Romulus, that is.
I envision at least one self-help book emerging from these recipes and operations. To reclaim for people now the pagan worship of the world—what a concept! dust a divinity! grease a God! the least leaf valued like a Lord! not the way a beloved body—a faint scar’s mystery, the eye’s lashes, the ear’s lobes—is kissed by its lover’s scrutiny, but with an artist’s marveling yet detached attention. To administer to all of creation a purifying catharsis! like writing’s gray ghost on the washed wall.
Though at first I thought Juno a strange choice for the Society’s titular spirit (the sister of Jupiter as well as wife!), and the flashlight an even odder symbol (hung in functioning miniature around each faithful neck), Romulus’ world, unlike Luther Penner’s, was … rather is, let us hope … intended to be a radiant one, full of tender scrutinies and loving realizations.
This is revenge? Ah … yes. So secret. So severe. So complete. So pure. So benign. So transcendent. Now one may, any night, awake in a frightened sweat to say, even to the sleeping world: “I am a creature in a myth. I am unreal.” Even as the priest preaches, and the preacher prays, either may be under a Salvator’s light, losing, in the very instant in which the holy words are said, their allegedly sacred but actually worldly, profit-making use; yet these are the same symbols that will be admired anew once they’ve been well scrubbed (like golf balls going round and round in their little round washers)—and when at last clean of their claims to the Truth—thus redeemed—they can be safely admired for their wisdom, their rhetoric, the history they represent; because in a polytheistic world, such as Romulus proposed (I hope, proposes), dogmas are disarmed at the door, and welcomed like visiting friends, like other makes of car. Freshly struck coins will never feel spent, but will become immediately ancient as Roman ones, and like valued antiquities from the moment of their minting. Bills will be admired for their engraving, for Benjamin Franklin’s artfully rendered face, for the denseness of the money’s clothy weave, for the subtlety of shading among its many grayed greens; later, it can be loved for the pathos to be found in its folds, stains, and other signs of passage, if it’s undergone the disgrace of exchange. One of Luther Penner’s spoons, with which he used to put a spin on his coffee and orchestrate his ideas, I forethoughtly pocketed after an evening at the Cow’s Lick Café. It is preserved, now, in a clear glass cup—a kind of reliquary—and leans there, in a peaceful tilt.
However … who knows, when a fire has been lit, where its wildness will take it? Who knows? It was a man named Romulus whose neck was broken; meanwhile Luther Penner may have a few astonishing trump cards still concealed among the ruffles of his buried sleeve; because, before his demise, he’d become not only the master of secret revenges, but an artful contriver of reversals, fine guises, and logical regressions as well.
A charge of manslaughter has been lodged against the goons who knocked Luther over the rail. Rumor has it, however, that these young toughs were incited by the Salvators, and it may be that Luther (Romulus, that is) miscalculated the consequences again; that he meant only to have a few of the faithful buffeted about, and a gratifying persecution, always so necessary in matters of faith and truth, profitably begun. Perhaps he did not count on more than a small fall, and hadn’t asked for martyrdom. Especially since the supportive and therefore holy text had been scarcely begun.
Luther Penner’s remains, following the obligatory autopsy, were returned to the home of his parents, who arranged a quiet cremation for them, and an even quieter scattering of ashes; most contrary to Luther’s wishes I am sorry to say, for I know he was hoping for a tomb which would invite and facilitate visits.
I shall always regret not having been asked to attend the ceremony, which I heard was small, sober, and simple, plain almost to a fault.
Cartesian Sonata: And Other Novellas Page 27