Chapter 7, 8, 9

                         Leo

              

                So this was it. This: a simple beginning to a simple man. Not that the beginning had been at all simple for Leo. In fact it had been rather obtuse. After all this was his 233^rd epiphany, and probably just another con, book, or lie; something to change your life for only $19.99 plus shipping and handling.  No, this was different this was inspired. In looking back Leo could see how everything had led him to this. This: a simple beginning for a simple man.  How was it, it took him so long to find this man, this epitome of wisdom. How could he have been so blind for so long. Sure it cost $200 American dollars plus shipping and handling. But as the man said, what is the true price of self-knowledge. And the man did promise that it was not like any other self Help book, ever sold. At first Leo thought that the man was simply homeless. But as He walked by he read the man sign. It was a quote from the art of war. Or was it hip hop lyric. Either way it struck Leo as True. So He Began as he always had Down the Path of Enlightenment, half blind and trying not to breathe through his nose.

 

                Leo Spoke with Man at length. They spoke about his sign, love, God, and truth. To which the man always replied the same thing. Which happened to be the same thing the sign said, only differently put. Here in summary is what the Man said, from his sign to the end of each conversation. Know your enemy, know yourself, and you do not have to fear the outcome of 1000 Battles. To thine own self be true. The path of true enlightenment begins with self knowledge. If you do not know yourself you cannot know truth. After this last quote Leo was thoroughly sold. He asked the Man who clearly had much knowledge, if he had ever written a Book, to which the Man smiled and replied, “Only one.” apparently it was a self help book. But it was not like any other on the market. So Leo, much to the amusement of the man, purchased 2 of the Books at $100 American Dollars A piece. It was shortly after this development that Leo had called Jack and asked to meet for Coffee.

 

                When Leo walked in to meet Jack for Coffee he was surprised to see two new faces. Both were young, and attractive, his first thought was that they were a couple, perhaps married. Jack informed Leo that the couples name was Jake and Sarah. Jake and Sarah informed Leo that they were not in fact a couple rather simply friends. Though he found this odd, his mind was much to occupy with enlightenment to worry about such trivial things.

 

                Leo Immediately sat down and started telling Jack about the Man and the Book and the new Path of enlightenment. To which Jack simply smiled and continued to eat his pie.

 

“Hey where's Anna?”

 

 

                                                 Anne

 

 

 

            Anne had just finished running her errand, when she ran into a slight snafu. Apparently she had missed one of the hidden cameras at the local insurance company, and authorities had been notified. Though this did not severely affect her plan it did require a few contingencies. Such as instead of walking home in her typical disguise she was now forced to dump and burn all remaining shreds of evidence and take a longer and overall much more brutal short cut to avoid any unwanted police attention.

 

                So as it was she was an hour late to coffee. Not that she had missed much. Danny had gone to a funeral. Jack was eating pie. And Leo had apparently found a new path to enlightenment. This happened every week. In fact the only thing mildly interesting was the fact that her stalker and an attractive young woman (she assumed it was the same woman he had been so eagerly trying to get a hold of) had also been sitting at the table. She found this interesting mostly because it meant she would not be forced to listen to Leo alone, and perhaps they would have something to talk about, other than pies, culture, or epiphanies.

They were currently discussing books. It seems that every one at the table had written or was working on a book/play and admitted this freely, everyone except for Anne. It was not that she hadn't written a book. She had in fact written a book, it was just that she refused to discuss or acknowledge its existence.

 

                Before Anne was an anarchist (always lower case), she was an art student. One day in art class they were reviewing Rothko and discussing the concept of art for art sake.  Anne did not believe this was possible, because in her mind art always served a function outside itself, even if that function was to spend ridiculous amounts of money, in an expensive studio, dressed nicely, eating fine hors d’oeurves, only to prove to everyone that they were well educated and cultured enough, to pay 5k to see a toilet, or a blank canvas. So she decided to try an experiment she would write her thesis on the concept of art for art sake (art as Danny would put it, a hypothetical study using Dadaist philosophy to study postmodern Dadaist art.)She would remove any function or desire for anyone to see her work. She would place the least appealing thing, in the least appealing environment, charge 1million dollars just to see what it was, and only on the condition that you told no one else. Only one person would be allowed in at a time and would have to leave by separate exits so no one would see each other or know who had paid to see it. Also she refused to publish an advertisement or form any public awareness. In fact she did not tell anyone what she was doing. She placed a used sanitary napkin in a field tent, in the middle of a cow field, full of manure. Of course no one came. That was the point. No one was supposed to. It was art for art sake.

 

                Anne did end up in the end flunking out of art school, mostly because she refused to turn in her master’s thesis, out of principle. And also because she refused, again for general principal to acknowledge she had ever done the experiment in the first place. It was truly art for art sake. Only in this case it was art for the sake of proving a point, that no matter how hard you try you cannot create art for its own sake. Shortly after all this she became an anarchist. This seemed to fit her Dadaist principals better than a degree in art would have.

 

 

 

                     Danny

 

                A brief word about Danny (and why Danny was going to a funeral). First and foremost it is important to note that Danny did not know the person who died, nor in fact did he know any members or persons involved (family or otherwise) in fact Danny never attended funerals of people he knew, or for family and friends of people he knew.  In fact the only reason Danny ever attended anything at all was for “research” or some other practical end. And frankly attending the funeral or wedding of a family member or friend was not “good research” because as Danny would say, it was difficult to remain objective.

 

                Why Danny was researching Funerals at the moment is a rather long and complicated discussion, that in all honesty only Danny would be able to properly explain (or find interesting). Suffice it to say that due to the rigid guide lines of the ethics review board, one could only perform research with informed; un coerced, and absolutely free consent. The guidelines also stated that only non-vulnerable populations could be used in research. Meaning effectively you was not able to offer small children candy to shock an unsuspecting puppy. The reasons for this were many, but mostly it boiled down to the fact that  some  “scientist” did offer small children candy to shock an unsuspecting puppy., amongst other equally horrific and otherwise inhumane “experiments”* . Meaning that while Danny was studying abnormal child psychology, he was unable in effect to study children, and rationalizing that adults were actually simply abnormal children who have grown up, Danny decided to study them.

 

                Of course the most natural place to study people is where they are gathered. Danny having ruled out the obvious choices, the mall (mustard in the face), the park (being attacked by dogs, and mimes), churches (to narrow of a population), and weddings (unsure if any one foolish enough to get married wasn’t considered vulnerable), Danny had decided to go to Funerals. After all everyone died. And almost everyone had a funeral or memorial service or something similar when they did (die that is).

               

Danny found that funerals tended to make people nostalgic, and there for more willing to discuss traumatic events from child hood (all be it euphemistically) with a total stranger whom they only assumed they had a connection with.

 

                He did this by using a technique that telephone psychics (and therapist) have been using for years, he would lead out with a small amount of information (typically derived from the obituary) and the other person in assuming that he knew or understood the entire story would fill in any additional information, in order to keep a natural flow of conversation. Danny would always start out generic and get more specific, and by the time the conversation had taken a dark turn (and it always did with Danny) the other person was so caught up in their own memories they almost forgot entirely that they were speaking with a complete stranger.

 

                Of course there was always the issue of consent, but this was usually easy enough. Simply mentioning classes or projects of child hood memories were enough. This was in part because Danny had what cult leaders liked to call “charisma”. This meant that everyone whether they meant to or not seemed be drawn to Danny. As the old saying goes you attract more flies with honey, then with vinegar, but there is a naturally compound which attracts more flies than either. And Danny was full of it.

 

                This innate ability to be trusted though obviously a detestable human being, coupled with Danny’s natural leaning toward obscure and often unethical social-psychology (such as Red Card, Black Card, and the notorious S.E.P. control ), made him (at least in the FBI's humble opinion) a prime candidate for, black tennis shoes, questionable Kool-Aid, eating at Sizzler, an unhealthy obsession with modern astrology, and proclaiming to be the son/ or exclusive messenger of some god or otherwise celestial body. The only thing that kept this from happening (except for the black tennis shoes, and eating at sizzler part) was the fact that though Danny was extremely drawing in person, he was almost entirely forgettable once you left his immediate presence.  This meant that even though a group of people may want to proclaim his as their one true leader, they typically would forget the feeling and the person as soon as they left the compound to stock pile weapons.

                This was not Danny’s fault (nor was his propensity for powder based beverages). If anything was to blame in fact it was his upbringing. His parents, being of moderate stock, and absolute specimens of normality, felt it best if (in order not to pollute or taint his pure mind) Danny was not exposed to any Ideas of morality, religion, or politic, until he reached an appropriate age (20). Two things happened as a result. First he was as it was completely void of any ethics or morality (a state which he called “objective”). Second He was as interesting as an English professor on Thorazine explaining the nuance of Russian culture and politics as it pertains to ‘War and Peace’; which is to say not interesting at all. And as Danny would be the first to explain (in no doubt painful detail) one of the peculiarities of the human brain is that it tends to scab over anything that doesn’t immediately catch some part of the base primate brain (S.E.P.). Meaning that on any given occasion a person is more likely to remember the sparkly jewelry they saw two weeks ago than what they had for lunch two days ago. Or in Danny’s case, though they remember an interesting point or fact that he brought up, they almost never remembered Danny himself, because if they did they would probably remember why they did not like him.

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*for further reference on why ethic committees came to be see “behaviorism” in the encyclopedia of psychology

Author's Note

Aware of structural issues and punctuation.