The Masters of Atlantis

by Charles Portis

  “Well, our mission, sir, as you put it, is simply this—to preserve the ancient wisdom of Atlantis and to pass it on, uncorrupted, to those few men of each new generation worthy of receiving it.”

  “Fair enough. More power to you. You have chapters elsewhere?”

  “Yes, sir. We call them Pillars. We have Pillars in all the fifty states and Guam.”

  “What about your leader? This mysterious Mr. Jimmerson? Who is he and just what is he doing here in Texas?”

  “Mr. Jimmerson is the Master of Gnomons. He is in La Coma, Texas, as the invited guest of Mr. Morehead Moaler, himself a Gnomon of very high degree.”

  “How long will he be here?”

  “It’s hard to say. At least until we can get our hospital project off the ground.”

  “What hospital is that?”

  “A hospital for poor children we are planning to build in La Coma. These things take time.”

  “They sure do. What it really comes down to is this, isn’t it, Mr. Popper? This sly old man, Mr. Jimmerson, wearing a very peculiar electromagnetic cap, has moved in, bag and baggage, with poor old Mr. Moaler for an indefinite stay, bringing with him his family, a butler, a hairdresser, four or five musicians and various sacred birds and monkeys. Is that not a fair summary of the situation?”

  “No, sir, most unfair. The Master, I repeat, is an invited guest. That can be confirmed easily enough. His cap has no magnetic properties. His family did not accompany him on this trip. He does, very naturally, travel with his executive staff.”

  “He comes off to me as a very sinister figure. Can you tell us a little more about him?”

  “I’ll be glad to. Lamar Jimmerson is a decorated veteran of the Argonne campaign. He is a man of military bearing and twinkling good humor. He is clean and strong. He suffers from an occasional head cold but is otherwise a fine specimen. He runs six miles a day and maintains the physique of a thirty-year-old man. He is a gentleman. Children and animals take to him instinctively and rub up against him. He is a philosopher. He is a teacher in the great tradition of Hermes Trismegistus and Pletho Pappus. Mr. Jimmerson is the American Pythagoras.”

  “Quite a man. How come I never heard of him until two weeks ago?”

  “Like all the truly wise men in this world, Senator, Mr. Jimmerson is unknown to the world.”

  “He’s not some naked and scrawny sage from India, is he?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What can you tell us about his economic theories?”

  “He has none that I know of.”

  Senator Gammage put in a question. “Is he the one who claims that the Chinese discovered America?”

  Senator Churton rapped his gavel. “Later, Senator. Your turn will come. Now tell me this, Mr. Popper. How much does this old man charge for these fraudulent academic degrees that he sells through the mail?”

  “Mr. Jimmerson sells no degrees. He sells nothing.”

  “Are his financial records intact?”

  “I believe so.”

  “You’re not going to tell me that they were all blown away in a tornado like those records of Dr. John’s, are you?”

  “Our records are intact as far as I know.”

  Senator Moaler leaned forward for a whispered consultation with the chairman. Papers were passed. Senator Churton looked them over and then resumed his examination.

  “What can you tell us, Mr. Popper, about Mr. Jimmerson’s police record?”

  “He has no police record.”

  “So you say. According to my information he was released from a maximum security prison in Arizona in June of 19 and 58 after serving seven years of a ten-year sentence for armed robbery and aggravated assault. He was going by the name of James Lee ‘Jimbo’ Jimmerson at the time. It says here that he played various percussion instruments in the prison band.”

  “That would be another Jimmerson.”

  “Perhaps. We do know this. You cult people are great ones for altering your names or taking new names.”

  “Altogether a different person.”

  “Perhaps. Even so, you can’t deny that your man springs from that same Jimmerson family of thugs in Stitt, Arizona, can you?”

  “I can and do deny it.”

  “I understand he practices herbal medicine. A lot of sprouts and berries in his program.”

  “He doesn’t practice any kind of medicine.”

  “Hypnotism?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Does he conduct pottery classes?”

  “No, sir.”

  Senator Churton took a closer look at his paper and placed his finger on a word. “Or is it poetry classes?”

  “He teaches neither of those arts.”

  “Does he claim to be in contact with spaceships that are circling the earth, communicating on a daily basis with humanoid pilots one meter tall wearing golden coveralls?”

  “He makes no such claim,”

  “I have been told that he is a man with several rather unpleasant personal habits. I won’t specify further.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Senator Gammage broke in. “These unpleasant habits. Around the house? Out in the streets? Where?”

  “Around the house,” said Senator Churton. “But I would rather not specify further. You will be recognized in due course, Senator Gammage. You can put your questions then, on your own time. We’ll leave that and go on to this. Now, Mr. Popper, how do you answer the charge that this cunning old man, Mr. Jimmerson, has come to Texas to work out his imperial destiny?”

  “I don’t understand the question.”

  “No? You can tell us nothing about his plans to conquer the earth and divide it up into triangular districts?”

  “Mr. Jimmerson has no such plans.”

  “So you say. But he does maintain a chemical laboratory?”

  “We have our little experiments in metallurgy.”

  “And in magnetism as well?”

  “I believe so, yes,”

  “Experiments that are carried on behind locked doors, I am told, with vicious dogs patrolling the corridors. What safeguards do you have in place, Mr. Popper? What precautions have you taken to ensure that these experiments do not get out of hand and set the air afire and perhaps melt the polar ice caps?”

  “None.”

  “Very well, then. Let’s move on to this dancing school that Mr. Jimmerson runs. How is that connected to your organization? Just what goes on in those classes?”

  “Mr. Jimmerson has never run a dancing school.”

  “It’s all right here in this report, with an eyewitness account of the old man himself dancing. It says here that he appeared to be hopped up on some kind of dope.”

  “That report is completely false.”

  “Oh? And yet strong narcotic drugs do play an important part in your ceremonies, do they not? In your revels?”

  “They do not.”

  “And lewd dances led by this man Jimmerson? Although you tell us he has never run a dancing school. I have it all right here in black and white, Mr. Popper.”

  “Not true. I’m afraid you have confused us with another organization calling itself the Gnomon Society. That pathetic little band is led by a man named Sydney Hen, and yes, I believe they do jig about some by the light of the moon. But we have nothing to do with them and they have nothing to do with true Gnomonism.”

  “Hen, Hen, Hen. Don’t we have something here on Hen?” He huddled again with Senator Moaler. There was another flutter of papers. “Oh yes, here we are. Hen the co-founder. Hen in Malta. Hen in Canada. Hen in Mexico. He pops up with frequency in this sleazy tale. A fine fellow too. Both he and your man Jimmerson, it appears, have been living off the earnings of women now for many years. A pretty pair.”

  “A pretty unsavory pair,” said Senator Rey.

  “Two rival gangs,” said Senator Gammage.

  “More a matter for the vice squad, it seems to me, than a legislative body,” said Senator Rey.
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  Senator Churton rapped his gavel. “Order. And when may we expect Hen’s arrival in Texas, Mr. Popper? On the next bus? Don’t tell me he’s already here, pawing our women in Lufkin or Amarillo.”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Senator. Personally, I have never clapped eyes on the man.”

  “You have no knowledge of his whereabouts?”

  “No direct knowledge, no, sir. There are several stories going around. I have heard that he was living on a barge in Mexico, wearing a yachting cap and selling fish bait and taking in a Saturday corrida now and then and quoting Virgil at the drop of a hat. Another story has him dead, with his remains, a half pint of gray ashes, in the custody of his former wife, the former Lady Hen, who is now Señora Goma y Goma of Veracruz. Another one has it that his acolytes in Cuernavaca have preserved his body in a crock of Maltese honey.”

  “His entire body?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That must be some jug.”

  “His entire body, intact, except for the lapis lazuli eyeballs in his eye sockets, forever staring but seeing nothing in that golden haze. I have also heard that he is in Cuernavaca in a deep trance of some two or three years’ standing, and I have heard that he is not in a trance but is living alone in a small downtown hotel in Monterrey, wearing a beret, calling himself Principato and claiming to be five hundred years old. They say he looks six hundred, with his body all dried up from the desert air. They say he’s all head now like a catfish and just tapers away to nothing. These are some of the rumors I have heard.”

  “Somewhere in Mexico quoting Virgil, if alive. Not much to go on.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Still, as long as he stays there. Does he intend to remain there in his Mexican lair, Mr. Popper?”

  “As far as I know. If we can speak of the lair of a Hen.”

  “You mention rumors. Tell me this, if you can. What perverse joy does this man Jimmerson get from starting rumors? Rumors or hoaxes that raise hopes, so soon to be cruelly dashed. What are we to think of such a man?”

  “I don’t understand the question.”

  “Let me be specific then. The fifty-dollar jeep. The army surplus jeep, brand-new, crated and packed in Cosmoline, to be bought for only fifty dollars if you could just find the right government agency. Didn’t that story originate with Jimbo Jimmerson in late 19 and 45 in Oakland, California?”

  “It didn’t originate with Lamar Jimmerson.”

  “And the kidney dialysis machine, to be given away to any community or church group that could collect some great number of old crumpled-up cigarette packs—wasn’t that another of Jimbo’s lies, first set on wing in a Seattle bar?”

  “Mr. Lamar Jimmerson has never been to Seattle.”

  “Perhaps. I have nothing more at this time. Senator Rey?”

  Big Boy Moaler gathered his stuff and moved down the way at a crouch to take up a new whispering position behind Senator Rey, who was sleek and thoughtful. The senator tapped his microphone with a pencil in an exploratory way, then said, “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I do have a question or two for this witness. As you can see, Mr. Popper, I have here before me a number of Gnolon or Gnomon books. You prefer Gnomon?”

  “I do.”

  “Why the two names? Don’t you find that confusing?”

  “We don’t have two names.”

  “A number of Gnomon books, then. There are works here by Sir Sydney Hen—Approach to Knowing, Approach to Growing, Atlantis a Fable?, Teatime at Teddy’s, November Thoughts, Boyhood Rambles and The Universe a Congeries of Flying Balls?, every page of them, I’m sorry to say, badly defaced by vandals with green ink. I have also collected some books and booklets that were presumably written by you, Mr. Jimmerson and this man Pappus. It’s hard, really, to say. There’s not much information in the front of these books, where we might normally expect to find the names of the author and publisher, the date of copyright and so on. I have here Gnomonism Today, The Codex Pappus, 101 Gnomon Facts, Hoosier Wizard, The Jimmerson Spiral, Dungeon of Ignorance—”

  Popper broke in. “Hoosier Wizard is the work of an outsider. I don’t know Dungeon of Ignorance. I don’t believe that’s a Gnomon book.”

  “It’s one of Dr. John’s books,” said the chairman.

  “So it is,” said Senator Rey. “I stand corrected.”

  “And please don’t tap the mike again with your pencil. There’s no need for that. The audio system is in perfect working order.”

  “I stand corrected and rebuked. Anyway, I have looked into these books—I won’t say read them through—and I find some puzzling and disturbing things. Maybe you can help me, Mr. Popper. It could be that I just need some guidance. This man Hen, for instance. Hen and his busy pen. I don’t understand him. Why all the question marks? Why all these approaches to this, that and the other thing? Why can’t he ever tell us of his arrival somewhere? And why must he sink our spirits with his November thoughts when he might lift them with his April reflections?”

  “Those are good questions, sir, and I only wish you could get the little trifler up here under a two-hundred watt bulb and beat some answers out of him. His books make me gag.”

  “You don’t defend him?”

  “Certainly not. No decent person could defend that trash.”

  “All right then, let’s leave Hen and turn our attention to some of your own stuff. Here. This flat earth business. Now, do you think it would be a good thing for me at this particular point in time to go around telling people that the earth is flat in this day and age? To instruct small children in that belief discredited so many years ago by Christopher Columbus? Would that be the proper way for me to prepare our boys and girls to play constructive roles in this our modern world and to take their places in society and meet all the future challenges of the space age in whatever chosen fields of endeavor they might choose to—endeavor?”

  “Well, if you sincerely believed the earth to be flat, then yes, Senator, I suppose it would be your duty to say so.”

  “Which is how you justify your position. You alone in your great pride are right and everyone else is wrong. The plea of every nut in history.”

  “I don’t know what position you’re talking about, sir. The Gnomon Society has never questioned the rotundity of the earth. Mr. Jimmerson is himself a skilled topographer.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Popper, but I have it right here in Mr. Jimmerson’s own words on page twenty-nine of 101 Gnomon Facts.”

  “No, sir, excuse me, but you don’t. Please look again. Read that passage carefully and you’ll see that what we actually say is that the earth looks flat. We still say that. It’s so flat down around Brownsville as to be striking to the eye.”

  “But isn’t that just a weasel way of saying that you really do believe it to be flat?”

  “Not at all. What we’re saying there is that the curvature of the earth is so gentle, relative to our human scale of things, that we need not bother our heads about it or take it into account when going for a stroll, say, or laying out our gardens.”

  Senator Rey, now tapping his pencil against his teeth, conferred for a time with Senator Moaler, took some papers from him and went on.

  “What is this Jimmerson Spiral, or Hen-Jimmerson Spiral, that we hear so much about? Early on it’s the Cone of Fate and then that symbol seems to give way to this spiral. What is this helical obsession you people have?”

  “There is no such thing as the Hen-Jimmerson Spiral, Senator. You have been taken in, along with so many others, by Sydney Hen, one of the slickest operators of the twentieth century. There is only the Jimmerson Spiral. Mr. Jimmerson is the only begetter. Let me give you the background on that. When the Master first made his discovery known, Hen, an envious little man, jumped in to claim equal credit, citing the historical parallel with Newton and, who was the other one, Darwin, I believe, yes, the pair of them working independently in their own tiny cottages, and then one day, miles apart, clapping their foreheads in unison as they both hit
on the idea of phlogiston at the same time. But there was a big difference. Hen, unlike Darwin, would never show his work sheets to anyone, and do you know why? Because they didn’t exist.”

  “Yes, but regardless of whose brain the thing was first cooked up in, just exactly what is it?”

  “Now there we’re getting into deep waters, sir. I have never known quite how to handle that question when put to me so bluntly by a Perfect Stranger. Years ago, when I was on the lecture platform, I would handle it with a cute little story. I find that a light note sometimes helps. Very often the only way to approach these very difficult concepts is by way of allegory. We have to slip up on the truth. We are obliged to amuse our audience while at the same time we instruct them. You gentlemen will understand. All four of us have stood at the podium, may God forgive us, and addressed the public, and all of us have heard those scampering noises, the tramp of many feet making for the doors, and so we have our own little devices for holding our audience. Now this particular story is a story about three brothers. Let me tell you that story, Senator. Once there were three brothers. The first brother—”

  The chairman’s gavel came down in a single sharp crack of walnut. “Ask him about something else, Senator Rey, if you don’t mind. He’s leading you around the mulberry bush. We’ll be here all night at this rate. And don’t get him started on Hen again.”

  “Very well. We have annoyed the Chair again, Mr. Popper, so let us move on. Let us have a look at this Codex Pappus. I open the book at random here—or farther along—here. Yes, this will do. We have made our way through all the numbers and triangles and here, coming upon a block of text, we think we’re in for a bit of plain sailing for a change. Not so. This is what we run into. I quote:... and thus the course of the Initiate is made clear. He must emulate Pletho, the son of Phaleres, first Hierophant of Atlantis, pride of Jamsheed, the White Goat of Mendes, who, at the River Loke, on the day of the full moon, of the month Boedromion, when the moon is full at the end of the sign Aries, near the Pleiades and the place of her exaltation in Taurus, with majestic chants and with banners bearing the images of the Bull, the Lion, the Man and the Eagle, the Constellations answering to the Equinoctical and Solstitial points, to which belong four stars, Aldebaran, Regulus, Fomalhaut and Antares, at once marking the commencement of the Sabaean year and the cycle of the Chaldean Saros, conjunctive with the colure of the full moon, bearing in his left hand the four signs or cardinal points, and forsaking the northern regions and the empire of night, and taking his leave of the Three Secret Teachers, Nandor, Principato and the Lame One, goes to slake his thirst at the sign of the Ninth Letter, or Hierogram of Nomu, in the Circle of the Twelve Stones at the base of the Third Wall. ...