The Illuminatus! Trilogy Part 15

"Put your hand on your p.u.s.s.y and listen," said August Personage. "I'd like to lift your dress and-" Rebecca hung up.

She suddenly remembered the hit when the needle went in, and all those wasted years. Saul had saved her from that, and now Saul was gone and strange voices on the phone talked of s.e.x the way addicts talked of junk. "In the beginning of all things was Mummu, the spirit of pure Chaos. In the beginning was the Word, and it was written by a baboon." Rebecca Goodman, twenty-five years old, started to cry. If he's dead, she thought, these years have been wasted, too. Learning to love. Learning that s.e.x was more than another kind of junk. Learning that tenderness was more than a word in the dictionary: that it was just what D. H. Lawrence said, not an embellishment on s.e.x but the center of the act. Learning what that poor guy on the phone could never guess, as most people in this crazy country never guessed it. And then losing it, losing it to an aimless bullet fired from a blind gun somewhere.

August Personage, about to leave the phone booth at the Automat on Fortieth Street and the Avenue of the Americas, catches a flash of plastic on the floor. Bending, he picks up a p.o.r.nographic tarot card, which he quickly shoves into a pocket to be examined at leisure later.

It was the Five of Pentacles.

And, when the throne room was empty and the believers had departed in wonder and redoubled faith, Ha.s.san knelt and separated the two halves of the vessel which held the head of Ibn Azif. "Very convincing screams," he commented, slipping the trapdoor beneath the plate; and Ibn Azif climbed out, grinning at his own performance. His neck was thick, bull-like, undamaged, and quite solid.

THE FIFTH TRIP, OR GEBURAH.

Swift-Kick, Inc And, behold, thusly was the Law formulated: IMPOSITION OF ORDER = ESCALATION OF CHAOS!-Lord Omar Khayaam Ravenhurst, "The Gospel According to Fred," The Honest Book of Truth The Honest Book of Truth The lights flashed; the computer buzzed. Hagbard attached the electrodes.

On January 30, 1939, a silly little man in Berlin gave a silly little speech; among other things, he said: "And another thing I wish to say on this day which perhaps is memorable not only for us Germans: in my life I have many times been a prophet and most of the times I have been laughed at. During the period of my struggle for power, it was in the first case the Jews that laughed at my prophecies that some day I would take over the leadership of the State and thereby of the whole folk and that I would among other things solve also the Jewish problem. I believe that in the meantime the hyenalike laughter of the Jews of Germany has been smothered in their throats. Today I want to be a prophet once more: if the international-finance Jews inside and outside Europe should succeed once more in plunging nations into another world war the consequence will be the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." And so on. He was always saying things like that. By 1939 quite a few heads here and there realized that the silly little man was also a murderous little monster, but only a very small number even of these noticed that for the first time in his anti-Semitic diatribes he had used the word Vernichtung Vernichtung-annihilation-and even they couldn't believe he meant what that implied. In fact, outside of a small circle of friends, n.o.body guessed what the little man, Adolf Hitler, had planned.

Outside that small-very small-circle of friends, others came in intimate contact with der Fuhrer der Fuhrer and never guessed what was in his mind. Hermann Rauschning, the Governor of Danzig, for instance, was a devout n.a.z.i until he began to get some hints of where Hitler's fancies were tending; after fleeing to France, Rauschning wrote a book warning against his former leader. It was called and never guessed what was in his mind. Hermann Rauschning, the Governor of Danzig, for instance, was a devout n.a.z.i until he began to get some hints of where Hitler's fancies were tending; after fleeing to France, Rauschning wrote a book warning against his former leader. It was called The Voice of Destruction The Voice of Destruction and was very eloquent, but the most interesting pa.s.sages in it were not understood by Rauschning or by most of his readers. "Whoever sees in National Socialism nothing but a political movement doesn't know much about it," Hitler told Rauschning, and this is in the book, but Rauschning and his readers continued to see National Socialism as a particularly vile and dangerous and was very eloquent, but the most interesting pa.s.sages in it were not understood by Rauschning or by most of his readers. "Whoever sees in National Socialism nothing but a political movement doesn't know much about it," Hitler told Rauschning, and this is in the book, but Rauschning and his readers continued to see National Socialism as a particularly vile and dangerous political movement political movement and nothing more. "Creation is not yet completed," Hitler said again; and Rauschning again recorded, without understanding. "The planet will undergo an upheaval which you uninitiated people can't understand," and nothing more. "Creation is not yet completed," Hitler said again; and Rauschning again recorded, without understanding. "The planet will undergo an upheaval which you uninitiated people can't understand," der Fuhrer der Fuhrer warned on another occasion; and, still another time, he remarked that n.a.z.ism was, not only more than a political movement, but "more than a new religion;" and Rauschning wrote it all and understood none of it. He even recorded the testimony of Hitler's physician that the silly and murderous little man often awoke screaming from nightmares that were truly extraordinary in their intensity and would shout, "It's HIM, it's HIM, HE's come for me!" Good old Hermann Rauschning, a German of the old school and not equipped to partic.i.p.ate in the New Germany of National Socialism, took all this as evidence of mental unbalance in Hitler.... warned on another occasion; and, still another time, he remarked that n.a.z.ism was, not only more than a political movement, but "more than a new religion;" and Rauschning wrote it all and understood none of it. He even recorded the testimony of Hitler's physician that the silly and murderous little man often awoke screaming from nightmares that were truly extraordinary in their intensity and would shout, "It's HIM, it's HIM, HE's come for me!" Good old Hermann Rauschning, a German of the old school and not equipped to partic.i.p.ate in the New Germany of National Socialism, took all this as evidence of mental unbalance in Hitler....

All of them coming back, all of them. Hitler and Stretcher and Goebbels and the powers behind them what look like something you can't even imagine, guvnor....

You think they was human, the patient went on as the psychiatrist listened in astonishment, but wait till you see them the second time. And they're coming-By the end of the month, they're coming but wait till you see them the second time. And they're coming-By the end of the month, they're coming....

Karl Haushofer was never tried at Nuremberg; ask most people to name the men chiefly responsible for the Vernichtung Vernichtung (annihilation) decision, and his name will not be mentioned; even most histories of n.a.z.i Germany relegate him to footnotes. But strange stories are told about his many visits to Tibet, j.a.pan, and other parts of the Orient; his gift for prophecy and clairvoyance; the legend that he belonged to a bizarre sect of dissident and most peculiar Buddhists, who had entrusted him with a mission in the Western world so serious that he vowed to commit suicide if he did not succeed. If the last yarn is true, Haushofer must have failed in his mission, for in March 1946 he killed his wife Martha and then performed the j.a.panese suicide-rite of (annihilation) decision, and his name will not be mentioned; even most histories of n.a.z.i Germany relegate him to footnotes. But strange stories are told about his many visits to Tibet, j.a.pan, and other parts of the Orient; his gift for prophecy and clairvoyance; the legend that he belonged to a bizarre sect of dissident and most peculiar Buddhists, who had entrusted him with a mission in the Western world so serious that he vowed to commit suicide if he did not succeed. If the last yarn is true, Haushofer must have failed in his mission, for in March 1946 he killed his wife Martha and then performed the j.a.panese suicide-rite of sepukku sepukku upon himself. His son, Albrecht, had already been executed for his role in the "officer's plot" to a.s.sa.s.sinate Hitler. (Of his father, Albrecht had written in a poem: "My father broke the seal/He did not feel the breath of the Evil One/ He set It free to roam the world!") upon himself. His son, Albrecht, had already been executed for his role in the "officer's plot" to a.s.sa.s.sinate Hitler. (Of his father, Albrecht had written in a poem: "My father broke the seal/He did not feel the breath of the Evil One/ He set It free to roam the world!") It was Karl Haushofer, clairvoyant, mystic, medium, Orientalist, and fanatic believer in the lost continent of Thule, who introduced Hitler to the Illuminated Lodge in Munich, in 1923. Shortly thereafter, Hitler made his first bid to seize power.

No rational interpretation of the events of August 1968 in Chicago, satisfactory to all partic.i.p.ants and observers, has yet been produced. This suggests the need for value-free models, inspired by the structural a.n.a.lysis in von Neumann and Morgenstern's Theory of Games and Economic Behavior Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, which will allow us to express what actually occurred functionally, without tainting our a.n.a.lysis with bias or moral judgments. The model we will employ is that of two teams, an uphill motorcar race and a downhill bicycle race, accidentally intersecting on the same hill. The Pica.s.so statue in the Civic Center will be regarded as "start" for the downhill motorcar race and "finish" for the uphill bicycle race. Pontius Pilate, disguised as Sirhan Sirhan, fires the opening shot, thereby disqualifying Robert F. Kennedy, for whom Marilyn Monroe committed suicide, as recorded in the most trustworthy tabloids and scandal sheets.

THIS IS THE VOICE OF YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER MAN SPEAKING. YOU MUST REALIZE THAT YOU ARE NOT JOSEPH WENDELL MALIK.

h.e.l.l's Angels on motorcycles do not fit the structure of the race at all, so they endlessly orbit around the heroic statue of General Logan in Grant Park ("finish" for the uphill crucifixion racers) and can be considered as isolated from the "action," which is, of course, America.

When Jesus falls the first time, this can be considered as a puncture and Simon operates an air pump on his tires, but the threat to throw LSD in the water supply const.i.tutes a "foul" and this team thereby is driven back three squares by Mace, clubs, and the machine guns of the Capone mob unleashed from another time track in the same multiverse. Willard Gibbs, far more than Einstein, created the modern cosmos, and his concept of contingent or statistical reality, when cross-fertilized with the Second Law of Thermodynamics by Shannon and Wiener, led to the definition of information as the negative reciprocal of probability, making the clubbings of Jesus by Chicago cops just another of those things that happens in this kind of quantum jump.

A centurion named Semper Cuni Linctus pa.s.ses Simon in Grant Park looking for the uphill bike race. "When we crucify a man," he mutters, "he should confounded well stay stay crucified." The three Marys clutch handkerchiefs to their faces as the teargas and Zyklon B pours upward on the hill, to the spot where the crosses and the statue of General Logan stand.... "Nor dashed a thousand kim," croons Saint Toad looking through the door at Fission Chips.... Arthur Flegenheimer and Robert Putney Drake ascend the chimney.... "You don't have to believe in Santa Claus," H. P. Lovecraft explains.... "Ambrose," the Dutchman says to him imploringly. crucified." The three Marys clutch handkerchiefs to their faces as the teargas and Zyklon B pours upward on the hill, to the spot where the crosses and the statue of General Logan stand.... "Nor dashed a thousand kim," croons Saint Toad looking through the door at Fission Chips.... Arthur Flegenheimer and Robert Putney Drake ascend the chimney.... "You don't have to believe in Santa Claus," H. P. Lovecraft explains.... "Ambrose," the Dutchman says to him imploringly.

"But it can't be," Joe Malik says, half weeping. "It can't be that crazy. Buildings wouldn't stand. Planes wouldn't fly. Dams would collapse. Engineering colleges would be lunatic asylums."

"They aren't already?" Simon asks. "Have you read the latest data on the ecological catastrophe? You have to face it, Joe. G.o.d is a crazy woman."

"There are no straight lines in curved s.p.a.ce," Stella adds.

"But my mind is dying," Joe protests, shuddering.

Simon holds up an ear of corn and tells him urgently, "Osiris is a black G.o.d!"

(Sir Charles James Napier, bearded, long-haired and sixty-odd years old, General of Her Majesty's Armies in India, met a most engaging scoundrel in January 1843 and immediately wrote to his cronies in England about this remarkable person, whom he described as brave, clever, fabulously wealthy, and totally unscrupulous. Since this curious fellow was also regarded as G.o.d by his followers, who numbered over three million, he charged twenty rupees for permission to kiss his hand, asked-and got-the s.e.xual favors of the wives or daughters of any True Believers who took his fancy, and proved his divinity by brazenly and openly committing sins which any mortal would shrivel with shame to have acknowledged. He also proved, at the Battle of Miani, where he aided the British against the rebellious Baluchi tribesmen, that he could fight like ten tigers. All in all, General Napier concluded, a most unusual human being-Hasan ali Shah Mahallat, forty-sixth Imam, or living G.o.d, of the Ishmaelian sect of Islam, direct descendant of Ha.s.san i Sabbah, and first Aga Khan.) Dear Joe:I'm back in Czechago again, fabulous demesne of Crookbacked Richard, pigbaschard of the world, etc., where the pollution comes up like thunder out of Gary across the lake, etc., and the Padre and I are still working on the heads of the local Heads, etc., so I've finally got time to write you that long letter I promised.The Law of Fives is all the farther that Weishaupt ever got, and Hagbard and John aren't much interested in any further speculations along those lines. The 23/17 phenomenon is entirely my discovery, except that William S. Burroughs has noted the 23 without coming to any conclusions about it.I'm writing this on a bench in Grant Park, near the place I got Maced three years ago. Nice symbolism.A woman just came along from the Mothers March Against Polio. I gave her a quarter. What a drag, just when I was trying to get my thoughts in order. When you come out here, I'll be able to tell you more; this will obviously have to be somewhat sketchy.Burroughs, anyway, encountered the 23 in Tangier's, when a ferryboat captain named Clark remarked that he'd been sailing 23 years without an accident. That day, his ship sunk, with all hands and feet aboard. Burroughs was thinking about it in the evening when the radio newscast told him that an Eastern Airlines plane, New York to Miami, had crashed. The pilot was another Captain Clark and the plane was Flight 23.

"If you want to know the extent of their control," Simon told Joe (speaking this time, not writing a letter; they were driving to San Francisco after leaving Dillinger), "take a dollar bill out of your wallet and look at it. Go ahead-do it now. I want to make a point." Joe took out his wallet and looked for a single. (A year later, in the city Simon called Czechago in honor of the synchronous invasions in August 1968, the KCUF convention is taking its first luncheon break after Smiling Jim's sock-it-to-'em opening speech. Simon brushes against an usher, shouts, "Hey, you d.a.m.ned f.a.ggot, keep your hands off my a.s.s," and in the ensuing tumult Joe has no trouble slipping the AUM in the punch.) "Do I have to get a library card just to look at one book?" Carmel asks the librarian in the Main Branch of the Las Vegas Library, after Maldonado had failed to produce any lead to a communist agent.

"One of the most puzzling acts of Washington's Presidency," Professor Percival Petsdeloup tells an American history cla.s.s at Columbia, back in '68, "was his refusal to aid Tom Paine when Paine was condemned to death in Paris." ... Why puzzling? George Dorn thinks in the back of the cla.s.s, Washington was an Establishment fink.... "First of all, look at that face on the front," Simon says. "It isn't Washington at all, it's Weishaupt. Compare it with any of the early, authentic pictures of Washington and you'll see what I mean. And look at that cryptic half-smile on his face." "First of all, look at that face on the front," Simon says. "It isn't Washington at all, it's Weishaupt. Compare it with any of the early, authentic pictures of Washington and you'll see what I mean. And look at that cryptic half-smile on his face." (The same smile Weishaupt wore when he finished the letter explaining to Paine why he couldn't help him; sealed it with the Great Seal of the United States whose meaning only he knew; and settling back in his chair, murmured to himself, "Jacques De Molay, thou art again avenged!") (The same smile Weishaupt wore when he finished the letter explaining to Paine why he couldn't help him; sealed it with the Great Seal of the United States whose meaning only he knew; and settling back in his chair, murmured to himself, "Jacques De Molay, thou art again avenged!") "What do you mean, I'm creating a disturbance? It was that f.a.ggot there, with his big mitts on my a.s.s."

("Well, I don't know which particular book, honey. Something that tells how the communists work. You know, how a patriotic citizen can spot a commie spy ring if there's one in his neighborhood. That kind of thing," Carmel explained.) A swarm of men in blue shirts and white plastic helmets rushes down the steps at Forty-third Street and UN Plaza, past the inscription reading, "They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, neither shall they study war any more." Waving heavy wooden crosses and shouting angry battle cries, the helmeted men surge into the crowd like a wave hitting a sand castle. George sees them coming, and his heart skips a beat.

"And when you turn the bill over, the first thing you see is the Illuminati pyramid. You'll notice it says seventeen seventy-six on it, but our government was founded in seventeen eighty-eight. Supposedly, the seventeen seventy-six is there because that's when the Declaration of Independence was signed. The real reason is that seventeen seventy-six is the year Weishaupt revived the Illuminati. And why do you suppose the pyramid has seventy-two segments in thirteen layers?" Simon asks in nineteen sixty-nine.... "Misunderstanding, my eye! When a guy gropes my b.u.t.t that way I understand exactly what he wants," Simon shouts in nineteen seventy.... George nudges Peter Jackson. "G.o.d's Lightning," he says. The plastic hats gleam in the sunlight, more of them jostling down the stairs, a banner, red letters on a white background unfurling above: George nudges Peter Jackson. "G.o.d's Lightning," he says. The plastic hats gleam in the sunlight, more of them jostling down the stairs, a banner, red letters on a white background unfurling above: "AMERICA: LOVE IT OR WE'LL STOMP YOU.... "AMERICA: LOVE IT OR WE'LL STOMP YOU.... "Christ on roller-skates," Peter says, "now watch the cops do a vanishing act." "Christ on roller-skates," Peter says, "now watch the cops do a vanishing act."... Dillinger settles down cross-legged in a five-sided chamber under the UN meditation room. He curls into the lotus posture with an ease that would appear unusual in an American in his late sixties were there anyone to witness it.

"Seventy-two is the cabalistic number for the Holy Unspeakable Name of G.o.d, used in all black magic, and thirteen is the number in a coven," Simon explains. "That's why." The Volkswagen purrs toward San Francisco.

Carmel comes down the steps of the Las Vegas Public Library, a copy of J. Edgar Hoover's Masters of Deceit Masters of Deceit under his arm, an antic.i.p.atory smirk on his face, under his arm, an antic.i.p.atory smirk on his face, and Simon is finally ejected from the Sheraton-Chicago shouting, "f.a.ggots! I think you're all a bunch of f.a.ggots!" and Simon is finally ejected from the Sheraton-Chicago shouting, "f.a.ggots! I think you're all a bunch of f.a.ggots!"

"And here's one of their jokes" Simon adds. "Over the eagle's head, do you dig that Star of David? They put that one in-one single six-pointed Jewish star, made up of all the five-pointed stars-just so some right-wing cranks could find it and proclaim it as proof that the Elders of Zion control the Treasury and the Federal Reserve."

Overlooking the crowd in UN Plaza, Zev Hirsch, New York State Commander of G.o.d's Lightning, watches his thick-shouldered troops, swinging their wooden crosses like tomahawks, drive back the lily-livered peaceniks. There is an obstacle. A blue line of policemen has formed between the men of G.o.d's Lightning and their prey. Over the cops' shoulders, the peaceniks are screeching dirty words at their plastic-hatted enemies. Zev's eyes scan the crowd. He catches the eye of a red-faced cop with gold braid on his cap. Zev gives the Police Captain a questioning look. The Captain winks. A minute later the Captain makes a small gesture with his left hand. Immediately, the line of police vanishes, as if melted in the bright spring sun that beats down on the plaza. The battalion of G.o.d's Lightning falls upon their anguished, outraged, and astonished victims. Zev Hirsch laughs. This is a lot more fun than the old days in the Jewish Defense League. All the servants are drunk. And the rain continues.

At an outdoor cafe in Jerusalem two white-haired old men wearing black are drinking coffee together. They try to mask their emotions from the people around them, but their eyes are wild with excitement. They are staring at an inside page of a Yiddish newspaper, reading two ads in Yiddish, a large, quarter-page announcement of the greatest rock festival of all time to be held near Ingolstadt, Bavaria-bands of all nations, people of all nations, to be known as Woodstock Europa. On the same page is the paper's personals column, and the watery eyes of the two old men are re-reading for the fifth time the statement, in Yiddish, "In thanks to St. Jude for favors granted.-A. W."

One old man points at the page with a trembling finger. "It is coming," he says in German.

The other one nods, a beatific smile on his withered face. "Jawohl. It is coming very soon. Der Tag. Soon we must to Bavaria go. Ewige Blumenkraft!"

Carlo put the gun on the table between us. "This is it, George," he said, "Are you a revolutionary, or are you just on an ego trip playing at being a revolutionary? Can you take the gun?"

I wiped my eyes. The Pa.s.saic was flowing below me, a steady stream of garbage from the Paterson falls down to Newark and the Atlantic Ocean. Like the garbage that was my contemptible, cowardly soul.... The G.o.d's Lightning troopers fan out, clubbing each person wearing an I WON'T DIE FOR FERNANDO POO b.u.t.ton. Blood dances in the air, fragile red bubbles, before the tomblike slab of the UN building.... Dillinger's breathing slows down. He stares at the ruby eye atop the 13-step pyramid hidden in the UN building, and he thinks of pentagons Dillinger's breathing slows down. He stares at the ruby eye atop the 13-step pyramid hidden in the UN building, and he thinks of pentagons.

"I'm a G.o.d's Lightning," Carlo said. "This is no joke, baby, I'm going to do the whole bit." His intense eyes burned into mine as the switchblade came out of his pocket. "Motherf.u.c.kin' commie," he screamed suddenly, leaping up so quickly that the chair fell over behind him. "You're not getting off with a beating this time. I'm gonna cut your b.a.l.l.s off and take them home as a souvenir." He slashed forward with the knife, deflecting his swing at the last minute. "Made you jump, you long-haired f.a.ggotty freak. I wonder if you have any b.a.l.l.s to cut off. Well, I'll find out." He inched forward, the knife weaving snakelike patterns in the air.

"Look," I said desperately, "I know you're only playacting."

"You don't know nothing nothing, baby. Maybe I'm FBI or CIA. Maybe this is just an excuse to get you to go for the gun so I can kill you and claim self-defense. Life isn't all demonstrations and play-acting, George. There comes a time when it gets serious." He lunged again with the knife, and I stumbled clumsily backward. "Are you going to take the gun or am I going to cut your b.a.l.l.s off and tell the Group you're no f.u.c.king good and we couldn't use you?"

He was totally mad and I was totally sane. Is that a more flattering way of telling it, instead of the truth, that he was brave and I was yellow?

"Listen," I said, "I know you won't really stab me and you know I won't really shoot you-"

"s.h.i.t on you know you know and and I know" I know" Carlo hit me in the chest with his free hand, hard. "I'm a G.o.d's Lightning, really a G.o.d's Lightning. I'm gonna do the whole scene. This is a test, but the test is for real." He hit me again, jarring my balance, then slapped my face, twice, rapidly, back and forth like a windshield wiper. "I always said you longhaired commie freaks don't have no guts. You can't even fight back. You can't even feel angry, can you? You just feel sorry for yourself, right?" Carlo hit me in the chest with his free hand, hard. "I'm a G.o.d's Lightning, really a G.o.d's Lightning. I'm gonna do the whole scene. This is a test, but the test is for real." He hit me again, jarring my balance, then slapped my face, twice, rapidly, back and forth like a windshield wiper. "I always said you longhaired commie freaks don't have no guts. You can't even fight back. You can't even feel angry, can you? You just feel sorry for yourself, right?"

It was too d.a.m.ned true. A nerve twinged deep down inside at the unfairness of it, of his ability to see into me more than I usually dared see into myself; and at last I grabbed the gun from the table, screaming, "You s.a.d.i.s.tic Stalinist Stalinist son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h!" son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h!"

"And look at the eagle," Simon says. "Look real close. That ain't really no olive branch in his left claw, baby. That's our old friend Maria Juana. You never really looked at a dollar bill before, did you?

"And the real symbolism of the pyramid is alchemical, of course. The traditional code represents the three kinds of s.e.x by a cube, a pyramid, and a sphere. The cube is that travesty we call 'normal' s.e.x, in which the two nervous systems never actually merge at the o.r.g.a.s.m, like the two parallel sides of the cube. The pyramid is the two coming together and joining, the magical-telepathic o.r.g.a.s.m. The sphere is the Tantric ritual, endlessly prolonged, with no o.r.g.a.s.m at all. The alchemists used that code for over two thousand years. The Rosicrucians among the founding fathers used the pyramid as a symbol of their kind of s.e.x magic. Aleister Crowley used that symbol the same way, more recently. The eye on the pyramid is the two minds meeting. Neurological interlock. The opening of the Eye of Shiva. Ewige Schlangekraft-the eternal serpent power. The joining of the Rose and Cross, v.a.g.i.n.a and p.e.n.i.s, into Rose-Cross. The astral leap. Mind escaping from physiology."

The AUM was supposed to work almost instantly, according to what the scientists at ELF had told Hagbard, so Joe approached the first man who had sampled the punch and started a conversation. "Nice talk Smiling Jim gave," he said earnestly. (I rammed the gun into Carlo's gut and saw him go white about the lips. "No, don't worry," I said, smiling. "I'm not using it on you. But when I come back there'll be a dead pig on the streets somewhere in Morningside Heights." He started to speak, and I jabbed downward with the gun, grinning as he gasped for air. "Comrade," I added.) (I rammed the gun into Carlo's gut and saw him go white about the lips. "No, don't worry," I said, smiling. "I'm not using it on you. But when I come back there'll be a dead pig on the streets somewhere in Morningside Heights." He started to speak, and I jabbed downward with the gun, grinning as he gasped for air. "Comrade," I added.) "Yeah, Smiling Jim was born with a silver tongue," the other man said. "Yeah, Smiling Jim was born with a silver tongue," the other man said.

"A silver tongue," Joe agreed solemnly, then added, holding out his hand, "by the way, I'm Jim Mallison from the New York delegation."

"Knew by your accent," the other said shrewdly. "I'm Clem Cotex from down Little Rock." They shook. "Pleasure to meet you."

"Too bad about that kid that got thrown out," Joe said, lowering his voice. "It looked to me like that usher really was-you know-touching him." him."

Cotex looked surprised for a moment, but then shook his head in doubt. "Can't tell nowadays, especially in big cities. Do you really think an Andy Frain Andy Frain usher could be a-fairy?" usher could be a-fairy?"

"Like you said, nowadays in big cities ..." Joe shrugged. "I'm just saying that it looked like it to me. Of course, maybe the usher isn't one. Maybe he's just a cheap thief who was trying to pick the kid's pocket. A lot of that goes on these days, too." Cotex involuntarily reached back to check his own wallet, and Joe went on blandly. "But I wouldn't rule out the other, not by a long shot. What sort of man would want to be an usher at a KCUF meeting, if you stop and think about it? You must have observed how many h.o.m.os.e.xuals there are in our organization."

"What?" Cotex's eyes bulged.

"You haven't noticed it?" Joe smiled loftily. "There are very few of us who are really Christians. Most of the membership are just a little bit lavender little bit lavender, know what I mean? I think it's one of our biggest problems, and we ought to bring it out into the open and discuss it frankly. Clear the air, right? For instance, take the way Smiling Jim always puts his arm around your shoulder when he talks to you-"

Cotex interrupted, "Hey, mister, you're pretty darn bright. Just now hit me like a flash-some of the men men here, when Smiling Jim showed those beaver shots to prove how bad some magazines are getting, they really shuddered. They didn't just disapprove-it really honest-to-Pete revolted them. What kind of here, when Smiling Jim showed those beaver shots to prove how bad some magazines are getting, they really shuddered. They didn't just disapprove-it really honest-to-Pete revolted them. What kind of man man actually finds a naked lady disgusting?" actually finds a naked lady disgusting?"

Go, baby, go, Joe thought. The AUM is working. He quickly derailed the conversation. "Another thing that bothers me. Why don't we ever challenge the spherical earth theory?"

"Huh?"

"Look," Joe said. "If all the scientists and eggheads and commies and liberals are pushing it in our schools all the time, there must be something a little fishy about it. Did you ever stop to think that there's no way-just no way at all-to reconcile a spherical earth with the story of the Flood, or Joshua's miracle, or Jesus standing on the pinnacle of the Temple and seeing all the kingdoms of the earth? And I ask you, man to man, in all your travels have you ever seen seen the curvature anywhere? Every place the curvature anywhere? Every place I've I've been is flat. Are we going to trust the Bible and the evidence of our own senses, or are we going to listen to a bunch of agnostics and atheists in laboratory smocks?" been is flat. Are we going to trust the Bible and the evidence of our own senses, or are we going to listen to a bunch of agnostics and atheists in laboratory smocks?"

"But the earth's shadow on the moon during an eclipse ..."

Joe took a dime out of his pocket and held it up. "This casts a circular shadow, but it's flat, not spherical."

Cotex stared into s.p.a.ce for a long moment, while Joe waited with suppressed excitement. "You know something?" Cotex said finally, "all the Bible miracles and our own travels and the shadow on the moon would make sense if the earth was shaped like a carrot carrot and all the continents were on the flat end-" and all the continents were on the flat end-"

Praise be to Simon's G.o.d, Bugs Bunny, Joe thought elatedly. It's happening-he's not only gullible-he's creative.

I followed the cop-the pig, I corrected myself-out of the cafeteria. I was so keyed up that it was a Trip. The blue of his uniform, the neon signs, even the green of the lampposts, all were coming in superbright. That was adrenalin. My mouth was dry-dehydration. All the cla.s.sic flight-fight symptoms. The activation syndrome, Skinner calls it. I let the cop-the pig-get half a block ahead and reached in my pocket for the revolver.

"Come on, George!" Malik shouted. George didn't want to move. His heart was thumping, his arms and legs trembling so hard he knew they'd be useless to him in a fight. But he just didn't want to move. He'd had enough of running from these motherf.u.c.kers.

But he couldn't help himself. As the men in blue shirts and white helmets came on, the crowd surged away from them, and George had to move back with the crowd or be knocked down and trampled.

"Come on on, George." It was Pete Jackson at his side now, with a good, hard grip on his arm, tugging him.

"G.o.ddam it, why do we have to run away from them?" George said, stumbling backward.

Peter was smiling faintly. "Don't you read your Mao, George? Enemy attacks, we retreat. Let the Morituri fanatics stand and get creamed."

I couldn't do it. My hand held the gun, but I couldn't take it out and hold it in front of me any more than I could take out my p.e.n.i.s and wave it around. I was sure, even though the street was empty except for me and the pig, that a dozen people would jump out of doorways yelling, "Look, he took it out of his pants." "Look, he took it out of his pants."

Just like right now, when Hagbard said, "b.u.t.ton up your a.s.shole. We're in for a fight," I stood frozen like I stood frozen on the embankment above the Pa.s.saic.

"Are you on an ego trip playing at being a revolutionary?" Carlo asked.

And Mavis: "All the militant radicals in your crowd ever do is take out the Molotov c.o.c.ktail diagram that they carefully clipped from The New York Review of Books The New York Review of Books, hang it on the bathroom door, and j.a.c.k.-.o.f.f. in connection with it."

Howard sang: The foe is attacking, their ships coming near,Now is the time to fight without fear!Now is the time to look death in the eyeBefore we submit, we'll fight till we die!

This time I got the gun out of my pocket-standing there, looking down at the Pa.s.saic-and raised it to my forehead. If I didn't have the courage for homicide, Jesus knows I have despair enough for a hundred suicides. And I only have to do it once. Just once, and then oblivion, I c.o.c.k the firing pin. (More play-acting, George? Or will you really do it?) I'll do it, d.a.m.n you, d.a.m.n all of you. I pull the trigger and fall, with the explosion, into blackness.

(AUM was a product of the scientists at ELF-the Erisian Liberation Front-and shared by them with the JAMs. An extract of hemp, boosted with RNA, the "learning" molecule, it also had small traces of the famous "Frisco Speedball"-heroin, cocaine, and LSD. The effect seemed to be that the heroin stilled anxiety, the RNA stimulated creativity, the hemp and acid opened the mind to joy, and the cocaine was there to fit the Law of Fives. The delicate balance created no hallucinations, no sense of "high"-just a sudden spurt in what Hagbard Celine liked to call "constructive gullibility.") It was one of those sudden shifts of movement that occur in a mob scene. Instead of pushing George and Peter back, the crowd between them and the white helmets were parting. A slender man fell heavily against George, anguish in his eyes. There was a terrible thump, and the man fell to the ground.

George saw the dark brown wooden cross before he saw the man who wielded it. There was blood and hair at the end of the crossarm. The G.o.d's Lightning man was dark, broad and muscular, with a blue shadow on his cheeks. He looked Italian or Spanish-he looked, in fact, a lot like Carlo. His eyes were wide and his mouth was open and he was breathing heavily. The expression was neither rage nor s.a.d.i.s.tic joy-just the unthinking panting alertness of a man doing a difficult and fatiguing job. He bent over the fallen slender man and raised the cross.

"All right!" snapped Peter Jackson. He pushed George aside. There was a silly-looking yellow plastic water pistol in his hand. He squirted the oblivious G.o.d's Lightning man in the back of the neck. The man screamed, arched backward, the cross flying end over end into the air. He fell on his back and lay screaming and writhing.

"Come on now, motherf.u.c.ker!" Pete snarled as he dragged George into the crowd, broken-field running toward Forty-second Street.

"An hour and a half to go," Hagbard says, finally beginning to show suppressed tension. George checks his watch-it's exactly 10:30 p.m., Ingolstadt time. The Plastic Canoe is wailing KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE.

(Under the noon sun, two days earlier, Carmel speeds in his jeep away from Las Vegas.) "Who am I going to meet at the Norton Cabal?" Joe asks. "Judge Crater? Amelia Earhart? Nothing would surprise me now."

"A few real together people," Simon replies. "But no one like that. But you'll have to die, really die, man, before you're illuminated." He smiles gently. "Aside from death and resurrection, you won't find anything you'd call 'supernatural' with this bunch. Not even a whiff of old Chicago-style Satanism."

"G.o.d," Joe says, "was that only a week ago?"

"Yep," Simon grins, gunning his VW around a Chevrolet with Oregon license plates, "It's still nineteen sixty-nine, even if you seem to have lived several years since we met at the anarchist caucus." His eyes are amused as he half turns to glance at Joe.

"I suppose that means you know what's been happening in my dreams. I'm getting the flashforwards already."

"Always happens after a good dirty Black Ma.s.s with pot mixed in the incense," Simon says. "What sort of thing you getting? Is it happening when you're awake yet?"

"No, only in my dreams." Joe pauses, thinking. "I only know it's the real article because the dreams are so vivid. One set has to do with some kind of pro-censorship rally at the Sheraton-Chicago hotel, I think about a year from now. There's another set that seems farther in the future-five or six years-where I'm impersonating a doctor for some reason. And a third group of images comes to me, now and then, that seems to be the set of a Frankenstein movie, except that the extras are all hippies and there seems to be a rock festival going on."

"Does it bother you?"

"A little. I'm used to waking up in the morning with the future ahead of me, not behind me and and ahead of me ahead of me both." both."

"You'll get used to it. You're just beginning to contact what old Weishaupt called 'die Morgensheutegesternwelt' 'die Morgensheutegesternwelt'-the tomorrow-today-yesterday world. It gave Goethe the idea for Faust Faust, just like Weishaupt's 'Ewige Blumenkraff' 'Ewige Blumenkraff' slogan inspired Goethe's slogan inspired Goethe's 'Ewige Weibliche.' 'Ewige Weibliche.' I'll tell you what," Simon suggested, "You might try wearing three wrist.w.a.tches, like Bucky Fuller does-one showing the time where you're at, one showing the time where you're going, and one showing the time at some arbitrary place like Greenwich Mean Time or your home town. It'll help you get used to relativity. Meanwhile, never whistle while you're p.i.s.sing. And you might repeat to yourself, when you get disoriented, Fuller's sentence, 'I seem to be a verb.'" I'll tell you what," Simon suggested, "You might try wearing three wrist.w.a.tches, like Bucky Fuller does-one showing the time where you're at, one showing the time where you're going, and one showing the time at some arbitrary place like Greenwich Mean Time or your home town. It'll help you get used to relativity. Meanwhile, never whistle while you're p.i.s.sing. And you might repeat to yourself, when you get disoriented, Fuller's sentence, 'I seem to be a verb.'"

They drove in silence for a while, and Joe pondered on being a verb. h.e.l.l, he thought, I have enough trouble understanding what Fuller means when he says G.o.d G.o.d is a verb. Simon let him mull it over, and began humming again: "Rameses the Second is dead, my love/He's walking the fields where the BLESSED liiiiive...." Joe realized he was starting to doze ... is a verb. Simon let him mull it over, and began humming again: "Rameses the Second is dead, my love/He's walking the fields where the BLESSED liiiiive...." Joe realized he was starting to doze ... and all the faces at the luncheon table looked at him in astonishment. "No, seriously," he said. "Anthropologists are too timid to say it out in the open, in public, but corner one of them in private and ask him." and all the faces at the luncheon table looked at him in astonishment. "No, seriously," he said. "Anthropologists are too timid to say it out in the open, in public, but corner one of them in private and ask him."

Every detail was clear: it was the same room in the Sheraton-Chicago Hotel, and the faces were the same. (I've been here before and said this before.) "The rain dances of the Indians work. The rain always comes. So why isn't it possible that their G.o.ds are real and ours isn't? Have you ever prayed to Jesus for something and really gotten it?" There is a long silence and finally an old tight-faced woman smiles youthfully and declares, "Young man, I'm going to try it. How do I meet an Indian in Chicago?"

Like tomahawks the crosses of G.o.d's Lightning rose and fell on the slender man's defenseless skull. They'd found their injured comrade lying on the street twisting and moaning beside his erstwhile victim. A couple of them hauled the wounded G.o.d's Lightning man away, while the rest took their revenge on the unconscious peace demonstrator.

("You, Luke," says Yeshua ben Yosef, "don't write that down.") s.p.a.ce-time, then, may be slanted or kiltered when you're lost out here: Fernando Poo looks through his gla.s.s at a new island, not guessing that it will be named after himself, not imagining that someday Simon Moon will write "In Fourteen Hundred and Seventy Two, Fernando Poo discovered Fernando Poo," and Hagbard says, "Truth is a tiger," while Timothy Leary does a Crown Point Pavanne out of San Luis Obispo Jail and four billion years earlier one squink says to another, "I've solved the ecology problem on this new planet." The other squink, partner to the first (they own Swift Kick Inc., the shoddiest contractors in the Milky Way) says "How?" The first squink laughs coa.r.s.ely. "Every organism produced will be programmed with a Death Trip. It'll give them a rather gloomy outlook, I admit, especially the more conscious ones, but it will sure minimize costs for us." Swift Kick Inc. cut the edges every other way they could think, and Earth emerged as the Horrible Example invoked in all cla.s.ses on planetary design throughout the galaxy.

When Burroughs told me that, I flipped, because I was 23 that year and lived on Clark Street. Besides, I immediately saw the application to the Law of Fives: 2 + 3 = 5 and Clark has 5 letters.I was mulling this over when I happened to notice the shipwreck in Pound's Canto 23. That's the only shipwreck mentioned in the whole 800-page poem, in spite of all the nautical voyages described. Canto 23 also contains the line, "with the sun in a golden cup," which Yeats says inspired his own lines, "the golden apples of the sun, the silver apples of the moon." Golden apples, of course, brought me back to Eris, and I realized I was onto something hot.Then I tried adding the Illuminati Five to 23, and I got 28. The average menstrual period of Woman. The lunar cycle. Back to the silver apples of the moon-and I'm Moon. Of course, Pound and Yeats both have five letters in their names.If this be schizophrenia, I said with a P. Henry twist (one better than an O. Henry twist), make the most of it!I looked deeper.

Through a bullhorn, a police captain began to shout, CLEAR THE PLAZA CLEAR THE PLAZA.

The first reports of the annihilation camps were pa.s.sed on to the OSS by a Swiss businessman evaluated as being one of the most trustworthy informants on affairs in n.a.z.i Europe. The State Department decided that the stories were not confirmed. That was early in 1943. By autumn of that year, more urgent reports from the same source transmitted still through the OSS forced a major policy conference. It was again decided that the reports were not true. As winter began, the English government asked for another conference to discuss similar reports from their own intelligence networks and from the government of Rumania. The delegates met in Bermuda for a warm, sunny weekend, and decided that the reports were not true; they returned to their work refreshed and tanned. The death trains continued to roll. Early in 1944, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury, was reached by dissenters in the State Department, examined the evidence, and forced a meeting with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Shaken by the a.s.sertions in Morgenthau's doc.u.ments, Roosevelt pledged that he would act at once. He never did. It was said later that the State Department convinced him, once again, of their own a.n.a.lysis: the reports simply were not true. When Mr. Hitler said Vernichtung Vernichtung he had not really meant he had not really meant Vernichtung Vernichtung. An author, Ben Hecht, then placed an ad in the New York Times New York Times, presenting the evidence to the public; a group of prominent rabbis attacked him for alarming Jews unnecessarily and undermining confidence in America's Chief Executive during wartime. Finally, late that year, American and Russian troops began liberating the camps, and General Eisenhower insisted that news photographers take detailed movies which were released to the whole world. In the interval between the first suppressed report by the Swiss businessman and the liberation of the first camp, six million people had died.

"That's what we call a Bavarian Fire Drill," Simon explained to Joe. (It was another time; he was driving another Volkswagen. In fact, it was the night of April 23 and they were going to meet Tobias Knight at the UN building.) "It was one official named Winifred who'd been transferred from the Justice Department to a key State Department desk where every bit of evidence pa.s.sed for evaluation. But the same principles apply everywhere. For instance-we're half an hour early for the meeting anyhow-I'll give you an ill.u.s.tration right now." They were approaching the corner of Forty-third Street and Third Avenue and Simon had observed that the streetlight was changing to red. As he stopped the car, he opened the door and said to Joe, "Follow me."

Puzzled, Joe got out as Simon ran to the car behind them, beat on the hood with his hand and shouted "Bavarian Fire Drill! Out!" He made vigorous but ambiguous motions with his hands and ran to the car next back. Joe saw the first subject look dubiously at his companion and then open the door and get out, obediently trailing behind Simon's urgent and somber figure.

"Bavarian Fire Drill! Out!" Simon was already shouting at the third car back.

As Joe trotted along, occasionally adding his own voice to persuade the more dubious drivers, every car gradually emptied and people formed a neat line heading back toward Lexington Avenue. Simon then ducked between two cars and began jogging toward the front of the line at Third Avenue again, shouting to everybody, "Complete circle! Stay in line!" Obediently, everyone followed in a great circle back to their own cars, reentering from the side opposite to that from which they had left. Simon and Joe climbed back into the VW, the light changed, and they sped ahead.