I reined in my thoughts and demanded answers, hoping that by negating the cause I could negate the effect. “How did this happen to me?”
The rejoinder overcame me like a fever. “It was those vile Banana Giraffes. No, what were they? Cantaloupe Antelopes? Molasses Elephants? Pineapple Rhinos? Whatever they were, those things bruise a man’s soul. Nausea and dizzy-spells are one thing: insignificant in comparison to the treasures reaped during a night spent irrigating oneself. This, however, is not.”
Certain that conventional therapies would prove ineffectual, I channeled the ever-soothing voice of Reason to pontificate on the virtue of fortitude. “Time heals all wounds. Consider the hangovers of Vespasian: Where are they now? Time is the only unfailing defense, your staunchest ally, the boat that shall deliver you across this Styx.”
A thought split my head like an axe, mortally wounding my invisible mentor: What is Time? The currency of this word-shield is universal, but when one peers behind it what does he see? The abstruse gibbering of a patent clerk? The bafflegab of a seminarian from Heidelberg? Nothing at all?
I closed my eyes, hiding from rattling questions, focusing on the operations of the mysterious theatre, preparing to find and follow a familiar path. “If there is any place to turn for comfort, it is within,” I said. (In accord with one prominent theory that posits the existence of “walls” preventing some parts of the mind from directly communicating with others, soliloquies are necessary to ensure that all sectors receive information of unique importance. Correspondingly, interior monologues are the only reliable means of hiding sensitive information from untrustworthy agents. For the pursuit of Quietude, I have found it beneficial to have all hands on deck, whereas secret plans and fantasies are best kept behind non-verbal doors). “After all, does not Quietude spring from a man’s rational faculty? When he goes deep within, is that not his true home, the only refuge from the savage spears thrust by the bloodthirsty hordes of Fate? Certainly.”
Confident my brutal sojourn was at an end, that I had finally found a road out of the alien badlands, I embarked down sacred but well-trod paths. My reflections began in earnest but thickets covered the ground, causing me to stumble and lose my way. I found myself alone in a dark forest where creatures with shining eyes growled and squealed and laughed and whispered. As my thoughts assailed me I cried, “What in the world are these things?”
The dark forest within was as odd as the blaze above or the grains below and I despaired of finding solace. “Everything is strange, fundamentally unfathomable, alien and obscure. And there is nothing to cling to for diversion once the familiarity is stripped. Only this is hidden from us. Born into the strangeness, a very part of it, few of us are ever confronted by it. Mother Nature protects her children from explicit sights the same way human parents do. Perhaps this is for the best. Such a glimpse conveys no obvious benefits and is debilitating while it lasts. Anyone unfortunate enough to see it on a regular basis could never go about his business. His life would come to a halt while he groped along like an infant asking, ‘What is it?’ The word-shields covering things do not explain them.”
Convinced that the unknown without was the lesser of two terrors, I opened my eyes. The molten ball seemed brighter and in a slightly different locale. The question of how this happened sliced me like a sickle, as did the question of how I could ask the question, as did the question of what is a question.
Hoping to break the spell, I looked at my feet. They knocked together, then the right one bobbed on its heel. The question of how I accomplished this sent me reeling. Like a man who walks the same path for decades and one day discovers that its steps and variegated rock formations are the fossilized remains of monstrous beasts, I squirmed from the sudden realization of something obvious yet not obvious: I hadn’t the foggiest idea how my body functioned, how I willed it this way or that.
All this time the tiny beings had continued their errands, ignoring the blaze above and the strangeness of the grains they carried in their strange little mouths to build their strange little castles. They worked in their garden, arranging each inexplicable particle and scurrying off for more.
“Thus they live,” I said with more than a trace of envy. “And they work like this until they die, blissfully free from ever knowing how weird everything is, including them. Lucky little bugs,” I told them. “You were not drinking Pineapple Possums last night and you have no idea how strange —”
“Who the fuck are you talking to?” asked a voice, a sweet familiar voice. Beneath a familiar face, a familiar lithe body walked toward me through the grass.
“I may have discovered a new species of ant,” I said. “Buzzcut is a budding endocrinologist. This will delight him.”
I did not care if she pressed the issue. The relief I felt was as soothing as the combined negative results of all the do-it-yourself pregnancy tests she had ever taken. (Also, a man should never feel ashamed of gratifying himself with his own conversation. Frequently his company is superior to that of others. Should he therefore shun his own scintillating discourse at the behest of imbecilic mores? This of course equally pertains to singing, dancing, and other forms of gratification.)
“Entomologist, doofus. Where the hell are we?”
Panic slithered up my back. Where indeed? In the solar system, but where is that? In the universe, but what is that?
“Cease this folly and gird yourself,” Reason commanded, closing the valve on this septic flow. Though the worst of the hangover had passed, I resolved to remain alert for relapses.
“I don’t remember us pulling in here. I must have slept like a rock. Petronius, are you okay?”
No longer estranged from that which is most familiar, as my spiritual mentor, Heraclitus, once phrased it, I welcomed back my old friends: the ground, the sky, my feet, my thoughts.
“Seriously. Are you okay?”
“What do you last remember before waking up?” I said.
“Driving. Why?”
“Just curious. After experiencing some troubles concentrating I had to pull over.”
“How far from the road are we?”
“Somewhere between a quarter mile and twenty.”
“It’s good that you drive when you’re exhausted,” she said, patting my knee.
“Nonsense. Driving is controlled by the most primitive part of the brain, the last to succumb to fatigue.”
“The reptilian part?”
“Of course.”
“Why can’t lizards drive?”
“In theory, a Komodo dragon could, probably better than you, but such an experiment is patently unethical insofar as it would subject that regal creature to the potential indignities of an automobile accident.”
“How much farther is this place?”
“How much further is this place. We are closer now than we were yesterday and much closer than we were three days ago.”
“We’ve had a nice time. Maybe we should head home. You know, just hang out. Hey, let’s get that whirlpool suite again. We’ll chill out for a while. Just me and you.”
Her eyes had the emotional depth and breadth of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf’s voice. While she spoke of going home, they cross-examined me but absent any search for guilt, as though they did not want to find what they sought.
“You don’t know where we are, do you?” Her eyes indicated she already knew the answer and it terrified her.
“It was dark when we pulled in.”
“Do you know where we’re going?” Her eyes begged me to say yes.
“Of course,” I said, trying to sound offended or at least surprised.
“The new owner of your Bonneville said this is a cool place to check out, right?”
I winced, hoping to nip this inquiry in the bud. “Very cool indeed. And we can hang out or chill out or space out once we leave.”
“But what is it? A campground? A theme park?”
“Mr. Horn’s descriptions could best be described as ambiguous, but exactitude is not essent
ial. Much like life itself, the final destination is irrelevant. Preeminent is a luxurious and agreeable ride.” I stood, stretched, and forfended a swell of vertigo. I took her hand and pulled her up.
“You know you can tell me anything. You know that, don’t you? There’d be no shame in admitting you’re having problems — if you were.”
“Speak for yourself. And may the gods consign this whole foul epoch and those perverse transvaluations straight to the underworld.” I headed to my car and examined it for any residual tavernesque features. At the helm I checked the wheel for shards of salt and ensured that all buttons controlling my throne functioned. Shiva stood on the horizon. I smiled. My car started without a sound and mastered the severe topography. I drove past the familiar tree and haphazardly made my way to a road that took us to the highway.
While the reptilian functionaries of my brain dealt with traffic-related details, I could not refrain from meditations concerning the incongruity between what a reasonable man could expect and what had in fact happened. On an odyssey where I watched a pterodactyl clutching a zebra and beheld a town of ghosts (among countless other curiosities), the strangest part of all was the morning I saw the sun and the earth and thought my thoughts. The road twisted into a corkscrew. I put on my shades and lowered the visor.
XIII:
We are Vexed by Incomprehensible Signs, I Expound Upon the Origin of the Shi Tzu; and Introduce my Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Sensations
“You know what else was fascinating about the pond’s book?” said Sandy, somehow laboring under the misapprehension that after hours of her painstaking reiteration I still cared. Had I been driving any other car I would have jumped out the window and taken my chances with the pavement. The only thing worse than reading contemporary fiction is hearing an enthusiast gush over it. In the former case a man can simply hurl the book in the trash and gladden his heart with real literature from the eighteenth century. In the latter case, after the calamity of feigning interest he may have to brave a lingering storm.
“The narrative arc. It reminded me of —”
“Narrative arc,” I cried in agony. “My kingdom for bourbon. Please use your cell phone to call my house. Request from my mother a complete account of Zeus’ adventures today. Remember them with the same death grip in which you clutched every semicolon from the pond’s book, then relay the story to me.”
“Why don’t I just hit the number and give you the phone?”
“Because it is an infernal device.”
“That’s a rather odd view for you,” she said, digging through her purse.
“The telephone is Quietude’s greatest foe. Proust did not care for them either. They remind me of the delightful story of the wise Chinese emperor and the flying machine. The inventor breathlessly told him about it, apparently believing all progress is good. The emperor, realizing the vile contraption’s potential for evil, had him put to death and the machine destroyed. If only Bell had stood before me with his nefarious device.” I smiled, stretched my arm to tap my fingers on the side-view mirror, and watched the trees rushing past in front of the moon.
“Mrs. Jablonski? Hey, it’s me …We’re good … No, he’s being mostly nice. How’s puppy Zeus?”
• • •
During Sandy’s interminable disquisition on the book, I managed to make major progress on my revolutionary thesis regarding the genesis of the Shi Tzu. I empathize but disagree with the Reader’s pragmatic reaction.
“Scholar, of what import is their origin? One can scarcely accommodate the joy and gratitude their company invokes, much less murky historical references. If the phylogenic tree bore any resemblance to reality, man and Shi Tzu would stand coequal, far above monkeys and dolphins. The dog may be our best friend, but the Shi Tzu is our allegiant peer. What more needs to be said?”
Dear Reader, knowledge of Shi Tzu history is an intrinsic good and thanks to my fruitful meditations is murky no more. According to the traditional legend, Tibetan Buddhist monks bred them to resemble lions. Folklore alleged that the Buddha traveled with a little dog who could transform itself into one. This is suspect for six reasons. First, Buddha was a great philosopher, perhaps the first rigorous empiricist; he was not a wizard. The urge to deify great philosophers can be very strong, but Hume and Schopenhauer should be the first choices. (It is not impossible that one day legends about Zeus and I will abound, starting innocently as factual accounts of our daily wanderings through Pulaski Park and growing into wild tales of his metamorphosis to a great cosmic yak.)
Second and most importantly, the Shi Tzu does not look anything like a lion. How to account for the discrepancy between the traditional legend and the contemporary reality? I here offer four plausible accounts. The most tenable was conceived during Sandy’s exposition, the deliriant properties of which rendered me more prolific than an oracle.
It is conceivable that the monks began with sincere intentions of breeding lion dogs, which they presented as oblations to the Chinese emperor (perhaps the great man who destroyed the flying machine). The folklore surrounding magic pups probably intrigued him. Different sects of monks, not unlike car dealers hoping to allure customers, vied for his favor.
As we all know, craftsmanship leaves when the bottom line enters. Breeding became sloppy. At least one sect of monks lost its tenuous grasp of teleology. When quantity replaced quality, as it invariably does, they produced a batch of dogs not only distinct from, but superior to the lion dogs of their competitors.
“But how could such dogs be presented to the emperor?” the Reader asks.
Beyond certainty, the following conversation occurred (in Mandarin, of course).
“These dogs you present to me, they look not like lions,” the emperor says, stroking his long wispy beard as he scrutinizes two puppies playing at his feet.
The nervous monk, dreading this response all the way from his mountainous village and through the palace strewn with Shi Tzu poo, experiences the first in a series of life-saving inspirations. “No, your highness,” he says with a deep bow. The palace eunuchs inhale in unison. “These two are not lion dogs.”
“They are not?” the emperor asks in justified horror. To defile the breed is a crime against the emperor, the Buddha, and a harbinger of certain doom.
“They are yak dogs, highness,” the monk says. With head still bowed he sees the feet of the guards approach the throne. “Highness, the yak has true Buddha-nature and is the persevering friend of man.”
Eunuchs and guards stand immobile but their eyes bounce wildly, seeking attestation from one another. Within the context of another religion, such talk would be deemed blasphemous.
“And the lion?” says the emperor. The creases across his forehead bode ill for all three visitors.
“The lion is holy, highness,” the monk says, trying to ignore white sparkles twinkling around the hem of his red robe. They subside with deep breaths. “But he spends his days in indolence, sleeping and fornicating. He is not the friend of man; he eats man. The yak spends his life humbly lessening backbreaking toil. And like the Buddha, the yak causes no sentient being to suffer. The lion, despite his holiness, inflicts terrible suffering on sentient creatures every day of his life.”
“How is it I have never heard this teaching?” says the emperor.
“Highness, teachings are so many that a thousand monks in a thousand years could not learn them all.”
One of the little yaks pees on the emperor’s foot. The monk closes his eyes. He opens them at the sound of gasps. The emperor is on his knees, delicately petting the puppies. “Go, wise monk, bring me more yak dogs.”
• • •
“What the hell is that thing?”
The elaborately lit billboard reminded me of the opening night of an outlandish Broadway spectacle, except nothing accompanied it. The metallic surface, swept by floodlights, had the glare of reflectors on a bike. Abstruse markings insinuated grave importance — at least to Sandy.
“Slow down,” sh
e said. “What does that mean?”
“Cliff ahead?”
“I don’t remember anything like that from driver’s ed.”
“And I would? Did Poseidon study oceanography? Tell me of Zeus.”
“Puppy Zeus is fine,” she said, kneeling on her seat to watch the garish menace to traffic fade from view. “Your mom took him for a walk today.”
“Did he defecate?”
“Yes. Twice. She said she didn’t have a bag to pick up the second one but she’s going to send Hieronymus to get it tomorrow.”
“Where did the second defecation occur?”
“Seriously?”
“Call again and ask to speak with Hieronymus. If the second defecation occurred on Mr. Burzinski’s property, tell him he is not to touch it.”
“Hieronymus and Petronius: that’s too funny.”
“As opposed to an adjective describing the nature of a beach. Yes, how funny of my father to name his sons after a great artist and writer rather than something innovatory like John, Mike, Dave, or Steve.”
• • •
During Sandy’s relentless synopsis of the book, after I brilliantly resolved the question of why the Shi Tzu retains a name meaning “lion dog” even after it was recognized as a yak dog, a fascinating argument, compelled by the subject of teleology, seized my attention:
The Impossibility of Creating Anything From Scratch
Before X can be created, there must exist the idea of X. For example, the monks who bred lion dogs had paintings to work with, a clear conceptual goal.
To have an idea of X, X or something similar must exist in some form. Ideas, be they of lions or anything else, do not arise from thin air.
Therefore: Nothing could be created out of the blue, from scratch, or ex nihilo, as monotheists assert.
The Annals Page 22
