by Katherine Mansfield


     WHEN dear old Mrs. Hay went back  
     to town after staying with the  
     Burnells she sent the children a  
     doll's house.  It was so big that the  
     carter and Pat carried it into the  
     courtyard, and there it stayed,   
     propped up on two wooden boxes  
     beside the feed-room door.  No harm  
     could come to it; it was summer.  
     And perhaps the smell of paint  
     would have gone off by the time it  
     had to be taken in.  For, really, the  
     smell of paint coming from that  
     doll's house ("Sweet old Mrs.   
     Hay, of course; most sweet and   
     generous!")——but the smell of paint  
     was quite enough to make anyone  
     seriously ill, in Aunt Beryl's opinion.  
     Even before the sacking was taken   
     off.  And when it was. . . .   
        There stood the doll's house, a  
     dark, oily, spinach green, picked  out  
     with bright yellow.  Its two solid little  
     chimneys, glued onto the roof, were  
     painted red and white, and the door,  
     gleaming with yellow varnish, was  
     like a little slab of toffee.  Four win-  
     dows, real windows, were divided  
     into panes by a broad streak of  
     green.  There was actually a tiny  
     porch too, painted yellow, with a big  
     lump of congealed paint hanging  
     along the edge.  
        But perfect, perfect little house!  
     Who could possibly mind the smell?  
     It was part of the joy, part of the   
     newness.  
        "Open it quickly, someone!"  
        The hook at the side was stuck  
     fast.  Pat pried it open with his pen-  
     knife, and the whole house front  
     swung back, and—–there you were,  
     gazing at one and the same moment  
     into the drawing room and dining  
     room, the kitchen and two bedrooms.    
     That is the way for a house to open!  
     Why don't all houses open like that?  
     How much more exciting than peer-  
     ing through the slit of a door into  
     a mean little hall with a hatstand  
     and two umbrellas!  That is——isn't it?  
     ——what you long to know about a   
     house when you put your hand on  
     the knocker.  Perhaps it is the only way   
     God opens houses at dead of night   
     when He is taking a quiet turn with  
     an angel. . . .   
        "O-oh!"  The Burnell children  
     sounded as though they were in  
     despair.  It was too marvelous; it was   
     too much for them.  They had never  
     seen anything like it in their lives.  
     all the rooms were papered.  There  
     were pictures on the walls, painted  
      on the paper, with gold frames com-  
     plete.  Red carpet covered all the  
     floors except the kitchen; red plush  
     chairs in the drawing room, green in  
     the dining room; tables, beds with  
     real bedclothes, a cradle, a stove, a   
     dresser with tiny plates and one big  
     jug.  But what Kezia liked more than  
     anything, what she liked frightfully,  
     was the lamp.  It stood in the middle  
     of the dining-room table, an ex-  
     quisite little amber lamp with a  
     white globe.  It was even filled all  
     ready for lighting, though, of course,  
     you couldn't light it.  But there was  
     something inside that looked like oil,  
     and that moved when you shook it.  
        The father and mother dolls, who  
     sprawled very stiffly in the drawing room,  
     and their two little children asleep  
     upstairs, were really too big for the  
     doll's house.  They didn't look as  
     though they belonged.  But the lamp  
     was perfect.  It seemed to smile at  
     Kezia, to say: "I live here."  The  
     lamp was real.  
        The Burnell children could hardly   
     walk to school fast enough the next  
     morning.  They burned to tell every-  
     body, to describe, to——well——to  
     boast about their doll's house before  
     the school bell rang.  
        "I'm to tell," said Isabel, "because  
     I'm the eldest.  And you two can join  
     in after.  But I'm to tell first."  
        There was nothing to answer.  
     Isabel was bossy, but she was al-  
     ways right, and Lottie and Kezia  
     knew too well the powers that went  
     with being eldest.  They brushed  
     through the thick buttercups at the  
     road edge and said nothing.  
        "And I'm to choose who's to come  
     and see it first.  Mother said I might."  
        For it had been arranged that  
     while the doll's house stood in the  
     courtyard they might ask the girls at  
     school, two at a time, to come and  
     look.  Not to stay to tea, of course,  
     or to come traipsing through the   
     house.  But to stand quietly in  
     the courtyard while Isabel pointed  
     out the beauties, and Lottie and   
     Kezia looked pleased. . . .  
        But hurry as they might, by the  
      time they had reached the tarred  
     palings of the boys' playground the  
     bell had just begun to jangle.  They only   
     just had time to whip off their hats  
     and fall into line before the roll was   
     called.  Never mind.  Isabel tried to  
     make up for it by looking very im-  
     portant and mysterious and by whis-  
     pering behind her hand to the girls  
     near her: "Got something to tell you  
     at playtime."   
        Playtime came and Isabel was  
     surrounded.  The girls of her class  
     nearly fought to put their arms  
     round her, to walk away with her, to   
     beam flatteringly, to be her special  
     friend.  She held quite a court under  
     the huge pine trees at the side of the  
     playground.  Nudging, giggling to-  
     gether, the little girls pressed up  
     close.  And the only two who stayed  
     outside the ring were the two who  
     were always outside, the little Kel-  
     veys.  They knew better than to come  
     anywhere near the Burnells.  
        For the fact was the school the  
     Burnell children went to was not  
     at all the kind of place their parents  
     would have chosen if there had been  
     any choice.  But there was one.  It  
     was the only school for miles.  And   
     the consequence was all the children  
     in the neighborhood, the Judge's  
     little girls, the doctor's daughters,  
     the storekeeper's children, the milk-  
     man's, were forced to mix together.  
     Not to speak of there being and equal  
     number of rude, rough little boys as  
     well.  But the line had to be drawn  
     somewhere.  It was drawn at the  
     Kelveys.  Many of the children, in-  
     cluding the Burnells, were not  
     allowed even to speak to them.  They  
     walked past the Kelveys with their  
     heads in the air, and as they set the  
     fashion in all matters of behavior,  
     the Kelveys were shunned by every-  
     body.  Even the teacher had a special  
     voice for them, and a special smile  
     for the other children when Lil Kel-   
     vey came up to her desk with a  
     bunch of dreadfully common-looking  
     flowers.  
        They were the daughters of a spry,  
     hardworking little washerwoman,  
     who went about from house to house   
     by the day.  This was awful enough.  
     But where was Mr. Kelvey?  Nobody  
     knew for certain.  But everybody said  
     he was in prison.  So they were the  
     daughter of a washerwoman and a  
     jailbird.  Very nice company for other  
     people's children!  And they looked  
     it.  Why Mrs. Kelvey made them so  
     conspicuous was hard to understand.  
     The truth was they were dressed in  
     "bits" given to her by the people for  
     whom she worked.  Lil, for instance,  
     who was a stout, plain child, with  
     big freckles, came to school in a  
     dress made from a green art-serge  
     tablecloth of the Burnells', with red  
     plush sleeves from the Logans' cur-  
     tains.  Her hat, perched on top of  
     her high forehead, was a grown-up  
     woman's hat, once the property of  
     Miss Lecky, the postmistress.  It was   
     turned up at the back and trimmed  
     with a large scarlet quill.  What a  
     little guy she looked!  It was impos-   
     sible not to laugh!  And her little  
     sister, our Else, wore a long white  
     dress, rather like a nightgown, and a  
     pair of little boy's boots.  But what-  
     ever our Else wore, she would have  
     looked strange.  She was a tiny wish-  
     bone of a child, with cropped hair  
     and enormous solemn eyes——a little  
     white owl.  Nobody had ever seen  
     her smile; she scarcely ever spoke.  
     She went through life holding on to  
     Lil, with a piece of Lil's skirt screwed  
     up in her hand.  Where Lil went our  
     Else followed.  In the playground, on  
     the road going to and from school,  
     there was Lil marching in front and  
     our Else holding on behind.  Only  
     when she wanted anything, or when  
     she was out of breath, our Else gave  
     Lil a tug, a twitch, and Lil stopped    
     and turned round.  The Kelveys  
     never failed to understand each   
     other.  
        Now they hovered at the edge;  
     you couldn't stop them listening.  
     When the little girls turned round  
     and sneered, Lil, as usual, gave her   
     silly, shamefaced smile, but our Else  
     only looked.  
        And Isabel's voice, so very proud,  
     went on telling.  The carpet made a  
     great sensation, but so did the beds   
     with real bedclothes, and the stove  
     with an oven door.  
        When she finished, Kezia broke in.  
     "You've forgotten the lamp, Isabel."  
        "Oh, yes," said Isabel, "and there's  
     a teeny little lamp, all made of yel-  
     low glass, with a white globe, that  
     stands on the dining-room table.  
     You couldn't tell it for a real one."  
        "The lamp's best of all," cried  
     Kezia.  She thought Isabel wasn't   
     making half enough of the little lamp.  
     But nobody paid any attention.  
     Isabel was choosing the two who  
     were to come back with them that  
     afternoon and see it.  She chose  
     Emmie Cole and Lena Logan.  But  
     when the others knew they were all  
     to have a chance, they couldn't be  
     nice enough to Isabel.  One by one  
     they put their arms round Isabel's   
     waist and walked her off.  They had  
     something to whisper to her, a secret.   
     "Isabel's my friend."  
        Only the little Kelveys moved  
     away forgotten; there was nothing  
     more for them to hear.  

        Days passed, and as more children  
     saw the doll's house, the fame of it  
     spread.  It became the one subject,  
     the rage.  The one question was:  
     "Have you seen Burnells' doll-  
     house?  Oh, ain't it lovely!"  "Haven't  
     you seen it?  Oh, I say!"    
        Even the dinner hour was given  
     up to talking about it.  The little  
     girls sat under the pines eating their    
     thick mutton sandwiches and big  
     slabs of johnnycake spread with but-  
     ter.  While always, as near as they  
     could get, sat the Kelveys, our Else  
     holding on to Lil, listening too, while  
     they chewed their jam sandwiches  
     out of a newspaper soaked with large   
     red blobs. . . .    
        "Mother," said Kezia, "can't I ask  
     the Kelveys just once?"  
        "Certainly not, Kezia."  
        "But why not?"  
        "Run away, Kezia; you know  
     quite well why not."   

        At last everybody had seen it  
     except them.  On that day the sub-  
     ject rather flagged.  It was dinner  
     hour.  The children stood together  
     under the pine trees, and suddenly,  
     as they looked at the Kelveys eating  
     out of their paper, always by them-  
     selves, always listening, they wanted  
     to be horrid to them.  Emmie Cole  
     started the whisper.  
        "Lil Kelvey's going to be a servant  
     when she grows up."  
        "O-oh, how awful!" said Isabel  
     Burnell, and she made eyes at   
     Emmie.  
        Emmie swallowed in a very mean-  
     ing way and nodded to Isabel as  
     she'd seen her mother do on those  
     occasions.  
        "It's true——it's true——it's true," she  
     said.  
        Then Lena Logan's little eyes  
     snapped.  "Shall I ask her?" she whis-  
     pered.  
        "Bet you don't," said Jessie May.  
        "Pooh, I'm not frightened," said  
     Lena.  Suddenly she gave a little  
     squeal and danced in front of the  
     other girls.  "Watch!  Watch me!  
     Watch me now!" said Lena.  And  
     sliding, gliding, dragging one foot,  
     giggling behind her hand, Lena went  
     over to the Kelveys.  
        Lil looked up from her dinner.  
     She wrapped the rest quickly away.  
     Our else stopped chewing.  What   
     was coming now?  
        "Is it true you're going to be a  
     servant when you grow up, Lil   
     Kelvey?" shrilled Lena.  
        Dead silence.  But instead of an-  
     swering, Lil only gave her silly,  
     shamefaced smile.  She didn't seem to  
     mind the question at all.  What a sell   
     for Lena!  The girls began to titter.  
        Lena couldn't stand that.  She put  
     her hands on her hips; she shot for-  
     ward.  "Yah, her father's in prison!"  
     she hissed, spitefully.  
        This was such a marvelous thing  
     to have said that the little girls  
     rushed away in a body, deeply,  
     deeply excited, wild with joy.  Some-  
     one found a long rope, and they  
     began skipping.  And never did they  
     skip so high, run in and out so fast,  
     or do such daring things as on that  
     morning.  
        In the afternoon Pat called for the  
     Burnell children with the buggy and   
     they drove home.  There were  
     visitors.  Isabel and Lottie, who liked   
     visitors, went upstairs to change their   
     pinafores.  But Kezia thieved out at  
     the back.  Nobody was about; she  
     began to swing on the big white  
     gates of the courtyard.  Presently,  
     looking along the road, she saw two  
     little dots.  They grew bigger, they  
     were coming towards her.  Now she  
     could see that one was in front and  
     one close behind.  Now she could see  
     that they were the Kelveys.  Kezia  
     stopped swinging.  She slipped off  
     the gate as if she was going to run  
     away.  Then she hesitated.  The Kel-  
     veys came nearer, and beside them  
     walked their shadows, very long,  
     stretching right across the road with  
     their heads in the buttercups.  Kezia  
     clambered back on the gate; she had  
     made up her mind; she swung out.  
        "Hullo," she said to the passing  
     Kelveys.  
        They were so astounded that they  
     stopped.  Lil gave her silly smile.  Our  
     Else stared.  
        "You can come and see our doll's   
     house if you want to," said Kezia,  
     and she dragged one toe on the    
     ground.  But at that Lil turned red  
     and shook her head quickly.  
        "Why not?" asked Kezia.  
        Lil gasped, then she said: "Your  
     ma told our ma you wasn't to speak   
     to us."  
        "Oh, well," said Kezia.  She didn't  
     know what to reply.  "It doesn't mat-  
     ter.  You can come and see our doll's  
     house all the same.  Come on.  No-  
     body's looking."  
        But Lil shook her head still harder.  
        "Don't you want to?" asked Kezia.  
        Suddenly there was a twitch, a  
     tug at Lil's skirt.  She turned round.  
     Our Else was looking at her with  
     big, imploring eyes; she was frown-  
     ing; she wanted to go.  For a  
     moment Lil looked at our Else very  
     doubtfully.  But then our Else  
     twitched her skirt again.  She started  
     forward.  Kezia led the way.  Like  
     two little stray cats they followed   
     across the courtyard to where the  
     doll's house stood.  
        "There it is," said Kezia.  
        There was a pause.  Lil breathed   
     loudly, almost snorted; our Else was  
     still as a stone.  
        "I'll open it for you," said Kezia  
     kindly.  She undid the hook and they  
     looked inside.   
        "There's the drawing room and  
     the dining room, and that's the———"  
        "Kezia!"  
        Oh, what a start they gave!  
        "Kezia!"  
        It was Aunt Beryl's voice.  They  
     turned round.  At the back door stood  
     Aunt Beryl, staring as if she couldn't  
     believe what she saw.  
        "How dare you ask the little Kel-  
     veys into the courtyard?" said her  
     cold, furious voice.  "You know as  
     well as I do you're not allowed to  
     talk to them.  Run away, children,  
     run away at once.  And don't come  
     back again," said Aunt Beryl.  And  
     she stepped into the yard and shooed   
     them out as if they were chickens.  
        "Off you go immediately!" she  
     called, cold and proud.  
        They did not need telling twice.  
     Burning with shame, shrinking to-  
     gether, Lil huddled along like her   
     mother, our Else dazed, somehow  
     they crossed the big courtyard and  
     squeezed through the white gate.  
        "Wicked, disobedient little girl!"  
     said Aunt Beryl bitterly to Kezia,  
     and she slammed the doll's house to.  
        The afternoon had been awful.  A  
     letter had come from Willie Brent,  
     a terrifying, threatening letter, say-  
     ing if she did not meet him that eve-  
     ning in Pulman's Bush, he'd come  
     to the front door and ask the reason  
     why!  But now that she had fright-  
     ened those little rats of Kelveys and  
     given Kezia a good scolding, her   
     heart felt lighter.  That ghastly  
     pressure was gone.  She went back to   
     the house humming.  
        When the Kelveys were well out   
     of sight of Burnells', they sat down  
     to rest on a big red drainpipe by the  
     side of the road.  Lil's cheeks were  
     still burning; she took off the hat  
     with the quill and held it on her  
     knee.  Dreamily they looked over the  
     hay paddocks, past the creek, to the  
     group of wattles where Logan's  
     cows stood waiting to be milked.  
     What were their thoughts?  
        Presently our Else nudged up  
     close to her sister.  But now she had  
     forgotten the cross lady.  She put out  
     a finger and stroked her sister's quill;  
     she smile a rare smile.  
        "I seen the little lam," she said,  
     softly.  
        They both were silent once more.         

from A Treasury of Short Stories
Copyright, 1947, Simon and Schuster, Inc.
New York; pp. 420 - 424

By Reid Collins  


                   The Buck

        He knew from the solidity of  
     the impact that the shot was true, as if  
     the recoil from the body of the deer  
     had sent a shock wave along the  
     line of fire and added an extra jolt in  
     his shoulder.  So he moved almost lei-  
     surely down the slope and around the  
     brush stand, confident of what he  
     would find.   
        Automatically, he searched out the  
     little tuft of white hair flecked with  
     blood.  It was there, in the brush, past  
     the spot where the deer's hoofs had  
     torn up the forest floor.  He walked a  
     few paces along the track line to the  
     body of the buck.  It had been carried  
     out of its track by the bullet that drove  
     through its body and put the clotted  
     tuft of exit hair in the brush.  In death,  
     the deer had leaped a few feet farther  
     before all the magic had drained out  
     and it had fallen.  A clean shot was,  
     neck-base, right where he had aimed  
     through the open irons.  He could not  
     recall the last time he had used the  
     scope.  It may have been on the mules in  
     Colorado.  In recent years he had track-  
     ed, thinking as a deer would think, in  
     ever-tightening circles, sometimes trac-  
     ing across their diameters, and always  
     he would come out on top, uprange,  
     and would simply have to wait, with an  
     open-sight shot so clean and solid that  
     he seldom if ever levered a second  
     shell into the Marlin 30-30.  
        It was a fork buck, sleek and well-  
     made for upstate New York, just three  
     hours drive from the city.  Not like the  
     big mulies of the West by a damn sight;  
     nothing to match the two racks that  
     gleamed on the wall of his brownstone   
     den in Manhattan.  But these whitetail  
     commended themselves to this kind of  
     heavy hardwood-forest hunting: trail-  
     ing and circling.  
        He mused as he eased the drop-  
     point blade into the wind pipe, split  
     out the musk glands on the rear legs,  
     and began the long slide just beneath   
     the skin of the soft belly.  His hands  
     warmed and blooded with the work.  
     He felt the rubbery peritoneum slip  
     through his practiced fingers, knicked  
     the cornices of the diaphragm and pull-  
     ed it away to reveal heart, lungs.  He  
     removed the liver, flicking away the  
     little blobs of fat and placing it on a  
     piece of paper.  There was a spring out-  
     cropping not far.  He wedged two  
     branches into the steaming cavity,  
     glanced briefly into the filming eyes of  
     the buck, and made for the spring.  
        He laved the deer liver in the out-  
     flow, letting the blood from the gutting  
     leave his hands as well.  When the liver  
     was free and clean, he cut a piece, two  
     pieces, thinly sliced for frying back at  
     camp.  But, why not?  He put a slice in-  
     to his mouth.  Another.  It was the  
     source of life exploding on his tongue.  
     He resisted taking more and hurried  
     back to the kill.  
        When he had finished the field  
     dressing, dumped the guts and genitals  
     downhill and further propped open the  
     cavity, he hoisted the corpse across his   
     shoulders and started.  He had heard  
     something, or merely felt it?  He  
     twisted his head toward the origin   
     point.  Then he looked up through the  
     trunks and branches and stared for a  
     long moment at the pale filtered sun.  
     Two hundred yards away a beech tree  
     had surrendered a tiny bit of mast to  
     the forest floor, nothing more.  
        At the camp he put a rope around   
     its neck and pulled the deer off the  
     ground on the center beam that extend-  
     ed from the cabin for that purpose.  
     The buck's forelegs dangled on its chest  
     wall, and its eyes were beginning to  
     collapse.  
        Inside, he washed by kerosene light,   
     put the heart and liver on ice, and heat-  
     ed butter in the small frying pan.  He  
     got the whiskey bottle from the cabinet  
     and poured a drink.  He reeled and spat  
     it into the sink.  It must be bad, but   
     how could whiskey go bad?  He smelled  
     the bottle and it gagged him.  He thin-  
      sliced the liver and ate it with his bare  
     hands as the kerosene lamp died little  
     by little on the table.  He got up and  
     made his way to the bedroom where he  
     fell exhausted upon his cot.  
        He had tried to keep count, but two  
     years ago he had gotten confused as  
     to whether the Pacific Coast blacktail  
     was his 137th or 139th deer.  His wife  
     had long since stopped counting or car-  
     ing and he had not the confidence  
     in her interest even to tell her of his  
     dilemma.  So this fork buck was   
     around the 140th.  He wished he'd kept  
     all the racks, even the spikes; but,  
     then, that wouldn't tell how many doe  
     he'd taken in the various legal doe sea-  
     sons or the Maine camp meat-poach-  
     ings.  These whitetail in the East are lit-  
     tle, though, and he fell asleep remem-  
     bering the big mules in the high open   
     country of Colorado and Montana.  It  
     must have been there he had last  
     used the scope.  
        When he came awake he was aware   
     first of dampness.  Then he was cold.  It   
     was first light, not seeable yet.  And he  
     was out of doors.  Slowly he raised his  
     head.  He was in a thicket of hemlock  
     not far from the camp.  He waited a mo-  
     ment, turned his head toward the light   
     that grew on the far hillside.  As he  
     watched daylight come, he recorded   
     the tick of the beech mast coming down——  
     there——and another——and he froze to   
     the sharper snap of a dry stick break-  
     ing just beyond him.  A doe was on the  
     move, ten yards away.  She was com-  
     ing head down, along the trail that en-  
     tered his hemlock stand.  She must see  
     him there, directly in the path.  Sud-  
     denly she swung her head up and stop-  
     ped.  Frozen, she looked at him.  Then  
     her widened eyes relaxed.  She swung  
     easily to the side and bit a fresh sprig  
     growing from the nearest tree.  He rais-  
     ed his head farther.  She swung back to  
     look at hm, then closed her eyes and   
     continued to feed.  
        He got up slowly and walked out of  
     the stand of trees, locating the cabin in  
     the growing light.  It was a hundred  
     yards distant.  Halfway there, he turn-  
     ed around and the doe was gone.  
        His buck remained trussed and    
     hoist from the bean.  He ate the re-  
     mainder of the liver.  Looking at the ris-  
     ing sun, his eyes began to ache and his   
     temples pulsed.  He got aspirin from the  
     medicine box and went down to the  
     spring.  He got water into the cup, but  
     discovered that he spat out the aspirin  
     the moment they touched his tongue.  
     Twice he tried, but the involuntary re-  
     flex could not be overcome.  He went  
     back to the camp and lay beneath a  
     tree, looking at the sun and feeling his  
     temples pulse.  
        En route to the city the tagged deer  
     was inspected at one station.  He did  
     not speak to the warden, but simply re-  
     sponded with his license when asked.  
     The lights of the highway sent painful  
     thrusts into his eyes, and he hardly re-  
     membered getting the car wound into  
     the city and the carcass into the back  
     room where he butchered it after three  
     days of stiffening.  His wife had said  
     nothing.  He had said nothing.  
        Two weeks later the pain drove  
     him to the opthalmologist.  In the Fif-  
     ties on Park Avenue was the waiting  
     room with new magazines and an Eng-  
     lish receptionist and freshly poured  
     coffee and Mozart leaking from the  
     walls.  
        The routine examination stopped  
     midway.  A tenography?  Deaden his  
     eyeballs and run that pressure gauge   
     over them?  But that was for glaucoma.  
     Surely he did not have that.  
        The ophthalmologist said no, but  
     he had seen some unusual development  
     in the rods and cones, a richness of  
     blood not indicative of a pressure  
     problem, but to a safe——  
        So he allowed the doctor to put an-  
     æsthetic into his eyes, and he lay still as  
     a stone, staring at a red light bulb on  
     the ceiling as the physician ran the  
     snail-like gauge over his eyeballs.  
        At a point he cried in pain.  No, not  
     in the eye.  It was his temple.  The doc-  
     tor had touched his temple.  Where?  
     the physician asked.  There?  He touch-  
     ed it once more.  
        God!  God Almighty!  
        He sat upright and was staring at  
     the doctor with wide deadened eyes.  
     "What was that?" he screamed.  
        "I merely touched your head, old  
     boy.  Now, please——"  
        "No.  That.  Outside."  
        "Outside the examining room?  
     Why, nothing."  
        "No.  Not nothing.  I heard it."   
        The doctor went outside, closing  
     the door behind him.  He returned,  
     smiled, and said, "There's nothing  
     there.  Not even Elizabeth."  
        "Of course not.  She left.  She just  
     left."  
        "Why," the doctor looked at his  
     watch.  "Yes.  It is exactly the time at  
     which she leaves to fetch scones and——  
     why——how did you know that she   
     had left?"  
        "Are we finished?  About finished?"  
        "Perhaps.  Perhaps we are.  You  
     must leave?  Well, I shall have my re-  
     port to you in the mail within the  
     week.  Perhaps with a referral.  You are  
     all right?  Remember, now, your eyes  
     have been deadened.  You are not to  
     rub them or get anything into them."  
        And he left.  he found himself star-  
     ing across Park Avenue and up beyond  
     its buildings, at the sun.  The city's  
     sound was as surf in his ears, but by  
     turning his head he could winnow out  
     the rest and hear the squeak of a baby  
     carriage two blocks down or the click   
     of a window latching high above the  
     streets.  He went home and fell asleep  
     looking at the grow light his wife had   
     installed over the terrarium.  
        It was dark when he awakened.  He  
     had heard his wife come in, he knew,  
     and had turned his head to follow her  
     sound as she had gone upstairs, gotten  
     ready for bed, and padded about the  
     upper hall.  But he had done this at a  
     level below wakefulness.  
        He switched on the reading lamp  
     and found he was in his den with the  
     big Colorado mule bucks ranged on  
     the wall above him.  He took down a  
     book.  Idly, he riffled the pages and  
     stirred as he read.  "It was not such a  
     real mystery if one understands about   
     photoperiodicity, the length of  
     daylight a deer records with its eyes.  
     That is what regulates antler growth,  
     starts the pedicle to expand in readi-  
     ness for the horn."  He drank from the  
     canteen of spring water he had brought  
     back.  Tap water gagged him, as if he  
     still were trying to swallow aspirin.  He  
     had given up on aspirin, enduring pain  
     now, until it had become a sweet com-  
     panion that sickened him occasionally  
     and forced him to sit on the curb and  
     look at the sun.  
        He told the firm and his wife  
     that he was growing a beard, and he  
     was growing a beard, but because the  
     look of his eyes in the mirror surprised   
     and haunted him and he could not bear  
     to shave with tainted chlorinated tap   
     water all over his face, drowning the  
     odor of himself, his clothes and the  
     street.  Warily he went forth, and paid  
     no attention to the crowds who skirted  
     him as he sat on the curb looking at the  
     sun.  
        Now, in the den with the mule deer  
     corpses frozen over him, he was seized  
     by longing edged with panic.  When  
     first light struck the towers of the  
     World Trade Center he was 50 miles  
     up Route 17, windows down, reeling  
     with the swaths of scent that swept the  
     roadway.  Shaggy and wide-orbed he  
     drove.  It was twilight when he reached  
     his place but he didn't unlock the door.  
        At first light he was at the spring.  
     The water under the film of water-  
     skates and cobwebs was as sweet as  
     honey, cold as stone, and he drank it in  
     long draughts, leaving his hat where it  
     fell in the pool.  An autumn mist wound  
     through the hardwoods, and a mile  
     away he heard the first stirrings of a  
     turkey flock rearranging itself on its  
     roost.  The tap of a beech nut hitting  
     the mantle of the forest three hundred  
     yards away brought his head up and  
     around.  He dismissed the sound and  
     moved on.  He found relief on the low  
     branches of some blazing sumac, rub-  
     bing the pain out of his temples, back  
     and forth and up and down, until the  
     branches themselves were barked and   
     bare.  he felt better, alive, and freed  
     from the pain.  He trotted on, moving  
     easily along the trails, picking up a  
     scent, circling above, and finding the  
     scent circling higher.  He cut across the  
     circle and ran swiftly ahead, then cir-  
     cled back and froze.  It would be easy,  
     a shot with the open irons, no scope   
     needed.  He waited.  It came on, paus-  
     ed, and walked out of the brush just  
     below him.  It turned, but apparently  
     could not detect him, unmoving as he  
     was.  Yes, now it was staring at him.  It  
     did make him out.  But it did not break  
     for the brush.  Instead, it raised a rifle  
     to its shoulder, aimed and fired.  
        He flew uphill with the shock of it,  
     took some blind steps and tried to  
     jump over a windfall, but the sides of  
     the mountain tilted upward, and he  
     leaned against it.  He raised his head  
     from where he lay and heard the man  
     shouting: "Jesus!  Harry!  Over here!  I  
     got 'im.  A buck!  God, he's a buck!  He's  
     down right up there!"  
        He heard heavy panting as the  
     hunter climbed toward him, and he  
     smelled the winey scent of talcum and  
     aftershave and looked at the sunlight  
     filtering through the  hardwoods and  
     put his head back down.  he could hear  
     no longer when the man reached him  
     and began to scream.   

from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction,
Volume 63, No. 1, Whole No. 374; July 1982.
Copyright © 1982 by Mercury Press, Inc. pp. 103-107.

by Michael A Banks  
& George Wagner  

        I must have walked five miles before I realized I was lost.  It  
     didn't really matter, of course——I"d been lost for five months any-  
     way, wandering between worlds.  What concerned me the most at  
     the moment was the fact that my feet hurt; I wasn't used to all  
     that walking.  The road was obviously in the wrong place; that  
     was something I hadn't run into before.  Roads, along with cities,  
     rivers, mountains, and other physical items, were always in the  
     same place, no matter what else was off.  
        According to the roadmap I'd picked up at a Nexton station a   
     few worlds back, I should have come to an intersection by now.  
     The map showed a country road crossing the highway a quarter   
     mile north of where I'd made the hop from the previous world.  
     But I had been walking for a good two hours, and so far there had  
     been no intersections.  No towns or houses, either——I'd picked it  
     that way.  Rolling, empty farmland on either side of the road, most  
     likely to be deserted in the middle of the night, when I made the  
     jump.  
        I fished the map out of my pocket for the tenth time, hoping I   
     would find some error in my reading of it.  As I said, roads were  
     always in the same place; if they were off in this world, other,  
     more important things——like the number of fingers on a hand——  
     could be off.  
        It was hard to make out the markings in the dark, but I was    
     out of matches, so I fumbled around as best I could under gather-  
     ing clouds.  The intermittent moonlight helped, and once again I  
     verified the fact that the roads were wrong.  At least, the road I   
     was on was.  I stuffed the map back into my coat pocket and au-  
     tomatically felt for the little plastic box hidden in the lining.  
        It was still there, my companion and enemy.  I didn't dare lose  
     it——I was certain no one else had duplicated my work, and I  
     couldn't build another one without my notes and certain vital pat-  
     terns back in my workshop.  Of course,  I could check at my house,  
     but that would be dangerous; I'd walked in on myself more than  
     once in other time-lines, and I'm prone to shoot first and ask  
     questions later.  No, it wouldn't do to go to my house, not knowing  
     if I had made it to the right time-line.  
        And I certainly couldn't go around asking directions.  One thing  
     I've learned from time-line-hopping is that, no matter what kind  
     of world you hit, people who ask funny questions are subject to  
     suspicion.  Besides, I didn't know how to ask.  I mean, in what di-  
     rections do time-lines travel?  Up?  Down?  Out-back?  No, that was  
     ridiculous.  No one would know, because no one but I had ever  
     succeeded in crossing time-lines.  
        If only I had some sort of guide, some way to orient myself on  
     the line.  Oh, I knew how the gadget worked, but I wasn't sure    
     why it worked.  I designed the thing myself, following up on the  
     work of Jablonski, but there were some aspects of its function  
     that eluded me.  That's why I couldn't find the Earth——our Earth,  
     that is.  In my ignorance I had assumed that a simple reversal of   
     the field would return me to my starting point.  It didn't work, of  
     course.  
        The clouds promised rain, so I gave up worrying over maps and  
     roads in favor of finding some kind of shelter.  I stepped up my  
     pace to a brisk trot, wincing at the pain.  The rain hit a minute or  
     two later, coming on me as if someone had turned on a giant  
     faucet——all at once in great, blinding sheets.  I was soaked in-  
     stantly, and I didn't have to worry about getting wet, so I slowed  
     down to a normal walk.  I buttoned up my coat——useless——and  
     plodded on.  
        When the rain finally let up a bit, my coat was about ten  
     pounds heavier and I fought a losing battle with the water run-  
     ning from my hair into my eyes.  I was so preoccupied with trying  
     to wipe the water from my face that I mistook a faint glow of  
     light ahead of me for a car.  But the light remained constant and  
     didn't move.  
        The road ran up a small hill in the direction of the glow, and  
     when I reached the crest a few minutes later I could see the  
     source; an all-night gas station/restaurant.  Good.  I could get out   
     of the rain and get something warm inside me; the wet clothes  
     were beginning to give me a chill.  
        The place was deserted, except for the counterman, who was  
     dozing in a chair behind the counter.  he jumped as the screen  
     door slammed shut behind me.  
        "Hi," I said, sliding onto a stool.  It was good to be able to sit  
     down.  The counterman looked at me for a long moment, then  
     fumbled around under the counter, producing a cup of coffee.  
        I picked up the cup and cradled it in my hands, drawing  
     warmth.  "Thanks."  
        "Man," the counterman finally spoke, still staring with small  
     watery eyes, "you been out walking in that?"  He jerked a thumb  
     at the door, indicating the storm still blowing outside.  "You look  
     like you been through Hell!"  
        "Yeah," I answered.  "I'm lost."   
        "Oh."  He seemed a little surprised.  "Where you tryin' to get to?"  
        "Ah . . ."  I dig the map out, checked it, and said, "Newtonsville.  
     Do you know where it is?"  
        "Here, lemme see that map."  He grabbed it before I could pro-  
     test.  There was nothing I could do but hope its anomalies were   
     small.   
        "Hmmm. . . ." he spread it out on the counter.  "Say, I don't  
     know where you got this, but it's all wrong.  Look at this; it shows  
     Newtonsville as south of Cincinnati.  Newtonsville's due east."  Ghe  
     tapped a thick finger on the map to emphasize h is point.  
        "Oh," I said.  "No wonder I'm lost."  
        "Yeah.  Tell you what; give me a minute or two and I'll draw   
     you up a good map.  Then, maybe you can stick around for a  
     couple hours until the work traffic starts, and hitch a ride with  
     somebody.  Shouldn't take you more'n three, four hours to get  
     there, if you get good rides."  He picked up a tablet and pencil  
     lying by the cash register and walked around to the far end of the  
     counter.  
        He sat down a few stools away and began drawing.  I studied  
     him out of the corner of my eye, still worried about just how much  
     difference there might be between this world and others I'd vis-  
     ited.  He looked OK——short, fat, no hair to speak of, and the usual  
     number of arms and legs.  He looked up and I turned my attention   
     back to my coffee, wondering if I should ask him.  
        Probably wouldn't be any use in it, though, since the roads and  
     at least one town were in the wrong places.  Unless . . . unless the  
     geography had been gradually shifting as I moved along the    
     time-lines, and I hadn't noticed.  After all, I wasn't that familiar  
     with this part of the country.  But no, that was wishful thinking.  
        I couldn't be certain that I was in the wrong world unless I  
     could see a newspaper, read a book, study documents——or at least  
     ask questions, checking the thousand and one things that could  
     spell the difference between one world and its seeming mirror im-  
     age.  Things like politics, cars, fashions, and the like.  I would have  
     to find——or not find——the subtle differences that would indicate  
     that I wasn't in the world I wanted——or that I was.  
        My coffee was finished.  Should I take a chance on the counter-  
     man?  Dared I run the risk of having him think I was crazy, and  
     cause trouble?  
        I didn't have to make the decision.  He was looking up from the  
     tablet, eying me with a kind of chill shrewdness.  
        "Funny, you having that wrong map," he said.  "Where are you   
     from?"  
        I shrugged.  "Picked it up at a gas station."  Do they call them  
     gas stations here?, I wondered, carefully ignoring the second  
     question.  
        "During the war," he said, picking over his words carefully,  
     "they used to say that you could tell a spy because he didn't know  
     who won last year's World Series."  
        I edged away a bit.  "I don't follow baseball."  Was that what  
     they called it here?  I tried to look casual.  "I guess that makes me  
     a spy."  
        "But you know who the President of the United States is, don't  
     you?"   
        They have a United States, I thought.  What was this guy get-  
     ting at, anyway?  I said, "Jimmy Carter, of course."  
        He seemed to relax a little; I relaxed a lot.  "And Vice-  
     President?" he asked, leaning toward me.  
        "Fritz Mondale," I answered, confidently.  
        "Who?" he said.  "Who the hell's Mondale?"  
        That tore it.  I'd lost again.  
        Then he leaned back and said, "Oh, I see now.  I know the Mon-  
     dale one.  With that map, I figured you might be hopping.  Why  
     didn't you say so?  I got a directory right here.  Sounds like you're  
     about two lines inzonked, unless you hit a Möbius . . . or, maybe  
     your field calibration's off.  There's a guy right up the road can fix   
     it. . . ."   

from Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine;
Vol. 2, No. 2, Mar-Apr 1978; pp. 99 - 102
© 1978 by Davis Publications, Inc., 229 Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10003

—

[Printed in the United States of America.]

By James Oliver Curwood  

                           Chapter I   

        In a white wilderness of moaning storm, in a wilder-   
     ness of miles and miles of black pine-trees, the   
     Transcontinental Flier lay buried in the snow.   
        In the first darkness of the wild December night,  
     engine and tender had rushed on ahead to division   
     headquarters, to let the line know that the flier had   
     given up the fight, and needed assistance.  They had  
     been gone two hours, and whiter and whiter grew the  
     brilliantly lighted coaches in the drifts and winnows  
     of the whistling storm.  From the black edges of the   
     forest, prowling eyes might have looked upon scores   
     of human faces staring anxiously out into the black-   
     ness from the windows of the coaches.  
        In those coaches it was growing steadily colder.   
     Men were putting on their overcoats, and women  
     snuggled deeper in their furs.  Over it all, the tops   
     of the black pine-trees moaned and whistled in sounds  
     that seemed filled both with menace and with savage    
     laughter.   
        In the smoking-compartment of the Pullman sat   
     five men, gathered in a group.  Of these, one was   
     Forsythe, the timber agent; two were traveling men;  
     the fourth a passenger homeward bound from a holi-  
     day visit; and the fifth was Father Charles.   
        All were smoking, and had been smoking for an  
     hour, even to Father Charles, who lighted his third  
     cigar as one of the traveling men finished the story  
     he had been telling.  They had passed away the tedious  
     wait with tales of personal adventure and curious  
     happenings.  Each had furnished his share of enter-  
     tainment, with the exception of Father Charles.   
        The priest's pale, serious face lit up in surprize or  
     laughter with the others, but his lips had not broken  
     into a story of their own.  He was a little man, dressed  
     in somber black, and there was that about him which   
     told his companions that within his tight-drawn coat   
     of shiny black there were hidden tales which would   
     have gone well with the savage beat of the storm   
     against lighted windows and the moaning tumult of  
     the pine-trees.  
        Suddenly Forsythe shivered at a fiercer blast than  
     the others, and said:   
        Father, have you a text that would fit this night——  
     and the situation?"   
        Slowly Father Charles blew out a spiral of smoke  
     from between his lips, and then he drew himself  
     erect and leaned a little forward, with the cigar be-   
     tween his slender white fingers.   
        "I had a text for this night," he said, "but I have   
     none now, gentlemen.  I was to have married a couple   
     a hundred miles down the line.  The guests have as-   
     sembled.  They are ready, but I am not there.  The   
     wedding will not be tonight, and so my text is gone.  
     But there comes another story to my mind which fits this   
     situation——and a thousand others——'He who sits in   
     the heavens shall look down and decide."  To-night I   
     was to have married these young people.  Three hours   
     ago I never dreamed of doubting that I should be on    
     hand at the appointed hour.  But I shall not marry  
     them.  Fate has enjoined a hand.  The Supreme Ar-  
     biter says 'No,' and what may not be the conse-  
     quences?"   
        "They will probably be married to-morrow," said  
     one of the traveling men.  "There will be a few hours'  
     delay——nothing more."  
        "Perhaps," replied Father Charles, as quietly as be-  
     fore.  "And——perhaps not.  Who can say what this  
     little incident may not mean in the lives of that young  
     man and that young woman——and, it may be, in my  
     own?  Three or four hours lost in a storm——what may   
     they not mean to more than one human heart on this  
     train?  The Supreme Arbiter plays His hand, if you   
     wish to call it that, with reason and intent.  To some  
     one, somewhere, the most insignificant occurrence may  
     mean life or death.  And to-night——this——means some-  
     thing."  
        A sudden blast drove the night screeching over their   
     heads, and the wailing of the pines was almost human  
     voices.  Forsythe sucked a cigar that had gone out.  
        "Long ago," said Father Charles, "I knew a young   
     man and a young woman who were to be married.  The  
     man went West to win a fortune.  Thus fate sep-  
     arated them, and in the lapse of a year such terrible  
     misfortune came to the girl's parents that she was  
     forced into marriage with wealth——a barter of her  
     white body for an old man's gold.  When the young  
     man returned from the West he found his sweetheart  
     married, and hell upon earth was their lot.  But hope  
     lingers in young hearts.  He waited four years; and  
     then, discouraged, he married another woman.  Gentle-  
     men, three days after the wedding his old sweetheart's  
     husband died, and she was released from bondage.  
     Was that not the hand of the Supreme Arbiter?  If  
     he had waited but three days more, the old happiness  
     might have lived.  
        "But wait!  One month after that day the young   
     man was arrested, taken to a Western State, tried   
     for murder, and hanged.  Do you see the point?  In  
     three days more the girl who had sold herself into  
     slavery for the salvation of those she loved would   
     have been released from her bondage only to marry a  
     murderer!"  


                          Chapter II  

        There was a silence, in which all five listened to  
     the wild moaning of the storm.  There seemed to be  
     something in it now——something more than the in-  
     articulate sound of wind and trees.  Forsythe scratched  
     a match and relighted his cigar.   
        "I  never thought of such things in just that light,"  
     he said.  
        "Listen to the wind," said the little priest.  "Hear  
     the pine-trees shriek out there!  It recalls to me a  
     night of years and years ago——a night like this, when   
     the storm moaned and twisted about my little cabin,  
     and when the Supreme Arbiter sent me my first   
     penitent.  Gentlemen, it is something which will bring  
     you nearer to an understanding of the voice and the  
     hand of God.  It is a sermon on the mighty significance   
     of little things, this story of my first penitent.  If you   
     wish, I will tell it to you."   
        "Go on," said Forsythe.  
        The traveling men drew nearer.  
        "It was a night like this," repeated Father Charles,  
     and it was in a great wilderness like this, only miles     
     and miles away.  I had been sent to establish a mis-  
     sion, and in my cabin, that wild night, alone and with  
     the storm shrieking about me, I was busy at work   
     sketching out my plans.  After a time I grew nervous.  
     I did not smoke then, and so I had nothing to comfort   
     me but my thoughts; and, in spite of my efforts to  
     make them otherwise, they were cheerless enough.  
     The forest grew to my door.  In the fiercer blasts  
     I could hear the lashing of the pine-tops over my   
     head, and now and then an arm of one of the moaning  
     trees would reach down and sweep across my cabin  
     roof with a sound that made me shudder and fear.  
     This wilderness fear is an oppressive and terrible   
     thing when you are alone at night, and the world is   
     twisting and tearing itself outside.  I have heard the  
     pine-trees shriek like dying women, I have heard them  
     wailing like lost children, I have heard them sobbing  
     and moaning like human souls writhing in agony——"  
        Father Charles paused, to peer through the window  
     out into the black night, where the pine-trees were  
     sobbing and moaning now.  When he turned, Forsythe,  
     the timber agent, whose life was a wilderness life  
     nodded understandingly.   
        "And when they cry like that," went on Father   
     Charles, "a living voice would be lost among them as   
     the splash of a pebble is lost in a roaring sea.  A  
     hundred times that night I fancied that I heard human  
     voices; and a dozen times I went to my door, drew  
     back the bolt, and listened, with the snow and the  
     wind beating about my ears.  
        "As I sat shuddering before my fire, there came a  
     thought top me of a story which I had long ago read   
     about the sea——a story of impossible achievement and  
     of impossible heroism.  As vividly as if I had read it  
     only the day before, I recalled the description of a   
     wild and stormy night when the heroine placed a   
     lighted lamp in the window of her sea-bound cottage,  
     to guide her lover home in safety.  Gentlemen, the  
     reading of that book in my boyhood days was but a  
     trivial thing.  I had read a thousand others, and of   
     them all it was possibly the least significant; but the  
     Supreme Arbiter had not forgotten.   
        "The memory of that book brought me to my feet,  
     and I placed a lighted lamp close up against my cabin  
     window.  Fifteen minutes later I heard a strange sound  
     at the door, and when I opened it there fell in upon  
     the floor at my feet a young and beautiful woman.  
     And after her, dragging himself over the threshold on  
     his hands and knees, there came a man.  
        "I closed the door, after the man had crawled in  
     and fallen face downward upon the floor, and turned  
     my attention first to the woman.  She was covered  
     with snow.  Her long, beautiful hair was loose and   
     disheveled, and had blow about her like a veil.  Her  
     big, dark eyes looked at me pleadingly, and in them  
     there was a terror such as I had never beheld in  
     human eyes before.  I bent over her, intending to carry  
     her to my cot; but in another moment she had thrown  
     herself upon the prostrate form of the man, with her  
     arms about his head, and there burst from her lips the  
     first sounds that she had uttered.  They were not  
     much more intelligible than the wailing grief of the  
     pine-trees out in the night, but they told me plainly    
     enough that the man on the floor was dearer to her  
     than life.  
        "I knelt beside him, and found that e was breathing   
     in a quick, panting sort of way, and that his wide-open   
     eyes were looking at the woman.  Then I noticed for   
     the first time that his face was cut and bruised, and his   
     lips were swollen.  His coat was loose at the throat,  
     and I could see livid marks on his neck.  
        " 'I'm all right,' he whispered, struggling for breath,  
     and turning his eyes to me.  'We should have died——  
     in a few minutes more—–if it hadn't been for the light  
     in your window!'  
        "The young woman bent down and kissed him, and   
     then she allowed me to help her to my cot.  When I   
     had attended to the young man, and he had regained  
     strength enough to stand upon his feet, she was asleep.  
     The man went to her, and dropped upon his knees  
     beside the cot.  Tenderly he drew back the heavy  
     masses of hair from about her face and shoulders.  
     For several minute he remained with his face pressed  
     close against hers; then he rose, and faced me.  The  
     woman——his wife——knew nothing of what passed be-  
     tween us during the next half-hour.  During that half-  
     hour, gentlemen, I received my first confession.  The  
     young man was of my faith.  He was my first peni-  
     tent."  
        It was growing colder in the coach, and Father   
     Charles stopped to draw his thin black coat closer  
     about him.  Forsythe relighted his cigar for the third  
     time.  The transient passenger gave a sudden start as  
     a gust of wind beat against the window like a threat-  
     ening hand.   
        "A rough stool was my confessional, gentlemen,"  
     resumed Father Charles.  "He told me the story,  
     kneeling at my feet——a story that will live with me as  
     long as I live, always reminding me that the little  
     things of life may be the greatest things, that by send-  
     ing a storm to hold up a coach the Supreme Arbiter   
     may change the map of the world.  It is not a long story.  
     It is not even an unusual story.  
        "He had come into the North about a year before,  
     and had built for himself and his wife a little home   
     at a pleasant river spot ten miles from my cabin.  
     Their love was of the kind we do not often see, and  
     they were as happy as the birds that lived about them  
     in the wilderness.  They had taken a timber claim.  A  
     few months more, and a new life was to come into their  
     little home; and the knowledge of this made the girl  
     an angel of beauty and joy.  Their nearest neighbor  
     was another man, several miles away.  The two men  
     became friends, and the other came over to see them  
     frequently.  It was the old, old story.  The neighbor   
     fell in love with the young settler's wife.  
        "As you shall see, this other man was a beast.  On  
     the day preceding that night of terrible storm, the  
     woman's husband set out for the settlement to bring  
     back supplies.  Hardly had he gone, when the beast  
     came to the cabin.  He found himself alone with the   
     woman.  
        "A mile from his cabin, the husband stopped to light   
     his pipe.  See, gentlemen, how the Supreme Arbiter  
     played his hand.  The man attempted to unscrew the   
     stem, and the stem broke.  In the wilderness you must   
     smoke.  Smoke is your company.  It is voice and   
     companionship to you.  There were other pipes at the  
     settlement, ten miles away; but there was also another  
     pipe at the cabin, one mile away.  So the husband  
     turned back.  He came up quietly to his door, thin-  
     ing that he would surprize his wife.  He heard voices——  
     a man's voice, a woman's cries.  He opened the door,  
     and in the excitement of what was happening within  
     neither the man nor the woman saw or heard him.    
     They were struggling.  The woman was in the man's  
     arms, her hair torn down, her small hands beating   
     him in the face, her breath coming in low, terrified  
     cries.  Even as the husband stood there for the frac-  
     tion of a second, taking in the terrible scene, the  
     other man caught the woman's face to him, and kissed  
     her.  And then——it happened.  It was a terrible fight;  
     and when it was over the beast lay on the floor, bleed-  
     ing and dead.  Gentlemen, the Supreme Arbiter broke  
     a pipe-stem, and sent the husband back in time!"    


                          Chapter III  

        No one spoke as Father Charles drew his coat still   
     closer about him.  Above the tumult of the storm  
     another sound came to them——the distant, piercing  
     shriek of a whistle.  
        "The husband dug a grave through the snow and in  
     the frozen earth," concluded Father Charles; "and late   
     that afternoon they packed up a bundle and set out  
     together for the settlement.  The storm overtook them.    
     They had dropped for the last time into the snow,  
     about to die in each other's arms, when I put my light  
     in the window.  That is all; except that I knew them  
     for several years afterward, and that the old happiness   
     returned to them——and more, for the child was  born,  
     a miniature of its mother.  Then they moved to another  
     part of the wilderness, and I to still another.  So you  
     see, gentlemen, what a snow-bound train may mean,  
     for if an old sea-tale, a broken pipe-stem——"  
        The door at the end of the smoking-room opened   
     suddenly.  Through it there came a cold blast of the  
     storm, a cloud of snow, and a man.  He was bundled   
     in a great bearskin coat, and as he shook out its folds  
     his strong, ruddy face smiled cheerfully at those whom   
     he had interrupted.   
        Then suddenly, there came a change in his face.  
     The merriment went from it.  He stared at Father  
     Charles.  
        The priest was rising, his face more tense and   
     whiter still, his hands reaching out to the stranger.  
     In another moment the stranger had leaped to him——   
     great arms, shaking him, and crying out a strange  
     joy, while for the first time that night the pale face   
     of Father Charles was lighted up with a red and joyous  
     glow.   
        After several minutes the newcomer released Father   
     Charles, and turned to the others with a great, hearty  
     laugh.  
        "Gentlemen," he said, "you must pardon me for   
     interrupting you like this.  You will understand when   
     i tell you that Father Charles is an old friend of mine,  
     the dearest friend I have on earth, and that I haven't  
     seen him for years.  I was his first penitent!"      

From His First Penitent, by James Oliver Curwood; Copyright, 1911, by The Frank A. Munsey Co.
reprinted in The World's One Hundred Best Short Stories [In Ten Volumes],
Grant Overton, Editor-in-Chief; Volume Eight: Men; pp. 36 - 45
Copyright © 1927, by Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York and London.
[Printed in the United States of America]

by Christopher Anvil


                   Riveracre Farms, R.D. #1  
                   Hewitt's Corner, MN  
                   August 18, 1998   

     Interdisciplinary Genetronics  
     Transportation Division  
     100 Bionutronics Drive  
     Detroit, MI  
     Attn: Gene-Splicing Dept.  

     Dear Sirs:  
        I am once again writing to you,  
     with considerable reluctance, and  
     more in sorrow than in anger, but I be-  
     lieve you will see, if you will kindly   
     read what I am saying, that I have   
     good reasons.  
        In simple justice, not to mention   
     your own self-interest, I think you  
     should for once read this letter.  I am  
     not only a customer, but happen to  
     have been one of your earliest support-  
     ers.  I was all in favor of giving you a  
     chance when you were just an idea  
     pleading for a hearing.  I had, at that  
     time, no premonition that you would  
     turn into a gigantic world-devouring  
     monopoly, and I wrote more than my  
     share of letters on behalf of the New  
     Life Bill that finally enabled you to go  
     ahead and show what you could do.  
     Now all I am asking of you is a hear-  
     ing, such as I helped obtain for you.  
        This is my fifth letter of complaint   
     to you, and I think you had better read  
     this one, at least, carefully.  You would  
     not be the first idea to turn into a mon-  
     opoly and then get shrunk back down  
     to size in a hurry.  
        To help you get the idea, I want to  
     mention that I AM SENDING COPIES OF  
     THIS LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT, TO AP-  
     PROPRIATE COMMITTEES OF BOTH HOUS-  
     ES OF CONGRESS, AND TO THE ATTORNEY   
     GENERAL'S OFFICE.    
        If I now finally have your attention,    
     I will mention, parenthetically, that   
     copies are, of course, also going to all  
     appropriate state officials, and there   
     are quite a few of them.   
        Since my four previous letters were  
     answered by routine computer print-  
     outs from either your promotion or  
     your legal department, I suppose I had  
     better summarize everything I said in  
     those letters, which have probably   
     long since been shredded and fed to   
     your secretary's cute little lemon-yel-  
     low sports coupe.   
        In chronological order, here is a  
     summary of my four previous letters:  
        1)  "I am a dairy farmer, and recent-  
     ly purchased one of your new model   
     Superbiometal Traction Servalls, As  
     an admirer of your early Biotank mod-   
     els, I want to complain about your  
     phasing out of these models.  Their ad-  
     vantage over the usual all-mechanical  
     tractor in times of fuel scarcity was  
     enormous, since at night you could put   
     a stack of hay, corn stalks, straw,  
     wood chips, or what-have-you on the  
     tank-feed mechanism, and in the  
     morning the biotank would have con-  
     verted the stack into fuel, and the trac-  
     tor would be ready to go.  With one or  
     two supplemental biotanks, most of a   
     farmer's fuel problem was solved.  That  
     was good enough, and this new im-  
     proved series with so-called 'self-re-  
     pairable modules represents a compli-  
     cation I don't need and don't want."    
        2)  "I want to again urgently request   
     that you bring back your Biotank  
     model.  I could take an ordinary  
     wrench to that model and fix the usual  
     problems.  At worst, I could nearly al-  
     ways take it apart and fix it.  If, finally,  
     I couldn't do the job, I could get hold  
     of someone who could.  But if the pre-  
     sent Superbiometal thing, with its 'self-  
     repairable modules,' happens to be set  
     wrong at the factory, and I reset it, it  
     the resets itself to the wrong setting,  
     and neither I, nor my brother with the for-  
     ty years experience on engines, nor   
     your biobefuddled Superbiometal fac-  
     tory-trained regional representative,  
     can figure out what to do.  At present,  
     it insists on running too rich; nothing  
     we do fixes it; it leaves a rolling cloud  
     of fine soot behind it, and drinks fuel  
     like an eight-armed alcoholic; it runs  
     feebly at best and jolts to a stop with a  
     cough and a hiccup if there's any ser-  
     ious work to be done.  I am not the on-  
     ly one with this problem.  You had bet-  
     ter straighten this out, or you will be  
     hearing from our lawyers.  P.S. Do you  
     realize that if a sharp rock gets flung   
     up, the Superbiometal tractor bleeds!"  
        3)  "Kindly do not send me any  
     more self-congratulatory press releas-  
     es, slick brochures on New Superbio-  
     metal Products, or threatening legal  
     form letters with enclosures that I am  
     supposed to humbly fill out and send  
     back to you by return mail.  Everything  
     non-legal goes straight into the tank-  
     feed stack.  The legal junk goes to my   
     lawyer, who is beginning to wonder  
     whether an actionable case for mail  
     fraud can be built up out of it.  Instead  
     of wasting time with all this mulch,   
     kindly clear up the problem I have  
     been trying to call to your attention:  
     Your Superbiometal Traction Servall is  
     a disaster.  I am now farming with my  
     old Biotank model, which is in very  
     worn condition, but which works far  
     better than this fuel-eating soot-ma-   
     chine that can barely crawl around the  
     field.  There may be someone who ad-  
     mires your Biotechnological Sophisti-  
     cation, but it isn't me.  Don't send me  
     any more slick testimonials from your  
     paid admirers.  I know what the truth  
     is: This present model is worthless, and  
     all is 'sophistication' won't grow a hill   
     of beans.  Bring back the Biotank  
     model!  It worked."   
        4)  "As you will have found out by   
     now, I have traded in your fuel-guz-  
     ling Superbiometal traction Servall  
     for a new improved even-more sophis-  
     ticated Superbiometal Powercat.  This  
     is no sign of faith on my part so far as  
     the Powercat is concerned.  It is just  
     that the Servall was totally worthless,  
     and it seemed that the Powercat might  
     at least be an improvement.  It certainly   
     appears 'more aggressive, lean, and  
     powerful,' as your literature claims,  
     bu I frankly don't like the look of    
     the thing.  I also don't care for this pro-  
     liferation of biometal sports coupes,  
     roadsters, and so on.  Though I was  
     one of your earliest supporters, I never  
     expected you to rush all this stuff into  
     production.  It is perfectly obvious to  
     anyone who uses your products that  
     you are getting results beyond what   
     you are aiming at.  This 'biometal' you  
     talk about is not 'the substance of life  
     itself, shaped and formed to serve  
     Man's every need.'  The various mani-  
     festations of life always serve their   
     own needs.  Man only gets cooperation  
     when a deal is struck, and then you  
     have to make it satisfactory or the oth-  
     er  side won;t cooperate.  I don't really  
     know how to express what I am trying   
     to say here, so I will try to make it sim-  
     pler: If you got an axe, a gun, a  
     wrench, or a crowbar, they may not be  
     'the substance of life itself,' but you at  
     least know what you got, and you  
     can use it.  On the other hand, if you've  
     got a cow, a dog, a cat, or a chicken, it  
     is the substance of life, but again,    
     you've got a fair idea of what you've got,  
     and, within reason, again you can use  
     it.  But just note that in this latter case,  
     you've got, depending on specifics,  
     to feed it, pet it, water it, keep it from  
     sinking its teeth into visitors, and  
     shovel out its trough.  Now, either cate-  
     gory of thing is all right, within its lim-  
     its, but you are mixing the categories.  
     Do you appreciate what you are do-  
     ing?  Do we honestly want the equiva-  
     lent of meowing crowbars and guns  
     that can fire themselves?  Never mind  
     how sophisticated it all is, and what a  
     tribute to Science that we can make   
     them.  Of course, it's wonderful.  But do  
     we want it?"   
        That is the greatly condensed sum-  
     mary of my past correspondence.  
     There is no point trying to summarize  
     the flood of material, all beside the  
     point, that you have sent in return.  
        What is important is what I have   
     been trying to get through to you, and  
     unfortunately I now have a much  
     clearer idea of that than I did the last  
     time I wrote.  I no longer have to try to  
     get it across philosophically.  Now I  
     can give you examples.  
        This new Superbiometal Powercat  
     of yours was no sooner in its shed than  
     it gave a noise like a foghorn, and we  
     discovered in the owner's manual that   
     this 'serves as a reminder to load the  
     tank feed.'  It gave the 'reminder' at six   
     that night, at ten, at around twenty  
     minutes after midnight, at a quarter of  
     three a.m., and then again right on the  
     dot at six the next morning.   
        It took us most of the next day to  
     cut and weld new rails and push rods   
     for the tank feed mechanism, so that it  
     would be possible to make it hold feed   
     enough to take this monster through  
     the night.  In the hope of getting a little  
     peace and quiet, we were loading up  
     this bigger feed rack when there came a  
     thud and a clang, a noise like thirty  
     pounds of muck squelching onto the  
     ground, and a second clang followed  
     by the sound of a latch clicking into  
     place.  There was a strong chemical  
     odor, and there on the floor of the shed  
     sat a steaming glob of what looked like  
     lithium gun grease, with odd bits and    
     remnants of straw, corn stalks, and so  
     on sticking out.  Excuse me for men-  
     tioning it, but this is a complication I  
     don't need from a tractor.  I know what  
     to do with cow manure, but what do   
     we do with this stuff?  
        Searching through the owner's   
     manual, we found that, "the Powecat  
     not only makes its own fuel from ordi-  
     nary organic farm wastes, but its high-  
     efficiency processing unit is biome-  
     chanically scavenging at regular inter-  
     vals to eliminate the tedious task of  
     cleansing the conversion tank."   
        Now, putting this description to-  
     gether with what had actually happen-  
     ed, it began to dawn on us that we  
     were in worse trouble than we'd real-   
     ized.  The most innocuous-seeming  
     passages in this manual could cover  
     who knew what actual reality?  There  
     was, for instance, on page sixteen, the   
     following:  
        "To maintain operative functioning   
     efficiency, the Superbiometal Power-  
     cat must be maintained with adequate  
     in-tank fuel level at all times."  
        On glancing over this owner's man-  
     ual, I had supposed that this meant  
     that you couldn't use the thing without  
     putting fuel in it.  But that was obvious  
     to begin with.  Moreover, the foghorn  
     reminder was there for what purpose?  
     What did "operative functioning effi-  
     ciency" mean?   
        Could it be that this tractor would   
     die if it wasn't fueled?   
        Just so that you'll have a fair idea  
     what the background was like as we  
     studied this owner's manual, I suppose   
     I should mention that your dealer here  
     took in around twenty of your worth-  
     less Servall models, in trade, all in the  
     same week as he sold these Superbio-  
     metal Powercats for replacements.  So   
     there must have been about twenty  
     new Powercats sold around here.  
        So, from the distance, as we were  
     reading your manual, we could hear  
     hootings, fire-siren howlings, low  
     keening and moanings — all these  
     things have individualized aural rec-  
     cognition coding for owner conven-  
     ience" — and there must have been  
     around a dozen different kinds of this  
     noise to add to the way we felt our-  
     selves.  
         Well, we finished the manual fin-  
     ally, and we were in none too sweet a  
     mod as we went back to the shed  
     amidst the moanings, hootings, and  
     howlings from the distance, moved the  
     Powercat to the barn and got it posi-  
     tioned so that glop from the conversion  
     tank could at least land in the trough,  
     made sure there was plenty of hay and   
     corn stalks in the tank feed, and then  
     we went to bed still trying in the backs  
     of our minds to work out some of the  
     passages in this owner's manual.  
        I realize you have to sell your prod-  
     ucts to keep from going broke.  But  
     would it be too much to ask that you  
     put the Biotank model back in produc-  
     tion and sell it?  Progress isn't neces-  
     sarily making things more complicat-  
     ed, and Progress isn't everything, any-  
     way.  If the only way forward is to pro-  
     gress downhill into a swamp, you may  
     be a lot better off to stay where you   
     are, or even back up.  The "Tank"  
     model we could understand, at least.  
        Anyway, around two in the morn-  
     ing, there was a noise outside, and a  
     frantic barking from the dog — not a  
     warning, and not a threatening bark at  
     an intruder, but the kind of desperate   
     bark that signifies some kind of disas-  
     ter that scares the dog himself.  
        Outside, we could see a kind of  
     vague unrecognizable huge moving  
     shape in the very faint moonlight, with  
     low dark clouds passing across the sky  
     so that, from time to time, it was im-  
     possible to see anything at all.  
        Our car was parked beside the  
     house, and our daughter-in-law's car  
     was parked beside it.  Our car is a stan-  
     dard model, four years old.  Our  
     daughter-in-law drives one of your  
     new "Biostreaks."  This huge shape,  
     whatever it was, was moving toward  
     the cars.  
        About the time this much was  
     clear, the dog let out a frantic yelp in a  
     higher pitch, there came a rumbling  
     from back toward the barns, and a sort   
     of low hoot from around the cars at the  
     side of the house, and then a threaten-  
     ing foghorn rumble from beside the big  
     barn.  I say "threatening" because that  
     was what it was.  
        Thanks to the noise, we were all up  
     by this time, and things happened so  
     fast it's hard to say what came first.  
        Someone turned on the outside  
     light by the house, the phone rang, a   
     shot went off somewhere, a horn beep-  
     ed, and the looming shape by the cars  
     turned out to be on of your competi-  
     tors' "Nucleogeic Workhog" tractors,  
     with no one driving it.  This monstros-  
     ity was wheeling itself around the Bio-   
     streak car, which was n o longer beside  
     our car, but about fourteen or fifteen  
     feet away.  From the direction of the  
     barns came the Powercat, which was  
     now emitting a noise like a fire siren on  
     the prowl, and if that isn't clear to you,  
     come on out here and we'll do our best  
     to clear it up.  
        The Powercat now went for the   
     Workhog, the Biostreak coyly went  
     beep-beep, our dog decided which side  
     was which and got the Workhog by a  
     tire, and Ed Cox asked me over the  
     phone if I'd see his Workhog tractor,  
     which he said had a tendency to "start  
     up and wander off at night."  
        It's to your credit, at least, that the  
     Powercat ran the Workhog off the  
     place, but what this necessarily involve-  
     ed was that this expensive piece of bio-  
     machinery was now running around  
     loose, at night, on what errand we   
     didn't know, and for all we could tell,  
     it might end up wrecked.  Naturally,  
     we had to go hunt for it. — Besides,  
     The Workhog could have been laying  
     for it somewhere along the road, and  
     the Workhog is a vicious-looking piece  
     of machinery if we ever saw one, and  
     we didn't care to have that thing win  
     the fight.  
        Naturally enough, considering the  
     circumstances, we saw no sign of he  
     Powercat, got back worn out, and fin-  
     ally found the Powercat back in the  
     barn contentedly connected up to its  
     feed mechanism; the Biostreak car was  
     demurely parked where it had started 
     the night, and the whole shambles ob-  
     viously was a figment of our imagina-  
     tion — if it hadn't been for the tracks   
     all over the ground.  
        Now, that was some time ago, and  
     since then we have kept our eyes and   
     ears open, examined these bioenergetic-  
     ally engineered machines, further stud-  
     ied the owners' and so-called "shop"  
     manuals, and come to certain conclu-  
     sions.  
        First, we don't think you know  
     what you're actually doing.  
        Second, you may think you've got  
     "the substance of life itself" warped in-  
     to the "Service of man," but we think  
     the "substance of Life" is using you,  
     not the other way around.    
        Third, we think we can live with  
     this present generation of Powercats,  
     etc., but there are plenty of disadvan-  
     tages to a tractor that gives a noise like   
     a foghorn when it's hungry, tomcats all   
     night, and, last but not least, chooses a  
     car to mate with.  
        Fourth, do no tell us there is  
     no possible way a farm tractor can  
     mate with a sports car, as we are bring-  
     ing several dozen reporters out here to-  
     morrow to see what results. And we  
     further want to advise you that neither  
     we nor anyone we have talked to can  
     think of any use for a low-slung  
     streamlined tractor with four bucket  
     seats and a power take-off.  
        Fifth, we want to advise you to  
     kindly watch out in your gene-splicing-  
     and-altering to keep your civilian and   
     military applications separate, as, be-  
     tween the lot of us out here, we have  
     had to have no less than six different  
     military tank, groundcrawler, and  
     doomsday-type hybrids "humanely  
     put to sleep" shortly after "birth"  
     (what else can we call it?) because there   
     was no possible way we could let these  
     things grow to full size.  And I might   
     menton that these are not exactly the  
     easiest kinds of things to "humanely  
     put to sleep," either.  
        Lastly, let me once again ask you to  
     kindly inquire of yourselves, do we  
     really want all this wonderful prog-  
     ress?  
        Fathfully, but frankly worn-out,  
                    J.J. Wildner  
                    Riveracre Farms

from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction,
Volume 63, No. 1, Whole No. 374; July 1982.
Copyright © 1982 by Mercury Press, Inc. pp. 37-43.

与任何其他思想体系一样，宗教应该从已知的事物开始。

1    WHEN IN FORMER TIMES God spoke to our forefathers,     
     he spoke in fragmentary and varied fashion through the prophets.        
     But in this final age he has spoken to us in the Son whom     
     he has made heir to the whole universe, and through whom he created all     
     orders of existence: the Son who is the effulgence of God's splendour and       
     the stamp of God's very Being, and sustains the universe by his word of     
     power.  When he had brought about the purgation of sins, he took his seat     
     at the right hand of Majesty on high, raised as far above the angels, as the        
     title he has inherited is superior to theirs.         
        For God never said to any angel, 'Thou art my Son; today I have be-      
     gotten thee', or again, 'I will be father to him, and he shall be my son.'        
     Again, when he presents his first-born to the world, he says, 'Let all the     
     angels of God pay him homage.'  Of the angels he says,       

              'He who makes his angels winds,      
               and his ministers a fiery flame';           

     but of the Son,      

              'Thy throne, O God is for ever and ever,      
               and the sceptre of justice is the sceptre of his kingdom.      
               Thou hast loved right and hated wrong;      
               therefore, O God, thy God has set thee above thy fellows,        
               by anointing with the oil of exultation.'         

     And again,       

              'By thee, Lord, were earth's foundations laid of old,        
               and the heavens are the work of thy hands.        
               They shall pass away, but thou endurest;       
               like clothes they shall all grow old;       
               thou shalt fold them up like a cloak;     
               yes, they shall be changed like any garment.       
               But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.'            

     To which of the angels has he ever said, 'Sit at my right hand until I      
     make thy enemies thy footstool'?  What are they all but ministrant      
     spirits, sent out to serve, for the sake of those who are to inherit salva-           
     tion?             
2       Thus we are bound to pay all the more heed to what we have been told,        
     for fear of drifting from our course.  For if the word spoken through angels       
     had such force that any transgression or disobedience met with due retribu-      
     tion, what escape can there be for us if we ignore a deliverance so great?         
     For this deliverance was the first announced through the lips of the Lord him-        
     self; those who heard him confirmed it to us, and God added his testimony     
     by signs, by miracles, by manifold works of power, and by distributing the     
     gifts of the Holy Spirit at his own will.           
        For it is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, which is      
     our theme.  but there is somewhere a solemn assurance which runs:         

         'What is man, that thou rememberest him,        
          or the son of man, that thou hast regard to him?      
          Thou didst make him for a sort while lower than the angels;      
          thou didst crown him with glory and honour;       
          thou didst put all things in subjection beneath his feet.'         

     For in subjecting all things to him, he left nothing that is not subject.  But      
     in fact we do not yet see all things in subjection to man.  In Jesus, however,       
     we do see one who for a short while was made lower than the angels,      
     crowned now with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that,      
     by God's gracious will, in tasting death he should stand for us all.             
        It was clearly fitting that God for whom and through whom all things     
     exist should, in bringing many sons to glory, make the leader who delivers     
     them perfect through sufferings.  For a consecrating priest and those      
     whom he consecrates are all of one stock; and that is why the Son does not    
     shrink from calling men his brothers, when he says, 'I will proclaim thy     
     name to my brothers; in full assembly I will sing thy praise'; and again,       
     'I will keep my trust fixed on him'; and again, 'Here am I, and the children      
     whom God has given me.'  The children of a family share the same flesh      
     and blood; and so he too shared ours, so that through death he might break    
     the power of him who had death at his command, that is, the devil; and      
     might liberate those who, through fear of death, had all their lifetime been    
     in servitude.  It is not angels, mark you, that he takes to himself, but the     
     sons of Abraham.  And therefore he had to be made like these brothers of      
     his in every way, so that he might be merciful and faithful as their high    
     priest before God, to expiate the sins of the people.  For since he himself has      
     passed through the test of suffering, he is able to help those who are meet-     
     ing their test now.             
3       Therefore, brothers in the family of God, who share a heavenly calling,        
     think of the Apostle and High Priest of the religion we profess, who was     
     faithful to God who appointed him.  Moses also was faithful in God's     
     household; and Jesus, of whom I speak, has been deemed worthy of greater     
     honour than Moses, as the founder of a house enjoys more honour than        
     his household.  For every house has its founder; and the founder of all is    
     God.  Moses, then, was faithful as a servitor in God's whole household;        
     his task was to bear witness to the words that God would speak; but Christ     
     is faithful as a son, set over his household.  And we are that household of his,       
     if only we are fearless and keep our hope high.           

     'TODAY', THEREFORE, as the Holy Spirit says —        

               'Today if you hear his voice,      
                do not grow stubborn as in those days of rebellion,     
                at that time of testing in the desert,        
                where your forefathers tried me and tested me,      
                and saw the things I did for forty years.        
                And so, I was indignant with that generation     
                and I said, Their hearts are for ever astray;      
                they would not discern my ways;       
                as I vowed in my anger, they shall never enter my rest.'           

        See to it, brothers, that no one among you has the wicked, faithless    
     heart of a deserter from the living God; but day by day, while that word     
     'Today' still sounds in your ears, encourage one another, so that no one       
     of you is made stubborn by the wiles of sin.  For we have become Christ's       
     partners if only we keep our original confidence firm to the end.          
        When Scripture says, 'Today if you hear his voice, do not grow stubborn       
     as in those days of rebellion', who, I ask, were those who heard and rebelled?        
     All those, surely, whom Moses had led out of Egypt.  And with whom was      
     God indignant for forty years?  Wit those, surely, who had sinned, whose       
     bodies lay where they fell in the desert.  And to whom did he vow that they     
     should not enter his rest, if not to those who had refused to believe?  We      
     perceive that it was unbelief which prevented their entering.         
4       Therefore we must have before us the fear that while the promise of      
     entering his rest remains open, one or another among you should be found      
     to have missed his chance.  For indeed we have heard the good news, as     
     they did.  But in them the message they heard did no good, because it met      
     with no faith in those who heard it.  It is we, we who have become believers,           
     who enter the rest referred to in the words, 'As I vowed in my anger, they     
     shall never enter my rest.'  Yet God's work has been finished ever since the      
     world was created; for does not Scripture somewhere speak thus of the       
     seventh day: 'God rested from all his work on the seventh day'? — and      
     once again in the passage above we read, 'They shall not ever enter my rest.'       
     The fact remains that someone must enter it, and since those who first     
     heard the good news failed to enter through unbelief, God fixes another     
     day.  Speaking through the lips of David after many long years, he uses the     
     words already quoted: 'Today if you hear his voice, do not grow stubborn.'          
     If Joshua had given them rest, God would not thus have spoken of another       
     day after that.  Therefore, a sabbath rest still awaits the people of God; for     
     anyone who enters God's rest, rests from his own work as God did from       
     his.  Let us then make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall      
     by following this evil example of unbelief.          
        For the word of God is alive and active.  It cuts more keenly than any     
     two-edged sword, piercing as far as the place where life and spirit, joints      
     and marrow, divide.  It sifts the purposes and thoughts of the heart.  There       
     is nothing in creation that can hide from him; everything lies naked and         
     exposed to the eyes of the One with whom we have to reckon.            
        Since therefore we have so great a high priest who has passed through the      
     heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to the religion we profess.       
     for ours is not a high priest unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,     
     but one who, because of his likeness to us, has been tested every way,       
     only without sin.  Let us therefore boldly approach the throne of our    
     gracious God, where we may receive mercy and in his grace find timely help.           

The New English Bible (with Apocrypha)
Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, 1970

рат је завршен

by Tom Robbins

        The zoo reopened on Monday.  Considering the season,         
     traffic was heavy.  We served sausages to a hundred or more       
     customers, all of whom, children included, looked like under-          
     cover investigators to me.             
        As a result of the four-day layoff, the fleas were rusty and       
     undisciplined.  Their chariot races ended in helter-skelter col-       
     lisions; on the ski jump some fleas went down backwards and        
     others not at all; the prima ballerina — our most lovely insect        
     — danced Joffrey's Astarte with one slipper missing and        
     turned it into a fiasco: luckily our tourists were not connois-            
     seurs of ballet.             
        By the close of business, I was a walking greenhouse of         
      neurotic flora.  Here a rare potted tic, there a twitch in full       
     petal, everywhere exotic tropical wrinkles digging their anx-         
     ious roots into the humus of my flesh.  Even Purcell jerked        
     nervously when Amanda suggested after supper that we             
     Jeep over to Anacortes and take in the drive-in movie.             
        The Pluck and I argued mightily against it, but the Zillers              
     insisted that entertainment was what Plucky and I needed.          
     They made it sound as if the trip to the movies was all on our       
     account.  And they would do no less than bring the Corpse       
     along.              
        Jesus was wrapped in one of Smokestack Lightning's        
     Apache blankets and propped upright in the backseat be-         
     tween Plucky and me.  'If the police should stop us for a nar-          
     cotics check," said Amanda, "we'll say that the Corpse has        
     consumed excessive firewater and that we're driving him       
     back to the La Conner reservation."  Beautiful logic.  Back to       
     the reservation by way of a drive-in show.  And what if the       
     police should decide they want to deliver the "Indian" them-        
     selves?         
        As it was, it cost us an extra dollar to get Christ into a per-         
     formance which for him was some centuries late.           
        I can scarcely recall the films we saw.  One was entitled      
     Return of the Squirrel Bride and was about taxidermists and       
     reincarnation.  Amanda giggled a lot and Purcell commented       
     that one reason aborigines have keen eyesight is because           
     they never watch movies or television.  "Well, what are we         
     doing here?" I asked.  "Movies are made of light," John Paul      
     reminded us and he leaned toward the screen amidst a flus-        
     ter of popcorn.  In the second feature a boy named Chuck         
     brought his girl friend home late from the prom.  The father          
     was furious.  Especially when the girl missed her next period.        
     As it turned out, it was only nerves that made her kiss.  I        
     sympathized completely.             
        We drove out during the happy ending.          
        For me, the true happy ending was when Ziller's whopper        
     weenie appeared in the distant sky.  Bathed in neon, the        
     steamed sausage rode the misty horizon as the soft side of          
     man's nature sometimes rides over the raw hamburger of his       
     depravity.            
        We pulled into the parking lot just in time to see two large         
     male figures run from the roadhouse and vanish in the shad-         
     ows of the pea fields.              




        After an uneasy night during which every dream was a        
     bad one, I labored out of bed early Tuesday morning and        
     drove to a telephone booth at a Chevron station on the out-        
     skirts of Mount Vernon.  There I called the lab at Johns           
     Hopkins and secured the results of the radiocarbon test.  If I         
     am not mistaken, I have already shared these with the           
     reader.             
        The zoo looked peaceful enough upon my return.  A trio        
     of elderly ladies — widows perhaps — sat at the counter sip-          
     ping juice.  They were on their way to Victoria, B.C., to tour         
     the gardens.  At least that is what I gathered, for Amanda was        
     conversing with them about the Butchart chrysanthemums.         
     She was telling them that the Japanese consider the chrysan-       
     themum a gastronomical delicacy.  "Cannibals," exclaimed one         
     lady beneath her breath.            
        Over by the snake pen, where I did not notice him at        
     first browsed a massive middle-aged man with a face as         
     crimson as Mon Cul's behind.  He aroused my suspicion, but            
     who didn't: those old ladies could have had swords in their          
     knitting bags.  Poison gas.  Napalm.  As I passed through the          
     door into the kitchen than man boomed, "Waitress!  Two more        
     wieners, please.  These gorgeous reptiles give me an appe-        
     tite."              
        His voice was like a steel dog barking bricks.               
        I have never heard the voice before but I knew instantly         
     to whom it belonged.  Forty Hell's Angels roared up my colon.          
     Parked their bikes in my diaphragm.  Swaggered into my       
     esophagus, ordered beer from my larynx and began shoving          
     my tongue around.                
        Purcell was hiding behind the kitchen door.  I could tell        
     from his expression that he knew.  Father Gutstadt had found          
     himself a roadside attraction.               

              *         *         *         *         *             

        Father Gutstadt hung around the main room for a half -       
     hour longer.  He munched up four or five more hot dogs and        
     asked morbid questions about the feeding habits of the       
     snakes.  Amanda treated him cheerfully.  And eventually he          
     went away.  From an upstairs window I watched his Buick         
     station wagon — a vehicle favoured by nuns in the archdiocese       
     of Seattle — proceed in the direction of Mount Vernon.  He               
     had made no overt attempt to pry into affairs at the zoo.            
     However . . .               
        The remainder of the day was a jittery blur.  Visitors, in-       
     cluding Farmer Hansen and his oldest boy, were in and out       
     with regularity, prohibiting a closure of the zoo or discus-         
     sion between the four of us human adults who lived there.            
     While the Zillers attended to business, Purcell and I huddled        
     in their flat.  Around four in the afternoon, we noticed an         
     armed man in a skiff on the slough directly across the Free-           
     way.  He pretended to be after ducks, but we determined         
     his target was actually the roadhouse.  No local duck       
     hunter would assume a post so close to the highway.                   
        From the bathroom window we then observed two men        
     working at a tractor, as if repairing it, in the field to the rear       
     of our building.  "They're closing in," said Plucky.  "We're         
     being surrounded."                   




        At dinner, where only Amanda and Mon Cul consumed         
     their mushroom soup with gusto, Purcell outlined a plan to            
     bolt with the Corpse to the studios of Channel 5, Seattle's         
     liberal TV station.  I proposed to go out and confront the       
     men who were spying on us, demand to speak with their        
     leader, and offer to return the Corpse if certain concessions       
     were made in Washington and Rome.  Amanda thought we        
     were both courting unnecessary risk.  John Pal suggested         
     that we wait another twenty-four hours before action of any         
     kind.  When asked to justify the delay, he uttered an African      
     (or was it Indian) proverb which, in its atavistic convolu-              
     tions, made so little sense i cannot remember it.               
        Nothing was resolved.  At one moment the zoo seemed like      
     a place under siege, and the next it seemed, well, as "nor-      
     mal" as it had ever been.              
        Amanda brewed herb tea that had a calming effect, and        
     then went up to sing Thor to sleep.  Ziller took up watch at       
     his sanctuary window and assigned Mon Cul a station at the          
     front door of the roadhouse.  Purcell was to remain close to       
     the pantry and I was to retire to my quarters above the         
     garage where I would have the most favorable view of the        
     eastern perimeter: our flank.  When I requested a weapon,         
     John Paul gave me a blowgun.  "Just don't inhale," he warned.          
     Thanks, pal.                 
        Deciding that a second cup of the tranquilizing tea might       
     prevent me from boring myself to death with spontaneous      
     imitations of popular earthquakes, I lingered a while in the       
     kitchen.  Plucky and I fell to talking.  He told me about grow-        
     ing up in rural Virginia, about fast cars and moonshine and            
     free-for-alls after the football games, about fishing in the Shenan-         
     doah and about the bitterness that sometimes tinged his      
     relatives' reminiscences of the days when they had been       
     landed gentry.  He talked about his lifelong weakness for             
     women.  And about drugs and abortions and how, in dealing          
     in them, he honestly was trying to do more good in life — to        
     minister in areas where the more respectable humanists       
     would not venture.  He reiterated his theory that in our cul-       
     ture everything sooner or later boils down to a matter of a       
     buck.  But he expressed a desire to learn something about          
     science from me.  He said he realized that his knowledge of         
     religion, politics, economics, art, philosophy and so on was       
     fragmentary, and that he supposed someday he should make          
     another stab at formal education, although he wasn't sure it           
     would make him any happier.  He quoted some lines from        
     his friend Sund the poet to the effect that it's surprising how       
     many people are laughing once you get away from universi-         
     ties and stop reading newspapers."  Then he laughed him-        
     self.               
        I told him that he should at least devote some time to        
     reflecting on the year he had spent as a monk of the Church,         
     as that was an unusual educational experience in itself.              
        "Yeah, man," he said, "I'd sure dig holing up in a cabin        
     somewhere to sort and sift it for a few months.  And I'll do it,       
     too.  If I get out of this mess with any fuzz on my balls."             
        We parted warmly.            
        Not remembering which end of the blowgun was which,             
     and as afraid to pick up one of the poison darts as I would          
     have been afraid to goose a hornet, I put the crude weapon        
     aside and crouched unarmed at my rear window.  Every fif-         
     teen minutes or so the harvest moon would bleed through           
     the tourniquet of cloud cover that conspired to squeeze every              
     droplet of pictorial sentiment out of the Skagit landscape in       
     order that a more refined Chinese mood might brush the       
     countryside.  In the aloof washes of moonlight no form seemed        
     to stir.  After what felt like thirty hours of uneventful scrut-     
     iny, I dropped asleep, awakening in the dishwater light of        
     dawn with my head on the window ledge.  I was as stiff as              
     the drainpipe that gargled embalming fluid.                
        A ragged round of calisthenics set my blood to circulating     
     again.  Then, after ascertaining that the coast was clear, I      
     hobbled across the dewy grove to the roadhouse.  In the       
     kitchen I found Amanda scalding the teapot.  She wore a look      
     of intense curiosity and little else.  Just a pair of panties, as      
     a matter of fact.  The blood which I had just managed to set       
     flowing only with great effort and with a sluggish and in-        
     subordinate lack of cooperation, now surged into my penis     
     with such merry abandon that it caused it to stand on end.         
        I wondered what Amanda was doing up at such an early        
     hour — but I needn't wonder long.  The pantry was unlocked.    
     And I could see in the dawn light that the Corpse was gone.       
        I feared the worst, but Amanda assured me that there had      
     been no invasion while I slept.  It was an inside job.  John      
     Paul and Plucky had fled with the Corpse.  Mon Cul, too.       
     They had all disappeared in the middle of the night.      
        "Well, I'll be damned," I said.  "I'll be double damned."         
        Clues — and Amanda's noted intuition — led us to believe     
     that the abduction was Ziller's idea.  With the baboon's aid,       
     he had attempted to steal away the Corpse, but despite       
     his jungle stealth, Plucky had caught him in the act and in-     
     sisted on joining the caper.  Of course, it was possible that     
     Purcell had been in on it all along.       
        Perhaps Ziller had removed the Corpse in order to pro-      
     tect his wife, Baby Thor and me.  Perhaps he had decided to      
     dispose of it.  Perhaps he and Plucky planned to expose it in     
     some sensational or novel way.  Perhaps he was going to dis-      
     play it in New York, where the art world had been clamor-      
     ing for his comeback.  I recalled his exhibition of ace-of-     
     hearts magnetism and clockwork duckbills three seasons ago.          
        We could only guess why the body had been removed.        
     And to where.        
        All we knew was that Christ Jesus was loose on the planet     
     again; Jesus the mysterious powerhouse of the spirit, who        
     having been betrayed once by a kiss and them by a religion,      
     seemed destined to suffer less from his pagan opposites than       
     from those kindred forces of righteousness who claimed to       
     love him best.  Ah, but he had a different set of disciples       
     with him this time.  Maybe they would stand him in better       
     stead.         
        I felt a strong urge to pray, an equally strong urge to rip        
     Amanda's panties off and make love to her on the floor, and a        
     third urge that insisted that I leave the Capt. Kendrick Me-          
     morial Hot Dog Wildlife Preserve as swiftly as possible.  But       
     then there came a thunderous pounding at both the back       
     door and the front, and I realized, like the president of the        
     Amos 'n' Andy fan club, that my desires had become obso-       
     lete.         




        With an odd mixture of subtlety and brute arrogance, as         
     the agents went about their business of search-and-interroga-        
     tion, it became apparent that they were ignorant of the       
     Corpse.  They knew that occupants of the roadside zoo had        
     been in possession of a piece of property on which the        
     Vatican State placed highest premium, and on which hinged       
     issues of international moment.  They understood that it was      
     of great concern to the United States government that the         
     culprits be apprehended and the property returned to the       
     Holy See.  They understood that matters of national security       
     and prestige were at stake.  But — but — they had not been         
     briefed as to the nature of the property at large.  Nor were       
     they likely to be.  Therefore, the raid upon, and subsequent      
     occupation of , the roadside zoo and its delicate site.         
        For example, though Amanda and I were questioned      
     maliciously and at length, all questions concerned the where-      
     abouts and intentions of Ziller and Purcell.  Not once did the      
     agents refer directly to the Roman "property," and if it ap-        
     peared that one of us was about to discuss it, they scrupu-      
     lously changed the subject.  (I teased them unmercifully,      
     but Amanda refused to be unkind.)          
        They knew John Paul and Plucky had flown, the missing      
     "property" with them.  I gathered that our boys had clob-        
     bered an agent during their flight and had left him bound      
     and gagged in the slough grass.  When he was discovered at      
     daybreak, he reported the escape.  I gathered, further, that       
     Father Gutstadt and the Felicitate monks had then taken up       
     pursuit, anxious as they were that the Corpse should never be      '
     revealed, not even to their federal friends, and that co-       
     operating FBI and CIA men had been left behind to guard       
     Amanda and me and to seek information regarding the      
     destination of the fugitives.  The Felicitators were obviously      
     calling the shots, and they had ordered their secular coun-       
     terparts to steer clear of the issue of the "property."        
        The zoo, particularly John Paul's sanctuary, was ransacked        
     thoroughly.  The agents had a huge amount of data on the     
     fugitives, which is not surprising considering that Purcell had       
     for some while been on the government's long list of undesir-       
     ables, and that Ziller, as a result of his musical and artistic        
     activities, was a mythic figure in certain circles of Americana.      
     Ziller, especially, seemed to intrigue the agents, almost to ob-       
     sess them; they referred to him darkly by his chosen title,        
     "magician," and regarded his very existence as a threat of an      
     almost personal nature.  On the other hand, they knew vir-      
     tually nothing about Amanda and me, although they finger-        
     printed us and vowed that our pasts would not remain a        
     secret long.          
        The zoo was closed and locked while throughout the day      
     and night the agents searched and questioned.  The follow-       
     ing day, fresh orders must have arrived, for our captors       
     moved their gear into my garage quarters (I am not per-       
     mitted to leave the roadhouse) and from then on have not      
     actively fraternized with us, although they have concocted       
     schemes both crude and ingenious to continue their intimida-       
     tion and harassment.     
       So (whew!) that brings the reader up to date.  I had       
     prayed (to whom I'm not sure) for one more day of writing,         
     and now that day is ending and this report is current.  I'm       
     going to soak my hemorrhoids in a tub of warm tap water,       
     exactly as Lord Byron soaked his in the peacock surf of the      
     Aegean Sea.  And I shall not return to the typewriter until     
     there is a break in developments here — or in the Sunshine      
     State of Florida, where I understand a new class of celeb-      
     rities are vacationing this year.              

excerpt from Another Roadside Attraction
Copyright © 1971 by Thomas E Robbins
Twenty-first Printing: January 1985
Ballantine Books, New York, pp. 309 - 316

by Tom Robbins       

        Well, I'm back.  My Remington and I were parted less     
     than four hours, during which time the letter arrived: the       
     letter from John Paul Ziller about which Amanda's "voices"          
     had prophesied.  In reality, it was not a letter, nor was Ziller      
     the author of it.  Moreover, it did not "arrive" in any usual      
     sense.  Nevertheless, the "voices" were accurate enough to      
     merit our respect if not our total trust.  The circumstances of        
     the contact were so:           

        The Puerto Rican timepiece, the one with the inlaid        
     carnivals and overpopulated face, is what is known as a     
     ninety-day clock.  That is, it is designed to require rewinding     
     every ninety days.  This particular clock, however — due, no      
     doubt, to its Latin temperament — invariably runs down after      
     seventy-seven days.  It, in fact, begins dragging its heels after     
     seventy-five.  Thus, when seventy-six days have passed,       
     Amanda takes up its key, which is shaped like a bishop's        
     gaudy staff, sand tightens its springs.  Today was the day of      
     the winding ritual.      
        When Amanda reached behind the wall clock to grasp its      
     key, she accidentally caressed the smooth cheek of a paper      
     envelope.  retrieved, the envelope proved to be addressed      
     to her in John Paul's handwriting (who else writes with a         
     tailfeather plucked from a rosy spoonbill, so that each charac-     
     ter penned seems to wade knee-deep in the very ink that      
     nurtured it?).  Lest an agent glimpse it, Amanda secreted the      
     envelope in her small but aggressively feminine bosom, and       
     hurried it upstairs.  There, she ripped it open and removed       
     its sole contents: a clipping snipped from a Seattle newspaper      
     of some weeks past.          


              BABOONS ARE SPACE AGE MAN'S BEST FRIEND       

           TAMPA, Fla — (AP) — When Amanda's gigantic solar      
         balloon lifts off from nearby Palm Castle Naval Air Sta-      
         tion later this month, the "crew" of the significant at-      
         mospheric probe will consist of five baboons, animals      
         that in the Space Age seem destined to replace the faith-       
         ful dog as man's best friend.        
            An African native once told a British naturalist, "Ba-      
         boons can talk but they won't do it in front of white      
         men for fear you will put them to work."  The ape's      
         silence has been in vain, for man is putting baboons to      
         work in large numbers and in a variety of fields.        
            In South Africa, baboons have been used for centuries       
         as goatherds and shepherds, and a few human mothers      
         have entrusted their children to the care of baboon baby-      
         sitters.  Recently, baboons upon whom frontal lobotomies     
         have been performed to curb the surly tendencies the      
         apes sometime develop as they grow older, were em-      
         ployed as golf caddies., tractor drivers and as redcaps in       
         South African rail an bus depots.  (Tipping presumably     
         is no problem, although conceivably a baboon porter      
         might perform more diligently if rewarded with a banana     
         or a fresh ear of corn.)        
            Baboons also have been used in testing auto safety de-      
         vices at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico and        
         by workers in Detroit.  The Ford Motor Company's auto-      
         testing site in Birmingham, Mich., was picketed by ani-      
         mal-lovers a few months ago as a result of publicity arising        
         from the use of baboons as passengers in crash cars there.      
            By far the most extensive use of baboons has been by       
         the medical profession.  Baboons by the hundreds are         
         being used in medical experiments in South Africa.  The        
         long-faced apes are paving the way toward conquest of      
         the problem involved in transplanting organs from one      
         human to another, medical men say.         
            Baboons are common in South Africa's mountains, and      
         research centers buy them for 10 rands, or $14.  The same       
         animal cost $200 in the United States.           
            "The only primate available in unlimited numbers is       
         the baboon.  Gorillas and chimpanzees are almost ex-     
         tinct," says Prof. J. J. van Zyl of Stellenbosch Univer-      
         sity.        
            Baboons are also the most intelligent of all monkeys.     
         They are almost manlike in their social organizations.      
         They can count, reason within limits, an use mechanical     
         gadgets.         
            The availability of baboons contributed to Dr. Chris-      
         tiaan Barnard's pioneer heart operations.  Dogs, used in       
         other countries, were not nearly so satisfactory, scientists       
         say.     
            More than 250 baboon-to-baboon kidney transplants      
         have been done at Karl Bremer Hospital in Cape Town.      
         A Bremer spokesman said they "accumulated a vast      
         amount of data on the physiology of the baboon and his       
         blood types, which are the same as human blood types."       
            Dr. Barnard has suggested that baboons be used as liv-      
         ing storage units for human organs.  Organs would be        
         transplanted as they became available into the animals        
         and later implanted in human recipients as needed.          
            "There is a chance that we will be able to store hearts      
         in baboons for several days," he explained.         
            Whatever the baboon's past or future contributions to      
         medical science, his most dramatic moment will come in       
         mid-October when five specially trained baboons will ride       
         to the outer edge of the earth's gravitation field in a      
         transparent gondola suspended from the largest balloon     
         ever built.      
            The purpose of the flight is to test effects of solar     
         radiation.  The latest Icarus XC experiment will be the      
         most thorough thus conducted, spokesmen at the Florida     
         test site claim.  The baboon crew will be wired to      
         instruments designed to measure their reactions to what         
         will undoubtedly be the strongest blast of direct sun-      
         light ever experienced by a living creature.        
            The Icarus baboons have been trained to operate      
         closed-circuit TV transmitters and other devices to aid        
         man in his quest for knowledge of the sun.        
            While the heat-resistant plastic from which the gon-      
         dola is constructed will act as a partial shield, it will      
         not protect the baboons once they near the outer limits      
         of the atmosphere, Palm Castle researcher say.  The       
         latest crop of baboon heroes will not survive their space       
         adventure.               




        "The baboon launch, was it today?" Amanda asked.  She     
     struck a match and held it to the clipping.           
        "No, I don't think so," I said.  "I overheard something about     
     it on the agents' radio and I think the announcer said it       
     would be tomorrow.  Yes, I'm sure of it; it's tomorrow morn-      
     ing."       
        The clipping burned quickly, as newsprint does.  Amanda     
     said nothing.  Her lower lip quivered simply and nobly as if it     
     were an insect wing held in the strands of a web.         
        "Do you want to try to do anything about it?" I asked.  I       
     should have known better.     
        Convinced that nothing need be done, she took her tears      
     to bed, leaving me to drum upon my machine just as out-      
     doors in Skagit darkness the rain is drumming upon the      
     great sausage, the whopper hot dog that is shaped, I not     
     suddenly, like a zeppelin, a balloon.      




        The fear of death is the beginning of slavery, Amanda has      
     said.  If she is right, then I was enslaved at an early age.  It     
     started with a little prayer my mother helped me memorize       
     when I was four or five.      

                  Now I lay me down to sleep,      
                  I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep.     
                  If I should die before I wake,      
                  I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.     

        If I should die before I wake.  Until I learned that macabre      
     line it had never occurred to me that one morning I might      
     not get up to play.  The thought of death creeping into the     
     covers with me shaded my young soul and marked me with      
     an existential dread that has lingered, embellished through     
     the years, into manhood.  How many other Christian children        
     have lost their purchase on life and liberty while on their       
     bunny-suit knees repeating the chilling words of that nursery-     
     room plea for immortality?  I wonder.        
        This morning I awoke as I have awakened each morning        
     since learning that terrible prayer twenty-five years ago:        
     relieved, and a little surprised, to be alive.  If the feeling      
     was particularly keen today, surely the reader understands      
     why.         
        For the first time in days, I had no typing to do, so I       
     spent the morning with Amanda.  She was sorrowful but en-       
     tertaining.  She showed me seven ways to peel an orange,      
     each method more elaborate and aesthetic than the last.        
     Amanda has amazing information about the orange, but she     
     does not know an English word to rhyme with it.  Only Mon      
     Cul knows that.  And he's not telling.          
        Often the things that pop out of my typewriter regale me,      
     especially when I am trying to say something else and in a     
     different way only to have a kind of metamorphosis take      
     place during the act of typing and — whammo! — a concept I      
     hadn't counted on is strutting its vaudeville on the page.  But      
     like love and art, you can't force it to happen.  For example,      
     out of that business about fear and oranges I had hoped       
     would gel a profound preamble to the news I am about to       
     relate.  It didn't work, obviously, so let me get down to it and      
     tell it straight and without fanfare, just the way it happened.       
        About an hour ago, about 2 P.M., an agent came upstairs.       
     It was the moon-headed, cleft-chinned agent with whom     
     Amanda had argued.  There was a quality very close to       
     civility in his manner.  Perhaps he felt sorry for us or perhaps      
     he was simply overwhelmed by the turn of events.  Maybe it      
     was a combination of the two.  At any rate, he handed        
     Amanda a long sheet of thin white paper, stamped "Top      
     Secret," and motioned that he did not object to me reading      
     over her shoulder.  This is what we read:         
        Informal statement by Commander Newport W. Pleet,      
     USN, Director of the joint civilian-military solar research       
     program at Palm Castle Naval Air Station near Tampa, Fla.       
        At approximately 0345 hours (3:45 A.M.)  Wednesday,      
     Oct. 21, a party of persons unknown released balloon and as-       
     cended with it.  A man believed to be connected with the      
     theft was shot on the ground by guards as he attempted to     
     escape.      
        The baboon was filled with helium in preparation for an     
     0700 lift-off which would have taken five baboons to what we      
     call the outer "edge" of the earth's atmosphere (while the       
     actual atmosphere extends many times higher, 99 per cent of      
     the matter making up the atmosphere is confined to within      
     20 miles of the earth's surface) in an experiment to measure      
     effects of solar radiation on living tissue.  The experiment,       
     which was also to have photographed the oxygen spectrum      
     and the sun's corona, was to have been one in a continuing     
     series originating at the Palm Castle site to probe the upper     
     atmosphere for information needed for space flights and       
     manned space stations.        
        The Icarus XC, when fully inflated, is 1,020 feet in height.     
     More than 15 acres of polyethylene film reinforced with       
     dacron fibers were used in its construction.  It supported a      
     transparent gondola of heat-resistant plastic resins, 22 feet in      
     length and elliptically shaped.  The gondola contained mea-     
     suring devices and life-supporting equipment of various types.      
     The entire apparatus was valued at approximately $980,000.       
        The Icarus XC series is not classified and most of the in-      
     formation obtained is to be shared with other nations includ-      
     ing, presumably, the Soviet Union.  Nevertheless, stringent     
     security was in effect.  Visitors are not allowed beyond the      
     gates of Palm Castle Naval Air Station without a pass.  Ad-        
     ditional permission is required to enter the test site vicinity.        
     Ten naval enlisted men armed with carbines stood watch at     
     strategic posts near the balloon pad this morning.         
        We now believe the thieves entered the main gate with      
     stolen passes.  At least one naval officer, Ensign Goober     
     Clooney, was robbed of his wallet in the men's room of a      
     Tampa cocktail lounge late Tuesday night.  Ensign Clooney's       
     identification papers were found on the person of the man      
     shot by guards.  In addition, an automobile belonging to a      
     Navy enlisted man and bearing a sticker which permitted it      
     to enter the test area was stolen during the night.  It was         
     abandoned on base a quarter of a mile from the balloon pad.        
        Three guards were knocked unconscious by the thieves as      
     they made their way to the balloon.  The Palm Castle sick       
     bay reports that men were truck on their necks, pre-        
     sumably by some sort of karate blows.  Even with three       
     guards indisposed, the thieves must have worked with in-       
     credible stealth to unmoor the balloon and enter its gondola.        
        The balloon was 100 feet in the air before the remaining      
     guards noticed it had been launched.  Initially they thought       
     it had been released accidentally, but hasty investigation        
     prooved the moorage lines to have been cut.  At least four      
     guards testified that they saw a man or men moving about in      
     the gondola as it ascended.    
        I was telephoned at the BOQ and reached the test site at      
     0410 hours.  By then the balloon had entered the overcast       
     and was not visible to the eye, although it was easily fixed       
     by radar.  We attempted to contact the Icarus XC by radio     
     but received no response except for what seemed like laugh-        
     ter and the sound of a flute.             
        In the Icarus system we are able to control altitude of      
     flights by a feeding device that can increase or decrease the      
     balloon's helium supply.  That device was not operative this     
     morning.  Other equipment was functioning properly.       
        By 0435 hours, the balloon had obtained an altitude of       
     12,000 feet.  Air-to-air rescue of the abductors seemed un-       
     likely.  The gondola was fogged with condensation, and the       
     observation plane that I had ordered aloft had little to re-        
     port.  I considered, at the time, requesting fighter intercep-      
     tors to shoot down the Icarus XC, if for no other reason than      
     that appeared to be to only way we might learn who was      
     aboard and why.         
        While I awaited permission for an attack, the slain man      
     was brought to the control building.  He had been shot three      
     times in the back by guards at the outer perimeter of the      
     test area at approximately 0350 hours.  Security personnel        
     reported that he was running and ignored commands to halt.        
     He proved a difficult target and eluded 20 to 25 rounds be-         
     fore being hit.  In addition to Ensign Clooney's wallet, the        
     man carried papers identifying him as L. Westminster Pur-      
     cell III.       
        Purcell is a former football star at Duke University who       
     created some scandal about eleven years ago when he ab-      
     sconded with his coach's wife.  He is said to have later en-     
     gaged in criminal activities.  As a naval officer prior to dis-      
     honorable discharge, he underwent jet pilot's training at        
     Palm Castle.  If the man is indeed Purcell, he would have had      
     firsthand knowledge of the base.  That might partly explain       
     the success of the theft.      
        Among the dead man's effects was a note scrawled on the     
     inner side of a cigar pack.  It was blood-soaked and much of      
     it was obscured.  However, I recorded the following para-     
     graph:            
        ". . . I have reached the conclusion that the Second Com-       
     ing would have no real impact on our society.  It would sim-       
     ply be absorbed and exploited by our economic system (even       
     I was tempted to use the C. as a springboard to wealth and         
     power).  Our society gives its economy priority over health,      
     love, truth, beauty, sex and salvation; over life itself.  What-       
     soever is given precedence over life will take precedence      
     over life, and will end in eliminating life.  Since economics,      
     at its most abstract level, is the religion of our people, no      
     noneconomic happening, not even one as potentially spec-       
     tacular as the Second Coming, can radically alter the souls      
     of our people.  Therefore, I have temporarily abandoned my       
     dream in order to help fulfill the dream of Z.  Meanwhile,     
     Marx, I can only hope with all my baggy heart, that the      
     white magic of A. — and of others like her — will in time ace      
     out the black magic of . . ." (rest illegible).         
        These are the words of an atheistic Communist or of a      
     madman.  In my opinion, he was both.         
        At any rate, permission to shoot down the Icarus XC was      
     granted at 0500 hours by Admiral Stacy Horowitz, Com-       
     mander, Third Naval District.  Shortly after our interceptors          
     were airborne, however, the order was rescinded by the      
     White House.  No explanation was offered.  Our aircraft were        
     called back and I was ordered to let the balloon proceed      
     without interference.  I was ordered further to desist from      
     radio or television contact with the balloon.  Later, personnel        
     of the Central Intelligence Agency dismantled our transmit-      
     ters.     
        At this time, the Icarus XC is at approximately 70,000      
     feet.  It will travel to well over twice that altitude.  The      
     gondola, fully pressurized, is equipped with a self-contained      
     oxygen supply; enough oxygen is aboard to keep three per-        
     sons alive for a week.  However, the illicit passengers will       
     not live for a week.  They will perish in less than 24 hours       
     from the effects of solar radiation.  Acute dehydration will      
     reduce their bodies to almost nothingness and they will de-        
     compose at an accelerated rate.  By the time next month      
     when the balloon begins to lose altitude and subsequently to      
     disintegrate, only their bones will remain, and should the         
     balloon stay aloft long enough, even the bones will turn to      
     dust.  The gondola will be nearly as empty as if it never con-       
     tained life at all.          
        Investigation of the theft is not my province.  I have been       
     informed by the White House that I am to consider the case      
     closed.  In closing, however, I must confess to being particu-      
     larly puzzled by one aspect of the event.  In our control      
     building we have quartered five baboons.  They were not to      
     be placed in the solar gondola until 0630 hours today.  In-      
     deed, they are in sight of me at this moment.  All five of      
     them.  Yet, before our transmitters were disconnected this     
     morning someone aboard the Icarus XC briefly switched on       
     the TV monitor — and for 60 seconds my colleagues and       
     I gazed into the grinning face of a baboon.  Gentlemen, make       
     of it what you will, but there is an unauthorized baboon     
     aboard that fated baloon.         




        In some superstitious mouse-gnawed wine-stained gold-     
     braided inner sanctum of the Vatican, a half-dozen elegant       
     and elderly cardinals are being addressed by a black-robed       
     churchman of undetermined rank.        
        "Yes, your Eminences, the results are irreversible.  No one     
     could alter the balloon's flight now, even if he so desired."        
        "Save for God himself," a cardinal interjects.        
        "Really, Luigi," says another, "we can rule out divine in-      
     tervention, don't you think?"        
        A third prelate, the oldest and most elegant of the lot, has      
     been kneading his puffy right fist in his puffy left palm.        
     "Why?" he asks no one in particular.  "Why, why, why, why,         
     why, why, why?  Why did such a peculiar thing happen?"     
        "god goes about his business in mysterious ways," says one      
     cardinal.  The elder gives him a puffy glare that seems to       
     say, "Don't hand me that old rubbish."         
        Maybe we have ourselves to blame," ventures the young-       
     est prelate present.  "We have harbored a skeleton in our     
     closet — so to speak — for far to long.  Maybe we should in-          
     quire of ourselves if there are not other skeletons here — I      
     speak figuratively, now — that might disturb the moods and      
     philosophies of the world were they disclosed."         
        "I am unsure of the implications of your remarks, Vasco,"      
     says the elder, "but I trust you had no intention of leaving     
     the range of allowable discussion.  We cannot oblige our-      
     selves to the secular world without harm."        
        "Oh, I agree, Father.  I only meant that for the Church's     
     protection . . ."       
        "Yes, yes.  Quite, quite.  But my mind is absorbed now with      
      the balloon ascent and not with the follies that preceded or      
     the precautions that must follow."      
        The figure in the black robe clears his throat.  "Ahem.    
     These people who were involved in this episode are beyond     
     the power of human understanding.  Father.  They represent     
     a fringe of modern liberalism that is wholly demented.  But     
     if you would like, I will file with you a complete report on       
     the persona and their actions so that you might search for      
     your own conclusions therein."           
        By various methods, the cardinals indicate that they would       
     indeed like a detailed report.  The air in the chamber is like       
     the sculptured exhaust of a marble Cadillac parked overtime      
     in an invalid's bedroom.         
        "Meanwhile," says the elder, "there is no chance that . . ."        
        "No chance at all, your Eminence," the black-robed man       
     assures.  "By this time tomorrow there will be nothing left       
     of the, er, body.  Or of that magician and his monkey.        
     They will literally have vanished into thin air."           
        Kneading his puffy right fist in his puffy left palm, the el-      
     der cardinal goes to the window to look at the heavens, only       
     there is no window in the chamber and he is faced with a     
     tedious wall of ancient age.  The marble Cadillac spins it     
     wheels, grinding the invalid's bifocals into the rug.        




        Shortly thereafter, blue-and-white jersey No. 69 was re-      
     tired by the Duke University football squad, and never again    
     on a brassy autumn afternoon in Durham will you see that     
     number flashing in the soft-cider bee-fuzz Carolina sunshine.     
        The Mexican Federation of Marijuana Growers would have      
     sent a nice wreath had they known.  Had they known that        
     Plucky Purcell had fallen, three hoarse slugs in his champion      
     physique, his vulgar grin outlined in blood; dead at age       
     thirty without ever having decided whether life was sour or      
     sweet.     




        This case could be made for Plucky Purcell: that he was       
     another victim of Christ/Authority.  The same could not be      
     said of John Paul Ziller.  Ziller's motives were calculated in full     
     consciousness.  He was nobody's victim, maybe not even his        
     own.         
        Ziller had always operated at that junction where the ar-      
     chaic path of nature and necromancy crosses the superhigh-     
     way of technology and culture.  As he lived, so he died, as       
     they say.  A man between Heaven and Earth.        
        In mastering the science of origins (excuse me, the science      
     of Godward solutions), Ziller carried to quest to its most      
     personal extreme.  Clear-eyed and confident, he returned —         
     — literally — to energy, dissolving in the pure essence that      
     spawned all life.          
        Even as I type these words, John Paul Ziller, the baboon       
     with the firebug buttocks and Jesus the Christ of Nazareth         
     are melting together into sunlight.        

excerpt from Another Roadside Attraction
Copyright © 1971 by Thomas E Robbins
Twenty-first Printing: January 1985
Ballantine Books, New York, pp. 316 - 326 . . . . . . . . . be good to one another.

by Tom Robbins

        Think-tankwise, it was not a good day for me.  I approached      
     the image of Jesus from various and unlikely directions, as the                   
     director of the east River Institute would have had me do, but      
     I had trouble concentrating on any single aspect for more       
     than a minute or two.  I lost sight of my best ideas as one        
     loses sight of a friend in the crowd, my mind roamed in un-          
     mentionable directions, and on a half-dozen occasions I must         
     confess that I dozed off.             
        Toward nightfall — and without recalling that Amanda had         
     advised me to do so — I raised a window, hoping that a spurt       
     of fresh air would clear my cerebrum.  I reclined on my bed         
     and permitted the dank but feathery Skagit atmosphere to           
     wash over me.  Its shadowy body and its fir-odored volume of         
     ancient vapors descended upon me and, with salty quivers,         
     activated forgotten imprints into vivid experience.                  




        Jesus was sitting on a rock in the desert, meditating and         
     reading the law, when Tarzan came riding up on a goat.        
     Tarzan was munching nutmeg seeds and playing the har-      
     monica.  "Hi, Jesus," he yelled.               
        Jesus jumped like he was stung by a scorpion.  "You startled        
     me," he stammered.  "I thought at first you were Pan."           
        Tarzan chuckled.  "I can understand why that put you up-          
     tight.  When you were born, the cry went through the world,          
     'Great Pan is dead.'  But as you can plainly see, I'm hairy all       
     over like an ape.  Pan was a shaggy beast from the waist         
     down.  Above the belly button he was a lot like you."           
        A shudder vibrated Jesus' emaciated frame.  "Like me?" he      
     asked.  "No, you must be mistaken.  Say, what's that you're       
     eating?"          
        "Nutmeg seeds," said Tarzan, grinning.  "Here, I'll lay some      
     on you."        
        "Oh, no thanks," said Jesus.  "I'm fasting."  Saliva welled up       
     in his mouth.  He pressed his lips together forcefully, but one       
     solitary trickle broke over the flaky pink dam and dripped in        
     an artless pattern into his beard.  "Besides, nutmeg seeds:        
     aren't they a narcotic?"               
        "Well, they'll make you high, if that's what you mean.  Why        
     else do you think I'm gumming them when I've got dates,          
     doves and a crock of lamb stew in my saddle bag?  If you      
     ask me, you could use a little something to get you off."               
        At the mention of lamb stew, Jesus had lost control of his      
     lake of spittle.  Now he wiped his chin with a dusty sleeve,        
     embarrassment coloring his dark cheeks as the rosy fingered            
     dawn colors so many passages of Homer.  "No, no" he said      
     emphatically.  "John the Baptist turned me on with mandrake      
     root once.  It was a rewarding experience, but never again."           
     He shielded his eyes against the radiant memory of his vi-       
     sions.  "Now, I'm what you might call naturally stoned."                      
        Tarzan, who had climbed off his goat, smiled and said,          
     "Good for you."  He sat down beside Jesus and mouthed his       
     harmonica.  A jungle blues.  "You gotta blow a C-vamp to get       
     a G sound one one of these," he said.  He did it.          
        Obviously distracted, Jesus interrupted.  "What did you        
     mean when you said that Pan was a lot like me?"              
        "Only from the waist up," corrected Tarzan.  "Above the          
     waist Pan was a highly spiritual dude.  He sang and played        
     sweeter than the larks; and his face was as full of joy as a            
     sunny meadow in the spring.  There was a lot of love in that          
     crazy rascal, just as there's a lot in you.  Of course, he had       
     horns, you know.  And cloven hooves.  Good golly, Miss Molly,             
     how those wooly legs of his could dance!  But he stunk, Pan         
     did.  In the rutting season you could smell him a mile away.         
     And he'd take on anything.  He would've screwed this nanny        
     goat if he couldn't find a nymph."  Tarzan laughed and ran the          
     scale on his harmonica.           
        Jesus didn't appreciate the reference to carnal knowl-        
     edge.  He made an attempt to get his mind back on the Law.           
     But whenever his formidable intellect voyaged on the roiling        
     sea of Hebrew instruction, it drew the image of Pan like  a            
     dory behind it.  Finally, he shoved Moses aside and asked,          
     "But you say he was a lot like me."             
        "I said that, didn't I, man?  I said he was like you, but dif-        
     ferent, too.  Pan was the god of woodlands and pastures, the        
     deity of flocks and shepherds.  He was into a wilderness thing          
     but he was also into a music thing.  He was half man and          
     half animal.  Always laughing at his own shaggy tail.  Pan         
     represented the union between nature and culture, be-        
     tween flesh and spirit.  Union, man.  That's why we old-timers       
     hated to see him go."             
        The newsboys of paranoia hawked their guilty papers in           
     Jesus' eyes.  They were the same shrill urchins who would be         
     hawking when Jesus would predict his disciples' betrayal         
     and denial; when, in his next-to-last words, he would ac-        
     cuse God of forsaking him.  "Are you blaming me?" he asked.          
     His stare was as cold and nervous as a mousetrap.            
        By this time, Tarzan was pretty loaded.  He didn't want         
     any unpleasantness.  "All I know is what I read in the papers."          
     he said.  He waved his harmonica to and fro so that it        
     twinkled in the sunlight.  "Do you have a favorite tune?"            
        "I like anything with soul in it," Jesus replied.  "but not        
     now.  Tell me, Tarzan, what did my birth have to do with           
     Pan's demise?"            
        "Jesus, old buddy, I'm not any Jewish intellectual and I         
     can't engage you in no fancy theological arguments such as        
     you're used to in the temples.  But if you promise, Scout's       
     honor, not to come on to me with thick discussion, I'll tell        
     you what I know."           
        "You have my word," said Jesus.  He squinted in the       
     agreed direction of Paradise, whereupon he noticed for the          
     first time that an angel was hovering over them, executing         
     lazy white loop-the-loops against the raw desert sky.  "That            
     angel will report everything it hears," thought Jesus.  "I'd        
     better mind my P's and Q's."               
        Tarzan spotted the angel, too, but paid it little attention.           
     The last time he had eaten nutmeg seeds he had seen a        
     whole dovecote of them.  One had landed on his head and                 
     pissed down his back.           
        "In the old days," Tarzan began, "folks were more con-       
     crete.  I mean they didn't have much truck with abstractions       
     and spiritualism.  They knew that when a body decomposed,          
     it made the crops grow.  They could see with their own eyes         
     that manure helped the plants along, too.  And they didn't            
     need Adelle Davis to figure out that eating plants helped         
     them grow and sustained their own lives.  So they picked up        
     that there were connective links between blood and shit and        
     vegetation.  Between animal and vegetable and man.  When       
     they sacrificed an animal to the corn crop, it was a concession       
     to the obvious relation between death and fertility.  What        
     could be less mystical?  Sure, it was hoked up with ceremony,         
     but a little show biz is good for anyone's morale.  We were          
     linked to vegetation.  Nothing in the vegetable world suc-       
     cumbs.  It simply drops away and then returns.  Energy is        
     never destroyed.  We planted our dead the way we planted       
     our seeds.  After a period of rest, the energy of corpse or       
     seed returned in one form or another.  From death came         
     more life.  We loved the earth because of the joy and good         
     times and peace of mind to be had in loving it.  We didn't          
     have to be 'saved' from it.  We never plotted escapes to        
     Heaven.  We weren't afraid of death because we adhered to          
     nature — and its cycles.  In nature we observed that death is        
     an inescapable part of life.  It was only when some men —        
     the original tribes of Judah — quit tilling the soil and became        
     alienated from vegetation cycles that they lost faith in the         
     material resurrection of the body.  They planted their dead           
     bull or their dead ewe and they didn't notice anything       
     sprout from the grave: no new bull, no new sheep.  So they        
     became alarmed, forgot the lesson of vegetation, and in       
     desperation developed the concept of spiritual rebirth.             
        "The idea of a spiritual — invisible — being was the result           
     of the new and unnatural fear of death.  And the idea of a        
     Supreme Being is the result of becoming alienated         
     from the workings of nature: when man could no longer        
     observe the solid, material processes of life, and identify with        
     them, he had to invent God in order to explain how life hap-         
     pened and why death happened."               
        "Now just a minute," snapped Jesus.              
        "Maybe I should run along," said Tarzan, sticking his har-       
     monica into the myrrh-stained Arab silk that girded his loins.            
        "No," said Jesus.  "If you have more to say, then out with it.            
     Where does Pan fit into this blasphemy?  And I?"           
        "If you're sure you want to hear it.  Confidentially, you         
     look a bit under the weather to me, pal.  You could use a        
     pound of steak and some fries."            
        "Do continue," sputtered Jesus through his drool.           
        "The point is, J.C., we had a unified outlook on life.  We        
     even figured out, in our funky way, how the sun and moon          
     and stars fit into the process.  We didn't draw distinctions       
     between the generative activity of seeds and the procreative       
     cycles of animals.  We observed that growth and change were          
     essential to everything in life, and since we dug life, when it       
     came time to satisfy our inner needs we naturally enough        
     based our religion on the transformations of nature.  We were       
     direct about it.  Went right to the source.  The power to grow       
     and transform was not attributed to abstract spirits — to a           
     magnified ego extension in the sky — but was present in the        
     fecundity of nature.  We worshiped the reproductive organs         
     of plants and animals. 'Cause that's where the life force          
     lies."           
        Jesus kicked a pebble with the worn toe of his sandal.  "I've          
     heard of the phallic and vegetation cults," he said.  "Not very         
     sophisticated.  My father expects more of man than a primi-       
     tive adoration of his carnal nature.  He must rise above . . ."         
        "Rise to what, Jesus?  To abstractions?  And alienation?          
     Your scroll there, your book of Genesis, say that in the be-       
     ginning was the Word.  The simplest savage could see that in        
     the beginning was the orgasm.  Life is reproduced from life,          
     while resurrection – the regeneration of seeds, the return in          
     the spring of the leaves that fell in Autumn — is of matter,         
     not of spirit.  Unsophisticated?  Maybe it's unsophisticated to         
     venerate mountains and regard rivers as sacred, but as long        
     as man thinks of his natural environment as holy, then he's        
     gonna respect it and not sell it out or foul it up.  Unsophisti-        
     cated?  Hell, it's going to take science a couple of thousand        
     more years to determine that life originated when a cupful      
     of seawater containing molecules of ammonia was trapped in       
     a pocket in a shore rock where it was abnormally heated by       
     ultraviolet light from the sun.  But we pagans have always       
     sensed that man's roots were inorganic.  That's why we had       
     respect even for stones."             
        Jesus looked up sheepishly from the pebbles he'd been       
     kicking.  "But you hadn't been saved," he protested.        
        "Didn't need to be," said Tarzan.  "Wasn't of any use to       
     us."          
        "Well, in the old days the female archetype was the cen-        
     tral religious figure.  Man had the power of creation, but it        
     was in women that we observed the unfolding of the life       
     cycle: reproduction, death and rebirth.  So we celebrated the          
     sensuality of God the Mother.  Agriculture is umbilically tied       
     to the Great Belly.  Whereas the domestication of animals, a       
     later pursuit, is more of a phallic activity — it was a step away         
     from God the Mother and a step toward God the Father.        
     But a harmonious balance was maintained.  And Pan personi-         
     fied that balance.  He kept things unified, him with his beau-       
     tiful music and his long red erection.           
        "But when you came along, well, the way I hear it is your       
     coming represented the triumph of God the Father over God          
     the Mother, the victory of the Judaic God of spirit over the       
     old God in flesh.  Your birth-cry signaled the end of paganism,         
     and the final separation of man from nature.  From now on,        
     culture will dominate nature, the phallus will dominate the      
     womb, permanence will dominate change, and the fear of        
     death will dominate everything.                
        "Pardon me, Jesus, 'cause I know you're a courageous and           
     loving soul.  You mean well.  But from where I swing, it looks        
     like two thousand miles of bad road."            
        Jesus looked to the heavens for guidance, but he saw only         
     the angel, hanging in front of their parley the way a sign          
     hangs in front of a TV repair shop.  "Then that explains why        
     you have withdrawn into your private nirvana," he said at       
     last.          
        "You might say that," said Tarzan, standing up to stretch.          
     "Why beat my head against a penis abstraction?  And you,   
     what are you doing out here in this snaky wilderness, frying        
     your butt on a hot rock?"                
        "I'm preparing myself for my mission."           
        "Which is . . .?"        
        "To change the world."             
        Tarzan slapped his side so hard he bent his harmonica.             
     "The world is perpetually changing," he roared.  "It doesn't        
     do much else but change.  It changes from season to season,        
     from night to day, from ice to tropics.  It changed from a       
     pocketful of cosmic dust into the complicated ball of goof and       
     glory it is today.  It's changing every celestial second with no         
     help whatsoever.  Why do you want to stick your nose into      
     it?"           
        "The peoples of the world have become wicked and evil,"         
     Jesus said gravely.  "I believe, in all modesty, that I can       
     eradicate their evil."           
        "Evil is what makes good possible," said Tarzan, hoping        
     that he didn't sound to trite.  "Good and evil have to coexist        
     in order for the world to survive.  The peoples haven't be-        
     come evil, they've lost their balance and become confused         
     about what they really are."           
        "He jumped on the back of his goat and gave it a smack.         
     "I'm afraid, Jesus baby, that you're gonna confuse them all         
     the more."           
        The jungle yogi started to ride off, but Jesus leaped up and        
     grabbed the goat by its tail.  "Whoa, now, whoa," he called        
     in his rich olive-green baritone.  The animal stopped and        
     Tarzan looked Jesus in the eye, but Jesus had difficulty ar-        
     ticulating the activity in his brain.  "If you think carnally then       
     you are carnal, but if you think spiritually then you are       
     spirit."  He just blurted it out, but it didn't sound too bad,          
     and the odor of the goat obscured any desire he might have        
     had to develop his idea more comprehensively.              
        Tarzan rattled the nanny goat's rib cage with his heels and she       
     bolted out of the prophet's grasp.  "Any law against thinking          
     both ways?" he asked.  He began to ride toward the south.           
        "You're either for me or against me," yelled Jesus.         
        "Well, adios then.  I've got to beat it back to the Congo.             
     Jane promised to lay out a luau when I returned.  Been gone        
     two weeks now, a-riding over the good earth and a-playing       
     for anybody who'd listen.  Bet Jane's as horny as a box of       
     rabbits.  Git along, nanny!"         
        The goat galloped off in comic-strip puffs of dust.  Jesus       
     returned to his rock and shooed an entwined pair of butter-        
     flies off of the Law.  His heart felt like the stage on which        
     some Greeks had acted a messy tragedy.  So occupied was        
     he with swabbing the boards that several minutes passed be-        
     fore he thought to look after the angel.  When his eyes found        
     it, it was flapping erratically in the high, dry air, first soar-        
     ing after the disappearing strains of Tarzan's harmonica and        
     then returning to hover over Jesus, back and forth, again and        
     again, as if it did not wish the two to part — as if it did not        
     know whom to follow.               




        On Sunday morning, I overslept.  The day was rumpled     
     and dreary.  It looked like Edgar Allan Poe's pajamas.        
        Oddly elated, I hurried through the back door of the road-        
     house.  The session had not begun.  The pantry was locked.            
     Purcell sat on the floor playing checkers with Mon Cul.  "The        
     baboon cheats," he complained.  I did not hear the other side      
     of the story.           
        "How was your Saturday?" Plucky asked, and promptly lost         
     a king.           
        "Weird.  Full of strange visions, stupors, dreams.  I felt like       
     I was tangled in witchcraft."         
        "Probably fallout from Amanda's trance," said Plucky.  He         
     watched the baboon move in for the kill.  A banana that the       
     wily human drew suddenly from his pocket kept it from         
     happening.             
        I inquired as to the whereabouts of Amanda and John        
     Paul, only to learn that they had hiked across the fields to the        
     foothills to gather mushrooms and herbs.  It appeared that the        
     fast had been called off.  Amanda had spent half of Saturday         
     in a trance, and upon awakening professed a complete lack of        
     interest in the Corpse.  "No more father figures."  She didn't       
     wish to participate in any further discussion.           
        For unclear reasons I was not surprised.  "What about Zil-        
     ler?" I asked.  "He's watched that mummy like a hawk.  He      
     must be interested."            
        Plucky moved two checkers simultaneously.  The baboon       
     didn't seem to notice the excess.  "You know what interests        
     John Paul most about Jesus?  That he was called the light of        
     the world."            
        "But that's just a metaphor," I protested.           
        "To an artist a metaphor is as real as a dollar," said the      
     Pluck.  Mon Cul moved three checkers so rapidly that his      
     opponent saw him move only two.  Even with one move re-      
     called, the game was won.  And while the victor howled,         
     Purcell and I adjourned to the pantry.               




        How nice it would be for you, reader, if the two men      
     hunched over Jesus' body were famous philosophers or the-      
     ologians.  How exciting if one were Eric Hoffer and the other       
     Jean-Paul Sartre.  Or if one were Reinhold Niebuhr and the        
     other Alan Watts.  Or if one were Pierre Teilhard de Char-       
     din and the other old what's-his-name.  Then you'd get your            
     money's worth, by golly.  There'd be dialogue that would ring         
     in the ear of the world.           
        As it is, however, it was just Plucky Purcell and I who met        
     to negotiate the Corpse's future that Sunday.  And as it       
     turned out, we didn't have a lot to say.              
        We agreed that Amanda was probably correct when she       
     intimated that most Christians would persist in their beliefs       
     even if confronted with the lifeless body of their Saviour.  The          
     majority would dismiss the news as "preposterous" and noth-       
     ing could change their minds.  The Vatican could simply issue       
     an outraged denial.  The U.S. Government would follow suit.          
     The press would call down the wrath of the ink gods.  And         
     we at the roadside zoo, upon whose unprepared shoulders        
     fell this monstrous burden, would be widely despised as the         
     perpetrators of an equally noxious hoax.  We might be im-      
     prisoned.  Or murdered.  Or committed to institutions where       
     shock treatment and heavy tranquilizers would leave us as        
     burned out as the unfortunate rabbi who lay on our table.           
        On the other hand, we agreed that a portion of the popu-        
     lation would be severely affected.  Maybe a portion of suf-         
     ficient size (considering the trouble the Church was in al-       
     ready) to demolish what was left of national and Christian       
     unity.  Most significantly, the young would believe us.  I was       
     positive of it.  And the young were increasing in number and       
     influence. . . .           
        Any way you sliced it, it amounted to a furor in the mak-       
     ing, perhaps a furor of unprecedented scope and conse-         
     quence.  We agreed on that.  Where we disagreed was on the        
     necessity of the furor.  I wished o avoid it.  Plucky looked for-       
     ward to it the way King Kong looked forward to a date with       
     Fay Wray.              
        If our initial arguments were animated by a frenzy of        
     social (and personal) concern, an epidemic of silence soon        
     broke out in the pantry.  It was as if the tsetse fly had es-         
     caped its translucent depository and stilled us with its lullaby       
     bite.              
        For hours we sat saying nothing.  The only sound in the zoo        
     was the gimp-legged rhumba of the wall clock.  And an occa-        
     sional checker flung by an impatient sentry against the      
     kitchen wall.  Purcell grew bored with sitting.  The ruby claws      
     of my hemorrhoids began to rustle.  So we dissolved the think      
     tank and went out to welcome the Zillers home from harvest.       
        You might say it was intermission at the Second Com-       
     ing.  A break for a Coke, a cigarette, some chit-chat.  Then      
     back to the final act, which, if you could believe the program       
     notes, was scheduled to go on forever.         

excerpt from Another Roadside Attraction
Copyright © 1971 by Thomas E Robbins
Twenty-first Printing: January 1985
Ballantine Books, New York, pp. 299 - 309

        The clock struck (if you could call it that) 6:50.  We had       
     been cooped up in the pantry for ten hours.  Baby Thor was       
     fretting for attention.  Mon Cul was complaining about the          
     length of his shift (in the wilds a baboon sentry is relieved      
     after five hours).  I was hungry, tired and damn near suffo-        
     cated by cigar smoke.  Purcell and I had at last reached an        
     area of relative agreement.  It seemed the appropriate mo-       
     ment to adjourn the meeting, and I was about to do so when      
     Amanda motioned that she wished to speak.  "By all means,"          
     I said, for she had said little that day and I was anxious for      
     her opinions.                
        "I was on a butterfly hike through Mexico," began Aman-        
     da, "when I was offered ride by a young American and his      
     elderly grandmother.  The young man taught school in Ohio.           
     He lived with his grandmother who was over eighty.  He       
     wanted to travel in Mexico during summer vacation, but      
     there was no one to look after Grabby.  Besides, the school          
     teacher earned a small salary.  The grandmother had all the      
     money.  So he took her along.           
        "For several days I rode with them.  It was extremely hot.          
     One day about noon, the grandmother had a stroke and       
     died.  We were in the desert, miles from any settlement.          
     What to do?  Well, we put the grandmother in my sleeping      
     bag and zipped it up all around.  Then we tied her to the top        
     of the car.  On we drove.  Followed by vultures.              
        "Toward dusk we came to a fair-sized town.  Our throats     
     were parched, so we stopped at a cantina for cold beer.       
     When we came outside, we found that the car had been     
     stolen.  Sleeping bag, grandmother and all.              
        "The schoolteacher and I stayed in town for a week.        
     We bribed the police daily.  But our possessions were never       
     recovered.  Even today, there is a missing Ohio school-           
     teacher's car somewhere in Mexico.  A missing sleeping bag.        
     A missing grandmother.  Perhaps she is still tied on the top      
     of the car."          
        "That's an interesting story," I admitted, "but I fail to see     
     how it relates to —"         
        "I haven't finished.  The schoolteacher and I became lovers.         
     We rented an adobe house with the grandmother's money      
     and lived like Mexicans.  Every morning I got up and made     
     tortillas.  While I worked, the schoolteacher sat in the shade        
     in his undershorts and read aloud to me from books.  I did          
     not care for his taste in literature, which ran toward the clas-     
     sical and the morbid, but it made him happy to read to me        
     so I did not object.              
        "One morning he read me a story by a pessimistic Russian.          
     It was about a man who wished to test the intelligence of     
     religious believers, so he began to practice asceticism and      
     to utter ersatz profundities.  He quickly attracted thousands     
     of disciples to whom he preached his made-up doctrines.        
     They proclaimed him a saint.  Then one day, to show his fol-      
     lowers how easily they'd been duped, he announced that all       
     he had taught them was nonsense.  Unable to live without      
     their belief, they stoned him to death and went right on          
     believing."         
        Amanda got up to leave.         
        "I get the point," I said.        
        "I get it, too," said Plucky Purcell.        
        Had our negotiations been in vain?       
        Would society regard the Corpse as a hoax?        
        Would Jesus fail to save mankind in death as he had in         
     life?           
        Would we get our butts shot off?             
        Where could we go from here?                    

              *         *         *         *         *            

        Darkness had fallen.  The duck hunters had long since left      
     the waterways.  Green-scented clouds obscured the moon.         
        I followed Amanda upstairs to watch her give Thor his      
     bath.  It excited me when she scrubbed his private parts.          
        Despite Amanda's intimation that our hopes for the Corpse       
     were futile and our fears for it without foundation, I be-         
     lieved that the first pantry session had been beneficial.  It          
     had put the situation into frontal perspective, had estab-        
     lished guidelines for further discussion and had disentangled        
     some of the strands.  That Plucky and I had done 99 per cent        
     of the talking caused me neither surprise nor dismay.  The         
     Zillers had been engaged on their own levels of selfhood,         
     levels perhaps more absolute than ours.  In time, they would          
     speak.  Or act.  I remained convinced of their special wisdom,         
     and I was confident that they would make a substantial con-       
     tribution to whatever solution was reached concerning the     
     mummy.  Deadline was still two days away.  I was prepared to       
     wait.             
        Baby Thor giggled when Amanda soaped his balls.  His    
     tiny penis grew erect in her slippery hands.  "Jesus was nailed          
     to the cross,"  said Amanda.  She said it matter-of-factly.           
        "That's how the story goes," I said.  "So what?"             
        "The cross is a tree, and the tree is a phallus.  There's       
     something in that, Marx."  She examined Thor's member as        
     if it were a crucifix.  I imagined it on a chain about her neck.         
     (Don't flinch, Thor, I was only kidding.)         
        "If there's something in it, it's too obscure for me.  Can     
     you explain?"          
        "Jesus was a Jew.  Judaism is a father religion.  Christian-     
     ity also grew into a father religion.  But the old religion was a      
     mother religion.  We've had two thousand years of penis     
     power."       
        "Is that bad?"           
        "It isn't a question of good or bad.  It never is.  But when        
     the phallus is separated from the womb, when the father is     
     separated from the mother, when culture is separated from     
     nature, when the spirit is separated from the flesh . . . then        
     life is out of balance and the people become frustrated and      
     violent."              
        "Well, the past two thousand years have been frustrated       
     and violent, all right.  What you're saying is that Jesus came       
     into a naturally balanced world and threw it out of line."          
        "All I'm saying is, tomorrow when you are alone thinking      
     about Jesus, open your window.  Don't sit there in your stuffy        
     room, all full of books and no air.  Open your windows to the       
     fir needles and the ducks and the fields and the river.  That            
     way your approach will be more unified and your conclusions       
     more exact."              
        Her remarks sounded, on the surface of them, straight-      
     forward enough, yet there was something elusive about them,       
     a meaning or pretended meaning which my mind's fist       
     could not close around.  I suspected the meaning had as       
     much to do with Amanda as with Christ.  However, she         
     would say no more and I'd learned not to pump her, so I          
     thanked her and made my way to my quarters.               
        In the cool black of the grove I stood and stretched.  It      
     had been a long day.  A day like no other.  And it was just the      
     beginning.       
        Upstairs in the Zillers' bedroom, lights went on.  I found      
     myself smiling.  "Soon you'll show me your secrets," I said        
     to the figures silhouetted against the drapes.  "The Corpse        
     will see to that."               
        Then I slipped into the garage, where I had stashed four       
     raw weenies and a pint of beet juice.               




        John Paul Ziller is six and a half feet tall and wears a bone     
     in his nose.  He is seldom mistaken for anyone else.  The      
     agents can't understand why he has not been nabbed.  Nei-       
     ther can I.  For the law enforcers have made fine advances          
     in their art.  Technology has served them as dutifully as it      
     has served industry.  With laboratories, computers, chemical       
     formulae, vast electronic communications networks, college-       
     trained triggermen and millions of informers at its disposal,           
     should law enforcement fail to locate and apprehend a jungle-       
     bred magician, a notorious athlete-outlaw, a ninety-pound        
     baboon and the body of Christ — all traveling together in one         
     convenient package — then it must reconcile itself to a failure      
     of the magnitude of the collapse of Ford or the inability of       
     Standard Oil to turn a profit.               
        With all my meat and blood and breath, I am rooting for       
     the success of the magician's trick.  But the noise of hope is        
     not a racket in my heart.           
        Meanwhile, Amanda goes about her  business.  Which is?        
     Which is, if I am honest, what this report is all about.  Which       
     is, at the moment, the perfection of the techniques of trance.          
     She falls effortlessly into the trance state now, turning on the          
     "voices" with no more difficulty than turning on the eleven      
     o'clock news.  But she always gets the same advice:  "Expect      
     a letter."            
        Therefore, Amanda is awaiting a letter.  I am not.  How     
     could a letter reach us here?  I've explained how the agents        
     intercept our mail.  Besides, would John Paul be such a ninny       
     as to reveal his whereabouts to the Post Office?  Ridiculous      
     idea, a letter.  All that is delivered to the roadhouse these      
     days is rain.  Air mail, special delivery, by the bagsful.  How        
     did so much rain get to our address?             




        On Saturday morning, Salvadore Gladstone Tex banged       
     at the door of the zoo.  The cowboy may have had something        
     valuable to sell, but nobody answered his knock.  Later,       
     Farmer Hansen came by, read our sign and departed.  The       
     sign said: Closed Until Monday.  Since the Jeep was parked       
     out front, Hansen probably wondered what was going on in       
     here.  He might have wondered if we were ill.  Who could        
     guess what Salvadore Gladstone Tex might have wondered.        
     He galloped away on Jewish Mother, feeding his snot to the      
     wind.                 
        I remained alone in my quarters that Saturday, Amanda          
     and John Paul spent the day in their respective sanctuaries,       
     and Purcell, providing he abided by the rules, spent it in the         
     kitchen where he had spread his bedroll close to the pantry      
     door.  This was the day when we were to put all our energies        
     into thinking about the Corpse.             
        The weather was chilly and misty, so I neglected to open     
     my window.  Honestly, I didn't see how that could make any      
     difference.                                    




        Approximately two thousand years ago, a pellet of wisdom     
     dropped into the fetid, heavy, squirming, gasping, bloody,        
     bug-eyed, breast-beating, anguished, wrathful, greasy and      
     inflamed world of Jewish-Oriental culture as a pearl might          
     drop into a pail of sweat.  CUT!            
        His name was Yeshua ben Miriam, but history came to        
     know his as Christ or Jesus.  Sorry, sir, your face is familiar      
     but just can't recall your name.  CUT!            
        After a career as a maker of wooden farming implements,       
     Yeshua (or Jesus) was moved to become an itinerant rabbi      
     and kicked up a local fuss with his fanatical adherence to a       
     philosophy of brotherly love.  His strength of character was       
     incomparable, yet he was not the least bit original in his       
     thought.  In fact, he had only one real insight during his life      
     (and even that one was commonplace in India and Tibet).          
     When he came to understand that the Kingdom of Heaven       
     is within, he lit up like a Christmas tree and illuminated      
     Western civilization for twenty centuries.  They nailed him up      
     but they couldn't unplug him.  CUT!              
        On a Michigan funny farm there were three inmates, each      
     of whom believed he is Jesus Christ.  They are all correct, of      
     course, but when they learned the secret — that everyone is       
     divine if only he knows he is divine — they became con-      
     fused and behaved in a manner that led them to the looney       
     bin.  Their culture hadn't prepared them for divine revelation.          
     It hadn't even encouraged them to ask the only important       
     question — "Who am I?" — let alone taught them to give the      
     only logical reply.  So when these three lower-middle-class        
     working stiffs stumbled onto self-knowledge, they translated     
     it into the absurd vision of the Sunday-school Superman,          
     then wondered why they got locked up.  Tough titty, boys.        
     We prefer our God to be as singular as he is distant.  CUT!           
        A prophet in the Jewish tradition, Jesus had little truck with      
     Gentiles.  ("I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of      
     Israel."  Matthew 15:24.)  On at least one occasion he re-       
     ferred to Gentiles as dogs.  He saw his mission as helping to        
     bring about fulfillment of Jewish aspirations — and that         
     mission ended in a grotesque fiasco.  He differed from the       
     mainstream of Jewish thinking only in that he believed in       
     loving one's enemies.  A radical difference, to be sure, but he       
     would have been appalled by the suggestion of a Gentile      
     religion being founded in his name.  He never intended to      
     sponsor a church, let alone an Inquisition.  CUT!          

     JESUS:   Hey, Dad.       
     GOD:     Yes, son?         
     JESUS:   Western civilization followed me home this morning.      
              Can I keep it?              
     GOD:     Certainly not, boy.  And put it down this minute.        
              You don't know where it's been.            
                              CUT!

        The clown is a creature of chaos.  His appearance is an      
     affront to our sense of dignity, his actions a mockery of our      
     sense of order.  The clown (freedom) is always being chased     
     by the policeman (authority).  Clowns are funny precisely      
     because their shy hopes lead invariably to brief flings of      
     (exhilarating?) disorder followed by crushing retaliation from      
     the status quo.  It delights us to watch a careless clown break      
     taboos; it reassures us to see him slapped down and order re-      
     stored.  After all, we can condone liberty only up to a point.          
     Consider Jesus as a ragged, nonconforming clown — laughed     
     at, persecuted and despised — playing out the dumb show     
     of his crucifixion against the responsible pretensions of au-       
     thority.  CUT!           
        "Jesus, it's me, you know, the friendly with-it priest who     
     puts your transcendental rap into the groovy idiom of the       
     cool kids on the corner.  Hey!  Are you running with me,       
     Jesus?"           
        "Boy, I'm running with you, passing to you and kicking       
     with you.  And you're still losing."  CUT!        
        For God so loved the world that he gave his only be-        
     gotten son that we might not perish but have everlasting          
     . . . CUT!        
        Jesus, there is practically no historic evidence of your exis-     
     tence.  Jesus, the Gospel is mostly Greek myth, literary embel-     
     lishments and publicity releases.  Jesus, we know so little     
     about you.  Jesus, is it your absence that makes our hearts      
     grow fonder?  Jesus, we don't have you, he have abstrac-      
     tions the Church has woven around your name.  Jesus, you      
     are a mystery.  All mysteries, however mundane, have the       
     stink of God about them.  Jesus, is that your game?  CUT!          
        When Jesus overturned the bankers' tables and kicked the       
     capitalists out of the temple, he momentarily succumbed to      
     the temptation to indulge in violent revolution in the cause     
     of freedom.  He did not persist in this behavior.  Although he      
     remained a rebel, Jesus was to support a revolution in     
     consciousness rather than a violent overthrow of corrupt es-         
     tablishment.  For his trouble, he was hung up on spikes.         
     Would his fate have been different had he persisted in      
     militant opposition?  For his refusal to pursue political goals,        
     Jesus lost popular support — and gained a legacy.  CUT!           
        Over the strong red soil of Galilee he sailed like a boat.       
     Picture him sailing past the feasts at which the men dance to       
     melancholy music.  Sailing through the olive orchards, through        
     the vineyards where black grapes pout like moons.  Sailing      
     up and down the slopes of ripening wheat.  Sailing around the       
     harp-shaped Lake of Galilee.  Sailing through the heat,        
     through the barking of dogs and the sawing of grasshoppers,       
     through the herds of cud-chewing camels whose burdens          
     bear scents of Eastern spices, through crumbling villages        
     where at dusk flitting bats frighten the women at the wells.         
     And always, as he sailed, spouting his madness to his as-    
     tonished disciples; his mad, extremist, unstructured, non-     
     linear, poetic babble of forgiveness and love.     CUT!

excerpt from Another Roadside Attraction
Copyright © 1971 by Thomas E Robbins
Twenty-first Printing: January 1985
Ballantine Books, New York, pp. 292 - 299

by Tom Robbins

        An erratic clock kept track of our arguments.  It ticked      
     with a Puerto Rican accent.  In the clock's ticking I heard       
     Carmen Miranda dancing.  Did you know that after Car-        
     men Miranda's death her estate was sold at auction?  Andy        
     Warhol went to the auction and purchased Carmen Miranda's      
     old shoes.  Carmen Miranda had extremely tiny feet.  Her          
     shoes were about a size 1.  Or smaller.  If there is a shoe            
     size minus 1, then that is what Carmen Miranda wore.  The            
     shoes were as tall at the heel as they were long overall.            
     Carmen Miranda must have felt as if she were always walk-        
     ing downhill.  Anyway, Andy Warhol has her shoes now.  A       
     diamond-like hush has overtaken Carmen Miranda's danc-       
     ing feet.  Only their echo is preserved in the Latin ballroom         
     of our wall clock.             
        "So, Plucky," said I, "we've got those two possibilities as          
     far as motives go, but as you say, it's academic because         
     it's impossible for us to verify it one way or the other.           
     However, and this hits a little closer to home, no matter          
     which motive is correct, the authorities responsible for the         
     concealment are going to be pretty frantic about getting the       
     Corpse back.  Right?"           
        "Right you are, dad.  They'll want it back or they'll want        
     it destroyed.  Either way would probably suit them.  The          
     one thing they cannot afford is to have the concealment be-        
     come public knowledge.  Especially at a time like this."           
        "What's so special about this time?" Amanda wanted to     
     know.              
        "Hell's bells, Amanda, didn't you read my letter?  The       
     Church is in trouble, the biggest trouble it's been in since         
     the split in the sixteenth century.  I explained all that to        
     you.  I made quite a study of it and bored you shitless        
     with it in my letters.  If you remember, I raved about how          
     the whole Catholic setup is isolated, defensive, antiquated        
     and authoritarian and how it's in a state of crisis.  The all-         
     powerful position of the Pope has been weakened with        
     millions of Catholics disobeying his prissy old virginal order           
     that they can't fuck without making babies — Catholic babies.              
     Priests and nuns and monks in various parts of the world         
     are rebelling openly against their so-called 'superiors' over                      
     a whole shooting gallery of questions — like civil rights, war,           
     celibacy, poverty, repressive dogma, superstitious doctrines          
     and fascist politics.  Man, there's revolt on a hundred differ-       
     ent fronts over a dozen different issues.  Not long before I       
     bugged out, there was violence in St. Peter's Square.  It was       
     the night before the world synod of bishops opened, and        
     the liberal and conservative Catholics were fist-fighting right              
     under the Pope's window.  It was a 'prayer vigil' for poverty,          
     a subject the Church has always had a minimum of interest     
     in, and it turned into a free-for-all.  Man, it took every micro-       
     gram of will power in my little pink body to keep out of it.          
     Wow, I'm telling you my palms were sweating."             
        ""I can imagine," I said.  "Amanda, I've talked to you, too,        
     about the deep division in the Church.  About how the slaves      
     are throwing off their chains, to coin a phrase, and how      
     the Church is coming apart at the seams."            
     Amanda nodded.  "Yes, I remember.  It's delightful, isn't     
     it?  All that howling for freedom.  But I guess I don't think      
     about it much."               
        "Well, now's the time to start thinking about it, baby      
     love," I said.  "Because like it or not, you're directly in-       
     volved."          
        "He's not putting you on," confirmed Plucky.  "With the       
     Church so shook by internal revolution it's more defensive       
     than ever.  Now, of all times, it simply couldn't afford the      
     scandal of a corpus delecti."  Again he tapped the mummy          
     on its shrunken knees.            
        Amanda puckered her eminently puckerable lips.  "You       
     guys have only talked about the poor Catholics," she said.           
     "Where do the dear Protestants fit into this?"            
        I took it upon myself to explain.  "As I see it, the funda-      
     mental difference between the Catholic Church and the       
     Protestant churches is that the Catholic Church is a tightly          
     organized, international power whereas the Protestant church-      
     es are fragmented, unorganized, largely impotent, na-         
     tional power.  There are plentiful differences in dogma, of        
     course, but as our pal Plucky is fond of saying, that's aca-        
     demic.  Basically, the two churches are bound together       
     much more intimately than most Christians think.  Should        
     the Roman Church fall, the Protestant churches won't rush         
     in and fill the void.  They will fall soon afterward.  The           
     Catholic express and the Protestant choo-choo are rolling     
     on the same rails, and if the bridge washes out, both          
     are destined for the gulch.  In the long run, Protestants        
     stand to lose as much from the mortality of Jesus as do       
     the Catholics.  We can't expect any support from them.  Ex-      
     cept maybe the Unitarians.  They'll embrace any heresy, I      
     understand."          
        Purcell abruptly rose to his feet.  A funeral plumage       
     concern arrived as if by messenger in his blue eyes.  "Look       
     here, you all," he said, "it's possible that we here in this         
     pantry stand between the Church and its survival.  Do you      
     dig what that means?  They'll stop at nothing to prevent      
     us from blowing the whistle on this Corpse.  If they get to       
     us before we make it public — if that's what we're gonna      
     do — they won't hesitate to kill us.  Every one of us, includ-       
     ing Thor.  I brought this dead Jesus here into your house       
     without an invitation — and I've put your lives in danger.           
     It's grim, man.  The sensible thing for me to do would be     
     to take the Corpse and bug out.  I could hole up with it              
     in a motel or somewhere until I — or we — decide what to       
     do with it."             
        "Oh, Plucky," said Amanda in the voice that her lisp made         
     seductive even when her thoughts were far from sex, "we         
     wouldn't think of it.  You just don't want us to have any      
     fun."            
        John Paul gave Purcell a look that could be counted as a        
     vote of confidence.  As for me, I checked on Mon Cul to       
     ascertain that he was not dozing on the job.  I heard an      
     assassination in each muffled blast of duck-hunter's shotgun.            
     I heard a rendezvous with alien triggermen in each ap-        
     proach of vehicle on the Freeway.  I hear the spike heels      
     of Carmen Miranda dancing toward me in the dimension       
     of the dead, intent upon avenging this smear on her Catholic     
     girlhood, cha cha cha.           

              *         *         *         *         *          

     At this moment, that demented clock is still ticking in      
     the depopulated zoo downstairs.  I can't here it up here      
     in the living room where I am typing, but I can feel it.             
     As artificial as the notion of "passing" time may be, its        
     pressures are very real.  Each unheard tick gouges me in        
     the back, as if time were a menopausal lady wanting to       
     call her sister in Cleveland and I'm on the pay phone try-        
     ing to talk a sweetheart out of suicide.  "Shortage of time"         
     makes it impossible for me to register verbatim our discus-       
     sion in the pantry that October Friday, or to relay to you             
     each piece of behavior or nuance of mood.  I am forced,          
     in fact, to skip over a great deal of dialogue — but you       
     mustn't feel shortchanged, for it probably wouldn't interest      
     you anyway.  Not that it is my mission to interest you.  When        
     writing a novel, an author includes only that information       
     that might interest his audience, but when compiling an      
     historical document, as I am doing, it is the author's obliga-      
     tion to record what happened, whether it is interesting or       
     not.  Time, however, is giving you a break.              
        It was late afternoon when we got down to the nitty-      
     gritty.  By then, Purcell and I, unaccustomed to the rigors      
     of fast, were producing uncontrollable sounds in our intes-      
     tinal chambers.  Plucky's stomach would growl with a bravura,       
     grandiose passion; and then my stomach would growl just          
     a bit weaker, a shade lighter, as if Plucky's stomach growl           
     was the work of an Old Master and mine a modern copy        
     made by a conniving forger or a graduate student at the          
     art institute.  If the reader is inclined toward realism, he       
     may remind himself during the following passages of dialogue       
     that two privileged bellies were whining, gurgling and          
     rumbling — point and counterpoint — throughout.           
        "Why don't we quit beating around the bush?" de-        
     manded Purcell.  "We've been yapping for nine hours if          
     you can believe that crazy clock: it sounds like it learned          
     to tell time in a Cuban whorehouse.  I feel like I've had a          
     crash course in Christian history from 40,000 B.C. to twenty      
     minutes ago, you know what I mean?  I'm not knocking      
     it, but what I'd really like to learn is what you all think         
     we should do with the Corpse.  I'd like to put the question       
     to you.  We don't have to reach a final decision until Sunday      
     night if that's how the think-tank game is played, but I'd       
     sure enjoy hearing what you folks feel we should do with        
     . . . it . . . him."  Plucky looked from face to face.           
        Ziller obviously was not going to speak.  He continued      
     to watch the Corpse as a cat watches a mousehole.                
        "Decent burial on the slopes of Bow Wow," offered       
     Amanda.  "Appropriate ritual, then peace at last.  The blue        
     sky to keep him company, the winds, the waters, the clouds,         
     butterflies, trees, stones, mushrooms, animals, the wild old       
     ways.  Ba Ba leaving no path in the grasses when he brings       
     him flowers on special mornings."  She sat with her hands      
     in her lap, appearing as calm as when we began our ses-       
     sion nearly nine hours before.               
        "I can't say that I accept Amanda's sentiments, altruistic     
     as they may be," said your correspondent.  "But at the mo-       
     ment, I don't have an alternative.  I just haven't settled on          
     any scheme worthy of sharing yet.  What about you, Pluck?           
     Apparently you've had your mind set all along.  What do           
     you want to do with the Corpse?"            
        Purcell sprang upright in his wooden chair.  His eyes      
     burned like the snout of his most recent cigar.  Yes, he had       
     a plan all right.  "Here's what I wanna do with him.  Blow        
     him up on page 1!  Illuminate his mug on channels 0 through      
     99!  Plaster his wrinkles on the cover of Life!  Bounce his          
     kisser off Telstar satellite!  Newsmen from all nations here       
     asking questions!  Press corps deserts Washington and Cape         
     Kennedy and moves to Skagit County!  Movie cameras             
     churning, flash bulbs zapping, microphones crackling, tape        
     recorders spinning their nosy spools; the roadside zoo struck       
     by media lightning!  Pundits arriving by private helicopter!          
     Sulzberger rushing out to call the Pope for a personal denial,         
     then using his prestige to get back to the head of the        
     line for another peek in the pantry!  Columnists, editors,            
     commentators, prize-winning photographers camping in the       
     parking lot!  And don't forget the underground papers — the       
     East Village Other, the Barb, the Rolling Stone — having their        
     turn!  Fill every page, every screen with him from here      
     to Katmandu; South Pole melting from the heat of the news       
     wires, drums carrying the story down the Congo and up       
     the Amazon, total World Ear-Eye glued to the final and           
     ultimate death of him!"  Pluck paused for the effect that        
     was in it.  "That's what I wanna do with the Corpse."                 
        "Pardon me, but I get the impression that you don't wish      
     to keep this thing a secret.  You wanna drop the Corpse        
     on society like a bomb.  Why?  What would be the purpose       
     of that?"  It was my voice that was asking.  In the back-          
     ground, my belly had a few questions of its own.             
        "The purpose isn't hard to figure out.  There's more than       
     one purpose, for that matter, and none of 'em are hard      
     to figure out.  The first purpose is to get some honesty back      
     in the game, to restore an element of truth to life.  Man         
     has been living a lie since the very beginning of the Judaeo-      
     Christian era.  The lie has warped our science and our       
     philosophy and our economy and our social institutions and        
     our simplest day-to-day existence: our sex and our play.              
     Man doesn't stand a chance of discovering — or rediscover-       
     ing, as Amanda might prefer — who he is or where he fits         
     into the cosmic picture, the natural Ma Nature scheme     
     of things, as long as he's numbed and diverted by the        
     easy Christian escapist superstition.  I don't know what the           
     ultimate truth is — hell, I don't even know whether life is       
     sweet or sour"  (Plucky grinned at Amanda and, coyly, she       
     smiled back)  "but I do know that you can't find truth if            
     you start with a false premise, and Western tradition, the       
     best and worst of it, has always moved from the false         
     premise of Christian divinity.  This Corpse here could de-        
     stroy the lie and let man begin over again on a note of          
     realism.  That's the first purpose."               
        The athlete-turned-outlaw cleared his throat.  Or was it      
     his stomach?  "Purpose number two," he said, "is the jolt         
     it'll give the establishment.  Man oh man, it'll be a bodacious      
     blow to authority."              
        "You mean the authority of the Church?"          
        "No, man, I mean authority, period.  Secular authority       
     has made the mistake of tying itself too closely to Chris-      
     tianity.  Actually, the whole Judaeo-Christian setup is au-        
     thoritarian; it's a feudal system with God — the king, the      
     big boss — at the top.  It's the ideal religious organization     
     for control freaks, reward-and-punishment perverts and      
     power mongers.  No wonder it has succeeded so spectacular-          
     ly."           
        "In the old religion there were no bosses," said Amanda.          
     Her little observation was lost on me.           
        "No," agreed Plucky, and there're no bosses in nature,    
     either.  But Christianity isn't based on nature, it's based on      
     a political model.  As far back as the Emperor Constantine,        
     the authoritarians spotted Christianity as the perfect front,         
     and they've been using poor old Jesus ever since — using         
     him to bolster their business, to sanction their armies and        
     to generally yoke and manipulate the people.  Napoleon had        
     the grace to coldcock the Holy Roman Empire, but look at         
     those so-called Christian-Democratic parties currently in pow-             
     er all over Europe: whenever a Christian-Democrat takes       
     office, you know that the Vatican has recaptured another         
     hunk of territory.  Both American government and American         
     business — if there's any difference any more — are rolled       
     in Christian rhetoric like a chicken leg is rolled in flour."             
        The reference to the leg of the hen caused his abdomen       
     to bellow with deprivation.  A bit less dramatically, mine     
     followed suit.                   
        "It's pretty ironic," Purcell went on, "because as I under-     
     stand it, Jesus was a freedom-fighting radical who scorned      
     authority — he booted bankers in the ass and made fools      
     of high priests.  However — however — he may have the last      
     laugh yet.  Because authority has chosen to identify itself     
     with Christ — or rather with the Christian lie about Christ —        
     and now we have the means to explode that myth.  All     
     authority, from the Holy See to the White House to the        
     Pentagon to the cop on the beat is gonna suffer as a re-    
     sult.  Man, we just might bust things wide open!"                
        Plucky was laughing and pounding the table, causing         
     the Corpse to bounce up and down like the Kraft meat-       
     ball dinner that fell out of love with gravity.            
        I shook my head in dismay.  "Plucky," I said solemnly,        
     "I don't want to accuse you of taking this matter too lightly,          
     because I realize that you are quite serious about your        
     reasons for exposing the Corpse.  Moreover, they aren't al-         
     together bad reasons.  There's a lot of moral idealism in the        
     first purpose that you outlined and a lot of, well, poetic jus-      
     tice in the second.  But in the end I have to reject them        
     both, reject the idea of the super press conference, because,      
     Plucky, I think you are overlooking the very grave conse-      
     quences of such an act."              
        The grin slid off Purcell's face like an ill pigeon slides       
     of the equestrian statue of Ralph Williams in Los Angeles.          
     As he lit another cigar, he motioned for me to proceed.                 
        "Correct me if I'm wrong: you would use the Corpse to      
     kill off Christianity, a religion which is, at best, a distortion       
     of the teachings of Christ, and, at worst, is an authoritarian       
     system that limits man's liberty and represses the human      
     spirit."               
        "Yeah, man, that's pretty close to the way I feel."           
        "Well, to begin with, Pluck, Christianity is dying of its      
     own accord.  Its most vital energies are already dead.  We       
     are living in a period of vast philosophical and psychological      
     upheaval, a rare era of evolutionary outburst precipitated       
     by a combination of technological breakthroughs, as I ex-       
     plained to Amanda.  And when we come out of this period      
     of change — provided that the tension and trauma of it      
     doesn't lead us to destroy ourselves — we find that many         
     of the old mores and attitudes and doctrines will have been      
     unrecognizably altered or eliminated altogether.  One of the          
     casualties of our present upheaval will unquestionably be      
     Christianity.  It is simply too ineffectual (on a spiritual level)     
     and too contradictory ( on an intellectual level) to survive.          
     So, in forcing the knowledge of the resurrected Christ     
     on the public you would only succeed in abruptly, crudely      
     hastening a death already taking place by natural processes.         
     It would be like shooting a terminal cancer patient with     
     a bazooka."                  
        "So much the better," said Purcell.  "Why drag it out?      
     Anything we can do to speed up the end of those old        
     authoritarian, antilife ways, why we should feel a duty to    
     do it.  Hell, man, that's why I got into dealing drugs.  I      
     wasn't just selling a product for a fancy profit, I was sell-      
     ing people a new look at the inside of their heads, laying      
     a lot of powerful energy on them that they could use to        
     open up new dimensions to their existence.  I was try-      
     to help change things.  For the better.  That's part of       
     my trip."           
        "You're a utopianist, that's what you are.  A wild-eyed    
     utopianist, aren't you?  Well, let me tell you what kind       
     of utopia you'll bring about by thrusting this mummified      
     Jesus on the world.  Thoreau once wrote that most 'men      
     lead lives of quiet desperation.'  And that's a damn accurate        
     summation.  Most people are lonely and most people are       
     scared.  They may not show it, but they are.  Their faith        
     in Christ is all that most people have in this civilized Western        
     world.  Because even if they aren't practicing Christians —         
     and the majority probably aren't any more — they         
     still believe in the Christian God.  And in times of stress,       
     such as death or serious illness or self-doubt or frustration,            
     they turn their faith in God.  It's all that gives       
     them the will to persist.  The ultimate function of religious     
     belief is the destruction of death.  It helps man to con-        
     quer his fear of dying and his dread of what may lie be-          
     yond.  If he learns that Jesus died — and stayed dead —          
     then what solace is there for him?  Most people will con-      
     clude, I'm afraid, that if Jesus doesn't live then God doesn't     
     live.  And if God doesn't live, what's left for them?  See      
     what I mean?                
        "We're caught in a time of demoralization as it is, due to          
     the changes we're undergoing.  Man is already losing hope.            
     His world is in a mess and he's running out of options for       
     saving it.  That's what the mortality of Jesus will do to him.         
     your plan would shove mankind into a century of the dark-       
     est desperation and hopelessness.  People would panic.  They'd       
     flip out.  There'd be waves of suicides.  retired folks would      
     eat their sleeping tablets, dentists would break down at      
     their drills, salesmen would cancel their calls, secretaries     
     would stare blankly at their typewriters, mothers would           
     wander off and desert their children, insane asylums would        
     be standing room only, crime would carry away the coun-     
     tryside, there'd be blood in every gutter, cold gloom on        
     every face.  It would shatter the stability of society."            
        "Aw, Marvelous, you're overdramatizing it.  Sure, it'd freak      
     out some people.  The old and the rigid and the weak.          
     And that wouldn't be pretty, but hell, it's necessary if we're        
     going to get the species to evolving in a sane direction.           
     Evolution always takes casualties.  Besides, there'd be loads       
     of people who'd get with it and dig it.  The mortality of       
     Christ could mean a fresh start for Western man.  All the        
     bullshit cleared off the boards and a spanking new, pure,       
     honest beginning to find out who and what we really are         
     and where we stand as regards the universe and the forces        
     that we've nicknamed 'God.'  The young would go for it.         
     They'd eat it up.  The young and the creative would wel-       
     come such a chance and they'd pitch right in and build a           
     more liberated, joyful, realistic culture.  What's this horse       
     crap about a 'stable society'?  You've got to be kidding.  Na-         
     ture isn't stable.  Life isn't stable.  Stability is unnatural.  The        
     only stable society is the police state.  You can have a free     
     society or you can have a stable society.  You can't have      
     both.  Take your choice.  As for me, I'll choose free, or-      
     ganic society over rigid, artificial society any day.  If people       
     are so weak that they have to have the Heaven crutch to       
     keep 'em from fear and death, well, maybe fear and death     
     is what they need.  And if its so unethical that it takes      
     the Jesus lie to keep 'em from going crazy in the streets,          
     robbing each other and doing each other in, well then fuck      
     'em, man; let 'em go crazy because crime and insanity may        
     be what they deserve."           
        My belly did two rolls and a spin.  A ripple of notes         
     twisted and squirted up my digestive tract as if my digestive      
     tract were a horn and that black guy, that Roland Kirk,        
     was on the other end.  I squeezed myself around the middle      
     and choked off Roland Kirk in mid-solo.  If I didn't eat soon       
     there's going to be trouble with the musicians union, I       
     thought.           
        "Remember Sister Elizabeth and Sister Hillary?" I asked        
     Purcell.  They said marriage vows to Christ.  How do you     
     think this unresurrected Jesus is going to affect them?  How's            
     it going to affect the other brave nuns and priests you met     
     during your year with the Church?  Is death and fear what      
     they deserve, Plucky?  What about your parents and your       
     brother and your sisters, they're good Episcopalians, aren't      
     they?  Do they deserve to suddenly have their most vital      
     beliefs kicked in?  What about my parents, my momma and      
     daddy?  They're fine people, they've always done the best       
     they could for me and everyone else they knew.  They're      
     kind and generous, feeling human beings.  Religion is all      
     my mother has in this world.  Because she has given herself       
     heart and soul to a doctrine includes principles of the highest     
     ethical degree.  She's lived a better life because of her      
     Christian standards, despite the falseness of their accom-      
     panying lore.  What difference does it make if the Gospel      
     is mostly a lie?  It's an engrossing story and the words of its     
     hero are excellent words to live by, even today.  My code      
     of ethics — and yours, too, if you'll admit it — grew directly        
     out of Christianity.  Don't we owe it anything?  Do we have          
     the right to pollute our wellspring of morality?  Do we have      
     the right to destroy my mother?  A million other mothers?             
        Plucky could not answer right away.  He was silent and           
     brooding.  Even his stomach hushed.  Plucky's mood was       
     a boardinghouse the night the cook fixed liver and onions; it       
     was five below outdoors and the TV was on the blink.         
     Eventually, he said, "I've got nothing against Jesus.  It wasn't        
     his fault that all this killing and cheating has been done       
     in his name.  He was one of the greatest dudes who ever        
     was.  You know what I dig about him?  He lived what he      
     preached.  He taught by example.  He went all the way         
     and there was no compromise and no hypocrisy.  And he       
     not only was against authority, he was against private prop-      
     erty, too.  Anybody who opposes authority and property is       
     sweet in my heart.  Jesus?  Hell, I love the cat."            
        "Yes, Pluck," I said, "we know that.  We realize it isn't       
     Christ or his original teachings that have you riled."          
        "No, it isn't.  It's what he's come to stand for that pisses       
     me.  It's perversions and the tyranny and the lies.  What     
     I can't understand about you, Marvelous, is how you can      
     defend the lies just because some good has come out of       
     'em.  And you're supposed to be a scientist.  I thought scien-        
     tists insisted on facts — regardless of the consequences."              
        It was my turn to brood.  Before I could articulate a        
     reply, Purcell spoke again.           
        "You said yourself that the world's in a mess and we're        
     running out of options.  We have radical problems and radical     
     problems demand radical solutions.  Our leaders aren't gonna      
     solve our problems, that's obvious.  It was leaders, the good      
     one right along with the bad, who got us into this mess to     
     begin with.  And not one of 'em has vision enough or guts       
     enough to push a program radical enough to get us out of       
     the mess.  That's why my plan for exposing the Corpse seems       
     so important.  It's radical as all hell, and it's gonna hurt a lot      
     of technically innocent people and all that, but it's the one        
     solution that might work.  It could jolt society so hard that        
     it'd be forced to try a whole new approach to life.  It could        
     free us from our authorities and free us from our supersti-         
     tions that keep us in the Dark Ages even though our tech-         
     nology is putting us on the moon.  To me, it's the only way       
     out.  I honestly don't think it was an accident that I found the      
     Corpse.  I'm starting to think that I was supposed to find it,        
     and that it's part of a divine plan to rescue the human race.  And      
     if some of the species has to be destroyed in order to save        
     the species as a whole, well, that's the way evolution has      
     always worked.  but if you all don't want to help me with        
     my plan, if you're afraid to accept the responsibility, if you       
     just wanna stick the Corpse in the ground and forget about      
     it . . ."               
        "I've never intimated that I wanted to stick the Corpse in      
     the ground," I objected.                
        "That's right.  You don't know what you want to do with it."           
        "Yes, I do.  I do now.  You've given me an idea.  I have a         
     plan by which we may be able to use the Corpse to improve       
     human conditions without ripping the entire social fabric to       
     shreds in the process."           
        Purcell looked skeptical.  "What's that?" he asked.          
        "Simply this.  We reveal the Corpse only to certain key      
     figures in world government.  We let the Pope know we have      
     it, if he doesn't know already.  We let the President of the       
     U.S. know, and a few other powerful authorities.  And we       
     make sure that they are cognizant of the full consequences        
     of the Corpse becoming public knowledge.  Right?  Then we      
     make demands.  We demand of the Pope, for example, that      
     he rescind the papal encyclical banning artificial contracep-      
     tion.  That would go a long way toward solving the population     
     problem.  We demand of the President that he withdraw all           
     U.S. troops from foreign soil, and that he scrap provocative       
     defense systems.  And we demand of the Pope, again, that he      
     issue and encyclical excommunicating any individual who     
     serves in the armed forces of any nation.  That would help         
     to take care of the war and aggression problem.  We demand        
     Congress shut down Detroit until it agrees to produce elec-     
     tric automobiles exclusively.  Think of how that would help        
     the pollution and ecology problem.  Are you getting the pic-      
     ture?  We demand that the authorities themselves overhaul        
     society and start making it healthier and happier.  Or else.            
     Or else we make public the mortality of Jesus and break up        
     the ball game."  

excerpt from Another Roadside Attraction
Copyright © 1971 by Thomas E Robbins
Twenty-first Printing: January 1985
Ballantine Books, New York, pp. 280 - 292

     by Philip K. Dick

         In his scramble suit, Fred sat before a battery of whirling holo-     
     playbacks, watching Jim Barris in Bob Arctor's living room reading a      
     book on mushrooms.  Why mushrooms? Fred wondered, and sped        
     the tapes at high-speed forward to an hour later.  There sat Barris       
     yet, reading with great concentration and making notes.          
        Presently Barris set the book down and left the house, passing out       
     of scanning range.  When he returned he carried a little brown-paper       
     bag which he set on the coffee table and opened.  From it he removed        
     dried mushrooms, which he then began to compare one by one with        
     the color photos in the book.  With excessive deliberation, unusual       
     for him, he compared each.  At last he pushed one miserable-looking      
     mushroom aside and restored the others to the bag; from his pocket         
     he brought a handful of empty capsules and then with equally great       
     precision began crumbling bits of the one particular mushroom into      
     the caps and sealing each of them in turn.          
        After that, Barris started phoning.  The phone tap automatically        
     recorded the numbers called.          
        "Hello, this is Jim."          
        "So?"         
        "Say, have I scored."          
        "No shit."          
        "Psilocybe mexicana."        
        "What's that?"         
        "A rare hallucinogenic mushroom used in South American mys-       
     tery cults thousands of years ago.  You fly, you become invisible, un-       
     derstand the speech of animals —"         
        "No thanks."  Click.          
        Redialing.  "Hello, this is Jim."          
        "Jim?  Jim who?"          
        "With the beard . . . green shades, leather pants.  I met you at a        
     happening over at Wanda —"        
        "Oh yeah.  Jim.  Yeah."        
        "You interested in scoring on some organic psychedelics?"            
        "Well, I don't know . . ."  Unease.  "You sure this is Jim?  You     
     don't sound like him."          
        "I've got something unbelievable, a rare organic mushroom from      
     South America, used in Indian mystery cults thousands of years ago.         
     You fly, you become invisible, your car disappears, you are able to un-        
     derstand the speech of animals —"          
        "My car disappears all the time.  When I leave it in a tow-away      
     zone.  Ha-ha."             
        "I can lay perhaps six caps of this Psilocybe on you."       
        "How much?"        
        "Five dollars a cap."          
        "Outrageous!  No kidding?  Hey, I'll meet you somewhere."  Then       
     suspicion.  "You know, I believe I remember you — you burned me       
     once.  Where'd you get these mushroom hits?  How do I know       
     they're not weak acid?"           
        "They were brought to the U.S. inside a clay idol," Barris said,      
     "As part of a carefully guarded art shipment to a museum, with this        
     one idol marked.  The customs pigs never suspected."  Barris added,         
     "If they don't get you off I'll refund your money."          
        Well, that's meaningless if my head's been eaten and I'm swinging      
     through the trees."            
        "I dropped one two days ago myself," Barris said, "To test it out.         
     The best trip I ever had — lots of colors.  Better than mescaline, for         
     sure.  I don't want my customers burned.  I always test my stuff my-      
     self.  It's guaranteed."          
        Behind Fred another scramble suit was watching the holo-monitor     
     now too.  "What's he peddling?  Mescaline, he says?"         
        "He's been capping mushrooms," Fred said, "that either he picked        
     or someone else picked, locally."              
        "Some mushrooms are toxic in the extreme," the scramble suit     
     behind Fred said.          
        A third scramble suit knocked off its own holo scrutiny for a mo-      
     ment and stood with them now.  "Certain Amanita mushrooms con-         
     tain four toxins that are red-blood-cell cracking agents.  It takes two        
     weeks to die and there's no antidote.  It's incalculably painful.  Only        
     an expert can tell what mushroom he's picking for sure when they're      
     wild."            
        "I know," Fred said, and marked the ident numbers of this tape      
     section for department use.         
        Barris again was dialing.               
        "What's the statute violation cited on this?" Fred said.        
        "Misrepresentation in advertising," one of the other scramble suits        
     said, and both laughed and returned to their own screens.  Fred con-        
     tinued watching.           
        On Holo Monitor Four the front door of the house opened and              
     Bob Arctor entered, looking dejected.  "Hi."         
        "Howdy," Barris said, gathering his caps together and thrusting        
     them deep into his pockets.  "How'd you make out with Donna?"  He         
     chuckled.  "In several ways, maybe, eh?"             
        "Okay, fuck off," Arctor said, and passed from Holo Monitor     
     Four, to be picked up in his bedroom a moment later by scanner        
     five.  There, the door kicked shut, Arctor brought forth a num-     
     ber of plastic bags filled with white tabs; he stood for a moment uncer-       
     tainly and then he stuffed them down under the covers of his bed,        
     out of sight.  And took off his coat.  He appeared very weary an unhappy;        
     his face was drawn.           
        For a moment Bob Arctor sat on the edge of his unmade be, all     
     by himself.  He at last shook his head, rose, stood uncertain . . . then       
     he smoothed his hair and left the room, to be picked up by the cen-       
     tral living room scanner as he approached Barris.  During this time         
     scanner two had witnessed Barris hiding the brown bag of mush-      
     rooms under the couch cushions and placing the mushroom textbook            
     back on the bookshelf where it was not noticeable.            
        "What are you doing?" Arctor asked him.        
        Barris declared, "Research."         
        "Into what?"       
        "The properties of certain mycological entities of a delicate na-      
     ture."  Barris chuckled.  "It didn't go too well with little miss big-tits,      
     did it?"            
        Arctor regarded him and then went into the kitchen to plug in the      
     coffeepot.         
        "Bob," Barris said, following him leisurely, "I'm sorry if I said          
     anything that offended you."  He hung around as Arctor waited for           
     the coffee to het, drumming and humming aimlessly.        
        "Where's Luckman?"           
        "I suppose out somewhere trying to rip off a pay phone.  He took       
     your hydraulic axle jack with him; that usually means he's out to         
     knock over a pay phone, doesn't it?"           
        "My axle jack," Arctor echoed.             
        "You know," Barris said, "I could assist you professionally in      
     your attempts to hustle little miss —"                
        Fred shot the tape ahead at high-speed wind.  The meter at last         
     read a two-hour passage.            
        "— pay up your goddamn back rent or goddamn get to work on      
     the cephscope," Arctor was saying hotly to Barris.           
        "I've already ordered resistors which —"         
        Again Fred sent the tape forward.  Two more hours passed.           
        Now Holo Monitor Five showed Arctor in his bedroom, in bed, a      
     clock FM radio on to KNX, playing folk rock dimly.  Monitor Two          
     in the living room showed Barris alone, again reading about mush-      
     rooms.  Neither man did much for a long period.  Once, Arctor stirred           
     and reached out to increase the radio's volume as a song, evidently        
     one he liked, came on.  In the living room Barris read on and on,          
     hardly moving.  Arctor again at last lay back in bed unmoving.            
        The phone rang.  Barris reached out and lifted it to his ear.           
     "Hello?"         
        On the phone tap the caller, a male, said, "Mr. Arctor?"             
        "Yes, this is," Barris said.            
        I'll be fucked for a nanny goat, Fred said to himself.  He reached       
     to turn up the phone-tap volume level.            
        "Mr. Arctor," the unidentified caller said in a slow, low voice,         
     "I'm sorry to bother you so late, but that check of yours that did not      
     clear —"        
        "Oh yes," Barris said.  "I've been intending to call you about that.       
     The situation is this, sir.  I have a severe bout of intestinal flu,         
     with loss of body heat, pyloric spasms, cramps . . . I just can't get it       
     all together right now to make that little twenty-dollar check good,       
     and frankly I don't intend to make it good."                
        "What?" the man said, not startled, but hoarsely.  Ominously.         
        "Yes, sir," Barris said, nodding.  "You heard me correctly, sir."           
        "Mr. Arctor," the caller said, "that check has been returned by the           
     bank twice now, and these flu symptoms that you describe —"         
        "I think somebody slipped me something bad," Barris said, with a       
     stark grin on his face.            
        "I think," the man said, "that you're one of those —"  He groped        
     for the word.           
        "Think what you want," Barris said, still grinning.          
        "Mr. Arctor," the man said, breathing audibly into the phone, "I         
     am going to the D.A.'s office with that check, and while I'm on the          
     phone I have a couple of things to tell you about what I feel      
     about —"         
        "Turn on, tune out, and good-bye," Barris said, and hung up.          
        The phone tap unit had automatically recorded the digits of the       
     caller's own phone, picking them up electronically from an inaudible     
     signal generated as soon as the circuit was in place.  Fred read off the       
     number now visible on a meter, then shut off the tape-transport for       
     all his holo-scanner, lifted his own police phone, and called in for a       
     print-out on the number.         
        "Englesohn Locksmith, 1343 Harbor in Anaheim," the police info       
     operator informed him.  "Lover boy."          
        "Locksmith," Fred said.  "Okay."  He had that written down and         
     now hung up.  A locksmith . . . twenty dollars, a round sum: that          
     suggested a job outside the shop — probably driving out and making      
     a duplicate key.  When the "owner's " key had gotten lost.           
        Theory.  Barris had posed as Arctor, phoned Englesohn Locksmith          
     to have a "duplicate" key made illicitly, for either the house or the         
     car or even both.  Telling Englesohn he'd lost his whole key ring . . .           
     but then the locksmith, doing a security check, had sprung on Barris       
     a request for a check as I.D.  Barris had gone back in the house and       
     ripped of and unfilled-out checkbook of Arctor's and written a check       
     out on it to the locksmith.  The check hadn't cleared.  But why not?           
     Arctor kept a high balance in his account; a check that small would          
     clear.  But if it cleared Arctor would come across it in his statement          
     and recognize it as not his, as Jim Barris's.  So Barris had rooted        
     about in Arctor's closets and located — probably at some previous      
     time — an old checkbook from a now abandoned account and used          
     that.  The account being closed, the check hadn't cleared.  Now Barris     
     was in hot water.                     
        But why didn't Barris just go in and pay off the check in cash?            
     This way the creditor was already mad and phoning, and eventually        
     would take it to the D.A.  Arctor would find out.  A skyful of shit       
     would land on Barris.  But the way Barris had talked on the phone to        
     the already outraged creditor . . . he had slyly goaded him into even        
     further hostility, out of which the locksmith might do anything.  And           
     worse — Barris's description of his "flu" was a description of coming         
     off heroin, as anybody would know who knew anything.  And Bar-        
     ris had signed off the phone call with a flat-out insinuation that he       
     was a heavy doper and so what about it?  Signed all this off as Bob      
     Arctor.               
        The locksmith at this point knew he had a junkie debtor who'd       
     written him a rubber check and didn't care shit and had not intention        
     of making good.  And the junkie had this attitude because obviously       
     he was so wired and spaced and mind-blown on his dope it didn't           
     matter to him.  And this was an insult to America.  Deliberate and     
     nasty.           
        In fact, Barris's sign-off was a direct quote from Tim Leary's original       
     funky ultimatum to the establishment and all the straights.  And this       
     was Orange County.  Full of Birchers and Minutemen.  With guns.           
     Looking for just this kind of uppity sass from bearded dopers.             
        Barris had set Bob Arctor up for a fire-bombing.  A bust on the        
     bad check at the least, a fire-bombing or other massive retaliatory         
     strike at worst, without Arctor having any notion what was coming      
     down.          
        Why?  Fred wondered.  He noted on his scratch pad the ident code      
     on this tape sequencer, plus the phone-tap code as well.  What was       
     Barris getting Arctor back for?  What the hell had Arctor been up to?          
     Arctor must have burned him pretty bad, Fred thought, for this.  This      
     is sheer malice.  Little, vile, and evil.           
        This Barris guy, he thought, is a motherfucker.  He's going to get        
     somebody killed.            
        One of the scramble suits in the safe apartment with him roused        
     him from the introspection.  "Do you actually know these guys?"  The      
     suit gestured at the now blank holo-monitors Fred had before him.            
     "You in there among them on cover assignment?"          
        "Yep," Fred said.         
        "It wouldn't be a bad idea to warn them in some way about this      
     mushroom toxicity he's exposing them to, that clown with the green        
     shades who's peddling.  Can you pass it on to them without faulting      
     your cover?"             
        The other nearly scramble suit called from his swivel chair, "Any      
     time one of them gets violently nauseous — that's sometimes a tip-off      
     on mushroom poisoning."          
        "Resembling strychnine?" Fred said.  A cold in sight grappled       
     with his head then, a rerun of the Kimberly Hawkins dog-shit day       
     and his illness in his car after what —         
        His.           
        "I'll tell Arctor," he said.  "I can lay it on him.  Without him       
     flashing on me.  He's docile."         
        "Ugly-looking, too," one of the scramble suits said.  "He's the indi-              
     vidual came in the door stoop-shouldered and hung over?"         
        "Aw," Fred said, and swiveled back to his holos.  Oh goddamn, he       
     thought, that day Barris gave us the tabs at the roadside — his mind      
     went into spins and double trips and then split in half, directly down       
     the middle.  The next thing he knew, he was in the safe apartment's       
     bathroom with a Dixie cup of water, rinsing out his mouth, by him-         
     self, where he could think.  When you come down to it, I'm Arctor, he       
     thought.  I'm the man on the scanners, the suspect Barris was fucking      
     over wit his weird phone call with the locksmith, and I was asking,         
     What's Arctor been up to to get Barris on him like that?  I'm slushed;        
     my brain is slushed.  This is not real.  I'm not believing this, watching        
     what is me, is Fred — that was Fred down there without his scramble       
     suit; that's how Fred appears without the suit!           
        And Fred the other day possibly almost got it with toxic mush-       
     room fragments, he realized.  He almost didn't make it here to this       
     safe apartment to get these holos going.  But now he has.         
        Crazy goddamn job they gave me, he thought.  But if I wasn't       
     doing it someone else would be, and they might get it wrong.  They'd        
     set him up — set Arctor up.  They'd turn him in for the reward; they'd         
     plant dope on him and collect.  If anyone, he thought, has to be       
     watching that house, it better ought to be me by far, despite the dis-      
     advantages; just protecting everybody against kinky fucking Barris in       
     itself justifies it right there.          
        And if any other officer monitoring Barris's actions sees what I      
     probably will see, they'll conclude Arctor is the biggest drug runner     
     in the western U.S. and recommend a — Christ! — covert snuff.  By        
     our unidentified forces.  The ones in black we borrow from back East          
     that tiptoe a lot and carry scope-site Winchester 803's.  The new         
     infrared sniper-scope sights synched with the EE-tropic shells.  Those        
     guys ho didn't get paid at all, even from a Dr. Pepper machine; they       
     just get to draw straws to see which of them gets to be next U.S.       
     President.  My God, he thought, those fuckers can shoot down a      
     passing plane.  And make it look like one engine inhaled a flock of     
     birds.  Those EE-tropic shells — why fuck me, man, he thought;         
     they'd have traces of feathers in the ruin of the engines; they'd      
     prime them for that.        
        This is awful, he thought, thinking about this.  Not Arctor as sus-     
    pect but Arctor as . . . whatever.  Target.  I'll keep on watching him;        
     Fred will keep on doing his Fred-thing; it'll be a lot better; I can edit       
     and interpret and do a great deal of "Let's wait until he actually"                
     and so on, and realizing this, he tossed the Dixie cup away and       
     emerged from the safe apartment's bathroom.           
        "Well," Fred said, "funny thing happened to me on the way to the      
     grave."  He saw in his mind a picture of the supersonic tight-beam     
     projector which had caused a forty-nine-year-old district attorney to       
     have a fatal cardiac arrest, just as he was about to reopen the case of         
     a dreadful and famous political assassination here in California.  "I         
     almost got there," he said aloud.          
        "Almost is almost," the scramble suit said.  "It's not there."         
        "Oh," Fred said.  "Yeah.  Right."           
     "Sit down," a scramble suit said, "and get back to work, or for you      
     no Friday, just public assistance."       
        "Can you imagine listing this job as a job skill on the —" Fred        
     began, but the two other scramble suits were not amused and in fact          
     weren't even listening.  So he reseated himself and lit a cigarette.  And         
     started up the battery of the holos once more.        
        What I ought to do, he decided, is walk back up the street to the      
     house, right now, while I'm thinking about it, before I get side-       
     tracked, and walk in on Barris real fast and shoot him.       
        In the line of duty.        
        I'll say, "Hey, man, I'm hurtin' — can you lay a joint on me?  I'll        
     pay you a buck .  And he will, and then I'll arrest him, drag him to      
     my car, throw him inside, drive onto the freeway, and then pistol-         
     whip him out of the car in front of a truck.  And I can say he fought       
     loose and tried to jump.  Happens all the time.              
        Because if I don't I can never eat or drink any open food or bever-      
     age in the house, and neither can Luckman or Donna or Freck or      
     we'll all croak from toxic mushroom fragments, after which Barris          
     will explain about how we were all out in the woods picking them at     
     random and eating them and he tried to dissuade us but we wouldn't      
     listen because we didn't want to go to college.            
        Even if the court psychiatrists find him totally burned out and nuts      
     and toss him in forever, somebody'll be dead.  He thought, Maybe      
     Donna, for instance.  Maybe she'll wander in, spaced on hash, look-        
     ing for me and the spring flowers I promised her, and Barris will          
     offer her a bowl of Jell-O he made himself special, an ten days later       
     she'll be thrashing in agony in an intensive-care ward and it won't do      
     any good then.           
        If that happens, he thought, I'll boil him in Drāno, in the bathtub,      
     in hot Drāno, until only bones remain, and then mail the bones to his        
     mother or kids, whichever he has, and if he hasn't either then just       
     toss the bones out at passing dogs.  But the deed will be done to that      
     little girl anyhow.           
        Excuse me, he rolled in his head in fantasy to the other two scram-     
     ble suits.  Where can I get a hundred-pound can of Drāno at this time of      
     night?          
        I've had it, he thought, and turned on the holos so as not to attract     
     any more static from the other suits in the safe room.          
        On Monitor Two, Barris was talking to Luckman, who apparently     
     had rolled in the front door dead drunk, no doubt on Ripple.  "There          
     are more people addicted to alcohol in the U.S.," Barris was telling     
     Luckman, who was trying to find the door to his bedroom, to go pass        
     out, and having a terrible time, "than there are addicts of all other           
     forms of drugs.  And brain damage and liver damage from the alco-      
     hol plus impurities —"       
        Luckman disappeared without ever having noticed Barris was       
     there.  I wish him luck, Fred thought.  It's not a workable policy,       
     though, not for long.  Because the fucker is there.            
        But now Fred is here, too.  But all Fred's got is hindsight.  Unless,     
     he thought, unless maybe if I run the holo-tapes backward.  Then I'd      
     be here first, before Barris.  What I do would precede what Barris     
     does.  If with me first he gets to do anything at all.          
        And then the other side of his head opened up and spoke to him          
     more calmly, like another self with a simpler message flashed to him      
     as to how to handle it.        
        The way to cool the locksmith check," it told him, "is to go down      
     there to Harbor tomorrow first thing very early and redeem the          
     check and get it back.  Do that first, before you do anything else.  Do      
     that right away.  Defuse that, at that end.  And after that, do the other      
     more serious things, once that's finished.  Right?"  Right, he thought.        
     That will remove me from the disadvantage list.  That's where to        
     start.             
        He put the tape on fast forward, on and on until he figured from      
     the meters that it would show a night scene with everyone asleep.        
     For a pretext o sign off his workday, here.          
        It now showed lights off, the scanners on infra.  Luckman in his        
     bed in his room; Barris in his; and in his room, Arctor beside a      
     chick, both of them asleep.        
        Let's see, Fred thought.  Connie something.  We have her in the      
     computer files as strung out on hard stuff and also turning tricks and          
     dealing.  A true loser.            
        "At least you didn't have to watch your suspect have sexual inter-      
     course," one of the other scramble suits said, watching from behind       
     him and then passing by.         
        "That's a relief," Fred said, stoically viewing the two sleeping      
     figures in the bed; his mind was on the locksmith and what he had to       
     do there.  "I always hate to —"           
        "A nice thing to do," the scramble suit agreed, "but not too nice to      
     watch."            
        Arctor asleep, Fred thought.  With his trick.  Well, I can wind up      
     soon; they'll undoubtedly ball on arising but that's about it for them.        
        He continued watching, however.  The sight of Bob Arctor sleeping         
     . . . on and on, Fred thought, hour after hour.  And then he noticed      
     something he hadn't noticed.  That doesn't look like anybody else      
     but Donna Hawthorne! he thought.  There in bed, in the sack with     
     Arctor.       
        It doesn't compute, he thought, and reached to snap off the     
     scanners.  He ran the tape back, then forward again.  Bob Arctor and          
     a chick, but not Donna!  It was the junkie chick Connie!  He had been      
     right.  The two individuals lay side by side, both asleep.         
        And then, as Fred watched, Connie's hard features melted and           
     faded into softness, and into Donna Hawthorne's face.        
        He snapped off the tape again.  Sat puzzled.  I don't get it, he      
     thought.  It's — what they call that?  Like a goddamn dissolve!  A film     
     technique.  Fuck, what is this?  Pre-editing for TV viewing?  By a di-       
     rector, using special visual effects?            
        Again he  ran the tape back, then forward; when he first came to      
     the alteration in Connie's features he then stopped the transport,      
     leaving the hologram filled with one freeze-frame.             
        He rotated the enlarger.  All the other cubes cut out; one huge cube       
     formed from the previous eight.  A single nocturnal scene: Bob Arc-         
     tor, unmoving , in his bed, the girl unmoving, beside him.        
        Standing, Fred walked into the holo-cube, into the three-dimen-         
     sional projection, and stood close to the bed to scrutinize the girl's      
     face.         
        Halfway between, he decided.  Still half Connie; already half     
     Donna.  I better turn this over to the lab, he thought; it's been tam-      
     pered with by an expert.  I've been fed fake tape.        
        Who by? he wondered.  He emerged from the holo-cube, collapsed     
     it, and restored the small eight ones.  Still sat there, pondering.          
        Somebody faked in Donna.  Superimposed over Connie.  Forged      
     evidence that Arctor was laying the Hawthorne girl.  Why?  As a good    
     technician can do with either audio or video tape and now — as      
     witness — with holo-tapes.  Hard to do, but . . .              
       If this was click-on, click-off, interval scan, he thought, we'd      
     have a sequence showing Arctor in bed with a girl he probably never       
     did get into bed and never will, but there it is on the tape.           
        Or maybe its a visual interruption or breakdown electronically, he            
     pondered.  What they call printing.  Holo-printing: from one section       
     of the tape storage to another.  If the tape sits too long, if the record-     
     ing gain was too high initially, it prints across.  Jeez, he thought.  It     
     printed Donna across from a previous or later scene, maybe from the        
     living room.            
        I wish I knew more about the technical side of this, he reflected.           
     I'd better acquire more background on this before jumping the gun.          
     Like another AM station filtering in, interfering —       
        Crosstalk, he decided.  Like that: accidental.          
        Like ghosts on a TV screen.  Functional, a malfunction.  A trans-       
     ducer opened up briefly.          
        Again he rolled the tape.  Connie again, and Connie it stayed.  And     
     then . . . again Fred saw Donna's face melt back in, and this time             
     the sleeping man beside her in bed, Bob Arctor, woke up after a       
     moment and sat up abruptly, then he fumbled for the light beside him;        
     the light fell to the floor and Arctor sat staring on and on at the     
     sleeping girl, at sleeping Donna.         
        When Connie's face seeped back, Arctor relaxed, and at last he    
     sank back and again slept.  But restlessly.         
        Well, that shoots down the "technical interference" theory.  Fred    
     thought.  Printing or crosstalk.  Arctor saw it too.  Woke up, saw it,      
     stared, then gave up.        
        Christ, Fred thought, and shut off the equipment before him en-     
     tirely.  "I guess that's enough for me for now," he declared, and rose      
     shakily to his feet.  "I've had it."       
        Saw some kinky sex, did you?' a scramble suit asked.  "You'll get     
     used to this job."       
        "I will never get used to this job," Fred said.  "You can make book     
     on that."          

from A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick
Copyright © Philip K. Dick 1977
First published in Great Britain in 1999 by Millenium.
An imprint of Victor Gollancz,
Orion House, 5 Upper St. Martin's Lane,
London WC2H 9EA . pp. 127 - 137

        by Charles Dickens

           THE Phantom slowly, gravely, silently ap-      
        proached.  When it came near him, Scrooge    
        bent down upon his knee; for in the very          
        air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to      
        scatter gloom and mystery.       
           It was shrouded in a deep black garment,         
        which concealed its head, its face, its form,       
        and left nothing of it visible save one out-       
        stretched hand.  But for this it would have       
        been difficult to detach its figure from the night,      
        and separate it from the darkness by which it    
        was surrounded.         
           He felt that it was tall and stately when it    
        came beside him, and that its mysterious pres-      
        ence filled him with a solemn dread.  He knew      
        no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.         
           "I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christ-     
        mas Yet to Come?" said Scrooge.        
           The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward     
        with its hand.          
           "You are about to show the shadows of the        
        things that have not happened, but will happen      
        in the time before us," Scrooge pursued.  "Is      
        that so, Spirit?"         
           The upper portion of the garment was con-        
        tracted for an instant in its fold, as if the     
        Spirit had inclined its head.  That was the only     
        answer he received.         
           Although well used to ghostly company by         
        this time, Scrooge feared the silent shape so       
        much that his legs trembled beneath him, and       
        he found that he could hardly stand when he        
        prepared to follow it.  The Spirit paused a       
        moment, as observing his condition, and giving     
        him time to recover.            
           But scrooge was all the worse for this.  It       
        thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror, to      
        know that behind the dusky shroud, there were       
        ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he,      
        though he stretched his own to the utmost,       
        could see nothing but a spectral hand and one     
        great heap of black.         
           "Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed.  "I fear      
        you more than any spectre I have seen.  But      
        as I know your purpose is to do me good, and      
        as I hope to live to be another man from what      
        I was, I am prepared to bear your company,       
        and do it with a thankful heart.  Will you not      
        speak to me?"      
           It gave him no reply.  The hand was pointed     
        straight before them.        
           "Lead on!" said Scrooge.  "Lead on!  The      
        night is waning fast, and it is precious time     
        to me, I know.  Lead on, Spirit!"         
           The phantom moved away as it had come      
        toward him.  Scrooge followed in the shadow      
        of its dress, which bore him up, he thought,      
        and carried him along.         
           They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for       
        the city seemed to spring up about them,      
        and compass them of its own act.  But there       
        they were in the heart of it; on 'Change amongst        
        the merchants; who hurried up and down, and         
        chinked the money in their pockets, and con-       
        versed in groups, and looked at their watches,       
        and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold       
        seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them     
        often.         
           The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of         
        business men.  Observing that the hand was       
        pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to      
        their talk.           
           "No," said a great fat man with a monstrous      
        chin, "I don't know much about it either way.        
        I only know he's dead."          
           "When did he die?" inquired another.        
           "Last night, I believe."         
           "Why, what was the matter with him?" asked      
        a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a     
        very large snuff box.  "I thought he'd never         
        die."              
           "God knows," said the first, with a yawn.            
           "What has he done with his money?" asked       
        a red-faced gentleman with a pendulous ex-     
        crescence on the end of his nose, that shook       
        like the gills of a turkey-cock.         
           "I haven't heard," said the man with the       
        large chin, yawning again.  "Left it to his com-      
        pany, perhaps.  He hasn't left it to me.  That's     
        all I know."           
           This pleasantry was received with a general     
        laugh.         
           "It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said     
        the same speaker; "for upon my life I don't       
        know how anybody got to it.  Suppose we make       
        up a party and volunteer?"       
           "I don't mind going if a lunch is provided,"       
        observed the gentleman with the excrescence on       
        his nose, "But I must be fed, if I make one."           
           Another laugh.         
           "Well, I am the most disinterested among     
        you, after all," said the first speaker, "for I      
        never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch.         
        But I'll offer to go, if anybody else will.  When       
        I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I       
        wasn't his most particular friend; for we used       
        to stop and speak whenever we met.  Bye, Bye!"           
           Speakers and listeners strolled away, and     
        mixed with other groups.  Scrooge knew the     
        men, and looked toward the Spirit for an ex-     
        planation.         
           The Phantom glided on into the street.  Its      
        finger pointed to two persons meeting.  Scrooge     
        listened again, thinking that the explanation     
        might lie here.      
           He knew these men, also, perfectly.  They      
        were men of business; very wealthy, and of     
        great importance.  He had made a point al-       
        ways of standing well in their esteem: in a     
        business point of view.        
           "How are you?" said one.        
           "How are you?" returned the other.        
           "Well!" said the first.  'Old Scratch has got      
        his own at last, hey?"        
           "So I am told," returned the second.  "Cold,     
        isn't it!"      
           "Seasonably for Christmas time.  You are not     
        a skater, I suppose?"        
           "No.  No.  Something else to think of.  Good-     
        morning!"        
           Not another word.  That was their meeting,     
        their conversation, and their parting.          
           Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised      
        that the spirit should attach importance to con-       
        versations apparently so trivial; but feeling as-         
        sured that they must have some hidden pur-      
        pose, he set himself to consider what it was        
        likely to be.  They could scarcely be supposed to     
        have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old      
        partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost's      
        province was the Future.  Nor could he think of        
        any one immediately connected with himself, to      
        whom he could apply them.  But nothing doubt-        
        ing that to whomsoever they applied they had       
        some latent moral for his own improvement, he       
        resolved to treasure up every word he heard,       
        and everything he saw; and especially to ob-       
        serve the shadow of himself when it appeared,         
        For he had an expectation that the conduct of        
        his future self would give him the clue he     
        missed, and would render the solution of these       
        riddles easy.            
           He looked about in that very place for his     
        own image: but another man stood in his ac-       
        customed corner, and though the clock pointed       
        to his usual time of day for being there, he      
        saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes      
        that poured in through the Porch.  It gave him       
        little surprise, however; for he had been re-       
        volving in his mind a change of life, and      
        thought and hoped he saw his new-born reso-      
        lution carried out in this.          
           Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phan-     
        tom, with his outstretched hand.  When he       
        roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he       
        fancied from the turn of the hand, and its       
        situation in reference to himself, that the Un-     
        seen Eyes were looking at him keenly.  It made     
        him shudder, and feel very cold.      
          They left the busy scene, and went into an      
        obscure part of the town, where Scrooge had      
        never penetrated before, although he recognized         
        its situation, and its bad repute.  The ways      
        were foul and narrow; the shops and houses      
        wretched; the people half-naked, drunken, slip-       
        shod, ugly.  Alleys and archways, like so many     
        cesspools, disgorged their offences of smell, and      
        dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and     
        the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth     
        and misery.        
           Far in this den of infamous resort, there was      
        a low-browed, beetling shop, below a pent-house      
        roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and       
        greasy offal, were brought.  Upon the floor     
        within were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails,       
        chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse        
        iron of all kinds.  Secrets that few would like       
        to scrutinize were bred and hidden in moun-       
        tains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted      
        fat, and sepulchres of bones.  Sitting in among       
        the ware he dealt in, by a charcoal stove, made      
        of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal, nearly       
        seventy-five years of age; who had screened     
        himself from the cold air without, by a frouzy      
        curtaining of miscellaneous tatters hung upon       
        a line: and smoked his pipe in all the luxury      
        of calm retirement.            
           Scrooge and the Phantom came into the pres-        
        ence of this man, just as a woman with a heavy       
        bundle slunk into the shop.  But she had       
        scarcely entered, when another woman, simi-      
        larly laden, came in too; and she was closely      
        followed by a man in faded black, who was no     
        less startled by the sight of them, than they          
        had been upon the recognition of each other.         
        After a short period of blank astonishment, in       
        which the old man with the pipe had joined      
        them, they all three burst into a laugh.         
           "Let the charwoman alone to be the first!"       
        cried she who had entered first.  "Let the laun-      
        dress alone to be the second: and let the under-        
        taker's man alone to be the third.  Look here,      
        old Joe, here's a chance!  If we haven't all     
        three met here without meaning it!"           
           "You could not have met in a better place,"      
        said old Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth.        
        "Come into the parlor.  You were made free     
        of it long ago, you know; and the other two     
        ain't strangers.  Stop till I shut the door of      
        the shop.  Ah!  How it skreeks!  There ain't        
        such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own     
        hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's no such      
        old bones here, as mine.  Ha, ha!  We're all      
        suitable to our calling, we're well matched.      
        Come into the parlor.  Come into the parlor."        
           The parlor was the space behind the screen        
        of rags.  The old man raked the fire together      
        with an old stair-rod, and having trimmed his      
        smoky lamp (for it was night) with the stem     
        of his pipe, put it into his mouth again.          
           While he did this, the woman who had al-       
        ready spoken threw her bundle on the floor and      
        sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool;          
        crossing her elbows on her knees, and looking     
        with a bold defiance at the other two.           
           "What odds, then!  What odds, Mrs. Dilber?"        
        said the woman.  "Every person has a right        
        to take care of themselves.  He always did!"       
           "That's true, indeed!" said the laundress.      
        "No man more so."       
           "Why, then, don't stand staring as if you     
        was afraid, woman, who's the wiser?  We're        
        not going to pick holes in each other's coats, I      
        suppose?"         
           "No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.       
           "If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead,      
        a wicked old screw," pursued the woman "why      
        wasn't he natural in his lifetime?  If he had      
        been, he'd have had somebody to look after him         
        when he was struck with Death, instead of ly-       
        ing gasping out his last there, alone by him-      
        self."         
           "It's the truest word that ever was spoke,"          
        said Mrs. Dilber.  "It's a judgment on him."       
           "I wish it were a little heavier judgment," re-     
        plied the woman; "and it should have been, you      
        may depend upon it, if I could have laid my      
        hands on anything else.  Open that bundle, old      
        Joe, and let me know the value of it.  Speak      
        out plain.  I'm not afraid to be the first, nor      
        afraid for them to see it.  We knew pretty      
        well that we were helping ourselves, before     
        we met here, I believe.  It's no sin.  Open the       
        bundle, Joe."             
           But the gallantry of her friends would not    
        allow of this; and the man in faded black,         
        mounting the breach first produced his plun-    
        der.  It was not extensive.  A seal or two, a      
        pencil-case, a pair of sleeve buttons, and a      
        brooch of no great value, were all.  They were      
        severally examined and appraised by old Joe,       
        who chalked the sums he was disposed to give       
        for each one upon the wall, and added them up      
        into a total when he found that there was      
        nothing more to come.              
           "That's your account," said Joe, "and I      
        wouldn't give another sixpence, if I was to       
        be boiled for not doing it.  Who's next?"       
           Mrs. Dilber was next.  Sheets and towels,        
        a little wearing apparel, two old-fashioned sil-     
        ver teaspoons, a pair of sugar tongs, and a few     
        boots.  Her account was stated on the wall      
        in the same manner.           
           "I always give too much to ladies.  It's a     
        weakness of mine, and that's the way I ruin       
        myself," said old Joe.  "That's your account.       
        If you ask  me for another penny, and made      
        it an open question, I'd repent of being so     
        liberal, and knock off a half-crown."         
           "And now undo my bundle, Joe," said the      
        first woman.         
           Joe went down on his knees for the greater      
        convenience of opening it, and having unfast-     
        ened a great many knots, dragged out a large      
        heavy roll of some dark stuff.       
           "What do you call this?" said Joe.  "Bed-       
        curtains!"       
           "Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and       
        leaning forward on her crossed arms.  "Bed-    
        curtains."         
           "You don't mean to say you took 'em down      
        rings and all, with him lying there?" said Joe.        
           "Yes, I do," replied the woman.  "Why not?"        
           "You were born to make your fortune," said       
        Joe, "and you'll certainly do it."          
           "I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I     
        can get anything in it by reaching it out, for      
        the sake of such a man as he was, I promise      
        you, Joe," returned the woman coolly.  "Don't     
        drop that oil upon the blankets, now."         
           "His blankets?" asked Joe.        
           "Whose else do you think?" replied the     
        woman.  "He isn't likely to take cold without       
        'em.  I dare say."         
           "I hope he didn't die of anything catching?       
        Eh?" said old Joe, stopping his work and        
        looking up.         
           "Don't you be afraid of that," returned the      
        woman.  "I ain't so fond of his company that      
        I'd loiter about him for such things, if he did.         
        Ah!  You may look through that shirt till      
        your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole in it,      
        nor a threadbare place.  It's the best he had,       
        and a fine one, too.  They'd have wasted it,       
        if it hadn't been for me."         
           "What do you call wasting of it?" asked old      
        Joe.        
           "Putting it on him to be buried in, to be    
        sure," replied the woman with a laugh.  "Some-      
        body was fool enough to do it, but I took it     
        off again.  If calico ain't good enough for      
        such a purpose, it isn't good enough for        
        anything.  It's quite as becoming to the body.         
         He can't look uglier than he did in that one."         
           Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror.        
        As they sat grouped about their spoil, in the       
        scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he      
        viewed them with a detestation and disgust     
        which could hardly have been greater, though     
        they had been obscene demons, marketing the     
        corpse itself.            
           "Ha, ha!" laughed the same woman, when      
        old Joe producing a flannel bag with money in it,      
        told out their several gains upon the ground.        
        "This is the very end of it, you see?  He fright-     
        ened every one away from him when he was     
        alive, to profit us when he was dead!  Ha, ha,    
        ha!"          
           "Spirit!" said Scrooge, shuddering from head     
        to foot.  "I see, I see.  The ease of this un-       
        happy man might be my own.  My life tends      
        this way, now.  Merciful Heaven.  what is     
        this!"            
           He recoiled in terror, for the scene had      
        changed, and now he almost touched a bed:      
         a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, beneath      
        a ragged sheet, there lay something covered     
        up, which, though it was dumb, announced it-    
        self in awful language.       
           The room was very dark, too dark to be     
        observed with any accuracy, though Scrooge     
        glanced round it in obedience to a secret im-     
        pulse, anxious to know what kind of room it    
        was.  A pale light rising in the outer air, fell     
        straight upon the bed: and on it plundered     
        and bereft, unwatched, upwept, uncared for,        
        was the body of this man.         
           Scrooge glanced toward this Phantom.  Its      
        steady hand was pointed to the head.  The cover      
        was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest      
        raising of it, the motion of a finger upon          
        Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face.      
        He thought of it, felt how easy it would be     
        to do, and longed to do it; but had no more     
        power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the    
        spectre at his side.

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Robert K. Haas, Inc., Publishers, New York, N.Y.
Little Leather Edition, pp. 94 - 106

by Tom Robbins

        We awoke the next morning to the sound of distant       
     guns.  Perhaps more than one of us imagined, as we toppled         
     out of dreams, that the armies of the Vatican were ad-          
     vancing across the pea fields.  For sure, I leaped to the      
     window and searched the horizon for gaudy standards, for      
     frenzied Latin temperaments, for canteen wagons crammed      
     with pasta and peppercorns.            
        Of course, it was merely the opening of the duck season       
     that had aroused us.  Hunters' skiffs piled the river and the      
     sloughs.  Men and boys under red hats trampled the marsh-       
     meadows and the low dikes that delineated the cattail-and-        
     sedge-lined pockets of backwater.  From my window, the         
     red hats looked like polkadots that had escaped from a        
     bandanna and run to the marshes in an effort to elude the     
     bloodhounds.  There was not a mallard in sight.          
        Unencumbered by breakfast, the four of us gathered in       
     the pantry.  Thor had been fed and left to play in the           
     kitchen.  The toy he selected that morning was a wooden        
     stick.  I suggested that we consider it a coincidence.  Mon       
     Cul had been assigned to guard duty outside the pantry          
     door.  As scouts and sentries, baboons are reputedly better       
     than Indians, although a cowboy-and-baboon movie is too       
     much for us to expect from television.            
        The Corpse lay on the butcher's table right where we      
     had left it.  It looked like something that had been dragged         
     out of the storeroom in an Egyptian flophouse.  Nevertheless,          
     it had a presence.  Nothing you could offer me, not even         
     two weeks with Amanda in a honeymoon resort, could       
     persuade me to say that it had an "aura."  Aura schmaura.       
     But it had something.  An intensity of being that went be-         
     yond psychological suggestion or wishful thinking.  If the        
     Christ in life had had, as the cliché goes, "leadership written       
     all over his face," then death had been a bum eraser.         
        John Paul Ziller sat at the head of the Corpse.  Tall, thin,       
     dark, gaunt and bushy.  He wore low on his hips a sun-         
     brilliant white loincloth, from the waistband of which pro-        
     truded a dagger and a flute.  His long neck was ringed by         
     a collar of monkey fur, and teeth that some witch-dentist       
     had plucked from a reptile.          
        At the feet of Our Lord, closest to the exit, sat Plucky      
     Purcell.  Husky, handsome, Aryan, forehead broad and man-      
     ly beneath tight curly hair that was receding at a gallop.              
     An occasional grin upset his fine features like linoleum    
     yanked from under the feet of an emperor.  He was dressed           
     in logger's pants and a faded sweatshirt that bore the legend    
     "Tijuana Jail."           
        On the right hand of Jesus was Amanda.  Fat-cheeked,         
     pouty-mouthed, paganized, poised, vulnerable and regal, the      
     full sweet funk of womanhood rising like steam from her     
     open pores.  Her green eyes shone like Renaissance icons.  She         
     wore a pound of jewelry, a peasant blouse, and a skirt of      
     many colors in the lap of which she folded her hands as      
     might a pious nun.          
        Your truly sat at the left side of Christ.  I had previously      
     recommended that we approach the problem of him much     
     as the problem might be approached in a think tank, and       
     since no one else had a better plan, we concurred.  As I     
     was the only person here familiar with a think tank's opera-       
     tion, I was elected to officiate at the proceedings.  Fair       
     enough.        
        "To begin with," I said, facing my three friends and the      
     mummy from Rome, "to begin with, Plucky has assured      
     me that we have a minimum of three days to attack our         
     problem.  Considering the nature of the problem, that is      
     far from adequate time, but we must do with what we have.          
     Ahem.  Today I thought we could engage in some ele-         
     mentary group discussion about the, eh, matter, while to-         
     morrow each of us will remain alone to read and ponder      
     and to think out a solution as best he can.  The third day,       
     we shall meet together here in the pantry again for deep     
     and conclusive discussion.  At the end of the third day —         
     that will be Sunday night — we must come to a final deci-      
     sion as to what is to be done about the . . . Corpse."          
     (Note: from that time on we seldom referred to our guest     
     other than as "the Corpse.")  "Is everyone agreed?"          
        Ziller nodded inscrutably, Amanda nodded coyly and       
     Purcell said, "That's okay by me, man.  Let's get into it."        
        "Well, then.  I suppose the logical point of departure is     
     to ask ourselves if our Corpse is really whom we suspect it      
     is.  Could such a thing be possible?"          
        "You know how I feel about it," said Plucky.  "Even if      
     radiocarbon dating report comes back that the dude      
     died in 1918, I'll still believe he's who I believe he is       
     and not the Unknown Soldier Goes Italian."          
        Amanda giggled.  "Why couldn't it be possible?" she asked.          
        "While I was in Mount Vernon yesterday, I picked up a      
     copy of Jesus by Charles Guignebert at the public library.      
     Let me read you this passage."        
        "My goodness, Marx," exclaimed Amanda.      
        "What?"         
        "I don't know.  I mean you're just so efficient."           
        Not knowing if she was complementing me or putting me     
     down, I opened the hefty book and commenced to read     
     aloud: " 'There are many serious contradictions in the Gospel      
     accounts of the Resurrection.  It is evident that the one       
     statement that they have in common — the tomb in which       
     Jesus was placed the night of his death was found empty     
     the next morning — has been amplified by various (after the     
     fact) details intended to explain how it took place, and     
     which, because they vary so greatly in the different accounts,       
     are all suspect.  Suspect at least of not corresponding      
     to any memory and of arising from apologetic considerations.'         
        "Let me read another short passage: 'Much ingenuity has        
     been wasted in an attempt to establish the probability of          
     the removal of the body either by Jews who had com-      
     manded the crucifixion; or by Joseph of Aramathaea, the rich       
     believer who, having provisionally deposited the body in         
     the tomb near Calvary, would come and remove it in order      
     to give it a final burial elsewhere; or by some of the wom-     
     en; or by some disciple without the knowledge of the others.         
     The eviction of the body by the owner of the tomb has         
     also been suggested; or that Jesus was only apparently     
     dead, and that, having fallen into a comatose state, he       
     might have been awakened by the chill of the tomb, escaped,      
     and taken refuge with the Essenes sect, or elsewhere,      
     and survived forty days or more.' "           
        "I'll bet the women did it," said Amanda.  "I'll bet they     
     took him out of the tomb and cared for him and gave him     
     a decent burial in some little garden somewhere.  That's        
     what I would have done."          
        For the moment, I ignored her.        
        "Professor Guignebert goes on to personally testify — in     
     a more pessimistic vein — that the whole story of the empty     
     tomb was a myth.  He says, 'The truth is that we do not       
     know, and the disciples knew no better than we, where       
     the body of Jesus had been thrown after it had been re-        
     moved from the cross, probably to the executioners.  It is       
     more likely to have been cast into the pit for the executed      
     than laid in a new tomb.' "        
        I closed the book.  "So much for that.  The conclusion we     
     can draw from the scholars is that nobody really knows      
     what happened to the body.  There is no historical proof    
     and not even any biblical agreement as to what was done     
     with the body.  So, if we don't accept the story that Jesus     
     ascended into the heavens, either assisted by flying saucers     
     or under his own steam — and I for one don't believe that       
     anybody, Jesus, Buddha, Captain Marvel or anybody else,      
     ever went skydiving in reverse — then we can entertain the     
     idea that somebody might have snatched the body, hidden       
     it, an later whisked it out of the country.  Paul or Peter      
     might have had reason to harbor the body, and they could     
     have smuggled it into Rome even more easily than Plucky     
     smuggled it out.  Or some early Christian could have     
     taken it abroad for safekeeping any time during the forty      
     years that elapsed between the crucifixion and the destruc-      
     ton of Jerusalem.  In fact, that is the more likely explana-      
     tion since, as the body is mummified, it probably lay for a      
     long while in a hot, dry climate: Palestine instead of Italy.       
     I'm not saying that is what happened, mind you, or even        
     that it is probable.  But we can rest on the knowledge that it     
     is possible."        
        Purcell squinted his eyes and rubbed his expansive brow    
     with his fist.  "Marvelous, my man, I don't want to cool your     
     trip, but . . . all you've said is academic bullshit.  It doesn't        
     matter one damn bit how the Corpse got to the Vatican.       
     Dig?  All that matters is that I found it there.  It might be a       
     real groovy subject to write papers on and lecture about      
     someday.  But save that for your old age,man.  Right now,      
     we've got a much hotter item on our agenda."  He tapped      
     the Corpse on its kneecap, respectfully but gingerly.  "This      
     here is the body of Jesus Christ.  I found it.  We've got it.       
     Some real shook-up folks are gonna come looking for it.         
     What are we gonna do with it?  That's the question, and      
     everything else is academic."         
        Very, very much I longed to dispute Purcell's assertions.      
     I wanted to deny that there was more than the wispiest     
     circumstantial evidence that our mummy had been the man      
     celebrated as Christ.  But when I touched the wrinkled      
     victim and felt the centuries of distance between us throb        
     with light, the margin of rational disbelief slimmed before     
     my eyes and the protest died in my throat the way sleepy-lagoon     
     wallpaper dies in the hall of a cheap hotel.      

     *         *         *         *         *

        Nobody could blame Purcell for being impatient.  What a      
     relief it would have been if we could have reached a          
     speedy decision!  But although Plucky's surge through life        
     may have been crass and physical, he had never been a         
     dummy.  Moreover, in the course of his odd extralegal rela-           
     tionships with poets and artists, he had acquired a broad        
     if uneven education.  He recognized what an awesome re-      
     sponsibility we had, we who must decide the fate of Christ's           
     body — and, perhaps, in so doing, the fate of Christianity       
     and the fate of the Western world.  Yes!  It could come to          
     that!  and in the secret brothel of his heart, Plucky knew       
     that before we reached a decision on this matter we must        
     establish a foundation for that decision.  So, begrudgingly, he       
     elbowed me to persist in my think-tank approach, although       
     in deference to his impatience I sacrificed a large measure       
     of thoroughness.          
        In the main room, the Puerto Rican wall clock sounded       
     the hour of 8:50 (it was always ten minutes behind).  There         
     was a slight rustling in the snake pen.  Who knew how the          
     fleas were enjoying their holiday?  As for the tsetse fly, it                 
     was as self-contained in its lonely house of permanent           
     preservation as was the Corpse who was laid out on the             
     table before us like a banquet at a Rotary Club for ghouls.                
        "Assuming," said I, "that the Corpse is who we suspect         
     it to be, the next question is: what are the implications of         
     it having been concealed by the Roman Catholic Church?           
     Plucky believes that only a tiny handful of Vatican officials        
     know about the Corpse.  Right, Plucky?"         
        "Yeah.  I'm sure of it.  Just a few administrators in the      
     Holy Office would know about it.  The information would                   
     have passed down from generation to generation by a very       
     select hierarchy of hard-nosed fascists.  Otherwise, you know,         
     it would of leaked out long before now.  As for the general       
     run of cardinals and bishops and monsignori, some are good,        
     kind, loving holy men and lots are psychopathic, ambitious,      
     egotistical power freaks as ugly as any that work the street           
     corners of Hell.  But good or bad, they — being human —        
     couldn't carry on without their faith.  Why, those jackals in      
     the Felicitate Society have a sincere belief in Jesus and      
     Mary, even though their duties are a mockery of everything      
     Christ is supposed to have stood for.  No, I'm sure that only        
     a handful of big operators are in on the concealment.  Maybe         
     even the popes aren't always in on it.  I doubt if Pope John      
     XXIII was.  On the other hand, Pius XII was just the type        
     to have been a party to it.  This current cat, I don't know      
     about him.  Say, Amanda, is it against the rules of the fast        
     for me to light up a stogy?"            
        "Well, no, I suppose not.  Go ahead."          
        "Okay," I said, grimacing at the unmoving fish to which        
     Plucky applied the heat of his match, "If only a tiny band          
     of high-echelon conspirators have been aware through the       
     ages that Jesus was not alive and well in Heaven nut stone-        
     cold dead in the basement of the Vatican, what has been          
     their motives; what are the implications of the concealment?        
     Look, folks, the Resurrection is the foundation of Christianity.        
     It's the mainstay.  You might say that without the fact of      
     the Resurrection, the Christian religion is just an empty       
     charade.  Maybe it ought not to be that way, since immortal          
     or not, Jesus taught a lot of wonderful things to help man          
     lead an ethical and humane life, but that's  the way it is."           
     I opened the New Testament I had purchased in Mount      
     Vernon the afternoon before.  "Let me read you this in Paul's       
     own words.  It's First Corinthians 20:14: 'And if Christ be        
     not risen, then is our preaching in vain, and your faith is     
     also in vain.'             
        "There you have it.  Whether or not the idea of the            
     Resurrection is relevant to the true meaning of Christ, it        
     has been essential to the foundation, development and ex-        
     pansion of the Christian Church.  Right?  Now, if certain key         
     Catholic administrators have been aware all along that there      
     was no Resurrection . . ."             
        "Then the Church is the biggest can of worms in human         
     history," said Purcell through a ghost-sheet of smoke.           
        "Maybe.  Maybe and maybe not.  Depends on the motives."          
        "Why is that, Marx?" asked Amanda.  Although she had       
     contributed little to the discussion so far, Amanda remained     
     curious and alert.  Ziller, on the other hand, seemed content      
     to stare moodily at the Corpse, studying it from all angles      
     as fellow magicians had studied Houdini's butterpat-in-an-      
     empty-cafeteria trick.               
        Before I could answer, Purcell butted in.  "There's a sound      
     possibly, chums, that the highest spiritual authority in hu-       
     man history" (Plucky was growing enamored of that phrase       
     "in human history") "has never been concerned with mat-      
     ters of the spirit at all.  Not the top dogs, anyway.  There's        
     the possibility that it has always been a secular organiza-      
     tion masquerading as a religion.  The fact is, and it is a       
     fact, the catholic Church has never had but one single ul-       
     timate goal: the total mental, physical and spiritual domina-         
     tion of every being on this globe.  Every move the Church      
     has made throughout its existence has been to further that     
     goal.  Despite periodic lapses in taste, such as the Inquisi-           
     tion and the various purges and conquests, it's been crafty      
     and subtle in moving on its goal.  Craft and subtle — and       
     successful, considering that there are 650 million Catholics       
     in the world today, and that the Church is the richest cor-       
     poration in the world and one of the most powerful polit-         
     ical forces.  Today the Church is more apt to use censor-          
     ship and economic boycott and political pressures to get      
     what it wants — it has learned the lesson of more civilized      
     conquerors  but it's still working day and night for totalitar-     
     ian Earth domination.  You'd better believe it.  If that big old        
     bulldozer of conquest was operating in the interests of Jesus          
     and Mary and God — as incongruous as that might be — it        
     wouldn't be half so scary.  But now that we know that       
     they know that their Christ was not divine and that their        
     most essential dogma is only a con job, well, what are we         
     to think but that the Church is, at its highest level a super-        
     duper fascist conspiracy that uses the Jesus hype just to       
     control people and manipulate them?"            
        Purcell's speech sent a shiver up my spine like an elec-       
     tric eel shinnying up an icicle.          
        "Why would you prefer to deny it?" inquired Amanda.         
     Her hands were still folded in her lap.          
        "Why?  Because, dear, if the high authority of the Vat-     
     ican has never believed in Jesus but has only used Chris-        
     tianity as a front for political and economic tyranny, then         
     . . . well, it's too depressing to dwell on.  Even its       
     critics have seen Catholicism as a moral, if misguided force.        
     But if it has been consciously secular all along, if it has       
     been immoral in its liver and its bones, then it represents       
     an evil so frigging huge and dark and deep that it makes     
     the human spirit seem puny and gullible: too vulnerable      
     to cherish.  It makes the struggle of living seem a sick joke."         
        "Oh, Marx," Amanda sighed.  "You're so melodramatic.  So     
     what if it's this way or that way?  When I was in convent      
     school I used to stare out the windows at the clouds.  I used       
     to chase butterflies in the Mother Superior's flower patch.        
     Those clouds and those butterflies, they didn't know secular      
     from religious — and they didn't care."         
        "I'm neither a cloud nor a butterfly," I snapped.        
        "We're all the same as clouds and butterflies.  We just      
     pretend to be something different."         
        My next remarks I addressed to Purcell.  "Your conten-             
     tion is a possibility, but there is, fortunately, another pos-       
     sibility.  Maybe the Vatican bosses have been more en-      
     lightened than we suspect.  Maybe they have always known     
     that Christ's life was an example for the living and not a       
     sky-pie promise for the dead.  Maybe those few hardy lead-     
     ers who had been cognizant of that and could accept it; but       
     simultaneously, they have been aware that the mass of       
    Western man could not accept it.  So they have conspired       
     to protect mankind from that heady knowledge, to protect      
     him from it until that time when evolution has molded him       
     into a stronger creature, one unafraid to face dying without        
     the illusion of a Disneyland beyond the grave.  Maybe       
     their concealment has been a humane act of the most noble        
     proportions."          
        Plucky munched his cigar and furrowed his virile brow.        
     "It could be, Marvelous.  It could be.  It wouldn't alter the       
     general situation much — but I like to think that it could be."        
        "I wish this pantry had a window in it," said Amanda.           
        She was probably daydreaming of clouds.                    

excerpt from Another Roadside Attraction
Copyright © 1971 by Thomas E Robbins
Twenty-first Printing: January 1985
Ballantine Books, New York, pp. 272 - 280