Anselm Kiefer, "Midgard", 1982-1985
Milwaukee Art Museum
"You're a fucking asshole!"
In the Longs parking lot, a man in his mid forties stands besides his old red Mustang and yells.
"Go fuck yourself! You're a fucking asshole!"
He wears a thin grey beard matching the color of his t-shirt.
The target of his rage is a taller but older man wearing a safari style cowboy hat, light blue golf shirt and khaki shorts.
I continue toward the bus stop, a queazy mix of voyeuristic fascination and dread in my stomach. Neither the Mustang nor the tall man's Kia Sedona appear to be damaged.
The bearded man gets back in his Mustang. The conflict seems to reach its end, but I am not 50 feet away when the shouting peaks again.
A small audience develops. Everybody keeps a distance.
The Mustang is now pulled parallel to the Sedona. The man roars from the driver seat through the passenger door window.
"Get the fuck out of here! What are you fucking talking about! I'm not going to jail! Now just get the fuck out of here!"
The Kia owner writes something in a note pad as the Longs security guard--a small, weeble shaped man in his 60s--ambles toward him.
As a kid I would pack garbage with my feet into an old green incinerator found in our junk laden basement furnace room. A few hours after turning it on, nothing remained but ashes collected in a bottom drawer.
In the passenger seat of the Mustang, a boy of about 10 sits ashen-faced.
The suffering parent is the suffering child.
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