
Douglas Mercer
July 7 2024
There’s a scene in the movie No Country For Old Men where the Sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones sits in a diner in a small Texas town (in 1980). He is sitting with a man in a cowboy hat and a bushy mustache and the two are at wits end. It seems that in their once peaceful home a crazed killer is on the loose; he is like Nemesis itself and he walks around saying nary a word and kills brutally and without remorse and in as cold and as calculating and as premeditated a way as possible, in fact he is himself malice aforethought, in fact he is malice itself, and as a pure sadist he is amused by and enjoys his dealing in death. Another way of putting it is that this once rural and bucolic and idyllic homeland called America is being visited by noting less than pure evil. It has come out of nowhere like the monsters of old, the thing you had to sally forth from the mead or great halls to vanquish, the thing that slithered out of dark lakes crawling to the surface, or from the depth of the deep blue sea to capsize the boats of unwary travelers. It is a nameless and faceless evil, and it is a bolt from the blue, it is not explainable in rational terms, though the men to try to explain it. It is that unaccountable thing, the symbol of war and strife that lays waste to men’s plans because in its awful power it eludes their grasp, and yet despite its inexplicability the pools of blood begin to form on the floors seeping as they go. The man in the cowboy hat is in fear really, and he has his ire up. He pounds on the table and says “it’s the goddamn drugs and the goddamn money, the goddamn drugs and the money.” That of course is as good an explanation as any but down deep both know that it is a rationalization, that this chthonic force is so awesome that the corruption of men is but a pale expedient in coming to terms with it. He even acknowledges this by saying that it is just beyond everything, and asks: what is it leading to? Overcome by his sudden burst of passion and anger the man in the cowboy hat sits back and now he is bewildered, he is at a loss, almost speechless, but what he says is: “You know if you had told me twenty years ago I’d see children walking the streets of our small Texas towns with green hair and bones through their noses I just flat out wouldn’t have believed you.” Tommy Lee Jones is taken aback by this, he is a weary man who has said that he assumed when he was young that when he was old God would come into his life but that did not happen. He is sad and melancholy and tired and overcome by life and what is happening, he is about to retire and at the end of his career this creature of the dark forces is haunting him and giving him bad dreams. When the man in the cowboy hat has left off he shakes his head in a gesture of not understanding and says: signs and wonders, signs and wonders. But then he sobers up and leaves off the appeal to the skies and says what he really thinks: but I think when you quit hearing sir and ma’am the rest is soon to follow, though follow is said in the old White way of the South: foller, that is he is one of the homespun and solid salt of the earth folks, the ones who are slipping away. Let me repeat that: once the children no longer say sir and ma’am, well, after that is the deluge. That is when a society no longer has respect for itself, when its moral soundness is gone, when the youth are corrupted, and the children are led astray, and the novel or the meretricious is sought after in a lust maddened fury the evil one soon creeps among you and the blood starts pouring everywhere. It is certainly as good an explanation of Nemesis as any, for the simplest answer is often the best. And what it is leading to we have seen by now, and are soon to find out. And what we shall see will be beyond anything.
July 7 2024
There’s a scene in the movie No Country For Old Men where the Sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones sits in a diner in a small Texas town (in 1980). He is sitting with a man in a cowboy hat and a bushy mustache and the two are at wits end. It seems that in their once peaceful home a crazed killer is on the loose; he is like Nemesis itself and he walks around saying nary a word and kills brutally and without remorse and in as cold and as calculating and as premeditated a way as possible, in fact he is himself malice aforethought, in fact he is malice itself, and as a pure sadist he is amused by and enjoys his dealing in death. Another way of putting it is that this once rural and bucolic and idyllic homeland called America is being visited by noting less than pure evil. It has come out of nowhere like the monsters of old, the thing you had to sally forth from the mead or great halls to vanquish, the thing that slithered out of dark lakes crawling to the surface, or from the depth of the deep blue sea to capsize the boats of unwary travelers. It is a nameless and faceless evil, and it is a bolt from the blue, it is not explainable in rational terms, though the men to try to explain it. It is that unaccountable thing, the symbol of war and strife that lays waste to men’s plans because in its awful power it eludes their grasp, and yet despite its inexplicability the pools of blood begin to form on the floors seeping as they go. The man in the cowboy hat is in fear really, and he has his ire up. He pounds on the table and says “it’s the goddamn drugs and the goddamn money, the goddamn drugs and the money.” That of course is as good an explanation as any but down deep both know that it is a rationalization, that this chthonic force is so awesome that the corruption of men is but a pale expedient in coming to terms with it. He even acknowledges this by saying that it is just beyond everything, and asks: what is it leading to? Overcome by his sudden burst of passion and anger the man in the cowboy hat sits back and now he is bewildered, he is at a loss, almost speechless, but what he says is: “You know if you had told me twenty years ago I’d see children walking the streets of our small Texas towns with green hair and bones through their noses I just flat out wouldn’t have believed you.” Tommy Lee Jones is taken aback by this, he is a weary man who has said that he assumed when he was young that when he was old God would come into his life but that did not happen. He is sad and melancholy and tired and overcome by life and what is happening, he is about to retire and at the end of his career this creature of the dark forces is haunting him and giving him bad dreams. When the man in the cowboy hat has left off he shakes his head in a gesture of not understanding and says: signs and wonders, signs and wonders. But then he sobers up and leaves off the appeal to the skies and says what he really thinks: but I think when you quit hearing sir and ma’am the rest is soon to follow, though follow is said in the old White way of the South: foller, that is he is one of the homespun and solid salt of the earth folks, the ones who are slipping away. Let me repeat that: once the children no longer say sir and ma’am, well, after that is the deluge. That is when a society no longer has respect for itself, when its moral soundness is gone, when the youth are corrupted, and the children are led astray, and the novel or the meretricious is sought after in a lust maddened fury the evil one soon creeps among you and the blood starts pouring everywhere. It is certainly as good an explanation of Nemesis as any, for the simplest answer is often the best. And what it is leading to we have seen by now, and are soon to find out. And what we shall see will be beyond anything.
