Hunting down a wonderful man

I just finished putting the final touches on an episode of BRYAN THE TYGER where my heroes form a search party and sniff out the city for a Wizard. (The Wizard, for those who don't know, is the ruler of this world: he's the proverbial "man behind the curtain".)

P.S.

In other news: my Public Private Diary is fully printed; also I made a list of my latest novels that have been printed but not included in any collection.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Stepping out onto the streets of Emerald City, I take a deep, slow breath thru my Tyger-nostrils; then remark while exhaling:

“Ah-h-h-h-h-h! this whole cosmopolis smells like success.”

“It really does,” agrees Myala the Black Panther. “And everyone is so important-looking. They’re all wearing business attire: tailored suits for the Alpha Males, and tailored pantsuits for the Strong Women. Plus everyone seems to be in a hurry; they all walk briskly. But I never see anyone bump into another. Where are they all going, I wonder.”

“They’re headed to various offices, to execute important roles in finance,” I answer. “Without their efforts, all the worlds would collapse. But these businesspeople are extremely efficient. Their society is like a clock that is tuned with precision.”

“Excuse me,” sez Dorothy Gale from atop my Tyger-back, “I thought we were off to see the Wizard.”

“Oh!” I shake my head as if fighting free of a spell, “yes, sorry Dorothy; I just got caught up in admiring the mise en scène. This city is enthralling.”

“It’s all propaganda,” Dorothy sez; “the truth is that the citizenry is miserable.”

“Wait a minute—” sez Myala; “are you saying that all these people we see here are fake?”

“No, they’re not robo-butlers; they’re certified organic humans,” Dorothy explains; “but they’re all being bankrolled by a confederacy of secretive oligarchs which pays them to hustle around looking contentedly busy. That’s why they never run into each other: the whole routine is meticulously choreographed. It’s all a ruse. But if you peek inside any of these glass skyscrapers, you’ll see the despair that underlies this facade.”

Deciding to test the young lady’s theory, I skulk over to the nearest glazen high-rise and press my Tyger-face against one of its windowpanes. Sure enough, inside are billions and billions and bil­lions and billions and billions and billions of overworked, underpaid interns: all sporting sulky looks.

“What a wretched sight!” I recoil from the building in revulsion. “Such a gloomy generation!”

“Let me see,” Myala slinks forward and peers thru the same window; then draws back and shudders. “Dorothy,” she sez thru clenched jaws, “please show us to their leader.”

Dorothy smiles and makes a motion signifying a curtsy (it’s hard to genuinely curtsy while straddling a Tyger), “It will be my pleasure!”

So Dorothy directs us to a sinister-looking castle, which uncannily resembles my own gray castle in the German Alps, where Myala and I left our kitty friends Nous and Zephyros. However, instead of being surrounded by clear blue waters that are infested with sharks and leviathans, this place is engulfed in flames and has a Giant Head of Moloch centered before its entryway; so, in order to gain access to the castle, one must feed one’s firstborn offspring to the idol’s mouth.

“Home sweet home,” quips Emily Brontë.

We all involuntarily laugh.

“This is an expert use of hellfire,” I remark; “despite the depravity of charging an entry fee of infanticide.”

“How are we gonna get in?” asks Myala.

Dorothy’s voice is quivering as she answers: “Honestly, the set wasn’t fully ablaze like this when we came; there were only a few flames that the Wizard could cause to flare up in front of his control booth, from a row of gas jets that the art department installed. The Great Moloch Head wasn’t there either. I’m afraid I don’t know the answer. — I wonder what else has changed since they passed the first Emerald City Patriot Act.”

“This is all part of the Patriot Act?” I ask.

“Yes,” nods Dorothy.

“Friends, give ear; I have a solution,” sez Emily Dickinson from atop Myala. She lifts her glittering notebook on high: “I will cast this volume of verse into the maw of the idol, so that ye felines can carry us past the atrocity, slinking alongside either ear, while the Great Head is ruminating.”

Hearing this, I roar: “Absolutely NOT!” (even I myself am a little frightened by my instinctive ferocity on this occasion); then I detail a counterproposal: “I will feed my own latest volume of masterworks to the gullet of Moloch; for yours, dear Ms. Dickinson, are far more precious, and I’d like a chance to get them all by heart.”

Myala the Black Panther now asserts herself:

“You two can quit being noble anytime you like. No one needs to annihilate any creation: For, just because there’s a rule about entering the castle doesn’t mean that we must obey it.”

Ms. Brontë smiles as if she had been awaiting this exchange: “Are you saying that we should ruin the sacred truths?”

“I’m saying,” declares Myala in an heroic close-up: “if the law is immoral, then breaking it is imperative.”

The rest of us stand silently for a moment, dumbfounded by the force of this wisdom. Then, all at once, we snap from our trance and begin to step forth:

Approaching the gigantic stone head with its gaping mouth, we note the narrowness of the passage available on either side of the idol, and the flames and lava that will be our fate if we fail.

Gangs of flying primates now buzz overhead and screech: “One child! One babe! One firstborn! Nothing is got for nothing! One sacrifice, unblemished, to gain redemption!”

We calmly keep skulking.

“One savior per visitor! Law and order!” screech the chimps.

“Hey, you chimpanzees bring to mind the heavenly angels, with your gossamer wings,” I shout. “Look at you, hovering there like majestic mosquitos, keeping watch over your banana republic. — I bet that the taste of your flesh resembles West Highland White Terrier.”

“And is that a good or bad flavor?” the flying chimps hover, blinking.

“Ah, it’s just a type of chicken,” I quip. (Nobody laughs.) “Hey, but I wanted to ask you primates, just out of curiosity: Are you, by any chance, the initial draft version of God Biology’s ‘Adam and Eve’ models?”

The flying chimps, monkeys, baboons, and assorted primates, including the so-called Missing Link to Humankind, all winged but chained by the middle to each other, grinning and snatching at one another, now decide to hold an Emergency Bible Study in hopes of discovering the answer to my trick question. So the primates gather in the brick building that adjoins the side of the castle. 

“Is that a church, a prison, or a brothel?” asks Myala, indicating this place where the primates are flocking for their religious service.

“What’s the difference?” quips Ms. Brontë.

(Everyone laughs.)

The primates begin their meeting with a group-prayer, voiced by the flying monkey with the shortest chain, who is christened Iblis. Meanwhile, we jungle cats and our divine passengers are slinking along the crooked paths outside the stone face of Moloch, to avoid paying for tickets to this (un)attraction. As we skulk past the idol, we’re granted a clear view into the window of the building where these flying primates have congregated. We see that this “bible study” in which they’ve engaged is rather an orgy of torment and cannibalism; and whoever emerges victorious gets to dictate the official interpretation of their unreadable scripture, which is displayed in the midst of their church upon a pedestal.

“That is intriguing,” I remark to Myala, who is skulking along the other side of the skull of Moloch at an equal pace; “look: those bozos have stumbled upon a way to relegate text itself, an inherently intellectual medium, to a mere physical idol.”

As we take our final steps into the castle’s entrance, Myala replies: “Yes, I wonder if they’ll ever decide to replace this large stone head,” she nods at Moloch, “with that little black book,” she nods at the sacred scripture on the pedestal which can be seen thru the building’s window — we now are close enough to recognize that most of the chimpanzeengels [chimpanzee + angels] are using a copy of contemporary commentary in lieu of a Bible.

“And, instead of so brashly and literally slaying their offspring in the flames,” Myala continues, “perhaps they will teach them from infancy to bow under the yoke of their holy book, demanding that they relinquish their critical abilities and, instead, accept and follow its ‘only true meaning’ (which of course will be provided by the established rulers). For, in this way, their children will remain just as dead as if they’d been fed to Moloch’s inferno, yet they will expire only inwardly: thus they’ll still be able to move their limbs and perform mindless labor, which is the highest possible boon to the corporate mobsters that comprise the oligarchy that commandeers the church.”

I reply: “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

Now we have reached the innermost chamber of the castle. In the place where, if this were a movie theater, there would be a Silver Screen, instead there are a plethora of TV monitors displaying images of national and local news programs.

After a moment of feeling confused by this cacophony, we realize that all these shows are delivering roughly identical messages. — The effect would be comical if it weren’t so insulting.

Now Dorothy Gale slides down off my back and sez: “I’ll take it from here. My dog Toto taught me how to navigate this level of the ordeal.”

Then she confidently strides over to the back of the room, where there’s a large painting hanging on the wall above the chief executive’s desk. This picture is a portrait of the actor George Macready, playing the role of Ballin Mundson in the 1946 movie Gilda.

Dorothy slides the life-sized painting aside, and we see a combination lock mounted on a secret door. She turns the knob: eight left, twenty-four right, two left, and finally seventeen right. We hear a loud click, and the panel swings open to reveal a sweet old man who is standing in a bombproof closet and moving his thumbs rapidly upon the touchscreen of a mobile phone. He is apparently not too distracted by our breach of his privacy, for he doesn’t even bother to look up.

“Voila,” announces Dorothy: “The Wizard.”

After waiting a moment to see if he’ll finish using his computing device, Myala asks, “What’s he doing, sending an instant-text message or something?”

Dorothy tries to peek at the old man’s phone, but, while continuously thumbing its touchscreen, he pulls back so that she cannot view the display.

“I think he’s maybe using an app to trade stocks on Wall Street,” Dorothy guesses. “But, yes, Myala: he also could be sending a group-text to all of the oligarchs, alerting them that we’ve rediscovered him.”

“OK, that’s it – I’ve had enough,” Emily Brontë leaps down from my broad, strong Tyger-back and strides over to the section of the theater that vends refreshments. She commands the clerk to fetch her a bucket of water. When he informs her that she must first purchase a movie-snack — soda, candy, or popcorn — in order to receive any type of extra service, she calmly threatens to disembowel him. – The clerk then returns with a large, full bucket.

Emily Brontë hefts this water over to the Wizard, who is still thumbing his portable device. She pours the entire bucket onto his phone. The device begins to smoke and spark, and then it melts and shrinks and vanishes.

Now the Wizard is crying, and Emily Brontë is laughing.

We jungle felines and our human friends begin to laugh too. Soon the Wizard joins us in our laughter.