Jason put a finger under my chin and lifted my face.
"Jim, I'm not your daddy. I'm not going to punish you. That's not what we do here. Intelligent beings don't use fear and pain and punishment to motivate results. It's counterproductive. Punishment is evidence of the failure to communicate."
"Well somebody failed to communicate with me then. . . ." I stopped myself. I sounded like a bigger asshole than usual when I tried to justify myself. I shut up.
"This is not a question of right or wrong, Jim. It's a question of being appropriate to the situation. What you did was inappropriate; something happened and your mind triggered an inappropriate response. So what? Don't beat yourself up for it. We all do that. The appropriate thing to do is apologize and get on with the real job." If en took me by the elbow then and began leading me up the garden path.
"Jim," Jason began quietly. "Do you know what the condition of life for most people is? Unconsciousness. I'm not talking about coma or catatonia; I'm talking about simply not being aware. People walk around this planet in hypnotic trances. They go through the motions. They eat, they sleep, they watch TV, they make love, and they do it like they're on rails. They're unconscious to the passion in their own lives. So what happens when something disturbing happens? Your mind gives you an uncomfortable reaction, and the automatic response is fight or flight. You know what happens when you wake people up? They get angry. You get angry.
"Guess what? We're in the business of waking people up here. It's a dangerous business. You know why? Angry people use their anger as an excuse to kill. You can get blinded by your own rage and do terrible things. Or, you can learn to recognize that the rage is a signpost that you've been unconscious about something.
"Jim, when you let go of the rage, what's left is what you've been resisting. If you're willing to confront the uncomfortable things, something wonderful will happen. You'll start to experience all those things that you've been resisting so hard-anger, fear, boredom, grief-and that's when you get the joke. You find out that resisting them hurts more than experiencing them. And then they disappear. And you get larger and more alive.
"So all that uncomfortableness that you're experiencing here, Jim, shouldn't be seen as a formidable barrier, but as an exciting challenge-because on the other side of it is your own life."
I didn't answer that. What he was asking me was to stop being mad. And I thought I had a damn good reason to be mad.
I just couldn't remember what it was.
"I guess I'm having a hard time adjusting," I said. "The rest of you make it all look so easy."
Jason laughed. "You're doing fine, Jim. Really, you are. You're right on schedule. This is part of the process too. We all love you."
"I don't know how I can look anybody in the eye again. I'm so embarrassed."
"Just go up to them and hug them, that's all that's necessary. And then you can all laugh together. You'll see."
I knew he was right. These people never let any hurt last very long. But how did they get this way? Sometimes it felt like an impossible job to me.
"Jason," I asked. "You brought in three new guests last week. Obviously, you want the Tribe to grow. But toward what? What's the vision? How can I tap into it too?"
He smiled. He put his arm around my shoulder as we walked. "I don't have a vision-and I do. I know, that sounds confusing. Let me tell you, Jim, when people speak of their visions very often they're talking about the pictures that their belief systems produce. Listen to me: your standards and ideals are your ego in disguise. Your belief system is your ego in disguise. So, to talk about that kind of vision is to not talk about what's truly possible, but about the way you think it should be done. I don't have that kind of vision.
"When I talk about my vision, I'm talking about what I've seen in the Revelations. The new gods, Jim, are a message to us." He stopped and squatted to the ground to examine something. He stood up and held out his hand. "Have you ever seen one of these before?"
I looked. He was holding out a tiny red marble of a creature. It had eight tiny legs and two black eyes. I shook my head. Jason put it back on the ground carefully. "It's a Chtorran insect. Have you ever noticed what perfect little machines insects are?"
I shrugged. "Yeah. I've always been fascinated by insects. They're so alien."
"Mm-hm," he said. "They don't have any choice, do they? They're just little biological machines. Their functioning is determined by the pattern of DNA in their chromosomes, right?"
"Right."
"Have you ever noticed what perfect little machines human beings are?"
"Uh, well, biologically, yes."
"But not mentally?"
"That's a loaded question, Jason, isn't it?"
He grinned and clapped my shoulder. "Well . . . ?"
"Jason, you know this is the stuff that makes me angry. Every time you insist that my mind is a computer program, I just go crazy."
"Wrong. You don't go crazy. Your mind does. Don't get confused, Jim. You're not your mind. You're just the place where it happens. And that 'craziness' is one of the things your mind does to keep you from hearing the bad news. It's a programmed response, Jim. Your mind is a computer program that likes to insist it's not a computer program. Very boring. And not very productive either. The only difference between you and that insect is that you are a complex enough machine that you have some choice in your programming. You are a machine that programs yourself. The insect isn't. But you have to know what you are before you can be it."
We started walking again. I wasn't sure where he was going with this train of thought.
"Think about this, Jim: everything that human beings know is a product of human experience. The human machinery only knows those things about itself that the human machinery can discover. We can't know anything that we can't know. Do you follow that?"
"Just barely."
"All right, let's try it this way. Suppose you wanted to know what was on the other side of that hill, but you couldn't go there to see. What would you do to find out?"
"Um, I don't know. Look at a map?"
"You don't have a map. You're trying to make one. That's why you want to know what's on the other side of the hill. What do you do?"
"Try and figure it out?"
"You're guessing. Figuring it out is another way of making something up. You might just as well write 'Here there be Dragons' in the space. You know that's what people do when they don't know something. They make something up instead. What's the responsible thing to do when you don't know something?"
"Ask. Ask someone who knows."
"Right. You see, there's the opportunity here. We can only know what human beings can know. That means that all our gods are human gods. They are reflections of ourselves. God an this world is a mirror of our own flaws.
"The Chtorrans know things that we can't know. We're trapped in our own physiology. We're apes. We always will be. All we can know is ape stuff. We can never escape the trap-we'll always be apes. But we can know what's beyond apeness if we will take advantage of the opportunity that the Chtorrans represent. They know what the world looks like from their side of the hill. They can share that with us.
"Do you see? They bring us new gods-new mirrors. The opportunity is for us to get beyond our own humanity, for us to transcend the machinery of our biology, and to finally discover those things that we could never discover by ourselves. The new gods can be our teachers, Jim. I've seen things in the Revelations that I cannot explain because our language doesn't have the words for it. We don't have the concepts. We don't have the paradigms. We have no models. We don't even have any contexts in which to construct the paradigms, models, and concepts.
"I have had experiences that I cannot share yet because there is no one else on the planet who can receive the message. Do you know how lonely that can be?" He put his arm around my shoulders and held me close while we walked. "What I want to do here is share the vision. Every time we have a Revelation, the whole Tribe advances. Do you
know what a god really is, Jim?"
I shook my head. "I always thought a god was beyond human comprehension. "
"That's one of the aspects, of course. But let me give you the simple definition. A god is anything you use as a power source. Before the worms, before the plagues, people used money and sex and possessions as gods. That's where they found their identities. We've found a new power source in the Chtorrans, and a new domain of identity for the human machine. The question of validity-or right and wrong-that's all irrelevant. The important thing is that this new domain produces results. It works. You can see it in the faces of the Tribe. Already, most of them are more awake than I was when I first let Orrie into my life. Do you know what his full name is?"
"No."
"Ouroboros." He waited to see if I would react.
I knew the reference. "The worm who eats his own tail."
"You're literate, Jim. I'm surprised."
"My dad was a fantasy-programmer. He wrote a game called Ouroboros. I helped with the research. Ouroboros is the great worm of the world; he symbolizes the eternal process of death and renewal. It's a good name for a god," I added.
Jason shook his head thoughtfully. "It's a human name. Eventually, Jim, we're going to have to abandon human names and human language and human identities."
"And replace them with . . . ?"
"If I knew, then we'd already be doing it," Jason said. We walked on for a while.
A question occurred to me and I voiced it. "Orrie is different from Falstaff and Orson," I said. "In fact, Orrie's different from all the other worms-Chtorrans-I've ever seen. Why is that, Jason? What is it that makes Orrie so special?"
"Orrie's not special," Jason said. "But he's different and that difference makes him seem special. The truth is, he's really the first one. He's the first Chtorran to be raised by human beings: He's the linkage. Or maybe we should say that we're the first human beings to be raised by the new gods and we're the linkage. So are you. Either side of it is only half of it. The point is, this is the place where the linkage is happening. The other two-Falstaff and Orson-they were wild. Orrie brought them in."
"But, they're bigger than he is. I don't understand how ."
"Size doesn't have anything to do with it, Jim. The Chtorrans are not a species where bullying determines who's in charge." Jason took me by the arm. "Come with me, Jim. Let me show you something. Orrie is building a family. After you build a family, then you build a tribe. Then a nation. But you start with the family." He led me toward a part of the camp that Falstaff had never let me explore before. "Orrie can't build a family with Falstaff or Orson. They're older than he is, so the bonding wouldn't work. He wouldn't be the head. Also, they're all males now. "
"Huh-? What do you mean now? How do you know that?"
"Orrie told me. I don't know what it means. He doesn't have the language yet to handle the concepts. But we'll get there." Jason led me down a slope to a little hollow. There was a burned-out building here and an old, abandoned swimming pool. As we approached the pool, I could see that one end of it appeared filled with refuse. "Our camouflage," Jason explained.
He led me to the edge of the pool and made a chirruping sound. Orrie came up beside us and peered down into the pool and said, "Chtrrrppp!"
The rubbish at the bottom of the pile shifted, then pushed aside, and two of the tiniest Chtorrans I'd ever seen-they were pink and fat and cute-came flowing out to greet us. They were like little teddy bears. They were each the size of a large dog, less than a meter in length. They were small enough to pick up and cuddle. They stretched up the sides of the pool, waving their arms and trying to reach us.
Jason made me take a step back. "Careful," he said. "They're hungry, and they may not recognize that you're not food."
"These are Orrie's babies?"
"Not biologically, no. But in a Tribal sense, yes. The new gods don't make families like we do: But they do build families. When these babies get bigger, they'll be Orrie's mates. We need one more to make a fourth corner for the family. That will be happening almost any day now. It'll be quite a cause for celebration."
Orrie flowed down into the pool and began to curl up with his babies. Jason took my arm and steered me away from the edge. "Let's go back now," he said.
We walked in silence back up the slope. Orrie did not follow us. I could hear a deep purring rumble from the pool.
Jason said, "Jim, it's time to talk about you. You've been given the opportunity to discover what we're up to here. We've shared everything with you-our food, our beds, our visions, our Revelations. You know about the goals we've chosen, our plan to find a safe place to live. A place where we can build our Tribe. You know what we're up to here; you've met the new gods and you know what the opportunity is. They bring us the opportunity to transcend ourselves.
"Now, it's time for us to talk about your participation. The bottom line is this, Jim. You're either a guest on the planet, or a host. Most of human history, the apes who were our ancestors have been acting like they were guests. Most of the human species still acts like they're only guests here.
"The opportunity for us is to be the host. Do you know what that means?"
I admitted I didn't. My survival mind offered a few disgusting possibilities, but I didn't voice the thoughts.
"To be a host is to be responsible for the guests: Guests eat. Hosts serve. To be a host is a higher state. What I'm building here is a Tribe of hosts. We will be responsible for our guests on the planet-our human guests and our Chtorran guests. The question that you need to answer is this? Do you want to be a host?"
A long moment passed between us before I answered. I said, "Jason, you have told me never to make a commitment unless I'm one hundred percent willing to complete it. I don't know all of the commitment yet. I have to look at this and see."
"That's fair," he said. "I didn't expect you to jump in immediately. And if you had, I'd be suspicious of your ability to keep the commitment. What you're demonstrating here is how important you hold the choice. That shows that you recognize the size:of it. That's good. But let me give you this question, Jim. This is the question you need to answer. When you have the answer to this, you will know what your commitment is: What is your life about? What do you want your life to be about?"
He took me in his arms and hugged me. I hugged him back. He kissed me, I kissed him, and then he dismissed me to do my daily chores in the vegetable garden.
A lady who didn't like flies
managed to hide her surprise,
when she opened up one
and found it was fun.
Now she willingly widens her thighs.
16
The Gun
"Guns don't die. People do."
-SOLOMON SHORT
When he put it that way, there was no question what my life was about.
I mean, it was that old thing that everybody used to say when I was a kid. "I want a world that works for everybody, with no one and nothing left out."
The only question was what could I do to bring it about? I had to do some serious soul-searching here.
Maybe there had been lies told about the renegades.
It made sense. The old order is always threatened by the new. The people I had met here weren't renegades. They were committed and joyous. We weren't renegades, we were family.
I knew what my problem was. I still wanted to test Jason. That was my programming. I had to test everything. I was looking for that one little thing that would prove to me that this whole thing was some kind of con, some little piece of damaged integrity on the part of Jason that would allow me to justify my disloyalty.
But even as I looked at that, I knew that it was my responsibility to create my participation, not anybody else's. And even Jason had to be given the same space to make mistakes as anybody else.
But-I was still a guest here. Not a host. Not a member of the family. Not a member of the Tribe.
Jason said I'd have to ask, and he also said I'd know whe
n it was the time to ask.
I wasn't the only guest. There were several of us; the nervous looking boy who'd stood next to me my first night in the circle, his name was Andy; a quiet woman called Deese; most of the children; and surprisingly, Ray and Valerie.
Ray explained it to me, "Being a member of the Tribe means you get to-have to-participate in the Revelation. I have a heart condition and," he shrugged apologetically, "I still have too much investment in survival. I'm afraid I'll die in the Revelation. Jason says that I can't be a member of the Tribe until I'm willing to put its survival over my own. I'm not afraid to die, but I think I can be of more value to the Tribe this way. Jason says one of these days I'm going to have to get off it." Valerie was Ray's daughter. She didn't want to join without him. And that was that.
In my own case, I still felt terribly uncertain. I wanted to talk to Lizard.
There once was a lady named Lizard,
who got lost in a pink candy blizzard,
with a fellow named Jim,
who wanted to swim . . .
I couldn't think of a rhyme. Wizard. Gizzard? I couldn't think of a last line.
Did it matter?
Yes, in a way, it did.
I didn't like leaving things unfinished. Incomplete.
But then, I'd never finished the limerick about Jason either.
I'd feed him to worms,
just to see how he squirms . .
But I didn't want to do that any more either.
I wanted to know what he knew. I wanted to learn everything I could from him.
Did I really need to finish those limericks?
Probably not; they didn't matter. They were leftovers from another time and another Jim McCarthy.
Sometimes though, at night, I'd ask myself why I was trying to learn so much so fast. Was it because I wanted to sneak away one night and report back to Oakland what I'd learned about the worms? Or was it because I wanted to stay here and be with Jason? I thought about Oakland.
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