A Single Accounting, Paid in Full

There are men in this territory who have put my name in their mouths this week, and I am given to understand that leaves an obligation. I do not shirk obligations. So let us settle the ledger, one entry at a time, and be done with it.

To The Ghost of Death By Me: you stand before this audience claiming we have no history, as though the absence of history is some kind of shield. It is not. You called this a worksite and found the word amusing. You suggested I am mentally unwell and recommended my removal to someone named Reagan, whoever that is to you. What you have done, in your very first utterance inside this territory, is spend all of your opening credit on a man you claim does not matter to you. That is not indifference. That is a man who looked across the room, measured the distance, and decided to make noise rather than make a move. I have noted it. When the time comes to collect, I will not need to raise my voice.

To the unnamed administrator who saw fit to fine me one thousand dollars for what he called a misuse of promotional material: you wrapped your rebuke in a sermon about hard work and common ground and closed it by asking God to bless this house. A man who genuinely works does not invoke the Almighty to cover his paperwork. You called it fair. You called it reasonable. I call it a bill I will pay exactly once, and a debt I intend to recover with interest from the man who signed it. Accounting runs in both directions.

Every one of you who placed my name in a sentence this week did so because you felt the weight of it and wanted to move it somewhere else. That is the oldest human reflex there is. It does not work here.

This territory has a short memory for men who talk and a long one for men who take. I take.