"They're still not fucking listening."

PREFACE TO BOOK THE SECOND

II.2.1. This second book of the noble deeds and sayings of Cosmo di Madison was written in order to provide further matter for those who were so taken by the initial collection, now known as Book I. Book II is thus to be understood as a continuation of the general work--an advance in the understanding of the Cosmic doctrine, if you will. When the texts gathered herein were complete, I had the choice of publishing a second, larger edition of Gospels from the Last Man, a single collection embodying both the earlier and later texts, or of simply gathering all the later texts into a second collection. I opted for the latter, realizing that seventy or so readers had already bought Book I, and wouldn't want to buy it over again as part of a second edition. I leave it to the academic publishers and their booksellers to rob people in this manner. Eric Mader-Lin, September 1992, Madison

II.2.2. Late in the afternoon of the day I released Book I of these Gospels, Cosmo di Madison sauntered nobly into the café, ordered a double cappuccino, and sat down to read through the text for the first time. Needless to say, I was a bit on edge, hoping the Man himself would accept my presentation of his life and views, and would not demand that the twenty-some copies I initially made be shredded for Security Purposes. †

Cosmo di Madison left without a word. What was I to think? †

An hour later he returned, stepped directly up to me with a calm smile upon his lips, and said in a tone of unwonted warmth and seriousness (unwonted, at least, when he is in the limelight at the front counter of his favorite café)-- †

"You did alright, doll. Really, it is a classic. There are a few things that need to be changed before we go to hardcover, but most of it is correct. I just finished it over at my place, and my advisers are reading it this very minute." †

"I'm very glad that you accept it," I replied, as we shook hands over our success. †

"It's a classic," he said. "It's one of the most important books ever written. Ya hear me?" †

"I hear ya, doll. I'm so happy you think so. I've already sold twelve copies. Your Word has been given to the people. What do you think we need to change before we go to hardcover?"

"Well, first of all there are a couple of errors with dates."

"Like?"

"You wrote that Martin Luther died in 1972. I never said that. It needs to be changed. He died in 1970. I should know, after all. Who do you think it was that killed him? Psssh!" †

"It was you, wasn't it?"

"You know it, pumpkin." He drifts into his nastiest southern drawl: "Jis put a li'l ol' bit o' lead right there b'tween the eyes o' the ol' Devil hiss-self. --KERPOW!-- Baaaahhhhaaaaahh-hhhaaaaaahhh!" †

"I'll change the date in the next draft," I said, immediately making a note of the required change and folding it carefully into my pocket. "Anything else?" †

"Make it another double."

"What?"

"Double cappuccino. For here."

"No, I mean about the book."

"Oh, don't worry. I'll go through it with you later. I don't want to talk about it now. The book is a classic. It'll be read for a thousand years. Ten-thousand eons make it! . . . Has Bush been in to buy one yet?" †

"Not today yet."

"He'll be here, don't worry," insisted Cosmo di Madison, glancing out toward the street as if expecting the presidential limousine to pull up any minute. "He'll love it! I just hope he doesn't want me to run with him next time. I've got enough stuff to deal with already. If too many people read that book, they'll want me to be president. You know it, don't you?" †

"You don't want to do that, believe me." †

"You know it! If they force me to, I'll have to send one of my wives to the White House and run things through her by phone. I'm not leaving Madison. I can't. If I left Madison, the whole world would collapse. It'd be like Pandora's box--much worse even. Psssh! Don't worry, though. Bush knows I'm needed here. Why do you think they stationed me here in the first place?" †

"Why did they?" I ask offhandedly. †

"To deal with the fucking hoodlums! What have I been telling you! People don't know it, but there is more international espionage going on in this city than any other city in the world. More stuff is going down here than in New York or Berlin put together. Everybody comes here eventually. It's a tough city because everything is here. They need me to keep an eye on it. Otherwise we're all fucked.... Double cappuccino, doll. C'mon."

II.2.3. Cosmo di Madison, echoing the old political slogan "A mind is a terrible thing to waste": A mind is a terrible thing. Baaaaahhh-hhhaaaaaaahhhhh!

II.2.4. We knew that Cosmo di Madison was an authority on the ancient history of the midwest, and so when Aska Jankowska, Susan Kim and I decided to visit the ruins of the Amerindian city Aztalan, we invited Cosmo di Madison along as a guide to explain the site. †

Aztalan is now a state park preserving a handful of pyramidal mounds and what seem to be lookout mounds. The city was built on a strategic site and is flanked on the lower side by a river. The size of the pyramidal mounds led the early European farmers to believe that the already abandoned city was perhaps built by one of the lost tribes of Israel, which belief did not stop them from farming right on top of the pyramids, thus wearing them down and rounding them off over time. †

Pat Benetar is the only living descendant of the tribe that founded the city, which, according to Cosmo di Madison, is clearly an Egypto-Phonecian settlement. Scholars, in an attempt to muddy the truth, claim the city was probably founded by Indians of the Mississippi group. A large wooden fortification wall around the city suggests that the city was at war with its neighbors. Archaeology shows the wall to have been finally burned around 1200 A.D. Evidence suggests that cannibalism was practiced by the city-dwellers, which may account for the need for lookout mounds and the protective wall. Perhaps the neighboring tribes themselves preferred fishes and ducks, roots and berries, grains and deer, and did not take kindly to, and did not exactly appreciate...and so on. Perhaps the neighboring tribes attacked and burned the hated city of cannibals. †

Another scenario suggests itself. In this second scenario, the neighboring tribes, hostile to the new culture in their midst, laid siege to the city, which siege led to the cannibalism within the city walls, which walls were finally burned down in a decisive attack--the city dwellers then being slaughtered like the foreigners and invaders, arrogant cosmopolitans, they may well have been. It is this second scenario that appears the more probable. The people of Aztalan were immigrants from a more advanced culture in the South, and would surely have been resented by their neighbors. This kind of conflict is not hard to imagine. In fact, one can still hear a citydwelling Burgher, three months before the Great War, rebuffing a local boy suing for his daughter's hand--a local boy from one of the surrounding and more rustic tribes--:

No way, and no how! The thought of it! You think my daughter is gonna marry a punk like you? Hah! Just look at those hands of yours! You're a root grubber is what you are. Your parents probably ate the whole fish. I can smell it on you too. Eccch! So don't even think of it. My daughter would never have you. And what did you think? The girl studied fashion design three years in Chokakia! I'll bet you don't even know where Chokakia is. Psssh! Couldn't even order shrooms in their mellifluent, lubrizzly language--their language of cultivation and culture--their soft, noble language in which my daughter composes her...her poetry. Ahem! And you come here.... And you, you even presume to imagine a match with such a girl? You probably couldn't even find the main mound in Chokakia if they gave you a map! No. You listen to me, boy, and listen well: I want you to git your smelly grubbing ass off my plot of land this very instant! And don't you let me see your inbred face around here again! You hear me? [The father walks away muttering and spitting:] Bloody ruffians...shouldn't even let 'em in the gate.... Things are falling apart round here since Spinning Feather.... Back in my day.... Etc., etc.

It was doubtless scenes like this, oft repeated, that led to the consolidation of the neighboring tribes against this demi-civilized City on a Hill, which consolidation in turn allowed for the siege and final destruction. †

"It was the Sandinistas attacked this city--you can be sure of it." Thusly Cosmo di Madison lays to rest all scholarly fluff and nonsense concerning the fate of Aztalan. †

(Note: Aztalan is forty minutes east of Madison on 94, just past Lake Mills. There is a small museum there containing artifacts found at the site. Turn off at Lake Mills exit and ask directions.)

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita....

--Inferno I, i.

II.2.5. We had been walking along together, calmly discussing matters of importance to the café. As we passed Bethel Lutheran church, however, Cosmo di Madison burst out suddenly and with such furor as to startle me from the sleep into which I had lately let myself drift. As if hawking a headline of most scandalous and timely import, he proclaimed his message for all to hear: "Satan in the Church today! Yes people, Satan himself! Who will beat the bastard back to Hell! Who of you dares?" †

He glared in defiance at the tubby and summerdressed ladies exiting the church, seeing clearly the guilt in their eyes. He turned to me and continued in an only somewhat milder tone: "It makes me fucking sick how they put these things up! It's fucking crazy, ya hear me?" †

"What's that?" I inquired, being always willing to learn from Cosmo di Madison, the source of nearly half my knowledge. †

"What do you mean, what's that?" he snarled in obvious disappointment. "Look at this fucking thing!" †

I obligingly surveyed that neo-Renaissance hodgepodge in white Anglican brick that is Bethel Lutheran. It somehow looked just in place with the stoplights and stinking rush-hour traffic wrapped around it. †

"They build 'em prefab overnight in underground rebel strongholds. Then they truck 'em out here and claim they're five-hundred years old. It's fucking sick!" †

For a moment, as we stood there in the heat, I thought Cosmo di Madison was perhaps referring to the clutch of grey-haired, summerdressed ladies now waiting on the corner for their walk light. But no, of course not. Cosmo di Madison was referring to the church! †

I myself--I was dumbfounded. I was shocked to learn of this insidious rebel tactic to undermine our architectural authenticity. To show solidarity, and to let Cosmo know of my fury, I agreed with him strenuously that--"Yes, it is fucking sick how they put these things up!" †

We walked on together in near despair, too angry for further comment. The nation had surely gone to the dogs. †

But as it was toward the downtown that we were headed, walking in fact to that street upon which one may find the café so often mentioned in these writings, as this our Destiny was established as it were by the Heavens above, we soon came within sight of Holy Redeemer Catholic church, and Cosmo di Madison's fury was suddenly, and visibly, broken. He stood next to me as if transfixed in contemplation of the simple beauty of that Irish Catholic temple. †

"Now look at Holy Redeemer here," he said. "Some of these Catholic buildings are thousands of years old. You know it, don't you?" †

And how, reader, how could I not know it? For I am just as thoroughly educated in the history of the Church as any of you may be--be sure of that! After all, I wasn't raised Lutheran you know. I wasn't. I swear. †

As we walked on, Cosmo di Madison adopted a more didactic tone. He pointed out that it was safe to send one's daughters to Holy Redeemer, but with those Lutheran churches--"They'll probably end up drugged and starring in porno flicks with Bill Fucking Clinton! Pssssssh! Ya hear me? They'll be praying in there and the fucking bastards'll suddenly lock the doors and pick the whole church up off the ground and cart it away in one of their camouflaged trailers. Off to Porno Disneyland, little girl! They have the technology for that kind of thing. Their churches are made of fucking fiberglass--you know it, don't you? Up one day, gone the next." †

Adopting the shrill and all-too-familiar tone of brazen Protestant hypocrisy, Cosmo di Madison is led to mimic the defense of these Lutherans before a Special Investigative Committee: No, we are right sorry, Mr. President, but we have no record that one of our sacred Lutheran churches was ever located at the address you indicate, and we deny any connection with the said girls in question. Ahem. †

He gazes at me speechless, as if in disbelief that they would dare speak this way given all the evidence against them. Then he concludes: "Psssssh! Fucking Lutheran rhetoric shit!" †

--A word to the wise.

II.2.6. Referring to the café: "If it weren't for me, this place would be totally overrun by crazies. You know it, don't you?"

II.2.7. Five words to add to the lexicon of our tongue badly in need of rejuvenation. †

The one was coined au café in relation to the behavior of a certain employee seen to be frequently and reverently on the heels of a certain regular, following this regular up and down the stairs, in an out of the café, all the while scribbling with a writing tool of foreign make on a single goatskin or several small goatskins, clearly in an attempt to preserve the utterances of said regular through said scribblings. Thus the first word, a nearly inevitable one--COSMOLATRY. †

The second was coined au café by a musically dilettantish customer unused to attending to lengthy performances on classical guitar. Cosmo di Madison was on stage and was about ten minutes into "a very afficated piece [he] wrote for classical guitar" when the dilettante next to me brazenly coined the term--COSMONOTONOUS. †

The third is almost not worth mentioning. Someone suggested that we give the Man an office in Van Hise, making him the chairman of a new department--yes--COSMOLOGY. Well....

† None of these terms evinces the kind of philological subtlety found in the utterances of Cosmo di Madison himself. Get him on the subject of etymology, get him to speak for even a few minutes thereon, and folks will gather round to listen as if it were Pierce, Saussure, and Shklovsky (mostly Shklovsky) rolled into one. And so, upon being asked where we derive our term infantry, Shklaussure himself remarked: In New Glarus, Wisconsin, a few years back, there was a sort of secret club, made up of babies only--only babies were allowed to join. They would gather together on the weekends to climb trees. They would climb them in little gangs. This is where we get the word infantry. [i.e.: "infant-tree"] --Oh, reader! Have you never been to New Glarus? Have you never seen this little village of Swiss immigrants with their gingerbread houses on the green hillside, their big vicious dogs, their swimmingpools and even a few Mercedes? If you have never been there, you cannot appreciate the hilarity of the fact that some years back there was a secret club of their babies who would gather together to climb trees--their diapers getting stuck in the branches as they tried to climb higher; teething rings dropping now and again from twenty feet up; the mothers pleading to come down, the fathers standing behind, muscular, silent, proud. †

Also: Decaf Ed (you've all seen him: loud, pestering sort of fellow with a moustache and cokebottle glasses ) suggested recently that chaos theoreticians and anthropologists could have a sort of field day studying Our Man under the rubric of "Coz and Effect." †

The fourth and fifth words come straight from the Academy. One William, professor of Spanish letters, noted that many of the employees at our café had adopted certain COSMISMS as part of their everyday speech and behavior. He claimed to have noticed the frequent usage of "Psssh!," "Pumpkin-Lover," "Doll-Face," and often even truncated versions of Cosmo di Madison's celebrated Baaaahhhhaaaaahhhhh! These and other Cosmisms were attested even when the Man himself was not present in the café. †

William: "This is clearly indicative of a kind of not-too-salutary Cosmosis."

II.2.8. The Maha Rouge. Through the persistence of my questioning and the repeated and earnest manifestations of my deep political sympathy, Cosmo di Madison has finally leaked to me various concrete details concerning his military actions. Until recently, I have had to keep my mouth shut concerning these things. But now that a sufficient mum period has passed and now that the events in question have thoroughly vented themselves, I am finally able to record here bits of military history not previously available to the public. I hope the reader will trust in the veracity of these things as coming from only the most reliable possible sources: first, Cosmo di Madison, and secondly, myself. †

Cosmo di Madison--yes, our very own Cosmo di Madison--is the founder and current leader of that deadly global fighting force known as the "Maha Rouge." The recent actions of the Maha Rouge read like a menu of the military conflicts currently wreaking so much havoc in what would otherwise doubtless be the smooth functioning--the day to day joys--of World Trade under the fine principles of the Bourgeois Revolutions. And so.... †

It was the Maha Rouge, led by Cosmo di Madison, that prevented Deng Xiaoping's communist army from murdering millions of democratic students in China after the June 4th crackdown. Quick and lethal intervention kept the slaughter to a minimum. What's more, Cosmo di Madison had a personal stake in this conflict, because many of these democratic Chinese students are actually children of Cosmo di Madison, be it through "orphelation," or, as in not a few cases, "immaculate conception." †

The Maha Rouge moved from China to Iraq, and ended up winning that one too. There are still snags in the Iraqi conflict, however, snags which keep Cosmo returning for what always seem to be "23-hour secret shifts." In other words, when we don't see Cosmo di Madison at the café for more than a day straight, we are certainly not to be judged in the wrong if we imagine that he is at the moment in Iraq, in some kind of Iraqi peasant garb, or Iraqi uniform, scouring the countryside on camel's back if need be while directing secret operations through a frightening array of sandresistant high-tech communications gadgets. †

I asked Cosmo di Madison about Yugoslavia, when would he settle the war in Yugoslavia. †

"Don't worry, we'll do it. I can't say when at this point. Security reasons. You know." †

But two weeks later Cosmo di Madison revealed more to me concerning the Yugoslav crisis. †

"The Maha Rouge is an elite fighting force, smooth as silk and 99% effective," he pointed out. "Basically, we win everything. Right now my troops are being flown to Yugoslavia in transport planes. We still had some cleanup in Iraq to take care of, because that Saddam Hussein is a tenacious fucking bastard if ever there was one. You know it, don't you? We've had a lot of trouble with this thing--let me tell you." †

"Where are your troops landing in Yugoslavia?" I asked cautiously, as if it weren't a very serious question, just a little query of sorts, trying to avert by such means a prudent rebuff in the interests of Security. †

"I can't tell you that, honey. What do you think? Lives are depending on this. I was just there yesterday. We're currently parachuting into selected strategic points. Actually we don't even need parachutes. We're so tough we just jump out of the plane. There are already almost a dozen squadrons in. I lead Squadron 501: we're the smoothest and most deadly fighting force on the whole planet. They named the buttonfly jeans after us." †

"On what date will the Maha Rouge make its move?" I ask, nervous for the outcome of this current European crisis. †

"C'mon, Doll Face, that's TOP SECRET! What have I just been tellin' you here? Basically we're gonna to beat back both sides. This war is fucking stupid! They're fighting over nothing! We're gonna kill off all their leaders and give a lot of their land back to people who will know what to do with it. We'll be bringing in groups of American Indians. The American Indians weren't fucking stupid like all these bat-faced generals in Yugoslavia. The Indians knew how to keep peace in the land: they could make the land fertile for everyone. These Serb commanders aren't even real Serbs! They're just a bunch of fucking bats who invaded Yugoslavia from the North and the Northeast. They were led by Ghengis Khan and Mongolian intelligence operatives, and were funded by who do you think? Martin Fucking Luther, who else? Psssh! You know it's all true, doll. It's just the cover-up keeps people from finding out about it." †

Thusly spoke Cosmo di Madison on the recent events in Yugoslavia. And what can one say? If there were only more peacekeeping forces like the Maha Rouge, the world would probably be a place of peace and harmony and global environmental preservation of all kinds. In short:

When will humanity join hands in peace and love and fucking learn, the stupid fucking bastards?

I ask you that.

Cosmo di Madison would not comment on where the Maha Rouge acquired its name. But one can presume quite a bit based on what we know of Cosmo di Madison's biography. In other words, the Maha Rouge is probably a fighting force ideologically situated somewhere between Mahatma Gandhi and the Khmer Rouge. This explains the terror the Maha Rouge inspires in its enemies. For even the most serious students of modern history would be hard-pressed to come up with a more lethal ideological combination--though it's true, of course, that many have come close, while others continue to do the best they can.

II.2.9. The Doctrine of the Man-Baby. Several months following the initial visit to the ruins of the city of Aztalan, Cosmo di Madison and I decided to return there, just the two of us this time, to make a second, more rigorous visit. †

"I would like to inspect things a bit more carefully," he told me. "I don't want any bimbos along this time. Alright?" †

Cosmo di Madison and I drove to the site, but finding that the summer heat was too oppressive to spend time in the open field that used to be the center of the city--the area, in short, where one could sit upon the remains of the Aztalan pyramids--we wandered down to the riverside and talked in the shade. Cosmo pointed out how well suited that section of the river was for a trading port, and indicated to me precisely where the Egypto-Phonecian quays were most likely built. †

"Those archaeologists are fucked when it comes to explaining central Wisconsin. You know it, don't you? This city was much larger and much more flourishing than they try to tell people. They want you to think there was hardly anybody around here before the Lutherans and Han Christian Heg and all the other finks and hoodlums arrived. Pssssssh! It's fucking sick!" †

Because of the heat and the depressive mood induced by thinking upon Luther and his followers, Cosmo and I decided to return at once to Madison, regardless of the fact that we had only been at Aztalan twenty minutes and had doubtless not accomplished the more careful inspection intended. †

Driving back through Lake Mills rather pensively, our windows rolled down, we came to a stop sign on the sidewalk. Next to the stop sign there was a very small child on a Big Wheels tryke. I brought my car to a stop and looked here and there, trying to decide if the correct way was straight ahead or to the right. The child, resting on his tryke and with his feet splayed out languidly, looked up at Cosmo di Madison and distinctly muttered the words--

Man-Baby.

I was a bit put off by the tone of the child's voice. For it sounded as if it came directly from some depth out of keeping with the scene around us: the box houses, the toys and swings, the mowed lawns. As the child said nothing further, I began to pull away from the stop sign. We drove for a couple blocks. Cosmo put out his cigarette and remarked warmly, with a little chuckle-- "Kids always know. Ya hear me?" †

"What do you mean?" I asked, eager for an explanation of our uncanny encounter with the child. †

"They know I'm the Man-Baby."

I sensed that Cosmo di Madison was about to relate to me something of great importance, something of which I hadn't previously had so much as a glimmer. I rolled up my window, so as to miss none of it, and asked-- "But Doll Face... What is the Man-Baby?" †

"Basically, there have been fourteen of us," he began. "The Man-Baby is born old, and becomes younger and younger as he gets older. The Man-Baby doesn't ever die, but he regresses back into his childhood. I am the Man-Baby, and the Man-Baby is I."

"So the Man-Baby regresses back to childhood."

"The Man-Baby begins as a prophet, or elder statesman, and then he gradually regresses back. I am now regressing back: I am returning to absolute childhood. Soon I will be there." †

"You will be where?"

"Absolute childhood."

"But what will happen to you when you reach absolute childhood?" †

Cosmo di Madison rolled up his window. He leaned toward me, as if afraid someone would overhear us (nevermind we were now flying down the On-ramp onto Highway 94, in the stifling heat of a dead summer day, in a Honda Accord with both windows rolled up) he leaned toward me and whispered in a hoarse tone: "I will eskff. What did you think I would do? Psssh!" †

"You will eskff," I confirmed.