Another of the doomed beings groaned before returning to vapor. While a fleeting but ominous cloud separated me from the golden rays of Quietude, I reminded myself that it was not the faces that disturbed me but the opinions I formed of them.
“Can’t you do something about that noise?” said Sandy, more irritated than scared. “It ruins the song.”
I increased the volume and gave it some bass as well, hoping this would prove sufficient to muffle the next horrible wail. I disliked hiding things from her, but justified it through a quick series of calculations revealing how a greater good would be achieved. Lacking my forbearance and analytic detachment, she would have experienced considerable hardship while becoming accustomed to this novel aspect of our surroundings. If one of them infiltrates the car, I vowed, then I will brief her. Paternalism is not bad per se.
Just as another of the frightful apparitions appeared, the heavens discarded us. The dolesome ghost appeared to shoot up like a rocket as we fell.
“What the hell’s going on?”
“We are merging. Having assessed the visibility, I think it is safe to join the traffic,” I said, gripping the wheel. Our gradient lessened, but hypotheses other than our continued plunge were not forthcoming. It felt like the descent on a Ferris wheel. Relieved as I was to be away from the meteorological monsters and grateful Sandy had not seen them, the prospect of landing a car for the first time concerned me.
“A natural driver, one born — nay, destined to drive — can always triumph,” Reason assured me. “The uncompromising union of instinct and courage trumps all misfortune. It is a matter of driving conformably to nature.”
Despite the gallant assurance derived from doing what you were created to, I felt as though I were parallel parking before an audience. The discomfiture peaked with hideous thoughts of potential injuries to my car’s magnificent suspension.
I closed my eyes and listened in awe to the perspective described in “September of My Years”: a meditation on the ephemeral nature of life, a celebration of the moment, and a forthright recognition of the inevitability of death — sans gloom or doom. Truly it is rare for a single piece of music to express such a laudable outlook, and unheard of today. The solipsistic haze of ignorance, rage, and lust inflicted on us by the purveyors of contemporary noise may constitute a common vision of life, but it is scarcely a commendable one. Can today’s “music” do no more than howl and grunt about how its hapless victims misconstrue the world? Could it not set the bar a millimeter higher with some expectation of how they ought to?
Even in my deplorable state, the inherent Stoicism of the song could not fail to edify me. In life I seek contentment through an enlightened indifference to the vicissitudes of Fate. But not when driving. There my very soul rebels against all tyrants and I will not suffer shackles of any kind. From the harshest of teachers, Experience and Reason, I learned there are pitifully few things worth seeking.
Fame, a function of the opinions of other men, is obviously worth less than nothing. A skillful concubine can bring joy to a man, but they are as plentiful as the stars and essentially as different from each other as Tuesdays from Wednesdays. The best that can be said for the pursuit of riches is that it serves to distract a man from the grievous uncertainties of his existence, assuming, as you should, that most would crumble if confronted with the ultimate puzzle. Posthumous glory, dependent on the beliefs of those yet to be born, is the most senseless of all. If the imbecilic estimations of the herd currently wandering the earth are to be ignored, how much more so the ravings of the brutes who will follow? Indeed, a wise man will shun renown like death itself. In this world of flux and woe, does anything warrant pursuit? Is anything intrinsically good?
Quietude, of course: a state of mind tranquil and serene, yet confident and affirmative of life despite its precarious nature. The courtship of Truth is long and austere, but it spares one from countless delusional allurements. Despite a paucity of honorable men, the pursuit of honor may seem a fool’s errand, but aren’t ideals unattainable by definition? Are they not the stairway from the swamp of our beastly nature? Dignity and heroism certainly merit striving, but intertwined with them, inseparable from them, is a man’s car. But not any car will suffice.
If a wise man were asked to demarcate the epoch when the automobiles were most magnificent, he would name the golden age between the decession of Johnson and the inauguration of Carter. The cars were colossal and solid, forged from the purest sheet metal. Powered by the blast furnaces of the gods — the grandest V-8 engines — they had no peers in strength. In homage to Euclid, all the great four-doored ones exemplified rectangularity: the Cadillac Fleetwood and Sedan DeVille, the Lincoln Continental, the Pontiac Bonneville and Catalina, the Buick Electra and Chrysler New Yorker. These glorious bricks blessed the concrete seas with their majestic bearing. And in 1977, darkness fell. The Great Ones were desecrated (“downsized” was the coarse euphemism) with puny bodies and feeble engines. What is there for a man to do but cover his eyes and weep as he beholds the degradation of what was once mighty and proud?
Few mourn their passage. Few know what has been lost. Perhaps the Truth swims too deep and fast to be caught in the flimsy nets of most men. What ennobled this period in history was neither our knowledge nor the opulence some enjoyed. When the next great historian writes of the decline and fall of our empire, I will have no difficulty in pinpointing the zenith. What bestowed upon this epoch its only grandeur and greatness were the sedans of the late sixties and early seventies. And when a man possesses one and something afflicts it he is scarcely unjustified in thinking the world is coming to an end, for it is.
• • •
“What the hell was going on?” said Sandy with a nasty tone of exasperation, perched on the edge of her seat with the frazzled comportment of someone awakened from a deep sleep by a fire alarm. “What was that?”
I adjusted to the obedient gas, brake, and steering, casually switching from the emergency grip to the natural stance with one hand dangling over the wheel and eyes level with the dash. “That you can drive at all is nothing short of miraculous, given your hypersensitive nerves. A little fog whisks you straight to bedlam. No doubt that malformed dwarf of a car you drive is equipped with cyanide capsules for such an event.”
Her exasperation begot irritation, which begot pestiferous curiosity, which begot accusatory insolence, the first four generations of an affective lineage that would endure throughout our journey and could fill its own Book of Chronicles. Her vacant blue eyes probed me. “No Petronius, there was something weird about that.”
“Any experienced driver will tell you how dense fog has a bewitching, pixie dust nature. Consign this to your little book of lessons. Title: Dense Fog. Entry: do not drive in. Filed next to entry titled: Second-guess the Driver. Entry: do not.”
Although my car drove splendidly, our discussions could not break free from the gravity of the troubles experienced earlier. My dignity befouled, I would tolerate no further ignominies and banished the baneful topic from all conversation. When we needed gas, I departed from the highway and drove down a narrow road drowning in wild grass. A shining cloud appeared and I entered it cautiously, discovering a little station entombed by the fog. I filled the tank while Sandy stretched.
The light inside hurt my eyes and I had to squint. The floor, either freshly waxed or treated with a mysterious coating, gave off a disorienting glare. Behind the counter, adorned in an immaculate white uniform, stood a young man with dark curly hair and a neatly trimmed beard. His confident smile gave his face a gentle intensity. I felt the warmth from his eyes as I approached. Even in the brightness of the station they seemed to shine.
The Anticipation of Questions Pertaining to Part I with Answers and Analysis
A historical document can in one respect be likened to a building. A poor foundation bodes ill for its intended height. To embed my base so what follows may touch the stars, some clarification is essential. I adjure the student to go no further until he
masters the material presented here, for it is his safety I have in mind whilst I secure the bedrock of this tower to the empyrean.
However enthralled by the mellifluous grandeur of the prose, the vigilant student must nonetheless be pleasantly agitated with questions. Dear Reader, do not consider yourself the prisoner of your inquisitive nature, but rather the house guest of a noble and restless spirit. As Detritus of Ileum observed, “Truth cannot be found in the shadows of silent acceptance, but only on the open plains of philosophic discourse.”
“Scholar,” the Reader whispers into my third ear, my link between his present and my own, “after hitting the ground running, one is unable to look away for the duration, but doesn’t Objectivity command you to begin in the beginning, not the midst of things?”
This adroit query vouches for the Reader’s potential, but he fails to recognize that a “beginning” in the temporal sense is but one of many. It is the philosopher’s task to determine which type is most important. I stand by my decision just as Galileo stood by his discovery of the planets orbiting the sun.
• • •
“Scholar, given the breakneck pace and dizzying assemblage of events it is understandable that no more than a glimpse of Sandy is provided. But in the name of Objectivity, is your heroine not worthy of more than a one-dimensional sketch?”
Mired in the squalor of contemporary “literature,” the Reader is possessed by the delusion that I am condemned to pace my annals with the discordant velocity of the latest thriller he has read. Infuriating as it is to have inferior standards inflicted on me, I empathize with his plight. By this point in most of the books he whores around with he is already cognizant of the precise shade of the heroine’s pubic hair. Her height, eye color, “heart-shaped face,” and a whole constellation of minutiae have been carelessly tossed into a paragraph early in the first chapter. Note well: an FBI profile is not character development. This is one of the least pardonable crimes of lazy and ignorant scribblers and full proof of their disregard for Objectivity. In life one learns about another a little at a time. He is not blasted in the face with extrinsic details concerning her “small hometown,” her “characteristic spunk,” her “petite but perky bosom,” her “stern but doting father,” and so on. Axiomatically, the introduction of characters in my text will not occur via literary gimcracks. The Reader will make their acquaintance as he would in actuality.
Besides, where did I write that Sandy is the heroine? If a female is mentioned in Part I she must, of absolute necessity, on pain of twenty years hard labor, be The Heroine? On what tablet is this carved? What lawgiver decrees this? To what obdurate judge will the Reader turn if I transgress this sacred maxim? As a matter of fact, Sandy’s role is peripheral — at best. I only mention her at all because she accompanied me and to omit her would be a crime against Objectivity. And I serve no higher master.
• • •
“Scholar, your descriptions of Quietude and the solace it brought you are fascinating. Is it an Eastern or Western conception?”
Just as Aristotle gave philosophy his Golden Mean, I hereby contribute my Blender, by means of which the profoundest ideas can be mixed and pureed to produce original and superior recipes. This watershed, which the steely eyes of history may very well deem superior to Aristotle’s much-ballyhooed scale, will be elucidated in graspable increments. Regarding Quietude: while the precise recipe shall remain a secret, it contains ingredients from Buddhism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Monadology. The name is from the ancient Skeptics (who should have chosen a more accurate description of their uncertain comforts). Through the use of my ingenious, innovatory Blender, these constituents have been combined to create a bold new flavor. Quietude, as I am using the term, is both an original and significant contribution to philosophy.
• • •
“Scholar, is Quietude a trance-like state?”
My Cadillac is not an opium den. I was neither “nodding off,” nor “grooving,” nor “getting down,” nor succumbing to whichever degenerate state is sought by beatniks, hippies, slackers, and generations X, Y, and Z. It is indicative of our age that any pursuit of an enlightened conditioned is associated with intoxication. The sublime nature of Quietude will be presented in a manner befitting an otherworldly phenomenon. Meanwhile, I caution the Reader not to form base preconceptions.
• • •
“Scholar, is the description of Quietude in Part I exhaustive?”
A messenger with joyous tidings, I unveiled a concept onion-like in its manifold layers, yet sweet in its succor. Quietude is not akin to a two-by-four. I cannot pummel the Reader into understanding it. A good philosopher relies on the time-tested methods of gradual exposure and the use of context clues. My approach shall be as halcyon as Quietude herself.
• • •
“Scholar, a question regarding the interior of your Cadillac as it relates to the essence of Objectivity: Was it essential that you described, in no small detail, the voodoo doll on your dashboard? How are such details more relevant than a detailed introduction to the human companion who will be accompanying you on your journey?”
The Reader is clearly smitten by Sandy, delivered from the divine captivity of my annals by the mercenary of lust. But how can he be infatuated by a woman whose existence is scarcely hinted at? Will his jealousy not blind him to the countless virtues of my scholarship? I deliberately refrained from providing an abundance of details to forfend this very possibility. Now he has left the gravity of my odyssey and drifts through space, an intellectual vagrant, a philosophic hobo. I ask him: Is she worth it? How does he know her shortcomings do not outweigh whatever charms have ensnared him? On my honor, the fleeting thrills of her company do not compare to the abiding joy he will find in my annals. Come to your senses, man. If not, I am left with no choice.
To ensure that the Reader remains spellbound throughout the following section, I must posit a hypothetical feature: Sandy suffers from an advanced stage of leprosy. Patches of jade moss cover her “soft Asian features” and a putrefying stench emanates from her. This condition shall remain in effect until the closing pages of Part II. (This temporary contravention of Objectivity is necessitated on pragmatic grounds.)
• • •
Is the Reader pleased with what his heedless appetence has wrought, with what he has scourged Sandy? In Stoic magnanimity, I harbor no enmity toward him. He is, after all, a man like myself, a hapless rider on the wild horse of passion. But we must continue. I insist he cosset himself with a good night of sleep before proceeding. Then, during an ice-cold bath he should contemplate the gruesome condition of poor, wretched Sandy: mossy and fetid. This should etiolate his childish infatuation. He should then fortify himself with a substantial breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, pancakes, hash browns, toast, milk, and orange juice. Requisite then is a brisk walk. Finally, he is advised to sip a caffeinated drink while he braces himself for a rapid ascent into the supernal regions of Part II.
II:
My Bonneville is Cherished, I Discover a Box, Compose a Letter of Critique to a Hack, Introduce Petronius’ First Sensation and Petronius’ Shovel, Encounter an Enormous Bird after My Bonneville is Abducted, Dream the First of Eleven Dreams, Strike a Dubious Bargain with a Sea God, and Select the Chosen Chariot
In the days before the Cadillac there was a massive and exquisite Pontiac, a Bonneville as old as the mountains, metallic blue, and equipped with rear wheel-skirts. Whereas its theft set everything in motion, this segment of my annals commands rigorous study.
The days of the Bonneville found me posted as a watchman at an abandoned factory on the edge of Lake Michigan. An empty warehouse, the skeleton of a foundry, a shanty of an office, and an old laboratory sprawled across a dense forest, connected via a network of gravel roads. Only the most gifted driver could navigate the stretch of potholes intersecting with the entrance. The sign, perhaps a proud beacon in ages past, had long since fallen prey to the insatiable appetite of rust. A wate
rfall of vines submerged the fence so that even the inquisitive sun could uncover few flecks of metal amidst the leaves. Though the office stood less than a quarter mile behind the gate, a serpentine road conspired with redwood-sized weeds to convey the isolation of an Alpine village.
After completing a tour of the complex I often walked to the edge of a cliff to reflect on the nature of things. It proved more propitious to this quest than any other place, as though the questions feared to follow, frightened by the spheroid ghost above and the tempestuous waters below.
Prior to my initial inspection, I would push an ancient leather chair onto the patio outside the office. There I could elevate my feet atop a planter and behold the splendor of my five-ton sapphire, the contemplation of which bleached the landscape, leaving a Vargas print of a bewitching harlot reclining across the hood (to minimize the possibility of dents, a petite harlot with the elfin proportions of a gymnast). Such meditations revealed Plato’s Form of Beauty, diminishing the workload from my summer class and sending a cool breeze across the scorched terrain of my spirit, taming the fires within.
Obliged to survey the premises six times per shift, I began with the warehouse. From a distance the entrance looked like a mousehole but grew to a drawbridge as I approached. Opening it strained every muscle in my back, as though the occupants resisted until finally ceding territory to lay in wait. The air inside, dank and foul, was it not the necrotic tissue of a once mighty creature? Sparsely distributed over the center aisle, dangling bulbs cast little light on the dusty concrete. A few feet to either side, darkness reigned. Less valorous sentries lamented their gloomy plight. Two had ignominiously abandoned their posts. Their piteous supplications did not tempt the insolvent gods, whose impotent hands could not procure any items not “absolutely necessary.”
One terrible night, so that I might gratify a swelling curiosity, I brought a flashlight to inspect the dark recesses, hoping something lay hidden, something not meant for my eyes, something forbidden. I could scarcely have foreseen how this innocuous inspection would uncover a fiendish plot, one that would rend the very texture of my being.
The Annals Page 2
