The Masters of Atlantis

by Charles Portis

  “And on and on. Now, that Initiate’s course is far from being clear to me. Can you give us some idea of what all that means, Mr. Popper?”

  “It doesn’t mean much of anything in a surface reading like that.”

  “That’s what I would have said too. So much sawdust. I’m surprised to hear you admit it.”

  “I acknowledge it freely enough. A lot of that is just filler material in the oracular mode to put P.S. off the scent.”

  “P.S.?”

  “Perfect Strangers. Those who are not Gnomons. Others, outsiders. P.S. or A.M. Perfect Strangers or the Ape Men.”

  “But to what purpose? Apes we may be, but why throw dust in our eyes? Can you explain?”

  “Sure can. I thought it would be obvious. We do it to protect our secret knowledge. We don’t know whose hands those books might fall into, Senator, and so we are obliged to put a lot of matter in there to weary and disgust the reader. The casual reader is put off at once. A page or two of that and the ordinary man is a limp rag. Even great scholars, men who are trained and well paid to read dull books, are soon beaten down by it. The wisdom is there but in order to recognize it and comprehend it you must have the key. That key is transmitted by word of mouth and only by word of mouth from one Gnomon to another in a closed circuit.”

  “So if I had the key I could understand this Choctaw.”

  “If you had the key, Senator, you could read that book with profit. You couldn’t fully understand it unless you had the key to that key.”

  “What, another key?”

  “These are our methods. In this way we have kept our mysteries inviolate for sixty thousand years.”

  “More like sixty years,” said Senator Gammage, in that bass organ note that had caused so many cheap radio speakers in west Texas to shudder and bottom out. “Will the senator yield?”

  “For the moment.”

  “Thank you. This won’t take long.”

  Big Boy moved his campstool again, to a new prompting position behind this third and final examiner.

  Senator Gammage squared up the stack of papers before him in a bit of stage business. Then he looked over his glasses at Popper for a silent, challenging minute or so, but in the end it was the senator who broke off and looked away, from Popper’s unwavering smile.

  “Let me say first that what struck me about those books is how slow they start. Maybe it’s just me but I thought they started awfully slow.”

  “It’s not just you,” said Senator Churton.

  “No, I noticed the same thing,” said Senator Rey. “You get hardly any sense of movement or destination.”

  “Well, I wasn’t sure. I thought it might be just me.”

  “No,” said Senator Churton.

  “I’ll tell you something else about those books,” said Senator Rey. “I was a happier man before I read them.”

  “What?” said Senator Churton.

  “He said those books made him uneasy,” said Senator Gammage.

  “They didn’t have that effect on me.”

  “Me neither. Your sensitive Latino, I guess.”

  “That’s not quite what I said.”

  “Close enough. May I continue, please, with this witness? Now, Mr. Popper, we have heard about Hen and we have heard about Mr. Nickerson, this cunning, grinning old man with feathers around his mouth, and we have heard—”

  “It’s Mr. Jimmerson.”

  “Jimmerson, yes, we have heard about him too, and we have heard about your Society and your literature, but we haven’t heard much about you personally. I have some odds and ends here that need clarification. Perhaps you could help me.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Thank you. Do you present yourself to the public as a petroleum engineer?”

  “Petroleum consultant.”

  “I see. Are you an American citizen?”

  “I am indeed. First and last.”

  “I ask that question because there seems to be some mystery surrounding your origins and your early years. Suddenly you just appear on the scene, a grown man.”

  “I am an orphan, Senator. I had to make my own way as a child, but I am no less a good citizen for that. I am also an outspoken patriot. My friends tell me I go too far at times but I can’t help it, it’s always been Fifty-four forty or Fight with me. I’m too old to change now.”

  “According to my information you sat out the war in a small upstairs room on Grant Avenue in San Francisco, playing fan-tan with one James Wing, and emerging only for the Victory Ball.”

  “My military work was confidential and, much against my wishes, remains so to this day. It will all come out in thirty years.”

  “Is Austin Popper your true name?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s not one I would have chosen.”

  “You say that man Esteban is your security chief. Is he armed?”

  “He’s well armed.”

  “You fear some attack in this chamber?”

  “We have our enemies.”

  “But you did not always travel in such style, did you? With attendants and a briefcase. I’m thinking now of your years on the road as a bum.”

  “I was a tramp, yes, sir. I was down and out. I’ve never tried to conceal that.”

  “A drunken bum?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Calling yourself Wally Wilson?”

  “I believe I did use that name at one time.”

  “Sleeping in haystacks? Stealing laundry off clotheslines and hot pies from the windowsills of isolated farmhouses? Leaving cryptic hobo marks scrawled on fence posts and the trunks of trees?”

  “No, sir, I was very much an urban tramp. No haystacks or barns for me. Mostly I walked the city streets wearing cast-off clothes, with overcoat sleeves hanging down to my knuckles. I did live in a box once for about a week. I went from a Temple to a box, so steep was my fall.”

  “A big crate? A packing case of some kind?”

  “A pasteboard box.”

  “Under a viaduct in the warehouse district of Chicago?”

  “No, sir, it was in a downtown park in one of our eastern cities.”

  “A long box you could stretch out in?”

  “A short one. Mr. Moaler lives in what I would call a long box. Mine was very compact. When it snowed I had to squat in it all night with my head between my knees like a yogi or a magician’s assistant. Then when morning came I had to hail a policeman or some other early riser to help get my numb legs straightened out again.”

  “More a stiff garment than a house.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hunkered down there in your box, slapping at imaginary insects on your body. Your only comfort a bottle of cheap wine in a paper sack. Supporting yourself with petty thievery, always on the run, with Dobermans snapping at your buttocks. Not a pretty picture.”

  “It was cheap rum.”

  “The clear kind?”

  “The dark kind.”

  “As an urban bum, Mr. Popper, did you often stagger into the middle of busy intersections with your gummy eyes and make comical, drunken attempts to direct traffic?”

  “No, sir. In my worst delirium I never interfered with the flow of traffic. I never drank any hair tonic either.”

  “Senator Moaler informs me that you once got mixed up with some left-wing women.”

  “The senator is correct. But I was a passive figure in that affair.”

  “You blame it on the rum?”

  “They dragged me in off the street. I was too weak to resist. I was a stretcher case.”

  “What street was this?”

  “A side street in one of our great eastern cities.”

  “How many left-wing women?”

  “Three. I didn’t know what it was all about. I thought at first they felt sorry for me. I thought they were just three jolly bachelor gals with short hair, bowlers or rock hounds, who went on motor trips together to our national parks and our regional festivals, and on pilgrimages to the boyhood homes of po
pular singers.”

  “This was not the case?”

  “No, sir, very different. A very different kettle of fish. Let me tell you what happened. They took me in and hosed me down and disinfected me. Then they powdered me all over and dressed me in a loose white shirt and loose white trousers, held up with a piece of twine. It was a kind of Devil’s Island outfit and could have done with some touch-up ironing. Then they locked me in a windowless room that had a mattress on the floor.”

  “What was the purpose of all this?”

  “At first I thought it was merely to instruct me in their doctrines. They explained to me why it was necessary to transform this country into the likeness of one of those countries where they can arrest you for laughing in bed. Padlock the churches, bludgeon the dogs, gas the poets—they outlined the entire program for me. They also tried to do something called ‘raising my consciousness.’ This was a fairly humorous business, their fumbling efforts to break down my natural human resistance to nonsense and falsehood. But it was a soft berth, I was in out of the wet and so I said nothing. I went mute. I fell into a long silence.”

  “A long silence, Mr. Popper?”

  “Long for me, sir. Then they seemed to lose interest in that part of it and they left off lecturing me. No more political workshops. Except now and then they would pop their heads into my room at night and shout one of their beliefs at me. ‘It’s all blind chance!’ they would shriek, and ‘We’re animals and we perish utterly!’ and ‘No more private gardens!’ But mostly they just let me feed and sleep. I ate well. I had whatever I wanted whenever I wanted it—big T-bone steaks with onions and potatoes, oyster stew, deviled eggs, the end cut of prime rib with horseradish, doughnuts by the dozen, double-X whipping cream on my corn flakes, five or six meals a day.”

  “New potatoes?”

  “No, sir, big Idaho bakers split lengthways and filled with pats of butter. No baloney or chicken franks or other jailhouse grub. It was like a dining car on a train—I wrote out my own orders. Just before turning in at night I had the girls bring me a short stack of buckwheats with sausage links and a glass of cold milk with ice spicules just beginning to form in it. They provided me with a certain amount of rum too.”

  “What did you make of all this?”

  “I didn’t know what to make of it but I suspected it would end badly.”

  “How long did it go on?”

  “I don’t know. I lost track of time. I had no radio and they wouldn’t let me see any newspapers.”

  “You could have scratched off the passing days on the wall with a nail or a pin—six vertical strokes and then a long diagonal stroke to close out the week.”

  “I had no pointed instruments. They took my pencil stub away after each meal order. But it was long enough to fatten me up. I grew fatter and sleeker. At night those women would come with their brushes and soft rags and baby oil to curry me and buff me. They ran their hands over my expanding belly. They poked my hams with their fingers. Then they would stand back and look at me and whisper among themselves with their arms folded. Finally it dawned on me. I saw what their game was, from a dropped word or two. I’m slow but I get there, usually around dusk. I saw in their eyes that they meant to cook me. My room was a fattening pen. They were preparing me for a sacrificial barbecue. They meant to eviscerate me and stuff me with celery and roast me, sir, as a symbol of something they hated—men, tramps in their freedom, people of cheerful mien, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants from the heartland, I never knew. Perhaps all four, or even something else. On that point they were never clear.”

  “No one would miss you. A bum with no connections. No one to inquire. The few people who knew you wouldn’t greatly care. These women could spit you and baste you at their leisure. A symbolical porker. Not a bad plan.”

  “It was a good enough plan.”

  “A sweet plan. And yet you managed to escape.”

  “Yes, but there again my role was a passive one. Late one night, perhaps as late as midnight, they came to me with burning candles, very solemn, their faces painted white, and led me into their living room and had me sit in the middle of the floor. They sprinkled meal and blood on my head while muttering something, some kind of Communist maledictions. They began to sway their heads and hum or sing. Then they snuffed out the candles on top of my head and joined hands and began to dance around my obese form.”

  “Dancing in their bowling shoes?”

  “Barefooted.”

  “But singing? I thought those old Red gals were all business.”

  “Singing or keening. It wasn’t what you and I would call a song. It wasn’t an expression of joy. These weren’t the Andrews Sisters. It was some kind of Marxist sabbat and I knew my hour had come. Then suddenly, in my despair, I found my voice again. I began to talk, through a nasal obstruction I had at the time. I started talking and before I knew it the afflatus was on me and I couldn’t stop talking. I gave those women amusing anecdotes and bits of Gnomon lore. I recalled vivid scenes from childhood. For some reason this annoyed them. It put them in a rage and all at once these Amazons broke off their dance and tied me up in a bedsheet, bagged me if you will, and proceeded to beat me with brooms for what seemed like twenty minutes before rolling me down the stairs and out into the street, where I got pavement burns on my knees. They just sent me sprawling out there on the concrete, which is a good name for that stuff.”

  “Then what?”

  “They left me there. Right there on the street where they had found me.”

  “That was it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So instead of slitting your throat and broiling you over a bed of coals they just put this sheet job on you. I don’t get it.”

  “Neither do I, Senator. I can only surmise that I did something or said something inadvertently to queer their spell, to contaminate the rite, somehow rendering myself unfit for immolation. That’s just my guess.”

  “Or it could be that they simply turned squeamish when it got down to the nut-cutting. The squeals and gouts of blood. They shrank from it.”

  “Those three? No, sir, I don’t think so. Certainly not Camilla.”

  “If you ask me he was pretty darn lucky to get away with just those strawberries on his knees,” said Senator Rey.

  “They got fed up with all his chatter,” said Senator Churton. “Can’t we go a little faster here?”

  “One more question and I’m done,” said Senator Gammage. “You have testified here under oath, Mr. Popper, that this old Indiana buzzard, Mr. Chickering, or Mr. Jimmerson, whatever you want to call him, this old Grand Dragon of yours, has never set foot in Seattle, Washington. We have you on the record there. But Senator Moaler has provided me with incontrovertible evidence that your man was in fact living there in 1959 and 1960. Chuck Jimmerson was the name he was using then. He was working as the host on a local television program called Your Pet Parade, as if you didn’t know. Thousands upon thousands of people saw Chuck cavorting with small animals and playing the fool on that show and you have the gall to come here and state under oath that Jimmerson never set foot in that city. Would you now like to change your testimony?”

  “No, sir. That would be another Jimmerson.”

  “All those thousands of people are mistaken?”

  “It’s not the same person.”

  “So you keep telling us whenever we manage to throw a bit of light into some dark corner of this man’s life. It’s always somebody else. Well, I give up. We’re not getting anywhere with this fellow. You can have this witness back, Senator Rey, and welcome to him.”

  Senator Rey had no chance to speak. The chairman moved quickly into the opening, switching off all the microphones except his own, and hammering the proceedings to a close sine die.

  Big Boy Moaler had done his worst and he wondered if it had been quite enough. He thought not. It might have been a different story if his two witnesses had shown up. Where were they? This Popper or Wally Wilson fellow had lost a few tail feathers
but no blood to speak of. These Gnolons were well dug in. He supposed he must count himself lucky that the other faction, that Hen force, had not settled in on his father as well.

  Popper himself, while thinking he might have done better, was in general agreement with Big Boy, that the attack had largely failed, leaving the Gnomon Society in no immediate danger of eviction. He knew nothing about Texas trailer law but he suspected that there was no really effective way of removing a person from a trailer in the Rio Grande Valley without the use of firearms or tear gas.

  PROFESSOR GOLESCU and Judge Pharris White arrived in Austin on Sunday, too late to testify at the Churton hearing. Notified late, they arrived late. The two men, who were unknown to one another, had flown to Texas at Senator Moaler’s urging and at their own expense, both eager to bear witness against Popper. Golescu came from his Auric Laboratories in Sacramento, and Pharris White, a retired hearing commissioner, called Judge by courtesy, from his home in Baltimore.

  No one met them at the airport and there were no messages for them at their hotels. Big Boy Moaler, their sponsor, could not be located. They walked the dead Sunday streets of Austin, actually brushing against one another at a downtown newsstand, and then went back to their rooms to wait for Monday morning.

  On Monday they had no better luck. They learned, working separately, that Senator Moaler had left the state on a duck-hunting trip. Senator Churton was tracked down to his home in Lufkin but he refused to come to the telephone. His wife advised them that the senator was taking no more calls concerning the recent hearing, and that he was particularly taking no calls from people who identified themselves as professors, judges, scribes, swamis, commanders or masters of this and that. She had never heard of Austin Popper. The hearing was over. Send letters if they must but don’t call again.