Sacrilege!

Chapter 8 of Carnival

Carnival

Chapter 8

Sacrilege!

Kevin’s equilibrium was so unstable he almost passed out in the act of sitting up. He spat dirt from his mouth.

Mike, who had turned to glower at the sound, looked away when he was sure Kevin had caught his look of contempt. He waited. When Kevin at last called his name he stormed over to their standing bikes.

“Mike,” Kevin repeated. He shook his groggy head and rested it in his sweaty, filthy hands.

There was a crash. Kevin looked up. Mike was poised with his fists at his sides, an expression of unbearable rage on his face. Kevin’s ten-speed lay on its side. “I’m sick of this crap!” Mike screamed. He pointed a trembling finger at Kevin, kicked the fallen bike’s front wheel and sent it spinning. “Every time we try to get going you pull this stunt and I’m sick of it!”

“What stunt?”

“You know what I’m talking about and don’t pretend you don’t!” He did a rude pantomime of an epileptic seizure and kicked Kevin’s bike again. “Well, I’m sick of it, fatso! Y’hear me? Sick of it!” He kicked the dirt to emphasize his words. “I’m fed up with your f*****g games, man, and I’m sick of your ugly face!” He grew so distraught he began to weep, still kicking, alternating between the dirt and Kevin’s bucking bicycle. “And after I saved your crummy life, too! You and your buddy-buddy friend,” he charged, “have been planning this from the beginning. You’re ruining this whole trip and I’m f*****g sick of it!” He gave Kevin’s bicycle one last hard kick, hurt his ankle and hopped away, heaving with sobs. Mike disappeared down the bank of a gully lined with wilted-looking willows.

Kevin shook his head languidly. Fat flies droned round his shoulders monotonously, lighting on his throat and face. He let them be.

Eddie came scrambling up the gully’s bank to Kevin’s left, around the bend from where Mike was fuming. He trotted up to Kevin, showed him a scrabbling inch-long crayfish on either palm.

“Look, Kevin. Crawdaddies! There’s an old culvert around the bend. I found ’em half-in the runoff.”

Kevin murmured his dull approval. “What happened to me, Eddie?”

Eddie sat cross-legged in front of him and played with his crayfish for a minute. He said, quietly, “You pulled another one of those freaky numbers, Kevin. Like a couple days ago, remember? Only worse. I tried to do the bit with your glasses again, but you were shaking your head so hard I couldn’t do it. And you bit my thumb.” He showed Kevin his right thumb, still red and swollen. “But it’s cool. It wasn’t your fault. Anyways, after bouncing around for a few minutes you just froze up like you were dead. I’ll be honest; I was scared. Then you flipped over on your stomach and started crawling away, making these spooky gargling noises. You kept crawling, right out into this field, but after a while you weren’t going anywhere, just making the motions. Then you passed out, and we couldn’t wake you up no way. So we had to crash here.” He was quiet for a moment, moving the crayfish back and forth like cars on a highway. Finally he said, “Maybe you ought to see a doctor, Kevin.”

Kevin hung his head. “D’you remember that first night we met, Eddie? When my old man busted us getting high?”

Eddie shuddered. “I try to not think about it.”

“Well, I get the feeling that’s when it all started. But it seems funny it should take so long before it started turning hairy like this.”

“You never had these fits before…” Eddie asked, still avoiding Kevin’s eyes, “before that night?” He scooped out a clamber-trough for his crayfish, pushing dirt back into the trough when the little crustaceans reached the top, causing them to topple down and start back up.

“Not before we left. At least I don’t think so. It’s strange, though. I get the feeling I’ve been having these creepy blackouts for a while. You know, suddenly you find yourself thinking: ‘Wow, man, did I just flash off, or am I imagining things?’ You know what I mean.”

Eddie shook his head. “Nope. Never happened to me. Um…you been taking downers, Kevin?”

‘Downers’ is a slang term for barbiturates, which are notorious for causing, among other things, loss of motor control and lapses in memory.

It was Kevin’s turn to shake his head. “Uh-uh. You remember we agreed that downers aren’t good for a true revolutionary’s head? Only lowriders and rowdies fool around with that hard stuff.”

Eddie was silent. He was thinking of that cold wet night last November, when he had smoked a fat initiatory joint with Kevin, and the two had grown painfully embarrassed while sitting cramped in the little wooden cubicle of the garage’s loft. The atmosphere had grown electric, the silence echoing around them and making the walls seem even closer. There had been a thousand things to talk about, a whole burgeoning philosophy to discuss, and Eddie had been, already, toying with the idea of asking Kevin to accompany him up the coast during the summer. Still, that awful silence had grown and grown. The marijuana had made clumsy, unwieldy things of their tongues, made wounds of their minds. And that silence became heavy as water, clogging their mouths and ears, seeming to dim the single yellow bulb hanging like a hot scrotum between them from the loft’s ceiling, which was so low Kevin had to slump forward as he sat. This thrust-forward posture made him appear about to deliver an important observation, when actually his head was as dense with that paralyzing silence as a filled goldfish bowl. And, similar to a goldfish circumnavigating its prison, Kevin’s attention swam round and round, looking hopelessly for an object to focus on so he wouldn’t have to meet Eddie’s eyes. Belatedly, he remembered he’d planned on bringing a radio into the loft. At least, with a radio present, he could go through the spasmodic motions of pretending to be absorbed in some raucous rock and roll. And he knew Eddie was going through the same struggle, looking furtively about to avoid Kevin’s eyes. Yet their eyes seemed almost to have a magnetic attraction, and, in their effort to break this influence, each boy had swiveled his neck, Eddie to the right and Kevin to the left, so that both were facing the thin rectangular doors of the loft. The symmetry, a door for each boy, had actually enhanced the trip rather than refocus it, and then, to make matters worse, rainwater had begun to tap and ping monotonously on the aluminum downspout. The embarrassment had wound up maddeningly, intensifying until it bore the imminence of a volcano on the brink of eruption. And suddenly both doors had been wrenched open to reveal giant Joe Mikolajczyk, his perspiration-soaked face insane with rage, his expression more like that of a voracious, prehuman predator than a contemporary man. The damning aroma of the marijuana smoke had burst out, and for several seconds no one had moved or breathed. Then, with a primeval roar, Big Joe had reached in, grabbed Kevin by the hair, and torn him bodily from the loft. Following through on the motion, he hurled the boy clear across the garage, doorless since Kevin’s mother’s one and only experiment with driving. Kevin’s head had cracked hard on the cement floor. Now, this had been a very violent move, and had certainly done serious physical harm to Kevin, but the immediate psychological damage to Eddie had been greater. Eddie had gone colorless with shock, certain he was next to be attacked by this enormous, bellowing madman. He had screamed and screamed and screamed, and Joe had turned blind bulging eyes on him. But, even as Eddie’s short life was passing before him, big sputtering Joe had turned like some berserk automaton, his eyes centering on the whimpering target of his weakly crawling son. With his fingers splayed, Joe’s hands were great mauling machines. Completely out of his mind, he’d cross-haired the laboring target and begun his thunderous advance.

“Maybe I should see a doctor,” Kevin said hollowly, breaking the ribbon of Eddie’s recollection.

Eddie nodded.

“Ummm…Eddie,” Kevin went on, “I’ve got to get something together in my head…or I think I’m gonna lose it. Like, I know you do a whole lot of thinking, Eddie--no offense--so I figure you might be able to clue me in on something that’s really bugging me way down deep. I guess it’s maybe the biggest question there is.”

“Sure, Kevin,” Eddie said quietly. He smiled. “And no offense taken. You know I’ll always help you out. We’re brothers.”

“Tight as they come,” Kevin declared. “Eddie…I…I really don’t understand what’s going on in life; like why some people are so uncool when they don’t have to be. Or why I’ve got to be having these stupid blackouts in the first place. I mean, what did I do so wrong that I should have to be punished? It would make more sense if it happened to, like, Mike for instance. Eddie, nothing, I mean nothing in life is right, or I’ve got it all upside-down. You’re the only guy I ever met who even cared about whether things are right or not. The rest of us just pretend we’ve got it together. So Eddie, I mean, like man-to-man now…in all this crazy crying out loud s**t and more s**t, I mean, Eddie, like, is there really a God?”

Eddie gave a short whistle in imitation of a falling bomb. “Just like that?” he asked. “All you want’s a simple yes or no?”

“Actually,” Kevin said, looking away, “I don’t think yes or no would answer anything. I need to know what’s going on, Eddie. Do I listen to that Jesus freak we ran into on the beach? Look what God made out of him. I don’t wanna be some holy motormouth. And if you say there isn’t a God that’s okay too; it’s not gonna do me in or anything. At least things might make some sense if I can look at it as all being out of control. But I can’t go through life in the dark like this. Not anymore. So…um…is there a God, Eddie?”

Eddie exhaled noisily. He looked down at the mindless labor of the crayfish as they struggled to overcome the lip of their trough, then at the way the fingers of his own hands were able to smoothly perform motions independently or in concert. He took a deep breath.

“Yes and no, Kevin. There is and there isn’t. It’s pretty complex, and it really hangs on how able you are to be objective, because all the answers to the universe--subjectively speaking--are negative ones. You ask the question: Is there a God? But that’s subjective. Built into the question is a kind of spiritual plea. Honestly translated it would come out more like: Is there a bigger reality than all this; a reality that’ll make me feel better, so that if I sense my life is going nowhere maybe I can still hope it’s really just going somewhere I can’t see? What it comes down to is that you’re vocalizing a feeling, not a thought. I guess a good comparison, Kevin, would be love. Now, you take some guy or some chick who’s in love. That feeling’s as real as all get-out, right? And there isn’t a whole bunch you can say that’ll convince that guy or that chick that what’s being experienced isn’t rational. As a matter of fact, you’re gonna find that that somebody knows the object of his or her affection is light years more attractive, in both subtle and obvious ways, than any of the other suddenly half-assed specimens he or she used to dig--even though this new loved one may have never rated a second glance before. And it’ll be a waste of time trying to be objective with either lover. The lover ‘knows’, and feels he or she can see qualities which you, in your objective ignorance, are blind to. You see where I’m coming from? Love isn’t reasonable, it isn’t objective, and it isn’t honest. It’s a process, a response, a reaction. The guy or chick has been bombarded by hormones, and he or she is operating according to a program that’ll make him or her feel good when behavior is conducive to procreation, and feel bad when the process is frustrated. Faith is also a part of this process; only it’s self-preservation instead of procreation that’s running the program. The big difference here is that the brain has developed to the point where we’re conscious of our mortality and our insignificance, and so we’ve got this, like, new and unique horror of our impending demise--something separate from the brain’s basic job, which is to get us to survive the physical environment. It’s abstract consciousness--the newly acquired ability to be aware of non-concrete things like justice, order and impermanence--that gave birth to ideas like a deity and a devil, and to concepts like good and evil. So faith is a reaction to a threatening situation; only the threat is abstract, not concrete. God only exists when necessary. Put his focus back on the real world, and the most religious of men has a brain working like anyone else’s. So you see, faith isn’t objective at all. It’s a biochemical response, just like love is, and it’s just as important, and just as foolish, as love is.”

Eddie spread his hands. “I sure hope you won’t want to shoot the messenger, Kevin, but…God just doesn’t exist. The supernatural is a product of imagination.”

Then he went on eagerly: “Nothing really exists, Kevin, even though we use words, like nothing, for instance, implying the existence of a thing. But there isn’t. I don’t exist and you don’t exist, despite the impressions. Every ‘thing’ is a process, or actually an aspect of countless processes, all taking place far too rapidly for anyone to discern. The bottom line is that you have to deal with reality in verbs instead of nouns, and that’s flat-out impossible, given the fact that organisms react with the environment at the sensory level. Abstract consciousness is something relatively new in nature, Kevin, and people will learn to deal with it in good time. I mean, try to imagine a spider with a conscience. Or a lizard. Or a barracuda. They don’t murder or rape; they just kill and screw. And they sure as heck don’t dwell on penetrating questions concerning morality, ethics, or some kind of Great Spider in the sky. So you’re not about to find any crazy or despondent spiders. But to answer the question truthfully: ‘God’ is an idea. Yet it’s an idea that’s as viable as the neediness of the question.”

“But Eddie, how can you say nothing exists, when a blind man can see all the things that do exist? Or at least he can feel them. I’m not saying you should be able to see or feel God, but I know I’m sitting on something solid; and that that’s my boot there, and that inside my boot is my foot, and so on. And I can see you, right in front of me. Or are you trying to tell me you’re a ghost?”

“Pretty much,” Eddie said. “An instantaneous ghost, or a series of instantaneous ghosts, that is, each a microsecond removed from the last. But are you really so sure our ghosts are ‘sitting on something solid’, as you said? Let’s take it logically, Kevin. A rock, for instance. You see a ‘thing’, right? But you break it down and you’ve got a whole bunch of pebbles. More ‘things’. Let’s keep going. Take one of those pebbles, and you break it down to a whole bunch of grains. Break a grain down and you get dust. Break down a speck of dust in your head, Kevin. Keep going. You’ll get down to the molecular level. Then what? What’s a molecule, Kevin? It’s a process, a bonding of atoms. And an atom isn’t a ‘thing’ at all; it’s also a process, a force. So all you really have is an accretion of processes and subprocesses masquerading as matter.”

“But if I can’t see or feel an atom, how come I can see and feel ’em when a whole bunch are stuck together?”

“You can’t, Kevin. You keep forgetting an atom isn’t a thing. Any more than a billion atoms equals a thing. Try to see an atom as a verb. What’s really happening is this: the attraction between atoms is resistant to any force less energetic than the bond. It’s this resistance that seems to be substance. Matter is really energy. But you’ve got to go a long way to get to a speck of dust.”

“I’m not trying to argue with you, Eddie,” Kevin said bravely. “But none of that proves anything. Why can’t we just say, y’know, that God decided to put everything together with atoms?”

Eddie’s eyes twinkled. “Kind of a cosmic erector set? Neat! But a whole lot easier to just breathe life into nostrils and refabricate a rib. We all do love a good magic show every now and then.”

“Then who did start it, Eddie, and when?”

“Nobody started it. Because it didn’t start. And it doesn’t end. That’s, in a nutshell, the whole trip where this business of trying to figure out how everything got this way gets freaked out.

“People instinctively start out with a model of a void, you dig? And then they in effect say, ‘Okay, now how does everything come from nothing?’ So they’ve gotta throw in this deity, y’see, and--never mind the fact that the same problem about the deity’s origin remains--and let the deity do all the work, then say it’s beyond our ability to comprehend further and just rely on faith.

“Oh yeah, groovy man, and hallelujah. Problem solved. The brain is so dependent on sensory input that it barfs up any idea it can’t put in a box. What people can’t deal with, and don’t want to deal with, is that the whole analytical process is off to a false start when it starts. ‘Quit picking your nose, dear reader, and check this out: inactivity is a physical impossibility. ‘Nothingness’, void, ‘absolute zero’ cannot occur!’ That’s what I’d say if I was, like, writing a book and there was a cheese-eater out there who really wanted to know what’s going on instead of picking one of the tunnels in this ant farm we call enlightenment. Biology, chemistry, physics…they’re all the same subject.

“And this junk about finding a start point. Sure, maybe there was a ‘Big Bang’. But that’s not a start. It’s a hiccough. So we’re prey to this premise that the cosmos somehow had to ‘start’ at a certain ‘time’, and I guess infer it has to ‘end’ at a certain ‘time’. And that this ‘start’ took effect at a specific ‘place’. And now a drum roll…a-a-a-a-and…trip: ‘When’ is just another convention, like ‘where’, which we’ve come up with to orient ourselves!

“Time, Kevin, is also a concept; but it’s just as useful as, say, drawing a line on a map to create a border, or saying the sun rises when it’s really the world that’s turning, or claiming what’s above us is up, when the Australians would swear it’s down.

“But…there was no ‘Prime Mover’, Kevin. That’s part of the problem. People are mortals, and mortals simply can’t imagine things without a birth and a death, a beginning and an end, a cause and an effect. Like I said, the brain’s job is to deal with the plain environment. It freaks out when it comes down to paradoxes.”

“Too trippy;” Kevin said, slowly shaking his head, “much too trippy. I mean, like, how can you say there’s no time? There was a yesterday, wasn’t there?”

“And what came before yesterday?”

“The day before yesterday.”

“And the day before that? And the day before that? And so where does it all ‘begin?’ On a First Day? Well, what came ‘before’ this first day? Yesterfirstday? And do you think atoms respect our calendars? Or how about space? Pick an end or a beginning and you’re stuck with the same problem. What’s beyond these hypothetical points? Obviously ‘end’ and ‘begin’ are concepts, just like in and out and up and down and over and under and on and on and on. Everything’s relative to the subjective observer.”

“Um…” Kevin said. “So then, Eddie, I mean what are we here for? What’s it all about? There’s gotta be, like, some kinda purpose for everything. There’s just gotta be, Eddie. Eddie…Eddie, what’s the meaning of life?”

“Same deal,” Eddie said. “Concepts again. Why, Kevin, why does there gotta be a meaning, and a purpose, and all that? Some kind of security blanket for your self-preservation instinct? Like I said, the brain will have to adjust to abstract consciousness eventually. All that rap about predestination and chosen people and good and evil is just a bunch of garbanzo beans. You’re here because your mom and dad got horny, just like all the moms and dads before them, and all the moms and dads to come. But just because there’s no highfalutin purpose and grand design or whatever, it doesn’t mean we can’t organize our lives around inspired ideas of our own.

“The great challenge of existence, Kevin, is for all of us to be quality human beings who embrace deep, positive values.

“In other words, to live exactly as if there really is a God. We can still make a commitment to behave decently, without having to bow and scrape and genuflect and supplicate. We don’t have to trash our brains; we don’t have to turn into a bunch of hands-wriggling d****s shouting hosanna, as if the universe had ears or something.

“We’ve got a real obligation to be humane and wise and self-restraining, simply because it’s beneath our dignity, collectively and individually, to let our appetites lead us around on a leash. And not because we think it’s gonna get us a ticket into some happy hereafter. That attitude makes religion into a sort of holy bribery.

“What’s rough is that honoring principle means saying no! to some very strong and very basic drives, throughout your lifetime.

“Do you resist the instinct to exploit because it’s profitable to? Of course not. The thief gains, the liar outmaneuvers, the weasel scores. The man of principle gets zilch. So why not be smart like the thief? Why not just grab whatever you can get your hands on? I’ll tell you, man, when the opportunity’s there it can be tough to stand tall, but the trip is you’ve got to say: ‘because I’m not a thief, because I’m not a liar, and because I’m sure as hell no motherfucking weasel! I’m better than that.’

“But wait! I know there’s no God. There’s nothing to punish me for living contrary to the Bible’s teaching: Far out! I can get away with all kinds of s**t! But no…oh no…I can’t be a common pig and live with myself. I’ve got to be my own god and guardian; respect myself, respect my mind, and believe that all the brutal instincts urging me on are not in mandatory control.

“My mind must drive my body, not the other way around!

“Y’see, Kevin, everybody knows what’s right and what’s wrong. They know! It doesn’t take a genius or some fuzzy sage to define morality, or correct ethical behavior, or proper comportment in any sense. It takes guts, and it takes honesty, and it takes sacrifice. It means admitting the truth, but it doesn’t mean the truth is something you’re supposed to feel good about. Is that digable? It means, like, you know, ‘I want this’. Okay? But that’s not my mind, that’s egocentricity. Just because I feel that want, that doesn’t mean I have to be, like, mesmerized. I appreciate that want. Or that want might be an urge against somebody else. It’s just as selfish. And so I might feel, like, ‘I hate him’, or ‘I’m wounded by her’, or ‘they are inferior’. These are impulses, and the impulses are there because, way down at the genetic level, nature is leading me to respond aggressively or passionately to preserve my tribe, or to perpetuate certain sexual qualities, or to claim my stake. And I don’t gotta give up that claim, or spurn that cute little chick who turns me on, or, for that matter, love and respect that creep who gets on my nerves, just because I happen to know that what I suppose is a thought is really a feeling. I’ve gotta ride that beast, and tame it so I’ll never end up regretting being carried along by some momentary impulse. I don’t want anybody to be hurt by my actions, even if he’s got it coming. And I don’t want to be in possession of anything I don’t deserve, no matter how much it may appeal to me. So, like it or not, for the most part I’m gonna have to go without. And that makes me a loser. Take my word for it, Kevin, it’s no fun being a determined, self-made have-not in a world of greedy grubbing gophers.

“And I’m not just talking about not being a criminal, or about not being immoral. There has to be something higher in your outlook than the real world. Check out Mr. Suit-and-tie, for instance, in all his little cocktail party gobbledygook bullshit, with his neat and clean facade and his pretty car, his home and his credit cards; all the plastic crap he wraps himself up in to let his boot-licking competitors know how smarmy-a*s successful he is. But who is he? Nobody knows. He doesn’t even know! All his adult life he’s been busting his a*s to turn himself into a grinning mannequin out of some J.C. Penney catalog. He’s done a good job of it, too; at least as good as his buddies. Not a hair’s out of place, and his car’s so clean you won’t find a bird t**d on it. And he smiles at just the right time, and goes ‘Har har har’ when he’s supposed to. Good little mannequin. And then this prissy puppet will see some real person, who’s got his head into something deeper than appearances, and go, ‘Jesus! What a jerk! Lock the doors, honey, he might be after our best china’. What would Mr. Suit-and-tie think of Socrates, or Ghandi, or Jesus of Nazareth for that matter? Buncha bums, that’s what. And can’t that Jesus guy afford a haircut? Sheesh! Creeps and losers; not like him--not like Mr. Suit-and-tie on his way to drop off Johnny and Marge at the P.T.A. meeting before he grovels up to J.B. for the big Moneysucker contract. Life by the book. I tell you, Kevin, I’d rather die than put on a suit and a tie! Serious as all s**t. And that’s not only the Movement’s philosophy, it’s my personal vow. And…when I die, if some mortician even tries to suit me up…I swear to your God I’ll reach outta my coffin and stuff the phony f****r in there in my place!”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Kevin said, wagging a finger. “What happened to all our groovy dignity, Eddie?”

Eddie blushed and looked down at his tightly locked hands. “You’re right, Kevin. I shouldn’t let it get to me. It’s just, y’know, when I see all these Mr. Suit-and-tie clones coming off the conveyor belt, with their little briefcases and wristwatches, it makes me want to puke. It’s like they’re all giving the finger to human potential.”

Kevin nodded sagely. “I’m hip. Sometimes when I see ’em filing in and out of the bank building I think I’m having a flashback; like I’m seeing trails. They’ve all got newspapers under their arms and sticks up their butts. But then I think, ‘at least they’re going into the bank. They must be doing something right’.”

“They sure are, Kevin. They’re doing everything exactly right. They’ve got phoniness down to a science and butt-kissing down to a fine art form. I mean, it’s their f*****g careers for Pete’s sake! They know, from checking out their peers, that if they march in time it’ll pay off.”

“Sorta like your dog story, huh, Eddie? The one about it’s the dogs who do the tricks who get the goodies.”

“Same animal,” Eddie nodded. “But we got off the track somewhere. What were we talking about before Mr. Suit-and-tie?”

“You were saying, like, there really isn’t a God, but that’s no reason to behave bad.”

“Right,” Eddie said. “Right. But it goes deeper than that. I mean, it’s accepted that there’s a God, see, and that that’s the reason we shouldn’t behave like pigs…because we’ll be punished later on. There’s no proposition implying we should behave with dignity simply because it’s unconscionable not to. There’s gotta be a threat or a promise thrown into the equation to make it work. And, since the whole idea behind religion is to better people against their basic drives, I always get bent out of shape denying the physical side of the issue while defending the ethical side of it.

“If it wasn’t for the simple fact that I don’t believe in God I’d have to say I’m a heck of a lot more religious than most of these Bible Thumpers I’ve run across.

“Anyways, when I’m trying to separate these aspects--the physical and the ethical--it’s so difficult,” Eddie said uncomfortably, “to put it in words that won’t be taken offensively, or to get the point across in context. Look…the issue really isn’t: is there a God, or is faith good or bad, or then just how the heck did we get here? Or anything about who’s right and who’s wrong and why.

“As simply as I can put it, the real question is this: Why do people automatically accept the notion of a supreme being? Or even waver between faith and doubt? Why isn’t the idea of a conscious universe laughed at outright? You’d expect a retarded six-year-old to wonder if you were nuts or just putting him on with rap like that, yet the concept is universally accepted. Why? It’s absolutely silly, but that doesn’t seem to make the slightest difference.”

“Okay,” Kevin said. “Then why?”

“Well, I really have to guess at it,” Eddie returned, almost apologetically. “I’ve never read anything about it from that end. It’s like there’s some built-in taboo, like you strike a really deep nerve. It’s like…uh…y’know how it is when you question, for example, the virtue of somebody’s girlfriend, or his mother, or his country? Or, if the bond’s strong enough, it could even be his school, or the crowd he hangs with. Maybe just a friend of his, or his pet goldfish, or sometimes it can be anything at all that he feels strongly about. And I don’t mean insulting whatever he loves, I mean asking an honest, legitimate question, or just pointing out some little flaw. It’s like…BAM: ‘that’s my mama you’re talking about!’ or, ‘hey buddy, if you don’t dig this country then why don’t you just get the hell out!’ You know what I mean? You hit that nerve. And God’s a big part of that nerve.”

“Well?” Kevin said. “What do you expect? You want somebody saying things about your mother?”

“Of course I don’t, Kevin. But if what he’s telling me’s logical I’m gonna wanna know the facts. And the way you put it: ‘saying things’, is just what I’m trying to get at here.”

“Like what?”

“Like hitting that nerve, like crossing that line. It’s all: ‘I love my mother and my family and my country and I stick up for my friends and I have faith in my God and I f*****g refuse to hear anything about them that doesn’t jibe with my feelings’. It’s taboo to objectively analyze your bonds. And…” Eddie sighed, “why not? Will the truth make your love stronger, or make you more patriotic?”

“Truth,” Kevin interjected, “is what everybody agrees on. And people have all agreed there’s a God for…forever. And people have always stuck up for their friends and fought for their country. Eddie, you can’t say everybody’s always been wrong about everything until you came along. The whole trip wouldn’t have been around as long as it has if it was half as dumb as you say it is. It’s gotta be based on something real.”

“That’s the bummer,” Eddie said. “What’s it based on? It’s practically a law of life that if you, like, accept a given premise as fact, then anything that follows in support of that premise must be fact, too.

“The premise is everything, Kevin. If something’s established by society as truth, or as being good, and it just keeps getting hammered home, eventually it’ll be taken for granted. Let me throw another analogy at you.

“Let’s suppose, for example, that it was just a given that human beings were put on this planet by some Martian super-race, millions of years ago. Okay? As silly as that sounds, just so’s I can make my point, we’ll pretend that you and I and everybody else grew up in a world where our money says, ‘In Martians We Trust’ on it, where principle is a matter of ‘Martians, mother, and country’, and where things Martian creep into our everyday language, such as, ‘For the love of Mars!’ or ‘Good Martian, man, what’s got into you?’ and so forth. We can even throw in some Son of Mars sent to Earth to die for our sins, and maybe make Pluto into Hell. Whatever. The point is, if this premise is simply taken for granted as the truth by everybody, without serious inquiry, then for all practical purposes, it becomes the truth. And if you or I or anybody else say, ‘But wait a minute! What Martians? I don’t see any Martians,’ well, then you and I and everybody else who demanded some evidential accountability are either crazy, evil, or blind. ‘But you must believe,’ the Martiavangelists will tell us. ‘You must have faith!’ And so here we are, gone astray, faithless and damned, sick sinners who’ll never go to Mars after we die. And it just freaks people out. What’s wrong with us? Why do we fight the ‘truth?’ Do we want to go to Pluto when we die, or something? ‘But look,’ we answer, ‘Mars is a dead planet. There are no Martians. What gives you the right to pronounce all this specious crap our natural history when it runs contrary to scientific evidence and to plain sense?’ And what can a Martianist do but smile sadly and sigh and try to get it through our thick skulls…‘Look,’ he’ll say, ‘of course you can’t see any Martians, you silly fool. Martians are invisible! They’re not like you and me, for Phobos’ sake--they’re Martians! And they’re not just on Mars. They’re everywhere, at all times, and they know what we’re thinking; so you’d better get all those nasty unMartian thoughts out of your head right away, boy, or you’re gonna end up a Popsicle on Pluto for sure.’ Eventually you become cynical to the max, and you realize an argument for sanity in Bellevue is just treading water, and that there’s nothing you can say that’ll effectively counter what society’s been blathering for centuries. What I’m trying to say here, Kevin, is that society has done a great job of programming. And it’s super-positive programming. I guess if a white lie brings favorable results then all lying ain’t necessarily a bad thing. But the lie itself, like laws and rules, shouldn’t be exalted. Honest men and women are above all that.

“In other words, my friend, people who ‘believe’ in God are weenies: they’re good pets. Here’s your choice, Fido: There is a God, or there isn’t a God. ‘Believing’ there’s a God is just bursting with bennies. Immortality, redemption for all your sick behavior, being on the ‘right’ side, et cetera. But not having a God means a negation of all the above. Fido likes the taste of the former, therefore there ‘is’ a God. Munch munch. Only a really dumb pet would turn down a goodie like that. So people who ‘believe’ in God are smart and good, and people who don’t are stupid and evil. What could be more obvious?

“But don’t you dare ask the good dog to analyze the goodie! Don’t you ever ask one of these white knights to describe their God, or define Him in any sensible way. They ‘know’, and that’s all there is to it. They’ll stick their fingers in their ears and just start parroting the New Testament if you dare ask them to even consider the preposterousness of what they’re jabbering. A universe that thinks? Man oh man, that’s so asinine it’s downright scary! Thinking, Kevin, is a process; a process that originates in a specific organ, the brain. Like the heart’s an organ for pumping blood, and the lung is an organ for respiration.

“The cosmos can no more think than pump blood or breathe. ‘God’ is a product of the brain, not the other way around.”

“But, Eddie,” Kevin said, “I mean, how do you know? Maybe, just maybe, like…what if the universe can think, after all? What if there’s another way of thinking you don’t know about? Who can say how God’s Head works, or what His whole trip is? Maybe He’s invisible and put together in all kinds of different ways so that He doesn’t need a brain to think. Maybe He doesn’t breathe or have blood or anything like us. I mean, you don’t know, Eddie. No offense, man, but can’t you see how stupid it is to judge God when you don’t know the first thing about Him?”

Eddie shook his head slowly. “You’re right, Kevin. I’m stupid; and again, no offense taken. Yet all the maybes, what ifs, and just supposes you can dream up are only evasions. They’re not answers. But I’ll bite anyway. Fancy away.”

“Huh?”

“I told you what I know, and you deserve your turn. So tell me, Kevin; tell me the first thing about God.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well…what He looks like, for instance.”

“He looks like God, Eddie. He’s real big; I mean really, really big. And He’s all white, with a big white beard, and muscles like Hercules.”

“Pretty impressive Guy,” Eddie said. “So where does He live, Kevin? What’s His address?”

“God doesn’t have an address, Eddie! Now you’re being just plain dumb. God’s everywhere.” He raised his eyes. “Up there.”

But Eddie’s eyes remained firm. “If He’s everywhere, Kevin, why do you say He’s ‘up there?’ Doesn’t everywhere include ‘down here’?”

“Uh-uh,” Kevin said. “The Devil lives down here, underneath us, in Hell.”

“The Bad Place.”

“Real bad. I mean really, really bad.”

“So God’s everywhere but here. God takes up the whole universe, which is infinite, except for this flyspeck in the middle of nowhere. Why can’t God get in here, Kevin?”

“Because the Devil won’t let Him in, Eddie. The Devil’s evil. He hates everybody and everything. But most of all he just hates God to pieces, because God wouldn’t let him wear wings. So when he fell out of Heaven he couldn’t fly and ended up falling and falling and falling until he landed here, where he turned into a snake who lived in an apple tree. Then, after God made Adam and Eve, well, the Devil talked Eve into eating an apple, which sort of made Adam go from holy to horny. And that got God super-pissed. But He was mad at the Devil, Eddie, not at Adam and Eve. That’s ’cause God loves His children, no matter how many apples they eat. So to let Adam and Eve know He still loved them He decided to show ’em it wasn’t cool to be all naked in the garden like that, and told Adam to put on a fig leaf. And ever since then the Devil’s been causing trouble, on account of God outfoxed him with the fig leaf trick. Now the Devil lives down in Hell, and he spends all his time barbecuing people who couldn’t get into Heaven, and trying to figure out trickier ways to get back at God.”

“And you believe that?”

“Well…you gotta admit it makes a whole lot more sense than what you were talking about; what with a whole bunch of little atoms being stuck together and all that. Besides,” Kevin said defensively, “I’m not saying it’s like I believe it all the way. It’s what my Sunday School teacher told me, and I don’t thing they’d hire her just to lie to everybody.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you either, Kevin.”

“Oh heck, I know you wouldn’t, Eddie.”

“So you don’t have to worry about me handing you a line here. I only want you to accept my input because you’re my friend--and because you asked me the question in the first place. You can believe me. I’m giving you the unadulterated upshot.”

“Yeah, but…there you go again, Eddie! It’s that same attitude that gets people all pissed off in the first place. You can’t say your opinion is right and everybody else’s is wrong…and expect anyone’s gonna respect your opinion. ’Cause all you’re saying is you’re so smart and we’re so stupid. It’s like, y’see, you don’t know what it’s all about after you die, Eddie, on accounta you ain’t died yet! Can’t you dig that? So when you say we don’t go to Heaven, or that there’s no ghosts or reincarburetion or any of that stuff, well, it’s like that’s your trip. That’s your thing, and it’s your opinion, and I don’t wanna take it away from you. But you got no better idea than anybody else.”

“I’m sure you’ve noticed,” Eddie said wryly, “that I’m not letting frustration get the better of me. Maybe this is just too simple for clarity, Kevin. Look, I’m not giving you my opinion, okay? Anybody can form any opinion he wants about art, or politics, or food--but not about the physical universe.

“Consciousness exists because we’re alive; it’s not some mystical entity your body plays host to, that just happily flits away after your body dies. It’s part of your metabolism. What’s after life? What’s death like? Ask yourself: ‘what was it like before I was born?’ and you’ll have your answer. You weren’t alive before you were born, and you won’t be alive after you’re dead. Therefore you won’t be conscious after you’re dead.

“It’s like this ‘out-of-body experience’ stuff. You know what I’m rapping about here? You get all these traumatized geeks saying they were at death’s door, see, and then suddenly they’re looking down at their bodies and feeling all toasty-warm and being aware of this white light. This phenomenon is ‘proof’ of a soul or whatever. What seems to elude everybody is the fact that they’re talking about it. They never died! What they went through is a subconscious experience; very much an ‘in-body’ thing. It’s not my ‘opinion’ there’s no God, Kevin; it’s your opinion there is. What’s really happening is the nitty-gritty of nature: all the processes taking place whether consciousness is introduced into the picture or not. The rest is mysticism, animism, wishful thinking. Personification of the elements. It’s all, like, a really profound and touching attempt to take the bare bones of reality and slap on some spiritual meat. But it’s not honest. It’s self-defensive, and deliberately illogical.

“Science, Kevin, isn’t around to try to make anybody believe anything. Everything has to be proven one hundred per cent, over and over again. Science is fact. Religion is fancy. But science is spiritually unpalatable. Swallowing religion is easy, ’cause it feels good to believe things are good. Yet it’s all a bunch of primitive, superstitious bullshit.

“We’ve got to develop spines if we’re ever to get the spiritual side of our thought processes out of the Dark Ages, or some airhead’s gonna start World War Three because his silly ‘god’ told him to. Kevin, I’m convinced mankind’s true evolution will commence when this whole aboriginal God trip is junked! It took guts to accept the fact that Earth isn’t the center of the universe, and it took guts to reason our way through ghosts and black magic and all the other nonsense which used to be the only way we could explain things. People are gonna have to take the humongous step of their own accountability…they’re gonna have to stop thanking gods and blaming devils for their ups and downs, and accept life as the brief phenomenon it really is. Then they’ve gotta see life as all the more precious for its brevity, and build on their assets and overcome their flaws. As long as we’ve got beliefs and prejudices and good guys and bad guys we’re savages!”

Eddie found he was breathing hard: anyone attempting to reason graphically soon finds just how taxing it can be when the second party, while perhaps earnest enough, is still essentially interested in something that SOUNDS GOOD to him, something that portends favorably. It can be as stressful as gridlock. (Expressed with great, with difficult, with heartfelt poignancy: I wonder if our poor dead, oh-so-very human Jesus was just, oh-so-very humanly, indulging, to the point of addiction, in audience manipulation).

! Here’s a simple trick you can try at home !

First, take a handful of twenty-dollar bills, crush ’em into a ball and wrap the ball in a funky old piece of newspaper. Then take a pile of s**t and cover it with the prettiest, fanciest gift wrapping you can find. Now go up to your oh-so-very earnest friend, with specimen one in your left hand and specimen two in your right, and say, “Pick.”

“So-o-o-o,” Eddie continued, after sufficient time had elapsed to make it plain the author had just called the reader an a*****e, “it always comes down to the bottom line. And the bottom line here is…interest. Meaning: what’s in it for you? It’s like the guy who goes ‘searching for the truth’. He’s not concerned with the truth; he wants to satisfy his conscience and his spiritual needs. He wants what he wants. Truth is seven minus four equals three. Truth is a given amount of water will boil at a specific temperature. Truth is photosynthesis. Nobody’ll argue with any of that, but there’re darned few people who’ll be satisfied, because it doesn’t make you feel anything.

“So why should I be an ‘atheist’, Kevin? What’s in it for me? Why in the world would anybody pick ‘atheism’, or want to get old, die, and have that be that? What’s my interest? And the answer is: there isn’t any! I don’t accept what I accept because I like what I accept. I accept what I accept because it just so happens those are the facts, whether I like ’em or not.

“And I don’t like the facts. I wish there was a God, d****t, and I wish I could go to a Paradise after I die. But there isn’t, and I can’t, and that’s just tough f*****g tamales for me. So somebody can swear seven minus four equals five if he wants. That’s his right. But it won’t make him right, and it won’t make seven minus four equals three just an opinion.

“And then all these noble weenies will glorify their illogic by proclaiming, ‘My belief requires a leap of faith’.

“What a load of sanctimonious bullshit! The only ‘requirement’ is that you be a p***y; that you don’t have the balls to be honest with yourself. This so-called ‘leap of faith’ is really just an intellectual belly flop. And it’s the biggest cop-out there is. Because all they’re saying is they know what they’re saying is crap. They know it, Kevin! Every ‘believer’, from the lowliest pew warmer to the Pope, knows there isn’t a God. The f*****g village idiot knows there isn’t a God!

“Look, I don’t want to get upset with people, or interfere with their right to be jackasses, but when I hear somebody braying he believes there really is a God, I mean, as if he’s making an intellectual statement or something, I…I feel like spitting in his filthy fibbing face. And when you get it from all sides; from school, from the press, from your family…all you’re left with is contempt for your species. You know they’ll lie about anything, and they’ll do anything, to serve their self-interest.

“So don’t be surprised when you get burned by the friendliest of strangers, Kevin, and don’t exalt popularity too greatly; all truly honest people are, by definition, misanthropes!

“But…gotta be cool, Eddie. Gotta hang tough. If I lower myself to the level of a ‘believer’ in God--by ‘believing’ my feelings are objective--then I’ve lost my war against my own subjectivity. Truth can be anything I want it to be.

“And so, Kevin, and so I’m going to San Francisco, and I’m going to mingle with people who care more about love and peace and harmony than about self-serving hypocrisy. And if I run into people who spout God crap I’ll know they’re doing it because their motivation is love and peace and harmony, and that their rap’s a device for bringing people together, a stratagem. And I’ll offer those people a toke off my joint. And they’ll wink and smile and we’ll flash each other the peace sign and be on our separate ways together.

“Because I understand, Kevin. Because I understand that ethical values originate with abstract consciousness. The so-called ‘meaning of life’ begins with man’s capacity to overpower his animal drives. It doesn’t start somewhere out in space in some deity, and it doesn’t start in animal nature, and it ain’t got nothin’ to do with reward and punishment. It’s where the baby stands up and walks on his own. And it’s just busting loose now, Kevin, and we’re on our way to meet it!”

Eddie paused, once again breathing hard. The boys stared at one another. Eddie coughed.

Kevin stirred the dirt with a forefinger, feeling the subject wasn’t closed. Like all reactive persons, he was thrown totally out of whack by the notion of an unconscious universe, was just self-centered enough to instinctively dread a system that could proceed without a specific and meaningful role for him.

A mammal saddled with a conscience, he’d been bitten by the Me Bug, and therefore found it incomprehensible that the stream of consciousness that was his could just be diddling along without some transcendent “purpose”. Such persons, however, eventually “mature” when they are bitten by the Us (vs. Them) Bug--that is, once they can no longer feign significance on a personal level.

Snap out of it, people!

You and I are merely energy packets; like all “things” simply slowly dissolving components of the elemental carousel, steadily and unconsciously disseminating the sliver of sunlight this pretty little rock captures, redistributing it as some other organism’s breakfast. Beat the system; opt for cremation. No, no, No, No, NO! This is all a breaking down, not a building up!

Kevin, having ceased stirring the dirt, saw that the resultant spiral was reminiscent of a nebular swirl he’d seen in a science class photograph. Defiantly, he jabbed in two eyes and drew a smile on the swirl. He looked back up.

“And that’s it?” he countered. “You want everybody to just look at everything like it’s some kind of a dumb machine, with no feelings or love or hope?” He spread his arms just as wide as he could, trying to adequately convey the sterility of Eddie’s outlook. “Go ahead and trip around you some time, Eddie. Haven’t you ever seen a rainbow, or tasted good food, or played with a puppy? That’s where you and all the scientist guys are out to lunch. Machines don’t make nice things that make you happy. The world can’t be so beautiful out of dumb luck.”

Eddie clasped his knees in his hands and gently rocked back and forth, staring at nothing.

“Right,” he muttered sourly. “The Great Thinkers’ argument: ‘Only intelligence could devise something so marvelous’. Aw, get f*****g real! Only intelligence could perceive something as marvelous!

“Or, of course, ‘Gaze ye upon yon automobile. Intelligence constructed this contraption, ergo it stands to reason that intelligence constructed the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and everything else that functions’. O priceless sillyjisms!” He looked back at his friend.

“Y’know, Kevin, one thing that really gores me is the way people always say, ‘how can all this just be?’ Well, why the heck shouldn’t things be the way they are? How else could it be? Fish should have feet, maybe? We should all eat with our rear ends? Then they’ll all go: ‘Oooh, look at the pretty sunset! How can you look at that and say there isn’t a God?’ And I’ll go, ‘Nothin’ to it!’ and I’ll look at the sunset and say, ‘There isn’t a God.’ And believe it or not, Kevin, I haven’t been struck by lightning yet, not once. And why shouldn’t a sunset be stirring? It’s a very sensory experience, not an intellectual one. I mean, it’s like your retinae are being bombarded, for Pete’s sake.

“But people always let their senses do their thinking for them, and then associate their feelings with some kind of rationale.

“And, to be honest, scientists don’t help matters either, when they explain something as physically determinate as the processes in nature with words like ‘accident’ and ‘chance’.

“Fido gets stuck with a choice: like, is all this a miracle, or just an accident? Gee, I wonder which one he’s gonna find more appealing?

“And then I guess it’s all only chance that life just happened to appear here, under ideal circumstances, instead of on some hellhole like Mercury. Just good luck on our part.

“They gotta replace all these misleading words with something like inevitable. Anywhere like can appear, it will, eventually.

“Just look at this planet: it’s filthy with life, in every nook and cranny it can possibly cram itself into, until it reaches a place where it’s too cold or too dry for life to be supported. That’s why you can bet your bottom there’s life on other planets, and all over the universe where conditions aren’t too extreme. It won’t be exactly like it is here, ’cause there are no carbon copies in nature, but you can be sure that, whatever it’s like, it’ll fit whatever the planet it’s on is like. And even though their sunsets will be just as pretty as ours, we’ll be ready to fight to the death any smart-a*s who isn’t democratic enough to admit our sunset is the prettiest in the whole damned, ever-lovin’ universe.”

“Um,” Kevin said. He looked up, at the dumb parade of puffy cloud masses seemingly inching across the no-less-lovely field of bottomless blue. There was one clump that looked a whole lot like an angel’s head, sadly staring down on these oh-so mortal proceedings. But the angel began distorting, taffy-like, even as he watched her.

“So there’s no God, no meaning, no beginning…no such thing as time or space. I don’t really even exist; just a lot of ghosts what seem to be me. I’m gonna get old and die, and a bunch of worms are gonna chow down on my corpse. But it’s no big thing, ’cause the worms don’t really exist either. And there’s no good or evil or right or wrong or up or down or in or out. It all comes from some whoremoans; from some relative of some observer, who only thinks he thinks; but even that’s cool, on accounta thought don’t exist neither.” He looked back down. “Thanks for cheering me up, Eddie.”

“No problem,” Eddie said softly. “But you said you wanted to know what’s going on, Kevin; not cheering up. If you want something positive you can still go back to the Bible. That’s what it’s there for. Then you can have your Heaven and your immortality, your heroes and villains, your reward and punishment. The good guys will be vindicated and the heavies will get theirs. Y’see, even though it’s full of agony and passion, the Bible offers a light at the end of the tunnel, and a proposition for good behavior coming out ahead in the long run. People who follow the ethical guidelines will behave better, even if--especially if--they’re of a rotten disposition to begin with. Personally, though, for my daily dose of Western ethical input, I prefer the Adventures of Superboy, although the Lone Ranger can really get my adrenaline going.”

“Are you trying to say the Bible’s a lie, Eddie?”

“Oh no, Kevin,” Eddie said hurriedly, “I’m not saying it’s a lie. It’s a history. And it’s the finest, wisest book I’ve ever come across. Pure poetry. The Lone Ranger isn’t a lie either, but you see, you have to use metaphors and heroization to get people to feel that good behavior is correct. Thanks to the apostles the suffering of common people doesn’t have to be in vain, and thanks to Jay Silverheels we can stop being convinced that Indians are a bunch of bloodthirsty savages.

“All of this is positive propaganda, Kevin. Like our own American history.

“How much patriotism’s gonna be mustered by relating a history of some treasonous foreigners coming over here and ripping off land, using other people as beasts of burden, and aggrandizing it all with a lot of pompous rhetoric about it being the will of your God?

“So you have to paint a pretty picture full of righteous reasons for your actions, and make people believe they’ve got cause to be proud.

“Otherwise they’ll just go on their angry, horny, frightened little ways and we’ll have anarchy all over again. That’s why we’ve got laws and taboos; not to intimidate decent people, but to stop the natural predators from overextending themselves. And God’s really a kind of big invisible policeman; He’s walking a beat along the avenue of your darkest thoughts. Instead of jail, though, you may be looking at Hell without possibility of parole.

“No…you can’t give somebody a single good reason to not give in to his animal appetites, except that if he gets caught there’s a more powerful authority that’ll punish him.

“So there it is. You invent good and bad characters to dramatize your message, and hope you can influence folks positively without resorting to locking ’em up. Or else you try using entertainment as the vehicle for your message, knowing people have attention spans rivaling that of a baboon’s unless they’re focused on something that makes them feel good. It’s like the guy who’s writing this novel, for instance. What’s he doing, Kevin, but playing God by using us to communicate something to an audience that couldn’t care less? He’s the one who’s making you have these seizures. But he’s not doing it just to be mean. You’re a hero, my friend, whether you like it or not, and all your suffering is just to soften you up for your redemption at the end of the story. So don’t you worry about the ‘here’ and ‘now’. You’ll never meet your maker, but salvation’s waiting for you with open arms.”

Kevin looked up sharply. “Huh?” He’d been on the verge of nodding off, hypnotized by the sun’s warmth, the droning of flies, and Eddie’s softly tapering monologue. “What was that you said about suffering scissors in the Salvation Army?”

Eddie grinned. “Caught you nappin’, didn’t I? Now you see why this kind of rap doesn’t get much action. I was just joshin’ you, Kevin. This really isn’t a story, and old Terra couldn’t get much firma.” He patted the ground between them. “And yes, of course there’s a God and a Devil, and a darned good reason for us being here. So pick your opinion. Collect ’em all.” He juxtaposed his crayfish, then scooted them along by brushing at the dirt behind them. “Now, this one’s a Jaguar, and this one’s a Maserati. Vroom, vroom.”

Kevin looked away, just as Mike came shuffling back, hands deep in pockets, avoiding his friends’ eyes. “I guess it’s really none of my business,” he said bitterly, “but do you think you two comrades might be willing to go now?”

Eddie was caught off guard. Mike’s tone implied a real rift in his and Eddie’s friendship, a friendship Eddie had always believed was unshakable. “What do you mean, Mike? Of course it’s your business. We’re ready to go whenever you are. I was just wondering where you were.” He scooped up his crayfish and displayed them with the same enthusiasm he’d shown Kevin. “Look, Mike! Crawdaddies! There’s this old culvert around the bend. I found ’em half--”

Mike swatted them off Eddie’s palm with a vicious swipe.

“I don’t care!” he cried, and stamped on the fleeing creatures. “Don’t act all friendly with me, Eddie! I know just what you and your kiss-a*s buddy are up to!”

Eddie’s honest face went through a gamut of emotions, from gaping astonishment to an impotent rage. He looked down at the smashed crayfish, then back up at Mike with a crestfallen grimace.

Tears were coursing down Mike’s face. “We used to be friends, Eddie! We had good times together, all the time. Everything was just great until this fat f****t showed up.” He looked at Kevin and his face shook with emotion.

“That’s not true, Mike,” Eddie said. “We’re still friends. We’ll always be friends. I don’t know where you got this idea we’re against you. You’re wrong.”

Mike ignored him. He showed Kevin a bony, threatening fist. “I swear to God, Polak,” he said viciously, “sooner or later I’m gonna kill you. I mean it! Don’t you ever turn your back on me or you’re dead!” He kicked Kevin’s felled bicycle, hurt his ankle again, and, after hopping around wailing on one foot, jumped on his own bike and jammed.

Eddie said quickly, “I don’t think we’d better ride together anymore, Kevin.” Without another word he mounted and took off after Mike.

Kevin rose wearily, picked up his bike. He rode well to the rear; feeling awful--filthy and smelly and hungry and tired--but content with the new single-file arrangement. Although he really needed to think things through, his thoughts were aimless and meandering. Trying to think constructively can be as futile as trying to sleep; the very effort causes the mind to revolt, to wander and to peck compulsively at nonsense. All the stimuli--traffic, the glare of sun, his companions, his own exertion--served only to distract his mind from the cogitative process. By far his most substantial mental inclination--the one thing he was really aware of--was his fear. Kevin was scared silly. And not of anything he could identify and grapple with, discern and resolve. He felt himself the helpless victim of some whimsical internal bogey, whose outbursts, in the form of blackouts followed by convulsions, were extremely potent and entirely unpredictable.

Not until the highway had returned to the beaches did the boys begin to ride together again, and approximate their Santa Monica chumminess. The mighty ocean dwarfed their puny differences. The impermanence of their arguments was made plain by time and freedom in plentiful supply. All was forgiven in the exhilaration of being young and full of energy in a familiar world of sand and suntan oil and splashing brown bodies.

Kevin, Mike, and Eddie stopped at the north end of Pismo Beach. Farther up the highway began the sprawling community of San Luis Obispo, their designated halfway point.

The beach was swarming with tanned vacationers in all stages of undress, so packed there was hardly room to walk, much less recline. Footballs and Frisbees described their trajectories smoothly, while sea gulls screeched and fluttered between blankets, fighting for leftover goodies.

“Halfway!” Eddie cried exuberantly. “We’re almost halfway in four days! We oughta make it with time to spare.”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “Now I feel really good, despite everything. We just gots to celebrate. How much grass you got left, Four-eyes?”

Caught up in the moment, Kevin produced his stash gleefully, only to hesitate, wary of the prying eyes of pedestrians. “Still over half a lid. You guys form a screen while I roll one up.” Mike and Eddie stood nonchalantly on either side while Kevin sat and rolled an exceptionally fat celebration doobie. The boys burned it true.

“That was good!” Mike exclaimed. “So good I feel like I could smoke a dozen more.”

“I sure do have the munchies all of a sudden,” Eddie moaned.

Kevin echoed the moan. “I wish you wouldn’t have said that, Eddie. I’m so hungry I could eat a fatcat.” The aroma of barbecuing hamburgers came to him. His stomach growled. A little way down the beach he made out a small bunker-style snack bar. “Over there!”

His friends’ eyes followed his finger. They walked their bikes along the strand until they stood just opposite the little building.

Mike blurted, “Wait a minute!” just as Kevin and Eddie were picking up their bikes. “I wanna smoke another joint first.”

Eddie stared. “You actually have zero self-control?”

“Let me just get a little higher.”

Kevin’s stomach voiced its demands again. He handed the baggie of marijuana and a book of cherry rolling papers to Mike. “Okay then. Go ahead and roll up a couple small ones and watch our bikes for us. What do you want to eat?”

Mike appeared simultaneously confused and affronted; an odd kid. His eyes flashed back at Kevin. “Uh, just get me a hot dog and a coke. I’ll pay you when you get back.”

Kevin and Eddie raced through the crowd, laughing and kicking sand. The lines at the snack bar were way-long. Kevin’s appetite rose incrementally with each slow-a*s customer in the way. For Mike, he ordered a hot dog and a large cola, and for himself a bacon chili cheese dog, French fries with tartar and cream, two slices of double-anchovies pepperoni pizza, cinnamon sand dabs, a lemon-lime turnover, and a large root beer float with Neapolitan. Eddie purchased a double cheeseburger and a pint of milk. With their arms and nostrils thus laden they made their way back. Once they’d devoured their lunches on a strand bench, the boys broke into a delightful belching contest which Kevin won by virtue of his bovine powers of projection. Enormously pleased, he leaned back with his hands on his belly.

“This victory, comrades,” he groaned happily, “calls for another joint of my most excellent herb, don’t you agree?”

“Indubitably,” Eddie giggled.

Acting the part of an awards master of ceremonies, Kevin casually flipped out his palm. “Michael. The reefer please.”

Mike was slow on the uptake for his part. “Er…yeah,” he said. “Here you go, man,” and handed Kevin a rather thin, poorly rolled cigarette.

Kevin fired up the joint, held in the smoke for a long moment, let it out with an exaggerated “Ah-h-h-h…” He smiled angelically, passed the joint to Eddie, closed his eyes and again held out his hand. “Now,” he said, continuing his performance, “the envelope, please.” Mike handed over the baggie wordlessly, just as Eddie was handing back the glowing joint; so for a space Kevin’s mind was distracted. He was taking another deep hit when something compelled him to survey the baggie in his hand. It felt unaccountably lighter.

“Hey!” he said, astounded. “What happened to all my pot?” There was surely more than the equivalence of two joints missing. More like eight or nine.

“What do you mean?” Mike shot back quickly; too quickly. “What are you talking about, man?”

Kevin turned his head to darkly examine Mike’s burning face. “I mean, where’s all my pot?” he spat. “I only see one joint.”

Mike stood. On his palm was another thin and poorly rolled cigarette. “Right here! You said to roll two, and I did!”

Now Kevin stood also, his gray suspicion gelling to black certainty. “Two skinny joints,” he said slowly, “wouldn’t make my stash so much lighter.”

“I--I spilled some,” Mike sputtered. He looked up sharply. “Hey, man,” he snarled, staring into Kevin’s eyes aggressively, “are you trying to say I ripped you off, man? ’Cause you better not be, man. You know I don’t dig that kind of rap, man.”

Eddie broke in quickly. “Come on, you guys. Let’s figure this out cool. Don’t jump to conclusions.”

Both boys ignored him completely. “Yeah?” Kevin said. He tore off his glasses and handed them to Eddie. “Well I don’t dig ripoffs, man. Especially when they’re supposed to be my friends, man. So I’m telling you right now, man, you better hand over my f*****g dope before I lose my f*****g temper!”

Kevin didn’t really believe Mike would ever seriously attempt engaging in fisticuffs a boy as huge as he. The obviously bloody consequences made even entertaining the idea absurd. So he was totally unprepared when Mike reared back and socked him in the eye just as hard as he could. Kevin was so startled that he didn’t at first retaliate, but went down with little Mike on top of him, Mike’s hands alternately kidney-punching and tearing out his hair. With an ursine roar, Kevin threw his massive arms around his opponent in a death-dealing bear hug. But Mike’s wiry body slipped out of the embrace. Mike managed to get behind him, where his tight little bony fists could rain down on Kevin’s ears and cheeks. Blindly reaching back, Kevin was able to grab Mike’s shirt, and, in a burst of blind rage, pull him over his shoulder and onto the ground. Kevin got in two good solid punches to Mike’s ugly little face, and then the smaller boy was scrabbling at Kevin’s eyes with his fingernails. Kevin backed off, still surprised at Mike’s ferocity. He punched him once more in the face, and then Mike was all over him, kicking, biting, and spitting, which was downright dirty fighting. Kevin saw his opening and lunged, got his hands on Mike’s scrawny throat and wrung it like a wet towel. He heard Mike gasping, felt his hot cursing breath in his face. Somehow Mike found the wind for a final lunge, and with all his strength delivered a thrust of the knee squarely into Kevin’s groin. Kevin hissed and drew back, releasing his stranglehold. As he wove to his feet he was seized at each bicep by an intervening bystander. He flung them aside as if they were children and took a step toward Mike, who was just making his feet. The one step was all he could manage before that excruciating pain only males can experience dropped him to his knees. He groaned, toppled over, and curled up his legs. With his hands tucked between his thighs he lay on the verge of vomiting, deaf to the commotion around him. When at last he could get to his hands and knees the crowd had dispersed. Mike offered a hand up, but Kevin refused it with a warning growl.

He slumped on the bench, getting his wind back. One of his eyes was swelling shut, but with his good eye he could see that he’d scored with a number of punches. The bottom half of Mike’s face was red with drying blood, especially around the nostrils, and one of his premolars was missing. Kevin felt drained of heat. As the boys stared steadfastly at one another, panting, that peculiar post-combat truce passed between them. Kevin stuck out his bloodguilty paw. Mike grinned wryly and shook hands.

“Black eye, some bruises, sore balls,” Kevin wheezed. “You?”

“Two teeth, at least,” Mike said. “Almost broke my frigging nose.”

Eddie heaved a sigh. “Whew, that’s better! What came over you guys?”

“Beats me,” Mike said. “I just don’t like being called a ripoff, that’s all. But everything’s cool.”

“Well,” Kevin said, “something happened to my pot. I mean, I trusted you with it.”

“And I said, fatso, that I didn’t rip you off!”

Kevin found he was back on his feet, fists all ready to go. He blinked and realized that, revolution or no revolution, Mike was an enemy to the bitter end. And Mike had ripped him off; it was written on his face.

Eddie was back up between them. “Come on, you guys! I thought you made up. Just drop it, will you?”

Kevin glared at Mike before quietly turning away to find a restroom. Something told him his lunch was about to make a detour.

He was wrong. In the little brick restroom, assailed by standing urine and the ghosts of a thousand bare feet, all he lost was another load of soul. The truth was all over this trip; it was every man for himself. But his heart told him he could still trust little Eddie, who had clearly demonstrated his honesty that dreadful night of the beach party, when a lesser individual would certainly have taken advantage of Kevin’s intoxication by glomming his weed.

His mind made up, Kevin lumbered back to the strand and drew Eddie aside.

“Eddie, I’ll tell you the truth, I don’t trust Mike any farther than I can throw him. I’ve been thinking he might swipe my lid when I’m not looking, or when I’m asleep. We’ve been partners, Eddie, you and me, forever. I know I can trust you. So maybe you can do me a favor and hold onto my pot for me. Okay? Mike won’t ever think you’ve got it, and if he does try to rip me off again he’ll just think I’m all out.”

Eddie looked up nervously. It was a responsibility he didn’t want to bear, and besides, it made him feel like a collaborator. But if it would help keep the peace he would do it. He nodded assent.

“Thanks, Eddie,” Kevin said glowingly.

Eddie nodded again, and no more was said on the matter. When Mike was looking elsewhere, Eddie obediently tucked the contraband into the rolled sleeping bag strapped to his bike’s rack. Eddie’s mood was grave. He was pretty sure the fight had destroyed all chances of his friends reconciling, and was growing wary of speaking to either boy separately.

They set off in gloomy silence. At the outskirts of San Luis Obispo, the highway describes a gentle crescent away from the coast. Presented with an option to more beach, they elected to follow the highway into the heart of town. This was due to a mutual, instinctive feeling of discontent with the sea. Wide open spaces were beginning to make them feel uneasy. They were just boys. What they needed was the funhouse of hell-raising only an unwary city could provide; a fairgrounds of refuse cans to kick over, pedestrians to insult, fire alarms to trigger. This course they followed jubilantly, and less than a mile into the city they were bosom buddies again, and in their wake lay a trail of garbage and outraged citizenry. On Washington Avenue Mike made the mistake of swerving in front of a battered old pickup truck, forcing it to a squealing stop. There were three Spanish-American men in the cab; an old man and his adult sons. The old man shook his fist dramatically out the cab window. “¡Degenerados!” he cried. “You kids should drive more careful!”

“Aw, we’re just kidding around,” Mike said. “So don’t go getting your mariachis all rattled.”

“Es no comico…” the old man responded, struggling. “Is not a funny! ¡Es malo chiste! Es…is…is bad jest!”

“Bad jest?” Eddie said delightedly. “Bad jest?” He screwed up his face into a countenance of burning outrage. “We don’t need no stinking bad jest!”

But Mike came right to the point. “Up your burrito, you old bean f****r!” He spat at the truck, just catching the grille.

The old man threw the truck in reverse. As they took off he backed into a driveway, straightened out, and screeched in hot pursuit. There were two things the boys hadn’t reckoned on. One was that the old man knew this part of town like the back of his hand. The other was that he was a mechanic who took loving care of his old truck, which, despite its battered appearance, tore after them like a lusty rhinoceros. Whether they fled down little alleys or seldom-used side streets, the driver seemed to anticipate their moves, and the truck’s mighty shifting roar was always just at their backs. The boys ran their bikes over a dirt lot pocked with holes two feet deep, up a steep incline, and over railroad tracks. They thought this obstacle course would stop the truck, but it didn’t even slow it. They rode hollering and yelping down the opposite side, over another dirt lot, and into a supermarket’s parking lot.

Kevin, dragging the rear, was terrified. He was way too naïve to know the men in the truck were merely enjoying a game of cat and mouse, and way too disoriented to realize they’d been chased halfway across town. He only knew that his heart was hammering between his ears, and that his second wind was history. He zigzagged recklessly between parked cars as he followed his shouting friends, bruising his shins and elbows on bumpers and side-view mirrors. The truck rapidly lost ground while the boys row-hopped. Kevin saw Eddie frantically sideswipe a shopper attempting to unlock his car while balancing four full shopping bags. Jerking his handlebars to avoid the man, Kevin went careening off the pavement, and was only able to maintain control by running staggeringly while straddling the eunuch-maker. He pitched headfirst into a narrow ditch. Mike and Eddie, already cowering in the ditch, hissed at him to be quiet. Kevin swallowed his pain, immensely relieved to find his panting friends so near.

It was well he kept quiet, for very soon they heard the pickup slowly cruising by. It stopped directly opposite the narrow ditch. Kevin held his breath until his chest felt about to burst, not realizing the lazily revolving front wheel of his bike was sticking up in plain sight. The boys heard laughter and rapid, incomprehensible Spanish, the sound of tabs popping on beer cans. More laughter. The truck’s rear wheels spun for a few seconds. It roared off with a squeal and lurch. The boys poked up their heads in a choking cloud of dust and drizzling gravel.

Eddie was an emotional mess. “Let’s split, you guys!” he cried. “Fast, man, fast! Before they come back!”

“Yeah. Let’s go, Kevin!”

But Kevin was out of it. His mind took him on a delirious rerun of all the Combat shows he’d watched religiously at home. “You guys go on without me,” he croaked, pawing the dirt.

“God damn you!” he heard Mike shout. “You got us into this”--which wasn’t true--“now you get us out of it!”

“Let’s drag him, Mike!”

“You drag him. That fat f****r weighs a ton.”

This cruel exaggeration of his girth drove Kevin to his feet. He was going to kill Mike, right here and now, literally. Exterminate him, erase him, delete him. Pop him like a zit. But, even as he rose, Mike and Eddie mounted and took off. The fight drained right out of Kevin. It was all he could do to keep up.

“Wait!” he cried. “Aw, for the luvva Christ, wait up!”

“Wait, hell!” Mike shot back.

And soon they had reached the far, residential side of town. Their common peril breached the feud. They all kept their eyes peeled for the pickup truck.

“Don’t look now,” Mike hissed suddenly, “but the pigs are following us.”

Eddie jerked his head around, eyes wide. Kevin quickly looked back.

“Jesus!” Mike snapped. “I said don’t look. Eddie! You want ’em to think you got something to hide?”

“I’ll look if I want to.”

“How do you know they’re following us?” Kevin asked. In his mind he could still see the car, still see the lights on the roof, still see the siren. They were so close he could have seen their faces, had he the courage.

“I don’t know,” Mike said testily. “Turn the corner.”

They turned off the main road onto a tree-lined avenue. The police car nosed around the corner like a curious shark. An amplified voice said: “PULL OVER TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.”

“This is it!” Mike cried. The car pulled beside them. Kevin and Eddie stopped and clumsily dismounted, but Mike zoomed to the middle of the road and pedaled frantically to the street’s other side.

Both front doors flew open and the driver sprang out yelling, “Hey! Hold it!” But Mike was dodging back and forth on his bike, as though he expected the officer to take a shot at him. He disappeared behind a gas station on the corner, reappeared hurtling across the main road, vanished again behind a restaurant.

The passenger cop whipped out his nightstick and cornered the boys. “Don’t nobody move,” he said. They cringed in terror.

The driver reached for his radio microphone, thought better of it, and walked around the front of the car to join his partner.

“Hey now,” he said smoothly, “what’s the hurry?” He smiled slyly. “Wouldn’t be surprised if a couple of weirdos like these had warrants out for ’em.”

Kevin and Eddie were mortified. The policemen were like giant, evil Batmen in their black uniforms, their badges catching the sun. The car’s radio crackled.

“Okay,” said the passenger cop, “let’s see some I.D.”

Kevin shakily reached into his hip pocket. All he had in the wallet was his library card and the Free Press clipping…and he still had plenty of cash. A terrible thought struck him: the cops might steal it! Then came an even worse thought: for sure they’d think he stole it.

“C’mon, fat boy,” said the passenger cop. “Give.”

The driver considered these proceedings with a detached amusement. He was older than his partner, more used to this kind of little comedy. “My, my,” he said breezily. “The carnival’s in town.”

But the other cop was tougher. He snatched Kevin’s wallet and indicated with his nightstick that the boy should move up against the car. “Okay, frogface;” he said when Kevin was beside him, “hands apart on the hood, legs spread wide…I said spread ’em!” He looked at Eddie, who was bent in fear, eyes wide and liquid. “All right, now you, gimme your I.D., nice and easylike, and get over next to four-eyes here.”

“It’s…it’s in my sleeping bag,” Eddie said. A look of horror crossed his face: that’s where he’d stashed Kevin’s grass!

The older cop grabbed the seat of Eddie’s bike. “Keep ’em covered,” he said to his friend. He unfastened Eddie’s sleeping bag from the rack.

“No!” Eddie cried. “You can’t do that! You don’t have the right!” His eyes appealed wildly to the other officer.

“You keep your mouth shut, punk.”

Kevin, spread out painfully against the hood like an obese starfish, realized in a heartbeat why Eddie was so terrified. He very carefully turned his head and watched the senior cop unroll Eddie’s sleeping bag on the sidewalk. Eddie’s shirts and private effects rolled nicely on top of the bag. The only article that fell out onto the sidewalk was a half-sealed sandwich bag. The officer picked it up. His eyes gleamed.

“Well, well. And what have we here?”

Eddie croaked out something unintelligible.

“You been asked a question,” said the younger cop.

Eddie shuddered violently. “It’s his!” he wailed, pointing at Kevin. “It’s not mine!”

Both officers looked at Kevin’s gaping face. The driver looked back at Eddie.

“Hmmmn…” he said judicially. “You were riding this bike and assume a responsibility for what you were carrying. I’m sorry, son, but

WE’RE GOING TO HAVE TO ARREST YOU FOR POSSESSION OF MARIJUANA.”

Eddie reeled, gasping for air.

“Move it, kid!” snapped the other cop. “Up against the car next to your girlfriend.” Eddie staggered over to Kevin, copied his position. Quick tears came to his eyes. “This is all your fault,” he whispered.

Now the young cop patted them down, neatly and completely. “They’re clean,” he said. “Okay, move back--away from the car! No funny business.”

Kevin tottered as he stood upright. His shoulders and legs ached from the strain. The senior officer began speaking some code words into the radio’s microphone, words which, Eddie knew, amounted to his death warrant. The cop replaced the microphone and stepped to the back of the car, unlocked the trunk and opened it high. Eddie hung his head as the other officer put the boy’s hands behind his back and cuffed them together. “You and us…” said the cop in a vicious saccharine undertone, “…we’re taking us a little ri-i-i-i-i-de.”

Kevin stared incredulously as the older policeman stuffed wretched little Eddie’s bicycle into the car’s gaping trunk. He was beginning to realize that he, Kevin, was still free--that he was not going to the big house after all.

Eddie was made to sit on the rear seat with his hands locked painfully behind him. Kevin saw Eddie turn and look back miserably, then the officer had returned Kevin’s wallet, shut the rear door, and climbed in front.

The driver leaned on the roof, frowning avuncularly.

“Some advice,” he said. “When you find your buddy, you guys stick to the coast route. Kids who look like you are always getting in trouble in the towns.”

Then the head was gone and the car, amazingly, was being driven away. Barely visible, the back of Eddie’s neck seemed to await a guillotine blade. Kevin shuddered. He was free.

Free!

He looked around, aware for the first time that people, free people, were everywhere; staring out windows, pointing from porches and driveways. An adolescent brother and sister stuck out their tongues and wiggled their fingers behind their ears.

Kevin mounted and rode to the corner, looking for Mike. With a start he realized the cops had never even searched his sleeping bag, and that made him laugh nervously. But when he thought of poor, doomed Eddie a wave of shame swept over him. And how long had it been since he had guaranteed Eddie’s eventual arrival in San Francisco? Was it really only the day before yesterday? And he, Kevin, had been the useless instrument of honest Eddie’s crushing demise. Kevin pounded his fist on the stem of his handlebar until it was raw and bleeding.

He waited for the light to change, then gingerly walked his bike to the back of the restaurant--paranoid, absolutely certain an old lady in one of the phone booths was reporting his every move to a squad of detectives intently positioning pushpins on a grid of the area.

“Mike!” he whispered.

No answer.

So he rode around the restaurant and began calling. Still not finding his companion, he pedaled down the main street, trying to figure which way he would have gone if he were Mike. His search took him down side streets and alleys, and at long last, when the sun was beginning to set, the road he’d been following came to an abrupt end. An infinite highway stretched north and south, and, just beyond, a cliff dropped off into oblivion. Kevin heard the pounding of surf. A single sign poked up next to him and the boy looked at it stupidly.

State Highway 1 said the sign.

All at once Kevin understood he’d been searching in vain, and that the community of San Luis Obispo lay behind him, unfriendly and darkling. He knew in his gut that he had lost Mike, been separated from Eddie, and was, most likely, finally and irrecoverably alone.

He looked north up the lonely stretch of highway. Somewhere, far away at the end of this road, lay the magical, Utopian city of his dreams. Colorful people adorned the happy streets in that enchanted city, flowers in their hair. Dope was free there, the people were free, love was free. Soft young girls walked about in sheer white robes, begging you to do them the favor of accepting their free love.

The boy looked south, toward Santa Monica and home. Big Joe notwithstanding, he’d be safe there. A nice warm bed and his record player were in that direction. And no more toil, he reasoned. S**t, the way it looked he could probably coast all the way. Then, to sweeten the pot, the tender, supplicating vision of the raven-haired girl returned. Kevin licked his dry lips.

An old bus appeared lumbering toward him, the only traffic on the road. Sounds of rock music and laughter, of singing voices. Since it was a warm summer evening, most of the remaining panes were down, and Kevin could see that the bus was crammed full of joyous people with long, unruly hair. As the bus approached, he noticed words sloppily and exuberantly splashed on the side with fluorescent paint. Kevin strained to make out their message: SAN FRANCISCO OR BUST(ed).

Now the bus passed him and a freaky-looking character leaned out a window, flashed Kevin the peace sign with his left hand, waved a joint in his right. The bus continued lumbering up the road, seemingly dwindling in size. The laughter and singing grew fainter. The bus rounded a bend and vanished.

The boy looked down the highway. It was deserted. He looked north, saw the bus appear as a tiny moving toy before vanishing again. He looked behind him, and the road to town was being swallowed by a malevolent shadow. Night was coming fast.

Kevin changed gears and, wearily at first, began pedaling north in the wake of the bus.