Surrender Aurora

by W. Strawn Douglas

  I see genius and a very clever form of performance art that cost Jesus his life. That genius is the stuff of legend and myth. That is the very best our fragile human race can deliver. It was good art.

  Now we prime our kids on a dose of Jesus before they go trotting off to the disco like heifers to the slaughter, off to join a human race filled with disease, exploitation, and so much innocence that only the cruel facts of life will teach them anything. They can come back with disease, or unplanned pregnancies, or in extreme cases, death. We love these kids but they are not designed to know what is wise. They are designed to observe, learn, and participate. We hope they have success and long life, but there are no guarantees.

  Jesus created a safety margin. He did not have the power to save all of them, but he could rejuvenate a few of them. It’s not an easy fix, but for one suicidal man and twelve of his creative friends, it worked and it continues today on themes of healing the sick and feeding the poor. Christianity is concerned with charity and good works. We are a better people for it all, and Jesus and his friends did a very good job at that performance art.

  If you are in forced religion programs like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, then you see spirituality being force-fed to people. It’s just a fact of life. But there is a god entity that is not even dependent on Jesus. If the best of humanity is your idea of spirit, then you can pray to a god that has given you a Jesus that is one suicide and twelve liars. God is a part of the mind that will run better if you pray. In that there is proof of such a god merely by acknowledging that the need exists.

  Think of Jesus as an ambassador of that mindset. He meant well and for 2,000 years our human race has been on an automatic pilot of compassion and kindness. We may now be able to take the automatic pilot system off of the controls of the universe, but we can also acknowledge that it has served us well.

  Things have changed since the day Jesus said, “It is finished” in Aramaic and died on the cross. You don’t have to forget him. But see him for the love he tried to create and not just the dogma associated with his fans. Obsessed is a good word for them.

  I offer this up to us, the elite who get to see what things look like in the backstage areas, rather than what the audience gets to see. It was a cool hustle, and it’s never going to go away. It makes people fulfilled and feel loved. In many ways he did love them. But now, in our modern era, we can do more. We have to be the little geniuses in his image. We have to save a world and put food on our table. It’s not changed in those regards. It’s still the same old grind. We don’t need lies or suicidal performance artists. But everyone wants love. That part doesn’t go away.

  There are several ways you can go:

  You can be an atheist and not believe in anything like a god or gods.

  You can accept Christianity or Judaism or Islam just as the dogma says it is. You get faith straight out of the book. Pray for a miracle and a magic wish. Care Bears and rainbows. This can go either way. Hobbes envisioned a dark, wrathful god with paradise in the afterlife while others saw a paradise here on Earth.

  Or you can believe in a god of infinite complexity that rarely answers prayers. A god that slowly evolved a human race to a point where Jesus the genius and his twelve creative friends cooked up a savior scam. Evolution as a miracle.

  What I believe is often immaterial. If a hurricane or earthquake is the hand of god, then so is the savior scam. And so are the Crusades. And so are all the wars of faith. I have more faith in scams than I have in Care Bears or Thomas Hobbes.

  You are welcome to create anything you want out of all the component pieces I have put before you. Your existence is the hand of god. If any god exists, then you are his little finger.

  Blog Post Four

  Christ as a Buddhist???

  There are corollaries. Connections if you will. Christ sought balance, harmony, enlightenment, charity, patience, compassion, humility, tolerance, honesty, love, and kindness. He wasn’t big on Chakras or Chi. I have been a cafeteria Christian in some ways. Usually it is connected to old partying motifs in my past. I am not fond of fire and brimstone. But if my friend says Jesus was a Buddhist, I kinda see his point.

  While Sean read, James prepared to move on from the West Bank to its Eastern counterpart.

  “Got a light, Frog?”

  “Yeah,” said Kermit. He produced a lighter and a flame popped out. James leaned forward, lighting the cigarette, and sat back down.

  “Take this and tell DJ I might want a sheet.” James got to his feet, jammed his wallet back into his pants pocket, and picked up his coffee cup. “I’m headed out to the East Bank. Catch ya later.”

  James strode to the door, gave a final wave at Kermit, and crossed the street to the Triangle Bar. Heading around its west corner, he crossed the next street to enter the parking lot of the Humphrey Center on the University of Minnesota campus. It had modern art in its courtyard and an arched brick doorway. James walked on to the Wilson Library. He turned left, went past the music school, the anthropology tower, and made for the bridge. He stayed on the sunny side, the south side. The gleaming steel of the new museum building shone in the bright sunlight. A cool breeze was blowing.

  Graffiti covered the brown-painted panels and glass of the bridge’s contained interior. Cars ran beneath, one deck down. The covered walkway above was a real godsend in winter when wind-chill factors could reach below zero Fahrenheit.

  At the bridge’s terminus, it branched off into three main avenues. Right was the Coffman Student Union Hall, ahead lay Stadium Village, and left led toward Dinkytown. He took the left path, past another library and chemistry buildings, with Northrop Auditorium to the north. Past the underground bookstore and a few multipurpose brick buildings and into Dinkytown he went. His coffee cup was empty and he lit another cigarette. He walked north past Annie’s, Ragstock, and the Grey Drugstore, crossed 4th Street, and passed the Baskin-Robbins. Bob Dylan had written a song about this very street: “Positively 4th Street.” Past the pizza parlor to Giocco’s. Go-ko’s, he called it. He peered in and spotted Myron.

  Myron was a very small man with gray hair and thick glasses. He worked at the university as a research assistant in the chemistry department. James remembered instantly the conversation he’d had with Myron about hydrazine being used by drag racers on the National Hot Rod Association pro circuit. Hydrazine was one of the components of rocket fuel used in the Nazi rocket plane called the Messerschmitt 163. Hydrazine was commonplace in Myron’s world.

  James walked on to Al’s Breakfast. One row of diner stools and standing room only for the next customer was all there was to Al’s. James took his place in line, waiting patiently for a seat to open up. He thought about the last fleeting memory of his dreams before he woke. Something about being in a six-engine seaplane and walking the streets of Copenhagen, Denmark.

  He thought about the fall colors in the tree leaves now falling: rich golds and yellows were amongst the greenery. He viewed the uncluttered campus quad with Northrop and the Student Union facing each other, the cool breeze blowing through it all. It was a fine day.

  After ten minutes, a seat opened up. He sat down before a plate covered with a thin yellow film of egg yolks and a few toast crusts.

  The waitress cleared away the former diner’s plate and returned to take his order.

  “Three eggs over easy, and hash browns, and a short stack of blueberry pancakes, please.”

  James surveyed the eclectic collection of mementos and centered in on a portrait designed to look like da Vinci’s famous painting of the Last Supper of Christ. Six long-haired men and women were gathered in black ink on white paper. It was captioned “The Last Breakfast.” He thought of those people, now long gone, and how they must have changed over the years. Long gone in days gone by.

  Other things on the shelves caught his eye: a can of Mace, a sign that said Tipping is not a city in Russia, several photographs, a Pez dispenser. He noted the credit books on the lower shelves. One could
prepay by buying a book, writing a name on it, and one would have credit until the pages of the book were all torn out. A nice convenience.

  The waitress delivered his meal. Nice looking waitress, he thought. Young, twenty-ish. He remembered the can of Mace and the muscle-bound cook. He watched the waitress’s reddish long hair, ponytailed but swinging free. He watched her hourglass figure with a heavy chest, all wrapped up in a gray T-shirt with an apron and low-rise jeans. He looked from his food to the waitress’s backside to his food and back again. His eggs were perfectly cooked, sharing a plate with the hash browns. He reached for the ketchup and poured some out onto the hash browns. He cut the eggs so that the yolks were trimmed away from the egg whites. He slid the tines of the fork under one of the yolks and lifted the self-contained envelope into his mouth.

  He repeated the process until only the hash browns and pancakes remained. As he was working on the remnants of his meal, he listened to the radio and snippets of conversation from the other diners. The heroes of New York on 9/11, the new director of hematology and his plans for revamping some tests, an application to medical school, a new boyfriend, a make-up test in biology. He finished off the meal methodically and paid, leaving a dollar tip. He left and glanced into Giocco’s, but seeing only Myron, he started walking back through the campus. He stopped by the physics building and picked up a copy of The Daily, the university’s newspaper.

  He turned to the classified ads. There were three ads for medical test subjects. The first was for people with Type-II diabetes. The second was for women who had given birth and had postpartum depression. The last one caught his eye.

  It read, New study on monthly medication regimen for sufferers of schizophrenia whose onset predates January of 2015. Requires overnight stay for 24 hours once per month. Compensation is $600 per month. Program duration is six months. Candidates must apply in person, Rm. 213, Malcolm Moos Medical Center.

  He thought for a moment. His SSI check was only $924 per month. Added to his state check of $351, it all came to $1,275 per month to live on. Another $600 a month would be great, a godsend. That would mean $3,600 over a six-month stretch of time.

  He folded the paper, put it inside his jacket, and began to walk back to the West Bank.

  As he emerged from the Wilson Library parking lot to peer at the Hard Times Café’s multicolored façade, he noticed Frog still sitting in the window where he’d been an hour earlier. James looked for cars, crossed the street, and went inside.

  “Hey, Frog,” he said. “You know about Echelon, don’t you?”

  “What’s that?” said Frog.

  “Echelon is the computerized scanning program the NSA has on the phones. They listen for key phrases like drugs and terrorism. When they hear a key word like ‘heroin’ or ‘bomb,’ they start recording the conversation.”

  “Are you for real? They can actually bug your phones like that without a wiretap order from a judge?”

  “Not a problem with the Patriot Act.” He paused and said to Frog, “I want to create an art book that slays all the eavesdroppers. I want to write a book that slays television, that spreads freedom on the Internet like a wildfire of free thought.”

  Frog looked at James and said, “Has anyone ever written a book like that?”

  “I have seen several people try to create art on that level. Ron Hubbard tried to create a religion in books. He went from frustrated science fiction writer to messiah in fifteen short years. Lots of his work was bunk, but there are little spots of gold metal flake in the paint that shine like the color of 1960s hot rods. He had these little nuggets of observation that were good. All in all the Scientology thing is a waste, but in even the most self-serving testaments of Ron, there are little moments of clarity. He was critical of psychiatry. He had nothing good to say about psych meds. I still take Risperdol but I don’t like eating pills all the time. I hope this drug trial thing works out well.” The medical center wouldn’t be open for another two days, Monday being Veterans’ Day, a holiday for all state workers, including the university. The real Veterans’ Day was tomorrow, Sunday.

  “Hey, Frog,” he said, “have you tried the new acid yet?”

  Whispering, Frog replied, “I might be up for it tonight. I’d hafta check the concert schedule. Maybe if we can find something good, a band or something, we could get DJ to come with. I could call her on the phone.”

  “It’d be better for us to just walk over to DJ’s place and talk to her,” said James. “Let’s go see the woman with the sheets.” They headed east on the diagonal cut of Riverside Avenue, two blocks to a wooden duplex probably 50 years old. The green-painted structure was two stories high. DJ’s apartment was on the top floor. The downstairs apartment door was open while the one at the top of the stairs was locked. That door was the one that DJ lived behind.

  They climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. They heard the sound of footsteps, and the lock turned with an audible click-snap. A six-foot-three-inch woman opened the door.

  “Well, howdy, howdy there, fellahs,” said the broad-shouldered woman, round in the middle, with glasses and shoulder-length hair. She beamed a happy smile at them both.

  “Hey, DJ, I hear the new shipment is in. How is it?” said James.

  “Quite an invigorating blotter. I’d say about three hundred mikes a hit. I dosed on it a week ago. Not a wicked hangover either. I assume Frog told you about it?”

  “Yeah, I got ten hits at wholesale. I was thinking about tripping tonight and giving these worlds a test drive,” said James.

  DJ nodded approvingly. “Do remember to stage yourself in a positive setting,” she said. “Acid amplifies whatever emotion you have, so if you’re depressed, you’ll get really, really depressed. The trick is to feel good and let the trip amplify your good cheer.”

  “Thanks for the advice, Mom,” said James with good-natured sarcasm.

  “I just don’t want anyone to have a bad trip. You know that. Bad experiences don’t bode well for my little cottage industry. The last thing I want is you two in the hospital screaming about spiders and whatnot.”

  James and Frog sat on the couch, and DJ sat on a chair next to them. She reached for a brass-chambered pot pipe from the end table and began sorting tiny buds of marijuana from a tray.

  “I didn’t even ask you two if you wanted to smoke. Care to join me?”

  “Oh, but of course,” said James.

  “Good,” she said, returning to her task, packing the pipe’s bowl with herb.

  “I was just telling Frog about Echelon,” said James.

  “Oh yeah, don’t talk about herb or anything illegal on the phone. Those computers will pick it up and start recording in a heartbeat. Nasty Big Brother. Dirty rotten scoundrels. Don’t use the phone here without proper protocols. Herb is ‘spice’ and hash is ‘chocolate.’ As long as you use the protocols, it’s okay.” DJ raised the pipe to her mouth and torched the bowl with a butane lighter. She inhaled deeply and choked back a cough before passing the pipe and lighter to Frog. He gave it the same treatment and choked back the same cough. James took the pipe from Frog and inhaled without using the lighter. The pungent aromatic smoke filled his lungs. A feeling of expansion filled his lungs. He stifled a cough for ten seconds and exhaled. The warmth and euphoria came back to him as it had an hour and a half before. There was that tinge of paranoia, though.

  Ah well, nothing’s perfect, he thought. He gazed at the wallpaper. Green with red flowers. A bowl of fruit on the kitchen table. It would have made a good subject for a still-life painting. He returned the pipe to DJ, who inhaled another hit of smoke. She handed it to Frog, who toked on it. By the time it got back to James, the embers were nearly depleted. He inhaled and watched the coals die out.

  “It’s cashed,” he said. “I’m quite adequately buzzed, though. I’m fine.”

  “Well, that’s good. I wouldn’t want to have to get you higher,” said DJ with a chuckle.

  “I think Robin Trower is going to be at the
Medina tonight. That would make a great setting for tripping,” said James.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” said DJ. “It’s been a week since I dosed. I might not get off, though.”

  Frog commented, “Perhaps not to the maximum, but would you like to see the show mixed with some herb and a few white crosses?”

  “Are you asking me out on a date? One or both of you?” DJ said comically.

  “We need the four-door from Mordor,” said Frog. DJ’s Cadillac four-door automobile was named after the land of evil in the Tolkien Lord of the Rings trilogy of fantasy books.

  “Ah, you love me for the ‘pleasure barge,’ ” DJ said with a twinkle in her eye.

  “May we propel your pleasure barge, oh queen of the rivertown?” asked James.

  “It’s a possibility,” replied DJ. “Showtime’s not till nine p.m.”

  “We could meet back here at seven-thirty,” said James “eat at the Medina from eight till nine, and go to the show directly from the Medina restaurant.”

  “Sounds good,” said DJ.

  “Oh, you gotta tell Frog about The Wizard of Oz,” said James.

  “Frog, you haven’t heard about The Wizard of Oz and the Harris Act of 1914?” said DJ.

  “What about it? I’ve seen the movie several times, but that’s all I know about it,” said Frog.

  DJ leaned back in her chair and put on her best storyteller’s face. “Back between the Gay Nineties and World War I, heroin and cocaine were legal over-the-counter medications. This was before the time of the Food and Drug Administration. Frank Baum, who wrote The Wizard of Oz, used symbolism in all his books. He wrote about twenty about Dorothy and the Land of Oz. The Tin Man represented American industry, the Scarecrow was the American farmer, and the Cowardly Lion was the military. The drug symbolism came when the Wicked Witch put Dorothy to sleep in a field of poppies and the Good Witch woke her up with snow. The poppies are heroin, which is where heroin comes from. Snow is the cocaine that wakes Dorothy up again.” DJ smiled and gave her best “I told you so” look.

  “That’s incredible,” Frog said. “What’s the Harris Act about?”

  “Well, it’s good you asked. The Harris Act illegalized heroin and cocaine and put them both under control of doctors. A lot of doctors were jailed for prescribing heroin and cocaine.”