“What do you believe?”
“As I just said, I have no way of knowing what he was truly experiencing.”
“No, I mean what do you believe on the general subject?”
“I leave work early on Fridays to avoid sundown and this isn’t a hat.”
“Right, so you’re just being devil’s advocatey when you say these things. You would say that, if true, the atheist in the foxhole doesn’t so much adopt these beliefs as his eyes are pried open to the truth when spurred on by the extreme circumstances. You would say that the reason so many humans have this belief in God or an afterlife, and not other unsupported beliefs, is that their belief is justified by objective, even if unknowable, truth, which they somehow feel or know on some level. Of course, someone would answer that the belief is so popular and widely accepted not because it contains any truth but rather because it is an excellent source of comfort in a cruel world. You might, in turn, answer, as I’ve hinted, that all sorts of beliefs offer or would offer similar or even greater comfort yet they are not adopted with a fraction of the frequency as this belief. You might also add that the belief is often held by those to whom it is unlikely to offer any comfort and by still others whom you would expect the belief to actively discomfort. You could argue from these facts that this type of belief is therefore to some extent ingrained in humans. And to this, someone might respond that even if the belief was ingrained in us, that would not serve as the slightest assurance that the belief is grounded in or otherwise reveals truth. Moreover, this person might say, the things you proffer in support of the idea’s ingrained nature constitute mere circumstantial evidence. It may very well be, as you said, that a God belief et cetera is such a major part of our cultural structure and history that it predisposes us to its adoption in such a strong way that it makes the belief seem native and inborn. Which naturally raises the chicken/egg question of why the belief holds such a prominent place in human cultural history. Which place your opponent might grant but only before pointing out that as humans and their culture have evolved, the belief has rightly weakened. Adding that a seemingly strong majority of recent great thinkers have been atheists, or at least agnostics. That the scientific method currently reigns supreme and unchallenged and that one must never forget that there is, after all, no credible proof in support of the belief. To this last objection you could respond that the seeming lack of proof is, in and of itself, a form of proof of the belief ’s truth value. After all, can your opponent name another belief that has persisted for so long and so consistently in the absence of any empirical support? At which point your opponent may very well get fed up and ask if you’re one of those creeps that doesn’t want schools teaching evolution. Evolution, he would say, proves definitively that no single entity created man, discrediting any and all opposing fairy tales like the one found in Genesis. The obvious response being that if there was a supreme being, a being who possessed consummate omnipotence, perfection, and beauty, we would expect him to operate in a certain way. We would, for example, expect that if such a being was to create a race of something called humans it would be done in a celestially and appropriately complex way such as the method described by Darwin. We would also expect that the universe containing those humans would not function in a mechanistic Newtonian fashion but would instead be the bizarrely complex and counterintuitive Einsteinian slash Heisenbergian maelstrom we’ve discovered. In other words, the discovery of increasing complexity in any form is evidence of God not its opposite, not least of all because it makes the accident called life seem even less likely without a guiding force and all those other intelligent-design-type notions. All that you would surely say, and all that your opponent would respond. Back and forth, forth and back, with seemingly no legitimate means for choosing between the two opposing worldviews. Isn’t that the situation we now find ourselves in Toomie, my high-I.Q. compatriot? Is the situation hopeless or can we, by employing reason, determine which is the better view? I cannot imagine two people such as you and I failing at this. Thus am I prepared to stay in this room, for weeks if necessary and with the occasional delivered cheesesteak, in order to, with your help, definitively answer this most important question once and for all. You with me?”
“First things first.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning some day I may be willing to sit down with you and hash all this out but right now it is far more important that we discuss Jalen Kingg’s case and formulate a successful strategy for saving his life. That first thing has to come first.”
“First? What could be prior to this question? Can we truly know anything before answering this question?”
“Yes, because this ultimate question you’re talking about is meaningless at the moment. Not to mention that I and countless others have already answered it.”
“Not the way I’m talking about.”
“Maybe not, but to our satisfaction, and that’s the only truly important aspect of the question.”
“You find this kind of activity and these kinds of questions unimportant? You?”
“To a large extent yes. Intellectual discourse and investigation is admittedly great fun but only truly meaningful when conducted in the service of others. In a few days, a bungled mess of a person, a child’s brain in an adult, who has from birth been mercilessly tortured by circumstance will be killed unless you and I use our minds, and all other advantages that were given to us by mere accident, to stop the killers. In service of this goal I’m more than willing to spend the days of thought you’re talking about. But I would no sooner, under these circumstances, engage in what you propose than I would in endless games of tic tac toe.”
“Ah but what about tic tac dough?”
“Same answer.”
“Fine, I’ll assume there’s no God for now and accordingly devote all my intellectual energy to our project.”
“Good, but I fail to see the connection.”
“Well if I were to conclude that there is a benevolent God who reigns over a blissful afterlife then why would I possibly put so much effort into trying to keep Kingg here with the living, where he has experienced nothing but abject misery and where if we are successful he can expect a whole lot more of the same in his rancid cage. That would be like an attorney pleading with a parole board to keep his client incarcerated. Better he should be released to take flight with an angelic brain in place of his current, faulty instrument.”
“I’m not sure how to respond to that but if it gets us started I’ll take it.”
“But one last thing.”
“What?”
“How did you come to the conclusion, whenever you did, that it would be wrong for the state to execute an individual like Kingg? I assume you know that a strong majority of this country’s population disagrees with you on that point?”
“How?”
“Yes, how.”
“I guess I thought about it.”
It was settled and we got to work. We worked long, hard, and well. That Toomberg was a smart fuck. He could grasp things instantly but without mentally simplifying their complexity like most. When we were done I felt I knew Kingg. I certainly knew the situation he was in as well as I could. And despite some huge problems I felt in control of the case now and my trip out there would, I was sure, cement that control. It was late.
On his way out, Toomberg stopped near my door and looked at some articles and books I had on the semicircle table there. “What’s all this boxing stuff?” he said.
“Boxing stuff.”
“I find Boxing fascinating,” he said. “I don’t mean to say that I watch individual matches and am fascinated. Rather I find the very existence of Boxing fascinating. Aren’t you ever surprised that human beings are still willing to admit they derive pleasure from seeing others hit and harm each other?”
“No, I guess I’m too busy being one of the pleasure-receptors.”
“I mean the sport should probably be banned don’t you think?”
“I don’
t know.”
“You don’t?”
“I guess, it’s complicated.”
Toomberg left and moments later it wasn’t so much that Dane knocked on the door as it seemed to open on its own with him in the doorway.
“We have to talk,” he said. “I have an idea.”
“How did?” I wondered.
“Secretary gave me your address, you really should provide an apartment number you know.”
“You must’ve just passed Toomberg on the way in.”
“Must have, may I come in?”
“It’s late man, I’m beat.”
“It’s about our plan, and your conditions.”
“I figured, but besides it being late I just spent quite a few hours working so can’t we talk tomorrow?”
“Allow me to say one word. Then if you still want me to leave I will.”
“One word?”
“One.”
“Fine, just one word and no tricks.”
“Course not, tricks are for kids.”
“What’s the word?”
“Swords!”
“Swords?”
“Swords.”
We looked at each other silently for like ten seconds.
“Come in,” I said. He sat on the treacherous stool and I lay on the sofa. “What about swords?” I exhaled.
“My new favorite channel’s this goddamn Beastly Burden Channel. I can watch a predatory cheetah chase down a hapless antelope all fucking day. The best part is when they’re sitting around waiting on a victim. These cats will do things like stretch their jaws revealing their honed instruments of death. I don’t have to tell you what they look like when they spot dinner either. They uncoil like a spring, every muscle rippling and taut in service of a single objective; to kill and eat. There’s no deliberation, no contemplative thought. Instead their entire being, their very existence, is nothing beyond desire. A desire that must be fed. It’s glorious and beautiful and I love it.
Of course it can also be quite sad. As a matter of fact just before coming here I was home crying it was so damn sad. It seems a pride, has there ever been a more apt word, of these gorgeous cats had fallen on hard gastronomical times. Anyway one of these famished felines has managed to secure a tasty meal, but is eating alone without catty support. Suddenly it’s surrounded by goddamn hyenas, those mangy mutts. Turns out they want the cat to share. Share! Can you imagine? This majestic, sexy, sleek beast giving even the slightest bit of its lion’s share to those ratty mouth-breathing pieces of shit. Now if you know anything at all about the situation, you know there’s not a lioness in the world that is going to lose to a fucking single hyena, is going to let a hyena take even a morsel of its food. And don’t kid yourself, the pussy hyenas know this as well. Of course we’re not dealing with a single hyena here, we’re dealing with like twenty of the bastards and, as I said, one cat. They surround the cat, these filthy dogs. But the cat, like the viewer, knows that twenty dogs can kill it if they need to. It takes one last bite of its zebra dinner, a zebra it fucking acquired when no one else could, through its feline will and sense of self, a zebra rightfully bestowed on it by the cosmos, then leaves it to the mutts. Well if that doesn’t make you cry then you’re just an unfeeling bastard and I take my leave of you. The cameraman had to gall to stand there and film these lowly furry rats stuffing their faces, knowing that not one of these weasels would’ve had the balls to so much as look at our cat crossly if not for their overwhelming numbers.”
I closed my eyes.
“What can we say about a world that permits such nonsense Casi? Nature should stop worrying about vacuums, which nobody gives a rat’s ass about, and abhor hyenas emboldened by packs. Watching the horrid display, I imagined I was that cat surrounded by those hyenas. I thought about it of course because of what we’re going to do. Know what I concluded? That if I was surrounded by those hyenas, even if they numbered in the hundreds, they would pay a blood-soaked price for that zebra. Especially the first one. You see one of them would have to be first in trying to take some of my zebra burger and I would make sure that presumptuous fuck got it worst of all. I would kill him with the extremest of prejudices. But not just him, I would take a violent chunk out of as many of those pricks as possible. If they chewed one of my paws off, I would keep using the other one to fuck up as many as I could. I would take the bloody stump back from them then beat them to death with it like Samson with that jawbone. Basically they would have to kill me before I would allow them to so much as lick a single zebra bone and even then my final suspiration would be a defiant bite. I would die it’s true, but I would sooner die than know that I, an august, resplendent, regal lion had surrendered anything to that lowly riffraff.”
“What about swords?”
“Swords? Are you high or something? What’s a lion to do with a sword?”
“You said swords. You got in here by saying the word remember?”
“Oh right. I thought about our plan in light of the things you said at lunch. You say you won’t go in with guns and I don’t want to go in unarmed.”
“You’re not suggesting.”
“Of course I am. If I don’t who will?”
“True, but I don’t know, it seems so.”
“Cool? Intense?”
“Bizarre.”
“We’re going in with swords Casi, serious flesh-emulsifying swords. If you think about it, it’s perfect.”
“What if I don’t think about it?”
“Then it’s still perfect. I mean you’re wary of a violent accident right? You don’t want to do harm. Well a sword is a far more precise instrument than a gun. A sword can circumscribe movement in a way a gun can’t. If you put a sword to someone’s neck or stomach and tell them they can’t move, they know they can’t move without cutting themselves. You’re absolved of all responsibility. With a gun, you end up having to shoot the idiot, which you don’t want to do, or worse you run the risk that your opponent will discern your reluctance to do same and that can be a big problem. Lastly, I like the element of surprise involved with swords. I believe that there is less of a chance of retributive violence if we use swords because they’ll be taken aback, think we’re insane or something. I mean who walks in there with fucking swords? I think the use of swords should also satisfy any aesthetic impulses you may wish to appease. Of course you know how to expertly handle a sword right?”
“Dane, the only thing more ridiculous than your assumption is the fact that I do know how to use a sword.”
“Then it’s settled, swords it is. I’ll go procure them.”
Leaning over the banister just outside my door, I watched Dane go down the stairs and out the door. Then there was noise below, a lot, from Alyona’s. I was tired but I wanted to see what was going on, maybe grab that pendant so I could later get it to Traci. I changed my mind when I got halfway down the stairs. I went back up and inside. What I saw from those stairs changed my mind. A hulking blue figure flashing into that apartment and sealing the door behind it.
Back inside I visually drifted to the picture Traci had drawn on the window with her lovely digit. Because I had opened the window the once-sharp condensation lines had blurred, although they continued to exist in a way that made an identification at least theoretically possible. I looked at them but nothing came forward. Just meaningless lines without apparent form.
I stared.
Then it clicked. I saw precisely the image Traci intended. How strange. And then that thing happened where it became impossible for me to look at that window and see a different image or even no image at all.
chapter 17
For there was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently.
—William Shakespeare
“Christ Cleary, that’s precisely what I’m saying. Why doesn’t your pleasant fiction of a religion account for the Saturday between Easter and Good Friday? This is our life!”
“How do you mean, Deborah?”
&nbs
p; “Well, as I understand it, Good Friday is a big deal right? A very sad day where you Christians reflect upon the crucifixion, death, and all other sorts of maudlin subjects. Two days later you have Easter, a joyous, bright day. Misery followed by bliss but what about the Saturday in between? Nothing. No fancy name.”
“Holy Saturday.”
“No fancy name that stuck, no reflections, no feel whatsoever. No meaningful commemoration of any kind and yet this Saturday is the day that most accurately reflects what our lives are like. After all, the majority of our days are spent in neither splendid bliss nor abject misery but rather in a state between those two extremes. A boring state where nothing much seems to happen but which is life’s bread and butter. If you want to look at why your religion engages less and less people every year, ask yourself why this critical day is essentially ignored. I say celebrate and name the day, make it the celebratory centerpiece, and you’ll take a significant step towards addressing our real concerns. Maybe get some people to come back.”
“I completely disagree.”
“What a surprise Conley.”
“I’m serious. One of the painfully few things Cleary and his sort get right is ignoring that day. I kind of agree that the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter reflects the majority of our lives but it does that by being completely meaningless and thus should be entirely ignored. Take Casi here as an example. You’ve all heard that he’s gotten himself into a bit of a pickle here. So what? I bet he’ll never even remember any of this when all is written and done. How old are you Casi?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Exactly. He’s middle-aged, a meaningless stage of life that nobody remembers.”
“What are you talking about middle-aged? He’s a kid. Middle-aged is like you, fifty or so.”
“Really? Let’s say the average male in this country lives to seventy-two. If that’s the case then ages 0 to 23 represent youth, 24 to 47 are your middle ages, and 48 to 72 your senescent decline into death.”
A Naked Singularity: A Novel Page 50
