A rags-to-riches story

I apologize to myself for this unpleasant line-drawing. I don’t like it and I regret that I’m strapping it to today’s entry. My only excuse for doing so is that I am image-poor, at the moment.

Dear diary,

Get the government out of my uterus. That’s what I hear all the gangsters saying nowadays. One makes a lot of loot with one’s gang, and then the government wants to come and tell one what to do with one’s unborn gang members.

Yes, everyone hates the government. Everyone hates taxes. Therefore these things enthrall me: I develop an interest in them — I like to ask questions like “Why are you crying, O gangbanger?” And the sorrowful gangster answers:

“I performed the hard work of robbing folks to earn my fortune, and now the government wants to rob ME, which would make my fortune less large. My tears are an emotional reaction to this unfairness.”

Now I wanna question this gangbanger further, but I’m scared, so I just tremble.

“Any further questions?” the gangster sez. “Do not be afraid of my fierce appearance — I’m really just like you, on the inside. I was a soft little baby when I was born.”

“Gee whiz,” I say; “you’re comforting me when I should be comforting you. For you’re the one who’s been wronged. But I thank you for your compassion. It’s true that I have a follow-up question, which has been bouncing on the tip of my tongue like a swimmer on a diving board — lo: You speak of the act of taxation as robbery committed by the government — so here’s what I wonder: If you enjoy robbing so much that you decided to make it your career, then, instead of complaining about the government being the Best Robber Ever, I say, why not simply join the government yourself? What I mean is: Why not take over the government and become it, so that you and the government can share an identity. That way, any loot that you lose to taxes will fly right back to you yourself: it’ll be like robbing The Peter & Paul Foundation to invest in their far superior criminal enterprise: THE CHURCH. However, just to be clear, when I suggest that you gangsters should take control of the government, I don’t mean that you should do so by raw force — that would be immoral — but rather I mean that you should use whatever loot you currently possess to finance your campaign and run for office, totally legally: once you get in there, bribe officials and climb to the top. Persuade your fellow gang members to take over all the other branches of government until the outfit is synonymous with your mob’s syndicate. Then you can stand on the top of the highest building in the country and give everyone the figs.”

“The figs?” asks the gangbanger, drying his eyes. “I was following you perfectly, right up until that very last word. Why would I want to climb onto the roof of the White House and distribute fruit?”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!” I say, “I’m referring to the very first lines from Canto 25 of Dante’s Inferno, which John D. Sinclair translates as ‘At the end of his words the thief lifted up his hands with both the figs, crying: “Take that, God, for at Thee I square them!”’ — thus, after gaining control of the government, if you hold up both hands and “give everyone the figs”, this means that you make an obscene gesture: it’s the ancient Italian version of extending one’s middle finger and cursing God to his face.”

“Ah, I see,” sez the gangbanger; “thanks for putting it in terms I can understand. And I really like your idea of using electoral politics to rob people more efficiently. I think I’ll take you up on your idea.”

“Great! I’m glad that I could help,” I say. “But it’s not really my idea — I gleaned it from watching what happened in the final days of other fallen countries. Most people just cruise thru life with their eyes closed, and they don’t pay attention to anything; so the world keeps getting worse and worse around them, until they find themselves on their deathbed in a wretched dystopia; but I, on the other hand, like to pay close attention to everything that’s going on, both at the present moment and in the distant past; this way, I pick up tidbits of knowledge that I can pass on to guys like you, and by these means I’m able to take a more active role in world-ruining.”

“You really are evil, aren’t you?” I’ve now won the gangster’s full attention.

“I believe in evil,” I answer, “with all my heart. I think that a lot of people just pay lip-service to evil; and that’s why they join gangs and do petty crime. But the sincere believers in evil will place their energies in canvassing for electoral politics. Especially in the U.S., where I live.”

“You call that living?”

“No; that was a joke.”

“Oh, ha ha!” laughs the gangbanger. “Wow, you’re maybe the first person I’ve ever met who has dedicated his whole life and mind to the pursuit of pure evil. Other gangsters, like you say, often pose in favor of evil, and they talk the talk; but if you take a close look at their lives, they really care about the same stuff as so-called normal people: they want their kids to have food and education; they vaguely care for their spouse, and they want a nice house in a safe neighborhood… If they participate in the political process at all, it might be that they cast a vote every couple of years; but they’re not willing to stand up and take a leading role in, say, rigging an election against a less-corrupt candidate, or getting someone into a regulatory office who’s willing to look the other way instead of addressing immoralities.”

“Well I live for this stuff,” I say. “The expansion of evil is more important to me than a paycheck. — I have two priorities: First, to favor evil so that it surges and flowers while also rooting itself deeper and firmer in the culture and society; and only secondly am I concerned with robbing folks blind.”

“Jeez, how come I’ve never heard of you till now?” says the gangbanger, wide-eyed.

“You probably have heard of me, time and again, but whatever was being said about me didn’t stick in your memory, because most everything I do is unremarkable: it all looks and sounds quite bland and traditional. You’ve heard the cliché: ‘The banality of evil’ — yeah, that’s me.”

“Huh,” sez the gangbanger, impressed.

“Say,” I now change the subject, “do you wanna take a walk, get a drink somewhere? We could pick up some chicks and maybe cheat them out of some money...”

“Sure,” sez my new friend. “But I don’t think I caught your name…”

“Bryan Ray, here to help,” I repeat the catchphrase that I print on all my business cards.

“Buoso Donati,” he sez while firmly shaking my hand; “pleased to meet you.”

So Mr. Donati and I take a stroll down the boardwalk. We pass many young couples and mothers on our way to the local diner; so I take any children that are far enough away from their guardians and enroll them in the underworld of human trafficking. — Also, just for fun, there’s this stroller next to this lady, and it has a basket attached to its guardrail that is holding the baby’s bottle; and I wait till the woman’s back is turned, then I snatch the bottle and replace it with a package of cigarettes. (Once we’re a little ways off, I roll the bottle into the street and it gets run over by a passing truck — a rusty red pickup; I happen to note that its bed is filled with militiamen who are most likely planning something unpleasant. This brings a smile to my face.)

We reach the diner and take a seat in one of the booths. Buoso orders a double serving of French toast, and I order a double serving of French fries. There are two ladies in the booth behind us, so I turn around and tap the cute one on the shoulder and ask if we might borrow a sheet of looseleaf paper, “My friend Buoso and I would like to draw up some plans. We’re trying to figure out how to spend the rest of our day.”

The girl opens her attaché and offers me a clean sheet from her college-ruled notebook. While taking the page, I grasp her hand and hold it gently but firmly in my own. She now looks up and meets my gaze — we lock eyes for a moment — I slowly lean forward and kiss her hand. At last I let go and turn back around and begin to draw up a simple diagram for Buoso:

“OK, here’s the layout of the park,” I say, inscribing lines on the paper and representing each item that I list. “Over here is the lake. Here are some ducks. And right here is a nest of songbirds. Here be dragons; and over here is the labyrinth; there’s my mechanical bear that I made. There’s a flower bed right here. And here’s the shoreline. I’ll add a few seashells to the shoreline so that we don’t forget to take them home as souvenirs.”

“Hey Bry,” Buoso nudges my elbow while whispering; “why don’t we invite those two dames in the booth to dine with us? They seem like the perfect subjects to hoodwink this afternoon.”

I pause for a beat, deep in thought; then I answer Mr. Donati: “OK, I agree. But only if I get the cute one, and you get the ugly one.”

“Deal!” sez Buoso.

So I stand up and take one step over so that I’m facing the booth where the women are seated. “Ladies,” I say, “would you care to join us?”

And they answer in unison, after a giggle: “We thought you’d never ask!”

So they each slide into our booth: the cute one next to me, and the ugly one next to my trusty acquaintance Buoso.

Now the waitress shows up with our food:

“One double serving of French toast,” she slides the plate over to Mr. Donati; “and one double serving of golden brown French fried potatoes,” and she centers this second plate before me with great care, all the while enchanting me with her perfume. “Can I get you anything else?”

“Yes: how much will this cost?” I ask. “Also, I need several types of dipping sauce.”

“Oh! I’m sorry,” sez the waitress; “I forgot to unload the sauces!” then she removes a number of individually-sealed, single-serving containers of various dips from a secret compartment of her brassiere. She sets them before me, one by one. Each time she does this, her scent intoxicates me afresh. “And your total comes to seven-seven dollars even,” she slaps down the bill in front of Buoso: the slip indeed reads: “$77 USD”.

So our tablemates stare at us longingly while we enjoy in silence the attractive cuisine that we ordered.

When we’re finished, I address the ugly gal next to Buoso: “Dear sweet girl, I seem to have forgotten your name.”

And she opens her mouth to speak, but I interrupt her:

“It’s not important. What I wanted to tell you is that my friend, your potential future husband here, Monseigneur Buoso Donati, has an ailing grandmother who needs an operation in order to avoid becoming a witch and descending into hell, where she will burn forever in agony. Therefore, to save her life, we need seventy-seven dollars. Do you have the heart to help us?”

So that’s how we got out of having to pay for our meal. But then, about five minutes later, while we’re strolling thru the park, we hear an angry voice shouting:

“Buoso Donati!” (it’s the voice of the ugly one whom we just swindled) “Buoso Donati! You are NOT Buoso Donati! I know this for a fact, because the REAL Buoso Donati was born in the same year as my OWN father; thus he would have been MUCH OLDER than you.”

“Are you accusing me of being a fraud?” said my traveling companion. “Are you suggesting that I stole the identity of my own uncle for the purpose of inheriting his vast fortune?”

“Yes,” said the righteously indignant dupe.

So we were forced to lure her into the shaded area of the park and administer to her a dose of liquid heroin with an eyedropper, and she expired euphorically. Then we rolled her into the pond, but her body kept wanting to float, so we put some bread crumbs on it, and the ducks came over and landed on her and hid her long enough for us to escape.

So we went over and looked at the baby birds in the nest that I had told my friend about earlier, when I was drawing up our itinerary. Two of the five eggs had hatched; and we stood there for a great while waiting for the parent-birds to come feed them, but they were nowhere to be seen, so we grew bored and left.

Now, don’t get me wrong; we saw a lot of gorgeous wildlife along the way, as we were planning our future crimes. We saw a rabbit in a nearby yard, nibbling the grass. And we saw a family of deer trot thru someone’s flowerbed. And the mother deer ate the biggest, prettiest flower as she passed — she did this so casually that it almost seemed like an intentional insult: as if she was sending an arrogant warning: “We own this town.”

§

Inspired by that last moment in the paragraph above, Buoso Donati and I go back and hunt down those two girls that we swindled at the diner. When we find them (it turns out that the ugly one had not truly died: she was only sleeping... either that or she resurrected; which seems plausible, due to her stench), we both simultaneously propose marriage to them. Buoso Donati and his wife become happy bankers, after the example set by the World King and Global Judge in my previous entry. And I myself become an employee of Buoso. (My mistress agrees to work as his secretary, with the proviso that he occasionally make unwelcome amorous advances.)

So Mister Donati ends up running his bank too well, just like the World King did in that earlier entry. He is too nice to the local customers: he treats them fairly; he is upright and honest with them, in all his dealings. He cannot seem to master the ways of True Evil.

Now the Rulers of the Universe storm into Donati’s bank, with the God of this World appearing in person as their commander, riding his horse at the front of the posse. They ask Donati to resign but he WILL NOT. “I refuse to hand over the reigns of this bank to YOU!” screams Donati at the LORD, as he gives him the figs.

Now Buoso’s ugly wife reminds her husband that tonight is their anniversary. What a drag. Buoso opts to ignore the hussy. “Her face looks just like the face of the horse of the LORD,” he thinks to himself in one of the film’s subtitle cards.

So the ugly wife of Buoso keeps chasing him, making plan after plan to celebrate their anniversary, but Buoso keeps dodging her by making business plans that conflict with each date. Thus he spends too many evenings with his bankster friends.

Now Bryan Ray’s doppelganger, who is authoring the entry that is currently abusing everyone, gets a job as a gambler. He gambles away his life’s savings and ends up destitute. So he devises a plan to court the ugly wife of Mr. Donati, in hopes of using her money to pay himself back some fraction of this enormous debt that he owes to his Daemon. Night after night, he keeps visiting himself in ghost-form, demanding payment in full on the debt that he lent to himself.

So Mrs. Donati ends up saying “YES!!!” to Author Bryan’s proposal to have an extramarital affair in the office after-hours. The two end up kissing, esquimo-style, and the Other Bryan sees them. (The Other Bryan owns a periscope.)

So the Daemon Bryan steals a bunch of money from the bank’s vault, but he ends up genociding an entire continent of innocent people and dropping two atomic bombs in the process. So this story makes it onto page 4 of the newspaper.

Thus, after the next Great Depression, nobody smart trusts DONATI BANK. This totally sux for Buoso and his ugly wife, cuz, like I said, they are the bank’s owners. So they promise to make all the angry people happy again — they even offer them their first half-white U.S. president, but the Moloch of Populism refuses to hear this prayer.

At this point in the story, the Nazis enter the bank and arrest the Other Bryan, mistaking him for Bryan’s Daemon. But, strangely, Bryan covers for himself, claiming that he really pretended to do all those crimes that he committed. Nobody can figure this out: “Why would he not just lie!?” the audience asks collectively and audibly, before shushing itself.

So when he sees the writing on the wall, Buoso Donati decides to indulge in self-help.

But just when he’s pulling the trigger and the bullet is flying into the center of his brain and the blood is splattering in exquisite patterns against the office wall (an effect caused by the controlled bursting of carefully placed squibs containing chocolate syrup, which uncannily resembles hemoglobin when filmed in monochrome), Buoso’s ugly wife bursts into the room and sez some stuff that makes Donati repent of this irreversible outcome.

So this whole thing ends with my impostor-billionaire boss telling me that he will permit me to marry my own character whom I already own the rights to, yet at the same time he agrees to re-legalize the old Mormon style of polygamy so that I can add his hot secretary’s name to my balance sheet. Thus, we all head out on a luxurious sea voyage to mark the end of our story. However, his ugly wife tags along; and she reveals that she is pregnant. So the boat begins to turn in the direction of the nearest abortion clinic; but then we all breathe a sigh of relief when the father of this child is revealed to be the readership: all the spectators of this masterpiece.