“This place creeps me out,” said Sandy, surveying the desolation behind the panting wall of gloom. Hideous trees with branches like broken fingers obscenely clasped in prayer lined the mazy road, begging for mercy and receiving none from the void above. The dusty plain, cured of its crabgrass rash, stretched out with no horizons as though the earth did not curve beneath this forbidding land. “Is there another optical illusion here?”
“It would seem so,” I said, testing the tire iron for signs of weakness, the first in a series of prophylactic measures against the expansion of the Nineteenth Sensation. The landscape’s varying shades of gray radiated a peculiar and irritating luminosity akin to tarnished chrome reflecting the sun. A cloudless day would have necessitated a welding mask.
“Petronius, this’ll kill you. Check it out.”
“It is the abject simplicity of changing a tire that renders it so mind-bogglingly complicated. Please, silence.”
“We’re no more than a few minutes’ walk from where we drove in.”
“The road was a trifle serpentine.”
“A trifle? How many hours were we driving? What, are we going to stay on it forever?”
“Nothing lasts forever.”
“I could call triple A, but I don’t think they’d ever find this place.”
“If you must emasculate me, please apply chloroform, ether, or preferably nitrous oxide. Although …” I paused, engrossed in a thought that I placed on probation until its true import could be discerned. I stood next to her, squinting from the glare. “Anyone could find this place. The roads are neither hidden nor dangerous. Yet we are either alone or two of very few who have discovered it.”
“Who the hell would want to come here?” she said, rubbing her arms to scrape off the goose bumps. “I don’t know if you’ve ever made this connection, but popular places are usually fun places. This place sucks. Why do I feel like I’m freezing? Why is everything shining when it’s cloudy?”
“When you leave Cudahy you bid civilization adieu. You may wait in the car.”
“Really?”
“Truly. But do not bounce around or leave once the operation is in progress.”
She entered the backseat.
• • •
PPPPPPP
PPPPPPP
PPPPPPP
• • •
I positioned the jack before remembering that the lug nuts must be removed first, a harrowing escape from the tar pit of the Nineteenth Sensation. “Why is everything shining when it is cloudy?” I asked myself.
On the Superiority of Petronius’ Box to Plato’s Much-Ballyhooed Ring
Alas, the Reader has left the Nirvana of my Box to return to Heraclitus’ stream. If only it were a stream. Nay, Time is a waterfall splashing down on jagged rocks. The destruction of all condemned to that plunge is sealed.
The Reader prepares to turn back the page, to return to the haven of my Box. “I shall hide from the cruel executioner. Time will not look for me there. Sanctuary, Petronius’ Box, sanctuary.”
But it is too late. My Box permitted him to step out of time, not travel backwards in it. Surely he is not confusing my annals with some odious sci-fi trilogy. Perhaps in the addendum, appurtenance, excursus, postscript, supplement, or adjunct to my annals I will include another. Hopefully, with the bittersweet taste of my Box fresh in his mouth, he will not take such precious asylum for granted again.
The Reader’s desperation is understandable. The expanding universe of Time diminishes all men, shrinking them until they vanish. Given its infinitude and our insignificance, do we even exist now? Before and After, are they not the fanged jaws of an insatiable beast grinding us into nothing? Consider my cruel plight: though my nineteen sensations will one day be as familiar as anger, boredom, joy, and the rest, people will refer to them by number but with no reference to the tireless scholar who discovered and catalogued them. A vainglorious man would flail his fists at the heavens, galled by the generations who shall never pay their onerous debt of gratitude, but the philanthropist is paid in full by the satisfaction he takes from expanding mankind’s modest conceptual frontiers.
Now, to the task at hand. Plato’s brother, Glaucon, told a story about a ring that turned the wearer invisible. This was in pursuit of a question so obvious it scarcely merits stating: Do men behave themselves of their own accord or due to the observation of others? In the story, an invisible shepherd proceeds on an admirable course. Generations of philosophasters have held forth on the issues raised by this magic ring, all of them overlooking something fundamental, something conclusively resolved by my Box: a man capable of freezing Time could violate moral norms with immeasurably greater ease and comfort than an invisible man. In this respect, Plato’s Ring is the Pinto to the Fleetwood of Petronius’ Box.
The importance of my demonstration precludes a synopsis. Hopefully the lucidity and poise of my oration will cloak its volume. First, an invisible man, unlike a man operating outside of time, is not immune to the self-defense of his prey or even his own capture. If we raise the question of —
I bleed! A dagger in my back. Et tu “dear” Reader?
O Petronius, how could you tempt the Reader with your Box, a box more embryonic with calamities than Pandora’s. He stated his obsession, pointing to the object of his frothing mania as early as Part I, yet you trusted him. Verily, the vice of faith will be your ruin.
And what hath he wrought? Rather than detached observation in a timeless dimension, instead of savoring the Eden of permanence, the Reader, to use his own schoolyard dialect, “used Petronius’ Box to get his hands on Sandy’s.”
Frozen in time in the backseat she was as defenseless as a fawn. The subjugation of a non-consenting, non-animated partner is ineffable in its degeneracy. I hereby command the Reader to proceed forthwith to his liquor cabinet, pour a glass of whiskey, and throw it in his face. I challenge him to a duel.
The Prearranged Terms of Our Duel
In a manly society, the duel is the only certain means of keeping uncouth tongues and avaricious fingers in check. No gentleman refuses this call, only a poltroon. The non-negotiable conditions are as follows.
At dawn, the Reader will arrive at a pastoral valley with a velvet-lined mahogany box containing one .50 caliber pistol loaded with one bullet. A third and neutral party shall bring my annals in a rectangular sedan and place it on a post no more than one meter in height. The Reader is to take two-hundred and fourteen paces from the post, turn, and fire one shot.
If he misses, he is to put one bullet in the chamber, spin it, point the pistol at his foot, and fire. Should Fortune smile upon him, he may take one step, aim at my annals, and pull the trigger. If he misses or if there be no shot fired, he is to again turn the gun on his foot. In this fashion we shall find Justice. As a final gesture of magnanimity, he may postpone the duel until after he has read Part VXIII and my majestic epilogue.
Note well: if he misses my annals a fourteenth time he loses, thereby fully and unconditionally conceding his vileness and perversion. A duel is no game of rock-paper-scissors, but adjudication by the court of Fate. The man who walks away with a bullet hole can safely conclude that Her Honor has ruled against him. Perhaps the low watermark of our “culture” is the illegality of this appeal to otherworldly justice.
• • •
What’s this? The Reader, with the devil-may-care swagger of a man with nothing to lose (apropos, I suppose), questions the propriety of an epilogue?
Yes, some modern writers blanch at the use of preambles and epilogues. “If the text were written properly, neither is necessary,” they whine. “To tack something on as a hasty afterthought is naught but sloppiness, the dereliction of concision.”
Slender diaries of romantic conquests are the only experience these scribblers have of historical compendiums. (And I categorize these as “conquests” rather than “inexplicable examples of charity” out of graciousness.) An epilogue is not an afterthought, but a somber and concise reflectio
n, the distilled essence of all that has preceded. Am I to trust the Reader with composing one? Did Bruckner permit his cleaning lady to sprinkle notes on his symphonies?
When that final trumpet sounds, “So that my notable deeds shall not perish with Time, I, Petronius Jablonski, transcribed a crystalline testament of my fantastic odyssey. Bereft of pretense, biased only by the inflexible contours of reality, aflame with the desire to guide the Reader’s discovery of the exalted truths within, I now entrust these secrets to him,” the Reader, once he catches his breath, will not complain of “hasty afterthoughts” any more than the first audience of Beethoven’s Ninth complained of needless chorale parts.
Note well: the quote in the anterior paragraph was neither an actual part of the epilogue nor a crude approximation. It was merely a template used for purposes of exemplification. My epilogue, unprecedented in form and content, forged in the crucible of genius, cannot be contained or shaped by any mold.
• • •
Epilogue to the paragraph prior to the anterior two: The great Anton Bruckner did permit sundry morons to make changes to his symphonies, but this only reinforces my original point. A genius must shun contamination from inferior minds.
Essential Preparations for the Epilogue
Diplomacy dictates brevity. Observe the following. After finishing the triumphant Part XVIII, cosset yourself with a good night’s rest. With the golden beams of the morning sun filling the room and the final movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony resounding throughout the house, you, attired in a tuxedo, are to slowly read my epilogue. Rise to your feet concurrent with the first sentence of the final paragraph and —
What have we here? Who might you be? I see. Your churlish brother is off practicing his marksmanship (or, more likely, taking the midnight train out of town) and has left my annals untended. My Dear, these pensive reflections are not intended for the eyes of such a comely, sweet lass. But may I say that regardless of the unpleasantries between your dissolute brother and I — which, I assure you, will be resolved shortly — there exists no quarrel between us. On the contrary, there is no reason whatsoever that —
Calm yourself. Your eloquent defense of your brother leads me to wonder if all the while I have been attending to the wrong pupil. With a few terse sentences you have shown more insight, more roughhewn potential than he with his gales of blather and nitpicking.
No, I do not deny that he attended to my annals with due solemnity, but, between us, no man can rise above an impoverished aptitude. Flicka the horse would prove more malleable to the training of a scholar than your blockheaded brother.
I apologize. You provide a striking example of Eletius’ observation, “No beauty was as beautiful as her anger.” Of course you love him, but he heeded a call demanding powers far beyond his modest ken. My criticism is but thinly veiled sorrow. A teacher’s loss of a student can only be compared to a parent’s loss of a child. Who shall comfort me?
A Declaration of My Intentions Regarding the Reader’s Sister
O divine scintillation from the Reader’s sister. With a cheerful animation to that goddess’ shrine I come. Let the man who has won a comely damsel join my jubilant song. Let us all, with tumblers raised, praise —
By the gods. I took no advantage of her dear Reader, dear brother. Seduction is scarcely a zero-sum game. To oil the hinges of the day she may have enjoyed a fermented beverage or five, but I fail to see how —
Legal drinking age? What manner of oxymoron is that? My memory is telescopic, microscopic, and photographic and I cannot recall an interval of my life deprived of the divine lubricant (as though I would bow to the arbitrary decree of this despotic state). The Reader, mon plus cher frère, is urged to study the final pages of Part IX on the supremacy of free will. Animal magnetism, in conjunction with several fermented elixirs, may discombobulate this faculty, but they do not obliterate it. The Reader should remind himself that his sister, though I can scarcely believe it, is mortal.
It is understandable why he, mijn geliefde broer, given his deep sororal love, exhibits an irrational concern. But the seraphic wings he sprouts to look down upon her consensual, animated liaison presuppose an asymmetric standard: the hallmark of injustice and a stumbling block to her future happiness.
• • •
To Eros and Aphrodite I bend my knee. Let my song rise above the twinkling dome. To deities kind, indifferent, and flagitious, I proclaim my —
Either my ears deceive me or the Reader, il mio fratello caro, needs to get out more. His demarcation of “natural” from “unnatural” is quaint, but every whit as wrongheaded as all the others performed by those cowering behind this fig leaf. Rather than engage in the fool’s errand of separating the two, I shall posit a demarcation as tenable as the rest: an act is natural if it does not violate the laws of nature. As the Reader’s sister and I violated no laws of Newtonian or Relativistic physics, nothing unnatural occurred. Granted, this nudges more than a few actions to one side, but it is a welcome breath of sanity compared to the flatulent ravings of Natural Law theorists.
The only odd occurrence, but scarcely unnatural, involved an almost lethal encounter with the Reader’s cherished foil ball. The behemoth nearly crushed us. Mein faszinierender Bruder, your sister told me all about the curio. It seems we are birds of a feather. Like Nabokov with his butterflies, Utz with his pottery, and Karpov with his stamps, we seek order amidst chaos by means of our beloved collections. Why, without my library of Pre-Socratic philosophers, nineteenth century chess books, and my assemblage of antique firearms, I swear I would lose my mind.
Patronizing? By no means. A pleasing diversion is a pleasing diversion. To each his own, meu irmao sensivel, to each his own.
• • •
Through the prism of bliss I behold life anew. The invisible tendril connecting us all, spun from a loom we cannot see, now shines like gold. Tears of joy dissolve all questions, and my heart whispers things my mouth cannot speak. In my comely maiden’s arms I found —
Absolutely! That is a paradigmatic example of the First Petronius Sensation. I have underestimated you. Come, let us drink to bygones, dear Reader, eο αγαπημένος αδελφός μου, and watch the stream of Heraclitus disappear beneath the bridge.
“Hurrah for Jablonski!” the Reader, мой велемудрый брат, shouts ecstatically.
Indeed.
Appendix by Brian Bartul,
Including a Glossary of Terms
I don’t know why Petronius called me Buzzcut. I only had one haircut like that and it was for wrestling in tenth grade. He wrote his favorite quote from Wittgenstein in my notebook. “My world is limited by my language.” Petronius took this literally. He hoped that by labeling previously unnamed thoughts and sensations he’d not only expand the horizons of our language, but of reality.
I’ll start with the ones he forgot to add (you must have noticed there aren’t nineteen). I’m not sure why he did that. I think he left the best ones out.
THE SECOND PETRONIUS SENSATION: In his Exposition of the Manifold Horrors of Monogamy Volume VII, Petronius included a theorem that can be used to determine when a monogamous relationship reaches the point of diminishing returns based on the frequency of the Second Petronius Sensation: thoughts about someone else during intimate encounters. “All poor souls scourged by the dreadful tyrant of monogamy seek this sweet repose, but our shame prohibits us from coining a word for it, just like everyone gorges on Schadenfreude but we have to look to another language to find an expression.”
Unfortunately, my notes for the Second Sensation were drafted during a three night stand at a Cudahy tavern with a Bobby Darin CD in the jukebox. They’re badly stained by whiskey and scattered between and around the essays “On the Greatness of Mack the Knife,” “A Treatise on the Ontological Significance of Mack the Knife,” and “Towards an Exegesis of Mack the Knife.” The bartender begged me to get Petronius to stop playing “that damn song.” I explained that he would interpret that
as a violation of his first amendment rights, which would invariably result in his threatening to use his second amendment ones. The problem with the formulation of the theorem came from dissent on what the tipping point should be. Petronius said 1% but there was widespread dissent.
THE FIFTH PETRONIUS SENSATION: The Fifth Petronius Sensation is how “a man feels worse upon hearing of the suffering of animals than upon hearing of the suffering of humans. Our irrational guilt from this widespread phenomenon prevents us from even acknowledging it with an actual name.” Examples aren’t hard to come by. When you’re watching the morning news, chomping through breakfast while listening to stories about a multiple shooting here, a famine over there, a civil war here, “and then there is a story about some hideous cruelty inflicted upon a dog and a man drops his fork and grinds his teeth in rage, secretly demanding the most medieval punishments.” Few will openly acknowledge this sensation. Even when grieving for the loss of a pet, some people feel ashamed. Petronius thought such guilt was silly and misplaced. “The worst dog is better than all but a few humans.”
THE SIXTH PETRONIUS SENSATION: The Sixth Petronius Sensation is “a volatile admixture of nausea and ecstasy.” It was discovered as a result of his repeated encounters with the Fairy Gobbler. As many times as he’d swear he’d “never, ever cover myself in filth from that ghastly creature again,” I’d see his Catalina parked outside Dick & Debbie’s. “She offends me at every conceivable level: aesthetic, intellectual, and moral, yet the repugnance and remorse are positively intoxicating. Indeed, beyond a certain point, shame and revulsion become a heady pleasure.”
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