Twice Melvin

by James Pumpelly

  “But it didn’t, George! It didn’t!” Charlene squawks.

  “How so?” George wondering if he should have kept his secret.

  “Melody’s pregnant…and-“

  “Not by Melvin, she isn’t.”

  “But-“

  “I know. You said she’s carrying a Rogue child…thinks it’s a boy…even thinks it’s Melvin’s. Well, believe me, Miss Mally, the Rogue Bank would never make the Melvin mistake twice! You can trust me on that one!”

  “Oh! God have mercy!” Charlene wails, “first, Melody looses her husband…and now her son’s father. And I…I…Melody’s been deceived, George. Deceived!”

  “Said deception being in her best interest, Charlene; a kind of preconceived, deceptive conception.”

  “But I still can’t believe it…I-“

  “What can’t you believe, my dear?”

  “That Melvin could-could’ve done this to me!”

  “To you? What has he done to you, for heaven’s sake?“

  “Pregnant, George. I’m pregnant! The big PG!”

  Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge…. (Luke 11:52)

  III

  Shadowing George and Charlene, Aunt Martha feigns contrition, chiseling at my attention; but to no avail, the inscrutable distractions of the Great Beyond leaving me so jittery the angels in our neck-of-the-worlds are installing grid shields over their wings. According to Aunt Martha (or “A.M.”, as our winged friends refer to her), my night flight over was erratic, my struggles like that of a drowning man, my frantic grasping at arms and wings resulting in the fall of two angels. I don’t recall the episode, although A.M. assures me it was terrifying for my escorts. Whether this is true or not, I don’t know; but the sight of these delightful creatures flying about with what looks like fan cages attached to their backs is enough to make me wonder.

  On the other hand, this second realm is no different from the first when it comes to stories, much of Aunt Martha’s lore reminding me of my childhood nights, on my mother’s lap, enthralled by the Brothers Grimm. But there’s one angel-tale A.M. recites that deals an “ace” to the end of “grim”. It has to do with Aunt Martha’s thought imposition, or the reverse thereof. She calls it thought deprivation. I call it theft.

  As the angel-tale goes, there are roving bands of thought thieves up here, flighty gangs stealing the past-ports of newcomers who led immaculate mortal lives. A.M. claims there’s a thriving overgound, a kind of white market where thieves sell their purloined past-ports to conniving souls live set on returning to Earth – and making the journey, I should add, with far less karmic baggage than the freight train load they rode in on. But like my childhood myths, I have to assume angel-tales are the stuff of make-believe. I’m certain the Almighty keeps Her own set of books. I figure there’s no one boarding a galactic train unless the ticket’s been purchased, processed, and punched till the darn thing’s holy. (And yes, according to Aunt Martha, the Almighty is a “Her”, a theory I find comforting; rational, even, when remembering how impetuously my prayers were received: some answered, some ignored, some thrown back like a slap in my face. Or a black eye - like the night Sally Thurston’s dad stomped up the stairs as I tried to raise Sally’s bedroom window, cursing and praying in the same breath.)

  Of course, the fact that these trains go out in all directions doesn’t lesson the likelihood of the past-port tale. And I don’t mean just east and west. Some of these sleek beauties fairly fly, shooting straight up into the wild black yonder, their stardust sparks reminiscent of the great iron wheels grinding America’s transcontinental tracks. The lumbering giant A.M. calls the Soul Train reminds me of the coal burning locomotives I saw in the westerns as a child. “It’s the beast of the breed,” says old Jesse, a fallen angel who lost his wings in an attempt to hold up the train. A one of a kind marvel, the Soul Train’s means of propulsion is what some people on Earth would barter their eternal souls for if the trade secured them the patent. Perpetual motion, it is, a clever balancing of sinners and grief. An up and down, piston-like action reminding me of a skyscraper’s elevator; only the Soul Train doesn’t stop at in-between floors. Instead, it loads to capacity at Star View Station, with passengers and sins to bear, then descends, by the weight of the doomed and their cargo, to its deep and dark destination. Upon arrival, the passengers are ejected and their baggage thrown off; whereupon, the grief of sinners queued up at Star View Station acts as a counterweight to pull up the emptied train.

  Trains and commerce go hand in hand, Star View Station a major going concern. Coming from Earth (and in particular, from a capitalist country; and more specifically, from the legal profession), I’m surprised to find money is not a medium here. Promises are the coin of the realm. The only similarity is the bank on which these promises are drawn, “In God We Trust” the golden inscription across all its precious scrip. And that’s why I hold suspect the aforementioned angel-tale. Promises made on the white market, if there were such a thing, would by nature be worthless, such trading counter to what backs our scrip. Trust.

  Another major adjustment for me is the absence of time; for, whereas – sorry, words like “whereas” and “wherefore” are difficult to relinquish, their pointing finger attitude still useful in my discourse with A.M. – for, whereas time was once my most valuable asset, my income escalating commensurate with my fraudulent over-billing for same, it’s nonexistent up here. And with time out of the picture - I mean its practical application, the recognition of time as a dimension; for I still appreciate its limitations in Realm One - I’m impelled by new patterns of thought. It’s confusing, too; like finding yourself standing alone in the middle of an infinite desert (“middle” a term you can understand since Realm One inhabitants think everything revolves around them). Another way to portray this phenomenon is to accept that the highflying space trains may not be “fast”, my perception of their travel being what my prism allows me to see. But I haven’t explained our prisms.

  Upon arrival, prisms are among the most marvelous accessories we’re issued. Despite the fact light is no longer blinding, we wear them like sunshades. I can see things in the distance as clearly as things up close. And what’s more, I can look “in” as well as “out”. I can review, for example, my nature, my uniqueness, my possibilities, my fate, as it were, should I choose to empower it.

  Another accessory is the pack of filters accompanying the prism. One learns quickly to use them, their miraculous ability to block certain truths about all that protects one’s sanity. Just imagine reviewing the missed opportunities in your life – and all at once! For me, it would be torture. A second death. But our filters have a compassionate quality, their blocks fading out, one by one, until at last all things are known. By then (the “time” of “then” irrelevant), one is ready to see all, to know all, to be all; that is, to be all one can be – which brings me back to A.M., back to her persistent blocks, her fascination with eavesdropping on the mortals we left behind.

  “Two choices you have, Melvin,” she’s saying, or rather, “imposing” on my nervous, galactic thoughts. “You have a body developing rapidly in that other woman of yours, and you have a body in the womb of your wife. You need to choose before one of them goes on the white market…before some stowaway ends up the captain of one of your vessels.”

  “Now wait just a-a-a damn minute, or whatever the equivalent is up here,” I sputter, “you’re confusing me. I can’t sail more than one vessel at a time, can I? So how is it I have two ships in the harbor?”

  “’Blessed eternity’ is the expletive you were looking for,” she corrects, “and regarding multiple vessels, pirate ships don’t count. Besides, you already know which one is Captain Hook’s; and if you don’t, you need only check the manifests. One of them’s hot, what’s in the hold stolen from another’s berth.”

  “To the point, A.M.,” I interject, “it’s truth we deal in here. Remember?”

  “And p
romises,” she appends, “‘I do’ counting high among them.”

  “If I’ve learned anything from you so far, auntie, it’s that whatever it is you do is darn sure not what I do,” I parry.

  “Check your past-port, nephew,” she chortles. “‘I do’ is what you did, not what I do.”

  “If I did what you do, or if I do what you did, I’d be on the Soul Train for sure by now. It’s just you women who get off with those lame excuses: blaming the snake for provoking desire, the man for providing the snake; the snake for starting the fire, the man for failing to quench it.”

  “Ha!” she laughs, “you wish! I wouldn’t be flattering myself if I were you, touting a mere worm as a snake. Worms are fine for bait, I suppose; but they’re not what a woman wants to catch. She wants the big one, Melvin; the fighter, the pulls and tugs on her high-test line…the veritable pole that wears her out.”

  “So…are you telling me I should be Polish?”

  “Earth no! To go back through Poland, you’d first have to check with Chopin. Rumor has it he’s been handpicking all the male returnees of late - wants to be sure they know his Minute Waltz has nothing to do with baby making.”

  “Well, excuse me!” I think, pretending injury, “I fly corrected!”

  “About your flying, Melvin, we’ve got to work on that, too. Somehow, you’ve managed to log a negative on your frequent flier account; and you know what that means.”

  “No, I don’t,” I ponder, “…unless it means I fly backwards.”

  “Close, but no dice,” she rattles. “But never mind the problem, it’s solutions we’re up here for, and I’ve got one.”

  “You seem to have a monopoly on solutions,” I throw out, thinking I’m on a roll, “…at least when they pertain to me.”

  “That’s because you’re all I have, nephew,” she mumbles, “my last chance.”

  Although “thinking” is our ordinary means of conversing, we can energize thoughts, set sound waves in motion. But as energized as Aunt Martha is, she appears subdued, despondent, a pall of silence darkening her luminous face - like one of those gloomy ghosts huddling in line for the Soul Train.

  “Me?” I ask foolishly, finding a space in her misery, “and what happened to my grandparents? Your mom and dad? I’ve posed the question repeatedly, but you never answer. So, I’ll ask again: why aren’t you looking after them?”

  “But I am…or did,” she mutters, “…they’d taken off before I arrived.”

  So I have grasped her meaning. Grandma and Grandpa arrived with prepaid tickets, ready for a seat on the space train; which could only mean she hadn’t, else why would she still be here?

  “I know what you’re thinking,” A.M. protests, “but look at yourself. What are you doing here?”

  “Mercy killing?” I offer sheepishly, hoping to lend her some cheer, “perhaps a sacrifice to atone for your sins?”

  “There’s no such thing as sacrifice here,” she avers, regaining her verve. “Sacrifice implies denial, a doing without, a giving up of something you desire. You’ll learn we don’t do that here. We exchange, that’s all. Its simple, effective, and infinitely more rewarding.”

  “But exchange can be a sacrifice, too,” I reason, recalling how I’d overcharged my clients.

  “Not here, Melvin,” her gimlet-eyes reading my thoughts. “What we are in this realm is much nearer to what Plato described as the ‘essence’. On Earth, we may have called a painting ‘beautiful’, or a child ‘happy’, but what we meant was the painting suggested beauty, the child suggested happiness; for neither was the essence of beauty nor happiness. Here, we learn to recognize this difference; as well as why the difference exists: to teach us to strive for betterment. We learn imperfection suggests perfection; imperfection defines perfection. Imperfection is the absence of perfection, as is sadness the absence of happiness.”

  “But,” I argue, “not everything has an opposite. Take, for example, light. To say light is the absence of darkness is to deny light its power, its energy. It would be ludicrous to define light as non-darkness. To do so would imply a negative, suggesting light to be the absence of something else instead of the energy it is.”

  “Very good,” A.M. complimenting me with an approbatory smile, “and what about truth? Would you define truth as the opposite of fallacy? Or perhaps the absence of fallacy?”

  “No,” I reply, some of my Harvard electives rushing to my aid. “Truth is pure. Truth exists alone. Truth is not the embodiment of good at some certain point, or some specific place, but that which never changes, never alters; whereas, fallacy exists only insofar as we enable it. Without our support, it ceases to exist. Truth, on the other hand, exists whether we support it or not.”

  Aunt Martha is duly impressed. “With such a philosophy, Melvin, your chances of being sent back are greatly enhanced.”

  “And what if I don’t want to go back?” I conjecture. “What if I want to stay here? Or, what if I want to move up a realm or two?”

  “Oh, nobody wants to stay here,” she asserts. “One of my teachers explained it this way:

  The goal ever recedes from us. The greater the progress, the greater the recognition of our unworthiness. Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment - joy lies in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involved; not in the victory itself.

  “I know this to be true, because my classes are filled with people studying to improve, to move on.”

  “Classes?” I query, fearing some correctional curriculum for which I’ll have need of patience, or worse yet, humility. “What kind of classes?”

  “The subjects are unlimited, infinite in variety.”

  “As well they should be,” I banter. “Any university domiciled here is the ultimate institute of ‘higher’ learning.”

  “Not so, nephew,” A.M. thinks bumptiously. “There are others infinitely higher. And I know whereof I speak, too, because I was told this by a most reliable source.”

  “Who?” I ask, at a loss as to what she means.

  “Why, Gandhi himself!” she vocalizes emphatically, a bit of pretense in her tone.

  “The Gandhi?” I cry, even the thought of Aunt Martha conversing with the great Mahatma giving me chills where my spine used to be. “That’s impossible!”

  “Hardly,” she challenges. “Gandhi was the little fellow teaching our class – History 1001 - his preface to our studies unforgettable:

  The first thing you have to learn about history is that because something has not taken place in the past, that does not mean it cannot take place in the future.

  “There!” I shout, assuming I’ve trapped her in specious swagger. “Gandhi would have never said that – at least, not up here; for to speak of the past is one thing, what with all of us coming from Earth; but to reference the future is quite another, since time is not a dimension here.”

  “Think of ‘future’ as ‘forward’ on a movie projector dial, and ‘past’ as ‘reverse’,” she demurs. “In this way, you can turn the dial in either direction to view some scene or another, all the while remaining in the ‘present’. That’s what Gandhi’s teaching means: just because we’ve never achieved perfection in the ‘past’ doesn’t mean perfection is unattainable. You see, Melvin, Gandhi is still like he was on Earth, living for others rather than himself; his great love for his fellow beings allowing him to pass through many realms to teach whatever is needed; though, by rights, he could be residing in the highest heaven.”

  “Ah!” I sigh, considering what she’s implied. “Then, some of us can go wherever we choose. Is that it?”

  “That’s it,” she answers flatly, her ready agreement lacking the spark of participation. “And once comprehending this, we discover a delightful prospect: we can be transformed, then translated; ‘translated’ the term used when one moves to another realm. We can exchange any lack for the fullness of its opposite being. In fact, that’s what I’m doing with you, Melvin: exchanging
all my misspent Earth years for the value of yours yet to be.”

  I am dumbstruck.

  “Thoughtless, are you?” she asks, reading me like a blank page. “Oh well, don’t let it bother you. It’s just part of being male.”

  “Paid me back, didn’t you?” I tease, thankful to see her returning glow – thankful, even, for her unfailing memory, the episode reminding me of an epigram I pandered to witnesses:

  For if the power of mind has been so changed

  That all remembrance of the past has fled,

  That is not far, methinks, from being dead.

  But even as I toy with my recollection, musing on the merit of sharing it, A.M. snatches my plaything away.

  “Lucretius, Melvin?” she bothers to vocalize, “you are quick to learn…and that’s good. Good for me, as well.”

  “And so it is,” I rejoin, amazed she recognizes the author of my little courtroom ploy, “and your knowledge of Lucretius…I just never took you for a scholar, Aunt Martha, notwithstanding your acquaintance with Gandhi.”

  “And I wasn’t…I mean, not when I was your aunt,” she admits, “but I was there - on the scene, so to speak - when my Roman contemporary was spouting his stuff, his De Rerum Natura all the rage among my radical friends; his attempt to explain the universe in scientific terms, to free people from superstition and fear – especially fear of the unknown - something needed even now”

  “My goodness!” I think with a shudder, “that would be sixty, seventy years before Christ! Surely you’re not that-“

  “Old?” she finishes for me, her defense fully summoned. “’Old’ is a spurious adjective, Melvin, as is ‘experienced’. No. Such words are besmirching. They leave a woman feeling tarnished. ‘Aware’ is a much better choice. Or ‘learned’. ‘learned’ and ‘sensitive’. Yes, ‘sensitive’…now that’s one that’ll open doors.”