Bodies and Souls

by John Rechy

  There was a sense of relief in many in the audience. A few leaned forward, not convinced where he was leading them. Mrs. Loomis looked proudly about, as if she had created an atmosphere of love for this generation.

  If only Mr. Loomis had helped to do it for yours! James looked out—drawn steadily by the wavy whiteness of the day and its dark shadows, and he remembered Meursault, in Camus's The Stranger, the apathetic man rushing at fate, facing the Arab he would soon kill only because the sun was attacking his eyes—the Arab he will soon be “killed” by, his death thrown back at him by the hypnotizing sun. Quickly James looked at Mark. The youngman's eyes … demanded!

  “To say love is to utter the ineffable. Who dares question the perfection—the utter need, the hunger—for love? Love makes the world go round, the earth move.”

  Even Gloria and Hilton nodded, lightly.

  The tyranny of love,” James Huston said with disgust. The deadliest myth! The cruelest. Perhaps.”

  Some of the listeners erased a portion of their notes, others drew a line, lines.

  “Heloise and Abelard bound—paradoxically!—by castration, Romeo and Juliet bound by poison, Lancelot and Guinevere and Arthur by bad sorcery, Catherine and Heathcliff by damnation, Othello and Desdemona by love as flimsy as a handkerchief or a flickering candle! Hamlet and his mother bound by a dead father in purgatory and a live one in hell. And consider Oedipus and his father, Electra and her mother—oh, there was disguised doom in the house of Agamemnon! And the endless frustration of ‘Terry and the Pirates'!” Fiercely his voice swept away the laughter. “Tragedy weaves, winds, wends through romance, is shot through—injected, infected—with pain. Masochism, if not its synonym, is its twin. Listen: ‘I killed her because I loved her so much.’ ‘I love him so much I'll kill him before I let him go.’ And this one—have you heard this one?—‘God so loved man that he killed his only begotten son— …’ “ He inhaled, felt sweat, anger, pain. His eyes moved from row to row. “The tyranny of love,” he echoed himself. “Demanding patriotic love to support injustice, beatific love to entrench repression—an excuse for all the horrors of history! Oh, the Bible reeks with God's love!” He stopped. “But we were talking of romantic love, faithful love—demanding selfish ‘fidelity’—more ruinous to sex than impotence. It is only the totalitarians who demand monogamy!”

  Sandy and Lorry left. He blessed them silently. You can walk out in protest, yes—because ‘love’ has been allowed you only too recently. But wait.

  Mark pushed firmly at his glasses. That puzzled and disturbed James. What was the youngman reacting against? Do your parents have lovers? OK let them! That is perhaps all he—she—has! Feeling betrayed, he said, “Hatred is more honest—one expects the plunging, slashing knife. Love is dishonest—it kills with breaths and sighs—and withheld attention.”

  An eager youngman joined Dr. Admas; clearly a disciple—Julian. Ex-psychology major, lapsed structuralist, born-again Freudian, majoring in film criticism, with Levi-Straus, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Lacan at his very fingertips.

  “The madness of art—which is also its greatness but I won't emphasize that now—is that it attempts to contain chaos. The artist plays the great old madman, God, whose awkward creation—it is awkward—is nothing to emulate, although modern painters have tried.”

  Beyond the window, sudden wind attacked tall trees. Sunlight cut across the lawn in slender blades.

  “If only art did not posture as truth. If only it did not pretend, as Shakespeare said through Hamlet, ‘to hold as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature.’ The mirror is, of course, total reversal. If only art would settle for … magic! … like Blanche Dubois for Chinese lanterns. But, no, it seeks to contain chaos, discover truth, and enclose all neatly within the covers of a book, the frame of a painting, the latitudes of a screen. It imposes meanings where there are none. It violates experience itself. The greater the artist, the greater the lie. Contain anarchy? Semantic contradiction, actual impossibility! Proust denied the power of the past by making his memories—forever—a part of our present. Joyce erased the unconscious by deleting the period and the comma—consciously. Freud disproved the unconscious by attempting to interpret it through clever consciousness. Wolfe belied his premise by contending that you can't go home again. Bergman converts faces into landscapes to reveal a ‘truth’ possible only through artificial exaggerations by the camera. Kubrick's monolith is a miniature enlarged. And Moby Dick, is, finally, a whale.”

  He waited for Julian's gasp. Julian waited for Dr. Admas's. It came, with a look of indignation, and was quickly drowned by Ellen's appreciative laughter. And Mark smiled. And Joan. Joan, if you let your hair loose, you will be transformed, like the heroines in the romantic movies you will never see; I am increasingly fond of you. Adorée has only a flashy beauty. But you! You, Joan—you have— … pain.

  “Thank God for Margaret Mitchell—no betrayer, she!—we will forever wonder whether Scarlett got Rhett back.” He was sorry Joan didn't write that in her notebook.

  “Milton set out to justify the ways of God to man and justified the ways of man to God. And what kind of heaven was it in which angels were not happy?” He looked down at Mark. The edge of the shore, it was summer, you stood— … “In Death in Venice, Mann would have us believe that the ineffable Tadzio destroys the professor, whereas it is the professor who ‘kills’ the youth—by dying. Tadzio's beauty is sealed forever behind a pair of closed, no longer obsessed, no longer adoring eyes—the eyes which created the beauty.” Could he have released him from that imprisoning gaze—freed him—allowed him to live after his own death? … “Antonioni tilted Blow-Up into ruinous interpretation, belying his own premise, by nudging us to believe that a crime did occur in the park, where the mystery should have been left, in the heart of the breathing trees. Welles destroyed an essential secret by revealing to us what ‘Rosebud’ is to Kane alone.” Meursault knew he shot the sun.

  “Now explore the process of canonization. We are, after all, speaking about perfection, and what could be more pure—perfect—than the purity of a saint?—shaped by good works, four miracles. And martyrdom. Appointed angels and warring demons, priests assigned their arbitrary roles, are set out to rake the life of the proposed saint. The advocates of the angels dredge up good, the advocates of the demon dredge up evil. The same life will provide opposite meanings. And the actual life lived? Erased. Now will the angels welcome a new saint, singing his praises into heaven? Or will the sleazy sleeping corpse, retired from a weary life, be resurrected in despair for still one more goddam rejection! … Which brings us easily to what is fondly called a senseless act of violence perpetrated, always, by a ‘misfit,’ the misfit being the one who fits most perfectly into the perfect flowing harmony of coincidence that creates the moment of explosive intersection we call fate! All one has to know about a killer is that he/she killed, and a process similar to that of canonization will occur. A whole life will now be seen as having moved toward one act. The dull, gray incidents of that existence will be colored with the garish colors of inevitability. All redefined, all in retrospect. Where would Christ be without his goddam crucifixion?”

  He had delivered his last words with such intensity that the audience withheld reaction. Gloria touched her neck, as if she wore an invisible rosary.

  You do! Anger poured out: “Yet why are wars, starvation, exploitation never called meaningless acts?—their perpetrators never misfits? No, those are noble causes determined by wise kings and corporate presidents!” Sweat streaked his face, wet his chest; a wet coldness.

  Outside, the sun knotted the shadows of trees on darkening greenness.

  Now the lecturer assumed a growing cadence: “Rolling clouds of steam and mist, within which planets swirled, crashed, and collided—the fission of the universe—a centrifugal force flinging out chips of rock, and one splinter became the earth, and in a million years or seven days, trees grew under a mesmerizing sun, and in the sea fish and oysters and caviar for the ri
ch thrived, and the ape found his spine and became upright man—and some among the hairy new breed were eaten by dinosaurs, some escaped when a pursuing tiger sank into a pit of tar while a weeping mastodon watched and others of the upright creatures were saved by wolves, and caves were carved and collapsed in earthquakes, or fell under lava and ice, and years passed, Babylon fell, Rome followed, and Lot's wife looked back leaving a wake of unending anger, Ezekiel saw the river of blood and fire to come, and the unknown factor loomed over Calvary, and there was war in heaven as apocalyptic horsemen pillaged the plains with war, strife, famine—and death was the pale rider—and fire, hail, and blood, plagues, woes, pestilence, seven vials containing the wrath of God as heaven and hell collided and the earth darkened, the sun was blinded, stars burned, the air darkened, and the poisoned sea gave up its dead—but only some—and the four winds of the burnt earth blew sand trying to wipe away the tears and the scattered sorrow, pain, and death, as promised, and years passed, the great wall of China stretched beyond the pyramids made by a thousand Sisyphuses, Buddha sank into eternal bliss, Allah was praised, God made hefty sacrifices, and time flew because we were having fun as captive kings and princes became slaves, and heads fell to the guillotine and tea bred revolution as new oppressors thrived in place of incestuous kings, who made a comeback to kill more poor, and Salem witches burned in innocence but their ashes burrowed in vengeance into the dark soil, and—here comes another giant leap—years passed, dust swept crops away and the rich took their lives because their money was gone, temporarily, and depression came with Freud and Hoover, followed inevitably by films and premieres during which the dreamless were trampled under tangled cones of searchlights like confused unknown factors—I forgot radio and the World War— …” and a father raged in wounded anger and a mother loved and was loved too much and a dog died in the wind in Texas and was not buried deeply enough, and decayed in the summer sun and was not resurrected but dug up again to be reburied more deeply, and I saw the rotting face of God on my dog, and the first myth died, and then all the others followed easily and that is all you need to know about me ”… —and freight trains carried men and women fleeing poverty and dust, and Tangueley's art machine refused to destroy itself in the desert, and out of all that and eons of time—recessive genes devoured by aggressive ones—out of the sand gathering to create man and woman, the pink and blue and cubist periods, the spinning sun, the generation of vipers flourishing, out of all, all that, two individuals emerged separately and miles apart on a lazy afternoon to drive their cars on the same street and crashed! It was all, you see, an accident.”

  Shocked laughter, uncertain scattered applause. Mark laughed aloud. But I've given you nothing, Mark. Adorée relented in her sensuality, and James realized how young she was.

  The lecturer studied his audience again. They were appreciating him, yes, but most did not understand how much horror he had poured in constructing his inevitable absurdity. And so he laughed with them as their laughter continued to grow and he said, “The road taken is an important as the road not taken. If Dorothy had followed the green brick road, she might have ended in heaven with God, instead of back in Kansas with her aunt. Such are the risks, or treacheries, of free will.”

  Joan didn't laugh now. Mark stopped. James Huston tried to make the others understand. “The horror, the horror of it all in that journey to the heart of darkness, which is the darkness of the soul—and, in between, a long good-bye.” What can I give you, Mark, Joan? What should I give you, Mark? Joan, will your unappreciated intelligence force you into lucid madness and send you searching through the precious trash bins of your mind? Gloria, you have your inheritance already—a Catholic Christ as indelible as a tattoo carved on your heart. And you, Joe … Joe, learn the example of Sisyphus! Hilton!—my white face will distance us forever! It is too late, Mrs. Loomis, it is too late.

  He broke his own trance. His voice was firm. “As easy as ordering the universe, to find meaning within life, whether in art, prayer, or sex. Only God could attempt order out of chaos, or so his reporters claimed, but he botched it—just look around for ample evidence that either God is evil or destiny is chance!” Dots of perspiration quivered on his eyelids. The faces before him blurred as if he were viewing them unclearly through water or clearly through tears.

  Beyond the room, shadows spread under the blazing brightness of the afternoon.

  “The only liar greater than the artist—greater only in the sense of degree—is the critic, who interprets the artist's lies.” He did not bother to aim that at Dr. Admas and Julian. “And too often by imposing ugly lies on, oh yes, very beautiful lies! Critical interpretation is the greatest lie.” He smiled when he saw how many in the audience—including Dr. Admas, and then Julian—wrote that down. “Critics, like the blessed apostles, pump meaning into coincidence.”

  James Huston sighed. And then as if he were rerunning a film—already shown, a film of his ideas, spliced but run now in fast motion—he said, “Fate finds its accident, art interprets life, life interprets art, both fail to contain anarchy, anarchy is perfect disorder, death shapes life, in the beginning is the end, the end redefines the beginning and all in between, all possibilities become only one, inevitability exists only in retrospect and random interpretation, accident is inevitable coincidence! To have meaning, life should start with death!” He stopped abruptly. In startled revelation, as if to himself, he said slowly, “Perhaps all life is flashback, feeble interpretation of that first—and only—meaningful act, the burst of fire that created life, the first and only mystery.” Outside, as the whitening sun intensified the darkness of shadows, James Huston said softly: “If one could end life as perfectly as in the carefully constructed ending of a story, brought to the moment of one's great triumph, greatest loss, a mixture of both in a moment of epiphany. Alive, forever, remembered always that way, and not in … creeping anticlimax!” He sighed deeply, a muted gasp of pain. “I see life as a dance before the void. One should perform that dance as beautifully as one can, in as perfect a choreography as allowed—defying while acknowledging the darkness which will end … our long life sentences. A defiant dance before the triumphant void.”

  He allowed a long silence, and he thought he heard within it a sound like that of flapping approaching wings, invisible wings. The rustled leaves of trees, of course; just that.

  “Questions! Find questions! Obsessed with finding solutions, we ignore the importance of mystery. Let mysteries remain unsolved—like the mountain climbed because it is, simply, there. Solved, interpreted in ‘answer,’ a mystery is no longer that, was never that! Move beyond interpretation, into mystery! Between the mysteries of life and death, there is no proof, no answer, no solution, merely evidence: / am here! … Finally only mystery is to be ‘found.’ The Rorschach patterns are silhouettes of each man's mystery. To each his own ‘Rosebud’ destroyed in the private fires of locked memory…. We have arrived at the subject of it all. The mystery of mystery.” He felt despair flood, drowning the shreds of hope, sweeping it away into nothingness, this white, hot afternoon. He searched for words to announce that death—and to finish his lecture. “Nothing I have said can stand scrutiny. By speaking, I have contradicted everything I've claimed. It is all incorrect. All contradiction. And what may not have been that, became so when it was uttered, betraying the living it presumed to speak of, and from. I was speaking all along about … nothing,” he ended.

  Mark stood up angrily. He dropped his glasses. He took a step forward. There was the sound of crushed glass.

  James Huston looked at him—knowing he was demanding more. / remember you, Mark. I may have seen you on the beach, a shoreline, perhaps you waved—but I saw you long before that, in my mirror, myself your age, years ago, my youth reflected in you. James resumed, as if he had not ended his lecture. “Yes, I was speaking about nothing—but with one important exception: In the defiant movements of that dance which acknowledges the triumphant void— …” He stopped. Do I believe this?
Do I still believe this? Am I speaking to this youngman—whoever he really is, whatever he really wants—or only to myself? ”… —in those defiant movements there should be— … might be— … will be … a kind of meaning … which may— …” perhaps! ”… —allow hope.”

  Mark nodded.

  Accepting that reprieve?

  There was buzzing tension. Then silence. Then tension and silence were swept back by applause.

  Applause! The irony, James Huston thought angrily, the irony of that applause! He turned away from it and from the shared imaginary lives, which had ended, and he looked out the window, where shadows on the lawn had grown into black blossoms.

  Lost Angels: 7

  The Santa Ana wind moaned into the dark park. Gathering heat from the distant desert, enraged it invades the city, creating the season of heat and fire.

  Orin, Lisa, and Jesse James moved against the harsh vista of twisted trees and craggy rocks stenciled on the orange luminescence of fire miles away in the outlying canyons of the city.

  Orin had parked the Cadillac on a street where houses bunch at the base of Griffith Park. Then they walked past the chained rails that bar vehicles from entering the vast park after ten-thirty at night.

  This morning Orin had said; “Trust me … please?” Those words, pronounced softly, slowly, like a powerful incantation—those words and his saddened, pleading, deepening blue eyes underscoring them gave the aimless day its only order. Trust me. As they rode in the dark Cadillac off and on the maze of freeways, to the beach, stopping to eat, to Hollywood—Orin paying for everything, everything, hesitating only after the expensive dinner as if to reinforce their promise of trust—his words wafted Lisa and Jesse throughout the day. Trust me. The silence of the day—enforced by Orin by asserting his own—itself became hypnotic, containing only that exhortation, Trust me. And leaving in abeyance the rushing questions about last night's unfinished call to Sister Woman, it promised contingent clarification—and perhaps more, based on tonight's loyalty. They wandered about the city, rested in a statued garden. Toward evening, the sun had turned ferociously orange, a conflagration of the days of heat, which was burrowing into the very soil of the city.