Sad tale of a gent with his soul sold to lobbyists

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© St. Petersburg Times
published February 11, 2002

The absolutely true part:

Our very own Frank Farkas, a Republican state representative from St. Petersburg, has a bill in the Legislature to allow health insurance companies not to cover many things, including surgery for cleft palates in children, mammograms and extended maternal leave.

When Farkas' committee heard the bill last week, concerned citizens arrived in Tallahassee from all over the state to testify. But Farkas allowed only an insurance lobbyist to testify, then grabbed the gavel, forced the vote and adjourned the meeting, so that no citizen could speak against it.

This brings us to the not-so-true part.

FRANKENFARKAS

Or, The Modern Prometheus

St. Petersburgh, Feb. 8, 20--

My dear Margaret: I must relate to you the oddest of occurrences. In my travels about town I stumbled across the most disagreeable of fellows, a bespectacled, portly chap whom I encountered as he was being pursued by an angry mob. As he fled he waved at his pursuers a small wooden hammer, shouting at them, "I adjourn you, and you, and you!"

What, Margaret, was I to do? Ignorant as I was of the facts (else mayhaps I would have acted otherwise), my basic humanity compelled me to offer the poor wretch safe harbor. "Here, man!" I shouted, and he collapsed in my motor-carriage, his chest heaving, his eyes rolling with fright. "For the love of God, go!" he urged, and I beckoned to the driver.

"Woe, woe is me!" he moaned, pressing a kerchief to his lips. "Surely no man knows the horrors I have seen!" Observing the fellow at close range, I began to realize the most amazing of facts: He was stitched together, like a patch-quilt! On top of that, if you looked closely, you could see the individual sections of the fellow's surface-area bore labels: "insurance," "business lobby," "chiropractors," "medical school for lobbyist's son," "dirty water stored in aquifer," and so forth.

"I see that you mark my wretchedness," the stranger said with a rueful smile. "Yes, the labels are obvious. At the time I did not even think it necessary to sew them with the label hidden, as others have done." With scant urging on my part he began to relate to me the blood-chilling tale that I now pass on to you. Oh, Margaret, forgive me!

I did not think (said the stranger) that trading away myself, a piece at a time, would cost me my essential being. What is a man, after all? If I trade a limb here, or a patch of hair there, does that cost me my soul? What then of an organ, a kidney, a stomach?

I gaped at the man. "You don't mean -" I began, aghast.

"Correct," he said. "I have been entirely constructed by lobbyists."

I recoiled. He noticed and smiled weakly. "It is a typical reaction," he said. "Fortunately, now I spend most of my time among my own kind, and those who have built me. When I deny insurance to children with cleft palates, they not only understand, they praise me. I cannot help it. It is my nature."

"But what of sunlit mornings?" I asked in protest. "What of lilies, and children playing jumprope, and everyday citizens who mean well? What of crashing ocean waves, and fresh air, and happiness? Would you really destroy them? Come, it is not too late to walk in the light."

"Foolish man!" he snarled, and suddenly I was afraid. "How easy it is for your kind! Look at me -- can I be loved now? Will children flock around me? Will musicians play? No, it is too late. I see now that your brief kindness was misguided. I go now to my fate." And with that, he sprang from my carriage.

The mob was upon us, bearing pitchforks and torches. I barely escaped with my own life. Oh, Margaret, I cannot tell you the horror of it! I stood surveying the carnage and a man I did not know came and stood next to me, as if to speak the closing lines of a drama. I said to him: "How can this creature have come to serve in the Florida Legislature?" And he said to me in reply: "Some things, mortal man was not meant to understand."

-- You can reach Howard Troxler at (727) 893-8505 or at troxler@sptimes.com.

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