“Should we try the doorknobs? Weren’t you invited?”
“Yes. Try them.”
We began with the one situated where a doorknob is traditionally positioned, then worked from top to bottom. She looked to me for guidance.
“Well, we tried,” I said blithely. My inexorable lust for Truth had devolved to the indifference of the common philistine.
“We came all this way and you don’t even care that we can’t get in?”
I shrugged. “The Point of Percipience is inaccessible. Acceptance is wisdom. I can live with that. Perhaps they have a pool around back.” I walked to the edge of the portico and stood between two columns. (When I look back upon this flighty reaction, so bitterly at odds with my true nature, I shudder. But in the accursed dream I cradled a puddle-deep interpretation and shunned any contamination from second thoughts or further queries.)
“Look!” Sandy shouted, pushing the door open. “I grabbed one of the knobs at random.”
“Close it and see if any of the others work. It would be quite a revelation if all knobs open the door to wisdom.”
“What if we can’t open it again? Then we blew our only chance on some dumb experiment.”
Although I nodded in agreement, this should not be interpreted as an acknowledgement of the superiority of practical wisdom as opposed to contemplation or thought experiments.
An icy wind blew through the door, freezing within me all insincere and frivolous things. We entered the interior of a garden shed. Cobwebs stretched across my face and I gagged from a ghastly stench. Emaciated jesters, some partially decomposed, danced aimlessly. Dingy gowns hung from narrow shoulders and broomstick limbs. I looked away, not afraid of them but for them. They made no attempt to leave and did not acknowledge our presence. I looked in vain for other doors or rooms.
We walked back on the portico and the door slammed behind us. Sandy sat on the edge and dangled her legs. “Our clothes stink,” she said. “What if wisdom doesn’t come off? It was stupid of you to assume that getting it would be a good thing. We should have gone to Jamaica. At least you know what you’re in for.”
I watched my Fleetwood glow like orange neon. A blue flamingo fell on its side but continued to move its legs, unaware of its new orientation. “It may be ironic that you cannot know beforehand of what wisdom consists, and once you have it you may loathe it and never be free of it. We should have driven to Alaska.”
“No one who hasn’t been on the inside would believe it was like that,” she said, her voice diminishing like she was about to cry. “This stench is making me crazy.” I put my arm around her but yanked it back, repulsed. She had shriveled to a third her size. A tiny red nose dotted her porcelain face and long green hair hung limply around her tiny shoulders. She fell back on the porch and a recording inside her began to weep. I covered my ears and ran, terrified that the sound would seep into my mind and dissolve it.
At my car I turned to see the obese statues dragging my little doll across the portico. They looked over their shoulders with serene indifference. “Feeling any smarter?” said one. “Don’t judge a cover by its book,” said the other. The doll’s head cocked at a grotesque angle and her dead eyes accused me. I wanted to run to her and save her and take her back and hold her, but constrained by the evil physics of dreams I just stood there. One of the animate slabs opened the door. The other chucked the doll inside. They galumphed to their positions on the stairs and covered their faces, resuming their strange sentry duty.
I awoke and wiped tears from my eyes. After escaping from the sleeping bag and tent with Houdini-like dexterity, I stood in the cool night air. “Vegetarianism is refuted thus,” I proclaimed.
On the Needlessness of an Addendum to Part VI
Whereas the arrant completeness of Part VI obviates the need for clarifications or elaborations, the Reader’s captious accusation of “being forsaken” thrusts upon me the suspicion that he wants to use an addendum as he would a commercial, leaving it unattended while procuring a drink or baloney sandwich. Unlike most books, my annals are not a television program in a different format. Just as the Reader has certain expectations of his author (no doubt exceeded), his author has expectations of him: attendance is mandatory. As a magnanimous gesture, though not in the spirit of compromise, I shall permit him to ignore the remainder of this section so that he may refresh himself and prepare for Part VII.
• • •
If a man were called upon to compile a list of the afflictions that beset our frail species using TV commercials as his only guide, he would possibly cite constipation as foremost. Whether this reflects reality or the fathomless cynicism of advertising executives is irrelevant so long as the Truth is unveiled: no one needs the snake oil exalted in these depraved spiels.
As often as I, Petronius Jablonski, historian and philosopher, experience the sorrows of irregularity, I turn only to the soothing wrought by a triple espresso brewed from French Roast beans. Its efficacy is not in doubt. The only pertinent question is whether a man will have enough time for a vigorous stroll with his Shi Tzu before the mighty depuration descends on him with fateful imminence. On two occasions I experienced firsthand how the triple espresso is a force far greater than the will of man. On both, the insistence of an inexorable power altered our habitual walk, necessitating an emergency stop in Mr. Burzinski’s bushes (and on one of those in the face of his earnest objections).
In summary: this munificent, mind-expanding gift of Nature enjoys my adoring and impassioned endorsement.
VII:
An Act of Libidinous Union is Interrupted by a Pterodactyl, I Withstand the Ravages of Tetrahydrocannabinol, Critique a Monument, Expound Upon the Perfect Government, and Reflect Upon the Night I Met Sandy but Instead Summon the Fairy Gobbler
Hieronymus sat at the table with a fork in one fist and a knife in the other, waiting for his steak and eggs. “That adorable little bird is singing again, just listen to him,” my mother said.
Pressing my face against the window, I caught a glimpse of the merciless beast in our apple tree. Covered with mangy feathers crimson like blood, he jerked his head spasmodically, not unlike most rock “singers.” I gave the window a few good raps and he departed, flying up to the clouds to madden the gods, permitting me to enjoy my breakfast in silence. The chirping had a definite pattern (which is not, contrary to rock “musicians,” the same thing as a melody) and he repeated it interminably. The hideous tweeting carpet-bombed our helpless neighborhood each morning.
Later that wonderful day, the iron paw of Justice expedited the decession of this airborne tyrant. Our magnificent cat, Titus Andronicus, apprehended the adorable little songbird. Hieronymus tried to intercede but I admonished the child, using the episode to explicate the wisdom and justice of Nature. While the setting sun sent red plumes across the sky, our illustrious cat stood upon the feathered despot and looked to me. Seated atop our picnic table, I held out my fist and slowly pointed my thumb to the ground.
I awoke in the tent, smiling. I closed my eyes and tried to return home but the secret door had been locked until another happenstance opening dropped me through to some long forgotten locale.
Sandy crawled inside, possessed by a most pressing agenda. She disrobed and forcibly removed my clothing. Seizing my hand, she tried to pull me from the tent. I defied her guidance and feasted on the sight of her cherry-tomato nipples, their sensitivity not proportionate to their size: Mother Nature’s second most wondrous use of elasticity expanded the circumference and protuberance to breathtaking proportions.
“I checked the area. There’s no one around.”
Preferring a banquet to fast food, I resisted. She persevered until only one of my legs remained in the tent. “Let’s bring our clothes, just in —”
“We’ll be right outside,” she said, extracting me. “No one’s going to see.” And she led me to the middle of a clearing at least two-hundred yards away.
“Why don’t we just go on the interstate?” I said
, though the sensual overload from the cool breeze, wet grass, and sunshine registered immediately.
She grinned mischievously at me over her shoulder as she knelt down. I positioned myself behind her and we observed the redundant ritual decreed by the one mad emperor against whom there can be no uprising. O fleshly aggregate of life’s bliss and purpose, beauty and filth compounded, joyous mocker of our spiritual yearnings, derider of the innocent conviction that our lives are necessary — not the contingent by-product of hapless rutting brutes — you lack the magnificent finality of checkmate and its snowflake variance. The only point of your game is its perpetuation.
An earthquake crumbled the crust of my mind, pulverizing the shanties that make me different from the other animals. The misery of being human abated, sweet misery. I focused on the rhythmic squish and looked up to distract myself and beheld a pterodactyl flying over us. A truncheon of a neck connected its sickle-like beak and head to billowing leather sails. In its talons it carried a zebra and majestically soared beyond the horizon.
“By the gods.”
“Not yet,” Sandy pleaded, triangular muscles cresting across her back, her head touching the ground. The distraction turned what would have been a scherzo into the Tetralogy. (Nasty, brutish, and long is the goal.) What permutations can determine if the different patterns of ivory drops are finite or numberless? This celebration of Nature’s superfluous abundance, lacteous ropes lashed across an altar of tan skin, should it instill humility (there but for the grace of brute chance go we) or grandiosity (for each man born, a billion never exist)? We scurried back, Sandy scouting the land for voyeurs while I, my diminishing erection bouncing conspicuously, searched the heavens for reptilian predators.
Propped upon our elbows, we lay on our bellies with our heads outside the tent. I supplemented the post-coital euphoria with a cigarette and scuffled with thoughts of breakfast and flying lizards: ignoring the first, assessing the significance of the latter.
“I packed a huge joint in my bag,” said Sandy.
“Save it.”
“It’s going to be such a nice day,” she said with the mewling intonation of a pouty little girl.
“We shall return to the road immediately,” I said, ousting this option with the finality of death. An extrapolation demonstrated that I would soon be besieged with signs. To attend to them I required the full acquisition of my wits.
“Let’s just smoke a little bit,” she said, turning on her side and laying her thigh across my back, as though such crude bait could ensnare my immutable Reason.
“And spend the rest of the day in a stupor? Save it for a night when we have a motel. The trappings of civilization have a synergistic relationship with tetrahydrocannabinol.”
“Huh?”
“Hedonism is not a lifestyle for fools,” I said. “Robust and systematic gratification requires punctilious planning.”
“I don’t see what difference it makes. This isn’t about laying the metaphysical foundations of some worldview. I just want to get stoned.”
• • •
It did, of course, make a difference. An intoxicating plant, like an intoxicating beverage, provides a splendid means of unwinding at the end of the day. In addition to aphrodisiacal properties and the enhancement of music appreciation, it accommodates reflections on the day’s events while building a natural bridge to the land of Nod. It is not, however, akin to a piece of candy that one tosses into his mouth whenever the urge strikes. As always, a judicious application of the Golden Mean is called for, unless one is content to shuffle through life as a sluggard.
• • •
After we left the campground Mahler transformed the backseat into a leather-quilted thundercloud. With greater length than I recalled it possessing, the hood spread out in perfect alignment with the curvature of the earth; Shiva stood just out of view below the horizon. In my brittle condition I could not evade the conviction that my car was a cynosure of every eye on the interstate. I felt like a sorcerer traveling through a village of simple peasants. These ceaseless ruminations on the perceptions of others were not altogether pleasant.
“Catch a buzz?” laughed Sandy.
“Surely there exists a better description of this condition. It increases the ability to think about thinking. Regrettably I am inclined to doubt every insight it provides.”
“It’s not reliable like booze.”
“In vino veritas.”
Wracked with hunger pains, we stopped at a restaurant built inside a windmill. The waitress, messenger from an olfactory heaven seen only through dark glass on swinging doors, harbinger of ecstasy, herald of things hoped for, weaver of the thread connecting prayers made to prayers answered, was she not divine? I had the Lumberjack’s Stack of blueberry pancakes, a Three-Alarm Southwestern omelet, a plate of hash browns, a side order of bacon, two tofu logs I pilfered from Sandy — almost losing fingers in the process — and glasses of chocolate, banana, and strawberry milk. I only provide the list in full because the meal stands out as one of the fondest recollections of my odyssey. Perhaps there is significance in this. In the parking lot I affirmed the feast with a stentorian belch audible to a family eating outside McDonald’s two blocks away. Sandy, enchanted with our feast, made no effort to censure me.
Light traffic facilitated progress, but my morning indulgence necessitated a Siesta. We walked across the manicured lawn of a state park toward a giant statue. In a tourist’s brochure found in the restroom of a gas station, Sandy had read about some much-ballyhooed monument and insisted we see it.
“To what is this a tribute?” I said, watching two boys toss a Frisbee, reproaching myself for neglecting to pack one.
“America.”
“The whole star-spangled kit and caboodle or a specific theme?”
“The pamphlet’s in the car.”
Hedges encircled a giant eagle with wings spread. Sandy read the inscription. “I am Ozymandias, king of kings, look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.”
“Shelley was not one of the founding fathers. I do not think he was American.”
“It’s intimidating.”
“In terms of symbolic potency this is in the same deplorable league as the Phoenix. A more apropos monument would be a replica of a waiting room where an unruly throng tears through magazines and paces a narrow floor.”
“What are you talking about?”
“And instead of a doctor or dentist’s name inscribed above the receptionist’s desk, the word Tyranny would be emblazoned in red. Because that is all democracy is: the waiting room of tyranny.”
“Whatever,” she said, hoping to abort the simple truths growing inside me before they came forth in all their indomitable glory.
“A less abstract though equally appropriate monument would depict Washington, Franklin, Madison, and Jefferson on an elevated platform designed to resemble a cloud. Each would be covering his eyes and weeping at the melancholy spectacle depicted below: a platform strewn with feces where gargoyles shred what little remains of the ambitious constitution they helped birth. On the highest platform, also designed to resemble a cloud, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antonius Pious, and Marcus Aurelius would stand with their backs to the other platforms, refusing to even glance at how abysmally low mankind has fallen.”
“How do you really feel? Don’t hold back.”
“Of course, if financial matters impose a constraint, a simple monument could consist of two weasels — representing the beastly but indistinct political parties — engaged in a death-struggle for the control of a balloon, which would represent the utter vacuity of the culture.”
“Thank you so much for sharing that,” she said. An elderly couple had interrupted their sightseeing to listen. “Without your great opinions we’d all die.”
“Although, with a few alterations the current monument could be altered to something you would find edifying: a brave and mighty eagle mauling a citizen holding a bong, or a brave and mighty eagle stealing half of a man’s income,
which could be symbolized by —”
She seized my hand and led me away. “You’re embarrassing me.”
“Was I supposed to fall to my knees squealing in a fit of onanism? Am I forbidden any criticisms? Very well, we shall stick with the waiting room.”
“We should finish the rest of the joint.”
“No, no, no Sandy, not now. It alters the perception of time, stretching minutes like taffy. Concurrent with this, it instigates fruitless musings on the opinions of others and conjures forth a variety of worst-case scenarios.”
“You never told me it makes you paranoid.”
“Because it does not make me paranoid. It is simply an inferior choice for protracted drives. In the proper setting it is, beyond certainty, one of Mother Nature’s most brilliant and gracious inventions.”
“In the proper setting,” she mocked in soprano range. “The stuff doesn’t come with instructions.”
“Through the use of Reason one may access Mother Nature’s instructions: to be used for short cruises, the appreciation of Mahler’s symphonies, playing Frisbee with your Shi Tzu, and as an aphrodisiac. These are the proper and delightful applications of Mother Nature’s beneficent gift.”
“Where can we hide it? The smell will give it away. Can’t they seize your car if they find pot?”
“We can and will save it.”
• • •
As I sat beneath a tree the Frisbee zipped and unzipped the sky as it flew between the two boys. My foot went down but it was poorly embedded. Sandy plied me with all manner of sophistry until Reason, battered by flimsy but multitudinous arguments, abdicated. In the land of the free we cowered like frightened rabbits to ingest a benign plant.
Sandy lay near my feet, sunning herself. A Cheshire grin covered her face. “So what is it you want? Let me guess: an emperor, just like Rome.”
“One can admire what he does not fully agree with. For government, idleness is next to godliness. I dream of a libertarian emperor.”
The Annals Page 13
