Heart to Heart: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (8 page)

He said look, in the beginning, before anyone
had a

name, people had no trouble recognizing or
dealing with one another. One look at a guy and you knew where he
stood in the pecking order, whether he was boring or interesting,
threatening or reassuring, and whether you'd care to dine with him.
But then in order to communicate that attribute to a third person,
you had to be able to refer to the guy, and you did so by his
attribute.

Thus a chief may be referred to as Great One
and a lackey as Kisses Ass, a rebel member as Hates Authority and a
Lothario as Screws All.

See these are purely
utilitarian abstracts of a personality—direct and to the point
and
descriptive
in a way that leaves no doubt as to whom is being referred to
since everyone in the tribe knows everyone else intimately even
before the names are given. It is the knowing that determines what
is given.

So names began as
descriptions of personalities. All of the traditional names in use
today owe their origin to that same idea but lost their directness
when people started giving names to babies, before any definite
attributes of character could be identified. The name given then
became a hopeful attribute or a flattery to some other member of
the tribe. So today we have
Michael
, which is from the Hebrew
for
Who is Like God
, and
Avery,
Germanic for
Courageous,
or how about
Boyd
, Celtic for
Yellow-haired
.

I told Valory that I
really did not give a damn about any of that, I just wondered
why
he
had to
have so damned many names and why couldn't he settle on just
one?

He talked about names as
titles and titles as names, like calling a judge "Your Honor" or a
king "His Majesty"—how in this country we address our political
leader as "Mr. President"—and how those titles remain the same even
though different personalities assume them—how church leaders
assume new identities as they ascend to the papacy. He then
returned to the earlier example and had Kisses Ass topple Great One
and take over the tribe. Should their names remain the same? Or
should they exchange names also, as they exchange roles?

I told him I guessed it
did not really matter, so long as everyone knew who we were talking
about. Then he brought up the question of posterity. Would the
greatgrandchildren of Screws All be able to follow the play of
history if people were forever exchanging names as roles reversed?
Probably not. So instead of exchanging names, it became the vogue
to
change
names.
Thus in the above scenario Kisses Ass topples Great One and becomes
Great One II. He who was Great One becomes Vanquished.

I said okay.

He said, well, names still reflect history,
you know, except now they have lost their directness and have no
bearing on roles in current life. Family names especially simply
reflect a line. A stock broker named Baker should be known as John
the Broker, not John the Baker, a cook named Carpenter should be
Carl the Cook, not Carl the Carpenter.

I told the angel it was just too confusing
and it was giving me a headache. Let's just forget the whole
thing.

He said, well, if I
wished, but I really should not be called Ashton the Ford. He told
me I have noble aspirations, and that in an earlier time those
attributes could have led to a dukedom and I could have become
known as Le Duc d'Malibu.

Ever notice how current
experience can intrude on a dream? I had been thinking earlier,
just before the bout with Hai Tsu, that I was a "sunk duck." I told
Valory, in the dream, "That could be fun. Then my friends could
refer to me as the
Sunk
Duke
."

He chuckled and made some remark about
everything being relative to everything else.

I said, sure, but titles like that just
confused the matter further, and he agreed with me. "Precisely the
point I hoped to make," he said.

It made no point whatever with me at the
time, but I just let it pass.

Valory said, "So you can see the problem we
have on this side."

I said, "Not really."

So he said, "Then come and let me show
you."

We stepped into the
elevator at Pointe House and Valory punched the
down
button. The cage stayed where
it was but we began descending along the shaft. We emerged not on
the beach but into a huge hollow beneath Pointe House. You couldn't
call this thing a cave; it took up the whole interior of the
promontory and maybe even extended beyond—I couldn't see the end of
it, just tier after tier and row upon row of greatly sophisticated
hi-tech equipment. Looked like a mammoth Mission Control center
with consoles and monitors, each monitor displaying a different
scene or view, and each console manned by a uniformed figure who
seemed very intent on the activities in his monitor.

I asked, "Are we launching Pointe
House?"

Valory just smiled and we kept moving along
a row of

consoles until I began to get the drift of
this thing. It was like they were playing video tapes at those
consoles, except I couldn't see any tape, just the array of
controls at each console and the "movie" on the monitor.

But these were not movies.

Armies were clashing on those screens, men
dying and women weeping in some strange overlay of scene upon scene
in multiple superimpositions—like seeing an action while at the
same time seeing all the fine ramifications of the action in the
one view at the one time—occasional zoom-in close-ups of a
frightened child or a dying man—but it was not all grim like that.
There were other "movies" of happier scenes, triumphant scenes,
birthings and birthday parties and graduations, wedding scenes,
all that. There were even very boring studies of men and women at
work and at play, of lovers and dentists and athletes and all the
things that go to make a human world.

I was beginning to understand.

I said to Valory, "This is the story of
mankind."

Valory said to me, "Of all the mankinds.
Past, present, and future of all the worlds. But not the
story...the record."

I asked, "How do you record the future?"

He enigmatically explained, "The same as we
record the present."

I said, "But if it hasn't happened
yet..."

He said, "Who says it hasn't happened
yet?"

I said, "Well if it's the future..."

He laughed and told me, "It is future there.
But all is now here."

I thought about that for a moment, then
said, "The past is now?"

"Sure."

"Then what is immortality?"

"Immortality is now."

"I thought it was forever."

"That too, Ashton. But forever is also
now."

I was getting my headache again. I asked
Valory, "What the hell does this have to do with names and
naming?"

He replied, "To show you
that there is no now."

I said, "Aw come on! You just said..."

He said, "All is process.
The names record the process. See why we have such trouble with
names? You are Ashton this time but you were Wolfgang another time
and Eric still another, what is in the
name
Ashton, but an echo and an
omen?"

Then he brought me before the Eight
Immortals, and they were the Magi—and before I awoke, they showed
me miracles and taught me that death is but another name for life.
Each is an echo; each is an omen.

Chapter Ten: Nomenclature

You may be asking what is
the big deal over names and naming. I was asking myself the same
question as I put on fresh clothing from the magic closet and went
down to dinner. But I quickly forgot all that the moment I got
downstairs, because downstairs presented me with another array of
questions.

Cocktails were being
served in a lounge area just off the dining room. It was a large
room and beautifully decorated with objets d'art and masterpieces
to dignify any museum of fine art. Someone was playing beautifully
on a concert grand in a corner of the room and several people were
standing around it. Two nearly identical copies of Hai Tsu were
moving about in quiet joy, attending to the needs of the moment.
One of them greeted me with a Scotch on the rocks. I accepted it
with the comment "How'd you know?"—but she just smiled sweetly and
went on to dispense to other guests' particular tastes without
inquiring first.

I spotted Francesca in the
group at the piano, so wandered on over remembering what she'd
said earlier about a bite in her studio as she turned me down for
dinner. All these folks were dressed in casual evening attire, no
tuxes or ball gowns, but decidedly dressed up just a bit—Francesca
quite a bit, in contrast to jeans and smock and bare feet. She wore
a white sheath between knees and décolle- tage, high-heel pumps,
sparkling earrings and necklace, hair upswept with flowers in it;
looked downright edible.

I told her that, and she responded with a
cold gaze and an aloof manner as she inquired, "Does that mean
you're hungry or horny?"

I soberly replied, "Well, definitely not
horny. Is this place heaven or hell? What's going on here?"

She said, still a bit haughty, "Heaven and
hell both are mere states of mind, Ashton. I take it that Hai Tsu
attended you well."

I said, "That's one way of putting it. How'd
you know about that? Does she bathe and tell?"

Francesca was thawing. Her
eyes sparkled a bit as she replied, "Very little escapes me
here."

I sparkled back as I said, "Not even
me."

She said, "Especially you, love."

Then she began introducing
me to the others, given names only, and I remembered the dream on
names and began tying attributes to the names given. On the male
side there were John the Ascetic, Hilary the Fanatic, Pierre the
Lunatic, and Karl the Magnificent; the females were Rosary the
Devout and Catherine the Impudent. I was not introduced to the guy
at the piano and could not see him very well behind the music stand
although there was no music on it.

John was a logician, Hilary a priest, Pierre
a chemist, Karl an engineer, Rosary a nun, and Catherine a whore—
or so she said.

All seemed a trifle nutty, or perhaps just
mysteriously shy. Whatever, they were good company and we were all
laughing and talking together as we went in to dinner. A
good-looking bunch for sure, all of them; prime of life,
intelligent, witty. It turns out that they all live at Pointe
House, and apparently have done so for quite some time.

John the Ascetic posed a
trick syllogism over appetizers: "Major premise, all fire engines
are red; minor premise, Russians are reds; therefore...
?"

Pierre the Lunatic flared his eyes as he
declared, "The major premise is flawed. Not all fire engines are
red."

"Used to be," insisted John. "So backdate
the conclusion."

Karl the Magnificent guffawed and decided,
"Therefore all firemen are communists."

"Excellent reasoning," congratulated Hilary
the Fanatic.

"Not all communists are firemen!" squealed
Catherine the Impudent, for another conclusion.

"Bravo!" said Hilary, applauding.

But John frowned and said,
"No, no; that won't do. You must reason from the major to the minor
to produce the conclusion."

Catherine screwed her face
up and burst forth with another gleeful try: "All reds are great
in bed!"

"No, no," John protested. "You don't have
the right—"

"I like the way she does it," Hilary
protested.

'Try it on your noble
divinities, then," John suggested. "Major, All is God; minor, God
is Love; therefore...?"

"All is love," said Hilary quickly.

"Oh no, no no—you have to do it Catherine's
way," John insisted.

She said brightly, "God is
great in bed?'

"Jesus Christ!" said the priest.

"Him, too?" the whore asked, hopeful.

"I think I am going to throw up," said
Rosary the Nun.

See? This is the cast of
characters at Pointe House. The piano player did not come in to
dinner, so I presumed that he was one of the shadow people like Hai
Tsu and her helpers.

It was a most revealing
dinner. We had escargot and artichokes, then vichyssoise and tough
bread, later squab and mint jelly and something I was
told
was lamb fetus and
fresh raw garden vegetables; after that sherbets and spumone and
cannoli, then brandy and coffee—altogether a total debauchery of
the taste buds and distender of intestinal boundaries. But the
revelations came from the diners themselves. It was, as I said, a
nutty bunch—but they were having fun, and I tumbled to the fact
very quickly that these were brilliant personalities, one and
all.

The piano player came in
after dessert. He had brandy and a cigar with us. I learned later
that he never ate with the others, but he was the most brilliant of
all. He held me spellbound for twenty minutes while discussing the
nature of nature with the chemist and the engineer, all the while
playing at syllogisms with the logician and naughty repartee with
the whore.

His name was Valentinius...or whatever. His
friends just called him Val—and that was good enough for me
too.

But I suspected that he was really St.
Germain. And I was beginning to understand Valory's problems with
names.