Part 25 (2/2)
”John Dillinger is alive and well today, in California, Fernando Poo and Texas,” Mavis smiled. ”As a matter of fact, he shot John F. Kennedy.”
”Give me another toke. If I have to listen to this, I might as well be in a state where I won't try to understand it.”
Mavis pa.s.sed the pipe. ”The prettiest one has quite a few levels to it, like all good jokes. I'll give you the Freudian one, as beginners. You know the prettiest one, George. You gave it to the apple just yesterday.
”Every man's p.e.n.i.s is the prettiest thing in the world to him. From the day he's born until the day he dies. It never loses its endless fascination. And, I kid you not, baby, the same is true of every woman and her p.u.s.s.y. It's the closest thing to a real, blind, helpless love and religious adoration that most people ever achieve. But they'd rather die than admit it. h.o.m.os.e.xuality, the urge to kill, petty spites and treacheries, fantasies of sadism, masochism, transvestism, any weird thing you can name, they'll confess all that in a group therapy session. But that deep submerged constant narcissism, that perpetual mental masturbation, is the earliest and most powerful block. They'll never admit it.”
”From what I've read of psychiatric literature, I thought most people had rather squeamish and negative feelings about their genitals.”
”That, to quote Freud himself, is a reaction formation. The primordial emotional tone, from the day the infant discovers the incredible pleasure centers there, is perpetual astonishment, awe and delight. No matter how much society tries to crush it and repress it. For instance, everybody has some pet name for their genitals. What's yours?”
”Polyphemus,” he confessed.
”What?”
”Because it has one eye, you know? Also, Polyphemus rhymes with p.e.n.i.s, I guess. I mean, I can't remember exactly what my mental process was when I invented that in my early teens.”
”Polyphemus was a giant, too. Almost a G.o.d. You see what I mean about the primary emotional tone? It's the origin of all religion. Adoration of your own genitals and of your lover's genitals. There's There's Pan Pangenitor and the Great Mother.” Pan Pangenitor and the Great Mother.”
”So,” George said owlishly, still not sure whether this was profundity or nonsense, ”the earth belongs to our genitalia?”
”To their offspring, and their offspring's offspring, and so on, forever. The world is a verb, not a noun.”
”The prettiest one is three billion years old.”
”You've got it, baby. We're all tenants here, including the ones who think they're owners. Property is impossible.”
”Okay, okay, I think I've got most of it. Property is theft because the Illuminati land t.i.tles are arbitrary and unjust. And so are their banking charters and railroad franchises and all the other monopoly games of capitalism-”
”Of state capitalism. Not of true laissez-faire.”
”Wait. Property is impossible because the world is a verb, a burning house as Buddha said. All things are fire. My old pal Heracleitus. So property is theft and property is impossible. How do we get to property is liberty?”
”Without private property there can be no private decisions.”
”So we're back where we started from?”
”No, we're one flight higher up on the spiral staircase. Look at it that way. Dialectically, as your Marxist friends say.”
”But we are are back at private property. After proving it's an impossible fiction.” back at private property. After proving it's an impossible fiction.”
”The Statist form of private property is an impossible fiction. Just like the Statist form of communal property is an impossible fiction. Think outside the State framework, George. Think of property in freedom.”
George shook his head. ”It beats the h.e.l.l out of my a.s.s. All I can see is people ripping each other off. The war of all against all, as what's-his-name said.”
”Hobbes.”
”Hobbes, sn.o.bs, jobs. Whoever. Or whatever. Isn't he right?”
”Stop the motor on this submarine.”
”What?”
”Force me to love you.”
”Wait, I don't ...”
”Turn the sky green or red, instead of blue.”
”I still don't get it.”
Mavis took a pen off the desk and held it between two fingers. ”What happens when I let go of this?”
”It falls.”
”Where do you sit if there are no chairs?”
”On the floor?” If I wasn't so stoned, I would have had it by then. Sometimes drugs are more a hindrance than a help If I wasn't so stoned, I would have had it by then. Sometimes drugs are more a hindrance than a help. ”On the ground?” I added.
”On your a.s.s, that's for sure.” Mavis said. ”The point is, if the chairs all go away, you still sit. Or you build new chairs.” She was stoned, too; otherwise she'd be explaining it better, I realized. ”But you can't stop the motor without learning something about marine engineering first. You don't know what switch to puil. Or switches. And you can't change the sky. And the pen will fall without a gravity-governing demon rus.h.i.+ng into the room to make it fall.”
”s.h.i.+t and pink petunias,” I said disgustedly. ”L. this some form of Thomism? Are you trying to sell me the Natural Law argument? I can't buy that at all.”
”Okay, George. Here's the next jolt. Keep your a.s.shole tight.” She spoke to the wall, to a hidden microphone, I guessed. ”Send him him in now.” in now.”
The Robot is easily upset; my sphincter was already tightening as soon as she warned me there was a jolt coming and she didn't really need to add that bit about my a.s.shole. Carlo and his gun. Hagbard and his gun. Drake's mansion. I took a deep breath and waited to see what the Robot would do.
A panel in the wall opened and Harry Coin was pushed into the room. I had time to think that I should have guessed, in this game where both sides were playing with illusion constantly, Coin's death could have been faked, artificial intestines dangling and all, and of course Mavis and her raiders could have taken him out of Mad Dog jail even before they took me out of course, and I remembered the pain when he slapped my face and when his c.o.c.k entered me, and the Robot was already moving, and I hardly had time to aim of course, and then his head was banging against the wall, blood spurting from his nose, and I had time to clip him again on the jaw as he went down of course, and then I came all the way back and stopped myself as I was about to kick him in the face as he lay there unconscious. Zen in the art of face-punching. I had knocked a man out with two blows; I who hated Hemingway and Machismo so much that I'd never taken a boxing lesson in my life. I was breathing hard, but it was good and clean, the feeling of after-an-o.r.g.a.s.m; the adrenalin was flowing, but a fight reflex instead of a flight reflex had been triggered, and now it over, and I was calm. A glint in the air: Hagbard's pistol was in Mavis's hand, then flying toward me. As I caught it, she said, ”Finish the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”
But the rage had ended when I held back the kick on seeing him already unconscious.
”No,” I said. ”It is is finished.” finished.”
”Not until you kill him. You're no good to us until you're ready to kill, George.”
I ignored her and rapped on the wall. ”Haul the b.a.s.t.a.r.d out,” I said clearly. The panel opened, and two Slavic-looking seamen, grinning, grabbed Coin's arms and dragged him out. The panel closed again, quietly.
”I don't kill on command,” I said, turning back to Mavis. ”I'm not a German shepherd or a draftee. My My case with him is settled, and if you want him dead, do the dirty work yourself.” case with him is settled, and if you want him dead, do the dirty work yourself.”
But Mavis was smiling placidly. ”Is that a Natural Law?” she asked.
And twenty-three hours later Tobias Knight listened to the voice in his earphones: ”That's the problem. I can't remember. But if you leave me alone for a while maybe it'll come back to me.” Smoothing his mustache nervously, Knight set the b.u.t.ton for automatic record, removed the earphones and buzzed Esperando Despond's office. ”That's the problem. I can't remember. But if you leave me alone for a while maybe it'll come back to me.” Smoothing his mustache nervously, Knight set the b.u.t.ton for automatic record, removed the earphones and buzzed Esperando Despond's office.
”Despond,” the intercom said.
”The CIA has one. A man who was with the girl after Mocenigo. Send somebody down for the tape-it's got a pretty good description of the girl.”
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