"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 cafˇ, 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 cafˇ)--
"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 cafˇ.
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 cafˇ 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 cafˇ: "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 cafˇ 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 cafˇ, 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 cafˇ 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 cafˇ 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 cafˇ.
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 cafˇ 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. "Yes?"
"Yes."
"Like Moses and Jesus?"
"Yes."
"But what does it mean, specifically,
for a Man-Baby--for a Man-Baby returning to absolute childhood--what does it
mean for him to eskff? What,
precisely, will it look like?"
"In the end I will become larger and
larger. I will be larger than
buildings."
"Am I to imagine a gigantic sort of
baby then? A baby larger than
buildings? " I ask him in a tone of mild fright.
"Oh, don't worry, pumpkin! I will just be eskffing. Finally I will fill the sky, I
will be larger than Everything--I will be Everything . And then suddenly I'll eskff."
I am persistent in my inquiry. I ask him, hoping finally for a
definition: "But what does it mean to eskff?"
"I will ecstatically unite with all
Divine Jorphelancy," replies Cosmo di Madison.
"Divine Jorphelancy?"
"Yes."
"How do you spell that?"
"D-I-V-"
"No--jorphelancy."
"Just like it sounds."
I take the orange pastel pencil from my
dashboard and write the world "jorphelancy" on the face of a Guns
and Ammo Business Reply Mail subscription request card that I ask Cosmo to
grab for me from the back seat.
"So: eskffing. You will eskff. But what precisely happens to the body
in eskffing? Are there any
remains? I mean--how can we build
your crypt?" [From this point on, the text is based on notes from a
later discussion with Cosmo di Madison concerning the Doctrine of the
Man-Baby. Whereas above I could
only reproduce his answers from memory, from here on the quotes are exact. I asked him again: "What precisely
happens to the body in eskffing?
Are there any remains?"]
"The energy cell in the body
occorphelates an enzyme from a hydrogen dioxide in the atmosphere, and the more
the atoms form, and the more cosmic ozone that affacates and occoilantly hits
the planet, the more powerful the Man-Baby gets, the more politically powerful
his body seems to be."
"Do you mean his body as a fetish, as
a sort of relic?"
"Yes. The body of the Man-Baby determines the political
agenda. I myself will become so
powerful that I will dissipate into a large vat of energy and disappear. But my body will become powerful in
another way."
"And if I could be present at the
eskffing--"
"I'm not sure that's possible."
"But if I could be present, what would I
experience?"
"You would experience another
Man-Baby ascending into Heaven."
"I will
eskff." Photo of Cosmo di
Madison, c. 1960.
"You mentioned before that there were
fourteen Man-Babies in history. Is
that correct?"
"Yes."
"And could you tell me who they
were?"
"Ezikel, Moses, Isaiah, Michael,
Jesus, Mohammed, Akine, Buddha, and Immual." [I spelled the names as he
pronounced them, unsure of some of them.]
"But--let's see--that only seems to
be nine of them."
"That's because I didn't name the
Man-Babies currently living."
"Could you name them?"
"Well...."
"It's rather important. How am I supposed to write the
canon?"
"There's Ozzie Nelson, Bob Geldoff,
Myself, David Sanford, and Nat Campbell."
I asked Cosmo di Madison if there was any
connection between the giant final size of the Man-Baby and the stories of
giants recorded in the past. In
short: were the giants in any way related to the Man-Babies?
"Perhaps there was some
connection," he said.
"Perhaps. But the
giants in the past were mostly women.
They were Amazons. Giant
women Amazons."
"Really? They were Amazons?
I guess I never read much concerning the Amazons."
"The Amazons were total
vegetarians. They were very
righteous people. You didn't fuck
with the Amazons. Ya hear
me?"
"I seem to remember reading about
that."
"The women in the Amazon tradition
would always get very large. But
the men wouldn't necessarily get very big. You just didn't fuck around with 'em. Nobody did."
"Where did the Amazons first come
from?"
"They came from Tibet, or India. Mostly Tibet. They wanted to get back at the Greeks and the Jews for
crucifying Jesus Christ. They were
very righteous. Very clean
people. Fantastic cooks too."
"The Amazons were good cooks?"
"The Amazons were the best fucking
cooks in ancient Greece. And don't
you forget it. Don't believe any of
these university professors. They
don't know what the fuck they're talking about. They're all gonna vote Democrat or join some Communist front
group. Eventually you won't be
able to learn anything around here because everything will be rhetoric. Ya hear me?"
II.2.10. People are always asking
me--"Yeah, but what is the real story of Cosmo di Madison? Do you know? Like--what happened to him?"
Let me tell all of you here, let me tell
you one more time so that I won't have to answer it again: This, to the best
of my ability, is the real story of Cosmo di Madison.
II.2.11. The Four that Came Back. Following are three accounts of the
same encounter with Cosmo di Madison.
I faced quite some trouble trying to decide which of them should be considered
definitive. Eventually I did
decide on one of them as the best, but I also decided, somewhat perversely, to
include all three of them in the book, so as to give my readers the chance to
choose for themselves.
In short, which of these texts is
true? Which of them should go into
the canon? (The three Roman
numerals do not necessarily imply any chronology of composition: they do not
mark a succession of drafts.
Neither do they imply which of the texts I myself consider definitive.)
i. On the sidewalk in front of Discount
Den, Cosmo di Madison is thoroughly disgusted with contemporary American
culture.
"I killed twelve people today because
they were fucking stupid," he points out to me, his lips twisted in a
sneer and his hand on his hip.
"Sounds pretty serious, Coz. They must have been really
stupid."
"Yeah, they were fucking stupid
alright. Four of 'em came
back."
ii. On the sidewalk in front of Discount
Den, Cosmo di Madison is thoroughly disgusted with the moral lassitude of his
fellow Americans.
"Americans have lost all of their
wits. Try to find even one of them
who's thinking clearly. You
can't. What is going on in this
fucking place anyhow? Look at
these people!" Cosmo di Madison says to me, squinting in annoyance at a
clique of passing "radical" students; at a bench full of drugged-out
high school derelicts; at three tubby and slackjawed bourgeois from the West
side. (The latter, it will be
noted, even ventured to glance back at Cosmo di Madison and I as if we were the
freaks. Hah! The insolence! The gross depravity! How are we to stand it? To have some huge couch potato wrapped
in "Wisconsin Pride" sweatgear and makeup dare to look you in the eye as if you were
somehow out of place in the world.
At moments like this I see--and perhaps you do also, reader--I see
for an instant the proud brow of Fidel, and then suddenly, suddenly after this,
I see Isaiah standing steady under a desert sun--I see them one after another
as if by a flash of lightning! Kerpowww! Then all goes quickly blank: the black void of Absolute
Justice. The black void of
our Justice of a Billion Earthquakes.
Perhaps you also know this one, reader. Perhaps you are in on this too. Perhaps you too say: "The time will come. Heh heh heh.")--
"I killed twelve people today because
they were fucking stupid," Cosmo di Madison says to me, his lips twisted
in a sneer and his hand on his hip.
"Sounds pretty serious, Coz. They must have been really
stupid."
"Yeah, they were fucking stupid
alright. Pssssh! Four of 'em came back!"
Do you follow this, reader? In short, these four--they were so
stupid that even after he killed them they came back. As if they were looking for more! Can you believe it? This would truly seem to cinch the
witlessness of Americans. For you
must admit, reader--even though you yourself may be proud to be American--you
really must admit--This is, indeed, rather stupid. It is, all of it, almost unimaginably stupid.
iii.
On the sidewalk in front of Discount Den, Cosmo di Madison is thoroughly
disgusted with the moral lassitude of his fellow Americans. The moment he sees me, he launches into
his diatribe: "Americans have lost all of their wits. Try to find even one of them who's
thinking clearly. You
can't. What is going on in this
fucking place anyhow? Look at
these people!"
He squints in annoyance at a clique of
passing "radical" students; at a bench full of drugged-out high
school derelicts; at three tubby and slackjawed shoppers from the West side.
"I killed twelve people today because
they were fucking stupid," he says, his lips twisted in a sneer and his
hands on his hips.
"Sounds pretty serious, Coz. They must have been really stupid."
"Yeah, they were fucking stupid
alright. Pssssh! Four of 'em came back!"
Do you follow this, reader? In short, these four--they were so
stupid that even after he killed them they came back. As if they were looking for more! Can you believe this? Have you heard the like? This would truly seem to cinch the witlessness of
Americans. For you must admit,
reader--even though you yourself may be proud to be an American--you really
must admit: This is, indeed, rather stupid.
II.2.12. Cosmo di Madison and I were up in the smoking section of the
cafˇ discussing the frazzled moral fiber of today's young people, when a young
Arab man greeted Cosmo from several tables away.
"How are you?" said the man.
"Fine," replied Cosmo di
Madison. "Who are your friends?"
There were indeed two other Arab men
sitting with the first man, but he didn't appear to understand Cosmo di
Madison's question.
"What?" he said.
"Who are your friends?" repeated
Cosmo di Madison.
But the Arab still didn't understand. "What?" he said.
"Who are the people you're
with?" asked Cosmo di Madison.
The Arab raised his arms questioningly,
still unclear on the question. But
Cosmo di Madison did not lose any of his calm, aware of the problems of dealing
with those not fluent in English.
So he asked the question in a different manner:
"Who are the two
friends you are sitting with?"
"Oh," replied the Arab. "These are my friends."
Cosmo di Madison nodded vaguely, then
slowly turned back to me. There
was a chilled and serious look in his eye. He glanced round cautiously at several of the other tables,
then leaned toward me slowly, muttering in almost a whisper: "This place
is full of fucking spies. Ya hear
me?"
II.2.13. Bats. For several months now, copies of Book I of these
Horrific Chronicles have been on sale at the front counter of our cafˇ. This move to disseminate the word of
Cosmo di Madison has led to a number of interesting realizations. For one, I have realized that nearly
everyone in Madison knows Cosmo di Madison or knows of him. People I have never before seen come
into the cafˇ and begin talking about the man whose face is shown on the cover
of the book. They begin talking of
him under one or another of the various names by which he has been known over
the years, for he has gone by many names in his many branches of work here in
Madison. After some time, in fact,
I began to be able to assign the speaker to a period in the life of Cosmo di
Madison, or at least to a particular stratum in the social world, according to
the name by which they knew him.
Those who knew him in their capacity as police officers would often know
Cosmo di Madison by a different name than those who knew him in their capacity
as bartenders, just as those who knew him in the 70's knew him by a different
name than those who knew him in the 80's.
And what is more, upon hearing the utterance of a name from a period in
which I was interested, a period on which Cosmo di Madison had not yet bothered
to inform me, I would ask further questions of the speaker such as: When
exactly did you know him by this name?
What was he doing then?
What do you remember of him?
The answers would often show me sides of Cosmo di Madison I hadn't
previously suspected: talents and concerns of his which he had left behind;
projects which he had abandoned, having usually accomplished his objectives;
wives and hobbies of which I hadn't previously been given a word. I would hear sentences like: "He
was an art dealer who collected only paintings by Carly Simon and Joni
Mitchell, and only the paintings of theirs done on black velvet. These two singers went through a period
where they painted a lot of motorcycles, farmyards, American eagles, stuff like
that." Or: "He would
always call me Jane and insisted I was the mother of his children." Or: "He was the secret Dean of the University of
Wisconsin. He refused to give me
his name, so I called him Dean."
Or: "He was called Rock 'n Roll Bob, but his real name was Neil
Diamond. He was always a good
guy."
An interesting twist on this phenomenon
offered itself to me when I had to deal with readers who bought the book hoping
to find in it the Cosmo they knew.
For I have sold almost 75 of these books now, many of them to people I
have never before seen, people, in short, who were on a brief visit to Madison
from some other city, who perhaps went to school here in the 70's, or who had
worked here for a number of years, but who for some time now had been living in
some other city. They happen to
come into the cafˇ, and they see a book about their good friend Bob, or Niel,
or Dean. Their heart goes back to
the Old Days, and they buy a copy of this book, only to find almost nothing of
Bob, Neil, Dean, the art dealer, the scientist, the true father of their
children, etc., etc. On a couple
of occasions they have complained, sometimes on their next visit to Madison:
"You don't know him like I did," and so on. I will give you in the following the most fruitful of these
cases.
A graduate student in environmental
studies came to me with the following complaint: "I used to talk with Cosmo all the time, so I bought the
book. But you didn't put anything
in it about bats."
"Why would I put anything about bats
in it?" I asked.
"What do you mean! All Cosmo talks about is bats! He's obsessed with them. How can you sell a book about him if
you don't even know that?"
"But he's never once talked with me
about bats," I replied, trying to make the guy's decaf latte. "Maybe he only talked to you about
bats because he noticed the resemblance." (This remark went right over his head, however, for he was,
as I have pointed out, a scientist.)
"Well, could I get my money back? I mean--I wanted to read about
bats," he began to insist, meanwhile pulling his crumpled copy of the book
from his bookbag.
"I'm sorry--here's your decaf
latte--but I can't sell this copy anymore--it's too damaged--and it was only my
business to write about Cosmo di Madison as he presented himself to me. I can't very well write about things he
didn't talk with me about, can I?
There's a Wisconsin Union mini-course being offered in Genealogy,
though. I read about it. Trace your family and all." And once again he missed it. (But perhaps, reader, you think I was
being too cruel to him with such sarcasm.
I disagree with you. Know
that I am one who goes by the motto Warm at heart, mean in the teeth. What's more, you must consider the following:
this guy was not only a scientist, he was a decaf drinking scientist. And there I rest my case. My remarks were more than anything part
of what we at the cafˇ call decaf mode--a certain manner we have of
harassing decaf drinkers--a little shop specialty.)
Curious, however, about Cosmo di Madison's
interest in bats, I asked the man what sort of things he said about them. He couldn't give many details, wanted
to sit down with his latte, and only told me that Cosmo di Madison claimed to go
on yearly bat-hunting expeditions in Bohemia.
This remark rang true. For certainly those who know Cosmo di
Madison can imagine him on a bat-hunting expedition in Bohemia. He is dressed all in black leather,
with a wide-brimmed black leather hat.
The weather is thick and overcast.
He is carrying an archaic blunderbuss sort of weapon, riding around in a
stagecoach with some hissing Romanian countess who smokes through a long
cigarette-holder. He is on a
bat-hunting expedition. He enters
barns and rotting cathedrals, castle ruins. He has his servant, the coachman, aim a high-powered
spotlight up under the eaves of buildings, up into the arches of castles and
cathedrals, up into the lofts of soggy barns. And then, as the swarms of bats begin to wake and hiss and
bare their teeth at the horrible light, he blows them away by the thousands
with the blunderbuss (which, it turns out, is an automatic--if you can imagine
such a thing--an automatic blunderbuss).
The spotlight keeps going on the blink, the servant rushing and
fidgeting to get it fixed, Cosmo smoking in the meantime and cussing:
"Fucking Soviet garbage lamps, can't even get 'em to fucking work in broad
daylight! Next time we bring a
lamp from General Electric, hey doll?" The countess merely grins and hisses: "Mmm. Yess, darlink. Zat vould be much, much better. Vahtever you sink, darlink. I vill be here for you. Only for you--my Cossmoe."
In short, the word of my scientist friend
about Cosmo di Madison's obsession with bats stuck in my crop and began to bear
fruit. I needed to find out more
about this connection, for it was obvious to me that there must be some truth
to these bat-hunting expeditions.
I waited days, carefully biding my time until I felt Cosmo di Madison
was in the proper mood for such a topic.
For I had long since learned that there was no getting him to talk about
this or that if the rhythms of the day were not suited to such a discussion. One evening, in the haze and mania of
the smoking section, I found him railing against Henry Kissinger to an audience
of three women. The women soon
left and Cosmo di Madison began to speak to me about various subtle
disturbances in the planet's weather caused by imbalances resulting from
criminally negligent reversals of the proper clatifications or escophancies of
bipolar and so on. In short,
another weather conspiracy whose technical details I was not quite up to
comprehending. And so I broached
the subject Bats.
"Bats?" he said. "Psssh! You don't even want to fucking hear about bats. Believe me. Just pretend you didn't see them. We'll take care of it.
Don't worry."
And this was all I could expect to get
concerning bats.
Weeks went by, and then a month, and
finally two months. I hadn't thought
to mention bats again.
One night in the mid-summer, this being
the summer of 1992, I went to that cafˇ "just around the corner" from
State Street, that notorious cafˇ so intimately related to our own. I'd just gotten off work, but hadn't
yet had enough of the thirty-some faces I so love to see. Everyone knows that Amy's and our cafˇ
share precisely the same clientele.
Our regulars, once having finished drinking coffee all day at our place,
will usually drift immediately to Amy's to have a bite to eat, perhaps a
ratatouille or a Greek Salad. And
then, pausing for around twelve minutes for their food to digest, they will
begin to order gin-and-tonics, beer, or whatever suits them for the night. The fast migration from our place to
Amy's ensures that the effects of their massive caffeine consumption wear off
just in time to be replaced by the effects of their slightly-less-massive
alcohol consumption. Did I write
"slightly less massive alcohol consumption"? Why, yes, I did. For my people, you know, are the
movers and shakers. They do not slosh
around in the bottom of bar glasses as much as they flit around off the edges
of tiny black espresso mugs, gossiping in lousy Urdu or pidgin German. For my people have dissertations to
write. They must write proposals for post-grad work; pleas to relatives; love
letters to Prague; radical reviews of radical feminist critiques of radical
scholarly works based on interviews with actual radicals in the Third
World. My people must write these
and many other things of similar import.
They are not a bunch of sodden beatniks like their Madison forebears:
they are wired scholars, not pseudo-taoist drunkards. And they are going to save the world: you can be sure of it.
And so I strolled into Amy's, and noted
immediately a table full of my fellow workers from the cafˇ. What's more, one of those at the table
was celebrating something and had managed to bring into the bar an absolutely
huge bottle of champagne, one of those huge black bottles, and had managed, in
addition, to demand from the bartender glassware with which to drink this huge
bottle of champagne. The bottle
was gone soon enough, but our orders went in for more of this and that, and
after an hour or so I had completely caught up with my fellows. It was Steve, Jennifer, Suzy, Jane,
Sharon, Cookie, Carrie, Don, and Mary.
And then it was Mary-Jane, who, it seems, had been kicked out of the bar
some time ago. But Mary-Jane
joined us right there at the table in the middle of the bar, and talked on and
on with all of us, the bartender ignoring this further infringement for one
reason or another, but most certainly not because he (or she: I don't remember
who it was) didn't notice Mary-Jane, for Mary-Jane was not to be missed on this
occasion. The party went on an on,
actually perhaps one of the best times I've had "just around the
corner," and finally bar-time was upon us.
I must note at this juncture that the
bouncer at Amy's is none other than Cosmo di Madison. This is the case for various reasons, but the most obvious
of them is to be found in the fact that Cosmo di Madison can be absolutely
persuasive when it comes to clearing out a room full of drunks. For Cosmo di Madison has no qualms
about raising his voice. And when
2:30 a.m. rolls around and you are sloshed; when the lights go on bright and
you see the Man standing before you in the middle of the room with a sneer of
contempt in his eyes, a sneer of contempt for your drunkenness and your red
eyes and your "radical scholarship"; when--to make matters worse--the
Man looks directly into those tired eyes of yours and winks at you almost
seductively, grinning with a most strange sort of knowledge, but then suddenly
switches his approach and barks out something like "Alright--who in
here wants to waltz with ME? BAAAAAAAHHHH-HAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"--and barks this out at the
top of his lungs, all the while holding his needle-sharp and sober eyes glued
to your own eyes swollen like dead guppies, your own eyes of yellowed newsprint and faded photos of
Althusser; in short, when this sort of come-on, and yet more of the same, over
and over, is all that you have to look forward to in staying at your table, you
will most certainly leave as quickly as you can. I have, in fact, seen you do just that. For it is not to be doubted that when
the lights go on bright in Amy's at 2:30 a.m., Cosmo di Madison knows precisely
what to do to make the layabouts who refuse to leave feel as if they have
suddenly been transported to a bowling alley in Hell. And so it was on the night in question. I can account for it firsthand, in a
most firsthand manner. For on the
night in question I myself was actually one of those bounced by Cosmo di
Madison. I and my table were in
such a state that we refused to acknowledge the bar was closing. Imagine how I felt, reader, I the
scribe of Cosmo di Madison--imagine how I felt being bounced by him from the
cafˇ "just around the corner."
The experience made me realize how reliable is Cosmo di Madison when it
comes to his professional duties: for he, unlike the bartender on this
particular night, is no respecter of persons when it comes to clearing a bar of
its drunks.
As we tripped out into the street,
Cosmo di Madison followed closely behind.
He doubtless wanted to lessen the blow of just having so punctually
bounced us, and so he segregated a few of those dearest to him--it was Sharon
and Alex and I--and he invited us to come immediately to his place for some tea
and music. Still under the spell
of his commanding voice and figure, we soon found ourselves mounting the
pitch-dark front stairway of the ancient Phonecian building in which he lives,
himself leading the way and fulminating loudly about the ring of crack dealers
against which he had recently been battling for control of Amy's Cafˇ.
Alex and Sharon were in the living room
enthusing over the amenities and decor of Cosmo's place when he suddenly
brought out three lit candles, placed them on his altar, cut the lights, and turned
on the television with no volume.
The room was suddenly dominated by only a handful of things: the Dead
Sea Scrolls stacked atop his altar and glowing behind the candles; the
flickering idiot images of the silent television screen; the thousand shining
black eyes of his five-hundred teddy bears, twinkling in the candlelight; and
the face of Cosmo di Madison itself, suddenly animated with a desire to impart
something to us--something he suspected we must at that moment be greatly in
need of in our wasted state--some knowledge of which our lack must then have
been painfully obvious--in short, the right and true knowledge of--yes--BATS.
He leaned toward the candlelight, the bony
outline of his face illuminated by both the flame and the fluorescent
pixel-light of his television. He
began by asking me directly: "You know that bat-skin I lent you? I need it back tomorrow. Alright?" And I suddenly remembered, upon mention
of the bat-skin, that back in the previous October Cosmo di Madison had given
me an almost frighteningly hideous black leather jacket in collateral for a $12
loan, which money he had then needed to buy milk, vitamins, and
cigarettes. (His social security
number, you will remember, is "blacklisted": though worth millions,
he's unable to cash a $10 check "because they know me." His accounts are doctored so that he
can't get to them. It's the CFR
that's responsible for this outrage, the latest in their attempts to sabotage
his control of the Free World.)
"But you lent me the bat-skin as collateral
on some money. Do you have the
money?" I asked.
"Listen, doll, you know my
situation. I wish I could give you
the money, but I just can't. I really
need the bat-skin. That's all I
can say."
"Of course I'll bring it to
you," I said in a conciliatory manner. "Forget the twelve bucks. I'm behind you all the way. You know I am.
Besides, I can't really wear the bat-skin: it's not my style."
The bat-skin, all in black leather, has
huge black buttons and pointed black collars that actually hang off the ends of
the shoulders. If you're wearing
it, and you jump up and down, the collars flop almost like wings. The coat hangs rather like a simple
raincoat or cape, cut about six inches above the knee.
"So you'll have it
tomorrow?" asked Cosmo di Madison.
"Of course I'll have it," I
said.
"Good."
Cosmo di Madison lit a second cigarette
and pursed his lips menacingly. He
clearly had something on his mind.
He was going to tell us what it was, but we'd have to wait until he
gathered his words. Meanwhile the
television flickered and we waited in silence.
I'm not sure how long we sat in that
state, but it seemed like a whole second night transpired there in the living
room of Cosmo di Madison. Sometime
after the first cigarette, he'd put on some music. I can't remember what.
And then there was a brief attempt at conversation on Sharon's part,
which attempt was cut short with an almost stony look. Alex kept trying to ask about the
Buddhist statuary barely visible in the tangle of plants Cosmo keeps, but
Cosmo's responses were calculated to lead nowhere, merely reiterating the
sacred character of the statues, while stating clearly his unwillingness on
that occasion to go into any details.
When Cosmo di Madison finally spoke, I wasn't in much of a
state to remember clearly what he said.
I can thus only give you the salient points--those things he stressed or
repeated several times. And so I
write the following, a terse synopsis of Cosmo di Madison's diatribe against
bats, which diatribe not only supplied answers to the questions that had been
burning in the back of my mind for months, but also confirmed my darkest fears
as to the nature and activities of those creatures whose name I now almost
shudder to mention. What, then,
are bats?
Bats, it seems, are unspeakably
evil.
Bats are hideously evil, fish-flavored
insects from outer-space.
What they really are is an evil form of alien
life which has invaded the planet, and is out to destroy us.
They pass the HIV virus to cattle and
children. They destabilize the
weather.
They control all the UFOs, and always
have.
If you are stupid enough to order sushi at
a cheap Asian restaurant, what you will get, instead of fish, is
bat-flesh. Several of the Asian
restaurants here in Madison are involved in this despicable hoax, but it is
much more risky to order sushi in the big cities.
Bats were deeply involved in the Proxmire
government.
Bats are all in the pay of Henry
Kissinger.
These statements are what I have
retained. Remember, reader, that
Cosmo di Madison's diatribe went on for a good twenty minutes, and had us
rather mesmerized. For there were
the candles, the gleaming of the television, the period of silent brooding
before he began, not to mention the rather wasted state we were in. What's more, the diatribe had certain
back-up effects to which Sharon and Alex will need to attest, for these were so
uncanny as to most certainly provoke disbelief. And so it was that suddenly in the middle of his speech,
there on the television before us, his television that remained completely
silent.... We were almost
stunned.... We were almost
frightened to see.... What? I almost can't write it, for fear that
you my readers will suspect I am making up the most brazenly silly stoner's
myth. But no: it certainly
happened. And in fact it happened
precisely at the worst possible moment. In the middle of Cosmo di Madison's 3:00 a.m. diatribe
against bats, there on the television before us we saw nothing less and nothing
other than a good two minutes of clips taken from the latest Batman movie!
Sharon and I glanced to each other,
somewhere between laughter and nausea.
Cosmo di Madison saw the clips too, and reacted by interjecting
something such as the following: "And that fucking bastard! [Pointing to the screen.] That fucking fusion bastard devil! I saved his life once back in the
Seventies. I saved him from
certain death. And what do you
think?"
"You saved Batman's life? You saved Batman?" I asked.
"You know I did! But what do you think he
did? What do you think? The fucker turned on me! BATMAN BETRAYED ME! Grrrrrrrrr!"
Cosmo di Madison snarled at the screen,
clenching his fists in fury. We
could do nothing but watch the clips roll by, one after another, as if on cue,
with no sound from the television to explain their being there.
But this was not all. Immediately after the scenes from Batman, and all the while
continuing his diatribe against bats, Cosmo di Madison reached behind his chair
and took out a toy reindeer doll of around a foot in height. And it was not
just any old toy reindeer doll, no, but was rather one which, once you pulled
the switch, began a thoroughly annoying performance featuring mechanical
walking legs, a red nose flashing on and off, and the music of Rudolf the
Rednose Reindeer playing out of a speaker situated exactly where the animal's
asshole should have been. I'd
never seen such a toy anywhere.
Cosmo di Madison held the deer up before him, its legs kicking against
the air, and thundered out as if from a burning bridge:
We gotta fuckin' lighten things up in here a bit!
He then placed it on the wood floor, where
it began jingling, and jangling, and flashing, and cruising back and forth in
the dark, bumping into the leg of the coffee table, into the couch, into this
and that, a strong little motor on this little Rudolf, Sharon and myself forced
to bring our feet up onto the couch, Alex by now with wide, freaked-out eyes,
and Cosmo di Madison the whole time pursuing, as I have said, his horrific
diatribe against bats.
But this too was not all. Not three minutes after the Batman clips, and just
toward the end of the reindeer crisis, the news program cut to a new story
based on the following facts.
Somewhere in America there had nested a pigeon: it was near a busy
sidewalk somewhere, it looked to be in front of a bank or office building
perhaps. And this pigeon was not
merely protective of its eggs, but had gone absolutely off the deep end. It was a crazy pigeon. And so the bird would divebomb anyone
who walked by: men in grey suits; older women; more women with arms full of
shopping bags--we watched them all being divebombed in clip after clip. The pigeon would peck them over and
over on the tops of their heads, swooping down from some ten or fifteen feet
above. We could hear nothing. But we saw women drop their bags and
duck behind newspaper boxes. We
saw laughing bankers run along with their hands on the tops of their balding
heads. We saw the reporter stick
his microphone in someone's smiling face, and the person commenting and
pointing to the awning under which the pigeon lived. We finally saw the reporter himself trying to finish his
report while the crazy pigeon shot down and pecked at the top of his head a
good three times in fifteen seconds.
The bird was grey and floppy.
Cosmo di Madison didn't like it one bit. Alex, for a moment, had unconsciously put his hand on top of
his own head, as if fearing the bird may be there in the room. I was finally laughing hysterically,
which fact Cosmo didn't seem to appreciate, for the diatribe was not yet over.
"Yeah, you laugh!" he said, sneering
in disapproval. "Go
ahead! They may have disguised
that thing like a sparrow-hawk--I'm not sure why they did--but you can tell by
what it's doing what kind of fucking insidious creature that little fucking
thing is! That is a fucking
bat! It's a fucking
undercover bat if there ever was one! Why ya think it's hanging out in front of a bank,
huh? Just ask yourself. Why? Maybe there's someone behind this ugly little bird? Maybe--though we won't name any names
--someone, say, with a first name like the King of England who had eight
fucking wives and KILLED THEM ALL JUST SO HE COULD BECOME A FUCKING
LUTHERAN! Hmmmm, you say. Maybe so. Maybe, just maybe, this little fucking
bat is run by just such a person with just such a name. And you think all of this is something
to laugh about? I'll tell you--You
have a lot to learn about fucking bats!"
I tried to hold my laughter in check. Cosmo di Madison, seeing my
acquiescence, began finally to lower his tone somewhat. And then the television went off. And the reindeer stopped. Cosmo di Madison, in conclusion,
reiterated some of the essentials.
The diatribe, it seemed, was finally at an end.
Knowing that I would never have a better
chance of getting an honest answer--but rather daringly taking the risk of
resuscitating the polemic--I asked Cosmo di Madison directly: "Is it true,
Cosmo, that every year you go on a bat-hunting expedition?"
"It is true," replied Cosmo,
"but how did you know about that?"
"I read about it in Field and
Stream."
"Oh. Really?"
"No, actually someone told me about
it."
"Who?"
"Someone who bought the book. I don't know his name. But when you're on these bat-hunting
expeditions--tell me--what precisely is it that you do with the bats? Are you collecting the bats for
zoological research, or what?"
"Are you meaning to imply that I'm
working for these fucking restaurants?" he countered, eyes widening with
indignation.
"No, no...not at all. I'm just wondering how you deal with
the bats on these expeditions. I'm
just asking what you do with them."
"I'm not interested in collecting
them for museums, if that's what you think. That's fucking sick!
The idea of a museum full of stuffed bats! Ecccccch!"
"But what are you interested in? Why do you go on these
expeditions?" I pressed him.
"I want you to know," he
insisted gravely, "I want you to know--when I'm out there, I don't take
any fucking shit from the bats. I
want you to know that. There can
be a thousand of 'em in a single cave--I don't take any shit."
This still didn't answer my question.
"But what do you do,
Cosmo?" asked Alex finally from the other corner of the room. "We just want to know what you do
do
with the bats."
There was a moment of silence. Cosmo di Madison looked to me, then to
Sharon, then finally to Alex. "I
gun 'em down like fucking dogs!" he yelled, rising suddenly from his
chair and strafing the room with mock machine-gun fire. "Prah-Bah-Bah-Bah-Bah-Bah . . .
. Prah-Bah-Bah . . . . I fucking gun 'em down!
What do you FUCKING THINK!"
A silence fell over the room as he stood
glaring at us. So that was
it. The bat-hunting expeditions were
pretty much as I expected. He gunned
them down like fucking dogs. I had my
answer. I questioned him no
further. I made my most polite
goodbyes, and left immediately.
Sharon and Alex, you will imagine, were not far behind.
The next day I had to be at the cafˇ early,
and I congratulate myself that I remembered to bring the bat-skin. I held it next to me as I waited at the
bus stop, the rain drizzling down.
It seemed to stick to my skin, and I felt for an instant that it was bat-skin, and
improperly tanned bat-skin at that.
The night had hardly worn off.
I worked through the morning in the dense
haze of a rather traumatized hangover.
I had also to deal with the fact that I hadn't been face to face with
Mary Jane for years, and she had suddenly grabbed my attention the night before
at Amy's, dragging me away from the others so to speak, while she lectured me
about the virtues of the good old days and reminded me of all the times we had
spent together during my first years in Madison, times which passed more slowly
for me, much more slowly, than for her.
Mary Jane's face, her pointed ears, kept forcing themselves on my
attention as I tried to do my job on what was turning out to be a terribly
hectic day of specialty drinks, decafs and conventioneers from Hell. Where did these people come from?
The bat-skin hung in the back, but Cosmo
di Madison was nowhere to be seen.
I had suspected, because of the urgency of his request the night before,
that he would show up in the morning hours to demand the bat-skin, obtaining
which he would storm off to do who knows what sort of dangerous work in who
knows what corner of the planet.
But the hours dragged on.
At 2:45 p.m. Cosmo di Madison suddenly
stepped up to the counter in a huge black leather sombrero, a black rayon shirt,
tight-fitted black leather pants, and black boots and belt. He was unshaven, and had obviously not
slept.
"Where were you?" I asked.
"Where is it?" he demanded,
glancing suspiciously around the cafˇ.
I brought out the bat-skin, which he
donned immediately, oddly flexing his arms as if to test out the wings.
"OK, good," he said, "I can
see you've kept it in good shape: well-fed. Baaaaahh-hhaaaaahhhhaaaahhh! Now I need a double cappuccino."
"But what are you going to do?"
I asked.
"I'm going to drink it."
Cosmo di Madison proceeded to hang-out for
a good two hours in the smoking section, talking and smoking, lecturing and
laughing, explaining the doctrines and commenting on the staff at his favorite
cafˇ. He drank coffee after
coffee. He was in a gigantic mood:
magnanimous, expansive, ready for anything. And so we did what we often did when he was in such a mood:
we requested that he sing a few songs for us. But what would he sing?
There was on this day a young woman
sitting quietly at the table above the espresso machines. She had been studying there for hours,
and had managed to ward off absolutely the four or so attempts by the various
men in the cafˇ to start up a conversation. I had seen each approach, and had watched each defense, and
had noticed, what's more, that Cosmo di Madison himself had greeted her with
especial warmth from under his black sombrero. After making him his third double cappuccino, I pulled him
aside and spoke to him in the following manner.
"You see that woman up there?" I
said. "She almost never comes
in here, but when she does there is no one can manage to talk to her. I noticed that she watches you every
time you walk up the stairs."
"To be expected," replied Cosmo
di Madison.
"Well, here's what I think you should
do," I confided. "The
last time we put in Frank Sinatra and you sang Strangers in the Night in here, people
were talking about it for days.
I'm not kidding you. It
really showed you for what you're worth when it comes to music. So being that you and Frank share a
similar sense of the romantic, and being that--"
"You want me to sing Strangers in
the Night for her," Cosmo guessed, a smile coming forth through his
unshaven lips, a smile shaded further by his huge black leather hat.
"She's been studying here all
day. She needs a little cheering
up. You're the only man can do it
in this den of slackers. Ya hear
me?"
"What?... I hear you?" he asked almost indignantly.
"Why not?"
"It's me who says 'Ya hear me'!"
"Alright, alright. But that's the point. We want to hear you. So should I put Frank in?"
Cosmo di Madison looked around the
cafˇ. He leaned toward me and
said: "I'll tell you what, doll.
I want you to put in my friend Frank, and I want you to put the volume
on nice and soft. I want you to
put it to the song Strangers in the Night, because I'm gonna to sing that
young woman a song. Ya hear
me? Baaaahhh-haaaahhhhaaaaahhhh!"
Cosmo di Madison waited near her table for
the song to come on, pretending meanwhile to consider one of the paintings hung
in our most recent exhibition concerning dismembered bodies, screams of
nihilistic pain, and all the other unspeakable things suffered by young
American artists at the hands of Patriarchy, imperialism, capitalism, and
racism. As the first strains of Strangers
in the Night began to flow out of the speakers, Cosmo di Madison stepped up to
the woman's table, leaned himself on the railing next to it, and began to sing
with great passion--in a deep Sinatran voice--all the while keeping his eyes
glued passionately to hers--
Strangers in the
night
Exchanging
glances
Strangers in the
night
What were the
chances
We'd be sharing
love
Before the night
was through
--and so on. The young woman's response evidenced her deep romantic
attachment to the dark and masculine figure of Cosmo di Madison: certainly she
had heard of his heroic and noble deeds, and was now rendered speechless by his
attention to her. She closed her
book, shifted in her chair, and looked around to the cafˇ regulars who, she
saw, were watching the scene with interest. She looked then to the staff, myself and one other, who were
not ourselves of much help in her plight, as we were transfixed in admiration
as much of the voice of Cosmo di Madison as of the dark look of passionate and
unrequited love he wore on his unshaven mug. In short, the scene continued as planned, the young woman's
cheeks breaking into a blush, and her lips pursing in annoyance: for not only
was this man singing to her so passionately, and with such volume, but the
entire shop was absorbed in the scene, waiting for her reaction.
I was laughing to
myself at the register just below her table, when outside the cafˇ on the
sidewalk I suddenly saw walk by at a rather swift and determined pace a man of
around six feet in height wearing a full Batman costume. He walked swiftly by, his little
leather bat ears erect atop his head, his generous black cape flowing
gracefully behind him. I was in
pain.
Cosmo di Madison, seeing the same thing,
stopped dead in the middle of the song.
He fixed my eyes in fury, holding them a good five seconds. His lower lip began to quiver in
astonishment as he stood there frozen.
The woman to whom he'd been singing, not comprehending the look on his
face, defensively raised her hands before her, and had just begun to move
backwards out of her chair when Cosmo di Madison slammed down his fist on the
wood of the banister and screamed at the top of his lungs, shaking the whole
cafˇ--
WHAT! BATMAN? IN M-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y
NEIGHBORHOOD?!
Cosmo di Madison then strutted swiftly out
the front door of the cafˇ, which, because it has a retention rod, came softly
to a close behind him.
The reader can perhaps imagine my reaction
to this event. I stepped away from
the register and began to think, my hand slightly quivering, my head in a soup
of conjecture. How was it
possible? I phoned Sharon
immediately and told her the whole story: how Cosmo was wearing the bat-skin;
how he'd been singing to the woman; how Batman was suddenly seen outside on the
street; and how, finally, Cosmo had suddenly rushed out to get his
vengeance. Sharon didn't believe a
word of it. I began to tell the
other cafˇ workers of the previous night at Cosmo's apartment, but couldn't
manage to narrate a thing. There
were too many elements converging at once. What could I do?
I took a ten minute break, during which time I began to wonder, not
merely Where did the man in the Batman suit come from? but, further: What
happened when Cosmo di Madison caught up with the man in the Batman suit?
I will suppose, reader, that you doubt
this last event: that you suspect or are quite certain that I fabricated the
man in the Batman suit. But I will
tell you that next day the man in the Batman suit was back, and that this time I
left the cafˇ myself to ask him what he was doing in a Batman suit--in an
absolutely state-of-the-art Batman suit at that. It turned out that he was promoting Batman II, which film,
unbeknownst to me, had the day before begun its run at the Orpheum theater up
the street. He was being paid to
wander about and solicit the attention of children, who then, it was hoped,
would pester their parents to take them.
He was, in short, just a publicity Batman and not the real Batman.
I asked him if he had the day before seen
a tall man wearing a black coat that looked like a bat skin and a black leather
hat. "What do you mean?" he said.
I repeated the question.
"It sounds like me," he
said. "Are you sure you don't
mean me?"
"I'm absolutely certain. It was somebody who was going to kill
you, or who would get revenge because you betrayed him." I smiled. "You didn't see him then?"
"No," said Batman, eyeing me
up. "I didn't see
anyone. And you...." He seemed at a loss for
words. Then: "Well you have a
nice day now, OK? And remember,
and tell your friends or whoever else you're talking about: I'm just out here to promote a
movie. You know? You have a nice day. OK?"
Batman walked off in the direction of the
Orpheum. When he was around thirty
feet away, he glanced back at me and smiled vaguely. Then he crossed to the other side of the street in three
swift strides. We saw him no more.
II.2.14. The Cosmic Lexicon. The following terms all belong to that
complex vocabulary already glimpsed by the reader. Most of them are clearly theological terms, but others have
a wider range of application or are quite specifically scientific. I present them here as a whole,
challenging the reader to define as many of them as he or she can based on the
texts of these Gospels. In many
cases, I have a rather solid sense of the meaning of this or that theological
term, but in others I am still in the dark, and suspect I may long remain
so. For example, I cannot tell you
what phleffedate means, nor do I now even remember the context in which it was
uttered. I only know that I have
it written here--here on another of my Ten-Thousand scraps of paper.
The sheet is of white paper, and bears a
single fold. It's around four
inches by seven inches. In the
middle of one side, the inside, written by my hand in black pen, in block Roman
letters, rather sloppily however, is the word PHLEFFEDATE.
What is one to do with such a text, when
memory has failed? I have boxes
full of texts like this, and only a fraction of them relate to Cosmo di
Madison.
I believe it is as much my love for
accumulating these texts that has led me to write the doctrine of Cosmo di
Madison, as it is my love for the doctrine of Cosmo di Madison that has led me to
write these texts.
I leave this
lexicon to you readers.
affacated (On stage once he referred to a
piece he wrote for classical guitar as "a very affacated piece,"
adding that there should be no talking in the audience while it was being
performed. Also: tobacco grown in
a drier climate, like that grown in Wisconsin, is referred to as "very
affacated tobacco"--words clearly intended to recommend this tobacco to
those who can appreciate a good smoke.)
affacation
affacoid
claffidate
clatification
dalphation
eskff (Pronounced "ess-kaff." The
spelling is according to Cosmo di Madison, and is clearly in reference to the
lack of vowels in early Semitic writing systems. Cf. translations of tablets in
Book I.)
eskoff
estophant
impostation (Pronounced like impostor. Shall I admit that he used the term
once in reference to me? He said:
"Psssh! You are always
practicising impostation!")
jaffate
jorphelant
m'justidy
mustahfedation (He made reference in the translation of one Sumerian tablet
to the prophecy therein of "the mustahfedation of the Holy Virgin Mary." Cf. Book I.)
occoilant
occorphelant
orphelant
orphelate
orphelation
oskevate
pfaff (He refers to the "water
pfaffs" in Madison, which so attracted the Phonecians and which make
Madison the source of all of the world's fresh water.)
phleffedate
plain metic gold (He referred to this once
during our discussion of the book of Isaiah, and once in another, similar
context.)
referate
referation
tepethy
II.2.15. Several readers of Book I of the
deeds and sayings of Cosmo di Madison (I will mention no names: you know who
you are) have been so impertinent and thickheaded as to imply in my presence
that my literary efforts towards a canon of Cosmic doctrine would gain greater
renown were I to spend more time handling my dictionaries than I do in seeking
out the cosmic mot juste. Said one
to me: "Il y a le mot juste, oui, mais il le faut nˇanmoins justement
ˇcrire." T'be brief:
"Sure, there's the mot juste; but in order for it to be like totally juste, it has to be
spelled right."
Do you really imagine, dear readers, that
I am not learned enough to know the manner in which the scholars spell
"Phoenician"? That I have
everywhere spelled it "Phonecian" by accident ? That I have done so, in short, because
I was too lazy to look it up in some pocket dictionary of the Ancient World,
and hadn't previously encountered the name often enough in my reading to know
its schollardly spelling offhand?
Do you imagine that such a learned man as Cosmo di Madison would ever
have entrusted the recording of his teachings to someone as unlettered as all
that?
Know, then, that I received the correct
spelling of the name Phonecia from Cosmo di Madison himself. Know also that I am aware of the
manners in which the Phonecians themselves wrote their name as a people, for I
have been inspired by Cosmo di Madison's histories to become a sort of amateur
Phonecianist, taking time away from my Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, French, Italian,
German, Russian, Chinese, and Persian to learn to write soothing hymns,
terrifying invocations, and even a few rather tripping Limericks in several of
the various tongues or sub-tongues wagged by the old Phonecians.
Perhaps you, reader, would like me here to
write the name Phonecia as the Phonecians themselves wrote it. Perhaps you would have me perform this
task--perform it here and now--as much for the sake of establishing my
scholarly credibility as for the sake of tickling your own unquenchable desire
for the oriental and the exotic.
There is the Ugaritic then: [ ...
] And there is the High
Phonecian: [ ... ]
What's more, Cosmo di Madison has revealed
to me a sacred spelling of the name, which spelling I don't merely quote, but
which I present in the priestly Phonecian handwriting, as it was masterfully
copied for me one afternoon by Cosmo di Madison on a cafˇ notepad. The Phonecians, it seems, had a name
for themselves which was used only in priestly writings, and which, like the Tetragrammaton
of the Hebrews, could under no circumstances be uttered. The priests wrote this sacred name in
precisely the following manner.
(For the reader's sake, I have transcribed the name into Roman letters
beneath the original priestly letters written for me by Cosmo di Madison. But remember: Do not read the name out
loud, for there are still many Phonecians here in Madison, undercover though
they be. Your roommate or your
co-worker may be a Phonecian: you just don't know. The Phonecians are a serious people not to be toyed around
with. If they heard you uttering
their sacred name, you would surely die a watery death.)
[ ...
]
Cosmo di Madison: "The Phonecians
chose Madison as their site because they knew Madison was the source of all the
freshwater in the world. It still
is, except that people keep fucking with the natural water pfaffs . If they fuck up the pfaffs here in Madison, the whole world is
gonna go." His hand around his throat, Cosmo di Madison begins to make a
gurgling, dying, choking sound: "Cth-k--k-khthchch-kk-ch-ch-kth...." For four minutes he continues making
this sound, his face turning redder and redder, the scene becoming more and
more absurd. People begin to say:
"C'mon, Cosmo, stop already!"
His reply is:
"Cth-kth--k-khth-ch-k-ch-ch-kth...."
Cosmo di Madison: "The city of
Madison was built by the Phonecians on top of three giant pyramids. The pyramids are now buried under the
rubble of the modern city, and geologists have been paid to deny they're there. Nothing new under the sun. Ya hear me? It's always the same old scam. Psssh!"
Cosmo di Madison: "The
Phonecians? It is a tale of
mermaids and sailors."
Cosmo di Madison: "The Phonecians are
still heavily involved in politics.
You don't see them, but they're there."
Cosmo di Madison: "The Phonecians
could fly from one place to another, like birds. They could change themselves into any animal they
wanted. They loved to be surrounded
by water. They wanted water
everywhere. They were a beautiful,
noble people. It's all in the book
by Lentanius." [Lentanius is
presumably a Roman writer no longer extant. Though I tried, I could find none of his work, nor could I
find mention of him anywhere.
Cosmo di Madison doubtless has a manuscript he hasn't shown to
scholars.]
II.2.16. I had long wanted to discuss the
Scriptures with Cosmo di Madison, and had suggested to him that we begin with
Genesis, then work from there through the rest of the Pentateuch, then read
Job, the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and eventually the New Testament. I hinted at my dream of doing an
annotated version with him of at least Genesis and Luke, perhaps also Job. He showed some interest in this work,
but never would agree to an appointed time to begin. Finally he admitted that he was simply too busy with
political work to consider anything else, at least for a year or so. And so I set my mind to waiting.
One day, to my surprise, Cosmo di Madison
clapped his hand down on my shoulder and said: "Eric, why don't you come
over sometime soon so we can talk about Isaiah."
Needless to say, I made an appointment on
the spot, and on my next afternoon off I found myself in the apartment of Cosmo
di Madison, with a Jerusalem Bible in my bag, waiting to begin the discussion
of Isaiah. I say waiting because
Cosmo had a guest there already when I arrived, his landlord, who is Frank
Sinatra. You needn't flinch at
this, reader. I was there myself,
and can confirm it. I was there on
Cosmo di Madison's olive velour couch, surrounded by his extensive teddy bear
collection, drinking orange tea with Frank Sinatra while Cosmo di Madison was
in the kitchen boiling more water.
Frank Sinatra was there checking up on things before the visit next day
of the building inspector. Cosmo
di Madison is on very good terms with Frank Sinatra, calls him by his first
name, and asks him frequently about his daughter Nancy Sinatra, who lives in
Madison and is just about to have another child.
Frank leaves and Cosmo informs me:
"Frank is a little worried today.
Did you notice it? Nancy's
always had to have C-sections with her previous babies, and this time there are
some medical difficulties he didn't want to go into. I hope everything goes alright. Nancy's a great kid.
We're all pulling for her."
After Frank's departure, I took my Jerusalem Bible from my bookbag and
suggested we begin the discussion of Isaiah. I cannot here, reader, reveal to you all of the prophetic
utterances brought from Cosmo di Madison in relation to the texts we read together
from Isaiah. I will say, however,
that according to Cosmo di Madison the text of Isaiah contains as it were a
prophetic synopsis not merely of the whole Bible--condensing all that has come
before and projecting all that is to come--but of all of human history
itself. There are in fact
references therein pertaining to the Phonecians; the Continental Divide; the
Serbo-Kuwaitian War (sic, of course);
the three-headed dragon that arrived with Halley's comet and was killed
by Cosmo di Madison in the basement of Amy's Cafˇ; as well as references to the
crucial year 1994, when, as Cosmo says: "People will realize that I'm
right."
Without reconstructing the entirety of our
exegetical discussion--for much of it, I gather, I am not to make public--I will
yet reveal various interpretations worthy of the attention of those concerned
with the sacred texts of Our Faith.
My method was to read aloud a chosen poem in the Book of Isaiah, which
poem Cosmo di Madison would then interpret. And so, I read aloud the following passage of Isaiah (I:
11-13):
What are your
endless sacrifices to me?
says Jahweh.
I am sick of
holocausts of rams
and the fat of
calves.
The blood of
bulls and of goats revolts me.
When you come to
present yourselves before me,
who asked you to
trample over my courts?
Bring me your
worthless offerings no more,
the smoke of
them fills me with disgust.
Cosmo di Madison did not hesitate to reveal
to me the obvious concerning Jahweh's complaint here.
"By this point," Cosmo said,
"Jahweh has changed his ways.
He's become a vegetarian."
One thus sees the truth of Cosmo di
Madison's assertion that Isaiah condenses the general movement of the
Bible. Jahweh has here already, in
Isaiah I, evidenced a disgust with the practice of sacrifice and a penchant for
progressive eating habits, which latter trend will eventually let Jewish
Christians sup at the same table as the Gentiles with their sushi and crab
salads.
Cosmo di Madison further remarked that
Jahweh's newfound vegetarian lifestyle put him in spiritual alliance with both
"the Vietnamese and the Hari Krishnas." This latter was clearly intended as a mark of praise, since
Cosmo di Madison himself is a vegetarian, as was his celebrated father. What's more, the Hari Krishnas are so
beloved of Cosmo di Madison that they frequently visit the Cosmic household to
make free vegetarian breakfasts for his many children.
The doctrinal and historical gist of this
passage, then, is that Jahweh is already on the right track, while his
people--a "stiff-necked people," as he calls them earlier--are still
behaving like thugs and Lutherans, defiling the flesh of mammals for vulgar
gain.
I also asked Cosmo di Madison to discourse
upon Jahweh's response to Moses at Exodus 3:14. This particular passage, as the learned reader knows, has
led to much theological consideration already. And so I read it to him:
And God said to
Moses, "I Am that I Am.
This," he added, "is what you must say to the sons of Israel: 'I
Am has sent me to you.'"
What, I asked Cosmo di Madison, is meant by
this "I Am that I Am"?
The following text is an exact transcription of Cosmo di Madison's
reply, for at this point in our discussion we had begun to run a taperecorder:
That He is of
the proper jorphelant. The Lord
God is a man, and Jehovah is a woman.
You have to have a good....
To get the pretense of the whole situation right, you have to be spawned
in the same pond with your mate.
Jehovah is the Virgin Mary.
The God Jehovah is a female angel, a foetus in other words. Jahweh is a man. Christ is Jahweh and the Virgin Mary is
Jehovah. Mary Magdalene is an
offspring of Jehovah who changed her ways because she loved Jesus and wanted
Jesus to be her husband. The
Virgin Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ, who is estophant for the plain metic
gold for me being able to artificially inseminate people with my mind and to
bring forth immaculate birth by just thinking on the subject. I don't have to orphelate a seed into
the woman. I can escoff and bring
forth immaculate birth.
Every man that is
abundantly of wholeness and happiness brings forth and has children to referate
and look at himself a whole real burden to oscevate the power and wisdom which
he has escoffed with this woman who is his private Virgin Mary. Every man's wife is his Mary. Every man has the tepethy and the power
and the m'justidy to become one with Jesus and one with Moses if they want
to. If they don't want to, it's
very apparent in the way they act and how they motivate their orphelations.
Aware that I have already here recorded
enough of Cosmo di Madison's exegesis to provide theologians--particularly
gender theologians such as U. Rank-Heinemann--with material for hundreds more
chapters of doctrinal argumentation and liberal-humanist jeremiad--and all this
while the Persians are at the gates--I will quote no more.
II.2.17. The following text is that of a
poster which graced the walls of our cafˇ during the summer months of
1992. Two copies of this poster
were displayed: the first--soon stolen--upon one of the yellowed walls of the
almost criminally dark and unhealthy upstairs smoking section; and the second
just next to the cream and sugar counter downstairs in the bright and virtuous
section. Between the first and
second paragraphs of the text was to be seen the celebrated Duerr photograph of
Cosmo di Madison which can now be seen on the cover of the present volume.
Re: Proper Summer Etiquette at the S 'n
B Counter
The Steep 'n Brew committee for customer
programming recommends that the more fashion-conscious of our regular customers
adopt the following manner when ordering our iced coffee.
FIRST: Saunter up to the counter from any
angle, ignoring the other plebeians that may be waiting there in line. (Remember: You are a busy person,
crucial to all branches of geopolitical decision-making. Without your constant vigilance, the
civilized world would fall into disorder.)
SECOND: Stand at your full height and hold out your empty iced coffee
glass, your arm at a rigid right angle to your body and parallel to the
ground. THIRD: In a tone combining
James Dean with a bit of the petulant child, order your iced coffee with a
command based on one of the following, being sure to aim your order
specifically at one of the S 'n B employees (the nearest or cutest of them)
regardless of what said employee may be busy doing. Blurt out briskly something such as:
1)
Iced Coffee, Pumpkin!
2)
Icy di Frosto, Pumpkin!
3)
Icy for the Coz, Pebbles!
4)
Icy Pebbles, Doll! On
the double!
5)
Hey, Doll Face!
Whyn't ya jist get me a Icy!
C'mon!
6)
Hey! One Iced
Cwaaffee!
7)
Icy, Darling!
8)
Once a pumpkin, always a pumpkin. One Icy!
9)
Icy Flakes, Pumpkin Lover!
10)
One Icy fer da Coz, you Pumpkin Stuffer you!
11)
Hey, Darlink! Da
lud da ein! Vun Eisenberry fur der
Kosmos! Jawohl du Lieberlein!
12)
Last Icy, Doll! I'm
off on a twenty-three hour shift in Iraq.
They're at it again.
Psssssh! Seeya.
All of these requests for iced coffee, from
one of our most distinguished and Weltgetravelter customers, have been recorded
by the S 'n B staff. They ought to
be used as a model for those who wish to reform their dull and prosaic
deportment at the S 'n B counter.
Remember: The request must be blurted out with absolutely no regard for
either the nerves of the staff or the needs of other customers. With practice, any customer could
surely raise themselves into the limelight of local notoriety within a few days
time, silencing all timid protest and perhaps even eventually receiving checks
from the government in recognition of their newfound self-importance.
>>>NB: Any regular who is not over
six-foot-six in height and under 150 pounds--who does not have both the length,
teeth, and laugh of a Chinese dragon--should not dare consider this method of
ordering iced coffee in our establishment, as they will probably receive
instead a dousing of lukewarm swiss almond decaf for their impertinence. In
short, only those qualified need apply.
--Staff.
II.2.18. On the day the popular Christian
rock band U2 played Madison, I ran into Cosmo di Madison on the sidewalk,
mid-afternoon before the show.
"Hey, Doll Face, are you going to the
U2 show?" I asked him.
"Psssh!" he said. "I called Bono last night and told
him I wasn't gonna play. They fucking
suck."
"You called Bono?" I asked him.
"Yeah, I told him they used to be
good when they did only my songs, but now they do way too many fucking
drugs."
"You used to write songs for
U2?"
"Psssh! What'd'ya think?
Their first two albums are me."
"What did Bono say?"
"Oh, he could barely sniffle his way through
the talk, he's got so much fucking coke up his nose. Finally I hung up.
But now he's been calling me all morning, begging me to do it, begging
me for old time's sake. I told him
I don't go on stage with drugged-out losers."
I asked Cosmo what I should do if Bono
came into the cafˇ looking for him.
"Tell him I got a better job directing classical orchestras in
Vienna. And don't let him have too
much coffee. He's way too high
already."
II.2.20. I found a box of the candies
called Sweet-Tarts up in the smoking section of the cafˇ. Cosmo di Madison happened to be there,
so I offered them to him. He held
the box out before him as if in horror.
"I don't want these fucking
things!" he snapped.
"What are ya trying to poison me? Eccch!
Sweet-Tarts were invented by John F. Kennedy."
"They were not!" said a woman
sitting nearby, a graduate student in American history.
"What do you know about it!" snapped Cosmo di
Madison, shaking the box of candies menacingly at the woman. "Inventing Sweet-Tarts was
Kennedy's major action in office."
The woman pretended to go back to her
book.
"You won't ever catch me eating these
fucking things!" said Cosmo di Madison to a man reading the paper. "They're fucking sick! They cause brain damage!"
"Sweet-Tarts cause brain
damage?" I asked him, with a vague note of skepticism.
"Psssh! You know they do! Look what happened to Kennedy in the end."
The man put down his paper and knit his
brows in a look of thorough confusion.
The woman could barely hold back her laughter: she held her hand to her
mouth while her body shook convulsively.
Cosmo di Madison glared at her in silence. I myself--though I have kept pace with Cosmo di Madison
through thick and thin--even I had to think this one through.
Somewhere between Zeno and David Lynch.
II.2.21. "Psssh! They're always trying to talk to you
about psychosis, as if they knew.
If you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, you should just
keep your mouth shut. That's what
I say. I'll tell you what
psychosis is. Psychosis is two dalphations of a sequence not jaffating in
the proper atamant. All they gotta do is
read my books--the fuckin' losers."
II.2.22. Is it true that Cosmo di Madison
has a tunnel leading from the basement of our cafˇ to the basement of
Amy's? Of course it is true. And what is the purpose of this tunnel?
Cosmo di Madison: "I have my reasons,
doll. Top secret."
II.2.23. A man at the Counter: "I
remember the good old days when refills were only thirty-five cents here."
Cosmo di Madison: "Yeah, the good old
days. The cold war. I'm missing it already. You too, hey Doll Face?"
Myself: "I'm missing it already,
honey. Missing it worse every day."
II.2.24. In precisely the same manner that
musicians sit with mouth agape in wonder during the performances of Cosmo di
Madison--in precisely the same manner and to precisely the same extent are the
more learned of them known to stare in awe at the musical instruments he plays
at these performances. For Cosmo
di Madison is certainly the only Madison musician to possess a Stradivarius
acoustic guitar. In fact, if my
reading on the history of the various Cremona makes serves me right, he may
very well be the only American musician ever to possess a Stradivarius acoustic
guitar. One is naturally led to
wonder how he came upon this prize possession--
This guitar is really quite old,
replies Cosmo di Madison. It was
given to Pope John Paul I when he was twelve. He died at age four-hundred-and-forty-seven, when I acquired
it. He gave it to me on his
deathbed, because he knew that I have been thinking, and using my head, and
practicing a lot of very intense theology all of my life. It is this theology which the Pope
respected in me, and it is because of this theology and my way of living that
he gave me this guitar.
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Email: inthemargins03@hotmail.com
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This page is
at http://www.necessaryprose.com/
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