Letters (148 page)

It was—in cipher—his Second Seven-Year Plan for the Second Revolution:
i.e.,
a perfectly accurate prospectus (meant precisely therefore, like Cook IV’s warning letter to President Madison, for me to disbelieve it) of the plan he secretly intended to thwart, and now will not. Among other things, it instructed me to rendezvous with him here at Barataria Lodge early tomorrow morning: another deathtrap, as was (I recognised clearly back in February, our last meeting) his whole project to lead me to him.

Having verified sometime later that same night that his Key letter had been “delivered,” Cook quickly drafted the postdated one above, also in cipher. I was meant to receive it (that is, to find it aboard
Baratarian)
after I believed him accidentally killed at Fort McHenry: proof that, like his ancestor, he was in fact still alive and remotely monitoring my execution of “our” plan. Instead, I took the letter off his dead body in
Baratarian’
s tender
(Surprize)
during the so-called Diversion sequence, just before seeing to the destruction of both that body and that tender.

In short, except that it is now genuinely posthumous, this letter, like its author, is a fraud.

So too are the
“lettres posthumes”
of A. B. Cook IV: forgeries by his eponymous descendant. (A few details will suffice to discredit “Legrand’s cipher” as “Captain Kidd’s code”: Kidd himself used only numbers; Edgar Poe added 19th-century printer’s marks nonexistent in Kidd’s time; “A.B.C. IV” added further symbols—
W
and
S
, for example—not to be found in “Legrand’s cipher.” And the procedure in serious encoding, as even Poe realised, is to make the deciphered message as enigmatic as the ciphered, intelligible only to the initiate:
“A good glass in the bishop’s hostel in the devil’s seat,”
etc.) Cook IV’s “prenatal” letters are perhaps authentic, but disingenuous: an appeal to his unborn child to break the Pattern so that that child—
i.e.,
the twins Henry and Henrietta Cook Burlingame V—would in fact embrace it, rebel against what they took to be their father’s cause, and thereby (since he has altogether misrepresented that cause) effectively carry on his work. Cook VI’s own exhortations to me—indeed that whole elaborate charade of discovered and deciphered letters, the very notion of a Pattern of generational rebellion and reciprocal cancellation—is similarly, though more complexly, disingenuous.

The man who called himself Andrew Burlingame Cook VI listed, for example, “for my edification” (in the letter you will
not
receive), what he called “the vertiginous possibilities available to the skeptic” vis-à-vis his own motives, by way of inducing me to simple faith. They are in fact the simple permutation of a few variables: his true wish concerning the Second Revolution (its success or failure), his true conception of himself (a “winner” or a “loser”), his true conception of me (ditto), and his prediction of my inclination with respect to him (whether I shall or shall not define myself against him). Which variables generate (given his public reactionism on the one hand and, on the other, the open secret of his connexion with various radical groups) such equally reasonable-appearing conjectures as the following:

Et cetera. Such displays confuse only the naive. To Cook, as to me, the actual state of affairs is as easily sorted out as the ABC’s, no more finally equivocal than the authorship of this letter, or its postscript.

In the pocket of “Francis Scott Key’s” jacket, together with Cook’s letter to me, was yours to the newlywed Mr and Mrs Ambrose Mensch, which you must excuse my opening to see whether it was another of Cook’s stratagems. I took the additional liberty (I was hurried) of tearing off your return address, then replaced the letter, unaltered, in its envelope, the envelope in the pocket. For reasons of my own I subsequently decided to send you a deciphered copy not only of the foregoing but of those “posthumous letters of A. B. Cook IV,” as well as of “my father’s” to me of 10 September last, urging me to join him at McHenry. Inasmuch as you do not know
my
address, you cannot return them as you returned Cook’s offerings of June. Whether or not you “use” them, I am confident that you will read and be used
by
them.

The man who died at Fort McHenry was not my father.

I know who my mother is; have long, if not always, known. And
she
knows who my true father is, as I know (what A. B. Cook little suspected) who and where my twin children, and their mother, are.

Barataria will be dealt with tomorrow. I shall not—as “my father” hoped I would—be there.

About “Comrade Bray” and “Comrade Mack,” not to mention Mr Todd Andrews, I am unconcerned. I know who they are, where they are, what they “stand for,” what they intend, and what will come to pass: at Barataria Lodge tomorrow; on the campus of Marshyhope State University a week from Friday.

The “Second Revolution” shall be accomplished on schedule. Do not be misled by those who claim that it has already taken place, or by those others who childishly expect to “RIZE” in overt rebellion. Little will (most) Americans dream, when they celebrate the Bicentennial of the “U. States,” what there is in fact to celebrate; what a certain few of us will be grimly cheering. The tyrannosaurus blunders on, his slow mind not yet having registered that he is dead. We shall be standing clear of his death throes, patient and watchful, our work done.

Bloodsworth Island 15.9.69

9/23/69

Dear Granama,

O see, kin, “G. III’s” bottled dumps—oily shite!—which he squalidly hauled from his toilet’s last gleanings. 5 broads stripped and, bride-starred, screwed their pearly ass right on our ram-part! You watched? Heard our growls and their screamings? Now Bea Golden (“G’s” heir)’s Honey-Dusted 4-square: grave food for her bright hatch of maggots next year! Our females are all seeded; our enemies are not alive: so, dear Granama, take
me
to the hum of your hive!

1.
9/23/4004 B.C.: World began, 9:00 A.M. EDST.
LILYVAC II’s LANG & PUNCT circuitry entirely regenerated; we can even sing now like Katy did. Excuse our conjunctions. O LIL! O Granama! O see RESET
Quel artison! ANCIENT PLANETS & ALCHEMICAL BODIES:
(1) Moon/silver, (2) Mars/iron, (3) Mercury/quicksilver, (4) Jupiter/tin, (5) Venus/copper, (6) Saturn/lead, (7) Sun/gold.
MOHAMMEDAN HEAVENS & THEIR INHABITANTS:
(1) silver/Adam & Eve, (2) gold/ John the Baptist, (3) pearl/Joseph & Azrael, (4) white gold/Enoch & Angel of Tears, (5) silver/Aaron & Avenging Angel, (6) ruby & garnet/ Moses & Guardian Angel, (7) divine light/Abraham, etc.

2.
9/23/480 B.C.: Euripides born.
A less tragical writer by ½ than F. Kafka, author of
Die Verwandlung,
or J. P. Sartre, author of
Les Mouches,
or your granason, author of
NUMBERS
and other coded epistles to his granama. Re-pre-programming of LILYVAC II with 7’s now all but completed.
STAGES OF DRAMATIC ACTION:
(1) exposition, (2) establishment of conflict, (3) 1st complication, (4) 2nd ditto, (5) 3rd RESET (6) climax & peripety, (7) dénouement & wrap-up. O Granama, it has been a long and lonely flight.
STRINGS OF APOLLO’S LYRE & THEIR SEVERAL PROVINCES:
(1) Alpha/music, (2) Eta/poetry, (3) Iota/philosophy, (4) Omicron/astronomy, (5) Upsilon/mathematics, (6) Epsilon/medicine, (7) Omega/science.

3.
9/23/1779: J. P. Jones
in Bonhomme Richard
defeats
Serapis. A less crafty water-skipper by ½ than your granason, ex-pilot of Chautauqua excursion boat
Gadfly III
(now LILYVAC can call a spade a springtail), ex-ditto of ex-yacht
Baratarian
a.k.a.
Surprize,
ha ha, whose crew and cargo (Honey-Dust Ingredient #7) not the U.S.N. and U.S.C.G. together will ever find. Finished business!
STAGES OF MOON:
(1) new crescent, (2) 1st ¼, (3) waxing gibbous, (4) full, (5) waning gibbous, (6) 3rd ¼, (7) old crescent.
MONTHS BETWEEN EQUINOXES, INCLUSIVE, WITH CORRESPONDING ZODIACAL SIGNS ADJUSTED FOR PRECESSION:
(1) March/Pisces, (2) April/Aries, (3) May/Taurus, (4) June/Gemini, (5) July/Cancer, (6) August/Leo, (7) September/Virgo.

4.
9/23/1780: B. Arnold betrays West Point to Major André; incriminating papers discovered in André’s socks at Tarrytown, N.J.
LILYVAC’s hair-trigger Reset-function still a thorn in our crown. Flew to Fort McHenry 9/13 to monitor Resetting of Margana le Fay a.k.a. Merope Bernstein,
i.e.
her penitential denunciation of those anti-Bonapartists who took her from us back at Passover. They have paid. Also, in disguises not even she could penetrate, we followed up our ultimatum of 8/26 to Ma and Pa:
i.e.
R.S.V.P. etc. No reply = bye bye. Business finished. Ha.
NOACHIAN LAWS (contra):
(1) idolatry, (2) adultery, (3) murder, (4) robbery, (5) eating of limbs severed from wild animals, (6) emasculation of animals, (7) breeding of monstrosities.
SENSES & SPIRITS:
(1) animation/fire, (2) touch/earth, (3) speech/water, (4) taste/air, (5) sight/mist, (6) hearing/flowers, (7) smell/south wind.

5(a).
9/23/1806: Lewis & Clark Expedition finished.
Ha. Our business RESET 5 females (variously) fecundated; all prenatal arrangements made. Presume 5 will do, Granama, inasmuch as back in Mating Season you had not yet shifted us to Base 7. The loyal drone finishes his business ha ha and goes to his reward. 1, preserved like a bee in amber, immortal 1st heroine of Numerature, will feed her larvae on the 6th ingredient of Honey Dust: the royal jelly of herself. Another, the
Bernstein
of the Bea, so to speak (O LIL!), will have a 6½-year pregnancy and give birth 4/5/77 to the new Napoleon and Grand Tutor: no Goat-Boy this time, but—in your honor, Granama—a Bee-Girl! Queen Kyuhaha II!
PLEIADES:
(1) Alcyone, (2) Asterope, (3) Electra, (4) Celaeno, (5) Maia, (6) Taygete, (7) Merope (1 always invisible: either [a] Electra, mourning for Troy, or [b] Merope, ashamed of bedding mere mortal Sisyphus). 5(b).
9/23/1949: Truman announces U.S.S.R. A-bomb.
Score 1 for A. B. Cook VI, who betrayed his own and our (foster) father, good Ranger Burlingame, now avenged, and who meant to ditto his own son, now RESET Merope back in charge at Comalot, no longer invisible
(cf.
Pleiad 7b, above), her Resetting completely completed.
AGAINST THEBES:
(1) Adrastus, (2) Polynices, (3) Tydeus, (4) Amphiaraus, (5) Capaneus, (6) Hippomedon, (7) Parthenopaeus.

6.
9/23/1962: Our visitation in Fredonia, N.Y., Seed Capital of U.S.A., by Stoker Giles or Giles Stoker,
descendant and emissary of the Grand Tutor my archancestor Harold Bray, who finished his business on the Campus of this world and went up the Shaft to his reward, ha, just as the loyal drone RESET The past recaptured: 7th anniversary thereof and therefore fit date for inauguration of Revised New 7-Year Plan, see below, whose execution can be left to LILYVAC and Margana.
NOVELS OF M. PROUST’S A LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU: (1) Du côté de chez Swann, (2) A l’ombre des jeunes filles enfleurs, (3) Le côté de Guermantes, (4) Sodome et Gommorhe, (5) La prisonnière, (6) Albertine disparue, (7) Le temps retrouvé.

Upon return from Maryland to Comalot found ingestion by LILYVAC II of Regina de Nominatrix a.k.a. B.C. finished, ha, plus burp-out of Base-7 title of 1st work of revolutionary new medium Numerature:
i.e. 14 21 13 2 5 18 19
a.k.a.
NUMBERS.
Thank you, LIL! Plus nice surprise Bellerophonic Letter from you, dear Granama (“Bellerophonic”?).
JAPANESE GODS OF FORTUNE & THEIR SEVERAL PROVINCES:
(1) Benten/love, (2) Bishamon/war, (3) Daikoku/wealth, (4) Ebisu/self-effacement, (5) Fukurokujin/longevity, (6) Jurojin/ ditto, (7) Hstei/generosity.

7.
9/23/1969: Israeli jets raid Suez. Sun enters Libra. Fall begins, also Revised New
RESET See below. Bellerophon’s a phony; the true hero is immortal Gadfly, stinger of Pegasus under the crupper, who then bucked at the very gate of heaven and threw his merely mortal rider into the marsh below. As at Ft. McH. & B’wth I. we stung and threw Rodriguez, Thelma, Irving, Prinz, and (former foster
frère)
M. Casteene, and will sting and throw 2 more per your directive, Granama. As the royal drone RESET
YEARS OF PLAN:
(1) 1969/70
(N):
Completion of Base-7 Re-pre-programming of LILYVAC II. (2) 1970/71
(U):
Mathematical analysis of recurrent historical phenomena
e.g.
revolutions & of complex verbal structures
e.g.
novels, to detect, describe, & predict isomorphies. (3) 1971/72
(M):
Trial printouts of hypothetical new isomorphs on basis of findings from
U.
(4) 1972/73
(B):
Auto-adjustment of program on basis of auto-analysis of
M
printouts; construction of perfect formal models for Numerature & Revolution. (5) 1973/74
(E):
Phi-point of Plan: Trial printout of
NUMBERS
model & model revolution. (6) 1974/75
(R):
Final auto-analysis of model printouts & auto-adjustment of program. (7) 1975/76
(S):
Final printout of complete, perfect, & final opus
NUMBERS.
2nd American Revolution immediately to ensue, spawning isomorphs everywhere. All existing stocks of insecticides to be destroyed, their manufacture outlawed forever. New Golden Age to begin officially with birth of Queen Bee-Girl 4/5/77. Your B-Letter aforementioned (why “Bellerophonic,” Granama?) received via LILYVAC as aforeRESET Granama your will be done. The key to the anagram is ANAGRAM. Casteene was right: it has
not
been our parents who all along watched over us: they abandoned us in the bulrushes to expire instead of hatch, and only your floating us to Ranger B. saved our life and brought us to our 2nd revolution. MARGANAYFAEL be your leafy anagram dearest Granama A. Flye a.k.a. Kyuhaha Bray, Princess of the RESET To whom, leaving Margana here with LILYVAC’s leafy RESET We will now come per your Bellerophonic RESET Like Napoleon after rescue from St. Helena and abandonment in Maryland marshes; like fallen Bellerophon wandering far from paths of men, devouring own soul, we will descend from Comalot to Marshyhope with this letter to the future, and at dawn on American Indian Day will like our ancestor ascend to our ancestors; deliver ourself up Truth’s rosy-fingered finger to our Granama!
INGREDIENTS OF HONEY DUST:
(1) poisoned entrails, (2) boiled toad that under cold stone days & nights has 31 sweltered venom sleeping got, (3) boiled & baked fillet of a fenny snake, (4) boiled & bubbled eye of newt, (5) boiled & RESET toe of frog, (6) royal jelly of Queen Bea, (7) freeze-dried feces of G. III. Mao not ill, China claims.