CHAPTER 24
“What does it mean to be a man—a male, in these times?”
He wanted it to be his doctoral thesis. He wanted it to be the goal of every session. The analytical sessions he, himself, had with Professor Carroll at the Institute as well as the analytical sessions he “practiced” with all of his friends.
“The only true Revolutionary Act, my Man, is to suck cock.” Said with assurance as well as with the relish of dropping a dead fly into the Holy Ointment.
Jack had said that. Jack—now not only the Revolutionary Doper: the self-styled “Bodacious Bong!” Jack who probably did have a horde of cash, but now “Jack the Queer!” so he gleefully and nastily and uninhibitingly flaunted no matter where he was or who was listening.
“Jack,” Frank had begun…but realized that all which made sense to him in Jungian imaginings would only be “Mumbo Jumbo, Man! No more Mumbo Jumbo!” And although they had remained friends—mainly through Dalores’ invitations—Jack had turned upon Frank, “Just more religious mumbo-jumbo, more spiritual straightjackets, Man, can’t you see, dig it?”
Jack didn’t but Frank did...it was all a variant of Secular Biblicalism.
Secular—meaning Jung was a hard rod in his own Tower, not so subtlety phallic, poking some women with his wife eyewise...Freud, just finding Eros everywhere, as it should be, but being shocked to find it in the minds of women, despite the tortured state of their libidinous-less bodies...Did he just lack proper study of the Medieval Ages? Especially the Inquisition? Not read the Malleus Maleficarum? Misunderstand the corset as a bequeathment of his soul-mate Dominicans?...Marx—make it Lenin: Free Sex—but only if it serves the State: Cathedra incarnata? Ha. All just dicks, hard-ons, masturbating with dirty thoughts and dirty money and dirty wars—the same Male—Only God: no Goddess...but what else is the secular but the reimagined Biblical Mythos?
Yet, how else could Frank think or feel, so he asks himself, prosecutes himself, excoriates himself…was it to be Queer...or was that just an escape to the “male-only” zone, itself?!
Jack’s “Can’t you see?” which was a knifing, slicing metaphor, meaning “see beyond” the pretense, beyond the armor, beyond the masks…he using it all the time when others disagreed with him: “Can’t you see?”—he wanted them to see him: naked, balls ready to roll, “All the love you’ll ever need!”...seeing himself kneeling, seeing himself on all fours, seeing himself as All That Love Is.
“Women mix ya up, Man. Like you go in and you’re ‘fraid to come out. ‘Fraid she’s been knocked up. You come out wishing you didn’t score! Not hit the bullseye! Ain’t I smoking?”
Jack who had, more than once, invited Frank to meet his “Jacks”—only later, after Frank made some lame ass excuse not to come upon the third invite, only then, “Jacks, get it? Like Jack ‘n Jill, ‘cept we just Jack!” Revolution or just Revolting?
Somewhere—as Frank rubs his stiff neck and wonders where all the Jungian Collective Unconscious...post-Freudian...post-Reichian...post-Christian stuff did hang out...being still grounded in his behavioral training, part of his mind looking for the “spot” or at least some location where such Depth Ideas brewed…listening to Jack always gave him a stiff neck, and raised some itchy doubts…Hmmmm.
Why don’t you?
She had said that. Dalores had said it. Said in her Earth Mother tone, as if it were a common, as if it were a “natural” thing, like “Why don’t you eat some granola?”
“Why don’t you?” Not even popping her eyes up from her book.
Frank had paused after re-reading, annotating the first chapter of Reich’s The Murder of Christ, paused to just say that, “Jack—ran into him at the Free Store—said, Ain’t that woman of yours pregnant, yet?”
Paused because he did want to talk about something else. Just didn’t know what this “else” was.
Dalores does.
“Why don’t you go to one of his meetings?” Consciousness Raising. Stated as if she had asked why he hadn’t gone to a Draft Resistance meeting…or to a Newman Center peace lecture.
Frank couldn’t jump over his pause nor hold back the crush of her sentence.
Dalores sent me. Frank had wanted to say that. Make it sound like, “My mother sent me” in the “So I had to come” death-sentence manner. But he didn’t say that.
Sarge had asked, “Why are you here?” It was a friendly inquiry.
“Reich’s Murder of Christ, that’s why.”
Jack was behind him, whirling a finger beside his right lobe, indicating that Frank was a “loony.” But Sarge ignores Jack; most often did.
“Yeah, I’m hip to Reich. But you tell me.”
It was an intellectual trip which had all but Sarge nodding off. A rambling rap by Frank—started out in good, disciplined academic order with summary points to be explained, a raft of notable names referenced, a calm articulation of sequential points…but around “Point D” it was flushed out by Sarge unzipping his pants: taking out his cock and stroking it.
As arousingly hot as this scene might have been, it was signal to the others that Sarge wanted to be alone with Frank. They—routed—within quarter minutes, fade and disappear.
Frank doesn’t bolt. Not that he didn’t have part of him shouting, “Whoa!” but that of the “participating analyst” kicked in...he’s practicing the methods of “active imagining” and of being a participant and not some “disinterested observer”—here, parting ways with the orthodox Jungian methods: “contaminated” is how Professor Noble termed his “flirtations” with “over-the-edge-geniuses,” citing here Reich and Laing, especially, but sweeping the indictment to include Fanon, Mao, Guevara, ranting upon the politicos and “radicals”—“Who do not go to the root, no, that’s what radical really means. They just want to trash!”...fuming and sneezing to his end with condemnations of “Revolutionary zealots! Priests and all!”—Teilhard, Berrigan, Altizer…babbling into “hippies and yippies and…and…and….”
For all these uncoordinated reasons, Frank remained stationary: physically, mentally and emotionally.
Can you hear?
Hear?
What my cock’s saying?
What?
Stroke me. That’s how’ll you’ll hear.
I’ll stroke myself.
Not the same.
You’re doing it.
Just so you’ll hear.
Hear what, damn it?
What do you hear when she strokes you?
Myself. I hear myself talking to myself.
Like, Ummm, feels good?
Yeah. Maybe. No. Like fucking feels good! Ha.
Because you know you’re gonna get fucked?
Okay.
(Pause.)
Go on.
What?
Stroke yourself. I’m listening.
Like this.
Sweet whisper!
Ha. Just two guys jerking off. What are we, ten year olds?
Ouch! Nasty.
Circle Jerk. Never did it, but why not?
Why not?
(Pause.)
This is the connection.
Hmmm?
Why they’re in Nam.
Yeah?
Yeah? Ass fucking. Cock sucking. Penis Power!
Yeah?
Been there—you?
No.
Let me do you?
No.
(Pause.)
It’s all we want. All we need.
What?
To jerk off. What else?
Naw!
Yeah. If you admit it. What’s your wife but a smooth way to beat off? Slick pussy juices. Suppose my ass were juicier?
Suppose.
Do you do it for kids?
(Pause.)
Naw, you don’t do it for kids, do ya? Admit it. Shit, not to me, to yourself.
So?
The cock rules t
he world. Think you’re the only one reading Reich and all those guys? Shit. They’re passé. All talk and thought but no fucking and bucking. If just one of ‘em had fucked my ass, then they’d know.
Yeah?
Sure. There ain’t no wanting women. Not inside us. We just want to cream and scream.
Bullshit!
Don’t like that, eh? What’s your wife but someone you need—‘cause she can get a fat belly. Ever butt fuck her?
(Pause.)
Where ya going?
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