USA, Cape Girardeau MO

Does Cape Girardeau Missouri have a Cape?

This is only one of the many questions that I was

never able to answer about this notable yet small

speck along the Mississippi River. (Pronounced Missip

River; two syllables in the local dialect.) If Cape

Girardeau does have a Cape, then it is small enough to

escape both notice and ridicule.

Unlike the town’s alleged Cape however, not everything

is small enough to escape notice. Along the seawall,

built to hold back the Missip River the proud and

obese likeness of Rush Limbaugh has been painted. Cape

Girardeau has gained what notoriety it has for being

the birthplace of this fountain of wisdom and insight.

Along this same seawall are other Missouri titans.

Perhaps it is only a coincidence that e.e. Cummings

and Rush are engaged in a perpetual staring contest.

As I watched, neither e.e. nor Rush flinched. In

retrospect, it was my narrow minded, ignorance that

lead me to the firm conviction that these two would

not be the best of friends. Ignorant convictions of

the same color also lead me to believe that arson, and

not faulty wiring, burned down the town’s only gay

bar.

Caught in my own hypocrisy I forced myself to try and

learn, not judge the local culture. My client, the

county’s only ambulance service, proved to be a ideal

base for my investigation.

Sex is everywhere in Cape County though the act is

never discussed, only the results. Speaking the word

“fuck” once is likely to earn a stern look, twice and

you can be shunned, three times and you can go home.

Though the word is never spoken, the teen pregnancy

rate would indicate that the concept is not unknown.

There is an inverse correlation between distance form

the town’s center and the age spread between mother

and child; the greater the distance, the smaller the

spread. Paternity is often an open question but it can

be easily resolved with DNA.

Along with sex, religion is omnipresent. The “Biblical

Car Dealership,” and “The Christian Way Real Estate

Group” vie for billboard space with the “Who’s my

Daddy” signs. On Sunday morning it is possible to

meander down the center of any street without even

looking for traffic. Ambulances are posted by the

churches because, “Every Sunday morning someone’s

gunna have a wreck, or chest pains and they gunna be

at church when they do. That is where the business

is.”

If there is hypocrisy in any of this then the people

of Cape Girardeau seem comfortable with it.

Perhaps if I had spent more time there I would have

become more comfortable with my own hypocrisy.