Valis (21 page)

Glancing at me, David made a signal that we should follow; together, the three of us approached Kevin and Eric. Not far off, Sophia ignored us; she continued to read her book.

A flash of pink light blinded me.

"Oh my God," Isaid.

I could not see; I put my hands against my forehead, which ached and throbbed as if it would burst.

"What's wrong?" David said. I could hear a low humming, like a vacuum cleaner. I opened my eyes, but nothing other than pink light swam around me.

"Phil, are you okay?" Kevin said.

The pink light ebbed. We were in three seats aboard a jet. Yet at the same time, superimposed over the seats of the jet, the wall, the other passengers, lay the brown dry field, Linda Lampton, the house not far off. Two places, two times.

"Kevin," I said. "What time is it?" I could see nothing out the window of the jet but darkness; the interior lights over the passengers were, for the most part, on. It was night. Yet, bright sunlight streamed down on the brown field, on the Lamptons and Kevin and David. The hum of the jet engines continued; I felt myself sway slightly: the plane had turned. Now I saw many far-off lights beyond the window. We're over Los Angeles, I realized. And still the warm daytime sun streamed down on me.

"We'll be landing in five minutes," Kevin said.

Time dysfunction, I realized.

The brown field ebbed out Eric and Linda Lampton ebbed out. The sunlight ebbed out.

Around me the plane became substantial. David sat reading a paperback book of T.S. Eliot. Kevin seemed tense.

"We're almost there," I said. "Orange County Airport."

Kevin said nothing; he had hunched over, broodingly.

"They let us go?" I said.

"What?" He glanced at me irritably.

"I was just there," I said. Now the memory of the intervening events bled into my mind. The protests of the Lamptons and by Brent Mini -- him most of all; they had implored us not to go, but we had gotten away. Here we were on the Air Cal flight back. We were safe.

There had been a twin-pronged thrust by Mini and the Lamptons.

"You won't tell anyone on the outside about Sophia?" Linda had said anxiously. "Can we swear you three to silence?" Naturally they had agreed. This anxiety had been one of the prongs, the negative prong. The other had been positive, an inducement.

"Look at it this way," Eric had said, backed up by Mini who seemed genuinely crestfallen that the Rhipidon Society, small as it was, had decided to depart. "This is the most important event in human history; you don't want to be left out, do you? And after all, VALIS picked you out. We get literally thousands of letters on the film, and only a few people here and there seem to have been contacted by VALIS, as you were.
We are a privileged group."

"This is the Call," Mini had said, almost imploringly to the three of us.

"Yes," Linda and Eric had echoed. "This is the Call mankind has waited centuries for. Read
Revelation;
read what it says about the Elect. We are God's Elect!"

"Guess so," I had said as they left us off by the car we had rented; we had parked near Gino's, on a sidestreet of Sonoma which allowed prolonged parking.

Going up to me, Linda Lampton had put her hands on my shoulders and had kissed me on the mouth -- with intensity and a certain amount, in fact a great amount, of erotic fervor. "Come back to us," she had whispered in my ear. "You promise? This is our future; it belongs to a very few, a very, very few." To which I had thought, You couldn't be more wrong, honey; this belongs to everyone.

So now we were almost home. Crucially assisted by VALIS. Or, as I preferred to think of it, by St. Sophia. Putting it that way kept my attention on the image in my mind of the girl Sophia, seated with the animals and her book.

As we stood in the Orange County Airport, waiting for our luggage, I said, "They weren't strictly honest with us. For instance, they told us everything Sophia said and did was audio and video taped. That's not so."

"You may be wrong about that," Kevin said. "There are sophisticated monitoring systems now that work on remote. She may have been under their range even though we couldn't spot them. Mini is really what he says he is: a master at electronic hardware."

I thought, Mini, who was willing to die in order to experience VALIS once more. Was I? In 1974 I had experienced him once; ever since I had hungered for him to return -- ached in my bones; my body felt it as much as my mind, perhaps more so. But VALIS was right to be judicious. It showed his concern for human life, his unwillingness to manifest himself to me again.

The original encounter had, after all, almost killed me. I could again see VALIS, but, as with Mini, it would slay me. And I did not want that; I had too many things to do.

What exactly did I have to do? I didn't know. None of us knew. Already I had heard the AI voice in my head, and others would hear that voice, more and more people. VALIS, as living information, would penetrate the world, replicating in human brains, crossbonding with them and assisting them, guiding them, at a subliminal level, which is to say invisibly. No given human could be certain if he were crossbonded until the symbiosis reached flashpoint. In his concourse with other humans a given person would not know when he was dealing with another homoplasmate and when he would not.

Perhaps the ancient signs of secret identification would return; more likely they already had. During a handshake, a motion with one finger of two intersecting arcs: swift expression of the fish symbol, which no one beyond the two persons involved could discern.

I remembered back to an incident -- more than an incident -- involving my son Christopher. In March 1974 during the time that VALIS overruled me, held control of my mind, I had conducted a correct and complex initiation of Christopher into the ranks of the immortals. VALIS's medical knowledge had saved Christopher's physical life, but VALIS had not ended it there.

This was an experience which I treasured. It had been done in utter stealth, concealed even from my son's mother.

First I had fixed a mug of hot chocolate. Then I had fixed a hot dog on a bun with the usual trimmings; Christopher, young as he was, loved hot dogs and warm chocolate.

Seated on the floor in Christopher's room with him, I -- or rather VALIS in me, as me -- had played a game. First, I jokingly held the cup of chocolate up, over my son's head; then, as if by accident, I had splashed warm chocolate on his head, into his hair. Giggling, Christopher had tried to wipe the liquid off; I had of course helped him. Leaning toward him, I had whispered,

"In the name of the Son, the Father and the Holy Spirit."

No one heard me except Christopher. Now, as I wiped the warm chocolate from his hair, I inscribed the sign of the cross on his forehead. I had now baptized him and now I confirmed him; I did so, not by the authority of any church, but by the authority of the living plasmate in me: VALIS himself. Next I said to my son, "Your secret name, your Christian name, is
--
" And I told him what it was. Only he and I are ever to know; he and I and VALIS.

Next, I took a bit of the bread from the hot dog bun and held it forth; my son -- still a baby, really -- opened his mouth like a little bird, and I placed the bit of bread in it. We seemed, the two of us, to be sharing a meal; an ordinary, simple, common meal.

For some reason it seemed essential -- quite crucial -- that he take no bite of the hot dog meat itself. Pork could not be eaten under these circumstances; VALIS filled me with this urgent knowledge.

As Christopher started to close his mouth to chew on the bit of bread, I presented him with the mug of warm chocolate. To my surprise -- being so young he still drank normally from his bottle, never from a cup -- he reached eagerly to take the mug; as he took it, lifted it to his lips and drank from it, I said,

"This is my blood and this is my body."

My little son drank, and I took the mug back. The greater sacraments had been accomplished. Baptism, then confirmation, then the most holy sacrament of all, the Eucharist: sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

"The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ's Blood was shed for thee, and be thankful."

This moment is most solemn of all. The priest himself has become Christ; it is Christ who offers his body and blood to the faithful, by a divine miracle.

Most people understand that in the miracle of transubstantiation the wine (or warm chocolate) becomes the Sacred Blood, and the wafer (or bit of hot dog bun) becomes the Sacred Body, but few people even within the churches realize that the figure who stands before them holding the cup is their Lord, living now.
Time has been overcome.
We are back almost two thousand years; we are not in Santa Ana, California, U.S.A., but in Jerusalem, about 35 c.e.

What I had seen in March 1974 when I saw the superimposition of ancient Rome and modern California consisted of an actual witnessing of what is normally seen by the inner eyes of faith only.

My double-exposure experience had confirmed the literal --
not merely figurative -- truth of the miracle of the Mass.

As I have said, the technical term for this is anamnesis: the loss of forgetfulness; which is to say, the remembering of the Lord and the Lord's Supper.

I was present that day, the last time the disciples sat at table. You may believe me; you may not.
Sed per spiritum sanctum dico; haec veritas est. Mihi crede et mecum in aeternitate vivebis.

My Latin is probably faulty, but what I am trying to say, haltingly, is: "But I speak by means of the Holy Spirit; this is so. Believe me and you shall live with me in eternity."

Our luggage showed up; we turned our claim-checks over to the uniformed cop, and, ten minutes later, were driving north on the freeway toward Santa Ana and home.

As he drove, Kevin said,"I'm tired. Really tired. Fuck this traffic! Who are these people driving on the 55? Where do they come from? Where are they going?"

I wondered to myself, Where are the three of us going?

We had seen the Savior and I had, after eight years of madness, been healed.

Well, I thought, that's something to accomplish all in one weekend... not to mention escaping intact from the three most whacked-out humans on the planet.

It is amazing that when someone else spouts the nonsense you yourself believe you can readily perceive it as nonsense. In the VW Rabbit as I had listened to Linda and Eric rattle on about being three-eyed people from another planet I had known they were nuts. This made me nuts, too. The realization had frightened me: the realization about them and about myself.

I had flown up crazy and returned sane, yet I believed that I had met the Savior... in the form of a little girl with black hair and fierce black eyes who had discoursed to us with more wisdom than any adult I had ever met. And, when we were blocked in our attempt to leave, she -- or VALIS -- had intervened.

"We have a commission," David said. "To go forth and
--
"

"And what?" Kevin said.

"She'll tell us as we go along," David said.

"And pigs can whistle," Kevin said.

"Look," David said vigorously. "Phil's okay now, for the first time..." He hesitated.

"Since you've known me," I finished.

David said, "She healed him. Healing powers are the absolute certain sign of the material presence of the Messiah. You know that, Kevin."

"Then St. Joseph Hospital is the best church in town," Kevin said.

I said to Kevin, "Did you get a chance to ask Sophia about your dead cat?" I meant the question sarcastically, but Kevin, to my surprise, turned his head and said, seriously,

"Yep."

"What'd she say?" I said.

Kevin, inhaling deeply and gripping the steeringwheel tight, said, "She said that MY DEAD CAT..." He paused, raising his voice. "MY DEAD CAT WAS STUPID."

I had to laugh. David likewise. No one had thought to give Kevin that answer before. The cat saw the car and ran into it, not the other way around; it had ploughed directly into the right front wheel of the car, like a bowling ball.

"She said," Kevin said, "that the universe has very strict rules, and that
that
species of cat, the kind that runs headfirst into moving cars, isn't around any more."

"Well," I said, "pragmatically speaking, she's right."

It was interesting to contrast Sophia's explanation with the late Sherri's; she had piously informed Kevin that God so loved his cat -- actually -- that God had seen fit to take Kevin's cat to be with him God instead of him Kevin. This is not an explanation you give to a twenty-nine-year-old man; this is an explanation you foist off on kids. Little kids. And even the little kids generally can see it's bullshit.

"But," Kevin continued, "I said to her, "Why didn't God make my cat smart?'"

"Did this conversation really take place?" I said.

Resignedly, David said, "Probably so."

"My cat was STUPID," Kevin continued, "because GOD MADE IT STUPID. So it was GOD'S fault, not my cat's fault."

"And you told her that," I said.

"Yes," Kevin said.

I felt anger. "You cynical asshole -- you meet the Savior and all you can do is rant about your goddam cat. I'm glad
your cat'sdead;
everybody
is glad your cat's dead. So shut up." I had begun to shake with fury.

"Easy," David murmured. "We've been through a lot."

To me, Kevin said, "She's not the Savior. We're all as nuts as you, Phil. They're nuts up there; we're nuts down here."

David said, "Then how could a two-year-old girl say such
--
"

"They had a wire running to her head," Kevin yelled, "and a microphone at the other end of the wire, and a speaker inside her face. It was somebody else talking.
"

"I need a drink," I said. "Let's stop at Sombrero Street."

"I liked you better when you believed you were Horselover Fat," Kevin yelled. "Him I liked. You're as stupid as my cat. If stupidity kills, why aren't you dead?"

"You want to try to arrange it?" I said.

"Obviously stupidity is a survival trait," Kevin said, but his voice sank, now, into near-inaudibility. "I don't know," he murmured. "'The Savior.' How can it be? It's my fault; I took you to see
Valis.
I got you mixed up with Mother Goose. Does it make sense that Mother Goose would give birth to the Savior? Does any of this make sense?"

"Stop at Sombrero Street," David said.

"The Rhipidon Society holds its meetings in a bar," Kevin said. "That's our commission; to sit in a bar and drink. That'll sure save the world. And why save it anyhow?"

We drove on in silence, but we did end up at Sombrero Street; the majority of the Rhipidon Society had voted in favor of it.

Certainly it constitutes bad news if the people who agree with you are buggier than batshit. Sophia herself (and this is important) had said that Eric and Linda Lampton were ill. In addition to that, Sophia or VALIS had provided me with the words to get us out of there when the Lamptons had closed in on us, hemming us in -- had provided words and then tinkered expertly with time.

I could separate the beautiful child from the ugly Lamptons. I did not lump them together. Significantly, the two-year-old child had spoken what seemed like wisdom... sitting in the bar with my bottle of Mexican beer I asked myself, What are the criteria of rationality, by which to judge if wisdom is present? Wisdom has to be, by its very nature, rational;
it is the final stage of what is locked into the real. There is an intimate relationship between what is wise and what exists, although that relationship is subtle. What had the little girl told us? That human beings should now give up the worship of all dieties except mankind itself. This did not seem irrational to me. Whether it had been said by a child or whether it came from the
Britannica,
it would have struck me as sound.

For some time I had held the opinion that Zebra -- as I had called the entity which manifested itself to me in March 1974
-- was in fact the laminated totality of all my selves along the linear time-axis; Zebra -- or VALIS -- was the supra-temporal expression of a given human being and not a god... not unless the supra-temporal expression of a given human being is what we actually mean by the term "god," is what we worship, without realizing it, when we worship "god."

The hell with it, I thought wearily. I give up.

Kevin drove me home; I went at once to bed, worn-out and discouraged, in a vague way. I think what discouraged me about the situation was the uncertainty of our commission, received from Sophia. We had a mandate but for what? More important, what did Sophia intend to do as she matured? Remain with the Lamptons? Escape, change her name, move to Japan and start a new life?

Where would she surface? Where would we find mention of her over the years? Would we have to wait until she grew to adulthood? That might be eighteen years. In eighteen years Ferris F. Fremount, to use the name from the film, could have taken over the world -- again. We needed help now.

But then I thought, You always need the Savior now. Later is always too late.

When I fell asleep that night I had a dream. In the dream I rode in Kevin's Honda, but instead of Kevin driving, Linda Ronstadt sat behind the wheel, and the car was open, like a vehicle from ancient times, like a chariot. Smiling at me, Ronstadt sang, and she sang more beautifully than any time I had ever heard her sing before. She sang:

"To walk toward the dawn

You must put your slippers on."

In the dream this delighted me; it seemed a terribly important message. When I woke up the next morning I could
still see her lovely face, the dark, glowing eyes: such large, eyes, so filled with light, a strange kind of black light, like the light of stars. Her look toward me was one of intense love, but not sexual love; it was what the Bible calls loving -- kindness. Where was she driving me?

During the next day I tried to figure out what the cryptic words referred to. Slippers. Dawn. What did I associate with the dawn?

Studying my reference books (at one time I would have said, "Horselover Fat, studying his reference books"), I came across the fact that Aurora is the Latin word for the personification of the dawn. And that suggests Aurora Borealis --
which looks like St. Elmo's Fire, which is how Zebra or VALIS looked. The
Britannica
says of the Aurora Borealis:

"The Aurora Borealis appears throughout history in the
mythology of the Eskimo, the Irish, the English, the
Scandinavians, and others; it was usually believed to be
a supernatural manifestation... Northern Germanic
tribes saw in it the splendor of the shields of Valkyrie
(warrior women)."

Did that mean -- was VALIS telling me -- that little Sophia would issue forth into the world as a "warrior woman"? Maybe so.

What about slippers? I could think of one association, an interesting one. Empedocles, the pupil of Pythagoras, who had gone public about remembering his past lives and who told his friends privately that he was Apollo, had never died in the usual sense; instead, his golden slippers had been found near the top of the volcano Mount Etna. Either Empedocles, like Elijah, had been taken up into heaven bodily, or he had jumped into the volcano. Mount Etna is in the eastern-most part of Sicily. In Roman times the word "aurora" literally meant "east." Was VALIS alluding to both itself and to re-birth, to eternal life? Was I being
--

The phone rang.

Picking it up I said, "Hello."

I heard Eric Lampton's voice. It sounded twisted, like an old root, a dying root. "We have something to tell you. I'll let Linda tell you. Hold on."

A deep fear entered me as I stood holding the silent
phone. Then Linda Lampton's voice sounded in my ear, flat and toneless. The dream had to do with her, I realized; Linda Ronstadt; Linda Lampton. "What is it?" I said, unable to understand what Linda Lampton was saying.

"The little girl is dead," Linda Lampton said. "Sophia."

"How?" I said.

"Mini killed her. By accident. The police are here. With a laser. He was trying to
--
"

I hung up.

The phone rang again almost at once. I picked it up and said hello.

Linda Lampton said, "Mini wanted to try to get as much information
--
"

"Thanks for telling me," I said. Crazily, I felt bitter anger, not sorrow.

"He was trying information-transfer by laser," Linda was saying. "We're calling everyone. We don't understand; if Sophia was the Savior, how could she die?"

Dead at two years old, I realized. Impossible.

I hung up the phone and sat down. After a time, I realized that the woman in the dream driving the car and singing had been Sophia, but grown up, as she would have been one day. The dark eyes filled with light and life and fire.

The dream was her way of saying good-bye.