The Snake Oil Wars

by Parke Godwin

  He despised his fear, observing contemptuously from cold detachment how the timorous human spirit quailed in this waste place of contrasting light and shadow. The beauty of creation, the slow turning of Earth and Moon within the larger wheel of stars meant nothing to Peter Helm, God and His City were somewhere and Hell very real. These illusions were part of the test of his will. He hated them. All his life he had expounded absolutes and certitudes. Only when he had mastered his fear of this non-place did he return secretly to Topside to forge new identity and wait his time.

  The name “Helm” came easily, that which directed the course of a ship. He had steered unerringly for his people in Switzerland until his death. With a new name and blank slate, Peter Helm waited out the centuries to come again. Trained in law, steel-tempered to inflexible principles, the post-life exile forced him to recognize the cyclical nature of human history. Out of his own time came the dissolution of the old order and the formation of the new. Fickle Man threw off faith and played with his mind, created an age of secular reason, turned from the steadfast contemplation of God and rationalized a best of all possible worlds, In the cold Void, Helm laughed and waited. America came, the very hard-eyed true believers he’d known in life. They struggled, survived, grew powerful, eventually flaccid and easily led. Only Helm’s faithful, the vindictive poor, did not change. With technology grew their feeling of personal impotence and need once more for simple absolutes. When certain very recognizable men took the bitch goddess Media and used it to reach those forgotten multitudes with the old hellfire truths of existence, Helm knew his time was near. When the Devil spewed his secular lies over Topside and the inane Candor hurled rejection with his bomb, Helm knew that time had come.

  Lance Candor was not important, merely pathetic and self involved. Such men were not steel for the Sword of God. Steel did not hunger or need but entered the flesh and subdued it. However, like the inert object that trips up great cause and makes it stumble forward, Candor was a very usable catalyst.

  HELM TO DEFEND CANDOR

  TOPSIDE SPLIT OVER HIT

  VOCAL MAJORITY; WE LOVE LANCE!

  FUNDYS SEE TRIAL HOTTEST SINCE FALL OF

  SATAN

  Peter Helm made several appearances on TSTV as the trial date neared. Coyul was impressed. For the usual run of Reconstructionist – if he was one Helm came off with a first-rate media image, clean-cut and photogenic, a cinch for a Senate win in a conservative Earthside state. Definitely an A-list personality, as the yuppies would say.

  “That man could sell sand to Arabs.”

  “Utterly in control,” Purji agreed, wondering how such an icon could be at once charismatic and repellant, “Perhaps because we’re not human.”

  “He’s like a dancing cobra, graceful and terribly efficient. Who am I going to put up against him?” Coyul despaired, “Right now it’s Christians ten, Lions zip.”

  For prudent reasons; no one wanted to take a case already tried and lost in the popular mind and press. Socrates said so yesterday, Blackstone the day before that. Darrow wouldn’t touch it, firmly retired to rocking chairs and fly-tying. He was Coyul’s last, best hope.

  “Clarence, for old times’ sake take the case, Helm doesn’t give a litigational hoot in hell about Candor; it’s me he wants.”

  The Great Defender snorted. “No kidding?” He selected a Panetela and offered the box to Coyul, “He wants a lot more than you, Prince. This case is tapped into the sixty-four-million-dollar question. Man: is he to live by truth or a sugarcoated fairy tale? Bright heaven, dark hell, once a year at Christmas a nod to magis, mangers and mercy. Truth has never been a hot item even with free dishes. Sure you won’t have a cigar?”

  “I don’t need a cigar, I need help!”

  “Uh-huh,” For long hedonistic moments, Darrow savored the One white ash growing on his Panetela, recalling Coyul’s help to his own cause during a few historic days in Tennessee. He owed one to the Prince, at least a dollop of sound advice. “Not me, Coyul, I’m too well known. I’d kill any chance you have with the Candor fans. But you do need an American. I mean a down-home boy who doesn’t look or sound city-fied.”

  Good counsel. At its rural heart, America had always been anti-intellectual. No Fundamentalist, from Billy Sunday to Jimmy Swaggart, ever exhorted his flock to repentance or even remittance with a Harvard accent. Down-home or not, Helm already had the Far Right in his pocket.

  “Speed,” Darrow pulled at his cigar and blew three perfect smoke rings. “Joshua Speed is your man.”

  Coyul’s memory for names was fairly reliable back to Ur of the Chaldees, but he came up empty on this one, “Must be age. An absolute blank.”

  “That needn’t be his real name. For that matter, how real is Peter Helm? Might be enlightening to check records on both,”

  “Stop being a lawyer, If you know who Speed is —”

  “Didn’t say that.”

  “Or where he is —”

  “I don’t,’’ The Great Defender vouchsafed a lawyer’s smile that said much without compromising one iota. “If I once made a wild guess about someone I’d respect under any name, I’d assume he had his reasons for secrecy and treat the matter as privileged.”

  Clarence Darrow gave his whole attention to the best of all possible cigars.

  COYUL FROM FELIM, RECORDS RETRIEVAL: ALL PRAISE TO ALLAH, THE ONE TRUE GOD —

  GET ON WITH IT, FELIM. THIS IS URGENT.

  REUR INQUIRY JOSHUA SPEED AKA TEN ADDITIONAL ALIASES. REAL NAME DELETED BY REQUEST.

  MARVELOUS, FELIM. DATE OF BIRTH, DEATH?

  DELETED AS ABOVE.

  WHO AUTHORIZED DELETION? DON’T YOU HAVE ANY SECURITY AROUND HERE?

  AUTHORITY BARION.

  Why would Barion do that? Coyul could find no satisfactory answer.

  TRANSMIT ALL AVAILABLE DATA.

  FIRST ENTRY; TOPSIDE 1910 (INFIDEL CALENDAR) KNOWN AS SPEED, DEFENDED SAMUEL CLEMENS AKA MARK TWAIN AGAINST PROTESTANT COALITION, CHARGE OF SEDITIOUS ATHEISM. ACQUITTAL. VARIOUS SUBSEQUENT CASES TOPSIDE, BELOW STAIRS. MORE TO FOLLOW...

  Coyul gleaned as much as he could from the meager data, Joshua Speed; trial lawyer, some experience probate, constitutional law. At least one murder cast, defense, client acquitted, Predeceased his wife, never rejoined her in post life,

  COYUL TO FELIM: WIFE’S NAME?

  NO DATA. FILE ENDS WITH PERSONAL NOTE BY BARION.

  Curiouser and curiouser. Barion had circumvented procedure only once before, to Coyul’s knowledge, in leaving all file references to Yeshua of Nazareth in skeletal Aramaic notes. As in Speed’s case, at subject request. There was little enough to go on.

  TRANSMIT BARION NOTE.

  “Speed is an unusual case,” Barion wrote. “Physically his abnormalities combined with his perceived motives to make him an object of ridicule in his time. Classic ectomorph, acromegalic condition, face and hands. Manic depressive, tending toward suicide though not severely. Periods of brilliance alternating with melancholy and enervating guilt. Self-taught, self. motivated or obstructed, depending on humor. Reputation contradictory and all deserved. I found greatness, generosity, patience, moral courage mixed with naked calculation and – not coldness, not as the word is generally construed, but a tendency to distance himself from others while remaining fixed on objectives. One of the least loved and clearest thinking men of his time. For post life he asked only silence and solitude, I gave him both”

  Once again the Great Defender was of some help, He just might suggest where to look for the elusive Speed. “Just a wild guess.”

  “Clarence, my sands run down. Dispatch.”

  Darrow remained circumspect: there was a certain lady, imperious, social, nutty as a California salad, who had expected on death to find her husband Topside but never did. A society woman who considered Topside a barely acceptable address and wouldn’t be caught dead Below Stairs – and yet the lady had departed abruptly for that environ about the time Coyul arrived Topside.

  “Looking for Sp
eed, you think?”

  “What do you think”

  “You could have told me, Clarence.”

  “I just did. Might be a dead end, probably is. On the other hand...”

  “God.” Coyul just then wished for such metaphoric extremities as heavens he could appeal to. “And they call me King of Lawyers.”

  “Only fair,” Darrow allowed, “Called me the Devil in Tennessee.”

  “They called you worse in Chicago,” Coyul was already out the door. “And they were right!”

  COYUL, TOPSIDE TO JUDAS, BELOW STAIRS: JAKE, MOST URGENT. PLEASE LOCATE JOSHUA SPEED. ADVISE REAL NAME IF KNOWN. WHO IS HE, WHERE IS HE? DOES YESHUA KNOW? REPEAT: MOST URGENT AND MOST CONFIDENTIAL.

  When he died, a redundant violence at the end of a larger one, the man later called Joshua Speed arrived Topside in the company of astonished atheists, intrigued intellectuals and hymn-singing hordes of the faithful looking for vindication or at least definition. The untidy laissez-faire administration of Barion hardly distressed Speed, who was used to it, but the small improvement over life was a letdown. He did not remain Topside for long. Below Stairs, rowdy and eclectic, offered no more permanent inducement. Sick to his soul of a steady stream of people all wanting something of him – profit, advantage or naked revenge – Speed longed for solitude. Above all he desired distance from his troublesome, abrasive wife. He realized he was as difficult, a morose, unreachable man coupled with a woman needing more affection than he ever kept in stock for individuals.

  Shucked of life, then, he pondered where to go.

  “There is the music of the spheres,” a poet suggested.

  “There is the wind that blows between the worlds,” advised another artist, straining metaphor as usual.

  “There’s the Void,” said an ashcan realist. “Get lost in it. You ain’t missing a thing.”

  Never lost, not the singular mind of Joshua Speed with its intense light and sudden, deep shadows. In the Void he sought a self cleansed of the soot of a lifetime, eyes unfilmed at last and able to see infinity. More than all these, a self freed of name and legend.

  The Void suited him. He Boated for decades in spiritual free-fall as the Moon circled Earth, Earth wheeled about the Sun, and the Sun roared and rolled through its own revolution in an even greater wheel. Passing beyond the red storms of Jupiter, at last even the blessed silence of space palled on Speed, became unaccountably oppressive. He felt weaker and weaker as the world that had borne him dwindled to a tiny point of pale blue light. Perhaps there were limits even here to freedom and going on would dissipate him further until nothing remained. He didn’t miss life, but neither did he want to disappear.

  “A healthy consideration, Mr. Speed. Need a hand?”

  After the silent years, the gentle voice startled Josh Speed. He looked over his left shoulder to see Barion ranging along his port side. “There are limits even for me,” Barion admitted. “Feeling bored or are you game for more?”

  “If I can find some meaning,” Speed felt himself reviving rapidly. “Are you feeding me energy?”

  “Just a booster, You read a bit weak, We’re a long way out.”

  “Take me as far as I can go.”

  “Curious?”

  “Call it that. I want to know whether knowing allies will frighten me.”

  Barion laughed, “A healthy ego as well. Human to the core: how does all this relate to the reality of you? Come on, then. As far as we can, we’ll weigh your soul against infinity.”

  They shot outward together into deeper space at unimaginable velocity, The solar system became a mere blur of light, pulled together in the distance as they plunged deeper into black space where whole galaxies were no more than distant jewel-work on stygian velvet, yet Speed felt no terror or disappointment.

  “All of this exists for itself,” he murmured, “No part of me.” Barion’s glance was not quite inscrutable just then; one could discern admiration. “Yes.”

  “But I exist.” Speed exulted in his own kind of victory. “A terrible, fearsome beauty that doesn’t have to be about me, though I’m still here. We understand as we can, I guess.”

  “I had to learn patience too,” Barion admitted. “It was that or chuck in the towel.”

  “Where are we going, Barion? Us. Humans: where’s the end for us?”

  “There is no end, Josh. Where do you want to go, and how much excess baggage are you ready to leave behind?”

  Speed couldn’t accept that all at once, human enough to need an end, a closure. He shot suddenly light-years beyond his companion —” Josh, don’t! We’re too far out!”

  — then, as if he’d stumbled on a solid obstruction, Speed cartwheeled out of control, end over end. He was barely conscious when Barion caught up with him.

  “Enough?” Speed shook his head to clear it, groggy and croaking. “I just... like to get at the heart of things.”

  “You’re a rare breed,” Barion told him as they streaked Earthward across ebony and fire. “Not many have dared this. Yeshua, Einstein, a fellow called Helm. A few others tried but gave it up. Too lonely for most. No drama. Not about them. Want a job, Josh?”

  No, thanks just the same, Speed preferred the Void.

  “Pity. Interesting case,” Barion tempted, “Might keep your hand in. There’s a Missouri man named Sam Clemens who badly needs a lawyer just now.”

  “Mark Twain, I met him Below Stairs,” For the moment, the deeply etched downturn of Speed’s mouth was not quite so sad. “Sentimental, not too deep, but still...” He broke of the thought, but Barion read it anyway.

  Yes, those he loved, he loved fiercely. You envy that. “Funny as ever,” Barion noted casually, “and already in trouble.”

  “Who with?”

  “American Fundamentalists, who else?” After five million years, Barion might have predicted Twain’s difficulties with such intransigent folk. The Fundamentalists considered themselves the salt of the earth and quick as the next fellow to laugh at a joke, but saw nothing funny in Captain Stormfield, Letters from the Earth or Twain’s latest satire on the respected Reverend Strutley, a pillar of Topside.

  “What do they charge?”

  “Libel, slander, all with the prefix ‘atheistic’ for public consumption. The Plaintiff, Reverend Strutley, has spared no rhetoric.”

  “Strutley.” Speed rummaged memory and found something, “Chataugua tent preacher a few years back.”

  “That’s the one.”

  Speed’s expression underwent a subtle change from melancholy to something less pleasant. “Never used to let up on – what was it? – the modesty of sacred womanhood in dress and deportment.”

  “Did you read Twain’s 1601?”

  “I have.” Speed chuckled. “Funny but awful raw.”

  “Well, it’s nothing compared to the new stuff. He needs a good lawyer, Josh.”

  Speed shrugged, “What the hell. Why not?”

  Good – though first Barion suggested a radical change of image: shave, new hairstyle, a whole new concept of wardrobe. People perceived surfaces; Josh Speed’s was something of an institution.

  By this name or that, appearance altered, Speed tried an occasional case Topside, always returning afterward to the Void. He found it pure and clean and enough of a mystery to be endlessly fascinating, He was a man who took his reality neat.

  JUDAS, BELOW STAIRS TO COYUL, TOPSIDE: SORRY, KNOW JOSHUA SPEED BY THAT NAME ALONE. LOCATED HIM BY LUCK BEFORE HE WANDERED OFF AGAIN INTO THE COSMIC OUTBACK. ACCEPTS CASE, WANTS MEETING TOPSIDE, ALL PARTICULARS RE CANDOR. BSTV NEWS TEAM ALSO ENROUTE TO COVER TRIAL. WISH YOU WERE HERE: WILKSEY BOOTH A SMASH AS ME IN PASSION PLAY. HAVEN’T LOOKED SO GOOD SINCE MY BAR MITZVAH. YESHUA SENDS BEST, LOVE FROM ALL – XXX – JAKE.

  Joshua Speed shambled into Coyul’s salon, ducking his head to clear the doorframe. Six foot three or more, he looked as if he’d come to that excessive measure through a careless mistake in assembly. None of his outsized parts seemed quite to match, from the huge, gnarl
ed hands to the curiously overpronounced cheekbones. The short salt-and-pepper hair only accented the abnormal exaggeration of the features. The rumpled trousers and corduroy jacket with leather-patched elbows might have been slept in. Speed reminded Coyul of a sad horse.

  And vaguely of someone else, Coyul experienced a rush of déjà vu.

  Somewhere in his passionate need to be forgotten, Speed had learned to mask his mind, though Coyul perceived chinks here and there. He read in the man a vast sorrow and personal loss, Not much sentiment but, now and then, quite clear in the eyes, a melancholy beauty.

  Where have I seen you before?

  “Speed, Sir.”

  “Delighted, Mr. Speed; please sit down.” Coyul extended a cordial hand, irritated that he couldn’t place the man at all. Speed settled his length by ungainly sections in as much of the inadequate chair as would contain him. He donned a pair of rimless spectacles and produced a sheaf of notes.

  “I see by the television that Defense is very confident. I’ll ask for a continuance; we don’t have much time in any case.”

  The voice, high and thin but unmistakably American, was the most maddeningly familiar thing about the man. “I want to thank you for taking a case even Darrow wouldn’t touch.”

  “Clarence is no fool,” said Speed in a soft drawl that could harden suddenly into a steel weapon. “They’re after your hide; Candor’s only a flag.”

  “Do you know the defense counsel Peter Helm?”

  Speed didn’t, not personally, “Seen him on the television, that’s all. Shaping this case into a tent revival, so-o, let’s trim his lamp.” The steel trap shut. “Drop the criminal charge and make it a civil case with yourself as plaintiff.”