The Children of Hamelin (44 page)

But Cool could also be a cold steel cutting edge if you needed it. And I had it now; I had it
all
now.
The Path to Consciousness,
oh, yes, it was that all right! A weapon. The ultimate doomsday machine for the Foundation for Total Consciousness. The vote tomorrow night...

My god, it was all set up for me: Harvey thought he had me; I had the book. All I had to do was go home and find the sickest slimiest parts of the book and read them at the meeting. I’d blow everyone’s mind. Ted and Doris... Arlene... Yeah, I had the weapon that would make Arlene mine and wreck the Foundation...

“Well?” said Bruce.

He suddenly snapped me back to Dirk Robinson reality; I realized that I had closed the binder and was staring off into space.

“Well,” said Bruce, “has this cat really discovered the Secret of the Universe?”

I laughed from way deep down and said: “Ah, you were right, man. Another nut thinks he’s written the Bible.”

Under my arm as I climbed the stairs to the Foundation on Thursday night was
The Path to Consciousness
in the proverbial plain brown wrapper (kind of bag you use to line your garbage can). I hadn’t the time or the stomach to read the thing word-for-word (which hadn’t stopped me from writing the usual four-page fee letter this afternoon), but having given it the professional Dirk Robinson once over, I knew what was in it and where the worst muck was, and I had slips of paper marking the choicer freak-outs.

I hadn’t found out till I took it home Wednesday night that some of the worst stuff was in the last chapter, TOTAL CONSCIOUSNESS VERSUS SOCIETY, wherein Gautama Brustein somehow managed the dialectical broadjump from his sucking at the teats of various death-gods to a brand of fascism so grotty it would’ve made Adolph Hitler puke. Near as I could make out (Harvey started to gibber a little in the last chapter), after he and the Foundation had devoured their own egos and become mindless cells of the Foundation ant-hill organism, other Foundation-things would be formed by converts who had read the book, until the whole human race consisted of nothing but these Consciousness-Communes (as he called them somewhere), and then the Harvey-Glob would proceed to gobble up the other Globs, until there was nothing left but one world-wide Thing, at which point Time, being an ego-construct, would cease to exist and the Uber-Glob would spend a timeless moment of eternity doing something nameless and incoherent which came out sounding very much like fucking itself.

Not that Harvey wanted to rule the world; all he wanted to do was eat the human race and become God.

Verily, it took a veteran Dirk Robinson fee-reader to understand how a cat who seemed to have all the fade-into-the-woodwork cool in the world could sit down at a typewriter and produce such an epic of insanity in the firm belief that it would convert the world. The Mad Dentist and assorted other fee-freaks were no different—except that the Mad Dentist filled teeth in real life while Harvey’s straight job was fucking minds. Not really schizophrenia, but the ability to erect a mask over gibbering madness—they were just sane enough to realize that they’d be candidates for the funny farm if they talked like the things they were. But somehow a typewriter and a ream of blank paper became an invitation to puke it all out, and once it was written, the very magic of The Word on paper convinced the Mad Dentists of the world that the world Had To Have The Truth...

When of course what the world would do was puke. Ted, Doris, Arlene, even the worst Foundation-freaks like Linda Kahn, would have their minds scoured out when I read them choice selections from old Harv’s magnum opus. The book he had written to convert the world would be instant turn-off to anyone who knew what was in it, even the marks he already had. Maybe
especially
the marks he already had, who couldn’t help but puke at the true face of the thing they had worshipped.

Yeah, in an aesthetic way, Harvey’s submitting the book to Dirk Robinson wasn’t chance, it was inevitable. The Dirk Robinson fee-desk wasn’t the cesspool of the universe for nothing, after all...

By the time I got to the old Foundation living room, it was already jammed. I could see Ted, Doris and Arlene sitting on the floor up front. Harvey was just sitting down on his little throne, and the animals were as quiet as a congregation in a cathedral, waiting for the Cardinal to speak. It suddenly seemed very eerie to have all those people sprawled on the floor at the foot of the dais—I became conscious of the yawning emptiness of the room above floor-level, as if the Void were hovering above them all, waiting to descend.

I didn’t try to squeeze up front to where Ted, Doris and Arlene were sitting, or even let them know I was there. Instead, I found myself a shadow in the far rear corner of the room, stepped into it, and proceeded to lurk.

Harvey lit a cigarette, waved it around like a censer; I imagined the congregation eagerly sucking up the carcinogenic incense. “Well now,” Harvey said, “we all know what this meeting is about.” Silence filled the room like a physical presence; so far the Great Trek to San Francisco had been a word-game, but now it was whooshing like a runaway freight-train toward reality and you could taste the second thoughts. I had to play it right, had to ride the wave of doubt and catch it just at the moment it poised to crest...

“We’re going to vote on moving to San Francisco in a few minutes,” Harvey said. “But first I’d like you to understand the mechanics of such a move, if we make it. I’d fly out to the Coast immediately to look for a house for the Foundation. I’d hope that at least a dozen of you would be able to go out no more than two or three weeks later as a kind of advance guard to help me set things up, find apartments and jobs, so that when the bulk of you arrive more or less at your leisure, you’ll have jobs and apartments and a functioning Foundation ready for you.”

The whole room seemed to take a deep breath. Harvey had moved them a long way towards acceptance: talking like a vote was a foregone conclusion, a mere formality (which, not knowing what I was going to spring, he must’ve been sure it was) and telling them they’d just have to get there and their womb would be waiting for them. I took
The Path to Consciousness
out of its garbage bag—I had missed the crest of the wave; I needed some kind of opening fast.

“Come on, come on,” Ted shouted up front. “Let’s vote already!” General silence. Shit, I had to find some way of sneaking the book in before they voted! And I couldn’t just start yelling—they’d shout me down. I had to sneak up on their head, real cool-like.
Had
to have an opening...

“Take it easy, Ted,” Harvey said. “Before we vote, I think we should see if anyone has anything further to say...”

The hole opened up in the line, courtesy of Harvey himself, but I didn’t bull my way through, I played it real cool, raised my hand, waiting for Harvey himself to call on me.

“Yes Tom?” Harvey said with a barely-concealed smile. I could read what he was thinking: he knew that the suckers expected a pie in the face from me, he knew that I had been converted, he knew that I would now be a pussycat, and he knew that this sudden reversal would be the capper he needed.

So I played his game, smiled innocently, led him up the primrose path.

“You all know what I’ve been saying about Harvey and the Foundation and moving to San Francisco,” I said in a humble, contrite voice. “Well, since the last meeting, I’ve had a few revelations...”

I paused and let the moment hang as everyone craned their necks around to rubberneck at the new, humble, converted Tom Hollander. Harvey was smiling at me—he thought he knew what was coming and why. Arlene’s eyes lit up—she probably was sure I had decided to go to San Francisco for her sake. Ted looked smugly paternal. No one else seemed to know what was coming off. I had to do this just right or I wouldn’t get to do it at all...

“Yeah,” I finally said, “since last meeting, my girl told me it was San Francisco or splitsville, my friend Ted tried to talk some sense into me, I’ve had a terrible acid bummer and a very interesting private session with Harvey...”

I paused again and made a kind of bookcover out of the brown paper bag, hid the gray binder of Harvey’s book behind it. Harvey was flashing the biggest public smile I had ever seen on him; a lot of the Foundation-freaks like Linda and Ida were nodding, smug and tight-lipped, sure that the chief heathen was about to announce his conversion. So far, so good—I had to con them along long enough to be allowed to read from the book; I couldn’t let Harvey realize what was coming till it was too late.

“And something else,” I said. “I just happened to come across a groovy book which seems to have some relevant things to say to us, as we’re about to vote to undertake a kind of great adventure... I guess when an idea’s time has come, it crops up in all kinds of places at once. So for the benefit of any doubters that may still be left, I’d like to read a few passages from this book...”

A mutter went through the room. I had delivered the whole thing deadpan, but I suppose the idea of listening to me read from some book seemed awfully weird to most of them. What the fuck is the lunatic doing now? seemed to be the general expression. But Harvey nodded clerically, still smiling, sure in the knowledge that whatever I thought I was doing now, I was on his side.

Still keeping the book hidden behind the paper bag, I opened it to the first passage I had marked and began to read: “...Down through the ages, mystics who have achieved a greater degree of consciousness than their fellows... have been feared and reviled and persecuted, or worse, ignored...”

Linda and Rich and the rest of the shitheads seemed about to yawn. But old Harv really reacted—his jaw started to flap open; then he caught himself. But he knew! I had to con him along. I gave him a near-subliminal wink and quickly said: “Yeah, I read that, and suddenly I saw myself right in there with the fearers and the doubters. I started to
really
think...”

Harvey’s face relaxed into a nervous smile. Nervous because where the hell did I get his book; smile because he was sure
The Path to Consciousness
was pure unadulterated self-evident Truth, and besides I had been converted even before I had read it. That was Harvey’s blind spot and it was a mile wide: he couldn’t see that
The Path to Consciousness
was a piece of gibbering insanity; to him it was Cosmic Truth.

“The guy that wrote this book really understands where consciousness is at,” I said. “Dig... Consciousness is the ego looking at itself and proclaiming “I am therefore I am”...Consciousness is the interface between the mind and time...”

Ah, I was getting weird looks now. Half the freaks seemed to be thinking “That sounds just like Harvey.” The other half seemed to think it sounded like meaningless bullshit. Interesting philosophical questions: which faction was stupider? Harvey, though, seemed really relaxed now; after all, I was reading from a Great Book, making him look good from either end.

“You dig?” I said. “Great minds move in the same paths, right? Guy that wrote this book says so himself: ‘... I am not placing myself above the great minds of mystical thought, but I am walking in their footsteps, along the path of Gautama the Buddha, of Jesus, of the founders of Yoga, of the Zen masters...”

I paused, let the inevitable snickers move like a hopping mouse through the room. Harvey’s smile became an empty, hollow thing as his worshippers unwittingly tittered at Holy Writ. And who knows, maybe hearing the words read back to him aloud was enough to let even him sense their madness.

As the groans reached their maximum, I said: “What’s the joke?” in a very uptight voice, telling Harvey that I was on his side. Yeah! That was the way to do it! Get them to laugh at me and get madder and madder and act like a prick who believed in the book so they’d see what a prick you had to be to believe in it, and then...

“Hey, come on,” I said, “this guy is laying down some heavy truth. He’s got a right to talk like that!” Harvey nodded slightly, sucked on his cigarette. Linda Kahn shook her head. Arlene looked at me as if she were sure I was stoned. “Dig what he says about consciousness:... our ego fears its own annihilation... Our egos are the enemy for they fight against the inevitable and deny us peace. Therefore, we must reach out for a new level of consciousness which will bring us peace... We must learn to embrace death.’”

“Oh crap!” Linda Kahn shouted. “How much more of this garbage do we have to listen to?”

“Sick, sick, sick!” Bill Nelson chanted.

“Ah, he’s stoned again!” Rich Rossi yelled.

Now there was real fear in Harvey’s eyes. Fear and confusion—they were putting down
his
book! He took off his glasses, rose to the edge of his chair, seemed about to try and cut me off somehow—so I leapt to his defense.

“Shut up, you jerks!” I yelled. “This guy really knows what he’s talking about! Dig: ‘Total Consciousness is the annihilation of the self. Total Consciousness is the psychic equivalent of death...’”

Dead silence. They had heard the magic words. Every head turned to stare at Harvey. Harvey held his glasses limply in one hand, toyed with his cigarette with the other as if it was his prick. His face was a pasty blank mask; only I knew what worms were writhing behind it. What could he say? What could he do? But he still didn’t realize that
nothing
would gross them out more than more crap from his book. It was time to hit them with the kitchen sink.

“Dig this!” I shouted. “‘The Foundation for Total Consciousness is a social and psychological mechanism for the annihilation of the ego... initiates into the Foundation suppose... that its goal is a healthy mind integrated into its environment. Actually, the goal is quite opposite: the total destruction of what psychotherapists consider the psyche. Neurotics come to the Foundation seeking hope, but it is hope which must be destroyed—”

“Where did you get that book?”
Harvey was on his feet screaming. I was blowing the con! He must’ve finally realized that
The Path to Consciousness
sounded like a snakepit of insanity.
“Where did you get that book?”
People were jumping to their feet, looking back and forth between me and Harvey, whose face was turning beet-red, whose eyes were flaming, like spastics at a tennis match.
“Where did you get that book?”