G. Baldwin (Firm):
Baldwin's Nervous Pills
(1900?)

"…the inept and corrupted performer taking way more
than his fair share of our stage."

Over approximately three years in the early 1970s, while I was wrestling to resolve a troublesome military draft problem, I lived every day in dread that I might be spirited away somewhere against my will. I gained Non-military Conscientious Objector status after a lengthy, terrifying process of petitioning my local draft board and appearing before a hearing. I’d thought I’d be assigned to change bedpans for half the prevailing minimum wage in some military hospital somewhere, but I learned no formal process existed for assigning Non-military COs. I was responsible for identifying an available position and convincing the local commanding officer that I was qualified. I was charged with reporting to the draft board’s “evil” secretary (a label I’d given her because I thought her job responsibilities were essentially evil) and showing proof of my attempts to secure an assignment. I wrote letters in my poor, if honest, hand, and dutifully photocopied them as evidence of my diligence. After a few months, the evil secretary confided that I could stop reporting to her each month because I’d demonstrated my due diligence. I still had to fulfill my CO stint, but I never got a response to any of my many letters. Still, I lived in constant dread that I would wake up some morning to find a couple of hostile MPs waiting on my porch to drag me off to my Comeuppance.

Because of my tenuous status, I couldn’t agree to take a permanent job, nor was I qualified to attend school. Instead, I lived in dread, DreadReconning my way through my days, all but certain that any off morning might find me assigned somewhere strange and unsettling. I learned that DreadReconning was no way to conduct a life. It might be a fine tactic if absolutely unavoidable, but almost any other means of navigating seems preferable. Since our incumbent assumed the office he never intended to fulfill, I’ve noticed a similar feeling creeping into my foreground. I wake each morning certain I’ll encounter some fresh calamity, seemingly deliberately visited upon society, courtesy of the same man-child every time. I sense his Comeuppance teetering on the razor edge of something, and mine, too, if only by unfortunate association. He’s a maniac for certain, and I feel manic as a direct result of his antics, quivering in that old familiar frequency: DreadReconning.

Part of the difficulty I discovered back when conscription was hounding me must have been the certainty that calamity was actually imminent. Had the threat been more distant, I might have found some respite in the unlikelihood of it ever actually locating me. I might have more blissfully engaged instead of always feeling hounded like prey, with my predator never not ready to pounce. My shoulders were unnaturally hunched, and I learned to live smaller than life, to creep down the street and favor shadows. I carried a burden as if I were guilty, even though I had won what I’d pursued. I had not been roughly spirited off to serve in Vietnam, my primal concern, but in return, I had been cast into a shadow role where nearly three years of my youth cowered as if continually viciously pursued. The underlying uncertainty certainly sealed the trap. My certainty in response served as the snap. I was trapped in an inescapable position even without my worst-case ever coming to fruition.

A similar certainty now huddles with my innate sense of decency, allowing me to reasonably predict impending calamity. I cannot know the precise form, but my latitude for action seems consequently crudely limited. I realize that I am living much less enthusiastically than anybody should. DreadReconning seems to automatically filter out about half the potential that might otherwise be available to roam and wander within. I notice I’m staying ever closer to home, as if I must necessarily protect something precious instead of adventuring to discover new, alluring experiences. I don’t necessarily begrudge this time, but I acknowledge that my sense of liberty and freedom feels severely hampered. Each of my rights feels infringed upon as I try to exist in this defensive crouch. His presence might have incited this avalanche, but my DreadReconning certainties definitely encourage it.

I pray for less certainty every day, for I acknowledge the trap I set and spring for myself when certainty’s so damnedably prominent. The screen’s flicker and the heartfelt screeds there draw my attention. I anticipate only worst-case scenarios, knowing our incumbent never met a limit he could respect and that the role of President was meant to represent perhaps the most limited latitude for independent action ever bestowed on any individual. Our incumbent blithely ignores those helpful checks and balances and makes a genuine boob out of himself, playing Chinese checkers while everyone else plays chess. The slow-motion train wreck seems inevitable because it’s already in motion, and that sense feeds the certainty I project onto the dance, but which keeps me trapped. Some resort to absinthe to distance themselves from the more difficult realities that undermine their certainties. I favor another beer. Others go unconscious, resulting in a condition materially no different from those encouraged by certainties. I ache for the perspective and maturity to set aside my certainty, along with its self-defeating sidekick DreadReconning. I am the one plotting this story, not the inept and corrupted performer taking way more than his fair share of our stage.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Comeuppance, #PureSchmaltz