Chapter 6: Epiphany (repreclimactus)
The purpose of which is to prove: Just as 'tis better to have lusted and lost than never to have lusted at all; having one's expectations of literary bliss foiled is preferable to never having had them raised in the first place.
WELL, DEAR READER, AS WE STAND HERE on the very edge of this famous precipice from which so many Hollywood legends solved their problems with a swandive into oblivion, are there any lessons you and I can learn before jumping to a similarly fatalistic conclusion about the absurdity of the situation we find ourselves in? For someone of my historical bent the sobering facts about the plans made by mice and men I mentioned at the end of the previous chapter are, of course, rudimentary. Not that I found their confirmation at my expense particularly consoling. Far from it! What was so difficult to accept was that a blonde supposedly so dumb not only knew what I knew about my masculine fallibility but exploited that knowledge to outsmart me with such a simpleminded diversionary tactic! After failing to discourage me with her protracted game of catchmeifyoucan, she parked near the women's restroom knowing damned well my curiosity would eventually lead me into it—which, of course, it did! Whereupon she emerged from her real hidingplace, got back into the Caddy, and managed to escape without me hearing the engine start.
What other explanation could there be for the Eldorado's disappearance? If, like her own vanishing act, it's exit from the scene had been divinely stagemanaged, why was such a reverse deus ex machina scripted to unfold on an installment plan? Surely it was logical for me to think a single miracle would have been sufficient for simultaneously returning both the vehicle and its driver to those heavenly "flies" from whence they had originally been deposited at the corner of Hollywood & Vine.
Or was thinking "logically" about what had happened to me since stopping for that traffic light anything but logical? Is it not written that applying common sense to the solution of metaphysical problems is, by definition, totally nonsensical.130 If we accept as axiomatic the notion that when God makes a move he only does so in the most mystifying way possible, what enigma of His could be more fiendishly inscrutable than the one I was being asked to unravel? Nevertheless, as I stood on the edge of that cliff in a state of suicidal dejection something prevented me from exercising what seemed to be the most obvious of my options. Perhaps being a confirmed skeptic, I felt bound (and actually quite determined) to challenge even this most exalted article of blind faith by solving the riddle concerning the sequential manner by which the starknakedplatinumblonde sexgoddess and the '59 Eldorado Biarritz she was driving made their separate exits. Moreover, as a JewishIntellectual wasn't I morally (or at least ethnically) obligated to salvage at least some small shred of philosophical comfort (no matter how cold) from the jaws of so calamitous a defeat before they swallowed me whole?131
Yes! There had to be some rational rhyme and/or reason for a hoax as convoluted as the one that had just been played on me. I refused to believe the plot which enticed me so methodically into its thickening, amberlike trap was nothing more than a series of random events that accidentally arranged themselves into such an artful snare. While the roughlyhewn drama of life might now and then seem to be shaping itself in accordance with the script of a play—or a grand literary design—no caprice of nature could explain the crafting of a scenario so supremely farcical in its outcome. One can search in vain through the comedies of Aristophanes, Moliere, Ionesco and even Beckett for a character whose antiheroic fate was funnier than mine.
There had to be another explanation.
Although calmly exercising my analytical faculties in the midst of what was nothing less than an emotional maelstrom proved easier said than done. Nevertheless, I kept reminding myself: It is also written that the calmest part of any storm can be found at its very center! So it was that eventually I mustered enough of my scholarly phlegm to cogitate, as serenely as anyone in such a confused state of mind could humanly do, upon the series of outrageous injuries "fortune" had so recently inflicted on me. How long this process went on I can't honestly tell you, dear reader—but gradually I began to discern a pattern emerging from the debris left by that cascade of catastrophes which came crashing down on my head with such unrelenting fury. It was a pattern whose meaning I didn't fully comprehend, but the sheer magnitude of its blueprint was unmistakably supernatural. Yes! There could be no other explanation! It was The Supreme Being Himself who had in fact masterminded my downfall! The only remaining question was: Why had He gone to all the trouble of cooking up such a cockamamieG scheme just to leave me stranded on this mountaintop? And, after having humiliated me so thoroughly, why would He fail to let me know me exactly why I had become the target of His divine wrath?
Or was this lack of a message the message itself? Were my sins so beneath His contempt they didn't even deserve the burning of a single bush—or one of those handwritten reprimands He's been known to scrawl across some convenient wall? Was I not worthy of at least having my damnation pronounced by that "dreadful" voice of His resonating from the deepest depths of the cosmos?
And yet hadn't this entire night been filled with omens—all of which were telling me the same thing: That I was a fool for thinking a man of my age could write a book that would save the world? Or thinking a book could save the world. Or, indeed —the world He had created needed saving! Didn't such heretical thoughts justify the scorn with which I was being treated?
Then, in a blinding flash, it all suddenly became crystal clear! The symbolic stop light at Hollywood & Vine—The wild goosechase deadending on such a notoriously apocalyptic pinnacle—That heavenly smile on the face of she whom I once thought might actually be A MUSE—could all be expressed with that most relevant of all 4letter words: "Fool!" Who else but a perfect fool could have believed The Great American/Moronic Novel would burst from his godlike brow fully written in a single ejaculatory stream (or train) of wishful thinking?
"FOOL!"
The fact had to be faced. After gestating in my skull for 5 full years Morons Awake! was either a false pregnancy or one doomed from the moment of its misconception to result in a stillbirth.
"FOOL!"
Nor were my delusions of intellectual grandeur limited to the writing of a literary masterpiece! In taking stock of my entire life it was plain I'd been deluding myself since infancy! Far from being merely another aging "renaissance man" whose eclectic genius had just never been hitched to any particular star, I was in truth a congenital mediocrity who hid his average IQ behind a facade of expertise on subjects so obscure no legitimate scholar would waste his time—or his mind—exploring.
"FOOL!"
As long as I was flagellating myself, I had to admit the only thing "monumental" about my History of the Morons was the stupendous scale of its insignificance! How typical it was for me to write 16 volumes about a country that probably wasn't a country and whose history (if it had one) could have been told with a single page, or a long paragraph—or, to be absolutely candid about it—a solitary footnote!
"FOOL!"
As for my diplomatic accomplishments in Moronia, could any claim of ambassadorial fame be more ludicrous for its sheer pomposity! Contrary to what I told myself about enduring those 50 years of exile into which the State Department had sent me as an act of heroic resistance against the forces of institutionalized bigotry, the truth is: I was quite content to be the biggest intellectual fish swimming in that smallest of small ponds! And were it not for the diminutive size of that pond would my lovemaking reputation be quite as legendary as it was among the female population of Moronia?132
"FOOL!"
Of course it wouldn't be! That single accusatory word—Fool!—relentlessly resonating inside my tortured mind said it all! Only in a land as utterly lovelorn as Moronia could a man with my less than stellar pretense to phallic glory have ever become a sexual superstar! And who but the most colossal of fools would beat his (empty) head against a literary brick wall for 5 solid years just trying to write the first sentence of a novel? As if to punctuate that earthshaking thought with an exclamation point, some of the soil beneath my feet actually crumbled—causing me to stagger backwards instinctively and reach for the railing. But no sooner had I saved myself than that inner voice mocked me for doing so!
"FOOL!"
And, as always, the voice was right. What possible excuse could I have for clinging so desperately to a life that had lost all its meaning? If ever any mortal had so completely lost his raison d'etre it was me! The question I had to answer was no longer the $64 (or Krøner?) one Hamlet asked himself—but simply whether I should take the final plunge now like a man of action, or continue this cowardly dialogue with myself whose only real purpose was to postpone the inevitable?
"FOOL!"
Exactly! Not only was there no point in prolonging my agony—the more I prolonged it the more agonizing it became! For instance, when considering what would happen when the news of my suicide reached Moronville I saw a vision of Ballbraker gleefully rubbing his fat hands together! "Yes indeed! So much for the threat to Moronia's domestic tranquillity posed by its exAmerican Ambassador and the socalled 'superiority' of his socalled 'intellect!'" Raising a glass of turnipschnapps in a toast to his "dumb Moronic luck" I could hear him solemnly pronouncing to his FIB minions: "Gentlemen—Both the Klutz Affair and the Weisenheimer who hoped to spill its troublemaking beans are, thank God, deader than doornails!"
"FOOL!"
And the ecstatic expression I imagined seeing on his bloated face grew even more rapturous when, after the celebration was over, in the privacy of his inner office he scrolled through all those computer files containing my misbegotten plans for writing Morons Awake!—files which, for reasons he would find incomprehensible, I had left behind as a testament to my miserably failed attempt at writing a novelized exposé of the Klutz Affair.
"FOOL!"
Is that what my inner voice was trying to tell me? That before leaping to an heroic death it might be more prudent to step back from the abyss and destroy the evidence of my literary crimes? The fate of those files presented me with a curious dilemma. By destroying them I would deprive Ballbraker of his last laugh at my expense. And to his own dying day he could never be absolutely certain my exposé of the Klutz Affair hadn't been left behind by me as a timebomb whose posthumous explosion would obliterate the mythic foundation on which Moronia's domestic tranquillity was built, namely; that the road to perfect sociocultural bliss is paved with ignorance. On the other hand, was I prepared to pull the plug on an idea whose condition might not seem quite so terminal to some other author more experienced in resuscitating lost literary causes than I was? After all, there was no shortage of hotshot writers in Hollywood with the talent for turning the Klutz Affair (and/or my heroically failed efforts to novelize it) into a cinematic blockbuster.133
"FOOL!"
Once again the inner voice was right! A miracle of truly biblical proportions would be needed to make some movie studio mogul see a boxoffice bonanza or potential Oscarwinner (let alone a scenario for revitalizing the American Dream) in the chaos of my computer files. And if only a miracle could save Morons Awake! from sharing the oblivion of my impending fate wasn't I alone, as its original author, the one for whose benefit it should be performed? Wasn't it precisely the lack of just such a supernatural solution to all my novelwriting difficulties that had brought me to an impasse so completely Godforsaken in the first place?
"FOOL!"
But even if my fate was sealed, did I not have an obligation to leave some note behind letting the world know my suicide wasn't simply that of another failed novelist; but the last act of a man who was martyring himself for that most sacred of causes—the redemption of his civilization? If my dramatic leap from Inspiration Point wasn't upstaged by a more spectacular news event it seemed plausible the suicide of America's former Ambassador to Moronia would make the front page of at least the local papers, and perhaps those with a wider—or even global—readership. I speculated briefly on how the headlines bannering my sensational demise might read:
MYSTERY DEATH OF EXDIPLOMAT RAISES EYEBROWS IN WASHINGTON & MORONVILLE
GOLDBERG SUICIDE NOTE LINKED TO DEATH OF MORONIC "MASSIAH"
SCRAMBLED EGGHEAD'S EXIT LINES CUE FEEDING FRENZY OVER KLUTZ PIX RIGHTS
Yes! In the final analysis a cogently crafted suicide note might actually do more to insure Jack F. Klutz didn't live and die in vain than those hundreds of pages celebrating his martyrdom I had been trying so valiantly—but without success—to write as The Great Moronic Manifesto.
"FOOL!"
As I soon found out, however, crafting such a "cogent" document wasn't much easier than crafting the cogent first sentence of a bestselling novel—which, had I been able to do so, would have made my suicide note unnecessary! If I learned anything from having failed to write Morons Awake! it had to be that cogency wasn't exactly the foremost of my novelwriting skills. Moreover, if I had the time and intellectual energy for solving a problem so similar to the one whose insolubility was the source of my present predicament, wouldn't it be wiser for me to spend these final few moments searching for that elusive first sentence; after which—I was more confident than ever—Morons Awake! would indeed begin to write itself?
"FOOL!"
Of course only a fool would persist in thinking such preposterous thoughts! And yet, for some inexplicable reason, I persisted in doing just that! Perhaps it was from sheer desperation—or the exhilarating effects of being so emotionally exhausted—but that precious sentence for which I had been searching so long and hard now seemed perched on the very tip of my mind's tongue!
"FOOL!"
And, as if it were confirming my newfound exhilaration, the sun suddenly appeared from behind one of those snowcapped mountains in the San Bernardino range!134 So precisely was this event coordinated with my glimpsing of it that I was able to observe the laserlike trajectory of the very first ray of daylight as it made its way directly to my eye! How could such a fabulous sight fail to be the most auspicious of omens? It was an astronomical phenomenon whose metaphorical implications were unmistakable! An idea of cosmic proportions was beginning to dawn in my head! History was repeating itself! The book that would rerevolutionize America was about to be born! What had been Western Civilization's (and my) darkest hour was turning into what could be the most golden of its days!
"FOOL!"
On a more personal (but no less profound) note, I suddenly realized this was the first sunrise I had ever seen in my 75 years! And while I'd read and heard stories about the "mystical powers" which only radiate from the sun during those very first moments of its rising I was naturally cynical about such anecdotal claims. But what other explanation could there be for the surge of superhuman strength I felt when that single sunbeam struck my eye? Additionally, as the locale for so many Easter Sunrise Services, could any setting be more appropriate for the solar induced regeneration of my evangelical morale than Inspiration Point?
"FOOL!"
As the sun continued rising, however, my enthrallment became so complete I found it difficult to concentrate on forcing my mind to disgorge that unexpressed first sentence of Morons Awake! from the tip of its tongue. Even more ominously, I found myself so blinded by its increasing brilliance I was in the very real danger of falling to my death quite by accident!
"FOOL!"
I closed my eyes and fell backwards against the railing. But my relief at having avoided one catastrophe was cut short by another. I had completely lost the train of thought which, only a moment before, seemed to be speeding its way toward a rendezvous with that fugitive sentence of mine! Physically and emotionally I was a basketcase. Even my intellect was failing me! And it wasn't just because of this most recent failure (or refusal) to construct a simple sentence. Or the 5 years it had been struggling to crack the same literary nut. The fact was my brain had simply burned itself out after a whole lifetime of nonstop thinking. The only "thought" I could manage to muster while pathetically clutching that railing like some feebleminded geriatric was this demoralizing one: Maybe the Morons are right about ignorance being bliss!
"FOOL!"
I construed that last "Fool!" not to mean I was wrong about the Moronic credo, but simply that it was ludicrous for me to cling so tenaciously to that railing when by letting go all of my thinking problems would be solved. And why was I clutching the damned thing if not because of the absurdly conceited notion I could still "intellectualize" my way out of the impossible bind I was in by somehow coaxing that coyest of sentences from the tip of my mind's tongue.
"FOOL!"
But that inner voice of mine couldn't be deceived! No! It was true! I was born to think and would never stop doing so until I was deader than one of those doornails Ballbraker was so fond of invoking to impress me with his skill in using Moronic clichés. While more often than not the Morons have a habit of missing the allegorical mark (and usually by the widest of margins) given the facts I then stood facing Ballbraker's doornail crack would have struck my own analysis of them squarely on its head. Oh, how perfectly blissful the prospect of suiciding myself into oblivion seemed at that moment! All I needed to do was release my grip on that railing and, in a final act of mind over matter, fling myself headlong into the yawning abyss below my toes. Which I did.
"FOOL!"
Or tried to do! Although I had little difficulty relinquishing my hold on the railing, throwing myself from the cliff's edge was another story. For some reason I couldn't seem to overcome what should have been only the merest of inertial forces preventing me from launching myself on a downward flight. Not that I didn't try! Despite the exhausting effects of a sleepless night spent riding a metaphysical rollercoaster—not to mention the general fatigue I had accumulated during the course of my long and not uneventful life (the last 5 years of which were particularly damaging)—the body I had rejuvenated for the ordeal of writing my magnum opus still seemed capable of performing such a minimal act of exertion. But no matter how forcefully I exercised them, the muscles in my legs couldn't budge me from that brink. It felt as if my feet had rooted themselves deeply into the crust of that precipice from which I wanted so desperately to hurl myself!
"FOOL!"
And all my efforts from the waist up—as I struggled to wrench myself free with flailing arms and twisting torso—were met by an invisible barrier; a wall of proverbial bricks against which, however, the battering of my fists and head proved not only futile but genuinely painful!
"FOOL!"
"My God," I answered rhetorically, "what more can you expect of me than that which I have been trying so desperately to do?" My intemperate outburst only provoked an even more ferocious response.
"FOOL! FOOL! FOOL!"
While that inner voice of mine was probably right in attributing my botched suicide to nothing more "supernatural" than some obstinate survival instinct still operating from deep within my Jewish psyche, it was pointless to persist in blaming myself for a character (or ethnic) flaw over which I had no control. Accordingly I commanded myself to "Shut up!"
"FOOL! FOOL! FOOL!"
How else could I respond to such a mutinous provocation than by doing what only a fool who was haranguing himself would be driven to do? So it was I struck a pose identical to that depicted in Munch's The Scream. And, lo and behold! With my ears thus covered I couldn't hear so much as a single peep from that selfmocking voice of mine! To test the efficacy of what should have been an absurd method to prevent myself from hearing an inner voice, I uncovered my ears—and immediately heard:
"FOOL! FOOL! FOOL!"
After repeating this experiment 6 or 7 times with the same result I had to conclude that: Unless I was somehow deceiving myself with an act of mental ventriloquism the voice I now heard coming from a point directly behind me couldn't be mine! As I turned my head I expected to see a squadcar whose uniformed occupant was playing Clarence to my George Bailey with the help of his police bullhorn—a device that would explain the "supernatural resonance" with which the word "Fool!" was being repeated. And what other word but "Fool!" would the average cop use to capture the attention of some citizen who seemed to be bent on making that most fatal of decisions any human can make about his being or not being?
"FOOL! FOOL! FOOL!"
While I might quibble with Frank Capra over his rosycolored view of life's "wonderfulness" couldn't he argue that, beginning with the appearance of that starknakedplatinumblondesexgoddess, my adventures of the previous night were the very stuff from which his madcap comedies were made? Added to which was the undeniable fact all this was actually happening to me in, of all places, Hollywood! And even more geographically relevant—wouldn't it make perfect sense for the LAPD's Dawn Patrol to keep its eyes routinely peeled on Inspiration Point to prevent another of those lemminglike leaps from Tinseltown's most notorious "jumping off spot?"
"FOOL! FOOL! FOOL!"
As it happened, however, all I saw behind me when I finished turning was my own Winnebago. There wasn't another vehicle—or human soul—in sight.
"FOOL! FOOL! FOOL!"
There it was again! Reverberating as if it came from some cosmic void! If anything it sounded louder and even more "supernatural" than before!
"FOOL! FOOL! FOOL!"
Having exhausted every rational explanation I asked myself whether it might be possible the Godlike voice I heard was indeed that of God Himself? And, no sooner had I finished formulating this most simpleminded of all the questions I had been asking myself than it was answered by that booming basso profundo!
Trust me, dear reader. I was no less thunderstruck then by this cloudburst of Biblicalsounding conversation than you must be now after having just read it.135 And, like you, while I remained somewhat unpersuaded about its theophanicG authenticity— owing in no small part to what I thought was a vocabulary rather more secular (to put it mildly) than it should have been—I was nevertheless sufficiently impressed by the soundness of the advice I'd been given to begin heeding it without delay.
But in trying to do so with a single athletic vault I only succeeded in getting one leg over the top of that safety railing. Not that I shouldn't have known a faux pas like that was in the offing. After all, how long can any septuagenarian—even one in my extraordinary state of rejuvenation—run on empty before the last fumes of his superhuman willpower finally evaporate? So, there I was! Dangling helplessly with nothing between me and the abyss below but that single bent leg of mine! A leg that was slowly, surely and painfully losing its life&death struggle to prevent what had become the dead weight of my exhausted body from sliding its way toward a lethal freefall! Ironically the exhaustion resulting from my previously futile efforts to hurl myself from that cliff's edge was turning out to be the very modus operandi by which I would succeed in making what I now desperately wanted not to be my fatal plunge! Surely, I thought—despite what He had told me about His flawed omnipotence, God wouldn't just sit by idly watching the plans He had made for this rendezvous of ours unravel so ludicrously.
"What in heaven's name are you doing, Goldberg? If you're trying to impress me with that 'rejuvenated manhood' of yours, forget it! You're 75 years old! Act your age! Use those Jewish brains I gave you! Do I have to spell it out for you? All right, then: Forget about climbing over that damned railing and crawl your way under it!"136
Which (ignoring the fact it was He Himself who'd advised me to "climb" back over the safety railing in the first place) I proceeded to do with what turned out to be the greatest of ease!
"Well? Now that you're safely back on terra firma, let's get down to brasstacks. We've already wasted far too much of My precious time trying to jumpstart this 'Great American WakeupCall of yours. To begin with it might be helpful if you joined me in here, where we can continue this conversation on a more civilized basis. If I have to keep on shouting like this we'll be reduced to communicating in sign language. And, after the way you've managed to mix the signals I've been sending you for the past 5 years, at this late date that's a risk we can no longer afford to take."
Although I was gratified to hear what He said about helping me solve my novelwriting problems I found myself befuddled by exactly what part He now wanted me play in that process. Where, for instance, was this "in here" to which He was commanding me so I might "join" Him for the more "civilized" continuation of our "conversation?" Before I could find the words to express the quandary I still found myself in without further aggravating what was obviously His growing impatience over the dullness of my wits, once again He did us both the favor of leapfrogging over my unasked question.
"I'm over here—trapped inside this bloody great sardine can of yours!"
And, sure enough, through the interior condensation misting the windshield of my Winnebago I saw the shadowy shape of a humanlike figure sitting in the passenger's seat! Approaching the driver's side door on legs that were still shaky from the aftereffects of my recent lifesaving exertions I withdrew the ignition key from my pocket and pressed the button on it to deactivate the electronic door locks. [I had taken the precaution of having a stateoftheart antitheft system installed when customizing the Winnebago not only to protect my investment—but prevent the contents of my computer from accidentally falling into the hands of some carjacker more concerned about trading a hot Macintosh for a quick buck (or fix) than about discovering some priceless intellectual property that might be inscribed on its hard drive.] Gingerly opening the door I was so astonished by what I saw inside I froze on the spot.
"Good grief, man," said the source of my amazement, "don't just stand out there like a pillar of salt! What are you afraid of—that I might be a carjacker? But, dummy, if I had been smart enough to outwit your electronic security system by getting Myself in here couldn't I just as smartly have driven away without that special ignition key of yours?"
While that very idea did begin to enter my mind just before He expressed it, I was still preoccupied with the thought that had produced my sudden paralysis. After all, was I not about to get my first look at what very few, if any, ordinary mortals had ever seen: The fullyfrontalized face of that most Supreme of all Beings—the awesome countenance of the Lord God Jehovah Himself!
"Or has the sight of My 'terrible' countenance frozen you in your tracks?"
As reflected by the normal typeface now being used to transcribe what He said to me, His voice had not only lost its "supernatural" resonance; its more amiable tone seemed to express a profound sense of relief mingled with gratitude. As if by opening that door I had ended what was becoming for Him an alltoo human panicattack of claustrophobia.
"I suppose," He mused rather genially, "even someone of your sophistication is entitled to be disconcerted by this 'awesome countenance' of Mine. Since I'm not in the habit of making public appearances you must forgive Me for not fully appreciating the impact such a rare event would reasonably make on an ordinary being such as yourself. Or am I mistaken? Could just the opposite be true—that your astonishment results not from the singularity of My 'terrible countenance' but rather because it resembles so closely those familiar facial features you think of as uniquely yours? Although why this discovery should come as such a surprise is itself surprising when I've never made any secret of the fact that when creating the human race I did so in My own image! In your case, of course, the resemblance between us is, admittedly, somewhat more than generic—or was, before you went to Harley Street for that plastic surgery."
Truer words were never spoken! There I was—staring at a face whose features couldn't have been more like those I had been so accustomed to seeing every morning in my bathroom mirror before I turned myself into Arthur Long! His salt & pepper beard was trimmed as I had always trimmed mine in order to create a scholarly impression—and conceal what had been my less than heroic chin and a tendency to jowliness before these defects were surgically rectified. The drooped lids of His blue eyes gave him that same "bedroom look" most women found so "irresistible" in my own "terrible countenance." As for our noses, mouths and foreheads they were not only shaped from the same Semitic clay but had been cast in the very same mold! There was no doubt about it. Give or take a few minor discrepancies, my former face and the one into which I was then gazing were what any fairminded person wouldn't hesitate to describe as belonging to fraternal—if not identical—twins.
And from the neck down His resemblance to me (or at least the man I used to be) was no less striking. Beneath the elegant tailoring of His charcoalbrown Nehru jacket and butterscotchtan slacks (an ensemble and color scheme not unlike those I preferred) the familiar bulge of that sparetire I formerly euphemised to my Moronic lady friends as "a thinking man's love handles" could be seen girdling its pneumatic way around His sedentary waist. So engrossed had I become in making these blasphemous comparisons between my humble humanity and His Supreme Beingness I can't honestly tell you how it was I came to find myself sitting next to Him. Moreover I actually failed to hear the first few of those portentous words He said next!
"...get ourselves hung up on this lookalike business. You and I have bigger fish to fry. Which reminds Me, there is another precaution we should take."
"What's that?" I answered—more to indicate I was listening to Him than because of any genuine curiosity on my part.
"This conversation of ours should be videotaped to prove it really happened. When Morons Awake! is published, believe Me, it will need all the help it can get credibilitywise. I am also sick and tired of being mis—"
"Excuse me for interrupting," I blurted out, "but did I just hear you say—'When Morons Awake! is published'?"
"Let's get one thing perfectly clear, Goldberg. I'm not in the habit of repeating Myself! You know damned well what I said!"
"Ordinarily, of course, I wouldn't dare to do what I just did. But Your confirmation of what I thought You said about the publication of Morons Awake! will, in the final analysis, raise both my morale and my alertness to such a fine point there shouldn't be any further need for You to tell me anything more than once."
"Shouldn't be or won't be?"
"Won't be."
"That's a promise?"
"As solemn a one as ever I have made!"
"It's a deal, then; although I can't believe you're asking Me to tell you something you don't already know. But, yes; assuming we can complete this transaction—which, despite all the snafus it's been plagued with until now, I see no reason why we can't—Morons Awake! will indeed be written, published and rise to the top of both the New York and the Moronville Times' Bestseller lists.137 Now, about that videocam—"
"Before getting down to business wouldn't it be wiser if we adjourned to the privacy and comfort of my study?"
Overlooking my impertinence He agreed with a singe nod of His head, and as we made our way rearward I explained to Him I didn't own a video camera. "But surely," I added, "producing one from thin air shouldn't be a problem for someone with Your creative capabilities."
"If," He responded testily, "I was capable of creating a videocam why would I have suggested using yours? The truth is, like most motals, when it comes to electronics I don't know the difference between a diode and a resistor! And why should I, when the Asians do such a good job of flooding the market with such cheap and reliable gadgetry?" After confessing I was no less bewildered by the electronic mysteries of modern technology to assuage His embarrassment, I handed Him a small cassette recorder which I kept by the side of my bed in order to dictate those ideas which occur to a blocked writer just as he is about to doze off after another unproductive day—ideas which are frequently his most inspired. And while not entirely satisfied with recording only the audio portion of our conference He shrugged His shoulders and resigned Himself to the inevitable by saying: "Better half a loaf, I suppose, than none at all. But mark My words, the Doubting Thomases—and there will be plenty of them—won't be satisfied with such flimsy evidence of My role in your writing of The Great American Manifesto! If a picture is worth a thousand words, compared to this crummy cassette a videotape would be absolutely priceless in proving you and I actually had this historic story conference of ours."
As it turned out, of course, He was absolutely right.138 Nevertheless, the following chapter is a verbatim transcript of the tape we made as that historic conversation of ours actually unfolded.139
Book One Chapter 7 Return to Index
Footnotes
130 Carl Jung, Lectures On The Nonintellectual Aspects Of Solving Religious Mysteries, p.223
131 And, while I assume you are neither a Jew(ess) nor an intellectual, you are probably asking yourself whether the time you wasted reading the previous 5 chapters is indeed a total loss or can somehow be salvaged as an experience that wasn't altogether futile.
132 On this point I think it can be fairly said I was being too harsh on myself. Despite the size of Moronia's female population (roughly speaking, there were never more than 200-250 Moronic women suitable as sexual "guineapigs") my experiments in the field of foreplay were of a radiance that should have remained undiminished during even these darkest moments of my despair. Moreover, my amatory escapades during the 5 years I traveled the 48 states indicated most American women were even more appreciative of my lovemaking virtuosity than their Moronic counterparts. Nevertheless it's true that no matter how profoundly I might have changed the sexlives of 10 or 12 thousand women, measured against what I then thought was my failure to save the entire human race I was at least partially justified in being overly selfcritical.
133 Since arriving in Southern California I'd become at least dimly aware of the potential Morons Awake! had for being turned into a dynamite screenplay. As a major motion picture its highbrowed message could be more effectively conveyed not only to the average Moronic moviegoer but to those billions of other ordinary people whose only exposure to culture comes at them from a movie or TV screen. While this didn't fundamentally alter my decision about writing the Klutz Affair Manifesto as a novel, it was an idea I filed in the back of my mind as one that might influence the way in which Morons Awake! should be written—if and when I ever began writing it. Even as I stood there thinking these very thoughts I was struck by what a brilliant opening scene my suicidal ruminations would make as the titles were rolling! Here was the author whose novel had eventually reversed the decline of Western Civilization standing on the very brink of ending his life for the lack of that single sentence with which to launch his worldsaving revolution—a sentence that (once I had written it) would begin a voiceover narration as we fade our way back to the Moronic genesis of my apostolatory relationship with the late, and most decidedly unlamented, Jack F. Klutz.
134 Given the latitude of Inspiration Point, according to every almanac I've consulted the sun should have risen a full 20 degrees farther south of where I saw it rise on the date in question. Once again, I can only account for this apparent factual discrepancy as being miraculous in nature. I emphasize the word "apparent" simply to indicate that, being a book, when it comes to astronomical phenomena an almanac isn't necessarily more, nor less, trustworthy than any other book—even a novel.
135 The editoress and I have argued long and hard over the ethical propriety of my decision not to include this stunning turn of events in the previous chapter where, because of its climactic character, it would seem logically to belong. My reason for saving it until now was simply this: In what other way could the average reader even begin to appreciate my amazement over such an ex post facto confirmation of my millennial aspirations unless she were similarly taken by surprise? And while I'm willing to admit this radical ploy of mine might violate the conventional rules for writing a conventional novel, by definition those rules don't apply to the writing of a novel as unconventional as this one.
136 This use from now on of a more "terrestrial" (and readable) typeface for God's dialogue is my idea—J. P.
137 Actually, Moronville's only newspaper is The Gazette. But I saw no point in quibbling over such a minor mistake, especially so soon after being scolded for asking that "Excuse me for interrupting but did I just hear you say—'When Morons Awake! is published'?" question.
138 The skepticism concerning this socalled "Mount Olympus Tape"—or "Epiphany Cassette"—has been unrelenting, merciless and all but universal. It has been scrutinized by every forensic expert in the field of auditory fakery to a degree exceeding even that to which the celebrated 17 minute gap in Nixon's "smoking gun" Watergate tape was subjected. And, while the Vatican has yet to take a definitive stand on the authenticity of the original cassette (which I so naively "lent" to the Pope for what I was confident would be his official blessing) its delay in doing so is generally regarded to be the most damning proof of its "false and fraudulent pretensions." Contrary to what God Himself had prophecized, however, it isn't the lack of visual evidence most critics find so bothersome in acknowledging Morons Awake! as a book I couldn't have written without His miraculous collaboration. Nor is it the suspicious physical characteristics of the tape itself. What is so disturbing to them is that nonBiblical style with which "God" expresses himself—a style they find far too "earthy" and/or "salty" to warrant the reverence such a "holy" conversation should otherwise deserve. This despite the irrefutable argument I've made that any novelist seeking to fake a "Biblical" conversation would obviously do so with language that was stereotypically King Jamesian! It is precisely the mundane way God is heard speaking to me on the Mt. Olympus Tape which should prove its validity beyond the shadow of any doubt! In the final analysis, dear reader, it is only your judgment that really matters in resolving this issue—and, having come to know each other as intimately as we have, I'm confident you will reach the appropriate verdict.
139 By transcribing this conversation in a "theatrical" format I run the risk of seeming to confirm the allegations I am a playwright who, after banging his head against the brickwall of Broadway for a number of years, has changed genres in midlife hoping to cash in on the "craze for serious fiction" now sweeping across the American literary scene. While I will have more to say on this subject later, I can't allow these slanders to pass without calling your attention to the undeniable fact that: Since the very "craze for serious fiction now sweeping across the American literary scene" upon which such allegations are based is a direct result of my having written Morons Awake! I can hardly be accused of "cashing in" on an artistic motherlode I was the first to discover!
Glossary
cockamamie
also cockamamy adjective Slang. 1.)
Trifling; nearly valueless. 2.) Ludicrous; nonsensical: gave me a cockamamie
reason for not going. [Probably alteration of
DECALCOMANIA.]
theophany
noun plural theophanies
An appearance of a god to a human being; a divine manifestation. [Medieval
Latin theophania, from Late Greek theophaneia : Greek theo-,
theo- + Greek phainein, phan-, to
show.]