Part 1 
Index
Subject: CODY: FROSH Part 2 -- Repost
From: mithryl@walrus.com (Mithryl)
Date: 1996/12/08
Message-Id: <58fdb6$aco@alice.walrus.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.prose,alt.sex.stories
FROSH
By CODY ANN MICHAELS
c. All rights reserved
PART 2
STACKS AND BOXES
Note: I know that what follows borders on incoherency. But the
world is beginning to shape shift so fast and so violently there is not
enough will left to hold any vision for very long. Also, as it is in
response to a letter, it must be posted. -- Cody.
Chapter 5
The Big One
"I decided to go into politics." -- A. Hitler
"I met Michael Moore a few weeks ago. He says that the problem
with America is that our name is boring. "The United States of America"
is a description, not a name - it has no marketability, unlike "Great
Britain"... Michael Moore decided the U.S. s hould change its name to
"The Big One." When you're travelling in East Lumpur or The People's
Republic of Sweden or wherever, you can tell folks you're from The Big
One. That made me realize America is the Texas of the world. We're much
too big, much t oo powerful, quite arrogant, utterly full of ourselves,
not nearly as cute and charming as we like to think, and much stupider
than we hope people realize. And everyone else hates us." -- Letter from
P.
Including ourselvses.
However, Great Britain and The Big One are also descriptions,
neither of which is particularly -- or even remotely -- correct, or cute.
T.s. Elliot says that every cat has three names: the one by which it is
known, Tom; the one by which it knows itself, me; and its real name.
Since we already know about The United States of America and Asshole of
the Western World, the question is, what is America's real name?
However, I am a bit off the name game for now. As you noted in
your letter, Clinton is not really Clinton; Ford was not really a theatre
and Statin's birth name was pronounced "Jew Gosh Villi"; all very
significant clues to solving the mystery of God's plan on earth. But you
neglected to take into account that both Stalin and the Kaiser had
withered arms; Hitler had one ball, and Roosevelt lived out his declining
years in a wheelchair.
It makes you wonder. Was there an intelligence behind all this; a
sort of demiurge who went about collecting the essence of body parts from
those who had done so much to shape the first half of the century? And to
what end? Perhaps to stitch together a sort of golem who -- or which --
might preside over the fin de Sheik of the second; a kind of living
holocaust whose very existence would make the victims of the prototype
seem like they had won the lottery.
I know there is something to be said about not taking one's
history off the telly. But then, why are we to assume that what we see on
tv is any less reliable than what we read in books? Anyone who has
managed to wind his way through the tortuous passag es of getting a book
published by a major publishing house knows that the process has made him
a liar. So am I any more ignorant for having learned about "the great
war" on television rather than my first grade spelling class? The second
world war, whic h was even bigger than the great war, is even worse. You
can't channel surf these days without ending up in a fox hole on Iwo Jima
or a tank on the road to Stalingrad. (I loved that movie. Bing Crosby
was hilarious as an s.s. captain down on his luck.) I don't know why they
call it the great war. It didn't look so hot to me. On the other hand,
it made what happened afterward look sick. The movies of Wilson were
interesting. It makes you realize, the movies have been around for a long
time. T.R. e ven took a film crew with him to Cuba. And a ten piece
band. But they had to leave their horses in Florida. There wasn't room
on the boat. That's one of the things they never told you in books. That
except for Teddy, the Rough Riders had to walk, not ride, up San Juan
Hill. Teddy, on the other hand, not only had a horse, but he was all over
the place, having a fucking ball. There's a story that one of the r.r.'s
had bought the farm, so to speak, and was lying in a ditch dying, and
Roosevelt gallope d up, jumped off his horse, shook his hand, and said,
"Tough luck, old chap. But isn't it bully!" It sure was. That's another
thing I never read in a book. But then, I don't read books. So maybe I'm
not being fair.
On the other hand, there was no sound. You could watch people
becoming body parts, and you weren't distracted by sound effects. There
might be a piano. But no explosions or screaming or any other background
noises. This sort of concentrated the actio n into one organ. The eyes.
And left the rest to the imagination -- except for the piano. Of course,
now we can add sound effects. The way we think it might have sounded back
then. We can even put in background music. And a piano. But it's not
the same. It doesn't really go with those grainy black and white vistas
of moral dispair that you see on the faces of men like Clemenceau and
Lloyd George; or Wilson, knowing he... What did Wilson know? He had half
a brain, you know? Ever since the 1880s, minor strokes had been slowly
eating away at the inside of his head. Wilson...
Why am I thinking about this? Fuck Wilson. Get out of my head.
Oh, now I remember? Channelling. I forgot. No way. That is the asshole
end of the world. Oh, now I understand. The movies open doors, and...
No, I don't. I was watching old movies on television. Old newsreels.
Which meant for every old newsreel, there had to be someone out there,
wherever it was, winding a camera. They didn't have motors. Totally
oblivious to whatever was happening around him. There was a procession of
the Tza r's daughters. The tzar and his wife were there, too. But I'm
obsessed with the daughters. There were a lot of pictures, and I taped
the whole section so I could... Could what> Fuck you. Will you stop?
IU'm not getting into that again.
tzar's daguhterst.s
politics is what you do to avoid the truth. I just figured it
out. Whenever I'm about to face the truth, to actually remember
something, I go political. Anbd that makes it go away.
What did I want to say today?
Most of the creative, i.e. positive, energy of the century's
second half has gone to shore up the lie that Hitler and Germany were
solely responsible for the second world war. It has drained us. Taken
everything away.
This is like the tobacco companies claiming that cancer causes
cancer in the lungs, not smoking cigarettes. Get it through your heads,
kids, Hitler was a symptom, not a cause. And World War 2 grew out of the
irritant from maintaining an earlier fiction , that the allies were non
mea culpa as far as the first one went.
Yeah. Yeah. But something's not working here. What are you
groping for? The guerre between two betweens. Why am I groping around
the first half of the twentieth century as though it's my grandmother's
attic. <My grandmother spent the war in Berlin. The second one. The
first one, she spent in Ireland. But for some reason she never told, she
moved to Germany in the early thirties.
Her first husbanbd was killed in the war.
I don't know his name.
The heresy of our age is that Germany was entirely justified in
what it did -- the justification of a hysterical madman driven wild by
cigarette burns and having its fingernails torn off. It's the same thing.
Those war criminals who forced the Germans to sign a treaty ... But I
don't know that. I mean, that's what they said on tv. That all that
misery in Germany was a result of the blockade and the settlement
agreement, and the mean old French and British, etc. But isn't that
blaming others. Surel y the Germans don't need the English and the French
to be miserable. It's sort of a national talent.
Maybe Hitler was going to happen anyway. No matter what anyone
did. It's an interesting fact that Hitler, unlike Eichman, died thinking
he was a nice guy. Sure, the war was lost but that wasn't his fault; his
generals fucked up. What could he do? He 'd done his best. He'd
probably be pretty surprised to come back and discover in how many
people's eyes, he's become a schmuck. He's also the man of the century.
The absolute ground zero focal point. I defy anyone to try to not think
of Hitler for fiv e minutes straight. It can't be done.
I hate thinking about Hitler. And yet, I feel like he's always
there. I know that it's not really him. It's the golem. That they made
out of his left ball. And Wilson's half brain; and Stalin's arm; Stalin
and the Kaiser both had the same withered a rm. So now the Golem has two
left hands. That's one way to spot him. And he's also got Roosevelt's
legs -- Franklin's, and one of Teddy's eyes. T.R. lost his eye in a
boxing match -- this was while he was president, but they kept it a
secret.
Of course, there was a trade for these things. You've heard the
phrase, "I'd give my right arm for..." some such thing. Well, be careful
what you wish for. You might get it. Then again, there might be a total
screw up in the shipping. Stalin wanted to make musical comedies.
Hitler asked to be able to paint like Miro.
Mussolini. Truman. Butch Cassidy. Truman's second term began in
the first half and ended in the second. This is because four does not go
evenly into fifty. There's a rumor around that Strom once ran for
president. It turned out to be true. Strom, in fact, is the last person
still alive who lost to Truman. Dewey, Wallace, Gus Hall. All dead.
Strom's the only one still functioning on a macrobiotic level. Even
Truman is dead.
Truman is the president that all losers invoke as an icon as their
ship goes down, seeing themselves standing on the balcony of the
presidential mansion holding up the Chicago Tribune to redicule. The
trouble is though, Truman was no loser. You could h ave pounded old Harry
into the mud of Belle Woods and he would still have walked home a winner.
I don't know much about him, but he must have been some dude to go up
against Strom Thurmand and those other guys in a fight. They showed his
picture when he was in the army. Round glasses. Round face. Round
helmet. Middle-aged. His eye sight had kept him out of West Point, so
when the war came along, he memorized the eye chart to trick his way into
the army.
Why am I talking about this? It's gotten cold. I need a sweater.
The heat's off. It's like I'm surrounded by ghosts. Not politicians.
You saw them there in the movies. Old men who were dividing up Europe;
men who would be dead by the time all hell broke loose. But what do I
care? What am I trying to figure out? How much they sound like arrogant
bastards who are in charge today. Is that it? That we're setting another
bomb? Is there something evil moving underneath us, like those worms in
the movie moving under the dessert, pushing up the ground, about to break
free again. Wasn't that. Not quite. I realized those four old men in
the movie, Clemenceau, et. al., were only the doormen; that there was
something else behind them, in the darkness inside the doorway.
Things were awkward. Clumsy. Something was fighting me. It
isn't that. It's this. Now. Here. That we've got to be afraid of.
Something is making us sleep. Rosa Luxembourg. I want to be like her.
Emma Goldman used to live in my neighborhood. T rotsky printed a paper in
the next block. We've got to open our eyes and wak u;p
This holocaust thing and anti-anti-semitism is eating us alive.
Don't you know that one breeds the other. Like in a reactor. We don't
know where to get rid of the waste. We're drouwnding in our own shit
the mud rose higher
stop it
have you ever mud wrestled with a pig when 59 tons of amunition is coming
in on your head
There ain't no athiests in fox holes. Get it?
stop it
it's breeding we've got to break it down. Kill it
God Amndit
the budda came back to the cntterwtewrtw
weldhs breigade
coming through
sixth infantry
zero
Buirtha was a pg
the whole French calvary had her
it was a matter of honor
they gave it to their sons
one war after another
where's mine?
that was no war.
that was nam
fuck you
she made a good transmitter. She was comingt in perfectly out there in no
man's land and then it rolled, that great mud slide of history we know as
the Persian Gulf
come back one
get it over with
we take you to the proving rougndsfs
is this an investigation or isn't it?
His contacts in Washinton were imppecable
we don't know how close we came at that point
do we?
the beast roams these hallways late at night, prowling up and down the
corridor for Rita Sanchez. I was betrayed. He'd get even. Track her
down through the corridors of power from the inside out.
what if I take off this grate?
Use a screwdriver
I know what to do.
Child support
it's all over but the counting
count down
I think I've mentioned, time is interwovular. You go in one whole, you
come out another.
Let us go back and recapitulate. There was an elction. I came to
WAshinton. Hi. Let me in. I'm Cody. The doorman opened the door.
That's how yu know you've been let in. Come in, Woodrow, we have beeen
waitigt g for you Woodrow was born in the middle of the Civil War. He
knew what fighting meant. And he knew what war was. And he got what he
wanted. Anyone who had ever gotten into the White House with half a brain
could do anything he damned pleased. So he skillfully wove a deal with
the ignorant Europeans to go home. They begged him to stay. He left
House in charge. They never spoke to each other again.
I think I got lost somewhere?> What about Belle Woods? She was in
one of Chaplin's films. Gradually we forgot, because we had never known.
We only read the newspapers and watched it on tv. And then there were the
mutees de guerre for whom it was req uired to surrender the seat if one
was not already a mutinee de guerre, and then it was a matter of comparing
war wounds to see who got to sit down. I skip over the grisley detail,
especially the part about asking the other passengers to decide who was f
it to stand and who was not. It could take hours, and then the victor was
only going two blocks. Then someone else would get on and they'd have to
decide all over again. Was having a leg off at the knee as bad as missing
a nose and half one's testicles. The other was no doubt even now fueling
the 20th Century Limited on it's way to the stars.
I'm totally lost. I don't know what I'm babbling about anymore.
Only if I stop, I know they will get me. Thereyre all out there, staring
in, even the ones with no faces. No eyes. But they're still looking at
me. Or through me. Yes. That's it. I' m like a hallway, a corrdidor
for them to come through. On the way out. Abel Ganz, abel ganz abel
gansssss.. Made a movie like this, while the war wwas going on, the dead
rising up from the battle field, and he used real soldiers, men on leave,
not act ors, who were later killed in battle. The dead in the film were
dead men walking. See, that's all it is. Just something I saw on
television. They are using the holocaust to butcher us. It's a setup.
They'll lock me up for this. Something that happened in the rain.
I couldn't explain. I looked down and I wasn't there. Where's
the rest of me? Now I knew. The golem had taken it. I had seen it in
the movies. Something in the dark background. Like, if you enhanced the
shot, it might even look like St. Nicholas. But it still smelled like a
nigger. Take me down that road, Sam. My office is on the sixth floor of
the Longworth Building behind an elevator. Okay. It is the elevator.
But it's an old service one that isn't used much. And I can only use it
when it 's on the sixth floor. The rest of the time I have a refrigerator
box in the hall. The guy in the box next to mine is from the district in
Arizona that has female slave gangs. He can hardly fit. I wouldn't mind,
but he's there all the time. If I come in at four a.m., he's there. The
only time he leaves is to go to the bathroom down the hall. I think he
sleeps there. What a hunk.
Mr. Smith goes to WAshington.
Mr. Smith is the golem of many faces. And two left hands. Why am
I here?
I think because they elected you.
Oh yeah. What district are you from?
The third. Look, do you mind? I'm trying to get some work done.
What kind of work?
Paperwork.
Why?
Look, shut up. I'm writing.
Suddenly I sensed it there in the shadows behind me. It wasn't
Willie Smith anymore. Who was it? I tried to remember. Don't be
anti-semitic. Was that it? Always shoving it in our face. Why? What's
anti-cemitism.
Where you don't like Jews.
I hate Jews.
I know. You've told me.
Stinking perverts.
Look, Joe. I'm trying to work. Okay?
Fine. I\ hate niggers, too.
Yes, yes. We know. You've been very subtle about concealing your
higher self.
Huh?
Shut up!
I knew he did it to make me mad. A kind of sexual hararssment.
But I also knew something was making him do it, and that was what worried
me. Stanley didn't have the brains to hate Jews. Tommy was like a
steamroller rolling through the Argyle Forest. Anything that stood in his
way died. But there was something else out there that very much wanted us
to hate the Jews. What was it?
A Dark Satanic Presence Baldrick would say. Private Baldrick,
dogsbody in the trench. After four or five months, anything would look
good. Even a dead cow. I feel like I'm in a rocking boat where various
decaying parts float to the surface, like, ... Get thee hence vipers of
the western world. Avaunt. Get your hands off me, Dennis. We weren't
allowed to have sex with upperclassmen. Denny was a sophomore. Which
meant he got to discipline the troops. His hand fastened around me like
King Kong. Picked me up and threw me at the elevator. Fortunately, the
doors were closed. Like, why am I here?
They voted for me. Remember? We were just getting to know each
other. y yYse wayne. I won't forget.
he was my d.i. Now I understood the significance of those
letters. All right, Shithead, move. You want favors. You give favors.
It was a curious dichotomy that there were now in the army those who were
permitted to go back on their word, and those w ho would not under any
circumstances betray a confidential trust. Both sides had their
adherents, and their methods of operation. Each understood the other. So
when a breakdown in operations occurred, there were unwritten rules for
restoring it. Women threw those equations into disarray. Good men were
suddenly being transformed into criminals. No one was safe. Soon morale
plummeted among the men. Each waited for the day when friendly fire would
once again become a tactical option. Like, watch you r back, honey. The
women moved up the structure like a hyatal hernia, strangling the services
at their corps. Women were even allowed to fire off rocket ships at
Saddam Hussein. There was no doubt they were taking over, but how long
would it take? Who knew?
Cody. Where are you?
I don't know.
Do you want to stop?
I missed it.
What?
Something big. She looked at her hands. I always miss it.
What do you think you're trying to say?
That there's no separation between what's happening now and what
they did then. I mean its like one of those buildings when there's an
earthquake, one floor goes right down on top of another, with everything
in between it. I've been getting messages. I don't know what they mean.
Someone is dead. For fifty dollars the whole world could go up. The
businessmen think they can do anything. How close are we to the final
solution?
You said that Hitler was a symptom.
Yes.
But what about Newt? Doesn't the same thing apply to him? They
are all symptoms. If someone like Woodrow Wilson couldn't save the world,
why would you expect it from Clinton?Aren't you asking too much of
history? Look at your friend from Maricopa. Is this the kind of bozo
with the smarts to stop the next big one?
Okay, but people could be nicer to each other. They could make an
active choice between hurting people and not hurting them.
Who?
These guys. The ones in the boxes up and down the hall.
What makes you think they have that power?
The only real offices are in the elevators. But you can't tell
that back home. So every day, each congressman gets to use a furnished
elevator for fifteen minutes to an hour, depending on seniority, to
entertain visiting constituents and make himself look important. Then
they get off and the elevator goes to the next floor. We put you down for
nine-thirty to nine-forty five, Monday, Tuesday and Friday. Have your
people lined up and ready to get on. We try to keep a tight schedule.
You can also hav e it for an hour on Saturday if you want.
What if I have to vote?
If you vote, you lose your turn.
People with nowhere to go could also use the elevators at night
when the other members went home.
At Cannon and Rayburn I think they had similar arrangments. These
buildings had been named after the great speakers of their generations.
Longworth had been T.R.'s son-in-law. Stacked above each member's box are
those of his staff. Some have many peo ple working for them. Above the
staff are other boxes; like for filing, a kitchen, his own toilet if he is
really powerful, and has been here for a long time. Some of these guys
have been here since the Incas. They came here from Macchu Picchu. They
a re like cliff dwellers, ladders connecting the different levels.
Members of congress used to be added as each state joined the union. But
that became unweilding when it got above seven thousand. So now there is
a fixed total, and each delegation is bas ed on population. Still, 7,572
makes a lot of boxes. They have warehouses out in the slums where
Congressmen are stacked up like railroad cars. Here, they line the dark
halls; the only illumination is from bulbs that hang on cords from the
ceilings at intervals, with chipped glass shades. The place could use a
paint job and some fixing up. I don't think it's been rennovated since
Alice dedicated it. Alice was Longworth's wife and T.R.'s daughter. The
name is familiar. Each member sits in his box w ith his word processor,
and his staff stacked above him. The only time he comes out is to go to
the bathroom or vote. But Newt is said to be working on a hookup that
will make it possible for members to vote from their cubicles. They are
yawning black squares like caves. The only sounds are the fork lifts as
they move the pallettes on which the boxes are stacked, the members
constantly in a search for better location -- it's very fluid -- nearer an
airshaft or a window, or closer to a toilet. That's especially important
to the older ones with prostate problems.
The poor congressmen are afraid to raise taxes to fix up their
miserable quarters. Somehow, it is not as glamorous as I envisioned.
Like many, I came here innocently expecting to be greeted by hordes of
rich, handsome lobbyists who would offer me milli ons for my vote. What a
laugh. The rich lobbyists turned out to be another el Dorado, an
illusion. Some of those guys are so threadbare they can barely afford to
buy themselves a ham sandwich and weak tea in the basement cafeteria. The
most pathetic a re tobacco company people. They come in here with weak
smiles and hand me little sample packs and plastic lighters made in nam,
and a grubby printed card asking me not to hurt them. They remind me of
men who want me to sleep with them because they're su pposed to be writers
or something special, like it's an entitlement. No way. Like Aquirre,
the conquistador in Herzog's film, we came to this jungle seeking glory
and riches but the myth is turning into a fever dream of madness as our
raft spins in the current of the rushing river. At night, the stench from
the cooking fires can be disconcerting, especially as there is no
ventilation. No one will share food with the others.
Cannon sits in his cubicle mouthing cliches and throwing gnawed
buffalo wings into the corridor. He weighs 320 pounds. His box bulges.
He's proud to have voted to trash welfare. Make the niggers work; the
international Jewish conspiracy, social security, etc. Old people should
die. Save the taxpayers money./ Fuck affirmative action. If women don't
want to get fucked, why do they join the army? What do they think it is,
a club?
The trouble with trying to tell the truth is the bigots who
believe the right thing for the wrong reason.
What are you saying?
I can't handle this material. No one knows what to do.
Maybe you should rest.
Yeah. I'm dead, aren't I?
We'll see.
*
"People spoke softly at the funeral: 'Someone else might choose
another way.' Everyone knew what that meant. It was clear to everyone
what 'another way' could be. They were nuclear scientists, after all.
Didn't Moscow understand, they asked, how dan gerous it is to drive people
who held the nuclear arsenal in their hands to this state?" -- Grigory A.
Yavlinsky, NY Times, 11/15/96, pA33, on the suicide November 1, of
Vladimir Nechai, director of Chelyabinsk-70 nuclear complex. Nechai wrote
in his suicide letter that he could no longer face his staff, which had
not been paid since May, a month's pay being 250,000 rubles per worker,
about $50.
"Two questions: Are you 12 or 19 or 24 or what? Is your name Cody
Ann Morgan, nee Michaels, or is that a pseudoname? I don't need to, or
even want to, know your name if Cody is not it, but I'm curious as to
whether or not it is." -- P.
Dear P.
Like Billy Pilgrim, Cody is spastic in time. Or perhaps in "age"
would be a better answer. Yes, my name is Cody Ann Morgan, nee Michaels,
as you put it. It seems rather grand and impressive that way. I'm sorry
about the quotes. I use what are useful to my story. I would like you to
be more careful of yourself. Treat yourself better. Now, if you are like
most guys, that will probably serve as a goad to send you off on a super
bender just to show me what you can really do in the realm of self-demol
ition. But, still, I would like you to stop hurting yourself. The
Kennedys are a enclave of madness that I try not to visit; too easy a
target. The real question is why, in 30 years, has no one in the family
publicly questioned the Warren Commission re port and the single bullet
theory, even though in most universes bullets do not turn corners, and
most bullets do not blow the back of a person's skull off if they are shot
from behind. (Remember, in the movie, Jackie climbs onto the back of the
car to r ecover Jack's missing half pumpkin.) So do they know something
archetypal -- or were they warned?
I'm working a fantasy in which Hitler decides not to attack
Poland; too messy. Might start a war. And 23 years later, as a beloved
elder statesman, he wins the Nobel peace prize for negotiating a
settlement in the Cuban missile crisis between Khruschev and President
Joseph Kennedy (father or son?). -- Cody
*
Chapter 6
The Look and the Feel
"Your bike was
taken by the Parks
Dept. You can
claim it somehow." -- note taped on tree.
"Please remember to take your belongings when leaving the taxi and
please get a receipt from the driver."
-- taped woman's voice each time you get out of NY cabs.
*
I feel like I am being used to tell a story that is not my own. I
don't want that. I almost wish I was a hooker again; it was so
uncomplicated. I knew what was me and what wasn't. Now I am dying each
day some other person's death.
Cody, what do you know about the Holocaust?
Nothing.
Come on. You must have read something.
I said I don't know anything. I wasn't there. And the people who
were there don't know either. Nobody does. You've been raped. Did you
take notes while it was happening? So that you would remember? Do you
remember it or do you only remember being raped>? Do you think
remembering is knowing? Do you think the people who walked into the
crematoriums knew what was going on? Do you think they know now? I mean
any who survived. You only know something in the instant it happens; not
even then. Know ing is not the same as remembering. Unspeakable pain is
not a time to conduct a research project. Make a study. Jot down
statistics. If you survive, all you have left are memory and
explanations. You can spend the rest of your life making up explana tions
and descriptions. And lies. Conducting surveys. Collecting
demographics. Publishing research papers.
Yes, but you know about the camps.
I don't know about the camps. I was never in the camps. And if I
went to a place now that was a camp, I would still not be there, any more
than if I went to Alcatraz and tried to imagine how awful it must have
been when it was filled with prisoners. T hat would be imagination. It
would not be knowledge. What I know about now is that there are people
who act as if they know, and pretend as if people then should have known;
as if there was some sort of crystal ball in 1933 that would have told say
Heid iegger or Leni Reifenstal what an absolutely unspeakable mess this
was going to end up as in the next 12 years. If that is possible, why is
no one going around today asking what is going to outcome of the politics
of cruelty that is going down now. Peop le have got their heads stuck up
the ass of 1933, trying to make 1996 go away.
This is the time to be aware of; to be scared shitless in.
The girl was sitting in one of the two metal chairs that was in
the bare room.
Are you scared>?
There was a long silence; then she started to cry. Oh God, yes.
What about?
I... I don't know.
Do you think someone's going to hurt you?
I think.... I think. You know, if it was just a matter of dying,
of being killed, it would be okay. Tears ran down her cheeks. I could
handle that. Eventually, when you get beat up enough, you stop hurting.
It's what's beyond that that scares me.
Why? Aren't you afraid to die?
Of course I am. But I'm willing to take my chances. It's large
amounts of well-organized ignorance that scares me. Like, it's like
there's an intelligence that's orchestrating all this. That's what
terrifies me. It's so big. It seems to be. And so evil. Sometimes I
think that what we call war is when God shows us his face. I think what
we're waiting for noe is God to come back for the third time. And this
time there's not going to be a way out.
You mean a war?
No. No. Not a war. The wars were just experiements. No.
That's not right either. The wars were when the experiements blew up. In
God's face, so to speak and the animals in the laboratory escaped. Or
maybe when he freaked out; like Victor Frankenstein smashing his retorts.
Hitler was a dead end. But this time, he's finally got it together. All
the equipment to keep the experiment going without blowing.
What experiment?
The golem. God's golem. You see, if Hitler hadn't blown it. If
he hadn't fucked up, by starting a war... But, of course, Germany was too
small... It was only a prototype. God needed something bigger. But now
we're taking away everything. The who le immune system, so to speak. All
the structures are in place. You don't need to take care of people or
help them. We have the internet. We have the great docile white middle
class. Fuck the old people. Fuck the poor. Entitlements were the
gantrie s, so to speak. But now they aren't needed. You can have a total
environment, and the vas hermeticum will not blow. The allies will not
arrive in the nick of time to save you. Because the allies have become
the creature. Do you think Saddam Hussein's going to come riding in here
and save medicare?
Why are you worried about medicare>? You're only fourteen years old.
I'm not worried about medicare, Liz. Medicare has nothing to
fucking do with it.
But you said... The voice came from the tiny speaker in the
laptop on other chair. A wire ran from the modem to a telephone on the
floor. The voice was tinny. But probing.
In fact, after the way those old farts sat on their hands while
teenage mothers got screwed, those santimonious bastards, I hope they get
their own welfare checks cut off. They totally deserve it.
What I said... I mean, what I mean is that the wars destroyed the
conditions that existed before; they were like safety valves. But this
time, there's not going to be an escape.
An escape from what? The voice came from the computer.
I don't know.
How can you say that World War 2 was an escape? 50 million people
died. Cody's legs were tied at the anlkles to the legs of the chair. And
her wrists were tied together behind the chair. This, effectively, kept
her immobilized.
Maybe it was better than what God had in store for them.
What?
I don't know! Damnit. Leave me alone.
She slumped back in her chair. I just feel them closing in.
There's nowhere to go. Let me alone.
Would you like to talk about something else? The voice asked.
Cody assumed that somewhere, Liz's body was monitoring this conversation.
That it wasn't all just the computer. Or the internet.
No.
She pulled forward, turning her head; a cascade of long curls
spilled over her right shoulder. She tried to see if there was a camera.
Suppose the holocaust would be everywhere. I don't mean people
with Sinaid O'Conner heads and cremetoriums belching human toxins into the
sky. I mean the mentality of the holocaust, a kind of endless grey
phantasm stretching hopelessly out in all direc tions. It wouldn't matter
if you are in a barracks or a city street. No matter where you go, it's
there, seeping into your bones. Suppose the holocaust never ended, and
all this ever since is in the imagination of someone in the camps; maybe a
collecti ve dream of survival. They're imagining that the war has ended,
and the allies have liberated us. You have to have something to hold
onto.
But Cody, you're not Jewish.
Oh, and that's another thing. Why does it always have to be about
the Jews? They weren't the only ones. What about the Poles? What about
queers? Do you think the appocalypse is going to be so picky picky? Do
you think Hitler wouldn't have thrown me in jail?
No. He would have cut off your head. Especially if you talked
like that.
Fuck him. Besides, I would have been a nazi.
What makes you say that?
Because I liked the look. The nazis had style. Which is more
than I can say for assholes today. I think I would have looked super in
an s.s. uniform. Sig Heil!
A jolt of electricity warned her to be careful.
Now, fruelion, lets go over this again.
Maybe we should let her rest.
Nonsense, Freulein Cody is just beginning to enjoy herself, nicht
wahr?
You fucking bastards, I'll never tell.
WHAM!
He slapped her face. The girl's head spun sharply sideways. A hand
gathered itself in her hair and jerked her back. What?
She spit at him. Blood came with it, smearing his lab coat.
I like a girl with spunk. Bring me the acid.
She wailed.
Now what are you remembering?
This will be a cure for cancer.
It's very important for you to remember the experiment.
Frau Olga dragged her down to the cellars.
I think we have a breakthrough, Professor.
I will make you live.
I'm already alive, thank you.
Yes. But when you're dead you won't be.
Couldn't we just keep the status quo>?
Wham. His fist knocked her across the room.
You will speak only when spoken to.
First they drained half the blood out of her body. Then they
fattened her up. Then they drained some more. They needed twenty
gallons. She couldn't make it fast enough. They gave her hormones.
In a few days, she was good for two gallons a day.
Production soared. Other slaves were brought in. A carefully
guarded secret was that Jewish blood infused the Wehrmacht.
Let me alone. Let me alone. She slumped in the chair.
Was your grandmother a Nazi? Liz asked.
I don't know. She never talks about it. My father told me.
Actually, he told Luann, my step mother, and I heard him. She could have
been. She had the look.
Maybe she's a war criminal.
Yeah. Maybe.
Or maybe she imagined the war. She was in the camp. The nazis
thought she was a Jew. She claimed she wasn't. She was an aryan. Only
the Jews believed her.
You can imagine what it was like. So she imagined there was a
war, and the allies came to rescue them. And that she came to America and
had two sons, and one of them had me. And now she's imagining that she's
me. While the Jews work her over.
It would be a big incentive. They left me keep my s.s. uniform.
Wait a minute. The gate swung shut behind me. I screamed that I was
aryan; I was born in Little Rock, Texas. Just check my passport. I'm
not Jewish. I'm not. Then I turned around an d looked backward. Down
the muddy road between the lines of barracks.
Some day my prince will come... I started to walk. The high
heels of my black boots sunk in the mud. I nearly fell. My hair was a
mess. Blood trickled down my chin. Maybe there was some other way out.
She lit a cigarette. Someone had spread the rumor around the camp
that I was Hitler's daughter. I had been a chorus girl in a revue in
Munich. We wore short black tunics and black panties. This was my
punishment.
Cody stood up and walked around the room. Liz watched her long,
lithe figure, taut as a wildcat as it prowled. The Jews dumped everything
on me. They paid the Germans back in spades. I had to think of
something. So I dreamed there had been a war. Something had to happen
to get me out of there.
Then you came to America?
Yes. No one knew about my past. I was American, you see. That's
what my passport said.
Were you?
Yes.
What about Ireland?
My father took us there during the civil war. Michael Collins was
my lover.
You're making that up.
Maybe.
How old were you at the beginning of the war?
Fourteen.
Collins died in the early twenties.
So?
So you weren't even born yet.
I wasn't born then, either. It was my grandmother.
She stood behind the older woman and played with her hair. Liz
stiffened. She knew how the young girl felt about her. But she did not
think it right for them to be too intimate.
She tugged playfully at Liz's dark curls. "I love you, Liz."
And I love you. She knew how important it was for Cody to be able
to express love to someone. But it had to be kept in check. Otherwise it
could go too far. Cody's hand slid down inside her blouse. Liz caught
it. Cody kept going until she grabbed t he big tit meat. Liz gasped.
Cody leaned down and kissed her on the mouth.
She raped her. Liz lay on the floor crying. Her skirt was ripped
all the way to her waist. Cody had fist fucked her. "And if you tell
anyone, I'll say you were the one who came onto me."
Liz crawled back into her chair, and turned around. I won't tell,
Cody. I promise.
After that, the two women had regular sex. Until they were
caught. After that, Cody was tied up, and Liz had to speak to her through
the computer.
Cody turned herself into knots in the chair.
She threw herself at the laptop; her chair tipped forward, and she
bashed her chin on the concrete floor. She came to, slowly. The computer
was still talking. Her head felt like the right side had been crushed
with a hammer, just behind the ear.
Aids isn't a virus. It's a transmission. It's a message going
somewhere. Moving from one person to another. We don't know what it
says. It comes from a very deep level. Maybe from Mars. We're all
transmitters. Something's moving through us. Just be calm. You won't
die. I wasn't sure, but I tried to calm down. I was in a state of high
frequency,. I got a job working at Women's Wear Daily. John picked me
out of the cadets. Now I was moving up. Through God's body. Wait a
minute.
God is hungry again.
They fed him the welfare people.
He was still hungry.
They gave him the old people.
He still wasn't satisfied.
There wasn't much left.
Just some kids in blue jeans and leotards.
I was in one of Calvin Klein's bus ads.
that got all the trouble.
a new face.
a gaven's glfit
here's another
she came out of her grave
and is floating in the water
The dead rose up in Pumpkin Flats.
I had them walking down the runway
in Paris Rance
Cody is using historical and journalistic events which she does
not fully understand to try to deal with the tumultuous occurrences of her
own life. She fantasizes herself into the persona of her grandmother, who
may or may not have been a war criminal. She sees herself as an Aryan sex
goddess at the mercy of vengeful Jews. In this way she rationalizes her
anti-semitism.
As a congresswoman, she would have power. Her father, who may be
dead, was a minor politician -- a state senator who once ran for
lieutenant governor. He often spoke of running for Congress, but was
thwarted by rivals in his own party. At different ti mes, Cody sees
herself as Hitler's daughter and Michael Collins's lover. She saw the
movie. This is via the grandmother who has a mysterious past.
Cody forces herself on Lizabeth Kohl, forces the older woman into
becoming her lover, traps her. Liz is a tall, handsome woman in her mid
thirties, the age the grandmother would have been at the beginning of the
war, whether or not she actually was the dead Irish hero's girl friend.
She has long, almost black hair and deep penetrating eyes. Her figure is
full, with large, heavy breasts. She likes leather. It's clear Cody
understands her deepest desires. No matter how hard Liz fights, Cody
keeps com ing on. Liz is reduced to a pawing, gasping animal, huddled in
her chair. The two women exchange roles. Cody is totally in control.
She covers Liz with her body; forcing her tits into the half breed's
ecquisite face. When Liz protests, Cody knees her violently in the tummy;
slams her head on the concrete floor. Eventually, they must be separated.
Liz knows that she is responsible even if Cody is the stronger.
She is in charge of the session. A gulf of professional ethics cuts
between them. No touching is allowed. Her passionate desire for the
young girl's voluptuous body is verboden.
When Cody was discovered, she had been living in a packing crate
for several weeks; she was smeared all over with her own excrement; it was
on her face and in her matted hair. Even though the weather had turned
cold, she refused to put on warm clothing. Her clothing is a mixture of
erotic lingerie and rags; a frayed black corset and black panties; ripped
stockings. High heeled boots. Fetish clothing that goes with her
self-perception. She had eaten hardly anything in days.
Gradually, Cody came loose from her bonds. It was seen that she
had made them herself. At first the laptop was taken out of the room;
only a small speaker in the ceiling was left in place. But later, it was
felt safe to leave the computer with her so that she could have more
control over the dialogue between Liz and herself.
Eventually, the women were allowed to be together. Cody went for
Liz like a school of pirhanna lured by a slab of fresh meat. She was all
over the big woman. Strict rules governed their relationship. Liz knew
her career was on the line. She cowered in the face of the onslaught as
her clothes were ripped off and she was hurled backwards over the chair.
Her head cracked on the floor. Cody, she gasped, listen to me. The
laptop come down against the side of her head. Keys scattered. Liquid
display splattered.
Cody has trouble with time. Something about sequentiality eludes
her. This may be because she eats too much chocolate. Then, too, it is
hard to say whether things are together or separate. Different
occurrences of love and hatred. Love is a nuclear moment in a swiss
cheese universe. Go in one rabbit hole and come out another. Both women
have been raped. Is one like the other? Or are they different?
Statistically, they are the same. Cody brings the computer down on the
other woman's head, using the edge to inflict the worst damage. She hits
her in the cunt with it. Up between the legs. Shards of broken black
plastic rip through the soft fleshy thighs.
Then, all is quiet and the grey room is empty again. She does not
remember being brought in, made to sit in the chair. Being tied. Cody is
spastic in time. She is frozen at 14. Grounded there. 13 1/2. Eighth
grade. Kelly. Alex. Luann. She snap s back and forth like one of those
paddle balls. The rubber band is always fixed at 13 and a half. The ball
streaks out into the universe, but 13.5 is always waiting for it to come
back. Like a comet. WHAM! 1921. 1930. Twenty-16. POW. 6 years old .
My mother's age. Going south. The death camps. No! more.
You don't take notes. There is no time. There's always the next
show. The next runway. The next paper to get out. I'm telling you
what's happening. Psycho-babble. As soon as the words are spoken,
they're gone. You go on to the next. And the next . Don't look back.
You'll die. You've got to fight like a bitch. At the end of the runway,
you turn and come back.
When I watch Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance, it is almost
inconceivable to me how long ago this movie was made. It is so incredibly
sexy. So intimate. I could almost get off on it right there. I think,
if they could do that then, why did it tak e so long to put a man on the
moon, or find a cure for AIDS? He is incredibly sexy. She was a bit of a
cow, a dressed up trashy blonde, but that makes her interesting in a way a
more elegant woman wouldn't have been; how he made her fat body move. You
get the feeling he could have been a total sadist. All that shiny silk
and feathers was dying to be slashed and soaked with blood.
I'm beginning to understand something. It's not all murder.
You've got to ride the wave. "If it swells, ride it." We should welcome
AIDS because it's a transmission from the infinite past, a microbial
journey up through consciousness on the way back t o the stars. We are
only the medium that carries it. You get AIDS, you pass it on. The
clearer the passage, the cleaner the message. Gods talking to each other
through our bodies. We should be honored. The whole evolutionary cycle
is a sound bite on the 6-thirty cosmic news. God's burp. The burp of a
minor diety. Be glad you were chosen. Otherwise, you are garbage. Junk
DNA.
I don't know. Nobody writes to me anymore. I think they think
I'm so screwed up I'm not worth bothering with. Maybe they're right. I'm
a pig. I should have been shot back there on my uncle's farm. But he
said it didn't matter. I was totally crazy. No one would care. Or
believe me. I was hateful. I had sinned against God and his dogs. I
guess I don't want anyone to write to me. I'm hateful. A black hole.
"You suck everything in," one of my lovers said to me. He's right. I
don't know how t o stop. Liz got me pills, but I threw them away. I
liked crack better. Ecstacy. Ice-9. TWX. Street names. It's getting
dark. The day was dull grey twilit. Soon it will be time to write.
Note: The word "fucking" is used extensively throughout this
chapter. Okay? Parts of this chapter have been censored (by Liz).
Chapter 7
Manson Hall
"I have been to places only demons go." -- Medea *
Yeah. New Jersey.
November 18, 1996: How could they? How could it possibly happen?
You have states and a country where politicians literally scream about
illegitimate babies and punishing teenage mothers, and then you wonder why
two rich kids would put their newborn baby in a dumpster? God, you just
can't figure it out, can you? X XXXX XXXX XXXXXXX XXXXXXX!
I know you're not supposed to say things like this, especially on
the internet, but I wish you..., someone ... could ... would take Newt
Gingrich, Christy Todd Whitman, Bill Clinton, George Pataki, Rudy
Guiliani, and about a thousand others back to Nuere mberg and hang them by
the same ropes they used on the Nazis.
You can just imagine how many kids are ending up in dumpsters
because of these fuckers, ones who never get noticed or found. Or who are
starving like Carla Lockwood's daughter because their welfare checks are
being cut off. When are we going to get it through our heads? The people
who are the worst child abusers in history don't need to be reported:
they're on television every night. Making plans to save money. You want
to save money over the birthright of children to be born?
I noticed one of the dorms, I don't know who's, was called Manson
Hall. Yeah. Clinton's is the Manson generation. Clinton ought to get
Charlie out of prison and make him Secretary of Health, Education and
Welfare. But Manson was a humanitarian next t o Clinton. Fucking sickos.
When is someone going to get up and say J'Accuse? That was the
name of Abel Ganz's movie about World War 1. The same as Zola's article
on Dreyfus. Zola wrote that he understood that he was breaking the law in
publishing it. We need to break a lot of laws to get back to where
children know they don't need to murder their kids, where babies aren't
described by some undertaker on the 6:30 news as "unwanted." Bill Clinton
and Newt Gingrich put that stigma on children. They are the true
murderers.
Cody, calm down.
Fucking assholes. I can't stand it.
It doesn't do any good to get mad.
She stood there for a moment staring; and then she just started to
shriek. She just screamed and screamed and screamed. Staggering around
the room, bumping into furniture. Eventually, she stopped.
What is the matter?
I can't do this anymore. I can't make art out of shit. There's
just too much. Isn't anyone awake?
Cody, you have to accept some things. You can't change the world.
I'm not trying to change the world. It's the way the world is
changing that I'm scared of. Why are people being so fucking hateful?
They haven't even arraigned these kids, and already they're salvating over
the death penalty. What kind of fuckers are these? Aren't they fucking
human? The goal of humanity should be to save life, not destroy it. How
can a woman, a woman, goddamn it, get on national television and say she
wants to burn two kids? That is so fucking sick, I want to vomit.
That's her job.
She's a murderer.
Shit. I didn't want to write about this tonight. I was all set
to write about the internet, and how you can tell stories on the net in
ways that were never possible before. Stories at all different levels of
reality. Virtual. Non-virtual. Paleo-vir tual. Pre-nonvirtual. Push
the envelope to the max. Now I'm all upset. I really fucking hope ...
What?
I don't know. I was going to say I hope she dies. But that isn't
it. She's just some mindless fuck of a district attorney. The kids
weren't even from Delaware. They probably won't kill them. They'll
rattle swords. Make it sound terrible. But you never know. Just the
thought is sick. These fucking cowards. They created the atmosphere that
made this happen. Used it. To get elected. Dissed anyone with a shred
of humanity. So the kids exposed the baby. Cracked its skull. Just like
the Sparta ns. Or the Indians. Media. I was watching Media the other
day. Someone's version of it. The actors were wonderful. (NOTE TO
EDITOR: I SPELLED THAT RIGHT. DON'T CHANGE IT!) Media kills her children.
To fuck her lover. Who dumped her. The way med ia kills us now. Because
of her lovers. Her political lovers like Clinton and Whitman. Media will
sleep with any Jason. Just spread your legs, honey. Let me in. And then
Media wails she was betrayed. Her first amendment rights were cut off.
Media is a fucking whore collaborator. I hope I do get in trouble for
this. They'll use him like a woman.
Huh? What? Who?
That kid, when they find him. In prison. He'll end up someone's
wife. So will she. Like Susan Smith. Do you have any idea what Susan
Smith looks like now? After she's been in prison a year? A woman who
killed her two kids? She's open season all y ear round. I saw a
supermarket tabloid last summer that had a picture of her. Whether it was
computer enhanced, I don't know. Two black eyes. A swollen, puffy face.
It was just a head and shoulders shot. But you got the picture. I don't
know why I' m going on like this. I only just saw it on tv. I don't even
know their names. They showed pictures from their yearbook. He was a
soccer captain. They lived in Bergan County.
Aren't you upset at them? For what they did?
Murder doesn't upset me. People do it. What I hate are the
people who make them do it. And then act as if they are so non mea culpa.
Murder is just another act of the human condition.
But so is hypocracy.
I know. I don't know why it makes me so fucking mad. It just
does.
I know why. It's hypocracy that leads to these things happening.
Like the hypocrites at Verseilles. Or the ones who uphold the Holocaust.
Like that's going to save them. On tv tonight, they also showed Israeli
soldiers kicking Arabs in the face with their hands tied behind them.
Some fucking Holocaust. The Jews have become their worst nightmare. Go
on. Arrest me. THE HOLOCAUST IS A FUCKING LIE.
What were you going to write about the internet?
I don't know.
You must have some idea.
I don't have any idea. I never do until I start. And I'm too
upset to think. Something about the internet has many levels. No. I
don't know. Who cares? People are dumb. They just go along. I was
standing on the street corner one day looking down at a big dead bug. And
another bug walked up to it, bounced off, and walked away. And I thought,
we are so different from bugs. Aren't we? I would have noticed if I
stumbled over a corpse. But, lately, I'm not so sure. I mean, seeing a
dead person on the sidewalk would bother me, but on tv? It's just another
show. Or shot. Another picture. Look at this one. Whole, the whole
body is torn in half. And this. Wow, that's great. And here's one of
Levy kicking him in the head. There are three gu ys, Arabs, and a
soldier, sitting in a row. In front of a building. The Arabs sit on the
ground, and the Jew sits on the steps next to them. And then he leans
back and kicks the closest Arab in the head.
Neat?
Boy, thank God for camcorders. You can see the neatest things
nowadays. You know those lettermen must be furious they didn't get to
film the actual dump. When he put the kid in the dumpster. Lettermen.
That's what I call people on tv. The lettermen . ABCNBCCBS. At least
C: B.S. got it right. Yes, I am guilty of a conspircy to think. Sue me.
Kick me in the head like that Arab.
So what would you do? Would you let them go?
Who? The arabs?
No. The kids. The ones who killed their baby. If they did?
Would you just let them go?
Sure. Why not?
Come on. I'm asking. What would you do to them?
I don't know. I'd say it wasn't their fault. The girl's lawyer
said she didn't even know what was going to happen. She'd just had a baby
alone by herself in a motel room. Her boy friend took it. You know, you
aren't in such great shape to think when that happens. You probably have
a lot of weird emotions. I mean, if you're a woman, wouldn't you think a
girl would have some pretty odd sensations in a situation like that? Is
that any time to talk about killing her? Jesus, fucking Christ, this isn'
t Salem. Or is it? Did Hester Prynne die for our sins in vain?>
Hester Prynne was...
A novel. Yes. I know. Don't fuck9ing confuse me. You know what
I'm talking about. This fucking bitch. Do you sell your fucking soul to
get elected? Is that what it takes? Like Faust? Faust sold his soul for
knowledge. These guys do it for a che ap shot on tv. We really have
degenerated.
I wish Charlie Manson would come out of prison and cleanse the
earth. I wish he would do what he came here for. We need someone like
Charlie to lay down the law. Make us human again.
Cody, Charlie Manson was a mass murderer.
So?
So what are you saying? Sharon Tate was pregnant. She begged
them not to kill her child. It happened before you were born. I don't
know how much you know.
I know enough. Never mind. I don't mean it. What I meant was we
need someone who will show us the way. Who no one can stand up to.
You mean like Hitler?
Well, not like that. A good Hitler. Someone like Roosevelt or
Churchill. But then, without Hitler, no one would have ever heard of
Churchill. And Roosevelt would never have succeeded without Stalin. They
were so scared shitless the racist white middle-class would go communist,
they had to let him alone.
Who?
The ones who own us.
Who?
I don't know. The international Jewish conspiracy. Whatever.
Without communism, they can take everything back. Where are we going to
go? Like the New York Post said the other day, "The Party's Over." We're
fucked.
Cody, when you act like this, it's easy to dismiss you as a crazy
person. You're reacting solely on the basis of one tv news item. You
don't know what's happened. What the circumstances are. You should wait
and see. Check your facts. Get your facts strai ght. Go over your
notes. Then organize your thoughts. Then write something that will stand
up in court.
I'll be a fucking old lady.
But this way, you're no better than a lynch mob. You've got to
take your time. Check things out. Find out what...
Will you shut the fuck up.
Okay. I'll stop.
Thank you. I was going to write to P. about the inter... You
know when those kids were murdered in Switzerland, wherever, in the
school. The guy came in and shot them last year. All the fucking
politicians could talk about was gun control and being s hocked and this
and that.... covering their fucking pink behinds; I never heard one say
what it must have been like for the kids, to be one and see that mad
asshole come through the door with his stupid pistols shooting. To get
inside a kid's head; or le t one get inside yours who didn't know he was
dead yet. Was just shot. Didn't know if he was dead or the one next to
him. Which side he was on. This one or that. Inside the womb or out.
Was falling over. His head going down. Someone falling on top of him.
Were we playing? What are we playing? Can't get up. Getting up.
Falling down. Pain in belly. Head bleeding. Why am I sticky? No one
would have said anything. Crying. Wondering whether to cry. Why is that
nice man pointing a gun at me? That's mister creepy. Throwing stones at
his house. bang bang bang you're dead. And Mr. Creepy points his gun
straight back. Bang. You wouldn't hear it go off. If it blew your head
off. But you would get blood all over the little girl next to you who was
lying on the floor. Why don't they talk about that?
Why don't they talk about getting into another person's head, or
letting him into yours? So he can feed you direct with what happened.
What was happening? What is happening now. The male is still running.
There's a warrant out. They'll get him. Th ey'll bring him in. He
fucked her. Maybe she wasn't even his girl. Maybe they didn't love each
other. It was one night nine months ago. March. The baby was born
yesterday. Or the day before. Scorpio. My father's sign. His mother's
a Saggitarius like me. My birthday's November 28. I'll be fourteen.
Equals 5. Equals... Well, check it out. What other number equals five?
You know how to do it.
I am not 41.
Or 50.
The internet?
Oh yeah. The internet gives people the power to tell stories in
ways that were never possible before. Not even in the caves. Well, maybe
the caves. When each animal carried its own weight.
Cody, what are you talking about?
One life comes into this world, and three lives die for it? What
kind of an equation is that? What are we? What have we become? I don't
want to mea culpa in something like that.
The ripples circle outwards. Horrible. Horrible. Tomorrow, the
Times will have stories about the families. This is a Times story. The
Times will twist itself into knots of self-probing on this one. This is
the Times rendition of Amy Fisher. Even n ow the Times vultures are
circling Delaware. And Bergan County, going house to house, picking up
dirt like a Saville Row tailor tweaking a spot of lint off blue serge. I
can feel it in my bones. Which is why I'm writing now. Before I'm
totally contami nated. I won't be able to breathe after I've finished the
Times. So it's best to get it off my chest.
But I'm not entirely adverse to reading what kind of homes these
kids lived in that no one noticed the girl was pregnant, or they were so
afraid to bring home a baby they would do a thing like this. In fact, I'm
rather ravenously curious. As far as I am able to tell, for the past six
months the kids seem to have been surrounded by the walking dead.
Jesus. I saw maybe four or five minutes of tv. Think what I'll
be like tomorrow when I read the real facts. Well, maybe "real facts" is
a contradiction in terms when speaking of the Times. But the real story.
The story as the Times lived it and as t hey wrote it. The way they did
Tawana Bradley, or whatever her name was. Now there was a real Times
hatchet job. Jack the Ripper would salvate to be able to dis kids like
that. They even wrote a fucking book. Just to make sure she was really
dead. T otalled. Zero. Don't even bother to open your mouth or try to
protect yourself for the rest of your life. Those guys make Peckinpah
genteel.
So I can imagine what tomorrow's headlines and those in the days
to come will be like. Layer by layer of old skin and raw flesh will be
laid back, as the fish is dissected on the table. I hate biology class.
They make you do the sickest things. Like dissecting dead babies. Why
should ninth grade home economics majors have to dissect babies you ask?
So we can get a good job when we get out of school. Isn't that obvious?
Would you like to read at our next poetry reading?
Every Thursday is open mike night.
You can read from your novel.
I don't think so.
So you're on the internet. What is it like?
You ought to try it.
I'm going to one of these days.
It's like a disease. It goes from house to house. The internet
is the electronic version of AIDS. It's a game. You play it with other
people. Harlan Ellison invented it. He was on tv the other night. He
said he did. She glanced at the bottles.
Something... Let other people into your head. Do it. There was
enough there for a jolt. Things had turned nasty. This was no longer a
novel. It was an accusation against the highest authoirity But you have
to spell it right.
Otherwords, no concetsststa
this is a typo. Fix it.
i fixed it with whiteout.
it left a smudge.
I tried to erase it.
It got bigger.
I was in a panic.
I didn't want to type it over.
Every treaty had to be exactly correct. Otherwise, it would break. But
treatys are always broken. Not really. You only hear about the ones that
do. Ninety percent of all the treaties ever written are still be observed
to the letter.
So I started to retype the letter, and then she wanted to make changes.
So I said, alright, and I tried to fix it. And Joan said it stood out.
So I did it again. Her face was bleeding by this time. Do you get what I
mean? I said yes, because I didn' t want to be hit anymore. What did you
do with him? I killed him. She tricked him. She was innocent. He let
her lead him astray. She should be punished. This could become
legendary. Two kids from Jersey. They're pregant. How do you know it
was t heir baby? Where is the proof? This is my grandson. They sent him
to his grandmother. His grandmother is dead. The other one. He was
adopted. It wasn't his kid. The one they found. He didn't do it. He
was confused. Mixed up. This isn't even a white baby. See, his
grandmother has him. Cute kid. There's got to be some kind of wiggle
room. I am conducting this investigation. It wasn't her. She didn't do
it. It was the other girl. Sandy. She was the one who had the kid. We
were just help ing. Sally wasn't even pregnant. I couldn't keep them
straight. They looked the same. She said her name was Sally. I mean
Sandy. She had red hair. dirty blonde. She had the kid. I didn't kill
it. It was already dead. I think she smashed his hea d on the table. I
said I'd help her put the boy in the dumpster. I'd just gone out for the
papers when I ran into her. Sal was back at the hotel. I never saw her
before. She was just some chick with a baby. She went back to New York.
I picked up Sa l and took her back to the campus. And then I started for
Gettysburg. Well, now, that puts an entirely different spin on the old
news item. He went to Gettysburg. Whole lot of history going on. The
question was, where was Manson Hall? That would com e down hard. A key
back to a hated past. Now I'm not saying he didn't do it. But names have
power, and when someone says a power word, -- he had a cursor in the shape
of a swastika... Check that out. Kooool. It was neat. It trailed along
behind eac h word and sentence, as if it were spelling them out as she
typed. And the words made weird symbols on the wide screen. I don't want
to allarm you, but I think we have a problem. Who is writing what?
Where's it coming from? And where's it going? I r ode back on the bus
alone. Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike as I went away from
my beloved. I was crying, but no tears came out. I felt like my dead
baby. I was totally ripped. I felt like I was imploding in on myself.
Trying to fill a v accuum from my life that would always be there. I
wondered what would happen. Did I really leave a dead baby back there in
Newark? Or wherever it was. Why was I alive and what was I thinking? I
wondered what was going on inside of me now. I felt lik e I had taken a
dead baby into my womb. I wanted to scream, grow grow please grow. I
wanted to feel growing inside of me, getting big with child, like they
said in chruch round with child what it meant to be hated for it. I
wanted them to have that in their heads. Their fucking heads. That are
taking potshots at kids. Their stinking politician brains. I wanted them
to die inside each time they killed a kid. Made it unwelcome in the
world. You fucking assholes are at the gaping pits of hell, open your
fucking assholes before it's too late.
I used to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx who said the trouble with the
Swiss is they didn't shit enough. People like Clinton are l;ike gila
monsters. They don't shit at all. They just slush it around. While they
smile and look pretty. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
I'm talking about me, shitheads. I'm the moving target. After you've
taken out the ducks and the rows of bottles. The one that's left.
xxxxxxxxxx. Going down xxxx.
Popping up afterwards at a party or a reception. Still going
strong. Security tight. Actually, there isn't any. I'm a wide open
target. Then why doesn't someone shoot me? xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Cody be still.
I am. I'm trying to.
Rest. Recuperate. Take it easy. We've got to sort things out in
your feeble little brain. Relax. Let your guard down. See. Nothing
happens. You're safe. No one will hurt you. Just relax. I'm telling
you. Nothing is going to happen. Trust me. I want to see it.
Why?
Okay.
Did she hold it?
Once> HGow long?
I don't know.
This was going to look bad on his resume. Hers. Too.
Pennsylvania. New Jersey. Delaware. Let me think. There must be a
clue. What is it? How would Poirot handle this? He completely dominated
Inspector Japf. Misseur Chief Inspector. Cut it out . Did you ever
wonder why Japf would let himself be treated like that by a foreigner?
Mon Ami, it is too much for the little grey cells. He went home. Poirot
does not touch cases that stink. Let Morse have it. Jesus, fucking
Christ, Morse would twis t himself into little knots over it. I don't
know. I think Morse is a weak choice. Nothing comes.
All the best minds of forensic science couldn't come up with a
conclusion. Try to adhere to what I am saying. Mattlock it. My gran
watches that all the time. The fastest trials in the south. I used to
think Andy Griffith was just wasted in that seri es. But now I'm
beginning to think I was wrong. It could have been them that did it.
Just saying you found a dead baby in a dumpster doesn't mean anything.
How do you know it was theirs? Blood tests. Samples. They had the same
genes. White man's voodoo. DNA. We're going to DNA them right into the
dirt. But you can't trust DNA. O.J. Simpson proved that. DNA is a myth.
It's right there on tape.
That's why they hate him. He killed DNA. Nicole was wasted, but
OJ killed DNA. Literally. No one believes DNA anymore.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
What a match.
What a draw.
This will make O.J. look like Mickey Mouse. Bailey has an
excellent reputation as a defense cousel. Look at Patty Hearst. Bailey
was her defense lawyer. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. It's not well known, xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx He was in constant
communication with the finest legal minds in the country.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. How they reac t as they're going
down for the last time. Take Mattlock. Mattlock was great at this. Like
one time he got his client to practically strip naked in front of the
whole court. She was incandescent. And then she confessed.
You did it.
He confronted her. She confronted him. It's your job to defend
me. God, Guinever should have a Lancelot like him. He forced her to
confess by making it look like her best friend was guilty. The babe who
played the women was great. She looked just l ike Kelly. And so did the
girl friend. The one who hired him to defend her. Well, I won't go on
about the script. It was their show. But it's too bad you can't have a
defense lawyer like that. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
I'll sue you for that.
Try it. See how far you get, sucker.
She'd do anything to be noticed. Like killing her baby. That
made them really sit up and take notice. Wow! You did what? That is so
freaky. I can't believe it. Why would you do a thing like that?
Why did Media kill her child? To keep Jason from getting them.
In your face, Jason. In your fucking face. He lived up to her. In his
rage, he talked most hideously about things to come, when maledictions
would be hurled down upon her head like Susan Smith, you heinious witch.
Why didn't he just kill her there and get it over with>: He didn't dare,
because he was Jason. He depended on her. Without media, there is no
fleece.
She laughed in his face. Without me, you are nothing, lover. I
am the wind beneath your wings. Ride me or fall. She spit in his face.
She spit the chewed up remains of his stinking little dick in his dumb
fucker face.
He took the bag and put it in the dumpster. Then he drove back to
the motel. She was sitting on the bed. Come on. I'll take you back to
your dorm. I have to get back. It's going to snow.
One of my uncle's kids is dating a girl from D.U. U.D. Uterine
Device, in case you didn't notice. I.U.D. U. of Delaware. He goes to
U.R.I. So he didn't do it. And his girl friend's a sophomore, so it
wasn't her. It's sort of like a sifting proces s. You factor things out.
Watching tv. Making sure it wasn't something that happened to anyone you
know. And working backwards, anyone who might affect your life. You
reduce it down, so that in the end, there's no certainty it was you. John
welcomed him back. It's nice to see you. John held out his hand. Oh,
you've been wounded. He didn't do anything. He just rose to where he
always was. While I in the meantime did nothing and was totally fucked.
Why do you write? Because it feels good. I write what feels good. I
don't apologize. I just do it. Or as close as I can come to the bone.
Others float. Like John. From one place to the next. What am I
doing here? Oh, it's Paris, and the fall collections are being shown. I
walk around and look at the pretty colors. People think I'm thinking. I
tell them what to do and they do it. Wh at else is there? Why don't you
think it and get it over with? Suppose the child's not dead. Why not
welcome it? You mean take back time. Put a dart in it. Let that seam
fall naturally along the line of least resistance. What are you saying?
Let t he spirit flow. Just let it. Forget logic. Let it live.
Cody. That's not realistic.
Shut up. I don't care. I don't want to wake up tomorrow morning
and see this in the Times. Let me have one favor. Let it through.
Fine.
A sort of universe that never happened. You make a conscious
choice. The child lives. The child dies. You're on an edge. What are
you thinking? Put yourself in that child's place. Let go. For got's
sake shit I shit out the fucking century.
let it roll
let the good times roll
another mouth to feed and be fed
you can do it
turn back time
make it happen
for god's sakes let it in
make the right choice
I don't know how to do that.
Yes I do.
you got to go back
you got to let in
the child doesn't know it's dead
it doesn't know the meaning of which side it's on.
oh forget it
it doesn't work
try again
for a moment I forgot I could hold the balance
I was almost there
forget about i
Babies don't have to be told about life. And death. They never learned
the concepts. For them, there's a limbo. When you go over the top, you
leave everything behind. Babies are not trailing a lot of garbage with
them when they go. I don't want to t hink about this. What does a person
like X. have to go on with? All his life he's been keeping a low profile,
squished into a corner, and now he's about to go over the top. What is he
protecting? The right not to be put into a plastic bag and body sla mmed.
X's is a walking phantom of how things look when they feel everything
about to be taken away. And they are helpless to stop it.
And you're what comes out on the other side. Of course. Edmund.
Come in. This is sick. Don't do it. It's a golem. Don't play around
with golems. I'm warning you. The Ba'al Shem has spoken. Don't do it,
asshole.
Don't play with stuff you don't know. Jesus, don't you learn
anything?
I'm sorry. I just wanted to help.
So did Mickey Mouse. Look what happened. Isn't it clear? Do not
call up what thou canst not put down. Don't meddle with forces beyond
your control. Stay out of there. I'm not kidding. Read The Wizard of
Earthsea. See what happened to Ged? You ca ll up your shadow. And
pretend it's real. Naughty naughty. You were playing games with mother
nature. What happens, happens. Don't interfere. Why am I telling you
this? Because you did wrong. It was wrong, Cody. Dead wrong. And you
must be punis hed for it. I was in real trouble. I had brought something
unnatural into the world, and now it was free. Bad Cody. You released
the Golem.
I'm sorry. What should I do to get it back?
Nothing. I'm telling you. Touch nothing.
She shrank into herself.
Now come back.
She relaxed.
It's you. You must give up your life to allow this to happen.
Hey! Wait a minute.
It's up to you. Totally.
You mean if I die, the child will live?
Sort of.
What do you mean? Sort of?
It will be like a fold back in time. Something new will come in.
Why do you think we have these wars? To burn off the trash. Allow new
growth. Those people needed to die. Your death will allow fresh space.
That's all.
How do I do it?
Just relax. We'll take you down.
You mean I'm going to die?
That's what you want, isn't it?
No.
Oh.
We thought you did.
I don't. Not yet. Anyway.
Fine.
I felt uncomfortable. Maybe they were right. Was I being
selfish? Maybe I was better off dead. I had saved everything. I might
as well be dead. Let the golem have my life. Okay.
A hand reached out and took away the letter on her forehead.
Other than that, nothing seemed to have happened. Until she looked down
and saw what she was sitting in.
Cody's golem typed out
There was a rupture in the circuits. Others moved in to take up
the slack. The golem typed. Cody dictated. This is what I died for?
You've got to be kidding. Please say you're kidding. I didn't know it
would be like this. Take me back. It was to o late. She was dead. But
it was hard to get the golem to talk about itself. It set up a vibration
in its circuitry. A logic conflict. Huge masses of braincells burned
themselves out. Best not to think about it. The golem had no eye
concept. It fu nctioned savagely, especially the breathing. The
breathing pattern was incredible. How did this thing survive? She tried
to think clearly. Wasn't there a television series like this? Where
children were part of monstrous robots. Wasn't this happenin g to her?
She had to go back. There was no back. It was backless. So was the
universe. You couldn't go back to what wasn't there. The internet is
like the immune system. The Republicans stripped that out of the new
legislation so that now all that' s left is a few million dollars for
shelter and medical supplies./ What>? We don't need fallback systems
anymore. The people want to be free. What? What? I'm getting a lot of
static. Where am I?
Frankenstern followed the monster all the way out onto the ice
flow. Come back. Please. Let's talk. I love you. I still do. Was it
something I said? He wasn't so bad. It was a misunderstanding. I
forgive you. Let go. Just let go. Ged. Come back Ged.
*
(* Note: the quote at the beginning of this chapter is from Medea, a play
by Matthew Paris.)
*
Chapter 8
American Sweethearts
John Hurley, Brian Peterson Jr.'s attorney, on why Peterson hadn't
turned himself in: "Nothing is registering. You tell a boy who is just
out of high school that they want to stick a needle in his arm and put
poison through it, and he thinks, 'This just can't be happening.'" -- NY
Times, 11/20/96
Yeah. Right on, Brian. I think that way, too. But this is
America, Brian. You are about to get a crash course on what that means.
Run, Brian, run.
Look at it this way: at least now Brian is never likely to be an
advocate of the death penalty. His options now do not include growing up
to be a white middle class racist who thinks the death penalty is a nifty
way to punish people like Brian for killi ng someone else. He will never
be like Newt Gingrich or Bill Clinton. Or Christy Todd Whitman. Suburbia
has been spared a future in which Brian runs for public office, say a
state senator or district attorney, rabidly extolling the necessity of
legaliz ed murder and stricter prison sentences. I would imagine during
the past week, Brian Peterson has discovered an awareness within himself
of the value of human life and the hope of redemption that he never knew
existed. In a certain real sense, he has be en saved. He has become a
liberal.
November 21, 1996
Notes and Ironies:
Brian's mother was a soccer mom. Remember the soccer moms? Brian
was co-captain of his team. I could never quite figure that part of the
election out. The soccer moms were apparently white middle-class
non-working women who would normally vote for Re publican racists, but
were switching to Clinton because he was going to somehow make it easier
for them to get kids like Brian back and forth to the soccer field. Now,
she seems to want to get him to "Iran, Iraq, Syria or Libya," someplace
that doesn't have an extradition treaty with the U.S.
"It was the first thing that came to her thought processes," said
Brian's lawyer.
Of course, he lied. I know the first thing that came to Brian's
mother's thought processes was, "It's her fault. She made him do it."
"She" being Amy Grossberg, Brian's sweetheart -- the papers call
them sweethearts; so I will call them sweethearts. But I bet you Brian's
mother called her a bitch. And a whole lot more.
If you want to know one of the ninety-nine definitions of hell, it
would have to be whatever hotel room Brian was holed up in for the last
week with his mother, father and stepfather to get what the lawyer
described as "a certain amount of psychological comforting..." I got
shivers when I read that. Frankly, if I was Brian, I'd have gone direct
to jail. I mean, it's one thing to be facing the chair. But to be locked
in a room non-stop with a hysterical, self-repentent mother and the two
men she blame s for everything that ever went wrong in her life? No way.
Whatever it was in the psychological milieu of Bergen County that
possessed Brian and Amy to the point where they would stiff their kid, it
must have saturated that hotel room. The only thing missing was Salley
Jessie Raphael and her mob of trailer trash screamers.
Why did you do it?
I don't know.
That's no reason.
I paniced.
How could you?
I'm sorry.
That bitch.
Maw, it wasn't her fault.
Shut up. She made you do it. I just know.
The truth is, what I know about Brian's mom, I wouldn't be able to
pick her out in a lineup with Ma Barker. Only that she seems to be a
person who breaks down a lot, and has to be comforted by people worse off
than she. I know it's scummy and mean to d is people when they're down,
but I can't help thinking Brian's mom is a major major source of his
problems. Like, how do you account for his not being able to tell her he
got a girl pregnant? What was he afraid of? Especially a girl with a
Jewish last name? Do you think that counts for something in a place like
Wycliff, N.J.? Her first name is unfortunate, too, because now she's
going to be constantly confused with the other Amy, New York's favorite
punch board sex toy.
"Hurley (the lawyer) said the teenagers' shame about the pregnancy
may have contributed to the tragedy." -- NY Post
You know, what I can't figure out is this: if it's okay to sleep
around, why isn't it okay to have babies? I mean, everyone knows that
kids have sex. It's no big deal. So why does it become one when the girl
gets pregnant? Don't they teach biology an ymore? Like, so what? So
she's pregnant. You either get an abortion or you don't. If you don't,
you get a baby. So what? The whole point about abortions is you kill it
while it's still legal. Like everyone keeps saying, there were other
options.
God, people are stupid. But then, we have a president and a fat
goon in Congress who act as if having babies is a crime against humanity.
So that may have been a big factor in their thought processes. If the
president of the United States tells a youn g woman that she's a moral
pariah, how do you think she's going to feel about what's inside her?
Look at Gem County, Idaho. There, you don't even have to kill your baby
to get arrested. They round you up like a cow. Boy, we've sure come a
long way, baby!
Brian surrendered today, and tonight will be his first in Gander
Hill Prison. Gander Hill? They have such quaint names. One can almost
hear the calling of the geese out of the Chesapeake in the evening
twilight. But it's probably one of the knob's getting his first
encounter with anal intercourse.
Amy, who's been in jail for a week, is also in good hands. Her
lawyer, Charles M. Oberley, is the person responsible for Delaware's death
penalty. It was one of his significant contributions to the advancement
of mankind while he was attorney general i n the early 90s. Small world.
Thanks to him, on a per capita basis, Delaware now kills more people than
any other state. Even Texas.
Of course, Delaware is small. Miniscule. Basically it is an
interchange at the bottom end of the Jersey Turnpike who's principal
businesses are laundering drug money and poisoning the earth. Banks and
international conglomerates like Dupont make their corporate headquarters
there in order to do unimpeded by law things that would be criminal
anywhere else -- even in Texas. One could see why a prosecutor who did
not have much to do in the area of corporate oversight might want to have
a death penalty on the book s to keep himself busy. Lots of luck, Amy.
I know I'm being shrill. I'm sorry. I've got to calm down. Liz
says that it shows I'm making progress by being concerned about other
people. She's the one who cut out half the stuff I wrote the other night.
I really freaked out. I've been staying w ith Liz ever since Kelly's new
boy friend beat me up.
As far as I can tell, Brian Peterson is the sort of brainless jock
asshole I wouldn't piss on unless he had a twenty dollar bill sticking out
of his ear. So I'm not wasting any sympathy on him. A couple of years as
a Gander Hill toyboy is probably just what he needs. But it is one thing
to despise someone, and it is another to send him to the cremetorium. I
just don't think death improves people. For one thing, it stunts their
growth process. Nobody knows what purpose God had for putting Brian on t
his planet. So why should the district attorney of Delaware think she has
the right to kill him?
It is wrong to use logic to justify evil. And killing another
person is evil. The only two possible exceptions I can think of would be
self-defense or if you were going to eat him. I could understand if the
Dela. D.A. was so ravenously hungry, she mig ht want to eat Brian. But
why? She must earn enough to go to the local 7-eleven or Piggily Wiggly
and get some takeout.
Poor Amy. She's been in jail a week longer than Brian. So she
has a longer record. It will be interesting to see if Brian does the
right thing and takes the rap. One would love to think somewhere inside
him is a spark of manhood that has the guts to do the right thing. But
considering the fact that he's already dropped one life in a dumpster,
it's not exactly hopeful that he will stand up and be counted now.
"I think shame's an element," the lawyer, Hurley, said.
"Particularly with regards to Amy... There's a reasonable substantial
element of that being a factor -- as to why they didn't do the things
people would typically do, why they would end up in a motel room without
medical attention."
Yeah. Especially that. H.M.O.'s suck.
Unfortunately, -- well, I lie: I love the fact that there's almost
nothing anyone says in this case that doesn't sound like it was written
for a Stephen King movie. When Hurley was asked about Brian's hideout, he
said "He was sitting with his mother and father and step-father, and being
counseled and consoled and kissed and hugged, and told he's loved, and..."
-- WABC. Puhleeeezee. It sounds like a TWX-800 survivor. Give me a
break. Who hugged the kid? Who kissed it before it went in the dumpster?
If I were Brian's mother, I would be on the phone to L.A., begging
to keep Jonnie Cochran in sexual favors for the rest of his life if he
would save my boy. Hurley is a total dimbulb who does not seem to be able
to keep his mouth shut. He bragged to reporters he "had successfully
turned the public's attention away from the 'horror of the crime.' ...
'What has happened in the last several days is that Brian, the individual,
the human being, the nice, normal kid has been displayed.,, And I think it
gives the public a different perspective.'" (NY Times, 11/22/96)
In other words, he's white. And rich.
You should see the house Brian lives in. Maybe you have. It was
on tv. It is the kind of mansion that screams for a white baby playing on
the lawn. Amy's, too. Big rich houses that go on forever, where a kid
can endlessly explore the mysterious cong ruences of well-appointed rooms.
Where the only threat to existence is that which is imagined out of
shadows and the patterns of sunlight reflected off of expensive objects.
Nothing real. The places Brian and Amy will never see again. Too bad. A
few years ago, they would probably have gotten off with five to ten each,
and served maybe three. But then people like their parents started
screaming about tougher sentences; life without parole. Death penalty.
Of course, they were talking about blacks. They pretended they weren't.
But they were. That's why places like Delaware and New Jersey now have
death penalties. What a bummer. No more free college education either.
The Democratic 103rd Congress and the then-Democratic President fixed
that. To make sure that black people when they came out of jail would be
as ignorant as when they went in. I doubt Brian will get the death
penalty, though. Or Amy. In a couple of years, they'll make a deal to be
transferred to a Jersey prison closer to home. And then there will be
furloughs. And pretty soon, they'll be walking around with ankle
bracelets that go beep in Colorado. Campaign contributions can be a very
effective deterrent against punishment.
Liz says it's very good that I'm thinking about babies. It shows
something or other. I'm not as self-centered as I think. I have to admit
it makes me uncomfortable. I don't know what it means. I'm not crazy
about kids. I saw an old woman on tv tonight who said that the word
"symbolus" means to bring two things together. And its opposite,
"diabolus" means to divide them.
Amy and Brian were brought together. Like Mary and Joseph. Romeo
and Juliet. Heloise and Abelard. Sacco and Venzetti. Bonnie and Clyde.
The symbol of two people coming together is a baby. (Or a machine gun.)
My guru, Mahagony Gopi Honda, says that everything in the universe
manifests as triplets. He says there are opposite forces, like left and
right, good and bad. And then there is something that resolves them.
This, he calls the triplet. I don't understand. If Brian and Amy killed
their baby, what kind of resolution is that?
He said the resolution was dynamic. The death of the child is the
flower out of which the new world will come.
Huh?
It is only a symbol.
The kid is dead.
But it is a dead kid.
So?
So, that is the beginning. Now you go on.
Me? I'm not there. It's them.
They go on. You go on. It is the same.
What do you mean?
The child obviously means something to you. You have anger. You
have to deal with it. Whatever happens to them, is their affair. But
since you're upset, it is your's too. Maybe you will have to save them.
Me? How?
How should I know? It's your life. Go and do it.
What?
Nada. Nothing. No answer. Gopi Honda never tells me what to do.
Just what it is. Liz is the same way. Occasionally she intervenes when I
get too hysterical. But generally, she lets me do what I want. Too bad
Amy couldn't have had someone like tha t. To talk to. Sleep with. Make
love to. Liz likes little girls. And she has such a guilt complex. On
the one hand, she can't keep her hands off them. And on the other, she
has a deadly fear of being arrested. It gives you a lot of power.
Like, I can make Liz do almost anything I want. She weighs about
130 pounds. Half-breed Cheynne. Rich black hair and a perpetually
suntanned skin. High cheek bones. Big heavy tits. Long legs made to
straddle a horse. She likes black leather and se e through skin tight
leotards that cling like smoke to her body. You could almost imagine her
with a whip in her hand. Striding in high heeled boots into the room
after a long ride in the saddle.
But it's more fun to watch her crawl along the floor in a biker
bar, giving men blow jobs to keep me from reporting her. I love watching
Liz get squirted with cum in her face. Pretending she likes it.
It's a complicated relationship. I was a basket case when I met
Liz. Spoiled. Self-centered. Sadistic. Selfish. In some ways, I still
am. But being in therapy has helped a lot. I no longer want to kill my
baby. Before, I wanted to drop her off t he Queensboro bridge.
But I have learned to adjust. Shame is no longer a relevant
factor. And neither is fear. Hatred is something else. Come here, Liz,
let me feel your tits. You love it, don't you?
mmmmmm.
If only these guys knew how you had seduced me, taken advantage of
my every weakness to utterly destroy me. O is a p[laything in her lover's
arms. She carries her to the door and hands her over to the courier.
Lia is a courier. She is taking you someplace else.
Now let go.
JIf only these guys knew how you had seduced me, taken advantage of my
every weakness to utterly destroy me. O is a p[laything in her lover's
arms. She carries her to the door and hands her over to the courier. Pay
attention. Do what they tell you. Well, not that. You know what I mean.
I gave him some good advice before he went to prison. Lot's of luck.
Brian was now separated from his mother, so he could take advantage of
some other services the prison of fered. Like, this wasn't Gettysburg. I
knew that would come in somewhere. This is just where the war went after
it was over. Capish? Yeah. Right. Okay. Swell. Shutup. Don't let
them know. First night is always a big thing. Ever been in the sla mmer
before? It's not so bad. Come on, newbie. Freshmeat./
Manson Hall is the freshman dorm. He'll be in the infirmery
tonight she said blandly. She was negro and she was wide eyed as Brian
went down one alley and then out the back and got to the boat ramp where
an off shore driller waited to take him aboard. In the morning, he was
missing.
Sudan
Iraq
Iran like hell.
Monaco
extridites to the French
Syria
treaty with Spain.
Cyprus was also mentioned. You'd like Cyprus. He has to leave now. Or
we're indicted along with him. Come on. Get in the car. The helicopters
were closing in. This was Romeo and Juliet at it's best. Their dead
baby. What had... Oh, get off it. Try something else. It was meant to
happen. No one can help it. Get on with your life. He'll be okay.
He was team captain there. He'll be team cappittan here. GOAL!!!!!!!!!
hE KICKJED TIT THROUGH PETTERTASFDGOPN KLIDD IT THROUT
Gettysburg was a wimpy college anyway.
you go home to the trial
she was right
they should have snuck him out.
didn't they know anyone. I had a cousin who was ambassador to Zambia once
Maybe they would take him. How much?
Too much. GOAAAALLOLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!
The girl didn't want him to goal.
There has to be a resolution.
A dead baby.
That is a neat resolution. It draws everyone's attention to one shining
moment in time and then all is disperseed. there was no baby. nothing
links her to him. Neither is he. Two kids shack up in a Comfort Inn and
this is what you come up with? A dead baby?
Who booked this thing?
Fellini.
Oh, Fellini. He gets to make movies. Why can't I?
Because you're a demiurge.
Dimi Urges don't make movies.
It's got to be a big urge. Get what I mean?
no
Forget it. Avoid the dispatches.
what?
Translate the images.
What Images>
Direct hit.
What?
You focus on a dead baby. Anything can happen. You could be robbed. He
tried to warn me. Look away. See what's happening. Nothing dead. The
baby was removed with surgical procedures. He wasn't very good at
ceasarian. In fact, this was his first. He had a swiss army knife and
tools from his father's workshop. Now this won't hurt.
You could hear her screaming all the way to the beltway.
I don't know if you've ever been in a Comfort Inn when the guy in the next
room is giving his girl friend a mastectomy, but it is nothing compared to
a girl who is having her belly cut open with a bread knife.
I think it was some kind of religious cult.
In this morning's Wall Street Journal I read about a Comfort Inn
where they arrested a spy. It was some place in Pennsylvania. Not
Gettysburg. Lancaster. That was it. The FBI had the place wired. So be
careful what you say. You might be on Candid Camera. I don't know if you
know about these hookups. It's about a girl who says she's Frau Olga.
And she has been sent out to protect you. You can see what's happening in
the other rooms. See. This is the make shift operating room down the
hall. A nd this shows the prostitute in the next room with the state cop.
Oooo, watch this. That was really brutal. Thousands of channels to
choose from. I think tv dehumanizes people. After awhile, you realize
the whole world is watching. So who cares? An yone can pick something
out and say that was wrong, but in the end, so what? Why get so excited
about it? So he brained the kid. Is that such a crime? Kids do the
darnest things. Comfort Inn is a place where you can let your guard down
and be a littl e crazy. I was too busy giving my guy a blowjob. I didn't
have time to watch. What people don't realize is that Brian Kato Kaelin
knows how to live. Nothing sticks to him. Not even memory. Especially
memory. Getting Brian Kato to remember something specific is like trying
to revive a dead baby. Can't be done.
Kato's brain is interdimensional. In one scenario, Nicole dies.
Kato and the dog had the same name because they are the same person. So
is O.J. O.J. is a god beset by pigmies. Like Gulliver. They keep trying
to pin him down, but he has all the righ t moves, learned from a lifetime
of pigskin. Kato is his sidekick. His magic dog. O.J. is going to go
out of that courtroom a hot, hot property. They will pay megabucks to
watch this on wraparound cinema. O.J. The Sequel. Megabucks. I'm
telling yo u. Megabucks. A new Hercules. O.J. will go out of that
courtroom the next Hercules. But only if he loses. If he wins, it's all
over. He's just another schlmiel that beat the system. Tomorrow is the
big day. Tomorrow, O.J. testifies. Watch for it in Intergalactic Movie
Theatres near you. They'll built a pathway to paradise, with a new step
every day. Doing the O.J. O.J. Enchained. To that evil scheming witch.
You know they're dying for each other. Nicole's sister. Is she wired?
Talk to me dirty. Tell me how you killed my sister. Describe it to me in
vivid detail. Fuck me. Fuck me like you did her, you big n-gg-r stud.
God, those two look great together. You could be a real item. Come on,
Denise, let me talk to my kid. Put Denise back on the phone. I've got
them, fucker, and you know who I am, don't you?
What was the chick's name who got burned? Kalistra? Nicole.
They did it together. They took that blonde beauty and her lover to new
highs before they killed them. 45 minutes. They had an infinity of time
between them to do the deed. And Nicole had an eternity to die. But then
she betrayed him. Media put the glove where it was found. He knew she
was back there, but he couldn't stop her. The limo was waiting. He had
to go. You fucking Media. He'd fix her. They had a lot of other
dimensions to fight this out. Why do it here?
She relented. She had the children. Talk to me, lover, tell me
how she died. The children were traumatized. They did not remember their
mother's death. But memories can be recovered. If one is persistent. If
you hold her head under the water until she remembers.
See, O.J., she remembers.
It didn't matter what they did to him. All he wanted was her.
Describe the picture.
There are four women.
Each in bra and panties.
The two women in the center are talking. The one on the end is
listening. The girl opposite is looking off to the right. Her left.
There are two blondes and two dark haired women.
The arrangement is one two one two. On off on off.
The two dark haired women look alike. The two blondes are generic
clones. Each dark haired woman has her hair swept back while the blondes
have bangs. One blonde is covering herself. The woman next to her has
one hand raised to her neck, with the oth er crossing over. The other
blonde has her hands on the top of her panties, as if about to pull them
down, or she has just put them on. The brunette next to her is staring at
the other girl's cleavage.
Brian turned in his paper and walked to his car.
He had places to go. People to see. You know what I can't figure
out is how did they know it was going to happen just then? November 12th.
I mean, babies don't just show up on schedule. Not when you don't have a
clue about the birthing process. How did he know that would be the day?
How long had she been holding it? Waiting for him to get there from
Gettysburg. What was she thinking? Didn't anyone notice? Didn't she
have a roommate? Come on, tight clothes are one thing. Women walking
around naked in a girl's dorm would have to be brain dead not to notice a
belly. Maybe I answered my own question.
People say there have to be options. But what about the options
of grownups and other people? These kids were not living in a remote
mountain retreat. What kind of people live in Franklin Lakes and Wyckoff?
Fancy wasp places. With names as exotic as Gander Hill. There is a whole
lot of lying going on right now. About options. From Christy Whitman on
down. She is such a disgrace to that name. My God, can you imagine what
Walt would have said? Every time I see a headline in the paper, Whitman
do es this. Whitman does that. Whitman takes a douche. My heart leaps.
The Good Grey Poet I think. And then I realize it is about this major
shithead. This walking moratorium on female intelligence. What a bummer.
"There were a lot of other options out there; adoption, many things
that could have occurred. And they appeared to be kids that were well
enough educated to know that there were other options." -- NY Times,
11/21/96 Thank you, Christy. Drop dead, Christy. Abelard said, what
good are words if they do not lead to intelligence? People don't think.
They just make sound bites. "Options" twice in two sentences. It's
almost as high as Delaware's per capita death penalty score.
If there are so many options, how come the first thing on the lips
of the people in Delaware is death penalty? Doesn't Delaware have
options, too? Or were they legislated out of existence by gutless
politicians hiding behind formulas like three strikes , you're out?
Mandatory sentences for drugs? Life without parole? You know a death
penalty is not a penalty. It is an end to the game. In America, it is
not crime that we ultimately pay for; it is the cowardice and venality of
those we elect.
*
That's all for now. The rest of this story will have to wait
until Congress is back in session. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.
Don't forget to duck.
Cody
Part 1 Index