The remedy is here but so is the malady. As Fat repeats obsessively, "The Empire never ended." In a startling response to the crisis, the true God mimics the universe, the very region he has invaded: he takes on the likeness of sticks and trees and beer cans in gutters—he presumes to be trash discarded, debris no longer noticed. Lurking, the true God literally ambushes reality and us as well. God, in very truth, attacks and injures us, in his role as antidote. As Fat can testify to, it is a scary experience to be bushwhacked by the Living God. Hence we say, the true God is in the habit of concealing himself. Twenty-five hundred years have passed since Heraclitus wrote, "Latent form is the master of obvious form," and, "The nature of things is in the habit of concealing itself."
So the rational, like a seed, lies concealed within the irrational bulk. What purpose does the irrational bulk serve? Ask yourself what Gloria gained by dying; not in terms of her death vis-à-vis herself but in terms of those who loved her. She paid back their love with—well, with what? Malice? Not proven. Hate? Not proven. With the irrational? Yes; proven. In terms of the effect on her friends—such as Fat—no lucid purpose was served but purpose there was: purpose without purpose, if you can conceive of that. Her motive was no motive. We're talking about nihilism. Under everything else, even under death itself and the will towards death, lies something else and that something else is nothing. The bedrock basic stratum of reality is irreality; the universe is irrational because it is built not on mere shifting sand—but on that which is not.
No help to Fat to know this: the why of Gloria's taking him with her—or doing her best to—when she went "Bitch," he could have said if he could have grabbed her. "Just tell me why; why the fucking why?" To which the universe would hollowly respond, "My ways cannot be known, oh man." Which is to say, "My ways do not make sense, nor do the ways of those who dwell in me."
The bad news coming down the pipe for Fat was mercifully still unknown to him, at this point, at the time of his discharge from North Ward. He could not return to Beth, so who could he return to, when he hit the outside world? In his mind, during his stay at North Ward, Sherri, who was in remission from her cancer, had faithfully visited him. Therefore Fat had engrammed onto her, believing that if he had one true friend in all the world it was Sherri Solvig. His plan had unfolded like a bright star: he would live with Sherri, helping to keep up her morale during her remission, and if she lost her remission, he would care for her as she had cared for him during his time in the hospital.
In no sense had Dr. Stone cured Fat, when the motor driving Fat got later exposed. Fat homed in on death more rapidly and more expertly this time than he had ever done before. He had become a professional at seeking out pain; he had learned the rules of the game and now knew how to play. What Fat in his lunacy—acquired from a lunatic universe; branded so by Fat's own analysis—sought was to be dragged down along with someone who wanted to die. Had he gone through his address book he could not have yielded up a better source than Sherri, "Smart move, Fat," I would have told him if I had known what he was planning for his future, during his stay at North Ward. "You've really scored this time." I knew Sherri; I knew she spent all her time trying to figure out a way to lose her remission. I knew that because she expressed fury and hatred, constantly, at the doctors who had saved her. But I did not know what Fat had planned. Fat kept it a secret, even from Sherri. I will help her, Fat said to himself in the depths of his fried mind. I will help Sherri stay healthy but if and when she gets sick again, there I will be at her side, ready to do anything for her.
His error, when deconstructed, amounted to this: Sherri did not merely plan to get sick again; she like Gloria planned to take as many people with her as possible—in direct proportion to their love toward her. Fat loved her and, worse, felt gratitude towards her. Out of this clay, Sherri could throw a pot with the warped kickwheel she used as a brain that would smash what Leon Stone had done, smash what Stephanie had done, smash what God had done. Sherri had more power in her weakened body than all these other entities combined, including the living God.
Fat had decided to bind himself to the Antichrist. And out of the highest possible motives: out of love, gratitude and the desire to help her.
Exactly what the powers of hell feed on: the best instincts in man.
***
Sherri Solvig, being poor, lived in a tiny rundown room with no kitchen; she had to wash her dishes in the bathroom sink. The ceiling showed a vast water stain, from a toilet upstairs which had overflowed. Having visited her there a couple of times Fat knew the place and considered it depressing. He had the impression that if Sherri moved out and into a nice appartment, a modern one, and with a kitchen, her spirits would pick up.
Needless to say, the realization had never penetrated to Fat's mind that Sherri sought out this kind of abode. Her dingy surroundings came as a result of her affliction, not as a cause; she could recreate these conditions wherever she went—which Fat eventually discovered.
At this point in time, however, Fat had geared up his mental and physical assembly line to turn out an endless series of good acts toward the person who, before all other persons, had visited him in the cardiac intensive care ward and later at North Ward. Sherri had official documents declaring her a Christian. Twice a week she took communion and one day she would enter a religious order. Also, she called her priest by his first name. You cannot get any closer to piety than that.
A couple of times Fat had told Sherri about his encounter with God. This hadn't impressed her, since Sherri Solvig believed that one encounters God only through channels. She herself has access to these channels, which is to say her priest Larry.
Once Fat had read to Sherri from the Britannica about the "secrecy theme" in Mark and Matthew, the idea that Christ veiled his teachings in parable form so that the multitude—that is, the many outsiders—would not understand him and so would not be saved. Christ, according to this view or theme, intended salvation only for his little flock. The Britannica discussed this up front.
"That's bullshit," Sherri said.
Fat said, "You mean this Britannica is wrong or the Bible is wrong? The Britannica is just—"
"The Bible doesn't say that," Sherri said, who read the Bible all the time, or at least had a copy of it always with her.
It took Fat hours to find the citation in Luke; finally he had it, to set before Sherri:
"His disciples asked him what this parable might mean, and he said, 'The mysteries of the kingdom of God are revealed to you, for the rest there are only parables, so that they might see but not perceive, listen but not understand.'"
(Luke 8:9/10)
"I'll ask Larry if that's one of the corrupt parts of the Bible," Sherri said.
Pissed off, Fat said irritably, "Sherri, why don't you cut out all the sections of the Bible you agree with and paste them together? And not have to deal with the rest."
"Don't be snippy," Sherri said, who was hanging up clothes in her tiny closet.
Nonetheless, Fat imagined that basically he and Sherri shared a common bond. They both agreed that God existed; Christ had died to save man; people who didn't believe this didn't know what was going on. He had confided to her that he had seen God, news which Sherri received placidly (at that moment she had been ironing).
"It's called a theophany," Fat said. "Or an epiphany."
"An epiphany," Sherri said, pacing her voice to the rate of her slow ironing, "is a feast celebrated on January sixth, marking the baptism of Christ. I always go. Why don't you go? It's a lovely service. You know, I heard this joke—" She droned on. Hearing this, Fat was mystified. He decided to change the subject; now Sherri had switched to an account of an instance when Larry—who was Father Minter to Fat—had poured the sacramental wine down the front of a kneeling female communicant's low-cut dress.
"Do you think John the Baptist was an Essene?" he asked Sherri.
Never at any time did Sherri Solvig admit she didn't know the answer to a theological question;
the closest she came surfaced in the form of responding, "I'll ask Larry." To Fat she now said calmly. "John the Baptist was Elijah who returns before Christ comes. They asked Christ about that and he said John the Baptist was Elijah who had been promised."
"But was he an Essene."
Pausing momentarily in her ironing, Sherri said, "Didn't the Essenes live in the Dead Sea?"
"Well, at the Qumran Wadi."
"Didn't your friend Bishop Pike die in the Dead Sea?"
Fat had known Jim Pike, a fact he always proudly narrated to people given a pretext. "Yes," he said. "Jim and his wife had driven out onto the Dead Sea Desert in a Ford Cortina. They had two bottles of Coca-Cola with them; that's all."
"You told me," Sherri said, resuming her ironing.
"What I could never figure out," Fat said, "is why they didn't drink the water in the car radiator. That's what you do when your car breaks down in the desert and you're stranded." For years Fat had brooded about Jim Pike's death. He imagined that it was somehow tied in with the murders of the Kennedys and Dr. King, but he had no evidence whatsoever for it.
"Maybe they had anti-freeze in their radiator," Sherri said.
"In the Dead Sea Desert?"
Sherri said, "My car has been giving me trouble, the man at the Exxon station on Seventeenth says that the motor mounts are loose. Is that serious?"
Not wanting to talk about Sherri's beat-up old car but wanting instead to rattle on about Jim Pike, Fat said, "I don't know." He tried to think how to get the topic back to his friend's perplexing death but could not.
"That damn car," Sherri said.
"You didn't pay anything for it; that guy gave it to you."
"'Didn't pay anything'? He made me feel like he owned me for giving me that damn car."
"Remind me never to give you a car," Fat said.
All the clues lay before him that day. If you did something for Sherri she felt she should feel gratitude—which she did not—and this she interpreted as a burden, a despised obligation. However, Fat had a ready rationalization for this, which he had already begun to employ. He did not do things for Sherri to get anything back; ergo, he did not expect gratitude. Ergo, if he did not get it that was okay.
What he failed to notice was that not only was there no gratitude (which he could psychologically handle) but downright malice showed itself instead, Fat had noted this but had written it off as nothing more than irritability, a form of impatience. He could not believe that someone would return malice for assistance. Therefore he discounted the testimony of his senses.
Once, when I lectured at the University of California at Fullerton, a student asked me for a short, simple definition of reality. I thought it over and answered, "Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away."
Fat did not believe that Sherri returned malice for assistance given her. But that failure to believe changed nothing. Therefore her response lay within the framework of what we call "reality." Fat, whether he liked it or not, would in some way have to deal with it, or else stop seeing Sherri socially.
One of the reasons Beth left Fat stemmed from his visits to Sherri at her rundown room in Santa Ana. Fat had deluded himself into believing that he visited her out of charity. Actually he had become horny, due to the fact that Beth had lost interest in him sexually and he was not, as they say, getting any. In many ways Sherri struck him as pretty; in fact Sherri was pretty; we all agreed. During her chemotherapy she wore a wig. David had been fooled by the wig and often complimented her on her hair, which amused her. We regarded this as macabre, on both their parts.
In his study of the form that masochism takes in modern man, Theodor Reik puts forth an interesting view. Masochism is more widespread than we realize because it takes an attenuated form. The basic dynamism is as follows: a human being sees something bad which is coming as inevitable. There is no way he can halt the process; he is helpless. This sense of helplessness generates a need to gain some control over the impending pain—any kind of control will do. This makes sense; the subjective feeling of helplessness is more painful than the impending misery. So the person seizes control over the situation in the only way open to him: he connives to bring on the impending misery; he hastens it. This activity on his part promotes the false impression that he enjoys pain. Not so. It is simply that he cannot any longer endure the helplessness or the supposed helplessness. But in the process of gaining control over the inevitable misery he becomes, automatically, anhedonic (which means being unable or unwilling to enjoy pleasure). Anhedonia sets in stealthily. Over the years it takes control of him. For example, he learns to defer gratification; this is a step in the dismal process of anhedonia. In learning to defer gratification he experiences a sense of self-mastery; he has become stoic, disciplined; he does not give way to impulse. He has control. Control over himself in terms of his impulses and control over the external situation. He is a controlled and controlling person. Pretty soon he has branched out and is controlling other people, as part of the situation. He becomes a manipulator. Of course, he is not consciously aware of this; all he intends to do is lessen his own sense of impotence. But in his task of lessening this sense, he insidiously overpowers the freedom of others. Yet, he derives no pleasure from this, no positive psychological gain; all his gains are essentially negative.
Sherri Solvig had had cancer, lymphatic cancer, but due to valiant efforts by her doctors she had gone into remission. However, encoded in the memory-tapes of her brain was the datum that patients with lymphoma who go into remission usually eventually lose their remission. They aren't cured; the ailment has somehow mysteriously passed from a palpable state into a sort of metaphysical state, a limbo. It is there but it is not there. So despite her current good health, Sherri (her mind told her) contained a ticking clock, and when the clock chimed she would die. Nothing could be done about it, except the frantic promotion of a second remission. But even if a second remission were obtained, that remission, too, by the same logic, the same inexorable process, would end.
Time had Sherri in its absolute power. Time contained one outcome for her: terminal cancer. This is how her mind had factored the situation out; it had come to this conclusion, and no matter how good she felt or what she had going for her in her life, this fact remained a constant. A cancer patient in remission, then, represents a stepped-up case of the status of all humans; eventually you are going to die.
In the back of her mind, Sherri thought about death ceaselessly. Everything else, all people, objects and processes had become reduced to the status of shadows. Worse yet, when she contemplated other people she contemplated the injustice of the universe. They did not have cancer. This meant that, psychologically speaking, they were immortal. This was unfair. Everyone had conspired to rob her of her youth, her happiness and eventually her life; in place of those, everyone else had piled infinite pain on her, and probably they secretly enjoyed it. "Enjoying themselves" and "enjoying it" amounted to the same evil thing. Sherri, therefore, had motivation for wishing that the whole world would go to hell in a handbasket.
Of course, she did not say this aloud. But she lived it. Due to her cancer she had become totally anhedonic. How can one deny the sense in this? Logically, Sherri should have squeezed every moment of pleasure out of life during her remission, but the mind does not function logically, as Fat had figured out. Sherri spent her time anticipating the loss of her remission.
In this respect she did not postpone gratification; she enjoyed her returning lymphoma now.
Fat couldn't make this complex mental process out. He only saw a young woman who had suffered a lot and who had been dealt a bum hand. He reasoned that he could improve her life. That was a good thing to do. He would love her, love himself and God would love the both of them. Fat saw love, and Sherri saw impending pain and death over which she had no control. There can be no meeting of such two different worlds.
In summary (as Fat would say), the modern-day masochist does not enjoy pain; he
simply can't stand being helpless. "Enjoying pain" is a semantic contradiction, as certain philosophers and psychologists have pointed out. "Pain" is defined as something that you experience as unpleasant. "Unpleasant" is defined as something you don't want. Try to define it otherwise and see where it gets you. "Enjoying pain" means "enjoying what you find unpleasant." Reik had the handle on the situation; he decoded the true dynamism of modern attenuated masochism ... and saw it spread out among almost all of us, in one form or another and to some degree. It has become an ubiquity.
One could not correctly accuse Sherri of enjoying cancer. Or even wanting to have cancer. But she believed that cancer lay in the deck of cards in front of her, buried somewhere in the pack; she turned one card over each day, and each day cancer failed to show up. But if that card is in the pack and you are turning the cards over one by one eventually you will turn the cancer card over, and there it ends.
So, through no real fault of her own, Sherri was primed to fuck Fat over as he had never been fucked over before. The difference between Gloria Knudson and Sherri was obvious; Gloria wanted to die for strictly imaginary reasons. Sherri would literally die whether she wanted to or not. Gloria had the option to cease playing her malignant death-game any time she psychologically wished, but Sherri did not. It was as if Gloria, upon smashing herself to bits on the pavement below the Oakland Synanon Building, had been reborn twice the size with twice the mental strength. Meanwhile, Beth's leaving with Christopher had whittled Horselover Fat down to half his normal size. The odds did not favor a sanguine outcome.
The actual motivation in Fat's head for feeling attracted to Sherri was the locking-in onto death which had begun with Gloria. But, imagining that Dr. Stone had cured him, Fat now sailed out into the world with renewed hope—sailed unerringly into madness and death; he had learned nothing. True, the bullet had been pulled from his body and the wound healed. But he was primed for another, eager for another. He couldn't wait to move in with Sherri and save her.
The VALIS Trilogy Page 8
